Page 51 of If Looks Could Kill
I held my breath.
“Mind you,” Veronique said, “she may be the greatest quack of them all.”
“I’ll take that chance.”
“She’s Stella,” Veronique said. “I remember, because Gigi gave her a nickname. Stella the Swell. Because she lives on Lafayette Place, you see, where the mansion townhomes are.”
Stella. Lafayette Place. There could be thirteen dozen Stellas on Lafayette Place.
I seized Veronique’s hand and shook it. “Thank you,” I told her. “I’m in your debt.”
“Perhaps,” she said with a smile, “if your friend visits this Stella woman, it might satisfy her enough to leave Giselle alone.” Her features softened with pity. “Good luck to your friend.”
“Thank you,” I told her. “She needs it.”
Tabitha—The Crib(Sunday, December 2, 1888)
The rear entrance to the Curiosity Musée spat me out into a grimy alleyway. I made my way to the end of the block and back onto the garish Bowery. It took only a few minutes to reach the Lion’s Den on Spring Street.
Through the etched windowpanes and shaded lights I saw a thick swarm of people inside, but they seemed animated only by the ordinary, cheerful roar of a Bowery tavern on a Sunday evening. No chaos on display.
Another door stood at the building’s right edge. Dark, peeling, and barely noticeable. I pressed my ear against it and tested the knob gingerly.
It clicked. The door opened, and a man’s body slumped forward and rolled out, spilling down from a dark set of stairs, landing skull-first on the pavement.
I believe I screeched a little bit.
He was dead. At least, it seemed he must be.
In the murky light from the tavern windows, I peered at the body. He was no one I’d seen before. A gruesome-looking sonofagun, with perhaps a face a mother could love when he wasn’t scared stiff—literally—by a mythical monster.
I pinched his wrist and hovered a hand above his mouth. Still breathing. Heart beating.
Welcome to the Bowery, the only neighborhood in the world where a Salvation Army girl can drag a man’s body down the street, plainly visible to anyone who cares to look, and attract no particular comment. Where the raucous, rowdy throng were so accustomed to drunkards passed out on the curb that they gave me not so much as a second glance.
That unpleasant task accomplished, I returned to the door. I swallowed down my terror, and up into the dark mouth of the pitch-black stairs I went.
Every footfall seemed to wail. I paused near the top, straining to hear any sound.
There was noise from the tavern below, of course. Loud singing, laughter, a tuneless piano. Sounds from the street—the swell and ebb of conversations of people passing by. But nothing above.
I reached the top. My foot searched in vain for one more step and landed with a stomach-dropping fall on the floor. I righted myself, but I couldn’t see anything in the dark.
The stairs seemed to have brought me directly into a flat rather than a hallway. Dimly, I sensed furniture ahead and another room beyond this one.
I felt an awareness of my presence that made me tremble.
I could turn around, run down the stairs, and escape. I nearly did.
I heard the striking of a match, then saw a glimmer of light up ahead, underneath a door.
Two vice-grip arms seized me from behind. A thick, rough hand clapped itself over my face, and the other arm pinioned my two arms to my sides.
I thrashed and tried to scream, but the man’s roughness scared me senseless. His chin stubble scraped my cheek, and his foul breath dampened my ear as he spoke.
“Keep still,” he growled softly. “Now, what have we here? Another one?”
Both his hands were occupied, yet he gyrated himself about to rub his forearms and body against me. Appraisingly.
