His frown deepened, and he actually seemed to be considering the point. “Maybe,” he admitted.
“You know, we don’t pull jobs for the hell of it—well, maybe once or twice—and we just take enough to keep the Cast Iron open. It’s the only way we’re safe.”
“That doesn’t really answer the question,” he said softly.
Corinne had leaned closer, without really meaning to, and her shoulder was pressed hard into his. She wondered if he noticed, and if he could feel the uneven thudding of her pulse.
“No, I don’t feel guilty,” she said at last. “I’m not a nice person. Ada is, but not me, so the sooner you wrap your head around that, the better. I don’t like people expecting me to be something I’m not.”
His eyes searched her face for a few seconds. She desperately wanted to read his expression, but he didn’t give anything away.
“Okay,” he said, in a frustratingly neutral tone.
He faced forward again, and after a moment of studying his profile, willing it to give up his thoughts, Corinne did too.
“Why did you come here, anyway?” she asked. “Surely a job as a grocer would have been less complicated.”
He was quiet for a while, and she wondered if she’d somehow offended him, or if he had just fallen asleep. She stole a quick glance. He was staring straight ahead, a slight crease in his forehead.
“There are things I want to accomplish,” he said at last. “And being a grocer wasn’t going to help me accomplish them.”
Corinne nodded, knowing there was no use in pressing for details. Secrets were a dime a dozen around the Cast Iron. They fell into a peaceful silence. She let her eyes close, thinking that she needed to stand up and leave.
She woke up what must have been hours later, still sitting beside him with her head rested on his shoulder and the weight of his head on hers. Their hands on the bed were touching, just slightly. Hers was stiff with cold, but his was warm. After a long while, she tried to ease off the bed without waking him, but he was a light sleeper and woke with her first movement. His right hand moved toward his back, toward his gun, before he remembered where he was.
Corinne didn’t know what to say, but she didn’t want to leave without saying anything.
“See you tomorrow,” she said in the doorway, and shut the door before he could reply.
The common room was dark and cool and quiet. She crossed the floor to her and Ada’s bedroom. Ada was asleep, curled on her side. Corinne dropped onto her cot and stared at the ceiling. She wasn’t sure why she’d lied to Gabriel. The truth was that she did feel guilty sometimes, when she forced regs to see something that wasn’t there, when she traipsed over the sanctity of their free will for whatever cash was in their wallet. She refused to let the guilt fester like Ada did, though. She didn’t see the point, when there wasn’t any other choice. Without Johnny and the Cast Iron, she and Ada and Saint had nowhere to go.
Corinne instinctively shied away from the thought. The chill of the room was starting to settle over her. She breathed in deeply and caught the scent of the grape-seed oil that Ada used in her hair, as well as a lingering hint of smoke and copper. She pulled the blanket over her head and recited poems to herself until she drifted off.
CHAPTER SIX
The residents of the Cast Iron slept until almost noon the next day. When Ada woke up, Johnny was still gone. She knew that it would be futile to try to keep Corinne indoors all day. She was still sore at her for the comment last night, but it was hard to stay angry with Corinne, who was rude almost as often as she was witty. Ada had decided long ago that it came with the territory. She did make a point of banging around her compact mirror and cosmetics loudly until Corinne finally woke up and muttered a bleary apology.
“Accepted,” Ada said.
“Good. Can I go back to sleep now?”
“Where were you last night?”
“Waiting for Johnny.” Corinne groaned and sat up halfway before falling back down to her pillow. “With Gabriel.”
The way she said it made Ada turn around. “And?”
“Don’t get too excited,” Corinne said, pulling her blanket over her head. “We just talked. And slept.”
“Together?”
Corinne threw off her blanket and sat up.
“I am a lady of class, Miss Navarra. I don’t appreciate your insinuations.”
Ada smiled and went back to her morning routine. After some coaxing, Corinne climbed out of bed and wiped away last night’s powder and kohl. Her frock was a wrinkled mess, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary.
“Have you called your parents?” Ada asked her.
“Do I have to?” was the immediate reply.
Ada didn’t bother responding. She knew Corinne would do it rather than risk her parents’ starting a citywide search for her.
“What are the chances of us sitting quietly today and practicing our embroidery?” she asked, once Corinne had struggled into something halfway presentable.
“Is Johnny back yet?” Corinne asked.
“No.”
“Then the chances are exactly zero,” Corinne said.
“I figured,” Ada said, pulling her hat onto her head. “What’s the plan?”
“The Gretskys. We have a sketch of the shooter from last night, and they know every thespian in town.”
“You sure they’ll want to talk to us? You know they steer clear of the Cast Iron’s problems.”
“I happen to have something that Madeline wants.”
“And that is?”
“A warm body to fill a seat in her precious theater. Apparently, their insurance agent told their accountant who told Madeline’s mother who told my mother that attendance is perilously low.”
“Listen to you,” Ada said, jabbing a comb in Corinne’s direction. “Picking up society gossip and using it against your friends like a true lady. Your mother must be so proud.”
Corinne made a face and snatched the comb away.
“Curtain’s up at seven.”
“I’ll be back by six. I have to visit my mother.”
Ada left Corinne wrestling the comb through her tangled hair. She could hear her cursing all the way up the stairs. At the top she nearly ran into Saint, who was holding what looked like an egg in his hand. He wisely ducked his head and stepped aside so she could pass. She knew Gordon was watching them, even as he feigned interest in his bag of sunflower seeds. Corinne had told her there was a bet going around the Cast Iron as to how long it would take Ada to break one of Saint’s bones.
Ada didn’t find it as funny as Corinne did. She and Saint had been friends. They had shared drinks and swapped stories and rolled eyes when Corinne was being incorrigible. Not long ago, Ada had comforted him at his father’s funeral, holding his hand as the gunshots of the three-volley salute ripped through the summer air.
Ada was so preoccupied that she arrived at her mother’s apartment building with very little recollection of the trip there. She climbed the interior steps slowly to the second floor, trying to arrange her features into remorse and brace herself for the oncoming wrath. Her mother was sitting on the couch, her back ramrod straight, her hands folded in her lap.
“Hi, Mama,” Ada said tentatively, shutting and locking the front door behind her.
“What did you do, Ada?” Nyah asked. Her voice was quiet and precise.
“What do you mean?” Ada sat down beside her, noting the worry lines etched into her forehead.
“There were men here this morning. They told me that my daughter is a wanted criminal.”
Hearing the word criminal from her mother’s mouth made Ada wince. Her mother had an idea of what she did, of course. Nyah was no fool. But the topic had never been broached before.
“Were they police?” Ada asked.
Nyah shook her head. “They wore suits. Their badges said Hemopath Protection.”
Ada’s stomach turned over. How had they found her mother? Were they following her? She stood up and crossed
to the window, half expecting their black cars to be on the street waiting. The street was empty.
“What did they ask you?” she demanded.
“Do not speak to your mother like that,” Nyah said. She went into the kitchen and pulled a brass pan from the cupboard with a loud clatter.
Ada’s mother knew she was a songsmith. She knew what she was capable of, and that iron was anathema to her, but they never talked about it. It was just something that existed wordlessly between them. When Nyah had moved from their old one-bedroom apartment to the newly furnished one that Ada had rented, she did not once ask where the new wealth had come from. Without a word of discussion, she had left behind everything she owned that contained even a speck of iron—including her cast-iron pans and the iron-hinged trunk that had carried all of her and her husband’s possessions into this new country.
Ada had seen the loss like a shadow on her mother’s features, one that had faded over the years but never dissipated completely.
“Mama, please. What did you tell them?” Ada tried to keep her voice reasonable, but she couldn’t fight the rising panic.
“Nothing.” She banged open a drawer and pulled out a spatula, then seemed to change her mind and threw it back. “I told them I know nothing.”
“Did they threaten you?”
Nyah shook her head. Her frown deepened. “They asked about Corinne. They did not know her name, but they described her.”
Ada’s heart stuttered. “Did you tell them her name?”
Nyah shook her head again.
“I told them that you had left Boston, but they only laughed at me.” Her mother swiped a damp rag across the counter in fretful strokes, then flung it into the sink. “The short one—he had a serpent smile—said that they knew exactly where to find you. Then the tall one said they were patient. That they wanted the . . . the whole set.”
“They mean Corinne,” Ada said. And who else? Johnny? Saint? The rest of Johnny’s crew?
Her mother’s hands were hovering at waist level, as if she were torn between pulling out more cookware and pulling Ada into an embrace.
“I should not have let you go to that club,” she said softly. Her eyes were fixed on a distant point over Ada’s head. “Now it is too late. Now your life is ruined.”
“Cor and I will find a way to fix this.” Ada rounded the counter, reaching for her mother’s hands. “We always do.”
Nyah’s expression hardened. “So your father and I must always be afraid for you? We must pretend we don’t know what you are doing at that club? António is in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, while our daughter uses her talent to be a criminal. We tried to raise you to give more than you take. I see now that we failed.”
Ada recoiled and dropped her hands. Her mother began to furiously scrub the pan she had just retrieved, even though it was already clean.
“I’m trying to help you.” Ada’s voice, when she finally found it, was feeble and wavering. “I’ve done all this for you.”
But she wasn’t sure that was true.
“It is not your place to protect us,” her mother said. “We should have been protecting you—from that club, and from Johnny Dervish.”
“Johnny saved us, Mama.” Unexpected heat chased her words. “When they took Papa away, Johnny was the only reason we didn’t starve.”
“You do not think I could have provided for us?”
“I didn’t say—”
“I am lonely, and I miss my husband, but I am not weak,” said her mother, throwing down the dishrag. “Sina hofu.”
Ada didn’t recognize the words in her mother’s native tongue. She was quiet, waiting, but Nyah didn’t translate for her. Ada wondered if her mother was tired of translating for a child who never learned, for a daughter who listened to stories and sang lullabies in Swahili but knew nothing else about the world her mother had given up. For the first time, she wondered if she missed more than just her husband.
Nyah turned her head to look at Ada, her palms planted firmly on the edge of the sink, her shoulders hunched like she was a lioness preparing to leap.
“I love you,” she said. “I love you so much, but this is not how things were meant to be.”
Ada wasn’t an idiot. She knew that the tale of the queen from the beautiful, wild lands of northern Mozambique and the foreign prince who fell in love with her was a romanticized version of the truth, removed from the context of four hundred years of colonization, but her mother had taken such care in preserving the tale that Ada couldn’t bring herself to imagine anything different. And this wasn’t how that story was supposed to end.
“I’m sorry,” Ada said.
“Go back to the Cast Iron,” Nyah said, waving her hand. She was not looking at Ada now. “Maybe you are safer there, and that is where you want to be.”
The words were blows that only her mother was capable of delivering. Ada closed her eyes briefly. She knew she should stay, apologize more, make things right somehow. But she was hurt and angry and the apartment suddenly felt very small.
She gave her mother a hug and left without another word.
The walk back to the Cast Iron was bitingly cold, and Ada concentrated on her icy nose to avoid dwelling on anything that had just happened. She didn’t think she was being followed, but it was hard to know for sure.
It should never have gone this far. She and Corinne had lived and worked for years in peace, pulling the occasional con when business was slow without the regs being any wiser. But the Harvard Bridge had tipped the scales. Councilman Turner’s proposed bill for banning hemopathic activity had suddenly gained unprecedented support, and it had passed two months to the day after the Bengali banker job. Corinne insisted that the law would have passed anyway, but Ada knew it was their fault. They had reached too high and brought a storm down on the hemopaths of Boston. There would be no peace for them anymore.
Ada cupped her hands over her mouth and nose and blew into them. Her mind still turned in queasy circles as she opened the alley door and stepped into the relative warmth of the Cast Iron’s storage room. When she saw Charlie there, leaning against the wall and chatting with Gordon like it was any old day, her mind went blank.
“Morning,” he said.
Ada blinked.
“Morning,” she said, after a few seconds’ delay.
“Can we take a walk?” he asked.
Ada studied his features in the dusky light, the crinkling at the corners of his eyes from his habitual grin, the crooked length of his nose, though he swore he’d never broken it. He didn’t look like he wanted to argue with her. He looked relaxed. She nodded.
“You kids be careful,” Gordon said, spitting out a sunflower seed.
It was the first time Ada had seen Gordon express concern about any of the Cast Iron’s goings-on. She wasn’t sure how to respond to him. Charlie gave him a cheerful wave and opened the door.
“See you later, Gordon, old pal,” he said.
Gordon made a sound somewhere between a snort and a grunt and spat out another seed. It was the closest to a farewell that Ada had ever received from him. When she told that to Charlie, he just laughed.
“Gordon? He’s a big softie. Just ask him about his cat sometime. He’ll melt like butter in June.”
Ada hadn’t known that Gordon owned a cat. She stared at Charlie’s profile, trying to detect some hint of sarcasm, but it wasn’t there.
“What?” he asked, looking at her. “I got something in my teeth?”
She shook her head. They walked toward the street, elbows brushing every few steps. Ada wanted to take his hand, but she wasn’t sure how he would react to that. Their last conversation still hung between them, barbed and broken.
“I didn’t expect to see you today,” Ada said at last, unable to stand the silence.
“I heard about what happened last night. I was worried about you.”
Ada hugged herself against the rising wind. Across the street a nun was leading a gaggle of orphans do
wn the sidewalk. Trailing a block behind was an elderly couple, both with canes. The man was chuckling and clutching his hat in the wind. The woman reached out with a shaky hand and brushed something invisible from his shoulder. Ada looked away from the simple intimacy of the moment and sucked in a short breath. She stopped walking and pulled Charlie to face her. The question burned her throat, but she had to ask it.
“Charlie, was it—was it Carson? At the docks?” She searched his face. Corinne swore that deception was always in the eyebrows, but Ada wasn’t sure what to look for.
Charlie shook his head. She didn’t know if he meant that it wasn’t Carson or that he didn’t know.
“There’s a lot they don’t tell us, Ada,” he said.
“They?”
“Carson. Johnny Dervish. I know it feels like a family sometimes, but it’s not. You can’t think that.”
“What do you mean?”
He broke away from her gaze and stared down the sidewalk for a few seconds. His chapped lips were parted slightly as he gathered his thoughts. The sky today was a pale blue. The sun gave no warmth but glistened on windows and lampposts in sparks of pure white. A couple of blocks away, a trolley rolled along the track, its bell clanging as it passed through the intersection.
“Come out with me today,” Charlie said. He grabbed her hand with a suddenness that startled her.
“Today?” she echoed. “Where?”
“We’ll figure it out,” he said. “Don’t you want to get away from this—just for a while?”
Ada hesitated.
“We don’t have to talk about anything important,” Charlie said, rubbing his thumb across her palm. “I just want to be with you, Ada.”
She wanted to be with him too. She wanted everything to be easy again, like it was before the asylum, before the Bengali banker. Maybe it could be, just for tonight.
“Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”
Corinne ended up spending most of the morning on the phone with her mother, trying to convince her that this unnamed friend Mrs. Wells had never heard of was in dire need of Corinne’s tender ministrations and could not be abandoned for another day at least. In retrospect it was the “tender ministrations” that made the story difficult to believe. Constance Wells knew her daughter too well for that.
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