He sat up straight in his chair and wrapped his green silk dressing-gown tighter around his chest. In the bedroom next door, he could hear the occasional chink of Hannah’s teacup, as she took her breakfast in bed. He had been writing a letter to Leland, to be taken up by ferry to Sacramento. His pen had paused over the unfinished sentence ‘… and seventy-five short tons of iron pit supports,’ and had dropped a blob of ink in the shape of a duck.
He rubbed his forehead with his fingertips. Did he really want to see Maria-Mamuska again – always supposing she was still alive? She would have been lucky to survive for so long, what with San Francisco’s bad drinking water and contagious diseases, not to mention the risks of childbirth. For all Collis knew, she was lying under the gritty clay of Lone Mountain Cemetery, sightless and skeletal; or thirty feet under the waters of San Francisco Bay, raped and robbed, with her throat laid open.
He didn’t owe her anything, after all. She had ignored him at Panama City station. And even if she was alive, and free of gonorrhea, she had probably forgotten their rendezvous completely. She wasn’t the kind of girl that Leland would call ‘attentive’.
Yet, Collis stood up, and went slowly into the bedroom, and stood watching Hannah in her white lace bed jacket. And, after a minute or two, he said, ‘I’m going to have to keep a luncheon appointment today.’
‘Oh, yes?’ she answered, deliberately busy with her toast.
‘It’s, er … well, it’s all to do with the plan. A business contact.’
‘I see.’
He crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘Hannah,’ he pleaded. ‘Do you really have to treat me so hard?’
She looked at him as she ate. ‘Do you think that I treat you hard? All the circumstances considered?’
‘Hannah – you know perfectly well that I’m going to tell you everything about this plan, just as soon as it’s been successfully accomplished. The moment I can come back to you and say, “It’s all over, it’s all wrapped up,” I’ll explain the whole thing to you from beginning to end.’
‘I’m your wife, Collis. I have a right to know now.’
He took a breath, as if he was going to say something sharp, but then he let it out again. ‘I’ll be back by three o’clock,’ he told her, getting up from the bed. ‘Why don’t you ask one of your lady friends to come around and take luncheon with you?’
She set aside her breakfast tray. ‘I’ll do whatever I consider fit,’ she said, and when he started to open his mouth again, she said, ‘Just as you do,’ and smiled.
‘Hannah,’ he said. Coaxing her.
‘Collis,’ she replied. Resisting him.
He put on one of his most appealing expressions, but all she did was slowly shake her head.
‘Oh, dammit!’ he shouted at last. ‘Won’t you understand that I can’t tell you?’
Walter West’s store on Montgomery Street was already looking derelict. The blinds were drawn, and pine planks had been nailed across the front door to protect the premises from looters. A tattered poster said: ‘Closed, Due to Sudden Bereavement. Store & Stock to Be Sold by Auction.’ Collis went up to one of the side windows where the blinds had sagged, and rubbed away the dust in an effort to see inside. He could just make out an overturned chair, and a bolt of cloth.
The deputy sheriff had investigated Walter’s murder ‘with all the necessary zeal’, but after questioning numerous tong leaders and drinking numerous bottles of warm rice wine, he had concluded that Walter had been murdered ‘in a fit of pique, by an oriental person unknown,’ and that the culprit was probably ‘well away by now’. The truth was that San Francisco’s few law-enforcement officers were not only mystified by the Chinese, but afraid of them, too. It was better to accept their hospitality and their chop suey without comment, and leave them to deal with their own affairs.
Collis leaned against the horse-hitching rail outside Walter West’s store, tilted the brim of his hat against the hazy noon sunlight, and waited. Several people turned and stared at him as they walked by, since his likeness had appeared five or six times in the papers, and it was unusual to see such a well-dressed man loafing on a street corner. Collis smiled once or twice at some of the prettier girls who passed, and took out his pocket watch to check the time. He’d give her ten minutes, and then go.
A small blue-painted carriage drew up in front of him. He moved aside to let the coachman climb down, open the door, and extend the steps. He was damned if he was going to wait very much longer. Perhaps he’d take Hannah for an excellent lunch someplace, and see if he couldn’t calm her down. He’d like to be able to tell her his plan. In fact, he’d prefer to. But how could he possibly explain it without embarrassing her? How could he possibly explain it without embarrassing himself?
He wasn’t even looking towards the blue-painted carriage as the coachman helped his passenger to step down. He was conscious of a lady in a blue cape and feathered bonnet, and he took a further step backwards to let her pass; but his eyes were on the sidewalk, for the first glimpse of that long black hair, of that low Spanish-style blouse.
But then she said, ‘Collis?’ and he turned.
He stared. He didn’t even recognise her at first. She seemed to be taller, and far more attractive, and her embroidered cape was well cut, well styled, and obviously expensive. Her hair was pinned up with diamond-studded combs, and she wore sparkling diamond earrings. She carried a parasol with self-confident grace.
She was still Maria-Mamuska, though – with those same dark slanted eyes, and that soft, sensual, slightly parted mouth. She was smiling at him in pleasure and amusement, and as he stepped forward she gave him a mocking little bob. He took her hand and held it between his, and he did nothing at all but stare at her.
‘There!’ she told him. ‘I never forgot the day. 18 September, your father’s birthday, at noon. I often used to pass by this store, and wonder if you would remember it, too.’
‘You look quite beautiful,’ he told her. ‘I’ve thought of meeting you here from time to time, and I’ve thought of what you might look like. But I never imagined this.’
She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. She smelled of Eau de l’Isle, the season’s most fashionable fragrance. ‘When you come to San Francisco,’ she said, ‘you do one of three things. You die, you stay as you are, or you get rich.’
‘And you got rich.’ Collis grinned.
‘You, too, from what I hear. My maid reads the newspapers for me. I like to hear what’s going on.’
‘Your child?’ he asked her. ‘Did you have your child?’
‘A boy,’ she said. ‘He’s almost three now. He looks like his father, but that doesn’t matter. I will teach him to grow up like a gentleman.’
Disregarding the stares of passers-by, Collis suddenly reached out and held Maria-Mamuska close, and kissed her. ‘I’m so happy to see you,’ he said. ‘And I’m especially happy to see you looking so well.’
‘Would you like to take lunch with me?’ she asked. ‘My house is on Bush Street. You must tell me all about yourself and your railroad.’
‘I’d love to.’
They climbed into the carriage and the coachman closed the door. He was a short, impassive Mexican with a moustache as droopy as seaweed. ‘The house, Miss Paradise?’ he asked and Maria-Mamuska nodded.
‘Miss Paradise?’ asked Collis, as they joggled off along Montgomery Street. ‘Is that what you call yourself these days?’
‘It was the wine merchant’s idea. He said that all ladies of pleasure should have professional names.’
‘I don’t quite understand.’
She held his arm and kissed his ear. The carriage was bright with sunlight, and flickering reflections from second-storey windows. ‘When I first arrived in San Francisco,’ she said, ‘I worked in Mr Gordon’s sugar refinery, packing bags of brown sugar. Well – I was pregnant, what choice did I have? But when George was born, and I was well again, I made up my mind to do something better. Something to
make me lots of money. Mr Gordon had always told me to make the best of my natural assets, and that’s what I did. I named George after Mr Gordon, you know.’
‘How did you start?’ asked Collis.
Maria-Mamuska snuggled up closer. Collis hoped that Eau de l’Isle wasn’t too strong and too recognisable. He’d meant to buy some for Hannah but he hadn’t gotten around to it yet.
‘It was Mr Gordon himself who helped me,’ said Maria-Mamuska. ‘He knew a lady called Mary Miller on Geary Street. She runs a very respectable house, you know. Very genteel, with well-dressed girls, and tea and cakes for the clientele. They even have signs on the wall saying, “No Vulgarity Allowed.” ’
‘So you took up the oldest of all professions?’ asked Collis.
Maria-Mamuska raised her head proudly. ‘I’ve enjoyed every minute of it, and every man. Perhaps if I’d had to work in a four-bit crib on Meigg’s Wharf I wouldn’t have liked it. But Mary Miller taught me how to look after myself, how to please my clientele, and she gave me the name of a good doctor, too.’
Collis sat back on the carriage’s dark-blue velvet seat. ‘When did you decide to set up business on your own?’
‘When I was taken to the opera for the first time, and saw Belle Cora and some of the other madams, in all their pearls and their jewels and their beautiful dresses. I realized they were rich! And I thought to myself, I’m at least as pretty as Belle Cora, so why shouldn’t I be rich, too?’
‘You mentioned a wine merchant,’ said Collis. ‘Where did he come into it?’
‘Well,’ said Maria-Mamuska confidentially. ‘It’s not generally known, but several of the bigger wine importers help to finance the parlour houses where their champagne is sold. They can make so much profit, you see; and so they pay for leases, and for furniture, and some of them even bail out the girls when they’re arrested as common prostitutes.
‘Myself, I went to Dunglas & Company, because I’d heard they were more respectable than most, and I talked to young Mr Dunglas himself. Very accommodating, he was. He bought me my house, he paid for the furnishings, and as long as I sell fifteen cases of French champagne every week, he’ll give me anything and everything I want.’
Collis couldn’t help grinning. ‘I always thought you were a remarkable young lady,’ he said. ‘That night in Panama, when you told me right to my face that I hadn’t satisfied you, that was proof enough for me. I was just hoping against hope that you were still alive, and that your child had been born safe.’
‘Even though you’re married?’ asked Maria-Mamuska, with a touch of slyness in her voice.
‘Your maid read that to you, too?’
‘Oh, yes. And I’m pleased for you. She’s your kind of woman, isn’t she? Strong, and sure of what she wants.’
‘Is that how she struck you, when you first saw her?’
Maria-Mamuska kissed him again. ‘You thought she was so pitiable, didn’t you? The poor lady, travelling all the way to San Francisco by herself, going out to join a husband she’d forgotten how to love! But you mark what I say, she knew what she wanted all along, from the moment she set eyes on you! There’s a handsome young man with his head fixed on the right way around, she thought. And didn’t she get you, in the end? She’s a clever lady.’
Collis held Maria-Mamuska’s hand. Her nails had grown now, and were finely manicured. Every finger was decorated with a gold ring, each one set with diamonds or sapphires or South American emeralds.
‘I think you’re misjudging Hannah more than a little,’ Collis said. ‘She didn’t find it easy to leave her husband.’
‘She must have found it easier once he was dead.’
Collis didn’t want to talk about that. ‘That was a tragedy,’ he said, and turned away.
Maria-Mamuska reached out and touched his cheek. ‘I’m sorry,’ she told him. ‘I didn’t mean to offend you. Please forget what I said. Why don’t you tell me about your railroad instead, and what you’re doing in San Francisco?’
Her house on Bush Street was a narrow four-storey gingerbread building with railings and balconies, one of a terrace of six. It was discreetly painted in grey and white, but the shine of its brasswork and the over-elaborate way in which its lace curtains were arranged somehow gave it away as a house of entertainment, rather than a residence, or a boarding-house.
Stepping down on to the boarded sidewalk, Collis tugged on his gloves and said, ‘It’s very handsome. I must congratulate young Mr Dunglas, if ever I have the pleasure of making his acquaintance.’
‘Don’t you dare,’ said Maria-Mamuska, as she gathered up her dress to step down.
She dismissed her coachman and led Collis inside. The house was less lushly decorated than Knickerbocker Jane’s, and the colours were more muted, creams, and tobacco browns, and bottle greens. On the walls were oil paintings of plump and contented nudes, their flesh white and luminous, their eyes as vacant as sheep’s. There were spittoons in every corner, and ashtrays, so that the house had the atmosphere of a gentleman’s smoking parlour rather than a dolled-up whorehouse.
A pretty Chinese girl in a maid’s apron was waiting to take off Maria-Mamuska’s cape. Collis gave the girl his gloves and his stick, and she bowed her head to him respectfully.
‘I wanted my clientele to feel at ease,’ said Maria-Mamuska, taking Collis through to the living-room. ‘In so many parlour houses, the poor fellows feel as if they daren’t cuss, or smoke, or tell stories. I still expect good behaviour, but I don’t have the gentlemen gathered around the piano singing hymns, as Mrs Kahn does. And I do serve liquor.’
‘A glass of champagne would go down very well,’ said Collis.
Maria-Mamuska pulled a brown velvet bell rope. ‘You must have some of our dim sum, too, while you’re here. Do you like Chinese food?’
‘I’ve been obliged to. The Chinese community seems to have elected me its unofficial hero of the decade. I’ve promised them work on the railroad, you see, laying the tracks and digging the tunnels.’
‘Is it the railroad that’s brought you down here this time?’
Collis stood with his back to the fireplace. Maria-Mamuska, spreading her shiny blue skirts, sat down on a davenport opposite. In the pale light of the early afternoon, she looked like the coy erotic fantasy of a popular painter – a wild woman dressed up in silks and lace, with a lace-and-pearl choker around her neck, diamonds in her hair, and her full breasts cradled in nothing but a bodice of sheer embroidered lawn.
‘I’ve come down here to see if I can’t persuade San Francisco’s business community to lay out some capital,’ he said. ‘We have a full survey to undertake, up in the mountains, before we can convince Congress that we’ve really found a feasible route, and that’s going to take money. More money than we’ve actually got.’
‘You don’t believe they’ll actually advance you anything, do you?’ asked Maria-Mamuska. ‘It says in the newspapers they hate the railroad.’
‘They’ll lend me the money if Laurence Melford says it’s a good idea to lend me the money.’
‘Laurence Melford? But he’s the worst of them. I’ve seen him at the opera. A real pioneer bigwig, and a Southerner, too. When Laurence Melford says hop, everybody hops.’
‘That’s exactly why I have to get his support,’ said Collis.
Maria-Mamuska pulled a face. ‘I think you’re crazy. He wouldn’t support you if you held a gun to his nose.’
‘Supposing I held one to his daughter’s nose? Metaphorically speaking. Don’t you think he’d change his mind then?’
‘What speaking?’
‘Metaphorically. That means I don’t actually intend to hold a gun against her nose for real, but I do intend to do something that will have the same kind of result.’
The Chinese girl came in with champagne. They each took a glass, and toasted each other in silence. Collis walked over to the window and then turned around. Maria-Mamuska could only see a silhouette of his face, half obscured by the sunlight.
; ‘I intend to put pressure on Laurence Melford in the one place where he’s really vulnerable. If he thinks that Sarah’s at risk, he’ll do anything, and say anything, to get her out of trouble.’
‘You’re going to threaten her life? How can you do that? Melford will have you hanged.’
‘I’m not going to threaten her life at all. I’m going to threaten something which Laurence Melford, as a Southern gentleman and an overprotective father, holds even dearer than life. Her reputation.’
Maria-Mamuska sipped champagne. Her eyes, above the sparkling rim of her glass, were frowning with an unspoken question.
‘Maria, the very first thing I ever learned about the Melford family was that Laurence Melford was the kind of man who wouldn’t tolerate anything but the best for his daughter. He kicked would-be suitors out of his front door like mongrels out of a butcher shop, only harder. He’s obsessed with the idea of Sarah as a Southern flower, untouched, unsullied, beautiful and courteous. Well, I thought, supposing someone showed him that she wasn’t that way at all, and supposing someone threatened to show the whole world that she wasn’t that way at all, unless he agreed to some measure of gentlemanly co-operation?’
Maria-Mamuska fanned herself slowly with her hand. ‘I think I’m beginning to see what you mean. You mean blackmail on his daughter’s reputation? But how are you going to do it?’
‘I shouldn’t be telling you this,’ said Collis.
Maria-Mamuska laughed, in a friendly way. ‘You shouldn’t, but you probably will. Most men tell me most things, which is what makes me good at my profession. I always say that even the most anxious man finds it easier to talk to a prostitute than he does to anybody else, including his wife. Especially his wife, sometimes.’
‘You’ve changed a great deal in three years, haven’t you? You’ve learned a lot.’
‘Yes.’ She smiled. ‘About myself I’ve learned a lot, and about men. Most parlour houses only take care of men’s physical lusts. But here, I take care of everything.’
Collis took a cigar from a humidor on the mantelpiece. He crackled it close to his ear, then slipped off the band, clipped it, and lit it. Maria-Mamuska watched him appreciatively.
Railroad Page 65
