City of God

by Swerling, Beverly

  Lilac raised her hand and signaled the waiter to bring two more of the tiny cups of strong coffee so favored by the Italian workmen who lived in the area.

  “You have another coffee if you like,” Addie said. “I don’t think I—”

  “Nonsense. Of course you must have another. One’s hardly enough when they’re so small.” The coffee was served in little glasses set in metal holders that allowed you to pick them up no matter how hot—Italians didn’t seem to understand about proper cups—and another was definitely in order. Addie looked positively constipated with things she wanted to say but hadn’t managed to spit out just yet. “Don’t you worry, Addie dear. It’s my treat.”

  Addie smiled. Then she started to cry.

  “My dear Adelaide, whatever is the matter?”

  Lilac took up her lovely rabbit fur muff (gloves just weren’t enough in this frosty January weather) to look for a handkerchief, but Addie quickly produced one of her own and dabbed at her eyes a few times. The waiter appeared and put their coffees on the small and rickety round table and offered them a bowl filled with lumps of brownish sugar. The cheapest sort on the market, but still two cents a lump, even in this unpretentious little café. “Have two lumps, Addie dear,” Lilac said grandly. “My treat, remember.”

  “Well, if you don’t mind.”

  “’Course I don’t.” Lilac helped herself to three lumps, then waited until the waiter left. “Whatever’s troubling you, my dear? You can tell Lilac.”

  Addie looked around, before leaning forward. “It’s just…”

  “Yes. What?”

  Addie dropped her voice so low Lilac had to lean forward as well to hear her. They were sitting with their bonnets almost touching when Addie said, “All this Maria Monk business, Lilac. I wonder if Mrs. Turner…”

  “Priests, Nuns, and the Confessional,” Lilac said, sighing out the words. “Gives you the chills just saying it, don’t it?”

  “Makes my blood run cold,” Addie said with a shiver. “I could never stay with her, no matter what, if she’s anything to do with dead babies. Even if it means being on the street. You understand, don’t you Lilac?”

  Lilac sat back and dabbed at her mouth with the handkerchief her friend hadn’t needed, lowering her head at the same time so Addie wouldn’t notice how those words had brought a flush to her cheeks. “Of course I do. But dead babies…I really think it’s unlikely your Mrs. Turner knows anything whatever about that.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  A YEAR IT had been after his Penelope died giving birth to Carolina before the hunger burst upon Wilbur Randolf. It arrived with an urgency that could neither be denied nor sated with any shameful rubbing and twisting in the bedclothes, while pretending the sort of half-satisfactory relief such actions brought to be something that had occurred while he slept. He was no longer a pimple-faced youngster having to endure until he could afford a whore or take a wife. He was a man and he wanted—nay, desperately needed—a woman.

  He tried once with Peg the parlormaid. She was willing enough, God knows, but Wilbur suspected that Carolina had seen them, and he resolved never again to indulge in such dangerous behavior. A short time later, in desperation, he’d gone to the third tier of the elegant Park Theater.

  Everyone knew that Jacob Astor, who owned the theater and was said to be landlord of a few of the nearby bordellos, had instructed the ushers to keep that tier in almost complete darkness and ignore whatever went on up there close to the painted ceiling and far above the stage. So when, during the second act of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, while Bianca was insisting, “Of all the men alive I never yet beheld that special face which I could fancy more than any other,” a creature whom he could hardly see but who was definitely female reached over and put her hand on his crotch, Wilbur was not surprised. This was precisely why he’d come. Minutes later she’d undone the buttons of his fly, hiked up her skirts, and straddled him.

  At first Wilbur was so conscious of the others around them—many of whom were grunting and groaning in such a way he knew them to be engaged in the same activity—he was afraid he could not perform. The woman knew exactly how to deal with that. “Three dollars rather than two,” she whispered in his ear, “and I’ll suck you dry. Guaranteed.” The thought of such a waste of money spurred him on, and he obtained the relief he was after in the customary manner, later sneaking down to the main floor as the ticket he’d purchased entitled him to do and leaving in the company of fashionable Knickerbocker society, as the old Dutch elite called itself. The Beekmans, Bayards, Kents, Livingstons, and Van Rensselaers who were the Park’s regular patrons would have professed total ignorance of the activity in the third tier even in the face of the Spanish Inquisition.

  Randolf went to the theater a few more times that lonely winter but soon realized he did wish to be a face fancied more than any other. Or at least one that was recognized. He determined to bear the expense and went to one of the cheaper bordellos. There he at least got to choose the woman he wanted and spend twenty minutes or so with her in a proper bed. But beyond the most elementary level he wasn’t satisfied with this arrangement either. He would, he realized, have to face the expense of a better class of parlor house.

  That spring he began spending ten dollars a week to have one evening when for an hour or two he had the company of a pretty and well-spoken young woman promised to be disease free, as well as an enthusiastic and inventive bedmate. After about ten years of this he drifted into an arrangement with a lady called Jenny Worthington. Eventually he helped her acquire a house of her own on Bleecker Street where other ladies could book rooms in which to entertain gentlemen friends, but only on nights other than Tuesday or Friday, because those nights were reserved for Mrs. Worthington to receive Mr. Randolf. On these occasions the two of them passed the time until well after midnight enjoying each other’s company in every way possible. It was in fact because the journey up the town from Bowling Green to Bleecker Street and back again became tedious, particularly in bad weather, that after Carolina’s marriage Wilbur sold the house that had been his and Penelope’s and moved to Washington Square. It was a ten-minute walk from there to Jenny’s place on Bleecker.

  On the Tuesday after Carolina’s disturbing visit Wilbur asked Jenny to make some discreet inquiries on his behalf. “A bordello,” he said. “I’ve no idea what sort. But down the town in the area of Cherry Street. One that has Asian ladies, or at least one such.”

  “Asian?” Jenny was obviously perplexed.

  “Yes. Ladies from China, I think. Who paint their faces and put ribbons in their hair.”

  Jenny’s eyes widened. “Well, I never. I mean it never occurred to me. Do you wish to…?”

  They were having a late supper in Jenny’s pretty dining room, where everything was yellow and white, complimenting Jenny’s white lace wrapper. Wilbur leaned forward and covered her hand with his. “Of course I do not, my dear. Why should I when I have you? It’s a business inquiry. Look into it for me, will you?”

  Jenny said she would, and today, when they were once again at supper, she made her report. “Nothing, Wilbur. Not even a hint of anything. I’m told there are some lodging houses on Cherry Street where Chinee men are accommodated and that one old woman has been seen among them, but no other lady of any sort.” She did not mention that she’d also been told the houses in question were owned by Wilbur’s son-in-law. He probably knew that, and he’d perhaps prefer that she did not. “And someone said that old man Astor has a Chinese servant, also an old woman,” she continued. “But not another one in the town. And none I can discover at any bordello or parlor house.”

  “Chinee men but no women? Except for these two old servants?”

  “That’s what I’m told. Perhaps the men are…you know…like sailors who are a long time at sea.”

  “Sailors a long time at sea have few choices as regards their behavior. Men who emigrate without women and do not subsequently send for any? That seems to me another matte
r.”

  Jenny considered the fact that there were bordellos in the city which offered young boys exclusively and were patronized entirely by older men, but she thought it best not to mention that either. Jenny Worthington was nothing if not discreet. “More port, Wilbur?”

  Wilbur allowed her to fill his glass, but he emptied it in one go and pushed away the last of his pheasant pie. “It’s late, my dear. I must leave.”

  It was considerably earlier than he usually left, but Jenny knew her place. She accompanied him to the front door, kissed him good night, and resolved never again to mention the matter of the Asian lady with the painted face and ribbons in her hair. It was not, however, the sort of thing she was likely to forget.

  Most of the men charged with policing the town, whether constables working under the High Commissioner, marshals appointed by the mayor—two per ward—or a member of the night watch called leatherheads because of their helmets, took the job because they were fitted for little else. Here was a way to flex your muscles, sometimes even brawl, and earn money doing it. A few were clever enough to take advantage of ways to increase their income on their own time. Since Wilbur Randolf supplied the raw material to the workshops that made most of the leather helmets, he had no difficulty finding such an after-hours entrepreneur.

  The man he chose had been christened James Michael Flannagan. Irish but not Catholic, from a Belfast family who had sent their sons to the New World soon after the American Revolution. The other Flannagans had become grocers and tavern keepers. James Michael swung a billy. Fearless Flannagan he was called, not as a compliment and not because of any grand courage shown in the face of real gangsters who fought with broken bottles and iron chains. A few years back, when the Common Council tried yet again to outlaw the pigs that roamed the city’s streets, there was another of the hog riots that occurred each time the Council tried to enforce a similar ordinance. The working-class women who kept the pigs as the only source of meat their families could afford, and boarded them in the streets where the animals could feed on free scraps and garbage, defended their bacon with every scrap of energy they could muster. Fearless earned his nickname by beating two of the women senseless, leaving one blind for life. Short, peculiar-looking men with shaved heads and braids down their back were exactly his sort of opponent.

  By the time the others found Fat Cheeks in a nearby alley and brought him to Taste Bad, he was half dead and his queue had been cut off and forced up his rectum. The yi treated him by cleaning and bandaging his many cuts and bruises and using judiciously placed tiny needles to alleviate the pain of his worst injuries, but Taste Bad was at a loss to know how to deal with any possible repercussions. “He talks very little the yang gwei zih talk?” he asked, in an attempt to ascertain how much damage might have been done. “True? True?”

  “Not true,” someone said. “Fat Cheeks was a year on the ships with yang gwei zih sailors. Now here in New York almost a year. Work on docks with yang gwei zih carrying men. Not true. Fat Cheeks learn much yang gwei zih talk.”

  It was worse than Taste Bad first thought. He conferred with Leper Face, and together they decided the wisest course was to say nothing and adopt a wait and see approach to the problem. The Lord Samuel was their conduit to the city and the alien world in which they found themselves. He was also the only reason any of them could imagine why one of their number would have been beaten in a quest for information. But what could Fat Cheeks know that would be of value to an enemy of the lord? Something about the Devrey ships maybe. Something that happened on the docks or during a voyage. Nothing that went on in these so ordinary two houses, nothing that Fat Cheeks could know anything about, could possibly be important enough to get him half killed. Wait and see. That was best.

  “You are quite sure?” Wilbur repeated.

  “Positive.” Fearless sat in a chair across from the man who had offered him five dollars to find a young Asian woman, probably a whore, with a painted face and ribbons in her hair. He was not to approach her in any way, simply to discover where she was and report back. “Lives on the top floor of number thirty-nine Cherry Street,” Fearless said. “Never goes out the door neither. Has a servant, an old woman. She goes out sometimes. Young one has a baby daughter. ’Course, she don’t venture out neither, being only a few months old.”

  “You didn’t speak to her! The young woman, I mean. You didn’t—”

  “Never a word to either woman. Didn’t even see ’em.”

  “Then how can you know—”

  “I was told. By what we in law enforcement call an informant.”

  “But perhaps your informant wasn’t telling the truth. You can’t be sure.”

  “Yes, Mr. Randolf, I can be certain sure.” Little slant-eyed bastard would’ve told on his grandma and his three sisters by the time Fearless Flannagan was done with him. Some o’ the constables working among the porters on the docks knew how it was. Can’t never go home again if they ain’t got them braids in place. Threaten to cut it off and you’ll get whatever you’re after. ’Course, you’d best soften ’em up a bit first. That’s what Fearless had done, soften him up. And when he waved that knife near his head the little bastard sang like a bird. In the end Fearless cut the braid off anyway. Put it where the Chinee wouldn’t have no trouble finding it neither. “Certain sure,” he repeated.

  “Very well.” Randolf reached into a drawer, produced a five-dollar bill, and pushed it across the desk. “Thank you.”

  Fearless made no move to take the money. “There’s a bit more. ’Course, I can’t be sure it’s what you want to know.”

  None of it was what Wilbur Randolf wanted to know. He’d clung to the hope that the woman was simply an exotic whore. If she was not, the whole matter was a good deal more serious than it first seemed. All the same. “If there’s more, of course I want to know it. Five dollars is a not inconsiderable sum, Mr. Flannagan.”

  “Five dollars for finding her, you said. I done that.”

  The bill, drawn on the New York branch of Mr. Biddle’s Bank of the United States, lay on the polished wood between them. Neither man touched it. “Don’t hold with paper money,” Fearless said finally.

  “For God’s sake, man, a bank can’t issue paper unless it has sufficient specie, silver or gold, to—oh, never mind. Coins then.” Randolf swept the bill back into the drawer and produced a handful of change and began counting it out. “There. That should do it. Cash money.”

  “That’s another silver dollar, ain’t it? In your hand there?”

  Wilbur glanced down. “It is.”

  “Put that on the pile and I’ll add a bit to what you know.”

  “Add a bit! We had an arrangement.”

  “So we did. And I kept my part of the bargain.”

  Wilbur put the silver dollar on the table with the rest of the coins, but he kept his finger on it, ready to slide it back if he deemed the additional information not worth the price.

  “Young woman’s been here four years now. Brought over special to marry a white gent as keeps her.”

  “Marry? What do you mean, ‘keeps her’? Who said—”

  “My informant, like I told you. Didn’t use those words o’ course.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t mean—”

  “Oh no. He was sure enough about the married part. Didn’t say keeps her. Said this white gent married her soon as she arrived, and now he comes to see her regular and pays for everything. She lives there on Cherry Street. Has a sort o’ palace on the top floor. Full o’ furniture come all the way from China when she did.”

  “Four years you say?” The words came out with no hint of the mix of rage and astonishment roiling in his belly.

  “That’s right. That’s all I know, Mr. Randolf. So I’ll be taking me money and going now.” Fearless leaned forward and scooped up the original five dollars’ worth of coins. Randolf still had his finger on the silver dollar. “Nothing more to tell, sir. Like I said.” The fact that the white gent was Sam Devrey and Randolf’s
son-in-law wasn’t anything Fearless Flannagan had any intention of selling for five dollars or even six. Anyways, Randolf probably knew it already. Had to be why he was interested in the first place. All the same, might come a time when Fearless Flannagan could sell that information somewhere else.

  Randolf released his finger and watched his silver dollar disappear into the Irish thug’s pocket. For once he was too shocked and disappointed to care about the money. Four years meant that the woman had been part of Sam Devrey’s life before he married Carolina, probably before he met her. And it was entirely possible that Devrey was a bigamist.

  Since he wasn’t on duty, Flannagan was wearing a proper stovepipe hat. He polished the shiny top with the sleeve of his old-fashioned narrow-cut swallow-tailed coat, put it on, and tipped it politely before he left.

  “I am not a bigamist.”

  “God damn you to hell, Sam Devrey. Bigamist or not, you’re a cad.”

  “By your lights perhaps. Not by mine.” Sam leaned back in the chair. His office was on the fifth floor of the remarkable new Devrey headquarters. A large square window glazed with a single sheet of glass looked out on the world below. Not much of a view today, however. It was snowing a bit and heavily overcast, indicating that it would snow more soon. “You look quite pale, Father-in-law. You should have that drink I offered.”

  Randolf shook his head. Drinking with the man would truly sicken him. “Am I?” he asked.

  “Are you what?”

  “Your father-in-law. Legally.”

  “Of course you are. I just told you. I am not a bigamist.”