by Jane Steen
“Tess deserves a rest,” I said to Mary and Aileen. “She’s under no obligation to work for me.” I smiled at Tess. “Alice will keep your ledgers in order.”
“And you can make your social calls at your leisure,” said Aileen with a pointed look at both of her sisters. “Without encumbrance.”
“I don’t make social calls,” I said, exasperated. “And if I did, Tess would come with me.” What I wanted to ask was just how much leisure or society Tess would have in the Back of the Yards, in Mary’s house, with four boys to care for. But politeness and consideration for Tess prevented me from replying to the barbs sent constantly in my direction by her sisters. I didn’t want to make Tess feel like a rag doll being fought over by two children, but the net result was that her sisters’ opinions were drowning out my own.
“Here’s the locomotive,” said Elizabeth. “Sarah, say good-bye to your mother.” She put Sarah down, avoiding the worst of the deposits on the ground. I bent to take my daughter in my arms for one last hug, breathing in the scent of her. This separation would be far harder on me than on her.
“May I please ride the pony today?” Sarah asked as the train drew closer, expelling steam and smoke as its brakes squealed on the rails.
“You may do anything Miss Elizabeth allows you to do.” I rained kisses on Sarah’s forehead, which was damp and salty with perspiration, then placed her hand in Elizabeth’s and turned to Tess. Behind us, Miss Baker was tucking a serious-looking journal into her valise.
“I miss you already.” I bent to hug Tess, who was positively staggering under the burden of the last-minute advice being fired at her by her two sisters. She gave me a look I couldn’t interpret. Did she think I was sending her away because she was an inconvenience? But she had readily agreed to the idea, which had come from Elizabeth and not from me.
Ten minutes later, I stood waving my handkerchief at the departing train. Mary and Aileen stood a little way apart from me with dour faces, making predictions about train crashes, the sudden epidemics that might sweep through a small town, and the dangers of walking too near the edge of a bluff. When the train was out of sight, we parted, and I set out briskly in the direction of the LaSalle Street Tunnel.
My feelings were that odd mixture of liberty and heaviness that comes when a burden you shoulder cheerfully is lifted from you for a while. Tess, Sarah, and I had barely been parted since Sarah’s birth. Although my time at Gambarelli’s had obliged me to be away from home, I had still felt responsible for their well-being. I knew they would be happy at the Parnells’, and I no longer had to feel guilty about the time I spent away from home. I would be free to do all I could to help Martin, and that meant the world to me. And yet the knowledge that I was not, after all, indispensable to the happiness of two of the people I loved most in the world was a little depressing.
I walked fast, dodging around benches, drinking fountains, and people. I was careful not to catch the eye of the numerous peddlers or the loafing men who would whistle, make rude comments, or even grab at any woman unwary enough to pass near them. I was becoming quite the Chicagoan and increasingly ready to venture onto the streets despite Mrs. Parnell’s dire warnings. I had told Mr. Nutt to take the carriage home rather than try to wait amid the chaos of Wells Street on a Monday morning. As I walked, my mind began running over the day’s tasks, even though a large piece of my heart was on a northbound train.
28
Information
I arrived at Rutherford’s early enough to encounter Joe Salazar climbing down from his landau. He greeted me cheerfully and asked after Tess and Sarah—he knew I was seeing them off at the station that morning. The store was not yet open, but an employee had been looking out for his arrival, and we entered by the main door rather than the one in the alley.
“I need to talk to you about—something,” I said, my eye on the other employees. “Sir.”
Joe nodded and gestured for me to follow him up one of the staff staircases located at each end of the building.
“I have instructions from Crabb,” I said softly as we climbed, once we were out of the hearing of anyone else. “It’s straightforward—I should only take a minute of your time.”
Joe looked at me a little oddly but then seemed to make up his mind to speak. “Martin swore at me for letting you get mixed up with that character.”
“Did he now?” I felt my eyebrows—and my hackles—rise. “Why should you get the blame? Why should I, for that matter? It’s none of Martin’s business if I want to help him.”
Joe, in the act of pulling open the door that led to the offices, gave me a look of such outraged astonishment that I burst into laughter.
“I mean—Joe, you know what I mean. In any case, Martin certainly shouldn’t swear at you. What did he say?” For some reason, I found the idea of Martin swearing humorous. He was generally very proper in his speech.
“I’m glad you find me funny.”
My laughter evaporated at the sight of Martin, standing in the doorway to his outer office with a decidedly sulky expression on his face. He turned on his heel and stalked into his inner office, making a peremptory motion with his hand that indicated we should follow him. I rolled my eyes at Joe and complied, feeling as if I were a small child again and Martin the ruler of my days—which he’d never been. If anything, I was the one who had bossed him about.
Martin shut the door with a bang, not looking at me. “May I remind you that you’re working for me?” he said, his tone laden with frost.
“Working for you?” I took a seat, although he hadn’t offered me one. “Yes, I am. I also happen to be a shareholder in your business, in case you’ve forgotten. I’m working for you because, while you’re wallowing in self-pity, there are things I can do to help you.”
“Self-pity?” Martin bellowed out the words as if I’d been two streets away and not sitting across the desk from him. One large hand closed on the papers under it, crushing them in his fist. Behind me, I could sense Joe, carefully immobile.
“Oh good, at least you’re looking me in the face now. Since I’ve got your attention, Crabb wants to know the suppliers of silk out of San Francisco. Can you give me that information without too much damage to your business? It seems innocuous enough to me.”
Martin glared at me for at least thirty seconds, as if he were about to start shouting again but didn’t know which point to tackle first. I returned the glare with interest, determined not to let him intimidate me. Something changed in his eyes, and his shoulders slumped just a fraction of an inch.
“All right, you win.” He ran a hand through his hair, which was now about an inch long all round. It stuck up a bit where he’d mussed it, leaving him looking a little disheveled and wholly appealing. I swallowed.
“How do I win?”
“You have my full cooperation, and I apologize for not treating you like the lady you are. And a shareholder. And for being a boor, and being angry at you when you’re doing all you can to help. And for not trusting you to take care of yourself. Will that do?”
“For now. Can you give me that information?”
Martin sighed and looked up over my head. “Joe, can you take care of it?” He looked down at the piles of paper on his desk.
“You seem rather busy,” I observed. “Are these all matters your staff can’t take care of?”
Martin stared dumbly at the stacks of documents, which had been neatly arranged, and then smiled at last. “Only about one-fifth of these are for the store. Joe, for heaven’s sake sit down. I’m sorry I lost my temper last night.”
Joe seated himself beside me. “Most of that’s nothing to do with Rutherford’s,” he said, nodding at the papers. “I can certainly give you the information you need, Nell. It could be damaging in the hands into which Crabb will place it, but that’s a risk we have to take. We’re forewarned of the danger, after all.”
Martin rested his hand on a pile of charts neatly drawn in red, blue, and black ink. “I suppose—since you are a financial part
icipant in my affairs—I owe you a little explanation.” He pulled his watch out of his vest pocket to check the time and settled more comfortably in his seat.
“Joe takes care of most of the paperwork for the store,” he said. “I sign the papers he lays before me, insinuate myself among the customers as much as I can, and decide what the fashion will be next season.”
“Decide?” I grinned.
“You’d be surprised. Even Madame Belvoix listens to me.” There was a faint look of pride on his face as he said that. “If she ever trusts you enough to let you loose on the really important customers—the ones who set the style—you’ll understand that a store like ours doesn’t just follow fashion, it mandates it. Of course, the store is always a preoccupation of mine, but it’s more necessary to me than I am to it, if you see what I mean.”
“I’m surprised. So what is all this?” I indicated the papers.
“It’s odd.” Martin’s expression had taken on a faraway look. “I always thought I’d bring my income up to fifty or a hundred thousand a year and be content. But business has a way of breeding business, like mice breed mice. You end up constantly looking for ways to use money. I could build vast stores or an empire of traveling salesmen, like Field, or print up catalogs, like Montgomery Ward, but I prefer smaller, more intimate stores. Of course, some of this is purely personal financial business—stocks, bonds, and similar bread-and-butter work—although I don’t do much of it during business hours.”
“Of course,” I said faintly. Fifty or a hundred thousand a year! I hadn’t even realized such an income was possible.
“A good piece of my money is now in the venture with Fassbinder,” Martin continued. “That’s a great deal more interesting—and that, you should know, is where I feel there’s something wrong. A rattle in the machine, if you like. Before Lucetta’s . . . passing, I was away on precisely that errand. That’s why I never got your letters. I should have had them sent on, but I didn’t know where I was going to be.”
“Where did you go?”
“Saint Louis, at first. Fassbinder showed me a letter he’d received from an old friend in Jefferson City, Missouri. There’s a state penitentiary there. His friend, a German who works in the penitentiary, knew of Fassbinder’s association with me. He wanted to warn me that one of the prisoners was telling everyone I was responsible for the crime he’d committed.”
“Good grief.” I frowned. “How did he come to that conclusion?”
“It’s probably just a mania or delusion. He picked my name out of the papers, something like that. He was imprisoned for beating a prostitute to death. Claimed he was innocent, that the brothel where she worked was financed by me, and that I’d framed him. I thought at least I’d better go to Jefferson City to reassure its prominent citizens we’re on the level, as the new slang goes. We’ve been building a store there and don’t need bad publicity. I explained to them I was in Kansas on business in early December when the crime took place and could call on a respectable pastor for confirmation if need be.”
His smile this time was warm and intimate, and for a moment I just wanted to bask in it and forget that the last three months had ever happened. But I reminded myself sternly that Martin needed a friend more than he needed me making calf’s eyes at him.
“I suppose you can prove that you’re not setting up brothels,” I said. “If need be.”
“If absolutely necessary.” Martin shrugged. “It’s true that as the small towns we build our stores in become more prosperous, parlor houses seem to be springing up. We’ve had a problem with more basic houses of, er, entertainment appearing in the vicinity of our construction crews. Fassbinder’s had to speak with John Powell on more than one occasion about the men’s conduct. But parlor houses only exist where so-called respectable men allow them to exist.”
“John Powell—Lucetta’s cousin,” I said. “Joe told me you still employ him. Why?”
“I wasn’t in a position to make changes in the second quarter of this year,” Martin said drily. “Now that I am, I’m thinking of dismissing Powell. I’ve had reports he’s drinking heavily. That doesn’t surprise me since he was overly fond of Lucetta, as they all were.” The hand on his desk curled briefly into a fist, then relaxed. “But if I’m going to fire him, I’ll do it to his face. That means either traveling to meet with him or waiting until he returns to Chicago. I hired him for Lucetta’s sake, but I don’t feel justified in just throwing him off without stating my reasons to him in person.”
“That’s eminently fair of you. More than fair.” I dismissed the small, mean voice inside me that pointed out another sign of attachment to Lucetta’s memory, and nodded in approval.
“He’s been a better manager than I anticipated, and extremely effective at finding towns that will welcome us with open arms. I can’t blame him for being grief-stricken.” A faint expression of something like guilt crossed Martin’s face. “Besides, I still employ Lucetta’s brother Sam, and have no intention of dismissing him. He’s an excellent buyer for the frontier stores.”
He looked at his watch again, and I mirrored the action with my small timepiece. “I’ll have to start work,” I said, rising from my chair. The two men rose to their feet also, and Joe stepped back so that I could pass.
“I’ll give that information to you at four if you drop by my office when you finish work,” he said. “Don’t take it to Crabb too fast though, or he’ll wonder why it was so easy. Wait a few days. And Martin, why don’t you set the Pinkerton Agency onto looking into Crabb’s business dealings? It’ll make you feel better and may turn up some useful information.”
My work at Rutherford’s proceeded slowly from the status more or less of an apprentice to more important tasks as I was gradually given opportunities to show my skills. I found I was among women of great talent and expertise. I enjoyed learning from them and didn’t resent my lowly position. For the first time since I’d learned dressmaking from my grandmother, I was no longer the most knowledgeable woman in the workshop. Every day brought me some new gift as I sat with embroiderers and beaders, cutters, piece workers, and those most exalted beings of all, the true couturières. Each of those women had their own loyal clients. As the newcomer, when I worked with Mrs. Nippes on Thursdays, I dealt with customers of lesser means. Many had ventured into Rutherford’s for the first time, seeking a dress for a special occasion that to them was perhaps the fruit of a year’s careful economies.
With Sarah and Tess away from home, I often worked well past the official end of my day. One of the benefits of my later hours was that I was able to work right up till seven o’clock, my appointed time for waiting for Crabb outside Field and Leiter’s. Joe fed small pieces of information to me that might be of interest to rival stores, and I duly reported them to Crabb. He paid me well, especially for tidbits about forthcoming purchases. Rutherford’s was prevented from scoring a coup with an exclusive new Paris silk because of me. My ears burned when I heard Madame Belvoix lamenting that Field and Leiter’s had bought up the entire stock of the manufacturer in question.
And yet, as Joe told me, the fact that he knew which information I was passing on allowed him to understand Crabb’s network better, and that would be useful in the future. So the loss to Rutherford’s was, in some way, mitigated.
I tried to bear that in mind as I waited for Crabb one August evening when the heat was rising from the flagstones as if from the base of an oven. He was late. I could feel my face reddening as the perspiration trickled uncomfortably down my back and limbs. When Crabb arrived, his broad grin told me he’d noticed my color.
“We’ll have some ice cream.” Crabb steered me toward an Italian peddler who stood sweating beside a large box on wheels. “Two,” he said to the man, handing him some coins.
“I don’t want—”
“You’ll eat it up like a good little girl.” Crabb grinned in a way that wasn’t quite friendly.
The ice cream came on two pieces of waxed paper, each with a wooden
spoon, and began to liquefy the moment it emerged from the icebox. Crabb and I retreated to the shade of a building and spooned the creamy stuff into our mouths. It was better than I’d expected. Despite Mama’s injunctions that a lady never ate in the street, I had noticed that it was a common practice in Chicago. Unaccompanied women of the more genteel sort didn’t venture into eating establishments, and such restaurants as did welcome them—hotels, store tearooms, and the Mrs. Clark Co. Lunch Room on Wabash—were expensive.
“That’s better. I like a little something sweet after I eat.” Crabb belched, sending a wave of beer and sausage odors over me. “Beg pardon.” He thumped his chest with a closed fist.
“You made me wait because you were eating?” I asked. “You’ve got a nerve.”
“A man needs to eat, and I’ve got a long night ahead of me. What have you got for me today?”
I outlined the details of a consignment of slink calfskin gloves currently being assembled in England. Crabb listened attentively and made me repeat some of the figures more than once. I’d discovered he had an excellent memory and never wrote anything down.
“Good. Payment terms as usual.” Our arrangement was that I’d happen to visit a certain vendor of paste jewelry on Fridays and linger in that store until any other customer had left. Then I would state my name, and the merchant would hand me an envelope. I was glad enough not to be seen receiving money from a man on the street.
“And Mr. Fassbinder’s in town,” I added. “Is that useful to you?”
“We know that,” said Crabb scornfully. “In fact, I was going to ask you to do something a little more difficult for me.”
I frowned. “What?”
“Fassbinder brought a document with him.” Crabb dabbed impatiently at the sweat that ran down the sides of his face. “I heard that from—someone else.” He grinned. “It lists a number of locations I’d very much like to know. Get a copy for me.”