“A treat? You mean something better than a dunk in a horse trough?” I teased. “I can’t imagine what that would be.”
“Why don’t you come with us and find out?”
• • •
An hour later, Simon, five shaggy Wieran members, and I were seated on one end of a long wooden bench that lined the wall of the Ellington Barber College. The rest of the bench was occupied by a dozen or so unshaven, unshorn men who looked as though they’d come straight from a Bowery street mission—or more likely, from one of the local lodging houses—each clutching a ticket entitling him to a free cut and/or shave.
Twenty hydraulic barber chairs took up the opposite side of the room, each manned by a student barber in a white duck coat. The students hunched earnestly over their customers, combing and clipping at a frenzied pace, while a sharp-eyed instructor paced behind them, barking out cautions and corrections.
We had been there for some fifteen minutes, watching the students work through different styles on each customer’s head—starting with a lofty pompadour, followed by a businessman’s fringe, and finishing with a short sailor’s cut. As tufts of hair piled up on the floor, patches of scalp began to appear on some of the heads where the shears had gone too close. One customer howled as a comb caught on a tangled knot; another swore as the scissors stabbed his ear.
I glanced at the boys, who were watching the proceedings with expressions of horror. “This is your treat?” I murmured to Simon.
“It’s better than the horse shears,” he said with a frown, although even he looked doubtful.
One of the students ejected a customer from his chair and called, “Next!”
Frankie Dolan was next in line.
“You’re up, Frankie,” Simon said.
Frankie shook his head. “I ain’t gettin’ in one of those chairs.”
“Come on, now,” Simon cajoled. “It’s just a haircut. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Frankie eyed him reproachfully. “If you think it’s such a good idea, why don’t you let ’em take a whack at you?”
“Well, I would, Frankie, but I’m not in need of a haircut at the moment.”
“How about a shave then?” I suggested.
Simon looked at me askance.
“Since it’s such a treat,” I added innocently.
“Next!” the student called more loudly.
The Wieran boys were all watching Simon expectantly.
“Fine,” he said, pushing up from the bench. He strolled over to the vacant chair. “What’s your name?” he asked the student, who looked only a few years older than Frankie.
“Albert,” the student told him, his voice breaking on the first syllable.
“Well, give me a shave, Albert, and make it a close one,” Simon said loudly, glancing back at the boys. He settled into the chair.
“Yessir!” Albert scurried to the sink, where he soaked a towel under a stream of steaming water. Carrying the towel gingerly back by the fingertips, he dropped it onto Simon’s upturned face. I heard a muffled oath and saw Simon’s hands tighten on the armrests. Albert glanced nervously at the instructor, who was occupied further down the line.
Taking a razor from his tool kit, Albert ran its edge up and down a horsehide strop that was attached to the chair, flipping it awkwardly from side to side and dropping it once in the process. Loading a brush with shaving soap, he removed the towel and applied the lather to Simon’s red face, managing to fill both nostrils as he did so. As Simon snorted in distress, he set the edge of the razor against his cheek, pulled the skin taut, and scraped the blade across the stubble, his tongue protruding in concentration. I saw Simon flinch as the blade dug in.
“Sorry,” Albert croaked, adjusting his angle.
He had just finished both of Simon’s cheeks, and was starting on his chin, when the instructor came to a halt behind him and barked, “Up under the lip, Mr. Mayers, not down!”
“But I ain’t learned up yet!” Albert protested.
“Hmm. Well, carry on then,” the instructor said, “but go easy on him.” He moved on down the line.
Simon was bleeding in several places by the time Albert slapped some Bay Rum on his broken skin and pronounced him finished. He staggered back to the bench, his eyes moist and his cheeks red, and gave us all a limp smile. “Well, that wasn’t so bad,” he said. “Who’s next?”
Chapter Fourteen
I was indulging in a long soak in the bathtub two hours later, still smiling at the thought of the barber college outing, when the telephone rang downstairs. Thinking it might be Simon again, I jumped out of the tub and hurried downstairs in my robe and slippers, tamping my wet hair with a towel. “This is Genevieve,” I answered breathlessly.
“Dr. Summerford, it’s Pauline Goldstein,” a familiar voice shouted on the other end. “Can you hear me?”
I moved the receiver away from my ear. People who used telephones infrequently, I’d found, tended to distrust the ability of the wires to carry their voices the full distance. “Good evening, Miss Goldstein. I can hear you very well.”
“It’s Pauline, remember?” she shouted. “Anyway, listen, I need your help. Dr. Burnham still hasn’t shown up, and one of my girls is sick.”
I frowned at the telephone box. Although I was happy to advise Pauline concerning Caterina’s psychological care, I wasn’t prepared to act as general physician for her girls. “I’m sorry, Pauline, but as I told you, my practice is in psychotherapy, not general medicine. Isn’t there someone else you can call?”
“I’ve tried, but no one else can come out tonight, and it can’t wait. I think she may have polio.”
I pulled the towel off my head. “What makes you think that?”
“She stumbled on her way upstairs after dinner tonight and could hardly get up again. And she told me she’s been feeling pins and needles in her feet and legs for days.”
“Has she had any fever or headache?”
“No, I don’t think so…but the visiting nurses were on our block just a few days ago, looking for new polio cases, and they took two girls from the tenement next door. Can you please come? If she does have it, I’ll need to move her somewhere else before she can give it to the others.”
Although the exact method of polio transmission hadn’t been identified, we did know that it spread from person to person and was therefore apt to break out wherever people were in close proximity. While in the past, the vast majority of polio victims had been children, for some unknown reason, more and more young adults had been contracting the illness in recent years, most often in the paralytic form. She was right to be concerned.
“I’m on my way,” I told her and hung up the phone.
It was dark outside by the time I arrived at the shelter. Angela was waiting for me in the entry, her face creased with worry. “Come on, Doc, this way.” She led me up to the second floor and three doors down the hall to the sickroom. Sarah, the Austrian girl who’d been bonded to the lecherous jeweler, was lying in the bed inside. Pauline was sitting in a chair beside her, holding a thermometer under the girl’s arm.
Pauline looked up as I entered. She withdrew the thermometer from Sarah’s armpit and squinted at it in the light from the bedside lamp. “No fever,” she told me, pushing back her chair so I could get by.
I laid my hand on the girl’s forehead, confirming what Pauline had told me. “Hello, Sarah. I understand you’re having trouble walking?”
“I can’t seem to keep my balance,” she said, her voice slurring. “It’s the strangest thing.”
Her breath, I noticed, had a faintly metallic smell. “Pauline said you’ve been feeling pins and needles in your feet and legs.”
She swallowed. “In my hands too.” She lifted one of her hands a few inches before dropping it listlessly back on the bed.
I glanced at the upturned palm. D
ark spots were scattered all across it. “What are those marks?”
“Those are left over from the rash she had when she first came here,” Pauline answered.
I remembered Pauline had told me Sarah was infected with syphilis by the time she escaped from her handler. The rash must have been a symptom of the secondary stage of the disease. “Did Dr. Burnham treat your rash?” I asked the girl.
She nodded, looking toward the plank-topped barrel beside her bed.
I followed her gaze. The plank held a pitcher of water, a glass, and a small amber bottle. I lifted the bottle and read the label. 100 Tablets, Calomel, 1 grain. “This is what he gave you for it?”
She nodded again.
“What dose did he prescribe?”
“Two grains, three times a day.”
“And how long have you been taking it?”
“Three or four months. Ever since I came here. Why?”
I put the bottle down. “That’s a long time to be taking mercurous chloride at such a high dose.”
She swallowed again.
“Do you find you’re salivating more than usual?”
“Why yes, I do.”
“I’m guessing your bowels have been loose as well.”
She frowned. “Dr. Burnham said not to worry about that.”
“What about your gums? Are they sore?”
She nodded, her frown deepening. “Yes—and I can feel my teeth move if I push against them with my tongue.”
I suppressed a sigh. “I suppose Dr. Burnham told you not to worry about that either.”
“I haven’t had a chance to tell him. He hasn’t been here for ages.” Her pale eyes peered into mine. “Do you think the medicine is making me sick?”
“Let me examine you first, and then I’ll tell you what I think.”
Several minutes later, I lowered my medical bag to the floor. “Well, you don’t have polio. But I’m afraid you are showing clear symptoms of mercury poisoning. We’re going to have to take you off the tablets for a few weeks to give your body a rest and then start you on something else.” There was, of course, no “safe” treatment for syphilis, but a combination of mercury and sodium iodide would at least be less muscularly debilitating and less irritating to her gums.
“Will I be all right, then?”
I felt my chest constrict as I gazed into her upturned face. The truth was she would never be all right. If she stopped taking the mercury completely, the syphilis would develop unimpeded; but if she kept taking it, even in a more tolerable form, it would most likely lead to kidney failure and death eventually. Laying my hand lightly against her cheek, I gave her the only true piece of encouragement I could. “You should start feeling a little better in a week or two.”
After I’d given her some Veronal to help her sleep, Angela tucked her in and turned out the light, and we retreated into the hallway.
“Thank you, Doctor,” Pauline said when we were outside.
“Please, don’t thank me,” I said, sickened by the fact there was so little I could do.
She studied my face with a frown. “You need some cheering up, I think. You must come to the kitchen with us and try some of Angela’s cake.”
“Thank you, but I really should be getting home…”
She wrapped her hand around my arm and turned me toward the stairs. “Now you listen to Nurse Pauline. For sickness of the heart, Angela’s cake is the best medicine there is. Besides, we have some news for you.”
I didn’t resist any further, for seeing Sarah’s condition had indeed left me dispirited, and I found the company of these two women strangely comforting.
Back in the kitchen, Angela set out plates of cake and forks while Pauline poured steaming coffee into mismatched cups and I found some napkins in the cupboard. “You said you have news?” I prompted as we all sat down to eat.
“Cake first,” Pauline said, lifting a forkful to her mouth.
Angela’s cake turned out to be an inspired amalgam of ladyfingers, chocolate cream, nuts, jam, and lord knew what other precious ingredients that must, I thought as I crammed a second bite into my mouth, have set the shelter’s budget back a pretty penny. Pauline was right; this was medicine at its finest. For a moment, I forgot all about Sarah and Teresa and just concentrated on the sensory experience. Pauline and Angela appeared to be equally absorbed, and we ate in silence for several minutes, emitting only the occasional groan of satisfaction.
After washing down the last of my cake with several swallows of the excellent coffee, I asked them how Caterina was faring.
“That’s what I wanted to tell you,” Pauline said. “Her eye is already much improved from the drops you sent. She’s practicing stitch work now too, in her room—and Angela even got her to go out to the water closet!”
I swiveled toward Angela. “How did you manage that?”
“I told her I thought Isabella would be happier if we took her to the sink to wash her dress. After all,” she added with a wink, “no lady likes to wear dirty clothes.”
“And that worked?” I asked, delighted—and a little surprised—to hear that my idea of using the doll to communicate had actually born fruit.
She nodded happily. “She has started telling me about her life in Naples too. About gathering hazelnut and olive branches for the oven, and collecting snails after the rain.”
I shook my head in amazement. “You’re a miracle worker.”
“Maybe I’ll learn to be a doctor of psychology like you, eh?” she asked with a grin.
“The profession would be better for it,” I readily replied.
“But there’s more,” Pauline said. “Go on, Angela, tell her the rest.”
“Well,” Angela said, pouring me more coffee, “the first time I suggested we go to the water closet, the night after you met with her, she refused. I didn’t press her, but the next morning, I brought up some borax to clean the doll’s dress with and asked again. Caterina became agitated then, saying she couldn’t take the doll out of the room because ‘Un-Occhio’ might see her. Although she didn’t say so, I guessed from the way she spoke the name that this Un-Occhio was one of the men who had hurt her.”
“Un-Occhio,” I repeated with a frown. “That means ‘One-Eye,’ doesn’t it?”
She nodded. “When I tried to reassure her by telling her that the bad men were far away in Chicago, she said that no, Un-Occhio was here, in New York. Only after I convinced her that no bad men were allowed inside the shelter, and that Pauline and I would make sure that Isabella was safe, would she agree to take her out.”
I looked from Angela to Pauline in excitement. “Do you think Un-Occhio is the man who abducted Caterina in New York?”
“He must have been at least one of the men involved,” Pauline answered.
So now we had a name, or at least a description, that might lead us to the New York ring. My mind raced about, trying to make sense of this new information as Angela refilled our cups. Antonio had two functioning eyes, so he couldn’t have been the Un-Occhio Caterina was referring to. But of course, he could still be part of a gang in which someone else fit that description. Or there could be more than one group of Italians in New York preying on their countrywomen. Either way, if the man wore an eye patch, he should be relatively easy to identify…
“What about your missing Italian girl?” Pauline asked me. “Have you learned anything new?”
They listened with interest while I related the events of the past two days.
“So you need the picture of the fiancé to find out if he has a history of dealing in women,” Pauline summed up when I was done.
“Especially now that you’ve told me about this Un-Occhio,” I confirmed. “I’d hate to think the police were concentrating their attention on the wrong man. But I can’t think of a way to get the photograph out of his flat.”
She thought for a moment. “What if you went to his flat while he was gone, pretending to be a visiting nurse searching for cases of polio?”
I gazed at her in admiration. “That’s a brilliant idea! But unfortunately, his mother saw me when I was there last time. She’d be sure to remember me.”
She shrugged. “Someone else could do it then.”
“I can’t very well ask someone to enter a home under false pretenses and make off with stolen property,” I said, taking another sip of my coffee.
“I’ll go.”
I stared at her over my coffee cup. She appeared to be serious. “No.”
“Why not? I already have the nurse’s cap. I even have the brochures that the real nurses gave me when they were making their rounds.”
I put down my cup. “It wouldn’t work. From what I’ve seen of Mrs. Fabroni, she’d slam the door right in your face.”
“I’ll tell her the Department of Health sent me and that she has to let me in,” she countered.
I shook my head. “It’s too dangerous.”
“But not too dangerous for you?”
“That’s different. I’m already involved. You’re not, and you have no reason to be.”
Her amber eyes narrowed. “Now that, Doctor, you are wrong about.”
I saw the kaleidoscope of emotions play across her face, and waited for her to say more.
“You asked me why I opened this shelter,” she said finally. “So now I will tell you.”
Angela slid a hand across the table and laid it over hers. Pauline’s face softened for a moment as she glanced at her, then hardened again. “I opened it because of my sister,” she continued. “Rebecca was two years older than me, and the oldest girl in our family. Being a girl, she was expected to help support the family while my brothers received their education. She worked in a garment factory from the time she was eight, and brought home piecework as well, besides helping with the cleaning and cooking. I also worked in the factory, of course, but my parents expected more of Rebecca. She was never allowed a moment to herself.”
I nodded, seeing the pain in her eyes and dreading what was to come.
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