“Abe—I don’t know—” But the salesgirl was already unbuttoning the chesterfield and helping her into the blue coat with its black triangular Bakelite buttons. It fit perfectly and was deliciously warm. It even smelled wonderful, fresh and new. Louise made a proud promenade around the alcove.
Abe stood back, finger to his lips, assessing her. “Yeah, that’s it. Striking. Look at yourself, Louise. Look what that coat does for you.”
Louise turned slowly in the three-way mirror. Oh, my! That was becoming. But how improper of this man to think he could choose her clothing! She should be outraged at his audacity! Her mother would have a hissy fit if she knew. Louise’s thoughts were confused, all over the place. But one thing was certain; she had to have this coat. “How much is it?” she asked the salesgirl.
“Thirty-seven-ninety-five.”
When Louise cringed, the woman hastened to reassure her. “But it’s of the highest quality for a ready-made, you can be sure. And while very few girls can wear that Lapis blue, it is certainly stunning on you.”
Louise took a sharp breath. The coat would cost a full week’s pay. But, then, she’d squirreled away some money her grandmother had left her. “I’ll take it,” she heard herself say, her eyes on the sophisticated young woman in the mirror. Every bit as stylish as someone like Lillian Bridges, she thought. Hmm. Maybe a pair of black gloves gathered at the seams and a black hat with a bit of a swoop to it…
“It’s simply charming,” the clerk rattled on, “classic, yet chic and elegant. And you wear it so well.”
Abe’s eyes were gleaming. “And, since you’re not going back to Kentucky, you really need it.”
She frowned. “Who says I’m not going back home?”
He wrinkled his brow, puzzled. “You did.”
“Oh. I guess I did.” She shrugged, and slipped out of the coat. Maybe she had made up her mind to stay, but she shouldn’t have admitted it to him.
“Er, Louise,” Abe said, flicking his gaze briefly toward the salesgirl, who was holding the blue coat. He seemed suddenly a tad uncomfortable. “Louise, I know how very little nurses are paid.” Abe swallowed, and his Adam’s apple went up and down as he pulled out a battered leather billfold. “Let me buy this for you.”
“What!” She made three syllables of it, her voice rising on each. What did this insufferable man think she was? Some kind of floozy? “No, sir! I can buy my own coat, thank you very much!”
“Sorry.” Abe backed away, hands up, palms out. “Sorry. No offense intended. I just thought—”
“Whatever you thought—”
The sales clerk cleared her throat and carried the coat out of the alcove, in the direction of the cash register.
“…you can just unthink it. I take care of myself!” She hoped the heat rising to her face wouldn’t make her cheeks blotchy.
He regarded her soberly. “Forgive me, Louise. In the short time I’ve known you, I’ve never had any doubts about that. None at all.” Then he flashed his big white grin and held out her old coat. “But, after you arrange to have your purchase delivered, will you at least let me buy you a cup of coffee so I can tell you why I’m here?”
***
“So, two things,” Abe said in Macy’s tea room, as he lifted his cup of the steaming black brew to his lips. “First, I called you because I need your help again. I set my students to reviewing immigration cases, and they managed to find a few precedents for internees being allowed to visit critically ill relatives. Agent Bagwell wasn’t as opposed as I’d thought he’d be, but he has to kick it upstairs for the final decision.”
Louise nodded, still leery. Offering to pay for her coat! Really!
Any decent girl would’ve ordered him out of the dressing room right then and there, but here she was having coffee with him. Louise took a warm sip. Well, what else could she do? The Oakleys still needed his help.
Abe continued, “And, second, about last night…”
Louise thought his brown eyes had never been so warm.
“I had too much of Mario’s good wine.”
She nodded. So had she. But she kept her expression neutral.
His lips twisted. “And so did you, of course.” He cleared his throat. “Nonetheless, I should have been more responsible and kept my feelings to myself. The last thing I want to do is scare you away.”
“Uh,” she said.
“So,” he said, “I’ll back off. You can rest assured that you will hear no more avowals from me—at least until…I’ve taken care of a few things.” He nodded, as if he had satisfied himself of something.
“Oh.” She received this enigmatic commitment with confused emotions.
“Okay?” The lip twist became a crooked smile. “Now back to Mrs. Oakley. What I need is the official lowdown on her husband’s current condition. Then I’ll know how hard I can lean on Bagwell. Can you get an update for me?”
She pushed her half-finished cup away. “I’m headed to the hospital, now.”
“I really need to know immediately.”
“Then I’ll call Dr. Wright’s office as soon as we find a phone.”
He drained his cup and set it back on the paper doily that cushioned the saucer. Applying palms to the tabletop, he pushed to his feet. “Let’s get moving, then.”
As they stepped off the down escalator on the second floor, Louise saw a sign that read Foundations. On a sudden impulse she turned and headed in that direction. Macy’s Foundation Garments—that’s where Mousie worked. She wanted to see her frumpy housemate in the setting of this classy store.
Abe was right behind her. “I think the phones are this way, Louise.”
“This will just take a second. One of my housemates works here. I want to say ‘Hi.’”
He gave an exasperated sigh, but they’d already reached the displays of bras and girdles. Louise quickly glanced around, but didn’t see Mousie. She approached a bored-looking clerk with a tape measure draped around her neck.
“May I help you, Madam? We’ve just received a shipment of silk panties, and it’s hard to tell when there’ll be another.”
Panties! Louise looked anywhere but at Abe. What had she been she thinking, bringing him to the foundations department?
“N…no, thank you,” she stammered. “I just wanted to say hello to Mou—to Ethel.”
“Ethel? Do you mean Edith?” The blond smelled delicately of Shalimar.
“No. Ethel. Ethel Furnish.” Louise thought back to breakfast. She was sure Mousie had said she was working today.
The woman frowned. She beckoned a passing floor manager and relayed Louise’s question.
Touching the red carnation in his lapel, the man aimed a tight smile at Louise. “No one of that name works on this floor. Hmm. I think maybe we have an Ethel upstairs in Ready-to-Wear. Could that be she?”
“But—” Louise was confused. “But—she…”
Abe was restive. “Louise, I need you to make that call.”
“Of course.” Louise let Abe guide her away. Perhaps she did have the wrong department. She’d ask Mousie about it the next time she saw her. The important thing now was to get in touch with Dr. Wright. From a bank of pay phones by the restrooms, Louise dialed his office.
“Oh, Nurse Hunter,” his secretary said, “I’m so glad you called. The doctor wants you at the hospital right away. Professor Oakley has entered the critical stage. I’m afraid the prognosis is grim.”
Chapter Seventy-seven
Louise knew lurking death when she saw it. She’d been a fledgling nurse, graduation pin shiny-bright and starched cap sitting proudly, when the ‘37 flood devastated Louisville. That year, after an uncommonly rainy January, the Ohio River overflowed its banks to submerge nearly three quarters of the city. Louise’s hospital, on high ground to the east, received boatloads o
f refugees, all suffering from exposure or pneumonia or scarlet fever or typhoid, or any combination of these. She worked around the clock. Throughout those dark days, death had become a familiar adversary, extinguishing the life spark in the weak, the young and the elderly.
Now, with Dr. Wright and three others—Abe, who had accompanied her uptown, and her patient’s close friends, Lillian Bridges and Lawrence Smoot—Louise faced her old enemy again. Within the oxygen tent, Robert Oakley struggled for breath. With each inhalation, his nostrils flared, his neck cords bulged and deep hollows formed over the clavicle bones. His folded hands and closed eyelids never even fluttered; his body was conserving energy to fight the infection. As Dr. Wright moved his stethoscope over the professor’s chest, Louise made fists of her hands inside her coat pockets. The professor’s tortured breathing and the low hiss of the oxygen tank were the only sounds in the dim hospital room.
Dr. Wright straightened, pinched the bridge of his nose for a long second, then removed the silvery arms of the stethoscope from his ears. “Mr. Pritzker?” he asked.
Louise couldn’t recall ever seeing such a solemn expression on the doctor’s pleasant face.
“Doc.” Abe pushed away from the wardrobe where he’d leaned his rangy frame.
“You mentioned the possibility of getting Masako over here.” Dr. Wright came closer, lowered his voice so everyone had to shuffle over to hear him. “Now’s the time.”
Abe sucked in a deep breath. “Okay. I’ve got precedents for justifying an emergency pass, and I’ve filed a formal request. High priority. With a dying patient, it just might work.”
Dying. Louise rolled her shoulders, straining at the tight collar of her blouse. Yes, she had been thinking the word, but she didn’t want to hear it spoken. Especially by Abe. From his lips, it sounded like a done deal.
The attorney gave his cynical laugh. “Think how it would look in the papers if the FBI allowed a prominent man like Oakley to die without his wife by his side.”
Lillian Bridges eyed the lawyer suspiciously. “How can there be precedents? It was only days ago that the FBI started rounding up enemy aliens.” Her colleague, Lawrence Smoot, nodded in vacuous agreement. Louise thought his wrinkled suit and red-rimmed, baggy eyes made him look like John Barrymore playing the washed up, drunken actor in Dinner at Eight.
Abe crossed his arms. “Ellis Island is more than a gateway for immigrants. Ever since it opened it’s been used for incarceration, too. Most of the precedents come from German merchant mariners held in the last war and—”
Dr. Wright cut him off with an irritated harrumph. “When I say now, I mean right now. The next two or three hours will tell the tale. Either the fever will break and the pleural exudate will resolve or…” His words hung in the air ominously. “And, who knows, Masako’s presence might even help Bob rally his strength. I’ve known stranger things to happen.”
“Abe,” Louise croaked, throat tight.
“Calm down, sweetheart.” Abe laid a hand on Louise’s shoulder.
“Isn’t there some way you can speed it up, cut through the FBI’s red tape?”
The lawyer gave an exasperated sigh. “I could try to get the division chief on the line myself. Would you talk to him, Doc? Explain the urgency of the situation?”
“Of course.”
“Good.” Abe’s hawk-like gaze lit on the professors. “Either of you got any strings to pull?”
Lawrence Smoot stood a bit straighter. His jaw line firmed. “I could call Dr. Butler. He carries a lot of clout.”
Abe made a face. “Nicholas Murray Butler?” he spat out. “Columbia’s president? The bastard who hung out the Jewish Students Need Not Apply sign?”
Louise put a hand on his arm. She didn’t know this Butler from Dagwood Bumstead, but if he could help get Masako to her husband’s bedside…“Abe, I don’t care if he’s a fully fledged, goose-stepping Nazi, you’ve got to let Professor Smoot try.”
Dr. Wright cocked his head. “Sounds like a damn good idea to me.”
“You’re right.” Abe slapped a hand to the back of his neck. “This is no time to stand on principle. Come on. Let’s find a phone. First President Butler, then the FBI.”
“We can use the phone in the doctor’s lounge.” With a glance toward the inert figure in the bed, Dr. Wright folded his stethoscope into his pocket. “On the floor just below this ward. Come with me.” He hooked a hand under Abe’s elbow and made for the door. The disheveled Smoot slouched out behind them.
For a moment, Louise thought Lillian Bridges would follow the men.
But no. Ignoring Louise, the professor commandeered the bedside chair and fixed an unwavering gaze on the sick man. With her hands clasped under her chin and light from the bedside lamp illuminating her head, she reminded Louise of a saint from some medieval icon.
Chapter Seventy-eight
Oops. Cabby bent to retrieve a garter belt that had fallen from her laundry basket. This windy, rainy Saturday afternoon called for chores like washing hair, tending manicures, and laundering unmentionables. She’d planned to see The Men in Her Life with Loretta Young, but, even with a good umbrella, walking to the pictures in a gale like this would leave a girl soaked to her skin.
As she started through the downstairs hall, the phone rang. Juggling her load in the crook of her arm, Cabby grabbed the receiver on the second ring. “Hello?”
A masculine voice, shot through with an odd mixture of elation and diffidence, stated a familiar name and asked if Mrs. Helda Schroeder was available to come to the phone.
“McKenna! It’s me, Cabby.” Her basket slid to the floor. Oblivious to the spill of dirty laundry, she gripped the receiver with both hands. “Have you found Howie?”
“I just got the call. The Kentucky Highway Patrol picked him up this morning.”
Cabby took a deep breath of relief and nodded vigorously. “Then I was right. He was headed for Paintsville.”
“Yeah. That’s one plucky kid—almost made it all the way. He would’ve, too, if he hadn’t tangled with some yokels.”
“What?” Cabby practically spat questions into the mouthpiece. “Is Howie okay? What happened?”
“A couple of Li’l Abner’s kinfolk knocked him around and took his wallet. He’s got a headache, but don’t worry, he’ll be all right.”
McKenna went on to explain the arrangements for Howie’s return, but they were lost on Cabby. As she imagined telling Helda the good news, the detective’s words became disjointed, as if he were talking at the bottom of a gurgling fountain. Cabby no longer saw the front hallway’s shabby wallpaper and faded carpet. She felt like Judy Garland swept away into a Technicolor world, where Helda would smile ecstatically and the excited boarders crowd in like Munchkins to hug her, even the snooty Marion. In the coming months the war would doubtless bring tragedy to the boarding house, but today couldn’t be better. Howie was coming home!
Cabby realized she wasn’t paying attention. “What’s that again? When does Howie arrive?”
“Open your ears, girlie.” McKenna’s words were clipped; he sounded more like himself. “Tonight. Grand Central. The Midnight Express.”
“Great. I’ll let Helda know right away.”
“Uh…hang on a minute.” McKenna was suddenly meek as a boy asking for a date to his first school dance. “I, er, I’d like to tell Mrs. Schroeder myself.”
Cabby got it. She pressed her lips together to keep from giggling. “Okay, I’ll get Helda right now. But first…I gotta tell ya…well, thanks, McKenna. This means the world to all of us.”
He answered with a muffled cough, then: “Yeah, girlie. Anytime.”
Chapter Seventy-nine
If only they’d allowed her to bring her palette knife from home, she would have been spared this latest baffling shame.
They had come to the women�
��s side of the holding pen, two men in dark overcoats, told her to get her jacket and gloves; she was going for a ride.
“I am going home?” The first words she had spoken in two days.
“Fat chance, lady.” The taller one wound a wool scarf around his neck and straightened his fedora. “Hurry. There isn’t much time.” A hand like a vise clamped her elbow.
She had been thinking about the palette knife, the asymmetrical one, the one with the pointed tip. Yes, she’d been thinking about it. She’d been dreaming about it.
The hand squeezed her arm. Off the ferry they loaded her like worthless garbage into the back of a black car. She sat there, flanked by the two tall men, small, and hot with pain and shame. She smelled her prison stench—only one shower allowed during her captivity and that without soap or rag. The men spoke with each other over her head in that brutal American way. As if she were not there, hot with shame. Haji.
Before they’d snatched her from the apartment, she had been painting in earth tones. The palette knife was sharp. It would do. If only they would bring it to her. An artist, she had studied anatomy. She knew the human body. She knew you didn’t cut across, but up and down the veins.
They sped uptown. More questions, she knew. More accusations. More bare ugly rooms. More men in suits. More men in uniforms. She would avoid, evade, elude, escape. She took herself into retreat. At least she had that power now. She could become invisible.
“We’re here,” they finally said. “Get out of the car.” But she was in the hiding room again, and the words bounced off her ears. The strong hand on the arm.
They hustled her out of the car like a limp, cloth doll. Through the cold, bitter rain, up the steps, into the elevator, down a long green hall, into another room, a whitened room. But she kept herself secure. She was not insane; she knew that. She was simply—invisible. And she would stay invisible. Safe. At least she had that right.
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