The mouse-haired girl only smiled and shook her head, dismissing them both as she wiped her hands on her apron and went back to work at the stove. ?Viola continued to scowl as she polished her blade, but Esta didn’t miss the way Viola’s eyes followed Tilly’s every move. Or the way her cheeks flushed anytime Tilly glanced up with a warm smile.
When they were finished eating, Viola led Esta out the back entrance of the saloon, onto Elizabeth Street. The snow from the day before was starting to melt, leaving the streets and sidewalks a murky mess that already smelled of the manure and garbage the banks of snow had covered.
“So . . . ,” Esta began, in an attempt to break their awkward silence. She pulled the borrowed cloak around her, glad for its warmth. “You and Tilly . . . ?”
Viola turned on her sharply, her expression fierce.
“Sorry,” Esta said, realizing her misstep. “It’s just . . . the way you watched her,” she tried to explain. “I thought maybe—”
“We’re friends,” Viola snapped, but her cheeks had gone pink again, and Viola wasn’t the type of girl who wore a blush well.
“Of course you are,” Esta corrected. “My mistake,” she said, feeling a sudden ambivalence. She knew better than to let her own modern sensibilities affect her on a job. It was sloppy of her, dangerous. But behind the censure in Viola’s eyes was fear . . . maybe even sadness?
Viola stomped off again without another word on the matter.
It was easy enough to keep up with Viola’s shorter strides, but harder to let it go. After a block of walking in silence except for the crunch of the snow beneath their feet, Esta couldn’t stand the rigid set of Viola’s shoulders anymore. “For what it’s worth,” she said softly without slowing their pace, “she seems wonderful.”
Viola stopped short. “Yes,” Viola agreed, tossing a wary look toward Esta. “She is.” She waited another two heartbeats, as if daring Esta to push again, before she turned and continued down the bustling sidewalk. But this time her steps were softer and her expression didn’t have the same wariness as it had moments before.
Unlike the wide boulevard that was the Bowery, Elizabeth Street was a narrow jumble of redbrick buildings all butted up against one another. The shops were opening for the day, and the shopkeepers had already started rolling carts of merchandise out to the sidewalks. Above their cluttered display windows, fire escapes clung to the sides of the buildings. Long underwear and shirts fluttered from them like invisible people who had decided to stop to lean against the railings and watch the scene below.
“The first rule,” Viola said, drawing herself up as though the whole conversation about Tilly had never happened, “is you don’t take from our own. You work the cars or the streets north of Houston.?You work the Line and the banks, but you don’t dip into pockets Dolph protects. The second rule, you don’t cross any of the other bosses. Dolph works hard to keep Paul Kelly and Monk Eastman off his people. He don’t need you messing that up.”
“How will I know who’s who?”
Viola gave her an impatient scowl. “You’ll figure it out. One way or another.”
The two went a couple of blocks farther and then cut over a block to where a horse-drawn streetcar rattled to a stop at a curb nearby. Viola opened the door at the back of the bus-shaped vehicle and directed Esta inside. After Viola placed a couple of coins into a battered metal box at the front of the car, they found seats on the two narrow wooden benches along the length of the smudged windows. With the windows closed against the cold, the car smelled strongly of the tobacco spit that stained the floor and the sharp, metallic reek of motor oil.
Outside, the bright signs of the dance halls and glittering windows of cheap jewelry stores gave way to more sedate shops, each piled with canned goods and household items. Then they turned onto Canal Street, past the legendary prison built to look like an Egyptian tomb.
“Have you been with Dolph long?” Esta asked.
Viola glanced at her out of the corner of her eye. “Long enough,” she said, turning her attention back to the street passing outside the window.
“And you like working for him?” Esta tried again.
At first Viola seemed to ignore the question, but then, just when Esta thought she wouldn’t answer, she turned. “Look. We’re probably not gonna be friends, you and me. I don’t need any more friends. I don’t need the chitchat the ladies make with each other over the weather or the price of meat. I work for Dolph because I want to work, and he lets me. Do I like it?” she said with a shrug. “I’m not married to some fat idiota, having his babies one after another, am I? I work hard, maybe, but I’m good at what I do. Dolph gives me that much. What else is there to like?”
“Nothing,” Esta murmured her understanding. She knew what it was to need to feel useful. If Professor Lachlan hadn’t found her, she’d probably be unaware of what she was, what she could do. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to never feel the deep, echoing satisfaction of a job well done. ?To simply be ordinary—or worse, a freak in her world, where magic was nothing more than a bedtime story. Maybe Professor Lachlan had never been what anyone would call an affectionate father, but he’d given her that much.
About fifteen minutes into the jarring ride, the streetcar slowed next to a curb, and Viola gestured for Esta to get out.
“We’re at City Hall,” Esta said, recognizing the building.
Viola made a dismissive sound in her throat. “We gonna walk a little farther, and then you go on your own.”
“On my own?” Esta blinked, surprised at this pronouncement. She’d assumed Viola had been sent to watch her.
“You told Dolph you’re a good thief, no?”
“Yes . . . ,” Esta said slowly, not liking where this was going.
“The tricks you did last night don’t prove nothing. ?You want Dolph’s protection? Then you earn it by working the Line.” Viola pointed down the street they were walking. “It used to be good pickings down on Wall Street with all the bankers. Fat wallets. Lots of gold and jewels. Easy items to fence. But a few years back, Inspector Byrnes drew the Dead Line.
“Byrnes is gone, but the Line’s still there. Downtown, they pick up any known pickpocket on sight. Dolph loses a lot of his boys that way. But you’re new, and you say you can steal anything?” She shrugged. “So you’ll work the Dead Line. Maybe you won’t get caught.”
“And if I do?”
Viola glanced at her, indifferent. “My advice? You don’t get caught. The Tombs isn’t a place for a girl, not even a big girl like you,” Viola said, cocking a mocking brow toward Esta.