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The Dilemma

The Dilemma

The door slammed in my face.

A cold breeze flapped the

corners of my overcoat, and I quickly reached up to keep my hat

atop my head.

My lady’s maid Amelia Dewey

sighed. “I’m sorry, mum.”

Carriages and horses, women and

men passed by, never giving me a glance. The wooden banister

snagged my glove as I descended the cracked steps. The midmorning

light was weak, thin, pale.

Amelia glanced around. “Do we

go on?”

Did I have any choice? “We go

on.”

But it was much the same on

24th Street as on all the rest. The response varied from fearful

curtsies to angry curses. The answer still was no.

No, they didn’t need an

investigator.

No, they knew no one who

might.

No, I couldn’t come in.

“Fucking Pot rag” was the most

blunt way it’d been expressed, but their eyes all said it.

The worst was on West 4th, when

an old widow woman offered me charity. Even in the Pot I wasn’t a

beggar, nor — as some put it — a new way for the Spadros Family to

gouge their quadrant.

I wasn’t so far gone as to take

their pity.

We returned home for luncheon.

My butler, Blitz Spadros, opened the door for us. “Any luck?”

I sighed, shook my head, went

past him into our home.

It was a good place, those few

apartments. Now that I think of it, the place was built to be a

boarding house. An entry, a small parlor through a door to the

right. My two rooms lay to the left: the front one my bedroom, the

next my office, each with their own bath and toilet. Another

unoccupied room lay beyond that.

Straight ahead, stairs rose to

a large room which had picture windows overlooking the street.

Behind the parlor, a door led to our kitchen. The hall beside the

stairs passed first the kitchen (accessible through a door to the

right). Then the hall passed our empty room and turned behind the

kitchen to the rooms Blitz and his wife Mary shared. A closet

nestled under the stair.

The building was a duplex: our

half faced onto 33 1/3 Street. It had a side door from the kitchen,

which opened onto an alley barely wide enough to walk down.

This was all I owned in the

world, and if something didn’t happen soon, I’d lose it too.

I went through the parlor into

the kitchen. My housekeeper Mary stirred a pot of soup. We often

had soup these days.

Mary Spadros was a pretty woman

of one and twenty, with pale skin and straight light brown hair.

She smiled when she saw me. “Almost ready.”

I slumped into a chair. “It

smells wonderful.”

Amelia came in. She now wore

her maid’s uniform, black with white hat and apron. “Mum, you need

out of these clothes.”

I let out a snort of amusement.

“Always wanting to change me.”

“You’ll feel better once you’re

into something comfortable.”

I did feel better, especially

once my corset came off. I hated the thing. Even as a child, I

hated anything which tried to constrain me.

We sat around the small kitchen

table, Amelia bustling about to serve our soup and bread. A bit of

graying black hair had fallen from its bundle under her hat to lie

damp along her pale doughy cheek. While she placed my food

precisely, she was more careless with Blitz and Mary’s items. A bit

of soup slopped over the side of Mary’s bowl onto the white lace

tablecloth.

Mary rolled her eyes, but not

so Amelia might see.

I said, “Won’t you have a cup,

Amelia?”

“I may.” She ladled the

steaming liquid into a wide mug. “I’ll sit on the back stair.”

Amelia would seldom join us —

sitting at the table with your “betters” was apparently forbidden

to servants in Bridges. But this didn’t bother me today. Amelia had

made it quite clear that her first loyalty was to my husband,

Anthony Spadros.

And Tony didn’t need to know

about this.

Once she’d closed the door, I

asked, “What’s our situation?”

Blitz put his elbows on the

table. “We have this month’s Family fees. We have enough to pay for

your medication. And for food, if we’re careful. The main problem

is the property tax.”

When Dame Anastasia Louis left

me the deed to the building after her murder, it was about to be

sold for back taxes. So his words disturbed me.

“Fortunately, it isn’t due for

a few months yet.” He glanced aside. “Sawbuck should be here today

with your allotment.”

Tony sent money each month by

way of his first cousin Ten Hogan (who everyone called Sawbuck),

supposedly for “all I needed” — the minimum required by law for a

woman “of my station.” But it was much less than the Court had

provided during my trial.

We’d had to replace the parlor

windows several times after rocks and bricks were thrown in. A fine

metal mesh placed outside the lower windows, held up two feet away

by rods of iron thrust deep into the earth, stopped that. But we

were still making payments for the work.

And I owed Mr. Doyle Pike — the

lawyer who’d saved my life — a great deal. Aside from a few cases

which were little more than messenger service, I’d earned nothing.

I had no idea how to pay the thousands of dollars I still owed him.

It was more money than I’d ever seen in my life.

After the trial, Mr. Pike

immediately filed a lawsuit against the city for everything he

could think of: false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, libel,

failure to protect me whilst in custody. That last one almost got

me killed.

We did everything the judge

asked, yet one day Mr. Pike brought bad news. “The Four Families

want no more scandal. The court has been instructed to delay until

we give up.” Mr. Pike had patted my hand, yet I could see his

disappointment. “My dear, I can pursue this further if you wish.

But it’ll be less costly, both to your pocketbook and reputation,

if we stop now.”

I had no money to pay what I

already owed him, much less continue on. But he’d shown no

inclination to forgive the debt. Each time Mr. Pike had come

calling since then, I’d told Blitz to inform him I was not at home.

And I hadn’t answered any of his letters. But I knew how this

worked: eventually, he’d tire of being polite and hire

enforcers.

Anyone Mr. Pike hired would

hesitate to attack me, if only out of fear of the Spadros

syndicate. But there were many ways to make my life miserable which

didn’t involve physical violence.

Blitz and Mary looked glum.

They were living on the little they’d been able to save before they

married and left Spadros Manor. I’d forbidden them to spend any of

that on me, or if they did, to keep an accounting. But I knew

they’d spent their money anyway — we still had meat in our soup,

after all.

Blitz — also Tony’s cousin —

had been his night footman. Mary — the daughter of Tony’s butler —

had been Tony’s maid. But since Blitz and Mary left Spadros Manor

to become my staff, Tony seemed not to care if they starved.

As one of Spadros Manor’s

servants, Amelia had plenty. And I wondered if this was deliberate,

a way for Tony to show what I could have — if I would only return

to him.

Was he truly that petty?

Mary rested her hand upon mine.

“You’ll find someone who needs your help, mum. I know you

will.”

People were always telling me

to “go back to the Pot.” It was times like this that made me wonder

if they weren’t right to say that after all.

I couldn’t spare a penny up and back several

times a day for taxi-carriages, so my feet hurt most of the time.

After our brief luncheon, I sat in my bedroom, put my feet up, and

counted my business cards. One hundred twenty-seven left of the 500

I’d bought before the trial, with no way to purchase more.

I’d sent a card to my former

dressmaker Madame Marie Biltcliffe (who used to arrange cases for

me, until we’d fallen out) and received no answer. My best friend

Jonathan Diamond had pinned my cards in places where families of

the accused gathered and given one to every attorney in the

city.

I wiggled my toes inside my

boots. Twenty-three years old, and not much to show for it.

My birthday had come and gone,

with my few retainers and the smallest Yule log for company. And

every day, from the time I woke to the time I fell asleep, I wanted

a drink. I wasn’t sure that would ever leave me.

But I was free. I had a roof

over my head, and my stomach was full. The steam pipes worked and

the lighting too. I hadn’t frozen over the winter.

All I needed was a job.

I lit a cigarette and read a

day-old copy of the

Bridges Daily

Amelia had brought from

Spadros Manor.

The new Mayor, Mr. Chase

Freezout, seemed to be recovering from the terrible beating my

father-in-law Roy Spadros gave him on the courthouse steps in early

November.

At the Grand Ball on New Year’s

Eve, Mayor Freezout had given a brief speech from a rolling chair

at the top of the balcony. But he hadn’t been seen in public until

now. According to the paper, he made a proclamation — “firmly

grasping the lectern” — to denounce the “ruffians plaguing this

city.”

I imagined Mayor Freezout

referred to someone other than the Four Families. The sight of the

police standing idly by as he was beaten bloody by the Spadros

Family Patriarch on the Courthouse steps couldn’t have failed to

make an impression.

Inventor Etienne Hart and his

mother Judith had moved from their ancestral home at the racetrack

to a mansion on 190th Street, Hart quadrant, right next door to

Mayor Freezout’s former home. The paper said the new Hart property

was being heavily guarded.

I could only imagine. At the

time, I felt certain Mrs. Hart was being questioned most

thoroughly. She’d almost caused a war between the Spadros and Hart

quadrants. But what would her husband Charles Hart do? As Patriarch

of the Hart Family, he couldn’t let a scandal of this magnitude go

unpunished.

Inexplicably, Roy Spadros

hadn’t pursued the matter. Which was odd, because Roy hated Charles

Hart more than anything else.

And why had Judith Hart turned

against me in the first place?

From all my observations, she

believed I was her husband’s lover. The idea repulsed me — the man

was old enough to be my grandfather! And while perhaps Mr. Hart had

some feeling towards me, we had firmly resolved the matter. I

regarded him as a rather dangerous but highly useful

acquaintance.

But clearly Mrs. Hart was in

league with the notorious Red Dog Gang, who’d tormented me and the

Spadros Family for over a year now. District Attorney Freezout —

now Mayor — indicated after the trial that Mrs. Judith Hart had

been part of his framing me for the zeppelin bombing.

Could the motivation for all

the crimes the Red Dog Gang had committed — kidnapping, blackmail,

theft, murder — possibly be as simple as Mrs. Hart’s jealousy?

I laughed aloud at the idea.

You didn’t bomb a zeppelin, killing hundreds of people, because

your husband was in love with another woman. It was absurd.

So there had to be much more at

stake. But what?

I sat up, squared my business

cards, and put them in their case. If we were to survive, I had

work to do.

I’d made it down 24th Street.

With any luck, Amelia and I might visit the east half of 25th

before darkness fell.

The bell rang.

I reached my door just as Blitz

knocked. “Sawbuck’s here.”

I opened the door; Blitz

stepped back, startled. Sawbuck loomed behind Blitz in the open

doorway.

While the money was welcome,

Sawbuck, not so much. I leaned on the door-frame. “Master Ten

Hogan. What a pleasant surprise.”

Sawbuck flicked out a dollar

bill. “Here’s your cash.”

I almost laughed. A dollar.

“Why doesn’t he come himself?”

Sawbuck hadn’t moved, the

dollar still standing upright between his fingers. At my words, his

face darkened. “Why do you think?”

He flicked the dollar into the

air, and it fluttered down. “I’ve done my duty,” he snapped, and

stalked out.

Blitz picked up the dollar. “It

seems Mr. Anthony has had a bad day.”

That made sense. Sawbuck was

utterly devoted to Tony, and had not forgiven me for leaving Tony

the way I had.

The horror on Tony’s face when

he saw me and Joseph Kerr together that night in my study swam in

front of my eyes. “I imagine so.”

But I had to focus on today.

“Amelia.”

She emerged. “Yes, mum?”

My feet hurt terribly, but I

could think of no other options. “Let’s see how far we get on

25th.”

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