The Weeping Lore (Witte & Co. Investigations Book 1) (39 page)

Harry gave a strangled growl. Then he threw open the door and climbed out of the car.

“Stop smiling, Cian,” Pearl said with surprising heat. “You’re behaving very poorly.”

The men climbed the steps to the double doors on the front of the brothel while Pearl circled around back. She gave Harry a firm nod before she disappeared into the alley. Harry gave a sigh and brushed at his trousers.

“If something happens to her—”

Without finishing the threat, Harry pushed open one door and stepped inside. As Cian followed, he walked into a cloud of cigar smoke. Music—blues, played loud on a piano in one corner—made eddies in the air. They stood in a large room that must have taken up most of the main floor of the house. Chaise longues, sofas, and padded chairs filled the room, and most of the seats were occupied by men and women in various states of undress.

Cian watched Harry’s eyes, to see where the man looked first.

He had to give Harry credit. The man was a consummate actor.

It only took Cian a moment to get a feel for the place. In the front room, the women still wore dresses—although many had been persuaded, undoubtedly with the help of a few dollars, to let their dresses slide down or up, as the case may be, exposing shoulders and legs. The men, most of whom looked like working class types, had their collars open and their ties loosened, shirts free of their trousers, hats forgotten. In contrast to them, Cian and Harry looked like a pair of St. Louis’s finest young men who had decided on a bit of adventure.

Cian cursed Irene for buying him those fancy clothes.

A woman with shockingly red hair—much brighter than Cian’s—and a lavender dress strolled across the room to greet them. “Hello boys,” she said. She walked with her back arched, and between her posture and the dress, certain attributes were made prominent. Quite prominent.

The way mountain ranges are prominent.

“God, pick your jaw up,” Harry muttered to Cian. Then, with that too-smooth smile, he said to the woman, “Well. Hello to you too.”

“My name’s Kate,” the woman said. “What can I do for two handsome young gentlemen?”

Harry leaned forward and, in a lower voice, said, “My big friend here is looking for some company. You might say he’s new to all this. I was hoping you’d have someone who could . . . show him around.” He chuckled.

Cian wondered how whorehouses looked on the act of murder.

Kate laughed softly. Her eyes ran up and down Cian, and he blushed. “Well, he is a big one. I think I know just the right girl to help him out.” Then she looked at Harry, and she could have started a fire with her eyes. “But what about you? Such a considerate friend, you aren’t going to forget about yourself, are you?”

Harry didn’t move, but somehow, his entire posture changed. The air between Kate and him became electric. One of Harry’s hands moved to hover next to Kate’s without ever touching her. Kate’s breathing shifted.

Even Cian was half-convinced.

“I think I’ve already met someone I’m taken with,” Harry said. Then he glanced at Harry, and the look was unmistakable. “After all, I have a thing for red-heads.”

Yes, murder was the only possible choice. Cian was almost certain the whores wouldn’t mind.

At least, not too much.

Kate’s cheeks were flushed, and she was laughing as she called over another girl. A petite blonde with legs that went to the moon, the girl spoke with Kate for a moment and then came over to stand by Cian.

“Evening, sir,” she said. “I’m Marie, but you can call me Sweetie Pie. Everyone else does.”

Harry was whispering in Kate’s ear as they watched Cian. The red-haired woman’s face was almost as bright as her hair, and she threw her head back and laughed.

Cian’s tongue swelled until he thought he was going to choke.

Marie—Sweetie Pie?—stared at him, obviously waiting for a response. She threw a confused glance over her shoulder at Kate.

For a moment, Cian thought Harry and Kate were going to die from suppressed laughter.

God damn both of them.

“Would you like a drink?” Sweetie Pie asked.

“Yes,” Cian said. “God, yes.”

Kate was wiping tears from her eyes as she laughed.

“Anywhere but here,” Cian said.

“Come with me,” Sweetie Pie said with a sympathetic smile.

She led him out of the front room and up a flight of stairs. A series of unmarked doors ran the length of the hall. From behind several doors came the sounds—rather exaggerated sounds, from Cian’s limited experience—of love-making.

He wondered if his face could literally catch fire.

“Wait right here,” Sweetie Pie said, showing him into a small room that consisted of nothing more than a bed, a shuttered window, and a pitcher and washbasin. “Anything in particular?”

“Whiskey,” Cian said. “Lots of whiskey.”

She smiled at him, sweet as a spring morning, and shut the door.

It took Cian almost a full minute to stop thinking of new ways to kill Harry and remember why he was here. He dropped to his stomach and crawled under the bed. Aside from the usual dust-bunnies, the only thing of note was a forgotten sock.

No box.

No mask.

Cian swore and squirmed free of the bed. He made his way to the door. He needed time to check the other rooms. He’d send Sweetie Pie—no, God damn him, Marie—he’d send Marie back for something else. What did men need in a whorehouse? Crackers?

Crackers. Cian shook his head. He was losing his mind.

As Cian stepped out into the hall, though, he paused. He was face to face with a massive man with a bushy beard, blond gone to gray. The man looked familiar.

Before Cian could say a word, the man brought his arm up and slammed the butt of a pistol against the side of Cian’s head.

A spark of white ballooned to fill Cian’s vision. His knees turned to slush. And then he hit the ground.

The whorehouse spread her legs in front of Irene. The building might have been stately once, standing three stories with dormer windows, but now mold speckled the white siding. Bundled in her coat, Irene rounded the corner to find the back entrance to the brothel. A door on the tenement to her right flew open. A red-faced women tossed water from a pot, missing Irene by inches, and then the door slammed shut again. Snow hissed where the boiling water landed. A moment later, the scent of defrosting garbage worked its way into the air.

Irene grimaced, hiked up her coat, and stepped around the spreading puddle.

This part of the city pulled darkness over itself like sheets in need of a good wash. The air was heavy with coal smoke. From the next street, a pack of dogs barked and snapped, but the sounds cut off at the sound of a single gunshot. Irene took the cramped street to her left.

Not a soul in sight.

The thought did nothing to ease the prickles at the base of her neck.

It had taken her most of the day to track down Patrick Hannafy. She’d found him in a small brick house tucked into a street of similar, respectable homes on the south edge of Kerry Patch. He’d answered the door in his shirtsleeves and with a towel thrown over his shoulder.

Behind him, a girl of no more than five squealed as she escaped the bathtub and fled, nude, down the length of the house.

Patrick Hannafy had smiled and invited Irene in.

At the next corner, Irene paused and listened. For a moment, she’d heard the crack of ice behind her. When she glanced back, though, the street was empty. The moon was a grainy black and white behind the gauzy layer of smoke.

She checked the revolver in her pocket.

When no further noise came, Irene continued down the street. Her visit with Patrick had knocked her legs out from under her. It was one thing to see Patrick, with his boyish good looks and that million-dollar smile, at his bar or even at the Louisiana Grand. It was another to see him track down a laughing little girl named Lydia, his youngest sister, and dunk her in a rusting iron tub. Patrick had been laughing too.

He looked happy, in spite of the dark circles under his eyes.

He looked hopeful.

He’d told her the name of the brothel when she asked. He hadn’t offered any questions.

The lies of omission rode on Irene’s shoulders.

And then she’d reached the back of the brothel. The windows were dark. A flight of steps led to a door. Three empty clotheslines were strung along the length of the small lot. A lone clothespin clung to one line, refusing to budge in spite of winter.

Irene climbed the steps and checked the door. The handle turned easily. From behind came the sound of steps and then voices. Irene glanced back and saw a group of men—six of them—come around the back of the house. She darted through the door and shut it behind her.

Growing up, Irene had learned about prostitutes the way most proper young women did—which was to say, as a nebulous sub-class of the more general category of loose women. Loose women was an identification that often overlapped with common women or vulgar women. In church, she’d heard warnings about prostitution and fornication and whoredoms. The Old Testament, for example, had been particularly vexed by whoredoms. But that had been the extent of it.

When she’d gone to Oberlin, though—after her encounter with Francis Derby—she’d heard the other side of the coin. Although her teachers and fellow suffragettes had derided prostitution as an evil, they’d had a much more realistic account of the causes that led women into that profession, and of the need for a sympathetic heart towards such women.

All of which only made Irene’s first glimpse of a brothel that much more surprising. She stood in a small kitchen. A wood-burning stove held a kettle and a pan of cold grits. Two girls in camisoles sat on stools, teacups arranged on a table between them. The image of a prostitute that Irene had shaped—of a jaded woman, her soul weary, her back even wearier—did not match these two girls at all. Both were young, and while neither was remarkably pretty, neither showed the lifeless, soulless despair. One was laughing, her mouth clapped over her hand, while the other bared an uneven smile.

The one who was smiling gave Irene a curious look. “Hello, miss. Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Anna,” Irene said. “Is she here?”

The girls traded a look. “I’ll get Kate,” the one with the uneven smile said. “You should talk to her.”

“No, please. I only need to talk to Anna. Her brother sent me.”

The girl who had been laughing was staring at the floor now. The other girl was still watching Irene.

Irene fumbled with her clutch.

“Put that away. I don’t want your money.” The girl drained her teacup and stood. “Anna might be working. I’ll check.”

“Lucy,” the other girl said.

“It’ll be fine. Stay here in the kitchen.”

She stood up and gestured Irene to her seat on the stool. Irene sat and folded her hands over her knees. She felt flushed and couldn’t tell if it was embarrassment or simply the heat from wearing the coat indoors. Lucy looked at her one last time, gave a nod, and disappeared into the house.

A moment later, the back door swung open again, and the five men trooped into the kitchen. They gave Irene and the girl looks and traded a few coarse comments, laughing with each other.

“Who’s your friend, Jess?” one of the men asked. He had a pair of scars that ran almost parallel from ear to nose. He stood over Irene and looked down at her. “All skin and bones.”

Jess—the girl next to Irene—stared at the floor. “She’s nobody, Mac. Just a lady that stopped by.”

“A lady?” Mac said. He reached down and ran his finger along the side of Irene’s face.

She slapped his hand away.

“Kitty cat,” Mac laughed, but his eyes were hard. He grabbed Irene’s chin and tilted her head up. “You look cold. I bet I could warm you up. Would you like that?”

“From where I’m sitting, you don’t look like you have much to offer.” Irene let her eyes drift to make sure Mac knew what she meant.

“Mac, she’s not—” Jess started.

Mac’s fingers tightened until Irene grit her teeth. Then he let go and slapped her. Irene blinked and felt tears sliding free. Her cheek felt hot and numb.

A few of the men laughed.

“Come on, Mac,” one of the men said. “Quit playing.”

Mac’s eyes didn’t leave Irene’s face.

“Right,” he said. “Right, boys. Let’s go have some fun.”

The men filed down the hallway, their laughter rising at another comment from Mac as he joined them.

“He works for the Dane,” Jess said, her voice barely more than a whisper. “You shouldn’t make him mad. He gets mean when he drinks.”

“He gets mean when he drinks?” Irene said. “God help him, I wanted to shoot him when he was sober.” She rubbed her aching cheek.

“You ok?” Jess said. “He likes to hit girls, I think.”

“Probably because he doesn’t have anything else to offer them,” Irene said.

To her surprise, Jess laughed, covering her mouth.

“He doesn’t,” she said, then burst into a fresh series of giggles. “He really doesn’t. I know.”

Irene tried to laugh. Instead, she felt sick to her stomach.

Those sheltered suffragettes—herself included—ought to spend a single night in a place like this.