Page 11 of If Looks Could Kill
I glared sideways at Pearl. It didn’t matter. She humphed. Mass wasn’t church to her, the snob. The god of the Catholics wasn’t her god, though I didn’t see why not.
I could tell the saloonkeeper heard Pearl’s contempt, though his smooth-water face betrayed nothing. As for Sal, he looked like thunder.
“So we try not to stand in the way of God’s work,” the saloonkeeper said. “We treat your mission with dignity. You are always welcome here.”
“Thank you.” I took Pearl’s arm in mine. “We’ve taken enough of the gentleman’s time.” I could feel the word “Gentleman!” rising up from Pearl’s lungs like a curse word.
The saloonkeeper bowed. “Johnny Leone, at your service.”
“Um, Tabitha Woodward,” I replied. “At yours.”
Goodnight. I’d just offered my “service” to a pimp. Perhaps he wasn’t a pimp exactly, but the subdivisions of vice on the Bowery were hard to keep straight. Never mind. My one job was to get Pearl away from this Lion’s Den of iniquity, fast, before she landed us in trouble.
But she dug in her heels. “Wait.” She reached into her bag and pulled out two pamphlets.
Ohno.
“Purchase a copy ofThe War Cry.” She glared at the velvet suit. She wasn’t asking.
One corner of his mouth twitched slightly. “How much?” he drawled.
“One penny.”
He solemnly handed it over, took the offered tract, and tucked it into his coat.
“And you, sir?”
Pearl had actually thrustThe War Cryat Sal the Bouncer.
His lip curled as if the offered object were a steaming turd, not the Salvation Army’s newspaper. A quelling look from Johnny Leone made him fish in his pockets for a penny.
“Thank you both.” I pinned Pearl’s captive arm against my side. “Time for us to head home.”
Pearl tripped along complacently now. “That’s twelve for me and two for you.”
I glanced back to see Sal toss his paper down. Its pages fluttered away in the breeze.
“Yes, well,” I muttered as the Third Avenue El screamed by overhead, “if I looked like you, I’d…”
“How’s that?”
I sighed. “Nothing.”
Tabitha—The Jaws of Hell(Saturday, September 15, 1888)
We made our way along the darkening Bowery. Just us two, plus a thousand rivers of humans melting in and out of shops, hurrying to slop joints, flop joints, and dives, or ambling into sickly-sweet-smelling opium dens that wafted their perfumes into the mélange of corned beef, garlic, chop suey, horse manure, and stale beer that meant suppertime on the Bowery.
The whole encounter at the Lion’s Den had left me feeling antsy and agitated. As if there had been some message from the girl in the window that I had failed to see.
Electric lights sprang to life at concert saloons. A dime museum ballyman implored us to stop and see Vonda the Snake Charmer and Giselle the Gorgon of Gotham. His sales pitches sounded uncomfortably similar to how we would always urge people to attend our Army jamborees.
“Bloodstained shirts found in the Bennetts’ closet! And a billy club covered in blood!” bawled a newspaper boy at the corner where we waited to cross the street. “Two flour mill workers blown to smithereens in Cleveland mill explosion! Ten others injured! London police baffled by Whitechapelhorrors! New York tops baseball league standings, with Chicago and Detroit nipping at its heels!”
He was nine or ten, I would’ve guessed, with round cheeks red with cold and a shock of dark hair that could use a good scrubbing falling over one eye. He wore knickers and a pair of flannel shirts, one over the other, without any coat to speak of. Short-legged and barrel-chested, he looked for all the world like a miniature circus strongman.
“Brooklyn principal in the clink for whipping an innocent schoolkid black and blue!” continued the young salesman. “Get yourEvening Editionfor just one copper penny!”
He caught me watching him and favored me with a saucy wink, the little scoundrel. I confess I was quite smitten, so I fumbled in my little pouch for a penny. Pearl tutted disapprovingly. Frivolous reading. That’s what Mrs. Jessop, our captain at base camp, calls newspapers. Scarcely better than novels—penny dreadfuls, those tools of Satan. Would Pearl rat on me to Mrs. Jessop? Probably.
