An Orphan of Hell's Kitchen

by Liz Freeland

  “She doesn’t want this place to get a reputation,” Wally said.

  “What do you mean?”

  Those lips twisted. “You know.”

  “I’m a police officer and my roommate is an actress, so perhaps you mean you don’t want to rent to hardworking women. Or is it the police connection in particular that bothers you? Because I could have a few officers come talk to you about that. And while they’re here, maybe I could point out the stoop of the building and the loose masonry regulations you’re flaunting.”

  Wally backed off. “Did I ever say I had anything against the police?”

  “Did I ever say I had any intention of subletting a room?” I turned to go up the stairs.

  “No, but when some little doll comes in and asks which apartment’s yours and how much rent do you pay, that makes me wonder.”

  Some little doll? Now I really was confused, though I wasn’t about to let on to him that I didn’t know what he was talking about. “You can stop wondering. We’re not looking for a roommate.”

  “Nice girl, though,” he called after me, picking his front tooth with his pinky nail. “Cute.”

  Who was this girl, this doll? I heard laughter upstairs, and as I climbed the two flights to our apartment, it grew louder. My footsteps slowed when I reached our door. It sounded like a party. So much for my tub-and-bed plan. When I opened the door and looked in, Otto stood in the middle of the rug at the center of our cramped parlor, gesticulating broadly. Teddy and Callie were watching from the threadbare velvet sofa. To my shock, on our equally battered chair perched Anna Muldoon, hair tied back neatly in a bun with ringlets for bangs.

  What was she doing here?

  The four of them, smiling, stopped whatever it was that they’d been doing to stare at me.

  “Am I interrupting a performance?” I asked Otto.

  Callie stood. “We’re acting charades. Come join us. You can play with Otto and me.”

  “Not fair,” Teddy protested. “Louise should play on our team.”

  His team obviously meant him and Anna.

  “How do you figure that?” Callie asked.

  “We’re ahead.” He grinned at her. “First dibs.”

  Anna stood. The crown of her head barely reached Callie’s chin. “Please, Louise can take my place. I’m just a guest.”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said. “I’m going to make tea. You all keep playing.”

  Before they could protest my not joining in their fun, I crossed to the kitchen. As I put the kettle on the stove, Callie called out, “Box! No? Trunk? Oh dear. It’s something square. Portmanteau!”

  “It’s a sound-alike word,” Otto reminded her in exasperation. “How is anything supposed to rhyme with portmanteau?”

  “I can only guess from what you’re acting out. Believe me, you’re no John Drew.”

  “You could at least try,” he shot back.

  “No discussion among teammates,” Teddy objected. “It’s supposed to be a pantomime, remember?”

  Callie muttered in frustration. “Go ahead, Otto.”

  I peeked out and looked at Anna perched in our chair, grinning happily. Did Muldoon know his sister had come to town and was spending the evening in our apartment? Or had he sent her here? Sister Mary Grace had said a couple had visited the orphanage and given all those things to Ruthie’s boy. Could the couple have been Muldoon and Anna?

  But why, in that case, would Anna be here on her own?

  Why should she be here at all?

  “Carton!” Callie called out as I reentered the parlor area.

  Otto looked as if he might expire with relief. “Finally—a correct guess!”

  “No talking,” Anna and Teddy called out in unison.

  “Oh! I’ve got it!” Callie smiled. “Sydney Carton. A Tale of Two Cities.”

  “It’s a book title, not a character,” Otto said. “And it’s just the first syllable.”

  “Carton is two syllables,” Callie objected.

  “All right, two syllables. And it’s a sound-alike, don’t forget.”

  Callie put her hands on her hips. “What rhymes with Carton?”

  Teddy laughed. “That’s what you’re supposed to be guessing, nitwit.”

  She glared at him.

  Teddy and Callie at odds . . . Callie and Otto bickering . . . Anna sitting there delighted . . . Everything about this situation alarmed me.

  “Martin Chuzzlewit,” I blurted out.

  Everyone turned toward me. “That’s it!” Otto shouted with glee. “We got it!”

  “Louise isn’t on your team,” Teddy protested.

  “She just guessed the answer, so she was de facto declaring herself on our team,” Callie said. “Isn’t that right, Louise?”

  I nodded. “Who wants tea?”

  “I wouldn’t say no,” Teddy said. “To tea, or something stronger.”

  “Or do you need to leave?” I asked Anna.

  My question might have been pointed, but her hide was thick. “Oh no,” she said. “I can stay.”

  That declaration made me wary. Wally had intimated that “the doll” was moving in. I didn’t spy any baggage, but she appeared to be making herself at home.

  “Your brother knows you’re here?” I asked when Callie and then Anna followed me into the kitchen.

  She shook her head. “If I’m not there when Frank gets home, he’ll just think I’ve snuck out to the pictures.”

  Callie put her hands on her hips. “Imagine a grown woman having to sneak anywhere, especially to a picture show. It’s medieval.”

  I recalled Muldoon’s saying Anna could do as she pleased. Had he been lying for my benefit, or was Anna vying for sympathy?

  “Tell your brother the days of women being under men’s thumbs are over,” Callie said.

  Anna’s eyes brightened with a worshipful glint. “Louise says you’re in pictures. I love the movies. I go see them all.” She moved over a little as Otto sidled into the kitchen to hear what we were talking about. “Do you know Charlie Chaplin?”

  “No,” Callie said.

  Anna tried again. “Lillian Gish?”

  “Only to nod hello to.”

  Anna sighed. “That must be marvelous. I’d love to see how pictures are made.”

  “Of course, Callie really belongs on the stage,” Otto put in. “Once Jimmy and I finish Double Daisy, Broadway won’t be able to get enough of her.”

  Double Daisy was the show Otto had been working on for the past ten months, laboring over songs, and then laboring over the book with a writer friend. Now their efforts were focused on rewrites and trying to find a backer for the show.

  “Once you boys finish Double Daisy,” Callie admonished, “I’ll be ready for granny roles.”

  Otto was stung. “Art takes time, as opposed to children’s pantomimes captured on celluloid.”

  “Pantomimes!” Her hands fisted on her hips. “Another crack like that and I’ll be calling you a song scribbler.”

  “Stop bickering,” I said. “We have company.”

  “Don’t mind me,” Anna said, wide-eyed with interest.

  “I thought we were having tea,” Otto said.

  Callie’s brows arched. “Like great art, tea takes time.”

  Otto retreated.

  Callie turned her attention back to Anna. “If you’re so crazy about pictures, you should come with me someday and see how they’re made. I’m working on one now with Maurice Costello.”

  It looked as if Anna’s soul might leave her body and float straight up to the heavens. “Me, visit a movie set? I wouldn’t be in the way?”

  “Of course not. It’s not like a theater rehearsal. These movie studios are like Grand Central Station. Everyone’s in the way. But it’s fun. You’ll get a kick out of it.”

  “I’ll have to keep pinching myself to assure myself I’m not dreaming.”

  “That sensation won’t last thirty minutes, believe me. The first time you see us all with chalk all over our f
aces, you’ll see it for the ridiculous business that it is.”

  “Chalk?”

  “We use it for a makeup base sometimes, especially if the light’s bad. Chalk makes facial features stand out more on film.”

  “When can I go?” Anna asked.

  “Whenever you have time. Just let me know.”

  “How about tomorrow?”

  Pouring water from the kettle to the teapot, Callie laughed. “No one could accuse you of not being eager.”

  “Is tomorrow too soon?” Anna’s expression changed to worry. “Of course it is. And maybe you were just being polite, inviting me.”

  “No, I wasn’t,” Callie assured her. “Tomorrow will be perfect.”

  I couldn’t help asking, “Did Lieutenant Muldoon bring you into the city today?”

  “I came on my own,” Anna said.

  She and Muldoon couldn’t have been the couple at the foundling home, then. It was foolish to entertain the notion they could have been. A man who has to be nudged into buying a fruit basket wasn’t going to go shopping for teddy bears and baby rattles for orphans.

  “I’ll tell my brother all about it, of course.” Anna winked at Callie. “When my day at the motion picture set is over.”

  “Now you’ve got the idea.” The two shared a conspiratorial nod, and then Callie glanced at me and laughed. “Louise, you look like the dance chaperone who’s just seen a couple canoodling behind the punch table.”

  “Small wonder she and my brother are drawn together,” Anna said.

  I couldn’t let that stand. “I hardly ever see him.”

  “That’s exactly what he says about you. ‘I just bump into her sometimes,’ he’ll say.”

  “Detective Muldoon talks about Louise?” Callie’s voice was full of curiosity.

  “Of course, whenever her name comes up he’ll usually roll his eyes, or mutter something unflattering.”

  Oh he did, did he?

  “Just to throw me off the scent,” Anna added quickly.

  Both Teddy and Otto appeared in the doorway. “Is there really going to be tea, or are you going to sit gossiping forever?” Teddy asked.

  “I was just telling them about my brother’s well-hidden fondness for Louise.”

  “Ah—the detective.” Now Teddy was all ears. Never let it be said that women were the only sex who enjoyed gossip.

  “It’s so well hidden that half the time he seems to positively dislike me,” I pointed out.

  Anna rocked on her heels, smiling. “Time will tell.”

  “Speaking of time . . .” Otto took out his pocket watch and scowled at it. “Tea or no tea, I need to go. I still have a long night of songwriting ahead.”

  Anna sighed. “And I still have a long trip home.”

  “I’ll walk you to the subway,” Otto offered.

  “How kind,” Anna said.

  Callie cleared her throat in a way that caught Teddy’s attention. After a brief exchange of glances, he piped up, “Never mind the subway. I can take you in my car.”

  Anna gasped, thrilled. Otto’s offer was forgotten. “But I live in Brooklyn.”

  Teddy laughed. “There’s a bridge, you know—my buzz wagon will have you home in two shakes.”

  “But it’s so much trouble,” she protested.

  “Certainly not,” Teddy said with enthusiasm, really seeming to enjoy being the gallant knight, once Callie had nudged him into donning his armor.

  “And I’ll come back tomorrow and go to work with you?” Anna asked Callie.

  They arranged a time to meet.

  After the others left, Callie and I finally had tea.

  “What was Anna doing here?” I asked.

  Callie gave me a strange look. “You invited her.”

  “I did?”

  “She said you did. According to her, you insisted she come visit you.”

  I didn’t remember that. Or at least, I didn’t remember insisting.

  “She’s a cute kid,” Callie said. “It’ll be a lark taking her around the studio.” After a moment of thought over a sip of tea, she added, “I guess Brooklyn, even if it is just across the river, can’t be all that much different than Little Yawns.”

  I sputtered. “Anna’s not getting up at the crack of dawn to milk cows,” I pointed out, reminding her of just how life in her upstate village, Little Falls, had been.

  “Okay, but you weren’t here to see her eyes light up when she described coming out of the subway and being in Greenwich Village. It reminded me how I felt a few years ago.”

  “She’s a bundle of enthusiasm,” I said, without enthusiasm.

  Callie put her saucer down with a clatter. “What’s bit you this evening? You came home late, then acted as if Anna was a trespasser.”

  “I just wonder why she was here.”

  “She was bored, poor kid.”

  That’s what Muldoon had said—that Anna didn’t get to see people as much as he thought she should. At least not since the church ladies kicked her to the curb.

  How pushy did a person have to be to be ostracized by the church altar guild?

  “Wally thought she was moving in,” I said. “She asked him how much we pay in rent.”

  “Probably just curious about how much it would cost to be out on her own.” She sighed and stretched. “I feel good about this. That poor girl’s been stuck in Brooklyn under her brother’s thumb, but now I’m emancipating Anna.” She laughed. “Makes me feel like a suffragette.”

  Or an altar guild lady, I thought, unable to share her zeal for her Anna project.

  CHAPTER 7

  “That kid got me thinking,” Otto said.

  We met for our standing date at our favorite haunt, Ziggy’s, a German sausage pushcart operation. Ziggy got our business rain or shine, and judging from the lineup along the sidewalk in front of Pennsylvania Station, he got the business of half of Midtown, as well.

  The spot was not too far from my precinct house, convenient for a quick lunch, and Otto was always nostalgic for the German fare of our youth. A brat on a bun was the next best thing to a trip home for him. For me, there were no trips home, but I was still fond of the food.

  I had a special favor to ask Otto today, but he was distracted right out of the gate. This was the second time he’d brought up Anna Muldoon.

  “Kid?” I shifted from foot to foot, both from irritation and trying to warm myself. It was forty degrees out—balmy compared to last week’s temperatures, but still chilly for al fresco dining. “She’s older than us, I think.”

  “Really? She’s got this innocence about her.”

  Even after a year in the city, Otto was still green himself, so his calling someone else innocent made me smile. “You mean she’s short. She looks like a kid because she’s short.”

  I swear his eyes misted over. “Right—a half-pint bundle of enthusiasm for life. It got me thinking . . . what if we had a kid sister?”

  I blew on the fingers of my wool gloves. This was a bad idea, like drinking sea water in a lifeboat. The moisture just made the gloves all the colder when the breath froze, creating a frost coating on my fingers. But for those few seconds of warmth . . . “My mother died, so you’ll have to take up the matter of siblings with yours.”

  “I’m talking about the show. Jimmy and I could write in a little sister for Daisy—give her a real fun novelty number or dance.”

  “You said the show needed a better second act,” I said. “A little sister would just be more business, wouldn’t she?”

  “But she’d add pep.”

  “The main character has pep—both of her.”

  Double Daisy was a story about identical twins, separated at birth yet both improbably sharing the same first name, who meet up on the Riviera. One is a jewel thief, the other is a socialite. They trade places and end up switching beaux, too. Mostly it was a framework for musical numbers and a chance for the leading lady—Callie—to show off her comedic talents.

  The idea that the show needed a
nother ingénue riled me on Callie’s behalf. “You’ve got a showstopper already.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “You really think it would be a good idea to take attention away from the leading lady?”

  He shrugged. “Audiences like girls.”

  “Let ’em go to a burlesque, then.”

  He frowned at me. “What’s eating you?”

  “You just met Anna once and she’s making you rethink something you’ve been working on for months.”

  He tilted his head. “She’s your friend.”

  “I barely know her.”

  “According to her, the two of you got on like a house afire.”

  “As far as I can tell, Anna gets along with everybody, until she doesn’t.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  Before I could respond, Ziggy interrupted us. I hadn’t even noticed that we’d made it to the front of the line.

  “Wie üblich?” he asked. The usual?

  Otto and I both answered with enthusiastic jas. Though we’d both grown up speaking English, our immigrant elders had used their mother tongue to make us casually conversant. I’d also taken German in high school and could read and write the language passably well.

  It surprised me, then, when Ziggy handed over my lunch wrapped in a newspaper that shouted a headline in German, in letters as tall as mason jars: ENGLISH LIES POISON AMERICAN-GERMAN RELATIONS.

  I crooked my head, trying to read through the grease. “What paper is this?”

  “Das Auge,” Ziggy said.

  In English that translated to The Eye. Presumably the name was supposed to conjure up the image of intrepid reporters keeping a watch over Manhattan, although it struck me as sinister.

  “You can’t trust the American papers,” Ziggy said in a low voice. “They lie about us.”

  “Us?” I asked. When he nodded, I said, “I’m an American.”

  Otto tugged my elbow. “C’mon, Louise. Let’s eat in the station today.”

  I allowed myself to be yanked away, but I couldn’t quite let the subject go. “How do you like that! Bombarded with propaganda in the lunch line.”

  “It’s counter-propaganda,” Otto said. “You can’t blame Germans for wanting to remind people that they’re not bayoneting babies.”