by Shirl Henke
Nonetheless, Delilah had misgivings that she shared with Herr Krammer. If they spent their entire nest egg this way, in spite of his generous terms, they would have little left to hire a crew or see to their own basic living expenses until the spring thaw. She asked the German if it would be possible to obtain a bank loan.
The beefy man chewed on one corner of his thick gray mustache and stroked his ruddy jowls. “Such a thing is difficult, Frau Raymond, but impossible nein.”
Encouraged, Delilah laid out her plan. “I could use the Nymph as collateral for a substantial loan.”
Krammer shook his head. “Perhaps. But since the great levee fire of ’forty-nine that destroyed so many boats, steamboats are not so good collateral at most banks. Local banks have long memories and short pursestrings. Also they will tell you that, since you will carry the cargo up the dangerous Missouri, good surety any steamboat is not.”
Chewing meditatively on his mustache as if it were a cud, the merchant continued. “And if you could get a loan, never must you do it here in St. Louis. Nein. Many here there are that will sell your note to a third party even before it is due. That I know.” He shook his head. “To St. Charles you and your uncle must go. Take the train. With the Consolidated Planters Bank you might do business. Hard bargainers they are, and you will not get as big a loan as here perhaps. But you can make them sign an agreement not to sell your note before it is due.”
Big Red Riley was not scheduled for a long life. From a tin of Miner’s Delight he took a large pinch of snuff and packed it against his lower gum on the left side of his mouth. Then, he shook a tailor-made cigarette from a pack of Elegant Gents, fired it up and inhaled like a hog sucking slop. Next came a deep gulp from his glass of Who Shot John whiskey, as he surveyed his domain. He leaned back in his oversized chair behind an oversized desk and looked about his office. Its garishness expressed his idea of opulent luxury and refined taste.
When the expected knock came, Riley barked,“Drag it in.”
The door opened, and Leo “the Leopard” Lewinsky slipped into the office, his head bobbing like a rooster hunting for grasshoppers. “How do, Mr. Riley, sir.”
Red stared at Leo with what he meant to be lordly gravity. Lewinsky was one of his brigade of wharf rats who slunk and scurried through the alleys and side streets of the waterfront gathering information useful to him. Indeed, the Leopard was one of his favorites. He was very ugly. The little man’s neck and lower face were mottled by a pattern of purplish liver spots.
Lewinsky possessed yet another quality that Big Redprized in his employees. He was short, some two inches less than Red’s own five foot, five inches. Riley was not aware of a contemptuous axiom along the riverfront: Any man had a chance at landing a spot on Red’s payroll if he was willing to saw off his legs and go on stumps. It also was said that a dwarf was a shoo-in for a high-paying job, and a midget could expect to be appointed second-in-command of Red’s entire operation.
Riley was not well-liked.
“Well?” Red asked impatiently.
“The woman and her uncle took the morning train to St. Charles. Yesterday, they looked at the old Hauser warehouse up on Biddle.” Leo shifted his weight and rubbed his spotted face.
Riley took another drag on his Elegant Gent. “All right. They have to be going to Consolidated Planters for a loan, which means they wrapped up all their cash in cargo and warehouse space. Son of a bitch! Using my boat for collateral!” The little Irishman pounded his desk in a rage. He took another drag on the Gent. “Where’d they get the freight goods?”
“Looks like Krammer gave ’em credit fer most of it.” Leo shifted his weight again, thankful that he wasn’t old Joe Krammer.
Big Red stubbed out his cigarette and let loose a string of obscenities that was neither imaginative nor colorful. “Well, that Kraut’s business career is just about at an end. He’d better get his tin bill ready, ’cause he’s gonna be pickin’ shit with the chickens. And Leopard, pass the word. Any steamboat men that take a berth on the Nymph will never work the levee again. That smart-assed heifer and her bag-o-bones uncle might have a boat and a cargo, but they ain’t goin’ to have a crew to move ’em. Not while Red Riley is king of the St. Louis levee.”
When Delilah and Horace alighted from the train the following evening, she felt frustrated and angry. “Talking with those bankers was like being back in Pittsburgh.”
Horace nodded, remembering the crooked game in that city, one of the few times his brilliant young player had lost at cards. “Consolidated Planters certainly gave us a smaller loan than we’d hoped.”
“Smaller is an understatement,” she said as he hailed a hack and they climbed in for the ride back to the levee. “Only ten thousand dollars on a boat that the banker admitted was worth between forty-two thousand and forty-five.”
“Even that wouldn’t have been too bad if not for his insistence that half the loan be used as a surety bond payable to the bank should the Nymph be destroyed on the trip. He certainly made a point of explaining the risk of using steamboats as collateral, even when they’re moored up at the levee.”
“Yes,” Delilah replied stiffly. “Not only the disastrous fire of eighteen forty-nine that Herr Krammer told us about, but the eighteen fifty-six ice flow down the Mississippi that crushed over twenty boats. Was he making that up, do you think?” she asked, chewing her lip.
After spitting a wad of tobacco from the side of his perch, their driver turned around and interjected, “Warn’t no tall tale, ma’am. I seed the big crash up in ’fifty-six. Boats smashed like kindlin’ wood, yessir.”
“I thank you for that verification, good sir,” Horace said. Then, patting his niece’s hand, he averred, “The jovial, pink-faced little banker indeed ran a perfectly legal shell game on us.”
“And smiled when he shook our hands, as if he was doing us a favor!” she added indignantly. By the time they reached the levee and alighted from the hack, she decided that riffling cards was perhaps not as despicable a trade as banking.
The next morning she and Horace did considerable damage to Lou’s breakfast of fried ham, biscuits and cream gravy before heading up the levee to Eagle Boat Stores. The mercantile doubled as the meeting place for the steamboat elite—captains, pilots, engineers and mates. Here they would begin their search for a crew.
Passing by a wooden rendition of a mermaid located onthe sidewalk, Horace and Delilah entered the large, shabby emporium. “Are you certain you wouldn’t prefer that I handle this?” her uncle asked her.
In spite of a sudden wave of trepidation that swept over her, Delilah shook her head. “No. If I’m going upriver with these men, I can’t be afraid of them.”
They waited for a moment as their eyes adjusted to the dim light. Just inside to the right, they could see a short counter, and across from it three empty tables. The rear of the building was filled with stacks of boat tackle and hardware. Horace seated his niece and then walked to the counter and rang the bell on it.
A clerk in a leather apron appeared from behind a pile of oak spars. At the same time, two men whose faces bore the mark of wind and water emerged from the backroom, eyeing Horace and Delilah with open hostility.
“Good day, sir,” Horace said to the clerk. “My niece and I are interested in hiring experienced men to take our boat up the Missouri.”
Before he could say more, one of the steamboat men interrupted. “Your boat the Nymph?”
Horace replied, “Indeed, it is.”
His companion gave the older man a long look but did not say a word. Then he headed for Delilah’s table, with Horace right behind. He did not look friendly. The clerk and the first steamboat man grinned nastily, watching their friend give Delilah a hostile perusal.
Refusing to be cowed, she in turn studied him. He was tall, thin and balding, but his beard was thick and well trimmed. He wore a black, rumpled suit and a wrinkled blue shirt with no collar. When he pulled out a chair and sat without waiting for an invitation, s
he nodded to Horace, who understood that he was to back off…for now.
“You be thet gamblin’ female whut cleaned out Clint Daniels?”
“I won a poker game, fair and square,” she stated calmly. “The River Nymph came as part of the pot.”
“Wall, missy, ye’ll be gettin’ no crew on this waterfront. Red Riley’s got the word out on ye. There be them thet’ll heed the little fart. Then, there be them thet be Mr. Daniels’s friends. We don’t give a skinny rat’s arse fer what Riley says, but Clint be a decent man. Helped out many a down-and-outer on this levee. None a’ us goin’ to work fer a female thet made ’im strip buck-arsed nekked ’cause he lost a hand a’ cards. Ye take Tucker’s word fer it. Thet boat of yers ain’t leavin’ this levee unless ye gets yerself a crew of gypshun galley slaves. Good day t’ye.” The river man got up and stomped back to the counter.
Delilah felt her stomach churn during Tucker’s diatribe. Once he was out of earshot, she stood up and asked her uncle, “Any idea what we should do now?”
“First, we depart these hostile environs,” he replied, taking her arm. Backs ramrod straight, they walked out into the bright morning sunlight. Once on the sidewalk they headed briskly down the levee toward the Nymph.
Later that afternoon, Delilah sat drinking coffee in the riverboat’s salon. She awaited her uncle’s return. He had insisted that she stay aboard while he checked around to ascertain whether Mr. Tucker had indeed expressed the prevailing sentiment on the levee. The moment he stepped in the door, the grim expression on his face indicated that “gypshun galley slaves” might be their only option. Damn Clint Daniels and Red Riley both!
On the verge of rage, Delilah pounded the table. “This all started because that arrogant exhibitionist wanted to humiliate me!”
“Ah, Delilah, your interpretation of events is quite at odds with the general perception. Mr. Daniels disrobed in response to a bet that you, dear child, proposed. And he humiliated you? Don’t blame the local population if they consider you the humiliator.”
She bit her lip, a small part of her admitting some degree of culpability in the fiasco. “He stands for everything I detest,” she said stubbornly, as if trying to convince herself she’d done no wrong.
Horace wisely refrained from comment on that remark. He’d already opened old wounds with his admonishment and did not look forward to laying out the limited options they had left. “I fear we have only two choices:We can seek to cut a deal with Mr. Riley…or with Mr. Daniels. Since we can safely assume that Riley would rather cut our throats than cut a deal, that leaves…” He paused.
“That leaves Daniels. But if we go to him, it would be like crawling!”
The old man lifted an eyebrow. “My darling, I think we will find it much easier crawling to Mr. Daniels than rowing up the Missouri.”
The next afternoon, Delilah and Horace climbed into a dilapidated hack drawn by an even more dilapidated horse that clopped its way up Walnut Street. They left the waterfront and headed toward one of the city’s more notorious sporting districts. Clinton Daniels resided at the Blasted Bud Café.
“Leave it to a man such as your Mr. Daniels to reside in the midst of a host of bordellos. The Blasted Bud indeed,” she huffed as they lurched up Walnut on their way to unthinkable humiliation.
“It is rather, er, colorful,” Horace replied, suppressing a chuckle beneath a cough.
Delilah tried to keep her mind off the impending meeting by observing her surroundings. She had never been this far uptown before and was surprised to find that it was much cleaner than the levee area. They passed rows of small shops and mercantiles. The buildings here were mostly of brick, probably courtesy of the great fire of ’49 that had destroyed not only steamboats but also wiped out over fifteen blocks of the city itself.
When they began to hear the tinny tinkle of barroom pianos and occasional bursts of loud, raucous laughter, she mut-tered aloud, “It’s bad enough to be forced to seek out the man’s help without having to barter for it in a whorehouse.”
“You were the one who insisted on coming along. I would’ve approached Mr. Daniels alone,” her uncle reminded her.
“And give him the satisfaction of thinking I was afraid to face him? Never.” Suddenly, she laughed as a new thought struck her. This meeting would not be a humiliation for her. After all, this time it would be the man forced to sell himself. If he’s so destitute as to live in a brothel, I should be able to offer him more than enough to work for me. Delilah chuckled again, her mood improving.
Horace didn’t like the sound of her laughter but held his peace.
The Blasted Bud was housed in a rather large and relatively new two-story brick building. Inside, a long flight of stairs to the top story divided the bottom floor into two large rooms. To the left was obviously a ballroom. At the far end was a slightly raised platform upon which sat an upright piano, chairs and music stands to accommodate a small orchestra. A gaslight chandelier hung over the center of a highly polished dance floor. Tastefully appointed settees and lounges, together with low glass-topped tables, were positioned around the dance area.
To the right was a second room sporting a long, highly polished bar. A mirror ran the length of the wall behind it. The floor was covered by a plush blue carpet, and paintings of hunting scenes hung on the walls. The area contained several card tables and one billiard table in the far corner. The overall effect was not unlike a select gentlemen’s club, the antithesis of Red Riley’s makeover of The River Nymph.
Hidden in the shadows at the top of the stairs, Clint Daniels observed the old man and his niece as they entered the Bud, pausing to take in their surroundings. He had wondered how long it would take her to realize that he was the only game in town. Again he tried to assure himself that she wasn’t the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
But he wouldn’t bet on it…nomatter howgood the odds.
Today, she was dressed in a slender skirt, red with thin vertical gold striping. As she had on the boat, she wore a snug-fitting waist-length jacket of solid red, fastened all the way to her throat with small frog clasps. Her hair was piled up on top of her head again and crowned with another foolish little hat that he wanted to pluck off that mass of curls and stuff down a crapper. He smiled. That hat was the only frippery about the woman. She wore no bustle and, in spite of her tiny waist, he would bet that she wore no corset.
As Eva would say, “Show time!”
Daniels descended the stairs and strolled over to the couple standing barely inside the doors of the Bud. “Mrs. Raymond, Mr. Mathers, I’m surprised to see you here.”
Horace arched a brow. “Ah, Mr. Daniels, why do I doubt that?”
“A long association with mendacious people?” Clint laughed.
Delilah smiled, smugly certain of her advantage. “And you would not be familiar with mendacity, would you, sir?” Without waiting for an answer, she continued, “Do you have a place where we might talk privately? I wish to make you a proposition.”
Clint began to strip off his perfectly tailored pearl gray jacket. Delilah’s composure slipped. “I told you, sir, that the last was an ill-considered jest! This is a serious business proposal.”
Daniels slipped his jacket back on. “Thank God, or pretty soon I’ll be wearing loincloths.” He flashed what he felt certain Delilah would think a particularly hateful smile. “Let me offer you a seat so we can discuss your…proposal. Oh, yes, and do note that there is not a single nude painting on the walls.”
He led the way to one of the corner card tables, pulled out a chair for her, gestured toward another for Horace and then seated himself with his back to the wall. “May I offer you some refreshment—some tea, a cup of coffee, a shot of rotgut?”
Delilah shook her head. “We’re fine.”
The gambler nodded. “Yes, you are. Now, how may I help you?”
Sensing the way the gambler brought out the worst in his niece, Horace spoke up before she could begin. “My niece and I would like to hi
re…or rather commission you to assist us in assembling a crew to man The River Nymph, Mr. Daniels. We have a cargo of freight that we wish to take upriver to Fort Benton. It has come to our attention that you have…ah…numerous connections among the local community of riverboat men…”
Delilah broke in. “We would be willing to pay you generously to recruit a crew for the voyage.”
The gambler picked up a deck of cards sitting on the table and began to riffle them absentmindedly. The seconds dragged by, and just when Delilah thought she would scream at him to say something, he asked, as if mildly surprised,“You are offering me a job?”
Delilah responded sharply, “I do believe that is our intent.”
Silence again. This time the void was disturbed by the click of high-heeled slippers on the stairs. Then a slender silver-blond woman made her way across the carpeted floor to stand behind Daniels. Through his straw-colored lashes, he watched Mrs. Raymond examine the blonde, who placed her hand possessively on his shoulder. Delilah’s green eyes narrowed and her lips thinned.
“Mrs. Raymond, Mr. Mathers, meet Eva St. Clair, an old and dear friend,” he said with a perfectly straight face. Eva’s long fingernails dug into his jacket, but she didn’t say anything.
Horace rose from his seat, took the blonde’s hand and kissed it with a courtly flourish. Delilah nodded, just barely. The woman was undeniably a beauty, and the brunette had to admit that her Scandinavian fairness was certainly genuine. She wore a revealing silk wrapper that displayed a number of her other charms, which were also obviously genuine.
“Business, Clint, honey?” Eva virtually purred, never taking her eyes from Delilah’s.
“So it would seem, Eva. My guests are offering me a job.”
Eva threw back her head and laughed. The sound was beautiful, and Delilah’s green eyes became greener and harder. She probably practices…probably can do it even on her back… especially on her back!