Prima Donna Read online

  I dropped my portmanteau on the floor and took off my veiled hat, letting it fall. “Two dollars,” I said quietly, and he reached into his pocket, grunting again, and drew out a frayed leather wallet. When I went to take the money, he misjudged, dropping the greenbacks to the floor. I bent to pick them up and heard something scamper across the boards beneath the bed. He grabbed my shoulder so I fell into him, the dollars crumpled in my fist.

  He shoved his hand into my hair, pulling me up to kiss him, though I turned my head at the last minute so his tongue darted wetly across my cheek. He released me to fumble with his belt. In the confines of the room, he smelled powerfully of whiskey and dirty wool. He abandoned his fumbling and lay back again and said, “You’ll have to do it for me, girlie.”

  I shoved the money into my bodice and undid his belt, jerking it loose, unbuttoning his trousers. I was clumsy and slow, and he watched me with a sort of dumb fascination. Then I sat back on the bed and waited, and he reached down into the opening in his long underwear and drew out his cock, which was soft and flopping in his fingers.

  “Lift your skirts, girlie,” he said, struggling to sit up, stroking himself.

  I did as he asked, and when he motioned, I straddled him. He put his free hand about me, pulling me into his chest, breathing heavily in my ear. I smelled his gamy sweat and the stubble on his cheeks scraped my skin, while his mustache was wiry and coarse. There was a part of me that said I should not be here, that I would hate myself for this later, but I couldn’t bring myself to heed it. There would be time to feel sick over this tomorrow; just now this was all I had.

  My savior’s hand slipped into the slit in my drawers, his fingers tangling in my pubic hair before they slipped away again. He was heaving and grunting, his hand pumping so hard beneath me that his knuckles were bruising my inner thighs. “Go on then, girlie,” he gasped. “Go ahead and put me in. It’ll be all right. It’ll be—”

  But he was still soft and floppy and pathetic, and I murmured, “I think you’re too drunk for me tonight, mister.”

  “No, no,” he protested, still jerking away. “Jush a few … more … minutes….” Then his hand fell limply to his side, and he said, “You do it.”

  I eyed the door. I heard the rain pelting the roof. Looking out the window was like looking underwater. He reached into his pocket, pulling his flask out again. He took a swig and then he said, “Kiss it, girlie. I paid you for a fuck.”

  He passed his hand before his eyes, as if to still the room I guessed was swirling around him. He took another swig and reached for me, but he was too drunk, and his hand fell limply back to his side. He closed his eyes as he said, “Jush lay down here for a minute. Jush one minute … and I’ll … be ready….”

  I lay beside him. My dress was so wet it was plastered to me; the cold of it pressed into my spine, but I was tired and despairing and I couldn’t bring myself to move. At least I was out of the rain. The bed was narrow enough that I was nearly on top of him. Then he made a sound deep in his throat, and he was snoring.

  For a moment I felt nothing. And then came the push of anxiety, and with it the thought that I had only put off the inevitable, that I had made a mistake in coming to Seattle, one more bad decision in a long line of many. I had only wanted to get lost, to be as far away as possible, but I had not thought … I had never thought that someday my road might take me here, that I—who had once had everything—would be prostituting myself in the flea-ridden bed of a filthy, drunken stranger. The idea was so absurd that I could not stop the bubble of laughter that rose in my chest, and I turned to muffle the sound, to bury it in the stinking blankets so I wouldn’t wake him, and I was so busy trying not to wake him that it was some time before I noticed that it wasn’t laughter I was quieting, but tears.

  CHAPTER 2

  I woke from a restless sleep, vestiges of the past lingering in a half-remembered dream: blood and fear and panic, a pawnbroker’s calculating expression, someone shouting as I’d boarded the train.

  The man in bed beside me muttered in his sleep. It was dawn, the gray through the window lightening, the noise in the street lessening. I did not hear any rain.

  I rose as slowly and quietly as I could and eased my way to the door. The man didn’t stir, or at least, no more than he had before. I grabbed my hat from the floor and lifted my bag and tried the door, which stuck and groaned when I opened it, and I paused, sure he would wake, but he only turned onto his side and muttered again, and I went out into the hall way, closing it as best I could behind me.

  The hallway was silent, as dark as it had been last night. I tried not to make noise as I went down—the man with the beard was no longer in the chair, but now there were bodies lying about on the floor, all snoring and groaning and turning restlessly upon the warped boards.

  My clothes were still a good deal more than damp, and my scalp and the back of my neck and my shoulders itched from bites—fleas or bedbugs or both. I shoved open the door and went out onto the ramped walk, stepping over the two men passed out there. The streets were quiet. Horses slept where they stood, and men slept where they sat, but the whores that came out at night were gone and the saloons were mostly still. A dog rooted in the gutter, tossing garbage about before he latched onto something I did not want to look at too closely and went running off. Across the street, a Chinaman peered at me through a window and then lowered the shade.

  The dream still haunted me, and the world felt strange. Suspended. As if the clouds were only hesitating, gathering their strength to wrap the world in fog and rain again. I felt the stiffness of the two dollars between my breasts, and my stomach rumbled in hunger.

  I passed a sleepy grocer who was just opening his stall, and when he turned away I stole two apples, and I was so hungry I ate even the cores, in spite of the lean feral dog that sneaked from beneath a building to follow me in the hopes I might drop him a bite.

  “Between you and me, it’s me, pooch,” I told him, and after I finished the last of the apple, he disappeared.

  The food raised my spirits somewhat. Just now I could pretend last night had never happened; for the moment I had the strength to keep my memories and despair at bay. Later, I knew, it would not be so easy.

  I shook the thoughts away. Today, I meant to find a job, though I knew how I must look, and I had no illusions. Using my reflection in a window, I tried the best I could to put up my dark hair again, and wiped the dirt off my face with a part of my petticoat that was only wet and not smeared with mud. I did not put on the hat and veil. I no longer looked anything like the woman I’d been, and I doubted anyone in this part of town would penetrate my disguise. Still, it wasn’t until I’d passed several people who didn’t look twice at me that I relaxed. No one had followed me. No one had recognized me. Perhaps I hadn’t failed so irreparably in coming here. I’d begun to doubt that I could disappear, but now the hope of it returned.

  Before long, I reached a row of saloons—there must have been five built together, all ramshackle, all wooden; I hadn’t yet seen a building made of brick or stone—Billy the Mugs, Miner’s Saloon, Rough and Ready and two with no signs at all. As early as it was, they were open. I chose the Miner’s first, and I stepped through the door. The floor was crooked boards covered with sawdust that sifted into the gaps between them where it wasn’t clumping with spittle and spilled drink and mud. There were a few tables, and spittoons that looked as if they hadn’t been emptied in a good while. A balding, older man with a paunch wiped down the bar at the back. Written on a chalkboard behind him was: WHISKEY 25 CENTS. BEER 10 CENTS. NO FOOD DON’T ASK. Above these signs, near the ceiling, was a smaller one that read: M. J. PETERS, PROP.

  Sitting at the bar were three men hunched over their drinks. They glanced up idly as I came inside. Without thinking, I smiled at them. The habit was too ingrained. I regretted it the next moment, when I saw the quick light of interest in their eyes.

  One of the men sitting there swiveled on his stool. “Well, well. And I was
just feelin’ in the mood for a poke.”

  “Take it outside,” the bartender said. “This ain’t a brothel.”

  I said loudly, “I’m looking for a job.”

  “Oh, I got a job for you,” the man said, grabbing his crotch, and the others sitting near him laughed.

  I ignored them and appealed to the bartender. “You need a waitress?”

  “I don’t use waitresses here,” he said. “‘Specially ones lookin’ like you.”

  “Now, ain’t that a nasty scar,” purred the one who’d wanted a poke. “That’s all right, honey. I like ‘em rough.”

  He was filthy and his teeth were rotting. I could smell his stink from where I stood. I backed away and kept backing, clear into the street, muttering a hasty thank-you as I went.

  I tried every other place on the block, and into the next one over, and the replies were all the same. No one needed a waitress or anything else, most suggested I lie back on the bar and spread my legs, which was what I deserved for being both a woman and alone in this part of town, regardless of the widow’s weeds I wore, which did nothing to disguise my desperation. By midafternoon, I was tired and discouraged again. I went to the last few saloons and got only a shake of the head and a suggestion to try the brothels, “though with that scar, I don’t guess they’d want you.” I went farther up the hill, into the Chinese part of town, where carcasses of cooked ducks dripping grease hung in the windows, and the streets were lined with pens holding rooting pigs and trussed chickens and geese, and everywhere were Celestials who stared at me with unreadable eyes. I stumbled along twisted corridors between buildings that led to darkened stairs and narrow doors and the faint whiff of opium smoke that made me sick with memory. I could not stay there.

  It was growing late already, and it began to rain again. The smells of sewage and drink and tobacco and sweat were so thick in the air they seemed part of the rain. Men started to appear, swarming from their workplaces, and here and there a whore. The two dollars was safe in my bodice, and I still had twenty-five cents as well, so there would be no need for a repeat of last night as long as I could find a hotel that would take a lone woman, especially one as down on her luck as I obviously was. To be inside, to give in to sleep that came without nightmares …

  In my search I had moved steadily uphill, and now I turned the corner. Here the buildings were not crowded so closely together, some blocks nearly empty. There was another saloon, one I hadn’t seen before, a flat-roofed, two-storied building on stilts that lifted it five feet from the stinking mud and sewage-strewn street, with ramps leading to its doorway. A very large sign extended perpendicular to the street, block letters spelling out THE PALACE, though the name was its only claim to grandeur. The building was as mean as any other, the only difference being a small balcony at the corner of the second story.

  I nearly walked past it. It was late and I needed to find a room. I had no hope that my reception would be any different here than anywhere else. But I found myself walking toward it, going up its slippery ramp, opening the door to step inside.

  It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dimness, and then I saw a cluster of tables and a bar and sooty oil lamps flickering weakly. I felt the gritty slip of sawdust beneath my boots. One of the men playing cards looked up idly, then glanced away again, spitting in the general direction of a tarnished spittoon and missing completely.

  Then I saw something that made me pause, something I hadn’t expected. Looming out of the near dark to my left was a raised platform, and above it a narrow balcony, and my senses recognized it before my eyes did.

  A stage.

  It was small, but a stage nonetheless, though it was empty now. The balcony above was meant for an orchestra, and I saw a large dark shape there that could have been a piano, though I wasn’t certain. It was too dark.

  I felt the hunger then, that yearning that had informed my days and nights since I could remember, and I told myself to walk away. But of course I could not.

  I looked toward the bar, where two men stood, one washing glasses, the other leaning, though I couldn’t see their features from this distance in the dim light. I had spent a lifetime learning how to recognize the most important person in a room, and by the way the leaning man was still and watching, I knew he was the one. I made my way toward him. When I got there, I settled my bag on the stool and said, “I’m looking for a job.”

  The man washing glasses—not really a man yet, I saw now, more a boy, and one who looked to be at least partly Indian—glanced up. He jerked his dark head toward the man I’d spotted, who straightened lazily now—uncoiling, I thought uncomfortably, like a snake. His hair gleamed a reddish blond in the lamplight, his mustache was heavy but well kept.

  He was attractive, but as his gaze swept me, I had to force myself not to step back. This was going to be just the same as everywhere else, I knew.

  “A job doing what?” he asked.

  “I thought … as a waitress.”

  He raised a brow. “Does it look like I need a waitress?”

  “No,” I admitted.

  Suddenly something crashed behind me. Glass shattered. Instinctively, I ducked. The man-boy flinched and sank behind the bar. Someone yelled, “You son of a bitch!”

  The blond man cursed beneath his breath.

  I twisted to see. Near the stage, a table was upended, chairs turned on their sides. Glasses rolled about splashing whiskey or beer, cards scattered across the floor at the feet of men who were jerking back to form a circle around two who grappled and punched. Someone shouted, “Ease up, boys!” while someone else said, “You get ‘im, Eddie! Shove it down ‘is throat!”

  I heard the crack of a fist against bone, and one of them went flying into another table, sending it crashing while the men there swore and scooted out of the way. A spittoon tipped, splashing onto the floor and then rolling beneath their feet until someone tripped over it and sent it spinning into a corner.

  Behind me, I heard the boy say, “Shit. This is a bad one.”

  “That’s enough now, boys!” the blond man shouted, lunging across the floor, pushing his way into the circle.

  When they saw him, some of the men watching stepped away. I saw the trepidation on their faces, which seemed odd—just another bar fight, wasn’t it? But they looked frightened, and two who had been watching slunk away toward the door.

  One of the fighting men was on the floor now, the other on top of him, pummeling away. The blond man grabbed him by the shoulder, hurling him back so hard he slammed into another table before he fell groaning to the floor. The man he’d been punching lay there limply, moaning, and the blond asked in a quiet, deadly voice, “Who started it?”

  One of those watching pointed to the one the owner had thrown clear. “Eddie was cheatin’, Johnny.”

  “Was he now?” The blond man—Johnny—turned slowly to face Eddie, who began frantically to scramble away, falling and tripping over himself. Johnny was on him in a moment, pulling him upright, and then his hand was around Eddie’s throat.

  “He didn’t mean it, Johnny,” one of Eddie’s friends placated. “He’s just drunk. We’ll take him home and see he don’t come back here again.”

  Johnny ignored him. He kept his hold on Eddie’s throat, and while Eddie clutched at the fingers around his neck, Johnny leaned close. His voice was velvet as he said, “Now then, Eddie, didn’t I warn you before about making a ruckus?”

  Eddie tried to nod.

  “You’ll pardon if my memory ain’t as good as it used to be. Perhaps you can remind me—didn’t you promise me something not two weeks ago?”

  Eddie’s voice was hoarse as he gasped for air. “Not … to … cause trouble.”

  “But here you are, back again, making a ruckus and cheating my good customers. Can’t you keep a promise, Eddie?”

  Eddie’s throat worked. He tried to nod. “I … swear …”

  Johnny’s fingers didn’t ease. “Ah, I’d like to take your word, but an oath don’t
mean shit to you, it seems. You just proved tonight you can’t keep it, and I ain’t a simpleton either, Eddie, which you should’ve known before now.”

  “Johnny,” said one of Eddie’s friends. “Please—”

  “Shut up,” Johnny told him. He looked at the man squirming in his grasp. “Now maybe you want to give me a reason why I shouldn’t kill you right now.”

  The man’s eyes bugged. He pried at Johnny’s fingers.

  I felt the chill of dread, and I understood why those men had left so quickly. Surely he did not mean to—

  “I guess there ain’t one,” Johnny said.

  He put his other hand around that man’s throat, and no one stopped him; no one said a word as he tightened his fingers. Even I said nothing, but only watched in horror. I was certain he would quit at any moment.

  Eddie struggled and went to his knees. He grabbed Johnny’s fingers and sent a pleading look to the friend who had asked for his pardon. That man only looked away.

  It seemed to take so little effort. Johnny’s jaw stiffened, and his fingers grew white as the man’s face grew blue, and no one did anything at all. He’ll stop now, I thought. And then, Now. But he didn’t. No one protested or said a word as the man gasped for breath and struggled, kicking his feet out, and then, finally, when it seemed it was nearly over, Johnny suddenly released him. Eddie fell to the floor with a heavy thud, clutching his throat, choking, wheezing. The others backed away as if afraid his touch might pollute them.

  Johnny said, “Consider this my last warning, Eddie. Show your face in here again, and I won’t leave you breathing.” He glanced at the man’s friends. “Get him the fuck out of here.”

  The two scrambled to grab Eddie, nearly carrying him in their haste to be gone, and I had to remind myself to breathe again.

  Johnny strode back to the bar, and the silent, careful watching of the customers broke like a spell. The men moved, shifting to other tables, coming up to the bar. I watched Johnny pour the drinks and smile and talk to them all as if he hadn’t nearly murdered someone just moments ago, or as if he’d done such things a hundred times before.