by BETH KERY
Many Prairie Avenue denizens already considered Jacob Stillwater to be an idiosyncratic gentleman, anyway, especially for the way he allowed his headstrong daughter to run free about the city, engaging in so many questionable, unladylike social reform activities.
And the Prairie Avenue matriarchs didn't know half of what she did, Hope thought wryly.
Hope's father was a new alderman of the ward, the first to he elected outside of the patronage of the crime boss Diamond Jack Fletcher. As a minister of the Second Presbyterian Church on Michigan and Cullerton, this was also Jacob Stillwater's parish.
Hope knew the Loop and the first ward as well as any young woman might know the sleepy avenues and Main Street of her small town.
Chicago was a city of industry, a town that knew where it was headed. As a young woman of determination and purpose, Hope innately understood and appreciated her place in the sprawling miasma of bustling humanity.
A shrill scream of terror suddenly pierced the loud clatter of the city. Horses neighed in panic. Hope turned in anxious dread. It was a horrible fact of urban life that on any single day, an average of two people were killed at rail crossings in Chicago's Loop or by merely stepping off the curb and being plowed down by a charging horse. She was extremely relieved to see that the screaming woman was very much still alive, grasping her elderly companion and looking shocked and whey-faced.
"Did you see him? Did you see him?" she shouted repeatedly. Every time her companion shook her head in rising confusion the woman asked the question more loudly.
"Poor unfortunate creature," Hope murmured under her breath. Progress marched triumphantly in the streets of Chicago, but so did its inevitable companions illness and mental stress. The rates of alcoholism and drug abuse were also rising alarmingly.
She paused in mid-stride when she realized that most people would think she was a "poor unfortunate creature" if they learned she had visions of a god in man form who made love to her through her bedroom mirror.
Not that Ryan Vincent Daire was a hallucination. Hope would never believe that in a million years. When she returned home later this evening she planned to prove it, too, by contacting Ryan again in whatever fashion she could contrive.
One did not become deflowered by hallucinations, after all. Even now she felt the slight soreness of her genitals, the pleasant tingling just beneath her skin that signaled her sensual awakening. Her cheeks heated as she recalled in a flash of detail her unlikely joining with Ryan. Strange such a thing should be termed "deflowering." Hope felt, in fact, that in some immeasurable, intangible fashion, she'd burst into full bloom beneath Ryan's touch.
She looked back one more time at the woman, feeling a tad guilty for assuming she was mad or drunk. Her companion appeared to have calmed her but she was talking nonstop and kept pointing to the middle of Michigan Avenue. She sighed as she crossed Lake Park Place, looking around to locate Evan and waving before she opened the wood-and-glass doors to Central Station. She would enter here and meet Evan at the drop-off, pickup port designated for carriages with her new charge in tow.
She lingered cautiously by the marble archway to the waiting room of the busy intercity train station. Sure enough she spied Marvin Evercrumb reading a newspaper as he sat on one of the polished wooden benches.
In her private thoughts, Hope referred to him as Marvin Ever-scum.
Like Hope, Marvin had come to Central Station on this gray, dingy Chicago afternoon in order to meet the arrival of the Milwaukee Road, the southbound train that brought hundreds of people to Chicago daily, including the inevitable few young women interested in finding work as stenographers, typists or secretaries.
Unchaperoned, friendless women flowed into the urban center of Chicago in the year 1906 at unprecedented levels in history.
The Milwaukee Road was just one of many trains that Hope might meet on a given day.
Marvin was just one of many sleazy operators employed by Diamond Jack Fletcher who came to greet these vulnerable, wide-eyed women at Central Station.
They came from countless towns on several different trains. They immigrated from Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin, Ohio or Kansas. Hope came to welcome them in her small way to a city she loved and to do her damndest to keep them out of the hands of men like Marvin. She took them to one of several respectable boardinghouses that she knew of and put them in contact with someone who could assist them in finding a job.
Marvin and his ilk lured their prey with enticements of high-paying jobs and luxurious, cheap housing. Sometimes the white slavers pitched their lines for the first time at the train stations and other times they utilized a network of females who befriended these women in other cities and towns; female operatives who told their companions of the glamour of Chicago and the high-paying jobs to be had for the asking. Guileless young women then boarded trains in St. Louis, Bloomington or Milwaukee, clutching their life possessions and a note with Marvin Evercrumb's or one of his oily peers' names on it.
Once they reached Chicago, Marvin proceeded to deliver these women directly to hell, taking them to one of several white slavery way stations in the city.
The victims were drugged and brutalized by men who were the equivalent of professional rapists. Afterward they were sold to the seedier Clark Street and Levee District brothels, forced into a life of degradation and imprisonment. Even the madam Addie Sampson, who was far more experienced in these matters than Hope, visibly shivered when she considered the fate of these young women once they were taken behind the closed doors of Levee brothels like the Sweet Lash.
Hope had been infuriated to the point of losing her appetite For a week when she discovered that Diamond Jack's reach extended to most of the police officers in the first ward and that very little if anything was done to stop this outrageous kidnapping and rutalization of young women. Once she'd gotten past her initial fury, however, Hope's practical nature had taken over. She left the speeches and lawmaking up to her father, deciding to counteract the white slavers in her own small way.
Perhaps she couldn't save everyone, but she could save a few. or now, that had to be enough.
Unfortunately, Marvin knew her by appearance and often did is best to circumvent Hope's circumventions. Hope had taken to coming to meet the trains earlier and earlier each time, but apparently Marvin was one step ahead of her today and had arrived even earlier than she. She frowned as she studied the criminal appareled in his expensive, sleek clothing. A portly gentleman entering the station caught her attention.
"Your pardon, sir," she called out, giving the startled man her best smile. "I am new to this station and also abominably late. I wonder if you could be bothered to show me to the train shed?"
"It would be my honor, my dear," the man said, gallantly putting out his elbow for her to take.
Hope peaked over the man's shoulder as she rattled off some ridiculous story about visiting a sick aunt in St. Louis, glad to see that although Marvin had set down his paper he had not noticed her behind the man's bulk.
Her luck held strong. After she'd given her heartfelt thanks to the portly gentleman, she saw through the smoky train shed that the Milwaukee Road pulled into Chicago early.
With any luck, by the time its arrival was announced in the waiting room, Hope would have plucked a potential victim right out from beneath Marvin Ever-crumb's nose.
Minutes later Hope studied the faces of the stream of new arrivals with an expert eye. When she saw a slender, full-breasted young woman with the dark curls and expression of mixed excitement and panic on her pretty face, Hope stepped forward as decisively as if she were greeting a distant cousin on her first trip to the city.
"Good afternoon. I hope you had a smooth journey."
The woman glanced down over Hope warily but whatever she saw seemed to chase away her caution.
"That's the prettiest coat I've ever laid eyes on! My sister Eloise told me women in Chicago knew how to dress real smart."
"Thank you. I like your hat very much."
"It's nothing compared to yours."
"My name is Hope Stillwater. I belong to the Welcoming League, a group of Christian women whose mission it is to greet new visitors and familiarize them with our beautiful city," Hope lied effortlessly. In truth, she was a one-woman army. Her attempts at getting other female social reformers to join in her efforts had thus far been unsuccessful, as the train depot was considered to be nearly as unsavory of a locale as a tavern. She was still confident in her efforts to form a future Welcoming League, however.
Hope held out her hand. "The city can be a bit overwhelming on your first visit."
"I'm Sadie Holcrum, miss, and you're right about that," Sadie said as she shook Hope's hand and looked around slack-jawed at the bustling activity of the train shed. "I used to think Kenosha was a big city but it's nothing to what I saw as we pulled into Chicago."
Out of the corner of her eye Hope saw Marvin standing on the platform of the train shed.
She gave Sadie her most winning smile.
"May I help you with your luggage, Miss Holcrum?" She grabbed a suitcase from a dubious-looking Sadie, cradled her elbow and maneuvered her to the doors furthest away from a glowering Marvin. "My goodness, you pack light," Hope exclaimed when she lifted the suitcase with ease.
Sadie's cheeks flushed. Her gaze flickered over to Hope a tad nervously. "I'm afraid I haven't got much to pack, miss. None of my family does. I come to Chicago to get a job as a typist, see. I've been practicing on my mother's Remington. I hope to be able to send
'em back a portion of my wages."
Hope nodded in understanding, having heard a similar story countless times before. Once families in monetary need had sent off their sons to bread-win in the cities, but now out of necessity they sent their daughters as well. Hope saw nothing wrong with the practice in theory, but unfortunately the city had not yet compensated for the hoards of single, friendless women or provided them with appropriate avenues for security and guidance.
And white slavers like Diamond Jack Fletcher took blatant advantage of the situation.
"Have you a place to stay while you look for a job, Miss Holcrum?" Hope asked once they'd entered the waiting area. Sadie didn't respond immediately as she was busy gaping at the three-story-high bay window that overlooked Lake Michigan.
"Oh . . . well, as to that, my sister Eloise says there's a boarding-house on near every corner in Chicago," Sadie replied stoutly.
"There are a good number, such a plethora in fact that it's far too easy to make an error and choose one of the more . .. dodgy variety," Hope explained with a significant look.
"It is part of the Welcoming League's mission to take young women to respectable boardinghouses and provide directions and contacts for employers in the Loop who are looking for workers."
Sadie's blue eyes widened in amazement. "Well, ain't it lucky I ran into you, then?"
"Indeed," Hope replied as she gently nudged Sadie toward the exit where Evan would be waiting with the carriage.
"There's just one thing, miss." Hope blinked in surprise when the young woman's cheeky grin revealed a gleaming gold tooth. "I'll be needing to use the facilities after that long trip, if you don't mind."
"Of course, I should have asked. Right this way, Miss Holcrum," Hope said as she nodded in the direction of the ladies' lounge.
She got a measure of satisfaction when she saw Marvin slink back into the main waiting room notably with no young woman on his arm. A shiver of apprehension went through her when he gave first Sadie and then Hope a narrow, assessing look before Hope lost sight of him in the crowd.
NINE
Ryan's heart still hammered like a locomotive going full steam inside his chest as he stared at his laptop computer. He tried to take a slow, steadying breath and forced his attention on the black-and-white photo of men in the stands at Marshall Field watching a University of Chicago football game in the year 1905. None of his jackets would pass as suitable, but his long, black overcoat would work along with a white shirt and black tie.
Apparently it was time for him to fully enter Hope's world. He knew that because he just had.
The jarring experience had taught him that he needed to be a bit more cautious and prepared on his next attempt, although he didn't know how he could have prepared himself for that.
Five minutes ago he'd noticed that the fog on the mirror had completely cleared.
Although he couldn't see Hope or the interior of her bedroom, he found that the surface of the mirror had enough give for him to penetrate it completely.
Like a fool he'd stepped through and ended up in the middle of a clamoring city street with a team of horses bounding straight toward him. The animals' shrieks of terror and the image of them rearing in panic—the lethal, kicking hooves and the whites of their rolling eyes—would likely be emblazoned on Ryan's memory until the day he died. He'd experienced some pretty significant shocks in his life, but that had to be one of the biggest ever.
He didn't have the opportunity to be dismayed over the fact that the window of the mirror had disappeared by the time he turned in panic. He'd dived through the space where it had been and smacked into the wooden floor of the Prairie Avenue bedroom so hard that'd it'd knocked the breath clean out of him for ten seconds.
Obviously this mirror didn't work precisely in the way he'd imagined, he acknowledged when he was finally able to draw air again.
He grinned distractedly when he pulled the ivory felt, short-brimmed hat from a still unpacked box of memorabilia from his college days. It was a replica of the hat Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg used to wear. The University of Chicago Hall of Famer had long been one of Ryan's sports idols. He'd bought the hat for fifty cents at a Hyde Park garage sale while he was still in college because of its similarity to the one Coach Stagg wore in the very picture Ryan had pulled up on his computer.
He put the hat on his head and studied himself in the gilt mirror. There was no way around it. He was going to have to shave his goatee.
Fifteen minutes later, clean shaven and wearing his best facsimile of early-1900s apparel, Ryan reached into the mahogany wardrobe and extricated his SIG Sauer semiautomatic from the holster. He slid the weapon into the chest pocket of his overcoat. After showing up in the middle of the street with those horses charging straight at him, Ryan didn't know what to expect. The last thing he needed was to find himself in a situation in 1906
where he was required to remove his coat, thus revealing his holster and gun. He checked that the clip on his Spyderco Captain knife was secure before he tucked it out of sight in his boot.
He stood before the mirror and concentrated on the poignant memory of Hope last night, the mixture of anxiety and trust on her face when she'd pushed her robe off her shoulders and gifted him with the sight of her naked beauty.
Gifted him with all her. Period.
Ryan didn't understand what had happened there at the end of their lovemaking, couldn't comprehend why she'd tried to escape his hold. He only knew it was the image of her giving herself so trustingly to him that he needed to cling to if he ever hoped to reach her.
If he ever hoped to save her.
He took a deep breath and stepped into the gilt mirror.
And found himself staring at a long bar in a dark, dingy room. Each empty wooden bar stool had a none-too-clean-looking brass spittoon directly beside it. A man with flaming red hair behind the bar's polished glasses. He glanced up and met Ryan's reflection in the dirty mirror behind the bar.
"Mother p'—" The bartender spun around. "How'd ya get there all of a sudden?"
Ryan took in the man's thick mustache and hair that had been slicked back with so much oil that it dripped onto his dirty white collar. His accent seemed strange and yet familiar at once; some exotic mixture of Irish and south-side Chicago.
Ryan's tongue had seemingly become glued to the roof of his mouth. Reality slammed into his brain with the effect of a baseball bat whacking his skull.
Holy shit. He re
ally was in the early twentieth century. If Alistair could only see this.
At first the man seemed angry at Ryan's muteness.
"The Sweet Lash ain't open yet fer business, mister, so scram." An idea seemed to occur to the bartender whose forearms reminded Ryan of Popeye. "Hang on! I know who ya are. Shoulda known, from the size of ya. At least Shapiro sent someone decent this time.
Well, sit yerself down there, fella. How 'bout a nice glass of cold beer? Something to take the sting outa Big Mario's fist?"
Ryan didn't care for the bartender's knowing look. He scowled at him while he struggled for how he should reply. Would something about his speech give him away? Did he really need to say anything at all? He needed to get out of this place. He needed to find Hope.
The Sweet Lash? Ryan thought in rising amazement. Wasn't that the name of the south-side restaurant and nightclub that his nemesis Jim Donahue owned in the twenty-first century? And hadn't he read in the Tribune at the time of the nightclub's opening a few years back that the establishment had once been the home of a late-nineteenth-century brothel?
Despite his eagerness to find Hope, Ryan couldn't help but look around him in wonder.
He quickly saw, however, that the Sweet Lash hardly warranted awe. Neither did the rancid, mildew odor that filled his nose. The room was large—perhaps a hundred by seventy feet—and contained a multitude of round tables and chairs. Four gas chandeliers with red lampshades cast as many shadows in the dim room as it did lurid light. Ryan realized that one of the dark corners contained a piano because someone started plunking out a raucous tune on the keys.
There were several raised platforms. The ones at the side of the room were cordoned off with frayed and dirty, gold velvet ropes. The floor consisted of some sort of black substance of unknown origin but had a slight give to it beneath Ryan's shoes. He suspected it might be solid earth and grime pressed down into solidity by thousands of hard leather soles.
Either that, or the wooden floor had long ago been covered by years of dirt, spittle, sweat and God only knew what other types of human and animal excretions.
