A-Splendid-Ruin(89)

“Like this?” I took a few steps across the room.

He winced. “Can you drop your voice an octave?”

“Like this?” I tried.

“I guess that’s the best we can hope for.”

I caught a glimpse of myself in the cracked mirror in Bobby’s bedroom, and I looked nothing like May Kimble. The only thing that gave me away was the slenderness of my face and my jaw, and if I lowered my chin just so . . . Well, I wouldn’t be there for long.

“My guess is that no one else knows the significance of those sketchbooks,” Dante told me as we walked to the Montgomery Block. “So if you come asking for them, they won’t question that he’s sent you. Just don’t act nervous.”

Shin had promised to do her best to keep Ellis occupied.

“I’m not nervous. I’m furious,” I said.

“That won’t serve, either. You’re a messenger boy. You’re bored, and you’re tired of tromping around ruins, and Mr. Farge better give you that nickel he promised because you need a beer and a smoke.”

“I have a whole story, I see.”

Dante chuckled. “Just remember it. It will keep you in character. Like an actor.”

“You’ll be waiting right outside?”

“Looking longingly through Coppa’s window, waiting for the day he clears the smoke damage and reopens. But I’ll come running if anything happens. Do you still have your metal rod?”

“Do you think I’ll need it?” I asked in surprise.

“One never knows. Just be prepared, all right?”

“All right.”

Even having been told that the Monkey Block was still standing, I somehow didn’t expect to see it there, amid a plain of desolation, with people going in and out as if it were just another day at the office. The memories it brought held a gentle despair. Coppa’s, with its cigarette smoke–infused room, the red walls with their animated illustrations, the plates of spaghetti and the wine spilling as it was poured, and everyone crowding around. Blythe and Edith Jackson and Wenceslas and Gelett . . . What did they think about me now, if they thought about me at all? I’d been briefly one of them. Surely gossip had kept me alive for a time, but now I suspected I was not even a ghost at Coppa’s, my drawing on the wall ruined, no doubt drawn over. Nothing of me left. The thought saddened me more than I expected.

Now, the windows of the restaurant were dark. At the corner, still out of sight, Dante touched my arm. “Be careful. Remember, run if it goes wrong. I’ll be waiting.”

“Wish me luck.” I tugged at the canvas bag at my shoulder and took a deep breath.

I went to the door that I had so naively entered over a year ago. But that girl was gone now. I gripped the button in my pocket, reminding myself of everything that had happened, everything I’d vowed to do.

I went up the stairs, my mouth dry with nerves, reminding myself to look like some messenger boy on business and hoping no one looked too closely. It was dim inside. Like the rest of the city, there was no gas or electricity here. Light came from whatever studio doors were open, or oil lamps. I tried not to think of what I would do if the sketchbooks weren’t there.

They had to be there. The thought of Ellis carefully copying them, my creation turned to his hand, that plaque on the library wall bearing his name instead of mine . . . Anger cleared my head. Beyond the windowed door of Farge & Partners moved shadows. Inside, an assistant I didn’t know spoke to two dark-suited men hovering about the desk. I paid them little attention. When the assistant glanced at me, I lowered my voice and tilted my head down, not meeting his eyes. “I’m here to pick up Mr. Farge’s sketchbooks. He’s asked for them.”

The assistant barely looked at me. He nodded and called, “Robinson!” When a tall young man appeared, the assistant said, “Mr. Farge needs his sketchbooks. Take the boy back to get them.”

My heart raced as Robinson led me down the hall. The place was busy; I met no one’s eye and no one looked twice at me, a nobody, as Dante had been at the balls where I had not seen him. He’d been right; I was invisible. The door to Ellis’s office was locked, but Robinson took a key from his pocket and opened it, ushering me into a room so familiar with its smells of paper and ink and Ellis that it momentarily knocked me back. I had leaned over that desk with him, looking at plans. I had discussed the Hartford standing right there. And all the time, he’d been scheming with Goldie. All that time, he’d been meaning to rob me, not just of my freedom and my dignity, but of my talent.

“There.” Robinson pointed to a bookcase where my sketchbooks were neatly shelved. “Do you need some help?”

“No, thanks.” I tried to growl the words. I opened the canvas bag and shoved the books inside while Robinson stood by and watched. The familiar feel of their covers, their weight . . . I had missed them. Once I had them all, Robinson led me out of the office and locked it behind him.

“Good day,” he said.

I hurried back to the door. The assistant was still talking to the men; no one looked at me or seemed to note my departure. It was all I could do not to race down those stairs. “You’re a messenger boy. You’re bored and you need a beer and a smoke.”

I did not relax until I was out of the building. It was done. It was done, and they were in my hands again, and the thought of what Ellis would do now that his inspiration was gone . . . I couldn’t help smiling—a smile that faded when I saw Dante running panicked toward the door.