Power in the Blood (34 page)

“What is it?” she asked, stopping. Omie stared resolutely beyond her, lips slightly parted, eyes unblinking.

“It’s gone …,” she said.

“What is? What’s gone?”

“The … the money.”

“What money? What do you mean?”

Then Zoe knew. She had hidden her three hundred dollars beneath the carpet in their room at the hotel, thrusting it far from the edge, spreading the bills with her fingertips so no trace of a bulge could be detected. It was not possible that this was the money to which Omie referred, but she felt coils of apprehension begin to tighten around her heart anyway.

“Ours …?”

Omie nodded slowly, her face without identifiable regret or alarm. She still was not looking at her mother.

“Hurry!”

Zoe began to run, hampered by her long skirts and Omie’s unresponsive weight on her arm. “Hurry! Please hurry!”

The desk clerk was made curious by his newest guest’s panic-stricken face and hoarse breathing as she collected her key.

“Has … has anyone been up to my room?”

“No, ma’am, not even the maid, not till tomorrow. Something wrong?”

She ran for the stairs, the little girl dragged along behind with a perfectly blank expression on her peculiar face. The desk clerk decided the proprietor should know about such goings-on, and sent a bellboy to notify him at the restaurant across the street, disturbing his supper with a woman who was not his wife. Annoyed, the proprietor sent back word that the desk clerk should investigate for himself, and report on what he found, if anything, the following morning.

Receiving his instructions mere minutes after Zoe had flown with her key to the stairs, the desk clerk trudged up to the second floor, where he found Mrs. Dugan sitting with head in hands on the edge of the bed, while her little girl stood looking at the carpet between them.

“Ma’am, has something happened?”

Her head lifted. The desk clerk had witnessed grief often in the course of his work, and was able to recognize her distress, but he could see no cause for it.

“Ma’am?”

“My money …”

“Money, ma’am?”

“He took it … someone did.”

“Someone took your money? Where was it you kept this money, ma’am?”

Zoe nodded at the corner. “Under the carpet,” she said, the words leaving her like tired breath.

“Oh, ma’am, you shouldn’t have done that. Leadville’s got plenty of banks that’ll take care of your cash just fine. That’s just awful. Was the door locked?”

“Yes.”

“And the window?”

“I … don’t know. I didn’t look.”

The desk clerk went to the window and found it unlocked. The newfangled fire escape was bolted to the bricks outside, a perfect escape route for any thief. There was a notice on the inside of every door in the hotel, warning guests to lock their windows when absent from their rooms.

“You say someone took it, but do you know who?”

“He had … one blue eye, I think.”

The desk clerk began to doubt her immediately. “One blue eye, you say?”

“I believe so.”

“You saw this man?”

“No, my daughter did.”

The desk clerk squatted down in front of Omie.

“Was the man with the blue eye coming out of this room?”

“No.”

“Well, where did you see him, exactly.”

“In the place with the colored lamps.”

“And what place might that be?”

“She means the dance hall nearby,” said Zoe.

“Ma’am, I don’t think I can see a connection between the fellow with the blue eye and what’s happened to your money, I really can’t. Is there something more you can tell me?”

“He might still be there, at the dance hall. Where can I find a constable?”

“City marshal’s office is just down the street. Turn left at the lobby entrance.”

He wanted no further part in whatever scheme the woman was trying to work. Her acting was better than most, and the girl’s contribution was well rehearsed, even if her delivery was a trifle stiff and unconvincing. They should have concocted a better story between them, though, if they wanted to collect money from the hotel as compensation for allowing some blue-eyed or one-eyed thief into their room to rob them of their nonexistent savings. It was a shame the mother was training her daughter in such criminal arts, especially since the little girl was already saddled with a physical affliction no amount of ill-gotten cash could rectify. The desk clerk found himself without any sympathy for the woman.

When they were alone again, Zoe asked Omie to try and remember just what the man with the blue eye had to do with the disappearance of the three hundred dollars. Omie squinted and frowned, and could tell her nothing; she could no longer recall with any clarity the vision that had struck her outside the dance hall doors. Seeing Zoe’s disappointment, she began to cry. Zoe enfolded Omie in her arms and assured her she had done nothing wrong, and was not responsible for their loss. “I know,” was Omie’s slightly offended response.

“Stay here,” Zoe told her, “and don’t open the door to anyone but me. I have to go and find the man, if I can. Will you be all right on your own?”

“Of course.”

Zoe did not go to the marshal’s office. She had seen the change that came over the desk clerk’s face when he heard of the man with one blue eye. A marshal would be even less likely to waste time on such a case, and Zoe could see why. She would have to take care of it herself.

The place was in full uproar when she arrived. Zoe noted for the first time its sign in letters of gold:
GODS OF THE DANCE
. The clientele spilling in and out were anything but godlike, most of them already drunk despite the early hour. She pushed open the doors and went inside.

Almost immediately, a large man barred her way. “No women,” he said. Zoe barely heard him over the din. A band of musicians was pounding, sawing and scraping with vigor on a rostrum at the far end of a cavernous space aswirl with men and women in close embrace.

“No women,” the man repeated.

“I have to find someone,” Zoe explained.

The man leered knowingly. “All of us got to, lady, but we got all the someones we can handle inside here right now.”

“I don’t want to dance. I’m looking for someone … a certain person. I’m sure I saw him come in here.”

“Someone you know?”

“I … yes.”

“What’s his name?”

“He has one blue eye.”

“Say again?”

“One blue eye. Has anyone like that come in here?”

“With an eye patch, lady?” Her interrogator was clearly enjoying himself.

“No, he has two eyes, but only one of them is blue. Please tell me if someone like that has come here tonight.”

“I guess I would’ve noticed a feller like that.”

“He’s a thief. He stole some money from me.”

“Oh, he did? You come with me, lady.”

The man beckoned a colleague of equal size to take over his position by the door, then led Zoe around the edge of the crowd lining the walls. The smell of liquor and tobacco and perfume was overpowering. Zoe was feeling quite faint by the time she was ushered along a short corridor marginally less noisy and smoky than the main hall, and brought to a halt outside a closed door. Her escort knocked, then went through, indicating with an impatient gesture that Zoe should follow. She entered a small office. A man with oiled curls of hair pasted to his forehead sat behind a desk, writing in a ledger of some kind. “What?” he said, without bothering to raise his head or cease writing.

“Lady here says we got a thief come in.”

The man looked up. His cheeks were smooth and plump, his features boyish.

“What thief?” he asked.

“I don’t know his name,” said Zoe. “He has one blue eye. The other eye is brown, I think.”

“What did he take?”

“Three hundred dollars.”

“Know him if you saw him?”

“I would know the eyes.”

“Would you mind waiting outside for just a minute, ma’am.”

Zoe stood beside the office door until the large man emerged. “He says to take you around and look at everyone. If you see the feller, you tell me. Does he carry anything?”

“Carry?”

“He got a knife, a gun, blackjack maybe? I need to know before I tell him to hand over what he took, see.”

“I don’t know if he’s armed. I’m sorry.”

“Just go ahead and pick him out, and I’ll handle it.”

They returned to the echoing hall. Zoe saw now that every woman present wore a dress of bright coloring that revealed as much as possible of the shoulders and bosom. Arranged like furniture along one wall when not actually dancing, these women never, to Zoe’s eye, turned down a prospective partner, drunk or sober. She had not understood until then that the women were employees of the man whose office she had visited, not casual visitors like the men, whose price of admission presumably entitled them to lurch around the floor with any female of their choosing. Zoe found the concept vile.

Her eyes were beginning to weep in reaction to the smoke-filled air, and she found it difficult to concentrate on the faces, whiskered or clean-shaven, that swam before her. Some were too bleary-eyed to even notice her scrutiny; others registered surprise at the presence of a modestly dressed woman in their midst. The lighting was dim, and she was obliged to thrust herself close to every man whose eyes she checked. Several times this uninvited closeness was misinterpreted as lewd invitation, and the men concerned attempted to embrace Zoe, only to be thrust away by the large figure at her side. She looked and looked, but saw no eye of blue that was not accompanied by another of the same hue.

“No,” she said, sick at heart. “No more.”

“He ain’t here, you reckon?”

“No.”

“Come on back and see Taffy.”

“I would prefer to leave, thank you.”

“Taffy said come back when we’re done, so we will.”

Too dispirited to argue, Zoe accompanied him again to the office. This time she was ushered into the presence of the owner alone.

“Mr. Taffy, thank you for your help, but I must go back to my daughter now.”

“Just a few minutes of your time, ma’am. The name’s plain Taffy, by the way. Take a chair, do.”

Zoe sat on a comfortable settee by the wall. Taffy swiveled his padded armchair to face her. Zoe thought his artificially arranged hair was effeminate in the extreme, but she could not deny he was polite.

“This thief, he took everything you’ve got, am I right?”

“Yes.”

“Mind if I ask what your business is in Leadville?”

“I came here to … to open an eating house.”

One eyebrow lifted itself among the oiled curls. “With three hundred dollars? Ma’am, you’re not serious.”

“Would that have been too little? I confess I’m not an expert in these matters.”

“I would say not, if you’ll pardon my frankness. So you have a little girl to take care of, and no money.”

Zoe nodded. She felt unbearably tired, and her clothing reeked of tobacco smoke. Her dream, such as it was, had died among the gods of the dance.

“So you’ll be needing employment directly.”

“I’ll find something,” she said.

“Well, maybe. Then again, maybe not. It’s men that’s gone tearing out of town this last day or two, not women. If you’re a miner you’ll find an empty job to fill, but I just don’t know what else there’d be for you, ma’am. Would it be an impertinence to know your name?”

“Dugan, Zoe Dugan.”

The name caught Taffy’s attention. He had that very morning read a Kansas newspaper that had arrived wrapped as protective padding around some panes of glass ordered to replace those repeatedly smashed during drunken fights on the sidewalk outside. The account he read over his morning coffee had told of one Clay Dugan, marshal of Keyhoe, Kansas, who had single-handedly pursued a team of bank robbers into the Indian Nations and brought them and their loot home again, the bandits having been rendered beyond any need for legal counsel. Dugan sounded like the kind of man Taffy admired. The newspaper was several months old. He knew there was no connection between that Dugan and the one before him now, but the mere coincidence of their name made him look kindly on the woman who had lost everything to a man with one blue eye.

He examined her from a professional point of view. The look of respectability about her meant little; some of his most popular girls had looked like Zoe when they sat on that very settee and asked for a job. With the right dress, this one could prove to be every bit as successful as his best earners. She was not too plain, nor too pretty, which often made men leery of demanding a dance, let alone an assignation in the back rooms. With a smile painted on her, she just might work out fine.

“I have a position open here,” he said. “You probably saw how things work while you were out there. The men buy tokens, little brass arrowheads—I thought up that idea myself—and they hand them to the ladies every time they dance. The one with the most tokens at the end of the evening gets paid more than those with less. Pay for merit, that’s the term.”

Zoe hadn’t noticed the exchange of tokens, but what she had seen was enough to negate Taffy’s self-satisfied picture of the enterprise.

“Thank you, no.”

“Think about it. Look around, then come back.”

“I will. Thank you.”

Zoe had no intention of wasting a moment to even consider such work. She stood, thanked Taffy again for having allowed her to inspect his clientele, and departed.

Omie was fast asleep when Zoe returned to the hotel. She had paid in advance for just three nights, thinking this more than enough time in which to launch her plan for an eating house. How lamentably inadequate her preparations seemed now.

Stifling her fears, Zoe set out early the next morning to find work. She applied at every hotel, hoping there might be need for someone to change the sheets or assist in the kitchen or clean the floors, but there was not. She was similarly unable to interest the owners of the very eating establishments she had hoped to supplant. Even a position as waitress was impossible to find. She returned to the hotel twice during the day, to be sure Omie was not distressed in any way over having to remain cooped up in their room for so long. Omie understood what Zoe was attempting to do, and knew the presence of a child would make success even more elusive. She appeared content to play with a favorite doll while Zoe went out again to try her luck.