The Gilded Hour
Page 43

Anna did not see them as hapless victims or as hardened criminals, but as children who simply refused to give up and die. An unprotected child who survived the streets of the city for even a month was a child who had learned to take advantage of any opportunity, or to create opportunity where none existed.
Though she was watchful and aware, Anna had had her pocket picked more than once; early in her career she had learned that poor children could not be left alone in an examination room or office. Even the youngest of them would take anything that might have value on the street, from a few inches of gauze to wooden tongue depressors and once in a while, scalpels and retractors.
Jack opened a door and they went up a staircase, the floorboards swept clean, the banisters polished, and not a single mark on the whitewashed walls. She wondered how the housekeeper managed it with so many boys under her roof.
The reception area was almost empty in the middle of the afternoon but for a high counter and off to one side, a smaller table where a single boy sat frowning at an exercise book. Behind the counter a middle-aged man in shirtsleeves was writing in a ledger while a woman sorted through the afternoon mail. Jack made a polite sound in his throat to get their attention, and succeeded.
“Jack Mezzanotte!” The woman held out both arms as if he were a favorite brother come home unexpectedly. She was red-cheeked and rounded, her hair piled up into a fuzzy topknot, but there was a sharp intelligence in her eyes and a stubborn set to her chin, and Anna had the sense that she was not to be trifled with.
She was saying, “It’s been too long. Where have you been keeping yourself?” Her gaze moved to Anna and her smile broadened. This time there was a dimple.
Jack introduced her to Mr. and Mrs. Howell and presented Anna first just by name and then, quite formally, added on the fact that she was a physician and surgeon. He did this as though a lady surgeon were nothing out of the ordinary, and still the cheerful look on both faces before them went momentarily blank with confusion.
Then their enthusiasm and good manners reasserted themselves and they lost no time ushering Jack and Anna into the manager’s apartment just off the reception area. Mrs. Howell called to someone in the kitchen for tea, and then they sat down on well-used couches in faded chintz. For the next few minutes they peppered Jack with questions about his well-being, his family, goings-on at police headquarters, the activities of the Italian Benevolent Society, and the case of one of their charges who had been arrested for theft.
Once the tea had been set out by one of the Howells’ daughters, Mrs. Howell’s attention turned in another direction.
“And how do you know Dr. Savard, Jack?”
Jack leaned back and smiled at her. “I’ll let Anna tell the story. It’s why we’re here.”
It was beginning to feel like a set piece, but Anna told it all. Mr. and Mrs. Howell listened closely, stopping her once in a while to ask questions.
“You examined all four of the children?”
“Yes,” Anna told Mrs. Howell. “They were all comparatively healthy. Tonino was very well grown for his age, quite strong. The baby was alert and not fearful.” She described them in as much detail as she could give.
“Jenny?” said Mr. Howell, looking at his wife.
She shook her head. “The baby wouldn’t come through our doors, and I haven’t seen the older boy. It doesn’t mean he hasn’t been through here, but it’s unlikely. I’ll ask our Thomas when he gets home from his classes; he takes the desk every day for a few hours. And there’s—”
She paused as a younger boy came into the parlor to lean against her chair and send longing glances to the plate of cookies that sat untouched on the table. Anna wondered how many children of their own they had raised in this very building.
“Timothy,” said Mrs. Howell. “Go see if Baldy is in, please. Tell him I need to talk to him, right away.” She turned back to Anna.
“And in the meantime, I’d like to hear more about you, Dr. Savard.”
•   •   •
JACK DIVIDED HIS attention between Hank’s story of a boy who had been arrested for drawing a knife on another boy in the dormitory, and Jenny Howell’s sure-handed solicitation of Anna’s help in one more worthy cause. And he was listening at the same time for Baldy. It was no more than five minutes before he burst into the room as if the roundsmen were at his heels. The kid had enough energy to fuel all of New York’s elevated train lines by himself.
“Did you want to see me, Ma Howell?” Then he caught sight of Jack and drew up sharply, his long, gangly body suddenly utterly still.
“No trouble,” Jack said. “I’m not here for you.” And he added something in Italian that made the boy both relax and smile.
“Sit yourself down,” said Hank. “The detective sergeant and this lady are looking for a boy, and you might be able to help.”
Baldy lowered himself onto a stool and nodded. While Jack talked he listened with an expression that made it clear that while he would cooperate, he would not be so foolish as to believe anything this Detective Sergeant Mezzanotte had to say. A completely understandable position to take, after all. Jack had arrested him more than once.
When Jack had finished, Baldy said, “This kid, a Neopolitán with blue eyes?”
“Blue eyes, black hair.”
“Somebody like that would stick out. You’re sure he’s Neopolitán?”
Jack nodded, and Baldy shook his head. “Can’t help you.”
“You could ask around,” Jack said. “See if Vince or Bogie or anybody in one of the gangs has seen him.”
“I could,” Baldy said. His gaze had come to rest with obvious interest and curiosity on Anna. “You took his sisters in, miss?”
“This is Dr. Savard,” Jack corrected him.
“Dr. Savard, if you’re in the market for homeless Italian kids, I could volunteer myself.” He thumped his chest with a fist. “I’m better than Italian. I’m one-hundred-ten-percent-head-to-toes Siciliano.”
“And you’re not a child,” Mrs. Howell said. “Though you seem to forget from time to time. Eighteen is a man grown. Or should be.”
The young man had a head of dark hair so thick that it stood straight up from his scalp and beneath that, a clever mind. Jack had issued some kind of challenge that Anna didn’t catch, but Baldy jumped right into a conversation that was half banter and half dispute and all in Italian. Anna leaned toward Mrs. Howell and lowered her voice. “Is there somewhere I could speak to Baldy alone for a half hour or so?”
•   •   •
ANNA CLOSED THE door to Mr. Howell’s office behind herself and smiled at the boy’s attempt to look both worldly and innocent.
“Baldy,” she began, and then interrupted herself with a question. “What is your real name, if I may ask? There must be something more dignified to call you.”
He inclined his head. “I am Giustiniano Gianbattista Garibaldi Nediani.”
“I see.” She paused.
“You don’t like Baldy?”
“I don’t dislike it, but it doesn’t really suit you.”
“I have a very long name,” he said. “And I am very tall. If they had thought to give you a longer name, maybe you would have grown to a full size.”
At that Anna had to laugh out loud. “Maybe Anna isn’t my full name,” she said. “If you don’t have a preference, I’ll call you Nediani or Ned. Does that suit?”
The boy gave an almost regal nod. “What is it you want to know?”
Anna didn’t have to prompt very hard to hear his very brief story. Orphaned at age eight, abandoned by an uncle, four years on the streets, three of those as a newsie. Since then he had been working at the lodging house as a jack-of-all-trades and pursuing other avenues of self-improvement, as he put it. He rattled off the facts with such ease that Anna didn’t know what to think. It might be a well-rehearsed story, or a history that had to be handled like a live coal, cautiously, quickly, lest it do more damage.
“You are still active as a newsie?”
“I outgrew that years ago, except for looking out for some of the younger boys. Mostly I’m busy here.”
“Are you content to continue here, or do you have plans?”
At this he looked somewhat affronted. “I have three hundred twenty-two dollars and fifty-five cents in savings. You can ask Ma Howell, she keeps the books. I’m thinking when I’ve got enough saved, I’ll buy an interest in a shop.”
“That’s very enterprising of you,” Anna said. “But it is slow going, saving for a better life.”
“You got a job you want me to do, right? You want me to find this little kid for you.”
“Yes. I realize that we are asking you to look for a little boy you don’t know, and that it might put you in a difficult position, now and then, to ask questions in certain quarters. On the other hand, you know the streets. Your experience and understanding of the way things work gives you a great advantage.”