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СКАЧАТЬ been called worse by better people than you.” I gathered up the remaining coins as if to slip them into the drawer where I kept a good solid billy club. “It would be better if I don’t have to call Mr. Walker to have you thrown out.”

      “Bitch,” she repeated. She turned and walked away. The dancers parted and watched her pass.

      The blob of spittle was beginning to sink into my desk blotter. I scooped it up with my handkerchief and dropped the mess into the waste basket. The silent crowd of watching girls scattered at a look from me.

      “I can assure you there is nothing at all fake about my Lady-Muck-Muck accent,” I said to no one in particular.

      Ray came into my office lugging a bag brimming with our take for the evening. I was happy to see that he was struggling with the weight. Like every business in Dawson, we accepted gold dust as legal currency. “Trouble?” he growled as the last of the girls slipped away.

      “No,” I said as he dropped the bag in the desk drawer, which he’d reinforced with a cage of steel bars. I’d never lived in a more law-abiding town, but we didn’t take any chances. I locked the drawer and slipped the key into my reticule. Time to go home and sleep. I’d do the books and banking later.

      “Young Murray might work out as head bartender,” Ray said, standing back while I locked the office door.

      “I hope so. That’ll take some of the pressure off you.” Our previous head bartender had left town abruptly. We needed a new man to put in charge, but Ray was having trouble finding someone he could trust with not only the earnings but also the liquor.

      The male employees, the bartenders and croupiers, were Ray’s responsibility. I managed the percentage girls—who came in at midnight when the stage show ended to dance with the men—and the performers. I also kept the books.

      Mary came out of her room as we walked down the hall. Her black eyes glanced down to avoid looking at Ray.

      “Good morning, Mary,” I said. “I won’t ask how you slept, as I’m sure the racket kept you up all night. I hope you were comfortable.”

      “I slept fine, Mrs. MacGillivray,” she whispered. “I can ignore the noise.”

      “A useful talent. Mary, this is Mr. Walker, my business partner. Ray, Mary is beginning employment in Mrs. Mann’s laundry today, and I offered her a room until she finds something more permanent. And a good deal quieter.”

      “Pleased to meet ye, Mary,” Ray said, with a surprised look at me.

      Mary blinked.

      “He said he’s pleased to meet you,” I told her. Ray hailed from the teeming tenements and shipyards of Glasgow, and his accent could be almost indecipherable to the uninitiated. He was a tough little Scotsman with a nose mashed flat enough to spread out in several different directions and a mouthful of broken or rotting teeth. He stood barely five foot six and didn’t carry an ounce of perceptible fat or muscle on him—the visible heritage of a hard Glaswegian childhood.

      “If you’re ready, I’ll walk with you to Mrs. Mann’s, Mary. You can get something for breakfast there.”

      “I have no money,” she said.

      “I’m sure your meals will be included as part of your wages.”

      The downstairs rooms were empty, save for Irene sitting primly at a big round table by the far wall under a not-veryprim portrait of a lush nude with somewhat unrealistic bosoms. It would never hang in the National Portrait Gallery, but the customers liked it. She—Irene, not the painted nude—stood up as we approached.

      I looked from her to Ray and raised one eyebrow. He blushed. “I’ve invited Irene for a wee breakfast, Fiona. Do ye want ta join us?”

      I almost said “yes” just to see the expression on his face. I resisted the temptation.

      Irene looked Mary up and down and turned up her nose. “Heard you had trouble upstairs, Mrs. MacGillivray,” she said with an unnecessary amount of relish.

      “It was nothing I can’t handle. Enjoy your breakfast. Come, Mary, mustn’t keep Mrs. Mann waiting.”

      I was half-afraid a bitter Chloe would be waiting for me outside. But fortunately—for her—she had taken her leave. I doubted I’d see her again. There were plenty of dance halls in Dawson, and she’d find employment in another one soon enough. If she kept on drinking, which it was almost certain she would, she would be fired from each one, gradually descending the ladder of what passes for respectability in the Dawson demi-monde, forgetting about me as new resentments crowded in.

      The fancy gambler I’d been telling Graham about earlier was standing outside our front door. He was dressed in a crisp suit, diamond stick pin too large to be real, cravat as white as snow on the Ogilvie Mountains in February. His dark hair was slicked back with oil, and the ends of his heavily-waxed handlebar moustache pointed towards the sky. I gave him a second look and could see the signs of genteel wear: ground-in dirt on the edges of his white cuffs, a line of stitches holding together the knee of his right trouser leg, the strain around the waist as an ill-fitting shirt tried to stretch over his sizeable belly.

      He’d had a good night in our gambling hall, bent over a hand of cards at the poker table, not pausing to watch the stage snow or joining in the dancing. All for the good— he’d be more than eager to return.

      He tipped his hat to me. “Good morning, madam. May I compliment you on the quality of your establishment?” American. Very Boston Brahman. He spoke to me but watched Irene out of the corner of his small, dark eyes.

      “You certainly may,” I replied. “We’re closing temporarily, but I hope you’ll do us the honour of a return visit this evening.”

      “It would be my pleasure. Allow me to introduce myself. Tom Jannis, late of Boston, Massachusetts.”

      “Mr. Jannis.” I stepped around him, my hand on Mary’s arm.

      “Lady Irenee,” he said. “If you would allow me a small indulgence, I’d like to offer you a small breakfast.”

      Ray growled. I kept walking: let them sort it out.

      “Thank you for the offer, sir,” Irene said, in a simpering voice, “but I’m having breakfast with my boss, Mr. Walker here.”

      “Some other time perhaps,” Jannis said.

      I didn’t hear any more. Ray would not be pleased at being identified as Irene’s boss, as if breakfast with him were an obligation.

      Poor Ray. I suspected Irene had a secret lover. Almost certainly a married man, as she kept him so much under wraps that she’d been prepared to go to jail rather than use him as her alibi when she’d recently come under suspicion of a particularly heinous crime.

      Ray continued to live in hope.

      Don’t we all?

      * * *

      Angus MacGillivray hated working at the hardware store. His mother had insisted that he spend every morning, six days a week, helping out in Mr. Mann’s shop. The waterfront consisted of a sea of stores operated out of filthy СКАЧАТЬ