MRS1 The Under Dogs (25 page)

"Say, listen, Fuzzy-Wuz, I got somepin t' say to yeh."

In spite of herself, Jessie looked wary. Fingy saw it and was aggrieved.

"Hell! I ain't goin' to hurt yeh," he complained. "Ain't I got decent feelin's same as anybody else?"

"Why, sure, Fingy?" she said quickly.

"Say, listen," he began again. "I want to tell you I got some new idees about women from knowin' you. When you first come here, I thought as you'd pick out the best man amongst us, which is every woman's right, and so I fought with Bill for you, and he licked me. I thought as you'd be his woman after that, and I was just agoin' to bide my time till I could play Bill a dirty trick, and win you away from him.

"And then I seen that you wasn't Bill's woman, and I couldn't make nottin' of that. You treated us all just the same. You was just as friendly to me as to Bill. Well, I want to say I appreciate that, Fuzzy-Wuz. I guess I kin respect a woman who's absolutely on the level, as well as any man. And I want to tell you as long as you don't mean to play no favourites in the house, you can count on me, see? And say, Fuzzy-Wuz, at that, this house is a damn sight comfitabler place to live since you come here."

Jessie was genuinely moved. "You're all right, Fingy!" she cried heartily. "Put it there!"

They gravely shook hands.

Along about this time the household received a new addition in the person of Tim Helder. Tim was an elderly little rogue; alert, bright-eyed, and bearded like a hayseed. He had all the mannerisms that were popular in his youth; that is to say, he tipped his chair back, and stuck his thumbs in the armholes of his vest; he cocked his cigar up, and his hat down; when he had no cigar he chewed a straw. He loved to whittle a stick, and at other times he occupied himself by the hour with what he called "cork-work," a kind of tubular knitting, done on a spool with a hole in the middle.

Jessie immediately realised that the coming of Tim had the highest significance for her. He had a great reputation as a confidence man, and all the others looked up to him. Jessie saw that she must win Tim or lose them all. And Tim was a professed scorner of women. With perfect effrontery, he told her so to her face, and cocked his hat still more defiantly over his eye whenever she came into the room.

"Well, so much the better," said Jessie to herself, "he'll have to meet me on some other plane beside that of sex."

She understood that Tim had been on a job out of town, which had been brilliantly successful. The details were not discussed in her presence. He was now going to "lie doggo" for awhile, he said. Jessie had this much to go on; he felt he had been done out of a fair share of the proceeds of his job, and was filled with a smouldering resentment. Moreover, he despised Black Kate.

She had an uphill fight. Tim loved his affectations, chief of which was summed up in the oft-repeated boast that, "No woman had ever come anything over him." He was angered by the attention which Jessie commanded at the dining-table, where he formerly had reigned supreme. No matter how demure a part Jessie played, the other men would turn to her for her opinion.

In the end Black Kate played right into Jessie's hands.

This was the evening following Jessie's second visit to me at the house on Twentieth Street. It was after supper, and the men were all sitting around the kitchen in their shirt-sleeves, smoking and talking, when Jessie entered the room. Tim Helder said in tones of audible disgust:

"Oh, Lor'!"

Jessie coolly lit a cigarette. "What you got against me, Mr. Helder?" she asked good-naturedly.

"I like men, and I like man-talk," the little old cock said with asperity. "When a woman comes around it spoils everything."

"Go ahead with your man-talk," said Jessie. "My ears ain't too tender."

"Yah!" he snarled, "you're one of the kind that wants to make out they're just like men! Monstrosities, I call them!"

"You're hard to please," said Jessie, smiling.

"Let her alone, Tim," growled Big Bill Combs. "She's got as much right here as any of us."

"Cut it out, Bill," said Jessie quickly. "Mr. Helder's got a right to express his opinion. I can respect a man who says what he thinks."

"Yen, that's right, turn on me now," said Bill, sore immediately.

"I ain't turnin' on nobody," said Jessie. "I was goin' to say that Mr. Helder's opinion of women was no worse to me than the line of stuff I get from most men. I on'y ast him to forget I'm a woman, and treat me like a human being the same as himself."

"Yah!" snarled Mr. Helder. "You ain't the first woman as asked me to treat her the same as a man. Them's the most insidious kind."

Jessie ignored this. "I came down to hear the rest of the story about the guy who floated a loan of fifty thou. from a national bank and got away with it. Go ahead, Mr. Helder."

"A-ah!" he said crossly.

"You just got to the place where the guy switched the envelope containing; the good securities for the other one, and then Sam broke in on you, and I didn't hear the rest."

"Well, fellas, it was this way," old Tim began, pointedly ignoring Jessie, but beginning the story, nevertheless.

It was not destined to be finished that night, for Black Kate made one of her periodical descents on the kitchen, with Sam at her heels. She was in a grinding temper, and looked around spitefully for something to vent it on.

"Huh! hanging around the men as usual," she said to Jessie.

Whereat little Tim rose in her defence, as pugnacious as a terrier. That was the way he was.

"A-ah! she's got as much right here as anybody!" he said.

Jessie smiled to herself, and silently thanked Kate for aiding her thus.

Kate ignored Tim. She would remember that speech later and pay him off. "Where you and Bill been to-day?" she demanded.

Bill informed her with more force than politeness that it was none of her business.

"We'll see about that!" snarled Kate. "You've been told to teach the girl what she ought to know, but I'm still the head of this house, and you're both subject to my orders, see? We'll see whether it's any of my business or not!"

"Ain't nothin' to conceal," said Jessie mildly. "Me and Bill just walked around."

"Walked around!" sneered Kate. "And what does he teach you, walkin' around?"

"All about the different kinds of people," said Jessie, "and how to tell what they'll do, and how to handle them and all. He shows me all the different ways of effecting an entrance into houses and stores."

"Does he teach you loyalty to the organisation?" demanded Kate.

"Disloyalty" was Kate's bugbear. With her unbridled bad temper and tyrannous ways she made everybody in the house hate her, and then made believe to ascribe their black looks to "disloyalty."

"Why, sure," said Jessie. "That goes without saying."

"Oh, does it?" said Kate. "Not with me! Let me tell you, I'm far from satisfied with you, my girl. There's a look in your eyes that tells me you're a whole lot too big for your shoes. You've got to be taught your place before you'll be any good to us. You've got to learn that the organisation is everything, and you are nothing.... Come with me!"

Jessie followed her out of the kitchen, wondering greatly what was in the wind now. Sam went with them, and Bill Combs brought up the rear, to make sure that no harm was intended Jessie. Up three flights to the top of the house they went without exchanging a word. Kate stopped in front of the door facing the top of the last flight, and producing a key, opened the door, and struck a match.

In the sordid little room Melanie sat on the edge of her bed, elbows on knees, and head gripped between her hands. She did not look up at her visitors. Upon her right wrist was a heavy steel bracelet, from which a chain ran across the room to be fastened to a staple driven deep into the frame of the door. An ugly sore showed where the fetter had chafed her wrist. Her dress was unkempt, her hair tousled. It was a terrible picture, and doubly terrible in the uncertain light of the match, which only made a little pool of brightness in the obscurity of the room.

It was not really so terrible as it seemed, for three hours before, Jessie had seen Melanie's head sticking out of the window, full of hope and courage. Jessie commended the girl's powers of acting. For her part, Jessie made believe to be as powerfully affected by the sight as Kate designed her to be.

"O-oh!" she breathed, full of horror. "Who is she?"

"Never mind her name," said Kate, with a hateful smile. "She won't have no further use of a name."

"What did she do?"

"She tried to betray the organisation."

The match went out, and Kate closed the door and locked it. In the darkness of the landing she said to Jessie in a terrible voice "That's what we do to traitors. That's just the beginning of her punishment. So mark well, my girl, and watch your step."

Jessie made believe to be tremendously impressed. "You won't have no trouble with me," she murmured, making her voice tremble. "The organisation means everything to me. I'll serve it well."

There was a light on the next landing, and as they descended the stairs, Bill looked at Jessie, full of uneasiness. He did not know how far she was putting this on, and manlike, he thought: "If she can put it over Kate like this, why not over me?"

When they re-entered the kitchen, the four other men were still sitting around sullenly. Kate had thrown sand into the machinery of a pleasant evening. Kate's bad temper was not yet glutted. Tun was seated as usual, tipped back in his chair, with his thumbs forked into the armholes of his vest, and his hat cocked over one eye.

"Take your hat off when a lady comes into the room," said Kate.

"I will, like hell," said Tim. "That ain't no way to speak to a man."

"Then knock it off for him, Sam," shouted Kate.

Which Sam did with a sweep of his arm, grinning.

Tim was over sixty years old, and incapable of putting up a fight against a youth like Sam, however poor a specimen. He sat there, his limbs trembling, and his face working with the helpless rage of the aged.

Jessie saw a golden opportunity. Matters were already so bad between her and Kate, there was nothing to be lost there. "Shame!" she cried.

Kate's face turned livid with rage. "So!" she cried. "You ain't learned your lesson yet, eh? Well, I'll teach you now, my girl. Sam!"

But Big Bill coolly stepped in front of Jessie. "Go slow," he said in his heavy way. "I got somepin to say to this."

"Me, too!" growled Fingy most unexpectedly from his corner.

"And me!" said Abell, standing up.

Black Kate faced them, balked and furious. "All right! All right!" she cried stridently. "You're all traitors! The boss shall know of this!"

"Well, be sure to tell him the whole story," said Bill.

Kate flung out of the room. Sam, with an indescribably sly expression, seated himself in the dark corner by the pantry, prepared to listen.

"Get the hell out of here!" said Bill.

"I got as much right as..." began Sam.

"Get out, before you're kicked out, you damn spy!"

Sam beat a hasty retreat through the hall door, and Bill closed it. "She knows better than to telephone the boss," he said coolly. "She's supposed to run this house without runnin' to him with complaints."

"That woman makes our life here a hell," said Jessie, in a low voice. "How long are we going to stand for it, boys?"

Deep growls answered her from this side and that. She judged that the time was almost ripe.

"What's the matter with her anyhow?" asked Tim querulously. "Her temper was always oncertain, but now she's like a crazy woman."

"Jealous of the girl," said Bill laconically. "Jess has been put under my charge."

Meanwhile Jessie had picked up Tim's Fedora, and brushing it with her sleeve, she put it back on his head. "Here, Mr. Helder. Say, it done my heart good to hear you speak up to her. Anybody could see you're not afraid of her."

Tim mumbled something a little sheepishly. From that moment he was Jessie's!

"If she's supposed to run this house without any trouble," Jessie went on softly to the crowd in general, "all we got to do is to make trouble for her—plenty trouble, to get her fired."

Nobody answered her. All the men looked uneasy.

"All we got to do is stick together," Jessie went on, feeling her way with them. "This whole show is organised to keep us under. Well, what we got to do is to organise to protect ourselves."

"You cut out that kind of talk, kid," said Bill roughly. "You're only giving her a handle to use against you."

"Oh, it's not up to me," said Jessie cunningly; "I'm only a new-comer here. Now, if a man like Mr. Helder was to take the lead—a clever man, and an important man in the organisation, we could do something."

"Sure! Sure!" said Tim cynically. "Much obliged to you for mentioning my name. How long d'ya suppose it would take the boss to step on me?"

"We wouldn't push you forward as our leader," said Jessie eagerly. "We'd show him a united front. All standing together. He couldn't step on us all, could he? Men as useful to him as Mr. Helder, and Bill, and Fingy and Abell? No! He's a business man. You all tell me that. Well, what does a good business man do when he finds himself up against an unbreakable combination. He gives ground as far as he has to; that's what he does."

"That's all right," said Tim bitterly; "but our boss has got a handle to use against us, different from ordinary bosses. With him it's behind the bars for yours!"

"Suppose he returned us all behind the bars," said Jessie, "That 'ud be switchin' off the juice that makes the wheels go round, wouldn't it? He'd hesitate before doin' that. We're the headliners of this here show; we bring in the coin. And suppose we were behind the bars, would we be so much worser off? I say no! We make him rich, and what do we get out of it? He takes every penny off us, and keeps us locked up until he wants us. Galley slaves, that's what we are! Are you goin' to stand for it? It's up to you. Me, I'd sooner be a prisoner than a crawling slave!"

"Whisht, girl, whisht!" said Bill scowling. "This ain't no sort of talk from you."