by Amy Stewart
These women, it developed, all worked at the sorts of jobs that Minnie used to dream about before she left home. They were office girls or clerks in department stores, and one took tickets at a moving picture theater, which was the very position Minnie hankered for the most. Another worked at a flower shop, and one—incredibly—poured the chocolates at a confectioner’s.
“I come home covered in sugar and cocoa powder,” she said, “and you can imagine what Stanley makes of that.”
“Stanley!” the others shrieked. “Don’t make us imagine it.”
But it was too late. The picture floated before Minnie’s eyes, and she wondered which of the men in the other room was Stanley. Tony might have gone in for something like that, at one time, before their troubles, but he hardly bothered with her anymore, and Minnie didn’t miss it. She was tired of his rough searching hands and his lazy mouth, and the way he never looked at her or paid her a compliment when he pulled her dress up. She hated to share her small bed with him afterward, but he was paying the rent, and didn’t someone have to pay it? She never had enough money, not on a factory salary. She either had to share a room with Tony, or with another girl in a boarding-house, where she would have to live under a curfew and hand over all her wages to the landlady, leaving her without a dime for herself. She chose Tony—for now, anyway.
Her glass seemed to stay full all night. The talk in the kitchen grew wilder and more wicked, even drawing the men away from their card game a few times to see what the commotion was about. Tony never appeared in the doorway. She only heard his voice once, when he called for more beer.
That voice didn’t do anything to Minnie when she heard it. She wanted to ask the others if they still felt any sort of a flutter at the sound of their fellows’ voices, or when they saw them again at the end of the day, but what difference would it have made if they did? There was something sick and poisoned between Tony and Minnie. She could live with it or she could go home to Catskill. She had ideas about running off, but she hadn’t gone yet, and what did that say about her?
Somehow the rest of the night slid away. Without her quite realizing how it happened, the laughter had subsided and most of the girls had gone. She found herself being pulled out of her chair and grabbed around the waist.
“Can’t you even walk home?” asked a voice that belonged to Tony.
She couldn’t see him. She tried to turn and look, but his face was somewhere else, floating up high near the ceiling or drifting around behind her where she couldn’t get a fix on it. Next they were in the ruined parlor, where the card table was turned over on its side amid a swarm of brown bottles, and then they were on the stairs, which were dark and terribly cold. The shock of it threatened to make Minnie sick. She lurched and put a hand over her mouth.
Someone was behind them on the stairs, calling down to Tony. It was a man’s voice, and he was making some sort of rhyme about liquor that she couldn’t follow. Tony gave an equally insensible answer, they both laughed, and then the man said the only thing capable of working its way into Minnie’s befuddled mind and staying there.
“A girl in every port!” he hollered.
Tony laughed and took them out into the hard and unrelenting cold. Minnie gasped and choked on the air, and thought she might be sick right there, on the darkened street. Then she was.
Somehow she made it home, walking on her own now, following Tony’s murky shape down the wooden sidewalks along Main Street. The shops were all shuttered—it was well past midnight—and there wasn’t a sound, save for a bird making some lonely call from a branch overhead, and the low rumble of a train at the other end of town.
Minnie knew better than to say what she was thinking. The idea was packed in cotton anyway, buried in some part of her brain that she couldn’t quite reach, but she knew it was there, she could feel the shape of it, and she knew she wouldn’t forget it come morning. It was this: You’ve been doing the same thing I did. You’re no better than me.
Those words were still with her in the morning, when the police came and pounded at her door. She felt around in the bed for Tony, but he was gone, and the room was flooded with light because they’d forgotten to close the curtain when they went (unspeaking, unsmiling) to bed a few hours before.
Another splintering knock, and a man shouted to open the door. Minnie was still wearing her polka-dotted dress, but it was too terrible to show to anyone. She wrapped a blanket around her and stumbled across the room, tripping over her shoes and cursing at them. The lock was temperamental and she had to rattle it a few times to open it. When she did, a blue-suited constable pushed into the room and looked around.
“What’s your name?” he bellowed.
His voice knocked around inside her head. She thought she might be sick again.
“Minnie Davis.”
The constable looked at his note-pad. “Davis? Says here this place is rented to a Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Leo.”
11
“WHO’S THE GIRL?” Constance shouted over the whipping of the wind.
They were riding in the sheriff’s motor car, one of those soft-topped machines that offered very little in the way of warmth, even when the fabric was pulled overhead. Unless it was raining, the deputies didn’t bother with the top and just suffered in the open air. In the back were kept two ancient raccoon coats that they all shared, along with a pile of lap rugs. Constance kept one of the rugs over her legs as Sheriff Heath drove them south toward Fort Lee.
He fumbled for a paper in his coat pocket and said, “Minnie Davis. She turned up by accident during another investigation. The police down there were following a report of shots fired in an alley. In the course of asking questions, they found a couple living in a furnished room above a bakery, posing as man and wife. The police chief ordered them arrested on a charge of illegal cohabitation. He’d like us to come and take the girl away while he works on the shooting.”
“Then it’s another waste of our time,” Constance said. She disliked everything about an illegal cohabitation case: the woman’s crushing shame, the man’s blustery defense, the inevitable newspaper headlines. Nothing was ever a scandal until a third party found out about it and told a fourth party, and that’s exactly what the papers liked to do.
“There might not be a case against the girl at all,” Sheriff Heath said. “She’s from Catskill.”
The engine gave a loud report and they both jumped, but it settled back down again. They were in the countryside outside of Hackensack now, rolling past bare fields and frozen ponds still fringed in black cattails.
“What does Catskill have to do with it?” Constance asked.
The sheriff gave her the mildly tragic expression he deployed when he delivered bad news. “It means he took her from New York to New Jersey. The idea is to jail him for transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes. We’ll only be holding her as a witness.”
Constance groaned. Everyone in law enforcement had an opinion about the Mann Act, which made it a crime to do exactly what the sheriff had just described. Some were of the opinion that any man and woman who drove, took a train, rode a bicycle, or walked across a state border together must surely be acting with immoral intent and deserved the most severe (and public) prosecution. Others—and Constance counted herself among this group—believed that the Mann Act was only meant to put a stop to kidnapping and forced prostitution. Two consenting parties out to break their marriage vows—or to dodge the institution of marriage entirely—might be punished by shame and guilt, but didn’t deserve to go to jail.
The sheriff was entirely familiar with Constance’s views on the subject, but she nonetheless said, “Is it truly a case of white slavery, or have we merely uncovered two naïve young people pretending to be married?”
“The girl’s only sixteen. Do you suppose she went of her own free will?”
Constance shuddered at that but said, “Well, she’s old enough to be married.”
“Then she should have. They wouldn’t be on
their way to jail if they were married.”
“They shouldn’t be on their way to jail regardless.”
They stopped at a train crossing, and he turned to her with a look of exasperation that suggested he was out of his depth. There was always something askew about him: either his bow tie or the brim of his hat was usually out of kilter. He grimaced in a way that made his wide mustache lift up at one end. “This isn’t another strong-willed girl off to work in a factory and her mother doesn’t approve. These two were . . . living as man and wife.”
He couldn’t bring himself to delve further into the unspeakable act, but she understood it well enough. She also knew why the police had to do something about it. The mothers and fathers of Bergen County expected someone to go to jail when immorality was discovered, and they would hold the prosecutors to account.
“Even if that’s true,” Constance said, “I’m sure we can do something better for her than bring her to court on an indecency charge. Judge Seufert seems to agree with us. He calls these cases unseemly.”
They sat together in discouraged silence for a minute. The idea of a sixteen-year-old girl caught in a furnished room with a man worried Constance as few other cases could. She’d been trying to relax her hold on Fleurette, and to see her launched into the world in a manner both respectable and responsible. Under no circumstance did Constance wish to turn into a woman like Edna Heustis’s mother, who called on the police to rein in her daughter’s independence. But Edna knew how to stay out of trouble, and now they were on their way to pick up a girl who clearly did not. Fleurette, she felt, might land somewhere in the middle, and the idea unsettled her.
Constance had been trying not to make a fuss over the auditions for May Ward’s troupe, but as the train clattered on interminably in front of them, her resolve weakened. “What do you know about a show promoter named Freeman Bernstein?”
Sheriff Heath looked over at her, puzzled, and lifted the brim of his hat the way he did when he was thinking about something. “Bernstein. I’ve seen his name on posters. He brings prize fighters through town. Used to manage a theater in . . . Bayonne, maybe. Friend of yours?”
“Not at all. And he’s made an enemy of Norma.”
“Maybe I should take the fellow for a drink, offer my sympathy.”
“He’s going to hold an audition in Paterson for girls who want to join his wife’s vaudeville act. Have you heard of her? May Ward?”
He shook his head. “I don’t follow the theater, unless Miss Fleurette is performing.”
“That’s just it. He charges each girl five dollars to audition, and you can be sure Fleurette wants to go. Norma thinks it’s a con.”
At last the caboose went by and they drove on. “She could be right about that. If he has no intention of choosing a girl, then it’s like any other game of chance. He’d have to give them something of value in exchange for their money.”
“He’s giving each girl a signed portrait of May Ward.”
He laughed at that. “Then it’s perfectly legal. He’s a clever man.”
“But harmless, I hope. I gave Fleurette the five dollars.”
“And what happens if she’s chosen?”
“I’m counting on the auditions being a sham.”
“They don’t sound legitimate to me,” he said. “I wouldn’t worry about it. Oh, would you look at this mess.”
They had just arrived in Fort Lee and pulled into a short stretch of shingled and gabled shops clustered around the corner of Main and Hudson. Half the town seemed to have turned out to watch the police at work. Every man in the barber shop had stepped outside, half-shaved and shorn, and three delivery boys leaned against their carts, pointing and whispering. Constables were stationed up and down Main Street. Constance saw John Courter among them. “How did the prosecutor’s office get here before we did?”
“It wasn’t the report of gunfire, I can tell you that,” the sheriff said. “Courter’s been making more noise about moral crimes. He stood up at an Odd Fellows’ meeting last night and said he intended to close every disreputable house in Bergen County.”
“How many disreputable houses do we have?”
“A better question is why he hasn’t closed them already, if he knows so much about them.”
The sheriff nosed his motor car to a stop along the curb. Constance spotted a girl she took to be Minnie Davis standing with a police officer in full view of all the spectators.
“I hate to see girls paraded around like that. Couldn’t they have kept her inside so the neighbors wouldn’t gawk?”
“They don’t think about it that way,” the sheriff said.
Constance elbowed through the crowd to take possession of her inmate. Minnie was a tall and broad-shouldered girl who wore her dresses a little too snug. Constance kept a wool blanket in the sheriff’s automobile to wrap around girls who weren’t properly clothed, or who were sick or injured, and that seemed to be most of them. It was such a brisk day that Minnie took the blanket without protest.
“I work for the sheriff,” Constance told her, “and I’m here to look after you.”
“I don’t need looking after,” Minnie said impatiently. “I was doing nothing wrong, and those cops had no right to bust in on me like that.”
“Then you can tell me your side of it,” Constance said, “and I’ll do what I can to help.”
“I already told him, and he didn’t listen.” Minnie rolled her eyes at the police officer assigned to watch her, a tired-looking man with stooped shoulders and a skinny neck that left his collar sagging. He handed the girl over to Constance and spoke directly to Sheriff Heath.
“We’ve still no idea about the shots that were fired, but while we were looking, we found this one in a furnished room that was supposed to be rented to a married couple. We’d already picked up the fellow sneaking down the alley. Says he never quite got around to marrying her. It’s the usual story.”
“I’d like to hear the story anyway,” Constance said. “Couldn’t we go inside?” The gray slush was already starting to seep into her boots. Minnie wore little buttoned oxfords that did nothing to keep out the snow. With both police and sheriff automobiles parked on the street, they were attracting an even larger crowd.
“Take her to the jail and you two girls can talk all you want,” the officer said.
Constance didn’t like the way the man was speaking to her and was about to tell him so when Sheriff Heath intervened. “Deputy Kopp will take Miss Davis upstairs while I go see about the man.”
Constance had a firm grip on Minnie’s arm. “You’ve no right to drag me around,” the girl complained.
“I’m doing you a favor by not putting handcuffs on you in front of everyone,” Constance said, a little gruffly. “Do you live above one of these shops? How do you go in—through the alley?”
Minnie tried to pull away, but only half-heartedly. Constance dug her fingers into the bones around the girl’s elbow and she sighed. “Yes, it’s down here.”
They walked down the street and around the corner, into a little alley of the sort one finds behind any downtown district: narrow and muddy, lined with ashcans, empty wooden crates, and old push-carts. There were puddles behind the restaurants where the cooks threw out the dishwater, and here and there were chicken bones, moldy bread, and potato peelings being picked through by seagulls.
Three Fort Lee police officers had a man in handcuffs behind the bakery. He was a good-looking Italian fellow of about twenty-five, with a head of thick black hair and a fine cut to his coat. Minnie made some small sound when she saw him, but he didn’t look over.
“Wait here,” Sheriff Heath said. Constance pulled her under a porch roof behind the hardware store while he went to talk to the man.
“What’s your name, son?” Sheriff Heath asked, but got no answer.
“Anthony Leo,” said one of the officers. “Goes by Tony.”
“Tony, is that your girl?” The sheriff pointed at Minnie.
Still the
man wouldn’t answer. He was looking down at his shoes, which were of a scuffed leather in need of a good polish.
Sheriff Heath said, “If she’s not your girl, then I suppose we’ll have to charge her with breaking and entering, because the police found her inside a room rented to you and your wife. Where is Mrs. Leo?”
“That’s her,” he said at last, glancing briefly at Minnie. “We were all fixed to get married. I even got the license. I’ll show it to you.”
That drew a snort from Minnie. Constance nudged her to stay quiet.
Detective Courter came around from the street with two other men from the prosecutor’s office. He stopped only briefly when he saw Constance, then turned very deliberately away and said to the sheriff, “We’ve had reports of several men going in and out of the young lady’s room. She’s been seen with new jewelry and other little trinkets of the sort a man might give to a girl after an evening together.”
“That’s a lie!” Minnie cried. “Tell them, Tony!”
“I don’t know nothing about that,” Tony mumbled. The other officers stared at Minnie with a mixture of pity and disgust.
“I’ve heard enough,” Constance said, just loud enough for Courter to hear it. She led Minnie to the back of the bakery.
The detective continued as if nothing had happened. “I don’t like to think what part this fellow Leo played in it,” he announced, as if in a courtroom, “but I’ve got an idea about that.”
Minnie stiffened beside her and Constance thought she might run. “Go on,” she said quietly, and let Minnie show her the way up the back stairs to her room, which sat at the front of the building, looking out over Main Street. There was another room in the back of the building, and a shared toilet between them.