He raised a brow, but he did as I had asked.
Now I had to figure out where to stand. There were lots of people walking past, but they were all Italians. I pulled my hat down a bit lower in order to hide my face. A mistake. I had to be able to see.
But not be seen.
I didn’t really fit in, even in my skirt and blouse. And no one else was just standing around, and definitely not beside the speakeasy. Those who came slipped down the stairs and disappeared inside quick as you could say . . . well . . . quick!
I looked up the street and then down. There wasn’t any place to hide. I glanced at my watch, but it wasn’t there. I’d forgotten to put it on. And that man might be here any minute!
Maybe I could go inside the grocery. It was on the corner. If I stood in just the right place, I might be able to see the street and the entrance to the speakeasy. I stepped across the alley and went into the store.
A man was standing near the door. He smiled.
I smiled back. It smelled heavenly. Like a giant bowl full of . . . something really good. An old woman was stirring a pot that sat on a stove against the back wall. My, but there were an awful lot of vegetables. And fruit. Fruits. Was it fruit or fruits? Fruit and vegetables or fruits and vegetables? I’m sure I ought to have learned that somewhere. Fruit or fruits? I suppose . . . they served a fruit salad at the club, not a fruits salad. So there was an awful lot of fruit in the grocery. Some very nice-looking strawberries. I reached a hand toward a small basket filled with them.
The man stepped from the corner and lifted it for me. “You would like?”
“No. No, thank you. I’m just looking.”
Over across the way were some gorgeously shiny grapes. I picked a bunch up.
He stepped over and held out his hand like a teacher waiting for an examination booklet.
I put them into it.
“Not this one.” He put it back and picked up another bunch. “You like this one.”
They both looked the same to me. I nodded though. It didn’t seem like he understood I didn’t want to buy anything. I pointed toward the window at the corner.
“You want one of those?” He went to stand beside a crate filled with green clumpy things that looked like they had warts on them.
No. I didn’t. At least . . . I didn’t think I did. I didn’t know what they were. I wished he would just leave me alone. I smiled and then walked past him toward the window. Standing there, right in the corner, I could see the entrance to the speakeasy. Perfect! Now I just had to wait for someone who seemed like he was waiting for someone. And then I’d know who one of those people on the telephone was and who to keep a lookout for when I was around Griff. Although . . . I still wouldn’t know his name. But I knew his telephone number, and when I went to work tomorrow I could look it up.
As I stood there, a tall, large man with a cleft chin walked by. If the man I was looking for was anything like him, then I didn’t think I needed to know his name. At all. I’d surely never forget what he looked like. Why, if his hair were darker and he were more clean-shaven and dressed in a suit instead of a sweater . . . if he didn’t have that cleft in his chin and his eyebrows were thicker, then he’d look just like the actor Tony Moreno! I thought he might be the telephone man, but he went right on past the speakeasy and never once turned around.
My, but whatever was cooking smelled good!
I glanced over my shoulder toward the stove. The old woman was still stirring that pot. Someone had come in and looked as if they were buying a bowl of it. Opening up my pocketbook, I collected the change from the remainder of the previous week’s allowance, which had fallen to the bottom as I kept an eye on the window. Eighty-three cents.
I wondered . . . was it enough to buy a bowl?
A couple of men sauntered past. I let the change fall back into the pocketbook. Maybe later I’d buy a bowl. Right now I had to keep an eye on the speakeasy. And I would have, except at that moment a young woman walked over.
“You are fine?”
I glanced over at her and nodded.
“I help you?”
I shook my head, wishing she’d just go away.
“You want fruit? Vegetable?”
Maybe . . . I reached back into my pocketbook for the change and then handed it to her. “Is it enough for some of that . . . a bowl of . . . ?” I gestured toward the stove with my chin.
“Ah! You want minestrone?”
“Yes.” If it would keep her from distracting me.
Her smile lit up her face making her look almost beautiful. “Mama make the best. I bring you.”
She took the coins from me, and I turned back toward the window. There was someone loitering by the stairs now, but he wasn’t very suspicious-looking. He seemed more like a gardener than a murderer in his coveralls and his dirty cap. In the movies all the bad guys wore fedoras and suits, inside which they always seemed to hide their guns. This man didn’t look as if he could hide anything at all, he was that skinny.
He started down the stairs several times, but he always turned around and came up again.
“Take.” The woman was holding a bowl out to me with both hands.
“Thank you.” I dipped the spoon in and took a taste. It was even better than it smelled.
“You like.” It wasn’t a question but it deserved an answer.
“Yes.”
“Bene.” She nodded and then turned and stood next to me. “You watch someone?”
I nodded.
“Come from there?” She pointed toward the speakeasy.
“Yes.”
“Not good people. Lots of smiles. Lots of laughs. From here.” She pointed to her mouth. “Not from here.” She pointed to her heart.
She seemed rather smart for a foreigner. The man was still out there, and by the time I had finished the soup he hadn’t left. Was he the telephone man? I wished I’d remembered my watch. It seemed like I’d been inside the grocery for a while, but there was no way to be sure. Shadows had begun to devour the stairway to the speakeasy—it must be getting late.
The woman whisked the empty bowl from my hands and then took it back to the stove. She conferred with the man who’d tried to make me buy things and then came back. “I’m sorry. You leave now.”
“Not yet.” I wanted to wait a few more minutes to see if anyone else came.
“You leave now. We close.”
Oh. “Oh! I’m sorry. You’re closing.”
“Sì.”
“Uh . . . well . . . thank you.”
She was standing, hands folded atop her apron. Waiting.
“I guess I’ll just . . . I’ll go now.”
“Grazie.”
She followed me to the door, then locked it right behind me.
As I stepped out from under the awning, the man in front of the speakeasy looked at me and then his gaze drifted onward. Was it him or not?
I guessed there was only one way to find out. I walked in his direction, and when I got to the speakeasy, I stopped. And then I tried my very best to be Janie. “Excuse me. Do you have the time?”
He’d stepped down onto the stairway, which led to the basement entrance. Squinting up at me, he pulled a watch from his pocket. “Sure.”
Sure? Sure didn’t tell me anything. I had to get him to say pictures. Or royal!
“It’s seven.”
That late? “It’s a very nice evening.”
“Yeah.” He eyed me and then stepped up and out of the way. “You going in?”
“Me? No. I don’t think so.” I didn’t want to, but how could I get him to say those words? “Why? Are you?”
“Don’t know. I’m waiting for someone.”
Maybe he was waiting for me!
He squinted up at me. “Some doll. Say, you don’t need any help with pitchers, do you?”
“Pitchers?” It was him. I tried not to smile. “I don’t think so.”
“Forget it. Forget I mentioned it. I guess she’s not coming.”
I backed away
toward the alley, where I hoped the car was still waiting. “Thank you. For the time.”
He gave me a wave as if to say it was nothing. But he’d given me something after all. An up-close look at his face.
20
Oh, I wish I could shimmy like my sister Kate.” I did a quick dance around the Phillipses’ parlor as I hummed the song later that evening. I’d come over to make sure Griff didn’t go out anywhere. “She shimmies like a jelly on a plate . . .” I’d decided to do a dance for my auditions in Hollywood, as well as a reading. I hadn’t decided on a scene yet, though. In fact, I was thinking I might write a scene for myself. I wanted something that would let me use my talent for crying real tears.
I backed up to the divan in order to try the dance again.
But then I paused. The divan. A divan might be just the thing. . . . I slipped out of my shoes, stepped over the arm, and arranged myself on top of the cushions in a languid pose. Or maybe . . . I put my wrist up to my forehead. That was better. I would look ever so much more pitiful that way. Maybe I could pretend to be an invalid. I almost started crying at the thought of it: my whole life ahead of me and nowhere to go. How terrible! I nearly started crying real tears for real. But maybe I shouldn’t be quite so pitiful after all. Maybe . . . maybe I could just pretend to be pretending to be an invalid. I could vamp it up a bit in that case. I turned onto my side and put my palm beneath my chin. Tried fluttering my eyelashes. That was better. I could be helpless and seductive that way.
“Would you please stop, Ellis?”
I looked up to find Griff watching me. But instead of the frown I expected, he was looking at me rather . . . strangely.
“Sorry.”
“It’s just . . . I would much rather take you out somewhere than be stuck in here going through these numbers.”
“Can I do something?” Besides trying to keep him from being murdered?
“No. Yes . . . maybe.”
Which was it? I got to my feet and did another shimmy while I waited for him to decide.
He slammed the book shut and threw down his pencil. It hit the tabletop, then vaulted through the air, landing tip first on the carpet.
I did the Charleston over to the pencil and picked it up. Then I did a foxtrot over to the table and set it down in front of him.
He sighed as he picked it up. “I just wonder if this is really worth it.”
I dropped into a chair beside him.
“One of the fellows on the commission presented his evidence yesterday to try to get an arrest warrant for one of the mayor’s assistants. We had everything we needed—more than we needed—and the judge wouldn’t even read it. Refused to look at it. So does it really matter if I can prove what the mayor’s done? The police and the judges and the councilmen are all on his side.”
I thought about all those people I’d seen at the speakeasy drinking liquor, breaking the law, and loving every minute of it. “Maybe people are tired of being told what to do and what to think all the time. Maybe the laws don’t make any sense.”
“But how can it make sense to appoint liars to the government and cheats to the state bench? It’s as if . . . right has become wrong and wrong has become right.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“It is that bad. It’s worse. Why bother to have laws at all?”
“If that’s the way you feel, then of course your work is worth it.” I pulled the book from his hand, opened it back up, and shoved it under his long face. “If people keep electing the crooks, then you have to tell them why they ought to stop. If you think it makes a difference, then show people why.”
“You agree with me, don’t you?”
“I think I do.” I did, didn’t I? “It’s just that . . . you can’t really force people to do what you want them to, can you? Even if it is for their own good.” The talk of laws and morality was just plain dull, and it looked as if it was depressing as well. At least to Griff. “So . . . what are your plans for the summer? Other than working with all these numbers?”
“I don’t really have any.”
“None?” But those men had been clear about doing whatever it was they had planned out in the open in order to send a message. What had they said? . . . “In plain sight of everybody so there’s no mistake about it.” So they weren’t just going to drive up here to Beacon Hill and kidnap him. They were going to do something in front of a bunch of people. That meant they had to know something about Griff’s plans, which I didn’t. “What about . . . the Fourth of July?”
He shrugged.
“You’re not doing anything this summer?”
He tapped his pencil against the table. “I get to cut the ribbon at the hospital opening next week.”
That didn’t sound very exciting. “Why?”
He shrugged. “It’s a memorial for Mother.”
That wasn’t any grand thing that would have lots of people attending. “What else are you doing?”
“Working. And sleeping. And pretty soon I’ll start football practice.”
Football practice and cutting hospital ribbons? “There has to be something else.”
“Why?”
“Because . . .” Because? “Because . . . you’re Prince Phillips for goodness’ sake! And the captain of the football team ought to be out more.” Or not! I wasn’t supposed to be encouraging his going out. That would only make it easier for him to be murdered. Normally I’d be pleased he was so boring, except that he had to be doing something out where everyone could see him, because apparently that was the plan. Otherwise, I’d been mistaken about everything.
As I left Central the next evening, Jack was waiting on the sidewalk, which was perfect because I was hoping maybe I could slip the name James McDonnell of Tremont-4577 into our conversation. That was the man who belonged to the telephone number, and he lived just a couple blocks up on Milford Street.
“I thought we could go back to the North End this evening.” He started off down the sidewalk in the direction of the elevated railway station.
The North End? I caught up with him. “I thought you didn’t want to be seen with me.”
He glanced over at me. “I changed my mind.”
“What if I have other plans?” Plans that didn’t include falling-down drunks and billowing clouds of cigarette smoke?
“Do you?”
“No, but—”
“Then let’s go.”
“How come we always do what you want to do?”
“Because I’m paying, and I’m supposed to keep an eye on you. And besides, a fellow deserves to have a drink now and then. And . . . I’m a little bit worried about things.”
I stopped walking.
It took him a few steps to realize I wasn’t beside him. Once he did, he turned around. “You’re not coming?”
“I can’t stay past eight.”
“But the party doesn’t even start till ten, baby!”
“The last time, I had to sneak back into the house. And . . . I don’t want my mother to worry.” Because she would worry if she ever found out.
He raised his hands. “Fine.”
Forty minutes later, I was regretting my decision. It had taken some quick thinking to send the car back home without Jack realizing what I was doing, and now that we were at the speakeasy, there hadn’t been even one minute when I didn’t have to yell to be heard. It was no good trying to carry on a conversation with him. “Tell me again why we’re here.”
“To have a good time.” He yelled the words at me.
A waiter brought Jack a coffee cup, and he downed whatever was in it. Then he leaned back against his chair and loosened his necktie. What was it about liquor that made everyone want to part with their clothing? It didn’t seem decent.
“Ellis!”
I moved my chair closer to Jack’s and tried to hide behind those big, broad shoulders of his.
“Yoo-hoo! Ellis Eton!”
Jack poked my arm with his elbow. “Looks like your friend’s here again
.”
Sounded like it too.
“Ellis!” Irene lunged forward and tried to kiss my cheek. She missed. But she did manage to splash whatever she was drinking all over the front of my dress. And of course it had to be a deep golden amber color.
“Sorry.” She pulled a napkin from the table and tried to blot it up, but only succeeded in stumbling against the table, sending Jack’s cup skidding to the floor. “Sorry.” Bending to reach for it, she over-stretched and then collapsed, giggling, onto the floor.
I got up and reached down to lend her a hand.
She grasped it and then pulled me right down on top of her.
“Irene!”
“Sorry. Sorry, sorry, sorry.” She snickered as she tried to push me away.
I rolled off her and pushed to my feet, giving her my hand.
She reached right past it, then tried again. “Stop moving, Ellis.”
“I’m not!”
Ignoring my offer of help, she got on all fours and then grasped at the back of my chair and pulled herself up. She started to leave, but couldn’t seem to make her feet go in the right direction.
“Honestly, you shouldn’t drink so much! Do you want some help?”
She tried to brush my hand from her arm, but she missed again and ended up pawing at the air beside it. “Don’t need any help, thank you.”
“Are you all right?”
“Fine. Fine as a—fit as a—” Some hairs had gotten caught in her lipstick, and she tried to blow them away. It didn’t work. She finally took an angry swipe at them. “I’m fine.”
She didn’t seem to be, but she’d brushed off all my offers of help and I didn’t want to risk her convincing Jack I really was Ellis Eton. I watched her lurch from table to table until she disappeared into the crowd.
21
Later, as I was headed toward the entrance, I ran into Irene again. She was standing by the door, her face an alarming shade of gray.
“Irene? Are you okay?”
“Ellis?” Her eyes nearly rolled back into her head as she looked at me.
I put an arm around her shoulders as she swayed.
“I don’t—don’t feel—Ellis? My head’s not right.” Her knees buckled as I tried to keep her on her feet.
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