Una darted around fruit sellers and newsboys and hackneys. She leaped from the sidewalk and crossed under the el, barely making it across the street without being trampled by the approaching horsecar. Still the copper’s boots sounded behind her.
She tripped over the leg of a peddler’s vegetable cart and stumbled, twisting her ankle fiercely, but kept running. With her traveling bag clutched to her breast, she sidestepped and elbowed through the crowd. She’d make quicker time if she turned off the busy thoroughfare but couldn’t risk trapping herself in a dead end. She needed to get her bearings. Allowing herself to slow, she pictured the checkered streets of the city like she were a pigeon flying overhead. To the west across Fortieth Street lay Reservoir Park. Its tangled walkways and overgrown shrubbery were a good place to slip the hulking tail behind her. Una headed in that direction, but doubted she could make it to the park before he overcame her. Already his clomping footfalls were gaining.
No, she couldn’t outrun him. She’d have to outsmart him. She further slowed her pace, hoping he’d think her about tuckered out, and returned to the picture in her mind of the city streets. There was an alley off Madison Avenue that led to a small courtyard. Farther on was a privy pit and narrow passage out to Thirty-Eighth Street. It wouldn’t leave her much time, but it would have to do.
The copper had slowed too, the fat sod. She could hear his dragging step. He probably expected her to pull up short at the nearest lamppost to catch her breath. A fair enough assumption given how even a loosely tied corset strangled a girl’s lungs, and just what she hoped he would think.
The alleyway appeared in sight. Una waited for a break in the crowd, then sprinted down the sidewalk and into the alley. Clothes strung between the buildings fluttered on the lines just above her head. She dashed through the small courtyard to the privies. The cold air stank of rotting potato peels and human waste. Two overflowing trash bins sat in the corner. Una
crouched behind them, drawing her coat over her head and nestling among the crumpled newsprints, withered food scraps, and soot-stained rags.
A moment later, the copper bounded into the privy yard. He whipped a hanky from his pocket to shield his nose from the stench. Una suppressed a chuckle. Coppers today had gone soft with their indoor crappers. He glanced about the small yard, opening the privy doors with his billy club just wide enough to peer inside. Then he hurried down the narrow exit at the far end.
Once the thud of his footfalls was gone, Una stood and brushed off her coat. She had a minute, maybe two, before the copper circled back. She unpinned her hat and traded it for a headscarf buried beneath the lacy chemise in her bag. A stained apron, fingerless gloves, a smear of soot across one cheek, and her transformation was nearly complete. She shrugged out of her coat and strapped her bag to her back with a worn belt she kept handy for such emergencies. If she leaned forward just so, the bag would look like a hunch beneath her coat. Before putting it back on, she turned her coat inside out. Those new to Marm Blei’s crew balked when Una had covered the fine satin lining with a patchwork of ratty cottonade. She’d paid Marm Blei twenty dollars for the coat—a handsome sum—after all. But the alteration proved indispensable in times like these. She’d gone from well-heeled traveler to gnarled rag-picker with time to spare.
Rule number eleven: Sometimes the best place to hide is in plain sight.
Sure enough, not a minute later, the copper thundered back into the privy yard. Una stood hunched beside the trash cans, picking through the refuse. “You seen a woman hiding about here?” he asked her.
She looked up and met his deep-set eyes. His cheeks were flush with exertion, and his panting breath clouded in the air.
“Vhat kind of voman?” Una said, feigning a German accent. “A thief.”
Una turned back to the trash. She plucked a chunk of moldering bread from the bin, sniffed it, then tossed it to the ground. “Zat isn’t much of a description. She tall or short?”
“I don’t know. About average, I guess.” “Fat or sin?”
The copper huffed. “Not especially either.” “Vhat vas she vearing?”
“A blue coat and velvet hat.”
Be it the cold, the smell, or a lunch that hadn’t agreed with him, the copper looked about to explode with ire.
“Vone of those fancy hats vith plumes and ribbon or a simple affair?” “I don’t know,” he bit out.
Una found a gin bottle buried beneath peanut shells and empty sardine cans. She held it up and gave it a little shake. A few drops of liquid sloshed inside. She offered the bottle to the copper. He scowled. Una shrugged, wiped the bottle’s mouth on her coat sleeve, and drank the gin herself.
“Well, you seen anyone matching that description?”
“I’m sorry, Officer, but you just described half the vomen in this city. I’m certain I can’t say.”
The copper grumbled and started to stomp away.
“But zere vas a voman hiding behind zese trash cans just a moment ago.” “There was?”
“Startled me half to death.” “Why didn’t you say so?”
“Pretty girl. Dark eyes. She had a little mole right here.” Una pointed to the side of her nose. “You didn’t say anyzing about a mole.”
The copper looked as if it was all he could do to keep from reaching out and strangling her. “Which way did she go?”
Una pointed down the alley toward Thirty-Eighth Street. “Out zat vay.
Turned right, I believe.”
She snickered as the copper sprinted away. Gullible bastards, the lot of them. She wiped her hands on a scrap of newsprint and hobbled out the opposite end of the alley beyond the privies and their stench.
