“And he’s the only one who knows where she is.” Julia forced herself to put aside the flailing of her heart. She spun toward the door so quickly she swayed and had to grab the edge of the table. “We need to find her.”
“I’m coming with you. I know where to look.”
Her mind was already scrambling back through the Half-Shell to the street. But then where to? Her thumbnail traced the groove between her front teeth, a habit both her mother and Christophine had tried to scold away. He was right. She couldn’t do this without him. More importantly, this was his fight more than hers. Eva was his wife. “Do you have clothes? Shoes?”
Jerome groped in the shadows by his cot, emerging with a limp shirt over his vest. He crouched to tie his shoelaces and swayed when he stood. He had no socks. Into his sagging waistband he tucked the chamois bag with the revolver from under his mattress. Julia recoiled. Then she remembered Wallace’s reminder that guns made people stop, forced them to consider the consequences of whatever came next. A gun could hold someone at bay, long enough to make them listen.
They moved quickly through the club’s empty cavern. They heard only a distant clatter of dishes until they reached the lobby, where the old janitor sat on a chair by the door, a litter of cigarette stubs no longer than his fingertips sprinkling the floor around him. His sly smile turned to alarm when he saw Jerome.
Julia quieted him with a generous palm. “Thank you, sir. Jervis’s sister will be so grateful to see him again. Don’t worry.”
Jerome stumbled as they hurried up the steps to the street. He blinked and shaded his eyes but kept moving, following their heels as Austen and Julia headed to the corner. They’d have better luck finding a taxi on Seventh Avenue. Julia got out another bill to persuade the driver to accept a colored passenger.
Within five minutes, miraculously, they were on their way to an address on West 137th Street. But as soon as the taxi turned into the block, they realized they could not stop. Two police motorcars were parked in front of the building Jerome had named.
Damn. Damn. Of course. It was Sunday morning. The police crackdown had begun. Three cops stood talking to a crowd of neighbors. Jerome melted to the floor when two of the cops eyed the slow-passing taxi. Julia returned their stare with the idle ambivalence of impervious wealth, and they stepped back to let them pass unchallenged.
No sign of Eva.
They continued to a second address Jerome supplied. Julia recognized it as the building on 141st where Wallace had said he’d sent Eva after his housekeeper had complained. This time they saw the police cars a full two blocks away. Julia signaled for Austen to cover Jerome with his jacket. She asked the driver to slow as they approached. Lowering the window halfway, she called out to one of the policemen in a girlish drawl, “What’s happened here, Officer?”
He motioned her to turn around and head south. “Go home, miss. This ain’t no neighborhood for you.”
He turned to the driver. “Get her out of here,” he shouted, slapping the fender like a horse’s flank.
“Wait.” Julia tried to recall the name of the building where Wallace kept an apartment for his friends’ dalliances. “Take us to the—Lester. On 146th, I believe.”
It was only a few blocks away, but two police motorcars idled there as well. “Hey, what’s goin’ on here?” the taxi driver growled uneasily.
“Drive past please, slowly.” After another exchange of curious, wary stares with the policemen at the curb, Julia sat back. She had to think.
“Where do you live, lady?” the driver asked, resolutely turning south.
He repeated the question, more loudly.
“East Side,” she said. “Just head down Fifth.”
She motioned Jerome to get up and leaned closer. “I have an idea. Here’s my plan.”
CHAPTER 31
Julia stood on the tree-lined street. No one passed, on foot or by motor. In this neighborhood it was a serene Sunday morning. She counted to one hundred, wishing she could slow her heartbeat so easily. At eighty she leaned on the taxicab’s front fender and bent to remove one shoe, remembering the London day last summer she had bought the pair. Not bearing to watch, she gripped the instep and rapped it sharply against the curb. Again, harder. The heel fell to the pavement with a clatter. She refastened the broken shoe onto her foot.
The driver watched her with open amazement, his motor idling as instructed. His eyes bulged when she gave her right sleeve a tug and the seam tore. Even Christophine could not have revived the poor frock after the misfortunes of the previous evening, Julia consoled herself. She glared at the driver, reminding him of his well-paid pledge of silence, and caught a fold of her lower lip between her teeth. Eyes shut, fingers squeezing her bag for courage, she bit down hard. Her mouth yawned wide in pain, but she tasted the satisfying metallic tang of blood.
Ninety-six. Ninety-seven. She took a deep breath, raised her left arm, and eyed the driver. Ready?
One hundred. She dropped her arm, and the taxi roared off in a scream of rubber. Julia threw herself onto the pavement, just past the corner of the building, into view of the rear entrance. She cried out in genuine pain, eased somewhat by the sight of blood trickling down her ruined stocking from a gash below her knee, and the sweet sound of Wallace’s door guard shouting in alarm.
She spit blood onto her chin and smeared it with a gritty hand before rolling clumsily to face him. She cried for help, rising up on one hip, legs twisted beneath her.
The doorman rushed down the walk. Whimpering, she saw Austen and Jerome round the corner from the other direction and slip into the unwatched entrance. She sniffled helpless gratitude as the guard crouched beside her. “Ernie, is
