“You just take this pie, dearie, and I’ll whisk on up!”
For a moment Jordan stood on the doorstep with the pie in her hands. She wanted to dash down to the darkroom and hide until everyone went away, but Garrett was sure to come looking if she went there, and Jordan didn’t think she could take one more bear hug.
“You want a ride, miss?” The taxi driver who had dropped Mrs. Dunne on the doorstep leaned out the window of the cab.
“Yes,” Jordan said, half stupefied. “Yes, I want a ride. Clarendon and Newbury.”
IT WASN’T UNTIL halfway to the shop that she came out of her daze in the backseat and realized she was still holding a lemon meringue pie. She almost burst out laughing, or maybe burst out crying. Dad’s favorite. Jordan scrounged enough change to pay the driver and climbed out in front of McBride’s Antiques, pie dish still in hand.
The door had a black crepe bow on the knocker. Jordan tore it off, fishing her keys out of her pocketbook. The shop was dusty in the late-afternoon sunshine; it had been closed up nearly three weeks. Jordan flipped the sign to Open without thinking, setting the pie down on an antique ceramic birdbath, and wandered behind the counter. She traced her father’s initials in the dust, biting back an almost irresistible urge to call out—Dad?—because surely that meant the backroom door would open, and she’d see him there, smiling as he said What can I do for you, missy? All she had to do was call out. It hadn’t been him in the hospital bed. It was all a mistake.
The sob that broke out of her was huge and noisy, echoing in the tomb-silent shop. Jordan gripped the counter, welcoming the tears. “Jesus, Dad,” she whispered. “Why didn’t you buy the right shells? Why did you have to use that old gun instead of a new one that wouldn’t blow up in your face?”
The bell over the shop door tinkled. “Excuse me . . .”
Jordan looked up from the counter, heaving a breath around the solid wall in her chest. “What?” Through the blur in her eyes she could see a young man in the doorway, hands in his pockets.
“Do you work here, miss?” He closed the door behind him with another jingle of the sweet-toned bell. Her father had polished that bell every week, keeping it bright. “I’m here about a job.”
“Job?” Jordan echoed. She couldn’t seem to focus. She blinked hard, once, twice. Why did I come here?
“There’s a Help Wanted sign.” The young man jerked his thumb at the window. “I saw a German fellow last week as he was coming in—”
“Mr. Kolb?”
“Right. But he said I’d have to speak with the owners.”
Help Wanted. Her dad had put that sign up the week he died, looking for a clerk. Some suave fellow or pretty girl to work the counter. Jordan blinked again, focusing on the man standing on the other side of the counter now. Olive skinned, dark haired, lean, about Jordan’s height, maybe four or five years older. Anneliese wouldn’t like that loose collar, the rumpled dark hair without a hat. Sloppy, she’d say with that Germanic tut-tut.
“Anton Rodomovsky,” he said, offering his hand. “Tony.”
“Jordan McBride,” she replied, shaking it automatically.
“What position are you looking to fill?” he asked after a moment’s silence. “You’ve got your German fellow, what’s he do?”
“Mr. Kolb does restoration work. My father—” Jordan stopped again.
“So you need a clerk, maybe?” Tony smiled, lean cheeks creasing. “I know absolutely nothing about the antiques business, Miss McBride, but I can work a register and I can sell ice to Eskimos.”
“I don’t—know if we’re hiring. There’s been a death. The owner—” Jordan stopped, looking down at the dusty counter. “Try back next week.”
Tony looked at her a long moment, smile fading. “Your father?”
Jordan managed a nod.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
She nodded again. She couldn’t seem to move, just stood like a pillar in her ugly black dress behind the counter.
“There’s a pie in a birdbath over there,” he said eventually.
“Everyone keeps bringing me pie,” Jordan heard herself say. “Ever since he died. Like lemon meringue fixes anything.”
He picked Mrs. Dunne’s pie up out of the birdbath, deposited it on the glass counter, then went to a display case where a set of thirteen apostle spoons had been laid out in a fan. He brought back two spoons, offering one to Jordan.
Jordan’s chest felt like it was about to burst. She dug a heaping spoonful out of the middle of the pie and jammed it into her mouth. It tasted like absolutely nothing. Ashes. Soap shavings. My father is dead. She ate another heaping spoonful.
Tony levered up a bite of his own. Chewed, swallowed. “This is—very good pie.”
“You don’t have to lie.” Jordan kept eating. “It’s terrible pie. Mrs. Dunne never uses enough sugar.”
“Where can you get good pie in Boston, then? I’m new in town.”
“Mike’s Pastries is pretty good. The North End.”
Tony jabbed the apostle spoon back into the meringue. “Looks like I’m going to Mike’s Pastries to get you something decent.”
“You don’t have to—”
“I can’t bring your father back. I can’t make you feel anything but sad. I can at least make sure you don’t have to eat lousy pie.”
“I don’t want any more goddamn pie,” Jordan said and burst into tears. She stood there crying into Mrs. Dunne’s crummy meringue, hiccuping and gulping. Tony Rodomovsky fished a handkerchief from his pocket and pushed it quietly across the counter, then went to turn the shop sign around from Open to Closed. Jordan wiped her streaming eyes, shoulders heaving. My father is dead.
“I’m very sorry to intrude, Miss McBride,” Tony said. “I’ll leave you alone now.”
“Thank you.” There was a fresh explosion of sobs building up in her chest, making its way through the chink in the bricks; all she wanted to do was cry it out. But she stamped it down for a moment, pushing her damp hair off her forehead and looking squarely at her Good Samaritan. “Come back Monday, Mr. Rodomovsky.”
“Sorry?”
“My stepmother will want a proper application and some references,” Jordan said, scrubbing at her eyes. “But as far as I’m concerned, you’ve got a job.”
Chapter 26
Ian
May 1950
Boston
Success!” Tony burst through the door of their newly rented apartment. “I have officially made contact.”
Ian grunted acknowledgment, stretched out on the floor between window and table, halfway through his daily set of one hundred press-ups. “How?” he pushed out between counting. Ninety-two, ninety-three . . . His shoulders were burning.
“What target?” Nina sat on the sill of the open window with her feet hanging out over a four-story drop, eating tinned sardines straight out of the tin.
“McBride’s Antiques.” Tony flung his jacket over a nail by the door, which was all they had for a hat rack. “Frau Vogt said the Boston shop dealing documents to war criminals under the counter was McCall Antiques, McBain Antiques, Mc-Something. The only remotely close match in the city is McBride’s Antiques. You are looking at their newest clerk.”