Footsteps echoed in the hall. They were heading for the audience chamber. She sucked in her breath. Cass cocked his head.
"There you are, Baines, my good fellow!" Cort's slurred, Texas twang called in the hall. "Enjoying your reprieve from the slammer?"
Cass reached for his shoulder holster; Sadie grabbed his arm and gestured for him to keep quiet. She and Cort had buried the hatchet, so to speak, and she didn't need Cass turning all Wild West on him—at least, not until she figured out why Cort had bailed Baines out of jail.
Cort liked to think of himself as a true southern gentleman. In other words, he was too proud to work. The Texican owed money to most of Kansas. To elude his creditors, he'd abandoned his wife and infant daughter so he could live off Mattie's earnings—which, ironically, hadn't stopped the louse from cheating on her. Four years ago at the Long Branch, Cort had tried to hike Sadie's skirts without paying a fee.
"I must admit," Baines said drolly, "the entertainments at the jail are less amusing than the ones you have here. I owe you a debt of gratitude."
"Don't worry, Doc. I'll think of a way you can pay me back."
Baines chuckled. "Of course, dear fellow. So tell me. Are you having better luck at the blackjack table?"
"Ten straight wins," Cort crowed.
"So now you admit my research has merit," Baines said smugly.
"Damned straight! That crazy finger-tapping exercise really works!"
"The exercise is called a trigger," Baines said dryly, "and it's designed to elicit a conditioned response. In other words, every time you tap your knee, your memory improves. Just like every time a fellow smells a sizzling steak, he gets hungry. Conditioned response is a scientific fact. There's nothing crazy about it. Unless, of course, you take it to extremes."
"You mean, like tapping both knees?"
"No, like winning 10 black jack games in a row."
"Aw, I was just practicing," Cort said sheepishly.
"Precisely. You were practicing cheating. Might I suggest a little discretion? I can't cure a smashed skull."
"But you said you could make a body impervious to pain!"
Baines sighed with martyr-like patience. "Under certain conditions, a number of scientific methods, including hypnosis, can trigger any conditioned response, from blind obedience to memory loss. But even hypnosis can't revive a corpse."
"That's not the worst news I've heard all night," Cort said, laughing.
Sadie's scalp prickled.
"Of course, there are other ways to deal with pain," Baines countered slyly. "You're an enterprising fellow. I daresay you know a lot of people. People who can make a... er, headache go away."
"I hate headaches as much as the next man," Cort quipped.
"Then I came to the right place."
"Absolutely! How many kilos do you need?"
"Not opium." Baines lowered his voice. "I have another solution in mind for this particular headache."
Is Baines referring to Dante? Sadie exchanged an uneasy glance with Cass.
She'd learned that the quarrel between Baines and Dante had deep roots. It started in 1870, when both men were graduate students at Harvard. Apparently, when the university's Ethics Committee investigated allegations that Baines fudged research for his thesis, Dante was among the students who testified against him. Dante graduated with flying colors, but Baines was expelled. Barred from every school in New England, he finally finished his graduate work at a less prestigious college in Philadelphia.
Now, 13 years later, that Harvard scandal continued to dog Baines's heels—even in the forward-thinking West. In the University of Denver's formal refusal to fund Baine's hypnotism research, the Chair of the Psychology Department had alluded to Baines's "contempt for the sanctity of fact-based evidence."
"Do tell?" Cort said.
"Not here," Baines countered. "Somewhere private."
"You've got me intrigued, Doc." A back slap ensued. "Follow me."
Their footsteps were coming closer. Sadie panicked.
"My eyes!" she hissed at Cass. "Cort will recognize me!"
Cass bolted the door.
Now someone was futilely twisting the knob from the other side. "Looks like Mattie's got company," Cort said. "C'mon. We'll try the Blue Room."
"Where's that?" Sadie whispered as their footsteps receded.
"None of your beeswax," Cass whispered back. "You're leaving."
"The hell I am." She reached for the bolt.
He grabbed her wrist. "If the Johns on Mattie's waitlist figure out you're female—"
"Who's going to tell them?"
"Christ, Sadie—"
"I know my way around a whorehouse, Cass!"
The muffled tattoo of a woman's stiletto heels echoed in the secret passage. Sadie cursed under her breath. Mattie had lousy timing.
"Follow Baines!" she whispered, retracting the bolt and shoving Cass into the hall.
"But—"
"You wanted to snoop, so snoop! I'll stall Mattie."
Cass didn't look happy about this change of plan, but he relented. She barely had time to close the door behind him before the panel by the fireplace slid open again.
A Rubenesque blonde, in a black corset and scarlet lingerie, sauntered across the carpet in a cloud of lily-of-the-valley perfume. At 35 years old, Mattie was earthy and undeniably attractive. She had stunning cerulean eyes and full, pouty lips that didn't need paint to look kissable.
Belatedly, Sadie remembered that she was wearing a beard. She doffed her hat and doubled over in a bow.
Mattie hiked a finely plucked eyebrow. She glanced at the letter in her hand. Sadie knew its contents by heart:
The individual bearing this letter has earned my full trust. The matter is not only delicate, but urgent. I implore your indulgence and discretion. We seek your help. Consider me in your debt.
Respectfully,
Wilhelmine LeBeau
Tucking the paper into her bodice, Mattie sucked on her long black cigarette holder. She puffed out a string of smoke rings. Several lengthy seconds ticked past as she let Sadie stew.
Finally, Mattie demanded, "Is this a joke?"
Sadie was annoyed to feel her cheeks heat. She'd expected Mattie to peg her for a female, of course, but not the moment they locked stares!
"No joke, Madam Silks," she said with as much humility as her fiery nature would allow. "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me."
"Wilma must have come into money lately. A great deal of money, to be wasting my time with masquerades."
And so the game begins, Sadie thought grimly.
She laid a $100 gold certificate on the table. "I won't take much of your time—"
"For that paltry sum?" Mattie snorted. "You have exactly one minute."
Sadie bit back her retort to save time. Mattie's less-than-cordial welcome made her wonder just how close Wilma and Mattie really were. "Sisterly" seemed optimistic. Mattie must still be sore about Wilma getting a marriage proposal from Wild Bill Hickok. Of course, the notorious, curly-haired gunslinger had been three sheets to the wind at the time. And he'd retracted his proposal the next morning by riding hell-for-leather out of Dodge. But Wilma had gotten his prized ivory-handled Colt, while Mattie had gotten egg on her face.
"Can you tell me anything about this young woman?" Sadie asked, withdrawing a daguerreotype from her pocket.
Through her haze of smoke, Mattie glanced briefly at the image. "A runaway?"
"A friend."
"You don't lie well."
"Wilma's friend."
"Wilma should take better care of her business assets."
Sadie struggled with her notorious temper.
"My friend goes by the name of Minx," Sadie said, "although she may have used an alias. She disappeared in October. The sepia tones in the photo don't do her justice. She has blue eyes. Black hair. A bubbling laugh. She turns heads. Maybe the wrong head. We were hoping she paid her respects when she arrived in town."
"She d
idn't."
"Are you sure?"
Mattie yawned. "I believe your time is up."
"But Minx is dead!"
"My condolences."
"Wait!" Sadie ground her teeth. "Murdered, Mattie. Minx was murdered. I think she was coerced to do something against her will. Through... hypnosis."
Mattie hiked a skeptical eyebrow.
Even to Sadie's ears, the accusation sounded ludicrous. But during Pinkie training, she'd been warned against nefarious methods that enemies might use to coerce field agents. The Agency had expounded on the dire consequences of hallucinogens and torture. Her trainer had even mentioned the fledgling science of hypnotism, although he hadn't taken it seriously. He'd believed that a Pinkie would have to sit still and agree to be hypnotized. And what Pinkie would do that?
Nevertheless, as Sadie had eavesdropped on Baines and Cort, the seed of a suspicion had bloomed in her mind. Fowler wasn't the only shady character in Denver, who purported to be an expert on hypnotism. Baines had written his doctoral thesis on the subject, and he'd planted "trigger" commands in Cort, a player in the criminal underground.
What if Baines had programmed Cort to do something far more nefarious than count cards? And what if Baines had programmed Minx to jump off a bridge to silence an inconvenient witness?
"Have any of your girls disappeared?" Sadie asked. "Or suffered a sudden, inexplicable loss of memory?"
"My girls don't disappear," Mattie said. "They have good lives here."
That much was true: Mattie spent $6,000 on each of her girls to outfit them with an annual wardrobe. In Mattie's house, whores lived like queens.
"You're close to your girls," Sadie persisted. "You'd know if one was... say, acting oddly?"
Mattie looked bored. "Did I mention your time was up?"
Grimly, Sadie tossed $1,000 on the table.
"You've been holding out on me, dear."
"Enough games, Mattie. Help me help your girls."
"I wasn't aware they needed help."
"Then pull your head out of the sand! Some predator, lurking in this tenderloin, is turning people into his personal puppets. He's making them steal and murder at his command. He avoids all suspicion, while they go to the gallows in his stead. We need to figure out who this bastard is and how to stop him, because no one is safe. Not you. Not your girls. Not even Cort!"
At the mention of Cort, Mattie's eyes narrowed. Clearly, she knew Cort was a guinea pig for Baine's experiments.
"Your theory's a bit extreme, dear."
Sadie battled the rise of frustration. She couldn't blurt out the real nature of her suspicions—that Cort might be an unwitting pawn, who stole for Maestro. Only a Pinkerton would pose an allegation like that. She, on the other hand, was supposed to be an agent for Wilma's brothel.
"Men coerce young women all the time, Mattie. I don't need to tell you that. Whether Minx was drugged, hypnotized, or a combination of both, is moot. Surely you don't want your girls—your investments—to disappear the way Minx did! Wilma wanted you to be forewarned."
At the mention of Wilma, Mattie made a face and averted her gaze.
A few moments passed. Sadie kept her tongue firmly clamped between her teeth, lest she overplay her hand. She was privileged to know one of Mattie's closely guarded secrets. Back in Kansas, when no one else had cared that a feverish bawd lay babbling in the gutter, Wilma had used her Voodoo and herbs to nurse Mattie back to health. But business being business, Mattie and Wilma continued to operate rival houses. Of course, Wilma was in Texas now, too far to be a threat to Mattie's earnings.
Mattie must have drawn the same conclusion. She shrugged. "I might know something. I might not. Johns talk. The word is, a pretty young reporter from the Leadville Democrat was asking questions about a jewel thief. He calls himself Maestro because he has a perverse interest in musical novelties. Anyway, this reporter fit the description of your Minx," Mattie continued. "I never met her myself. And she never came around here. She wasn't that kind of working girl.
"A couple weeks back, before Halloween, the reporter was interviewing musicians around town and asking questions about Maestro. She wanted to know what instrument he played, if he performed in a band at a local saloon—that sort of thing. At some point, the reporter agreed to dine with a violinist from the opera company. However, she never showed up for their appointment. I know this, because the violinist spent the night here, drowning his sorrows and lamenting the fickleness of brunettes. He kept calling the reporter, 'that cheeky minx.'"
Sadie's heart tripped.
"The next morning," Mattie continued, "the Rocky reported that an unidentified woman had jumped off the 19th Street Bridge, leaving behind a cape. My girls were macabrely fascinated, speculating about what might make a woman throw away her life. The violinist suggested, 'A guilty conscience for jilting her dinner companion.' At the time, I thought he was making a bad joke at the expense of a stranger. But now that I think about it, he might have known her."
"Does this violinist have a name?" Sadie demanded darkly.
Mattie chuckled, rubbing out her cigarette. "If you're truly Wilma's protégé, you know better than to ask that question, dear. Curious, though. You're the second person in two weeks, who's come sniffing around here, looking for Minx."
Sadie tamped down her frisson of unease. "I suppose your house is the first place people would come to look for runaway girls. After Jenny's."
"Maybe." Mattie swept the gold certificates off the table and stuffed them in her bodice. "Or maybe your Minx was friends with a Pinkerton."
Sadie did her best to look shocked. "Some bastard sent the cops here? How could you tell?"
"Undercover dicks all have the same—" Mattie curled her lip "—smell."
Sadie swallowed an oath. She made a mental note to warn Mace that one of their agents was walking around with a blown cover. "So what did you tell this Pinkerton?"
"The same thing I'm going to tell you, dear. If Maestro did kill your Minx, it was because she poked her nose into his business affairs." Crystal blue eyes, as cold as mid-winter, locked with Sadie's. "Don't make the same mistake."
Chapter 8
Reining in his temper—and his worry—Cass reluctantly left Sadie in Mattie's audience chamber. He wasn't happy about leaving her unprotected, but he figured Sadie could handle a brothel madam. Besides, the sooner he got the evidence Sadie needed to close her case, the sooner he could get her home to Texas.
When he reached the restaurant, he could see the door to the private dining room. It was shut. To complicate matters, the restaurant was full of bored Johns, who had nothing better to do than watch his comings and goings while they waited for a rut. Cass cursed under his breath. He couldn't possibly put his ear to the Blue Room's door—unless, of course, he wanted dozens of witnesses to see him eavesdropping.
He waited another few minutes to see which waiter was carrying drinks inside the private room. But when he realized Cort had commandeered the brothel's one-eyed mute for the job, Cass admitted defeat. Mattie had hired Vachel specifically because he couldn't read, write, or carry tales.
Damn.
Well, whatever scheme Baines and Cort are hatching, I'm not going to learn about it tonight.
Since Cass's first priority was Sadie's safety, he headed back to the parlor to wait for her. He picked a strategic seat by the entrance, one that allowed him to observe Pug and the comings-and-goings in the foyer.
Lord. How long are those skirts going to yak?
Cass scowled at the irony. Here he was, Dodge City's Rebel Rutter, sitting in a corner of Denver's fanciest sporting house, shooing away half-naked women eager for his sex.
Why?
Because he was an idiot, that's why! Ever since a certain tawny-eyed Tiger had gotten under his skin, he'd been struck by a chronic case of cat-scratch fever. At least, that's what Collie called it.
Not that Collie knew anything about sex, Cass thought dryly. That crazy corn-cracker would rather suck bourbon
than a tit. Even now, the kid was seated at Cass's original table, glaring at a mouth-watering brunette, with scarlet lip paint and hungry green cat's eyes, who'd dared to reach her immaculately lacquered fingernails toward his private parts. Usually Vandy sat in Collie's lap, guarding those hallowed balls, but tonight, Vandy was hunting Tiger. Cass could see the coon's tail, sticking out from the linen-covered table beside Mattie's audience chamber.
Another five minutes crawled by. Cass shifted impatiently in his chair. He was seriously tempted to pound his fist on the wall. What could Mattie possibly say that would make Sadie risk her cover in one of Denver's roughest neighborhoods? More to the point, what had two tempestuous bawds found so consarned interesting, that they'd holed up for 15 minutes without tearing out each other's hair?
Are they talking about me?
Cass quailed at the thought. He tried to imagine life with his eyes gouged out, because that was the least Mattie would do, if she guessed he'd stolen her pearls. Not to be outdone, Sadie would set fire to the strips of flesh Mattie had left intact if she ever learned his other secret.
Or rather, Sterne's.
Cass wasn't happy about the promise he'd made to his boss before leaving Texas. Sadie had a right to know the Ranger commander was her real father. But what was Cass supposed to do? Waltz into Sadie's hotel room and say, "Guess what, doll? Your Ma was an adulteress. She screwed around with Sterne when Roarke was out of town, and oopsie! Guess who came along nine months later?"
Even Wilma was keeping Sterne's secret. The Pinkie Chief didn't agree that Sadie would be happier, believing Roarke Michelson had sired her. But Wilma had given Sterne her word. And her word was golden.
Suddenly, Mattie's door swung open.
Vandy's tail disappeared beneath the table.
Damn, Cass thought. That coon is sneaky.
Sadie emerged in all her bearded glory. Thanks to the dark swirls of her cape, Cass couldn't see a purse swinging from her belt, but he suspected Mattie had relieved Sadie of every cent she'd brought—and then some. However, the ruffians on Holladay Street were likely to view Sadie's fancy clothes with more optimism.
Dance to the Devil's Tune (Lady Law & The Gunslinger Series, Book 2) Page 10
