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“The women and children were trapped in the tents. The tents were on fire. The children…” Arthur stumbled on the word. “The children screamed. And the men just kept shooting.”
“Those sons of bitches,” Aron said, sniffing back tears. Mabel had never seen Aron cry.
“Hearst is already putting the blame on the miners. Saying they started it,” Arthur said, throwing down the newspaper. Gloria scooped it up and read aloud, “‘Anarchists to Blame for Fiery Fiasco. Striking Workers Blow Up Mine and Set Fire to Camp.’ Those liars!”
“What do you expect? Marlowe can have the story written any way he likes,” Aron said.
“Twelve dead kids and they’re blaming the striking workers. And the Secret Six,” Arthur said. “Mr. Hoover has vowed to put more muscle behind finding us. I don’t think we should meet here anymore. They might be watching.”
The night before seemed incredibly far away to Mabel now. She tried to remember the feel of Arthur’s arms around her as they lay in his bed under the creaking attic roof. Everything had seemed so right; now nothing did.
“We told them to trust us,” Luis said. “We said they would be safe. That Marlowe would cave. What do we do now?”
In the high white shine of the street lamp leaking through the garret windows, Arthur’s eyes were the bright blue of the day before. “We make Marlowe pay.”
By the time they’d finished talking, it was nearly dawn. The milk wagons jangled up Bleecker Street. In the distance, the elevated Sixth Avenue train rattled around a curve. The newspapers would be hitting the streets in bundles any minute.
“Luis, you know where to get what we need.”
“Yeah. I know a fella. Doesn’t ask too many questions. He’s sympathetic to the cause.”
“Are we decided, then?” Arthur said.
“Yes.” Gloria held out her hand.
“Yes,” Aron and Luis said, adding theirs on top.
Arthur turned to Mabel.
“You’re talking about assassination. About murder,” she said, looking down at her hands. They seemed small and useless to her just now.
“Like they murdered all those children,” Gloria shot back.
“Fine. Leave her out of it. We’ll do it without her,” Aron said.
“No,” Arthur said. “It’s all of us or it’s none of us. Mabel?”
Mabel thought of her parents, fighting for justice their whole lives. She thought of their small victories, eked out by pennies. They’d always said that there was no room for violence. It was an inviolable rule. In her mind, Mabel saw her father at his typewriter, diligently reporting on some new struggle or cause. She saw her mother standing up to her own family, turning her back on an easy life of wealth in order to marry a penniless Jewish socialist. They were principled, her parents. They’d be horrified to know where she was, who she had become, what she was thinking of doing. But she was not part of their generation. She had come to see that their ways were antiquated. What had their methods gotten anyone? Not enough. Twelve dead children, burned to bones, lying on a field in New Jersey because of one man’s greed. Her parents were wrong. There were no rules anymore. You had to fight fire with fire.
Mabel joined hands with the others.
THE EXCEPTIONAL AMERICAN
In the days before the opening of Jake Marlowe’s Future of America Exhibition, New York had the feel of a giant carnival. The days were warmer. The rains that started the month had now given way to late-April sunshine. Beauty parlors were packed with girls having fresh marcel waves put into their hair. Store windows advertised SMART SUITS AND HATS FOR THE MAN WITHOUT LIMIT, THE MAN LOOKING TOWARD THE FUTURE OF AMERICA! The mood was optimistic. No one gave a damn about ghosts. It was as if overnight, everyone had agreed that what had come before was nothing but a bad dream best forgotten.
“All anybody wants to talk about is this exhibit,” Woody explained to Evie over pie at the Automat when she’d begged him to write another story about the Diviners. “Sorry, Sheba. But that’s the truth of it. I couldn’t get you an inch of column space. The ghost craze is over. Diviners are on their way out, like yesterday’s dance sensation.”
“But it isn’t a craze!” Evie insisted. “There is real evil at work, Woody.”
He shrugged. “Not when Jake Marlowe makes folks feel good about being American, like they can’t lose.”
The phone had stopped ringing at Diviners Investigations. Evie had taken to scouring the papers for any mention of a sighting. “Just like Will,” she chided herself. The only ghosts they’d hunted down, near a slip in the seaport, had taunted them openly. “Do you think you can stop this? You’ll never best him.” And just before they annihilated the wraith, sending its atoms who-knew-where, it had fixed them with a stare: “This is the history: blood.” When the exhilaration of the kill had fled them, they collapsed, skin crawling, stomachs aching as if they might retch. They were exhausted. And no closer to finding Conor.
Evie had heard nothing from Jericho since the awful weekend at Hopeful Harbor. She supposed that was as it should be—she needed time to sort through her messy, conflicting feelings. But she was sad to have lost their friendship. Mabel wasn’t returning her calls, either. “Sorry, I’m just awfully busy,” Mabel had said the one time Evie had managed to catch her at home. She’d sounded strange, though—evasive. And E
vie wondered if their friendship would ever recover.
With only two days to go before the exhibition’s opening, WGI was hosting a celebration for Jake Marlowe at a swanky hotel near the New York Stock Exchange and broadcasting it on air live. Will Rogers would perform. So would W. C. Fields, Fanny Brice, and rising star Theta Knight. And there would be an interview with Sarah Snow and Evie O’Neill—the Divine and the Diviner.
