Silver Lies (12 page)

She dug into her pocket for her gloves. "Smoke and mirrors. You haven’t answered my questions."

Early afternoon. The customers at the Silver Queen were saving their energies for the evening. Inez stepped inside and surveyed the long room as she removed her doeskin gloves. A few desultory card games were in action, but most of those hunkered at the tables and along the bar were focused on eating and drinking. Abe worked the bar while Useless carried bowls of stew from the kitchen. Inez inhaled. Venison and onions mixed with tobacco and the unwashed.

Useless stopped, balancing four bowls. "Found the painter. He’ll be by."

Abe looked up from mixing a Mule Skinner—whiskey and blackberry liquor. "Get the combination?"

She shook her head. "Looks like we’ll need your special talents." She mimed rotating a dial in the air and headed for the upstairs office.

Once at her desk, she pulled out the small package she’d retrieved at the post office. The brown paper carried her sister’s careful script. She wondered if the small package had crossed paths with the one she’d sent to Harmony. The parcels, each deep in the belly of a train, passing on some snowy plain in
Kansas
. Travelling in opposite directions.

The paper rustled as she unwrapped it, layer after layer, before revealing an intricately tooled leather case.

A folded page of ivory stationery fell out as she opened the case. William’s baby face peered out from the photograph mounted behind the glass window. She traced his image behind the glass, feeling the pain of separation all over again.

Some of the pudginess had left his cheeks. He sat in a garden on a small, wooden stool, clutching his stuffed toy dog. One of the dog’s button eyes was crooked, as if it had fallen off and had hastily been re-sewed. Inez closed the case and opened her sister’s letter.

Dearest Inez,

William’s cough has passed with none of the complications

you feared. This news and the enclosed photograph will, I

trust, bring you peace this Christmas season—

The door squeaked open. Abe said, "The painter’s downstairs."

She handed him the photo case. Abe turned it over twice, examining the embossed cover, and opened it. He tugged at one corner of his mustache, gently closed the case, and handed it back. "A right fine likeness. He’s got your eyes. Let’s hope he doesn’t inherit your temper."

"And that he grows into a whole lot more common sense as well." She opened the case and balanced it on the desktop. William’s hazel eyes, so like her own, stared back. "You’ll have to open Joe’s safe. Soon. Tomorrow, if possible."

Abe wiped his hands on the bar towel tucked into his apron. "Haven’t done that sort of thing in a long time, Inez. Might’ve lost my touch."

She snorted. "Abe, anyone who handles a knife and mixes drinks the way you do hasn’t lost his touch, I guarantee."

"What’s the hurry?"

"Reverend Sands was at Emma’s." She tapped the desk blotter with a finger, frowning. "He’s talked her into moving to
Sacramento
. Before I left, he pulled me aside, quoted the Bible, asked questions about Joe, and threw out innuendoes about Joe and Mark. He was quite intimidating."

"And you, what? Quoted the Good Book right back at him?"

She waved a hand. "I just threw his innuendoes back in his face." She rocked the chair gently. "He doesn’t believe Joe’s death is an accident either." She stood and moved toward the door, casting one more look at the lone image on the desk. "I pray every night that I made the right decision. Sending William east and staying here."

"Well, if I remember rightly, goin’ back to your family wasn’t in the cards." Abe locked the door behind them.

"If I’d arrived on the patriarchal doorstep Papa’d thrown me right back out on the streets. And how would Mama explain to her society friends that her eldest daughter is not widowed, not, God forbid, divorced, but abandoned by her worthless husband." Inez gripped the raw wooden banister, scanning the crowd below. "I did what I had to do. Now, I must ensure that, when I next hold my son, I’ll never have to leave him again."

From her vantage point on the landing, Inez spotted Llewellyn Tremayne conversing with Useless at the bar. The sign-painting business must be lucrative, she thought, or perhaps his portrait work funded his wardrobe. A coat with a dramatic overcape complemented a ruffled-front shirt and doeskin breeches. His dark hair was tied back. That and his neat pointed beard and flowing mustaches gave him the air of an English poet from the previous century. The only concession to the climate and the condition of the streets was his boots, nicely blacked, but laced high for practicality and deep mud.

How he escapes being assaulted in the streets for a swell is beyond me.

Useless looked up and met Inez’s eyes. He blushed, said something short to Llewellyn, and began to clear away dirty glassware. Llewellyn turned, watching Inez as she descended the stairs.

"Mr. Tremayne. You painted our sign last spring. You’ve gained a reputation for portraiture as well."

He bowed deeply over her proffered hand. "Bankers, mining magnates. Not to mention the cherubs on the ceiling of Tabor’s new opera house."

"Rumor has it, you’ve also painted Mrs. DuBois."

"Twice." His smile widened, revealing the whitest, most perfect teeth Inez had ever seen. "The more public of the two hangs in her drawing room. The second, my masterpiece, is in her private chambers. Catherine DuBois as Venus, rising from the sea in her natural state, surrounded by nymphs."

Inez raised her eyebrows. Abe broke the awkward silence. "Mrs. Stannert here has some notions she’d like to see up on the wall where the mirror used to be."

She nodded. "Actually, I’m pleased to hear you’re acquainted with the classics, because I had my heart set on something classical on a grand scale."

Llewellyn smoothed his mustache as he pondered the twenty-foot length between the backbar’s mahogany pillars. "Greek Gods? Helen and a thousand ships?"

"Rather the ultimate battle between good and evil, as in John Milton’s
Paradise Lost
. I’ll show you the appropriate passages later. Now, here’s my vision. To the right," she pointed, "Heaven. But not a city of gold, not for Leadville. Let’s make Heaven a silver city. And over here," her arm swept to the left, "Hell. But not fire and brimstone. Something dark and cold enough to freeze your soul. Ice. And put a little spot of
Eden
in the corner."

She brushed her hands together briskly, pleased. "When you paint Heaven and Hell’s legions, leave the faces blank. We’ll sell spots on the wall. You’ll get to do portraits of Leadville’s highest and lowest."

Llewellyn rocked on his heels. "I’m intrigued. For the right price, Mrs. Stannert, I’m yours, body and soul, for the winter."

He smiles like a fox. And all those white teeth.

Inez smiled back. "Keep your soul. Let’s draw up a contract tomorrow." She addressed Abe. "Now, don’t you think some citizen will pay handsomely to be portrayed as Saint Michael holding a silver sword?"

"You’re askin’ the wrong man. I was votin’ for scenery, remember?"

"And you shall have it. A spiritual landscape peopled with all the souls trapped here, as well as those who are just passing through." She turned to Llewellyn. "May I offer you a drink to seal the deal?"

"Clouds the mind and dulls the imagination. Not to mention what it does to the hand that holds the brush. That stew smells good, though."

He placed a one-dollar note on the bar. Inez made as if to hand it back. "No, no, Mrs. Stannert. I’ll pay for my meals, like the rest."

She fingered the worn greenback before placing it in the cash box. "I swear I see more paper notes every day. I’ll never get used to them. They just don’t seem real."

Llewellyn laughed, a short hard bark. "Backed by the government, they’re as good as gold. Or silver. I’d rather carry a roll of these than tote a bag of coins. Mark my words, paper money is the future for the world of commerce."

After Llewellyn left Inez asked Useless, "What were you two talking about? You looked like the cat that swallowed the canary."

"Uh." His Adam’s apple bobbled. "Just old times. I worked for Mrs. DuBois when he was painting her picture. I’ll go help Bridgette." He scurried away.

"That’s right. We didn’t steal him away from Cat DuBois until mid-October." Inez directed her comments to Abe and a smile at the miners coming off-shift.

"I’m still wonderin’ why you did that. It’s not as if we couldn’t’ve found help elsewhere."

With afternoon deepening into twilight, Bridgette layered on coats, shawl, hat, gloves, and galoshes, as she talked to Inez. "Stewpot’s half full. Extra biscuits in—" she nodded toward the tin-door pie safe. "And I put something aside for Mrs. Rose. Tell her my heart goes out to her."

"I’ll deliver your words with the stew, Bridgette."

"When’s the service for the mister?"

"Soon, according to Reverend Sands." Inez stacked clean bowls on the table.

Bridgette peered nearsightedly at Inez. "And how is that new reverend of yours? As handsome as they all say?"

Inez frowned, then raised her eyebrows to smooth away the creases. "Handsome depends on who’s doing the looking. He has a certain charm, I suppose. When he chooses to exercise it."

A triple knock tapped out on the kitchen door. "There’s my Michael now, come to walk his mother home."

"Good night, Bridgette."

No sooner did Bridgette leave than Useless crashed through the passdoor. "Chet Donnelly’s here and he said—"

A shove from behind sent Useless sprawling into the table, rattling the bowls. A bass voice boomed, "He said he’s hauled his no-account ass back in here to ’pol…apologize and to, whaddya call it, make reso-loo…resta-too…Aw shit. Make good on another fancy mirror to hang behind your bar."