Black Drop

by S. L. Stoner

  “Apparently not soon enough. Before the fire started, she talked to her brother.”

  “So kill the brother!”

  “It’s too late. He went straight to St. Alban.”

  “Wait a minute. How do you know all this? Who told you?

  How do I know this isn’t just your ploy to get more money?” The mercenary twitched as anger shot through his body.

  The fool sitting in that chair with his silly slingshot and pigeon killing games didn’t know the danger he was in at that precise moment. Maybe he did, though. The client shifted uncomfortably as if sensing, somewhere deep in the recesses of his primitive mind, the danger he was in.

  The mercenary thought of his promised fee, swallowed, breathed deep and said mildly, to take the sting out of his words, “Never mind how I know. You want your money back, what hasn’t been spent, you can have it. I’m not telling you my sources of information. That’s my business, not yours. I’m not about to risk future work.” He clapped his felt hat onto his head and turned toward the door.

  The client’s next words were spoken without his customary hectoring tone. “Just who is this St. Alban character?”

  The mercenary turned back and said, “Vincent St. Alban started out with the mine workers’ union, out in the Colorado Rockies. Became a hero to the miners when he went back inside after a cave-in and saved a bunch of miners. Lost an eye doing it.”

  The man in the chair lit a new cigar off the smoldering end of the old one and sucked deep before saying, “You know, I hate unions. If God wanted the average swine herder deciding how to run the world, he would have set things up differently. But, the fact is some men are born to rule others and some men are born to serve them. It puts everything out of kilter when the workers get above themselves. Makes nothing but trouble for everybody– even them.”

  “Most of the men I take jobs from don’t like unions either,” the mercenary observed.

  “Just exactly what does this St. Alban know?”

  “Near as I can find out, St. Alban knows that someone will try to kill Roosevelt somewhere in Oregon and try do it in such a way that the blame falls squarely on the unions.”

  “That’s too damn much knowing! What’s he planning to do, have you at least figured that out?” The nasty tone was back.

  “I know he’s already sent someone out to Portland. So, one would think St. Alban intends to disrupt our plans,” the mercenary said, his sarcastic tone matching the other’s.

  Feistiness did the trick, because the next words spoken by the man in the chair were sly. “Vell, in that case we will make a deal, you and I. There is an additional five hundred dollars if you make Portland the last time St. Alban’s man does an errand for his boss. Actually, make that a thousand. I also want you to take care of that big mouth drunk who blabbed to the whore. Do it the instant the bomb explodes.”

  NNE

  Dispatch: May 8, 1903, President’s train arrives in Riverside, California.

  “Much can be done by organization, combination, union among the wage workers, and finally something can be done by the direct action of the State.” —T.R.

  Although misting rain drenched her shawl-covered head, Mae Clemens lingered outside the kitchen door. “This is not going to be easy. That harridan inside will try every smidgen of patience in my bones,” she muttered to herself, adding, “Lord knows I got shorted when they handed out the patience.” The interview with Mrs. Wiggit had been mercifully brief the day before. Merciful, because their exchange was not pleasant.

  “You look a might long in the tooth to be starting this kinda work, Mrs. Clemens,” the cook said once Mae explained she sought employment as the assistant cook. Mrs. Wiggit sat with her arms crossed over her ample bosom, her brown eyes cold and suspicious, her face set in a prove-it-to-me smirk that Mae’s hand twitched to slap away.

  Mae swallowed her retort in order to meekly agree, “Yes, ma’am, but I’ve worked hard all my life and don’t know any other way to be.”

  Meek worked because the cook nodded and said, “Well, then. I’m sick to death of the young ninnies I’ve had to fire lately. Never saw such a bunch of lazy preening gadabouts. They think everything’s supposed to drop right in their laps. And, despite me telling ‘em different, they had to poke their nose where it didn’t belong.”

  Mae’s eyebrows rose of their own accord. Where had they been “poking?” This was definitely the kind of information she wanted to hear.

  The other woman saw Mae’s interest because she said, “If you want to work here, you got to listen better than they did. That’s a male establishment overhead. They do not permit women above the basement level for any reason whatever,” she declared, as stern as a schoolroom nun. “For any reason, you understand?” she repeated, her eyes narrowing.

  That was yesterday. Now Mae was about to start working in the BCS kitchen in the hope that she’d get an opportunity to learn more about a monstrous criminal scheme. Somehow, she had to do a good enough job and remain meek enough for Mrs. Wiggit to keep her on. The vision of a submissive dog, lying on its back with its throat exposed, slid into her mind.

  Fong once told her that a person’s mental attitude becomes the mirror of their universe. She wasn’t quite certain what he meant but she thought she knew. Anyways, she was done with the light rain soaking her through. Mae stepped down the few cement steps to the basement door and turned the knob. “Woof,” she said softly as she stretched out her neck and stepped over the threshold.

  Inside Gussie, the scullery maid, was washing pans and crockery in the tin sink, her small hands dipping periodically into a bowl of creamy, homemade soap. Evidently, Mrs. Wiggit

  ran an economical kitchen where excess lard was converted into soap. Mrs. Wiggit was stirring a pot of gruel on the top of the huge black cookstove while simultaneously checking bread toasting in its oven. She expertly slid the done toast onto a platter sitting in the cookstove’s warming oven. A deep dish also sat in the warming oven, already brimming with crisply fried bacon. The smell of it filed the air, making Mae’s mouth water. She’d eaten only buttered bread and cheese for breakfast since the rooming house landlady didn’t start serving until 6:30 in the morning.

  Momentarily, Mae wondered if she’d arrived late to her first day of work. She glanced at the clock. No, it was ten to six, and Mrs. Wiggit told her to arrive at six.

  Mrs. Wiggit dipped a practiced hand into a box of salt, scooped some out and dribbled it onto the gruel before glancing in Mae’s direction. “Hang your wet garments over there.” She pointed with her chin toward a row of pegs next to the outside door, where some outerwear already hung.

  Mae quickly did as told, wrapping the long skinny strings of a spare white apron twice around her waist before knotting it snug. She turned back toward Mrs. Wiggit and asked, “Are you needing more coal for the stove?”

  At the cook’s abrupt nod, Mae crossed to the coal bucket, filed a scuttle full, carried it over to the cookstove, raised the heavy cast-iron lid and carefully spread the lumps across the burning embers.

  “You’re early,” Mrs. Wiggit observed sourly. “Don’t think by coming early, you’ll get paid any more. I told you a dollar a day and so it will be, not a penny more.” She was a tidy, sturdy woman of average height who coiled her dull brown hair atop her head. What made her unattractive was the sour downturn in her mouth and the hard pebble brown of her eyes.

  Mae shook her head. “It’s my habit to get places early. I couldn’t sleep any longer anyways.”

  “Humph, I guess we’ll see. We need rolls baked for lunch and dinner. After that some apple pies, though the apples are more rot than ready–it being the season’s end.”

  So, Mae stirred and kneaded and rolled. That done, and the small mounds rising on the warmest, least drafty part of the kitchen counter, she took up a paring knife and went after the huge woven basket of last fall’s apples. As peels curled and brown spots dropped away, Mae had her first opportunity to study the kitchen and its ot
her two females.

  It was a large room, maybe thirty by twenty, with a small alcove on one side where Gussie’s washing up was done. The floor was clean, covered with white tile that had deep blue ceramic diamond shapes anchoring each corner. Dishes washed, the wafer-thin Gussie was down on her hands and knees mopping up the few dribbles her washing had left upon its surface.

  The kitchen itself ran the length of the building on the side where the door opened to the outside. Full-size windows allowed light in on that long side while two smaller windows provided light on each of its shorter walls, one of the windows being situated over a sink that was in a small pantry-like alcove.

  In the main room, black iron skillets of every size hung from hooks on the rear inside wall next to the massive stove. On the stove’s other side, open shelves held boxes of salt, glass jars of various powders and sugars, pots of honey and jam. A long counter below had glass-fronted bins displaying a variety of dry staples like flour and oats. A number of woven baskets, the open tops showing onions, potatoes and other root vegetables, crowded one corner of the counter. Opposite the scullery on the other end wall, next to its single window, stood floor-to-ceiling shelves. These held dishes, glasses, cups and bowls of many different sizes.

  Two sturdy wood chairs stood on each side of the rectangle work table where Mae sat. Glowing electric globes dangled above the red-checked oil cloth covering the table, providing a level of light far superior to that shed by the single globe in Mozart’s kitchen. “All and all,” Mae thought, “This is a well-organized space–I wish our kitchen was this open and bright.”

  Besides stove, shelves, pans and bin counter, the back wall also sported a doorway. Mae was eyeing it, wondering what was on the other side, when she realized that the door was slowly opening. A thump sounded and a boy of about seven years, limped through. The crutch he held hit the tile floor once again. He panted with the effort to move his twisted body across the floor toward the table, his right leg seeming to trail behind. As he neared Mae, he looked up from beneath long, sand-colored bangs. His eyes were a startling clear blue, guileless as an infant’s. A thread of drool was dribbling from the corner of his slack mouth.

  Mae grinned at him. “Well, hello there, young man” she said. “Would you like a bit of apple?” She held out a peeled hunk of fruit.

  He nodded and reached out with the hand that wasn’t clutching the crutch to take the apple. “My name is ‘Andy’,” he told her carefully, once he’d chewed and swallowed.

  From over by the stove, a slow exhalation sounded. Mae looked toward the cook and saw that the woman had eyes only for the boy. Her stern face had softened and her brown eyes glowed.

  Ah, Mae thought. Trapped is what you are, Mrs. Wiggit, and mighty bitter at your caging. Mae smiled at the boy. “How about one more bite, Mr. Andy?” she asked him, offering a second piece. The boy giggled and took the apple eagerly.

  The apple pies were near done when a heavy-set man lumbered into the kitchen. Noting the lusty stare he directed toward Gussie’s backside, where the girl bent over the tin sink scrubbing the breakfast pots, Mae knew there’d be no liking him. She forced her face to relax into blandness and dipped her head submissively when Ms. Wiggit introduced her to “Cap’n Branch, the manager of the BCS.”

  “Guess we can’t be calling you the new ‘girl’” he said with special emphasis on the last word. He attempted to take the sting out of the words with a toothy smile.

  “No, sir,” Mae said and clamped her lips tightly shut. She noticed Mrs. Wiggit watching their exchange closely.

  The other woman’s chin lifted as if in satisfaction, though why Mae couldn’t tell.

  The Cap’n turned toward the cook. “This evening, I am expecting a few extra gentlemen in for dinner at six o’clock. See that there is extra grub on the table in the small dining room. Make it good. The doc’s one of them so I don’t want to see smears on the brandy snifters. Hmm, is that apple pie I smell?’ The cook nodded. “Great. Just make darn sure it finds its way to our table in the small room.” With that admonition, he turned on his heel and headed for the door.

  “Oh,” one hand on the doorknob, the Cap’n turned. “Kevin will be serving. Just make sure that the trays are ready on time and he’ll bring them up.”

  “Yes, sir,” the cook’s voice followed the man out the door. Mae glanced toward the cook and saw an expression of venomous hatred flit cross the woman’s face before she turned back toward the stove, “Make sure, just you make sure,” Mae thought she heard the woman mumble.

  A slight rustle came from the vicinity of Mae’s feet. She looked down just as the oil cloth twitched and the wide eyes of the boy peered out. For the first time she realized that, when the Cap’n had entered the kitchen, the boy had slipped under the table and out of sight.

  “Curiouser and curiouser,” Mae Clemens muttered to herself. To the boy at her feet she mouthed, “He’s gone.” Her reward was a wide grin.

  * * *

  McAllister looked in a bad way when he entered Mozart’s at the dinner hour’s tail end. Sweat beaded his brow, deep creases pinched a tight-lipped mouth as his shaking hands fumbled with his hat. Sage seated the man quickly and signaled the waiter for a glass of house wine, Mozart’s not being an establishment that sold hard liquor.

  “E. J., something bad happen?” he asked, once the glass appeared in front of the other man. “Not yet, but two bad things are about to happen.” E.J. said before taking a gulp and making a face. “I prefer whiskey myself,” he said, “but today, this is better than nothing.” He drew in a shaky breath.

  “We just found out that Lynch plans to open the second house within a week, not six weeks like we thought,” McAllister said. “Up in the northwest, near Twenty-Third Avenue.”

  “Do you know where? And, who is this ‘we’ you’re referring to?”

  The corner of McAllister’s mouth twitched, as if Sage weren’t as up to snuff as he should be. “Some of my kind, of course. You think I’m the only one of us that can’t bear to see those boys used by Lynch?” His face seemed to blank with memory and he said slowly, “More than one of us got used by men when we were boys. Sometimes, I wonder . . . .” His voice trailed off.

  Sage looked at the man, thought of him as a small boy and felt his stomach tighten. If what he suspected McAllister meant was true it explained why the man was so distraught. Empathy can stab painfully deep when the hurt is one remembered instead of one imagined.

  “Okay, so we know where the house is. That’s a beginning,” Sage said matter-of-factly, hoping to reassure McAllister that he wasn’t going to be the one solely responsible for halting Lynch’s moved-up plans.

  McAllister didn’t look relieved. If anything, his anxiety lines deepened. “That’s just the point. The others . . . .” again his voice trailed off.

  “The others what?” Sage prompted.

  This time the lawyer sighed heavily. “The others are planning to set fire to Lynch’s new place later tonight,” he said. He reached across to clutch at Sage’s wrist where it lay upon the table. Then, seeming to realize that his behavior might draw others' attention, he abruptly let go. Forcing himself to sit back in his chair, McAllister said dully, “I can’t let them do it, Adair. They could get caught. Other people could get hurt. I have sworn duty, an ethical duty to stop them. But, if I go to the police, good men will get hurt. It will ruin their lives, their families . . . .” He rubbed his face with both hands. “Dammit, Adair. If we don’t stop Lynch, he’ll have that damn house filed with new boys in just a few more days.” McAllister fell silent, as if the dilemma had grabbed ahold of his throat and squeezed it shut.

  TEN

  Dispatch: May 9, 1903, President’s train pulls into Los Angeles, California.

  “It is far more difficult o deal with the greed that works through cunning than with the greed that works through violence. But the effort to deal with it must be steadily made.” —T.R.

  Throughout the night, the third floor of Moz
art’s felt empty. It was as if some corner of Sage’s sleeping brain remained aware that his mother was not in the room next door and it could not rest easy. Her absence nibbled at him until the sound of the metal mail flap clanking three stories below roused him fully awake. He slid from bed, started the corner stove, fetched the newspaper, settled into the rocker near the window and began reading the paper by the growing sunlight.

  A short time later Fong entered the room. A woven basket filled with various dried herbs dangled from one hand. Sage dropped the newspaper to the floor and gestured Fong toward the teapot on the table.

  “Mr. Fong, the tea’s hot. Just got it boiling myself,” he said and waited while Fong poured and drank before asking, “Did you see her? Is she alright?”

  Fong nodded. “I sold her herbs from basket when she came out door of rooming house. She took them to work.” He swallowed again. “She say everything going like planned. She met boss. Says he is a bad man. She will try to explore more today.”

  “But is she doing okay?” Fong smiled. “Lady Mother would nip your nose if she heard you ask that question. Still, I think she not sleeping enough.”

  Sage used his stockinged toe to flip the newspaper over so the headline showed. “Tragedy Averted in House Fire.”

  “You’re the “oriental” man referred to in the story?” Fong picked up the paper. “Must be,” he said after a few minutes. “What happened? You didn’t spot them soon enough?” This time Fong shrugged his shoulders as if the fire getting started was of little concern to him. “Turns out, Mr. E.J’s friends enter house more than one way. I only one person,” he said. “I see one man crawl through open porch window with gas can. I go in right away. Another man already inside, upstairs. He start fire before I get to him.”

  “What did you do to stop them?”