Chapter Twenty-One
Eunice
New York, New York
“I hope that smile on your face is because you’re thinking of me,” Lisle says as he climbs into bed, wearing the black silk pajamas I gave him for Christmas.
“Always,” I say. “I’m always thinking of you.”
He joins me, leaning against the headboard, and takes my hand. “We had a good day.” This has become our nightly ritual. An assessment of our time together.
Indeed, today has been wonderful, beginning with services at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, before we joined Regina and William at Tillie’s Chicken Shack, where our husbands debated whether the menu mainstay—chicken and waffles—belonged on the same plate.
But it was when Lisle and I returned home that we shared our most precious moments, lounging in the parlor, leafing through The New York Times, The Amsterdam News, and The New Yorker.
“I’m guessing your workload will get heavier now that the holidays are over.” He speaks as if he’s stating a fact, but it feels like a question—will our life return to what it was before?
It is true that the investigation—at least my part—has slowed because of the calendar. The brothels have been quieter through Christmas. Even the wiretaps have yielded little more than attorneys, bondsmen, and bookers chatting about their conquests.
I weigh my words before I say, “It will be busy again, but I don’t want that to change anything with us.”
“I know you don’t.”
“I promise to put us first.”
He hesitates before he softly says, “Please don’t make promises you can’t keep.” His voice has an edge I haven’t heard in weeks. But he lightens up when he adds, “Let’s just say this has been a fine holiday.” He draws me to him. “All that was missing was—”
“Our son.” I complete his sentence. “I wish we could have visited Barbados.”
“I know. But three weeks away wasn’t possible for either of us right now. And…from his letters and the telegrams from your mother, I can tell he’s happy.” There is a quiet acknowledgment in his tone. “It seems it was right for your mother to go to Barbados.”
This is as near to an I stand corrected as I’m ever likely to hear from Lisle.
I hug him, and he kisses my forehead, then clicks off the bedside lamp.
I sink into his arms. As I close my eyes, my thoughts drift across these weeks that have felt like a promise kept.
It’s been this way since that night Lisle and I had dinner at the Hotel Theresa.
I now have the connection I so dearly wanted and Lisle and I so badly needed. But this peace would have never come to us if Lisle had known about the doll.
When I informed Dewey, who’s been facing threats of his own, about the doll, he wasn’t terribly concerned but did insist that I take precautionary measures, like traveling to and from work by car instead of opening myself up to the greater danger of public transport.
However, the weight of my regret has taken root within me. I hate that I can only have this contentment with my husband if he doesn’t know my truth.
Just as I drift off, the shrill sound of the telephone startles us from sleep. Lisle leaps from the bed, and I grab my housecoat, scurrying behind him into the front hall. There is never any good news behind a call at midnight. I silently pray, Please, Lord. Let my son and my mother be safe.
I hold my breath and bow my head as Lisle answers, and then, silence. Until he hands the telephone receiver to me.
I press the telephone to my ear. “I’m sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Carter, but this is Officer Calcagnini from the 30th Precinct. We’ve got a girl here who says she wants to speak with you.”
“With me?” I ask, lowering myself to the chair.
“She asked to speak to the district attorney, but I knew Dodge wouldn’t come down here. Not at this hour. And anyway, none of these streetwalkers have ever asked to speak to the DA, Mrs. Carter.”
“Did she say anything else besides wanting to speak with someone?”
“Only that she has something to say. But she looks like she needs help badly, and I didn’t want to just lock her up. Not with the way she came in here. So I thought of you.”
Officer Arthur Bernard Calcagnini was one of the first men I met when I began volunteering in the Women’s Court and the only one who made me feel welcomed.
My first day there, his brows had arched high when he realized I was an attorney.
But before I left court that day, he caught up to me in the hallway just to say, “My granddaughter wants to be a lady lawyer someday.”
“We picked her up running down 37th Street,” he continues, “like hell was on her heels. But if you think I should just put her in a cell—”
“No, Officer, it’s fine.” Something made Officer Calcagnini call me.
I trust his instincts—and I trust mine. I’ve needed to speak to one of the girls.
This one is a streetwalker, not one of the girls working in a brothel, protected by a madam like Polly or Red Sadie.
So it’s doubtful she will know anything about the workings of the racket.
But maybe the Combination extends to streetwalkers, too.
“I’ll be right there. Thank you for calling me.”
I hang up and turn, nearly bumping into Lisle. That quickly, I forgot my husband. “Where are you going?”
“There’s someone at the police station,” I say. “She could be an important witness.”
His narrowed eyes and pinched brow tell me everything. But all he says is “I’ll drive you,” and he turns away.
I am grateful that this didn’t become another variation of our same quarrel. But still, I know that with that telephone call, our peace has come undone.
—
I enter the interrogation room and see the girl sitting alone at the small wooden table. She holds a cigarette, but it’s unlit. Her hand is trembling so much, I doubt she could smoke it anyway.
The sight of her is shocking…one eye is swollen purple and blue; her lip is split and crusted with dried blood. From the scrapes on her face and arms to the cut above her right eye, this looks less like a beating and more like someone was trying to finish her off. How did she even get away?
Finally, she glances up, and her glassy eyes narrow at the sight of me. I see the question in her eyes: What is this colored woman doing here when I asked for the district attorney?
But she looks familiar to me. Perhaps I’ve seen her in Women’s Court.
I slide into a chair across from her. “I’m Assistant District Attorney Eunice Carter.” Her eyes flicker with disbelief. “What’s your name?”
Pulling out a dinged-up lighter from the pocket of her torn robe, she attempts to light her cigarette, her hand trembling like a leaf in a breeze. “Virginia,” she says as the cigarette tip finally catches and begins to smolder.
Officer Calcagnini said she was picked up on the street, but Virginia’s appearance says otherwise.
She is dressed in what was, probably only hours ago, a very elegant (and expensive) fur-trimmed sheer robe over a barely there nightie.
Her slippers are dainty, made for the bedroom, certainly not designed to take a single step on the sidewalk.
Even bruised and beaten, the blue-eyed Marlene Dietrich look-alike is stunning. And even now, her blond hair falls in cascading waves around her shoulders.
Her regal bearing. Her delicate nightclothes. What was she doing on the streets?
“Virginia, do you need to see a doctor?”
She shakes her head as she inhales deeply.
“I understand you wanted to speak with someone from the district attorney’s office?”
She nods.
“I’m here.”
She studies me, her cigarette smoke curling between us. “I’ve never seen a colored lawyer before.” When I meet her gaze but say nothing, she continues. “But then, no one’s ever hit me before either.” She gingerly touches her face.
“Who did this to you?”
“I was just supposed to entertain a man,” she says, sidestepping my question. “He wanted to impress one of his friends.” Her trembling fades as she stubs out her cigarette hard. Now her voice is steel. “I won’t let him or anyone else treat me this way!”
“Who?” My voice is low, not wanting to rattle her.
Virginia sits taller, juts her chin. “I won’t ever let Lucky—”
Lucky!
Before she can continue, we turn at the hard rap on the door.
Officer Calcagnini steps into the room. “Her attorney is here to post her bail.”
Virginia draws her brows together and panic flares in her eyes. “I didn’t call anyone,” she whispers to me.
I turn to the officer. “Why would her attorney be here? She hasn’t seen a judge or been charged. There is no bail.”
He shrugs. “I told him all of that, but he’s demanding to see his client.”
“Who?” Virginia’s voice hitches. “Who’s asking to see me?”
“Abe Karp. He’s with another lawyer, but Karp is doing all the talking.”
Virginia shrieks. Her chair screeches across the floor as she shoves herself away from the table—and from me. She scrambles to the corner and huddles there, drawing her knees to her chest.
“Virginia,” I whisper as I motion for the officer to leave us alone.
Her eyes glisten with fear. “Please. You can’t send me out there. He’s not my lawyer. He’s only here because—” She stops, gasping for air.
I step closer. “Because what, Virginia? He’s only here because…”
“Because someone sent him. Please, Mrs. Carter. He’s only here because someone sent him to kill me!”