Into the Suffering City

by Bill LeFurgy

  “Private detective. I’m investigating Lizzie’s murder.”

  “Poor Lizzie. I hoped she was going to make it. Really wanted to see someone get out of the game and live a decent life.” She scratched an armpit.

  “You’re injecting dope,” said Jack. “Looks like you’ve been doing it awhile.”

  “Started with jabbing coke. Added morphine shots to keep me on the ground. Smoke opium, hashish, and whatever else, too.” She fished in a pocket and came out with a marijuana cigarette and a match. “When I’m on the hop, it’s the best thing that ever happened to me. Different story when I ain’t, of course.” She looked up at him. “Met Lizzie before I got kicked out of burlesque. She was wonderful nice. Stood by me after I ended up here. Kept telling me I still had my looks, that I should get back on the big stage.” She gave a humorless laugh.

  “You know anything about her cashing in on a lover?”

  “She had plenty of lovers, sweetie. Got to make hay while the sun shines, as my daddy used to say. That son of a bitch.” The cigarette glowed as she took a drag, filling the cubicle with sweet smoke. “Last time I saw Lizzie she talked about coming into serious money, it’s true. Seems her pimp got a Bible from his great-granny that spilled some dirt on some big shot. I told her she was nuts if she thought that creep Nick was going to give her a dime. The girl was so darn sweet and trusting.”

  “She say anything more about that Bible?”

  “Nick didn’t want to have it on him when guys came looking. He gave it to Lizzie for safekeeping. Bastard knew she would guard it with her life even though he treated her bad.” She swung her legs up onto the cot and effortlessly bent in half to lay her cheek on her shins. The woman still had the flexibility of a gifted dancer. “Lizzie was just that kind of person.”

  “I keep hearing what a swell gal Lizzie was. Makes me sad.”

  “Yeah.” Lulu popped up to a sitting position and took another drag off her smoke. “She was good and kind, always had nice things to say. And so funny—couldn’t help laughing when she was around. Like how she used to say words made her see colors. Swore up and down that every time she heard ‘love’ she saw sky blue. Hearing ‘dance’ made her see the same kind of green as the new leaves on a potted palm. Said she was that way since she was a kid. Yeah, and she used to tell this blue joke—how did it go . . . .” She scrunched her face and tapped the side of her head lightly with a finger.

  “That’s okay. I’ve got to run.”

  “Hey, wait, I got it. “How can you be sure a preacher man doesn’t look at naked girls”? She looked at him while trying to suppress a giggle.

  “I give up.”

  “Because he always blows the lamp out first thing!” She gave a silly, high-pitched laugh while pounding the cot. “Lizzie said she thought of it herself after she got involved with some real serious Holy Joe guy recently.”

  “She say anything else about the guy, like his name?”

  “No—just that he was big deal. That’s all I know.”

  “Thanks for everything, Lulu. You’re a real doll.”

  Her big smile came back. “Hey, thanks.” She put a hand on his thigh. “You want a little something? Still got time for you.”

  “I’m tempted but got to run.”

  “Okay, baby.”

  Jack took a last look at her. The woman’s vigor had kept her going longer than most in her situation. Drugs and whoring were now dragging her down fast. Soon she would get kicked out of this dump and have to solicit on the street. It was only a matter of time before she shot up the wrong dose, picked the wrong john, or found some other way to die. Poor gal. There was nothing he could do but feel twice as sad as before.

  He left the place with a plan to go home and sleep so that he could be in better shape to visit Sarah at her swank house tomorrow morning. He’d get a haircut and try to swing a slightly classier look for their meeting.

  After a block, his mood darkened further. Drunks were relieving themselves in doorways or sprawling in the gutter. A well-dressed guy—a prime target for lush rollers—staggered past, shouting incoherently. A rat-faced pimp worked hard to pull Jack into a dance hall—an even sleazier joint than Macy’s—with promises of little girls in pigtails. When Jack kept walking, the guy shouted about the freshest, youngest boys available anywhere.

  And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. The thundering Bible voice stopped him in his tracks. This wasn’t the voice of God calling. At least Jack wasn’t bughouse enough to think that just yet.

  No, the voice was a reminder of his older sister. She had been a bad combination—brilliant, manipulative, and stone crazy. His parents thought of her as filled with the Holy Spirit and stayed out of her way.

  His sister told him at age five that God had made them superior to other people because the two of them had a divine mission to preach the Bible. When he lagged in that mission, she spent all day and most of the night calling out chapter names and verse numbers and judging how well Jack could recite the text. Any mistake led to the switch, the belt, or worse. He was so desperate to get things right he would lay awake at night listening to a voice repeat the Good Book from cover to cover repeatedly. He eventually learned the Bible word for word, but also came to despise hypocrisy and reject the idea that he was better than anyone else.

  The Bible voice stopped after he ran away at eleven. He was big for his age and able to get work as a farm laborer. At sixteen a stable owner in Pittsburgh hired him to take care of the horses, and two years later he was managing the whole operation. Then the owner died, the property was sold, and Jack was back on the street.

  The army cavalry looked like a good bet, so he joined up and spent a number of years out west chasing rustlers and the occasional group of Indians who dared wander off their reservations. Then his unit shipped out to the Philippines to suppress a revolt of the native Moro people on the island of Jolo. There he witnessed the army massacre a thousand people in a volcano crater known as Bud Dajo. When he complained to the brass about the bloodbath, he was kicked out of the service. And now, for whatever reason, the Bible voice was back along with ghosts from the massacre.

  Jack went to a speakeasy over on Saratoga Street. He thought hard about buying a bottle of whiskey before a whole separate load of bad memories about booze and craziness scared him off. He ended up parked at a table with a warm jug of celery tonic, thinking of Sarah. Despite her aloof, formal manner, he knew she had strong currents of emotion flowing within her. She cared about the problems in his head, for sure. That she never would get gushy-gushy about it only made him like her more.

  After a sad succession of hookers, two guys sat down, uninvited, with a half-starved mutt on a leash. Jack knew this was the old bunco act about a rare pedigree dog stolen from some rich guy who would pay a big reward to get the animal back. The con men would claim they were so desperate for cash they’d part with the dog for just a few bucks. Jack got up during their patter and dumped one guy out of his seat onto the grimy sawdust floor. The dog came over and licked the guy’s face while the other grifter ran off.

  “Take care of that mutt, mac, or I’ll give you the lacing of your life,” said Jack. “And be glad some living creature cares about your worthless ass.”

  Chapter 17

  Sarah—Thursday, October 14, 1909, 4:00 a.m.

  As dawn broke, she was studying two papers written by Dr. Eugen Bleuler, whom Dr. Norbert Macdonald had mentioned in connection with her supposed mental illness.

  One paper discussed people who perceived color when they heard spoken words. The condition was known as synesthesia, and she recalled that Bleuler was among the first to study it. Interesting, but irrelevant. She skimmed it quickly.

  The second paper drew her full attention. It was from a conference proceeding of the German Psychiatric Association just last year. Bleuler had some new ideas about a serious category of mental illness kno
wn as “precocious madness.” It featured swift mental disintegration, typically beginning between ages sixteen and thirty. Those stricken experienced a break with reality, and most doctors believed the condition was hopeless—little could be done except to lock sufferers away in asylums.

  Bleuler had a more optimistic view. He coined a new name for the illness: schizophrenia, to highlight the split, or fractured, thinking of the afflicted. He urged individual attention for each patient, as each had their own particular type of delusion.

  Sarah liked Bleuler’s method. He based his ideas on data gathered directly from patients, and his primary concern was compassionate treatment. The man held out hope for people whom most everyone else assumed were hopeless. Dr. Macdonald said he believed the same thing, which should mean his offer to help her was rooted in sincere kindness.

  But she did not have schizophrenia. Now, it was true that people had long said she was unusual, even outlandish. But she was, and always had been, firmly grounded in reality. Why did Drs. Anson and Macdonald think she was slipping into insanity?

  Dawn crept around the edges of the window coverings as she finished reading. She stood and pulled back a drape just enough to make out her white marble steps glowing against the faint outline of the surrounding sidewalk. Jack would arrive soon. He had been uncomfortable the last time they met. She developed a checklist to remind herself to avoid any mention of the banquet or anything else that might offend his attention to money and class distinctions.

  Sarah pushed away those thoughts only to confront anxiety about the banquet that afternoon. The ordeal would start hours before, as she had to be at Margaret’s at 9:00 a.m. for help getting dressed, coiffured, powdered, and all the rest of it. She didn’t want to dwell on that, either.

  She thought instead about her future, which at the moment appeared bleak. She held out faint hope for work as a pathologist in a traditional setting. That had long been her goal in life—and why she had put up with so much hardship during medical school.

  Trouble started early in her second year during a lecture by one of the most renowned members of the faculty. He raised the topic of female doctors and asked for questions. The overwhelmingly male students peppered him with queries such as “Are women too unstable, talkative, and soft-minded to be good doctors?” and “Is it true that studying anatomy confuses and distresses girls?”

  The professor said nothing to discourage such ideas. He recounted how a friend preferred a third-rate male doctor to a first-rate woman doctor, which drew laughs from the crowd and then a question as to whether it was even possible for a woman to achieve first-rate status.

  “There may be among you a woman who beats the men in class,” he said. “While bully for her, consider what happens to the poor fellows she trounces.” Nervous laughter flitted around the room. “Female success may force men to lose their confidence and their vitality. High-achieving females could drag medicine away from manly progress and toward useless womanly frivolity.” The professor stared directly at her. “So yes, we can have first-rate women doctors—at great cost to the medical profession. Think of it—the physician of tomorrow might prefer mindless chatter rather than aggressive combat against disease.”

  After that, some treated her with open contempt. Fellow students sabotaged her work and circulated gossip. Instructors went out of their way to make her work harder. The stress was terrible, although only Grace’s dolls ever saw her cry. Still, she questioned her competence as a would-be doctor. Was she too odd? Too assertive? Too out of touch with other people?

  Under great strain, Sarah still excelled. She even got top marks from the professor who started the antagonism against her. She asked to meet with him after the final class. “I merely bring into the open what everyone thinks about women students,” he said. “If a girl can’t handle it in class, she shouldn’t be a doctor.”

  “Is your intent to drive female students away?” she asked.

  “Not at all. I am a believer in coeducation. Yet I have found the more intelligent the woman, the more anxiety she has about success. As well she should. It’s hard enough working in a man’s profession without being obviously smarter than the men on top of it.”

  “You only wish to discourage the top females.”

  “I want all our graduates prepared to deal with the world. You have a first-class mind with an exceptional ability to focus on a problem without distraction. But you are also socially clumsy and quite obviously peculiar. As a brilliant, odd woman doctor, you will face enormous difficulty. I was certain your nerves would make you drop out. As you may still. In the meantime, congratulations.”

  Sarah pulled in a deep breath and thought again about what she faced at today’s banquet. Her last social outing—a luncheon with Margaret and some middle-aged friends a few weeks back—had been trying. All the ladies could talk about was the marital chances of various young women. A matron carried on for some time about the bad prospects of one girl who had obtained a master’s degree. “She has limited her possibilities because no man will marry someone more educated than he,” the woman said. “Men already think a wife will try to dominate him. I do wish that poor child had invested her time in getting a husband rather than in all that schooling.” A sharp look from Margaret finally quieted the woman.

  Not only did those lunching ladies dismiss the value of education, they also rejected the possibility of an unmarried woman living a fulfilled life. Sarah knew marriage was out of the question. Even worse was the prospect of having children—a man totally conquering her through biology. It was just as well that no man would ever find her attractive enough to even think of launching a courtship.

  The copy of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House lay on the table where she had left it earlier. It was an impressive work. The main character progresses from a childish wife to a woman determined to claim her independence. Sarah knew the play stoked controversy because of the heroine’s rejection of family life. Critics called the work immoral, scandalous, and a terrible influence on young women.

  To play the role, Clara Sullivan must be worldly and intelligent enough to see the need for a second autopsy for Lizzie—but had refused. Why? Perhaps the autopsy would clarify something inconvenient for her. Maybe Clara’s pink cashmere dress matched the samples under Lizzie’s fingernails?

  She forced her attention to the need to get dressed. It seemed absurd to struggle into all those layers—corset, petticoat, skirt, and the rest—just to travel the short distance to Margaret’s, where she would have to pull everything off again before getting jammed into a whole different costume for the banquet. It would be a horrible process, as Margaret’s maids would have to touch her skin as they helped her into tight-fitting undergarments and then the gown.

  A cold shiver ran down her neck with the anticipation of the women brushing her hair and then attending to the laborious business of styling and setting. She arched her back, savoring the unconstricted freedom of her nightdress and dressing gown. If only she could wear this all the time. She ordered her anxiety to recede as she forged up the stairs.

  Margaret’s carriage would arrive soon, yet Jack had not appeared. Was he angry with her? Had he finally had enough of her difficult behavior? Was he injured? Was he still with Clara Sullivan from the night before? The possibilities were endlessly horrible.

  She wanted to wait for him but it was too late.

  Chapter 18

  Jack—Thursday, October 14, 1909, 6:30 a.m.

  Pain kept him staring at the ceiling all night. The lack of sleep was a mixed blessing—there were no nightmares but also no refreshment. When he got up, the shaving mirror revealed a grim sight—puffy eyes, pasty complexion, discolored cut on his cheek.

  One thing was certain: he needed lots of black coffee before he met Sarah. Walking outside cleared his head a little and he snapped to attention when he heard a newsboy hawking a morning paper with the headline about Horace Shaw getting released on bail.

  Bailed out right after getting arrested f
or murder? Jack bought the paper and read quotes from the governor and other muck-a-mucks defending Shaw. The article also quoted Commissioner Lipp opposing the release but expressing confidence that Shaw would be convicted at trial. Yeah, sure. Bob Foster was right: Shaw was too well connected for the system to corral him.

  When he made it to the Monumental Lunchroom the place was packed, with some little kids banging silverware at a nearby table. He was turning to leave when a woman called.

  “Jack! Over here!”

  It was Clara, sitting alone. He didn’t want to deal with her, but she had a full cup of coffee ready at the empty place at her table. That was enough to seal the deal. She took a long look at him after he sat down. “Honey, you’re a mess.”

  Jack took several gulps of coffee before looking up. Clara had a bruise on her cheek—it was small, with two different shades of purple. “You look a little rough yourself.”

  She covered the bruise with her hand. “Do you think I’m horribly ugly? Be honest.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” He picked up the coffee, sloshing much of it on the table.

  She mopped it up with a napkin. “I would’ve done anything to have you with me last night. I knew something bad was going to happen. And it did. That horrible city detective burst into my room and tore it apart. I tried to stop him. He hit me.” She sniffled softly. “You had more important things to do than to protect me.”

  “Did he find what he was looking for?”

  “Jack, I usually get what I want. But believe me—not here, not now. First Lizzie hasn’t got my cash, and then she gets killed. Then you give me the cold shake. Now I can’t even sell something juicy to Horace Shaw. I was stupid to even try.”

  “You found what Lizzie had after all. Should have known you lied about that.”

  Clara dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. “Heck, it’s just easier for me to lie than to tell the truth. I admit it—I’m selfish and rotten. When I found Lizzie dead, I checked a special hiding place we used when we lived at home together. I found this.” She yanked out a black book and set it on the table.