The Museum of Extraordinary Things

APRIL 1911

ONE FUNERAL after another was held, at Mt. Zion and Baron Hirsch and Evergreens Cemeteries. Rain and drizzle dashed the hallowed ground at many of the private funerals, held one after the other. When Mayor Gaynor and Governor Dix both refused to take responsibility for the fire, neither one visiting the site of the disaster, it seemed no official was willing to stand up for those who had been so terribly wronged. The families of the dead were aided by the Red Cross and the Hebrew Burial Association to ensure that burial plots could be purchased for the girls whose families could not afford plots in the muddy cemeteries of Staten Island and Brooklyn and Queens and horse-drawn hearses hired. The girls themselves, having been paid only six or seven dollars for a workweek of sixty hours or more, had earned too little to pay for their own funerals. The corrupt politicians still ran the town, despite the work of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who as a New York legislator had done his best to bring the Democratic Party back to reason.

A sea of black umbrellas preceded waves of endless sorrow. Eddie positioned himself at the edges of such gatherings, his cap pulled down, his camera slung over one shoulder. He photographed the funerals from a distance, stationing himself behind a stone wall or under a wide-limbed copper beech, doing his best not to bring attention to himself while keeping his lens free from raindrops with a soft rag. The world carried the scent of lilacs and damp earth, and the sky was a dove-colored, so laden with clouds it seemed that heaven touched the ground.

Eddie waited for the end of each service before showing the dime-store photograph of Hannah Weiss to mourners who filed by. Most of those he approached were mistrustful of his presence, so far inside their own grief he often had to repeat himself to be understood. He spoke in English and Yiddish, as well as the broken Russian he remembered from his boyhood. Please excuse the interruption, but this girl is still missing. Perhaps you knew her? Did you see her on the day of the fire? Or the day before? Maybe recently? One young woman who was lamenting her own losses had sputtered, “Who do you think you are asking questions here?” before stalking off. Another time Eddie had been chased off the premises when relatives of the deceased noticed his camera and charged after him, fiercely protective of their grieving family’s privacy. They had thrown rocks and called him a ghoul. Perhaps he was, but the photographs of the distraught, raging mourners were among the best he’d ever taken. He added the prints to his wall of sorrow, which now ran the length of his loft, ravaged souls scattered in black and white, the exalted and the earnest, the mourners and the mourned side by side.

On the fifth of the month, New York City held a mass funeral for the unidentified victims of the fire, a procession that would take six hours to complete. The morning’s drizzle would become a driving rain, but a sea of more than three hundred thousand mourners holding black umbrellas lined the street to pay their respects to those who had lost their lives. Guards had been stationed around the homes of the owners of the factory, for there was talk of retaliation. The survivors murmured to each other in remembrance of those they had lost, girls who had jumped holding hands, lovers who had kissed before the flames engulfed them, lives burning up like cinders as the owners and supervisors were skulking over the melting tar of the roof, making their way onto a neighboring rooftop. The deceased were put to rest in black coffins covered with shrouds—each had a silver plate upon it, stating that they were the unidentified departed.

The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union, begun in 1900 to protect working people from seventy-hour workweeks and wretched conditions, had met in long sessions, swelling the halls at Cooper Union, petitioning President Taft and the governor, John Dix, only in office since January of that year, for workers’ rights. The parade of mourners was more than just a funeral; it was a river of outrage. Carts transporting the dead were laden with flowers, pulled by huge draft horses draped with black netting. Thousands of mourners in black coats, the men in bowler hats, the women draped in black wool and velvet, followed the carts, including the members of the Ladies’ Waist and Dress Makers’ Union, Local 25, the union that had tried and failed to have sprinklers installed in the Triangle factory. The mourners carried black banners and garlands of roses. Signs carried by women’s union groups called out, AN END TO GRIEF. The city still smelled of smoke, and a gray film hung above them. It was April, yet it seemed another month entirely, more somber November in mood.

As Eddie made his way through the crowd, he was looking for one person, a young woman with pale hair, the color of snow. Snow melted, Eddie knew that much. It disappeared if you tried to hold on to it. He had posted himself in the doorway of a pet shop. From this position he could see the swelling throngs. The gathering was not unruly, but the quiet was worse than any mayhem, a pulsing wave of sorrow. Soon enough, the owner of the shop came out with a broom. There was to be no loitering, he declared, for he feared his plate-glass windows would be shattered should tempers rise.

As Eddie moved on, he thought he spotted Weiss’s daughter. It was what he had come to do, yet at the sight of this girl, he grew light-headed. He shifted his camera stand over his shoulder, then folded himself into the crowd. He made his way through the mass of people on the street, trailing her, holding his breath, like a man about to jump from a bridge. She wore a camel-colored coat over blue skirts and high-buttoned boots, her pale hair falling down her back, proceeding so quickly Eddie wondered if she was a ghost, for ghosts are said to move in the corners of human sight. She disappeared in a mob on Fourteenth Street, but after a few moments Eddie spied her again. Her hair was indeed a beacon. If she chose to slip a shawl or scarf over her head, he would certainly lose her in the crowd. He pushed his way through the throngs with greater haste.

She came to a stop on a corner, and Eddie could see her well enough to tell she was no ghost, only flesh and blood. He readied his camera. Just as he took her photograph, she lifted her eyes, and stared directly into the lens. Later he would see that her eyes were dark, ember-colored, and he would recall that the eyes of the girl in Weiss’s dime-store photograph were pale, clearly blue. But at that moment all he could focus on was that she had begun to approach him. He had no idea what to expect, certainly he never imagined she would strike him on the chest with open palms. He reeled backward, even though he was so tall, astonished by her fury.

“You think you can come here like a jackal and take photographs while we drown in our grief ?”

“You didn’t have to hit me.” He was thankful she hadn’t damaged the camera.

“We have some rights, you know,” she remarked coldly.

When she started away, Eddie took her arm. “You’re Miss Weiss?” Several young women on the corner were watching, clearly disturbed, but Eddie wasn’t concerned. It was unlikely they would signal one of the many policemen stationed nearby. None of them wanted the authorities involved in their affairs.

Eddie showed off the dime-store photograph. “Is this you?”

The young woman flushed. “What are you doing with this? Are you a thief ? Did you rob my father?”

“Your father came to me. He thought you were lost and asked for my help. But clearly you don’t want him to know where you are.”

“My father knows exactly where I am.” The girl raised her chin and nodded to the photograph. “This is my sister,” she said of the image.

They stood together as the crowds pushed past, an odd intimacy between them. “You’re twins?”

“A year apart. Not that it’s your business.”

“I just want to speak to you about her.”

“For all I know you could work for the insurance company, or for the police. If you follow me, I’ll hit you harder. And next time I’ll scream.” Hannah’s sister backed away, slipping into the crowd.

Eddie might have followed her, but he had learned early on that it wasn’t possible to force out information; evidence gathered in that manner would be unreliable at best, threaded with half truths and assumptions. The Wizard of the Lower East Side always instructed the boys he employed that, when one was searching for a person’s whereabouts, the individual’s entire history must be considered. With every case, the investigator must look backward in time. Who was the woman who had set off on March 25 wearing a blue coat, a treasured gold locket at her throat? It was the path of that soul he must set out to discover. To find someone, it was necessary to follow in the way that the angels who follow men’s lives on earth are said to do, charting each trespass without judgment, for judgment is never ours to give.

THE RAIN was a familiar, bleak curtain when Eddie decided to return to the territory of his youth. After weeks of searching, he knew little more about Hannah Weiss than he had on the night when her father had first come to his studio. She seemed to have vanished completely, as though she’d fallen through the sidewalk and continued her fiery descent into the deepest recesses of the earth. He couldn’t help but wonder if he’d lost the knack for finding people, if his talent hadn’t come so easily to him that he hadn’t appreciated his own abilities.

Eddie sought out Sheriff Street. The weather was so raw he found himself shivering, and he kept his collar up, hands in his pockets. For a while he felt disoriented when confronted by the turmoil of the crowded markets, the steamy scent of vegetables and meat from the vendors, the men in wide black hats who gazed at him with contempt. The gutters in the old neighborhood ran with filth, for many tenement buildings were still without toilets, and the outhouses in the bare dirt yards drained sewage directly into the streets. The buildings were so close any bit of light would have been hard-pressed to break through even if the day hadn’t been so dreary. After a while, the streets seemed familiar once more. When he let his instincts take over, he still knew the route by heart. The Hall of Love looked the same. The large wooden doors, the carved balustrades, the tiled mosaic floor in the entranceway. He entered, clapping the rain from his jacket. Several women were gathered in the unheated corridor, anxiously waiting, hoping to be granted a meeting with the renowned man whose reputation had only continued to grow in the past few years. In Russia they called him an angel, a messenger from God who tended to the forsaken and the betrayed. A few of the women in the hallway held handkerchiefs, on the verge of tears. One young mother tried to hush her baby with a lullaby, but the infant continued to wail sharp, mournful cries. The air was thick with the odor of wet wool and human despair.

Two insolent boys of ten or eleven slouched around in a corner nook, caps pulled down, joking with each other as they amused themselves with a pair of dice. They were little ruffians hired to attend to Hochman’s legwork, as Eddie had once been, spending too much time in brothels and taverns. The boys lounging in the Hall of Love were most assuredly practiced in the art of eavesdropping and had learned to peer through keyholes. Those who were literate were instructed to jot down notes to bring back to their employer. Most became caught up in the tawdry life of debauchery they were only meant to report upon. The corruption was like quicksand; one step and it pulled you down.

Eddie approached the boys straightaway. Start at the beginning, and here is mine.

“Is the old man in?”

Eddie could feel the world he’d once known coming back to him. He may have lost his faith in taverns and whorehouses, but he’d been granted an odd variety of strength from being pitiless. His detachment had helped him survive.

The boys glared rudely and leaned closer to one another. Both had dark, rabbity faces. They’d probably been starving when Hochman offered them work.

“What’s it to you?” said the one with more nerve, clearly the leader of the pair.

“I know your game, so don’t think you’re fooling me. You work for Mr. H or you wouldn’t be here. Is he in his office?”

“You don’t know shit,” the leader responded. He squinted to make himself look tough. He was older than he’d first appeared, maybe fourteen, nearly a man, but the scruffy clothes he wore were small on him, giving him the air of a boyhood that was already something of the past. Eddie recalled Hochman recommending that his boys try to appear childish. No one paid attention to children, and guilty men were much more likely to admit their transgressions when they thought no one of any worth would overhear.

The door to Hochman’s private office opened before the conversation grew more heated. Though he had an office on Rivington Street, it was here in his private chambers that Hochman performed marriage ceremonies and took the time to comfort those loveless women who had been abandoned by husbands and fiancés. A hush fell over the corridor as he entered. Hochman wore a velvet waistcoat and a tweed jacket, as dapper as ever. Ladies were drawn to him, and he did his best to encourage their devotion by paying attention to his appearance, even as he aged.

The rude boys shrank away, careful to mind their manners in the presence of their employer. A group of women were quick to surround the Wizard. They clasped at his arms, their emotions heightened by his presence, but Hochman excused himself. “Ladies, all good things take time, and in all good time I’ll hear every one of your stories.” He strode forward, pleased, for not much escaped his eye. He’d taken note of the tall young man dripping with rain and had immediately recognized his protégé. “Ezekiel,” he called fondly, signaling for Eddie to approach. “I knew you weren’t lost just because everyone’s written you off.”

Eddie winced. It was just like Hochman to wrap an insult inside a veneer of good cheer. The Wizard slapped him on the back, a little too heartily, for the welcome stung. “I know you, my boy. You’re here for something. Let’s not waste time. I have people waiting.”

Eddie followed Hochman into his office. It was lavishly furnished, with large leather chairs and a huge, ornate mahogany desk. The carpet was an Oriental, expensive and a bit garish, in bright tints of orange and blue. The walls had been covered with sheaths of blue silk wallpaper fashioned in China, purchased at a shop on Mulberry Street. Blue was said to be the color of trust and loyalty and wisdom, all of the attributes Hochman wanted his clients to associate with him.

Eddie sat in one of the leather chairs, made of deep maroon calfskin that was well worn and studded with brass buttons. He knew the Wizard avoided shaking hands, for he had a fear of contagious diseases, quite rational considering that many of the immigrants he dealt with were in poor health; tuberculosis and measles ran rampant in the tenement houses.

There were piles of official Jewish wedding contracts stacked on a long oak table. These ketubahs were beautifully made, decorated with gold leaf, each one printed individually, many with biblical scenes painted in watercolors. The marriage contracts would bear Hochman’s graceful signature after he had completed the ceremony, which he was legally entitled to perform, though he was neither a rabbi nor a city official. He charged no fee, but the larger the donation to the Hall of Love, the more fortunate the wedding couple would be.

Hochman eased himself into the chair behind his desk and offered Eddie a cigar. “No more wedding photographs? I heard you were a troublemaker and nobody wanted to hire you. You made scenes.”

“I was no good at it, so I gave it up.”

“You gave up quite a lot of things from what I hear.”

Eddie shrugged. His defection and his loss of faith were common knowledge in the neighborhood. On the way to Sheriff Street, a bearded old man in a broad-brimmed black hat, perhaps a member of his father’s shul, had spat on the ground when he passed by. Among the elder Cohen’s circle, a son who didn’t know enough to respect his father wasn’t worth much. One who didn’t respect his own people was beneath contempt.

“I was sorry to hear about Levy.” Hochman pushed a silver lighter across the desk. “He was a good photographer. A good man.”

Eddie lit the cigar and choked, humbled to have the exact same response he’d had when he finally accepted his first stogie from his employer. He’d done a particularly good job of tracking down a missing fiancé and Hochman had invited him into his office, an invitation he could brag about to the other boys. Eddie remembered being surprised by the conversation on that day. Hochman had asked what he thought of love, now that he was in the business. Nothing much, Eddie had replied. You don’t see how powerful a force it is? Hochman had asked. How it rules men’s lives?

I see misery. Nothing more.

If that’s true, son, Hochman had said, maybe you’re not as smart as I thought you were.

Hochman grinned when Eddie coughed. “Still not a smoker.” Clearly, he liked to get the better of people and show them their own failings. It made for easier negotiations.

“I suppose not.” Eddie propped up the cigar in a bronze ashtray, a beautiful piece, most likely a gift from a satisfied customer.

“Tiffany,” Hochman informed him.

“I suppose that means something to some people.” Eddie shrugged. “To me, it’s an ashtray.”

The older man leaned back in his chair. As a boy Eddie hadn’t noticed that his boss’s chair was larger by half than the chair that faced it, perhaps to ensure that a visitor would feel himself diminished in the presence of a superior man.

“You didn’t give notice when you left. I expected more from you.”

“I’m sure it was easy enough for you to find my replacement. We were all the same to you, weren’t we? Good little spies.”

“I gave you an opportunity. Working for me you ate better, you dressed better. You can’t deny you had a better life. Just as important—you learned valuable lessons. All my boys do.”

“I learned that people betrayed each other, that they fled from their responsibilities and treated each other like shit. Was that the lesson you wanted for us?”

“Not at all.” Hochman had aged since Eddie had last seen him, yet was still imposing with his large, leonine head and a mane of white hair which people said he powdered each morning. “It might have been shit to you, but the Times and the Herald and the Tribune still turn to me when they have a case they can’t solve. They still write about the boy I discovered under the Brooklyn Bridge when the police force couldn’t find a trace of him.”

Eddie’s hackles were raised. “I solved that case.”

“You found him, Ezekiel, but you solved nothing. Did you know he was murdered?”

Eddie tilted his chair forward, a strange heat rising in his face. He didn’t like to think about that night, even now. Still, he knew what he’d seen. “He’d frozen to death. Everyone I spoke to said he had the habit of wandering around the city at night. He died of exposure to the cold.”

“You didn’t grasp why he would do such a thing in such brutal weather. Was he a fool, or was he something else? You would have needed to possess empathy for another person in order to see what was in front of you. You would have had to cast off your own skin, and slip into his. In the case of Louis—if you remember, that was his name—his mother had a boarder, a Russian who drank and had a temper. He had begun beating the boy, who was certainly too afraid to tell his mother the truth about his situation. They needed the money, and I’m sure Louis thought they would starve without the income. I imagine the Russian threatened him with what he might do to the mother if he were exposed. One night, things went too far. The Russian wrapped Louis in a blanket and carried him to the embankment, leaving him beneath the bridge. The mother recognized the blanket as one she owned. She assumed her son had taken it with him, which I knew was highly unlikely. A wandering boy does not clutch a blanket when he climbs out the window. He wants to be free, not dragged down. I suppose you failed to notice the bruises around his throat. These marks led me to the truth.”

Eddie felt a bit dazed. He hadn’t been aware of any of this. Of course, the night had been dark, and cold. He’d been young and very sure of his opinions.

“You were with me when I called on the mother,” Hochman went on. “I assume you remember?”

It had been an honor to be allowed to accompany the Wizard, yet all Eddie recalled of the incident was the inconsolable mother, who sank into a chair to sob. He remembered shifting from foot to foot, uncomfortable in the presence of such sorrow, wishing he hadn’t been granted the privilege of coming along.

“There were other things to consider. The stains on the floor I knew to be blood. The mother told me the boarder had also disappeared. When I opened the door to the corridor where the boarder’s cot was kept, I could feel evil. Say what you will, but evil is real. It’s a living, breathing thing.”

Eddie felt shamed by how much he had missed.

“There was no reason for the mother to think her son’s death was anything but peaceful, so I paid the medical examiner for his silence.”

“And allowed the man who killed him to go free? What kind of justice is that?”

“Justice is God’s to give, not mine. All the same, I kept track of the boarder. He wound up in the Tombs prison and was murdered in a fight the following year. I still see the mother every now and then. She always comes to embrace me.”

“You should have told the police.”

“Exactly why I didn’t go after you when you left, Ezekiel. You were talented, but talent isn’t enough.” Hochman leaned in and lowered his voice, so as to continue in the greatest confidence. “Would you like to know your fatal flaw?”

Eddie flushed with annoyance. He could have easily made a list of Hochman’s flaws, enough to fill several pages. Still, he was curious. “Please do tell.”

“You judge what you don’t understand.” Hochman pulled out an engraved flask, took a sip, then offered it to Eddie, who waved it away. “You want my advice? I’ll give it to you for free, for old times’ sake.”

“I didn’t think you did anything for free.”

“Maybe this is a first. So pay attention. It’s not finding what’s lost, it’s understanding what you’ve found.” Hochman cleared space on his desktop, moving the gold pen set he used to sign his bold signature onto marriage contracts. “Let’s see what you’re looking for now. Put your hands on the desk.”

Eddie threw the older man a look of mistrust. He knew Hochman’s fortunes were often tricks, guesswork at best.

“You tell yourself I’m a sham, Ezekiel, yet you’re here. That just goes to show what a man thinks and what he feels are not necessarily one and the same. Considering you don’t believe in my talents, I would hate to imagine you’re too afraid to hear what I have to say.”

Eddie placed his hands on the desk, palms facing upward. He felt obligated to go along with Hochman. “By all means.”

Hochman grasped a wooden pointer and traced the life line crossing from right to left. “It seems you will have time enough to figure out your mistakes. You’ll live to be old.”

“Does that prediction deserve thanks?” Eddie mocked.

“Does life deserve gratitude? If so, thank your maker, not me.” Eddie noticed there was a white film over the Wizard’s once burning eyes. “This is unusual,” Hochman went on. “In the center is a line, as if there was a river inside you. But there’s an X across the river line, an opposition. So you haven’t changed as much as you think you have. You’re looking for the same thing now as you were when I first met you.” Hochman stared directly into Eddie’s eyes; despite his failing vision, his gaze was mesmerizing. “The only way to understand a river is to jump into it.”

Eddie withdrew his hand. “I don’t need a reading for myself.” He brought out Hannah Weiss’s photograph. “I’m looking for this girl. She went to work at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory on the morning of the fire, and there’s been no sign of her since.”

“I’m honored that you would come to me for advice. If you’re looking for her I can tell you only what I told you long ago. Go back in time as far as you must. Speak to everyone who knew her. If you don’t find her, then in all likelihood she will find you. But you know what to do. Despite your flaws, you were my finest student. So ask yourself this—did you really come to me to find this girl, or are you looking for something else entirely?”

“You have nothing that I want,” Eddie said dismissively.

Hochman pushed his chair away from the desk and bowed formally, his signal, Eddie knew, to dismiss a client whose time was up. But perhaps he was more than a client, for Hochman unexpectedly reached to shake his hand, an intimacy that surprised Eddie. He recalled when they were visiting the mother of the boy who’d gone missing, after Hochman had opened the door to the boarder’s sleeping area, he had made an excuse to send Eddie away. Go get me a glass of water. Make sure it’s a clean glass. Wash it yourself. But Eddie hadn’t done as he’d been instructed. Instead, he’d stood in the corridor. He’d heard Hochman recite the mourning prayer. At that moment Eddie had known his employer was trying to protect him. He’d known there was evil in the world.

It was almost Passover, the time of year when Eddie made certain to avoid his past, yet whenever he took Mitts for a walk, he found himself drawn downtown. He made his way to the address Weiss had given him. The apartment was the sixth-floor railroad flat of a tenement building on Thompson Street. The stairs were steep and worn, and through the flimsy walls it was possible to hear half a dozen conversations in Yiddish and Russian and English, some in all three languages combined. Eddie was reminded of the room where he’d lived with his father, the lingering odor of cooked cabbage and of stews, the dim hallways, the damp clinging to the walls. All he’d wanted was to escape.

He knocked at the Weisses’ door, expecting to be greeted by the old man, but it was the sister, Ella, who appeared. Their first meeting had been unfortunate, and now the girl glared when she saw Eddie, instantly suspicious. Before she could turn him away, Mitts barked cheerfully and stepped forward. “Oh,” Ella said, delighted. “I didn’t expect you!”

Eddie grinned. More than once, the dog had been his best representative, more lovable and social than he was. Ella turned to him after greeting the dog, less than charmed by his master. “I’m not sure I should speak to someone who accosted me on the street.”

“Your father came to me for help. If you don’t believe me, ask him.”

“I told him there was a man inquiring about Hannah and he asked me for a description. I said tall and obnoxious. Right away he knew it was you.”

Eddie winced, and his discomfort lightened Ella’s expression for a moment. Still, she was wary.

“He told me you have a gift, a special knowledge that will allow you to find my sister. He sits here waiting to hear from you. He has faith in you. So tell me, Mr. Detective, did you find her with your special powers?”

“I’m not a detective. I’m a photographer. He came to look at the prints I’d taken on the day of the fire. I never told him that I had the power to find your sister.”

“What good are you then?” There were spots of color on Ella’s cheeks. “Why did you let him think you could? Do you mean to say you can’t close your eyes and see her in the great beyond?”

“Is that where you think she is?”

Ella looked away, but a sob escaped from her throat.

Eddie reached to pull her into the hallway. At last he was getting somewhere. “A sister is something special. Maybe she told you secrets she might have kept from your father. A boyfriend? A problem?”

“Hannah didn’t keep secrets. She was the kindest, most open person. I don’t think she ever told a lie in her life. You can’t imagine how good she was. If something had been wrong I would have known. We knew everything about each other.” Ella slipped a hand over her mouth, shocked by her own words, almost unable to take in any air. “I’m speaking of her in the past, as though she’s gone.”

“Let’s look at the facts,” Eddie suggested. “You worked together?”

“The supervisor thought we talked too much when we worked side by side, so he separated us. Hannah had me go upstairs because the room was supposed to be better, not as cold. That was the way she was. Never thinking of herself. When the fire began I tried to find her, but the stairwells were filled with smoke. The door to the ninth floor was locked. No one could budge it—several of the men tried. I was pulled along with the crowd, but I should have been beside her.”

“Be thankful you weren’t. It was luck that you were on the tenth floor.”

“It wasn’t luck! It was Hannah who saved me. She sent me to the room she should have gone to. The supervisor was looking at me when he said only one of us could stay on the ninth floor.” Ella fretfully plucked at her own skin. Eddie noticed a dozen self-inflicted marks on her arms. “I should have been in that fire. That’s the reason I can see the other side.”

Eddie wrinkled his brow, confused.

“I should be dead. That’s why I see her ghost.”

“That’s not the way it works,” Eddie assured her.

Ella managed a laugh despite her sorrow. “You know how it works? God discussed it with you?”

“Let’s discuss your sister, and leave God to other business. Did you see her that morning?”

They had walked to Greene Street arm in arm, as they did each day.

“And she seemed the same as always? No worries?”

“The same.”

“You went in the building together, and up the stairs?”

Ella’s expression darkened. “She told me to go on, she would follow. Some mornings she ran and bought an apple from a cart in Washington Square Park. She would sneak it in, even though we weren’t allowed to eat while we worked. She said otherwise her stomach would growl.”

“Did she buy an apple?”

“I don’t know. I went inside the doorway and never saw her again. Only her ghost.”

Eddie gazed at the girl, pity shining in his eyes.

“I can tell you think I’m foolish. But I know she’s gone. I dream of water, not of fire. She’s trying to tell me something.” Ella gazed straight at him, defiant. “Maybe you think I’m a lunatic.”

Eddie understood it was possible to dream so deeply you saw what you wished to believe. His own father had searched out his beloved wife in his dreams and had spoken to her on a nightly basis, conversations so intimate Eddie always turned to the wall so he wouldn’t overhear.

“I think you worry for your sister, as I’m sure she would have worried for you.”

“We both know what you’ll find. She’s gone. Please, don’t tell my father. The least we can do is let him dream awhile longer.”

On his way up toward Cooper Square in the falling dusk, Eddie realized he was being followed. It was Mitts who alerted him, for the dog seemed uneasy, glancing behind them, a worried expression crossing his usually easygoing countenance. Eddie took a moment to pause in a doorway. There he feigned gazing at his watch, all the while scanning the street with a sidelong glance. Indeed there was a large man dressed in a heavy black overcoat stopping nearby so that he might study Eddie from beneath the brim of his bowler hat. Eddie set his watch back into his pocket and moved on, but so did the burly stranger, lumbering after him. This was why Hochman preferred to hire boys who were light on their feet and could easily go unnoticed in a crowd. Eddie looked over his shoulder to steal another look. For an instant his eyes locked with his pursuer’s. He observed something dark peering back at him, the sort of malevolent spark he often captured on film when recording criminal subjects.

Eddie whistled for Mitts to stay close, then headed off briskly. The stranger continued to gain on them, his strut more focused now. He carried a roughly made club Eddie didn’t like the looks of. The hair on the back of Eddie’s neck rose in pinpricks, and he noticed that the hair on Mitts’s back bristled as well.

Eddie turned down Seventh Street, hoping to lose his shadow, but the street was nearly deserted in the dusk, and it appeared he’d chosen a perfect place for an assault. Without thinking, he slipped into the first doorway he came upon, McSorley’s Ale House, an establishment that had opened nearly sixty years earlier. This Irish tavern, where only men were allowed, was known for its workingman clientele. Mitts followed Eddie inside, treading softly over the sawdust scattered on the floor to mop up spilled drinks. The pit bull made for a good companion in taverns, for his breed was known for rat fighting, a form of amusement that often took place in the cellars below the alehouses and sporting houses throughout the city. In dogfights, pit bulls were champions, so ferocious many were unwilling to let go of an opponent they were pitted against. Their jaws occasionally had to be pried open with a metal bar before they would release the loser, if the other dog were still alive. Due to Mitts, space was made at the bar when Eddie approached. He asked for dark ale, keeping his eye on the door. He waited for his fare, but the fellow tending bar continued to clean glasses with a rag rather than see to his order.

“Is there a problem?” Eddie wished to know.

“No dogs,” he was told.

Two tabby cats lay beside a table in the back room where several men played cards.

“He won’t bother a cat. He’s well behaved.” In fact, Mitts had curled up on the floor at Eddie’s feet, his nose in the sawdust.

“But how do I know you are?” was the response. “Maybe you’re looking for trouble.” The barkeep was broadly built and heavily muscled, his strength put to use if there were unruly customers. His pale eyes were difficult to read, but he pointed out a sign that declared

BE GOOD OR BE GONE. Eddie realized that his ragged appearance and dark expression might have led this fellow to believe he had criminal intentions.

“I’m here to have a drink,” Eddie assured him. “Whiskey is fine. I prefer to avoid trouble. My dog’s the same as me.”

“Are you saying I should serve him as well?” the barkeep inquired drily, but Eddie’s attentions had already shifted. The man in the black coat had entered the alehouse, situating himself near the window. Eddie reached for a dime, which he tossed on the counter. He moved off the barstool and whistled low, between his teeth. Mitts rose to follow. As they headed for the double door, Eddie could sense his stalker behind him. The stranger’s shadow fell forward, blurring the edges between them. As soon as they were on the street, the stalker leaned forward to grab Eddie.

Eddie turned, quick to push him away. “I’ve got nothing for you! Back off, man!”

His stalker said nothing in response, but a grim smile crossed his face. It was a bad moment that promised to worsen. No words were said, but the tension grew. The dog planted himself in front of his master, as though he’d been trained in the art of protection. In response the stranger lifted up his club. Eddie grabbed Mitts by the collar and drew him away.

“If you follow me again, I’ll let my dog on you. Understand?”

There was no reply, just that menacing smile. When the stranger came no closer, Eddie took the opportunity to walk away, though a chill ran down his spine. He was suspicious, and rightfully so. After only a few steps, his pursuer came at him again, this time with a sudden and vicious attack. He struck at the back of Eddie’s head with his club. Stunned, Eddie fell to the gutter. As the world went black, he thought himself a fool for not being more watchful. Hadn’t that been one of Hochman’s first lessons? Never take your eyes off a man you can’t trust. He could feel the thief going through his pockets and heard him muttering while he grabbed what little Eddie carried with him.

Though Eddie was rising from the blackness, he could barely gather his thoughts. He heard Mitts barking like mad and imagined he would be hit again before he could rise. He gritted his teeth, but there wasn’t a second attack. He heard shouts. Dazed, he forced himself to his feet. He could feel the heat of his own blood as it matted in his hair and dripped into his collar. His vision was blurry, but when he squinted he could make out the figures of two men fighting. The barman from McSorley’s had sensed trouble and followed them. He wrestled with Eddie’s attacker while Mitts lunged at the man, latching on to his leg. The thief went at the dog with his club but was unable to drive him off.

Eddie ran and took hold of Mitts. “Enough,” he said, but the tendencies of the dog’s fierce breed had risen, and Mitts refused to let go of his quarry. Eddie shook him, then drew his jaws apart. The stranger scrambled to his feet, a stream of blood sopping through his torn pants leg. He grabbed his bully stick and took off toward Second Avenue, though he did so with a limp. Eddie and the barman watched the attacker vanish into the crowd.

“You said you don’t like trouble,” the barman remarked. “But is it possible it likes you?”

Whatever the thief had stolen had been flung to the ground in his attempt to make his getaway. Eddie collected his change and his watch. He held it up to find that the glass face had cracked. When he listened he discovered it was still keeping time.

The barman from McSorley’s came to inspect the damage. “That was what he was after. Without a doubt. That’s what you get for owning a rich man’s watch.”

That night Eddie slept upright in a chair, still in his clothes, his head throbbing. He dreamed a woman was making her way down Twenty-third Street, soaking wet. She was naked and beautiful. He had yearned for certain women, but the way he wanted this one was something more. He began to follow her. The entire street was awash in water, as if the river had flooded Tenth Avenue. Just as he was about to rush over to the woman he so desired, someone came up behind him and stopped him. You can’t have what doesn’t belong to you, a voice said.

Mitts put his head on his master’s knee. Eddie rubbed the dog’s skull, discovering that the dog had a lump similar to the one that had risen on his own head.

“He got you as well,” he murmured to Mitts.

It was early, and the light in the room was dim. The building hadn’t been wired for electricity. No one in city government thought this address was worth the bother, so Eddie lit a candle. He took his watch from his jacket to study it. He’d have to return to the watchmaker’s and have the cracked glass replaced. He thought of Harry Block, and the expression of outrage on his face when he saw what had once belonged to him in another man’s possession. Eddie then had a strange sensation, a bit of memory floating up like a firefly. He had seen the man who had attacked him before. Quickly, he sifted through the pile of photographs from the library gala until he found the one he wanted. There he was, the man in the black coat, a faithful employee who stood behind Harry Block only minutes before Eddie had revealed the stolen watch to his old enemy. The man in the heavy coat gazed away from the camera, as criminals often did, for none wished to divulge too much about themselves, or to have their features caught and recorded, so that they might later be identified. This man, however, was not a common thief at all but one of Block’s trusted employees, clearly sent to the Lower East Side for the watch.

Eddie felt himself flush with anger. How dare Block come after him, and think himself above the law? He had half a mind to go down to the Chelsea police station and report the incident, and he might have done exactly that, but he thought of the watchmaker’s suspicions that the watch was not his. He had allowed his outrage to obscure the truth. All at once, it struck Eddie that he himself was the thief. He was the one in possession of stolen property.

He wondered if every criminal saw himself as the hero of his own story, and if every thankless son was convinced he’d been mistreated by his father. Nothing was constant, he understood that now. Even Moses Levy’s photographs of the trees in the forest were shifting, fading from the very light that had created them. And in that hour of dim morning light, Eddie admitted that he no longer understood who he was, a hero, a nobody, a thief, a son who’d been mistreated, or one who had wronged his father so profoundly he might never be forgiven.