IT WAS LATE EVENING.
Blake Street resembled a carnival without the tents. Knots of men clogged the boardwalks and music blared from inside the brightly lit dives. An air of rowdy celebration boosted the noise level to a deafening pitch.
Clint was no longer a stranger to the sporting district. After three nights on the job, he’d become a familiar figure along Blake Street. He made the rounds several times every evening, careful to avoid a set pattern. No one knew when he would appear, or where, and the element of surprise tended to keep people on their toes. All the more important, it gave him the edge whenever trouble developed.
Quite quickly, Clint had discovered what any veteran peace officer already knew: saloons were fairly tame places, for whiskey alone was seldom the culprit. Instead, it was the volatile mix of liquor and women that provoked trouble. Fist-fights and knock-down-drag-out brawls occurred most frequently in dance halls and whorehouses. All such establishments had resident bouncers, but the donnybrooks sometimes got out of hand. He made it a practice to be johnny-on-the-spot.
So far, he’d arrested fourteen men for disturbing the peace. Those who resisted arrest, obstreperous drunks and hard-ass troublemakers, were unceremoniously cold-cocked. At first, he had used his fists, but skinned knuckles on a nightly basis seemed impractical. Switching to something more substantial, he now laid the barrel of his Colt across their skulls. It was fast and persuasive, and left an indelible impression on bystanders. For the first time in the town’s history, the jail had a regular clientele. And in three nights, he’d earned twenty-eight dollars in court fees.
Yet none of the altercations had turned serious. The businesslike manner in which he’d killed Sam Baxter was the talk of the sporting district. His reputation, rather than the badge pinned on his shirt, served as a deterrent. People spoke of his cool, no-nonsense attitude and rated him very sudden with a gun. The men he had arrested thus far appeared reluctant to carry it beyond fisticuffs. Still, he had no illusions on that score. He knew it was only a matter of time.
The war had taught Clint an essential lesson: where rough men congregate, there was a certain daredevil mentality. Inevitably, the bull-of-the-woods felt compelled to try himself against the cock-of-the-walk. Sooner or later, the same thing would happen in the sporting district. Someone would work up the nerve to test Clint not with fists, but with a gun. The lure of it was irresistible, and eventually some self-styled tough nut would challenge him. When it happened, he planned to kill the man swiftly, without a moment’s hesitation. He figured an object lesson would serve to put the sporting crowd on notice.
Tonight, strolling along Blake Street, he had only one reservation. While he liked the job and actually enjoyed the duties of a peace officer, there were aspects of the sporting district beyond his control. In talking with Earl, he’d learned that a man named Ed Case was undisputed boss of the netherworld. Further, though it was unstated, he sensed that a certain animosity existed between Earl and Case. Apparently it had something to do with the payoffs that Case’s goons collected every week.
To date, Clint hadn’t had occasion to call on Case. The Progressive Club and the Palace, both of which were owned by Case, were among the quieter dives on Blake Street. Insofar as Clint was concerned, it was just as well. He wanted nothing to do with the payoffs or the politics of the sporting district. In his view, that was the business of Case and the crowd in city hall.
All the same, he wondered whether Case would be satisfied to live and let live. He’d already decided that he wouldn’t brook any interference with respect to his job. Nor would he be influenced by Case, or the uptown politicos, when it came to enforcing the law. To his way of thinking, everybody danced to the same tune, regardless of connections. He thought Case would be wise to leave the matter there.
Turning a corner, he walked over to Holladay Street. Named after Ben Holladay, owner of the Overland Stage Line, the street was known locally as the Row. Here, along three city blocks, the “brides of the multitude” practiced the oldest profession. Some estimates put the number of working whores at five hundred, but the true count was anyone’s guess. Holladay Street was a world unto itself.
Denver’s original whoresville was a cluster of log cabins on the south bank of Cherry Creek. Shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War, the girls jumped the creek and moved six blocks north, staking claim to Holladay Street. There the parlor houses and lowly cribs flourished as the town experienced an ever-greater influx of men. Lust was a whore’s stock-in-trade, and sin for sale never went begging on the frontier. Only recently had the number of decent women in town surpassed the number of Jezebels.
Holladay Street was governed by a social structure all its own. On the lower end of the street were the cribs, each one fronted by a door and a narrow window. Comprised of two tiny rooms, the crib had a sitting room up front and a bedroom in the rear. The tariff for a quick trick was four bits, and landlords charged the girls three-dollars-a-day rent, collected daily in cash. Attired in knee-length dresses and black stockings, the girls stood in doorways and openly solicited business. A form of live advertisement, it allowed their customers to inspect the wares before making a selection.
The upper end of the Row was reserved for the elite of whoredom. There, along a one-block stretch, were the more refined parlor houses. Generally constructed of brick and two or three stories high, the parlor houses were staffed by young lovelies who commanded top dollar. Their expertise in the boudoir was renowned, and any man with the price was treated to all sorts of exotic high jinks. The madams euphemistically referred to their brothels as “young ladies’ boardinghouses.” The girls, among other things, were known as “soiled doves” and “fallen sparrows.” A local wit, tongue in cheek, had tagged them the filles de joie.
Clint was vaguely uncomfortable about the Row. He had no moral objections to whores, and back home he’d been known as something of a ladies’ man. But he had never understood women or what made them tick. They were strange creatures who abhorred logic and reason, and operated instead on an emotional level that defied comprehension. An angry woman was to him some curious crossbreed of buzz saw and wildcat. Every evening, when he walked over to Holladay Street, his nerves took a sharp upturn. He dreaded the night he’d be forced to separate two clawing, hot-eyed whores.
Tonight, by the sound of things, appeared to be the night. As he passed one of the parlor houses, he heard screams and the crash of furniture from inside. Grumbling to himself, he pushed through the front door and entered a small alcove. To his left was a flight of stairs and to his right was a wide, arched doorway. He moved to the doorway and halted, momentarily taken aback. The parlor was a scene of screeching chaos.
Across the room, one man had another pinned in a corner. The one in the corner was propped upright by a hand around his throat while a sledgehammer fist methodically reduced his features to a pulp. The one administering the punishment was a burly man, heavily built, with a square, thick-jowled face. Straddling his back was a squealing girl who had him locked in a stranglehold. All around him were several other girls, alternately pounding on him and shrieking at the top of then lungs. Neither the girls nor the noise seemed to distract him from pummeling the other man.
Clint sized up the situation at a glance. From the girls’ hysterical behavior, the one pinned in the corner was clearly the house bouncer. The one handing out the beating was just as clearly not a member of the family. His determined attitude indicated as well that he was a man gone crazy with rage. Once he finished with the bouncer, he probably had similar ideas for the girls.
The parlor was littered with broken tables and overturned chairs. Clint picked his way through the debris and swiftly crossed the room. Using both hands, he waded into the squalling pack of girls. The decibel level of their screeching increased as he flung them aside, right and left. Finally, with a mighty heave, he plucked the girl off the man’s back. She let loose a shrill curse as he dropped her on the floor.
There seemed nothing to gain by trying reason on the man himself. Clint pulled the Colt and his arm lashed out in a fast shadowy movement. The dull thunk of metal striking skull bone put an immediate end to the beating. The man grunted a surprised woofing sound, then released his hold on the bouncer and collapsed as though he’d been hit by lightning. The bouncer, who was already out cold, slumped down in the corner.
Holstering his pistol, Clint turned to survey the damage. All around him, like wilted flowers, the floor was littered with sweaty women. They stared up at him as though some Olympian god had suddenly appeared in their midst. Their eyes were round with a mixture of fright and amazement, and their bosoms heaved in unison as they tried to catch their breath. To his great relief, all of them had stopped screaming.
The one he’d pulled off the man’s back slowly got to her feet. She was a blond tawny cat of a girl, with a sculptured figure and bold amber eyes. She appeared to be in her late twenties, and up close, she smelled sweet and alluring. She looked him over with an inquisitive, saucy expression.
“You must be our new marshal?”
Clint tipped his hat. “The name’s Brannock.”
“So I’ve heard,” she said softly. “Well, thanks a load, Marshal. You got here just in the nick of time.”
“Pleased to be of service, ma’am. I take it you’re the, uh, proprietor?”
Her laugh was a delicious sound. “Yeah, you take it right. I own the joint.”
“What happened here, Miss—?”
“London,” she said, dusting off her skirt. “Belle London.”
Clint nodded. “The one in the corner your bouncer?”
“Poor devil,” she said, glancing past him. “He tried to stop that bastard from pawing one of my girls. Probably would’ve gotten himself killed if you hadn’t shown up.”
“If I was you,” Clint advised her, “I’d get a sawbones over here. He looks hurt pretty bad.”
“Thanks, I will. What about that tub-of-guts on the floor?”
“I’ll cart him on down to jail. You can drop by in the morning and sign a formal complaint.”
“How about attempted murder? It’s the least the sorry s.o.b. deserves.”
“Sounds fair to me.”
Clint stooped down and took hold of the man’s legs. A boot heel under each arm, he began dragging the man across the room. The girls scattered, clearing a path, darting venomous looks at his prisoner. Belle London called out as he neared the doorway.
“Marshal!”
Clint turned back. “Something else?”
She gave him a bright, theatrical smile. “I just wanted to say, don’t be a stranger. You’re welcome here anytime.”
“Much obliged, Miss London. I’m liable to take you up on that.”
Clint hauled the man out through the alcove. On the street, he paused a moment to get his breath. Staring back at the house, he was struck by a sudden thought. He pondered how a woman so young—and so pretty—got to be a whorehouse madam.
He figured it might be worth his while to find out.