The Savage Heart

by Diana Palmer

  * * *

  Matt waited for him outside, his eyes wary. It was a dangerous neighborhood, that was no lie, and the bouncer inside didn't like detectives very much because of Matt. He couldn't let the boy be hurt, but he needed the information badly.

  Ten minutes passed. Matt glanced at his watch. So far, so good. He was mentally congratulatingStanleyon his success when he heard a commotion down the street and a series of thuds on the back stairs of the house of ill repute.

  Fearing the worst, Matt dashed through an alley and almost through an occupied clothesline as he made his way to the back of the house.

  Stanleyhad gone crashing down the steps. He was groggy and bruised, and a huge manwitha pistol was coming right down after him. The boy wouldn't stand a chance. The women were leaning out windows, and Matt knew that they'd swear to whatever the madam told them to.

  His heart raced as he reached under his jacket for the bowie knife he'd worn just in case of trouble. He was glad he had it. He slid it quickly out of its sheath, waited to make sure the gunman meant business, and took it by the tip.

  "You little worm, nobody talks to these girls without paying. This is what you'll get for your trouble, nosey parker!"

  "Leave him alone," Matt called, his voice even and threatening.

  "And who's going to make me?" the bouncer drawled, turning the pistol toward Matt.

  He cocked the pistol just as Matt drew back and threw the knife. It sailed through the air with such force behind it that it went straight into the bouncer's shoulder through his suit jacket. He gasped. The gun discharged harmlessly in the air and then fell to the ground as he grabbed his shoulder with a harsh groan.

  Stanleygaped as he watched Matt stride forward without the least hesitation. He kicked the gun out of the man's reach, threw the bouncer to the ground, placed a booted foot against his chest, and withdrew the big knife with a single jerk.

  He held it steady with the tip pointed toward the downed man, and for an instant it looked as though he might use it again.

  "God Almighty, don't!" the bouncer wailed. "I'm just doing my job!"

  Stanleywas holding his breath. He stared at the older man over that blade, anditwas like seeing him for the first time. The irritable, stoic man for whom he'd worked these past years was a stranger. The shape of his face and eyes, the steely glint, the ease with which he handled that knife all added up to a totally unknown quantity. And he knew at once that Matt wasn't an exiled Russian or a gypsy or an Arab prince. Having seen similar skills in Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, which he'd attended several times, he no longer had any doubt about his boss's mysterious ancestry.

  "Stanley, are you all right?" Matt asked curtly, but his eyes never left the bouncer.

  "Y-yes, sir," the younger man stammered. He clambered to his feet, shaky and nervous as he grabbed up his hat.

  Matt leaned down and wiped the blade of the knife on the jacket of the wounded man. His eyes met the other man's coldly. "You're a lucky fellow," he said softly. "There was a time when I'd have killed you without a second thought for pointing a pistol at me."

  He stood erect then and slid the blade back into its sheath. His eyes didn't leave the downed man, even when he motioned forStanleyto join him as he started back down the alley.

  Stanleyfollowed him at a respectful distance, ruffled and bruised and a little nervous of the man he worked for.

  Matt stopped as they reached the busy sidewalk and looked at the younger man with piercing eyes. "Are you sure you're all right?"

  Stanleyhad to nerve himself to speak. "Yes, sir, Mr. Davis."

  "What happened?"

  "I'd found a girl who knew Mr. Collier," he choked."Iwas talking to her, just talking to her, when that man burst into the room and said I was getting something without paying for it. He told me to give him twenty dollars or get out. I was trying to do just that when he started tossing me around."

  "He won't toss anyone around for a while."

  "No, sir, he won't."Stanleylooked at the sheathed blade with faint fear. "I never saw anybody inChicagothrow a knife like that, except in Bill Cody's traveling show."

  "No?"

  Stanleydidn't dare ask the question that was sitting on his lips. He imparted what he'd learned instead. "Mr. Collier knew this girl, Lily. He liked her to hold his hand and listen to him talk about how bad his wife treated him. He never wanted to touch her or do anything with her. Only listen. But she never went to his house, and none of the other girls had anything to do with him, just Lily." His face was solemn. "She says she's seventeen years old, Mr. Davis. She isn't pretty, but she has a sort of dignity about her, and she's a sad girl. She said that she always liked Mr. Collier because she didn't have to grit her teeth and do the things most men wanted her to." He flushed. "I felt sorry for her."

  "I feel sorry for all of them," Matt said flatly. "They're little more than slaves, and the madam who runs that particular establishment could chew through ten-penny nails. She cares nothing for the girls, only for her profit. And when they become diseased, as they inevitably do, she kicks them out without a penny."

  "Can't the police do anything?"

  "They can close the house down," he said. "And she'll go out of town and open another one. As long as there are men who want that sort of thing, there'll be women who'll provide it. That's a basic fact of life in the city."

  "Isuppose so. It's sad, all the same."

  Matt was frowning thoughtfully. "This makes no sense," he said. "I was told that Collier brought prostitutes to his apartment house. What you've learned seems to put paid to that."

  "Could there be another place where hehadwomen?"Stanleyasked after a minute. "Or perhaps it was a woman who wasn't working in a brothel."

  "I don't know. I'll have to look into that."

  "Can't I help, sir?"

  Matt's lips turned up, and the frightening look of him went into eclipse. "You haven't lost your taste for detecting,Stanley?" he teased gently.

  Stanleygrinned and flushed together. "No, sir.Iguess it gets into your blood."

  "Then I'll let you pursue this. But I'll need to go back to my source for further information first."

  "Thank you for trusting me to do it, sir. I'm sorry if I seemed to let you down back there. I was stunned from the fall," he added defensively.

  "Stanley, I've been thrown down staircases a time or two. I remember how it felt."

  The young man nodded, but his expression was eloquent when he looked at Matt.

  "Is there something else?" Matt asked.

  Stanleystarted to speak. Then he thought of how he liked his job and the risk he'd be taking to speculate on Matt's background. He smiled instead. "Not a thing, sir. I'll go back to the office and clean up."

  "Good man."

  "Thank you, sir!"

  Matt watched his operative walk away; clearly the young man was confused.Stanleyhad to have guessed how Matt had learned to use that knife, but he respected him too much to actually ask the question. It hadn't been fear, becauseStanleymight be cautious about making him angry, but he wasn't afraid of him in any physical sense. So why hadStanleylet the matter drop without a word? It was a question that kept Matt brooding for a long time.

  He remembered Tess and the night before. She wouldn't be at the boardinghouse when he got there, and he felt lonely already. He was going to have to get used to not seeing her every day, and that might be a good thing. They needed a little space while he came to grips with the sudden shiftintheir relationship. He didn't know how he was going to cope with it. He knew only that he was going to have to find a way. He wasn't going to lose Tess. Not now.

  * * *

  Matt wanted to see her in a public place. Because of their changed relationship, it would be dangerous for them to be alone. He stopped by the hospital just before her shift ended and went over to meet her coming down the steps toward Mick's carriage.

  Tess stopped dead when she saw him, but under the wide brim of her hat he could see that her eyes lit up.<
br />
  He smiled, too, moving forward. He didn't touch her. They simply stared at each other with barely contained longing.

  "How are you?" he asked.

  "I'm fine. I like it at Ellen's house, and they're good company."

  He nodded. "I'm glad."

  "Have you something for me to do onNan's case?" she asked, guessing his reason for coming to her.

  "In a way," he said. "We found a girl in a bordello who was keeping company with Collier. The problem is that she had no intimate relationship with him and doesn't know anyone at that particular house of ill repute who did."

  "That's interesting," Tess replied. "Mrs. Greene said that he had lots of women."

  "I wonder if she really knew," he replied thoughtfully. "Maybe she was guessing."

  "She sounded to me as if she knew exactly what she was saying. What reason would she have had to lie about it? She hated her sister's husband, because she knew how he treatedNan."

  "Perhaps we looked in the wrong place," he said. His eyes narrowed. "I might ask Kilgallen," he added. "He has contacts all over the city, some of which might be in some of the more successful prostitution rings. He might know more than Mrs. Greene did about Collier's infidelity."

  "Something worries me about that," she murmured as they went along the sidewalk together. "You said that Dennis Collier wouldn't be—well, able to perform with a woman when he used opium. And yet when he wasn't using it, he seemed to be working or running errands for his shady friends."

  "He was running errands for Kilgallen at first," he told her. "But he got mixed up in the opium trade. Then he started using that devil's substance, and I'd guess he had to have more than Kilgallen paid him to support his own cravings. He made extra money by passing along information that came over the telegraph about shipments of cash. You've heard of the yeggs, I'm sure."

  "Who hasn't?" she asked, fascinated. "Collier seems to have been involved in a number of foul deeds." She shrugged. "But it still has to be a woman who killed him," she said miserably. "And although I don't really thinkNandid it,there's something I haven't told you."

  He stopped. "What?"

  "There were splatters of blood on her gloves the evening Dennis was killed."

  His indrawn breath was audible. "Why didn't you say so in the beginning?"

  "Because you'd have thought exactly what you're thinking now, that's why!" she returned angrily. "The blood convicts her automatically, isn't that what you think? But she said that it had come from carving up a chicken. Surely you know that chickens bleed after they're killed!"

  He stared at her steadily. "Why would she have a live chicken, Tess?" he asked solemnly. "She'd have had one from the market. And those are drained of blood before they're sold."

  «^»

  "Oh,dear." Tess groaned. She felt as if a terrible weight had been placed on her shoulders. She actually slumped. "Oh, dear!"

  "Are you in a rush to get home?" Matt asked suddenly.

  "Heavens, no."

  He took her gloved hand in his. "Come on!"

  Mick drove them to the police station, where Matt asked him to wait. Matt wanted to talk with the officer who'd found Dennis Collier's body, but discovered he was out on a case, investigating a domestic disturbance. Matt persisted until he got the location. He thanked the officer at the desk and tugged Tess out the door again.

  He gave Mick the address where the officer was supposed to be.

  "You aren't just going to walk in there in the middle of a free-for-all?" she asked, breathless with excitement.

  "Only if I have to," he promised. He glanced at her with mischief in his black eyes. "Don't you think I can handle myself in a fight?"

  "It isn't that. These people seem to walk around armed half the time, judging by the number of knife and pistol victims we get at the hospital…"She drew in a sharp breath, rememberingWounded Knee. "Sorry. I didn't mean to say that."

  "Don't walk on eggshells with me," he chided gently. "I've learned to live with the bad memories."

  "But not with anything else about your past."

  "I'm working on that." He studied her curiously. "It really doesn't bother you, does it?" he asked suddenly.

  "That you're Sioux? Of course not."

  Her eyes were steady, intent on his, utterly fearless. He smiled. "Why?"

  "Because you come from a proud people who lived on the land and took excellent care of one another for hundreds of years before white people started trying to own the earth." She smiled sadly. "I remember that your people were appalled if they saw a white mother hit a child. Sioux children were never hit. They were taught respect for their elders, and right from wrong, but they never felt the sting of a belt or an angry hand."

  "That's true."

  "And I remember the sharing, how the most respected people were always the poorest because they were also the ones who gave away the most to those in need." She shook her head. "Material things don't mean very much to the People. But white folks can't live without the symbols of their wealth. They have to have the biggest houses, the most opulent furnishings, the most expensive clothing…and all around them, little children are going hungry."

  "Which one of us is Sioux?" he murmured dryly.

  She glared at him. "I'm Sioux inside, and you're white outside."

  His eyebrows arched. She sounded absolutely outraged.

  While he was trying to come up with a reply, the carriage pulled to a stop. A police wagon sat outside a tenement. Loud noises and crashing sounds came from just inside the building.

  "Itsounds like a full-scale riot," Tess ventured.

  "Itprobably is." He got out of the carriage and paid Mick. Then he helped Tess out. They proceeded toward the steps.

  "Lady, don't you goin there;it's dangerous!" the driver of the wagon called to her.

  Tess gave him an affronted glance and kept walking.

  "Sir, aren't you going to stop her?" the man called to Matt.

  Matt chuckled. "If I stop her, who's going to protect me once we're inside?"

  The policeman sat there with a blank expression, hardly able to believe his ears. Tess giggled. And so did Mick.

  "And that's what I love most about you," she murmured as they made their way into the apartment building. "You never did treat me like a helpless child."

  "I have reason to know that you're not. Who was it who shot an arrow at aCheyennewho was firing aWinchesterrifle at me?"

  "Those were wild, free days," she recalled. They paused in the hall, where the noise was beginning to decrease a little. "Bill Cody offered me work in his Wild West Show. I was a novelty—a young girl who could shoot a bow and speak perfect Sioux."

  "You never told me!"

  "You never asked," she pointed out. "Besides, I kept hoping you might one day get tired ofChicagoand come back. You didn't."

  "There was too much sorrow for me there, too many bad memories. But OldMan Deer went with Cody. I saw him often when the troupe performed here," he added surprisingly. "He told me how bad things were at Pine Ridge after we left. He said the people were all ashamed of being Sioux after the massacre, as if Wakan Tanka had let everyone down by giving the whites such a victory. And of course, medicine men were banned from practicing their craft. Well, you know all the rest. One had to be white or one was worth nothing. So the Lakota Sioux felt that they were worth nothing."

  "Is that how you felt, too?"

  He nodded. But as he looked down at her, there was something different in his expression, in his eyes.

  "But something's changed," she began.

  "Yes."

  "What?"

  "Today, my young associate bit his tongue to keep from asking about my ancestry. Not because he was afraid of me," he added. "But because he was awed."

  Itwas a strange choice of words. "I don't understand."

  "Ithrew the knife at an armed bouncer who threatened to shoot me." He chuckled. "He was impressed. But he likes me too much to embarrass me. Imagine that?"

  She
grinned. "Of course I can. I've held you in awe since I was barely a woman."

  He pursed his lips, looking oddly rakish and devil-may-care. "Maybe I should approach Cody for a job myself. Apparently he's found a way to re-instill pride in the People, by showing the world what the warriors looked like."

  "It's cheap."

  "It's educational," he corrected. "And it's embarrassing the government," he added with a wicked grin. "Some of the old war chiefs are becoming world famous."