A Curtain Falls

by Pintoff, Stefanie

  She had been once more as I remembered her, not the cold and distant woman I’d encountered yesterday at Alistair’s apartment. And if I’d thought my time away from her these past four months had dulled my feelings for her, I couldn’t have been more wrong. I’d grown accustomed to living with her memory, but reality was another matter. There was no denying the way she had taken hold of my mind and begun to monopolize my thoughts, now that I’d seen her once again. But she was Alistair’s daughter-in-law, just two years a widow. And she came from a class— in fact, an entire world— that was far above my own.

  If I were tempted to forget that, my destination this afternoon was a reminder. Though I’d never been there myself, I’d heard enough talk in the police precinct— and read enough in the newspapers— to recognize that I was headed into the Black and Tan district. It was a poor area, just like the block I’d grown up on in the Lower East Side. But where my neighborhood attracted predominantly Irish and German immigrants, MacDougal Street had gained a reputation as a place where different races mixed freely.

  From those officers who’d worked in that part of the Village, I’d heard tales good and bad: how sober, industrious families lived side by side with more licentious-minded individuals— plus the usual array of street toughs with colorful names like Bloodthirsty or No-Toe Charley. The picture painted in the newspapers by journalists like Jacob Riis was even more scandalous, focused on those “degenerates” who frequented the Black and Tan saloons. His euphemism, of course, referred to those men who kept company with other men— and women who preferred the company of other women. And while I knew Riis focused only on those stories that would scandalize readers and sell papers, it did give me a moment’s pause to think what I’d find there.

  Why was Poe in this neighborhood? And what had Bogarty learned about him? Riley might have simply told me, rather than force me to travel here myself. His editor had pledged to share information freely with us. But this wild goose chase hardly seemed in keeping with the spirit of that promise. Riley had described Poe as “less than forthcoming.” I’d discounted him as a suspect last night, but perhaps I’d been too hasty.

  The horsecar stopped at the corner of Bleecker and MacDougal, and the moment I rounded the corner on foot, I saw a gang of six boys leaned over an iron railing at the third tenement on the right, looking intently into the sunken area beneath a large red concrete stoop. The moment I saw them, I knew they were playing a game. I knew it well— in fact, I’d played it myself at their age. The goal was to hit a particular crack in the cement with well-aimed spit. The best shot would get the penny that had been placed in the moat, which was usually traded in for candy after a couple of wins. All this assuming, of course, that the boys finished their game before a janitor or grumpy tenant interrupted them. In the tenement where I’d grown up, a widow named Mrs. Bauer on the first floor was the worst of the spoilsports; she had disliked small boys’ spitting and making noise outside her window. But boys would always invent games when there was nothing to do— and Mrs. Bauer had only added an element of challenge to the game.

  The smallest boy looked up, noticed me, and immediately seized a more lucrative opportunity.

  “Need help finding someplace, mister?” He stopped in front of me, his left hand twisting one of the black suspenders that held up his brown knickerbocker pants. When I didn’t respond right away, he eyed me anxiously. “I could help you for a penny.”

  He was thin and waiflike, probably about nine or ten years old, and I could see his pants were threadbare and had been patched numerous times. I had been exactly like him when I was nine: hungry.

  I nodded in agreement and the boy flushed with relief.

  “I’m looking for 101 MacDougal.” I glanced at the sheet of paper I’d been given. “It must be one of these tenements ahead.”

  MacDougal Street was comprised almost entirely of tenements and saloons— and at this midday hour, the saloons were not yet open.

  “It’s down here. I’ll show you.” The boy bounded eagerly ahead of me until he came to a brown brick building. It was a nondescript structure, only five stories high. Since it was Saturday around lunchtime, it seemed to be fully occupied; in fact, I could already smell a variety of different odors from the slightly opened windows in the kitchens above.

  “Which apartment are you looking for?” The boy looked at me hopefully.

  “Five C, I believe. But I can find it from here.” I handed the boy three coins— enough, I hoped, that he could buy his fill of treats from the pushcarts around the corner on Bleecker.

  “Thanks, mister.” He pocketed his treasure with a broad smile. “I think Five C is where Walter lives. Top floor.”

  I climbed the flight of stairs to the top floor, making my way past stairwells filled with children. Some played jacks or marbles; others, mainly the smallest boys, slid up and down the banister railings. In between floors, I glanced into hallways where more children overflowed from crowded apartments. It was a tenement, which meant that all kinds of people— of varying ages and degrees of relation— were crammed together into small living quarters. Had Alistair come with me, I’m not sure he would have comprehended it, even when he saw it.

  When I knocked at apartment 5C, a large African man opened the door and regarded me with a quizzical expression. He had close-cropped hair tinged with gray and heavy lines that creased his forehead, crinkling the skin around his eyes.

  I glanced at the scrap of paper Riley had given me, just to make sure I’d made no mistake.

  “I was told I’d find Timothy Poe here,” I finally said.

  The man opposite me seemed to grow even taller and larger as he took a menacing step toward me out of his apartment. “Whoever told you that, told you a pack of lies.”

  I drew my identification slowly out of my coat pocket and showed it to him, deciding to use the information the boy downstairs had provided. “Are you Walter? I wasn’t given your last name.”

  He glared at me, silent for a moment, then his voice boomed an angry, sonorous baritone that carried throughout the building. “Willie. Jim. I got uninvited company here.”

  I tried not to flinch as two even larger men— one who might have been Walter’s brother and another who was short but solidly built, with a face framed by a red beard— seemed to emerge instantaneously from the stairwell. They came uncomfortably close on either side of me, and while they did not touch me, they clearly meant to be intimidating.

  I gulped. It was working.

  Only in a neighborhood like this one would anyone dare threaten a police officer.

  Keeping my voice level, I said, “I’m assisting the Nineteenth Precinct in a murder investigation. Timothy Poe is part of that investigation, and I was told I’d find him here.”

  I drew myself up taller, attempting to appear braver than I actually felt.

  “I told you already: there’s no Poe here.” The man I believed to be Walter glowered at me. When I made no move to leave, he drew even another step closer. “And I’m gonna give you exactly one minute to get—”

  He would have said more, but for the frail, thin, pale hand that reached for his shoulder and pulled him backward into the room.

  “It’s all right, Walter. I know him.”

  Walter frowned in disapproval, but stepped back.

  And from that simple interaction, I realized with a start how things stood between them. Knowing what I did about the Black and Tan area, I had come here expecting to find Timothy Poe living in quarters with a wife or girlfriend of a different race. But to find him in a relationship with an African man was a revelation I’d not been prepared for.

  My instinctive response was to wonder how I could trust a man who had lied to me without hesitation when I interviewed him. If he had concealed this, then what else might he be hiding?

  My other, more considered reaction was to ask myself whether my suspicions were the result of his lie— or of what I’d discovered.

  “You sure, Tim?” The redheade
d man on my left was dubious as he looked me up and down.

  “I’m sure. But thank you.” Timothy Poe came into full view in the door frame and greeted me. “Detective. Would you care to come in?”

  Walter stepped aside and allowed me to enter. When he retreated, he did his best to show no reaction, but I did not miss the flash of worry that crossed his face.

  It appeared to be a standard three-room flat. There was no entry hall; I immediately entered a main sitting area with floral-print wallpaper, furnished with two high-backed armchairs and a small sofa upholstered in green.

  “Please sit,” Timothy said. “I do apologize. My friends are only looking out for my well-being.”

  I couldn’t help but reflect that it wasn’t Timothy Poe’s well-being that had been threatened.

  After Walter disappeared into the kitchen, Timothy and I took seats opposite each other. He chose the sofa, and I took a chair that had a worsted-wool wrap draped over its back. It was plush and of good quality. In fact, all the furniture in the room was of high enough quality to suggest that the residents here were wealthier than I would have expected— at least relative to those in most tenement dwellings.

  In front of us, the small coffee table displayed many of the more popular magazines and newspapers—Harper’s, The World, The Times, and the weekly paper New York Age. Each of them was thumbed over and crinkled; in other words, thoroughly read. There was also a newsletter from the A.M.E. Zion Church— or Mother Zion, as most parishioners called it.

  “I do need to ask you: who told you to find me here?” His voice quivered slightly. If possible, he seemed even more anxious than he had been yesterday at the precinct station.

  I didn’t want to admit it had been a New York Times reporter— not yet, anyway— so I merely said, “It was someone else involved in the case I’m investigating. He recommended I seek you out here for further questioning.”

  The thought crossed my mind: if Riley and Bogarty had known about Poe’s true whereabouts, had they also known the sort of reception I might expect? If so, then they had intended to frighten and intimidate me. But that made no sense. I decided they had taken a perverse plea sure in exposing me to a situation even the most experienced police officer didn’t encounter every day.

  Timothy winced. “I’ve been so careful. How could someone have known about my relationship with Walter?” Then he sat up straight in sheer panic. “Do people at the theater know?”

  “Not to my knowledge,” I said gently.

  He stared at me, frozen in panic.

  I tried to reconcile my image of the gentle, anxious man I had met yesterday with the one in front of me today: still timid, but living in circumstances that would shock all but the least straitlaced among us. And that included me. However much I believed one should live and let live, nothing in my background had prepared me for this. Still, Timothy Poe was the same man I’d interviewed last week: eager, vulnerable, and under wrongful suspicion of murder. So I focused on questions pertaining to the case— knowing that later, I’d make better sense of it all.

  Was Poe still lying? His concern about the theater seemed real, and yet . . .

  More gently, I said, “I need you to tell me what you didn’t yesterday.”

  He gave no response.

  In the kitchen, Walter appeared to be ignoring us, but I suspected he in fact hung on our every word. He certainly had maneuvered himself so as to watch us as he furiously ironed a pair of black trousers and a white shirt— a task that involved rotating the three irons that currently sat on top of the black stove. As one cooled, he returned it to the stove and replaced it with another. He probably needed to dry the clothes as well as remove their wrinkles, for the weather wasn’t yet nice enough to hang them outside.

  I decided to try a different tack. “Walter, how long has Timothy been with you here?” I called out.

  He set the iron he’d finished using back on the stove and held up the black trousers. Satisfied, he carefully draped them over a chair, then came into the living-room area, where Timothy sat, mute and unhappy.

  “No offense, Detective, but how does knowing the details of our private life help your case?”

  “Because right or wrong, Captain Mulvaney considers Mr. Poe to be a potential murder suspect,” I answered him. “That means everything about his life becomes relevant.”

  “Tim’s just beginning to enjoy some success in the theater. Your interest here jeopardizes all that,” Walter said, a low note of warning evident in his voice.

  “Didn’t he tell you that yesterday he was brought in for questioning on suspicion of murder?”

  “But you let him go.” Walter enunciated the final words slowly. “You obviously cleared him of suspicion.”

  “Not as far as the captain is concerned,” I said dryly. “Mr. Poe remains a suspect— albeit one without sufficient evidence to hold in jail. But lying to the police is damning evidence. So, if he’s to be permitted his freedom, I need to know the truth.”

  Walter heaved a loud sigh as Timothy rubbed his forehead as though he needed to get rid of a troublesome headache. And in the briefest of words, they filled me in. They had met nearly five years ago, when Timothy was in a touring production at the Jersey shore and Walter was working there as a waiter. Walter’s family was here, however; most of them still lived around the corner on Minetta Lane, though some had migrated north into Little Africa proper. “My father is an Irishman, if you can believe it, though my mother was born a slave in Virginia.” He added simply, “I’ve lived here my whole life. And I knew that at least within the radius of these few blocks, Tim and I could establish a life together.”

  I cleared my throat awkwardly. “If I might add something, the theater attracts many people who don’t live according to the dictates of conventional society. So why should you care if people in the theater know that you . . .” Walter and Timothy both stared at me so intently that I fumbled over my words, “well . . .”

  “That I am a socratist, as Oscar Wilde liked to call himself? And that my affections are directed toward an African man?” Timothy Poe was suddenly defiant. “The ordinary people I work with might not care. But I work in a Frohman production. And he would extinguish my career in a heartbeat if he ever got wind of this.”

  “I’ve heard that his theater managers can be controlling with the leading ladies,” I said, thinking of Alistair’s comment the night before. “But why you? You’re not—”

  “A star? A leading man? No, I’m not— at least not yet. But Frohman cares, all the same. When you’re associated with his shows, his theaters, then he demands a certain kind of behavior in your personal as well as professional life. And,” he added bitterly, “I’ve seen time and again how he will blacklist any actor who doesn’t comply— ensuring he never works again. Not for him. And not for Hammerstein or the Shubert brothers, either.”

  “But I can’t imagine how your source obtained any information about us. Tim and I have always been discreet,” Walter added. “And our friends here in the Village would never betray us. Most of us face similar pressures in our own lives. Myself, I’m a waiter at the Oyster Club. And I wouldn’t care for my employer to know either, though I’m not quite sure what the consequence would be if he did. Speaking of which—” He then excused himself to dress for work.

  His job, at least, explained their economic circumstances somewhat better. At a “good” restaurant like the Oyster Club, which was a far cry still from the level of Sherry’s last night, Walter would earn a very good salary. My guess was that with tips, he easily earned over a thousand a year. That would contrast with many of his neighbors in this tenement— who more likely worked as day laborers to pull in no more than three hundred to four hundred dollars a year for backbreaking work.

  “The other address—” I stopped, knowing Tim would follow my line of thought.

  “If someone asks for me there, the fellows will tell them I’m not home.” Tim thrust his jaw out defensively. “I pay my share of those
rooms. And I do in fact stay there during the week, when I have an early rehearsal following a late show.”

  “Let’s put that aside a moment. I’m curious to know one thing about Annie,” I said. “Was there anything in her life that Frohman would have disapproved of? That she might have tried to conceal?”

  “I don’t know,” Tim said. “But the people to talk with would be her flatmates. It’s hard to keep secrets from people you spend that much time with.”

  That was exactly what Isabella and Alistair were doing at this moment.

  “Did Annie know your secret?” I finally asked him.

  “I don’t think so.”

  But his anxious expression told me that he was unsure. Would fear of having his secret revealed have given him a motive to murder her?

  We continued to talk for some minutes more, and I warned Tim, “If it is that important to conceal your life here from those in the theater, you’d better pack some things and plan to stay at your rooms uptown until this case is solved.”

  It was only partly my concern for him that prompted me to say it. For my own purposes, I’d rather he be in a flat of fellow actors where I could keep closer tabs on his whereabouts.

  “I agree.” Walter had reappeared, dressed in the uniform of most waiters at New York’s better restaurants— a black jacket and trousers paired with white shirt and bow-tie. “It won’t be for long, Tim. But it’s not worth the risk.”

  I walked out with Walter. “Are you likely to need to bother Tim again?” he asked, his voice filled with worry. “It’s taken a heavy toll on him, already.”

  The only answer I could give, however, was the truth.

  I simply did not know.

  But of one thing I was certain: if I told Mulvaney any of this— and I didn’t see how I could in good faith keep it from him— then he would immediately consider Timothy Poe his prime suspect.

  And maybe that was not without reason, I acknowledged. Though whether my newfound suspicion was the result of logic or unwarranted prejudice, I could not say.