A Cast of Killers

A Cast of Killers - By Katy Munger


CHAPTER ONE



Naturally, the phone rang just as Tyrone enveloped Camilla in his massive arms and drew her closer to him. T.S. sighed. He had been waiting for this kiss for two weeks now, enduring illegitimate children, plastic surgery, a murder conspiracy, the talking dead and other silly subplots along the way. All for this one single fulfilling moment—a moment now about to be spoiled by a shrill electronic intrusion.

Well, he'd just let the answering machine pick up. He was retired now. He didn't have to answer the phone unless he damn well felt like it.

Unless it was Auntie Lil, of course. Mere machines could not stop her.

It was Auntie Lil. "Theodore!" Her foghorn of a voice, amplified considerably by the answering machine, boomed through his apartment and caused Brenda and Eddie to stir in dreamy feline discomfort.

He ignored her. On screen, Tyrone quivered above Camilla. Their faces wavered closer and closer together, as if controlled by bursts of magnetic force. T.S. had never experienced a kiss like that, but it was just as well. Their necks were weaving from side to side like cobras and he'd no doubt pull a muscle if he tried the same.

"Theodore, I know you're home. And I know you're watching those silly soap operas. You're rotting your brain. Pick up the phone at once or I'm coming over in person. By cab."

T.S. sighed. Auntie Lil would do it, too. She'd be there in twenty minutes and run a white-gloved hand over the television set for signs of heat. Then she'd never let him forget that she'd been right. He picked up the phone reluctantly. Best to stave her off.

"I am not watching soap operas," he replied indignantly. "I am trying to read The New Yorker without interruption, for a change." He nudged the television's volume down a few notches with his free hand. Auntie Lil was a bit hard of hearing. Chances were good she'd never know for sure.

"Nonsense. I've been calling you every day for two weeks now between noon and 1:00 p.m. and you never pick up the phone. I know quite well that "Life's Interludes" is on right now. I know what you're up to, Theodore, and frankly I'm a little disappointed in you. Retirement is not a death sentence. There's no reason for you to turn your brain into Jello. Thirty-five years of work does not entitle you to fifty more of pure laziness."

He sighed again. There was no arguing with Auntie Lil. His own fifty-five years of humble existence could not begin to match her eighty-four years of self-proclaimed authority.

"What was it you wanted, Aunt Lil?" he asked absently, his attention drawn back to the television. The couple on screen were kissing at last. And last and last and last. T.S. stared. Good Lord, when were they coming up for air? He liked romance as much as the next person, but this really was getting silly. Their lips were being mashed about like silly putty. Surely the show's writers didn't believe that people really enjoyed such fleshy gymnastics.

Or did they?

T.S. was no authority on romance; he'd devoted his entire adult life to his business career instead. His few brief forays into romance had been, without exception, disastrous and deeply distressing to his personal dignity. As a highly eligible bachelor, he had been subjected to extremely innovative pressure techniques from several otherwise sane middle-aged women. He'd found these experiences humiliating for all concerned.

Auntie Lil's brisk voice cut through his thoughts. "Good. Then it's all settled," she said with great satisfaction. "You'll be glad that you did."

"Glad I did what?" The television set flickered, as if the celluloid couple's heat was too much for its cables. And still they kissed on.

Auntie Lil sighed with the patience of a weary martyr. "You're not paying the least bit of attention to what I say, are you?"

"Of course I am..." My God—Camilla had pulled away from Tyrone and slapped him across the face. It was a most unexpected plot development. What had Tyrone done to deserve such treatment? T.S. must have missed it. Or was there something going on down there in the waist area, outside of camera range? T.S. leaned forward and scrutinized the screen more carefully, searching for a clue.

"I'm going to march over there right now and rip that television cord out of the wall," Auntie Lil said firmly. "I will not have my favorite nephew turning into some kind of a mesmerized zombie who hums jingles and knows the names of sitcom stars."

The show cut to a commercial, freeing T.S. to respond. "I heard every single word you said," he lied. "And you're right. You're absolutely right." They were Auntie Lil's favorite words to hear and ought to mollify her.

"Good. Then you'll be here in an hour."

Uh, oh. He'd been tricked. He was suddenly quite sure that Auntie Lil had deliberately called him at this time, knowing he'd be preoccupied, and had planned exactly what had just happened. What in the world had he agreed to do now? Well, he would not give her the satisfaction of knowing how well her little scheme had worked. He'd play along and find out the details in his own subtle way.

"What's the address?" he asked casually.

"I knew you weren't paying attention. It's right off the corner of Eighth Avenue and Forty-Eighth Street. St. Barnabas Church. Large stone building. The soup kitchen is in the basement. You'll see a long line of people waiting to get in. Hurry. And bring rubber gloves."

Rubber gloves? A soup kitchen? He was in hot water now.

"Theodore," Auntie Lil's voice softened to a suspiciously self-satisfied purr. "Thank you so much for helping out. Two volunteers failed to show. I don't know what we would have done without you."

"Done what?" he finally asked, starting to panic. "What am I doing?"

"You're serving the food. What did you think you'd be doing? I wasn't inviting you over for lunch, you know."

"Serving food at a soup kitchen?" he asked. The show was starting again but Tyrone and Camilla were nowhere to be seen. A silly subplot had taken over the screen.

"Yes," Auntie Lil said firmly. "It's only for today, if it's such an imposition." She stopped, letting her reproachful silence berate him with its own eloquence.

"I thought God helped those who help themselves," T.S. said faintly, knowing that it was a feeble rebuttal.

"How very convenient for those of us who are selfish." There was no sarcasm in Auntie Lil's voice. Sarcasm required subtlety, which was not her strong suit.

"What kind of people eat at this soup kitchen?" he asked. He envisioned an army of dusty, homeless muggers lockstepping toward him with arms outstretched.

"What kind of people do you think?" she snapped. "All kinds of people. Hungry people. Old people. Homeless people. Discouraged people. Mentally ill people. The main thing, Theodore, is that they are people. In case you've missed my point."

Miss one of Auntie Lil's points? That was like overlooking a spear sticking in your back. But she had shamed him sufficiently and T.S. knew when he was licked. What was a mere soap opera in the face of starving humanity?

"All right," he agreed grudgingly. "I'll see you in an hour."

"Good. Try to contain your enthusiasm," she ordered, hanging up abruptly.

Maybe she could be sarcastic, after all.

T.S. reluctantly turned off the television and marched back to his meticulously organized closet, swapping his bedroom slippers (thank God she'd not ferreted out that little detail) for a suitably humble pair of shoes from the day-wear rack. Image was important to him. The proper attire said a lot about a man. But in this case, he decided, there was no need to change clothes. He'd be there and back by late afternoon.


He asked his cab driver to detour past the Newsday Building at One Times Square so he could set his watch by the time on their giant electronic clock. T.S. was a precise man and liked to know exactly what time it was. That way he was never, ever late. Except for that one day in 1956 when the subway train he'd been riding on had derailed and made him fifteen minutes late for a dental appointment. The thought still rankled.

They skirted the square traffic and headed across Forty-Second Street toward the West Side. His taxi slowed as it started up Eighth Avenue, passing the brightly lit marquees of fast food outlets and even faster sex shops. There were a few hustlers of every breed and brand of business scattered over the dirty sidewalks, but it was relatively deserted in mid-afternoon.

Soon, the business district surrounding the Port Authority gave way to ethnically diverse residential streets, divided by avenue blocks of smaller restaurants, delicatessens and retail shops. It had been several years since T.S. had ventured into the neighborhood that the rest of Manhattan called Hell's Kitchen. A few residents had tried to replace the century-old nickname with the more upscale "Clinton." But—like most of their efforts at gentrification—the change had not stuck. The area was still Hell's Kitchen and most of its inhabitants were still stubbornly proud of that fact.

Few skyscrapers had invaded the area west of Eighth Avenue. Side street after side street was lined with four- to six-story brownstones in various stages of disrepair and renovation. T.S. peered curiously out the window. Cheerfulness thrived only in very small pockets, but at least it had not given up entirely: streets gleaming with new brick and freshly planted trees were always bordered on either side by streets filled with the gray-stained concrete and crumbling front stoops of poverty.

Hell's Kitchen still had not decided what it wanted to be when it grew up. It was neither a bad neighborhood nor a particularly good one, its varied residents coexisting in a schizophrenic truce that defied description. Hard-working immigrants from every country of the globe peered out of the windows of their small restaurants and shops. Well-dressed businessmen scurried eastward, eager to make their after-lunch appointments. Hordes of preschool-age children swarmed everywhere, held in tow by overweight mothers of all races who shared a single, weary expression. They, in turn, were elbowed aside by fantastically fit actors and actresses, who picked their way through the crowds mumbling lines to themselves and trying on different faces. Attracted by cheap rents and the nearby theater district, they shared apartments in the neighborhood and added to its astounding (even for New York) diversity. T.S. felt that their fresh and hopeful faces only made the reality of the neighborhood that much more depressing.

No matter how hard it tried, he reflected, Hell's Kitchen was still lower middle class with an occasional sprinkling of hopeful yuppies seeking zooming property values. In fact, he passed several of these well-groomed residents as his cab roared uptown. They were tightly gripping their purses and briefcases, as they grimly steered clear of grimy, frantic groups that gathered on certain corners, chattering and pointing with self-importance to nearby windows.

T.S. sighed. That, too, had not changed. Waves of drug dealers and users still washed over the neighborhood's blocks in regular intervals, only to recede a few weeks later, when the cops finally chased them a couple of blocks down the avenue. But never far enough away to matter.

T.S. sighed again. Though the details had changed, the amount of progress was the same. Hell's Kitchen was always getting better, but never, ever quite got there.

He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he did not notice when his driver overshot Forty-Eighth Street and pulled up in front of a gleaming, new red-brick skyscraper at Forty-Ninth and Eighth. T.S. had heard it was being built, but he had not seen it yet. Its existence was a shock.

"Sorry, buddy." The driver shrugged. It was not his problem. "Con Ed was tearing up the streets back there."

T.S. was too stymied by the new building to reply and simply paid his bill and climbed out to stare. Someone had put a lot of money into this building, and thus into the neighborhood. Perhaps times were changing after all. But it was funny. He was not as happy as he thought he'd be.

The building loomed above him, its upper floors blocked by the brilliant glare of the sunlight high above. It was at least forty stories high on its Eighth Avenue side. T.S. peered around the corner—it stretched down the block all the way to Ninth Avenue, where it tapered down to a more modest six stories in height. Construction was still going on inside the lower floor interiors and torn brown paper ineffectually blocked the internal debris. But outside, brass fixtures and cornices winked in the bright sunlight, beckoning smartly dressed people, who fled from their cabs to step briskly through the building's revolving doors, anxious to trade the grime of the neighborhood for its high-tech, sterile interior.

T.S. paused to read the directory and saw that a major advertising agency had moved into the building. That explained all the slim bodies, deep tans, boxy shoulders, short hairdos and male ponytails flowing past him. Hell's Kitchen would never be the same.

On the other hand, he noticed with surprising satisfaction, the sidewalk surrounding the new edifice was thoroughly splattered with reddish spots. When cleaning the brick and brass for a final time, careless workmen had evidently allowed chemicals to spatter in the wind and fall onto the not-quite-set concrete—giving the new sidewalks a mottled, almost bloodstained, look.

So Hell's Kitchen had not given up without a fight, T.S. decided. And it had drawn the borders right up to the very base of the new intruder.

The thought pleased him and confused him at the same time. Hell's Kitchen always had that effect on his heart. It unsettled T.S., stirring up visions of his poverty-stricken German immigrant ancestors, whose dreams and hard work had helped him escape these very blocks. He experienced the same restless yearnings whenever he examined the hopeful faces that appeared so often in the old photographs showing scores of people crowded on the decks of ocean liners, their faces upturned to gaze at the Statue of Liberty, their dreams worn so nakedly that people a hundred years later could see plainly the longing there. Their ability to believe made T.S. feel lost; their will to succeed made him feel ashamed. His own life had been so much easier.

How could he have been so unwilling to help out at the soup kitchen? If Auntie Lil could do it, so could he. T.S. shook his head, put the familiar guilt behind him, and walked determinedly toward Forty-Eighth Street. His destination was obvious. A long line of people stretched around a corner and snaked uptown along the east side of Eighth Avenue. As T.S. drew closer, he saw that the queue led to a small basement entrance tucked under the stoop of a sagging, Baroque-style church. City grime stained its sweeping front steps and the main entrance doors were blocked by a massive locked wrought-iron gate. A smaller, collapsible gate prevented anyone from waiting on the steps. Like so many other churches in the city, St. Barnabas could no longer afford to offer sanctuary to the spiritually needy— too many of them also needed an empty pew that they could call home.

The church's side basement entrance was also protected by a locked wrought-iron gate. A large clapboard sign on the sidewalk out front announced:

st. barnabas soup kitchen. 3:oo p.m.

all who are hungry are welcome.

There were, apparently, plenty who were hungry. And they were just as Auntie Lil had described them: people of all shapes, sizes, colors and ages. Some were young with ancient faces; they waited in line and looked away when others stared, as if afraid that they could not offer a good enough excuse for their presence. Others were just plain old and stood patiently with the expertise of those who have spent their lives waiting in lines. A number of people were disheveled, dusty and dirty. These mumbled incoherently to themselves and were left unobtrusively alone by the others—who knew better than to make eye contact.

T.S. passed by the line and noticed an oddity. There were a surprising number of elderly ladies: trim, neatly dressed in styles of bygone eras, their hair carefully coiffed in swirls on top of their heads, slightly garish makeup perfectly in place, all of them dignified and quiet. What were they all doing here? One after another, they stood silently in line, staring at the wrought-iron gate that led to the basement soup kitchen. T.S. glanced at his watch: it was only two-fifteen. Over half an hour before any of them would eat.

He hesitated near the locked basement entrance. A plump woman wrestling with a garbage can on the other side of the gate noticed his discomfort. She paused in her efforts and tucked a frizzy lock of gray hair back behind an ear. She was in her mid-fifties, about thirty pounds overweight, and had attempted to disguise the extra baggage with a broad, khaki-colored skirt of such unrelentingly starched sturdiness that it looked like it could easily withstand a charge of elephants without wrinkling. She wore a short-sleeved, plaid shirt and had a vaguely masculine air about her. T.S. had run into her type before: she was from New England, the outfit declared, and was a capable woman who could take care of herself and was sick and tired of picking up after weak men. In short, she terrified T.S. He stepped back reflexively under the power of her stare as she, in turn, surveyed his own attire. Finally, the woman arrived at a reluctant conclusion, rewarded him with a perfunctory glare and produced a set of keys from her skirt's pockets. She was not the kind of woman to wear a skirt without pockets.

"About time you showed up," she growled through the bars. "Where's the other volunteer?"

She was obviously taking charm lessons from Auntie Lil. "I'm not the regular volunteer," T.S. explained faintly. "My Aunt Lil dragged me down here at the last minute to help out."

"I'm not surprised. Your aunt appears capable of anything." The woman primly unlocked the gate and the crowd moved back obediently, their eyes following T.S. inside. "She's quite the organizer," she added nastily, leaving no doubt that it was the kindest description of Auntie Lil that she could possibly dredge up.

T.S. followed her through a narrow concrete tunnel into a low basement room reminiscent of the barren cafeteria of a poor school on the wrong side of town. The room stretched out with a dreary sameness: a too low ceiling, harsh fluorescent lighting, scuffed linoleum of a vague brownish tint, rows of long, collapsible tables lined with bright aqua plastic chairs that cracked and sagged and were studded with worn black spots.

Dusty plastic flowers in empty glass jars adorned the center of every table. A handful of earnest young people were quickly setting out cutlery and paper napkins. He had entered a time warp. Both male volunteers had long, frizzy ponytails held back with rubber bands and were wearing tie-dyed T-shirts with faded jeans. The two women wore their long, straight hair parted in the middle in a style not popular since the 1960s. Their long flowered dresses were equally out of date. And, T.S. acknowledged sadly, their concern for the hungry was considered just as old-fashioned by many.

Steam and chatter beckoned him around a far corner where he discovered just how apt the name "Hell's Kitchen" could be. Behind a low counter lined with cafeteria-style rails, Auntie Lil bent over two enormous pots that billowed forth steam above a huge, industrial metal stove. Another woman sniffed at the strange-smelling brew with her. Just then, the grumpy woman who had let T.S. in the gate, elbowed both women aside without apology and withdrew several large pans of corn bread from the oven. It was a domesticated version of the witches' scene from Macbeth, made even more bizarre by the imposing figure of a priest who hovered at Auntie Lil's elbow, peering over her shoulder.

Unseen, T.S. advanced to a few feet of the group and watched with familiar amusement. Auntie Lil was making a major production of tasting the bubbling stew, he knew, and the supporting players had taken the stage.

At eighty-four years old, Auntie Lil had the energy and physical presence of a woman thirty years younger. She had never been slim but neither had she ever been fat. Sturdy was the best way to describe her. She was of German stock, as her strong chin, rounded face and large apple cheeks clearly implied. Her bone structure made heavy wrinkling nearly impossible, but her skin, while pink and glowing with good health, was crisscrossed with fine lines over its rosy surface. Her eyes were clear and a steely blue. They did not twinkle with old lady amusement as some people thought at first, but sparkled instead with a stubborn inner fire (as everyone soon discovered). Her mind was sharp and her physical abilities still impressive. After more than sixty years of working in the fashion industry, Auntie Lil had acquired an innate nimbleness and confidence of movement that defied old age. She believed in acting first and thinking later. Her hands were large and rawboned, yet still skillful enough to thread a needle on her very first try.

Although Auntie Lil had devised patterns for the world's most expensive dresses, she preferred pants suits above all other forms of attire. Today, she was dressed in bright red knit trousers and a matching tunic. She had wrapped a multicolored jungle print scarf around her thick, white hair. After many years of wearing it long, her hair had recently been cut and it escaped from under the scarf in wiry curls to bounce in wild disarray. Brightly painted, carved wooden fish earrings dangled from each ear and her feet were encased in thick white socks and Moroccan leather sandals. As usual, she was a walking United Nations, splashed with enough bright colors to discourage the entire research team of the Eastman Kodak Corporation.

"More chili powder?" the robust priest asked Auntie Lil earnestly. An abundant crop of silver hair curled about his massive head in leonine splendor. His features were strong and authoritative, lacking any hint of meekness or piety, and he was very tall. He was also built like an aging linebacker. His stomach strained out against his priestly garb below a massive bulldog-like chest. He looked like he should have been quaffing quarts of brew in an Irish pub, instead of supervising little old ladies in a New York City soup kitchen. He was a veritable giant of a priest and, T.S. admitted to himself, a good choice for coping with the sometimes physically dangerous demands of running a church in the inner city.

"Perhaps just a touch more chili?" the priest meekly suggested again, when no one bothered to answer him.

Auntie Lil shook her head firmly and raised one arm in an imperious command for silence. She rolled the stew about her tongue and lifted her eyes toward heaven as if seeking divine guidance.

"A touch of cumin?" the priest tried desperately. "Or a little curry, perhaps?"

"Are you insane?" Auntie Lil asked calmly. He was but a mere speck of humanity, her tone implied, attempting to interfere with the divine creation of great cuisine.

"Ah ha!" Auntie Lil smacked the enormous spoon on the stove's metal surface with a bang. Her assistants jumped back in surprise and everyone in the room turned to stare. "More onion!" she declared with celestial inspiration, one finger pointed at the ceiling.

The priest nodded his head in solemn agreement, but the grumpy matron cutting corn bread scowled furiously before banging her knife on the counter with great irritation and pulling several large onions out of a drawer. She plunked them angrily on a cutting surface and began to chop with the homicidal vigor of an ax murderer. T.S. knew at once that she had been the Queen Bee of the kitchen before Auntie Lil had arrived. No wonder she had hated him on sight.

The priest noticed the woman's distress. "Thank you, Fran. As always, you're such a help," he murmured, patting her shoulder with the kind of cautious enthusiasm you'd reserve for an unknown Doberman Pinscher. But the priest's automatic praise was more than enough for grumpy Fran. She turned her face up at the priest and beamed a radiant smile back at him, eyes filled with adoration. Her happy expression transformed her broad face into one that held hints of a former, perhaps even startling, beauty. The priest beamed back at her while the rest of the kitchen staff clanged past without taking any notice.

"Don't just stand there, Theodore," Auntie Lil suddenly commanded T.S. from across the room. "Help me with this chili."

"Nice to see you, too. Aunt Lil," he replied, giving her leathery cheek an affectionate peck. "Don't tell me that Father Whoever is foolish enough to have actually turned you loose in the kitchen? Haven't those poor people outside suffered enough?"

She handed him a potholder. "I'll have you know that this a secret chili recipe brought back to me by a genuine cowboy from Santa Fe in the thirties."

"That's good. All those cowboys waiting outside are going to really love it."

She ignored him. She was good at that. "Father Whoever is Father Stebbins. If you're not going to go to church on a regular basis, at least show it some respect. Perhaps he'll put in a good word for you upstairs."

T.S. tasted the chili and gasped for air. "He'd better make it quick. I think I'm going down." He grabbed his throat and staggered back against a sink already filled with an enormous pile of dirty dishes. Auntie Lil was incapable of entering a kitchen without leaving behind conditions that could qualify for federal disaster aid.

"I suppose you think you're amusing." She handed him a glass of water and stared intently at the pot. "Perhaps I should cut it with a few more kidney beans."

He shook his head vigorously. "Why bother? This could solve the mayor's homeless problem in a single afternoon."

"Really, Theodore, I asked you down here to help, not gloat." Auntie Lil handed him another potholder and directed him to move one of the enormous pots to a back burner. He paused in his task to allow the ever-suffering Fran to scrape in her load of massacred onions. Despite himself, his stomach started to rumble. It did smell good, in a kind of diabolic and dangerous way.

Auntie Lil then ordered him to retrieve a huge container of cooked rice that was stored in a large walk-in freezer at the rear of the kitchen. "Mr. Chang donated it," she explained. "He's got a small takeout joint on the corner."

That was Auntie Lil. Put her in a new neighborhood and she instantly picked up the local slang. T.S. expected her to start talking about a "fast score" at any moment.

For nearly thirty minutes, she dogged him, sending him here and there in search of loaves of bread, pots of beans, more rice and a mountain of grated cheese. "You're looking well, Aunt Lil," T.S. told her when she finally allowed him to stop for breath. "All this ordering me around certainly seems to agree with you."

"Of course I'm looking well. I keep active. You don't see me wasting any of my time in front of a television set." She marched across the room and corrected the placement of forks on a nearby table while the other volunteers watched in amusement.


The hungry hordes did not stampede in. They shuffled in slowly, almost shyly, the obvious regulars taking the time to show newcomers where to go. The line snaked obediently toward the cafeteria railing while the volunteers took their places behind the counter with practiced competence. T.S. wandered past them, searching for Auntie Lil but, as usual, she managed to outflank him. She gripped his elbow and steered him to a spot behind a huge pot of chili, abandoning him before he could protest. Naturally, it was the hottest spot in the room and it both smelled and felt like his imagined version of the darkest depths of Hell. The odor of fiery chili peppers tickled his nose and made his eyes water as he stepped into place. Fragrant steam instantly assaulted him, fogging up the reading glasses he wore. The very last thing he saw before his temporary blindness was Auntie Lil taking a place at the front of the line.

How typical. While he sweated in Hell, he could listen to her greeting each person as if this were an afternoon tea party and she were the proud hostess. He wiped his glasses with the edge of a potholder and they instantly steamed up again. Only this time— unnoticed by T.S.—a lone kidney bean clung to the exact center of his right lens like a dark and deformed eyeball.

"How nice of you to come today," he heard Auntie Lil tell an unseen person. "Please feel free to eat well. We have plenty." There was a murmuring and she began again with someone new, demonstrating that she had the unerring instincts of a successful dictator—stick to the public relations and let the others do the dirty work.

T.S. could feel his hair begin to curl from the dampness and his stomach took a peculiar dip in response to the spicy aroma. He kept waiting for his glasses to clear but the chili seemed to have taken on a life of its own, spewing up steamy cloud after cloud like an angry volcano about to erupt.

"Excuse me, sir, but I am hungry. Do I get to eat or do I simply stand here and smell it?" The new voice was seductively female, full of hidden meaning and ringing with inflection. The enunciation was perfect. Clearly, it was a voice trained for the theater.

T.S. picked the useless glasses from his face, sending the kidney bean flying onto his shoe. He kicked it off with as much dignity as he could muster and folded the glasses into his back pocket, assuring himself that he did not really need them. At least not much. In fact, he'd been hoping to keep their recent existence a secret from Aunt Lil anyway (who hid her own behind a cushion on her couch).

His vision cleared. He had expected a young woman, perhaps a beautiful actress down on her luck. He found a frail old lady instead. She was so thin and pale that she gave the impression of being translucent, at first. Blue veins glowed behind parchment-like skin and only her face seemed to be successfully holding back the pulsating emergence of inner organs and blood vessels. And this was only because she wore what looked to be a full pound of makeup, expertly applied but in far too heavy proportions for the daytime. Not to mention the current decade. Her eyebrows had been plucked and were heavily outlined into startling dark thin arches. Her lips were drawn too wide for her frail face and were filled in with a deep scarlet that made her mouth look more like a wound than a feature. Dark eyeliner outlined both the upper and lower lids of small black eyes, and her rouge was applied in tiny crab apples on either side of a patrician nose.

He blinked. She was a vision from a 1940s movie, with the barely contained, too desperate animation of a background extra hoping to catch the audience's eye. Even her seemingly calm waiting was imbued with an overly dramatic patience.

"They each get a ladleful for starters," the young woman serving rice beside him said helpfully. She was holding out a plate of rice and he took it automatically, plopping chili on top before handing it, in turn, to the waiting woman.

"Thank you" the old lady murmured. "So sorry to have disturbed you." She took her plate and sailed regally down the line toward the basket of corn bread, leaving T.S. to wonder just what her hidden meaning might have been. Sarcasm, he suspected.

"That's Adelle," the rice volunteer informed T.S. "She's sort of the head of the regulars here."

She was also the hungriest, T.S. decided, when he spotted her for what must have been the fourth time in the line. How could she be eating all that chili? My God, the thought was frightening. Until he realized he wasn't seeing Adelle again at all—he was seeing different versions of Adelle. There was an entire team of old ladies, it seemed, who wore heavy, stagelike makeup and dresses that had not been fashionable since the days of Eisenhower. They all spoke in cultured, trained voices and held themselves as tragically erect as queens on their way to the gallows. What in the world was going on?

Two such women stood in line staring at T.S. with blatant curiosity. They looked like seductive grandmothers dressed to kill for a social occasion scheduled many decades ago.

"He looks a bit like John Barrymore in My Dear Children, don't you think?" the first one asked her companion.

The companion snorted skeptically and surveyed T.S. "You think everyone looks like John Barrymore," she finally said. "It's time you got over that little fling, my dear."

"But he does look like him," the first woman replied stubbornly. "Look at that chin."

The companion was still clearly unconvinced. "Let's hope he knows his role a little bit better than our dear Mr. Barrymore," she said archly.

"How dare you say that?" The first woman turned to her friend, blocking all traffic and apparently not giving a hoot. "He was charming in that show. Marvelous, in fact."

"Marvelous?" The second old woman shook her head firmly and looked behind her at a grime-coated bag lady for support, receiving a crazed glare in reply. "The man didn't even know his lines," she finally countered. "Only God knew what was going to come out of his mouth each night. He thought he was in a different play every night of the week."

"I am not one of the Barrymores," T.S. interrupted firmly, before the argument escalated into hair pulling. "And my role is to serve you lunch." He plopped the chili on their plates and they took his hint with ill-disguised irritation at being rushed in such an unseemly manner.

"You're right," the first old lady sniffed to her friend. "He hasn't got John's dash at all." They moved primly down the line.

T.S. didn't have much time to ponder the insult. Too many people were waiting to eat. He soon got the hang of ladling out chili and, although a few people mentioned that it certainly smelled spicy, there was no one who complained about either its taste or its peculiar dark brown texture. He was just getting into the swing of things— accept plate, plop on chili, turn quickly, hand it over—when his rhythm was interrupted.

"That's Franklin," the rice volunteer told him, pointing out the next person in line. "He gets two big scoops of chili. He needs it."

Franklin certainly did. He was an enormous black man. Not enormous as in big for a human being, but enormous as in big for a bear. He was well over six feet tall, broad faced and broad shouldered, with deep brown skin that exactly matched the mysterious tint of Auntie Lil's chili. He was dressed in overalls that seemed at least as large as a double-bed quilt and he wore a baseball hat turned backwards over a crop of gray-peppered hair. His hands were massive and the size and texture of baseball gloves, but he waited patiently as T.S. piled on the chili, accepting the plate with shy politeness.

"Thank you, sir," he said, nodding his head before rumbling on down the line. The use of "sir," not to mention its second syllable, confirmed Franklin's Southern upbringing. What was he doing in New York City? If not for his size, he'd be eaten alive.

The hungry faces soon stretched back into one long blur of worried brows, tightly knit mouths and murmured automatic thanks. Just as T.S. was scraping the bottom of the vat of chili, Father Stebbins appeared toting another one. T.S. was assaulted by a fresh explosion of steam and received, much to his amusement, one of Father Stebbins' paternal pats on the back.

"You're doing fine, son. Bless you for helping. God loves a cheerful giver," the priest murmured before moving on to other, more important tasks.

Meanwhile, Auntie Lil was still there at the juncture of the line, handing out trays and welcoming all to what she implied was some sort of marvelously exclusive street soiree. T.S. had to admit she was good at it, she didn't miss a beat. Not even when it came to grasping those hands that were coated with a thick, oily paste of city grime, accumulated through months—and maybe even years—of not bathing. The befuddled and mentally ill bearers of those hands clearly were in no shape to take care of themselves. And yet they wandered the streets. T.S. wondered how they survived.

At last, the final hungry person had been served, and several reserved with what remained. Auntie Lil wandered over to help T.S. dish out the final portions.

"I think my chili was a rousing success, don't you?" she asked T.S. proudly, as usual not shy about fishing for compliments.

"You've found the perfect audience for your culinary talents," T.S. admitted. "Starving, hungry people who haven't had enough to eat to know any better."

He had only been teasing but she looked so disappointed that he immediately amended his remark. "Actually, Aunt Lil, your chili was a rousing success. They all look happy and satisfied."

They stared together at the tables crammed with the hungry and the homeless. Heads were bent low over their meals, spoons and bread clutched in hands, bodies protecting the small plate that was theirs. Most people had chosen the nearest seat that they could find and there were many unlikely combinations of table companions. But one table hosted no one but Adelle and the rest of the perfectly dressed little old ladies that T.S. had noticed coming through the line. They argued loudly among themselves in vigorous debate, their well-trained voices projecting across the entire room so that all could hear the conversation.

"Leslie Howard brought more vulnerability to the role," one voice proclaimed.

"How can you say that?" another disagreed. "Gielgud was clearly superior."

"You just say that because he complimented you on your hair that one time."

"That is not true. Everyone knows that Leslie Howard did not possess the animal magnetism required to play a proper Hamlet."

"Leslie Howard had plenty of animal magnetism," a third voice interjected hotly. "And I should know. He was a better Hamlet than John Gielgud could ever be. And we all know why."

"What are you implying? Not even you could have missed the undertones of Hamlet for seventy-five years. Gielgud was the perfect man for the part."

A chorus of voices then entered the debate, providing an unlikely backdrop to the dispirited eating going on in the rest of the room.

"I hesitate to ask this," T.S. admitted, hating to let his curiosity get the better of him. "But who are they?” He pointed out the table of chattering old ladies with a chili-smeared finger.

"That's Adelle and her crowd," Auntie Lil explained. "They're old actresses who still live in this neighborhood. Most of them have been here for sixty or more years. A few live in tiny rent-controlled apartments nearby. And some live in shelters, I suspect. They meet here every day for lunch. Their government checks barely cover their rent. This may be the only meal they get. They're all quite charming. I recognized a few of their names from when I was a girl and your grandfather would take me to the theater."

Now who was she kidding? Auntie Lil was at least as old as all of them and probably older than most. Not that T.S. felt it necessary to point that out. "They were famous actresses?" he asked instead.

"Oh no, not famous. None of them were ever famous. They were chorus girls, maybe, or B and C parts at best. An understudy or two for the bigger parts, perhaps. I know a few were Ziegfeld girls. But never, ever famous." Auntie Lil sighed. "Really, I have to admire their dedication to their art."

Maybe. But T.S. mostly admired their dedication to their eats. They held their spoons carefully above their chili, pinkies extended into the air with archaic correctness. But their hands were practically blurs as they quickly and methodically consumed their meals between arguments.

"You might be right about them eating once a day," he observed.

"That's the story for most everyone here," she agreed sadly.

"Lillian!" Father Stebbins' voice boomed in hearty congratulations behind them. T.S. jumped and knocked a chili spoon flying, splattering the weary linoleum with a new layer of gunk. Grumpy Fran was right behind Father Stebbins, tailing him like a faithful dog. She stared first at the spoon and then at T.S.—clearly, he was as troublesome as she had first suspected.

"The chili was a success," Father Stebbins thundered on. "I knew you could do it! Just a smashing success. Why, look at those happy campers!" He threw his arms out in the general direction of the dining room and they stared obediently at the mechanically munching crowd. No one looked particularly ecstatic.

"Theodore!" Auntie Lil suddenly clutched his sleeve in fright and pointed across the room. "That woman's in trouble." Another volunteer's scream followed her cry.

A frail old woman, dressed much like the other old actresses, had been sitting at a table away from the main group. She was struggling up from her chair and her face was blue. Her mouth hung open in speechless agony. Her tablemates stared up mutely in mystified astonishment. Her arm jerked suddenly and upended her plate of chili. It clattered to the floor and slid across the linoleum, leaving a trail of sticky brown goo.

"She's choking!" T.S. cried, sprinting across the room to her, with Father Stebbins close behind.

Before they could reach her, the old woman clutched at her heart and fell to the floor, losing consciousness. Her body jerked slowly, picking up steam until she was shuddering all over in spasms that came in waves. She gasped for breath desperately, like a fish gaffed in the gills. She regained consciousness briefly and turned her face to T.S. Their eyes locked for a single, horrifying second. He saw complete terror trapped beneath the milky blue of her irises just before she arched and lapsed unconscious again, her body writhing uncontrollably as her breath returned in rapid, agonized rasps.

"She's not choking," Auntie Lil said. "I think she's having a heart attack."

"I'll call an ambulance," one of the young volunteers shouted. He vaulted over the railing and disappeared toward the back.

"Does anyone know CPR?" Father Stebbins yelled, his head whipping wildly from side to side as he scanned the stunned diners watching the drama. Adelle and the other little old ladies had risen as one from their table—they stared, paralyzed with fear.

"Emily!" one of them croaked, a tiny hand fluttering to cover her mouth as if she had somehow been impolite.

"I know CPR," T.S. remembered. God, it had been years since he'd had those Red Cross classes. What to do? Breathe in her mouth? Thump on her chest? She was so frail he'd crack her ribs if he did it incorrectly, and probably puncture a lung.

Her body had stilled with an ominous suddenness, but he knelt beside her anyway and lifted one of her hands. It was as thin and light as a young tree limb dried to a fire-ready tinder. He felt for a pulse and could find none. Her veins were as thin and spidery as ink tracings. He reached under her neck, watching as her lips quivered, then froze. Her breath smelled faintly of alcohol. Her eyelids ceased fluttering abruptly and opened as her whole face grew still, eyes slowing to a stop until she stared at T.S. in permanent surprise. Even as he groped for the carotid arteries, hoping for a pulse, T.S. knew the woman was dead. And that nothing would bring her back. He found his CPR position anyway, and carefully pumped at her chest, stopped, then tasted the bitter void of her mouth as he tried to breathe life back into her body. There was no response. He tried for a minute more before giving up.

"She's beyond CPR," he said out loud. Auntie Lil dropped to her knees beside him and checked for herself. She nodded in agreement and looked up at the crowd.

"I'm afraid she's dead," she announced with just the right mixture of concern and impersonal calm. It was a calm that T.S. knew she did not feel. Auntie Lil was not afraid of much but, he suspected, death headed the list. She was too old not to realize that it lay in wait for her and she shuddered involuntarily whenever its dark breath passed close by. But she was also a woman consumed by common sense and she knew that the last thing they needed was a panicked crowd pressing in around them. So she kept her voice authoritative and confident, taking over the situation with a practiced air. This was fortunate, since Father Stebbins was absorbed in comforting a sobbing Fran—whose aggressive self-confidence had conveniently fled when confronted with the chance to collapse in the handsome priest's arms.

"There's nothing that anyone can do," Auntie Lil announced, rising to her feet and holding up both hands for silence even though no one had said a word. "We've called an ambulance. They should be here any moment. And I suspect the police will arrive as well. Everyone else might as well finish eating."

Now that was like Auntie Lil—few things took precedence over eating in her book. When it came to a meal, death could just take a back seat.

Not many other people shared this priority. Some returned to uneasily eating, but others had different ideas. Before either T.S. or Father Stebbins could stop them, a number of diners quietly laid down their spoons and slipped out the door with the elusive grace of shadows. The police were not popular with the homeless. Some avoided the authorities for good reasons, others simply out of habit.

"Do you think the police will want to talk to them?" Auntie Lil asked anxiously as they watched a thin stream of people trickle out.

"Are you kidding?" a young volunteer answered. "An old lady, maybe homeless, dies in a soup kitchen? This one's going in the bottom drawer. Poor old gal."

"I don't think the police will care," T.S. told Auntie Lil, placing a reassuring arm on her elbow. Her mouth started to tremble. It had just sunk in that the dead woman was very close to her own age.

"After all," T.S. added more gently, patting her hand, "people have heart attacks every day. It isn't like she was murdered."