Another silent minute passed. Julia’s stomach ached from the tension of listening, each passing moment of Eva’s resistance a small victory. Philip continued to wait, but Hannity blew out a loud breath. The typewriter fell silent too.
“For Pete’s sake,” Hannity burst out, “don’t you understand simple English?”
Julia squeezed her lips together, stifling her own combative reply.
“Sergeant.” Kessler shook his head slightly.
Hannity cocked his jaw toward the windows.
It seemed to Julia that an eternity passed, and still Eva made no sound. Apart from the rise and fall of her shoulders with each shallow breath, she might have been a statue. Julia wondered if her eyes were open or closed.
Kessler sat back. Hannity swung his knees toward Eva.
She remained motionless.
“May I have a word with the lady?” Philip spoke to Kessler, but his eyes never left Eva.
He drew out his sterling cigarette case and offered Eva one of his finest rose-tipped Régies. She ignored it.
“I understand you’re quite the diva, Miss Pruitt. The toast of Harlem, I’m told. Admirers fawning at your feet, champagne by the bucket, fresh flowers every hour.”
He smiled at the ridiculous picture. “But it’s not all wine and roses, is it? The stage life is not for the faint of heart. Theaters are full of modern Svengalis. Owners, managers, bosses—they all exact their toll. Hardly fair or right, eh? All your talent and years of hard work going mostly to boost a man’s vanity and line his pockets?
“Beastly rotter, that Leonard Timson,” he said. “Now there’s a brute no one will miss. He had no right to take what belonged to you, did he?”
Despite Eva’s silence Philip continued in the same desultory tone, as if making small talk over sweet tea on a Georgia porch swing. Julia recognized the cunning behind his ambling drawl and silently urged Eva not to be fooled. Anything she said would be whisked away and typed up in triplicate for prosecutors, the rest of her story disregarded as so much chaff. Be careful, Eva. Answer only the fair questions, the ones assuming your innocence, not your guilt.
“I imagine his taste in literature was abysmal,” Philip said with a knowing sigh. “He had no idea what it meant to garner a contract from Mr. Goldsmith, did he? It’s an extraordinary honor, a greater thrill than a lifetime of applause at Carlotta’s, am I right? A literary coup. It will carry your name not just through Harlem but the whole city, the whole country. Quite a prize.”
Eva’s shoulders gave a sudden jerk. Hannity scooted forward in his chair, and Kessler straightened. Only Philip did not move. All three men watched her, waiting for something more.
She slowly crossed her arms, and her shoulders resumed their adamant set.
Hannity glared at her. Then his patience snapped. He snarled into her face, “Say something, you little—” and slapped her hard above her ear, spinning her sideways in her chair.
Julia gripped the nearest shelf edge, holding on to anything that would keep her from bursting out into the room, her impulse to escape mirroring what must have been pulsing in Eva’s veins. Hannity was a burly man. He could break Eva’s arm with one sharp twist. Yet she was trapped, unable to run from his blows. It was outrageous! How dared he strike a woman, or anyone so defenseless?
Eva slowly righted herself and made a noise in her throat as if gathering phlegm to spit. Hannity hit her again, knocking her scarf to the floor.
“Stop that!” Philip protested. Julia bit her cheek, wishing instead he’d returned the blow with a good old-fashioned slug. The ferric tang of blood flooded her mouth.
“Back off, Sergeant,” Kessler said, frowning. “We were just starting to get somewhere.”
Julia was astounded. Kessler faulted Hannity for breaking the spell Philip was beginning to weave? What about the violence? His sergeant had struck a prisoner! No, not a prisoner. Eva wasn’t under arrest. She was an American citizen, entitled by right to be treated with respect—and every other tenet of basic human courtesy.
Hannity gave a sulky shrug and edged back in his chair.
With a low moan Eva tried to cover her exposed head. Her arms swarmed to hide her hair. A dull milky-brown color, it was coarse Negro hair, lying in stiff, flat sheets like slabs of dried mud. She bent for her scarf.
With a scornful belly laugh Hannity kicked it under Kessler’s desk. “Not so easy to fool the suckers now, is it?”
Eva gave a plaintive gasp as Philip stirred with a sharp “Sergeant!” Kessler seconded the rebuke with an inarticulate growl.
Julia clutched the edge of the door, her fingers wedged into the narrow gap. She wrestled back a need to scream or shout. She could barely watch as Eva bent forward and Hannity rose again, towering over her. He muttered something through his teeth, and Eva cowered, swiveling toward Philip. Before Hannity’s fist could slam into her shoulder, Philip threw out an arm to deflect the blow and seized Hannity’s wrist.
“That’s enough!” bellowed Kessler. He slammed his pen down on his desk. “Looks like we’re done here.”
Hannity shook off Philip’s grasp. Eva squirmed, turning toward Philip so that Julia could see her give him one quick, inscrutable look. It pierced Julia. As cautious as it was intense, it implored yet defied him to read what was there. What did it mean? What was she trying to say?
Hannity clamped down on Eva’s forearm. “I’m not convinced this canary won’t sing. My boys know how to make her squawk. Let’s go.”
Eva struggled to keep her flattened slippers on her feet as he yanked her out of the chair and pushed her out across the room ahead of him. As soon as the door swung shut behind them, Julia smacked her own prison door into the heavy fern pot. Philip dragged it aside, and she burst out.
“Good God!” Julia exclaimed. “What did he mean by that?”
“Don’t be naive,” Philip murmured.
He was right. She knew
