Page 56 of If Looks Could Kill
Freyda steered us uptown on Mott Street, veering away from the Bowery. I only wanted to be in the place called Not Here and was glad of any guide who could bring me safely there. I did my best to explain to Mike why we’d been there and who Cora and Freyda were. I told him everything, except for the small but crucial detail of Pearl now having snakes for hair.
We caught up with the others when they paused at an intersection. A small crowd of gawkers flanked them. Freyda and Cora were barely dressed and wearing frilly, feminine bedroom slippers, which were almost worse than nothing on their feet. Their legs were bare, and the cold must’ve bitten viciously through their lacy robes and satin slips. I unbuttoned my coat and draped it over Freyda’s shoulders, and Mike unbuttoned his and offered it to Cora. They both accepted the coats with a frightened mumble. Pearl barely seemed aware of her surroundings.
“Do any of you know where Lafayette Place is?” I asked. “That’s where we need to go.”
“Isn’t that up near Broadway?” asked Freyda.
“I know where it is,” Mike said. “Why? We’re headed in the right direction.”
Cora kept glancing over her shoulder and trying to drag Freyda to move faster. She knew, better than us, what was coming for her.
Mike offered me his arm. “For disguise,” he whispered. “Playing a role.”
The role still allowed me to feel the strength of the arm pulling me along.
“Disguise,” I repeated. “Just a moment.”
Removing my winter coat had left my uniform jacket more exposed.Anyone looking for us would only have to ask if any Hallelujah Lasses had passed by. So I peeled that off too and prepared to freeze in my white cotton blouse. I folded the jacket so its insignias wouldn’t show and draped it over my arm, then spoke to a dazed Pearl and told her to do the same, to carry her coat and jacket so people couldn’t see the uniform markings.
Night hung damp and heavy over us, with low, dense clouds blocking moon and stars, and turning a misty orange around lit windows and streetlights. Every dark doorway or cold shadow, it seemed, might hold a lurking enemy. But nobody accosted us.
“No one’s chasing us,” I whispered to Mike.
“They don’t need to,” was his reply. “We’re as hidden as a fireworks display. All they’ll have to do is ask anyone what they saw.”
I couldn’t speak.
Mike watched me with concern. “Are you all right, Miss Tabitha?”
“No,” I told him miserably. “I am very much not all right.”
He placed his hand over my hand that was resting in the crook of his elbow. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I should imagine you’re not.”
This was so unanswerable that I didn’t bother to try.
Mike found a handkerchief and handed it to me. I wiped my eyes and nose furiously.
“I’m much better off than my friends,” I said. “So I’ve no right to feel badly.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “Do I dare ask whose body you dragged away from the Lion’s Den?”
I gulped. “You saw that?” Not so unseen after all.
“When I saw Mother Rosie go in—”
“How did you know it was—?”
He glanced heavenward. “She’s hardly a secret in this part of town,” he said. “I work in a tavern, and no, don’t you be thinkingthatof me, ifyou please, Miss Tabitha. My blessed mother, God rest her soul, raised me better than that.”
Beside us, Pearl walked alone, while Cora and Freyda clung to each other like sisters.
Mike steered us all onto Houston Street, then through other turns until I lost my bearings.
My mind raced through the dangers we had fled. Then it hit me like a punch in the gut.
“Mike,” I said, “they know we’re Salvation Army. They’ll look for us. At the base.”
“You’re not there,” Mike pointed out.
