The Best Bad Things

by Katrina Carrasco

  “I had hoped so.”

  So he won’t confide in her. Fine. He twists back to reach for his cigar. Opening the strong midline of his body, a row of dyed-pearl buttons tracking down his vest to his belt buckle. Glint of silk thread in the seam of his trousers. He sees her looking. Straightens up. Takes a long pull on the cigar, embers in his eyes. The space between them waking. Not draped in Driscoll’s shroud as it was the day before.

  “Come on,” she says. “You don’t move up, I don’t move up. It’s time to take a risk. You play things too safe sometimes.”

  “I like to have a plan.”

  “Let’s make one. I would have had Kopp come sooner, but I’m away to Tacoma tonight.”

  The boat leaves at eight o’clock. And she spent too much time at the Delmonico, too much time at Nell’s. She has less than an hour and she still has to change into women’s clothes, pin on her woman’s hair. Shape herself for the morning’s performance with the Pinkerton’s agents.

  “Tacoma?”

  “On her business. I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon,” she says. “That gives us time to set something up.”

  “What do you propose?”

  “You can’t get your hands dirty. I understand that.” Alma tips back the last of her gin, tries stretching her shoulder. The pain duller than this morning. “If we kill Kopp, we have to pin his murder on someone else. Sloan, if we can.”

  Wheeler exhales smoke. Tongues a flake of paper off his upper lip. It’s as if he’s baiting her now, with the powerful coil of his torso as he leans to tap the cigar into its dish, with the openness around his mouth.

  “Put his body in Sloan’s cannery?” he says.

  “That’d be one way to do it. Or plant King Tye on him. Sloan’s going to swing for that anyway.”

  Wheeler nods, a small noise of interest.

  “Benson’s got to be dealt with also,” Alma says. “He’s not set to meet with Kopp again until Tuesday. So it might pay to keep him on the line until then—he could still lead us to the Seattle contact, or to a rogue crewman.”

  “Yes. I want to smoke them all out,” Wheeler says. “You don’t steal from me and get away with it.”

  There’s his fight, there’s his steel, come out for the clash. The set of his chin hints at violence. She grins, drawn in a step.

  “Now, that we can agree on,” she says. “I’ve got Kopp bringing a lump of cash. He thinks he’s buying in. His money will cover the stolen tar, and then some.”

  “How much.”

  “Five thousand.”

  “Good Christ.”

  “He’s borrowing some of it from the railroad,” Alma says, sneering.

  “He has no loyalty at all,” Wheeler says. “After the way they’ve lined his pockets.”

  She’s close enough to catch the mingled scents of vanilla tobacco and whiskey on his breath. The edge of the desk ghosts against her hip. Conspiring with him, an agile mind to dance with, adds fuel to her thoughts.

  “What if no one finds his body?” Alma’s eyes narrow as she follows the thread of a new idea. “What if we get word out he’s skipped town with the railroad’s cash? Then you’ve got nothing to do with it. You’re in the clear. Enough men would believe it—they’ve seen him at the gambling tables. They know he takes stupid risks when it comes to money.”

  “Quietly dump him in the bay,” Wheeler says. “Yes.”

  A knock in the next room, at the Clyde Imports door. Alma’s gut clenches. She backs away from Wheeler, away from the inner door, her hand on her gun. Did she call Kopp wrong? Think she had him hooked and the whole time he was playing dumb, waiting to have cause to show up with the law? Or maybe she spooked him after all, and he ran to Benson crying for help.

  Wheeler is up off the desk, nothing sprawling in his posture now, his body tensed as he stalks to the inner door. He peers out toward the Clyde Imports window, keeping near the doorjamb.

  “It’s Benson,” he says, without looking at Alma.

  “Shit. Kopp might have gotten to him.”

  “He wouldn’t come here, then,” Wheeler says.

  “Unless he’s fixing to kill you.”

  Alma is breathing again, but fast, unsettled. This plan is still full of holes. Full of pitfalls she didn’t think about when she was sneering at Kopp in the schoolyard. Now Benson’s here. And she has to be on that Tacoma boat, or she’ll miss the morning rendezvous.

  “I can wait in the hall, in case you need me,” she says.

  “No. Stay,” he says. “If he talked to Kopp, he’ll come out swinging. But if he hasn’t, he still thinks he’s scared you quiet, and I’m in the dark. Act like it.”

  “Keep him on the line.”

  Wheeler nods, a tight, small motion, and walks into the shadows of Clyde Imports. Clicking of the lock. Alma ready with her gun in case Benson tries anything when he comes in off the street.

  Tight, loose. Tight, loose. Her left hand almost back to where she needs it. The dizzy heave of blood loss subsiding once she’d filled herself with food, with sleep. When she gears up for Tacoma, she’ll have to remove Nell’s bandage. See the wound, seeping. Wrap thinner gauze around the gash and hope she can squeeze her arm into a narrow sleeve. All her dresses are already tight across the shoulders, across the ropy slant of her trapezius muscles.

  “Is there a problem?” Wheeler says in the front office.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Boots scraping. The door ticks shut.

  “Scuffle by the Quincy warehouse,” Benson says.

  Footsteps closer. She holsters her gun. Then the big man is in the doorway, head cocking when his eyes meet Alma’s. She scowls at him but lets her grimace waver, lets her gaze skip nervously to Wheeler as he walks into the room. Benson grins. Too much satisfaction in that grin for him to know Kopp has turned on him.

  “Camp.” He juts his chin at her.

  “Sloan’s boys?” Wheeler says, sitting at his desk.

  “One of ’em,” Benson says. “And one of ours. McManus.”

  “Tom isn’t in town.”

  “Oh, he is. Sir, he just shot Loomis dead.”

  Alma bites back an oath.

  “Out in front of Chain Locker,” Benson says. “Lot of folks saw it. And he wouldn’t say a word to me, or Clay. I don’t know where he’s got off to.”

  Wheeler stubs out his cigar. Keeping hold of himself with that deep reserve of composure that she both admires and resents. He takes a long drink of whiskey. Benson waits, thumbs in his belt loops, one bootheel jiggling. Not looking at Alma at all after she played nervous.

  “Who’s posted at the warehouse while you’re here?”

  “I got Lyle on it,” Benson says. “He was at the bar.”

  “Get back,” Wheeler tells him. “I’ll take care of Tom.”

  Benson knuckles his cap. With his face turned away from Wheeler, he winks at Alma. He hasn’t seen Kopp. Not if he’s this jolly. His heavy footsteps clump away through Clyde Imports. Lintel bell tinkling after the slam. Only then does Alma move to the inner door—the Clyde Imports office empty, Benson’s bulk heading up Washington, his buckskin jacket mustard-colored in the streetlamp glow.

  “I’ve got to go.” She shakes her head. “You have to lock McManus down. We can’t lose Sloan’s cooperation before the next handoff. We’ve almost got him.”

  “I know.” Anger thick in Wheeler’s voice now that they’re alone. “God damn it.”

  “Benson seems clueless,” she says. “At least that’s something.”

  Wheeler pulls a key from his vest pocket. Unlocks one of the drawers and withdraws his pistol. Spinning clicks as he checks the cylinder.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow at four,” she says. “Keep the peace.”

  His face pale. Eyes electric blue when they snap up to hers.

  27

  JANUARY 25, 1887

  TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEW WITH SAMUEL REED

  WHEREUPON THE FOLLOWING PROCEEDINGS WERE HAD IN THE JEFFERSON COUNTY JAIL, PORT TOWN
SEND, WASHINGTON TERRITORY, ON JANUARY 25, 1887.

  LAWMEN PRESENT: CITY MARSHAL GEORGE FORRESTER, OFFICER WAYLAN HUGHES

  TRANSCRIPTION: EDWARD EDMONDS, ASSISTANT DEPUTY COLLECTOR, U.S. CUSTOMHOUSE

  OFFICER HUGHES: You said Sloan was suspicious of everyone, even his own men. Do you mean someone in particular?

  MR REED: Yeah. Lowry.

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: Who’s that?

  MR REED: Another of Sloan’s men. He came on before I got there. He lived at the boardinghouse, too, but I didn’t talk to him much. He was usually with Sloan, and I stayed as far away from Sloan as I could.

  OFFICER HUGHES: If they were so close, why was Sloan suspicious of him?

  MR REED: Lowry was keeping company with Sugar.

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: She must have been some woman.

  MR REED: She was. Anyway, Sloan didn’t like us to go out for girls. He said if we wanted one, he had plenty in-house. Only charged us half price. And of course, this wasn’t just any girl. Sugar and Sloan had their bad blood. But Lowry met her at some point, started courting her. Sloan didn’t take him to task over it at first … he was too busy dealing with the railroad man.

  OFFICER HUGHES: The man he mentioned when he was knifing you?

  MR REED: I think so. How many railroad men can there be?

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: Too many, nowadays.

  OFFICER HUGHES: Do you know the railroad man’s name?

  MR REED: Kopp. I remember it because I thought it was funny. I thought he was a cop, when I first heard Sloan talking about him. See? Kopp sounds like cop?

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: You’re slow as molasses, son.

  OFFICER HUGHES: I’ve heard of this fellow.

  MR REED: You don’t think it’s funny?

  OFFICER HUGHES: When you say Sloan was too busy dealing with the man … do you mean Kopp is dead, too?

  MR REED: No. No, he and Sloan were doing business together. For a while, Sloan thought Kopp was maybe spying on him. But like I said, he thought that about everybody. Soon they were partnered up. Kopp was buying dope off of Sloan.

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: How do you know that?

  MR REED: I was usually posted at the cannery with Loomis. Doing the dirty jobs he didn’t want to do, cleaning up after each batch of men, the filth they left. So I saw opium crates. Some would come in, some would go out. Kopp visited a few times to check on them. Poked around with his walking stick, that door knocker of a gem on top enough to settle a man for life.

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: It’s fake.

  MR REED: You know him?

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: I know him enough to know it’s fake.

  MR REED: Oh.

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: I’ve been keeping an eye on Kopp. Got a tip from his employers he’s not to be trusted … as false as his cheap baubles. Sounds like it’s time I pay him a visit.

  MR REED: He’s not here anymore, sir.

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: What?

  MR REED: He came by the boardinghouse yesterday morning. Told Sloan he’d borrowed some funds from the railroad and had to leave town.

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: Son of a bitch.

  MR REED: He gave some money to Sloan.

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: I’m never going to hear the end of this, damn it.

  OFFICER HUGHES: Sam, did you often see Sloan at the cannery? Or overhear his men talking there? You must have gotten an earful about his business. Things we need to know.

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: Like where he’s sourcing his tar, and where he’s shipping it.

  MR REED: Sloan didn’t talk to me much, after that first time. I’d overhear the things he said to Loomis when he came to visit the cannery, and sometimes other conversations at the boardinghouse.

  OFFICER HUGHES: What kind of conversations?

  MR REED: Talk of men he knew, protection money, bribes.

  OFFICER HUGHES: What men? From the waterfront?

  MR REED: I didn’t know any of the names.

  OFFICER HUGHES: What about XXXXXX or XXXXXX? Did he mention them?

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: Strike that, Edmonds. Strike those men’s names.

  E. EDMONDS: Yes, sir.

  OFFICER HUGHES: But there’s been talk—

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: I won’t see those men dragged through the mud. I won’t have it.

  OFFICER HUGHES: Listen, Marshal—

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: If you don’t settle down and start following my instructions, I’ll have you put off this case and call Jackson in here. Do you want that? Do you want a junior officer pulling rank over you? Taking your spot in the smuggling bust of the decade? Your work finding and bringing Reed in this morning made obsolete? No?

  OFFICER HUGHES: (inaudible)

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: No. I didn’t think so. You did good work today, Hughes. Finding Reed based off those men’s reports, linking him to the Calhoun woman’s murder. If you want justice for her, for the others Sloan has killed or ruined, you follow my lead. Understood?

  OFFICER HUGHES: Yes, sir.

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: What else did you learn from Sloan’s conversations?

  MR REED: That’s what I was saying. Not a lot. Not a lot I could follow, anyway. And I tried to avoid him. I didn’t like to be in the same room. That room upstairs in the boardinghouse reminded me …

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: Is that where he knifed you?

  MR REED: Yes. I hated going in there. Loomis knew it, and he’d make me go fetch things from inside. Just to be a hard case about it. I hated that bastard.

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: Didn’t you say Loomis is dead?

  MR REED: Yeah. He got into a fight on the docks. A stevedore shot him. That put an end to his bullying.

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: Don’t gloat too much.

  MR REED: I have cause.

  MARSHAL FORRESTER: It looks bad. Especially when there’s no proof you didn’t do it.

  MR REED: Oh, there were plenty of witnesses. My hands are clean. But after Loomis died … Well, that’s when Sloan started killing the others.

  28

  JANUARY 23, 1887

  Tacoma is ripe with fish and sewage, iron and salt. Pounding rain drums the stench out of the waiting ships, the teeming docks. Alma chose lodgings right in the thick of things. Bustling waterfront commerce, swarms of longshoremen. The stevedores weave through heaps of crates and sacks and boxes that wait to be freighted east or sailed west—all those veins to pump full of tar. The railroad’s industry plain in the men’s crowded efforts as they move shoulder to shoulder, shifting cargo on this pier and the next, and the next, and the next, until the world smears into a blur behind the rain.

  Alma steps off the boardinghouse’s sloped veranda. Liking the look of her new stomping grounds. But she can’t explore them properly just yet. Her damp skirt hems are thick around her legs. Her cloak heavy with rain. Camp’s clothes weigh half as much as these, at least. At the end of the pier she hails a hansom cab, the horse blindered and thickset, the driver squinting against the wind. She rucks up her skirts to climb in. The seat is soaked, her folds of cloth ungainly.

  “Victory Hotel,” she shouts above the weather and the stevedores’ calls and the long, low boom of a steamer as it churns toward its mooring.

  The coach rattles over plankboards and then jars into mud. Rough roads, air bitter with charcoal. They climb the bluff that separates the waterfront from the main body of town. Tacoma is all bricks and pitted wood. Smokestacks knife into the sky to the south. The town has the same split-level setup as Port Townsend—industry on the water and houses up above—but Tacoma is bigger. Dirtier. More like a real city, full of useful nooks and crannies. The downside of this is, if the Pinkerton’s agents aren’t where they said they’ll be, Alma will never find them. They could be moving across the Sound despite their promise to wait, despite their letter. They could have used it as a ruse to lure her out of town and take the glory of the strike themselves. She would expect as much if it were only her. But they believe she’s working with Lowry, and it’s unlikely they’ll hang him
out to dry. She’s banking on that old-boy mentality.

  The Victory is a tall, balconied building, new paint on the sign but otherwise grim. The lobby cluttered with dismal gray furniture where men smoke and thumb through newspapers. Alma looks for a pair of men—We will be drinking coffee at the back, the letter said, and I will have a red scarf—and finds the red scarf first, a swab of color in the thick-brushed shadows. A wash of relief. But she must make sure it’s them. Then negotiate. And only after that, breathe easier.

  She crosses the lobby, untying the knot of her cloak and folding it over so the wet cloth is inside, off her sleeve. Her corset tight over her belly. It reminds her how to move: how to walk leading with chest and chin, the tight bandage on her shoulder nipping into the skin under her dress. Always some sort of binding, some restriction.

  “Good day, Cousin Alfred,” she says at the little round table. “It’s been too long.”

  The men look up at her, appraising. One is white-haired, with a salt-and-pepper mustache and sunken eyes. The other is a younger man, close to thirty. He has a watery complexion—hair, eyes, and skin all the same milky gray. The impression is that of a sickly man, but he has broad shoulders under the red loop of the scarf, sturdy long hands wrapped around his coffee cup.

  “Cousin Polly,” the younger man says, standing. “Five years, gone so quickly!”

  She gave the correct opening; he gave the correct response. These are the Pinkerton’s agents. Another pulse of relief, warm in her chest.

  He takes her cloak. She sits in the chair next to his.

  “This is Grove,” he says, nodding at his older companion. Which makes him Kennedy.

  “How do you do,” she says.

  Grove sits forward, clasping his hands between his knees.

  “We’re anxious for an update,” he says. “Your letters have been … perplexing.”

  “I can’t stay long,” Alma says. “I need to get back on the eleven o’clock boat. I’m worried about Lowry.”

  “So are we,” Grove says. “Who’s this woman he’s been seeing?”

  “A workingwoman. She’s harmless.”

  “Is she a distraction?”