Chapter Eleven

Unlocking the padlock, Sinclair freed the hasp and eased opened the door. He lifted the kerosene lantern to light the still figure stretched out on the cot. Downstairs, drunken shouts erupted, driving him further into the room and away from the noise. He closed the door behind him and listened. The girl’s breath was steady but faint.

Lifting a flimsy ladder-back chair with one hand, he positioned it beside the cot. Setting the lantern down on the small table, next to the water pitcher, he quietly lowered himself onto the chair. No need to take the risk of waking her even though the drugs meant that was unlikely to happen.

She lay on her back, her face relaxed. Damp tendrils of curly black hair trailed across her wide brow. Jutting cheekbones beside a somewhat long nose gave her face an angular look. A wide, full-lipped mouth looked like it would transform her whole face when she smiled. He gave his head a shake, stirring himself from his reverie. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d studied the face of a sleeping woman.

He picked up the tin pitcher and saw that it held a goodly amount of doctored water. He brought it to his lips. A little pick-me-up would be good. But he arrested his motion and put it down. He had to meet Farley soon. It wouldn’t do to display dilated pupils and a dreamy air. Especially since Farley was unhappy that he’d failed again.

There’d been no chance tonight. Rachel hadn’t left the laundry by herself. That older woman who ironed lace stuck to the girl’s side the whole way back to the boarding house. He’d stood across the street watching them enter the building. The older woman never came back out. Apparently she was staying at the same place.

It wasn’t a place that he could sneak into. Two stories tall, covered with weathered gray clapboard, its sole entrance opened directly onto the boardwalk. There were so many ravines in Portland that they’d taken to erecting buildings on stilts. This was one of them. There was a rickety set of wooden stairs up the back of the building but those stairs passed by a number of open windows. Someone would see him. Besides, he had no way of knowing which room was hers.

Sinclair shifted on his chair beside the bed, deliberately relaxing his clenched jaw. Damn, he was beginning to hate this sweltering town. One problem after another. That’s not how he worked. He had a system. It relied on flirting, cheerful patter, lies and false promises. All this drugging and imprisoning—that was the job of the whorehouse owners once he’d turned the women over. His job was to catch the girls and deliver them, light and easy. It was their job to keep them.

Loud shouts erupted below causing him to glance toward her. She hadn’t moved but her eyes were open. Her gaze sharpened as the dilated pupils in her dark brown eyes contracted. He quickly reached for the pitcher, shoved his arm beneath her head, raising it so she could drink. She swallowed, her eyes never leaving his face.

He turned away to break that connection—making a show of carefully setting the pitcher back down. When he looked at her again, he breathed a sigh of satisfaction. Her eyes were already fluttering. She was dropping off to sleep, moving back down that long dark velvet tunnel. After his day’s frustrations, he envied her.

The large dark eyes opened and skewered him with an intensity that froze all thought. Her lips parted and one, soft word reached his ears. “Why?” she breathed before closing her eyes.

“Well howdy do. Where’ve you been keeping yourself, John Miner?” said a boozy voice as soon as he sat down at an empty corner table.

Sage looked up from beneath his battered hat, “Hey there, Ivy. You know how it is. A man’s got to work wherever he can. I’ve been out in the woods dodging logs.” After a few more such pleasantries she left to fetch his beer. Taking a sip, he couldn’t stop from making a face. It was far below the standard set by the rural breweries. He didn’t care. He was too tired to drink it anyway. Damn it had been a long day. Much longer than expected.

The visit with Solomon had gone well enough. He was confident that the railway porters were now on the alert for Rebecca Levy. If anyone had seen her on the streets, down near the docks or taken away on a train, Solomon would learn of it.

The day had stretched into an endless trudge. Noontime found Sage at Mozart’s Table where he donned his host attire and manned his podium, a genial smile plastered across his face. It was a busy noon dinner hour, the tables full and turning over fast. Their restaurant was a favorite of upper crust idlers as well as downtown’s wealthy merchants. The décor was gilt framed copies of old masters, dark walnut wainscoting, pale green plaster walls and crystal chandeliers. Evenings added a string quartet playing classical music on the small balcony above the diners. Everything about the restaurant pandered to the city elites’ perception of themselves as superior to Portland’s commoners. He wasn’t always comfortable with the ruse but the access it gave him to the doings of the city’s wealthy yielded valuable information inaccessible by any other means.

The dinner hour over, he made his way to the kitchen. Sergeant Hanke’s broad back was his first sight when he entered through the swinging doors. The policeman sat at the small table before a heaping plate of Ida’s leftovers. As usual, between bites, the big policeman was praising Mozart’s cook.

“Miz Ida, I have to tell you that never have I had such tender pot roast. It practically floats right into my mouth,” he was saying.

“Oh pshaw,” she said, waving a dish rag at him. “You said the exact same thing last week.” Despite the dismissal, her round cheeks colored.

Ida Knutson was an excellent cook and fine human being Sage thought, not for the first time. She, her husband Ike and her nephew Mathew lived in Mozart’s second floor apartment, right below the floor occupied by Sage, Mae and Fong. Ike Knutson worked long hours in a shingle factory. There he fed wood shake bolts into twin saw blades—a terrifyingly dangerous job requiring unrelenting concentration.

Hanke’s large jaws chewed calmly, like a full cow in a big grass pasture. The sergeant was both tall and sturdy, his placid Germanic face topped by thick sandy hair. His shambling gait, mild blue eyes and somewhat bovine countenance were misleading. In critical situations he proved to be quick thinking, brave and capable. And, despite taking regular advantage of Mozart’s leftovers, his first loyalty was always to the law. Sage could get him to bend on the finer points of implementation but he knew better than to push the big policeman’s integrity any further.

“But Miz Ida,” Hanke protested once he’d swallowed, “That’s the whole point. Every meal you cook, the food gets better. Eventually, I’ll turn up one day and find a band of angels sitting at this table, forks at the ready.”

That compliment left the cook speechless. She shook her head and turned toward the sinks. “Good heavens, he’s turned Irish on me what with all his blarney,” she muttered loud enough for Hanke to hear.

Sage took the chair opposite the policeman. Hanke smiled but didn’t slow his shoveling.

“Sergeant, you’re just the man I was hoping to see.”

Those words made the big jaws stop working and the blue eyes sharpen. Hanke swallowed and said, “Oh-oh. What law are you wanting me to break this time?”

“Nary a single one,” Sage assured him. “I need you to educate me about the business of white slavery.”

Hanke grimaced, put down his fork and wiped his mouth. “Actually, I’ve been learning about that trade my own self. Some local ladies formed a branch of the Society for Social Hygiene. One of them has made it her job to make sure I am up to snuff concerning that business.” The roll of his eyes said that he’d heard more than he wanted.

“Well, what about it?” Sage prodded.

“It exists,” the sergeant said before opening his maw and filling it with whipped potatoes.

“Come on, you should be happy I’m only asking you to talk. Usually, my requests require more effort on your part. In fact you, as an officer of the law, should be falling all over yourself to enlighten me.”

Hanke sighed heavily. “Well, then, since you put it that way.” He dabbed at his lips with the napkin, swallowed some water and said, “As you know, ‘white slavery’ is the name given the practice of forcing women into prostitution. They’re not all white, either. The ‘slavery’ part comes from the fact that they keep the women behind locked doors and beat them if they don’t cooperate. Or, they’re given so much opium that they become enslaved to it and don’t want to leave. Once the panderer has sold them to a slaver, the women are told they must go with men to pay off the slaver’s expense of capturing them and clothing them in gaudy clothes.”

Sage leaned forward, asking, “Where do these women usually come from and how are they captured?”

“Mostly they come from farms and small towns. Some of them are lured here by newspaper ads,” here Hanke’s big finger tapped the newspaper that lay atop the table. He picked it up, snapped it open and read:

Wanted: Lady partner for vaudeville sketch—one who can sing and play piano preferred. Must have good appearance. Will furnish wardrobe for stage and street.

Tossing the paper down, Hanke said, “That’s a perfect example. A gal reads that ad and hops a stagecoach or train all excited about starting a new life. She gets to town all starry-eyed and a slick-tongued panderer immediately latches on to her. Or else, the panderer travels into the countryside to woo some ignorant girl with promises of a job or marriage. She jumps on the train with him and next thing she knows, she’s a prisoner in one of the whorehouses.”

“So, if a girl taken by a panderer is still in the city, we’d find her locked up in a whorehouse?”

Hanke nodded. “That’s where I’d look. Some places, like Miss Lucinda’s, the women want to be there,” The policeman screwed up his lips before continuing, “For a white slave gal, though, you’d want to look in the cribs attached to the saloons or those crummy houses catering to men without much money.”

Pearl-gray light washed across the eastern sky, heralding another day. Neither Mae nor Rachel smiled at the sight. Both women were tired and still sleepy as they walked toward another ten hours of work in sweltering heat.

“Thank you for keeping me company, Mae. I don’t think I could have spent another night alone in that room. I miss her so. I’m sorry my yakking kept you up so late,” Rachel said.

Mae took the other woman’s hand and squeezed it. “You’d do the same for me if the positions were reversed. Besides, we had to hear what Mr. Miner had to say.”

“Yes, thank you for him too. Now that I know so many people are looking for Becky, I have some hope.” She sighed and changed the subject. “It was nice of him to bring your clothes.” That comment was heavy with an unspoken question.

Mae chuckled, “Yes, he can be a right helpful fellow when he’s got a mind to be.”

A bit later Mae cleared her throat and said, “I have to ask, Rachel. Are you sure you want to keep on doing this union work?” She hurried to add, “We’d all understand if you are too upset over Rebecca.”

For a few minutes, Rachel walked in silence without responding, the morning croak of frogs in the swamp along the river the only sound. When she finally spoke, the words were calm and measured. “The women and men we work with are good people doing the best they can to stand on their own two feet. They deserve better. My father taught us that greed is a goal with no end, the very evil that brought about the Sodomites’ downfall. If my sister . . . ,” here she faltered, swallowed and finished, “If my sister were here, she’d say I should keep fighting.”

Mae glanced at the young woman’s determined profile that was strong and sculpted as a granite statue. “Well, back home, my pa used to say that the only way to clear a cornfield is one rock at a time. Guess you and I will be hauling us a wagonload of rocks in the days ahead.”

“Your father was a farmer?”

Mae laughed. “Not exactly. He planted a little bit of corn all right but mostly he added to his miner’s wages by cooking it up in small batches of moonshine. There were ten of us kids.”

“Is your father still alive?”

That question always brought such a stab of pain. It had been years, but still the wound was raw. “He’s dead. Killed by the mine owner’s thugs because he fought for a union in the mines,” Mae said.

Down by the river, the saw mill’s whistle tooted. Both women stepped up their pace. Neither looked behind so, neither woman saw Paul Sinclair slinking after them.