He shrugged. “I am used to it by now.”
“Do you think the those strong-arm bullyboys—starkes, did you call them—managed to break up the strike without us there?”
“We’ll find out soon enough, won’t we?” he said. “Although I rather think that their behavior last night was merely a warning. They wanted to show us how rough they could get if we keep going.”
“All the more reason for me to go back and help.”
We stood at the curb, waiting for a milk wagon to pass with churns and harness jangling merrily. “We will not go through this again.” He swung me to the right and marched me into a café, seating me at an oilcloth-covered table then ordering coffee and sweet rolls for us. We were both equally hungry and ate in silence until the plate was empty.
“More?” Jacob asked.
I shook my head. “Sufficient unto the day, as my mother always said. Now I’m back to my old self and ready to tackle anything.”
“All right, I’ll make a deal with you,” Jacob said. “We will visit the strike scene and let the girls see that you have come through your ordeal with flying colors. That itself will boost their spirits. Then I will escort you straight home, where you will stay. Understood?”
“For a gentle soul, you can be quite forceful when you want to,” I said.
He smiled. “When I care about something or somebody enough, I can be passionate.”
We walked close beside each other in companionable silence.
“Jacob?”
He looked up.
“Do you think there is any way to find out about Michael Kelly—without getting involved with the Eastmans, I mean?”
“Straight home,” he repeated, “and stay there.”
Twenty-three
I fell into a dreamless sleep the moment my head hit the pillow and was not conscious of the hours passing. I came to, like a diver coming up from deep water, to a rhythmic hammering. I lay for a while, trying to remember where I was and what I was doing lying in bed with the setting sun glowing red onto my face. Then I realized that the hammering was someone pounding on my front door.
“All right, I’m coming,” I heard Seamus calling.
He opened the door. I heard men’s voices and sat up, afraid that the police had come to arrest me again, or, worse still, that the Eastmans had found where I lived. Then men’s boots coming up the stairs in a great hurry. I leaped out of bed and reached for my dressing gown. I was only half into it when my door burst open.
“How dare you come into a lady’s boudoir,” I started to say, then my jaw dropped in astonishment. “Jacob! What are you doing here? Don’t tell me that the starkes have broken the strike?”
He was beaming. “I had to come to tell you the good news straight away—we won, Molly. We won!” He took my hands and danced around with me. “Mr. Lowenstein came and told the girls that he would meet their demands—six dollars a week, like the other shops, and finish on Friday and Saturday nights by six o’clock to be home in time for Shabbat, and better heat and light too. They go back to work on Monday morning. It’s a miracle.”
“It certainly is,” I said. I was pleased too, of course, but more skeptical than Jacob. Of course he didn’t know about my little scheme with Mr. Mostel. If Lowenstein had found out that he could get his hands on Mostel’s designs on Tuesday, then he’d need his shop up and running again on Monday, wouldn’t he? And how easy it would be to pay the girls the promised six dollars a week, then manage to dock them that extra dollar in fines. And as for heat and light—he could keep promising those until the cows came home.
But for now the news was good all around. The girls could go back to work. Lowenstein could get his hands on Mostel’s designs. I could catch Lowenstein’s spy, collect my fee, and go back to sleeping late.
“Come on, get dressed,” Jacob said, panting a little after his crazy dance. “We are celebrating tonight at the meeting room. This is not just a victory for the ladies garment workers, it is a victory for all unions. We have shown that we can strike and win in a small way. Next time we can make demands to a whole industry.”
“Then go and wait downstairs, if you want me to get dressed,” I said, pushing him away. “I’m sure your matchmaker will never be able to find a good match for you, if you’ve been discovered in a lady’s boudoir.”
“I think I may have found a good match myself, without any help of the schadchen.” He gave me a quick glance then closed the door behind him.