Whistling in the Dark Read online

  Whistling in the Dark

  Tamara Allen

  Lethe Press

  Maple Shade, NJ

  Copyright ©2009 by Tamara Allen. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and events are the author's creation or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Published as a trade paperback original by Lethe Press, 118 Heritage Ave,

  Maple Shade, NJ 08052

  ISBN 1-59021-049-2 / 978-1-59021-049-9

  Cover art by Lorraine Brevig

  Book Design by Toby Johnson

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Allen, Tamara.

  Whistling in the dark / Tamara Allen.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 1-59021-049-2 (alk. paper)

  1. Gay men--Fiction. 2. Pianists--Fiction. 3. World War, 1914-1918--Veterans--Fiction. 4. New York (N.Y.)--Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3601.L4365W47 2009

  813'.6--dc22

  2008051308

  To Eric, Nick, and Robyn

  for their love and support

  My grandmother, Hallye

  for her inspiration

  And my great-grandfather, Harry

  I wish I could have heard you play.

  - One -

  Fifty cents secured the last private room at the 41st Street hotel, but the musty sheets and the brazen frolic of mice under the bed left Sutton thinking he should have saved the change and slept on the sidewalk. Awakened in the wee hours by a pounding at the door, he was convinced of it. Rising, he felt his way to the door and cracked it open, to be blinded by police lanterns. The frightening thought that his family had sent police after him woke him fully and he shielded his eyes as much to hide his face as block the light. "What is it? What do you want?"

  Behind the light, an irritated voice muttered, "It ain't him. Too young." Another offered an officious apology as a gloved hand grabbed the doorknob and shut out the intrusion, leaving Sutton in the dark, listening to a noisy retreat.

  They were looking for a lawbreaker. And that wasn't him. Not yet, anyway. Deciding he'd had enough sleep, he dressed and left the hotel, amid the crash and squabble of policemen still searching door by door. He headed east, away from glum apartments as worn down as he felt, away from the odors of fish and sewage and coal fires, toward the distant lights that promised shops and restaurants and possibly jobs.

  Though only October, he felt chilled in his coat. From street lamp to street lamp he walked, all but holding his breath in between, in awe of the darkness that hid doorways and stairwells and swamped passages between buildings. He'd never been fond of the dark and, while this wasn't nearly as miserable as huddling in a dugout hours before dawn, he found the strain to his hearing and eyesight an altogether too familiar experience.

  This wasn't the New York he remembered from the handful of trips taken in the shelter of family and friends--nor the one that had been a passing rush of color, light, and noise on his way overseas. The trip home from France was only a memory of endless parades; even now, he could see traces of confetti in the gutters and pavement cracks.

  This New York was bigger and faster than the one he knew. Neither the troopship nor the crowded camp where he'd trained had seemed so rampant with life and movement. It brought to mind the enormous beehive he and the neighbor boys had once knocked out of an oak at his grandfather's farm. It had been a wild race back to the house and he'd still been stung. His grandfather had joked that it was a lesson in doing unto others. His father had said in all seriousness that if you thwart a fellow's industry, you can expect to bear his wrath. Sutton remembered being astonished that so many creatures could dwell in such close quarters and still carry on as if they had all the room in the world.

  This humming nest of humanity appeared to be managing it nicely and, further, took no notice of him whatsoever. Everyone he passed seemed to know the trick of surviving where you knew no one and no one wanted to know you. He saw it in their faces. And it was a secret they were not predisposed to share. Let him scramble as they had. It had been his own decision to jump in. Let him sink or swim. No one would bend the rules for his sake.

  That was all right. He wouldn't ask them to.

  "Well, hello."

  The voice out of the darkness made him jump. He noticed then that his meandering had led him to a park. Dense stands of trees and hedges hid paths. A match flared and the stranger lit a cigarette. "You're at the hotel down the street." He offered Sutton a cigarette and when Sutton declined it, shrugged. "Know I've seen you. Lonely place, ain't it?"

  "The mice don't seem to find it so."

  The comment won him a chuckle and the man moved nearer. "Yeah, it ain't too clean, either. You leaving, then?" He nodded at the suitcase.

  "Yes, probably. The Y might have something later tonight."

  The man drew on the cigarette. "Not likely. Soldiers, they're taking the rooms. Taking the jobs. You a soldier?"

  "I was," Sutton said, expecting that would end the conversation.

  "How many of them Jerries you spike?" He made a spearing motion and Sutton, uneasy, backed away. The man stepped into the lamplight, hands upraised. "I didn't mean nothing. Wanted to go over, myself. Bum knee." In the light, he looked older and wearier. "I'm Lem, by the way. Sure you won't stay another night? You can bunk with me and we'll split the cost. Hell, I'll pay the whole thing. I just hate sleeping alone. You know how it is."

  Maybe it was the man's self-deprecating grin or the clumsy invitation, but Sutton believed him. "You want to share a room?"

  "You thinking about it?" Lem kept his voice low, as if they were conspirators plotting something illegal--which Sutton supposed they were. But as lonely as he was, he couldn't bring himself to rush into something new. Lem might provide a distraction, but he would also be a reminder. Sutton needed more time to forget.

  "I'm not looking for a--roommate. Or for anything else, except a job."

  Lem caught his sleeve. "You're making it a whole lot more complicated than it is. Honest, just one night. Keeps you from being alone. Keeps me from being alone." Fingers circled his wrist, a callused thumb brushing his palm. "What's your name?"

  Blinding white light hit them. Lem swore with sudden vehemence and broke to run. The policeman grabbed him. Sutton realized it was the same officer who'd been searching the hotel. A second officer looked Sutton up and down. "Well, damn. You get lost on your way back from the ball, Cinderella?"

  Confused, Sutton shook his head, but the first officer cut in. "On his way back to Yonkers, more like. Chasing after kids now, are we?"

  The last, directed at Lem, provoked an indignant sputter. "The hell with you. It was he come up to me, not the other way 'round. He's the one with the hotel room," he added with a nod at Sutton's suitcase.

  Shaken, Sutton tried to explain himself, but Lem continued to complain so ferociously, he couldn't get a word in. The policemen turned a deaf ear to them both and walked them across the road to the wagon. At the police station, Sutton was shown to a crowded cell; most of the men were asleep on benches or, worse, the stained cement floor. In one corner, a noisy group laughed and carried on, unperturbed by the surroundings. They paid him no mind, except one dark-haired man his own age who bold as brass winked at him. Sutton moved to a relatively unoccupied corner and wrapped his hands around metal bars like ice. He hoped the wait would only be a few hours, because he didn't think he could bring himself to use the toilet in the
corner. And he couldn't fall asleep. He didn't dare.

  - Two -

  In the cell, Lem grinned as if it were all a game. "You know, we'll be out in a few hours. Come over and sit with me. No one'll care."

  Sutton looked at him in disbelief. "We're in jail."

  Lem shrugged. "If you're going to be arrested for it, might as well enjoy it. Enjoy what you can. You ought to know that better than anybody, soldier boy."

  "Have you done so before--in here?"

  "Heaps of times." Lem's grin came back. "You thinking about it?"

  "I'm thinking I'd like to be alone for a while."

  "Not going all moral on me, are you?" Lem pressed closer and laid a clammy hand on the back of Sutton's neck. "Come on, then," he said softly. "I'll warm you better than whiskey."

  Sutton tried to pull away, but Lem's grip firmed as if Sutton were a stray pup to keep in check. "Cozy corner for us over here," he said, and pushed Sutton toward it. Sutton resisted, with a push that sent Lem stumbling backward to land hard on a bench. Lem was on his feet instantly, easy-going pretense gone, and Sutton backed away, though there was nowhere to go.

  "For Christ's sake." The dark-haired fellow had wandered over. "Here, have a drink." He held out a flask and Lem, after a hostile glance at Sutton, accepted it. "Name's Jack," the fellow went on cheerfully. "I'm getting up a card game. Want to join? One of us'll win enough to pay up when they collect the fines."

  Sutton felt sick under an assault of fresh anxiety. A fine--and the alternative would no doubt be a lengthy prison sentence. He grasped hopelessly for a way out that didn't involve asking his father for the money.

  "Your first time?" The dark-haired fellow--Jack--watched him with a certain sympathy. "Waiting's the worst. Come over and play a few hands."

  It might be a welcome distraction--but telephoning his father to pay a gambling debt in addition to a fine would decidedly not improve the situation. "I'd just like to be alone, if you don't mind."

  Jack shrugged. "Offer stands, if you get tired on your own."

  Three hours later, Sutton had to agree the waiting was something other than enjoyable. The only break from worry came when the policeman inquired after a John Smith and half the men in the cell stood. Sutton had to laugh and, for a few minutes, awe overtook anxiety. It was all so unreal, so far from anything familiar. It seemed impossible that he could be endless miles from home and in such terrible straits. When he had been expelled from school, he hadn't imagined things could get much worse. He should have been grateful the university trustees hadn't turned him over to the police, then--but he'd felt only disappointment that no one had debated the harm of his caring for David or David for him.

  The idea of returning to Topeka to explain to his family just why he'd been expelled had made his slim prospects in New York seem worth the risk. But days of navigating unfamiliar streets and evading unanswerable questions had taken the shine off the adventure. With no references nor even a letter of recommendation, a job proved difficult to come by. Talk of rising rents had added to his doubts. In a letter, he had confessed to his family that he was in New York--nothing more. He dreaded facing his father after all that had happened. A fellow couldn't breathe around the man without being told just how to do it.

  But now--here he was, in a city that took his breath away altogether. God, how he missed school--and David. He missed the brush of fingers on his hand when David passed him in the crowded halls. He missed the tousled head on the pillow beside his and the arm draped comfortably across his stomach. He missed falling asleep with the scent of Egyptian tobacco in the air.

  Fishing in his coat pocket, he withdrew a folded rectangle of linen paper, the worse for having been unfolded a number of times.

  Sutton,

  I'm sorry we couldn't have a proper good-bye, but it's best this way. You know I won't forget what you've done. Some fellows would've given me up. I wish I could return the favor and help you land on your feet somewhere, but you know the difficulty in it. Perhaps we'll meet in a fairer world. Until then, bonne journee. Think kindly of me, if you can.

  David had been sensible enough to not sign it. Too sensible and ready to call it quits when they might've found a way to see each other. Sutton folded the paper and returned it to his pocket. Had he been in David's place, he wouldn't have been so smart. He might have given up the teaching position, to run away together and start fresh.

  At first light, the cell began to empty as, one by one, prisoners were led away. Another hour crawled by and still Sutton waited, feeling with a sinking heart that he must be last on the list. He dozed off--and what seemed a moment later, the shout of his name startled him awake.

  Chilled to the bone and worried anew, he shivered all the way down the long corridor to the courtroom. He had come up with a plan to sell his best suit in order to pay the fine, if the judge was amenable. But as he stood before a stoop-shouldered man who looked as though he'd been up most of the night himself, the plan seemed suddenly foolish and naive. The judge gave him no more than a glance, but took the paper a clerk handed over and frowned at it. "Degenerate disorderly conduct." He rested his head on his hand and yawned. "And here we have one Sutton Albright?"

  Sutton found his voice. "Yes, sir. If I might--" He cleared his throat. "It's true I was in the company of the man the police were searching for, but only because he accosted me."

  The judge looked at him then. "Why were you wandering about at two in the morning?"

  "I--sometimes don't sleep well. Walking about is a help."

  The frown eased a fraction. "That so? You claim New York residency."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Where are you from? Originally," he said, with a perceptible twitch of his lips.

  "Kansas." The judge waited and Sutton tried to swallow his dread. "Topeka."

  "Topeka," the judge said with a slow nod. "Interesting. I just recently read in the Times about a fellow who made his fortune with the rail line out of Topeka. A Phillip Albright. Any relation?"

  "I'm not sure I understand the need for these questions, sir."

  The judge's hint of a smile became the real thing. "Mr. Albright, I suggest you take whatever money you have in your pocket and buy a ticket back to Topeka. I'm sure New York seemed like an exciting place on your way overseas, but you look to me like a fellow who's run up against more excitement than he'd planned on. Go home and live a long, happy life. I don't want to see you in front of me again." He thrust the document at the clerk. "Get him out of here."

  As the bailiff escorted him from the dock, Sutton's legs threatened to give out from under him. He heard the judge mutter to his clerk. "One more boy in here and I'll take it up with the city, myself. Goddamned war."

  With a firm nudge from the bailiff, Sutton left the courtroom and made his way downstairs to the lobby. His suitcase returned to him, he was back on the street, a street transformed since he'd last seen it. People passed with a purpose in their step. He still shook with relief that he had regained his freedom.

  He couldn't go home. He knew there would be recriminations and he cringed at the thought his parents might decide the war had damaged him in mind as well as body. His sister's beau, John Campbell, had come home from France forever changed. After electroconvulsive treatments, people said he was better. They had insisted he was. But when Sutton had chaperoned his sister on a visit to the Campbell farm, John had been a quiet figure rocking all evening by the fire.

  It was a sight Sutton had never been able to forget. And despite what had happened to John, his own parents might want to turn him over to doctors. His mother would be inclined to think he suffered from some sort of nervous exhaustion she'd read about. Once a doctor assigned a respectable name to his behavior and his father cubbied him into a respectable position to keep him out of trouble, his mother would find a foolish girl willing to trade love for social position and arrange an entirely respectable marriage. The rest of his life neatly mapped out and all he had to do was live it.

  A ste
ady rain fell and people hustled past under umbrellas and wet newspapers. His own umbrella long since sold, Sutton let his hat take the brunt of rainfall. He wanted to walk until he hated New York and felt desperate for home. But by the end of the morning, chilled, damp, sick at heart, he still didn't want to leave. Maybe New York was hard and vast--even a little frightening. But he had seen its promise. He had believed in its possibilities, believed it could ease the heartache that the nightmarish weeks in France had left him. And if those possibilities didn't shine as brightly now, he still wanted to hold on and hope.

  It was just awfully hard to hold on with thirty cents in your pocket.

  On the corner stood a luncheonette, its lit interior beckoning through the plate glass. He fingered the last of his change, trying to decide how best to divide it between dinner and breakfast. If he skipped dinner, he could still while away one last hour over coffee. He could listen to the chatter of strangers and dream that home was here in the city and he was free to live as he liked. Maybe the feeling would stay with him on the dreary walk to the station and the long train ride. Maybe it would even shield him from the grim disappointment in everyone's faces when they saw him again.

  - Three -

  It was something to marvel at, how quickly an hour could pass when a fellow preferred it to crawl along. Sutton shook his head when the waitress asked if he'd like more coffee. She gave him an inquisitive smile. "Suppose I ought to tell you about our specials today. We've got some fine goulash or chowder with toast for ten cents along with your coffee. Since you've already had the coffee..." She was pretty in a tomboyish way, with a figure as straight as a lamp post, carrotty hair that didn't care for the restraint imposed on it, matching freckles--and green eyes so sympathetic, he felt cheered.