The Wicked City: A stunning love story set in the roaring twenties

by Beatriz Williams

  She bore the unlikely name of Hyacinth—I don’t recollect her last name, or maybe I never learned it—though I daresay she was nobody’s flower. I think I heard once that her daddy divorced her mama when she was but little, and that he went on to have several more wives and children—litters, these girls used to call them, self-mocking—and whether or not that story was true, she wasn’t a happy girl, Hyacinth whatever-her-name. She took to hating me straight off, and I made no scruple about returning that sentiment. Circled each other all freshman year like a pair of feral cats, while her friends sneered and snooted in approval, and my friends—well, I didn’t have any, did I? Just Geneva Kelly from River Junction, Maryland, all on her own, not even a mama and daddy to see her settled in at college that first week. Come May, end of the year looming, Hyacinth made her move. Took umbrage at some remark of mine, some insult to her intellect for which I claim full responsibility, while we sat too close in a stale lecture hall to discuss the classical philosophers. Push came to shove, and as I turned the corner of the dormitory hall the next day, dressed in my tatty old robe, carrying my toothbrush, I’ll be damned if that well-bred girl from a top-drawer family didn’t just sucker punch me like no girl or boy in River Junction would ever stoop so low as to punch another girl or boy. I could do nothing but fall to the ground and wake up in the infirmary, and though the college president herself interviewed me later, I never would say who done it. I never would rat that Hyacinth out, even though she deserved ratting for a sucker punch like she gave me.

  Because we may be poor as church mice in River Junction, but we are surely not rats. We take care of our trouble ourselves. And I took care of that Hyacinth, as soon as I came out of the infirmary.

  Anyway, what I neglected to tell you before was this: I did not precisely drop out of Bryn Mawr College in the summer of 1920. I was kicked out, on account of busting Hyacinth’s nose.

  16

  BUT THAT’S not the point of the story. The point is this: I swore, in the time of Hyacinth, never again to allow myself to be taken by surprise like that. Never ever again to turn a corner or walk through a door without expecting some kind of unpleasant surprise waiting for me. Someone lying in wait to do me an ill turn.

  The thing is, though, that’s a promise you can’t keep, howsoever vigilant you may be. Sooner or later, you let your guard drop. Sooner or later you allow yourself to be distracted by the turnings of your own mind, by the slings and the arrows and the thunderbolts, and sooner or later someone’s going to catch you when you’re alone and vulnerable, when you’ve neglected to cover over your white nakedness before the world. When you’re emerging from a powder room and your nerves and your dignity aren’t altogether intact, and a fellow stands there in a dark pin-striped suit just about bursting from his chest, and he’s got a heavy black revolver in one hand that he doesn’t actually point at you. Just lifts up as if to strike you across the cheekbone.

  And such is your shock, you can’t even scream. Your throat freezes up, your hands rise to block this blow that can’t possibly be blocked, not when delivered by an arm so powerful as that.

  You stumble back, into the powder room, but you don’t get far because the arm is swift, and you shut your eyes and try to dodge the blow, dodge down and around this mountain of manflesh, swinging his revolver in a damn sucker punch, except there’s no chance, no room to dodge, no time to dodge in, and then you realize you’re still alive. You haven’t been hit. You’re falling to the ground, sure, but not on account of some blow to your cheekbone. Just you, stumbling to the floor all on your own, and somebody grunting above you. You hit the chipped tile floor of the powder room kind of hard, knocking out a bit of wind from your chest, but a second later someone’s lifting you up, and you open your eyes, and what do you know.

  “Nice mustache,” you say.

  17

  THERE’S A back door at Christopher’s, a door I never knew about, but Anson knows it. Back of the broom closet, behind a bucket full of mops. Might could-a come in handy at the end of January, when this whole mess began. Might-a stopped all this trouble in its tracks.

  I tell him this as we duck through this doorway into the rot-laden courtyard behind the building.

  “Wouldn’t have made any difference,” he says. “I’d have found you anyway.”

  18

  IN MY bedroom now, where I’m daubing Agent Anson’s knuckles with iodine, attempting to calm the furious rhythm of my circulation.

  “So who in the Lord’s name was that?” I ask.

  “Who?”

  “Who. That fellow who just about cracked my head wide open, that’s who. Stop flinching. What are you, some kind of sissy? You can bust a man’s jaw but you can’t take a little medicine?”

  “I have no idea who he is. I was hoping you might.”

  “Never saw him before.” I reach for the roll of gauze. I figure if I can concentrate on these simple tasks, iodine and gauze, I can keep myself steady. Trick myself sane. He’s got big, bony hands, Agent Anson, more long than wide, and this new scar across the knuckles of his right hand isn’t the first. I take a firm grip on the pad of his thumb and wind the gauze carefully around his palm. “But he followed us all the way over from Hudson Street. My friend Anatole has a studio there.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “He was waiting outside, I think.” I tie together the ends of the gauze, nice and snug, and I give the knuckles a pat, just to make him wince. But I don’t let go of the hand, and he doesn’t pull it away. Just standing there, the pair of us, one paw stuck between the paws of the other. Moon coming in through the window, turning the gauze silver. I trace the edge of his fingernail with my thumb. “How long have you played the clarinet?”

  “Since I was about eight, I guess.”

  “And when did you join Bruno’s orchestra?”

  “Two weeks ago.”

  “Does Bruno know—?”

  “He knows I’m a friend of yours.”

  I look up into the wallop of his gaze.

  “Anything else I should know about you, Tarzan? Since you seem to know so much about me.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything. Maybe everything.”

  He withdraws the precious hand and turns to the bureau. Picks up the roll of gauze and winds it back up. “There isn’t much to know, really.”

  “Oh, I think there’s a lot to know. But you’re one of those fellows who likes to keep his beans to himself, as I recollect. All I figure is that you’re not married and you don’t have any kids, and you come from some kind of money and know a Harvard crest from a crack in the sidewalk. And you can knock a man out cold in one blow, which is something a girl like me can respect, believe me.”

  “Look,” he says, setting down the gauze, turning to face me, “let’s get back to the business at hand. You’re certain you’ve never seen that man before?”

  “Positive.” I tap my temple. “I never forget a face.”

  “He’s not from Maryland?”

  “If you mean is he one of Duke’s pals from River Junction, he’s not. Must be some local Duke’s rustled up.”

  “But you’re certain Duke sent him, is that right? Sent this man to hurt you.”

  “As sure as I can be.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, as I told you, or at least as I told your secretary to inform you, Duke’s cut me off. No parcels in a week. Truth to tell, I’ve been expecting something like this for days now.” I jerk my thumb toward the moon outside. “He must have figured out I’m working for you.”

  “That’s impossible. We haven’t met in weeks. I haven’t yet acted on any of the information you’ve given me.”

  “But you’ve been lurking around. Keeping watch on me.”

  He hesitates. “Yes. To protect you.”

  “So maybe somebody spotted you. Playing your clarinet or something. Saw through that clever disguise of yours.”

  “That’s unlikely.”

  “But p
ossible?”

  “Not impossible, I suppose.”

  I sit down on the bed and fold my arms. “So I guess it’s over. The jig’s up.”

  “No, it isn’t. Not by a long shot. I’m going to get busy as soon as I’m out this window. Find out who that fellow is. Who he’s working for. I don’t think it’s your stepfather.” He moves to the window—just a couple of steps for those thick, tough legs of his—and peers out, as if contemplating possible routes of departure. A sound escapes him, and if I didn’t know any better, I could swear that Agent Anson—straight as an arrow, pure as a bar of Ivory soap—just took the name of his Lord in vain.

  “Why not?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Why don’t you think he’s one of Duke’s men?”

  Anson lets fall the curtain and turns to me. “Because he had a revolver. And Mr. Kelly’s men don’t use guns.”

  “Applesauce.”

  “It’s true. Don’t you know he doesn’t hold with guns?”

  “Of course I know that. But you can’t run a bootleg racket without a Chicago typewriter in one hand and a revolver in the other. Nobody but a fool would try it.”

  “Oh, his men carry guns on the road, of course. In case of ambush. But anything else—when he sends someone out to deliver a message of some kind, settle a score—he does it the old-fashioned way.” Anson lifts his hand and examines the bandage on his knuckles. “Because you don’t hunt down a man like you would a mere animal.”

  “Lord Almighty.”

  “So I believe we can rest assured that your stepfather, for all his faults, isn’t the fellow behind tonight’s incident.”

  “Goodness me. What a terrible great relief. In that case, I’ll sleep like a baby.”

  The fellow actually smiles at me. “Wake up howling every few hours, then?”

  “Oh? And just what do you know about the sleeping habits of babies, Mr. Anson?”

  “I know a little something about just about everything, Miss Kelly.”

  “Well, then. Maybe you can answer me this. Just out of idle curiosity, mind you. I don’t suppose you’ve got any idea who else might be responsible for trying to darken my lights? If not Duke.”

  “I don’t know the answer to that question at present. But believe me, I won’t rest until I find out.”

  “And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Lock myself in my room? Hire a Pinkerton guard?”

  “You don’t need to hire a Pinkerton guard,” Anson says. “You have me for that purpose.”

  You know, I never did shift clothes after posing for Anatole and Julie. I’m still wearing my same plain skirt and blouse, my everyday clothes, nothing to catch a man’s eye. Just the lipstick I applied in the powder room a half hour ago. Next to Millie, I reckon I must have looked like someone the dog drug home from the library. And a girl who isn’t looking her absolute best, what shot has she got in this modern world? A girl all alone, what possible hope? Just her own wits. Her own strength.

  So I am standing there atop my bedroom floor in my plain skirt and blouse, thinking someone is fixing to kill me, somebody wants me dead, I’m in trouble dire, a girl all alone like a sapling springing forth from a prairie field, and Mr. Agent Anson, he goes and says a thing like that. You have me.

  “Have you found out anything more about my buttons?” I ask.

  Agent Anson sticks his left hand into the pocket of his overcoat and draws out a small package wrapped in brown paper. He sets it on the bureau and unwraps the paper. Mama’s box.

  “Not much,” he says. “Thought I recognized the decoration, but it turns out the shop was closed up long ago. I’ll see if I can’t find anyone who might know more.”

  “Don’t go to any trouble, now.”

  “It’s no trouble.”

  His hand falls from the box. He’s only a yard away—you’re only about a yard away from anything in my little room—and from this intimate distance I observe the comfort of his pulse at the side of his neck. The thrum of his tendons. Living and breathing and beating. I think, We are standing here just as we were a few weeks ago, just exactly like this, betwixt the bed and the dresser, right in front of the window, except it’s not the same at all. It is somehow entirely different. Different tenor between us, different atmosphere, as if the earth has revolved its way into a strange new portion of the universe in the period since we stood together last. A moment ago I was occupying my brain with inconsequential games like jealousy, like vanity, like Anatole, and then a man swings a revolver and changes the whole world. Renders the previous world unrecognizable. Renders the thrum of Anson’s tendons the pivot around which this new world whirls.

  “The thing is,” he says, entirely unaware of the newfound import of his tendons, “are you sure you want to know?”

  “Why not?”

  “Presuming the owner of these buttons is really your father—and that may not be the case—we already know he’s the kind of man who seduces showgirls, gets them with child, and then discards them. You may not want to know him. He may not want to be known.”

  “I realize all that. I’m just curious, that’s all.”

  “For what purpose?”

  “Well, for one thing, you can’t imagine the trouble, fretting about whether or not your present lover might turn out to be some kind of cousin.”

  His head jerks a bit.

  “Oh, yes. Just think. Why, even you and I might be brother and sister, for all I know!”

  “We’re not.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because my father didn’t go to Harvard.”

  “Well! I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear that.”

  He sort of catches himself. Turns his gaze first to my mama’s enamel box, and then to the window. Puts his hand to the back of his neck. I believe the color of his skin warms to a delicate pink, though the light is too gray to properly tell.

  Now, I can’t say why I offered up this observation, the way I might offer up some mere scrap of flirtatious banter in the middle of a dull evening downstairs at Christopher’s, or else uptown at some swank knees-up among the avenue set. I expect it has something to do with the relief of escape, the pure exhilaration of not finding yourself lying on the floor of a Village powder room inside a puddle of your own blood. And the fellow who saved you stands before you like some kind of conqueror, and Nature—which runneth deep inside the marrow of your bones, you know, and can’t be ignored—now bangs in your eardrums, heats up your skin, demands you repay the debt you owe him. Offer up your frail human form as the spoils of war. No doubt the scientists have some clever name for this ancient instinct. All I know is that I have lost all recollection of any other man who might once have stood in this room with me, all thought of danger or mystery or hope of salvation: just this dear, blushing face, and those tendons, and that well-pressed lapel, and everything that lies beneath. Just the hot, living thrill of his blood, and the hot, living thrill of mine. Wouldn’t you?

  But that Anson. Maybe he’s not like you and me. I don’t know. I’m starting to think I don’t know the first thing about men, and maybe I never did. He just stares out the window with grief in his eyes, and he starts to button up that overcoat, kind of clumsy because of the bandage on his right hand.

  “Let me help you.”

  “I’ve got it.”

  I step forward and brush away his hands and button up that overcoat, and when I’m done I lay my palms on his lapels and look up into that face of his. Those eyes again. Grieved and snowy.

  “Thanks for helping a girl out downstairs.”

  “There’s nothing to thank me for. It’s my job, that’s all. I promised to keep you safe in all this.”

  “And you never break a promise, do you?”

  “No.”

  Above our heads and somewhere to my left, the ceiling creaks. The pipes flush. We’ve been speaking in whispers, mostly, because the walls are so thin and the occupants so nosy. But a moment like this, you realize just how loud a few words
can be. Just how easily overheard. I think about that word no, and how he might have said, Not if I can help it, or So long as it’s in my power, or some other mealy qualification. But he didn’t. He just said no. Clean and simple.

  I hear myself say, terribly soft: “You can kiss me, if you like.”

  He takes in a little breath.

  “Just a wee good-bye kiss to settle the nerves. Nobody needs to know.”

  His hands close over the blades of my shoulders. His eyelids grow heavy. I might swear the eyes behind them seem a little warmer, like someone’s lit a flame inside his skull. If I rise to my toes, I can brush the tip of his nose with the tip of mine. I can press my lips on his and see if they soften.

  But before I fix my resolve to do any or all of these things, he leans forward and touches his mouth to my forehead.

  “Good night, Miss Kelly,” he says.

  His hands grasp mine and lift them away from his lapels, and you would not believe a pair of fists that crushed a man’s jaw a half hour earlier could apply themselves now with such gentleness.

  We stand there a minute, my hands folded between his, as if held together in some kind of mutual prayer. Not speaking. Just staring at our bound hands, his swallowing mine, bones and joints and skin, the smell of human longing.

  “Good night,” he says again, a true whisper, and he sets my hands to my sides and opens the window, and he’s gone.

  19

  NOW, IT seems Agent Anson is correct in his speculations and assurances, at least insofar as Duke Kelly’s concerned, because Mrs. Washington hands me a fat brown envelope the morning after next, just as I’m stepping out the door for my bracing nine o’clock plunge into the typing pool. Her expression is not best pleased.