by Liz Freeland
“I will leave you to work,” Neumann said. “I have other business.”
The moment he was gone, the tension I’d noticed in Johann relaxed. He sighed and sank into his squeaky chair. “That cold fish lowers the temperature of a room, doesn’t he?”
“Herr Neumann? He seems a little distant, but kind.”
Johann laughed bitterly. “You mean he’s tall and handsome.”
“No, I mean he gave me a job. And I’m grateful.”
“Oh yes. I’m grateful, too,” Johann said. “And I’m certainly grateful he hired you.”
For the next hours, I was the traveler who’d washed up on Johann’s deserted island. Anyone would think he’d spent decades alone in this cavernous pile of paper debris. He told me all about his family. He was from Pittsburgh. We shared a few laughs at the expense of our Pennsylvania hometowns, and then he went on to regale me with his spotty academic history, culminating with his leaving college early—“No one there appreciated originality”—from which I extrapolated that he’d flunked out. He produced a tin of cookies from his desk and talked about the great novel he’d begun to write but abandoned. Then he demonstrated a new dance called the bunny hug and showed me three card tricks.
No wonder Holger wanted to keep an eye on him. I barely managed to do any work, and Johann did even less. He viewed the role of editor mainly as a sort of impresario. Throughout the afternoon, several men stopped by, usually just to hand him sheets of paper and then shuffle out again, sometimes with as little as a few dollars in their pockets for their trouble. He would glance over the work and drop the handwritten pages into my basket to be typed.
Of these visitors, one man stood out. He was older, grizzled in appearance, and wore a boat captain’s cap and black pea coat. Johann called him Skipper, but he said it almost laughingly. The man stayed just long enough for Johann to open one of the drawers of his desk with a key and hand over an envelope he had stored there. The Skipper took the envelope and left with very few words.
“Does that man have a boat?” I asked, pecking at the unfamiliar keys of the German typewriter.
“He lives on one. A houseboat, he calls it.”
“Did he bring you pages for me to type?”
Johann’s lips turned down. “Not today. He just wanted paying off.”
That explained why the envelope had been in a locked drawer. But the envelope had appeared thick—how much money could Johann have owed him? Was this what Holger had wanted me to look out for? I tried to concentrate on my typing so I wouldn’t appear too nosy.
The articles all seemed like boilerplate pro-German interpretations of war news, just as I’d seen in the paper the two times I’d had the misfortune to read a copy.
“On Friday our typesetter will arrive,” Johann said after I handed him a typed page. “We can only afford to pay him for two days a week.” He frowned at me. “Can you set type, by any chance?”
“No.”
He shrugged fatalistically. “No—that would be too lucky. I do a little when I can, but when is there ever time?”
“I could learn. Is there a book about typesetting?” Perhaps I could acquire a skill while I was here. Something to fall back on when the NYPD found out what I was up to and fired me.
“No need to go berserk on your first day,” he said.
Nevertheless, I went to investigate the shelves for information on typesetting, using my search as a pretext for more snooping. When I looked back a few moments later, Johann’s head was on his desk blotter and he was snoring lightly. I glanced through all the cabinets, too, which were crammed with old newspapers, correspondence, and, in the case of one file drawer, food wrappers. I detected nothing suspicious.
Like Jack edging around the sleeping giant, I maneuvered around Johann’s slumped-over body and pulled the handle of his desk’s file drawer, the one he’d unlocked when Skipper came around. Before I knew what was happening, a hand darted out and clamped around my wrist.
“What are you doing?” The tone of his voice was sharper than it had been.
“I was hungry,” I blurted out. “I was going to sneak another cookie.”
His grip relaxed and he let go of my arm. “No need to sneak. And they’re not in that drawer anyway.” He smiled at me. “You’re not very observant, are you?”
“I’m afraid not. I’m sorry, I should have asked, but I didn’t want to disturb your nap.”
“I wasn’t napping,” he said defensively. “I was thinking. Creative people have to think.”
I’d never heard a man snore while awake, no matter how creative he was being, but I let that pass. He produced the cookie tin again and I took one. He grabbed two. “They’re not bad once you get used to them, are they?”
They weren’t Bernice’s, but I ate mine gratefully as I leaned my hip on his desk. He looked me up and down. “How did you meet Holger?”
“In the line of a bratwurst cart by Pennsylvania Station. When he discovered I had no job, he insisted on buying my lunch.”
He snapped his fingers. “Ziggy’s! I knew I’d seen you somewhere.”
“You’ve been there?” I asked, dreading what might come next.
“I was there just the other day.” His eyes narrowed. “Were you alone?”
I made a show of thinking it over. “I might have been there with my cousin, Otto . . . but I don’t remember seeing you. As you said, I’m not very observant.”
“I was there with Holger. He must have gone back.” He shook his head. “He’s a fast worker.”
“I’m surprised Holger’s not in the war,” I said, wanting to change the subject.
“He says he’s doing something just as important here.”
Something just as important. It made it seem as though Holger expected the fighting in Europe to be won by tactics carried out here in America. Could the opinion of Das Auge readers really be so vital?
By the time Johann informed me it was time to go home, I was unsure whether I would return the next day. As curious as the goings-on at Das Auge were, I’d seen nothing at all to connect either of these two to Ruthie’s death. The workings of a propaganda paper weren’t worth jeopardizing my future in the NYPD over.
“Good night,” I told Johann.
“Night, Leisl.” He winked at me as he locked the door. “It sure has been nice having someone else around.”
“Thanks. Do you live nearby?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Downtown. You?”
“The same.”
“Then we can go down together.”
I didn’t want Johann to know where I lived. “That would be nice, but I’ve got a little shopping to do close by.”
He looked disappointed. “Of course. Good night.”
I watched him walk toward the corner to catch the Second Avenue El before I turned in the opposite direction. I was far from home, though not so far from my aunt’s. A long, brisk stroll would do me good, I decided, so I went to First Avenue to avoid walking in the shadow of the elevated train tracks. I liked the neighborhood with all its German shops, which reminded me of parts of Altoona. I’d have to bring Otto here.
Except that I couldn’t do that now, without risking Johann or Holger seeing me. The drawback of living a double life.
At Eightieth, I leaned against a building on the side street to retie the lace on my boot and looked furtively around me for signs of Holger. Given his suspicious nature, I wouldn’t have put it past him to have me watched. Convinced all was clear, I straightened again and continued on.
Within moments, a hand clamped down on my shoulder. “Stop right there.”
My fight instinct kicked in. I pivoted back, ready to swing my pocketbook at the man if he didn’t let go of me. He wore a dark blue double-breasted wool coat and a black hat, and had just a bit of red hair showing at his nape and on the sides. My heart thumped. Was this one of Cain’s men? He had a square jaw and an unsmiling countenance, but something about his freckled face didn’t fit my idea of a hoodlum. �
��What is this?” I asked.
“This is you coming with us, miss.”
I drew back, shrugging my shoulder out from under that hand. “Why should I? You’re not the police.”
“No, we’re not.” A long black car pulled up to the curb and another man with a steely, determined expression got out and opened the back door. I recognized the man I’d let pass me in Ziggy’s line, who’d been leaning against the lamppost while I talked to Neumann.
The red-haired man nodded at the car. “You’d better come along.”
I dug my heels into the pavement. “I’m a policewoman. Officer Louise Faulk, NYPD.”
“Got a badge?” he asked.
I didn’t, as luck would have it. I’d been told always to carry it, but I’d gotten out of the habit when I was going around with Gerald. I hadn’t wanted to risk his getting a glimpse of it and realizing I wasn’t who I said I was. “Not on me. But if you’ll just take me to my flat—”
He nudged me toward the car. “Right now we need to ask you a few questions.”
“If I’m being arrested, I want to see your badge.” I twisted away from him. “If you have one.”
With the straightest of faces, he pulled out a silver badge in the shape of a star. The blue inlaid lettering read United States Secret Service. My insides twisted into a knot. What had I gotten myself into?
CHAPTER 18
“You have no right to kidnap me,” I said.
The red-haired man sitting next to me smiled and looked at the driver. “Ever heard of a right to kidnap, Fred?”
“Nope. Kidnapping’s a crime, last I heard.”
They shared a laugh.
Wiseacres. “Now I know why Gallagher and Shean busted up,” I said. “They must’ve heard you two comedy geniuses were on the horizon.”
The red-headed one got a chuckle out of that. “Halloran and Luft—the great comic double act.”
“Oh, you have names?” I asked.
My neighbor in the backseat nodded. “I’m Operative Halloran, and my partner is Operative Luft.”
The driver looked back at me and smiled. As if we were all going on a picnic.
“Operatives?” I asked. “Don’t you have ranks in the Secret Service?”
“Only higher up.”
“Then how can I tell who’s the senior officer in charge?”
“I am,” they said in unison.
The car passed within a stone’s throw of the NYPD’s Centre Street Headquarters. “You can drop me off right there,” I said, nodding toward the building with its great domed clock tower. “Captain Percival Smith works there—he interviewed me for my position last year.”
“Captain Percival Smith,” Halloran repeated, though the car didn’t stop. Or even slow down. “Wonder what he’ll make of all this.”
I wondered too, and shuddered at the memory of the beak-nosed, irascible Captain Smith. Before getting the brass involved, it might be wise to ferret out how much trouble I was in. The car drove a dozen more blocks, to an office building on Chambers Street, not far from City Hall.
There, I was escorted to a room with shades drawn and left sitting on my own for an hour. I knew this tactic: letting the suspect stew alone in worry until they were ready to blurt out anything to regain their freedom. Though I understood what the Secret Service men were up to, the strategy was still effective. There was nothing in the room to focus on—just a picture of Woodrow Wilson hanging in the middle of an otherwise bare wall. I looked at the long, solemn face of the man who was pledging to keep us out of war. Nice thought, yet I had the unsettling feeling I was now under attack from my own country.
When next I saw Operative Halloran, I didn’t even wait till he was seated before asking, “Why would the Secret Service be interested in me? Isn’t your job to look into counterfeiters?”
“Usually,” he said.
“And to guard the president.” A terrible thought occurred to me. “Is someone at Das Auge planning to assassinate President Wilson?”
His eyes widened in alarm. “Are they?”
“I’m a police officer, not an expert on threats to the president. And the NYPD doesn’t look lightly on their officers being abducted off the streets.”
Halloran sat. Luft, joining us, remained silent and stayed on his feet, pacing from one side of the room to the other. I understood this, too, as an attempt to keep me off balance.
“The government of the United States of America doesn’t look lightly on its citizens colluding with foreigners we suspect of conspiring against our nation,” Halloran said.
My blood went cold. What he was describing sounded like treason. They executed traitors. “Y-you must be joking. I’ve done nothing except work for a day—not even an entire day—at a newspaper.”
A reddish-brown eyebrow jutted upward. “You said you were a police officer.”
I swallowed. “It’s a little hard to explain . . .”
Nevertheless, I tried to make the situation as clear as I could, starting back with the discovery of Ruthie’s body in the bathtub.
When I finished, the two men looked incredulous. “You took it upon yourself to investigate a man you believe—for reasons no one else credits—was responsible for the murder of a prostitute who actually committed suicide?” Luft asked.
“Allegedly committed suicide,” I corrected.
“So none of your colleagues knew what you intended to do today?”
“No, because I wasn’t sure it would amount to anything. I didn’t expect the man in the bratwurst line would take me into his confidence, much less give me a job. Would you?”
“No,” Halloran said, “but I don’t have your figure.”
Oh brother. “I didn’t even tell my roommate where I was going today,” I said, “and she’s my best friend.”
“Look here, Miss Faulk—”
“Officer Faulk,” I corrected, still holding out hope that a police officer stood a better chance of surviving whatever was happening to me than a mere civilian would.
“All right, Officer Faulk. We want to believe you’re not involved in any illegal activity. But you need to tell us what you know about the offices of Das Auge.”
“Is Johann Schmidt plotting against our government?” I asked, unable to swallow back my curiosity. “What made you watch him? He must have been acting suspiciously.”
“It’s actually the newspaper itself we’re curious about. We found a scrap of paper and the address of Das Auge on the person of a German sailor who was picked up with a forged document. We’ve been following Holger Neumann, the owner, until today, when we saw the two of you seemed to be meeting clandestinely.”
“I met him clandestinely, because of my suspicions about the matter I just told you about,” I said. “He knew nothing about me. He bought me lunch and offered me a job—he wanted me to keep an eye on Johann Schmidt, who works at Das Auge.”
I told them about the office, the locked drawer, and the furtive handovers of envelopes. “It might be Schmidt you should be watching. Even Neumann wants to keep an eye on him. For that matter, if you were curious, why didn’t you send someone undercover?”
A cloud traveled across Halloran’s expression. “We don’t have the personnel right now to cover every report of suspicious activity. Anyway, we had no way of knowing the newspaper was looking for help.”
“We’d only recently received information about Neumann,” Luft added.
“If you don’t have the men,” I asked, “who’s giving you information?”
“Up till now, our country hasn’t had much use for international espionage,” Halloran said. “The British, for instance, have more people in New York looking into suspicious activity among foreigners than we do.”
I was not only surprised by the information, but astonished that he was sharing it with me. Was that a strategy, too?
How could I be sure they were telling me the truth about anything?
He saw my skepticism. “The Europeans are accustomed to spying on eac
h other. We Americans have some catching up to do.”
“What can you tell us about Schmidt?” Luft asked.
I relayed to him every detail I could remember from that day, right down to the bunny hug and the strange way Johann had reacted when I’d tried the wrong drawer to find the cookie tin. I again mentioned the envelope that had come from that door—the one he’d handed to the Skipper as “payment.”
Halloran’s eyes narrowed. “And that was the only drawer you came across that was locked?”
I nodded. “He could have anything in there. Dodgy financial records, or evidence of something else incriminating . . . or it might just be naughty pictures.”
“Might be.” Halloran stroked his chin.
His obvious suspicions stoked my own. Despite how nervous I was, it was almost a joy to finally come across someone who was taking this situation as seriously as I did, albeit for different reasons. They were looking into document forgery, but I was trying to find a connection between passports and a suspicious death. “You need to be careful,” I said, considering another angle. “Neumann wasn’t too specific about what his suspicions of Johann were. He might even think Johann’s working for you.”
Halloran looked doubtful. “Nothing we’ve done so far should have drawn anyone’s attention.”
“Then it would be unwise to take any action that would put them even more on guard.” At his questioning look, I elaborated. “For instance, if a woman who worked at the offices of Das Auge for a day were to suddenly disappear, wouldn’t that raise suspicions?”
* * *
By the time help arrived, I was fairly certain I’d won over Halloran. I at least felt the firing squad, electric chair, or hangman’s noose might be avoided. On the other hand, I had time to float plenty of doubts about my future in the NYPD. My outlook became even gloomier when the door opened and Captain Percival Smith appeared, looking more imperious and irritable than ever. I hadn’t seen him since my initial interview after passing the police exam. I shot to my feet.
Percival Smith was the tallest man in the room, slender and straight with an aristocratic way of carrying himself. His iron-gray hair was still thick, and he sported a full mustache under his beaky nose. Stopping just inside the door, he squinted at me for a moment.