Page 60 of If Looks Could Kill

I walked in a daze through the neighborhood, hearing little and seeing less.

What if Pearl was a prisoner somewhere? Trapped? Being tortured? What if, even now, she was in mortal danger?

Or maybe she was fine. The not knowing was enough to drive you to despair.

Some rescuer I was. It occurred to me that this was my entire Salvation Army experience in a nutshell. A flop of a rescue mission. All the urgency to address undeniable danger and suffering. No effective way to do it. Impotence, heartache, futility; giving up at last in defeat.

I wasn’t ready to give up yet, but I needed new ideas. I entered Freyda’s friend’s tenement building, climbed the creaky stairs to the second floor, and knocked on the door I took to be his.

Voices that had been murmuring inside stilled. I knocked again.

The door opened slowly, and a young man peered out at me.

He wore a black fisherman’s knit jumper and a baggy worsted wool coat.

The apartment was freezing. No coal in the stove to speak of.

He admitted me into the barren, dingy flat.

A spread of papers and a cold lamp sat upon a rickety table with two chairs beside it.

A shelf held a few metal dishes, and another held some old books.

A small grimy window was the room’s only source of light.

A door suggested another room beyond, probably a bedroom.

“I’m Tabitha,” I said. “Is Freyda here?”

He extended a hand. “I’m Ben Feldman.” He turned toward the door to the other room. “It’s all right.”

Freyda and Cora emerged, both dressed in men’s trousers and sweaters, with hair in loose braids down their backs. They looked exhausted and, curiously, smudged with ink.

“You look great,” I told them. “And you look terrible.”

“What happened to you?” demanded Freyda. “You’re a mess. Where’s Pearl?”

“I don’t know,” I confessed. “I haven’t found her yet.”

Freyda’s expression made it seem like Pearl would turn up floating in the river.

“What do you mean, you haven’t found her?” Freyda demanded. “She has to turn up somewhere eventually. She’s as poor as a church mouse, isn’t she?”

I nodded. “More or less.” Very shrewd of Freyda to figure that out.

“Then, if she can’t afford to take a train out of town or stay in a hotel, she would’ve had to go back to your Army base,” Freyda said, “or somewhere she knew she could be safe.”

“So you’d think,” I said, “but I’ve been looking everywhere I can think of. High and low. She’s nowhere.”

“Rosie,” Cora whispered.

Freyda met her gaze. The room, if it were possible, seemed to grow even colder.

“You don’t think…” Freyda couldn’t bring herself to finish her sentence.

“?’Course I do,” Cora told her.

Freyda turned to me. “You shouldn’t have come.” She folded her arms across her chest. “You’ll point a trail for Mother Rosie’s attack dogs, all the way to us.”

Hello to you too.

“You won’t believe this,” I said. “Remember Joe, and the two men who were with him?”

She gave me a pointed look. “Yes, Tabitha. I remember Joe.”

I gulped. “Right. Sorry.”

“What about him?” she prompted me.

“All three of them broke into Miss Stella’s last night, and…” Then I remembered Ben.

“I’ll just give you ladies a minute,” he said, and disappeared through the bedroom door.

Freyda rolled her eyes at me. “Smooth.”

I ignored this. “Miss Stella turned all three of them to stone.”

Cora turned pale. She fumbled for a chair and sat down. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Joe Minkin, dead?” She let out a weak laugh. “Are you sure?”

“Saw them with my own eyes,” I said. “And I saw… what you said about how Miss Stella was acting.”

Freyda’s eyes narrowed. “Did she do that to your face?”

I nodded.

Freyda sat next to Cora. “Cora,” she said softly. “Remember the mess? In the dark? That we nearly tripped over? We thought it was one of her statues, fallen down.”

Cora let out a low whistle. “Joe Minkin,” she echoed. “Ira Broder. Dan Schechter.” She roused herself from her shock and turned to Freyda. “Those noises you heard before weren’t a dream.”

Freyda nodded solemnly.

“So no need to worry,” I said, “about Mother Rosie’s men coming after you.”

Cora laughed bitterly. “Don’t kid yourself. She’s an empire. She can hire all the muscle she needs. And after the stunt we pulled last night, she’ll be out for blood.”

Cora had been a fresh-faced girl a few months ago. Innocent and young. Looking ahead to an exciting “job” in the city. Now she sounded like a street-hardened denizen of the Bowery.

“You should go,” Freyda told me. “We’re fine. Don’t bring any more danger here.”

Apparently, a heart is never so broken that it can’t be broken more.

I looked away to hide my embarrassment. Cora and Freyda sat close together while I stood, awkwardly, as one who didn’t belong. My gaze fell upon the table strewn with papers, pens, and ink.

I looked at their inky fingers. “Haven’t you slept, Freyda? Have you been writing ?”

Both of them sat a bit taller. “We can sleep later,” Cora said. “We had work to do.”

Freyda fanned out a stack of paper. “Our magnum opus. We wrote all night.” She glanced at Cora. “Well, you did, since Mother Rosie confiscated my glasses.”

I took the pile from Freyda. “What is it?”

“An exposé,” she said. “The story of how we infiltrated a notorious Lower East Side prostitution ring trafficking in the flesh of Jewish girls.” She landed a heavy palm on the top of the pile.

“Mother Rosie’s going to jail for this.” She sounded like one making a vow.

“She’s never going to kidnap another girl and destroy her life again. So help me God.”

I wasn’t sure what to say.

“She’s rich, you know that?” Freyda said. “Lousy stinking rich. Diamonds and furs. All from girls like us.”

“Her clothes were elegant,” I said feebly. “I noticed that.”

“That’s not even the start of it.” Freyda’s expression looked like thunder. “She got rich off of my body. Cora’s body. Others like us.”

“I know.”

“It’s got to stop.” Freyda fidgeted with the cuff of her sweater. “Here’s where it ends.”

Cora retrieved the pages and arranged them into a neat pile. “Got any stamps?” she asked. “We’re sending it to the New York World today.”

The New York World . Mr. Joseph Pulitzer’s paper.

“I don’t have any,” I told them, “but I can get some. In fact, I can stop at the post office and mail the article for you.” On reflection, I added, “You shouldn’t even leave this apartment.”

Freyda glanced helplessly at Cora, who shrugged.

“Please,” I said. “It’s the least I can do. Give me a task to help.”

Freyda sighed, then rose and bundled the pages into a manila envelope.

“Don’t lose this,” she warned. “This is the most dangerous, and most important, work I’ve ever done. Perhaps I’ll ever do.”

“I’ll mail it as soon as I leave here,” I promised. “Nellie Bly had better watch herself.”

Freyda wrote out Mr. Pulitzer’s name and the address of his paper on the envelope.

“Is this where you’ll stay?” I asked her. “Or will you head back to your family?”

Freyda glanced away.

“We’ll be here for a while,” Cora said. “Would you mail a letter for me?”

“Of course,” I told her.

“I haven’t got a stamp.”

“That’s all right,” I told her.

She handed me an envelope, addressed to a Mr. and Mrs. Kralik in Milford, Connecticut.

“Your parents,” I observed. “I guess you’ll be going home soon.”

Cora shrugged. “We’ll see.”

“There’s lots for Cora, here in New York,” Freyda said stoutly. “If she’d like to stay.”

They’ll never take me back.

I slid the letter into my pocket.

Cora yawned and stretched.

I rose to go. “You need sleep,” I told them.

I tucked the manila envelope into my coat, hugged it tightly to my body, said goodbye, and took my leave of Cora and Freyda.