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Page 16.

Kate Morgan stepped from the servants’ entrance of a splendid mansion in a better neighborhood of Detroit. The day was done. She was among several other female domestics who bid each other good night.

Kate wore a coat over her domestic’s garb, and strode briskly down a tree-lined, cobblestone street that was damp from rain and littered with bright yellow and dull russet leaves. After a few blocks, on a main cross street, she boarded an electric trolley. She sat among a crowd of people employed much like she was. She felt anonymous, though she still looked around fearfully from time to time. As she and her fellow passengers rocked about, she thought about her grand scheme. How could she pull off a job on Spreckels? It must be carefully planned, effective, and safe. No doubt, the more important the man, the more he would worry for his reputation. Suppose a big man like that got a girl in trouble. Wouldn’t other companies cancel their orders from him? What would his wife think? What if he had daughters? It must be humiliating. She felt a bit like Archimedes, who’d said something like “Give me a big enough lever, and I can move the world.” The love notes were her lever, but were they lever enough? The trolley hummed on its tracks along pleasantly littered streets, among the cozy-lit windows of good homes, and into a shabbier part of Detroit. There, she got off and walked deeper and deeper into the heart of the working people’s quarter. On the way to her rented room in a boarding house for women domestics of virtue, she spotted a random tavern and decided her tired whistle could use a cool, tasty, sudsy beer.

May Wyllie and John Longfield stood huddled in the same covered archway where she had confronted him a day earlier. She had summoned him again. John said: “How is she, May?”

May said: “She’s with our Aunt Louisa in Grand Rapids. My poor mother gets crazier by the day.”

John said: “I’m a stupid bastard. If you want me to throw myself off a bridge, I’ll gladly do it if it will help.”

“We need to have it taken care of. She can’t go through all that again.”

John said: “I have no money or means to help, May—I’m sorry. I cherish your sister very much. I’ll do anything I can.”

May said: “Can I trust you then, Mr. Longfield? Will you do one thing right for us all?”

John said: “On my heart, I swear it. On my dead mother’s grave.”

May said: “I know a woman in Cleveland, who is very good at helping girls in trouble. She’s a school-taught nurse, clean, and knows what she is doing. She’ll finish in less than hour if all goes well. Lizzie needs a man with her on the trip. Can you take her there and watch out for her?”

“On my soul, May. Have you got the money for it? I sure don’t.”

May reluctantly held up a wad of money in a gilded clip. “My savings. I took up a collection from my girl friends. Promise me you will use it to help my sister.” She handed it over. “Lizzie was nearly destroyed last time, having the baby and then giving it up because that’s what they made her do. She couldn’t go through that again, and she is nowhere near ready to have a child, especially unmarried, no money, and on her own. It’s our only chance to save her life and her reputation.”

John took the money clip. “On my life, May. I’ll be on the train to Grand Rapids first thing to get Lizzie. I pray all goes well. I’ll leave the poor angel alone.”

“If you screw up, Mr. Longfield, you’ll have me to deal with.”

“I know it, May. I promise I’ll be good.”

In a Detroit tavern, men and women sang rowdy songs amid beer and good cheer as Kate walked to a side counter of the bar. Waiting her turn, she ordered food and drink. She looked around at the pool players and card players and dark players. She bought a beer, and a German sausage on a roll with spicy mustard. Then she found herself a little table in a corner and dug in with hunger and thirst.

She began to notice a man playing cards at a nearby table. He kept peeling bills off of a gilded clip, and he was losing. Kate watched in detached amusement as the man looked increasingly desperate. He was a handsome, if disreputable looking fellow, with a nice face, a pencil mustache, and heavy beard shadow. He had seductive, boyish, dark blue eyes and strong but soft white hands. Kate looked his lean, well-proportioned body up and down in his wool, herringbone suit. He lost—again and again. And he’d had a few beers too many, but he was holding his liquor well. She liked that in a man. He didn’t seem like the violent type, and he looked like he needed a hand.

Kate finished her sandwich and washed it down with a rich, heady mug of beer with a thick mustache of white foam on it. She felt tired from her day’s work, but eating and drinking and being around people made her feel better again. She liked being among people, though she did not form relationships with them, unless it was through the filter of her disguises and ruses, by which she could control the situation. This man interested her, and she daydreamed about having him in bed with her.

The man angrily rose and tossed his cards aside. Unlike Tom, this one looked sort of helpless and harmless in his anger. He stomped to the bar. He ordered a beer and stood darkly sucking on it, wrapping himself around it as if nursing his wounded feelings. Several times, he glanced resentfully at the red-haired man who had cleaned him out. Red was already taking yet another man’s money while grinning smugly and taunting him softly. Kate felt her pulse quicken as she read her blue-eyed man’s mind. She watched as Blue-Eyes sneaked out the back door. She quickly grew more and more interested. From the trapped look in his eyes, she had an idea what the beaten young man was planning.

Shortly, Red rose and picked up his coat. He bid his fellow card players good night and headed for the door. Kate thought he looked smug and mean-eyed as he shoved the door open on his way out. Kate rose with her beer and sidled over to the window. Pulling the curtain slightly aside, she peered out. Red walked past the window toward the trolley station, whistling, with his head held high. Blue-Eyes moved stealthily after him.

Kate drained her beer, wiped her wrist across her mouth, grabbed her purse, and sidled out the door.

Red walked happily toward the lights of a distant street and trolley stop. His path ran along a sidewalk that made a wide curve around a dark church yard full of shadowy bushes.

Kate moved after him like a shadow among shadows. In a few seconds, she spotted her man hunkering under the shadows of the purplish blocks of the church wall. It was clear he planned to jump the red-haired man in a few seconds as he rounded the curve, but he looked desperate and unsure of himself. This was no fearless Tom Morgan with guns, and he endeared himself to her instantly. Blue-Eyes hunkered under a large tree, veiled in darkness. Blue-Eyes looked at her as if caught with his pants down. She almost laughed at his bunny-like face of pale terror. He’d already missed his chance. Red was several seconds past on his way to the trolley station.

Kate walked up to blue-eyes, staying on the sidewalk. “I saw you lose your money. I know what you’re about to do.”

He said: “Lady, I need that money back. It’s life or death.”

“Let me help you out.” She hailed the red haired man: “Sir!” Kate’s new companion ducked back down.

Red turned. “Yes?” His face flickered through a range of expressions and possibilities.

Kate said: “I think you lost something here in the bushes.”

Red licked his lips with nervous hunger. “I did, did I?”

Kate said: “Something mighty nice, for a very small price.”

Red said: “I’ll have to come look at it then.”

Kate said: “You’ll be a happy man, and I’ll be a happy gal—we could even split a beer afterward.”

Red came back down the sidewalk. “A sweet way to end a lovely night!” Face radiant with expectation, he put his arm around Kate’s waist. She touched the hardness in his pants, and he moaned. Together, they stepped into the bushes and darkness under the great tree. She heard the ragged sawing of his excited breath. He moaned with anticipation. He leaned eagerly down to put his lips on Kate’s mouth. Just the right moment, she thought as she cold-cocked him with a hard fist. He staggered backward with fluttering eyes.

Blue-Eyes rose up from behind and hit him with a brick, dropping him cold. He pulled Red’s body deeper into the bushes.

Kate said: “Don’t kill him. Just grab the money. He’ll stay put a while.” From her copious experience with men, Red would not report that he was mugged by a prostitute in the bushes outside a church. His shame would overcome his moral outrage. Pecker pride was a man’s Achilles Heel.

Her new partner in crime emerged, counting his wad of money.

Kate stretched forth her palm and said: “My share.”

He stared at her, open-mouthed.

Kate said: “Don’t even think of stiffing me. I helped you get your money back, that you lost in there. I want my cut. Or I’ll start screaming bloody murder. And if the guy’s dead...”

He said: “Aw hell, he’s alive. Just out cold. Here, thank you, I wasn’t thinking—I’ll give you five. How’s that?”

Kate said: “Ten, or I start piping like a steam ship.”

He meekly handed over the money.

“What’s your name?”

“John Longfield. What’s yours?”

“Kate Morgan.” As they conversed, they walked into the street. Soon she felt comfortable with this John Longfield. She put her arm around his arm. “I have a feeling we’ll do well together, don’t you? I’m thirsty. How about sharing a beer?”

“Sounds good to me.” He winked. “I’ll buy. I made a few bucks on this deal. He cleaned a few others out.” John put his arm around her waist. “You won’t sock me, will you?”

It dawned on her—she’d made a mistake, and used her real name. Oh well, she thought, I’ll bed this stray cat one night, we’ll have our fun, and I’ll never see him again. She laughed. “Only if you deserve it.” She welcomed the sensuous touch of his hand, which timidly probed the curve of her waist, feeling the sturdiness of her torso. His fingertips probed as far as he dared down the softness of her belly. Then he ran his palm over the generous curve of her thigh and buttock. She pushed his hand away, but kept an arm around his waist. He felt hard and muscular. Her one hand lingered on the ridge of his hip, and with her other fingers brushed over the rocky flatness of his rippling abdomen. Kate said: “Let’s find a cozy little crib, and you can tell me all about yourself.”