Gold Fever (12 page)

I offered my congratulations, wondering how long it would be before the gold found its way out of their bags and into my bank account.

Excusing myself, I headed for the gambling rooms. A rotten floorboard squeaked under my weight. The place was so badly made that even though it wasn't yet a year old, the floorboards were already protesting. The poker tables were empty, but a few games of faro and roulette were in progress. The fat American gambler named Tom Jannis stood at the roulette table, shouting at the wheel to land on red. His face was very round and very red and dripped with sweat. The crispness of his clothes was wearing off, and his cuffs were showing more than just dust. He wore a wool scarf, too hot for this weather, which I assumed hid a tattered collar.

“No more bets,” Jake, our head croupier, called out, and the wheel settled slowly to rest on red. Jake raked in a few of the white twenty-five cent chips belonging to the other players but slid a good-sized pile of blue five-dollar ones towards Jannis.

Chloe stood at Jannis's elbow, squealing enthusiastically while the wheel turned. Her faded purple dress had a layer of dried mud around the hem and a tear through the elbow. The lace protecting her scrawny bosom needed a wash.

“Get out, Chloe,” I said in a low voice. She turned, and her eyes narrowed. “I'm here with a gentleman, Mrs. MacGillivray. As his guest.” She tried to lift her chin, but her eyes watered, and her attempt at a ladylike sniff came out more like she had allergies.

With single-minded concentration, Jannis divided his winnings into neat piles.

“Hey,” Chloe screeched, “are you gonna let
her
throw me outta this dump?”

Jannis studied the table, debating where to place his chips. I was about to call for a bouncer, when he said, “Her dump, you do what she says.” He arranged his chips across the board, concentrating on the lower numbers with a big pile on zero. Jake spun the wheel.

“Get out, Chloe,” I said.

She glared at the back of Jannis's uninterested head.

“No more bets,” Jake said.

Chloe turned and stomped out of the room. I was the only one who watched her leave.

“Twenty-five,” Jake said.

The rest of that day and through the next, I kept glancing over my shoulder, expecting to see the miserable Chloe haunting my steps. Leaving the house on Thursday evening, I caught a flash of purple at the side of the building across the street. But by the time several overloaded carts had rumbled past, there was no sign of her. There was, however, a patch of purple fireweed growing amongst the stumps of trees that had been levelled to create the street. The flowers were not the same colour as Chloe's dress, but I convinced myself I might have been mistaken in thinking I'd seen my former dancer.

Nevertheless, I told Ray to tell the men to keep Chloe out and to let me know immediately if she turned up again.

It was nearing closing time, and the dance hall was a mass of humanity; all the percentage girls were dancing, and men were lined up waiting to have the opportunity to pay a dollar for a single minute of their company. Irene had spent most of the night dancing with Tom Jannis, unfortunately keeping him away from the tables where I could earn more off him than a dollar a minute. I dragged her away with a weak excuse and told her to go upstairs and sit in my office for a half hour or so. However, instead of going into the gambling hall, he disappeared. I cringed as a bow scraped across the violin strings. The orchestra was getting tired, and they were starting to make mistakes. Murray was climbing down the stairs from the balcony carrying an armful of empty champagne bottles, for which we charged forty dollars a quart. Mouse O'Brien leaned over the railing and waved to me. Mouse had had a rare poor night at the poker table, but unlike most of our customers, he knew when to cut his losses and seek other entertainment. I waved back.

A spot behind my right eye was beginning to throb. If I didn't get some fresh air, I'd spend the rest of the night with a headache.

I slipped out the back door and stood in the narrow, grubby alley that separated the Savoy from the mortuary and dry goods shop behind. The light was dim from the rays of a sun that had only dipped behind the hills for a moment before rising again for another twenty-two hours.

I picked my way through the muck in the alley, stretching my legs and enjoying the fresh air, what there was of it above the scent of dog urine, human vomit and assorted trash. A man and a woman were arguing in the shadows towards York Street. I couldn't make out the words, but the tone was unmistakable. None of my business: at this time of night, in the alley, they couldn't be much else but a whore and either her pimp or her mark. As I started to turn around, the woman raised her voice, and I recognized the well-educated, properly-enunciated accent.

I tiptoed forward and peeped through the gloom. Tom Jannis had Mary pressed up against the wall. “You know you want it,” he said while his hand fumbled with her skirts, which were gathered up around her waist. Whether she was trying to push his groping hand away, or help him to release her undergarments, I couldn't tell.

“Stop that!” I shouted, in my best Lady-Muck-Muck accent. “Release that woman.”

Jannis stepped back. The dim light revealed Mary's halfunbuttoned shirt. She hesitated, not knowing what to do first: straighten her skirts or fasten her bodice. In her embarrassment, she did neither.

“Oh, Mrs. MacGillivray,” she said.

“Haven't you got anything better to do than hang around back alleys looking for people to interfere with?” Jannis said. His round face was red with anger and the residue of excitement.

“No,” I said. “It looks like it's a good thing, too.”

His clothes were dishevelled, and his hat was lying in the dirt. He straightened his tie and scooped up his hat. “Regardless of what this might look like to you, madam, I am simply trying to get value for my money.”

“No,” Mary said, fumbling to do up her buttons. “That's not true.”

“Get inside, Mary,” I said. Jannis dusted his hat in a lazy gesture, and Mary ran past me, her face averted.

“Best you be on your way,” I said.

“Or?” His eyes wandered boldly down the front of my dress.

“I am not without friends and influence in this town.”

“I've no doubt of that. I don't care much for Indians anyway.” He put on what he probably considered to be a hard man tone in an attempt leave me no doubt as to what he preferred. He was trying to be intimidating, but I've stood up to men a good deal tougher than he. And many a good deal more powerful.

“You're banned from the Savoy,” I said.

“That's no hardship.” He placed his hat neatly on his head. “Plenty of joints like it. But I'll be seeing
you
around soon. Mrs. MacGillivray.”

He touched the brim of his hat, smirked and walked away, down York to Front Street. The skies were clear, and it was a warm, humid night. A drop of sweat ran down the small of my back and under my corset, while a knot of red rage boiled up in my chest. I'd allowed Mary to stay in the Savoy, against the advice of everyone from Richard Sterling to Helen Saunderson, and now it looked like they were right after all. Mary could come back inside to collect her belongings, then she could get the hell off my property.

As I turned, I caught a whiff of cigar smoke. A red spark burned in the shadows, a man's face behind it. Someone was watching me. The spark faded as the man retreated further into the gloom. Someone else out for the air, I assumed. Tonight, at least, the back streets of Dawson were no place to be if one was in need of privacy.

I hurried after Tom Jannis, wanting to make sure he didn't try to come in through the front door. He sauntered across York Street and joined the line at the Vanderhaege sisters' bakery. He must have known I was watching him, but he didn't look around; he said something to a group of men, and they laughed. A couple of drunks came swaying down the boardwalk towards me, their arms wrapped tightly around each other, singing in surprisingly good voices about someone named Johnny whom they hardly knew.

Out of the corner of my eye, through a momentary break in the crowds, I saw a skinny figure weaving its way through the mob, heading south. When I looked again, she'd disappeared in the mass of men.

Chloe. No doubt about it.

This was getting ridiculous. Next I'd be finding her in my bed. I considered chasing after her and having it out, but I next considered what ”having it out” might mean for Chloe. I couldn't afford to ruin another dress. I wasn't particularly concerned about myself; what could a miserable chit like her do to me? But if I ever found her anywhere near Angus…

My break had not improved my mood, and I returned to the Savoy in a rage. There was only one reason I could think of for why Mary would be out in the alley. It was not uncommon for dancers and percentage girls to earn extra on the side; some dance hall proprietors encouraged it, and the Mounties ignored it unless it became too obvious. Ray and I most emphatically forbade the custom: it helped to keep our dancers popular and our prices high if the girls were considered unobtainable. But Mary was an Indian, and the Mounties were trying to keep the Indians away from white men's vices. If the authorities thought I was prostituting her, I'd be closed down before I could shout “respectable”. And if it wasn't bad enough that she was using my hospitality to continue in her old profession, she was risking a lot worse than my anger by going freelance in the face of Joey LeBlanc, who knew everything that went on in the alleys of Dawson. And then there was Chloe. She was watching the Savoy— to what aim I couldn't imagine. Unless simply to annoy me, at which she succeeded magnificently.

The throbbing spot behind my eye had now taken possession of my entire head.

It was six o'clock, and Ray and the men were ushering our customers out. One or two protested and tried to point out that the other saloons and dance halls were not closing. As if Ray hadn't noticed. As usual, he mumbled something about “the boss”, laying all the blame on me.

Which was fine, as in turn I usually put the blame for everything the customers didn't like on him.

“Feeling all right, Fee?” he asked once the last straggler had been evicted.

I touched my head. “No.” No matter how bad I felt, I still had to go upstairs, settle the women's drink chips and prepare to lock up our night's takings.

It was going to be another hot, dry day. If the rains didn't turn the streets into rivers of mud, the dust choked everything and everyone it touched. Only in the winter did the mud and the dust go away—then you couldn't walk as far as the outdoor privy without so much clothing, you resembled an Eskimo. Not that I'd ever seen an Eskimo, but I had seen pictures of them standing beside their ice houses with nothing showing but noses and happy smiles. What on earth, I asked myself, was I doing in this cursed country? Tomorrow I would tell Ray he could buy me out, and Angus and I would take the next steamship south.

As I mumbled and grumbled, earning a strange look from a properly-dressed woman on her way to begin her day's work, I knew Angus and I were staying. In no place I'd lived had I ever felt as alive as I did every day in Dawson, nor was I able to make so much money. Legally, that is. Although considering the pain that was throbbing through my miserable head, I could do with a touch of numbness right about now.

Before collapsing into my most welcome bed, I would have to speak to Mary. She could continue working for Mrs. Mann, if Mrs. Mann wanted her to, but she was to vacate the Savoy immediately. If she couldn't find alternative accommodation, she could sleep in the street.

The laundry shed was beginning to steam as Mr. Mann fired up the stove, and Mrs. Mann sorted through piles of filthy clothes.

“Where's Mary?” I said.

“Not here,” Mrs. Mann said.

“She late, she not get pays.” Mr. Mann straightened up from the fire, holding a fist to the small of his back, his face red with the heat and the exertion of carrying wood from the big pile beside the shed. “She very late, she fired. My wife not do all zee works herself. Stupid Indian.”

“She was prompt yesterday,” Mrs. Mann said, holding up a shirt for inspection that was scarcely more than a rag. She tilted her head from one side to the other. “Wash this, and it'll fall apart.”

“Is Angus up?” I asked.

“He was eating his breakfast when I left the house. How do you suppose this shirt got all these little holes in it?”

“I truly do not want to know.”

“Perhaps Mary slept in. Can you ask Angus to go around and fetch her?”

Angus was in the kitchen, eating porridge and bacon, and bread fried in dripping while reading a penny dreadful. I asked him to go to the Savoy and pound on Mary's door to get her up. Considering that I'd seen her not much more than an hour before with her dress around her waist in a back alley, it was unlikely she was in any condition to get up and face a day's work. But I'd been the one who'd arranged for Mrs. Mann to hire her, and I'd make sure she faced her commitments.

Angus sopped up the last of his dripping and stood to give me a greasy kiss on the cheek. “You look dreadful, Mother. Go to bed.”

So I did.

I had scarcely untied my hair, washed my face (the water was lovely and hot; Mrs. Mann knows my schedule), removed my jewellery, struggled out of dress, petticoat, over-corset, corset, stockings and undergarments, and pulled on my night-gown, when Angus was hammering on my bedroom door to tell me there was no answer from Mary's room.

I sighed and told him to come in. We debated for a few moments—Angus insisting that

something had happened to her and we had to go in search of her; me attempting to remind him that this was a small town in terms of geography, but bigger than many cities in terms of population. Angus suggested I could at least check Mary's room to make sure she wasn't sick or dying, then we could ask at the hospital and Fort Herchmer if they'd had news of an accident.