Black Drop

by S. L. Stoner

  Gray grunted, removed his feet from atop the drawer and sat erect. “I guess it’s too much to expect you to commiserate with me since, it seems to me, you’ve grown webbing between your toes these past months. I swear I saw you strolling down the street in the pouring rain just like it was a sunny day in May. Have you gone native? Turned web-foot?”

  “I guess that, recently, I’ve come to appreciate the rain. There’s lots of places in this country where folks pray for it, you know,” Sage said with a silent nod of thanks toward Herman Eich, the ragpicker who had given him this new perspective.

  Gray waved a dismissive hand and changed the subject. “Do you have work for me? Is someone missing, soon to be lynched or maybe shanghaied onto a whaler? Goodness me, I don’t know if I’m available to assist in such fine endeavors. After all, as you can see, I am so very busy on this fine dreary day.”

  Sage laughed. It was Gray’s way to be sardonic. Yet another reason why he liked the man. “No, this time I just need some information about one of the tenants in this building.” Sage quickly described the man Fong had followed and the location of the office window where Fong had seen the light.

  “McAllister. E .J. McAllister,” Gray said flatly, his face turned stony. “And just who is this Mr. McAllister?” Sage asked. “Depends,” Gray answered and then just stared wordlessly at Sage. That response was puzzling. The lawyer ordinarily didn’t guard his words or parse out his information so reluctantly. Sage mimicked Fong’s tactic of staying silent but hoped his eyes showed sufficient inquiry.

  It worked because Gray relaxed and said, “I am surprised you haven’t heard of him before now, given your recent involvement with the carpenters’ union.”

  When Sage merely continued looking at him, Gray explained. “McAllister is a new lawyer in town. Been here just about six months. He’s taken on cases for unions and has appeared on behalf of the ever-charming, if highly vocal, ladies of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. You may recall their recent heated engagements both in and outside various Portland watering holes. He rescued their righteous and august personages from our local jail cells by using some pretty fancy legal footwork.”

  “Sounds like you admire his lawyering skills,” Sage observed. “Well, whenever a new competitor comes to town, I like to visit the courtroom and watch him in action. Thus far, McAllister impresses me. He came by and introduced himself. We’ve met in the hall a few times. Seems like a decent enough fellow.”

  This last was said with a tone of finality. Clearly, no additional information would be forthcoming. Sage wasn’t satisfied. “You’re not being totally forthright about Mr. McAllister, are you Philander?”

  Gray shrugged. “Let’s just say I’ve told you what I know to be true. That which I suspect, I intend to keep strictly to myself.”

  * * *

  When he left Gray’s office Sage debated whether it would be better to confront McAllister directly or contrive to meet him by chance. He trudged down three flights of stairs because he refused to risk his life in the wheezing, creaking steam elevator contraption that Gray considered a grand invention. Stepping out the building’s front door, he discovered that the air had turned ice-house cold. His fingers started stiffening before he thought to shove them in his pockets. Overhead, three seagulls wheeled in turbulent air, screeching their distress at being driven inland before a rising storm. Any sun break would be short-lived.

  Sage started off, then paused in the middle of the sidewalk to think. Who was the mysterious McAllister? An able lawyer who represented both labor unions and the temperance women? Maybe that was it. McAllister was watching that house for the temperance women. Pedophilia was definitely a social vice guaranteed to make them bristle like cornered porcupines. That’s it, Sage thought excitedly. That’s what McAllister was doing with those binoculars. The same thing I was doing. Watching that God-awful house to see who was molesting those boys.

  He wheeled around and resolutely entered the building once again. When he reached the third floor, only somewhat winded, he strode past Gray’s office, looking for McAllister’s. There it was, the new lawyer’s name arching discretely across an opaque glass pane. He turned the knob and pushed the door open.

  No one occupied the outer office. It contained a small desk, telephone instrument, typewriting machine and wooden file cabinet. In the far wall, a second door stood slightly ajar. It likely opened into the office that had the corner windows. Sage closed the outer door with a soft click and stepped across the room to the inside door. He paused, his ears straining but he heard only silence. Using two fingers, he slowly pushed the door open.

  Inside, a man sat behind a desk. His head hung like that of the tired old trolley horse, his forehead propped up by his two hands. The polished desktop was empty except for a glass, a half empty whiskey bottle and a black revolver.

  At Sage’s sharp intake of breath, the man lifted his head from his hands. His face was puffy and his eyes were blurry but his voice was firm when he demanded, “Who the hell are you?”

  FOUR

  Dispatch: May 5, 1903, President’s train arrives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

  “There are good men and bad men of all nationalities, creeds and colors; and if this world of ours is ever to become what we hope someday it may become, it must be by the general recognition that the man’s heart and soul, the man’s worth and actions, determine his standing.” —T.R.

  Sage involuntarily stepped back but stopped when McAllister didn’t reach for the gun. After a long pause, Sage stepped forward again and slid into one of the two chairs opposite the lawyer.

  I am here to help. I am a friend,” Sage said. “I very much doubt that.” McAllister’s tone was bitter. “Look, I know you’ve been watching Lynch’s house, the same as me,” Sage said. McAllister nodded once but said nothing although his eyes behind rimless spectacles twitched even as the rest of his face remained rigid. This was a man confronting a potential enemy. His barricades were up.

  Sage needed to establish a bond and quick. “We have to stop Lynch and close that damn house forever. And, we need to find safe places for those boys,” he said. “Do you agree?”

  The other man’s face relaxed. “I wish it were that simple,” McAllister responded, his voice bone-weary. He swiveled his desk chair around until he was facing toward the far window, his profile famed against a side window’s rain-spattered surface.

  For a long pause, the rain hitting the hard surface was the room’s only sound. Sage studied McAllister who, indeed, looked to be in his early thirties. His face was rounded, even-featured, with a dimpled chin. His wavy light brown hair parted on the right, above a smooth, wide forehead. “Genial-looking” was the description that came to mind. A decent but wrinkled suit enclosed his somewhat bulky body. His topmost shirt button was open and his loosened tie draped his neck like a skinny prayer shawl. Despite a face puffy from a sleepless night, McAllister’s countenance was kindly and trustworthy–the kind of a man who’d talk the parties through a dispute and then celebrate eventual agreement by buying beer for everyone involved.

  Since McAllister continued gazing out the window, Sage switched his scrutiny to the room. It contained the lawyer’s desk and chair as well as two cushioned seats for clients. Behind the desk, stood a narrow table holding a neat stack of papers and a pair of binoculars. A short, glass-fronted bookcase against the wall beside the door, displayed thick law books. Framed diplomas hung on another wall. Sage saw that a few years prior, McAllister had obtained a law degree from the University of Virginia. This followed the award of an undergraduate degree from Syracuse University in 1895. Given that both were top schools, it meant the man was both smart and diligent as well as having a monied background.

  A glance toward the lawyer showed pale gray window light washing across the man’s face, catching on tears trickling silently down his cheeks. Sage shifted, uncertain how to give comfort. McAllister pulled a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket and blotted his face. The fact of th
at trembling hand, the tears, rumpled clothes, cleared

  desk, whiskey bottle and revolver all coalesced into a realization that straightened Sage in his chair.

  McAllister had been working up the nerve to kill himself. Maybe he would have, if Sage hadn’t intruded. Perhaps I can help,” Sage offered softly. No point in pretending he didn’t understand what had been about to take place. People in such pain seldom had patience for conversational foreplay.

  McAllister’s laugh was harsh but his spine straightened. He wiped his face again before turning to look at Sage. Then he sighed and asked, this time without the sharpness, “Just who are you?”

  Sage told him. No point in claiming to be one of his various other personas. McAllister was a likely Mozart’s patron.

  However, the lawyer said, “I’ve been to Mozart’s once or twice. I don’t recall seeing you there.”

  “Well, I have other activities so sometimes I have to leave the help in charge.”

  “And spying on Lynch’s house is one of those ‘activities’?” McAllister asked.

  Sage had noticed that about lawyers. The really good ones had the impatient habit of plowing straight to the heart of matter. He rather liked it since impatience was no stranger where Sage himself was concerned.

  “Yup. I found out about it last June but I couldn’t act on the information until now,” he said. “I’ve been sitting under that cedar tree watching the house. A couple of days ago, I happened to catch sight of you with those binoculars,” Sage said, with a nod toward the table, “Quite frankly, I started hoping that you and I have the same goal in mind.”

  McAllister leaned forward, fierce intent erasing the despair that had bent his frame. “We do and we don’t,” he said. “You close down Lynch’s house they’ll just find another. As long as the boys are easy to procure, a house like that will exist in Portland. You’ve got to cut off the supply and instill terror in its customers’ hearts.”

  “By cut off the supply, I take it you mean the Boys Christian Society?” Sage asked.

  McAllister’s eyes narrowed, as if he was recalculating his initial assessment of Sage.

  “So, you know about the BCS,” McAllister said, his tone matter-of-fact.

  Sage nodded. “A friend told me that some of the boys come from the BCS. Except I don’t know who in the BCS is involved. I know it can’t be everyone in the organization. Some pretty prominent people sit on its board of directors,” he said.

  Pulling open the desk drawer, McAllister quickly stowed the whiskey bottle, glass and revolver out of sight. When he looked at Sage again, his eyes were steely. “What is supposed to be a safe shelter for orphan boys instead sends them down the path into a life of self-loathing. Men and boys mingle, inappropriately, inside the BCS facility, I know that much. And, I think it’s the manager who sells the boys to men like Lynch.”

  “But why do the boys stay so biddable? Why don’t they run away, tell the police?” Sage asked. It just didn’t make sense. Young boys tended to be impatient, rambunctious and rebellious. He tried to envision a young boy, like Matthew, the nephew of Mozart’s cook, tolerating such abuse and couldn’t.

  McAllister nodded. “That is the question. We have to figure out how their natural instinct to resist or flee is being suppressed. Shame yes, but there has to be something else. If we don’t find out what that mechanism is, we could stop Lynch but find the same scheme springing back to life in another location. Just like that many-headed Greek hydra-monster.”

  Sage scooted his chair closer to the desk. He was relieved to see that McAllister’s emotional distress had receded, pushed aside by his concern over the victimized boys. “You seemed to be well-positioned, as lawyer, to root out this evil. Why haven’t you?” Sage asked.

  The lawyer’s face collapsed back into bleak despair. He again turned away from Sage to look out the far window and said, “Lynch knows my preference. If I try to go against him, he’ll expose me. Exposure would utterly destroy my wife and family. My clients would be subject to derision, their causes degraded. In sum, I’d lose my practice, my reputation, and harm the people I care most about.”

  Sage forced his voice to remain level and without judgment as he asked, “You’re one of his customers?”

  McAllister quickly turned back around, his face twisted in anger. “Damn you! I would no more harm a child than you would! Men like Lynch and his customers are abominations. I damn well know that far better than you do,” he said, his palm slapping the desk as if squashing a memory dead.

  This exchange confused Sage. If McAllister wasn’t a pedophile then what could a man like Lynch hold over him?

  Light dawned. “Oscar Wilde?” Sage asked, naming the English writer who’d stood trial for his homosexuality in 1895. Sage had been deep in the Yukon when that trial happened. But, even there, its spectacular details gave rise to eager discussions around smoking fireplaces and pot-bellied stoves. The isolated Yukon territory, with its scarcity of females, was Sage’s first inescapable exposure to the fact that some men preferred the company of their own kind. In that overwhelmingly male environment, men became a little more open–dancing together at the impromptu winter hoe-downs, partnering up in isolated cabins. Folks tended not to comment on such behavior. Still, you’d have to be denser than a tree stump not to see it. In the end, Sage decided he didn’t care. At the end of the day, people needed to love and to be loved.

  Over the years, Sage discovered that the existence of homosexuality had left him with one unanswerable question that had nothing to do with its practitioners. Instead, he wondered how some people reconciled their belief in God’s absolute “perfection” with their condemnation of the people that “perfect” God had created. Sage concluded that his God, to the extent He existed, simply did not make mistakes. Instead maybe, by making human beings so different from one another, in such a variety of ways, God was providing His “faithful” with an opportunity to expand their capacity for empathy and compassion.

  Sage shook loose from his metaphysical musings. When it came to McAllister and this situation, plain speaking was the best way move them past this awkwardness. “Okay, I get it. You’re a homosexual and Lynch knows it.

  The lawyer’s nod was cautious, his short-lived assurance replaced by a look of painful vulnerability, his body bracing for an attack.

  Sage sighed, deliberately relaxing before he smiled and said, “Okay, then, Mr. McAllister. It seems like we share a similar problem. I’ve got my own secrets that I can’t risk exposing. Since we are equal in that regard, any chance that you might be up for figuring out how to destroy this damnable business without bringing our own lives down around our ears?”

  After a moment of shocked incredulity the other man relaxed and grinned. “I am more willing than you can ever imagine. Or,” he looked toward the drawer he’d just closed, “maybe you can imagine. The moral dilemma has been excruciating. No matter how I looked at the situation, I saw exposure and with that exposure, my utter and complete failure to save those boys and my own family and friends.”

  “Actually, the fact that both of us possess secrets and would be risking all, just might make us ideal conspirators.” Sage said. “Neither one of us can tell on the other.”

  “You don’t share my inclinations,” McAllister said flatly.

  “No, I don’t. Not your sexual inclinations, anyway. But I do know, from your reputation, that you fight for the little guy against the monied elite. We’re in perfect lockstep on that account. That’s my secret. My ownership of Mozart’s is just a front for my real work.”

  McAllister raised an eyebrow before he grinned again, flashing a row of perfect white teeth. “I am starting to think that it sure is a fine thing that you walked through that door when you did,” he said.

  “Yup,” Sage agreed, letting the silence thicken slightly before continuing, “Listen, we’re going to have to depend on others to help us. We don’t have to tell them your secret, although the people I am thinking of certainly know how
to keep secrets. The question I have is, can you keep theirs?”

  McAllister rolled his eyes. “Ye gods, man. You’re looking at a man whose life is like a damned iceberg. The real me is always and forever hiding below the surface. But, if it will make you feel more confident about sharing your secrets, hand me a dollar. That way, I will become your lawyer. Anything I learn through you, I can’t talk about.”

  Pulling out a five dollar gold piece Sage slapped it onto the desk. “You hungry?” he asked, standing up and jamming his hat onto his head.

  McAllister stood too, relief and hope in his face. “Starving,” he said.

  “Great!” Sage responded with a grin, “You’re buying!” Beyond the window, rain no longer fell and sunlight, shafting in through the glass, was near blinding in its intensity. Sage decided he’d interpret the sun break as a sure sign that the heavens approved of their deal.

  FIVE

  Dispatch: May 6, 1903, President’s train arrives at the Grand Canyon, in Arizona.

  “Women should have free access to every field of labor which they care to enter, and when their work is as valuable as that of a man, it should be paid as highly.” —T.R.

  Just before the supper hour, Mae, Fong and Sage again sat around the table in Sage’s third floor room above Mozart’s. Fong said nothing, merely nodding thoughtfully, accepting McAllister’s secret as a logical explanation for the man’s actions.

  Sage looked toward Mae Clemens. She responded with a look of mild exasperation. “Well, really, Sage. Don’t you remember your father’s brother, Alwyn?” she asked.

  Beside him, he sensed that Fong had become more alert. John Adair, Senior, was a topic neither Mae Clemens nor her son ever discussed. For good reason. A Welch foreman in Appalachia’s mines, Sage’s father had turned informer. He’d delivered Mae’s father and eldest brother into a murderous ambush carried out by the mine owner’s private army of Dickenson thugs.