This story is reconstructed based on FBI records.
A historical novel.
I had counted twenty-three hands when Esther Levin vanished behind the shoulders of two men I knew. One chair went over, then another. Her hat stayed on the table beside my tally sheet. I dropped the pencil and pushed into the aisle, calling her name, but the men had already turned her toward the stairs. I had promised her a safe walk out of that meeting. The workers had let my people stand by the door because I made that promise. Now nobody could see whether she was walking or being carried.
A cutter named Isaac caught my sleeve. I shook him loose harder than I intended and stepped over a fallen chair. At fifty-two I could still move quickly across a cutting floor, provided nothing unexpected lay underfoot. Here every foot seemed planted against mine. Someone shouted that I had arranged it. Someone else told the workers to sit down. Neither voice belonged to Esther. I reached the doorway and found one of Morris Bell's boys holding it almost shut, his shoe against the bottom. He looked relieved to see me. That was worse than being challenged.
“Move,” I told him. He opened his mouth, perhaps to explain, and I drove my shoulder into the door. The edge struck the wall. Below me Esther's shoe scraped a stair tread, a small dry sound that carried above the shouting. I went down three steps at once. On the landing, a broad back blocked the light from the street door. I knew the back, the patched elbow, the hand resting on the rail. These were men I had eaten with after late work, men who had once come running when a shop owner threatened to put me outside.
Workers crowded down behind me. Isaac had recovered his balance and was carrying one of the broken chair legs. Farther below, Esther twisted enough for me to see her face. She was angry, not pleading. “You said together,” she called. The man beside her pulled her onward. I could have struck the fellow on the landing. I knew where his jaw would be when he turned. Instead I put both arms across the narrow stair and faced the men coming down. “Not here,” I said. “You'll put somebody over the rail.” Isaac tried to duck under my arm.
I caught his coat and held him. Behind me the street door opened; cold air climbed the stairwell. I heard a motor laboring at the curb. Isaac drove his shoulder into my chest, and I shoved him back against the others. The chair leg dropped between our feet. For a moment all our strength went into keeping ourselves upright. Then the street door slammed. I let go. The silence immediately below us told me what I had done. I had kept the stairs clear for my own crew. Whatever I called my intention, that was the work my hands had performed.
Outside, a truck pulled away with its rear gate hanging crooked. I ran after it, past a delivery wagon and a boy carrying bread in a basket. Through the cab window I saw Morris Bell's brown coat beside the driver. Its pale collar had rubbed my cheek often enough when he embraced me. I shouted his name. He did not turn, or I could not see him turn. A streetcar crossed ahead of me, grinding through the intersection. I stopped so sharply that my knees folded. By the time its last window passed, the truck was beyond a knot of wagons.
I followed another block anyway, running badly now, my breath scraping. At the corner I had to choose between two streets, and I chose the wrong one. There was no truck, only a woman shaking a small rug above an areaway. I asked whether she had seen it. She kept shaking the rug. I stood beneath the falling dust and understood that I had lost Esther twice: first on the stairs, then here by pretending speed could make up for knowledge. I started back, looking into every cab and open truck bed I passed.
The meeting had broken apart by the time I returned. Men stood along the pavement with their hats on, speaking in pairs that closed when I approached. Esther's hat lay on the first stair. I picked it up and carried it carefully, foolishly, as though that proved anything. Upstairs I put my hand on the meeting-room latch. It moved halfway and stopped. A chair scraped inside; then something heavier slid across the floor. “Open up,” I said. Nobody answered. I pushed once, felt the solid resistance, and took my hand away. The workers had barred their door against me.