The Downstairs Girl

by Stacey Lee

  A fire roars within me. If he is bullying an old man, Miss Sweetie has a thing or two to say about that. “What do you know of Billy Riggs?”

  Twenty-Three

  Nathan’s face empties of humor. “If you believe the Constitution, Billy is a fixer, someone who helps others out of a pickle.”

  “I take it you disagree?”

  He snorts. “What they don’t mention is that Billy Riggs is often the one putting them in the barrel. He buys and trades information. He’s an opportunistic night crawler, digesting dirt so as to transform it into dirt of a richer nature.”

  Billy’s mean coppery eyes flash before me. “Is he trustworthy in the business sense?”

  “As trustworthy as blackmailers come. Why do you ask?”

  “I need information that only Mr. Riggs can provide. I have met him and know he is as unsavory as bear-grease pomade. What I need to know is, will I be wasting my time if I attempt to deal with him?”

  He scowls and tucks his fists under his arms. All the brightness has left his eyes. “Why would you win a hand to lose the deck?”

  “I don’t intend to lose the deck. All I require is the barest information.”

  “It is a slippery slope. He is clever.”

  “I am clever, too. Where can I find him?”

  An exasperated breath gusts out of him, loosening his spine. “My mother would have my head if I sent you into a lion’s den.”

  “No matter, then. I will find out another way. I simply ask for expediency.”

  He crosses his arms, jaw set in a way that suggests an answer will not be forthcoming.

  “Well, then, good night.”

  He groans. “Billy Riggs receives business at the Church on Saturday evenings.”

  Tomorrow, then. “Which church?” In Atlanta, there are more churches than blocks. You can change your religion a dozen times just getting to the train station.

  “The Church is a tavern on Decatur, just before Butler.” Each word comes out bearing a grudge.

  “Thank you. And I have never eaten fruitcake.”

  * * *

  —

  THE FOLLOWING EVENING, I hike down Decatur Street in a dress that Old Gin helped me pattern out of an old piano shawl. He says the dress makes me look like a fine lampshade, with its fringe on the cuffs, but I think the dress’s clean lines give me a schoolmarm’s respectability, especially with my borrowed bonnet.

  The Church lies farther from the notorious bottom branch of Collins Street than I thought vultures like Billy Riggs would perch. Of course, a racehorse doesn’t complain about a dry track. I hurry past Collins, wondering if I am on a fool’s errand. But if he is blackmailing my stand-in father, I must know.

  Just before Butler, a wet patch of grass connects Decatur to a brick building the size of the Paynes’ barn. The stained glass of its arched windows is mostly intact.

  Despite having brooded all day over my meeting with Billy, now that the time has come, all my thoughts seem to have boarded the streetcar for home. I stare at the streaked varnish of the front door, its brass push plate blackened with prints. This might be a trap. Billy trades in information, but what if his intentions are more . . . sinister? Who would notice if a poor Chinese girl went missing? Miss Sweetie would advise making tracks for home.

  I shiver, trying to shake off some of my dread. It could hardly be good for business to go around assaulting potential customers. I will simply need to keep my wits about me. All I need are a few answers.

  The door swings open, and two drunks stumble out, hastened by a kick that is female in origin. “Next time you try to pay with bogus coins, I’ll get you booked! Now scram!”

  One of the men falls and, seeing me, crooks a dirty finger. “Look, Rufus, we drank our way clear to China.”

  “Git!” Another push by the woman’s rolling-pin arms sends the two on their way. The woman adjusts her wig, which had begun to slide to one side, and cocks a bushy eyebrow at me. “Help you with something?”

  The reek of sour mash wafts through the doorway. At the back of the room, a pair of ivory tusks hangs above a bar, where a half dozen men are seated. “Yes. I am told Billy Riggs can be found here?”

  “Billy Riggs?” she screeches, quieting the chatter coming from the bar. “If that no-account comes here, I have an elephant gun whose double barrel would fit right up his filthy nostrils.” She fists her hands into her hips.

  “You mean, he doesn’t conduct business here?”

  “No, and if you’re the sort who conducts business with him, you ain’t welcome here neither. Good day.” She strides back into her bar and the door swings shut with a whomp!

  I slouch after the drunks. Was it a mistake, or did Nathan deliberately mislead me?

  The sucking sound of the door reopening heralds a loud clamor and a woof!

  Before I am halfway to the street, something familiar and furry streaks past me, cutting off my path. I stumble, slipping onto the wet grass. A sheepdog pants right by my face, calling up G-words with every pound of her tail.

  Gravity.

  Grass.

  Gullible.

  He led me here to deceive me.

  “Bear,” Nathan says sternly, slapping his thigh twice. Bear returns to his side, bouncing in four directions at once.

  Our gaze connects. If looks were sounds, his startled expression would be the braking of a train for a troop of Fiji mermaids swinging through the trees. His gaze falls to my mouth, maybe measuring it against the last peek. A rosy indignation blooms around my neck.

  He shakes himself loose of his stare and hands me his handkerchief. “I am terribly sorry.” He doesn’t sound very sorry at all. “Are you okay?”

  Woof! The dog settles, now patient as a rook ready to be played.

  I wipe dog drool off my face. “I am as well as someone who has been knocked upon grass soaked with the excrement of animals can be, thank you.” Even unmasked, Miss Sweetie hangs on.

  The warmth of Nathan’s hands as he helps me up sends electric pulses through me. I’m astounded by how many thoughts can fit into the space of the second it takes for me to withdraw my hand.

  “I apologize. I couldn’t send an unaccompanied lady to Billy Riggs.”

  So he knew all along I had no chaperone. With my cheeks ablaze, I draw myself up as if there were a string attached to my crown pulling me to the sky—Hammer Foot’s power stance. “Now that you have seen that I am quite capable, will you not tell me where to find him?” Bear scoops up my hand with her head, asking me to pet her. Nathan combs his hand through her backside.

  “On two conditions.”

  A group of men saunter toward the Church, hats turning at the sight of us, but offering no comment.

  “I will come, and you must tell me why.”

  “Why what?”

  “Why Miss Sweetie?”

  Our petting—me on the engine, him at the caboose—becomes more vigorous. Bear will be bald soon at the rate we are pawing her. Now that I have been revealed, company would be nice. As for the why of things . . .

  “Your family”—I begin to say, and then hastily tack on—“business has helped me, over the years, understand the world. I wanted to thank you in some way.”

  He blinks. “How . . . remarkable.” The air between us thickens with unexpressed words.

  Straightening, he brushes the wrinkles from his coat while I pick grass off my sleeves. “Well then, Miss Sweetie, to Collins Street.”

  The bottom branch. That sounds more like it. He offers his arm. And though my own legs have done a fair job getting me down the pavement all these years, I take it.

  Twenty-Four

  Dear Miss Sweetie,

  I recently purchased a straw hat off the shelf that is too small. How do I make it fit?

  Hatless in Atlanta

  Dear
Hatless,

  Fire up the teakettle. Aim the steam at the inner ribbon, rotating the hat so that the steam dampens the inside brim evenly. Watch your fingers! Once the hat has cooled enough, carefully fit it over your head. You will have to wear the hat for at least two hours so the hat can dry in its new shape.

  Yours truly,

  Miss Sweetie

  * * *

  —

  “I confess, you are not who I expected,” says Nathan after a painful stretch of silence.

  “I never am.”

  Another silence follows, during which we try not to bump into each other. Bear pads on the other side of me with her tail high, the only one of us at ease.

  “I’ve had so many questions, and now I cannot think of a single one of them.”

  “Then silence is your best option.”

  “Who are you?”

  “If that is how you plan to snare the ladies, you should consider rewiring your trap.”

  He snorts. “We are well past introductions, yet I still do not know your name.”

  “Jo Kuan.”

  We turn a corner, and a dirty carpet of an avenue unrolls before us. Nathan slows to avoid a collision with a drunkard. “Welcome to Collins Street, where you can get your boots dirty and your pockets clean at the same time.”

  Vice dens huddle as if conspiring, the crooked teeth of an upper and lower jaw. At the end of the street, a church stands like the final molar, so you can swill and then rinse clean in two easy steps. We skirt around a group of men, black and white, throwing dice, and street sellers hawking enhancement oils and sticks of black opium.

  “So, where did you grow up, Miss Kuan?”

  “Just Jo is fine.”

  When I don’t say more, Nathan’s eyebrows become question marks. “Who are your parents?” he tries again.

  “Mr. Bell, I realize as a reporter it is in your nature to get to the bottom of things. But you will need to stick to questions of a more general nature.”

  “Fair enough. Generally, who are your parents?”

  I hide a smile and shake my head, trying not to breathe in the stench of stale tobacco, human sweat, and waste.

  “What about questions of a highly specific nature. Like, what is your favorite word?”

  “Hullaballoo,” I lie. I would never admit to Nathan that it’s actually besotted. “I like how it makes your mouth move around. If I guess your favorite word, will you stop moving your mouth around?”

  “How could you possibly guess? There are so many words.”

  “Quixotic.” After Mr. Bell read the story of Don Quixote to him, Nathan spent a whole year proclaiming everything from the way his bread crumbs stuck to his shirt to the way certain flies don’t budge even when you blow at them quixotic.

  “How did you—?”

  “Mouth is still moving.”

  He quiets, though his face is still loud with disbelief. I should not arouse suspicion. “It was a guess. I do read the Focus, as I told you, and you overuse the word.”

  He stops before a lavender Victorian. Up close, the paint is peeling, and the gray trim appears to have once been white, a color likely to cause great disappointment in a railroad city.

  A leprechaun of a man with a small hill of a nose peels himself off the porch post. He leers, and the cigarette pursed in his lips droops, raining down ash. While we ascend the stairs, he swaggers down with a gait much wider than a man his size should take. “Enjoy that pretty bit of arse,” he drops in a rough brogue, and then laughs.

  “Enjoy . . . ?” The words catch up to Nathan. He wheels around, midstep, and begins to storm back down the stairs after the leprechaun, but I grab his arm.

  The front door has opened, revealing a middle-aged woman solidly packed into a pin-striped dress. Her white skin is even paler under a thick dusting of powder. “I recognize you,” she tells Nathan in a voice that sounds as scratched as old soles. “The ladies loved you last time you came.”

  Nathan tears his attention from the departing man, and with a flush blooming on his face, he clears his throat. “Good evening, Madam Delilah. May I introduce—”

  “Jo Kuan. I am here to see Billy Riggs.”

  The madam’s bloodshot eyes slide up my lampshade dress to my face, and then shrink. “Wait here.” She closes the door.

  Bear’s tail swats at the porch.

  “Come here often?” I can’t resist asking.

  Nathan frowns. “I came here to investigate. Didn’t get very far.” He refocuses on the door, on which I notice two carved squares, a cleaner version of the carving on the curly oak.

  “What do the dice mean?” I ask.

  He rolls back on his heels and the floor protests. “That four-five combination is a Jesse James in craps.”

  “The outlaw?”

  Nathan nods. “He was killed by a forty-five caliber pistol. Billy thinks himself a better outlaw than Jesse.”

  “Better as in more virtuous?” Despite his being a train robber and a violent murderer, some considered Jesse James a folk hero who gave his plunder to the poor.

  Nathan snorts. “Jesse James was as virtuous as Satan on a Sunday. ‘Better’ as in more cunning.”

  Madam Delilah appears once again. “He will see Miss Kuan only.”

  “But the lady requires an escort.”

  “If she is bold enough to seek out Billy Riggs, she can handle herself.”

  “I will be fine,” I pipe up, somewhat relieved at the notion of not having to expose my affairs to Nathan.

  He angles himself so the woman cannot see his face, which is clouded with concern. “Miss Kuan—” he says between his teeth.

  “Jo, please.”

  “Jo. The word imbecilic comes to mind.”

  “As does the word vexatious. Madam, I am ready.”

  He shoots me a black look as I enter the house. Before he can follow, she locks the door behind her.

  The parlor extends at least twenty paces, with a bar at the end. Dim lamps make it hard to distinguish faces, but it is clear from the slouched postures and raucous laughter that the occupants are not here to play whist.

  Madam Delilah leads me down a dark corridor. Maids, mostly colored, in uniforms more revealing than the ones used by the Paynes’ staff, deliver trays of food and drink. Their faces are closed, as if used to minding their own business. Velvet wallpaper smooths the walls between doors, tight as a lady’s bodice. A laughing woman pulls a man into a room. No doubt, much of Billy’s information is collected in these very halls.

  The madam stops in front of a door marked with the number 9. She knocks. “Jo Kuan to see you.”

  The door opens, and I come face-to-face with a man bearing the dead expression of an undertaker. He’s even dressed for death—a black frock coat with gray-and-black-striped trousers.

  “Knucks, let her in.”

  The man steps back, and the dirty pennies of Billy Riggs’s eyes appraise me. Billy is not dressed for a funeral, or a wedding, for that matter. He is not dressed at all.

  Twenty-Five

  Dear Miss Sweetie,

  My ten-year-old boy takes after his father, a lazy back-talkin’ lout. God rest his black soul. How can I raise him to be a good man?

  Worried Mama

  Dear Mama,

  Make him sweep the porches of the elderly. Caring for others is a gift we give ourselves. Then the only thing left is to teach him how to pick up his own socks.

  Best regards,

  Miss Sweetie

  * * *

  —

  Billy Riggs is bathing. The pale mountaintops of his scarred knees peek out above gray suds. His auburn hair frames his face in wet noodles. “Well. I guess the gilding on my door was too hard to resist.” He smirks, feeding my saucy comment back to me. His gaze cuts to a single chair positione
d beside the tub. “Please, sit.”

  My eyes crawl around the curiosities lining the walls—a stuffed owl missing its eyes, bottles in different sizes, and several dolls, at least their heads. An expensive-looking vase painted with a grinning Buddha adorns a side table.

  Something inside me flares. There is little doubt in my mind that exposing himself this way and in this bizarre setting is meant to intimidate me. I flex my back. If I can handle the two-headed she-devil Caroline Payne, I can handle this bathing freak show. The way out is forward.

  I summon Miss Sweetie’s most irritated voice. “I prefer to stand.” A quick exit might become necessary.

  The undertaker henchman positions himself before the door, his hands held in front of him. His left hand sports a tattoo of a horseshoe. At Mrs. English’s, women often requested horseshoes on their hats as symbols of luck. He must be superstitious. On his business hand, a metal band around the knuckles gleams in the light of a pulley lamp. No wonder he is called Knucks. Perhaps he hopes the horseshoe on the left hand will restore some of the bad fortune that might follow the harm done with his right.

  Billy’s scrutiny intensifies. With every passing moment, his eyes pry information from me.

  “What do you want with Old Gin?”

  “Information costs five dollars per question.”

  I try to keep the shock out of my eyes. Five dollars is more than a week’s wages. “How shall I know if you have information I want to buy?”

  He gives me a sly grin. “Life is full of risks. Keeps it interesting.” The water makes rhythmic slaps against the sides of the tub.

  “Well, I don’t have five dollars. But I do have something you might want.”