The Gilded Age Part 5

"Cashed in your chips on the trip out, did ye?"

"No, I haven't gambled since. . . . No. That bird. The little bird I left the ferry with."

"Oh, her? Good ol' f.a.n.n.y, she's a hummer, ain't she?"

"By G.o.d, are you telling me she's a dip?"

"f.a.n.n.y Spiggot? Ha, ha. Faintin' f.a.n.n.y, that's what we call her. A' course, a smart young gentleman like yourself wouldn't fall for her racket, now would ye?"

Daniel fights the anger and disgust welling in his chest while the porter sticks his mug into the stream of champagne for another guzzle. Naturally, he didn't carry his whole kit and caboodle in the boodle book. He's not some b.u.mpkin. He's stashed a few gold coins in his ditty bag. Then there's the trunk with the deeds and papers, a bit of the art he acquired in Paris. He's not wiped out.

Still! Still! The lousy little b.i.t.c.h, he could take her slender neck in his hands and twist it. Women! They'll steal your soul if you give them half a chance.

The porter reels up from his guzzle, flushed and shiny-eyed. He's drawn his own conclusions from Daniel's sudden dejection. He proclaims with high spirits, "h.e.l.l with the two bits, mister. Where ye bound? It's the Fourth of July. Welcome to San Francisco!"

"Thank you," Daniel says humbly.

"Next time, I'll charge ye twice."

The porter lugs the trunk, Daniel takes the bags, and together they fight the festive crowd up Market Street. At last Dupont appears to the north. The porter turns right up a gentle incline that might as well be an Alp, for all Daniel cares. By G.o.d, he's dry. And exhausted. Thank heaven Father cannot see him in this ridiculous predicament.

He and the porter enter another part of town, and the traffic, the sounds and the smells, the mood and the very light change. A saloon stands on every street corner, four per intersection, sometimes more if another proprietor has got the story up. Daniel has never seen so many saloons and resorts crowded together in such proximity. Music blares from doorways, inviting him in. Men guffaw and shout. Gla.s.ses bang on bars or crash together in toasts. The stink of gunpowder is infused with the powerful smells of whiskey, tobacco, roasting meat, and an odd indefinable sickly sweet scent.

A few women drift in and out of the saloon doors, but mostly linger on street corners. Daniel approaches a young girl who skips gaily down the pavement in a sailor's costume, a navy and white topcoat over bloomers, striped stockings, and little b.u.t.ton boots. A jaunty straw boater is pinned over her yellow curls. She sidles up to him and curtseys charmingly. He gapes at the heavy white powder over her grainy jowls, her thin masculine lips beneath the mouth drawn on her face in red paint. She frowns at his startled look and skips away, t.i.ttering.

The porter laughs nervously. "Here's as far as I go, mister," He unceremoniously plunks the trunk down and strides off.

Daniel glances around. Something dangles above him, draped over the telegraph wires. Lace and ribbons, straps and stays. A woman's undergarment? On the telegraph wires? His eyes travel from the garment to a window where a lovely young woman sits. Half-dressed, her hair disheveled, she leans out, seizes a strap of the corset, and reels in the undergarment like a hooked fish. But she does not attend too closely to her task. No, her eyes-are they blue?-are trained on him. He looks over his shoulder, to the right, to the left. She throws back her head and laughs, her bare throat throbbing.

Heat rises in his face, under his collar, beneath his belt.

He drags his trunk a step further. d.a.m.n that porter, abandoning him in the middle of nowhere. He finds himself in front of a huge house with square-cut bay windows, angular battens, and geometric decorations. The house is painted a conservative pale gray with bronze green trim, sable brown doors and vestibules. He should think it a perfectly respectable house except for the young woman at the window.

Daniel checks the address. What luck! The porter didn't abandon him in the middle of nowhere, after all. He climbs the stairs and pulls the door bell of Number 263 Dupont Street. The bell chimes within. The young woman at the window exclaims and scampers down from her perch as he stands at the front door of Miss Malone's Boardinghouse for Gentlemen.

3.

Miss Malone's Boardinghouse for Gentlemen "Jar me, I'll not have my Fourth of July cooked," says Jessie Malone to the eager gentleman as he negotiates with her in the downstairs smoking parlor. "And on a Thursday, which, I'll have you know, is my most magnetic day."

"Magnetic day?" says the gentleman, feigning surprise. Jessie knows very well that his wife, who also consults with the famed spiritualist Madame De Ca.s.sin, surely possesses a most magnetic day herself. You don't blow it in on a magnetic day. Still, if Mrs. Heald was more of a s.l.u.t and less of a shrew, Mr. Heald might not be speaking so eagerly with Jessie right now. "What the devil is your 'magnetic day'?"

"Sure and it's the day when I speak with the sweet spirits." The bell chimes. "Ah! There's someone at the door."

Mr. Heald twirls the graying tufts of his tremendous mustache and smirks. How transparent men are. Plotting how he can convince her otherwise. He would not dare broach the topic of the increase in the civic contribution he delivers for her to certain persons in the mayor's office. Not when he wants to dip his wick. The biz is the biz, no less and never more when it comes to Mr. Heald. Sure and Mr. Heald is such a dear friend from the days when she was the toast of the town and the special gal of the Silver Kings.

"Now, Jessie. To h.e.l.l with the spirits and your magnetic days. To h.e.l.l with whoever is at the door. To h.e.l.l with the Fourth of July."

"Mr. Heald! I thought you were a patriot."

"You've had your breakfast and your outing. Now I want to go upstairs like we agreed. Did we not agree?"

Jessie smooths the feathers of the pressed hummingbirds decorating her Caroline hat. She brushes dust from the pink flounces and bows on her bodice. She spies a clot of horse dung clinging to the hem of her pink topskirt, gives the filthy silk a good shaking. Mariah will need to clean the carpet. "No, I'm all done in. Good day, Mr. Heald."

"Now, Jessie." His tone deepens alarmingly, though he's more or less sober. Mr. Heald takes her wrist in his hands that have been known to throttle a man. She does not struggle, but merely lifts her face and raises her eyebrows. He lets go, but her wrist throbs. He broke it once. When was that? Years ago, so many years ago, perhaps not long after the time when she was a mermaid at Lily Lake. Was it really dear Mr. Heald who broke her wrist? Never mind. She's lost track of time, of men. "Do not get shy on me."

"Shy! Mr. Heald, I cannot abide that ruckus in the park. It has made me weary." Cannot abide? She is outraged by the affront she witnessed in Golden Gate Park.

How she loves her traditional Fourth of July outing! A fitting tribute to the United States of America, this great and marvelous country that has allowed her, Miss Jessie Malone, once a penniless orphan, now a woman of nice sensibilities and simple desires, to ama.s.s a modest fortune. Her custom on the Fourth of July is take breakfast with a roast turkey, champagne, and a gentleman. Then on to Golden Gate Park for a promenade through Concert Valley. A breath of air, a shot of sunlight, and the company of fine, upstanding San Franciscans. How she loves to see the little children skip and run, admire the ladies in their frocks, nod to gentlemen she scarcely ever sees in the broad day. She feels patriotic and righteous though her liver aches beneath the stays of her corset. The Doan's Pills this morning haven't helped.

There's a G.o.dd.a.m.n war among the tongs these days, as if a woman of her sensibilities didn't know. They're gangs, of course, organized crime despite the excuses of the Six Companies, Chinatown's official liaison. The tongs deal in coolies, slave girls, opium, weapons, extortion, murder-for-hire. They've got codes and signals. Each tong man wears a special coil in his queue, a particular cap, an earring, a snippet of embroidery on his jacket. There must be thirty tongs operating in San Francisco, with rivalries and feuds bloodier than thirty c.o.c.kfights. Lately the highbinders have been hacking each other to bits right beneath the very noses of the bulls running this burg. The stories Jessie has heard.

But that's Chinatown. Not Golden Gate Park on the Fourth of the July. What is the city coming to?

The bell chimes again, and Li'l Lucy, a housecoat slung over her corset and bloomers, flies out of the bedroom on the second floor and hurtles down the stairs.

"Li'l Lucy," Jessie calls sternly as she pa.s.ses by the parlor.

"Yes, Miss Malone." Li'l Lucy skids to a halt. She's a pastry of a girl, all b.u.t.tery and plump, which is the rage in Jessie's biz. Li'l Lucy is under contract at Jessie's Sutter Street resort, the Parisian Mansion. She had gotten in the family way for the second time and spent the past week recuperating after her medical treatment. She does not look proper with her housecoat flapping open. Not here, at the boardinghouse, which is a respectable establishment.

Jessie frowns. "Why aren't you dressed, Li'l Lucy?"

"Oh, Miss Malone, I still ache."

Hmph. Jessie seizes the ties of Li'l Lucy's housecoat and wraps them tightly around her waist twice, securing the ends in a gay bow. She arranges Li'l Lucy's yellow curls across her forehead, smoothing strands down her plump neck. She wets her forefinger and smooths Li'l Lucy's eyebrows, vigorously pinches the girl's cheeks, the fullness of her lips. The girl's tender skin blooms with pain and color.

"There. You gotta get back in the habit of groomin', Li'l Lucy. That's what gentlemen expect. Now you may answer the door."

"Yes, Miss Malone. Thank you, Miss Malone." Li'l Lucy gazes at her like a starving she- dog given a thimble of cream.

Jessie frowns, watching her go. The plumpness is starting to sag. The girl is too careless. Li'l Lucy is becoming more trouble than she's worth.

"Now, Jessie," Mr. Heald says again, pleading. He takes the liberty of nuzzling the diamonds dangling from her earlobes. Diamonds that beat anything Mrs. Heald owns. "You can speak to the spirits later, can you not? Right now, my own sweet spirit, I thought we could go upstairs. Like we agreed."

His mustache tickles, well, she likes mustaches well enough and just about every fashionable gentleman wears them these days. Upstairs is her private parlor. She doesn't have to live at the Parisian Mansion, not anymore. She can afford door maids to handle the traffic when she's not there.

"I have a caller, Mr. Heald. You heard the bell."

"Jessie, please. Have pity on me."

Pity. Sure and Jessie Malone has pity for no one. Still, she sinks to her knees in the smoking parlor, grunting when her joints complain. She should not have to do this anymore, truly she should not. But there's the boodle for certain persons in the mayor's office. Perhaps Mr. Heald, being such a dear friend, may persuade those persons that her civic contribution is adequate and need not be increased.

She tugs at the b.u.t.tons on his trousers.

Gentlemen, pah. Like most of his Sn.o.b Hill a.s.sociates, Mr. Heald is a fool and a coward. A deadbeat when it comes to the behavior she expects of him. Allowing tong men to carry on in full view of law-abiding citizens.

Tong men-hatchet men, highbinders, the boo how doy-all words for the same wretched creatures. She knows why they made a fuss in the park, all right. The ragged Chinese girl is likely to fetch up to two thousand in gold, if she's fifteen or sixteen. Well, the biz is the biz. Jessie doesn't give two hoots about that. No, the outrage is that hatchet men were troubling a consumptive-looking lady in a veil and a smart gray dress. A lady, on the Fourth of July!

Jessie trembles with anger, but she finishes her work. Mr. Heald, thank goodness, is done quickly. She glances up. He's got that sagging look he always gets through the jowls after he's done. She dabs a handkerchief to her lips, and he helps her to her feet. Suddenly she's weary of him, of him and all the gentlemen she has ever serviced. They're not even human beings to her anymore. She needs a drink.

"That will be the usual for the pleasure of my company, Mr. Heald," she says primly.

Not a moment too soon. She hears voices murmuring, Li'l Lucy conversing with the caller, and he answering. A man, of course. Jessie checks her face in one of the mirrors and peers out the door of the smoking parlor. She glimpses gray gabardine, a blue vest and necktie, an expensive bowler. He inquires about lodgings in a charming accent. She spies his hefty trunk and a collection of baggage he's vigorously stacking in the foyer. Sure and he's a vigorous one, she can see it from here. Young and vigorous, brown curls tumbling down his neck.

"Now, Jessie," Mr. Heald says, pulling her back to him. "If truth be told, I thought this was for friendship, not the usual."

"If truth be told, Mr. Heald, it's always the usual."

Jessie whips out her pink lace fan and stirs up a breeze in front of her flushed face. A drink, a drink, she needs a drink. She runs to the window, leans out, and yells, "Mariah! Mariah!" The maid is on the roof, keeping a lookout for stray rockets with a broom and two pails of water. On the Fourth of July in '93, a rocket landed on the eaves of Hunter's Resort on Water Street in Sausalito and d.a.m.n near burned down the entire business district. Jessie has no intention of losing this house, a very fine three-story Stick-Eastlake with extra gingerbread and a proper paint job that cost her an arm and a leg. "Get down here, Mariah, we've got company. And bring me some champagne."

"Ah, now I see," Mr. Heald says, straightening his vest. "You're still angry about those Chinee hoodlums, eh? Now, Jessie. Chinee business is no business of ours. Why, you ought to know that. You are the Queen of the Underworld. Why should a little dis...o...b..bulation like that put you off your feed?"

"The Queen of the Underworld is never off her feed, Mr. Heald," she answers tartly.

"Well, then. I expect such tenderheartedness from my. . . .that is, from the ladies of the Western Addition. Not from the Queen of the Underworld, eh?" Mr. Heald's eyes glisten at Jessie's self-proclaimed t.i.tle, which is as much a flattery to her as a t.i.tillation to him.

"Oh, you expect, do you, Mr. Heald? Well, the Queen of the Underworld says there is a place for sin and a time for sin. And that time and that place is not during my Fourth of July promenade in the park."

Jessie gasps for breath, she is so truly distraught. Then she does her act. One of her acts. She breaks out into tears, great fat raindrops of tears, the kind that can really drench the heart of Mr. Heald and all the likes of Mr. Heald. She fans herself furiously, peeking through her deluge at his mortified face.

"Now, Jessie," Mr. Heald says gently. "I had no notion you were such a patriot." He fumbles in his vest and pulls out a fistful of double eagles. He spills them on the table for the pleasure of her company.

"Thank you, Mr. Heald." Jessie permits herself a trembling little smile.

Oh, how she loves double eagles! Her favorite of all the gold coins circulating in San Francisco. So pretty. Madame De Ca.s.sin says the American eagle is really the phoenix, the mythical bird that never dies. He just hatches over and over again from the flames and lives forever. Jessie loves that idea. The phoenix is like the soul, dying and being born again in the Summerland. Like her Rachael, her sweet innocent Rachael who speaks to her from the Summerland, thanks to Madame De Ca.s.sin's expertise. Double eagles. Jessie wouldn't think of taking anything less, let alone that worthless paper money. Government certificates, pah. You cannot even bite them.

"Let us forget all about those hoodlums," Mr. Heald says, watching as she turns the coins over in her palm, fingering them, stroking them. He tugs at the b.u.t.tons on his trousers. "Let us forget all about the heathen Chinee, and the park, and all such argle-bargle, shall we? Let us go upstairs."

Jessie snaps the fan shut and smartly slaps the ivory rib of it against his plump cheek. "Forget about the highbinders? I should say not! You are a coward, Mr. Heald. I'll entertain no cowards today. Mariah!"

The maid climbs down from the fire escape, her black skirts billowing around her ankles. Not some auntie or chippy is Jessie's Mariah, oh no. Mariah is a prize, one of the coveted Negro maids hired straight out of the Palace Hotel for a pretty penny. Mariah takes as high a wage as a hotel chef, since she can cook something grand, keeps the boardinghouse spotless, and keeps her mouth shut. Mariah knows exactly how to behave around the likes of Mr. Heald. She demurely draws her skirts through the window and glares at the gentleman with so evil an eye that Mr. Heald blanches visibly.

Now Jessie is in distress. After all this excitement, her liver positively throbs. She cannot see a caller in this condition. "Fetch me my Scotch Oats Essence, Mariah. And be quick! I feel faint."

Mariah scurries for the medicine and a spoon of pure gold. How Jessie loves gold! And how she loves the pale green bottle filled with the precious medicine. The label depicts a buxom, apple-cheeked mother stirring a brew in a cast-iron cauldron while a bevy of cupids flutter all around her on pink wings. Mariah expertly slides a dose through Jessie's lips, and in a trice, Jessie feels absolutely healthful again. The delicious bitter tonic slides down her throat with a burning sensation, yet swells her head with a sanguine joy that a.s.sures her she will live forever, never mind the ache in her liver.

She slides the fan into her sleeve and peers in the mirror again. She always looks so much better after a dose of Scotch Oats Essence. "Not bad for forty," she tells her reflection. Forty years old? Can it really be? She smooths some ruby-colored balm over her pursed lips. Mr. Heald watches her, his mouth falling slightly open, his eyes glazed. He likes to watch her put on makeup. A lot of men do. Them Sn.o.b Hill ladies never use face paint. That's why them Sn.o.b Hill ladies always look so plain, in spite of their fancy togs.

"You don't look a day over twenty, Jessie," Mr. Heald says in a ragged whisper.

"Nor am I, darlin'," she tells him. He is so eager, he'll pay double the usual when she gets around to entertaining him again. "Nor am I."

"Joaquin Miller sent me," the caller tells her. He leaves off brushing dust from his jacket and politely bows, then pulls out a smoke and lights it, his hands trembling.

Li'l Lucy gazes at him as if he were a shot of fine-aged bourbon and she a-dyin' of thirst.

Jessie enters the foyer regally, Mr. Heald ambling behind her like a courtier at her beck and call, his respectable appearance enhancing her own prestige. The caller examines them curiously. Jessie loves making a grand entrance like one of them Sn.o.b Hill ladies.

"Joaquin Miller," she says. "Now, there's a good egg even if he is an odd bird. He says he gimped that leg of his fighting the wild Cherokee, but have you noticed he never limps on the same foot twice? I am Miss Jessie Malone, proprietress and landlady of this establishment. What's your name, buster?"

"I am Daniel J. Watkins of Saint Louis, London, and Paris."

"Paris! You just blew in from Paris?" Jessie whips out her fan, concealing her excitement behind the lace. "Are they still wearing bustles in Paris, Mr. Watkins?"

"Heavens, no, Miss Malone. Mr. Worth has eliminated the bustle in his latest creations, which I for one most approve of. Now a gentleman can admire the long, slow sweep of a lady's hip. Do you not agree, sir?" he says to Mr. Heald.

Mr. Heald stares, stupefied.

Li'l Lucy turns beet red and giggles like a lunatic.

Jessie shushes the girl but she can barely contain herself, either. A gentleman who can yap about Paris fashions! About Mr. Worth's latest creations! Can you imagine! But her suspicious nature kicks up. Is he one of those odd birds who attends drag parties? She's been hired to attend drag parties. There was one on Sn.o.b Hill where the whiskey magnate demanded that she lace up his corset extra tight. The long, slow sweep of a lady's hip, indeed.

"Sure and aren't you an outspoken young gentleman." Jessie saunters over to him and circles him, making a show of brushing dust from the back of his jacket. She runs her hand down the long, slow sweep of his back. Young and vigorous, all right, with some little gun tucked in the back of his belt. It would be a crying shame for the ladies of San Francisco if he turned out to be a fairy. "You have an interest in ladies' fashions?"

"Only when they're being discarded."

Li'l Lucy presses her palm to her mouth.

"And Mr. Worth," Mr. Watkins continues smoothly, "has widened the sleeves and the front of the skirt. Tightened the waist and added fullness to the bosom, pardon my language, miss," he says to Li'l Lucy, who is beside herself with giggles. "So that a lady like yourself, Miss Malone, will show the perfect figure. Like an hourgla.s.s, is how they put it."

What gentleman in this burg has flattered her so shamelessly, can anyone tell her that? Jessie tosses her head and stands back, trying to size him up. Is Mr. Daniel J. Watkins of Saint Louis, London, and Paris a little too smooth? What is he, anyway? A gambler or a tool? She's been scammed and chiseled before. She'll tolerate no deadheads in her establishment.

"Tighten the waist?" she says forlornly, kneading her aching liver through the corset.

Now Mr. Watkins circles around her, staring blatantly, inspecting her. "I fear you will have to nip it in. But just a bit, Miss Malone."

Jessie hasn't blushed in fifteen years. The heat in her cheeks must be a sudden fever. "Jar me, we can all stand for some improvement." Then she frowns. The Queen of the Underworld has a skin as thick as buffalo hide. She will not be stung by this pup's insolence. She seizes a heavy bra.s.s ashtray, shoves it in his hands. "Smoking is permitted only in the smoking parlor, Mr. Watkins. I despise the demon weed."

"I do apologize," he murmurs, stamps out the smoke, and shuts his trap. A wary look of exhaustion crosses his face. It suddenly occurs to Jessie that young Mr. Watkins looks rather green about the gills. She glares at Li'l Lucy, who stops giggling at once. She sniffs, detecting the stink of choke-dog beneath the tobacco.

"What can I do for you, sir?" She crosses her arms and taps her toe, looking him up and down with a thundercloud on her face.

"Miss Malone, I am looking to lease a suite of rooms. I would prefer my own water closet and bath, if this fine establishment boasts such amenities. I'm told you may have something available."

Jessie considers the possibilities. As it is, Li'l Lucy will have to add two weeks to the term of her contract for her medical treatment and resting-up time at Dupont Street. It's high time for Li'l Lucy to get back to work. "Mr. Watkins, this fine establishment boasts many things, and a suite with a private water closet and bath is one of them. This young lady was just about to move out, wasn't you, dear? Get packin', Lucy."

She stares at Li'l Lucy, who cringes and dashes back up the stairs. Li'l Lucy is pushing nineteen years of age. She is getting long in the tooth and dim in the noggin. Jessie watches her go. If Li'l Lucy suffers another medical problem, Jessie will have to move her to the cribs on Morton Alley, and that's that. The biz is the biz.

"There is just one problem, a minor one, I'm sure," Mr. Watkins says with a lovely smile. He pats his pockets for a smoke with the blind gesture of habit and finds one. Then he recalls her injunction and twirls the ciggie mournfully though his nicotine-stained fingers.

Jessie sighs. Young and vigorous. And insolent. And on the make. "Sure and you cannot pay me right away."