Deadly by Julie Chibbaro Page A

notes from the days I had missed. They were few, and simple. I saw that Mr. Soper had not gotten very much further with the case.
    Later in the day, Mr. Soper straightened his cuffs and began to put on his jacket as if he were about to leave the office. He said, without meeting my eyes, “I think I have found a person who could show me where Mary Mallon lives.”
    I had not seen this in his notes—such an important occurrence!
    Still not looking at me, he said, “I caught sight of Mary while you were gone. She visited a place I want to return to this afternoon.”
    I stood from my desk and quickly gathered up pencils and folio.
    â€œPrudence, I want you to stay here, in the office, to catch up on work you missed,” he said.
    I felt him strange and distant.
    â€œSir, I’ve finished most of my work and would have no trouble coming with you.”
    He seemed to look at me as though he were evaluating my character.
    He sighed and tapped his desk. “You may come,” he said. “But leave the folio in the office. I don’t want to be obvious.”
    We took a trolley north to 33rd Street, where we exited and walked east. My chief stopped just outside a saloon—a beat-up front called Donovan’s with spittoons on the sidewalk, dank gaslights, and loud laughter and music emanating from its doors. Something about the place frightened me; I looked to Mr. Soper for explanation. He glanced at me—then he took a breath and said, “You’re to stay close to me at all times, Prudence. Don’t touch anything, don’t speak to anyone, just stay near. Do you understand?”
    I swallowed the grip of fear in my throat, and we went in. The stink of coal hit me, and the smell of food—sausage, pickle, sauerkraut, stew. On top of it all, the odor of bodies nearly made me choke. Every table was filled, a lunch crowd of gamblers and streetwalkers shoveling kraut and links fromhot bins into their plates, swigging from steins of brew. The clamor bewildered me. I recognized faces—cigar-smoking Officer O’Malley, for one, and Mr. Jackson, the smithy, drunkards both. The rest looked stale and ravenous, hedonist, with garish mouths and careless ways, a group as bad as those who hang out at the Poor Man’s Retreat—old Five Points gang members now gone decrepit. With their ill-gotten money, they’re worse than any of our neighborhood bums. I wished I had not agreed to go, but I wanted to find out our purpose. I held my breath and steadied myself with my hand on Mr. Soper’s arm as he led me through that boisterous crowd.
    He stopped at a table in the very back where sat an unshaven man with rummy eyes. The rummy looked at Mr. Soper and nodded. I moved behind my chief, fearful of the man, yet curious, as Mr. Soper seemed to know him.
    My chief put several dollars on the table.
    â€œDid you set up the meeting with Mary Mallon?” he asked.
    A sick feeling sank in my stomach.
    The dirty rummy slid the dollars off the table. “Aye,” he said.
    A bribe! I had just watched my chief bribe a man.
    I couldn’t see Mr. Soper’s face, but his shoulders curveddown, his head low to the table. For a moment, he didn’t seem any different from the bums around him.
    I looked left and right. What was I doing in this dank place? What were
we
doing there? Why had our search for Mary come to this? It was wrong, it was improper. It was immoral. I wanted to push the scene away, to deny that it was my honorable chief making such a lowly offering to such a dirty man, but there he was.
    â€œMary’s comin’ home Wednesday night,” the rummy snarled.
    Mr. Soper set out another few dollars. “When should we come by?” he asked.
    â€œAye, we’ll set it up for eight, we’d be eatin’ around eight.”
    That man took the bills and sold out his girl, just like a piece of chicken.
    I followed Mr. Soper out of that saloon, all the way