Una trudged down Mulberry Street back into the heart of the slum. She climbed the steep steps of her tenement, lighting a new match on each landing to illuminate the windowless passage. Old paint peeled from the walls, and holes gaped in the plaster. The stairs were stained with years of grime ground into the wood.

Normally, Una didn’t notice the dirt or the smell—that of piss and rotting food scraps—but tonight, it seemed to rise up and choke her. Why couldn’t the other tenants be more careful when emptying their chamber pots and trash bins? Why didn’t they scrape their boots at the door? Marm Blei enjoyed a fine set of apartments above the shop with indoor plumbing. The best fabric that came through the back door of her shop ended up upholstering her furniture and trimming her windows. The best marble work and paintings ended up on her walls. And here Una was stepping in . .

. stepping in God-knows-what sticky mess on the way to her squalid room. She scraped the dark scum clinging to the sole of her boot on the lip of the stair and kept climbing.

It wasn’t as if Marm Blei wasn’t good to her. Everyone knew as fences went, she was the fairest one. And hadn’t she taken Una under her wing all those years ago? Taught her the art of the grift? If Una were more careful with her money, she could afford a better flat. Or so Marm Blei always reminded her. If you eat your whole beigel, sheifale, you’ll have nothing in your pocket but the hole.

Una was not yet eleven years old and had been on the streets only a few months when she’d met Marm Blei. But they were long months. Hard months. The gaunt, bedraggled reflection that peered at her from shop windows may as well have been a stranger’s.

On this particular morning, she’d woken with ice crystals on her eyelashes. The baker on Worth Street who gave away his stale bread instead of feeding it to the hogs had run out by the time Una arrived at the back of his shop. The milkman who delivered up and down the Bowery kept such

close watch on his cart, she couldn’t sneak a single sip. So she wandered cold and hungry into the Jewish Quarter. The rags on her feet had begun to wear thin, and she hoped to find fresh scraps among the trouser makers’ trash barrels. Merchants crowded the sidewalks in the heart of the quarter, selling everything from vegetables to chickens to tinware.

Una spied an unattended apple cart and scurried over. As she reached for one of the fruits, a hand grabbed her wrist. A man’s hand to be sure, so long and meaty the fingers. But when Una looked up, she saw her detainer was a woman. Not the apple seller, but some well-dressed moll out for morning shopping. She stared down at Una from a towering height, her gray eyes hard, her grip on Una’s wrist inescapably tight.

Before Una could mutter an excuse, the apple seller appeared. Una grimaced. This giant of a woman would rat her out for sure. Then the seller would fetch a copper, and this woman’s thick hand would be replaced by a pair of iron ruffles. But instead, she said to the seller, “Half a peck, bitte, and an extra one for this sheifale here.”

She handed the seller her basket and plucked three shiny dimes from the silk purse dangling from her wrist, all the while keeping tight hold of Una. When the seller handed back the basket, brimming with apples, the tall woman leaned down and handed one to Una. “See that you take more care next time.”

Una accepted the apple with a smile, but the soft clink of coins from within the woman’s purse was too much for her to resist. As soon as the woman released her wrist, Una snatched her purse and ran.

She hadn’t gone half a block when a copper caught hold of the back of her dress. He lifted her off her feet, holding her out at arm’s length the way one might a noisome alley cat. “What ya runnin’ from?” he asked. Then his eyes landed on the silk purse clutched in Una’s hand. “I see. I’m guessin’ this don’t belong to a ragamuffin like you.”

Una squirmed, her heart pounding. Whatever he meant to do with her, it couldn’t be good. Desperate, she threw her apple square at his nose. He hollered and dropped her. Una scrambled to her feet, but the giant woman was there before she could sked-dadle. She grabbed Una’s arm again. One squeeze of her meaty fingers and she could snap Una’s bone in two.

But she did not. Instead, she knelt down, looking Una straight in the eye. “You’re a greedy little thing, aren’t you?”

Though her heart still hammered and tears threatened in her eyes, Una held her stare. After a moment, the woman chuckled. “Dauntless too. Let’s see if you are clever as well.” Her gaze cut to the copper, still howling behind them. “Have you heard of the House of Refuge?”

Una nodded.

“Then you know it’s not a nice place.” She nodded again.

“Well then, you can give me back my purse or I’ll hand you over to the policeman, who’ll take you there straightaway.”

Una gave a small huff and handed the woman back her purse. “Good girl. Now, where is your family?”

At this, Una looked away.

“Ah,” the woman said, a note of kindness in her voice. “Then you shall come with me, sheifale. You want to be a thief? Obey me, and I will teach you to be a thief. A good thief. A smart thief. Then you can have all the apples you want.” She stood and withdrew several more coins from her purse, pressing them into the copper’s hand as she walked past him. “No need to worry about this one, Officer.” She glanced over her shoulder at Una and kept walking.

Una hesitated a moment, then followed, snatching her apple from the ground and giving the copper a wide berth.

Fourteen years, and she hadn’t looked back.

Now, Una opened the door to her ramshackle flat. The main room was dark, and the coal stove unlit. Her roommates—three other women who also dove pockets for Marm Blei—weren’t in, but one had left the window cracked. Cold air fluttered the flannel curtain. Una stomped across the room and slammed down the sash. She didn’t bother with the stove, frigid as the flat was, nor the kerosene lamp that sat on the table. Instead, she lit a candle and went into the windowless closet that served as their bedroom.

Maybe Marm Blei was right. Best to lie low in the shop tomorrow. She’d outwitted that copper, sure. And she doubted any of the dupes at the train depot could describe her beyond the plainest terms. Female. Twenty-five, or thereabouts in age. Brown hair. Fair skin. She dressed in muted colors that made her eyes look more brown than green. Always wore a hat with a wide brim, even though current fashion favored a shorter one, to obscure her face. Besides, if that copper didn’t have wax in his ears and feathers for

brains, they were looking for a woman with a mole on her nose. Misdirection. One of the earliest tricks Marm Blei had taught her.

But that looby of a boy, he’d gotten a good look at her. If they caught him, he’d squeal for sure. Play it up like stealing the watch had been her idea. They might even cart him down to headquarters and show him Chief Inspector Byrnes’s rogues’ gallery. Would he be able to spot hers among all the photos on the wall? It was an old photo and likely a bit blurry as she feigned a sneeze right before the bulb flashed. But there weren’t many women on the wall. Only a few dozen among the thousand or so pictures of thieves and criminals rumored to be posted. Some men boasted of their place on the wall. Una wasn’t that stupid. Secretly, though, it was a point of pride.

Never mind the boy. She wasn’t going to sit around this cold, empty flat all night like some penitent Quaker. Marm Blei hadn’t explicitly forbidden Una from going out tonight. She didn’t have to. Una knew the rules. And one of Una’s own rules—seven—was to follow Marm Blei’s rules. But Una was tired of living under the woman’s thumb. She shrugged out of her coat and flung her carpetbag to the corner. The pages of Barney’s magazine were curled and rumpled when she pulled it from her pocket. Wouldn’t matter none in the privy, though. She tossed it alongside her bag. After counting out half of her money, she carefully peeled back a flap of plastered newsprint covering a hole at the base of the wall. To the right of the opening, concealed within the wall, lay a small tin box. She pulled it out and opened the lid. Inside were a few dozen coins and bills, and an ivory cameo necklace.

The necklace had belonged to her mother. One of these days, she’d take it to Marm Blei and sell it. One of these days when cameos were back in fashion or the price of ivory was higher. She added Barney’s tie pin to the stash along with half—no—a quarter of the day’s earnings and returned the box to its hidey-hole.

* * *

Her first stop was the grocer two blocks down for a mincemeat pie and cup of spiced wine. There, she ran into her roommate Deidre. With long red hair and a small, pointy nose, Deidre was as beautiful as she was witless— which made her a good pal on the streets. Deidre provided the distraction

while her partner raided pockets. She and Una had worked together some when they were young and both new to Marm Blei’s crew. As soon as she had any say, however, Una insisted on working alone. Too much trouble to worry about herself and someone else. Especially when that someone else had all the smarts of a pigeon.

But Deidre did make for good company. From the grocer, the two of them moved on to a cock-and-hen club across the street. Honest men who labored at the docks and the dump sat beside safecrackers and sharpers, talking about the upcoming alderman elections or who would best whom at tonight’s bare-knuckle boxing match. All were happy to buy Una a drink, but, more often than not, they expected something in return. An ear for their sorrows. A stolen kiss. A tussle in one of the rooms above the bar. If a fellow were particularly handsome and she were in the right mood, Una might accept the offer. Tonight she bought her own whiskey and let the professionals, with their rouged cheeks and low-cut bodices, handle the men.

In the alley behind the bar, a game of pins was underway. Una bet on a few matches. She smoked a cigarette and huddled alongside the other spectators, lobbing curses that would make the devil himself blush when one of the players missed a pin. Deidre pulled her away to a dance hall on Church Street, but not before Una had emptied her skin of all but a dollar.

At the dance hall, Una nursed a drink at a table by the wall while Deidre whirled and swayed in the arms of one beau after the next. For her part, Una refused the men who tottered over to the table, palms sweaty and eyes hopeful, asking for a dance. She’d never been overly fond of the sport. What did dancing have to offer besides the effusion of bad breath and risk of smashed toes? Instead, she stewed about Marm Blei and the way she continued to treat Una like that same apple-stealing looby she’d been all those years before. Una was the best pocket-diver and conwoman in Marm Blei’s crew. Maybe it was time Una started on her own.

Deidre sat down beside her, her cheeks flushed and eyes smiling. “Ain’t you gonna dance?”

“No,” Una said, taking a long pull of whiskey.

“Bet if that reporter fellow were here, you’d be on your feet and shakin’ your hips in a jiffy.”

“We’ve got a business relationship. That’s all.”

“You tellin’ me if he made you an honest offer you’d turn him down?

Humbug.”

The thought of such an offer soured the taste of Una’s whiskey. Barney wasn’t a bad catch. As dogged as he was bumbling when it came to securing a scoop, and she liked that about him. But what would she do if she were his wife? Cook and clean and chase after their little brats all day? She could barely boil a potato. Or say he had enough money to hire other women for that—his silver tie pin suggested he might—what then? Una had no intention of sitting in some stuffy parlor all day like one of those listless animals they kept caged at Central Park.

“What can I say? An honest life ain’t for me.”

Deidre snickered. “You’d rather end up like one of them?” She nodded toward a woman at the far side of the room. The theater crowd had just arrived, and right behind them the prostitutes.

Una didn’t begrudge these women. Never mind what Father O’Donoghue said on Sundays; everyone had to eat. But theirs was a profession even more dangerous than hers. She’d seen the bruises. Watched more than one wither away or go mad from disease. Not to mention what happened to Martha Ann or the likes of Helen Jewett, who’d wound up with an ax in her skull.

“I’m doing just fine where I am, thank you,” Una said, though she wished she’d put more money in her tin and less into the hands of the alleyway gamblers. One good haul would make up for it, though.

Deidre shook her head and returned to the dance floor. Una finished her drink with one swill but decided against buying another. The alcohol had settled warmly inside her, giving her limbs a light, tingly feeling. Another drink and that tingling sensation would turn to numbness, the warmth to a fiery spark. The wrong look or gesture and that spark would ignite. She’d woken enough mornings with bruised knuckles or a blackened eye to be wary of one too many drinks. The Kelly blood ran hot, her father had said. But more often than not, he’d ended up a blubbering mess. Morose and sentimental until he liquored himself into a stupor. More than once, Una had put her hand on his chest, fearing he were dead, only to feel the sluggish expansion of his lungs and the lazy thrum of his heart. Maybe meanness skipped a generation.

Una was just about to leave when one of the theatergoers approached her table. They were young men, the lot of them, smug and self-important.

After the curtain fell on Marriage by Moonlight or whatever silly play they’d seen, they’d lied to their wives and mothers about going to the Union Club for a nightcap, then rallied their cronies for a night of slumming. For them, Una and every other working-class sop in the place were simply the next round of entertainment.

“Someone as lovely as you ought to be dancing,” the man said to her.

It was as much a command as it was a compliment, and Una bristled. “Someone lovely as me ain’t got no interest in dancing with—” She’d been about to say a weak-chinned fop like yourself when the twinkle of his ruby- studded cuff links caught her eye. “With . . . with just any gentleman, but one as estimable as yourself, why, I could hardly refuse.”

He held out his gloved hand, and Una readily accepted. She smiled her prettiest smile. Spoke only the proper, well-mannered English her mother had taught her when the man asked her questions. Thankfully, that wasn’t often. He wasn’t interested in conversation, after all. Una could tell that straightaway when his hand drifted from the small of her back to below her bustle. She repositioned his hand, but not without a coquettish glance that suggested it could return there in time. And not without carefully unfastening his cuff link.

It was two more dances before she could find occasion to liberate him of the other, during which time she fed him lies about a certain whorehouse on Church Street where they might take a drink before heading to her room. But when another couple bumped into them, and Una secured the second cuff link, she excused herself to the sidelines to retie her boot, only to escape out the back door into the alley when the man wasn’t looking.

She took the long way home, wandering amid the nest of factories and warehouses along the Hudson River. The man at the dance hall had been easy prey. And she couldn’t deny the satisfaction of getting over on someone who’d foolishly thought himself the predator. But pinching a man’s cuff links didn’t count as lying low. Not in Marm Blei’s book. Hot as they were, she’d have to hold on to the goods for at least a few days to avoid Marm Blei’s suspicions.

Unless she used another fence. Una smiled despite the sudden lash of icy wind off the water. Traveling Mike Sheeny made rounds through the Sixth Ward this time of year. Marm Blei need never know.