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“No. She was worried for you. For the trouble to come.”
“What sort of trouble?”
Maria shook her head apologetically. “The one who knows is my sister, and the men took her away from the factory.”
“Who were these men? Management?”
Maria shook her head. “There are two. Dark suits. I falsi sorrisi, eh—false… smiles.”
“That’s not much help, I’m afraid,” Mabel said.
“Wait! They wear a pin like—” Maria struggled for the word in English. She grabbed the pencil, and in a corner of her sister’s sketch, she drew an eye with a lightning bolt coming down.
Mabel swallowed hard. A few weeks earlier, she had spied two men in a brown sedan across the street from the museum, just keeping watch. A lifetime working with radicals and labor organizers had taught Mabel how to ferret out Pinkerton Detectives, Bureau of Investigation agents, and plainclothes cops, and the men in the sedan had that air about them. When she’d taken a closer look, she noticed that they both wore that same odd lapel pin. Maybe it was time for Mabel to find out more about those men and whomever it was they were working for. So she couldn’t read an object and glean its history, but she could be nosy and ask around.
The bells of a distant church tolled the hour. “Jeepers! I’m later than I thought!” Mabel rolled up the drawing and shoved it into her handbag. It was too big and poked out of the open top.
“Miss…” Maria looked embarrassed.
“What is it?”
“I am ashamed to ask. Could you spare some money? For the children?”
“Oh. Um. Of course.” Mabel fished in her coin purse and handed over the quarter she’d planned to use for a Photoplay magazine and a pastry. She’d really wanted both, but it was better that the money go to feed Maria’s children.
“Bless you, bless you,” Maria said, taking Mabel’s hands in hers. “Please: Be careful, Miss Rose. Those men, I feel they are out there, watching us.”
The bell over the door of the Bohemian Reader jingled as Mabel blew in. Behind the counter, the bookshop’s owner, Mr. Jenkins, was busy chatting with a customer. Seeing Mabel, he jerked his head toward the back of the shop. Mabel nodded and walked past the shelves and tables stacked high with books she longed to stop and read, and slipped behind the heavy velvet drapes, trotting up the set of rickety wooden steps to Arthur Brown’s attic garret. She gave the secret knock, and a moment later, Arthur opened up.
“Sorry I’m late,” Mabel said, bustling inside the tiny vestibule, shedding her coat, hat, and gloves as she did.
Arthur winked. “Don’t worry. You’ve only missed a lot of hot air. Wait right here. I’ll introduce you.”
Mabel peeked around the corner. Cigarette smoke filled the cramped, nearly barren garret. It wasn’t much: Two dormer windows faced the streets. The low roof leaked into a bucket set up in a tiny kitchenette, which housed a bathtub. There was a water closet, a steamer trunk that doubled as seating, an easel in a corner, and, off to one side, an unmade bed peeking out behind a sheet rigged to a clothesline. The sight of the bed, messy and intimate, brought a blush to Mabel’s cheeks. Sketches had been cellophaned to the walls. They were very good: still lifes and street scenes and some figure drawings of nude women, which only intensified the heat in Mabel’s face. If they were Arthur’s, he had real talent.
Two men and a woman sat at a chipped table, arguing. “Marlowe doesn’t care about his workers. He just wants his exhibition to go up on time,” a heavyset young man with a mustache and goatee was saying. His cheeks were a mottled pink, and his thick, round glasses made his blue eyes seem enormous. “The workers want to strike!”
“But they’ve signed yellow-dog contracts,” the other fella said in a s
oft, Spanish-accented voice. A Lenin-style cap topped his shaggy dark hair.
“Yellow-dog contracts are criminal! You sign away all your rights,” the young woman said. She wore a beret over her thick reddish-brown hair. Her face was delicate and pretty, and as much as Mabel wanted to be above jealousy, she felt its sharp sting anyway.
“Hey!” Arthur said sharply, and the small room quieted. He gestured toward the doorway. “Everyone, I’d like to introduce you to our newest member. Miss Mabel Rose.”
Mabel gave a small wave. Her cheeks went hot. “Hello,” she said, her voice cracking on the word.
The others eyed her suspiciously, except for the girl, who leaned back, appraising Mabel. “Virginia Rose’s daughter?”
“Yes,” Mabel said, irritated. She didn’t want to be known as her mother’s daughter here. She wanted to be enough on her own. “And it’s Mabel. Just Mabel.”
The larger boy with the glasses folded his arms across his chest. “You should have talked to us first, Arthur. We make decisions together. We are not an oligarchy.”
“Sorry, Aron. But Mabel is a real asset. We could use her.” Everyone was silent. “Come on. Where are your manners?”
“Manners are bourgeois,” the pink-cheeked boy said.
“Enough, Aron,” the dark-eyed boy in the cap said. He bowed his head. “Luis Miguel Hernandez. Pleased to meet you, Mabel.”
