? ? ?
JACK DIVIDED HIS attention between Hank’s story of a boy who had been arrested for drawing a knife on another boy in the dormitory, and Jenny Howell’s sure-handed solicitation of Anna’s help in one more worthy cause. And he was listening at the same time for Baldy. It was no more than five minutes before he burst into the room as if the roundsmen were at his heels. The kid had enough energy to fuel all of New York’s elevated train lines by himself.
“Did you want to see me, Ma Howell?” Then he caught sight of Jack and drew up sharply, his long, gangly body suddenly utterly still.
“No trouble,” Jack said. “I’m not here for you.” And he added something in Italian that made the boy both relax and smile.
“Sit yourself down,” said Hank. “The detective sergeant and this lady are looking for a boy, and you might be able to help.”
Baldy lowered himself onto a stool and nodded. While Jack talked he listened with an expression that made it clear that while he would cooperate, he would not be so foolish as to believe anything this Detective Sergeant Mezzanotte had to say. A completely understandable position to take, after all. Jack had arrested him more than once.
When Jack had finished, Baldy said, “This kid, a Neopolitán with blue eyes?”
“Blue eyes, black hair.”
“Somebody like that would stick out. You’re sure he’s Neopolitán?”
Jack nodded, and Baldy shook his head. “Can’t help you.”
“You could ask around,” Jack said. “See if Vince or Bogie or anybody in one of the gangs has seen him.”
“I could,” Baldy said. His gaze had come to rest with obvious interest and curiosity on Anna. “You took his sisters in, miss?”
“This is Dr. Savard,” Jack corrected him.
“Dr. Savard, if you’re in the market for homeless Italian kids, I could volunteer myself.” He thumped his chest with a fist. “I’m better than Italian. I’m one-hundred-ten-percent-head-to-toes Siciliano.”
“And you’re not a child,” Mrs. Howell said. “Though you seem to forget from time to time. Eighteen is a man grown. Or should be.”
The young man had a head of dark hair so thick that it stood straight up from his scalp and beneath that, a clever mind. Jack had issued some kind of challenge that Anna didn’t catch, but Baldy jumped right into a conversation that was half banter and half dispute and all in Italian. Anna leaned toward Mrs. Howell and lowered her voice. “Is there somewhere I could speak to Baldy alone for a half hour or so?”
? ? ?
ANNA CLOSED THE door to Mr. Howell’s office behind herself and smiled at the boy’s attempt to look both worldly and innocent.
“Baldy,” she began, and then interrupted herself with a question. “What is your real name, if I may ask? There must be something more dignified to call you.”
He inclined his head. “I am Giustiniano Gianbattista Garibaldi Nediani.”
“I see.” She paused.
“You don’t like Baldy?”
“I don’t dislike it, but it doesn’t really suit you.”
“I have a very long name,” he said. “And I am very tall. If they had thought to give you a longer name, maybe you would have grown to a full size.”
At that Anna had to laugh out loud. “Maybe Anna isn’t my full name,” she said. “If you don’t have a preference, I’ll call you Nediani or Ned. Does that suit?”
The boy gave an almost regal nod. “What is it you want to know?”
Anna didn’t have to prompt very hard to hear his very brief story. Orphaned at age eight, abandoned by an uncle, four years on the streets, three of those as a newsie. Since then he had been working at the lodging house as a jack-of-all-trades and pursuing other avenues of self-improvement, as he put it. He rattled off the facts with such ease that Anna didn’t know what to think. It might be a well-rehearsed story, or a history that had to be handled like a live coal, cautiously, quickly, lest it do more damage.
“You are still active as a newsie?”
“I outgrew that years ago, except for looking out for some of the younger boys. Mostly I’m busy here.”
“Are you content to continue here, or do you have plans?”
At this he looked somewhat affronted. “I have three hundred twenty-two dollars and fifty-five cents in savings. You can ask Ma Howell, she keeps the books. I’m thinking when I’ve got enough saved, I’ll buy an interest in a shop.”
“That’s very enterprising of you,” Anna said. “But it is slow going, saving for a better life.”
“You got a job you want me to do, right? You want me to find this little kid for you.”
“Yes. I realize that we are asking you to look for a little boy you don’t know, and that it might put you in a difficult position, now and then, to ask questions in certain quarters. On the other hand, you know the streets. Your experience and understanding of the way things work gives you a great advantage.”