The Gilded Age, a Time Travel (41 page)

Make
‘em pay, darlin’, make ‘em pay.

Sure
and the biggest, fanciest rocks she’s got, that’s what the Queen of the
Underworld will wear to the Artists’ Ball tonight. Her jet beaded dress with
the décolleté that’ll make the roving eyes of them Snob Hill gentlemen pop out of
their sockets. A lucky break is the Artists’ Ball, since common folk like her
with better diamonds than the diamond dealer’s wife can mix with the Social Set
right in front of everyone. No skulking around town after midnight tonight. That’s
one of many things Jessie adores about artists. No one is turned away from the
Artists’ Ball.

Jessie
pulls off her cashmere bed sweater and hears a sigh behind her, an unearthly
whisper. She whips around, knocking her elbow against the window pane.
“Rachael? Is that you, honey?”

The
bedroom is still streaked with shadows but no one is there.

Yet
she’s sure she feels it, her long lost angel’s presence. And there! Is that a
little slim shape darting into a dark corner of the room?

The
boardinghouse has been haunted ever since Madame De Cassin’s séance, that’s
what Jessie thinks. She well recalls that awful time when the sitting room went
black and white and strange, and a demonic presence descended upon them all.
The eminent spiritualist’s cleansing rituals have done little to dispel the
evil influence.

If
she thought about it, Jessie would have to say nothing has been the same since
the Fourth of July half a year ago. There’s Mariah, sneaking off to her
meetings every week. And poor Mr. Schultz, who was a good old egg. He drank
rotgut one night, got the cramp and blood on the stomach, and was gone in three
days. Zhu had a name for it. Pair o’ somethin’. Fatal ulcers from the drink.

Then
there’s Zhu herself, such a levelheaded girl despite her talk of being from six
hundred years in the future. Sure and Jessie sort of believes her after watching
her heal a crack in a man’s skull. Why not six hundred years in the future?
Where else would you get a mollie knife? If Mr. Wells says people can travel in
time, then one day they probably will. Miracles happen all the time these days.
The news from Europe is they think they will cure consumption. They’ll invent a
horseless carriage anyone can buy. They’ll fly to the moon! Serious Zhu, the
little Amazon, put on her coolie’s rags and showed Jessie how she could toss a
man over her shoulder with her bare hands. Wise Zhu, lecturing Jessie about her
buttered oysters and champagne, about using a sheep’s intestine, of all things,
to keep off the pox.

In
this strange half a year, Jessie has developed a soft spot for Zhu. She hasn’t
cared this way about anyone in many a long year. So many strange tales the
missy has told her on many a dawn. She complains about a red-haired man who
sent her here, that she suspects he didn’t tell her the whole truth about her
mission. Jessie can sympathize. She could shake a stick at the number of men
who have lied to her.

So
it makes no damn sense, Zhu falling so hard for Mr. Watkins. Oh, he’s a
handsome kid, no doubt about that, the kind who can charm the bloomers off of any
dimwitted chit. But Zhu? He probably doesn’t tell her the whole truth, either.
And it’s worse than that. He doesn’t just take her for a roll in the hay.
Sometimes, when he gets in one of his moods, he lays his hands on her, badgers
her. Jessie thinks she’s seen bruises through Zhu’s lace, seen her troubled face.
Then afterwards, he’s sweetness and light, he’s so sorry. Men like that are always
so sorry.

Hard
to watch. Jessie has danced many a cruel waltz like that, years ago.

And
Mr. Watkins? There’s another story. How he’s changed since he first charged in
through her door, the headstrong ram, all bright-eyed and boozy in his dusty
suit and bowler. Now he’s got the cocaine habit, gone gaunt and strange. Jessie
liked him better stinking. Now laughing one minute, the Devil the next, and in
a blue funk after that. Bloodstained handkerchiefs. Thinking someone is
following him, which in fact someone is. Jessie has seen the thugs lurking on
the corner, has heard plenty of rumors. Bad business, a bum deal of his
father’s.

Sure
and he don’t need to be hopped up if he’s got that kind of trouble. Jessie
knows all about cocaine, how it numbs tender flesh. She uses the stuff, soaked
in lint, as a topical remedy for female troubles, and the dentist applied it to
her gum when he pulled her tooth. But she always declines the spoonful of
powder Mr. Watkins offers. Why numb yourself and make yourself half-mad to
boot? He claims it’s curing his dipsomania but, as far as Jessie can see, he
knocks back the sauce as much as before. Maybe more.

Strangest
of all is Rachael. Rachael haunting her, entering her thoughts more and more. Not
that a day has gone by when Jessie hasn’t thought of her sweet, innocent angel
and prayed for her. But her thoughts about Rachael have always been of
Rachael’s happiness in the Summerland. Is she content? Does she have friends
and sweethearts?

Now
all Jessie can think about is this life. The life Rachael had. The life Jessie
has. Why Rachael died the way she did.

Why?
Why? Why?

A
harsh jangle of bells bursts into her ear, and she just about jumps out of her
skin. The new telephone in the smoking parlor rings again and she hurries
downstairs to answer it. Pacific Bell, that’s what they call the new
switchboard, though only those in the know like Miss Jessie Malone are
connected. Sure and she’s got connections from the Parisian Mansion and the Morton
Alley cribs to the boardinghouse, and to the fire stations, the lower Dupont
callbox, and Gumps. The Queen of the Underworld and the chief of police have
the best connected lines in town.

So
far, wealthy gentlemen like Mr. Heald, his honor the railbird, and the diamond
broker have resisted installing telephones in their Snob Hill mansions. No,
they would much rather communicate the old-fashioned way, send a handwritten
note by messenger boy to the wife saying they’ve been detained on business and
won’t be home tonight. Who wants to hear the wife’s voice berating him on a
telephone? Who wants to explain when questions are asked, questions that
require answering?

Jessie
claps the set to her ear, the handpiece to her mouth. “Yeah?”

Garble,
garble, garble.
“. . . ‘s Bertha, Miss Malone.” That’s the
door maid at the Red Rooster, Jessie’s Morton Alley cribs. “New girl showed. .
. .”
Garble.

“A
new girl showed up?” Jessie shouts loud enough to wake up the whole house.

“Yeah,”
Bertha shouts. “She says. . . .”
Garble.

“I’ll
come on down and look her over later.” Suddenly she’s tired at the very prospect
of going down to Morton Alley.

“Tong
men. . . .says she’s gotta get off the street.”

“Tong
men, did you say? She a Chink?”

Garble,
garble.
“On the lam, she says.”

“All
right, all right. I’ll get there as quick as I can.” She claps the handpiece
onto the set.

Suddenly
she’s wide awake. Kick-in-the-gut awake. Even the Queen of the Underworld would
rather not tangle with tong men. But the biz is the biz, and you may find
yourself purchasing their merchandise now and then. Too little Chinese tail in
this town, Jessie thinks, and Morton Alley is so popular with the sailors. A
crib like the Red Rooster could always use more Chinese tail.

“Mother
of God, Rachael,” she whispers, “I don’t rightly know if I can tolerate the biz
much longer.”

There
is one person, and one person only, she needs right now.

Jessie
climbs back up the stairs.

*  
*   *

She
lets herself into the suite Zhu and Mariah share without knocking. Mariah is
banging a pot in their little kitchen, humming, sometimes talking to herself,
and the good scent of coffee perfumes the air. Jessie tiptoes across their dark
parlor, knocks softly on the door to Zhu’s bedroom.

Her
sleepy voice answers, “Yes?”

Jessie
hesitates. What if
he’s
there? She’s never caught them in bed together
in all these months. Of all the things she’s seen in her time—lewd things,
lascivious things, sometimes depraved things—suddenly Jessie doesn’t want to see
her Zhu in bed with Daniel Watkins.

“Who’s
there?”

What
choice does she have? Who else can she depend on at a quarter to five in the
morning? She pushes the bedroom door open.

And
sure if it isn’t him, stretched long and lean in the dim golden light of the low-burning
lamp next to Zhu’s bed, his dark hair tumbling across the pillow next to her.
Zhu sits up, one of her pretty eyes nearly swollen shut, a bruise on her cheek,
her lip swollen, too, split and bloody.

“Oh,
Rachael,” Jessie blurts out, blinking back tears.

Zhu
turns up the lamp. “Jessie? What’s up?”

It’s
Zhu, of course, not Rachael, and there is no man lying beside her. Just the
crumpled sheets and blankets she kicked off during the fitful night. She leans into
the lamplight, dispelling the shadow across one side of her face. Displaying
her tilted green eyes, sharp cheekbones, the sleepy curve of her smile.

“Jessie,
what’s wrong?”

Faint,
she must be faint, everything whirling around. No sleep--she hasn’t slept since
the day before yesterday. “Ah, Zhu. That was one hell of a premonition. I do
not want to repeat it anytime soon.”

Zhu
bounces out of bed and comes to her, helping her sit down. Such strong skinny
arms, she can toss a man over her shoulder. So serious gazing at her, her
serious Zhu. Never met anyone like her girl from the future. If only it were
true.

“A
premonition? What do you mean?”

“These
days I get strange feelings, missy. I
see
things like what I just seen
right now.”

“What
did you see, Jessie?”

“Never
you mind. Get dressed, you gotta come with me. I’ve never taken you there
before. You’re too good to see such things, and that’s a fact. But I gotta take
you there now. A Chink showed up.”

“A
Chink?’

“Jabberin’
about tong men. On the lam, she says. If that’s so, she’s probably worth it.”
Jessie lurches to her feet, irritated now, and seizes Zhu by the collar of her
nightgown. “Get dressed, I say.”

“You
mean a Chinese girl,” she says, still slow with sleep.

“Yeah,
yeah. Who else can help me with this, Pearls Before Swine?”

“I’ll
go.” As if her servant has a choice. Then she says, “Don’t you call her a
Chink.”

“Sure
and that’s what she is.”

“Do
you call me a Chink?”

“Oh,
for pity’s sake, you’re my Zhu. Is everyone a million years in the future so
riled up about what people
call
things?”

“Sometimes
they have been and sometimes they haven’t. Depends on who and where and when.
For sure we’ve all been riled up for a long time.”

“All
right,
” Jessie says. A headache starts throbbing behind her eyes. “Have
you got any booze handy?”

“Yeah,
actually, I do. Brandy on the night table. Not for me.”

Jessie
knows exactly who the brandy is for and helps herself just the same. “Hurry
up.”

Zhu
throws off her nightgown without a care. Jessie is in the biz of appraising
women’s salability, and she watches now, appraising the lean muscles, the long
bones, the pale golden skin so unlike any other woman Jessie has ever seen, and
she’s seen plenty. Zhu reaches into her wardrobe, swift and sure, pulling on
stockings, garters, bloomers, corset, slip, underskirt, bodice, overskirt,
jacket, button boots, gloves, hat, veil.

Sure
and Jessie bought the kit and caboodle for Zhu herself, all in cerulean blue
silk. Pretty. Mistress material for a certain taste. And for a proper
gentleman, not the likes of Mr. Watkins.

“Where
are we off to in such a rush?”

“Wait.”
Jessie flips up the jacket and bodice before Zhu can tuck in and button
everything, seizes the strings of Zhu’s corset and laces her tighter. Tighter. She
glimpses dappled bruises. Or is it only the dawn light angling across the slim
bones of Zhu’s back?

Everything
changing and shifting around. Visions and hauntings and premonitions.

“We’re
a-goin’ to the dread Morton Alley.”

*  
*   *

Zhu
takes her time tucking in her bodice and fastening her jacket after Jessie has laced
her up. She’s spent another strange night with Daniel and, though he was loving
and gentle, telling wild tales of his Paris days, he’s left as he always leaves—he
never spends the night with her—Zhu is more uneasy than ever. He’s deeply into
cocaine and drink, yet under Tenet Three of the Grandmother Principle, she
can’t help him. What he is doing is what he has always done. What he will
always do. There’s nothing she can do or say. She can’t interfere with his
destiny as a man of the Gilded Age.

Then
why does she want so badly to persuade him away from that destiny? Why is she involved
with this nineteenth century man at all? She asks Muse that question over and
over, receives alphanumerics flickering is her peripheral vision.
We believe
there is a probability. We believe there is a probability.
Of what? she
demands. Then the alphanumerics flicker out, and Muse is silent.