Chapter 8 - The Third Floor on Transit
Number seventy-four Transit Street was a three-story clapboard house painted the color of wet slate, its front stoop listing slightly toward the curb where the tree roots had buckled the brick sidewalk.
Delaney stood in the center of her small parlor. Three cardboard boxes sat taped on the linoleum, their sides marked with black grease pencil: Kitchen, Books, Mother’s Linens.
She had changed back into her worn work trousers and a heavy gray wool sweater with sleeves pushed up past the wrists. The room was cold; the radiator beneath the window hissed and clanked, producing more noise than heat, its brass valve leaking a tiny, steady hiss of steam that smelled of old iron.
A knock sounded at the door—three deliberate, heavy raps that rattled the thin pine panel.
Delaney walked across the floorboards and opened it.
Elias Ferraro stood on the landing. He was alone; Auggie had remained with the car in the street below. He had his overcoat unbuttoned, his hat held in his left hand, revealing his dark, neatly combed hair.
“The landlord told me downstairs that you gave notice,” Elias said, looking past her into the sparse room.
“I’m paid through the end of the month,” Delaney said, leaning against the doorframe. “I don’t like staying in rooms after the business there is finished.”
“Where are you going?”
“There’s a small place near the docks in Bristol,” she said. “My mother’s sister had a cottage there with an apple tree behind the shed. It needs a roof, but the air doesn’t smell like commercial starch.”
Elias stepped into the room. He did not ask permission, but he moved with such quiet respect that the intrusion felt natural, almost ceremonial. He walked to the window and looked out at the chimneys of the East Side sloping down toward the harbor.
“The Meridian is appointing a new general manager on Monday,” Elias said. “A man named Corcoran from the Boston office. He knows how to keep books without altering the delivery manifests.”
“Good for Corcoran,” Delaney said.
“He will need a head of hospitality,” Elias continued, turning back toward her. “Someone who understands that the building doesn’t end at the carpet. Someone who knows that what happens behind the bar is just as important as what happens in the executive dining room.”
Delaney smiled faintly, a dry, sharp expression that did not reach her eyes. “I’m a bartender, Mr. Ferraro. Not an executive.”
“You were a bartender because Vance Hollis took your mother’s name off the civil service rolls,” Elias said. “You spent seven years wiping brass because you believed that staying quiet was the only way to keep a roof over your head while the bills were being paid.”
He reached into his pocket and produced a small, flat box wrapped in brown paper, tied with thin hemp cord. He set it on the taped cardboard box marked Mother’s Linens.
“What is that?” Delaney asked.
“Your mother’s service pin,” Elias said. “The one Ronan Pike took from her lapel when he walked her out the service door in nineteen-ninety-four. It was in the bottom drawer of his desk, beneath three bottles of seized bourbon and an envelope of racetrack stubs.”
Delaney looked at the small brown package. Her hand moved toward it involuntarily, her fingers hovering an inch above the hemp string before stopping.
“Why are you doing this, Elias?” she asked, her voice dropping into a register that was almost harsh. “You got your river parcels. You stopped the redevelopment. You made Vance Hollis look like an old fool in front of the council. You don’t owe me anything.”
Elias walked toward the door, his leather soles clicking against the bare boards.
“My father used to say that there are two kinds of people in Providence,” Elias said, stopping with his hand on the brass latch. “Those who think the city belongs to the man who owns the paper, and those who know it belongs to the man who carries the weight when the paper tears.”
He looked back at her over his shoulder, his gray eyes steady, unreadable, and completely calm.
“You carried the weight last night, Miss Marsh. Noel hasn’t picked up her violin since our mother died three years ago. This morning at six, she was tuning the G-string in the kitchen before the milk was delivered.”
May you like
He opened the door and stepped onto the landing.
“The Bristol cottage has a good well,” Elias added. “Auggie checked the deed this morning. The taxes are paid through twenty-thirty. Don’t rush to leave until the rain stops.”
