In Like Flynn Read Online Free Page A

An ambulance. You didn't see many of those on the Lower East Side. Most people here couldn't afford to be sick in a good hospital that cost money, and wouldn't want to go to a charity hospital, where they were liable to get even sicker. They stayed home and either got well or died. A couple of men in white uniforms were keeping the crowds back as a stretcher was carried out of the building.
    “Another one,” I heard someone saying. “That makes three on this street alone.”
    “What is it?” I asked.
    The woman had a dark shawl draped over her head, in spite of the heat.
    “Typhoid,” she whispered as if saying it out loud would bring bad luck. “Dropping likeflies, they are. They get taken off to the isolation hospital, but it’s too late by then, isn't it? The damage is done.”
    Wailing came from the doorway as the stretcher was bundled into the back of the ambulance and the driver cracked his whip to clear the crowd blocking the street. They parted, suddenly silent, as if wanting to distance themselves as far as possible from the disease. I noticed some women had their shawls wrapped over their mouths now and others pulled the sheets up over the heads of their babies in their prams. I hurried toward more sanitary areas of the city, hoping, even though I was angry with him, that Jacob would be sensible enough to stay well away from those affected with typhoid.
    Twilight was falling as I crossed Washington Square. The remains of a pink glow lit the sky behind the trees, and the air was sweet with the scent of jasmine growing in one of the flower beds. I didn't want to go home and face finding something in the larder to cook for three hungry mouths. The alternative was to visit my friends Augusta Walcott and Elena Goldfarb, usually known as Gus and Sid, across the street instead, which seemed like a much better idea. But I was halfway across the square when I heard shrieks of delight. I recognized those voices and turned around to see two bedraggled urchins, flicking each other with water from the fountain.
    “Shamey, Bridie. Come here at once,” I called, and they came, heads down and giving me sheepish smiles.
    “What do you think you're doing, out this late, and running around in that state?” I demanded. When I saw them at close quarters, they looked even more disreputable. Their hair was plastered to their heads and their clothing was sodden.
    “Holy Mother of God, what have you been doing to your-selves?” I demanded.
    “Just playing in the fountain a little bit,” Shamey said, not meeting my eye. “It was too hot.”
    “Do you take me for a complete idjeet?” I glared at them. “You've been swimming in that river again, haven't you?”
    “Only just getting our toes wet,” Shamey said.
    “Getting your toes wetl Just take a look at the pair of you— soaked from head to toe. What did I tell you about swimming in the East River?”
    “Aw, but Molly, it was hot today and our cousins do it all the time.”
    “I am not responsible for your cousins,” I said. “And you know I don't like you visiting them. They're a bad influence. Come on. Home with you.” I grabbed their wrists and marched them across the square to the street. “And you should have known better than to take your sister,” I said to Shamey. “She doesn't even swim properly yet. She might have drowned.”
    “No, she wouldn't. We keep an eye on her. She just holds onto ropes and bobs from the dock anyway. She don't jump in or nothin'.”
    I sighed. In spite of all my efforts, Shamey was turning into a little New Yorker. We crossed Waverly and headed for Sixth Avenue.
    “I don't jump in,” Bridie said, looking up at me apologetically. “I just stay at the edge, honest, Molly.”
    “But I don't like you in that dirty water, sweetheart,” I said, stroking back her plastered, wet hair. “God knows what is in that river.”
    “Sorry, Molly,” Shamey muttered.
    It was almost dark as we entered Patchin Place.
    “I'm putting on