The Mangle

by S. L. Stoner

  Sage’s foot took an involuntary step backwards as heat reddened his face. Raising his palms to stop her words, he protested, “No, no. I don’t have a medical problem. I’m here to talk to you about something else.”

  The woman’s eyebrow rose skeptically as she said, “I suppose you’ve come here to discuss a ‘friend’s’ problem?”

  “Yes,” he said before quickly adding, “No, no. Not in that way” when he saw her lips twitch at his initial “Yes.” He took a deep breath. “Look, can we go in your office to talk about this?”

  She hesitated and then gestured down the hall. When they reached her tidy, sparsely furnished office she indicated he should take a chair. He did so while noticing that she left her office door propped open.

  He quickly explained about the missing Rebecca, ending with a request, “I was hoping that you might know the names of local procurers and the location of the likely sporting houses where she might be imprisoned.” Seeing that eyebrow arch again, he quickly clarified, “Of course, I thought you’d know because of the Society’s efforts to steer women away from prostitution.”

  “Yes, of course,” she echoed dryly. She thought a moment and then sat forward, “I have heard rumors that there is a new procurer in town. I wish I could tell you more but, I’m not the one who has regular exchanges with the unfortunate women. Let me see if I can find out more. How can I reach you?”

  Mentally, Sage kicked himself. He should have realized that would be a problem. He didn’t really want his name bandied about in group of very vocal, energetic, middle-class women. Then he hit upon it, “Please send a note to Attorney Philander Gray. Tell him you have information for John Miner. He’ll let me know and I will personally come see you again.”

  As he passed out through the waiting room his decision to remain incognito was reinforced. A bright-eyed young woman stopped him, a piece of paper in her hands. “I am collecting names of men who support women’s suffrage,” she said as she thrust paper and pen in his direction.

  “I’ve already signed it elsewhere,” he lied and slipped out the door before she could say more.

  “I will sign it,” he told himself once he was in the hallway. “Just can’t sign it now.” Of course he’d sign it. He smiled to himself, adding, “Mae and Lucinda won’t give me peace until I do.

  Late morning the new foreman, Sinclair, left the washroom when Cobb poked his head around the door and gestured with his hand. Sinclair exited rapidly, though Mae couldn’t say whether his prompt response came from obedience or relief at being able to vacate the stifling heat of the washroom. Not that they needed him. Like most places she’d worked, supervisors were about as useful as teeth on a turkey. The people who did the work were the ones who knew best how to do it. Good supervisors knew this and tried to assist workers—good ones like that foreman who quit. Bad ones, well, back to turkeys, she thought ruefully. Bad ones strutted about with puffed up chests, gobbling nonsense.

  Her eye was caught by the sight of Rachel leaving her mangle and striding swiftly into the wash tub area. There she approached one of the men and they conferred, heads bent toward each other, both of them sending nervous glances toward the closed door into the office area. The man nodded and raised his hand to his forehead in a salute to Rachel. She was smiling as she walked back to her mangle, stopping to talk with two women; one at a mangle, the other at the starch table. They each gave her nods of agreement and she left the women smiling.

  Mae could only shake her head in admiration. The gal had clearly come up with something. Rachel was still raising folks’ spirits even though Mae knew she was growing ever more disheartened. Mae had heard her crying quietly in the night over her missing sister. “Oh, well,” Mae told herself, “I expect I’ll find out at noontime what our Rachel’s up to.”

  And so she did. As soon as everyone was seated beneath the willow Rachel stood up, a wide smile lighting her face. “Ladies and gentlemen, we will now listen to first hand reports from the Cobb Laundry Detective Squad. “Burdett,” she called turning to the wash tub man she’d spoken to earlier, “do tell us the results of your sleuthing.”

  Burdett stood up, dusted dry bits off his rump and gave them all a lop-sided grin. He clearly was reveling in the moment. “Wahl,” he drawled, “Rachel here asked me to find out whether our new foreman was a laundryman or a management spy.”

  “And?” someone urged from the edge of the group.

  He smiled and said, “Wahl, I told him I was getting pesky little soap spots on the clothes and asked should I boil the clothes.”

  No one said anything, letting Burdett enjoy stretching out the suspense. “Wahl, he told me to go ahead and give ‘em a boil!” he cackled, slapping his leg for emphasis.

  As one the group laughed aloud, one person crowing, “That Sinclair’s a spy for double darn sure!”

  Only one person didn’t join in. She, instead, looked perplexed. Once the laughter quieted, Caroline spoke up, her voice hesitant at the thought she was revealing her ignorance about the laundry profession, “Why is it funny that he told you to boil the clothes?”

  One of the women threw an arm around Caroline shoulders and gave them a squeeze. Still, she answered the girl loud enough for all to hear, “Why child. Boiling causes the spots. Someone who knew the laundry business would have told Burdett to dump in some caustic soda. That’s what prevents those spots.”

  Rachel’s team of detectives also included the two women she’d spoken to earlier. They offered further evidence that their new foreman was ignorant of steam laundry procedures. One discovered he didn’t know how to tighten a mangle roller. The second said, “I asked him if it was alright for me to do the starching on the wood table instead of the zinc covered one. And he said, ‘Yes.’ Any fool knows starch sucks the wood resin up into the cloth. That’s why we use the zinc topped table,” she told Caroline.

  Rachel spoke next, “So, to sum it up, our Mr. Sinclair is a steam laundry foreman who knows nothing whatsoever about the job. What does that make him, folks?”

  “A spy,” they called in unison.

  “No, no,” protested a thin voice, “He didn’t know anything about the Sparta or our fight. He just got into town from Chicago. He said he worked as a foreman in the laundry there. That’s why Cobb hired him . . . .” Her protest died out as she evidently realized Sinclair had told her at least one lie. She’d just heard proof that he knew nothing about laundries.

  All eyes turned in her direction. Rachel voice was sad as she said, “Oh, Chrissy. What have you done?”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The workers cast sly glances at him as they trooped back in following their twenty-minute lunch. Well, that was to be expected. By the third time one of them asked him for assistance, he’d realized they were testing him. Their reactions told him he’d failed each test.

  Meandering around the room, Sinclair eventually made his way to Chrissy’s mangle. “How’s it going Chrissy?” he asked, putting a light hand on her shoulder.

  Even before she responded he knew that she had changed. Beneath his fingers her thin shoulder felt rigid as a stick. She didn’t shrug off his hand, but her movements as she kept working the collar mangle were abrupt and faster than normal. Her response was equally abrupt as she snapped out the single word, “Fine.” She didn’t even look at him.

  When he turned to move on, he saw more than one pair of watching eyes. Maybe, when she was out from under their scrutiny, she’d be more likely to talk to him, he told himself. He’d try again after work.

  Cobb appeared at the office door and gestured for Sinclair. As he made his way across the washroom, Sinclair realized that Cobb never walked through the washroom. Instead, he seemed to remain in the front office, whenever he was there at all. Sinclair gave a mental shrug. What did he care? Lots of bosses are afraid of their workers and lots of bosses kept themselves looking busy doing everything but productive work.

  Cobb got right to the point once they were inside the office with the doo
r shut. “Sinclair, this is the day we start the ball really rolling. So, once the end whistle sounds, I want you to hand these out to the seven people who are named at the top of each notice,” he said, thrusting sheets of paper toward Sinclair.

  Sinclair took the papers and read the top sheet. It was a simple statement:

  Your services with Sparta Laundry are hereby terminated as of this date. Your final check will be available for pick-up from the office on the regular payday, Friday of next week. You are not otherwise permitted on Sparta Laundry property. Should you violate this directive, you will be arrested for trespassing.

  Thaddeus Cobb

  Manager, Sparta Laundry

  Sinclair said nothing, thinking only about how cold the brief words seemed and about how the people who received the notices would feel when they discovered their livelihood abruptly cut off. He tried another mental shrug, telling himself once again that what happened in this laundry had nothing to do with him. “Why not hand them out now?”

  “Good Lord no!” Cobb responded sharply. “You do it now, who knows what those union hooligans will do. They might break my machinery or walk off the job. We can’t have that. They need to finish this last load of laundry. In fact, if they haven’t finished by quitting time, I want you to keep them working until they do.

  Sinclair felt his forehead wrinkle as he pondered Cobb’s directive. He asked, “So, exactly how do you want me to hand out this notice,” giving the papers a little shake.

  “When all the work is done and people are leaving, I want you to stand outside the door. As they exit the building, I want you to hand the notice to the seven people. That way, only those already outside will know we’ve fired their leaders. Later today, two of Farley’s men will be here. They’ll stand inside the washroom to make sure no one comes back in. And, they’ll be guarding the place overnight.

  “Where will you be?” Sinclair had to ask.

  Cobb made a theatrical show of astonishment. “Why home, of course. I don’t stay late, you know that. It will be up to you and the guards to lock the place up.”

  “Does this mean I can stop trying to grab Rachel Levy?” Sinclair asked.

  Cobb shook his head vigorously, “Absolutely not. Just firing her isn’t going to extract that particular thorn from our side.”

  Apparently, thought of the Levy woman triggered another sore subject for Cobb because he said, “I don’t know what has happened to women today. All their yammering about the right to vote is ridiculous. Hell, half of them are idiots and a womanly woman doesn’t want the vote. She wants to take care of her husband, children and home in that order. The last thing we need are women like Rachel Levy getting the vote, women like her are too passionate and ignorant when it comes to politics. Look at those Temperance gals. Women are sticking their nose into everything and I’m damn tired of it.”

  Sinclair could only nod but he was wondering, “Just when could a woman working in Cobb’s laundry find the time to play “womanly” woman? He paged through the papers, noting each showed a woman’s name. Yes, he’d given Cobb the names of the most outspoken union supporters. They were all here.

  “Are any of these women supporting children?” he had to ask.

  Momentary vexation pressed Cobb’s lips into a thin line and furrowed his brow before he said, “Sinclair, I don’t know and I don’t care if any of them have brats. And, neither should you. I am paying you to do a job. Now, do it.”

  Sage greeted Mozart’s guests and, when not doing that, filled in for Mae, making sure the waiters had water to pour, clean glasses and dishes and every other niggling task needed to make things run smoothly. He could tell from the harried faces of the waiters he wasn’t particularly good at filling his mother’s shoes.

  Customers lingered well past the noontime dinner hour. Finally, at two thirty, he ushered the last patrons out the front door and flipped the sign to ‘closed’. There would be two-and-one-half hours before the start of the supper trade. Gazing around the empty dining room, he couldn’t but admire it yet again. It was an elegant setting and perfect for drawing in Portland’s elite—exactly as intended. The opening of the kitchen’s swinging doors stopped his ruminating. Herman Eich stepped into the elegant room, an incongruous sight in his slouch hat, baggy britches and scuffed boots.

  Sage strode toward him. “Herman, is something wrong?” At the ragpicker’s negative shake of the head, Sage asked, “Can I get you some lunch or coffee?”

  “No, I just wanted to stop and talk with you while I am on this side of the river. Your mother is fine. I followed the two of them to work, and they’re both safe inside. I’ve spent a few days now, talking to folks. Seeing if I can find anyone who saw Rebecca Levy the day she was taken,” Eich said.

  “Any luck?” Sage asked.

  “Well, maybe. There’s a young fellow who sells pencils along the route. He’s a bit slow grasping things. But, it seems he might have been the last person to see her on Saturday. He says he saw her step into the alley that leads to her boarding house. So, I’m thinking she might have been jumped there and taken out the alley’s other end. You might want to talk to him. Maybe you can get more details. He’s a nice fellow, just a bit hard to get information from,” Eich said.

  “Are you still spending most of your time on the eastside of the river?”

  “Yes. Since Mae works such long hours, I have plenty of time to explore. I am ranging far and wide. There’s enough houses that I can fill my cart with usable discards. I even met an old fellow who remembers hunting cougar and bear on Mt. Tabor. Imagine that.”

  Sage tried to imagine wild animals roaming the gently rounded dormant volcano but couldn’t. Not now, with most of its timber felled and new houses crawling up its sides. There was even a steam train and a trolley servicing the folks living there and in the farther town of Mt. Villa beyond its eastern slope.

  “So, where do I find the pencil-selling fellow?”

  “He’s there on Grand Avenue between Belmont and Morrison. He’s got a little blue flag flying above a wooden packing crate.”

  Eich soon headed out, saying he had to check on his home base and retrieve more objects to sell. Sage thought about Eich’s one-room lean-to attached to a small house. It was a snug little place, one he and Mae visited often. Although Eich could have succeeded at anything he tried, he chose to write his poems and earn his living selling usable items foraged from dust bins and damaged ceramics he restored. Despite his hand to mouth existence, Eich was one of the most contented people Sage had ever known.

  After Eich and his cart rolled away down the alley behind Mozart’s, Sage climbed to the third floor. There he carefully hung his hosting outfit and donned his John Miner disguise. As he changed his clothes he realized he was grumpy. A few minutes later, he finally figured out the reason. Usually, he drove the missions. This time he was somewhat sidelined. Everyone else was out doing.

  Well, he’d change that. He’d go talk to the pencil seller and then maybe try to locate the two men Solomon’s man had followed from the Portland Hotel to the cafe. It was a good bet that these were Farley’s two operatives. Maybe he’d also wander past the U.S. Laundry. See if Cobb and his associates had delivered on Cobb’s threat. Now that he had purpose, Sage’s mood lightened a bit. But still, he felt a vague sense of worried anticipation, like the guy in the tenement bedroom waiting for the fellow overhead to drop his other shoe with a great big thud.

  The hours lumbered through late afternoon and into the evening. The foreman made them stay late to finish up all the laundry. When the quit whistle shrilled, Mae was picturing herself sitting on the boarding house’s back balcony, her feet freed from her soggy torture and resting on a rattan ottoman. She quickly untied her apron strings, rolled down her sleeves, buttoned up her dress front and considered how the afternoon had gone.

  Despite the lunchtime laughter, she’d watched as uneasiness spread among her co-workers. They had to be wondering how they would feed their kids, pay their rent—sur
vive—if they were locked out. There were only so many jobs for women in Portland. Steam laundries, at six dollars a week, were still at least a dollar a week more than what women could make working as a sales clerk, housemaid, cook or cannery worker. According to the help wanted ads, those were the only jobs available to women. Even then, most ads requested a “girl.” Folks with money probably didn’t like bossing a mature woman around. Mae considered the faces around her, noting that few could be called a “girl.” These were women, hardworking women regardless of age, who were skilled at steam laundry work but little else.

  Mid afternoon the phony foreman, Sinclair, stepped through the door from the office holding a sheaf of papers in his hand. He stood by the door, gazing around the room, scowling before his expression turned stony. He was a good looking man, she supposed. Neatly barbered brown hair topped an open face that made him look friendly. He had tidy eyebrows, a regular nose and long mouth above a slightly squared chin. The few times she’d heard him speak, he’d sounded educated. He looked more like a bank teller or finance clerk than a laundry foreman. Still, it was no wonder Chrissy succumbed. Good looks, a kind demeanor, intelligence and flattering attention—what country girl wet behind her ears could resist that devil’s mix? Mae hadn’t. A similar scoundrel had fooled her.