The Best Bad Things

by Katrina Carrasco

  Up the stairs, careful, treading at the boards’ edges. No squeaks. The hall is empty. She hurries around the corner. Golden light seeps through the cracked door. The handle is cold under her fingers, the sky free and open and cloudless. Orange in the west, haloing Upper Town, but dark is rolling in fast over the bay. Alma pulls her cap from her back pocket. Works it on as she passes under the crude wood of the back entryway. In the street the wind is strong, the air fresh with salt and iron. Snow is coming. She takes a deep breath.

  At the corner of Washington and Madison she pauses, lights a cigarette. Turns toward the arranged corner, where the half-built building that will house the Electric Light Works sits. And there’s Fulton. Watching her from the bricked stoop. He nods. He’s ready to go in, ready to wait in the jail cell’s dark corner and take Sloan by surprise. Fulton’s old, but still quick with his knife, and he told Wheeler his plan: throat, heart, then upper lung, just to be sure. Sloan will be dead in under a minute—and a corpse can’t testify. Only Samuel Reed’s account will remain: an account that paints Sloan as a crimp, an opium smuggler, and a murderer. The most vicious criminal Port Townsend’s ever seen.

  Alma walks on. Two blocks away from the jail and she is smiling, a tight grin of triumph, cold wind stinging her teeth.

  At Nell’s house she doesn’t even knock, just grips the tailor’s shop latch expecting it to be open and barging inside. The shop itself is empty, though the brazier’s coals are rosy, still releasing heat. Alma’s vest and knife and holstered pistol are on the sewing table. She shrugs off her jacket, slips on the vest. She wants some time alone with Nell to celebrate. Then it’s off to Wheeler’s office, to celebrate more. She’s going to make her last evening in Port Townsend a damn good one.

  “Nell!” Back through the open hall door, her weapons in hand. The bedroom is dark, quiet, its square window draining of light. “Nell?”

  The kitchen, too, is empty. Now a seam of worry opens in Alma’s stomach. She loops on her shoulder holster, unsheathes her knife. Walks slower, waiting for a sound, a footfall not her own. At the end of the hall, in the little silk-draped parlor, a candle is burning. A fizz of unease raises the hairs on her arms, her neck.

  Just inside the door she stops. Exhales hard, not quite a laugh, her shoulders going soft with relief.

  “You had me worried as hell,” she says, shaking her head.

  Delphine is sitting on the cushioned divan, smiling. She wears a touch of cosmetics, carmine on her lips and a flush in her cheeks. A red rose is set in her hair.

  “Nathaniel told me about the plan,” she says. “How did it go?”

  “It was good.” Alma leans against the doorjamb. “Edmonds got the whole confession down, so it’s all on record for the Pinkerton’s agents when they arrive tomorrow. No mention of Wheeler. Everything pinned on Sloan: the smuggling, the murders. A quick knifing when Sloan’s brought into the jail and that’ll be the end of him. He’s the man to hang for all our sins—that’s what you wanted, yes?”

  “It’s exactly what I wanted,” Delphine says. “And our moles snared, too.”

  “A small concern in Seattle,” Alma says. “Nipped in the bud. And Benson’s not going to thieve again. He’s not going to breathe again, I’m sorry to report. He’ll have a proper burial at sea.”

  “I must say I am impressed.”

  “You look beautiful.” Alma is warm under the sun of Delphine’s compliment, her unexpected presence. Here they are, alone, in this room with all its finery. “What’s the occasion?”

  “I remembered you wanted to see me in one of my old gowns,” Delphine says. “There’s no escaping my widow’s weeds here, but I thought I’d spruce myself up as best I could.”

  Alma’s heart is speeding as she does the possible math of why Nell’s away and Delphine is here. Usually that would mean a scolding. But there’s a better, more enticing option. Alma takes off her cap. Tosses it onto the little round table, where the teapot’s steam smells of licorice and aniseed.

  “Sit down,” Delphine says. “You must be tired after all that.”

  Alma sinks into the armchair opposite. Once her body is folded onto the soft upholstery, the knot of nerves in her stomach loosens. She could sleep right here. She could eat. But most of all she could use a touch, a skin-to-skin connection.

  “It’s been a long day,” Alma says. “And I’m not quite done. I’ve got to debrief Wheeler, then make the night boat to Tacoma.”

  The last piece of the plan: Alma has to disappear. According to Reed’s confession, Alma Rosales is dead. And she can’t remain in Port Townsend as Jack Camp, either. She wore Camp’s clothes while playing the part of Samuel Reed. Now the police know Reed as an accomplice to Sloan’s crimes, an escapee from jail, and the man who killed Sloan. Reed can’t be found—and he certainly can’t be seen hanging around Clyde Imports. The Reed alibi was constructed to keep Wheeler, and the business he runs for Delphine, spotless. So Jack Camp has to disappear, too.

  “Dear Rosales,” Delphine says. “It has been a long day. But there’s one more thing I need to ask of you.”

  “What’s that?”

  Delphine rises out of her chair. As she crosses the room, skirts whispering, Alma swallows hard. She wants the moment to rush faster—Delphine leaning into her, their mouths meeting, the strong wet press of tongues, her hands on Delphine’s hips—but also slow, so she can remain in anticipation, all thrumming pulse, all wanting.

  Alma parts her legs to allow the other woman closer. Delphine leans forward, skirt silk catching along trouser twill, and reaches for Alma’s chest. Her touch trails sparks along the top edge of Alma’s binding cloth to her inner arm, the side of her bound breast. Then her fingers leave Alma’s skin. Close around the butt of her pistol. She pulls the weapon free, slow, the metal catching against Alma’s shirtsleeve. Alma laughs, soundless, disbelieving.

  “Delphine—”

  Her dark eyes fixed on Alma’s. She nestles the pistol grip into Alma’s hand, her fingers warm.

  “He’s in his offices,” Delphine says, quiet.

  And then Alma understands.

  The heat leaves her in a rush. Her skin prickles, at once too tight and too loose on her body. She shakes her head. It doesn’t make sense, the contortions they went through, the way Sloan has been set up to swing—none of it makes sense if Wheeler is going to fall.

  “Why?” she says.

  Delphine pushes away from the chair, her skirts dragging over Alma’s knees. She pours tea into the cup on the table. Her brow is knotted. She picks up the teacup, sets it down without taking a sip.

  “Why kill him?” Alma says, still stunned. “He’s been nothing but loyal.”

  “He has been loyal. And a good tutor for you,” Delphine says. “But things here have gotten complicated. We’re shifting shop.”

  “We?” Alma holsters her gun, its heavy gleam wiring her jaw tight, so her teeth ache.

  “I’m going to Tacoma, too,” Delphine says. “Port Townsend is losing its shine. At first we had the best spot in the Sound, right under the customhouse men’s noses. But their help is starting to draw too much attention. And Port Townsend is on the Pinkerton’s agents’ minds. Tacoma is safer. Bigger. It’s more than five times this size. A growing city for our growing enterprise. And a new friend there.”

  “Jim Pettygrove.” The man who was fawning over Delphine at the fund-raiser, along with the judge and Marshal Forrester.

  “Yes.”

  If Delphine is surprised at Alma’s good guess, she doesn’t show it. She sips her tea, tapping her nails on the table, her eyes fixed on the glitter of her ruby ring. Alma has never seen her so uneasy.

  “Pettygrove owns a steamboat company,” Delphine says. “And I’ve just purchased a large share. No more skulking around in a cutter, wary of the revenue boats. No more delays and bribes on the Red Line. Pettygrove’s boats will carry our product full-time. And you’ll be positioned to link deliveries between docks and trains.”

&n
bsp; “You still haven’t told me why Wheeler has to go. What about business here?”

  “It’s falling apart.” Delphine sets down her tea, sharp clink of china. “You see it. Conall Driscoll, a guard, deceased. Davy Benson, a thief, deceased. Tom McManus, gone missing after murdering a man in full public view. Nathaniel Wheeler … well, Nathaniel is up to you.”

  “I don’t think we should kill him.” Alma comes out of her chair. “He’s a valuable man. This plan was part his. He’s smart, Delphine.”

  “Smart, yes. I know. But smart or not, there have been too many rumors about him lately,” Delphine says. “I will not allow his troubles to link back to the business and bring us all down.”

  “Kopp was spreading those rumors, and he’s dead,” Alma says. “Wheeler can put out any other fires.”

  “Judge Hamilton is nervous. But still, the situation might have been saved, until last night.”

  Delphine pushes a thick strand of hair from her cheek, the fine bones in her wrist shifting.

  “What happened last night?” Alma says.

  “Hamilton and Mayor Brooks received telegraphs from a Mr. Frank Elliot.”

  Alma’s lungs squeeze. She closes her eyes.

  “Shit.”

  “It seems he used to be a lawman in San Francisco,” Delphine says. “He claims he has proof Nathaniel’s been smuggling product through Seattle using his company goods and is preparing to press charges.”

  God damn it. Elliot has turned crooked and has his claws out. Or else Loretta Elliot intercepted Alma’s telegraph to him and wrote back herself. Either way, the plan to lock down the leak in Seattle has backfired. Badly. And how did the Elliots know to go after Wheeler? Kopp. Kopp must have told them who was running Port Townsend’s opium trade—as soon as he learned Wheeler’s name. As soon as he came to the office wanting to buy in. Almost a week ago.

  “That’s my fault,” Alma says. “Let me fix it.”

  “I’m afraid it’s too late for fixing,” Delphine says. “As you well know, the Pinkerton’s agents are coming tomorrow. In search of opium smugglers. And now Judge Hamilton and the mayor have damning evidence linking Nathaniel to opium.”

  Alma closes her eyes. This is what Forrester was talking about, at the jail. The conversation that couldn’t be redacted. He meant Elliot’s telegraphs to the judge and the mayor. Those telegraphs came in last night. Last night, when Alma and Wheeler were waiting for Kopp to show up at the office so they could kick off their plan. But the plan was doomed from the start. Elliot’s trap closing around Wheeler as Alma worked to close her trap around Sloan.

  After the long stretch of yesterday, after the hours spent performing as Reed, this is almost too much to absorb. She is so tired. Delphine’s skirts rustle; her footsteps, slow, approach. Her dress nudges Alma’s shins, then her hands settle on Alma’s shoulders.

  “Today Judge Hamilton made an effort to protect Nathaniel,” Delphine says, and Alma listens with her eyes shut. “Spare him, as a gentleman, and a friend. But the mayor has never favored him, and in the end the mayor won out. He will have Nathaniel arrested tomorrow. He wants to drag him through the muck as an example to other thieves.”

  Alma understands what Delphine is implying. She shakes her head. Delphine’s fingers tighten on her shoulders, prompting her to speak.

  “He’d be a loose end.” Alma says the obvious. “If he ended up in jail.”

  “I don’t want to kill him,” Delphine says. “We’ve worked together for years. But that strong bond is also a weakness: he knows far too much about my business. I can’t afford for him to be arrested. He might talk. So he must disappear tonight.”

  Alma looks up. Carmine glistens on Delphine’s lips as she leans close. There’s a strong pulse in her neck. Her perfume clouds Alma’s head.

  “Disappear him, then.” Alma is spinning through their options, dizzy with it all. “There’s got to be another way. I’ll take him to Tacoma, quiet.”

  “And you think he’d run?” Delphine says. “Knowing him, do you think he’d play the coward?”

  “If it meant staying alive,” Alma says. But she’s not sure.

  “Then what?” The red rose in Delphine’s hair is blood bright, pulsing at the edge of Alma’s vision. “He can’t be seen with me, in Tacoma. And if you’re my deputy there, you are linked to me, so he can’t be seen with you. Wheeler is tainted with tar. The scent of it will follow him, after these accusations—especially if he disappears, the guilty man’s last resort. We cannot be tainted with tar, Rosales. I survive by keeping my hands clean.”

  “Damn it.” Alma understands the logic, the cords tight-coiled around Wheeler, around both of them. “If he went somewhere else—”

  “Nathaniel Wheeler is no Samuel Reed.” Delphine’s voice is clipped; she is growing impatient, but the somberness remains in her dark eyes. “Able to vanish without a trace. His face and name are well-known here. Even if he took a boat to China, he’d be a wanted man, and wanted men can talk if they’re captured. This is how it must be.”

  Alma releases a long breath. She sees the fatality of it. And if Delphine—with that knifing intelligence Alma prizes—if Delphine can’t see another way, Wheeler is finished.

  She reaches out to curve her palms over Delphine’s tensed waist. Warm lace, warm silk, knobbed corset boning. Smooth skin waiting underneath. Touching Delphine brings back the night Alma first had her, when they twined and panted in a canopied bed, on the top floor of the Nob Hill house, high above the glittering city. It was the first time Alma held a woman, and the most painfully sweet. She was young enough. She still believed in love.

  “I came here to celebrate your success,” Delphine says, her body softening toward Alma’s. “I only found out about Elliot’s telegraphs and the mayor’s plans an hour ago, when I ran into Judge Hamilton on my way through town.”

  She places one palm on Alma’s chest, just above her heart. Through the vest and shirt and binding cloth, a pressure, warmth.

  Alma has missed holding her. She pulls her closer, and Delphine does not resist. Their mouths connect, slightly open. Delphine’s breath is sweet with licorice tea. Her lips faintly bitter with carmine. A current zings through Alma despite the grim task ahead.

  “This is a hell of a thing to ask of me,” Alma says, when they shift apart.

  Delphine nods, her eyes on Alma’s.

  “If you can’t do it, I’ll send Joe,” she says.

  “I’ll do it.” Alma reaches between them to her shoulder, adjusting the leather holster there. Bearing up under its weight. This is how it must be. “If Joe shows up, Wheeler might get spooked. But he’s expecting me.”

  “Be careful, Rosales. And be quick. I’ll see you in Tacoma within the week.”

  “All right,” Alma says.

  35

  JANUARY 25, 1887

  Up the narrow steps. Through the blue hall. Wheeler’s door is ajar. She knocks as she pushes it open.

  He is at his desk, pen in hand but eyes flickering up to her.

  Alma closes the door. Leans against it. He puts down his pen.

  Now’s the time to do it. His gun is on the desk but too far to reach quickly.

  “It’s done,” she says.

  “And they bought it?”

  “Hook, line, and sinker.”

  Wheeler’s eyes are hard on her, his shoulders stiff. Almost suspicious, but how could he be—she was blindsided, expecting a celebration and getting an execution order. Unless McManus has been found. Wheeler lifts his whiskey. Takes a long drink.

  “The marshal’s out picking up Sloan right now.” She reaches into her jacket. He flinches a hair fraction, knuckles flaring white around the tumbler, but she pulls out her cigarettes, a matchbox. “I signaled to Fulton. He’s ready.”

  “Good,” Wheeler says. “He looks slow, but he’s opened his share of throats.”

  She does not move from the door as she lights her cigarette.

  “Didn’t see Conaway,” she says. />
  “He’s out to get supper.” Wheeler is starting to breathe faster, his gaze dropping to Alma’s boots, then crawling back up her body. He hasn’t heard about McManus.

  “So we’re alone?” she says.

  Now’s the time to do it. No witnesses, his trigger hand full of liquid and glass.

  “Yes.”

  She drops her free hand to the lock. Twists it shut. Stubs her cigarette out on the bottom of her boot. She can’t tell if she’s just killing time, or if she’s about to change her mind.

  “Get up,” she says.

  He does, and she is crossing the carpet, shrugging off her jacket, her holster, shucking her knife. This will be fists only. Bone and flesh, while they still have it to sling. She rolls up her sleeves to the elbow. Cracks a knot out of her neck.

  Wheeler comes around the desk and Alma walks toward him, popping her shoulder forward to deliver a cross to his mouth. He ducks under it, returns with one of his own, and Alma tilts her face so it glances off her jaw, stinging her nerves awake. She trips back toward the wall, playing clumsy, and when Wheeler follows—he is overeager, coming at her too fast, too reckless—she spins and lunges up. Bars a forearm across his throat, slams him into the wall. Her left shoulder roaring as she muscles him against the blue paper. In the clinch she pounds short punches into his ribs, his stomach, and the wall is not the ropes—he has no room to wind up and return the blows.

  When he jerks to the side, she lets him twist away, leaning on the wall herself to catch her breath. There’s pain and then there’s pain, and she doesn’t want him too distracted, too bruised to come back at her the way she’s hoping. He’s no spring chicken, after all. Alma laughs at this, her face slipping against the sweat of her bare forearm on the wall, and that’s when he comes close again, grips her by the back of the shirt and throws her to the ground.

  Rolling out of range, she slams into the desk, hard, using it for leverage to launch herself up to standing. She leans over the wood, using her smaller size to her advantage—letting him think he’s got her struggling when she’s only just gotten started. His hand on her shoulder and she skips out from under him, kicking the back of his knee so he falls against the desk, and here is where she wants him, off-balance, swearing.