City of Orphans

by Avi

  “Not really. Can you?”

  Willa shakes her head.

  “Don’t worry. That kid told us,” Jacob says.

  “Let’s figure out the shout,” says Willa.

  They reach Maks’s corner. This time it’s Jacob who sits down on the pickle store steps, half the newspapers by his side.

  Willa stands on the corner, tries to remember just how Maks does it. She calls, “Extra! Extra! Read all ’bout it! ‘Ship Fire on the Hudson. Boat Sinks. Three People Drown.’ Read it in The World! The world’s greatest newspaper. Just two cents!”

  At first Willa finds it hard even to be loud. And she wishes she’d paid more attention to how Maks hustles his bundle. But as the afternoon goes on, she gets louder, stronger, better. One by one, the papers sell.

  It’s close to five o’ clock when Willa suddenly sees Bruno. Not even sure where he came from. He’s just there. With his gang. Instant she sees him, she remembers she don’t have her stick.

  “Jacob!” she cries. “Come here!”

  The boy jumps up and runs to her side. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

  It’s too late. The two of them are quickly surrounded by Bruno and Plug Uglies.

  “Where’s your boyfriend?” Bruno shouts.

  “None of your business.”

  “Yes, it is,” says Bruno. “Grab them papers,” he says to one of the gang.

  One of the mugs steps forward, snatches the remaining copies of The World from Willa, scatters ’em. Pages flutter like busted birds.

  “Help!” screams Willa. “Help!”

  But remember how we started with this story, how city kids’ doings is for kids? Far as passing people know, that’s what’s here.

  So no one helps.

  Bruno grips Willa by the neck, squeezing tight. When she kicks at him, he hits her hard, stunning her. Then he shoves a hand into her dress pocket, ripping it, but scooping out most of the coins she’s earned. Some pennies scatter. One of the other Plug Uglies has a bag. Bruno dumps in the coins.

  Jacob throws himself at Bruno, only to be knocked to the pavement.

  They start dragging Willa away.

  Bruno looks back and yells at Jacob, “Tell Maks to come and get her! He knows where!”

  A frantic Jacob jumps up, runs after the gang, only to be knocked down again. He’s hit so hard, he’s groggy. When he shakes his head clear and looks to see where they took Willa, she’s gone.

  Sobbing, Jacob goes back to Maks’s corner, searches for fallen pennies. Finds four. Clutching them in his hand, still crying, he races for home.

  63

  Up at the Waldorf Hotel, Maks ain’t having much fun running errands for rich people. He’s stunned by what these people can’t do for themselves. “Boy! Get my shoes shined. . . . Boy! Bring these flowers to my room. . . . Boy! Help me find my suitcase.”

  At one point Mr. Trevor tells him to go to the girls’ dormitory to give a message to Miss Foley concerning extra blankets for room seven seventeen. That’s an errand Maks is happy to do, hoping he can speak directly to the lady ’bout Emma. He just might find a clue.

  The girls’ dormitory is a big, dull, gray room in a basement area. When Maks reaches it, seems as if no one is there. As he looks ’bout, he realizes this must be where the servant girls sleep. Emma, too, he supposes. Nothing fancy, maybe a hundred narrow beds, each of ’em with a thin mattress, a gray blanket, small pillow. Under the beds are wooden boxes in which Maks supposes the girls keep their belongings. The beds are all the same, ’cept each one has a tag attached to it with a girl’s name.

  Maks walks about, wondering if Emma’s name is there. Finds it fast enough. When he looks at it, he’s reminded of where she is now, which makes him feel bad.

  Maks finds Miss Foley in her own little room, set off from the dormitory. A big, plump lady, she’s working on some ledgers.

  Standing in her open door, he says, “Miss Foley?”

  She looks up. “Yes?” she says, not too smiley.

  Maks gives her Mr. Trevor’s message ’bout the blankets. Then he says, “Miss Foley, he also wants to know if a girl by the name of Emma Geless got a compliment from a guest.”

  Miss Foley’s brow furrows. She says, “Be so good as to remind Mr. Trevor that that’s the girl who was arrested.”

  Maks, trying not to react, keeps standing there.

  “I suppose the police are asking,” says the woman. “Mr. Packwood asked me the same thing. You can tell Mr. Trevor that, far as I know, the girl received nothing in the way of a compliment.” She sniffs. “I’m not surprised. Not a bit.”

  Eyeing Emma’s old bed as he leaves, Maks goes back to the bellboy bench in the lobby.

  The rest of his day is spent running errands and sometimes thinking of Emma, sometimes thinking ’bout that man, Willa’s father—if it is him. Maks hopes he’ll catch sight of him again, but he don’t.

  Mostly, he’s wishing he could find something for Emma, but all he has is what Miss Foley told him. Keeps puzzling why that guy would say he was gonna report something nice ’bout Emma then not do it.

  He has no answers. Not to anything.

  64

  It’s pretty near seven in the evening when that Trevor guy calls Maks to his desk, tells him he can go home. “Be here on time tomorrow,” he warns.

  Maks is glad to leave. And by now he knows his way back to Mr. Packwood’s room, where he knocks on the door.

  “Ah, Mr. Geless. How did you get along?”

  “Fine.”

  “Learn anything to help your sister?”

  “Don’t think so. You get any answers to Mr. Donck’s questions?”

  “You mean, someone extending a compliment to your sister?”

  Maks nods.

  “I asked the ninth-floor supervisor—that’s where your sister worked. No compliment was given to her. Nor to Miss Foley, or, for that matter, to Mr. Trevor. Tell Mr. Donck if you wish. As for the room number where the theft took place: nine twelve.”

  “Nine twelve,” Maks repeats. “Think Donck can do anything with that?”

  “I have no idea. He’s a clever man.”

  Maks keeps standing there.

  After a moment Packwood says, “I’m sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Me too,” says Maks, and he backs out of the room.

  Outside the office, he tries to decide if Packwood’s answers are good or bad. Has no idea. All the same, he knows that he needs to tell Donck the answers. And that Emma’s trial is in less than two days. It’s getting to be no time left.

  65

  Maks makes his way back to the men’s changing room, pulls off his hotel uniform, and gets back into his own clothes, which are still damp. When he’s in that room, he counts his tip money. Ninety-five cents! That’s a whole lot of money for Maks. Can’t wait to give it to Papa. Fact, he starts thinking, Maybe I should keep this job. Let Jacob sell papers.

  When Maks leaves the hotel, it’s dark. Streetlamps are on. But he gotta get to Donck’s place before he can look at that picture of Willa’s family. Knowing the walk downtown is gonna take an hour, and being chilly, he starts off fast.

  After a few steps Maks stops. Maybe that guy asked Emma her name so he could learn it. But why would he do that?

  Then Maks decides that since he has all that tip money in his pocket—money he don’t usually have—he could take the El. Get there a lot faster.

  Turning east, he finds a train station on Second Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street.

  Trouble is, he’s never been on the El before. So what Maks does is watch what people do. Then he buys a ticket from a man in a booth, and making sure he’s waiting near the steps that’ll take him to the downtown side, he stands where other people are waiting by a gatekeeper.

  Ain’t long ’fore a train pulls in, wheels and driving rods churning, smoke pouring from its stack, engine leaking steam.

  “Downtown train!” shouts the gateman, flipping up the gate.

  Like everyone
else, Maks drops his ticket into the gateman’s glass box and rushes onto one of the three crowded cars. No empty seats, so he holds the pole set from ceiling to floor.

  With a whistle blast, the train jerks forward. Maks never moved so fast in his life. Fifteen miles an hour! It’s like that elevator he was on—only instead of going up and down, it’s going flat. City lights whiz by as fast as shooting stars. Makes Maks feel giddy, but he loves the feeling.

  The train goes along at a third-floor level, so even if Maks didn’t want to, he’s looking into lit-up tenement rooms. In a few places, people have even put their names in the windows so he knows who’s living there.

  Names.

  That guy asked Emma for her name. If you wanted to put that watch chain under her pillow, you could find it easy: Emma’s name is on her bed.

  A train guard calls out the station stops: “Twenty-third Street! . . . Eighteenth! . . . Fourteenth! . . . Eighth!” Every time the train stops, doors crank open. People get on or off.

  When Maks reaches the station nearest Donck’s place, he jumps off, goes down to the street, and walks to the detective’s rooms. As he goes, he has new thoughts: Miss Foley’s room is off to one side. When I walked through the dormitory, no one even noticed me. Maybe it was the same for the real thief.

  Maks gets to the detective’s door. It’s open, with a little light coming from the front. Even so, it takes a minute for him to see Donck. The guy is leaning back in his chair, mouth open, a thread of blood slipping down his chin.

  Maks gasps: He’s dead.

  “Mr. Donck?” he shouts. “Mr. Donck?”

  With a start, Donck lurches up, putting eyeglasses on with shaky hands, then fumbling with his listening tube, which he sets into his ear. “Who’s that?”

  “It’s me. Maks. The kid you’re teaching to be a detective.”

  Donck looks at Maks for a long minute. “Ah, yes,” he says, rubbing his face as though to wake himself up. “Your sister was here.”

  “Willa?”

  “She told me your sister Emma is going on trial on Saturday.”

  “I know. You gonna be able to help her?”

  “Have you learned anything?”

  “Did what you told me: went to the Waldorf.”

  “And?”

  “It’s rich.”

  “Pha! I know that.”

  “But the cleaning girls’ dormitory is ordinary.”

  “I don’t care. Just tell me if you’ve learned anything to help your sister.”

  “I asked Packwood those questions you told me.”

  Donck leans back in his chair. Shuts his eyes. “Go on.”

  “My sister—Emma—she never got that compliment from that guy who said he’d give her one. And the room where the watch was taken—”

  Donck holds out his hearing tube. “Loudly.”

  “It was nine twelve.”

  Donck sits up, eyes wide open. “Nine twelve? You’re quite certain?”

  “Yes, sir. What Packwood said. Nine twelve. That help any?”

  “Nine twelve,” Donck says again, dropping back in his chair.

  “And . . . and I thought of something else.”

  “Thinking is always useful.”

  “That dormitory I was trying to tell you ’bout—where the cleaning girls sleep—they got name tags on all the beds. And guess what? They left Emma’s name tag on the bed she was sleeping in.”

  “Why should that matter?”

  “See, that guy told Emma he was gonna say something nice for her.”

  “So?”

  “Well, if he knows her name, he could have found her bed in the girls’ dormitory. Easy.”

  “How?”

  “Just said: Every bed has a name tag on it.”

  Donck is now sitting straight up, staring at Maks. “But surely,” he says, “people were there. A stranger coming into the girls’ dormitory—if it was a stranger—would be noticed.”

  “What I’m trying to say. When I went in, nobody was there. I mean, the woman in charge—Miss Foley—her office is off some. So when I went in, I was alone.”

  “But how would the thief know your sister’s name?”

  “Told you! Emma said that guy asked her for it.”

  “Did he?”

  “Yeah. And see, her bed had that tag. That help?”

  Donck closes his eyes. Rubs his chin. “Perhaps. Yes. You’re smart. Very smart.”

  “I am?”

  Maks waits for Donck to explain why he thinks he’s smart. But when Donck don’t, Maks says, “Want me to go back to the Waldorf tomorrow?”

  “Yes.”

  “You got more questions for Packwood?”

  “Not questions. The watch. Tell him to keep looking for the watch. I believe it’s in the hotel. Somewhere.”

  “How come you think that?”

  Maks waits. But all Donck does is pull out his ear tube, bend over his desk, pick up a pen, and begin writing fast.

  Maks says, “Want me to stay or go?”

  Donck keeps writing.

  Maks, thinking this is the oddest mug he’s ever met, can’t do anything but leave.

  66

  Maks walks toward home. He’s discouraged, frustrated. Emma’s trial is in two days! But maybe he did something to help. Tries to think why Donck said he was smart. Can’t figure it out. Just making fun, he supposes.

  Least, he tells himself, he didn’t do too bad at the Waldorf. Actually had some nice things happen, like riding the elevators, the El. And something stupid—that shower. Still, he got all that tip money, only spent a nickel. Almost feels like a swell. Ninety cents gonna help.

  As usual, the Lower East Side is dark, cluttered, smelly. Not so crowded as daytime, maybe, but still lots of people on the streets. But somehow things don’t seem right to Maks. He’s noticing how poorly people are dressed. How tired they look. Not so happy, neither.

  As Maks walks on, he becomes aware of the rip under one arm of his jacket. Notices that he’s tired too. And the rows of drab tenement houses make him think of tombstones with windows. Even the plodding horses, heading for their stables, look exhausted.

  That’s me, thinks Maks. Like them horses. Ready to go into a tombstone.

  Never had such feelings before.

  Next moment, he scolds himself for thinking that way.

  Hey, this is my neighborhood. Up there, the Waldorf, that ain’t home. This is where I’m supposed to be. I’m down here. Live here. Work there.

  Maks struggles to put his thoughts to Willa and the man who looked like her father. Sitting with that Joe Gorker and the lady, he appeared rich too.

  What’s going on?

  Once again Maks tells himself he better be sure before telling Willa anything. And he’s gotta tell his parents that Emma’s trial is in two days. The thought makes him ache. Everyone’s gonna go crazy.

  Hands in his pockets, feeling his coins, Maks turns onto Birmingham Street and looks up. Sees someone leaning against the streetlamp.

  A Plug Ugly.

  67

  Maks scoots back round the corner, then steals a look. Between the light coming from the lamp and the light seeping from the saloon at the bottom of his own building, he sees that there are two of ’em.

  Maks has no doubt they’re wanting to grab him.

  He tries to think what to do. Other nights when he saw ’em—looking down from his front room—they left after a while. So Maks tells himself he could wait. That’d be the best, safest thing to do. But he really wants to get home. The later he is, the more worried everybody’s gonna be. He needs to tell everybody ’bout Emma’s trial. And he wants to look at Willa’s picture. It’s all burning him.

  Maks stands in a dark spot at the end of the street, watching. As he sees it, the Plug Uglies are talking to each other more than they’re keeping guard.

  Maks figures if he can get close, make a fast run, really fast, he should be able to shoot right by ’em and get into the house ’fore they even know it�
��s him.

  Thing is, he needs to be a lot closer.

  Staying on his side of the street, keeping to dark patches and shadows, Maks goes forward in little bits.

  The Plug Uglies don’t seem to notice.

  Maks keeps edging on, creeping closer to the stoop.

  Then one of the guys turns and seems to be staring right at him. Maks, heart pounding, hardly breathing, freezes like a hunk of ice. When the Plug Ugly turns away, Maks starts sneaking forward again.

  Maks don’t have no plan when to make a move. Just all of a sudden, he knows it’s right. Shoots like a Fourth of July rocket, tearing toward his house. Hits the stoop just as the Plug Uglies realize it’s him.

  “Hey!” one of them yells. “You! We got—”

  Maks yanks the front door open, leaps inside, races up the steps. In moments he’s standing in front of his apartment door, breathing hard but safe.

  Soon as he catches his breath, he opens the door and walks in.

  The whole family—Mama, Papa, Agnes, the boys, even Monsieur Zulot—is in the kitchen. They all look right at him, wide-eyed. Jacob is crying. And it’s Jacob who, soon as he sees Maks, calls out, “Maks! Willa got kidnapped.”

  68

  “Kidnapped?” Maks cries. “What are you saying?”

  “When she and Jacob were selling your papers,” says Papa.

  Agnes says, “Jacob said it was some redheaded guy.”

  Maks stares at Jacob. “Bruno?”

  “And some big boys,” adds Ryker. “They grabbed Willa.”

  Mama says, “We’ve been out trying to find her.”

  “Only we don’t understand where to look,” says Monsieur Zulot.

  Maks, trying to grasp what’s happened, drops to his knees, holds Jacob’s shoulders with both hands, looks into his face. “Tell me everything!”

  Jacob takes a deep, weepy breath, says, “We were just there . . . selling papers . . . sold most of them . . . when this guy . . . he had red hair—”

  Maks nods. “Bruno.”

  Jacob brushes tears away. “He and a bunch of other guys surrounded us . . . threw down the papers that were left . . . took Willa’s money . . . and though she was screaming at them, fighting, kicking . . . I tried to help her, Maks, I really did . . . but they knocked me down . . . then they took her away.”