Girl in Disguise Page 14

  The sun was down, and the cool afternoon was turning into cold night. Clearly, not all had gone well. I hated to do it, but I abandoned my post and hot-footed it back to the office. Even knowing something had gone wrong, I was completely unprepared for what I found there.

  An unmoving Jack Mortenson lay sprawled across the top of Pinkerton’s broad oaken desk, half his right pant leg red with blood. I sucked in my breath. The blood had also spread across the desk blotter and soaked several makeshift bandages, now piled on the floor below him in a small heap. A knot of half a dozen operatives stood near him, gesturing and arguing, in total disarray.

  The first to catch my eye was Bellamy. He looked at me grimly and said, “Shot.”

  “Shot? Is he—”

  “I’m alive,” Mortenson said in a thin, thready voice. If possible, he was even whiter than he’d been before, pale as paper.

  Then I noticed Hattie, standing alone, her dress wet with blood all down one side of the skirt. I went to her, relieved. As far as I could tell, none of the blood was hers.

  “Hattie! Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” Mortenson answered for her through gritted teeth. “I rescued her.”

  “Rescued her? From what? From whom?”

  “He—he touched her.”

  My relief vanished, and anger surged up in its place. I could hear the other agents arguing about what to do: Who had the steadiest hands? Who had a desk flask to sacrifice? No one was asking the right questions.

  I shouted at Mortenson. “Who did? What? This whole operation went south on a touch?”

  Hattie, her voice unsteady, whispered, “Everything happened so fast.”

  “Of course it did! That’s how real things happen!”

  She stammered, unable to get the words out. I resisted the urge to shake them free.

  Mortenson said, barely loudly enough to hear over the din, “You weren’t there.”

  I drew near to him and immediately realized two things: he was on the verge of losing consciousness, and his breath stank of whiskey.

  Taylor was the only one directly attending to him, pressing more clean cotton into the wound. Of the people in the room, he seemed the most likely to answer my next question. “Did you give him whiskey for the pain? Or did he smell like this when he came in?”

  Taylor looked up at me and shook his head. I knew what he meant by it.

  “Mortenson!” I resisted the urge to slap him on the cheek to revive him. “How much?”

  Even in his depleted state, he turned a glare on me that could have burned a hole in a brick. “Had to keep up.”

  “Not if it meant turning yourself into an idiot. I can’t understand why you’d behave like a—” I stopped short. He was staring past me, toward Hattie, the fingers of one unsteady hand reaching in her direction, though he was too weak to lift it from the desk.

  Hattie seemed not to see it, outwardly oblivious to the chaos in the room, to everything. She wrung her bloody hands in the folds of her stained skirt.

  Conditions were hardly right for an interrogation, but I had no choice. We were Pinkertons after all. We did not take action without facts.

  “Make your case,” I said to Hattie. “I’m not inclined to give a third chance.”

  Her voice caught in her throat, but she said, “I did everything you said. I let him take the lead. I didn’t ask him to—”

  Mortenson growled, “Leave her alone.”

  “You shut up,” I said, my voice rising to break through the noise. “Simpleton. Fool.”

  The wounded man moaned, shifting his weight, and tried to raise himself to address me. I saw his fingers curl in a fist.

  “Sweet Lord,” came an interjection from behind me, and Bellamy stepped directly between us. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me back from the bloody desk. “Not now, Warne,” he hissed.

  I wrenched my hand out of his grasp.

  He didn’t flinch. Instead, he said, “Look, no one died.”

  “A miracle.”

  “Let’s save him first. Blame later.”

  He was right, of course. “Fine,” I said. I beckoned to Hattie to stand off to the side, but I needn’t have. She had gone into her shocked silence again. She pressed her back against the wall as if her weight were necessary to hold it up.

  Then I huddled with the other agents to solve the more urgent problem. A hospital was out of the question. Dilloway was chosen to conduct the surgery when someone remembered that his mother had been a seamstress, but they were still tussling over whose liquor would be sacrificed to numb the patient. I pointed out that we had enough laudanum in the cabinet to ease him out of consciousness, and finally, things began to move.

  While Bellamy fetched and administered the laudanum with sure hands, I stepped away, turning my attention back to Hattie.

  “Tell me. What did he do that you didn’t ask him to?”

  There was a little more color in her cheeks now, though her hands were still twisted in her bloody skirt. “I could have handled it. The suit grabbed me—”

  “What suit?”

  “The one in charge, the heavy one. Watkins. Demanded we drink with him.”

  I glanced over at the still form of Mortenson, Dilloway hovering over him. He wiped the back of his hand across his forehead and started to work. The room had fallen silent at last, so Mortenson’s unconscious moan when the tongs touched his flesh seemed remarkably loud.

  Hattie flinched. I turned her away from the scene with a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Go on.”

  “Mortenson was matching him glass for glass. When Watkins was good and tight, he said the least I could do was grace his lap, and he yanked me down to sit.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “I sat.”

  “And what did he do?”

  “Put his hand up my dress.”

  Her voice was no longer trembling, and I saw a spine of steel in her that I hadn’t before. It gave me hope.

  Dilloway had located the bullet and fished it out, and we heard the sharp clang as he dropped it neatly into a metal dish. He poured Dalessandro’s brandy over the wound and helped himself to a swig. Then he brandished his needle and thread, setting to the next gruesome task, beginning to stitch up the unconscious man’s flesh.

  I looked at Hattie. She gave a tight smile that was more like a grimace. “Then Mortenson grabs me, hauls me off the fat man’s lap, and yells, ‘Hands off the lady,’ and it all went downhill from there.”

  “I’ll say. Who shot first?”

  She inclined her head toward Mortenson. Dilloway was still sewing. Dalessandro’s purloined flask was now making the rounds among the spectators.

  “Good Lord,” I said. “You’re lucky either of you made it out.”

  “Don’t have to tell me twice,” she said. “The fat man might’ve killed him if I hadn’t jostled his elbow.”

  “That was good thinking.”

  “Wasn’t fast enough,” she said.

  “No one died,” I said, echoing Bellamy, though there was little else to celebrate.

  Now that the surgery was complete, I could see that Mortenson’s leg wound was just above the knee. A bad place to get shot, but far better than the meaty part of the thigh a few inches higher, which would likely have been fatal. The wound might still fester, and it would be weeks before we knew whether the patient was truly out of the woods. But at least he would make it through the first day with some blood still in him.

  Once Mortenson had been lifted off his makeshift surgical table and was resting on a couch in Taylor’s office, I let myself breathe for a moment. I heard the men on either side of me, including our erstwhile surgeon, do so as well. But there was no time to feel relief. The fallout of the botched operation had to be dealt with.

  “Someone’s got to tell the boss,” said Dilloway, wiping
his hands on what looked like the last clean rag in the office.

  Dead silence followed.

  Irritated but certain, I spoke up. “I’ll do it. Where is he?”

  “Home.”

  “Come on,” I said to Hattie, and she followed.

  The night was cold, but the fresh air felt like a wonder after the bloody stink of the office. We moved quickly to keep warm. After a few blocks, I said, “It wasn’t your fault. Next time, you’ll do better.”

  She looked over with moist eyes.

  “Yes, I said next time. But I have to ask you one question, and I need you to be absolutely honest.”

  “Yes, Chief.”

  “Did you do anything to encourage Mortenson? Before this happened? Do the two of you have some kind of…special relationship?”

  Her footfalls were the only sound for a few moments, but when she spoke, she did so clearly. “No, ma’am. Not at all. Frankly, he always gave me the creeps.”

  I didn’t smile, though in some part, I wanted to, hearing her echo my own sentiments. I realized I had assumed the worst of her, and I was deeply ashamed, knowing how furious I’d been when men were quick to assume the worst of me. I was accustomed to thinking the worst of people and the best of myself. There was value in switching those around from time to time.

  We walked in silence the rest of the way.

  In front of Pinkerton’s house, I paused and said to Hattie, “Off home with you. We’ll start early tomorrow. Six o’clock. You’ll be ready?”

  “I will, Chief.” She took her leave quickly, without giving me a chance to change my mind.

  I knocked on the door and was surprised when the man himself answered it. I could hear the noise of children running, which gave me a moment’s pause.

  “Now this is a surprise,” he said. “Please, come in.”

  I did, and I must have looked confused, so he said, “Joan is upstairs with the children. Glad to see you. Tell me, what brings you out this way?”

  After that greeting, I was more than sad to tell him. Framed by the brocades and chintzes of a private home, he looked older, gray and white strands having taken root throughout his hair, even his beard. Seeing him here reminded me that he was just a man, a human like any of the rest of us, and not an unearthly hero who could solve all the world’s troubles with a sweep of his arm. It also reminded me how much I owed him. He could have dismissed me after the ring went missing, and he hadn’t. How different things would have been if he’d thought I was lying. Then he’d trusted me with the Ladies’ Bureau. As wrong as things had gone today, I hoped this failure didn’t cause him to reconsider. From upstairs, a little girl squealed, whether in delight or fear, I couldn’t tell.

  We stood just inside the doorway as I told Pinkerton the story of Mortenson and Hattie’s failure to snare the counterfeiters, sketching it in broad strokes as briefly as I could. He looked alarmed at first, then concerned, then resolute.

  “But he seems fine?”

  “As fine as anyone can be with a hole blasted in his thigh.”

  “Good to know Dilloway has surgical skills in the crunch.”

  “I’m not sure that’s the key lesson I’d take.”

  He said, his voice tense, “Warne, I’m trying my best to find anything positive at all in this.”

  “Understood. Then yes. I was pretty impressed with his stitching.”

  “And Hattie?”

  “It wasn’t her fault.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “That’s what she says, and I believe her. Mortenson was drunk, and he let his emotions get the better of him. I hope your punishment for him will be severe.”

  “I suspect you’ll be very happy with it,” he said grimly.

  He put on his hat, and we both went out into the street. I walked half a block with him toward the office, my feet moving automatically. He stopped.

  “Warne,” he said, “go home. Hasn’t your day been long enough?”

  “It has,” I agreed.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow.”

  So it wasn’t until the next morning that I found out what had happened.

  When I walked into the outer office, the misadventures of the day before still hung heavy in the air: the wet-iron smell of blood, chairs scattered haphazardly, the empty flask discarded. I also noticed a gash on the side of Pinkerton’s desk—had I missed it? Had it always been there? Or had it happened during the makeshift surgery? It seemed unlikely, but the scene had been such a circus, I was sure I’d missed much.

  Almost before I could turn my mind to other possibilities, DeForest was at my side with the gossip. “Did you hear?”

  I was in no mood for guessing games. “I’ve heard a great many things in my life, Graham. Be specific.”

  “About Mortenson.”

  “I was here for it.”

  “You were?”

  “I saw Dilloway sew him up.”

  “Not that, although you need to tell me the details in a minute. I mean his dismissal.”

  “Pinkerton dismissed him?” So that was the punishment. Harsh, but I couldn’t argue with it. An operative who stepped in thoughtlessly without regard for the case could be very dangerous, to anyone present and to the whole company. Mortenson’s failure was unacceptable. Bellamy had a foolish, dogged chivalry to him, I knew, but he’d never let it jeopardize an operation.

  “With half a dozen other agents standing witness. He answered it by pulling a knife and trying to jump the old man.”

  “Good God! Then what?”

  “Pinkerton disarmed him, knocked him down, and called the police to haul him off for assault. Dilloway and Bellamy helped restrain him. He can do a lot of things, but escaping handcuffs isn’t one.”

  “I doubt he could put up much of a fight with that hole in his leg. Lost a lot of blood too.”

  “You’d be surprised. I’ve seen men in a fury do things they shouldn’t have been able to do.”

  “So count Pinkerton lucky. Did he seem surprised?”

  “Angry, mostly.”

  We reflected on that. I couldn’t cast stones, of course, knowing my own anger had spiraled out of control, and Mortenson wasn’t even my responsibility, only Hattie.

  “So,” I said, “one less colleague for us.”

  “And one more enemy.”

  “One among so many. Will we even notice?” But I knew we would. Mortenson was a smart man, and he knew our ways. Should he put his mind to criminality, he would be a formidable foe.

  The first few weeks after his departure, I found myself scanning crowds and peering around corners for him, but he was nowhere to be seen. I asked around the office to find out any news, and both Taylor and Waldorf reported having heard that he’d gone back to Kentucky. I breathed a little easier after that.

  • • •

  After Hattie’s baptism by blood and fire, I expected a cakewalk from Mrs. Borowski. Alas. Once her training was complete, I assigned her to three cases. A bank job, a domestic accused of stealing, and a grocery clerk skimming at the till.

  She failed at all three. It didn’t take long to find the common thread.

  She brought back tales of the accused bank robber’s hard-luck childhood, in painstaking detail, but nothing we could use to predict where his gang might strike next. In the domestic’s case, it happened that both women originally hailed from the same area of Poland, and all we could learn was the depth of the servant’s homesickness. The grocery clerk was more withholding, and Mrs. Borowski refused to push hard enough to get any information—so we had nothing at all. In short, she was too kind. In any other business, this would be an asset. As an operative, it was the worst of liabilities.

  After the third failure, I knew pure honesty was what I owed her—and the only possible path to improvement.

&nb
sp; “You’re a wonderful person,” I said.

  She knew exactly why I’d chosen those words. “But not a very good operative.”

  “No,” I said, “not yet.”

  “If I get the house back,” she said, “I’ll go.”

  “If you get the house back, I’ll let you go without complaint.”

  Alas, when the final report came—Taylor and Dalessandro had done a thorough investigation—the news wasn’t good. The Finns who had presented her with the deed to the boardinghouse really were the true owners. Her husband might or might not have purchased the property in good faith, but whatever he’d done, the secret of it had died with him.

  I got good and soused with her the night we finally got a verdict. She showed me to a hidden Polish dining club on the North Side, through an unmarked door between a funeral parlor and a brewery. We sat across from each other at a small, round table topped with elegant imported tile, and we washed away our sorrows with tiny, doll-size tumblers of bittersweet plum vodka. In the beginning, the liquor burned, and so did our anger; by the time half a dozen tumblers were emptied, both had faded into a hazy warmth, and we were laughing together. Earnestly, I begged her pardon for not being able to do better by her as an operative; I owed her so much. Both betrayed by our husbands, we had a lot to mourn, and not just in the current instance. I don’t remember what she said in response.

  I woke the next morning with a dizzy ache all over and spent a half hour lying in bed counting the cracks in the ceiling before I was ready to rise. In the meantime, I turned my cobwebbed brain to the problem of Mrs. Borowski’s employment. We needed a position that avoided her weaknesses and took advantage of her natural strengths. If she only had to be who she was, she’d be good at it.

  When I hit upon the right answer, I sat bolt upright. The resulting spell put me flat on my back for another ten minutes, but then I made my way to the office, thrilled at my discovery.

  Mrs. Borowski could be of little use to us as the kind of wandering, adaptable operative that I prided myself on being. What we needed her to do was operate in place. No traveling, no disguises. Pinkerton agreed to the plan, and I presented it to her myself.