Page 107 of If Looks Could Kill
They’ll never take me back.
I slid the letter into my pocket.
Cora yawned and stretched.
I rose to go. “You need sleep,” I told them.
I tucked the manila envelope into my coat, hugged it tightly to my body, said goodbye, and took my leave of Cora and Freyda.
Pearl—Into the Lion’s Den(Monday, December 3, 1888)
The Lion’s Den is quieter at midday. A few patrons nurse mulled drinks. Cold has frosted over the plate-glass windows. A pianist in a corner practices while a singing girl stretches her legs.
Pearl looks up and down the barroom, taking in the velvet-curtained stage and the polished bar. She has entered every kind of saloon and tavern and stale beer joint and dive in the Bowery. The Lion’s Den’s expensive gleam sets it apart. More sophisticated. More false.
“Get you something, miss?” asks the barkeep.
“I want to speak to Johnny Leone.”
The barkeep’s expression stiffens. “He ain’t here.”
Pearl takes a seat at the bar. “I’ll wait.”
She feels her Medusa self coiled just below the surface, ready to strike.
A man sidles up to her. “What brings a pretty thing like you here?”
She turns and looks him straight in the eye. “Vengeance.”
He makes a show of starting to laugh, then remembers his own barstool is elsewhere.
“How long will it be,” she asks the barkeep, “before Mr. Leone returns?”
“How can I help you?”
She feels him standing behind her before she hears his voice. He is well named. There is something feline about him, moving about unseen, silent and watchful.
She turns toward him slowly and watches recognition dawn. “My Salvation Army friend,” he says smoothly. “To what do I owe—”
“I need to speak with you,” she says. “Alone.”
He gestures with one long arm toward a high-backed corner booth. She follows him there, then slides into a seat. He folds his long limbs into the opposite one.
He wears a black shirt and black trousers with red suspenders and a red cravat. His long-fingered hands are manicured, and his dark hair gleams.
“What a coincidence that you should appear,” he says. “I thought of you this morning.”
Pearl hadn’t expected him to take control of the conversation. “That seems unlikely.”
“On the contrary,” says Johnny Leone. “When I lose a high-paying tenant because she tells me a pair of young Salvation Army Hallelujah girls came in, laid out her men, andshot the place up, naturally, I would think of you.”
Johnny Leone’s heavy-lidded eyes watch Pearl intently. He thinks he has her there.
“Rose is livid,” he adds. “Not the forgiving type. It wasn’t wise for you to come today.”
Pearl leans in closer. “Are you threatening me?”
He angles back and holds up his hands pacifically. “Not I,” he says. “Though I may send you the plasterer’s bill for the bullet holes. Which, by the way—guns? Do they issue you those along with your Bibles and your, what is it,War Crys?”
