Walter uttered a mild expletive. “I was always afraid he’d run off someday.”
“Why?” Gwen asked.
“It was hard for him to be around people, even me. He thought he was taking care of me, but sometimes…” He cleared his throat. “Sometimes I pretended to be more sick than I really was, just to keep him from…doing something bad.”
“Something bad to somebody else?”
“No. I’d never believe that.” Walter closed his eyes. “The way he talked, sometimes…I thought he’d do himself a mischief.”
Gwen gripped the arms of her chair. “And now he thinks you’re in good hands.”
The old man opened his eyes again. “I won’t impose on you, Miss Murphy. Soon as I’m out of this bed…”
“Don’t you worry about that. We’ll find some decent place for you to stay until you’re well again.”
Walter was silent for a long half minute. “I hoped,” he said at last, “I hoped you’d make a difference. Give Dorian something else to think about. He took to you, Miss Murphy. Never seen him so interested in another human being.”
“Maybe you hoped for too much.”
“Maybe. But if he’s really gone, it ain’t because of you. He—”
The nurse intervened. “Mr. Brenner, it’s time for you to rest.” She gave Gwen a stern look. “You may return tomorrow, but our patient has had enough excitement for one day.”
“Just a few more minutes, please,” Gwen said. She leaned forward in her chair. “Walter, I have to find Dorian, especially if there’s a chance that he may be in trouble. Do you have any idea where he might have gone?”
The old man shook his head. “Always got the feeling he knew the city like the back of his hand. Could have gone anywhere.”
“You must have some notion, even if it’s just a guess.”
“Well…he used to talk about the place he grew up. Some old tenement in Hell’s Kitchen. Made it sound like he’d lived there a hundred years ago.”
“Did he say where this tenement was?”
“He mentioned Thirty-fourth Street.”
Gwen pinched her lower lip. “It’s a place to start.”
“Wish I could help. My damned heart…”
“I don’t want you to worry.” She squeezed his thin arm gently. “I’ll find Dorian, even if I have to turn this city upside down.”
He met her gaze with a crooked smile. “You know, I think you will.”
Gwen patted his arm again and rose. “I’ll report as soon as I know anything.” She nodded to the nurse and hurried to the door, her mind surging ahead of her feet. No one at the paper was likely to notice that she hadn’t returned to her desk; no one except Mitch took her seriously enough to care what she did or where she was. She could start looking for Dorian tonight. And if Mitch asked any questions…
Shrugging off her unease, Gwen took a taxi home and changed into a smart ensemble more appropriate to a night on the town. She applied rouge and lipstick, tied a bandeau around her hair and examined herself in the mirror, feeling self-conscious, as she so often did when she dolled up. The dress had been a gift from Mitch; she only wore it for him, and she felt like some sort of impostor every time. She’d never been glamorous and never would be.
Glamorous or not, tonight she would be entering a world of gangsters and speakeasies. She had to look like one of the regulars if she wanted to travel in that world with even a modicum of safety.
She stepped into a pair of patent pumps, threw on a coat and called another taxi. She had a feeling it was going to be a very long night.
CHAPTER FIVE
THE TENEMENT HAD been gutted, scheduled at the behest of a newly enforced city ordinance to be demolished and replaced by a more modern building. It was, Dorian thought, much like him: the obsolete product of an earlier age, useless and ready to die.
Consciousness came and went like sun and shadow glimpsed through the broken basement window. Sometimes he was entirely lucid, remembering how he had come to be in this place, and why. More often he hovered in a dream world, only half aware of the pain, well beyond hunger or any desire to feed. Even when a herd of laughing children hunted through the ruins looking for abandoned treasures, Dorian felt nothing but indifference.
Until the past came to claim him.
THE BOYS WERE older than he by several years. Their faces were already hardened by abuse and starvation and long hours in the factories; they had no mercy for one weaker than themselves. Especially one who read books and pretended to be better than they were.
“Come on,” the leader said. “Show us what you’ve learned, pretty boy.” He lifted his fists. “Aw, look. He’s afraid. He’s going to start bawling any minute.”
The boys laughed, but Joseph knew they weren’t going to stop. They would probably let him live; a murder would draw too much attention. That didn’t mean they wouldn’t beat him to within an inch of his life.
He raised his own fists and waited. When the leader attacked, Joseph punched the way he’d seen the boxers do that time when Da had bought into a bare-knuckle fight and forced him to watch. The gang boss collapsed with a woof of pain.
Fifteen minutes later Joseph lay in an alley, his face a bloody mass of cuts and bruises. He told himself it wasn’t so bad. Da had done worse.
But next time they wouldn’t have it so easy. Next time he would teach them to leave him alone…
DORIAN OPENED HIS EYES. He could no longer see well enough to make out the details of the room. The rats had crawled over him at first, trying to determine if he was edible. In the end they’d left him alone. Even when he was dead, the scavengers would leave his body untouched.
THE NIGHT WAS BITTERLY cold. Joe and the boys had been waiting for hours, knowing that Schaeffer and his gang would be coming this way after an evening of robbing hapless sailors who’d strayed from the waterfront.
Benny spat a curse and flapped his arms across his chest. “Where the hell are they?” he complained.
Joe gave him a hard look, and he subsided. The other boys shifted knives and billy clubs, working frozen fingers. When their rivals appeared, they were ready.
The fight was vicious. Two boys went down and stayed there. Schaeffer got the worst of it. What remained of his gang ran or limped away as fast as their legs would carry them. By the time the coppers arrived, Joe’s boys were long gone.
DORIAN RAISED HIS hand to his face, feeling for the scar Schaeffer’s knife had carved into his flesh. It wasn’t there. He mourned its loss; it had served him well in the old days, terrifying his enemies and followers alike. No one had challenged him after Schaeffer. No one except Little Mike.
“YOU’RE FINISHED.”
Little Mike grinned at the pickpockets, muggers and thieves who crowded behind him. Most of them were close to Joe’s age, the youngest perhaps sixteen and the eldest in his midtwenties, like Joe himself. They laughed, as much out of fear as appreciation. No one wanted to be on Mike’s bad side.
Joe knew he was as good as dead. His own bunch had fought hard to keep their territory; they’d been the last gang to maintain their independence after the Nineteenth Street band started taking over Poverty Lane. Now Joe’s boys were scattered or had given their allegiance to Little Mike. Only Joe had refused.
Mike was about to make him an example.
They handcuffed him and hung him against the wall in a boarded-up slaughterhouse, suspending him by hooks and chains.