“You are looking forward to the bridge?”
He had a German accent which followed from the fact that Jack had called him Franz, but his shield bore the name Hannigan. It was not out of the ordinary in New York to have one Irish and one German parent or two parents from opposite sides of the world, for that matter.
Anna smiled back at him. “Very much.”
“Lua,” murmured his partner. “Wie die Grüable kriagt wenns lachat. Was globst, Franz, git’s da n Ehering undr a Handshua?” And he winked at Jack, who spoke no German. Or better said, Swiss, because that was what they were speaking, oddly enough. She looked at Jack and was relieved to see him looking back at her, waiting for a translation.
Before Anna could tell the man that there was not, in fact, a wedding ring under her glove, Officer Hannigan put the question to Jack in a more subtle way.
“And is this young lady a relative?”
Jack raised a brow and shot her a grin. “Not yet.”
After a startled silence that seemed to last an hour, Anna pulled away from him. “Na ja,” she said to the roundsmen in a voice nothing like her own. “Das werden wir mal sehen.” We’ll just see about that.
• • •
A SHORT FLIGHT of stairs led down to the pedestrian walkway that stretched out before them, still cluttered with machinery, piles of wooden planks, wheels of wiring, and a dozen other things Anna couldn’t put a name to. The first lampposts had been installed, but Anna could see that it would be a good while before the bridge could be lit at night.
Below them laborers were still busy on the train and omnibus tracks, but on the promenade they were alone in a cathedral of cables aligned with such precision that Anna was reminded of the inner workings of a piano. She looked up at the pointed arches of the nearer tower and thought again of climbing it. She could see the ladder bolted to the stonework from where they stood.
“So,” Jack said. “What did they say?”
“Who?”
He made a face at her.
Irritated, she sidestepped again. “Said about what?”
“They said something about you in German.”
“No, they didn’t. They were speaking Swiss.”
“So you didn’t understand.”
“They liked my dimples,” Anna said.
Jack made a sound in his throat. “I’m sure there was something more to it than that. And what did you say to make them laugh like that?”
Anna shrugged, both unable and unwilling to open up the conversation. Instead she ran ahead, pulling off her hat to feel the breeze on her face and neck. And she needed a moment to think.
Not yet.
Jack teased; it was his nature. He enjoyed seeing her flustered, but he was never cruel or thoughtless. Or had never been. Not yet.
She stopped suddenly and turned to watch him walking toward her in long strides. He had left his hat in the terminal and the wind ruffled his hair. For that moment he looked more like a boy of twenty than a man of thirty-five.
As he got closer she said, “I don’t want to talk about what you said to them. Not until I’ve told you some things you should know. You might well change your mind about me. And,” she added briskly, “I haven’t made up my mind about you.”
He stopped so close to her that their shoes touched, and smiled down at her. “Liar.”
But she would persist, and this accusation delivered with a grin could not make her forget what was at stake.
The river was teeming with paddleboats and ferries, colliers, canal boats, barges and steamers and sailboats, all against the backdrop of the town of Brooklyn. She had never thought of Brooklyn as a particularly pretty place, its shoreline crowded with factories and warehouses and wharves. But from here the highlands were a small sea of oak and maple and cedar trees interspersed with blossoming cherry and crab apple, all punctuated by steeples and chimneys.
She said, “I don’t know what I’m looking at,” and Jack came up behind her. He ducked down to follow her line of sight and with his hands on her shoulders, turned her a bit.
“Wallabout Bay and the Navy Yard.” As they turned steadily and he put names to ferry landings and landmarks. One arm dropped to circle her waist. “Fort Columbus. Governor’s Island.” He pointed and said, “You can just see Bedloe, where they’re going to put up that statue from France, once they’ve got the money together. Meant to welcome immigrants to the city.” This was the cynic in Jack talking, a tone that she didn’t often hear from him.
A large steam liner was just passing the fort, headed for England or Greece or on its way to round the horn. Anna hesitated and then said what was on her mind.
“Sophie and Cap will be getting married next month and then they’re going to Switzerland, to the clinic I told you about.”
He didn’t seem surprised. “Is that what she really wants?”
Anna thought for a long moment. “What she really wants is a cure, but this is as much as she can ask for.” She shook her head, determined to put Margaret out of her mind for the moment at least. Instead she put her cheek against Jack’s shoulder and, leaning into him, turned to follow the Manhattan shoreline.
It was disquieting to realize that beyond Castle Garden and the spire of Trinity Church there was almost nothing she recognized, as if she were looking at a city she had never visited before. Behind docks and wharves and warehouses there were buildings of all sizes crowded together like grubby blocks a child had poured out of a bag for no other reason than to see how they fell. All along the river shore to the right the seventh district tenements leaned together like so many rotting teeth, but even there poles were going up as electricity wove its way through the city streets, wires crisscrossing over every intersection. Smokestacks belched far above the buildings they topped. In the distance the gas works looked like a cluster of tin cans. There were patches of green here and there, but for the most part it was a city of redbrick and cast iron and warped wood held together by grime and persistence.
She said, “You can just see the Hudson from here.”
“From the top of the tower—” He paused.
“Yes?” She elbowed him less than gently.
He used a hand to immobilize her arm. “Looking up there now, you still want to climb to the top?”
She tipped her head back to consider. “I’ve climbed a couple of mountains,” she said. “I don’t suppose there are any bad-mannered goats on the way up that ladder, are there?”
His face was so close she could count his eyelashes. When he spoke his breath was warm on her face. “Do you dislike it that I am protective of you? Because that’s bred in the bone.”
She straightened and patted his cheek. “I don’t mind. As long as you’ll take my ‘Yes, I will’ as an answer to your ‘No, you won’t.’”
Jack gave a low laugh that she decided to read as surrender.
They sat down on a bench that was so new the hardware shone, and Anna turned her attention back to the skyline. Dusk was dropping down, casting the kindest of lights over the worst of the city, a sugar glaze that might fool the eye for the few minutes it lasted. But it was her city, the only home she remembered. She had left once to test herself and come back again.
She said, “Sometimes I work twelve- or fourteen-hour days. I am called out I would say on average two nights a week. And I will always be a doctor. I will never give up practicing medicine.”
“Yes,” he said. “I recognize that about you. I see it.”
She hoped he was being honest with himself. “Aunt Quinlan calls me a freethinker, but in fact I’m an agnostic. I don’t care what you believe, if it gives you comfort. But I will not convert.”
Jack nodded as if this were no surprise. “Go on.”
“I’m not—I have—” She was irritated with herself now. He was being his usual calm, rational self; she could be no less. She said
, “I’m not a virgin. My experience is narrow, but I’m not a virgin. I’ll answer questions if you have them.”
He shook his head, the muscle in his jaw rolling in a way she couldn’t read.
“Is there more?”
“Yes,” Anna said. “I’m working up to it.”
She thought of Sophie, who had encouraged her to say these things, to be clear. Sophie, who would be Cap’s widow though she could be his wife only in name. She would bear the loss, and so could Anna.
She said, “I break the law on a regular basis, and without remorse. And I will continue to break the law as long as I am able.”
“Contraceptives.”
She let out a small sigh of relief at his matter-of-fact tone.
“Yes. I make information available in certain very strict circumstances and I also provide . . . recommendations, where possible. We—I am uncompromising about my patients’ privacy and my own safety because I can’t help anyone if I’m sitting in prison.”
He was watching her. “You’ve just confessed a crime to me. You trust me.”
“I do,” Anna said, her voice catching. She waited until he nodded for her to go on. “I do trust you. Am I wrong?”
“No.” No hesitation, no doubt.
She went on. “So you must know that whatever situation I find myself in eventually—with you or anyone else—I will use contraceptives. Until.” She stopped herself.
“Until.”
“Until the time is right.”
He drew in a deep breath. “I see.” And after a moment he said, “It’s better than the alternatives.”
“Do you think so?” Anna wanted to touch his face but stopped herself. “Do you mean it’s better than bringing an unwanted child into the world, or it’s better than abortion?”
She had finally unsettled him.
“Both.”
He was still talking to her, which gave her the courage to tell him the rest.
“I agree with you that it’s better than the alternatives. But again, you should know—” Her voice was suddenly hoarse. “You should know that under certain circumstances I would perform an abortion. I haven’t yet, but I might someday. I don’t know if you realize, but I would guess that at least a hundred successful abortions are performed every month, in this city alone. Poorer women care for themselves, but hundreds of procedures are done by doctors and midwives, and done safely. You only hear about the cases that have gone wrong.”
“Is that something you see a lot?”
“All the time. Usually when a woman comes to the hospital after a badly done abortion it’s already too late. But I have never reported the few who survived. And I never will.”
“And their doctors?”
“I ask, but so far no one has ever given me a name. I’m not sure what I would do in that case. It depends on the circumstances.”
Jack looked away over the river to the west. He was breathing deeply and evenly, and his arm stayed where it was, around her shoulders. As a minute passed and then another, a deep sadness began to gather in the corners of what Sophie would call her heart. Her vulnerable heart.
He started to say something, paused. “Would you—” he began. “Would you yourself—”
Anna interrupted him. “I can’t imagine a situation where I would want an abortion for myself.” She heard Sophie saying, Leave no room for misunderstanding, and she went on, reaching for the right words. “But that is at least in part because I have reliable access to contraceptives and understand how they work.”
She held herself very still against him, aware of the pulse in his throat and wrists, the beat of his heart. In the next minutes she might have to walk away or watch him walk away, but until then she could be glad of his strength and warmth and the solid fact of him.
The breeze turned cool as the sun slid over the edge of the world. Anna recited to herself the simplest truth: there was nothing more for her to say; she would not argue or reason or persuade.
• • •
NOT YET. JACK had heard himself say those two words. They were nothing but the truth, and still he hadn’t meant to speak them aloud. Not yet. And now she sat beside him, waiting for him to admit that she had been right. He had aunts who lived their lives in cloistered convents, a first cousin who was a Jesuit. He was a police officer sworn to uphold the law. She was not wrong to worry; if there were no more to him than those two facts he would have no choice but to wish her well and go. Touch her face one last time, trace the line of her brow and jaw, the curve of her cheek.
She was looking at him with such solemn purpose. If he left her now he would never be able to cross this bridge without seeing her sitting on this bench, her hair undone by the wind and loose curls falling across a cheek burnished red in the cool evening air. But he wouldn’t leave her. He didn’t want to.
“Well,” she said, shifting as if to move away from him and stand up. But he held her firmly and shook his head when she glanced at him.
“Don’t run off,” he said. “There are things you should hear about me before you abandon ship.”
That got him a smile. Tentative, dimple-less, but a smile nonetheless, and she let herself be coaxed back to sit beside him, tucked into his side.
“This is a very serious conversation for such a beautiful evening,” he said after a while. She hummed her agreement but didn’t throw him the lifeline he was almost hoping for. So he took a deep breath.
“You read in the paper how corrupt the police department is,” he began. “And for the most part, the rumors are true.”
He told her about the storekeepers who pressed things into a cop’s hands to gain his attention and good graces. He took his share of free meals, cab rides, cigars, bottles of whiskey. Once in a while he studiously overlooked the sale of lottery tickets and went home with a few folded bills in his pocket. There were times he was rougher than he needed to be with criminals, and was responsible for a cracked rib or a bloody nose now and then. On occasion he had let somebody stew in the Tombs for an extra couple of days until he could make a case that would stick in front of a judge.
He had some rules that he didn’t break: he never arrested a hungry child for stealing; he’d settle things with the grocer or baker or tavernkeeper and then send the kid on his way with a warning. He wasn’t rough with women or cripples or the feebleminded, though he had had cause on more than one occasion.
Jack looked down at her and waited until she raised her head to meet his gaze.
“Unless there’s a felony or children are involved, I don’t arrest prostitutes,” he said. “Male or female. And I never take bribes from them or the people they work for.
“There are other things, most of them pretty small. Right now what you really need to know is, I paid more than one bribe to get on the police force, and then again to get promoted.”
“Ah,” she said. “Because you’re Italian?”
He shook his head. “Everybody pays. It helped that they needed another detective who speaks Italian, but sure. I still paid more than I would have if I had an Irish last name. The plain fact is, nothing happens without money changing hands. There are more than a few cops out there who would make good detectives, but they’ll walk a beat until they drop dead, because they don’t have money or the right connections. And there are crooks and worse in the city who have never spent a day in jail and never will. Every saloonkeeper pays, every week. The same is true for dance halls and gambling joints and opium dens and disorderly houses. The ones you read about in the paper, the ones who do end up in jail are almost always there because they couldn’t or wouldn’t pay the bribe.”
She was watching him calmly, waiting. “Are you a part of that?”
Jack shook his head. “I’m not a beat cop.”
“But you like it, your job. What you do.”
“Most of the time, yes.”
&n
bsp; “That’s something to be thankful for.”
She surprised him, again.
• • •
JACK FLAGGED DOWN a cab and helped her in, gave directions to the cabby and took the moment to gather his thoughts. His heart was racing, and he had broken out in a sweat despite the cool night air. But he could wait. He would have to wait until she was ready to talk.
As they set off down Prince Street he said, “Are we still going to the Foundling tomorrow?”
She gave him a curious half smile. “Why wouldn’t we?”
The cab went around the park before stopping at the corner where Fifth Avenue South met Washington Square. Jack helped her out without a word of explanation. He wanted to walk with her here, because he had more to say. The very idea made her throat go dry.
He stood there, his hand extended, and she took it.
• • •
“YOU DON’T WALK here at night alone.”
He wasn’t asking her a question, but voicing a command, of sorts. She might take exception to commands, but she understood his concerns.
“The streetlights make a great difference, and there’s nothing to fear from prostitutes.”
“It’s not the women you need to be wary of,” Jack said.
She let out a sigh. “I’m very aware of that. I don’t go through the park in the dark of night alone, but I do know every square inch of it. It was our playground when we were little, and later we—” She couldn’t help grinning at the memory.
He raised a brow. “Go on.”
“You saw that Margaret reads the Police Gazette, almost obsessively, I would say. She would talk about some of the crimes at the dinner table. Nothing violent, not when we were children. But she’d say, ‘Colonel Maxwell was burgled yesterday, every piece of silver in the house.’ And then she’d voice her opinion. Usually she’d say, ‘I suspect the help.’ Or she’d be specific. ‘They hired that Irish cook.’ Aunt Quinlan would take exception, and there would be a pointed discussion. Aunt never shielded us from this kind of thing, and eventually we were curious about the bits of the Police Gazette Margaret wasn’t reading to us.”