But—Adam? Speakeasies? When had he started going to them?
I thanked Rose for her information and for the tea, which I’d hardly touched. Before leaving, she pressed my arm and said, “If you see Adam, please tell him I’m sorry about all this.” Her warm touch lingered on my skin.
When I left downtown on foot, I decided that Rose’s family might be involved in the theft. After all, if Bernard was so opposed to Rose seeing Adam, maybe he had taken the jewels to sully Adam’s reputation, to get him into such deep trouble that Rose would never be able to see him again.
If that were the case, though, why hadn’t Bernard revealed to the police that the jewels were still in the household the night before Adam and Rose went out together? Surely revealing that fact to the police would make the case against Adam stronger.
But if Bernard’s only goal was to keep Rose and Adam apart, maybe all he needed was this dark cloud of suspicion hanging over Adam. Maybe Bernard would stop short of actually sending him to jail.
Or maybe Bernard didn’t take the jewels at all, but knew where he wanted the finger pointed when they went missing. And maybe he hadn’t seen Rose with the jewelry on and didn’t know it was there the night before it disappeared. I cursed myself for not asking Rose one crucial question: Had she worn the jewelry in front of her brother, or had she put it on after leaving the house that night?
I usually don’t think folks are capable of such deviousness, but I was beginning to change my opinion. The lies and distortions in that Cedar School book, the talk by “Sister Lucretia” being advertised all over town, the things Officer Miller had said to me, and now Rose’s admission that her family took a disliking to Adam because of his last name—I wasn’t sure anymore what people would do if they were afraid or angry or bothered enough. Maybe Rose’s family was so sure Adam, with his foreign name and different religion, was a corrupting influence that they’d do anything to save her from him, including sending him to jail, or scaring him into leaving town.
I had plenty to think about, not the least of which was the fact that I now had a new piece of information that Vincent Briggs could weave into a terrific newspaper story: The jewelry had been seen by a roomful of lowlifes at some city speakeasy. Surely Briggs would now ask why the Peterson family, and the police, were focusing solely on my brother.
If I gave this information to Briggs and he wrote the story, though, Rose could get into deep trouble with her family for keeping it a secret. And it could also turn around and hurt Adam, because it might mean he was on the scene when the jewels were taken.
Not knowing precisely what to do, I skulked on home, kicking stones and looking at the ground as I went. It was a bright, crisp afternoon with puffy white clouds slowly blowing in from the west, where the river met the Pacific, and the smell of salt water and coal smoke was in the air. Seagulls cawed mournfully overhead, and cars put-putted along busy roads, occasionally honking at horse-drawn wagons. I was so absorbed in my thoughts that I crossed one street without looking, jumping up when a blaring hee-haw from a roadster caught my attention. I scurried to the opposite corner, jamming my hands in my pockets, where I fingered my mother’s rosary. As I rubbed it, an unvoiced prayer formed in my mind—Help me! Help Adam! I don’t know how to “look after” him, Ma! He always looked after me!
When I got home, Pete was nowhere to be found. He sometimes did odd jobs on Friday afternoons, helping a friend who owned a truck to haul trash away or transport furniture and other heavy objects for small fees. Occasionally, he dragooned me and Adam into helping.
Smelling fried fish, I went into the kitchen, where a piece of cod sat in a pan. Pete always made cod on Fridays. Pulling off some with my fingers, I thought about the sandwiches Rose had ordered that afternoon. That was another difference between her family and mine. On Fridays, we didn’t eat meat. Rose’s religion let her eat whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted.
Not knowing what to do and restless to do something more for my brother, I went upstairs to get some paper and a pencil. I thought I’d write down what I knew and what I needed to find out. It would help me organize my thoughts. I had more information now, and maybe more ways to clear Adam.
When I pushed open the door to my room, my eyes grew wide and my mouth dropped open.
There, sprawled out on the bed, was Adam. He was fast asleep.
Chapter Eight
Worry, anger, and relief battled within me as I shook Adam awake. Yes, I was glad to see him back, and glad he hadn’t taken off on our trip without me. But what was he doing home? Why hadn’t he used his opportunity to leave town? What had he done with the money I gave him?
“Adam! Adam!” I said as I pushed at his arm.
“Wha. . .” His eyes opened and focused on me. He looked awful. His hair lay in dirty strands against the pillow, and his face was covered with the beginnings of a beard. My nose wrinkled as I took in the odor of his clothes. They smelled like sweat and beer. He’d been gone less than a day, but he looked as if he’d been on the road for weeks.
“Get up,” I said, pulling the blanket off him. “And get cleaned up. You’re stinking up the room, for crying out loud!”
He wiped his face with his hand and, sitting up, stared right at me. “Thanks for the nice welcome, kid.”
“Stop calling me ‘kid!’ Didn’t I tell you that already?” All my anger bubbled up into an explosive speech. “What are you doing here anyway? Didn’t I give you the money to hide? What’s the matter with you, Adam? Going to speakeasies, taking that nice girl Rose with you? What were you thinking?”
Surprised, he swung his legs around and stood. Running his hands through his hair, he looked at me with hurt and bewilderment in his eyes.
“Slow down. Why are you talking about Rose? How’d you find out about—”
“I met her—that’s how.”
“You what?”
Ignoring his question, I went on, “I found out there could have been any number of people who saw those jewels and known where they were. She wore them to that speakeasy you took her to.”
“Geez, Carl, you playing private detective?”
Brushing past him, I picked up his jacket, which was lying on the floor next to the bed. Our father’s pocket watch fell out, and I placed it on the bed so it wouldn’t get scratched. Patting down the pockets, I found a few spare coins and nothing else.
“Where’s the money I gave you? Didn’t you buy a train ticket? Did you miss the train?”
“Yeah. Well, no. . . I mean. . . Carl, at the train station, I got in line to buy a ticket to San Francisco. Then I started thinking I didn’t know anybody there—not a single living soul. And even though you gave me a nice bundle of cash, it wasn’t enough—not enough to get back to. . . Well, I was afraid, Carl. I didn’t know what to do. . .” He looked at the floor, heaving a long sigh. Where was the strong and confident Adam I used to know, the one who’d looked out for me? All of a sudden, it felt unfair to have to look after him, especially when he was doing such a poor job of looking after himself.
“So what happened?” I asked in a slower voice.
“So I sat down in that station and thought. I thought how I wanted to go back to Baltimore—how that’s what you and me had planned from the beginning.”
At least he was thinking of our old plans. Maybe this was a sign he was turning a corner, coming back to who he used to be. It was a start. Relieved, I sighed, too.
He scratched his neck and grimaced. “So I tried to get some more money,” he said quietly. “I found a poker game on North Avenue that’s always on. And I started winning big, Carl, real big. I thought, ‘Geez, I can pay for both our tickets and repay Carl what he lent me,’ so I kept at it.”
He didn’t need to tell me the rest. I immediately knew what had happened. He’d lost it all—not only all he’d won when his luck was running good, but all the money I’d given him in the first place. He’d lost it because he was trying to get enough for both of us to leave together. The old Ada
m had been looking out for me, but not the right way. It had twisted into something perverse.
Standing in our narrow room at that moment, I felt like a ton of bricks had fallen on my back. I felt pressed down, and I didn’t know how to move without upsetting something. It occurred to me that sometime in the past year, my brother, once a happy-go-lucky fellow with the smarts and know-how to help me out and protect me, had gotten lost, turning into someone who needed me to protect him. It must have happened gradually and I’d been too absorbed in my own dreaming to notice. I wanted to tell him he’d made a mistake figuring he could count on me—that I stumbled along from day to day with no thought of how to turn plans into reality, that I looked down at my feet making sure one was in front of the other, while Adam scanned the horizon and told me where to go. It was hard mapping out a future. I wanted him to be the older brother he’d always been, the one who charted the course. We’d made a good team that way.
Why had he changed? Had he started to believe all the bad things people said about “our kind”? Did he really think he was no good just because he had a funny last name and went to a different church? When did people start believing those things, and why hadn’t I noticed that either?
Here again was something Adam used to do for me. He’d read the newspapers, and he listened to men talk. He’d told me what was happening in the world. Me, I preferred losing myself in adventure stories, books about cowboys and war heroes I borrowed from the school when I could. That’s why I didn’t pay attention. Adam had always done it for me.
I couldn’t think about all this too long, though. His predicament left no time for long talks about what to do and why everything had happened. Who knew when Pete would come home, or if the cops would come around again, asking if I’d seen Adam? For all I knew, Adam might not have been careful heading home. Miller might have caught a glimpse of him.
“Get cleaned up,” I said grimly. “There’s somebody I want you to meet.”
If nothing else, I could take Adam to talk to Vincent Briggs, so the reporter could write that big story about Adam being framed.
And maybe one other thing: I’d start paying attention now to what was in those papers I delivered every day.
It took some effort to track Briggs down on a Friday night.
The newspaper was practically closed by the time we got there, and I had to find Briggs’s home address and convince Adam it was worth the time to talk to him. Adam resisted mightily, sure nobody would believe his side of the story—it was best for him, he said, to just get away as soon as he could get some more money. He looked scared, tired, and sick, and he wasn’t thinking straight.
In the nearly empty newsroom, I found a late-working copy boy, a short, thin fellow who wore wireless spectacles. He looked busy and gave me a glance that signaled he didn’t think we were worth much attention.
I turned to Adam. “Tell him we have a hot tip for Vincent Briggs and need his address.”
Adam looked at me as if I’d asked him to jump into the river.
“You’re older,” I explained. “He’ll give it to you.”
“This isn’t going to help,” Adam said, turning to leave. “Let’s go.”
“No, wait!” I took a deep breath and strode with false confidence across the newsroom toward the copy boy myself. He looked up again when he saw me approaching, but his face didn’t move. I told him I needed Briggs’s address, and spouted out something about a story Briggs was writing and how this information couldn’t wait.
The boy paused and squinted at me, but didn’t hesitate long before pulling out a paper and pencil.
“You were here the other day,” he said. “I remember you.” He wrote the address down and handed it to me. I hadn’t expected it to be so easy and smiled broadly when I showed the address to Adam, as if this feat would prove we were on the right track.
Still, Adam was reluctant. Briggs’s home, it turned out, was near the Irvington district, which was where the Peterson brother lived. Adam wanted nothing to do with Irvington, but we had no choice. We had to talk to Briggs.
It was a long silent journey through a brilliant dusk—the sky was turning a bright shade of rose, as if there’d been a silent explosion beyond the horizon. It was a good while before we stood in the midst of stone and brick mansions, with their neatly clipped bushes and glossy shuttered windows, and the light had faded by then.
“This is stupid,” Adam said, grimacing at the house as if it insulted him.
Afraid we’d come all this way just to have Adam turn tail and run, I grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the house. “Come on, you’ll like him.” At least, I hoped Adam would like him. I hoped it would all work out—this plan I was concocting as I went along. Adam’s resistance shook the small portion of confidence I was beginning to build up. Soon, we stood in front of a dark green door, where I used a brass knocker to announce our presence.
When the door finally opened, it wasn’t Briggs greeting us, but a tall man in black suit and white gloves, who imperiously asked us what we wanted. Before I had a chance to scrape up my courage and answer him, Vincent Briggs appeared in the tiled hallway beyond.
“The Matuski boy,” he said, rushing forward. “That’s all right, Devlin,” he said to the man who’d answered the door. As Devlin disappeared into the back of the house, a gaily dressed woman walked out of a nearby room.
With a feathery shawl and shiny bandeau around her short wavy hair, she looked like an actress ready to take to the stage. When she saw me and Adam at the door, she laughed and said to Briggs, “Isn’t panhandling illegal in this area, darling?”
“Go back to the party, Pauline. Newspaper business,” Briggs said.
“Why do you insist on keeping that job, Vince? You don’t need the money!” Someone from the other room called Pauline’s name, and she retreated. Briggs rolled his eyes and scowled, stepping back to usher us into a room to the right of the doorway.
It was a quiet, cold study with bookshelves all the way to the ceiling and a big polished desk in the corner. Adam and I sat in cloth-covered chairs while Vincent took his place behind the desk. Dressed in a formal black suit with white waistcoat and bowtie, he looked important—I wondered if he and his crowd were preparing to head out for the night. As soon as he sat down, he reached for a wooden box on his desk and pulled out a long, fat cigar. Closing his eyes, he drew it under his nose, and when he opened his eyes again, his face had settled into a look of contentment.
“Coffee?” he said, searching a drawer for a match.
“No, thank you, sir,” I said. “This is my brother, Adam. I said I’d get him to talk to you and—”
Puffing on his cigar, Briggs waved two things away—the smoke and my words.
“Yes, I surmised as much. Let’s get to the point, shall we?” He leaned into the desk and found some paper and a pen. I told him all I’d learned, and Briggs wrote, sometimes asking questions directly of Adam.
“Why did you see the Peterson girl on the sly?” he asked. His tone was so sharp and pointed that I thought I’d been duped and Briggs would turn on us as well.
Adam squirmed and answered in just as sharp a tone, “Well, that’s obvious, isn’t it?” He fingered the frayed collar of his jacket, as if to say, “We’re poor. The Petersons aren’t.”
“The Petersons wouldn’t want their daughter seeing a Matuski,” I added, proud of myself for my new awareness of politics.
As the questioning continued in that uncomfortable vein, I began to realize what Vincent was doing. He was making sure he understood the story. He was trying to get to the “truth” of it.
To my disappointment, Adam didn’t say much during the questioning. He spent most of the visit staring at his hands and twisting his cap through his fingers. His answers were short, and he never volunteered anything beyond what Briggs asked. But Briggs wrote it all down and assured us he’d make some calls and run the story on Monday. Before we left, he shook our hands, and I felt important.
�
��Do you need a ride home?” he asked at the door. “I could have Devlin take you.”
“No, thank you!” Adam piped up. I looked at him, surprised. Adam was forgoing a ride in a car? He must have been awfully nervous. I echoed his thanks, and we were on our way.
Adam stared at the ground while he rushed ahead of me. When I caught up, I asked what was wrong.
“I don’t like this, Carl,” he said at last. “What I need is less attention, not more of it. And how do you know what he’s going to write? You heard the questions he was asking. It could make things worse.”
“He’s a good man, Adam,” I insisted, pulling on his arm. But he shrugged away. “He’s an ‘ace reporter,’” I said, repeating the phrase I’d heard at the newspaper.
“So what?” Adam said, hunched over with his hands dug into his pockets. “He’s one of them.”
I knew what he meant. By “them,” he meant people with money, people like the Petersons, not people like us. Adam had already been wronged by their kind. No wonder he didn’t trust them. Had I made a mistake here? Was I a fool to trust people like that? Once again, I found myself wishing I didn’t have to take the lead, and that Adam would step back into that role for the both of us.
Saturday and Sunday were rough. I begged Adam to find a new hideout, but he was tired and sick, with a fever that washed his brow with sweat. Staying at Pete’s was risky because, unless Adam was quiet as a mouse, Pete could easily find him. Neither of us wanted to take a chance with what Pete would do. He might bring the cops into it, figuring all would be well if Adam gave himself up. Or he might think Adam deserved some punishment for the speakeasy visits and the drinking.
Adam was so worn out that he slept most of Saturday. I kept the door to our room closed and didn’t leave the house all day. Pete slept in most of it, too, and visited the Petrovich widow in the afternoon. When he asked why I was sticking close to home, I followed Adam, feigning illness.
Not feeling well was also my excuse for not going to Mass on Sunday. Pete went without me, which just added to the pile of wrongs I was committing. Usually the two of us went to early Low Mass while Adam ambled off to the ten o’clock High Mass alone. I used to kid Adam about that, about him needing to “get holy,” by going to the longer service, after carousing on Saturday nights.
The Case Against My Brother Page 7