“Your eyes?”
She pulled off her tinted spectacles and lifted her face so he could see her eyes from under the bonnet.
“Ha! First time I’ve seen someone with two different eyes like that. One blue and one brown. How’d that happen?”
She shrugged and put her spectacles back on. “My maman, that is, my ma, she had the same kind of eyes. People used to call her a witch, say she was cursed. All because of her eyes.”
“Huh. Well, like I said. People look, and they see what they want to see. And then they don’t look any further.”
She nodded vigorously. “Say, I’d sure like to hear you and Black Bill sometime. Especially if you play the mouth harp as good as you play the piano.”
He laughed. “The dump at Mission Creek is no place for someone like you, Miss Gizzi.”
“The dump? He lives at the dump?”
“Yep. He’s not quite all…” Patrick tapped his forehead. “He’s a rag-picker, digs through the garbage lookin’ for stuff to sell, and sometimes begs along the wharf. I sneak him a little food now and again, when my ma and aunt aren’t looking. He has himself a little tent out in the dump, with a raggedy flag planted right outside. He fought in the war. Union side, of course. Says he paid his dues, and he claims that little spot of land on the dump as his rightful due payment from the U. S. of A. for services rendered. Well, he don’t say it like that, but that’s the idea.”
So, this Black Bill fought in the war. That meant he was old.
“Do you have friends that live down there?”
“I’d say Black Bill is my only friend, actually. I’m too busy working, and there’s not a lot of my kind down there.”
She stopped. “Mr. May, I guess I’m not ‘your kind’ either, but we’re both different, right? That’s a kind of a kind. So, I’d be honored if you’d count me as your friend. I’ll be your north of Market friend, and Black Bill can be your south of Market friend.”
“That’s good of you, Miss Gizzi.” He sounded amused, like he was humoring her.
“I mean it.” She insisted. “Copper Mick at school is the only friend I have. He’s got red hair, that’s why he’s called that. Well, because his pa’s in the force, too. Anyway, if we’re friends now, that’ll mean we both have two.”
He grinned. “All right then.”
“We’re friends now, so you can call me Antonia.”
“Well, all right then, Miss Antonia.”
“And someday I want to hear you and Black Bill play the mouth harp.”
“Maybe someday.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Patrick.”
Turning on Market, she headed toward school, happier than she’d been in a long time.
Two friends!
Maybe San Francisco wasn’t so bad after all.
After classes, Antonia hopped down the steps of Lincoln School, thinking her meeting Patrick May must’ve been a lucky thing, because the day had only gotten better from there. She couldn’t wait to tell Mrs. S what Persnickety Pierce had said. Her teacher had actually complimented her! In front of the class!
Yep, things were definitely looking up. Now, if she could just help Mrs. S work out what happened to Jamie Monroe, everything would be hunky-dory.
A familiar voice behind her said, “There you are!” and next thing, Copper Mick was beside her, a big grin on his face. “I’ve got news for you,” he announced.
“And me for you,” said Antonia. “You first.”
“Where are we walking?” He looked around. “This may take some time.”
“Where do you live?”
“Down Third Street a bit. A few blocks.”
“Can we walk over there so I can see your place? And then we can turn around and walk up toward the music store.”
“Well, sure. I don’t see why not. Except my sisters might make pests of themselves if they see us, so let’s go down Fifth and take a side street.”
They started walking, putting Lincoln School behind them.
Mick started. “Well, I did like you said, and asked my pa about the Long Bridge murder, kinda suggesting the little kids at school were talking about a boogeyman under the bridge had done it.”
“And?” Antonia prompted.
“And he said, nah, it wasn’t nothing of the sort. Just some poor bloke who was in the wrong place in the wrong time.”
“What else?”
“And I asked if he was working the case to find who did it. He said he had been at first but was called off the case. Politics, he said. Which would explain why he was grumpy a couple days ago. Then he said things changed and he’s now working it ‘on the side.’ He was even cheerful about it but warned me not to tell Ma because she’d have his hide.”
“Anything else?” Antonia bounced on her toes a little, impatient to tell him her plan, as they stepped off the walkway to cross the street.
“Yep. You’re gonna like this, I’ll bet.” Mick stuck his hands in his pockets, trying, Antonia guessed, to look casual, but obviously bursting to tell her something.
“Well?” she prodded.
“He said he’s making progress and might even be making an arrest soon.” The freckles on his face crinkled up with his smile. “He told me to keep it under my hat. So you gotta keep it under your bonnet as well, all right?” He reached out and tugged on her bonnet brim, dragging it down over her eyes and nearly dislodging her spectacles.
She pushed her hat back up and wished she was tall enough to yank down his cap in return. “Wow. I wonder who he thinks it is.”
“He said he thinks a local. I suppose that could be almost anyone. Some hoodlum, or cutthroat, maybe a rag-picker or two-bit thug.”
Antonia stopped dead in her tracks realizing something she hadn’t thought of before. “Or maybe a Chinaman,” she whispered. John Hee.
Mick had kept walking as he was talking
