Nine

I started the trail for Katherine and Michael at the very tip of Manhattan Island where the ferry from Ellis Island lands the new immigrants. If they were penniless and knew nobody, then their first priority would be finding themselves a place to stay. I remembered clearly my own arrival from Ellis Island. I had been with Seamus, of course, and he had led me directly to his apartment on Cherry Street, but we had run the gamut of touts, waiting to prey on the newcomers. Those same touts were already lined up, bright and early in the morning, waiting for the first ferry from the island. Some of them clutched signs, some wore sandwich boards: The messages were written in Italian and Yiddish and Russian and God knows what else. A few, however, were written in English. MRS. O’BRIEN’S BOARDINGHOUSE, CHEAP AND CLEAN. ROOM TO LET. GOOD SAFE NEIGHBORHOOD . . . as well as the more ominous, PETER’S PAWN SHOP, 38 THE BOWERY, GOOD PRICE PAID FOR YOUR VALUABLES. Some men carried no signs. They lurked in nearby saloon doorways and watched and waited. Maybe they were hoping to find unaccompanied young girls, or even young men, but you could tell just by looking at them that they were waiting to prey on the weak and the unprotected.

I walked among the signs, taking down the addresses of the various boardinghouses and rooms for let. Then I started to visit them, one by one, beginning with those closest to the ferry dock. If they had arrived late in the day and were tired, they’d have chosen the closest.

Several hours later I was tired and footsore, and none the wiser. I had visited ten boardinghouses, God knows how many rooms for let, and none of them had heard of Katherine and Michael Kelly.

From what I knew, the Irish slum areas were along the waterfront, facing the East River, stretching from Cherry Street, where I had first lived with Nuala, down to Fulton Street where she now lived. There was also an area on the other side of the island, also along the docks, where my former employer, Paddy Riley, had lived, and then further up there was Hell’s Kitchen—although I didn’t look forward to going back there. I’d just have to start on the Lower East Side and work my way around. A daunting task, but I couldn’t think of any way around it. Again I was reminded how little I knew about being an investigator. Paddy would have probably been able to locate the missing couple with a few well placed questions. He had the contacts on both sides of the fence—the police and the underworld. I had no contacts, anywhere. Everything I did was by trial and error.

I decided to start on Cherry Street and comb the area methodically. It was now midday and commerce was in full swing. The saloons were open and a parade of men drifted in and out. It was likely that Michael Kelly had slaked his thirst in one of these. He was, from his photo, an attractive young man, with the ability to charm both Major Faversham and his daughter. He’d have been noticed. But women did not go into saloons. Again I was reminded how much easier this job was for a man.

I had to be content with stopping women on the street and asking about local boardinghouses or landlords who let cheap rooms. At each of these establishments I gave the same emotional plea about my dear lost cousin Katherine and her husband Michael. I asked about other boardinghouses nearby. Usually the answer was similar, “There’s herself down at Number Eighty-nine on the corner. Calls herself a boardinghouse but it’s so dirty even the mice won’t stay there.” I worked my way down Cherry Street, up Water Street, and then I moved inland—Monroe, Madison, Henry, and their cross streets. It was hopeless. In this area of crowded tenements almost every building had rooms that were let, sublet, and sub-sublet. Half the families took in boarders. And there were enough people called Kelly to send me on several wild-goose chases.

In the end I gave up and went back to the ferry dock, realizing that I should have questioned the touts and shown them the photos. They were a striking couple. Someone might well have remembered them. I came back to find a three-ring circus in full swing—a boat was just unloading, children were screaming, touts were shouting and trying to herd hapless immigrants in the direction of their establishment, small boys were trying to earn some coppers by carrying baggage which the frightened owners were not going to release, and among the crowd I spotted enough criminal element to make the immigrants’ fears justified. Pickpockets were doing a lively trade in the crush and some more brazen crooks were simply snatching bundles and boxes and dodging off with them into back alleyways. What a welcome to the land of the free! And where were New York’s finest when you needed them? I’d have to tell Daniel—forget that right now, Molly Murphy, I told myself. I wouldn’t be telling him anything again.

I was cursing myself for coming all this way for nothing when I saw something that made me grin from ear to ear. At the far side of the crowd a tall lugubrious fellow was walking up and down with a sandwich board with the words, MA KELLY’S BOARDINGHOUSE. JUST LIKE HOME. CHEAP AND CHEERFUL. The address was on Division Street, a mere half block from where I had stopped my search.

Of course they would have gone there if they’d seen the sign. How could Michael Kelly have resisted going to someone who might even have been a distant relative? I hurried to the Third Avenue El and rode it up to Canal Street where it was a mere hop, skip, and jump to 59 Division Street. A dreary tenement like all the rest—five stories of dingy brown brick. I knocked on the front door and it was opened by an enormous woman wearing a dirty white apron over a faded black dress. “Yes?” she asked, folding her arms across the monstrous shelf of bosom.

“I’m looking for my cousin and her new husband who recently arrived from Ireland. I’m wondering if they might have stayed here, seeing that their name is also Kelly.” I gave her a hopeful smile. “Michael and his wife Katherine—a young couple, just married, they are.”

I had hoped that her granite face might have softened when she heard the Irish accent, but she continued to glare at me. “Don’t mention them to me, the no-good pair,” she said.

“Then they were here?”

“They were here all right. Treated them like me own son and daughter, didn’t I? Him with his blarney about us being related.” She hoisted up the bosoms and sniffed. “No more related to him than the man in the moon.”

“So they’re not here any longer?” I asked cautiously.

“Upped and left without a by your leave or a thank you, didn’t they?” she demanded. “Waited until I was doing me shopping then simply upped and left. When I came back there was no sign of them, and they left owing a week’s rent too.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Going on for a month, I’d say. Good riddance to bad rubbish.”

“I’m sorry they treated you so badly,” I said. “It’s Katherine who’s my cousin, not this Michael Kelly. I understand from the folks at home in Ireland that he’s a bit of a rogue.”

“A bad lot if you ask me.” She bent toward me. “I think your cousin married beneath her. Always behaved like a real lady, that one, and talked all highfalutin too—although she could be a proper little madam if she’d a mind to. Had the nerve to criticize my housekeeping, she did. She told me her dogs at home wouldn’t want to eat off my floor. Can you imagine? The nerve of it.”

I swallowed back the smile. From what I could see of the grimy lace curtains and pockmarked linoleum, Katherine was quite right. I nodded with sympathy. “She was brought up rather spoiled,” I said. “But she’s a sweet nature and I’d like to help her if I can. You’ve no idea where they went, have you?”

She shook her head. “It wasn’t as if they said more than two words to me. Kept themselves to themselves, they did.”

“Were they around the house much when they lived here? Did they find jobs?”

“She did. She was out all day and every day, but that great lummox of a husband of hers, he lazed around doing nothing half the day. He didn’t perk up until the saloons opened and then he was out half the night.”

“So he could have been working a night shift then?”

She leaned closer to me again. “You don’t come home from the night shift on unsteady legs, smelling of beer.”

“Do you happen to know where Katherine was working?” I asked. “ “Maybe I could trace her through her job.”

Ma Kelly sniffed again. “Like I told you, we hardly exchanged more than two words. Kept herself to herself, that one, but with her fine airs and graces you’d have thought that she’d have had no trouble landing herself a refined job.”

I tried to think of more questions to ask, but couldn’t. “I’m sorry to have troubled you then, Mrs. Kelly. If any post arrives for them from home, maybe you could have it forwarded to my address. It’s Ten Patchin Place, in Greenwich Village. Molly Murphy’s the name.”

“I can do that,” she said. “I hope you find your cousin. Like I said, she was no trouble at all. He was a typical Kelly. Just like my late husband—couldn’t trust him farther than you could throw him. Went and inconvenienced everybody by dying when all he had was the influenza.” She sniffed again.

“If you do hear anything about Michael and Katherine, please let me know then,” I said. “I’ll be offering a small reward for information.”

“I’ve just given you information,” she said, a gleam coming into her eyes.

“So you have.” I reached into my purse. “Here’s fifty cents for your trouble. If the information leads to finding them, it will be more, of course.”

“I’ll keep me eyes and ears open for you, my dear,” she said, smiling at me most benignly now.

I left Ma Kelly’s unsure what to do next. Katherine and Michael had been living there until recently. Then they had left in a hurry. Had they found a better place to live—a room of their own? If Katherine was working, then it was entirely possible. But how would I ever trace them in a city this size? Paddy’s words came back to me—always start from what you know, however unimportant you think it is. What did I know? I knew that Katherine had found a job, and that Ma Kelly had suggested it might be a job suiting her refined airs and graces. A shop maybe? I knew that ladies sometimes worked in hat or dress shops, but how many of them would there be in the city? Too many for me to check out all of them.

I knew that Michael lounged around most of the day and came back at night smelling of beer. So the next step would be to find out where he did his drinking. If his step had been not too steady, then the saloon wouldn’t be far away. I’d start with the saloon on the corner and work outward.

I knew I’d be asking for trouble if I went into saloons, but I had to follow up on my only lead at this point. I’d just have to put on my most haughty expression and keep a hat pin ready. I slipped it out of my hat, held it between my fingers, and made my way to O’Leary’s Tavern on the corner of Division and Market. It was now around one thirty and the lunchtime trade was in full swing. Through the open door I could see men lined up at the bar, each with a bowl of hot food and a roll in front of him—all for the price of a beer. These free saloon lunches were most popular, especially with single workingmen. At least this looked like an honest workingman’s bar and I thought I’d be fairly safe.

I had scarcely passed in through the open door when one of the wags at the bar called out, “Careful, boys, here comes someone’s old woman, wanting to get her hands on his wage packet.”

The bartender came hastily around the bar to me. “Sorry, Miss. No women allowed.”

“I’m not intending to stay, sir,” I said. “I’m trying to locate a missing cousin of mine and I understand he might frequent this saloon. I wonder if you might have seen him.”

“Lady, I get a hundred men a day in here. Unless they get rowdy and smash up the furniture, I couldn’t tell them one from another and that’s the truth.”

“I just thought you might have noticed this young man. He lived just down the street, until a couple of weeks ago. His name was Michael Kelly—tall, dark haired, good looking, straight from Ireland, had the gift of the blarney, so they say.”

The barman shook his head, then I saw his expression change. “There was one fella used to come in here for a while. Liked to talk big. Boasted about blowing up things and escaping from under the noses of the English police.”

“That would be the one,” I said. “Any idea where I might find him now? He left his boardinghouse a few weeks ago.”

The man shook his head. “I can’t help you there, I’m afraid. Some of these gentlemen are in the bar of an evening—they might know more than me.” He raised his voice. “Young lady here is looking for her cousin. Remember that young fellow name of Mike Kelly—did a lot of talking about being a Fenian and a fighter for home rule? Whatever happened to him?”

An older man in dirty overalls looked up from the roll he was eating. “Last time I saw him, he was talking to Monk.”

“Monk?” I asked.

“Monk Eastman,” the man said, lowering his voice so that the words were barely audible.

“And who’s he?” I asked.

Some of the men looked at each other. “He’s the local gang boss, Miss,” one of them said, lowering his voice and his gaze.

“You think Michael might be involved with a gang?” I looked directly at the older man. He shrugged.

“I mind my own business, miss. I don’t get mixed up with the likes of Monk Eastman. I’m just telling ya what I saw. I saw him in front of the Walla Walla, talking with Monk.”

“He better have been in Monk’s good books, because if not he’d be floating in the East River by now,” someone else chimed in.

“What is this Walla Walla?” I asked.

“It’s the nickname for the Walhalla Hall—a local social club.”

“A social club? And where would that be?”

Again I saw the men exchange glances.

“Just around the corner on Orchard Street, just off Canal, but I wouldn’t go there yourself, miss. It’s a regular gang haunt. Not a place for nice young ladies, like yourself.”

“Don’t worry, I don’t intend to do anything stupid,” I said. “Thank you for your time and trouble, gentlemen.”

“Not at all, miss.” Several hats were raised. I left like departing royalty. I stood on the street corner, enjoying the sun that had appeared from between the clouds. Several men followed me out of the saloon and one of them took off at a run. I wondered if I had made him late back to work.

My, but that stew smelled good. My growling stomach reminded me that I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Yet another disadvantage of being a woman was that I couldn’t get myself a nourishing lunch for the price of a beer, but would have to seek out a café. Not wanting to stop when I was now hot on a trail, I bought myself a bag of hot roasted chickpeas from a pushcart. I had never tried them before, or even heard of them, but they were salty and crunchy and satisfied the hunger pangs very nicely.

I was in a quandary about what to do next. I knew that it would, indeed, be foolish to go asking questions at a gangland haunt. I needed to tread very carefully. But what harm could there be in walking along Orchard Street in broad daylight, just to get a look at the place? Mostel’s factory was only a block or so around the corner, on Canal Street and I had never felt myself in danger when I walked from the Broadway trolley car. I picked up my skirts, stepped off the curb, and struck out along Canal Street, looking a good deal more confident than I felt.

The Walhalla Hall was a solid-looking brick building with an imposing front door and marble ornamentation. It was, unfortunately, completely deserted, closed and shuttered at this time of day. I even crossed the street and examined it. From the outside it looked respectable enough, apart from the bars over the downstairs windows. There were posters on a billboard in front, advertising coming dances and social events. A perfectly respectable community hall, by all appearances.

I wasn’t sure what to do next. Clearly there would be no activity at the building during daylight but coming here at night would be a big risk to take. I surely didn’t fancy myself coming face-to-face with Monk Eastman or one of his cronies in the dark! I walked up and down the block once more and was wondering whether I might show Michael’s picture to any of the neighbors on the street when I heard the clatter of boots on cobbles. Three small figures came hurtling down Orchard Street and dodged into an alley on the far side of the Walhalla Hall. I thought I heard a police whistle blowing in the distance. With grim determination I set off after the boys down the alleyway. And in case you think I needed my head examined, let me just say that there was more at stake here than just getting information. I had recognized one of the boys. In fact I had put that black cap on his head myself this morning.