Right after the Battle of Belleau Wood, his purpose in the army changed—or at least divided. A captain saw a drawing Phin had done of the bloody fight. A general, third in line to Pershing, was impressed to learn he could use a camera. Phin’s second life in the war began. At the time, he thought this was a good thing. Now a well of guilt invaded—that he could do nothing but record brutality; that he’d survived it. That he’d caused a decent piece of it. Fate’s only offering seemed to be a window of opportunity—capture the slaughter, pass along the warning: this should not happen again.
By the time Phin reached the boardinghouse, any justification for his actions fled faster than a deserter. He was a quivering mess. His legs were weak and he was having trouble keeping his thoughts in order. The boom of artillery fire reverberated in his head, the aftermath visuals of mustard gas crowded his sight lines.
Phin couldn’t escape it, doubting himself. Had the compulsion to photograph war been about documentation or a sick desire to exploit? It didn’t seem possible—not from this vantage point—how a person could perform such perverted tasks. Nothing lay before him now but a boardinghouse and empty field, but Phin could not settle himself in reality. Language eluded him. It was Oscar—smoking a cigar on the porch, wearing what looked like a trapper’s haul—who made the first move.
“I see you took my advice. Good. You’re not dead.”
The march halted and Phin eyeballed Oscar, thinking that wasn’t entirely true.
Oscar explained to Phin that he’d returned to New York under the impression that Esmerelda was still playing the Palace. He hadn’t heard from her since he left for Atlantic City. “There’s nothing out of sorts there. Esmerelda knows I’m not the corresponding type. What’s this about, boy?”
Phin’s concern heightened after telling Oscar he hadn’t heard from Esmerelda in months—too many months. “It’s like she’s vanished into thin air. I’ve been to the supper club. It’s boarded up as if America still may come under attack.”
Oscar urged Phin toward his truck. “One thing is for sure, we won’t find her sitting on the outskirts of Brooklyn.” He yelled up to a fire escape where Bill sat, smoking a cigarette. “Collect my bread and butter from the porch. I’ll be back. And don’t none of you be spending a dime on your cheap whiskey!”
Oscar’s direction and the alarm in his voice told Phin a great deal. As the truck pulled away with the two men in it, Phin saw a stack of bills and coins on the porch table. He could only imagine the peril in Oscar’s head that would cause him to leave his hard-earned cash.
On their way into Manhattan, they compared the little they knew. “I warned Esmerelda to think real hard before she took that Palace job,” Oscar said.
“What does the Palace job matter?”
Oscar spat tobacco out the truck’s open sliding door. “It was Hupp who got her the job.” He spat again. “It was a bad scheme from the get-go, taking the billing and not telling you where it came from. Esmerelda thought herself crafty. And, I admit, when I was around last summer, it seemed to be working out for her. But now . . .”
“Hit that gas lever,” Phin said, “or let me drive. I know this truck can go faster.”
The drive into Manhattan felt longer than Phin’s voyage across the ocean. When they arrived, the supper club looked as it did earlier—abandoned. But other signs of life stirred. More blackout shutters had been removed; people seemed to be going about their business. This included Hupp’s second hotel, next door to the supper club. All its windows and doors were opened as if the place were being aired out.
Exiting the truck, Oscar and his heavy fur coat stepped in front of Phin, yanking on the supper club’s door.
“Don’t you think I tried that?” Phin said.
Oscar let go a few expletives and turned, looking up and down the avenue.
Phin mimicked the motion. “Do you think we should go find Hupp? As much as I hate to think . . . well, it could be Esme’s made a different choice. One that doesn’t have anything to do with you or me.”
Oscar’s street-side glance defaulted onto Phin.
“Esme,” Phin said, “she’s smart as she’s beautiful. She’s really never had any need for either of us.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Oscar snapped. “She needed me well enough in the moment. And it’s you she wants in a more permanent way. I know Esmerelda Moon. Whatever’s become of her . . .” His voice trailed off. Oscar stepped back and looked up at the rising stories. “This supper club is the only building still living under a war curfew.”
Phin repeated the action, then looked up and down the avenue. Oscar was right.
“I always thought Hupp was a bit off his nut. Rich mates would call him eccentric, but this fellow . . .” He looked solemnly at Phin. “My roaming soul says he’s downright mad.”
“Mad? A spoiled ass for certain. What are you talking about, mad? Oscar, what do you believe happened to Esme?” And Phin realized that Esme leaving him for Benjamin Hupp was not a worst-case scenario. He stepped back again, looking once more at the well-secured building. “We’re getting inside one way or another.”
Phin flew around the alleyway with Oscar tight on his heels. He looked up to the room where Esmerelda had lived. Like all the other supper club windows, it was sealed off. The kitchen entrance was bolted too, tighter than the front door. “There’s one more door,” Oscar said. “They stocked the bar from the back.”
The two raced to the rear of the alley, where a slim path separated the buildings. Phin turned and kicked at a corner brick, already loose from its mortar. Grabbing it, he beat on the lock like he’d pounded many a German’s head. Oscar hissed at him to slow down. The invasion was over.
“Like hell,” he said through gritted teeth, fiercely hitting the lock. “If she’s in here, the invasion’s only begun.”
“Phin.” The sound of Oscar saying his name seized Phin’s attention, and he stopped. “Look here.” Next to the door was a window, the only one without a shutter. Phin put the brick right through it, undoing the lock. It creaked against the cold but opened. The two men climbed through, Oscar barely fitting. The pair ran down a back hall and into the supper club’s kitchen, where tiny shutter cracks left a stepping-stone path of light.
“This way,” Phin said. In the main lobby, they were confronted by darkness. Oscar produced a silver lighter from his pocket and flicked it on. On a table near the base of the hotel steps was a lantern. Otherwise, the lobby was like Luna Park, a ghost town, complete with sheets covering the huge mahogany bar.
“The blackouts,” Oscar said. “They’ve really done a job on places like this.”
“The shoemaker said he and his wife lived like the old days most of the winter, with candles and such.” He blinked into the glow of the lighter. “He also said the only person who’s come by here is Benjamin Hupp.”
By this time, Oscar had reached the lantern and lit it. More of the room illuminated. Chairs were turned upside down onto tables, and the red carpet showed a spotted path. The mark of yesteryear’s heavy traffic. Phin followed it up the staircase. The tight twist of space smelled like the caves Germans had tunneled through, shuttling their armies to surprise attacks. Phin was amazed by the resistant thought, how it dominated his mind. Esme . . . I only want to think of Esme . . . Phin shored up his focus and took the next steps two at a time. Oscar came up from the rear, the two men slowing in the third-floor hall. Every door was shut. The lantern light was low, but Phin saw it straightaway. Esme’s room had an extra lock. He dove at it with more aggression than he had any German opponent.
Oscar grabbed him. “Wait.”
“Wait?” Phin looked at him wild-eyed. Then he lunged. Oscar’s size impeded him. The huge man caught him from behind, his burly arm locked around Phin’s throat.
“Listen to me, boy.” His grip grew tighter. “If this is anything close to what we’re thinking, we’ll want to keep our wits about us. We’ll need to stay a step ahead of Hupp. That’s if we’re all t
o survive. It’s something I know a little about. From war. From life.”
Phin was having none of it. He broke free and slammed into the door, screaming Esme’s name. There was only the faint meow of a cat. He backed away, terrified that he’d lived through a war for the sake of ending up in hell. A human whimper rose from inside the room, and Oscar pressed his ear to the door. “Esmerelda, is there a key?” The response was inaudible.
“Fuck the key.” Phin backed up. Oscar stopped him again, his sturdy frame taking the brunt of Phin’s forward thrust.
“This isn’t open warfare. It’s a single enemy—one with a great deal more power than you.” Oscar stood opposed, a solid object between Phin and the door. “If this is what Hupp’s been up to, getting out from under him will require more brains than brawn.”
“Brawn?” Phin said. “I should think it won’t require anything but his presence, because I surely intend on killing him. I disemboweled Germans whose names I didn’t know. I’ll have no trouble ripping the throat from a man who’s truly earned my hatred.”
Oscar didn’t argue this point, but he did reach above the door frame. “We’re in luck.” In his hand was a key. “Killing Hupp will be your choice. But if what’s behind that door is more important, heed the advice of vaudeville riffraff. A shrewd sleight of hand may win you a better future.” Oscar’s calmness was a mystery to Phin. He far preferred to put his foot through the door but allowed Oscar to insert the key. The door opened with a woeful creak. Lighted nubs of wax flickered. Scents assaulted him, something akin to the squalor of his life. But what Phineas Seaborn and Oscar Bodette found inside, it nearly obliterated two men who, until then, had survived a world of evils.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
New York City
Present Day
That night, tucked close to Pete was a feeling he’d never experienced—not in this life. And not in his last, like Em insisted. Lying in her bed, Pete had just woken from a sound sleep. Em’s bare back was pressed warmly to his chest, her breath quietly rising and falling. Five in the morning, or so said her clock. It glowed with enough light to outline the swags of printed fabrics and the doll, which stared from a corner. The ghostly, glass-eyed baby pinged at his heart, and Pete wanted to let it go. For once, right here, right now was good. He tightened his arm around Em. From a deep slumber, her fingers did the same in reply. Pete blinked. His mind and body were sleepy enough. But it was sound that intervened and intertwined.
Church bells.
They weren’t Surrey’s bells, the familiar chime of Our Lady of the Redeemer. They didn’t sound like the bells signaling prayer, the ones that often coaxed him from a foreign land and into another life. But like all chimes, these bells reflected atonement, beckoning to Pete. The single, steady chime he heard now belonged to the Church of the Resurrection. It was the same bell that had tolled a hundred years before.
The spiral began, a whirlpool sucking Pete in and under. The battle of a riptide. The kind from which a lifeguard might not save him. He knew what was coming; he only wanted to go back, get out. Segueing was never less than a blistering entry into another atmosphere. Escape was futile. But this time, a wraithlike entity urged him forward. He felt himself fall faster, the way you might in a dream, landing not in his past nor his present, but somewhere in between. The place where ghosts lived.
“Do it, kid. Put the pieces together . . .”
Zeke Dublin, Em’s uncle, he was there, the same presence Pete experienced in the Rabbit Lane bungalow. His mind, his logical thoughts, struggled for an exit, and he waited to be startled out of what surely was a twisted reverie. Then he was mesmerized, his attention rapt on a scene he knew well. A scene he usually participated in but now watched from afar. Pete was observing his other life.
“Take it. Find a set. This is your brass ring. See the ride through and the carousel stops. It’s Em’s prognostication: ‘Today you meet Phin. Solve his troubles.’ Assure her future . . .”
Instinct said to fight, not follow through. Hell, he’d found Em—he wanted to be with her, not Esme. More than anything, Pete wanted these to be the only facts that mattered. It wasn’t to be. He needed to finish it. He turned away from the daybed where two bodies lay together. Pete stared into the hotel room. It was dark outside. The doll sat in her chair. The clothesline drooped from the window to the bedpost. The English hunting scene hung above the mantel. The fire burned, yet it was cold. But this time he could see everything. His point of view wasn’t limited.
A young man stood where Pete normally did. He waited—for Esme to enter the room, for a gun to be aimed at her. His heart thumped. Pete heard her speak. She’d never spoken in such visitant scenes. She was only a silent victim. But he knew Esme’s voice from his most recent visit home, from hearing Em sing.
“Doing it this way, Phin, it’s the only choice,” she said as if offstage, awaiting a cue.
Panicking seemed like a good idea. Pete was so attached to the scene, yet confused by this bizarre perspective.
“Oscar’s right,” the young man said. “It was a tough agreement to reach in my mind, but it’s best this way.”
The speech pattern was different, but the voice identical—like his handwriting. Pete knew his own voice. He peered into the dresser mirror and his own eyes looked back. The reflection blurred, like fun-house glass, the young man raising a revolver as if practicing his aim. He lowered the weapon and looked toward the window. “The light’s come on across the way. I see him. It’s time.” And now, in this life, the bells of the Church of the Resurrection chimed.
Esme stepped from the bathroom, wearing the white gown with the sheer sleeves. And Pete understood how much he loved her. No. He didn’t love her. The man opposite his reflection loved her.
She was so pale and fragile, as if a blast from a gun would be overkill. Bruises. He’d never seen the bruises through the sheer sleeves of the gown before. Bells chimed again. Pete dove violently from the reflection at the young man with his voice, his handwriting, his eyes. For the first time ever, Pete had a say, and he screamed, “No!”
The gun fired. Esme fell. He caught her—or the young man caught her. They caught her . . . Blood filled the front of the white dress. She slipped from his unsteady arms and hit the floor. Pete felt the panic of two men. Then one. He blinked at Esme’s prone body. He turned to the window, its curtains pushed to the sides. A man stared back. Someone had witnessed the whole horrid scene. From the other side of the alley, the man threw open his window. He yelled at Pete—something his stunted viewpoint had never encountered.
Instinct said to follow moments so rehearsed he could perform them blindly. He scooped up Esme, the fallen swan. To his amazement, when he moved to the door, the whirlpool didn’t churn the opposite way, dragging him back. Instead, Pete found himself in a hallway. He knew which way to go, guessing he still had to get rid of the body. With Esme in his arms, he hurried down a flight of stairs.
“I can walk.”
He stopped so hard on the landing he nearly dropped her again. Her eyelids fluttered, though she looked as sickly as the starving children he’d seen in wars a hundred years apart. Her fingers were covered in red. So was the front of the dress. “You can put me down. We’ll make it quicker to the truck if I walk. I can do it.” She slipped from his arms and tugged on his hand.
“You . . . you’re alive.”
She smiled. “Isn’t it the point of Oscar’s theater blood, his death scene, to keep me that way? We need to hurry. He was right. A few sentences of submission from me and Benjamin was willing to bargain for open shutters. Luckily, the day is all we needed to play it out.”
Pete couldn’t speak; he could barely follow. They wound their way down the remaining stairs and through a darkened hotel. Doing so, he was acutely aware that Peter St John was the conscious being in control. They slipped out a rear door and down a narrow pathway. Bitter cold slapped at him, but it did nothing to alter this reality. On the side street of Hupp’s ho
tel, Pete recognized the truck that idled. The city was silent, air so bitterly cold that church bells seemed to not chime but quiver. Pete’s eyes bugged as a vivid Oscar Bodette, wearing a raccoon coat, approached.
“Move, boy! Are you going to help her into the truck? There are blankets in the back. Cover her up good. Like we talked about.” He looked past Pete’s shoulder. “Took you long enough to get down here. We don’t have a second to spare.”
Esme’s hand, with blood running through its veins, continued to tug on Pete’s.
“My shoes!” she said as he helped her aboard. “Oscar said to make certain he can see the dress and shoes.”
A lantern hung in the truck, and he silently obeyed the directions. Pete made sure her feet and the white organza edge of the dress overhung the truck’s opening. She wriggled around, adjusting the blanket. Her frame was so thin, bones pressed to her skin. The dress had a low-cut back, and as Esme turned, he saw a raw-looking scar below her shoulder. “Esme, did . . . did he burn you?” Pete winced, unable to keep from lightly touching the mark.
She stiffened and didn’t look at him. “It’s like the other things we agreed not to speak of, Phin. Like your war.” Then she did glance at him, her grief palpable. “He’s left his share of reminders, at least I can’t see that one.”
Because it was Phin who’d been privy to the monstrous details, Pete could only imagine Hupp’s abuse, and he imagined it was much like the horrors he’d seen in dicier travels. He said nothing else and adjusted the blanket as she lay down.
“I can hold my breath if I have to, but let’s hope it’s not for more than a minute. Oscar wagers that he’ll behave like a wolf does toward rotted game—he won’t want to sniff around ruined kill. Let’s hope the sight of me and the dress is enough. Now go.”
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