The Museum of Extraordinary Things(42)

I was jumpy and unpredictable as I stationed myself outside the mansion, like the arrested men I photographed. They often hung their heads and would not look full face into the camera. It was difficult to get a decent portrait of a criminal. Surely the same could have been said of me had my photograph ever been taken, not that it ever had been. I did not wish to be anyone’s subject, or to expose what the lens might reveal.

I took to the shadows when I was positioned outside the Blocks’ mansion, and in doing so became a shadow of myself. I became acquainted with the people who lived in the house by merely observing them. The scullery maids and the liveryman I knew by name. There was a maid called Agnes, and another called Sarah. Several workingmen who were in charge of the upkeep of the mansion cleared the grounds, among them a fellow they called Stick, who seemed to be their boss and who occasionally threw me a look. I slinked down the street at such times, but soon enough I was back, reckless in my need to stalk the family. I knew the schedules of the well-dressed women, Block’s grandmother and mother, and an attractive younger woman with a serious expression who went in and out with her friends, all wearing large, extravagant feathered hats and silk cloaks. She was the girl I’d frightened long ago, the one with the rabbit coat. My timing was always off, and I never caught a glimpse of Block himself. Then at last I saw him headed for the doorway, Harry Block, the boy who’d handed over his watch without a fight, now a gentleman of means and responsibilities. He exited a carriage, wearing a fur-collared coat and a silk bowler. He thanked the liveryman, whom I knew to be named Marcus, clapping him on the back good-naturedly before he took the steps two at a time. Block was handsome and well mannered, at ease in the world, as rich men often were. My rage was white-hot. I felt it in my blood. It was as if the day when my father stepped off the dock had happened only hours before. Hochman had been right, the past was what we carried with us, threaded to the future, and we decided whether to keep it close or let it go. Fate was both what we were given and what we made for ourselves.

I hadn’t given up the hatred I carried.

I took to following Block, and soon enough knew his routine. Once I leapt unnoticed and caught onto the rear of his carriage. I hung on as it made its way down Broadway, only inches away from him. My heart pounded as the wooden wheels hit ruts in the street, but my hands clenched the brass railings. I stepped off before the carriage stopped, leaving to ensure I didn’t assault him. He oversaw the factories that belonged to his father, and also had a legal practice in which he served as the attorney for many other factory owners. He was on the boards of several charities, well known for his fund-raising abilities.

I positioned myself outside his family’s mansion on the night an event was held to celebrate the new library that was being built in the Beaux Arts style between Fortieth and Forty-second Street. The building would stand in the place where there had been a man-made four-acre lake with water from the Croton Reservoir, surrounded by a twenty-five-foot Egyptian-style wall. Now a new, larger reservoir had been built in Westchester County, and the library would be considered a true wonder of the city, elegant, enormous, a free education for the people of New York. The party was to raise funds, but it was a gathering outside the usual social hierarchy, for it was unlikely that these donors would ever be invited into the parlor of the Astors, who had given the bulk of the funds. These were Jews, after all, wealthy, but still separate.

I slipped inside by assuring the doorman—whom I recognized as an elderly fellow called Barker—that I’d been sent by the Tribune to take photographs of the event. I had my camera with me, and I showed my press pass, which didn’t mean much but seemed to satisfy the servant. I felt a thief simply walking over the plush carpeting. It was blue and red, a grand Chinese tapestry, and the floors of the entranceway were polished slabs of black and white marble. Another servant of some sort, one who must have been hired for the evening, for I failed to recognize him, led me past a telephone room fashioned of golden oak into the great hall, where there was a hanging Tiffany lamp of enormous proportions that cast a warm glow. The woodwork gleamed, and there were angels carved into the wooden cornices. The family was gathered here, including the father, my own father’s old employer. The senior Mr. Block seemed to have some illness, as he was unable to leave his chair. I took my time in setting up my camera. I was not the only photographer. The family had hired a society fellow I knew, Jack Hailey, who had access to Manhattan’s elite, and acted as if he wasn’t a lowly newsman. He was annoyed by my presence and told me in no uncertain terms he planned to sell photographs to the papers so I shouldn’t bother trying to sell mine.

“Fuck you, Hailey,” I said. “Kiss their asses if you want. I’ll do as I please.”

The young woman who was Harry’s sister happened to overhear. She was tall and refined with a solemn demeanor. She gazed at me, concerned, then turned to whisper something in her brother’s ear. He patted her arm in a comforting but somewhat condescending manner. Harry’s sister had turned out to be attractive though she hadn’t been a pretty girl. When she wasn’t surrounded by her silly friends, her expression was thoughtful, her eyes bright with intelligence. I’d seen her turn down glasses of champagne, and I noticed she kept to herself. Her personality seemed rather serious, and I imagined that she would have chosen to walk away from the festivities and have a moment to herself, preferring to sit on a park bench under an elm tree, for instance, watching the dark filter through the branches like any common woman. But she wore so many diamonds she would have been robbed in an instant.