21 Shades of Night, page 448
“That’s my business.” I barked out my reply to make sure I had him cowed.
“Okay, okay. How do I know you won’t chisel me?”
“I’ll have to come back to get her the food. I’ll give you half your money now, half later. You’ll need to sit tight to earn the balance.” I slapped out a few bills and handed them to him. “Can you promise to do that?”
“Yes, sir.” The boy plopped down on my newspapers and pocketed the cash.
That settled, I ran off toward Madison Avenue to scout for a café or bar that would fry me up some fast grub.
It took me a good forty minutes, and the sky was dusky by the time I returned. I worried that the boy would be gone, but I needn’t have. He was in the same exact spot I’d left him.
When he saw me, he leapt up, and I had to wave him back down, so we wouldn’t be conspicuous, should Fiera be peering out of her corrugated sanctuary.
This time I sat on my briefcase, partly to ensure it wouldn’t be stolen, and partly because I didn’t relish the thought of sharing the crumpled newspapers with the boy.
He took the oily bag of fried fish I gave him and practically inhaled it whole. Then he brushed his mouth on the back of his hand. “The rest of my cash, sir?”
I chuckled. “Ah, it’s sir, now, is it?” I handed him one of the séance flyers and the tightly rolled bag of fish for Fiera, where I’d added a wad of dollars. “Remember your part of the bargain? No opening and eating the food in here.” I stared at him.
He muttered an okay and took the items. Leaping up, he sauntered across the patchy meadow to Fiera’s container and rapped on it. It took a few times. She was surely petrified that some man would haul her off, but she did peek out.
The boy handed her the bag, and they spoke back and forth for a few minutes. To his credit, he never looked over or pointed to me. She took the food. Of course, she did. She must have been starving.
As instructed, when she ducked back inside, he tucked the séance flyer in one of the front corners of the box where she’d be sure to see it later.
He jogged back, no doubt invigorated from his unexpectedly tasty supper. I paid him the balance. “You have brothers and sisters?” He nodded. “Buy something for them, too.” I shoved a few extra quarters in his waiting hand.
He grinned, revealing brown-rimmed teeth. “You’re not so bad, mister. Come back anytime. Name’s Billy.” With that, the kid ran off.
I waited another fifteen minutes or so to see if Fiera might peek out of the box again. It was not to be. And, as I walked back to Grand Central Station, I was glad she was taking care to stay out of sight. A pretty young woman in a town of roving derelicts couldn’t be careful enough.
As much of an unbeliever as I was, I prayed for her safety, and prayed that she’d make it to my paranormal store on Friday. For inside the paper bag with the portion of fried fish, I’d deposited enough cash for a train ticket to Asbury Park.
Chapter 10
WHAT WAS I to do? I stumbled down Mrs. Cuthbert’s front stoop, weeping angry, despairing tears, which mixed with the dregs of the rain. Where could I go? Who did I know in this vast, cold city? I’d lost touch with the girls my age, who had left the Brooklyn home when I had. There was ginger-haired Geraldine. Her dream was to travel west, see the Golden Gate Bridge. I wondered if she made it, with only her good looks to get by on. Then there was Melody, who sadly couldn’t sing a tune to save her life. Who knew what happened to her? Annie had taken her life only days before she was set to graduate out. Hung herself with her belt. She was petrified of the streets. The same ones I was now alone on.
Running across Fifth Avenue, barely watching the traffic, I felt the prickly awareness of someone watching me. I spun around and looked up at Mrs. Cuthbert’s windows. Was she gazing down at me, feeling guilty at turning me out onto the filthy streets? Or was it little Terrence, realizing the one person who took him out to the park and played with him was gone forever? No, their windows were empty of faces. Then who? Facing forward again, I peered down the block. There was only a stocky woman in a too-tight floral housedress, hobbling along.
I shook off my uneasiness. Now that the rain was tapering off, I could go into the park, sit there, and sort out my options. Sinking onto a bench, I wiped my tears off, only to be overcome by a deeper sorrow. I let my heart pour out its anguish while I rested my head in my hands.
Why had I taken those tainted Tarot cards? If only I’d refused, I’d still have my job. Why was Peter Dune so intent on giving them to me in the first place? And why was he so hell bent on finding me at the hotel after that awkward night at the speakeasy? A shudder passed through me as I felt a shadowy presence hovering again. It didn’t feel dangerous, rather keenly observant. Was that part of my strange, growing powers or just plain old dread? I looked up, toward a bank of oak trees and laurel bushes. Why couldn’t I shake off that feeling of being watched?
Oh, bother. There were more important things to worry about than being ogled by a man, such as where I was going to lay my poor head tonight. Think, Fiera, think, I scolded. I could ride a subway train out to the orphan home I grew up in and plead for the director to take me back. It was the only home I’d ever known. But I would be another expensive mouth to feed. Plus, the few good overseers had moved on, and those who remained were a mean bunch. It would also feel like a step backward into my troubled adolescence, especially without my old classmates. A bad option, after all.
What about Dulcie? My heart ached for the sweet-tempered, generous friend who I’d only gotten to know for three days. I could go back and beg her to let me stay in her room, make a bedroll on the floor. I rubbed my eyes, my weary forehead. No, I wouldn’t be able to stand her look of pity. It would be too unbalanced. I remembered how humiliating it was to have her pay for my beach chair and lend me that fancy evening dress. I couldn’t bear to be seen as a pauper.
I needed to find another job. That was the bottom line. I got up and started to walk north, and then westward, wandering aimlessly at first. But then an idea came to me. It would only do for one night. But it would give me a little more time to consider my choices. And I would feel an equal to those who were also suffering.
I made my way to the shantytown in the Great Meadow that Mrs. Cuthbert had always forbidden me to enter.
* * *
A LARGE, BATTERED carton would be my tiny apartment for tonight. I’d spied it just when I was giving up, after two families had turned down my pleas to sleep in a modest corner of their shelters. Seeing the box, my heart leapt so high one might imagine I’d seen a real tent, an entire cottage of wood! I studied its torn edges, its label announcing it once held a General Electric Frigidaire. After I straightened its bashed-in corner, I crawled inside.
My bag and suitcase would have to stand in for a proper door, I thought, pushing them flush with the opening. And then I lay down and propped my head on my carpetbag, where I kept my more valuable items. Never was a ceiling of smelly, damp cardboard so divine.
My ears opened to the many voices around me. They argued about how long the financial woes might continue, drunkenly ranted about things too slurred to make out, sang “Rock Candy Mountain” out of tune. An infant cried while folks chuckled over a randy joke.
Inhaling the mineral-rich scent of wet grass, smoky kindling and grilled meat, it occurred to me that life and humanity persisted, no matter how dire the circumstances.
I startled at the rapping of knuckles on my corrugated room and sat up so abruptly my head smacked the box top. Peering out, I saw it was a ruffian some years younger than I was, but older than a child. What could he possibly want? To rob or maul me? I shivered but made sure my voice was sharp and garrisoned. “Yes?”
He foisted a fragrant, greasy bag in my face, at which my stomach loudly rumbled. “For you, missy.”
I was famished. My thoughts returned to the recent disaster. I hadn’t been able to grab any food from Mrs. Cuthbert, when normally at that time, Terrence and I would enjoy a late afternoon snack. My hand hovered near the bag. “Why are you giving me this?” I asked suspiciously, though my uncanny senses told me he was no real threat.
“Figured you were hungry. You’re new here, right?” The boy gave me a furtive look and then his eyes darted to the bag, as if he was reconsidering his gift.
I grabbed it and thanked him. The moment he ran off, I opened the bag and wolfed down the delicious fried fish and chips it held. Good heavens, this was better than Mrs. Cuthbert’s watery, soggy vegetables, or even my own reliable meatloaf for that matter! Upon one last inspection for morsels, I saw a bunch of folded dollar bills. My first impulse was to try and find the boy to return the money. But he was long gone, and the night held many dangers. Besides, I had no job and this extra bit of cash would help tide me over.
Brushing away my remaining guilt, I lay back down, enjoying the animal satisfaction of digestion, the wonderful, slow gurgle of a full, warm belly. Even precarious times seemed sunnier after a good meal.
Some force of nature inspired me to peek outside one more time before I attempted sleep. Pushing my suitcase to one side, I glanced at the dark tree branches angled against the glow of the moon and the smoke wafting skyward from cook fires. I breathed in a nutty scent of coffee brewing, and I was sliding the suitcase back in place when my hand brushed against a paper. It was stuck in one corner of the box.
Finding its edge, I gently wiggled it free. The flyer was almost too dark to read, but angling it toward one of the flickering fire barrels, I could just make out the headline. My heart jumped right up into my throat. Peter’s Paranormal!
It was announcing a séance, this Friday.
When had this flyer made its arrival? I reviewed my earlier steps, into the park and to this box. This paper had been placed here after I’d crawled in, I was sure of it.
Had the tall boy who came over and handed me that delicious fish dinner put this flyer by my entranceway? He said he’d seen me wandering and felt sorry for me. But why me when there were so many other mouths to feed? It wasn’t as if he asked me for any untoward favors in return. And the money! Had he truly left that in there by mistake? The whole mystery of it nagged at me.
My mind jigged and jagged with floating sensations, snippets of images—of Mr. Dune walking on the sidewalk, of him looking up at the clouds, of him thinking of me. I began to hear the faintest murmur of the crying infants that he and I heard at the speakeasy. In my chest, in my veins, our wires had crossed again—rife with color and sound. Was I going crazy? If not, what was happening to me?
I pressed my palms to my temples and rubbed them in slow circles. How could this Hooverville boy have had access to Mr. Dune’s flyers? Mr. Dune’s words to Dulcie played in my head. I don’t need to leave a message for her. I’ll locate her myself. Had he followed me here? What an absurd idea. He wasn’t on that train. There was no way he could’ve located me so fast, even if he had excellent sources. But those feelings of being watched… Then another thought wafted in.
The Tarot cards! Perhaps they were an elemental link between Mr. Dune and me.
I reached in my carpetbag for the deck. My hand burned at the touch. Yes, the cards were alive somehow—at least to me. They moved in my hand, pressed more firmly to my skin. I remembered how they’d sailed up toward Mrs. Cuthbert’s face when I was so upset, and made trails of pink lines in her blue-veined neck. And Terrence had chosen the worst cards, as if he were subconsciously revealing the mean, pinched side of Mrs. Cuthbert, his own mother.
An outrageous notion tickled the edges of my mind. A torturous, teasing kind of tickling—like when you’d enough and it started to hurt but the tickling tormenter wouldn’t let up.
This disturbing idea also brought with it a pinprick of hope. Tomorrow, I’d make my move. For now, I could spread out my aching bones on my humble floor and fall into astonishing dreams.
Chapter 11
I STRETCHED MY aching back and breathed in a deep, calming breath. Rang the chimes. It was only three pm, way before the séance was to begin, but I needed to talk about a business matter.
When Peter Dune opened the door, and I saw his great male beauty again, his mop of coal-black hair and deeply earnest brown eyes, I was temporarily lost for words. I could’ve so easily reached out and run my fingers over the fabric of his fine gray shirt, felt the warmth of his broad chest just under it.
He looked as if he’d seen a phantom. We stared at each other for an awkwardly long time. Then he took my hand and said, “Fiera, I heard you’d gone back to the city early. I’m so glad you decided to return for the… séance.” His fingers burned the way the Tarot cards had.
A sudden and deep wave of knowledge filled me that he’d been in New York City. Was that how his flyer reached me, and that money? That was completely farfetched. For one, he had no idea what my address was. Secondly, he had this business to run. I pulled my hand back and brushed it against my carpetbag as if removing soil. “I’m here to talk business, Mr. Dune, and that is all.”
“Oh, well, come in then.” He sounded disappointed. Closing the door after me, he gestured to the round, wooden table. “Won’t you have a seat?”
I arranged my skirt while he gave instructions to Opal to brew us tea and then make herself scarce in the storeroom, unpacking boxes. She glanced over at me with her birdlike eyes, and the faint curve of a welcome-back smile brightened her face. It gave me great comfort, truly.
For coming back here, after running from Mr. Dune’s improper advances only twenty-four hours ago, was the most difficult act of my twenty-two years.
Or maybe they had been my improper advances, too. All I knew was that we’d been like a dangerous tinderbox to a dry forest. We were volatile together, and it frightened me. But I was hungry and homeless and there was money to be made here, if he would accept my offer.
“Fiera, sugar and cream?” I could tell by his ramrod posture that Peter Dune was waiting for further explanation. He watched me stir in a spoonful of sugar.
“I received a flyer in NYC, informing me of your séance tonight.”
“Oh?” He clenched his jaw. “All the way in Manhattan, eh?”
“Yes, did you have no hand in bringing them there?” I searched his eyes for a sign of guilty admission, but there was a wall I could not penetrate. “Or a fish dinner with money in the same paper bag?”
“A fish dinner, brimming with money!” His eyes lit up. “That’s a rich one. But as far as the flyers, well, I do mail flyers up to the city. Folks there distribute them for me, so I have a long reach in my advertising these days.”
“Look, I’m not here simply to attend the séance. I am wondering if you’ll hire me.” I gauged how my words were affecting him, if I should even continue.
He raised his dark brows. “Oh? Hire you for what? I have Opal to serve drinks, and Tim will help me record the sessions from now on.”
“A recording secretary, what a clever development! Seeing as you forgot much of what you said during the last reading.” I couldn’t help but smile.
“I did nothing of the sort. I was passed out cold.” Doubt and confusion were etched in his eyes and in how he pressed his lips together until they were thin, white lines.
“Well, at any rate, I could read the cards. You gave me a deck, after all, and I have a good feel for it.” I leaned forward. “Perhaps we can get some answers to the mysterious origins of our mutual visions.”
“What visions?” Now he sounded alarmed.
“The waves I saw that almost drowned you, the weeping babies, and whatever else that is born between us.” I leveled my gaze on him even more pointedly. “Because we both know that not only is a dramatic reading the path to making your business thrive, but it’s also the path to unraveling our otherworldly connection.”
He sniggered. “What otherworldly connection?” He seemed to quickly modify his reaction. “Not to say there isn’t one… I only wonder.”
“We both know it’s there,” I remarked in as matter-of-fact tone as I could muster. “Don’t you want to know why?”
He gazed down at his hands, clasped them and kneaded the knuckles. Was he going to turn me down? My troubled mind was already churning out half-baked solutions as to where my next meal would come from—the leftover plates on the boardwalk restaurants? The alleyways behind the hotel kitchens?
After a very long minute, he raised his head up with unexpected fire. “You’re hired. Do a flashy reading of the cards. Wear gypsy clothes, be a Sarah Bernhardt actress. Put on a rollicking good performance.”
I was elated. But also hurt he would assume all the information we’d pulled from the ether was bunk. It meant something. I just had to figure out what. “When can I start?”
“Tonight, at seven sharp.”
This meeting was going better than expected. It emboldened me. “And my lodging? I’ll need some money fronted for lodging. These are hard times, Mr. Dune.”
“Call me Peter.”
“Ah, yes. Peter.” It was strange, as if we were meeting each other for the first time—all over again.
He told me he had a colleague down the street who owned a rooming house called the Starfish Inn. It was not as fancy as the Asbury Hotel where I’d stayed with Dulcie, he said, but it was safe and cheap. That sounded heavenly to me.
“This is strictly a business deal,” I insisted. “No funny stuff, no lounging together, half-crocked in speakeasies.” He nodded. We shook on it.
He called for Opal and had her walk me over. Turned out that she lived there, too. The rooming house was narrow clapboard, built before the turn of the century. It sagged toward the bayside and was painted sallow mustard. But my room was blessedly clean of fleas and bedbugs. I even checked the mattress seams. The bathroom even had a fragrant lump of soap waiting for me. I could finally scrub off the shantytown mud. Maybe I would even make enough money to buy a dress on sale and another bag of delicious fried fish. As I unpacked, it occurred to me that Peter hadn’t asked what happened to my nanny job—odd of him not to inquire.
