by BETH KERY
The bartender obviously took note of Ryan's preoccupation.
"Yeah, maybe ya got a right to look down yer nose at me, fella. Beer won't do the trick, will it? No, sir, whiskey's yer only hope if yer climbing in the ring with Big Mario, friend. Ah, here we go. Doors have opened. Yer audience arrives."
Ryan glanced over to see dozens upon dozens of boisterous, black-suited men swarm into the room, their faces alight with excitement. A few of them had women draped on their arms. It struck Ryan as comical to see the manner in which the males ogled the prostitutes and then joked with their companions, almost as though they followed a socially prescribed script for brothel behavior. Despite their relatively low-cut gowns, their heavily painted faces and the brassy color of their hair, the women didn't look all that racy to Ryan's twenty-first-century eyes.
"I'd hoped you were going to take part in the Slip and Whip. That's why I came tonight, you know, Molly," one mustachioed man told the woman on his arm suggestively as they passed Ryan.
"I never do the Slip and Whip on the night of a Big Mario match. I know that fight and the gambling is the real reason you boys showed up here tonight," Molly sulked.
"Molly, m'dear, you malign me. I'd forsake all to see you again with the reins in your hand and your"—Molly shrieked dramatically and giggled when her suitor swatted her bottom—"gleaming promises at me from the stage."
"And there's the man who'll pay ya," the bartender spoke in an undertone to Ryan as the couple passed out of hearing. "Here's yerman, Jack!" the bartender called out more loudly to a large man
Standing at the end of the bar whose girth strained at the fabric of a pristine white suit.
"Big Mario's latest meal."
Jack paused and wiped what very much looked like blood off his hands onto a white cloth resting at the end of the bar. When he was finished he flashed a shark like grin. Ryan should have been bedazzled by the hundreds of diamonds flashing on rings that encircled every single one of the man's sausage-like fingers.
Instead he was preoccupied by another unexpected reality.
"Jim Donahue" he muttered incredulously.
"What's that ya said?" the bartender asked quietly, obviously to shield Ryan's ignorance from the immense presence of the man at the other end of the bar. "That's the owner of the Sweet Lash, the owner of the whole Levee District, if the truth be told. Don't ya know, fool? That man's none other than Diamond Jack Fletcher."
Ryan nodded numbly. The bartender could say whatever he wanted. Some things a guy knew just like he'd known he'd do whatever it took to come after Hope Stillwater. No matter what the bartender said, the man who currently stood at the end of the bar giving Ryan a cold, appraising once-over while he gnawed on the end of a soggy cigar was most definitely other than just Diamond Jack Fletcher.
In Ryan's time, the rotten spirit that currently inhabited Diamond Jack animated the flesh of the man Ramiro and he had been working to put behind bars for the past year.
Diamond Jack and Jim Donahue were one and the same soul.
***
Tacky.
That was the first fuzzy thought Hope had when she pried open her eyelids and found herself staring at scarlet velvet curtains surrounding a large alcove. She lay on a four-poster bed that had been tucked inside the alcove. Little gold pom-poms dangled off the mullioned fabric of the curtains. The gold-and-scarlet material clashed awfully with the worn green-and-blue wallpaper featuring sea creatures and bare-breasted mermaids.
Hope shifted her gaze around the room, wary to move her head for some reason. For a long moment she stared uncomprehendingly at a photograph hanging on the wall framed in gold leaf. It featured a nude young woman looking over her shoulder coyly. A single red rose sprouted from the crack of her bottom.
The framed photograph brought the strangeness of her situation home at last.
"What in the—"
She gasped as pain lanced through her head. She'd tried to rise from her supine position only to be stopped abruptly by the stabbing pain. For a full minute she remained very still, eyes clamped shut, perspiring profusely, deathly afraid to move lest she experience that unbearable sensation yet again.
"I wouldn't bother trying to get up if I was you," a woman said from somewhere to the left of the bed, her tone smug and contemptuous. "I've got you tied down good, see?
'Sides, for what Diamond Jack's got planned for ya, lying on the bed with your legs spread wide is the only position you'll be needin' to take anyhow," the woman finished with a self-satisfied laugh.
At the mention of Diamond Jack Fletcher's name Hope's heartbeat escalated until it beat frantically in her chest like a bird trying to escape a cage. She subtly flexed her arms and legs, not wanting the woman to notice her struggling. Sure enough, her wrists and ankles were bound with what felt like snugly knotted velvet cord. The woman's voice struck a familiar resonance in Hope's memory but pain and vertigo prevented her from focusing too hard on anything.
Very cautiously and slowly, Hope opened her eyes. Thankfully the sharp pain seemed to have abated for the moment. Sadie Hol-crum looked down at her with a satisfied smirk on her pretty face.
"Ain't so high and mighty now, are ya?" she taunted. "Welcoming League, my dimpled arse. Pretty soon you'll be no better'n the likes of me, missy. Good sight worse, I'd say."
"Miss Holcrum? I don't understand .. ."
"Don't ya, Miss Stillwater?" Sadie grinned, her gold eyetooth gleaming. She seemed to be enjoying herself immensely. Her sharp-featured, sneering face didn't look so pretty now, Hope realized. She recalled Sadie's wide-eyed wonder at the size of the train shed and gaping mouth as she looked at Central Station's enormous bay windows on Lake Michigan.
Sadie Holcrum would have made a fine actress.
"What's the last thing ya remember?" Sadie asked.
Hope tried her best to focus her thoughts. "I. . . at the train station. We .. . went to the ladies' lounge and .. . and .. ."
"Crack" Sadie finished happily as she mimed someone striking downward forcefully. "I did my part and got ya somewhere secluded and ol' Marvin did his as well. Used his pistol to do it. Knocked ya out cold."
"May I have some water, please?" Hope whispered, biological imperatives taking the forefront in her consciousness before she could even begin to consider her bizarre predicament. Besides, focusing on the basics helped keep panic at bay. Sadie curled her lip in disdain and Hope thought sure she'd refuse her request. Suddenly the willowy brunette turned away, however. When she once again came into Hope's sight she carried a green glass. Sadie lifted it to her lips.
Hope sighed shakily and rested her head back in the pillow after she'd taken several huge swallows of the deliciously cool water.
"Where am I?" she managed hoarsely.
"Why, your new home, o' course, the Sweet Lash. An' when you ain't servin' Diamond Jack and the men, you're gonna fetch and clean fer me, I think. I always fancied having a lady fer a slave."
"Shut your mouth, you good-for-nothing whore."
Although Hope was already stunned into silence by Sadie's proclamations, she blinked in even more profound shock at the sound of a man's cutting words being delivered with the smooth, beguiling accent of the south.
Diamond Jack Fletcher himself entered her range of vision.
"I let you leave this house for two hours to go on a special mission for me and even in that little bit of time you managed to get juiced up. What was it? Did you and that fool Evercrumb actually stop in the alley and do business with those damn cookies while you had Jacob Stillwater's unconscious daughter in the carriage? Or have you two just been hitting the bottle?"
He grabbed Sadie's hand and pushed back her sleeve, checking her forearms. Hope knew very well from her social reform activities that the term cookies referred to the panderers and lowlifes that both supported and sustained an underground traffic in cocaine and morphine in the Levee District.
She jumped when Jack slapped the woman's face with a big, meaty hand. He must
not have liked what he'd seen on the woman's arm. Sadie's chin flung around hard at the impact, causing several ringlets to dislodge from her upswept hair. She sobbed.
"What're ya mad at me for, Jack? Me and Marvin ... we did . whatcha asked, didn't we?"
Sadie whined. "We brought ya Miss High and Mighty Stillwater. If me and Marvin did make a quick stop on the way home, no harm come of it. Ain't I right, Jack?"
Hope's heart seemed to stop in her chest when Diamond Jack Fletcher's small, dark brown eyes shifted and settled on her. She'd seen Jack on several occasions around the first ward. He was rather a hard man to miss, large, charismatic and infamous as he was.
Everyone—including Hope and every shop boy, minister, prostitute, Prairie Avenue matriarch and panderer in the neighborhood—knew Diamond Jack.
She'd been unfortunate enough to be the object of his notice on a few occasions, but he'd never stood as close to her as he did presently. Near as he was now Hope saw that fat had swelled the angular features of his large face, making them seem to pop out from the flesh, the result being almost caricature-like.
Jack still possessed the cold, calculating gaze of a predator, however, even though he regarded her through puffy eyelids. It was most unpleasant to have him pin her in his sights while she lay spread-eagle and naked on a bed, a thin sheet her only covering. She shivered uncontrollably when his beady eyes ran slowly over the outline of her body.
"What lies have you been telling this young lady, Sadie?" Jack shook his head as though saddened. His voice had once again slowed and softened, reminding Hope of sweet, flowing syrup. "My apologies, Miss Stillwater, for my employees' mistreatment of you."
"Then untie me from this bed and give me my clothes so that I can leave."
Jack sighed. "I'm afraid that's an impossibility at this point, miss. I do need you for a very specific purpose, you see, and I won't be able to let you go until. I have what I need."
"And what purpose would that be?" Hope asked, although she wasn't at all sure she wanted to know.
"Well, let's just say I needed to do something to stop your father, Miss Stillwater. From what I've come to understand, he holds nothing in this world dearer than his daughter, which is just as it should be. I respect a man like Jacob Stillwater. Respect him more than ninety-nine percent of the fools I'm forced to do business with daily." He threw a dark glance at the sniffling Sadie. "Your father's a man of commitment and values."
"I'm surprised you're able to respect something of which you have no personal knowledge, Mr. Fletcher."
Surprise flickered across his large features at her jibe before they settled into a cold mask.
Gone in an instant was the facade of a sweet-tongued southern gentleman. He raised his hand and something slipped and dangled between his fingers.
Hope clenched her teeth when she saw what it was—the silver locket her father had given her before she went on her European tour. Inside of it were two photographs—one of her mother, Virginia Stillwater, when she was a young woman of nineteen and one of Hope at the very same age. Their likenesses were striking enough to make them look like twins.
Hope prized it above all her possessions and rarely removed the locket from her neck.
Seeing it dangling beneath fat fingers decorated with dozens of tacky diamonds made her so angry she lurched up on the bed, her restraints bringing her up short.
"Give that back, you foul creature! You have no right to touch it."
Jack grinned and made a tut-tutting noise as though she were a two-year-old behaving poorly. "I'm going to keep this necklace. I think it'll bring me luck. You may not know it, young lady, but I was an avid, yet distant admirer of your mother. Beautiful, passionate woman. How your dried-up excuse for a father ever managed S; to win her is beyond my understanding."
He ignored Hope's hissing sound of fury as he examined the swaying locket.
"The thing you don't understand is that I have a way of life here, little lady. It may not be to your father's liking. It may not be to yours. But that's just something you'll both have to live with, the way I see it. Last I checked, God never elected you and your holier-than-thou father to be the judges of everyone else on this planet." "You're right.
Something much higher than you or I will stand in judgment, Mr. Fletcher. But until that day, I'm going to keep right on trying to stop individuals such as yourself who prey on the weak and innocent to feed your insatiable greed. My father feels the same way and will continue to do so no matter what you have planned for me," Hope bluffed. In truth she knew her father would be decimated if Jack continued to hold her captive or killed her, but she'd never let Jack know that.
Jack's dark brows rose in wry amusement, but Hope sensed his anger beneath the surface—a cold, dangerous kind of fury.
"I can see you've learned the skill of speechmaking from your daddy, Miss Stillwater."
He chuckled as he idly reached into his white suit jacket. Hope's ire rose because she believed he was pocketing her locket. Instead he withdrew something larger from his jacket, something that Hope couldn't quite see. "The thing of it is," Jack continued,
"speechmaking will do you about as much good in the Sweet Lash as being a drunkard, drug-using, loudmouthed whore."
Hope never had the opportunity to be frightened before it happened. Neither did Sadie, which she had reason to be thankful for later.
Jack almost casually grabbed Sadie's hair, pulling her head back and exposing her throat.
He reached around her neck. Hope leaned up as far as she could go, ignoring the pain that throbbed at the back of her head. She watched in puzzlement as a scarlet band grew around Sadie's throat.
Jack let go and Sadie dropped to her knees heavily.
When Hope recognized that the gurgling sounds she heard were Sadie choking on her life's blood as it spilled out of her, horror flashed through her like a blinding white light.
"No," Hope cried as she pulled so wildly at the restraints that the bed creaked in protest.
Sadie's body made a muffled thumping noise on the floor as she fell. Hope's terror magnified when she realized she no longer heard the woman trying fruitlessly to draw air from a severed windpipe. She looked up at Jack, who watched the dying woman with the detachment one might afford a swatted fly. "Help her. Damn you, help her!"
Diamond Jack Fletcher's image wavered before her gaze, but she was still able to make him out as he stepped back and used a handkerchief to carefully wipe off the blade of his knife.
"My deepest sympathies for distressing you, Miss Stillwater, but Sadie had to go. She couldn't keep quiet once she caught a whiff of whiskey, and never mind what she turned into when someone put some morphine in her veins. You heard how mean she could get.
Her mouth turned her into a real liability for a man like me ... a man with secrets of the Stillwater caliber."
Hope's eyelids began to close as the room spun dizzily. She knew she was about to lose consciousness—whether from the blow to her head or sheer horror, she didn't know—but she managed to stay awake long enough to see Diamond Jack bow slightly to her in a parody of gallantry before he exited the room.
TEN
Diamond Jack picked up the glass of whiskey the bartender set in front of him, checked the gold watch he kept on a chain and walked toward Ryan with a broad grin on his fat face.
Ryan was reminded of an overfed shark dressed up in the clothing of a southern gentleman. He'd had similar thoughts about Jim Donahue innumerable times in the past—or the future, however you wanted to word it. In truth, Jim and Jack weren't a matched pair in physical appearance. They might have been brothers instead of twins.
But their physical inexactness did nothing to sway Ryan's firm conviction that they possessed one and the same soul.
"I didn't catch your name," Jack said as he came toward Ryan.
"I didn't give it."
The bartender made a hissing sound and flexed his Popeye forearms as he formed fists.
Ryan suppressed
rolling his eyes in barely contained frustration. God damn it, he'd come here for Hope. What'd it mean that he'd run into Jim Donahue's former incarnation in the meanwhile?
And what the hell? He didn't even believe in reincarnation, did he?
"Now, now, Alfie. Keep your fists busy pouring drinks. We have a thirsty crowd here tonight, and this boy looks like he'd hold his own, anyway," Jack said as he shrewdly studied Ryan's stature and then swept his gaze across the quickly filling room. A line of patrons still streamed in, making the fifteen or so women that circulated in the crowd highly outnumbered. Another bartender had joined Alfie behind the bar and was pouring whiskey and beer for two women who, given their listless expressions, relative lack of face paint and drab dresses were there to serve drinks instead of entertain the men.
Jack waved a diamond-laden hand in Ryan's direction. "Looks like this young man could use one of those drinks. He's likely just a mite nervous about meeting Mario. Wouldn't we all be? A glass of my finest will put him at his ease."
Alfie looked vaguely surprised at his boss's request but he followed his order quickly enough. Ryan sat down, placing the short-brimmed ivory felt hat on the bar. When Alfie set a glass in front of him he automatically took a swallow, pausing before he took a second, more appreciative sip. Diamond Jack chuckled.
"That's from my private stores. I have it shipped to me from the finest distillery in Tennessee not far from where I grew up."
"Not bad," Ryan conceded.
"I can see you're a man of good taste. Now ... are we ever to know your name, son?"
"Daire," Ryan muttered. He gave Jack a sidelong glance, curious despite his wariness.
Hadn't the frustrated detective whose notes he'd read—Connor J. O'Rourke—written that Diamond Jack Fletcher was the prime suspect in Hope's murder?
And now he'd discovered Diamond Jack and Jim Donahue were the same man. Perhaps he wasn't in the wrong place, after all. Now he just needed to figure out without blowing his cover who the hell Alfie and Jack had mistaken him for.