Mojave (17 page)

“I guess you could say that. We shook hands and all, and ask anybody in California, and they'll let you know, plain and pure as gospel, that Candy Crutchfield's a man of her word.”

“I don't get this,” I said. “I don't understand nothing. You were bringing in mail-order brides and so was Whip. You ain't bringing them to the same grooms. I mean, last I heard, bigamy ain't allowed. This ain't Utah.”

She slapped her knee. Dust flew off her britches. “That's real funny. I'm startin' to like you. Not trust you. Not yet no how. But like you. Utah. Damn, you're funny.”

Didn't feel funny. Felt like hell. And sicker than a dog.

“Canfield's dead,” I said. “Whip killed him.”

She nodded again. “Saved me a lot of trouble. And sweat. Aimed to skin him alive and cut off his balls, the sorry cur. Then draw and quarter him, for old time's sake.”

“Well . . .” Stopped. Thought. Rubbed my temples this time, but that didn't do no good. Then I said, “The contracts . . .”

“Was with,” she finished, “the late Mister Canfield to provide a new home—husband, I reckon—for the girls once they lighted in Calico.”

“Yes, but it ain't like the contracts died with him.”

She smiled, only this time she wasn't finding nothing funny, and that smile sent a shiver up and down my backbone that hurt worser than a hernia.

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “They did.”

Still didn't have a clue as to what was going on, so I said, “So all that money . . .”

“Is about to double. For me. And my pard in Calico. And”—she gestured back to camp, and thirty-one mail-order brides—“my girls. Ever' last one of 'em.”

Which is when I knew exactly what that dream meant, and that Sister Rocío had been right all along. God did speak to folks in dreams, even a heathen like me.

I whispered: “The Palace of Calico.”

I had grown sick of her wretched cackling, not to mention all that knee-slapping and tobacco-spitting.

“You ain't as stupid as I thought you was,” she said. “Whip mentioned my Palace to you, I warrant.”

My headache got real stressful by this point. Figured I might start sprouting warts. I could barely nod. “In passing,” I said.

“It's gonna be the finest business in Calico,” she said. “And make me richer than God.”

I said, “A whorehouse.”

She shook her head. “Nah, I prefer to call it a House of Pleasure. But The Palace of Calico does sound a lot fancier, and more pleasurable than Candy's Hog Ranch, which is the last brothel I owned. Actually, I called it Candy's Bagnio, but ever'body 'long Orinoco Creek called it Candy's Hog Ranch, and most of my whores and most of my clients was hogs, so it fit.”

Another slap on her knee. “Hell, I sold out for three times what I'd started the damned bordello for. So they could call it anythin' in the book. Hell, they did.”

More crowing.

Somehow, I managed to lift my head. I met her hard eyes. Tried not to sound like some sky pilot or temperance lecturer or no hard-shell Baptist when I said, “But these are good girls. How can you . . . a woman . . . how . . . ?”

She wagged a fat, grimy finger at me like she was scolding a schoolboy.

“How many whorehouses have you frequented, Micah Bishop?”

“Well . . .” I stuttered and stammered. “Maybe . . . a couple.” Quickly adding, “Long time ago.”

Don't think she thought I was being totally truthful, but she didn't argue none. Instead, she asked, “How many of 'em was run by a man?”

Which stopped me.

“Like I figgered,” she said. “Men ain't got a monopoly on the market of marketin' a girl's goodies. But don't you worry none. We'll treat our gals mighty fine at The Palace of Calico. Charge customers Calico prices, and the girls'll get half of that, lessen expenses, naturally. Room and board. Doctorin' bills. Wardrobes and all.”

She gestured toward the soup-holding John Milton, still standing there silently like a wooden Indian.

“Even brung along Franklin Kent, M.D. The ‘M.D.' stands for ‘Mad Dog' on account he intentionally kilt someone in Bodie, but I reckon she deserved it, her being a wealthy widow who'd put the doc in her will and all. But he's a fine doc, speaks like a real English dude, and he'll treat our gals, make sure they don't pass on no ailments to our customers.”

She paused just long enough to spit. “And I ain't gonna call 'em whores. At The Palace of Calico, they'll be courtesans. And I'm a-bettin' that the most popular, who'll command a right high price, will be The Celestial Queen, your Jingfei.”

I was too sick to leap up and stove in her head. All I could do was shake my head, and that hurt.

“You can't,” I said softly. “These are good girls.” 'Course, the only one I'd met, or even seen, other than the six dead ones, was Jingfei, though I'd heard enough from Peach Fuzz about Bonnie Little, and I had dreamt of the Irish redheaded twins. “You can't turn them into soiled doves.”

“Can't I?” She done more of that coyote-sounding cackling. “You don't think ever' girl workin' the tenderloin wasn't once a ‘good girl'?” Which caused some more guffawing. “Hell, Micah Bishop, these girls I'm bringin', like as not they've spent their last dime just to come out to California to get hitched. So instead of wedded, they'll get bedded. They won't have much of a choice.”

My head stopped pounding and I had a moment of clarity. I sang out, “But they signed contracts!”

“With the late Rogers Canfield, but there's some real fine print in 'em contracts. One important part states that should Rogers Canfield meet an unfortunate demise before completion of the contract, the rights would go to the heirs, and since he had no heirs, the dirty dog, ownership would go to the late Rogers Canfield's business partners. Which includes whoever could bring twenty-four courtesans to The Palace of Calico.”

My head started drubbing again. That sounded a lot like slavery to me. I could see Honest Abe Lincoln giving one of his stern looks out of his tomb in . . . I forget where he's buried.

“What about the husbands?” I managed to say. “They signed contracts, too.”

“But they only paid a down payment, and the final bill can rise accordin' to expenses and such, which is also in 'em contracts, or, in case of the death of one of the signers of the contract—in this case, the death belonging to Canfield, the contract is void. Besides, men can be bought off, 'specially when we got more womenfolk they might marry. Hell, Micah Bishop, we only got rooms—or will have rooms—for twenty-four courtesans in The Palace of Calico. Twenty-five, now that I've seen the Irish twins. We can still make some of 'em ol' boys happy, and the girls, too. And make us a tidy profit, still.”

“So . . .” I began. “Jingfei . . . she might still marry Lucky Ben Wong.”

“Hell, no. A girl like that? You think I'd just turn her loose? Miners, hell, men in general, they want somethin' exotic. And she's not only exotic, she's a Celestial Queen, the Mistress from Manchuria. She'll bring triple what the other girls will bring, includin' 'em red-haired twins who I aim to . . . well . . . never you mind 'bout that.”

My eyes shut tight. Heard more sizzling and figured Candy Crutchfield had spit into the fire again.

“You like to gamble some, I figure. Seein' how slick your hands is. So I'll guess that you can count, at least to fifty-two. Well, try out these numbers. Twenty-five courtesans. The prettiest between Denver City and San Francisco. Twelve hundred people in Calico, out of which maybe twenty is women, and only two or three of 'em whores. Now, go out to Wall Street Canyon, Mule Canyon, Mammoth Stope, and the borax mines. Way we got that figured out, there's probably thirty-five hundred folks that Calico serves. And we'll serve. Serve 'em the finest courtesans to be found. Feather mattresses. Beds with springs. And real lovely ‘Fair but Frails.'

“That's why Whip bought 'em fancy buggies like the one y'all brung me. Whip aimed to bring his gals right up Main Street, so ever' man in Calico could see what was comin' to The Palace of Calico. A driver duded out in evenin' duds, escorting a gal with a fine dress and parasol in the backseat. That'd be a parade better'n anythin' you ever saw on Independence Day.”

More hooting. “Whip had a good plan. Thought haulin' all those other sundries with him would fool anybody else bound for Calico. Or fool me. But Whip was the fool. He thought he could reach Calico first, get a jump on things, win the race to bring the whores to town. But he didn't count on Candy Crutchfield. Which is a good thing you deserted him when you done so. But he done me a favor, Whip Watson. He killed Canfield for me. I'll say a few words in remembrance when we open the Palace. After I show the girls the contracts they signed. And this.” She patted her bone-handled knife.

Once again, the mustangs quit trying to build up pressure inside my skull to blow my eyeballs out of both sockets long enough so that I could tell her: “There's no damned way Jingfei would ever have signed a contract like that,” I said. “And no way Rogers Canfield would have, neither.”

“Sure they did. And it's bona fide. Locked up in the office of Rogers Canfield's pard. They signed it. All the girls. And Canfield, the dumb oaf, hisself.” She winked. “They just didn't know they was signin' it.”

My head shook. I was aching and now confused. My mouth started to ask
How,
when I heard John Milton's voice again. He said:

“Pray tell, Micah, have you ever heard of invisible ink?”

That doctor from Bodie who looked like John Milton but was named Franklin Kent and was a Mad Dog M.D. who had murdered a widow woman for the inheritance sucked on his sweet-smelling pipe, which now made me sicker than a mad dog, and knelt across the fire. And handed me my soup, which was cold, and he hadn't brung no spoon.

Candy Crutchfield patted my leg, and rose, her knees popping again. She shot a glance to the doc.

“No sign of Verne?”

The doc shook his head.

“Well, like as not, he'll show up tomorrow.”

He nodded, but I don't reckon either one of them believed that.

“Y'all don't stay up too late, Doc,” she said. “Busy day tomorrow.”

She was gone, leaving me with a dying fire, cold soup, throbbing head, aches all over the rest of my body, and a murderer smoking a sweet-smelling pipe that was souring my stomach.

“If it's invisible,” I said, “how do you know what it says?”

Laughing, he withdrew his pipe and tapped the bowl on his boot. “The technique dates at least to the thirteen hundreds,” he said, “but I believe you can trace it—trace, no pun intended, but, bully, that is a bloody good pun—to the first century. An officer in the army of Rome used milk from the tithymalus plant as invisible ink. Pliny the Elder was that officer.”

Saying the name like Pliny was as great as Ulysses S. Grant or George Washington.

“Can't see it,” I said, “can't read it.”

“That is precisely why you use it,” he said. “In your damned Revolution, spies from your side as well as mine used invisible ink with great effect. It proved valuable in the Indian Mutiny back in fifty-seven, and now is quite common thanks to Henry Solomon Wellcome. That Tabloid I gave you for your headache. That was one of Wellcome's inventions. By thunder, that certainly is better than drinking something dreadful or dissolving a powder in your gin. Quite so, quite so.”

I give him a look that Big Tim Pruett tried for years to teach me to give, but Big Tim was bigger and meaner and stronger than I'd ever be, but I tried to convey, without no words, to Doc John Milton that I didn't give a damn what some dude named Wellcome done. Then I drunk all my cold soup, and pitched the mug into the dirt behind me.

This time, my look worked.

“There are different methods of invisible ink, but most are quite common,” he said. “Vinegar, saliva, urine. Even sperm.” I crossed my legs at that remark. “But seeing how I do not know what the bloody hell a tithymalus plant looks like, I used lemon juice. It is likely the most common method used, and rather good. Quite so, quite so. No trace of it on the paper—until!” He snapped his fingers. “You apply heat.” He held out his hands over the coals of the fire.

“The lemon juice becomes visible.” He shrugged. “Thusly, the contracts become legal.”

“In a pig's eye,” I said.

“You have been to Calico, Micah,” John Milton said. “It is a pig's eye. And Rogers Canfield, now deceased, paid a lawyer a great sum of money to record those documents as legal. Even the parts written in lemon juice, which now, thanks to a great hand”—he was staring at his own right hand like it was some great painting—“with remarkable skill with scalpel for surgery and quill for forgery has been rendered and traced so that no one can tell Rogers Canfield's handwriting from . . . say . . . Jingfei's.”

“You're a pecker wood,” I told him.

He emptied his pipe, shrugged, and returned the pipe to a pocket. “My mother being a soiled dove in Liverpool, I had no control over my birthright.”

“You're still a pecker wood.”

Another shrug.

I looked past him. My heart broke. There was Jingfei, and Bonnie, and I could make out Peach Fuzz. I heard music. Well, not real music, not like that real fine band that played in Dodge City on that New Year's Eve in eighty-one, but there ain't much one can do with a jaw's harp and a banjo missing one string. Jingfei, I pictured 'cause I couldn't see her face, was holding hands with Bonnie, who was holding hands with some other girl, who was holding and holding and holding. And they was all looking at two girls, whose hair appeared to be red, and was dancing a jig and laughing, and it was a fine good time over by that other fire. Though I knowed Jingfei was smiling and pretending to be happy because she had to put on that brave face and act strong and not let the other girls know that they was in for a terrible experience.

I pointed over toward the dancing twins, who had to be Caireann and Caoilainn Lannon, who didn't know what they was in for, neither.

“Never knew a slave runner,” I told John Milton. “How do you live with yourself?”

Funny. I guess you never get too old to learn something new about your own mortal soul. I was pretty much a heathen, even a whoremonger. I cheated at cards. I stole horses. Had broken the eighth and ninth commandments a whole bunch of times, even the sixth a few times, maybe the seventh once—no, twice—and most of all them others. One judge once said, and made sure the stenographer and newspaper reporter got it down just right, that I was so low-down, I'd have to look up to see a rattlesnake's belly.

“There's some things,” I told John Milton, “that even I won't do.”

“That is a luxury, my poor friend,” he said, “that could get you killed.”

Didn't say nothing. Just looked at those dancing, laughing girls, and, honest to God, felt tears welling in my eyes.

“Come now.” John Milton was speaking like that judge had when he was pronouncing a three-month sentence on me. “How can you stop Miss Crutchfield? You cannot, my good man. To do so would be suicide. Do you think I want to be here? Do you think I enjoy this company of ruffians?”

I give him a Big Tim Pruett stare.

“Doc Milton,” I told him, “you killed a woman, an old widow-woman, 'cause she writ you down in her last will and testament.”

Which caused him to sag, like I'd broke his heart or give him a punch in the kidneys, and he brought both hands to his face like the pressure of a bullet going through his skull had blowed them both eyeballs of their sockets. He groaned, shook his head, and said, “Yes, yes, yes, damn your vindictive soul, I killed Joan Lamore.”