The Gilded Age, a Time Travel (30 page)

“Ssh,
don’t worry,” Zhu says with a slight smile. Clicking a little knob on the hilt
of the knife, she firmly and swiftly presses the blade across the wound as though
slicing a melon.

Jessie’s
stomach clenches. But Mr. Ross’s skull does not split open. Zhu withdraws the
knife and runs her fingers through his scalp. “Feel now.”

Jessie
runs her fingers through the black hair again, searching for that awful edge of
ragged bone. But there’s nothing. His skull is smooth and whole again. Blood
flows only from the scalp wound, which should heal all right if it doesn’t turn
rotten.

Jessie
turns to Zhu, openmouthed.  Her heartbeat throbs in her stomach beneath the
stays of her corset. “What is that thing? What did you just do?”

Zhu
tucks the knife into a pocket in her tunic. “It’s just my mollie knife.”

“That’s
just a miracle! Let me see it. A mollie knife? But what is it? Where did you
get it?”

But Zhu
shakes her head and stands, helping Jessie to her feet. Daniel sways over them,
barely keeping his balance. Still, Jessie can see from his puzzled look that he
witnessed it all. He frowns. The crowd begins to twitter and honk, inarticulate
beasts on the verge of panic, a weird sound the like of which Jessie has never
heard before. The start of a melee, of a riot. She’s read about the union
strikes in Philadelphia and Chicago, how when violence starts, the crowd
changes into some great ravening monster without reason or sensibility.

“The
bulls are here,” Daniel says. “Ladies, let us make our departure.”

A
squad of blue-suited, red-faced, cursing policemen scramble over the ridge by
the cable car, wiping dirt off their hands as they gain the summit. They hoist
out billy clubs.

Jessie
seizes one of Daniel’s hands, Zhu seizes the other, and they steer toward the
opposite side of the jousting field, beyond the grounds of the German Castle to
the far perimeter of Telegraph Hill where the slope angles down into velvety
darkness and crude shacks cling to the cliff. Contractors have ruthlessly
quarried the hill, blasting granite and shale from beneath the very feet of
settlers perched on their fine precipice and carting away the rock to pave the
city streets.

Other
spectators scramble and careen down the rugged hillside, too. No one wants to get
pinched. In the dim light, Jessie spies Fanny Spiggott clinging to the arm of a
solicitous gentleman. How many treasures will Miss Spiggott’s nimble fingers
free from the topcoat and vest of her gallant before they reach the bottom of
the hill?

“But
I’m wearin’ fine shoes!” Jessie protests as Daniel guides her down the rocky
slope. Zhu deftly scales the slope in her flat sandals, loping from to grade to
grade like a mountain goat. She offers Jessie a steadying hand, but Jessie declines.

“I’ll
take the low road, thank you, missy.” A blue funk settles over her soul.

Why?
Because Zhu Wong is a Chinese girl, a chit, a wench. With unusual
qualifications and talents, it’s true. A smart kid, perhaps even a trusted ally.
But she’s Jessie’s servant, for pity’s sake. Jessie’s possession, bound by a
contract under which the creature must serve without question. In short, she’s not
a person. Not a person the way Daniel J. Watkins is a person. Certainly not a
person with a station in life.

Yet
this person—this Zhu Wong—has done something Miss Jessie Malone has never been
able to do herself.

Save
someone’s life.

*  
*   *

Jessie
releases Daniel’s hand and stumbles behind Zhu the rest of the way down to
Green Street, leaving the cries of the coppers and the melee behind. They
trudge back to the noodle factory and collect her rockaway and pair from
Rosita. The good widow has watered and rubbed the geldings down, and is feeding
them carrots and apples. Jessie pays the hitching fee and tips her a double
eagle.

“Absinthe!
I must have absinthe!” Daniel declares. “Jousting and mountain climbing have
left me quite parched.”

“Daniel,”
Zhu says sharply, “you are out of control.”

Jessie
laughs. Now there’s an odd expression.

But
Daniel only says, “Don’t go temperance on me, miss, I warn you.”

“I’ll
give you another neurobic, even though the Tenets say I’m not supposed to. I just
want to go home. I want to go to bed.” Zhu tries out a flirtatious look, but
she’s better at slugging thugs and working medical miracles than she is at
flirting with men. Jessie will have to coach her. The coolie getup doesn’t help
at all.

“’By
God, what is a ‘neurobic’? What, pray tell, are ‘the Tenets’ you keep talking
about? And what on earth did you do to poor Duncan Ross’s skull? It is all
quite brain-wracking. Absinthe, I say! Nothing else will do.”

“A
word of advice, missy,” Jessie says as she heaves herself into the driver’s
seat. Zhu and Daniel climb in the backseat. Jessie clucks to the geldings, and
they plunge into the night. “You cannot tell a man like Mr. Watkins what he can
and cannot do. Ain’t that so, sir?”

“Quite
so, madam,” Daniel says expansively, evidently cheered by the jousting tourney.
“By God, my Queen of the Underworld, where can I get absinthe in this burg? And
not some damn cocktail. A proper bottle of Pernod Fils.”

Zhu
huffs and groans and sighs, but Jessie pays her no mind. “I know just the
place, Mr. Watkins. We’ll cut and run to the Poodle Dog. Good ol’ Pierre stocks
the Green Fairy. Sure and I’ll try a taste myself.”

“Jessie,”
Zhu says, “you know that pain in your side? Your kidneys could be quitting on
you. Absinthe is the last thing you need.”

“Missy,
my kidneys ain’t quit on me in forty years.”

“That’s
just great. Between the absinthol, thujone, and ethanol, you’ll wind up with lesions
on your brain. You, too, Daniel. Did you know that wormwood oil is highly
toxic? It could kill you with just one sip.”

“Jar
me, missy,” Jessie says, turning to glance at her. “What mumbo-jumbo will you
dream up next?”

“Eat,
drink, and be merry,” Daniel declares, “for tomorrow we die, and that’s that.” Jessie
savors the good strong scent of his cigarette. “Miss Malone, my mistress has been
lecturing me all night about responsibility. Responsibility and the future.
Why, I do believe our Zhu is a preacher, a chemist, a physician,
and
a
prestidigitator, all in one.” He says to Zhu, his voice tight, “Now, about poor
Duncan’s skull?’

“It’s
just my molecular knife,” Zhu says, flashing the thing, then tucking it back in
her pocket. “The mollie knife induces molecular recombination in physical
objects, that’s all.”

“Ah,
did you hear that, Miss Malone? ‘Molecular recombination’?”

“Must
be some newfangled gizmo from Boston I ain’t heard about yet.” After all that
mountain climbing, she’s thirsty as a fish, too, and hungry enough to eat a
bear. The rockaway passes a messenger boy idling on the corner. “Whoa!” she
calls to her geldings, and calls to the boy, “You! C’mere!” She scrawls out a
note to Daphne:

SERVE RED WINE AT
MIDNIGHT

FOUR BITS A GLASS

MISS MALONE

She
hands the note to the boy and pays him a bit. “Take this to the door maid at the
Parisian Mansion and be quick about it if you know what’s good for you.”

“Yes,
ma’am!” the boy says and darts away like a wild creature.

Daphne
had better stick around the Mansion till Jessie makes her appearance or she’ll
be out of an easy job, starting tomorrow. Jessie turns the rockaway downtown,
back to the glittering boom and bluster of the Cocktail Route. Beneath the
golden gaslight, the nighttime crowd celebrates Columbus Day with increasing
glee. A quartet of aspiring young tenors and baritones offer ballads for coins
to be tossed into a neat row of upturned top hats.

“They
ain’t half bad,” Jessie calls over her shoulder to Zhu and Daniel and tosses
her contribution across the macadam. “They may make it to the Tivoli Opera
House sure and if they don’t kick the bucket first.”

“Tomorrow
we die,” Daniel says.

“Tomorrow
we
live,
” Zhu says. “We’ve
got
to.”

Down
they go into the hubbub of the city. A kinetoscope booth catches Daniel’s
attention. Zhu leans out and stares at a couple of bespectacled communists
shouting the philosophy of Karl Marx at a restless crowd of roughnecks. The
Salvation Army bangs a bass drum next to a pitch man selling Kickapoo tonic
beneath a showy flare.

Jessie
turns into Bush at Kearny, finds the little turnaround alley, and hitches her
geldings at the back door of the Poodle Dog. Drivers and their hacks linger on
the pavement, watching the crowd, smoking, joking. Two soiled doves dally among
the drivers, their straw boaters tilted over their spit curls, and titter like
lunatic school girls. Even in the gaslight Jessie can see the ravages of
smallpox on their faces.
There but for the grace of God.
Has Jessie ever
seen them before? So many scarred women flock to the Parisian Mansion looking
for work, and so many are turned away, that she can’t remember all the ravaged
faces.

“Evening,
Miss Malone,” calls Finney.

“Hey,
Jess,” calls a bold new boy.

“Old
Pierre don’t allow no Chinks in his establishment,” says another driver when
they disembark.

Jessie
is at a loss because of course the Poodle Dog is a class joint. But Daniel
chimes in, “He’s my manservant. He’s square,” and they all slip in the back
door.

Ah,
the Dog. How well Jessie knows this place. The scarlet and gilt, the shimmering
crystal and silver. How the Dog once used her, and how she’s used the Dog herself
over these many long years. Through the back door and up the stairwell they
climb. There are three floors to the Poodle Dog like them rings a-goin’ down to
hell, but here they go
up
. Jessie cannot resist. She peeks out through
the fringed scarlet curtains at the first floor.

She
spies the wink of diamond dog-collars on cashmere-clogged throats, closely
covered wrists, chastely laced hands. The Parrot sisters, those Flood girls, parties
of ladies from Rincon Hill, and the Smart Set from South Park dine with
doddering great-uncles and creaky old grandfathers. That is the company who
dines on the world-class French cuisine on the first floor.

Zhu
peers over her shoulder. “More recreational eating?”

Jessie
laughs at her odd words. The luscious scent of lobster in sweet cream infuses
the room, and solicitous waiters glide across the floor, inquiring what the
ladies want. Sure and the Smart Set is a well-larded crowd. Jessie touches her
corseted waist. Even with her joie de vivre, she can be proud of her figure.
She’s got her stuffing in all the right places. She’ll fit into Mr. Worth’s new
Parisian dresses if it kills her. Plenty of the Smart Set are the daughters of
ladies who plied Jessie’s trade in the good ol’ days of this very same fine
establishment. The Gold Rush days before Mr. Ned Greenway started keeping track
of who came from where and how and why.

She
climbs the stairwell to the second floor, Zhu and Daniel following, and peers
through another lush fringe hanging over the doorway.

“By
God, is that not your Mr. Heald?” Daniel says.

The
second floor of the Poodle Dog is well attended by Snob Hill gentlemen and
other renowned worthies of impeccable credentials. Well attended also by the
beauties of the city, the ones known as homewreckers. Jessie glances curiously
at Zhu, who in her coolie’s rags is a far cry from these bejeweled ladies. Yet
this is the set Zhu ought to belong to--the mistresses. In the mauve silk,
which sets off her golden complexion, dark hair, and remarkable green eyes, and
a few gold baubles, Zhu would look just dandy here.

They
are actresses, singers, or dancers. Some are beautiful, some beautiful and
smart, some smart enough to make themselves beautiful. A mistress in Jessie’s
world makes her way in life as the devoted companion of a wealthy gentleman,
one gentleman at a time. Which does not mean, of course, that these same
gentlemen do not take their ease in Jessie’s parlor. Jessie has fended off more
jealous mistresses than wives at the Parisian Mansion’s front door, though only
a wife had the gumption to show up with a horsewhip and demonstrate its use
when her husband stumbled outside.

Jessie
studies Mr. Heald and his dining companion, a petite Frenchwoman who sings
passably well. Sure and her red hair is a dye job and her dress is two seasons
old.

“My
diamonds is bigger,” she sniffs.

“I’m
so sorry, Miss Malone,” Zhu says, catching everything with those eyes of hers.

“Missy,
I could never live at the beck and call of the likes of Mr. Heald, and that is
what a mistress must do.” She looks back and forth between Zhu and Daniel,
arching her eyebrows. “Mr. Heald is merely my dear friend.
I
am my own
mistress.”

“Good
evening, Miss Malone,” says a feminine voice.

Jessie
turns to find his honor the railbird attempting to hurry past her as he climbs
the stairwell with Maisy, one of Jessie’s ripe blonds at the Mansion. Maisy
giggles and waves.