Sarah remembered the goodies left in her basket, the ones Mrs. Donato hadn’t given her time to unpack. She strolled over to the group and asked if they wanted something to eat. When they saw what she had, greedy hands quickly relieved her of every last crumb.
A few mumbled “grazies” trailed after the children as they darted away, disappearing into nooks and crannies with their treats, lest she change her mind. Watching them running away so nimbly made her think of Brian and wonder if he would soon be able to run like that. Which made her think of Emilia’s brother Georgio, who had never been able even to walk.
Maria had said he played his organ outside of Macy’s. How difficult would it be to find an Italian organ grinder with one foot? Sarah wasn’t sure what he would be able to tell her, but she really couldn’t know any less than she already did about Emilia. If nothing else, she’d be able to tell Malloy where to find him.
The Canal Street Station of the El wasn’t too far. She took the train to Fourteenth Street and walked over to Sixth Avenue. The sidewalks were crowded with the buxom wives of successful businessmen who were doing their duty by spending the money their husbands earned.
As she walked along, Sarah realized she’d never really paid much attention to the people who came here for the purpose of earning their daily bread by performing for the passing crowd. Everyone understood that they were beggars, but if they juggled or played a musical instrument or performed in some other way, people could maintain the fiction that they were earning a living. No one wanted to see real beggars on the sidewalks.
Macy’s occupied the entire block between Thirteenth and Fourteenth Streets, so Sarah had a lot of ground to cover as she circled the building. She was just starting to feel silly for having thought she could locate Georgio so easily when she found him on the comer of Sixth and Thirteenth. Actually, she’d noticed the little girl first, not even registering who was making the music to which she danced.
The child was adorable. She was probably about four or five years old and as dainty as a fairy in her bright red dress. Her dark hair hung in curls that fell to her shoulders and bounced delightfully as her tiny bare feet formed intricate patterns on the pavement. Her enormous brown eyes glittered with happiness at the attention she had attracted. Sarah wasn’t the only passerby who had stopped to watch, entranced. Then the song ended, and the gathered crowd applauded. The girl bobbed a curtsey and looked around expectantly. In a moment, coins appeared, fished from pockets and purses and offered in tribute. The coins disappeared again as if by magic, spirited away by little fingers as nimble as the little feet had been and deposited into the pocket of her dress.
While the crowd disbursed, the girl turned and hurried back to the man who had produced the music. That was when Sarah recalled her purpose in being here. The child was emptying her pocket and giving the coins to a handsome youth who sat on a small stool with his back against the building. He held the organ between his knees, resting on a small stand. He wore a dark shirt and trousers and had a red bandanna tied rakishly at his throat. He looked so perfect that Sarah almost didn’t notice the wooden crutches tucked discreetly between his stool and the wall. Finally, she saw the pant leg pinned up at the ankle.
She’d never expected Georgio to have a child, which was why she’d been so slow to realize she’d found him. Taking advantage of this lull, she stepped over to where the man and the girl were conversing in Italian. There seemed to be some question about whether she’d given him all the coins she’d collected.
“Georgio?” Sarah tried.
He looked up from beneath the bill of his small cap. His eyes were dark and liquid, his smile big and bright and charming. “Si, Signorina, do you want to see the little one dance?” His English was very good, probably honed from conversing with his customers.
“No, although she dances very well,” Sarah added, giving the child an approving smile, in case she didn’t understand the compliment. “I wanted to ask you about your sister Emilia.”
His charming smile vanished, and the dark eyes grew wary. “She is dead,” he said very carefully.
“I know. I’m very sorry.”
“Who are you and what do you want?” he asked suspiciously. When he frowned, Sarah realized how much he looked like his mother.
“My name is Sarah Brandt, and I met Emilia at the Prodigal Son Mission.” His expression hardened from wariness into anger. Plainly, none of the Donato family had any love for the mission. “She was such a lovely girl, and she was trying very hard to become a respectable young woman,” Sarah hurried on, wishing she had some idea how Georgio felt about his sister.
Seeing that the grown-ups were going to talk a bit, the little girl sank down onto the pavement with a weary sigh and leaned back against the wall. Sarah wondered vaguely how many times she had to perform in a day. She probably had a right to be tired.
“Emilia is whore,” he said baldly. “Now she dead. Why you care? Why anybody care?”
“She was learning to sew,” Sarah tried. “She wanted to earn an honest living. She wanted to change.”
“She go to mission before, then she go back with Ugo,” Georgio said. “She never change. Just pretend. She want clothes and food and place to live. Easy life for a while. Then she go back.”
Sarah wondered if that could be true. She’d hardly known Emilia. Mrs. Wells had been convinced that Emilia had changed, however, and after her years of experience working at the mission, she wouldn’t be easily fooled. “This time she really meant it,” Sarah argued. “She was going to get a job. In fact, that’s what she was going to do the morning she was killed.”
The eyes that stared back at her were unmoved. He knew his sister better than Sarah, and he didn’t believe anything good about her. Sarah glanced at the child to remind herself that Georgio was a father himself. Maybe she could reach him that way.
“Your daughter is asleep,” she observed, half in wonder at the way children could just drop off any time and any place. She looked like a brightly clad porcelain doll sitting there.
Georgio looked down and struck out with his whole foot, catching her on the hip. Jolted awake, she yelped in pain and outrage as Sarah cried out in protest. He ignored Sarah and gave the girl a sharp command in Italian. She rose sullenly, rubbing her hip.
“Sorriso!” he commanded, and she twisted her face into the parody of a smile. He started to turn the crank and coax music from the box. The girl’s tiny feet began to move, sketching out the steps so lightly they hardly seemed to touch the ground. She twirled, making her colorful skirt float out around her brown legs. People began to stop and watch. Soon a crowd formed. Georgio relentlessly ignored Sarah. He didn’t want to hear what she had to say about his sister. A man who would kick his own child on a public street to get her to dance wouldn’t care about a sister who’d disgraced her family by selling herself. She was wasting her time here.
Another failure she didn’t want to report to Malloy, especially when he’d expressly forbidden her to do any investigation at all in this case.
Frank knew better than to go exploring the alleys of Mulberry Bend alone at night. The sun had dropped far enough in the sky to cast these rear tenement buildings into darkness, even though it was still daylight in the rest of the city. He’d gathered up a couple of the beat cops to accompany him now that he had learned where Ugo Ianuzzi made his living.
“You know which one it is?” one of the cops asked as they made their way, stepping over the trash and the tramps lying in the alley.
“No,” Frank said. Ianuzzi’s landlady hadn’t been specific. “Just that it’s in one of these buildings.”