The Gilded Age, a Time Travel (27 page)

“One
day. Someday. Someday comes sooner than you think.”

“Always
one day, someday. I cannot think about someday, I tell you. It’s a struggle for
me to negotiate this moment right now.”

She
rises angrily and strides out of Lucky Baldwin’s.

He
dashes after her. “Zhu! Zhu!” Gentlemen turn and stare.

He
catches up with her, seizes her arm. “Zhu, please. You must behave yourself. You
promised you would. This is all quite improper.”

“I
won’t be your mistress if you don’t respect yourself and your future.”

“Very
well. Very well!” The sudden exertion makes him dizzy. Perhaps he’s reached his
limit. “Let’s walk. Let’s talk about the future.”

But
anxiety twists and sharpens in him as they stroll along the Cocktail Route,
past Montgomery, past Kearny, past Dupont. He starts every time they encounter
a gang of ragged fellows. His heart pounds as they turn every ill-lit corner.
Beneath the tobacco smoke and booze and rich food, he can suddenly smell his
own fear.

“Daniel,
what is it?” Zhu whispers as they reach the Dunne Brothers at Eddy and Market.

“Someone
is following us,” he whispers back. “I’m sure it’s the same fellows I’ve seen
all evening.”

“I’ve
seen them, too.”

“You
have?”

“Oh,
yeah.”

“Listen,
my dear, I may have enemies.”

“What
enemies?” She stops and gazes up at him, her strange eyes bright behind her
tinted spectacles. In his bleary gaze, she is sympathy incarnate. An angel, a
lady, a woman—what? Something turns in him like a knife.

“A
fellow defaulted on a boardinghouse Father financed. The note at breakfast,
that was from him. Most impolite. Perhaps he’s sent some thugs.” Though Daniel
doesn’t really think that’s likely. Dotty old Mr. Ekberg? Still, this is San
Francisco.

“Perhaps,”
she says, “I’ve got enemies, too.”

“You?”

“Yeah.
I went to see a girl today, the girl I’m supposed to rescue.” At his bewildered
expression, “The girl who was with me when Jessie bought me from Chee Song Tong.
The hatchet men took her away, remember?”

He
isn’t sure at first, then he does remember the day he arrived at 263 Dupont
Street. He nods. “Why are you supposed to rescue her?” As if any of this makes
any sense.

“She
was sold to a brothel. Damn it, she’s just a kid. There are other reasons, too,
that I can’t explain. Anyway, I’ve got to get her out of there.”

“And
does the tong know you intend to rescue her?”

“No,
actually they don’t. Not yet. But one of the tong men told me today he was
interested in
me.
”

“May
I remind you, you’re indentured to Jessie Malone.”

“You
think Chee Song Tong gives a damn about that?”

“I
get your drift.”

They
duck into the Dunne Brothers Saloon. The air is so thick with tobacco smoke, he
can barely see three feet in front of him.

“Just
a quick nightcap,” he says, “and then we’ll go home. I promise.”

“I
can’t take any more smoke,” she says. “I’ll wait for you by the door. Don’t be
long, please.”

Daniel
greets his fellow tipplers, says hello to dapper Frank Norris, who is drinking
deeply at the bar. He pays for his nightcap and knocks it back, then cuts
through the convivial crowd. But Zhu is not waiting by the door.

He
senses her distress even before he hears her cry, filtering catlike from the
alley next to the Dunne Brothers. He pulls the Remington derringer from the
back of his belt and dashes into the alley.

Not
one man, but three circle around her. The scrappy thugs he’s seen all night.
They’ve got her between them, lunging at her as she whirls like a dervish, keeping
them at bay.

“She’s
just a girl,” he shouts. “Leave her alone!”

The first
thug turns from Zhu, lurches at Daniel. Before Daniel can jump back, the thug
swiftly kicks, kicks high, his boot toe connecting with Daniel’s wrist. The
derringer flies from his hand.

“That’s
a message from Mr. Harvey,” the first thug says.

“Who?
What?”

“Mr.
Harvey says you friggin’ leave his poolroom alone.”

Mr.
Harvey? Then the name swims up in Daniel’s memory like a big ugly catfish, pale
whiskers streaming. The shack in Sausalito? Got to be.

“This
isn’t worth it, man!” Daniel cries. “It’s not worth thrashing us!”

He
backs away, and the second thug pounces, punching and thrusting hard fists into
his back, his gut, his poor old kidneys.

“So
you say!” The first thug seizes him, and knuckledusters pop against his mouth,
shooting white-hot sparks through his jaw.

But
through his pain and dizziness, Daniel glimpses an amazing sight—Zhu whirling
through the alley in some strange purposeful dance. She flies around the third
thug, who gapes her, openmouthed.

She
assails the second thug beating Daniel. He hears the sickening slap of flesh on
flesh, masculine grunts of pain and surprise. She worries him away, keeping the
third thug at bay, but the first thug strikes Daniel across the back of his
head with the knuckledusters.

The
world spins and shatters.

“My
dear Zhu!” he shouts. A gay tune pounded out on a piano roars in his ears,
filling his head with chaos.

6

Absinthe
at the Poodle Dog

“Jar
me, I’ll charge ‘em two bits a glass for that dago wine,” Jessie Malone tells
herself as her rockaway and pair trot smartly down Market Street. “Make ‘em
pay, darlin’. Make ‘em pay.”

And
why not? What is she, after all these years? Still the wee sad orphan, that’s
what, a-cryin’ herself to sleep. Mum and Pater cold in their graves when she
and her sweet innocent Rachael started out on their own. Started out at Lily
Lake where they swam like mermaids so long ago.

Columbus
Day turned out to be a very fine day for the eminent judge with a mustache like
a walrus and a gut to match—the one who hears tenderloin matters and a
long-time railbird—to touch her for twenty gold eagles. Twenty gold eagles! Half
her winnings at Ingleside Racetrack. Jessie’s got a nose for the nags, there’s
no more to her luck than that, though naturally every now and then she hears a
tip at the Mansion when a nobbler’s fixing a race and booze loosens somebody’s
lip. But how in hell did the good judge know she’s banked a hundred thousand
dollars of her hard-earned cash at Wells Fargo Bank? And what kind of polite
conversation is that?

“Good
afternoon, Miss Malone, aren’t you the lucky one today,” his honor the railbird
said, miraculously meeting up with her as she was collecting her winnings at
the cashier’s window. “Why, I’ll bet you’re going to add some pocket change to
that Wells Fargo account of yours. Eh, a hundred thousand big ‘uns, I’ll be
dadblamed. That’s quite a bundle for a little lady like you.”

“And
every penny of it, Your Honor, earned a-workin’ my fingers to the bone.”

“Or
on the flat of your back, eh? Oh, I do beg your pardon,” his honor said when
she sucked in her breath so sharply that her liver ached. “I do beg your
pardon, but could you spare twenty eagles of your good luck for your dear old
Samuel?”

As
if dear old Samuel doesn’t get his in the usual way—a brown leather purse
delivered on the fifteenth of the month. Gold, of course, a boy from the
American Messenger Service.

Hmph!
But as rude as he was, could she say no? His honor spoke to her discreetly. Not
a soul witnessed their exchange. And she might very well find herself before
his honor’s bench—next week, perhaps—if the bulls decide to raid the Parisian Mansion
on one trumped-up rap or another. Why, his honor wouldn’t know her from Adam
then. Or from the Serpent.

If
that doesn’t get her in the neck. Still hopping mad, Jessie skillfully
navigates the rockaway through the jostling evening traffic among reckless
hacks and drunken cabbies. Her matched geldings—chestnuts the color of rose
gold—trot like a dream, attentive to her every command. She’s also got an
excellent hand with the steeds, won’t let some whiskeyed lunk drive ‘em. She
always drives herself. The rockaway is a very fine vehicle paneled in finest
cherrywood, piped and upholstered in chestnut leather. She always wears gloves
of chestnut pigskin when she drives, and a throw of chestnut cashmere wrapped
over her lap. The whole getup costs a pretty penny to maintain, plus she has to
take a cab to and from Harwell’s Livery over in Cow Hollow where she garages
the rockaway and stables her horses. But it’s worth it, even if she only goes
driving five or six times a month. She holds her head as high as a duchess as
she passes the diamond broker and that wife of his. The wife glares. That
hateful look them Snob Hill ladies always give her.

“Pull
your eyes back in your sockets, missus,” Jessie mutters.

But
a tiny corner of her heart always stings when she sees the wives’ faces. Is she
forever to be shut out of polite society? Will she never feel respectable?

“If
you was more of a slut and less of a shrew, your old man wouldn’t come around
to me,” she mutters as the diamond broker’s carriage passes by. The sting
sharpens. “Would you like to know how he likes it? With two bouncing blonds at
the same time, that’s how.”

Jessie
takes great pains to accommodate the diamond broker. That’s why her earrings
glitter brighter than the stones on that wife of his. Hmph! That eases the
sting a bit. Miss Jessie Malone’s diamonds is bigger and brighter than the
diamond broker’s wife’s. Miss Jessie Malone drives her own rockaway and pair.

But
there, a sight catches her eye. Lordy, ain’t that Mr. Watkins? On the corner of
Market Street and Eddy? Despite the usual crowd of bigwigs and bulls, bruisers
and tools promenading along the Cocktail Route, she could never miss Mr. Watkins’s
fine cut, his bearing, his refined form into which his spiritual essence has
been so purely poured. She always feels a stab of anxious affection at the
sight of Daniel, as though he might disappear if she blinks.

With
an awful jolt, she also sees the tangle of thugs, three of ‘em, fists flyin’, and
Daniel reelin’, while a scrawny bespectacled coolie kicks and thrusts and
punches at the thugs in a most peculiar way.

Sure
and a peculiar way Jessie has seen before. There’s a name for it—juju
something. Ain’t that what Mr. Yakamora called the taut poses and deft moves he
once showed her in the parlor of the Parisian Mansion? Mr. Yakamora is a porcelain
importer over in the Fillmore. He always asks for plump blonds, though of
course he reveres his petite dark wife who waits patiently for him in Tokyo while
he scrapes together his fortune in America. The wife has waited eleven years.
Or at least eleven years is as long as Jessie has been servicing the needs of
her dear friend Mr. Yakamora.

Yep,
juju something, a style of hand-to-hand combat from the Far East. Jessie
recognizes the movements, despite the shadows cast over the fracas. The coolie
whirls and dives, yelling.

Yelling
in a high, womanly voice. Say. Hasn’t Jessie heard that voice before?

Jessie
cracks her horsewhip as Daniel rises, stumbling, the back of his head bleeding,
swings at a thug, and misses. The other thugs tear at his fine clothes. His
face is flushed, his collar askew, his bowler pushed up on his sweaty forehead.
He throws another punch and staggers. Blood trickles down his face, too.

“Mr.
Watkins!” she cries.

Jessie
clucks to the geldings, cuts through traffic. A gift from an attaché to the
ambassador, the geldings were. And last autumn it was, a party for some poxy
barons who’d invested in certain municipal bonds and dropped load at the opera.
It was a swell party, too, plenty of champagne and whiskey. She made a bundle
that night. And though she had the girls douche with mercuric cyanide
afterwards, Rosa and Dolores came down with the pox only too soon. Jessie had
to turn them out to her Morton Alley cribs. A shame, but the biz is the biz. And
now the geldings are all hers.

Jessie
pulls up to the curb, reaches in the glove box. She finds the silver flask of
Jamaican brandy, bites off a nip to steady her nerves. Then she seizes her
horsewhip, stands unsteadily, and cracks the whip but good over the thugs’
noggins. The geldings rear. “Whoa!” she cries, pulling them up and falling on
her bustle onto the driver’s seat. She lands another lashing, this time across
the thugs’ backs.

“That’s
from Mr. Harvey!” cries the thug in the slouch hat, landing one last punch
across Daniel’s kidneys. Jessie winces. She can practically feel the blow in
her liver. “Keep yer friggin’ mitts off his joint!” Dodging the scrawny coolie,
the thugs turn and flee.

The
coolie hoists Daniel to his feet, slings his arm across one shoulder, and
staggers to the rockaway. “Help me, Miss Malone,” he says in a ragged voice,
his fedora knocked askew, his queue unraveling.

“What
in tarnation?” Jessie leaps down, seizes Daniel’s other shoulder. Together she
and the coolie boost him into the back seat of the rockaway where he collapses
with a curse and a groan. The coolie takes off his fedora, wipes sweat from his
smooth, pale forehead.