“We should get you back home,” Avel said softly. “I’d hate for Maria Josie to worry.”
FIFTEEN
The Red Streets
On her first day at the law office, Luz wore a church dress, not sure what office girls wore. She stood on the busy corner of Seventeenth and Tremont where the triangular Brown Palace Hotel pointed like a ship’s bow. City wind fought against Luz as she crossed the packed street, walking to the row of underground businesses where David’s office nestled in the middle. Opening the slim glass door with his name and the word ESQUIRE stenciled in black, Luz was embarrassed by her hands, her filthy fingernails, her callused palms.
“Right on time,” David said, sipping coffee in shirtsleeves and black slacks. He leaned against a massive bookshelf facing a windowless eastern wall.
Luz lowered her head. She spoke quietly with her hands folded behind her back. “It’s a short walk.”
He approached her, asking for her coat, which Luz removed from her shoulders in a rigid, nervous way. “You can keep your things here,” he said, pointing to a metal hook between two bookshelves. Luz had only seen that many books before in a library. She didn’t know people kept as many themselves, and she wondered who had time to read a wall’s worth of words.
“To begin,” said David, hanging her coat from the rack, “I’ll need help keeping the office organized, papers straightened, books dusted, that sort of thing.”
There were traffic sounds outside, and the floorboards above them creaked. Luz nodded as David led her around the front room, long and narrow, ending at his office door. The room smelled of dust and the burnt stench of the saddlemaker’s labor one business down. In the tiny green bathroom, David pointed to dishes drying on a rack, the cabinet filled with hand towels and unused bars of Ivory soap. In the main room, he patted his pockets and dropped a set of keys into Luz’s hand. “Keep these for the desk and front door.”
Luz placed the keys in her dress pocket and trailed David as he pointed out various filing cabinets, brown husks beneath sash-barred windows.
“These should be locked every evening.” He gestured toward a file drawer marked A–C. Beyond his left shoulder, Luz peered at his diplomas on the wall, the elegant inked calligraphy, the seal of Columbia University. Luz marveled at the small articulated throne.
“Today you’ll straighten paperwork, and next week, from your first wages, I’ll put you into some kind of class for typing at the Opportunity School.” At a dark metal desk, David swiped an olive-colored typewriter’s keys. This, Luz realized, was to be her seat.
“I like the noise,” she said. “Sounds like rain.”
“Good. You’ll hear it a lot.”
In the far corner, David reached into a crate resting on the hardwood floor and removed a stack of papers. He pushed them into Luz’s hands, and she was surprised by their heaviness. “You’ll need to put these in alphabetical order. They’re simple documents, assessors’ notes from various neighborhoods. When you see a neighborhood that starts with B, such as Baker, it goes here.” David opened the first filing drawer and lifted a folder. “And so on and so forth. Any questions?”
Luz shook her head.
“Now if anyone should stop by, you’ll greet them. Say, ‘Good afternoon, sir or madam, the attorney will see you in a moment.’ I’ll teach you how to take appointments soon, but for now, check everyone into the ledger, but wait five minutes before knocking on my door. If I’m in a meeting already, never interrupt.”
Luz said she understood.
David paused his instructions for a moment and glared at Luz’s blue dress. He smiled, his perfect teeth glinting against the office lights. “Do you own anything black or gray?”
“I have a navy blue dress. It almost looks black.”
“That won’t do,” David said with a warm smile. “You’ll still look too pretty.”
Luz blushed.
“I’ll give you an advance for some new dresses. They should be modest yet chic.”
The front door opened then and a tall and commanding white man with a black cane entered from the street. The hissing sounds of trolleys and automobiles rose and fell in volume as he opened and closed the door.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Luz said. “The attorney will see you in a moment.”
David grinned. He said, “It’s fine, Luz. I’m right here.”
Wiping his patent leather shoes on the doormat, the man removed his gloves, and without so much as looking at Luz, handed her his cap and jacket.
“Let’s get on with it,” he said, pegging the wooden floor with his cane as they stepped into David’s office.
When she was alone, Luz sifted through the paperwork, documents she decided were insurance notes on various Denver neighborhoods. In the top corner, neighborhoods were listed, and all along the middle sections the percentage of foreign-born residents, homeowners, and Negroes were tallied, along with other notes concerning the area’s makeup. Trying to decipher the papers reminded Luz of learning to read tea leaves. There was a language, a set of rules, a particular style laid out by generations before her. Sure, these papers were stamped and notarized, but with their watermarks and fading ink, all of it could have been alchemy. When she came upon the Westside, Luz was surprised by what she read.
In this old area, flanked by industrial sections, there are many terraces containing approximately 1,000 living units. Bordering the industrial district is a Mexican concentration. Structures near the railroad yards are cheap, having deteriorated considerably since 1929. Detrimental influences include unpaved streets and the stench from packing plants. Some of these ramshackle terraces have been picked up by speculators.
It was the last part that gave her pause. How could any speculators take interest in the Westside?
* * *
—
When the man with the cane eventually exited David’s office, he walked toward Luz and crunched his hands like flippers. Luz handed him his hat and jacket.
“Consider what I’ve said about this latest manslaughter,” said the man. “It gives you an idea of the prosecutor, to go for such a lenient charge.”
“What else can we expect with the current governor?” said David.
“Human decency,” the man said, stomping past Luz, slamming the front door.
After some time, when all the papers were filed, the bookshelves dusted, and the windows washed, David called Luz into his office, where he was hunched over his desk. Behind him, sprawling over the wall, was an enormous map of the city, Colfax a central stream. Each neighborhood was displayed in a different color, the Westside in red. Along the edges, David had pinned photographs to the wall. Luz shivered at the images of crosses burning over Table Mountain, Klansmen in white hoods marching down Seventeenth Street, the stark photo of a man’s torso flopped over gravel, a group of burned shops, and many empty storefronts like poked-out eyes.
“All finished?” David asked, without looking up from his desk.
“Yes, it wasn’t so bad at all.”
“Very good. You can leave early today to find a new dress.” He reached into the drawer at his side and rummaged around for a moment before handing Luz a five-dollar bill.