May rolled into June, and June became July. She received three letters from him, all of them short, vague, and rather meandering, as though he composed them over days as new lines occurred to him. She loved them because they signaled he was thinking about her. She hated them because they were empty of detail and devoid of hope. He didn’t speak of seeing her again or tell her he missed her, but he signed them Michael, and that made her weep.
They were all postmarked in Chicago, and that was everything she knew about his current situation. She wrote back, using the post office box he’d provided her, and he seemed to have gotten her letters, though he never referenced anything she talked about specifically. He’d left her a telephone number too, but she didn’t call him. She had asked him to stay. He had refused. She would not ask again.
The Cleveland papers crowed about “Eliot Ness’s Secret Suspect” on May 31, but when no arrests were made and no official comments were forthcoming, the summer heat seemed to deflate that story. The summer heat had deflated every story. There was little talk of the investigation at all.
Darby didn’t come by the shop like she’d told him to do, but once she found a bunch of yellow flowers in her wagon and another time a big brass button with St. Christopher stamped on the surface. A thin book of poems by Emily Dickinson was there another day. She ran her hands over the leather cover, but the volume was new, and she felt nothing but the brush of a bookseller’s hands. Still, she had no doubt the items were from him.
Unemployment rose. Minimum wage rose too, though no one was working, so it was mostly a useless gesture. Dani was weary of useless gestures. Problems didn’t get solved, they just got covered up, repackaged, or shoved to the side.
Hitler demanded that the Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia with a large population of “ethnic Germans,” be annexed, and the local Czech newspaper shared arguments for and against it, though Dani wasn’t sure anyone really cared all that much. It was too far away, and they were Americans now, with American concerns.
“They will give it to him,” Zuzana said. “No one wants war. So they will give it to him. And he will just keep taking and taking. You mark my words. You can’t appease tyrants. You have to defeat them.”
“We appease you every day, Zu,” Lenka had scoffed.
But Zuzana’s words struck a chord with Dani. With Michael’s sudden departure, she’d been distracted by her own misery and hardly thought about the consequences of what had occurred. She had no doubt about what she’d seen and felt on Francis Sweeney’s coat.
Michael had believed her. Eliot Ness too. But nothing had been done to hold the man accountable. Maybe nothing could be done. But why would he stop? If no one defeated him . . . why would he stop?
Malone was assigned to undercover detail at US Steel. He worked in a mill in coveralls and a cap, getting a firsthand look at the capacity and the conditions of the place. It had recently received an influx of money that didn’t seem to be making it into production or the workers’ pockets. It was going into someone’s pockets, and Irey had a fair idea whose, but the strategy was not to prosecute—that took too long—but to plug the hole and get rid of the problem.
Malone was grateful for the physical nature of the work. It kept the silence at bay. He fell into his bed late and woke early, with little chance to stew or compose lists of all the reasons he was a fool.
He’d achieved a new level of grim.
Molly had worried about him taking an assignment so close to home, but he’d told her what Irey told him. The people who had known him as Michael Lepito didn’t know him well, and those people weren’t going to be in the mill.
He’d only called Dani once. It was better that way. But he found himself adding a line here and there to a letter, bits and pieces of nothing. He couldn’t talk about his work.
One Sunday in August after Mass, he found himself standing beneath a theater marquee, hands in his pockets, staring at the ticket window. A new Errol Flynn movie in Technicolor was being touted. Robin Hood. Just what America needed in the midst of a depression that hadn’t let up for almost a decade. Robin Hood, a man who takes from the haves to give to the have-nots. The concept had always appealed, especially among the poor, and since everyone nowadays was poor, it would appeal to most. He liked the pictures for the reason he guessed most people did. They were a beautiful escape from yourself for a couple of hours.
He bought a ticket, but he didn’t manage to escape. He sat for most of the picture in a haze of longing, his hands clasped in his lap, remembering eggs and jelly toast and Dani’s joy at the outing, replaying their discussion about systems and programs, about dignity and division. Dani would love Robin Hood.
He left before it was over and walked aimlessly, not wanting to be still, and ended up back at Molly’s, the telephone in his hand, desperate to hear her voice. He didn’t breathe as the operator connected him, and then felt faint when Dani’s hello echoed over the line.
“Dani. It’s Malone. Are you well?” he barked.
“Yes.”
“And Lenka and Zuzana?”
“They are fine too. Lenka tries to read your letters, and Zuzana pretends to have forgotten your name, but they are well.”
He smiled at that, though when he caught his reflection in the mirror, he realized he wasn’t smiling at all. His mouth held the same straight line, and his eyes were not creased in mirth.
“How are you, Michael?” Her voice was gentle, and he marveled that she could be so kind. He’d expected her to be stilted and a little cold after months without a call. She wasn’t, and it made him ache all the more.
“Are you sleeping? And eating? Are you smiling sometimes?” she asked.
“Not as often as I did in Cleveland.” He’d slept so well in her old room. “But I’m busy. I have to sleep quickly or I won’t sleep at all.”
They talked for a minute more, saying nothing, and then he made himself say goodbye. When he hung up the handset and walked into the kitchen, not certain when he’d last eaten, his sister was sitting at the table.
“Was that Daniela?” she asked.
He scowled at her. “Why is it that every woman in my life is a snoop?”