Jace replaced the folded knife in his pocket & put the unlit cigar in his mouth & took my note & read it.
“What is a Black Widow?” I asked him. “It sounds bad, like one of them poisonous spiders.”
Jace did not reply but merely refolded my note & put it in his trowser pocket. As usual his face was inscrutable.
He took the unlit cigar from his mouth. “P.K.,” he said, “what are you doing in Carson City?”
“I am on a job.”
“What kind of job?”
“I am shadowing somebody.”
“Who are you shadowing and who hired you?” He took out a Lucifer and struck it on the underside of the table & held the flame just below the end of his cigar.
My mind raced. If I told the truth then he would be spitting mad at me. If I lied he would soon find out & be even madder.
I decided to tell the truth. “I am shadowing you,” I said.
“Beg pardon?” He coughed in the middle of sucking in smoke.
I said, “Someone hired me to spy on you.”
Jace stopped coughing & stared at me & everything went still for a moment, like the world was holding its breath.
Then Jace said, “You are spying on me?” His voice was real quiet.
I nodded, cursing myself. Why had I ever agreed to shadow him?
“Who hired you to spy on me?”
I swallowed hard.
“Your fiancée. Miss Opal Blossom.”
“Opal Blossom?” Jace’s eyes opened a little wider but otherwise his expression did not change. “That high-class Celestial courtesan up in Virginia City?” he said.
“Yes, sir. She loves you dearly and dreads losing you. But that ain’t important right now,” I hurried on. “What is important is that you have got to stop seeing Violetta De Baskerville. As well as her being a Black Widow, she might still be married and that would make it a Sin for you to be paying attention to her.”
“Don’t you preach at me, P.K.” His voice was low & hard & it sent a cold chill through me. “Do you hear me?” He took a step forward & I took a step back.
“Yes, sir.” I could not hold his gaze but had to look away like a guilty dog. “I was just trying to warn you about her. I thought you were in danger.”
“You think I am in danger, you warn me; you don’t spy on me.” I could hear him breathing. Then he said, “From now on, you are going to answer to me.”
“What do you mean?”
“I want you to report back to Miss Blossom that I am attending the legislature by day, gambling by night and not stepping out with anybody.”
“But she paid me,” I said. “She paid me a hundred dollars in advance.”
“That is her loss, not mine,” he said. “From this moment on, you work for me. I want you to go into every session of the Council and take notes.”
“What do you mean the Council?”
“You know about the Legislature? The reason Carson City is so full of people?”
I nodded.
“Then you know there are two groups of men meeting in two different chambers: the First House and the Second House. I got some business concerns and I need someone to monitor what is going on in the First House, which is called the Council. You can be that person and save me the trouble of going. I want you to attend every session and report back to me about what is happening. You can sit in the lobby. It is open to the public, only they don’t allow Indians, so you better wear one of your disguises.”
“But, Jace,” I said. “It is awful boresome. I was there yesterday and it hurt my head just to listen to them speechify. How can I figure out what is happening?”
“You are smart. You will find a way.”
“Yes, sir.” I swallowed and blinked hard and kept my eyes on his black boots, which were pointed straight at me.
He puffed his cigar & was quiet for a spell. I glanced up at him. His eyes were looking to the side, like people do when they are thinking. He had taught me that.
His gaze swung back to meet mine & I had to look down again.
He said, “I want to know what bills are proposed, both public and private, and who proposes them. I am especially interested in Toll Road Franchises. There is big money to be made in them.”
I had no idea what a “Toll Road Franchise” was but I did not want to make him any angrier than he already was, so I kept mum.
He went to the bed and got my hat & scarf. He handed them to me. “At the end of each day’s session,” he said, “you will write a report of the day’s business and leave it in my pigeonhole downstairs. Room four. Do you understand?”
I put on my hat. “Yes, sir.”
“Where are you staying?” he asked me.
“Mrs. Murphy’s boardinghouse,” I said, winding the scarf around my neck. “It is on the corner of Proctor and Carson, about five blocks north of here.”
He nodded & moved to the door & held it open. I stepped out into a burgundy-carpeted corridor.
“Oh, P.K.?”
I turned and ventured a glance up at him. His face was as pale as his shirt & his eyes were as black as his coat.
“Don’t you ever spy on me again.”
I swallowed hard. “I won’t, sir.”
But by then he had shut me out.
BACK IN MY ROOM at Mrs. Murphy’s Boarding House, I was sitting Indian fashion on top of the feather bed chanting to myself and rocking back & forth. What had I been thinking? Jace was worth more to me than all the gold & silver in the Comstock and I had spied on him. Now his cold anger had thrown me into the Mulligrubs. That is a kind of bad trance I get into sometimes when I am feeling low.
Whenever I get the Mulligrubs I imagine I am back in the Black Hills of Dakota Territory where I grew up. I picture myself sitting on a lofty peak on a buffalo robe with the scent of pine resin and the stars singing above me. Sometimes I get the Mulligrubs for days. But if a Spirit Helper comes, then I only get them for a couple of hours.
My foster ma, Evangeline, was a good Methodist. She would be turning in her grave if she knew I was consulting Spirit Helpers instead of the Lord, but when you are in a Trance you do not have a choice.
I sat on my imaginary Trance Mountain for a while, rocking and chanting softly.
After a while, a Spirit Helper appeared to me in the form of a tiny worm. I was surprised. Usually a Spirit Helper takes the form of a noble animal, like a wolf or eagle or bear.
But the Lord God made all creatures great and small, so why not a worm?
In my Trance I looked at the tiny worm and waited for him to speak to me and tell me what to do.
He lay there on the snowy ground—for some reason the mountaintop was white with snow—and he writhed & curved & curled himself up into about a hundred different shapes: curlicues, squiggles & hook-and-eye fasteners. Sometimes the Spirit Helper speaks. This worm did not say anything. He did not have to. He had told me how to atone for my betrayal of Jace.
He had told me to learn Master Barry Ashim’s Squiggly Worm Writing.
Gradually I came out of the Trance, feeling groggy & woolly headed. Things always look strange to me when I come out of the Mulligrubs. People sometimes look like animals. Especially white people, who look like big-eyed feathery owls.
There was a knock at my door and Mrs. Murphy came in with a cold potato on a plate and a steaming mug of coffee.
“Seven o’clock!” she said cheerily. She was wearing a head scarf knotted on top that made her look like a quail.
She saw me sitting cross-legged on the quilt on top of my bed.
“Sure and you’ve not been up all night?” she said, putting the potato & mug on the table.
I managed to nod.
She went out tutting. I drank the coffee & ate my cold boiled potato.
Then I put on my high-tone outfit with the p
lug hat.
At 8 1/2 o’clock, I went over to Philips & Ashim Clothing Store and asked to see Master Barry Ashim as a matter of urgency. His father peered at me over his spectacles and then went through a door into a back room. Master Barry Ashim came out with a newspaper in his hand & chewing something.
I said, “I have a proposition for you.”
He swallowed and narrowed his eyes at me. “What is your proposition?”
I said, “I would like you to let me sit with you in the Council. I would like to learn how the Legislature works. And also that Squiggly Worm Writing.”
He said, “You want I should teach you Marsh’ s Reformed Phonographic Shorthand?”
I nodded.
He said, “Teaching takes time and effort.”
I said, “Then just let me sit next to you and watch. How much are they paying you?” I added.
He shifted from one foot to the other and looked out the window. “They ain’t exactly paying me,” he said, “but Mr. Marsh said if I do a good job they might vote me two or three dollars.”
“Per day?” I said.
“No, for the whole five or six weeks.”
I said, “I will pay you half a dollar a day just to let me sit by you and watch. That is five times what they have promised.”
I thought I saw Expression No. 4 flit across his face but real quick he made his face go blank.
“I will pay you for yesterday and today right now,” I said. I reached in my pocket and took out a shiny silver dollar.
He looked at the silver coin in my hand.
He said, “I suppose they would not object if I told them that you were helping me sharpen pencils and such, but you must stay out of the way and keep mum and also dress proper. You will need a black frock coat to look smart.”
“Where will I get a black frock coat?” I said.
“We sell them here,” he said. “Three dollars apiece.”
“All right,” said I, “but I have a condition, too. I am here in Carson incognito. Will you pretend I am your relative?”
He said, “For half a dollar a day I will pretend you are President Lincoln.” Then he grinned to show he was just joshing. “But it might be better if you pretend to be one of my second cousins from San Francisco. Choose a name.”
“Beg pardon?”
“Choose a Hebrew name, like mine.”
“Is ‘Barry’ Hebrew?”
“It is short for Baruch, which means ‘Blessed.’ What did you say your name was? Your real name?”
“My name is P.K. Pinkerton, Private Eye,” I said.
“Well then, you could be Pinkas,” he said. “That is a good Hebrew name.”
I pondered this for a moment, then shook my head. “No. That makes me think of a pink donkey. Plus it is too close to my nickname, which is Pinky.”
“Then you choose. You know your Bible?”
“Every word.”
“Anybody in it you especially admire?”
“Jesus.”
He rolled his eyes. “He ain’t in the Hebrew Bible. Choose someone from the Old Testament.”
I pondered this for a moment. Then I said, “Daniel, who went into the fiery furnace and also the den of lions and emerged from both unscathed.”
“Danny it is,” he said.
And so it was that I got a new disguise: Master Danny Ashim, Barry’s second cousin from San Francisco and apprentice stenographer for the Territorial Legislature of 1862.
AT FIRST I RECKONED my tiny Spirit Guide Worm had been right to send me to Master Barry Ashim for help understanding the Legislature.
Barry sold me a black frock coat & one of them little Jewish skullcaps & also a stovepipe hat. When he plunked the stovepipe on my head, it kind of shmooshed my hair down over my forehead & gave me bangs that almost reached my eyebrows. That made my face look different, so I left my hair like that. Barry also found a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles with clear lenses that had been for display purposes. For the finishing touch he gave me a metal band with two false front teeth that had belonged to his aunt Esther. They gave me rabbit teeth.
He showed me my face in a mirror and I was amazed. I did not look like me.
We went over to the Legislative Building early so that Barry could show me where everything was. Although it was the middle of November, the morning was warm & sunny, with a soft breeze that blew away the last of my Mulligrubs.
“Why do you want to attend the Legislature anyway?” asked Barry.
“So that Jace will forgive me for spying on him,” I said. “He wants me to make a note of what bills are proposed, both public and private. But I do not understand any of it. That is why I need your help.” I glanced at him. “I do not even know what a ‘bill’ is.”
“A bill is just an idea in writing,” said Barry as we reached the sandstone part of the sidewalk. “The legislators hammer it out in discussion, then they bat it back and forth between houses. When they have got the wording right, they vote to make it a law. And if Governor Nye signs it, then that bill becomes a law.”
I took out my Detective Notebook and drew a duck with a big bill and a judge’s gavel coming down hard to hammer it into a flat page with fancy writing.
“What is that?” said Barry.
“That is a Bill being hammered into a Law,” I explained. “I use mind-pictures like this when I am remembering playing cards.”
His head turned real fast. “You can remember the cards in someone’s hand?”
“Sure,” I said, “I can remember all the cards in a shuffled deck. But I need to make a strange or memorable picture about each one.”
He said, “I would like to learn your method of remembering cards.”
We were still standing in front of the Great Basin Hotel. I pointed at it and said, “Do the body of men called the Legislature live and sleep in there?”
“No. They only meet there. It is not being used as a hotel at present.”
I said. “What do the body of men called the Legislature do anyway?”
“Don’t you know?”
I said, “The word ‘Legislature’ confounds me. If I can’t make a picture of a word in my head, then I get confused.”
He said, “A ‘legislator’ is a lawmaker. The Legislature is a passel of them doing it. Here is a picture for you: imagine a bunch of men lined up on that ledge up there—‘ledge’ for legislature, d’you see? If they don’t make the sort of laws we want, then we make them jump and go splat on this sandstone pavement.”
I said, “That is a good picture for my head. I will not forget it.”
I sketched some little men in stovepipe hats up on the ledge of the Great Basin Hotel. Over their heads I drew two “houses” with the duck’s “bill” flying back and forth between them.
Barry led me inside and up the stairs to the landing.
He was explaining how the Council was also called the First House, whereas the House of Representatives was the Second House. He said they were like the Senate and Congress in the States, but I did not understand it well enough to draw another picture.
He said, “Just remember that we are going to take notes on what happens in the Council. That’s where your friend wants you, right?”
“I think so,” I replied.
“What is that?” drawled Sam Clemens, looking over my shoulder at my sketch. “Looks like some buzzards attacking a row of undertakers.”
I froze. Would my reporter friend from Virginia City recognize me?
“Those are ducks,” said Barry, “not buzzards. That sketch shows the legislators hammering Bills into new Laws for the Territory.”
“Haw, haw,” said Sam Clemens. “That is bully.”
When Barry introduced me as his cousin Danny Ashim, Sam Clemens merely shook my hand and said, “Another one of them phonographic boys? Pleased to meet
you.”
My threefold disguise of bangs, clear spectacles & false front teeth was a success! That lifted my spirits a little.
Barry introduced me to two other reporters with Sam Clemens. The younger one was Mr. Clement T. Rice and the older was Mr. A.J. Marsh, famous inventor of Phonographic Shorthand. Mr. A.J. Marsh was pleased to hear I wanted to learn his Squiggly Worm Writing and he offered his help whenever I should need it.
By 10 o’clock the room was filled with loud talk & laughter & smoke. The legislators were mostly clean-shaven & dressed in dark frock coats & stovepipe hats. They stood or sat at desks arranged in two curved rows facing a platform. There were men and women in the gallery at the back, too. Of course, I did not see Jace among them; I was attending so he wouldn’t have to.
All the men removed their hats as a chaplain led prayers & then someone banged a gavel & another man called everybody’s names & soon people were standing up & proposing bills. I tried to follow what they were saying but I got confused because they kept talking about Eyes and Nose and I had a picture in my mind of people’s eyes and noses whizzing around the room. Then Barry told me it was “Ayes” and “Noes,” such as when people vote Yes or No. I felt mighty foolish.
I looked at the hatless men smoking their cigars & making doodles on pads & chatting with each other, or even with the people behind the rail, & tipped back in their chairs with their boots on their desks but then raising their hands to vote as if they understood everything that had been going on without hardly even paying attention.
I looked at the women in the gallery applauding the debates and saying, “Hear, hear!” like even they knew what was going on.
I was now beginning to think my Little Worm Spirit Guide had been wrong.
I could not understand what the legislators were doing nor the bystanders behind the railing nor could I decipher even one of Barry’s worms. The loud voices of men were making my head throb & the smell of the fast-filling spittoons was making me queasy.
P. K. Pinkerton and the Pistol-Packing Widows Page 8
