His ears perked up at a footfall behind him. Turning, he saw that it belonged to a man who not seconds later swerved around him and picked up pace in the same direction as Merinda and her friend.
A few thoughts rumbled through Benny’s mind, but all ended with those plainclothes detectives he had read about. If he could make out Merinda from this distance, it stood to reason this chap could too. Benny quickened his pace and saw that, indeed, the man was in pursuit of Merinda Herringford and her companion.
Determined to intercept before they could be accosted, he jogged up and grabbed Merinda’s shoulders from behind. She yelped, swung around, and thwacked him with her stick. Then, recognizing him, she scowled. He ignored her string of less-than-ladylike adjectives while her companion (who, despite being dressed in men’s clothes, was most assuredly not a man) stared mutely on.
The pursuing man confronted Benny. “You mean you were on her too?”
“Yes! I’m taking her and her friend in. This one’s mine.”
When the man pressed further, blocked from Merinda but grabbing Jemima, Benny fell back on the physical training from the wrestling and boxing he learned in Regina. Two jabbed hooks and the fellow fell backward.
Jem smiled her thanks, and Merinda looked at him as if he hung the moon. He raised his chin slightly.
“I appreciate a man who can make out a menace from miles away.” Merinda beamed at him. “And now we can continue our investigation. Important detective work,” she said with a sniff.
“I am not your only case?”
“Not when there is the immediate problem of Miss Murdle’s runaway cat, Gingerbread,” Jem snickered.
Merinda huffed.
Benny tried to think of something—anything—quippy and smart. But all that came out was, “I… well… good luck. I’m glad I happened to come by.”
The line fell flat under the fizz of the girls’ excitement and laughter.
“You two aren’t at all shaken or concerned?”
“Benny Citrone,” Jem said brightly, “If we had a dollar for every time we ran into the Morality Squad, we wouldn’t need your money—or anyone else’s. We’d be more than wealthy.”
Benny tipped his hat and continued on Yonge Street.
“Wait!” Merinda jogged up to him. “Please wait. We weren’t finding a cat, were we, Jem?”
Jem, catching up, shook her head. “No.”
“We met with David Ross, the leader of the People’s Labor Movement. They’re headed to Chicago, and we think Jonathan might be joining them.”
“Chicago?”
“So Jem and I are going, of course, and you must come. What better way to be near the men your cousin flocks to? We can find Jonathan and still manage to keep anything disastrous from happening.”
Benny looked around him. Strange city. Strange woman. New adventure. He stole a moment to study her. Her features were not soft or round like the women in the advertisements and billboards heralding every large building in Toronto. She cut a finer, more natural image than the other women he had encountered during his stay.
“What do you say?” She cut into his thoughts, hope tinging her voice.
He studied her profile. Was it possible that she was as fascinated by him as he was by her? “It will bring us closer to Jonathan.”
“And I think it will be a lark!” She looked between Jem’s smiling face and Benny’s apprehensive one. “An absolute lark.”
* * *
*For the uninitiated, a palliasse is a poor excuse for a mattress—a scratchy affair made of straw matting.
?At least, that’s what he told the matron at the hotel he was doing. The careful reader might conclude that he hoped to encounter a familiar face.
CHAPTER TEN
After a while, Toronto will become such a part of you that you won’t be able to see any other place without comparing it. That bustling patchwork quilt of a city with its ruggedly sewn-up neighborhoods, the mottled smoke roping up from soot-streaked buildings, the tower clocks ticking, the compass point of the St. James’s steeple piercing the sky… I will see it everywhere should I ever be fortunate enough to travel beyond it.
An excerpt from one of Ray DeLuca’s less poetical journal entries
Despite Ray’s attempt at feigned sleep, the passenger adjacent him was endlessly fascinated by his traveling companion.
“Right hot out there!” the man said, scrunching a red-tinged nose over a bushy moustache. “Nice and comfortable chugging along.* When I was a young man, you never thought of leaving so quickly and easily… ” He prattled on, Ray dreamily catching a few words while his own thoughts spun.
Any question directed at Ray was answered in his first language in an attempt to put the fellow off. But he was a jovial, persistent thing. Traveling on business. Sad to leave his missus behind. Ray wished he could take the overcoat he was using as a blanket and fling it over his companion’s head. He hated small talk on his better days.