by Kat Ross
Mrs. Rivers smiled. “Because it usually is, dear.”
“Well, that’s not…fair.”
“At least one of you knows how to forgive. You might do well to follow John’s example.”
I scowled.
“So what is this grand party you’re going to?”
“Edward got us invitations. He thinks Becky’s mysterious paramour might be there.”
“And how will you know if he is?”
“Not a clue.”
Mrs. Rivers patted my hand. “You’ll figure it out, dear. You always do.”
Somewhat mollified, I rested my head on her shoulder. She smelled of lavender and Microbe Killer, which was actually rather pleasant.
When we got home, Connor was waiting for us on the front steps. He’d charmed Alice into buying him a bag of sweet rolls, which he handed round in the kitchen while Mrs. Rivers made a pot of tea. I watched the clock with mounting impatience. Finally, I managed to get Connor alone and borrowed
an old set of his clothes, short britches and a loose button-up shirt with stains that smelled suspiciously like beer.
“Whatcha want those fer, Harry?” he asked suspiciously.
I’d considered bringing him along, but finally decided it was too dangerous. Besides, the people I needed to talk to would be more likely to open up if I was alone.
“Just something I have planned for tomorrow,” I said, tucking my hair into a newsboy cap and surveying the results in the mirror. “What do you think?”
I figured I could pass for a boy if the lighting wasn’t too good, which you could pretty much count on in a dive like the Bottle Alley Saloon.
“You could be one of the Butchers, if you wasn’t so old.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment!” I said, kissing him on the cheek. “Goodnight, Connor. Thanks.”
He squinted at me. “Night, Harry. And bring those back when yer done.”
I was becoming an expert at sneaking out of the house undetected, a feat that was aided by Mrs. Rivers fondness for dry gin at bedtime. She referred to it as a “tot,” although a tumbler would have been more accurate. In any event, she was snoring gently when I tiptoed past her room and out the front door.
Nightfall had done little to ease the searing heat of August. Still, as I walked east to catch a streetcar on Broadway, a feeling of exuberant freedom stole over me. Bare legs! On the street! I almost laughed aloud at the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) looks of distaste on the faces of the ladies and gentlemen I passed, sweating in their long sleeves and multiple layers of clinging fabric.
When I stopped to pat the flank of a beautiful chestnut gelding at the curb and had to nimbly dodge a swipe from the driver’s whip, I knew my disguise was working.
“Keep yer filthy hands to yerself!” he shouted at me as I danced out of range.
This was Connor’s life, the good and the bad. I had a sudden amusing image of dressing him up as a rich girl and letting him be me for a day. All things considered, I doubted he’d care to make a switch.
It was the first time I’d ever gone out at night alone. I realized that there was the New York of the daytime, the one I knew. And then there was New York after dark, when a very different city awoke. The air hummed with its usual energy, but it had a wilder quality. Like anything was possible.
I hopped on a streetcar headed downtown. We passed Harry Hill’s Dance Hall at Houston and Broadway, where it was rumored that Mr. Hill kept a private room in which his patrons could sober up before they went home, since a well-dressed man reeling down the street was practically an engraved invitation for robbery. Concert saloons like the nearby Gaiety seemed to draw a wider clientele, and though it was early yet, a boisterous crowd overflowed into the street.
Everywhere, everywhere, were people, louder, looser and yes, happier than I was used to. Handsome and ugly, young and old, rich and poor. Dressed by Saville Row tailors, and sporting rags that made my own outfit seem like finery. New York after nightfall belonged to the whores and the gamblers, the lovers and the brawlers, the pickpockets and their drunken marks. It was a true democracy in action.
A pair of showgirls in bright red garters and ruffled drawers ran giggling into a waiting carriage at Canal Street, their ascent aided by a white gloved man whose face was shadowed by a gleaming top hat. And in that brief instant, my buoyant mood deflated.
Because I knew that he was out there tonight too.
It had been three days since Anne Marlowe was killed. He would be feeling the urge by now. I wondered if he fought it, or if he had stopped even trying.
I kept my head down as I hopped off the streetcar at White Street and walked east to Baxter. If the Five Points seemed depressing by day, the lack of gas lamps made it downright frightening at night. It was too dim to see where to put my feet, but from the squelching sounds my boots made, I figured I’d walked through enough horse manure to fertilize the Polo Grounds baseball diamond.
There were noticeably fewer people on the streets here. I supposed it was safer to stay indoors. And for the ones who sought excitement—or prey—the action lay elsewhere. I felt eyes on me as I passed, but they were mostly indifferent. I was so busy being invisible that I nearly went right past the Bottle Alley Saloon.
It was easy to miss. There was no sign, just a little piece of plywood that said “distillery.” The door was at the bottom of a flight of stairs, across which a man lay sprawled. He seemed in a stupor, so after a moment’s hesitation, I took one step over his prone body, placing my right foot in the crook of his arm. I was just lifting my left foot to reach the second step when his eyes flew open and a hand with a surprisingly strong grip closed around my ankle.
“Where yer going, boy?” he slurred.
I kicked in a panic, but he didn’t let go. I’d thought him to be elderly, but I could see in the yellow light spilling from the bar that he was young, and cheap alcohol had ravaged his features into a puffy, veiny mask.
“Get off!”
“No one goes in without my say-so,” he said, pulling himself half upright as I hopped on one foot and struggled not to fall in his lap. “I’m the bouncer. Fat Kitty pays me to keep order, and by God, I’ll know yer business boy or I’ll cut out your liver and feed it to Kitty’s dogs.” He laughed. “They’re always hungry, the poor bastards.”
“I’m Becky’s brother!” I said, giving another futile yank. “Sir, I’m Becky’s brother.”
He frowned. “Didn’t know Becky had a brother.”
“I came from the country, sir, upstate.” I lowered my voice and hoped I sounded more like a boy. “Our mother sent me to claim the body.”
His death grip slowly relaxed. “I liked Becky,” he said. “Everyone did. She bought me a drink once.”
“Did you know her well?” I asked, thinking that I might not even have to go inside, the prospect of which was less appealing by the second.
“Nah. Kitty did though.”
“Is she here?”
“Nah. She took the night off to see a show.”
“Oh.” I tried to hide my disappointment. “Can you let go of me now?”
He looked down at his hand as though he’d forgotten it was there. “I guess so. Charlie knew her too.”
“Is Charlie inside?”
“What?” his eyes were already at half-mast again.
“Charlie. Is Charlie inside?”
“Dunno. Go on and find out if you want.”
And with that he resumed his position on the stairs and went back to sleep.
“Thank you,” I said, to no one, and continued my journey down the steps into the Bottle Alley Saloon without further interruption.
My first impression was of a root cellar. The floor was bare earth, just like the one where Becky had held the séance. But Fat Kitty had apparently decided that her customers deserved a touch of class, because she’d covered the walls with splashy posters advertising the “British Blonde Burlesque Troop” and “The Hurly Burly Extravaganza.”
The bartender sat on a stool in front of a poster of “The Beautiful Indian Maidens,” whose feathered headdresses seemed to be the only “Indian” thing about them.
“Let’s see your money first, kid,” he said wearily.
The lighting wasn’t great, but I guessed the bartender was about eleven years old.
“I’m looking for Charlie,” I said. “Is he around?”
“She’s over there,” he said, pointing to one of the figures nursing a drink in the far corner. And then, warningly: “She ain’t workin’.”
“Oh.” I tried not to blush. “I’m not here for that. I just want to talk to her.”
He gave me a last hard look and nodded. “Go on then. But this place is for paying customers.”
I threw a nickel on the bar and he seemed satisfied.
“Slow tonight. Maybe it’s them killings in the papers. They’re calling him Jekyll and Hyde.” The boy spat in the dirt. “Let ‘im come in here. I’ll give ‘im a taste of the old enforcer.” He flexed his skinny arms and glanced meaningfully at a bat studded with rusty nails that was propped behind the bar.
“Jekyll and Hyde?” I repeated. Of course, it would be all over the news by now. We’d missed it up in Cassadaga.
He shrugged.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde had just been published two years before, and was an instant best-seller. It told the story of a man who became a monster, who had two distinct personalities. One good, one evil. But how could they know?
“Nellie,” I muttered.
“What?”
“Never mind.”
I wandered over to the corner. Two women sat there, laughing quietly with each other. They looked up as I approached.
“I’m not working,” the older one said immediately.
“I know. I’m not…My name is Harry. I’m Becky’s brother. Are you Charlie?”
There was a long silence.
“What do you want?” the same woman asked. She had thick black hair and might once have been beautiful, but her front teeth were missing. The others looked white and strong. Someone had knocked them out.
“I’m trying to find a man who gave her something. A book. It was about a week before she died. He gave it to her here, so I thought maybe someone…” I trailed off.
“Poor Becky,” she said. “You’re her brother?” She scrutinized me. “You don’t look nothin’ like her.”
“We had different mothers,” I said. “But she’s my only sister. Please.”
Charlie glanced around the bar. The kid was busy paring his nails with a huge knife, and the two other patrons were face down on a plank.
“I don’t know his name,” she whispered. “But yeah, I was here that night. Becky bought a round for the whole place after. She was the happiest I’d ever seen her.”
“Do you remember what he looked like?” I asked in a low voice.
Charlie laughed. “It would be hard to forget.”
“Why’s that?”
“He had a scar across his face. But not just any scar. It was dead white and shaped like a fishhook.” She drew an invisible line from her right eye down her cheek to the corner of her mouth. “He scared me. Didn’t stay long. He handed her a package and took off.”
I nodded, but I barely heard the rest of what Charlie said. The hair on the back of my neck was standing up like the fur of a cat that’s just been goosed. My mind raced, pieces of the puzzle falling into place, one after the other.
Because I knew this man.
His name was Thomas Sweet, and he was the bodyguard of George Xavier Kane, the wastrel son of George Kane, Sr., our host tomorrow night.
I thanked Charlie and stumbled out into Baxter Street. I should have noticed that the bouncer had disappeared, but my thoughts were spinning, rearranging everything I knew in the new light of what I’d just discovered. He was Becky’s lover. Of course he was. George Kane, Jr. had a reputation as being a cad. And Margaret Fox had named the Kanes when she reeled off the list of society people who had used Becky’s services. That’s probably how they met. And Temple Kane…she was feared even by her closest friends. I couldn’t imagine her reaction when she learned that her son, her only son, was sneaking around with her favorite medium. There would be hell to pay.
And Becky had paid it.
But why did he give her a grimoire?
I was just pondering this when a shadow detached itself from the alleyway ahead and began gliding toward me.
Chapter 12
I spun around to run in the other direction, but that way too was now blocked by three men. No, boys. The oldest, who seemed to be their leader from the way he swaggered a few feet in front of the others, couldn’t have been more than sixteen. But he looked strong and vicious.
They spread out across the narrow street. I glanced over my shoulder. The shadow I had seen split into three more, blackjacks swinging from clenched fists. I felt like a fool. Their trap had closed before I’d even realized what was happening.
My pulse set off at a gallop as I considered my options. At least I was dressed as a boy. I prayed they’d be satisfied with roughing me up a little. I was a stranger, and this was their turf. Maybe assaulting interlopers was their usual evening entertainment.
Those hopes were dashed when I caught a blur of movement out of the corner of my eye. I braced for a blow, but instead, the thug yanked my cap off. They all laughed as my hair tumbled free. It wasn’t long, but I guess it was long enough.
That’s when sheer terror set in.
“Let me by!” I yelled. “Help! Somebody help me!”
This just provoked more laughter.
“I’m sure the Filth is on the way,” the leader said, using a slang term for the police. “What do you think, Danny? When’s the last time you saw a cop around here?”
Danny scratched his head. “Dunno.” Then he grinned and pointed to a garbage heap. “Hey, ain’t he buried over there?”
“Help!” I screamed again, even louder.
The windows on all sides remained dark. Somewhere, a dog barked frantically.
The leader crossed his arms and gazed skyward in feigned annoyance. He had flaming red hair and a nose that had been broken so many times it was just a flat knob of flesh. The other two had to be brothers, with identical dark hair and eyes, and the lean, hungry look of kids that had never had enough to eat in their lives.
I couldn’t say what the ones behind me looked like because I was afraid to take my eyes off of Red Hair even for a second. I figured the others wouldn’t attack until he did, or gave a signal.
The Bottle Alley Saloon lay just a block away. If I could somehow get past them, maybe Charlie or the bartender would intervene…
Red Hair seemed to read my mind, because he shook his head sadly.
“If you’re lookin’ fer Pickles, we told him to shove off. Pathetic excuse for a bouncer, if you ask me. Drinks more than the poor sots he tosses out. Now, we’d just like to have a little chat.” He held his hands up. “We work for Mr. Moran. He’s a gentleman, ain’t he, boys?”
They all nodded.
“Why doesn’t Mr. Moran ask me himself?” I demanded. “If he’s such a gentleman.”
“Shut your lip,” Red Hair said coldly, walking towards me. “I know who you are. I know why you’re here.”
I retreated until my back was pressed against the crumbling brick wall behind me. For a split second, I saw a frightened face peek out the window opposite. But whoever it was clearly had second thoughts about the wisdom of witnessing what was about to happen, and the face disappeared just as quickly.
“And why’s that?” I asked, silently berating myself for neglecting to bring Myrtle’s revolver.
�
�Mr. Jekyll,” said one of the dark haired boys, taking a menacing step forward.
“And Mr. Hyde,” said his brother, following suit.
“What is it you want?”
The semicircle began to tighten around me. I looked for something, anything I could use as a weapon, but of course the few square feet I stood on was the only debris-free spot in the whole street. I was just weighing the merits of horse manure as a projectile when Red Hair closed the distance and stood in front of me.
“I want to know—” he began.
He didn’t get any further because I suddenly decided that it was time to put John’s boxing lessons to good use. In Red Hair’s small mind, I was a girl. Girls didn’t hit hard. Therefore, he had nothing to worry about. It was a mistake I doubted he’d ever make again.
I hauled off with a neat right hook that gave his poor abused nose yet another spectacular lump. Before he could recover, I followed it up with a knee to the groin. To my intense satisfaction, Red Hair deflated like a popped balloon.
I leaped over his body and rabbited between the two brothers, who looked utterly astonished that their leader had been felled by a wee lass. But within seconds, I heard hard footfalls in pursuit. They started to gain, and I poured on the steam. Tumble-down buildings flashed by in a blur as I ran, faster than I ever had before. But it wasn’t enough. I could hear them getting closer. And to my growing dismay, I soon became lost in the maze of alleyways.
I’d thought I was headed west for the relative safety of Broadway, but the farther I went, the darker, gloomier and more deserted the area became. There were no street signs, but then I smelled the river and knew I’d gone in the exact opposite direction. I risked a glance over my shoulder. Only two of the boys were still pursuing. But I knew the others hadn’t given up. They were probably circling around to trap me as they had before. I had no illusions that they knew the area far better than I did. It was only a matter of time before I was again hemmed in.
So I made for the water.
Shouts echoed from the adjacent alleyways. Once or twice I heard a strange, trilling whistle that must have been some secret communication. They were tracking me like hounds after a hare. Shuttered warehouses loomed on either side, reeking of fish and brine. The height of the buildings lowered, revealing the orange Hunter’s Moon sailing high in the sky. And then I burst out into the open, near the edge of the wharf. Not far off, the Brooklyn Bridge straddled the river, its massive cables glowing with electric lights, appearing to my night-dazzled eyes like stars fallen to earth.
