Madam (30 page)

She neither saw nor heard anything as she flew out of the Alley and over to Rampart Street. She didn’t notice if she spoke to the woman at the front of the cigar shop, all she knew was that she collapsed into Eulalie’s arms, sobbing.

Eulalie wasn’t typically the motherly sort, but there was something so vulnerable about this girl who’d first come to her trying to be tough as old leather. Eulalie tightened her grip around Mary, smoothing her long, dark hair.

Mary couldn’t remember the last time she was hugged like this. She felt the locket pressed against her chest and imagined the arms to be Mama’s.

When Mary finally had no more tears to cry and she was able to breathe deeply enough to speak, she no longer wanted to tell Eulalie about the locket or to ask for help in saving her crib or finding work. Instead, she talked about Peter.

“Oh, Miss Echo,” she sighed, fighting back another crying spell. “When will I get over this pain?”

Eulalie gripped Mary’s shoulders. “You’ll never get over it, child.”

Mary’s heart sank. She was hoping there would be some remedy, some concoction Eulalie could make that would ease the torment or at least lessen it enough that she could lay her head down and sleep without fitful, sweaty dreams.

“Never?” Mary asked, her lip trembling.

Eulalie stepped closer then, looking into Mary’s face. “But you will get through it. And then it will become part of you. It will make you who you’re supposed to be.”

C
HAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Milkman on Esplanade Avenue

“S
o, what are you planning to do after Venus Alley is shuttered?” Tom Anderson asked Snitch. Anderson was having his morning coffee and eggs at the bar, the
Times-Democrat
newspaper spread before him. For the past week, Snitch had been hanging around Anderson’s Saloon as if he were looking to ingratiate himself.

“Mistah Anderson, you know what they say ’bout New Orleans? ‘When you need something all ya gotta do is holla out your back door.’ Well, all them ladies in the fancy houses, who d’ya think they’re gonna be hollerin’ for?”

Anderson couldn’t help but chuckle at the boy’s inadvertent double entendre.

“See, my plan is I’ll get them anything they want, Mistah Anderson. All they gotta do is holla.”

Anderson considered Snitch’s idea. “I think that dog’ll hunt,” he said with a nod. “You could make a whole little delivery company of sorts.”

Snitch’s mouth formed an
O
. “You mean with people workin’ for me and all? Just like you, Mistah Anderson?”

“Now, don’t go gettin’ ahead of yourself.” Anderson sopped up egg yolk with a chunk of bread then shoveled it into his mouth the way men do when there are no women present. “You want to know the secret to business?”

Snitch’s head frantically bobbed up and down.

Anderson leaned toward him to impart his words of wisdom. “Always remember, pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.”

Snitch’s face scrunched in confusion.

“It means,” Anderson explained, “don’t get greedy.”

“Aaah,” Snitch said, letting the lesson sink in. “I’ll be a pig. Just you wait and see, Mistah Anderson, I’ll be a pig!”

Mary lay underneath a thin-as-a-rail john. He moved like a squirrel, skittish and darting about, and it was fortunate his eyes were squeezed shut so that he couldn’t see Mary’s twisted face. She quickly realized there was no trying to match his lack of rhythm, so she surrendered to her kip, lying there idle as a rag doll. He didn’t seem to notice, or didn’t care; either way, he had prepaid, and that’s all Mary was concerned about.

A banging on the crib door hardly thwarted the squirrel, and Mary lazily called, “Busy! Come back in five minutes!”

But a man’s voice barked back, “Gotta talk now.”

The john was still stuttering about as Mary leaned up onto her elbows. “Said I’m busy!” she yelled, louder this time.

“This can’t wait,” the husky voice insisted.

She fell back onto the kip. “Sakes alive, what can’t wait?” she muttered. “Hey, mistah,” she said to the john on top of her. “You about ready to finish your business?” He was a mute squirrel, and she realized she’d need to coax him into wrapping up. “Come on, big fella, I know you want to,” she cooed.

“Bonnie!” he suddenly shouted.

Mary went with it. “Come on for Bonnie, come on!”

“Oh, Bonnie,” he cried. And then that was that. The moment he took a breath, Mary slipped out from under him, pulling her chippie up around her and tightening the wrap. She opened the door enough to stick her head out and was surprised to be face-to-face with Sheep-Eye, the creepy-looking brute always following around Tater.

“Mistah Anderson is requestin’ to see you,” he announced.

A worried line shot across Mary’s forehead. What could Tom Anderson possibly want with her? “’Bout what?” she asked.

Sheep-Eye shrugged. “Whaddaya think he wants with a huzzy?”

Mary dug a fist into her hip. Could Tom Anderson himself want a trick? There was a fluttering in her chest. From
her
? “When?” she asked.

“Tomorrow. Come by Anderson’s Saloon at ten.”

Mary bit her lip. “Can’t he come here? My crib is sparklin’ clean. Unless he wants to pay me extra for the time I’m away from my shift. That’s the busiest time of night, y’know.”

“Ten o’clock in the morning,” Sheep-Eye grunted.

Oh, an early bird. She could service that. Especially if that bird ruled the roost. Mary nodded, and Sheep-Eye turned to go.

She resisted the urge to call him back over to ask, Why me? She and Anderson had never exchanged so much as a hello. And there were so many beautiful and classy ladies swarming around him—how could she possibly compare? But instead, she watched Sheep-Eye trudge off, his thick body swaying like a pendulum.

“I want to see you in three days.”

Startled, Mary turned around to face the squirrel, having forgotten he was even there. “Right, mistah. See, tomorrow’s the last day—”

“Fine, tomorrow, then,” he said.

“I’ll be here. . . . That is, Bonnie’ll be here. Sundown to sunup.”

All night Mary drifted into dreamy thoughts of Tom Anderson. How right fine he had looked in his crisp suit at the Countess’s party. She’d never associated with people rich enough to wear dinner jackets and bow ties, and just the outfit alone would have made her stop and look at Anderson. But there also was no denying that he was perhaps the most handsome man she’d ever laid eyes on. As the girls on the Alley would say, he was finer’n frog’s hair. But of course, he would hardly be Tom Anderson without his prestige and power, and for Mary to be face-to-face with the lord of the Underworld, well, there wasn’t a Spanish fly more potent than that!

In between johns, Mary tried to catch some beauty sleep. It wasn’t good for business not to be out on the stoop flaunting herself, but she allowed her mind to wander a dozen steps ahead—if Anderson took a fondness to her, could she become his mistress? On his payroll even, just like Tater?

As the sky began to lighten, she found herself growing giddy with excitement. A sloppy, chubby john’s body that threatened to crush her morphed into Anderson’s tall, taut physique. An odorous, whiskery man became a powerful chieftain. By sunup, she’d serviced an imaginary Anderson six times over.

She cleared out of the crib earlier than usual, barely feeling the weight of the kip on her back as she hurried home. Charlotte and the baby were asleep, and Mary attempted to squeeze in some shut-eye, but she could only stare at an intricate cobweb dangling in the ceiling beam. When baby Anna began to whimper, Mary tended to her, having herself given up on sleep. By the time Charlotte stirred, Mary had already ironed her best dress and was heating water for a bath.

Charlotte’s eyes grew wide as Mary relayed the news, and the two set about a grooming process, the intimate likes of which they hadn’t orchestrated since it was Charlotte in the tub, preparing for her wedding night. Mary was scrubbed and filed, her hair washed and combed and the straggly ends trimmed off with shears. She washed her face with lemon and two pinches of sugar until her cheeks shone, and then scrubbed her teeth with a scoop of bicarbonate soda on her index finger. Then she powdered herself all over with talcum.

When her hair was dry, Charlotte counted one hundred strokes with the brush, then tightly braided Mary’s hair into sections, wrapping them into a flawless bun atop her head. She then twisted ringlets around her fingers to frame Mary’s face, and a little castor oil did the trick to smooth back flyaways. Mary was then corseted, the strings pulled tight—and with shined shoes, holeless stockings, and rose oil dabbed at her ears and wrists, she stepped back for Charlotte to have a final look.

Nearly welling up, Charlotte gave a motherly nod. “You look beautiful,” she said softly. As Mary left the house, Charlotte called after her, “Now, don’t go mussing your hair. You pretend like you don’t even have hair on your head!”

She hadn’t told Charlotte about the locket—or that she was wearing it.

Mary wasn’t used to the city at this hour. It was a genteel scene as she strolled through the French Quarter, nodding at shopkeepers and restaurant owners as they lingered outside their doors, awaiting the rush of the day’s business.

Anderson’s Saloon was no different, spit-spot clean and still empty. While the Alley bars tended to have the regular drunkards who didn’t care about waiting for a respectable hour to start drinking—or who didn’t even know what time it was in the first place—Anderson’s was a classy establishment where patrons didn’t trickle in until at least after the lunch hour. Mary approached the barkeep, and it wasn’t until she heard the quiver in her own voice that she realized how nervous she was. “I’m here to see Mistah Tom Anderson.”

The barkeep barely looked at her. He called across the bar, “Girl says she’s here for the boss.”

In the back, from behind his half-open door, Tater’s mug peeked out. Both he and Mary tried to conceal any sort of expression, even though each one—unbeknownst to the other—was inspired to well up. Tater trudged from the room, motioning for Mary to come over. She’d gathered that the closed door next to Tater’s was that of Anderson’s office—she’d caught a peek in there before—and sure enough, Tater gave the door a rap.

“Mistah Anderson, here’s the Venus Alley girl you asked after.”

Mary caught herself holding her breath. To hear Tater announce her like that was disquieting. Had he told Anderson about their deal? Is that what this was about? She looked searchingly at Tater, only he wouldn’t meet her eyes and, instead, abashedly turned his head.

Mary tried to parse her thoughts—was she here to be the coy call girl, or was she here to plead her case, plead for mercy? The door opened, and there stood Anderson, freshly shaven and dressed in pressed trousers, a spotless white shirt, and suspenders, looking every bit as handsome and intimidating as Mary had envisioned. He gestured for her to come in, and his professional manner, which would have otherwise seemed refreshingly polite, now appeared suspect. She almost wished he’d eyed her up and down and then led her to a back room with a cot; at least then she’d know her purpose. Instead, he said, “Please have a seat.”