“What?”
“That these women being hassled by the men are giving me a hard time.”
“Yeah, it probably is.” Sue drained the rest of her beer. “You must have got a pretty good education out there on the farm.”
“My mom taught me a few things.” Cecelia was glad the waiter appeared with her glass of milk and another beer for Sue.
Sue ordered for both of them. “Give me my usual and I think my friend would like the smoked bass and mashed potatoes. And make sure to use the good lettuce for her salad. Her baby needs its vitamins.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Cecelia asked, “Do you mind if I ask you something?”
“Ask away.”
“How is it that everyone here knows you?”
“Oh, that. I did some work for this place back in the ‘20s.”
“You were a bootlegger?”
“Sure. What, you think a woman shouldn’t be?”
“No, it’s just I didn’t peg you as the criminal type.”
“Criminal? It was a stupid law to begin with. No fucking government should try to tell me what I can drink.”
Cecelia smiled at this. During Prohibition she hadn’t been a rumrunner, but she had done some odd jobs for Capone and a few other heavyweights. She’d spent plenty of time in restaurants like this that had become speakeasies. Her flapper dress hadn’t left much room to conceal her knives, but she’d managed to work around the problem. Those had been the days.
“You should have seen this place back then. Everyone getting skunked on overpriced hooch. We used to jitterbug until we passed out.”
Cecelia tried to imagine Sue in a flapper dress as she danced madly on the floor. That didn’t seem to fit with the burly old woman in front of her. “That’s hard to imagine.”
“I was young once, believe it or not. Back then men used to actually look at me.”
Cecelia tried unsuccessfully to suppress a giggle at this. “I’m sorry.”
“For your information, I fucked Mr. Rudy Valentino in the men’s room. You look in the stall and you can still see the scratch marks.”
“That’s amazing.”
“Yeah, he asked me to marry him, but I didn’t want to tie myself down.” Sue sighed and then took a drink from her mug. “I wish I had.”
“Didn’t you ever get married?”
“Me? God, no. Couldn’t have stood that. Waking up to the same man everyday.” Despite the bravado, Cecelia saw a glimmer of sadness in Sue’s green eyes. She was hiding something.
The entrees arrived to spoil the moment. Cecelia focused on eating the fish, though she still wasn’t overly hungry. Per Sue’s request, the lettuce in the salad looked as if it had come straight from the field, without a single brown spot. As she chewed on a piece of the lettuce, she asked, “Didn’t you ever want to get married?”
“Maybe for a few minutes. Then I came to my senses.” Sue sawed into a steak as thick as Cecelia’s arm.
“I’m planning to get married.” She put a hand to her stomach. “After his father gets home from the war.” She didn’t know if this was really true, but it sounded like something Maria might say. And if Sue spread the story around the plant, it might help her credibility with Gert and the others.
“You want a boy?”
“I don’t really care. Just a healthy baby.” That was all she’d wanted back in France, but she’d been denied even that. She cried as she remembered how she’d woke up to find her baby was dead. She’d never even gotten the chance to see the boy, who had been buried in a pauper’s grave with no name.
Sue leaned across the table to pat her shoulder. “It’s all right. I’m sorry I brought it up.”
Cecelia waved the hand away and dabbed at her eyes with a napkin. “I’ll be fine. I need to use the bathroom.” As she staggered off towards the bathroom, she hated herself for acting like this. She had started to act like a naïve little girl again. She was a grown woman, a deadly assassin who’d killed the population of a small town by now. She shouldn’t be here, not when she had a job to do: she had to find out if Emma Earl had come here as well and locate Sylvia Joubert to confirm the archivist’s story.
The latter proved to be easy enough. She merely went over to a bank of phones in one corner and dialed the operator. “I’d like the address for Sylvia Joubert,” she said. A minute later she had it. “Thank you, operator. You’ve been very helpful.”
On her way out, she palmed a steak knife from off a table. It wouldn’t be nearly as good as her usual daggers, but it would be good enough to make that accursed witch bleed.
***
The cab ride would put a dent in the money Cecelia had left from Mama Costopolous, but she didn’t care. During the ride, she ran through the techniques the Headmistress had taught her to clear her mind of doubt and nerves. This didn’t entirely work, as she still felt a nervous flutter, though she attributed this to the baby.
She tried to come up with something like a plan. The organization had files on all known witches and Cecelia had glanced at those of the Joubert sisters briefly. All she could remember was that they had also grown up in France, though about three centuries before and three hundred miles south of her. At one time there had been three of them, but Sophie Joubert had died in America during the Salem witch trials. Of the other two, she knew that Agnes was the older one who worked as a seamstress. Sylvia, the younger one, swam in Cecelia’s circles; she sold guns to sides she believed worked for a noble cause.
To kill Sylvia Joubert would not be easy. The woman might be over four hundred years old, but as a witch she could keep herself young and beautiful—and strong. And as someone who dealt weapons, she was bound to have a few around the house, which really made the idea of slitting her throat with a steak knife seem laughable.
She’d gone in with far less and done the job. She’d once killed a prince in the Netherlands with nothing more than a pillow while they fucked. At first he’d thought she was being kinky; by the time he realized his mistake, it was too late. She’d taken the pillow as a souvenir; it still resided in a safe house in Prague.
The beginnings of a plan came to her when the cabbie looked back at her in the mirror and asked, “Someone been giving you a rough time tonight?” To the cabbie, Sue Johnson, and everyone else she was poor, sad little Maria Costopolous. She was the lonely peasant girl in the big city. With her big stomach and slight body, she was a weak, helpless creature who needed to rely on the kindness of strangers.
“I’ll be all right once I get to my grandma’s house. Thank you for asking.”
The cabbie was so smitten that he refused to take her money. She tried to insist, which only made him more insistent not to accept it. “I wouldn’t feel right about taking money from a girl like you.”
“Oh, thank you so much.” There wasn’t a glass divider, so she could lean over the seat to give him a peck on the cheek. “You’re very kind.”
He tipped his cap to her as he drove away, which left her in front of an old colonial house. From the look of it, the house had actually been built in colonial times. She looked for a way to climb up the house, before she remembered she didn’t have the arm strength to attempt that in this body.
Instead, she went up the steps to the front door. A shingle next to the mailbox read, “Agnes Chiostro, Seamstress.” At least that confirmed she had the right house. From what she’d seen in the files, the Joubert sisters lived together, though Agnes kept her married name. Witches weren’t supposed to marry, nor were they supposed to have children either; apparently the Jouberts were very wicked witches indeed.
The homemade dress she wore didn’t leave much to the imagination at this point, so Cecelia had to tuck the steak knife into her purse. She’d already figured out how to work around this handicap. She would start to cry as she had at Malloy’s and then reach into the purse as if for a tissue. When Sylvia Joubert tried to comfort her, Cecelia would take the knife out, slit the bitch’s throat, and then watch her bleed to
death. A little messy, but simple enough. With a nod to reassure herself, she knocked on the door.
The woman who answered could not be Sylvia. She was a little old woman in an unfashionable print dress and sweater, with a tape measure around her neck and pins stuck in her gray bun. Clearly this was Agnes the seamstress. Agnes the witch, she reminded herself.
Agnes Chiostro’s eyes narrowed for a moment before her face lit up in a smile. “Hello, dear. Is there something I can help you with?”
“I’m looking for Sylvia Joubert. Does she live here?”
“Yes, she does—usually.”
“Usually?”
“Would you like to come inside, dear? I’ve got a fresh pot of tea on the stove.”
“That would be nice.” She tried not to bristle as the old witch put a hand on Cecelia’s back to guide her into the house. Inside, Cecelia found a parlor reminiscent of the one at the safe house beneath the Second Life bookstore, only this one had a mannequin and pieces of dresses strewn about one corner.
“That’s my work area there,” Agnes explained unnecessarily. She stopped Cecelia in front of the mirror. Cecelia again tried not to bristle at the sight of Maria Costopolous. “If you don’t mind my saying so, this is a very nice dress. Such fine stitching. Where did you get it?”
“My mother made it.”
“Oh, how lovely! Perhaps you could bring her over—”
“She’s back on the farm.”
“I see. You’re here by yourself?”
“Yes.” Cecelia looked down at her feet. She suspected her quarry was not here, but Agnes would probably have some information on where her sister could be found.
Agnes took her into the kitchen and offered her a seat while she tended to the pot of tea on the stove. “Are you new to the city?” she asked.
“Yes. I just got here a few days ago.”
“Oh my. This city isn’t the safest place for girls your age.” The teapot whistled and Agnes pulled it off the stove. She filled a teacup in front of Cecelia and then one on the opposite side of the table, with her back to the door, a vulnerable position even for a witch. This is going to be too easy, Cecelia thought. “Would you like any sugar? Honey perhaps?”
“No, I’m fine.”
Agnes added two lumps of sugar to her cup and then sat down with a sigh that was probably for show. As a witch she could look almost as young as she wanted—or as old as she wanted. Cecelia supposed that to appear as a harmless old woman was good camouflage; no one would ever suspect an elderly seamstress could be an actual witch. “So, dear, why are you looking for Sylvia?”
“A friend said she might have some work for me.”
“I don’t think a nice young girl like you wants to get involved in Sylvia’s business. Especially not a nice young girl carrying a child.”
“What business do you mean?”
“A rather unpleasant one. It’s not for you. Trust me.”
Cecelia let her bottom lip tremble as if she were about to cry. “Could I at least speak to her? I’ve come so far.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible. She’s gone.”
“When will she be back?”
Agnes shrugged as she took a dainty sip of her tea. “That’s hard to say. It’s been more than two years now. Ever since that nasty business at Pearl Harbor. She’s been helping with the war effort. I get letters from her every now and then.”
“Oh, I see.” She allowed herself to cry now and reached into her purse for the steak knife. It must have shifted position on the walk from the front door, because she couldn’t find it where she’d left it. While she continued to rummage, she stalled by saying, “I’m so sorry to bother you. But maybe there’s some work I could do here?”
“I’m afraid not, dear. There’s hardly enough work for me with the war and the rationing.”
“That’s true.” She resisted the urge to scream a curse as she still could not find the damned knife. Where had it gone?
Then Agnes cleared her throat and Cecelia looked up to see the knife in the witch’s hand. “Is this what you’re looking for, dear?”
“No. I was just looking for my handkerchief.”
“Lying will only make things worse.” Agnes took off her glasses, her eyes icy; the grandmotherly look faded away. “What is it you came here for? Were you planning to rob Sylvia? With this?”
When Cecelia began to sob, it wasn’t entirely an act. Part of it was disbelief she’d been so stupid as to think she could fight a pair of witches with a mere steak knife. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m just so hungry. And tired. I don’t have anyplace to go and—”
“And yet you came here in a taxi. With a steak knife from an upscale restaurant.”
The old witch was good, Cecelia had to give her credit for that. She’d seen Cecelia pull up in the cab and she’d recognized the quality of the knife. Not bad for a seamstress. There was still one last card Cecelia could play. “You’re right. I didn’t come here to rob you. I came because I need Miss Joubert’s help. My people are suffering. The Germans have occupied our country and we desperately need weapons to fight back.”
“And you thought knifing her would help convince her?”
Cecelia sobbed again and put her head on the table for effect. “I’ve never done anything like this. I thought she might not want to see me. I couldn’t risk her turning me away. This is too important. They’ve already killed my father. And they have my mother and my sisters. I’m the only one who was able to make it here.”
This tale of woe did it. Agnes reverted back to her grandmother mode; she came around the table to pat Cecelia’s back, though she kept the knife on the other side of the table. “I understand, dear. I wish I could help you. Truly I do.” Agnes lifted Cecelia’s chin to look her in the eye. “I can try to contact her for you. It might take some time. Are you going to be in the city long?”
“Yes. I have a job at a factory. A nice woman is letting me stay with her for now.”
“Just give me your address and I’ll let you know when I hear something. I wish I could do more for you.” When Agnes’s body straightened, Cecelia thought the witch might have sensed something amiss. She left the room for a moment; Cecelia wondered if she should grab the knife, until she remembered how much good it had done her already.
Agnes returned a few minutes later, with a cardboard box, which she set on the table in front of Cecelia. Inside, Cecelia found a half-dozen dresses in a variety of colors. “I wish I could do more, dear, but those should help you until you’re due. They belonged to Molly Grainger. She was a very beautiful singer long before you were born.”
Cecelia tried not to show any sign of recognition, though she’d seen Grainger perform in Barcelona in the days before World War I. “Thank you so much. They’re beautiful.”
“You’re welcome, dear. Now, you just sit right here and I’ll get a taxi to take you home.”
Cecelia idly fingered the dresses while she heard Agnes call the cab company. Sylvia might not be here, but at least Cecelia had a lead. No doubt Agnes would find a way to get a message to her sister, to give Cecelia’s sob story about being a poor little Greek orphan who wanted to help the resistance. A noble cause like that ought to flush the old witch out of her hiding place.
Agnes insisted she carry the box to the cab. Once Cecelia was inside, Agnes leaned down to pat her cheek. “Don’t worry, dear. Everything will be all right.”
Cecelia smiled. For the first time since she’d come here, she believed that.
***
Sue waited for her at the flat like an angry parent. “Where the hell have you been?” she roared the moment Cecelia stepped in the door.
Cecelia looked downcast at the floor and again allowed her bottom lip to tremble. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Something came up.”
“You left me at Malloy’s. You didn’t even finish your dinner. Where did you go?”
“I had to visit someone.”
Sue pointed to the box in Cecelia’s
hands. “What is that? Who gave that to you? Are you turning tricks now, is that it?”
As she had at Agnes Chiostro’s house, Cecelia cut loose with the waterworks. For good measure she threw herself at Sue, who took her in her arms. Sue patted her back as Agnes had to comfort her. “I’m sorry,” Cecelia said again. “An old woman gave these to me.”
“What old woman?”
“A friend of my mother.”
“I thought I was the only one here you knew.”
“I’m so sorry.” She punctuated this with a sob.
“No, it’s all right. Come on and sit down.” Sue took her over to the battered loveseat and sat her down. “You want anything? Coffee or tea?”
“Just some water would be fine.” Like a child she sipped the glass of water as she sniffled. As she did, she saw how she could turn this to her advantage as well. A woman like Sue who had involvement in bootlegging might still have some contacts in Rampart City’s vibrant criminal underworld. “I haven’t been entirely honest with you.”
Sue put an arm around her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Whatever it is, you can tell me. I want to help.”
“I came here to look for a friend.”
“A friend? I see. What’s his name?”
“Her name is Emma. Emma Earl.” Cecelia left out the doctor part; there weren’t many female geologists at this time. “I think she’s in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“She ran away from home.” Cecelia worked quickly to create a story that would appeal to Sue, a middle-aged woman who claimed to have no interest in marriage but who clearly hid a secret pain. “She was going to get married. But then—” she broke down again to sell the moment.
“Then what? You can tell me, sweetheart.”
“She found him cheating on her with one of the bridesmaids—my best friend! Right before the wedding! I tried to stop her, but I was too slow because of the baby. I asked at the train station and they said she came here, to Rampart City. She was still wearing her wedding dress. I think she was so embarrassed, she just had to get away.”
“I understand. And so you followed her here?”
Tales of the Scarlet Knight Collection: The Wrath of Isis Page 84