“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.”
Ian started to get up, but Nina swung her legs back inside the windowsill, dropping her boots on his back. “Seven more.”
“Bugger off,” he said, but lowered himself down toward the floor again. Ninety-four . . . ninety-five . . .
Tony flung himself down at the table, moving a paperback of Nina’s called The Spanish Bride. “I’ll need to supply references. Write me something glowing, boss?”
Ian finished the last press-up, shoved his wife’s boots away, and flopped on his back on the floor. “What name?”
“Run ’em for my real name. Tony R, born and raised in Queens, enlisted right out of Grover Cleveland High