A Promise of Ruin

by Cuyler Overholt

  Felisa beckoned me into the flat.

  “Tell Teresa I will visit her later,” Mrs. Fabroni said and started back down the hall.

  Francesca and four of the other girls from the stable were sitting at a large worktable covered with ostrich feathers in the front room, drinking from steaming metal cups and talking quietly among themselves. Felisa led me in the opposite direction, to the kitchen. “Teresa, the American lady is here to see you,” she announced. Turning to me, she murmured, “I’ll get you some clothes,” and continued down the hall toward the bedrooms.

  Teresa was sitting in a tin washtub in the middle of the kitchen floor, surrounded by a cloud of steam, scouring her bruised arms and chest with a dishcloth. She looked up briefly when I entered. “I don’t know your name,” she said as I took a seat at the small kitchen table.

  “It’s Genevieve.”

  A pot was simmering on the stove, adding more steam to the already saturated air. I let the shawl drop from my shoulders, feeling the damp heat penetrate my corded neck muscles.

  “Genevieve,” she repeated with a nod, moving the cloth to her other arm. She was scrubbing herself so roughly that it was leaving red streaks across her skin.

  “I’ve just seen Antonio,” I told her.

  She paused for an instant, her gaze trained on a blotchy arm, then started scrubbing again.

  “You should let him know that you want to see him, Teresa.”

  “Teresa is dead.”

  I sighed. “What happened to you wasn’t your fault.”

  “I thought I was something special,” she said as if I hadn’t spoken, dragging the cloth around her neck. “But I am just a stupid, selfish girl. I will buy a ticket back to Italy as soon as I can get the money. He’ll be better off without me.”

  “At least give him a chance,” I implored. “If he’s half the man you believe he is, he’ll do right by you.”

  Finally, she stopped scrubbing and looked up at me, her eyes brimming with tears. “How can I ask him to marry me, when every time he looks at me, he will imagine me with Un-Occhio?”

  “Oh, Teresa.” I shook my head. “You are more than what happened to you in that stable. Of course, I can’t know what Antonio will do, but whatever he loved about you is still there, waiting to be loved again.”

  She pressed her quivering lips together. “You don’t understand.” She scooped up some steaming water in the cloth and poured it over her head, turning her face into the stream.

  “What don’t I understand?” I asked, sitting back.

  She dropped the cloth into her lap and stared down at it as water dripped from her hair. “There are…pictures. Of him, and me.”

  “Pictures?” It took me a moment to comprehend. “You don’t mean…”

  She looked up. “After Antonio escaped from Un-Occhio’s men the first time, Un-Occhio brought a man with a camera to the stable. He wanted the man to take pictures while he forced himself on me. He told me he was going to send the pictures to Antonio. But he…he couldn’t do it.”

  “Couldn’t send them?”

  Her steam-reddened cheeks turned even redder. “Couldn’t…enter me. Not then.”

  I thought of Krafft-Ebing’s sexual psychopath, aroused more by suffering and humiliation than by the sex act itself. Perhaps, foiled by Antonio’s absence, Velloca had lacked the stimulus he needed to attain an erection.

  “But he kept trying, at other times,” she went on in a ragged voice, “and finally…he was able.” She drew in a breath. “Then last night, the photographer came back and got his pictures.”

  “And this photographer made no protest, when he saw that you were being held captive?”

  “Protest?” she spat out. “He was enjoying himself. Un-Occhio told him he could have one of the other girls when he was finished.”

  After everything else I’d seen and heard in the last week, I supposed this shouldn’t have shocked me, but I was still sickened to my core.

  “Once Antonio sees the pictures,” she said faintly, shaking her head, “he will never be able to forget.”

  I was afraid she might be right, and that Velloca would succeed in his hateful mission. I chewed on the inside of my lip, trying to think of some way to keep that from happening.

  “What kind of camera was it?” I asked after a moment.

  “I don’t know,” she answered with a helpless shrug.

  “Big or small?” I asked, spacing my hands first at the approximate width of a view camera, and then at the width of the smaller, box variety.

  “Big.”

  “Was it on a tripod?”

  “A what?”

  “On legs.”

  She nodded.

  It was a view camera then, the kind professionals used. “Do you know what the photographer’s name was?”

  Her lips twisted in disgust. “He called him Steemitz.”

  If the pictures were only taken the night before, there was a good chance they’d still be at the photographer’s studio. “What if I tried to locate Mr. Steemitz and relieve him of the pictures before he delivered them to Velloca?”

  She straightened, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. “You would do this?”

  “If I promise to try, will you agree not to buy a ticket back home just yet?”

  She frowned at me.

  “Please? Just take a little time to think things over.” I held my breath, watching the struggle take place across her features.

  “All right,” she said finally. “But I will not see Antonio.”

  Felisa returned with clothes for us both, and I dressed and left the flat. As I walked back down the hall to the Fabronis’, I felt a pang of unease, worrying that I may have unduly raised Teresa’s hopes. I had no idea if I’d even be able to locate the photographer, let alone convince him to give me the photographs. But I felt I had to at least attempt it, for if I could return the pictures to Teresa, it seemed to me, I’d be returning a little piece of her soul, as well.

  Chapter Twenty

  “You sure you’re all right?” Simon asked me for the dozenth time as we were riding back to my house in a hansom cab. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of me for a second, ever since we’d sat down.

  “I’ll be fine,” I snapped. “You don’t need to treat me like an eggshell that’s going to break at any moment.”

  He pulled back with a frown. “Sorry. I’ll try not to.”

  I bit my lip, blinking back tears. The fact was, I did feel like an eggshell, and I didn’t like the feeling one bit. But I had no cause to take it out on Simon. I was sure he was anxious to hear the details of my captivity, but I just couldn’t bring myself to talk about it. Not yet. “How did you find out where I was?” I asked instead.

  When he arrived at the pier and no one was there, he told me, he tried contacting Patrick and Detective Cassidi to find out what was going on. When that failed, he called Katie, who informed him that I wasn’t at home. At that point, he returned to the saloon, reasoning that if anyone was trying to reach him, they’d call him there. At five thirty, Patrick telephoned and told him what had happened, explaining that he’d been discovered as he was following the suspects up a side stairwell to the second floor of the poultry plant. The men had tied him up and left him in a machine room at the foot of the stairs, where he wasn’t found until a plant worker came in to shut down the equipment for the night.

  “You’re sure he wasn’t hurt?” I asked.

  “The only thing injured was his pride. They came up behind him, threw a bag over his head, and wrestled him to the floor. He never even saw their faces. But he heard a woman scream, soon after he was locked up, and figured they’d gotten you too. He called Detective Cassidi as soon as he was released, and between them, they questioned the workers at the plant, but the men claimed to have seen nothing and to have no knowledge of what went on upstairs.”r />
  “What was upstairs, exactly?”

  “A room a lot like the one in the stable, where girls had obviously been held, but no clue as to where they might have taken you.”

  I shivered, despite the balmy night air. “So how did you figure it out?”

  “It occurred to me that if I could find out who owned the poultry plant, it might lead me to the men in the carriage, and hopefully to you. The city offices were closed by that time, but I was able to pull a clerk I know away from his dinner to open up the tax bureau and help me locate the property in the records. I discovered it was purchased by a man named Bruno Pardello nine months ago. As soon as I saw that, things started falling into place.”

  I looked at him blankly, for the name meant nothing to me.

  “Pardello was the other name on the threat letter Velloca showed us, that day at his flat. He told us the letter was written to him and his partner, remember? I couldn’t read much of the letter, since it was in Italian. But the name of his partner stuck in my head, because Pardello is also the name of the wrestler who beat Tom Sharkey for the heavyweight championship two years ago.” He grimaced. “I lost a pile on that match.

  “Anyway, when I asked Cassidi if he’d ever heard of him, he told me the Legion sent Bruno Pardello to Sing Sing over a year ago for horse theft. Apparently, he and his gang did a big business stealing untended butcher and grocer wagons in the downtown Italian colony. They’d drive the rigs right into their own stable on Elizabeth Street, then cut the horses manes and tails, or tie false hair to tails that were already bobbed, and cover up their markings. They drove the repainted wagons to regular buyers upstate in Centreville or down in Philadelphia and Elizabethport.

  “It was a good racket while it lasted, but unfortunately for Pardello, there was another horse thief gang already operating in the downtown colony that didn’t like him encroaching on its territory. The letter Velloca showed us was probably from the rival gang, telling him to bugger off. Apparently, it didn’t have the desired effect, because a while later, the Italian Legion received some anonymous information, presumably from the rival gang, revealing the stable’s location and activities and leading to Pardello’s arrest.”

  “So knowing that Velloca had some association with Pardello, you concluded he was a partner in the horse theft business.”

  He nodded. “Using Pardello as his front man, most likely, since he himself wasn’t sent to prison.”

  I frowned at him. “Why do you suppose Velloca showed us that threat letter?”

  “To cast suspicion on someone else, I suppose, and make himself look like a victim. Or maybe just to toy with us. He was probably laughing at us the whole time.”

  I shivered again, reminded of the malevolent intellect we were dealing with. “But how did any of this lead you to the stable on 116th Street?”

  “That’s where things get interesting. Like I said, the poultry plant was sold to Pardello nine months ago—after he went to prison. When I looked for additional Pardello holdings, I discovered that he owned a stable on 116th Street as well. That property was also purchased after he went to Sing Sing, presumably by someone who had power of attorney to act for him. I found it interesting that the stable was located right around the corner from Velloca’s flat.”

  “And you concluded that Velloca might still be using Pardello as a front?”

  “The way I figured it, after their downtown operation was broken up and Pardello went to prison, Velloca must have moved the horse theft business up to Harlem, where he could graze in less crowded pastures. Either the business was less profitable there, or he just got greedy, but at some point he saw the value of expanding his operations to include prostitution. He already had distribution lines in place for the stolen rigs. All he had to do was switch from open wagons to vans and fill the vans with girls to substantially increase his profits. It seemed even more likely when I realized that Velloca was one of the few people who would have known that Teresa Casoria was coming to New York, thanks to her friendship with his daughter.”

  “So then you came charging up to the stable to save me,” I said, my heart swelling at the thought, “without even waiting for help from the police.”

  He smiled wryly. “I was pretty much out of my mind, it’s true, but I wasn’t quite that far gone. I called the 104th Street Station before I left and asked them to send up the reserves in half an hour. I just wanted to get there first, to try to make sure you were safe before any shooting started.” He grimaced. “A lot of good it did you.”

  He looked so mortified that I reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze. “If you hadn’t come when you did and knocked out Gallo, Donato could never have gotten us out of there in time.”

  The hansom swayed as the horses turned right onto Ninety-Second Street. I gazed out the side window at the empty sidewalks and darkened buildings rolling past. Although I’d traveled down this street hundreds of times, the buildings all looked strangely unfamiliar, their dark windows peering back at me like hostile eyes from their pale facades. I turned my gaze forward, trying to concentrate on things that would need doing when I returned home. But unwanted images kept flashing into my mind, pulling me back to the stable and the terror and degradation I’d known there. I knew it wasn’t my fault that I’d been gagged and pawed and treated like chattel—but I still felt dirty and humiliated all the same.

  It was long past midnight by the time we stepped out of the cab. I stiffened at the sight of a policeman standing next to our stoop, fearing that some new calamity had befallen my household.

  “It’s all right,” Simon said, taking my elbow and guiding me forward. “I asked for an officer to be posted at your house until Velloca and his thugs are in custody.”

  I nodded mutely to the officer and climbed up the steps, where I had to ring the bell, since I no longer had my key.

  “Thank the Lord,” Katie cried as she pulled open the door. Her skirt seams were crooked, and her hair was falling from its pins. “Where on earth have you been? I’ve been thinking the worst since Simon called.”

  “I’m sorry, Katie,” I said. “I was just…” For once, I could think of no little white lie to soothe her.

  “Come on,” said Simon. “You’d better sit down.” He led me into the sitting room and lowered me onto the chaise longue. “Is there any whiskey in the house, Katie?”

  Though she was obviously bursting with questions, she shuffled off to retrieve the bottle from my father’s study.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to tell her,” I said as her footsteps clicked down the hall.

  “How about the truth?” Simon suggested.

  Instead, when she returned with the whiskey and three glasses, I gave her a modified version of the truth, telling her I’d been swept up by a kidnapping gang rather than a white slavery ring, omitting any mention of chloroform or attempted rape. I also told her I’d been hit by an elbow in all the commotion when the policemen came to our rescue, to explain the bruise on my jaw. “But the good news,” I finished with a brightness I was far from feeling, “is that we found the girl I was searching for, so it was all for a good cause.”

  Katie drained her glass and dropped it onto the tray table with a crack. “And what was I supposed to tell your parents if things hadn’t worked out?”

  Her hand, I saw, was trembling on the glass. “I’m sorry, Katie,” I said, my false smile evaporating. “I never meant for things to get so out of hand.”

  “Well, it’s over now,” Simon said with a pointed look at Katie.

  “If it’s over,” she asked, “why is there a policeman standing on our stoop?”

  “He’s just here to protect us until they round up all the gang members,” I told her.

  “Come on now, Katie,” Simon cajoled. “We all had a good scare, but things turned out all right in the end. And thanks to Genna, some very bad people are going to get their comeup
pance.”

  Katie let out her breath. “I suppose you’re right,” she said as some of the starch went out of her shoulders. “What’s done is done. There’s no point going on about it.” Her pale-blue eyes searched mine. “I just hope you’ve learned your lesson!”

  I nodded, eager to wipe the anxiety from her face, although I wasn’t sure exactly what the lesson was.

  She clapped her hands against her thighs. “All right, then. Let’s get you to bed.” She hoisted herself up from the chair.

  “Wait! Not yet,” I protested as Simon rose to leave. I wasn’t ready to be alone with my thoughts. “I’d like Simon to stay a little longer. Please, Katie.”

  She looked from me to Simon, and her shoulders heaved with another long-suffering sigh. “Fine,” she muttered. She crossed to the windows and pulled down the shades. Returning to collect the whiskey bottle and empty glasses, she added, “But I’ll be listening!” She glared at each of us before disappearing into the hall.

  Simon sat back down, studying me with a frown. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me what really happened.”

  “I will, later. But I’m trying not to think about it at the moment.”

  Mercifully, he didn’t press me. “All right,” he said. “Then what else can I do to help?”

  Unexpected tears suddenly blurred my vision. “Do you think you could just…hold me?”

  I saw the breath go out of him. Crossing to the chaise, he lifted me carefully to one side, then lowered himself next to me and took me in his arms.

  This was not how I had envisioned our first real adult embrace—but it was exactly what I needed at the moment. I closed my eyes and laid my ear against his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. “I didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” I whispered.

  “I would have found you, no matter where they took you. Or died trying.”

  His voice vibrated through his chest like a solid thing, holding me together as I struggled not to fall apart. “I wasn’t raped,” I said into his shoulder.

  I felt his breath stop for a moment before he slowly exhaled. “I’m glad to hear it. But it wouldn’t matter if you had been. Not to me, I mean.”