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MEI-XING CROUCHED IN the deep snow behind the shrubbery. She was bruised and deeply scratched. Her ankle throbbed and her ribs stabbed with every breath. She looked up and saw the knotted strand of clothes dangling from the third-floor window high above her. The “rope” she had devised only reached to the bottom of the second-floor windows, so she had been forced to drop the rest of the distance.
Over the pulsing pain of her ribs, her heart pounded even louder. She shivered, and not just from the cold. If they caught her again, she had no illusions about what they would do to her.
She had spent seven months in Corinth, seven months in these houses. Seven months since she had arrived in Denver and had been met by a man she distrusted immediately. Seven months since Roxanne had met her at the door and shown her to a sumptuous room. Seven months since that same night when she had been fed a drink that had made her lethargic and weak, and had been bathed, dressed in satin, and “given” to an elegantly dressed man. He had taken her innocence and then praised her to Roxanne and “reserved” her for several weeks of exclusive use.
Mei-Xing’s heart hardened in bitterness as she remembered. It had not taken her long to realize that Bao had lied to her and that, undoubtedly, this was the punishment Fang-Hua had devised for her—the retribution she felt Mei-Xing deserved for rejecting her beloved son and causing him to leave his family.
She cursed and used words she had heard often in the last seven months. She cursed and swore she would punish Fang-Hua and her toadies. Someday.
Mei-Xing had learned that the two houses had distinctly different purposes and housed girls accordingly. New girls were brought to the first house where men paid a high price for a girl’s innocence, especially young girls.
The second house was proudly advertised as the “Corinth Gentlemen’s Club.” Roxanne bragged that the club was the most exclusive of her employer’s houses. Nothing in Denver compared to the Corinth Gentlemen’s Club, she assured “her” girls.
After Mei-Xing had been a few weeks in the first house, the man who had reserved her for his exclusive use had tired of her. Because Mei-Xing had been educated and well brought up, what Roxanne described as “refined,” the madam had decided to train her for the gentlemen’s club.
“Persuaded” by repeated rapes and beatings, many of the girls working in the club had looked at their options and elected to do as they were told. They learned what Roxanne and the “quality girls” had to teach. After they mastered the skills required of them, they entertained the men who frequented the club with gracious conversation, flattery, drinks, food, and gaming, as well as intimate and . . . unusual pleasure.
The club existed outside of Denver explicitly for men who had “exotic” tastes. Roxanne was proud of this distinction, but Mei-Xing had learned through experience what “exotic” tastes consisted of.
Mei-Xing spat more than blood from her mouth. You mean perversions, she thought and spat again. The very things Uncle Wei and Auntie Fang-Hua profited from in Seattle.
No matter what it cost me, she vowed, I was right to reject your son.
Not all the women at the club had been forced into prostitution. The girls rose late in the day and talked as they had their first meal together. Savannah, a buxom blond from the Deep South frequently declared that “being a whore beat picking cotton and growing old and haggard from birthing a dozen babies any day of the week.”
Tory, a tall, “high-yeller” woman merely shrugged when asked her story. Mei-Xing admired Tory’s graceful, gentle sophistication and her wide, dark eyes, even though they were often sad. Once Tory had offered the insight that she had never known a full belly until a “kindly gentleman” had taken her off the street at age twelve.
Because the club was so selective, Roxanne only used “the best” girls there and only those in their prime. As they aged or if their attitudes and skills were not exemplary, they were placed in less selective Denver bordellos.
In a very few of the women Roxanne recognized an aptitude for business and a hunger to make money. She trained those women to run new houses in the city.
Apparently, business was very good.
When Roxanne had approached her about the gentlemen’s club, Mei-Xing had outwardly agreed. She was not naïve—she had seen and heard what disobedience produced.
When she was moved to the club to begin her training they gave her the name of “Little Plum Blossom,” an irony that cut Mei-Xing deeply. A dressmaker from Denver had designed and sewn a costly wardrobe for her.
She was to be marketed as an exotic oriental treat, so her costumes were sewn in what these ignorant white people felt were “Chinese” style. They painted her face in a garish caricature of a geisha, uncaring or oblivious that geishas were Japanese, not Chinese. Mei-Xing had certainly not corrected their errors.
She was considered a valuable commodity for her exquisitely tiny body and her face’s ivory perfection. Roxanne told her proudly how much excitement her début had generated and how much she brought per “visit.”
And she had endured many visits.
She had acted her part with painstaking care for two months.
It had not been long enough.
They had been waiting for her to make a move and had anticipated it. Two men had taken turns beating her and using her for three hours. Tory had been assigned the task of cleaning her up and nursing her through her pain. Mei-Xing had also been refused food for five days. At the end of that time she had promised Roxanne to cooperate and “be a good girl.”
“You had better, my dear,” Roxanne had warned. Her dyed red curls shook with emphasis. “We only allow one such mistake. You remember Betty? I believe she is servicing filthy cowhands and drunks in a lice-ridden crib off Market Street in Denver now. And why? All because she was foolish enough not to see the golden opportunity she had here.
“Mei-Xing, you can have years of good food, beautiful clothes, and your own comfortable room—and what do you have to do? Just be the lovely, gracious woman you are and enjoy the adoration and gifts of wealthy men.”
Roxanne paused on her way out of Mei-Xing’s room, concern on her face. “I hope you take my warning to heart, my dear.”
And so she had cooperated. More than that, she had worked toward becoming as successful as Savannah and Delilah, the most sought-after “doves” in Corinth. She had played her part well and garnered much success until, after another three months, she felt ready to try again—ready because of what she had overheard a few days ago.
Darrow had been complaining to Roxanne about the blond woman who had stolen two new girls right out from under his nose. He was complaining because that woman, instead of running scared as she should have, had established a small inn on the ridge. It stuck in his craw.
Mei-Xing heard him say, “I think she fancies herself as some reformer, tryin’ to rescue whores and help them find Jesus. Well, if she thinks that, Morgan will fix her wagon, he surely will.”
Roxanne had answered, “We have ended our ‘help wanted’ advertisements. And she will not be finding any girls to help from my houses.”
That was when Mei-Xing knew she had to try again. Run and get to that blond woman. Mei-Xing cursed under her breath as she thought of what had happened. That pig Darrow and two other men had been waiting for her—again. It was as though they had known she was listening and had read her mind!
Roxanne let them have their way with her, but Mei-Xing had not cried. Not once. While they beat and savaged her she had drifted away to somewhere else in her mind, the place overlooking the sea where her father and mother had taken her as a girl. She could hear the waves crashing and the surf pounding on her body as the men slapped and pinched her, but it was the ocean she saw, not them. It was the sea salt she smelled, not their rank sweat and her own blood.
When it was over, Roxanne came to see her. “It is too bad, Mei-Xing, it really is. You could have had such a good life here.” She shook her head sadly as she examined Mei. “Your nose is broken. Likely your looks are ruined. In any event, you are no good to us here anymore. We will make arrangements to have you moved in a few days.”
Mei-Xing had not waited, though. As injured as she was, they assumed her spirit as well as her body was broken. They were not expecting her to run again. She had fooled them, though, and had dropped from her prison window, even though her body was battered and still bleeding.
Now she listened in the dark. Only the silence of the late night over the freshly fallen snow answered her.
The snow could be a problem. Her footprints might be tracked. Mei-Xing shuddered. It would be Wednesday morning in a few short hours. She had to reach her destination before then. Wincing, she padded across the snowy lawns of the Corinth Gentlemen’s Club. She reached the curving drive, followed it to the avenue and, taking care to place her tiny feet inside a wheel and tire prints, she trudged into the darkness.
—
EDMUND O’DELL WAS BEGINNING to feel like a cork on a bobbing sea and nearly as addled. He had left Denver two months ago with nothing but wisps of leads that refused to connect to any of the missing persons cases he was working. Breezy Point had been a bust—he did not know where Bickle had gotten his information, but it was wrong. Nothing he had gathered linked to his cases in any meaningful way.
Following his look into Breezy Point he had taken the train back to Omaha on one of his “whims,” a niggling notion that refused to be silenced. He had found nothing and returned to Chicago, even more frustrated.
In the meantime, additional reports from other Pinkerton agencies had filtered back to the Chicago office. Two more missing women and then—nothing. The ads that the agent in Boston had found in the newspapers of seven major cities had stopped, canceled. Hope was fading for the missing girls the agency had connected to the advertisements.
O’Dell admitted he was more than frustrated: He was angry. Whoever was behind the kidnappings had caught wind of Pinkerton Agency’s interest. Now the trail was going cold and the unscrupulous men behind the scheme were going to get away with it.
Not only that, but he could not escape the impression that his “strangest” missing persons case was somehow linked to the others. O’Dell had never felt an impression as strong as this, even as he admitted that no evidence even suggested, much less supported, such a claim.
A cork.
On a bobbing sea.
Addled.
He repeated those words to the rhythm of the train he rode on as it steamed west toward Omaha. Again.
What was it about Omaha?
Three days later, O’Dell turned up the collar of his overcoat against the stinging wind. He stood in front of a newly constructed mercantile emporium that occupied most of the block. His guide, a street-wise urchin known only as Stick, provided running commentary. One of the Omaha Pinkerton men had recommended him, and Stick had been well worth the daily rate O’Dell paid him. The kid had a mind like a steel trap and was an encyclopedia for detail. For the past three days they had tramped through the city, O’Dell allowing the kid to be tour guide.
“. . . sawr the fire m’self, I did. You never sawr such a fire! When the winders blew out—BOOM!—you shoulda seen ever’body run! Even the firemen! An’ when the place kerlapsed, first that roof blew up in the air and then straight down! Best fire I ever sawr. Couple months later, they builded this place. Kinda swank, huh?” Stick had obviously enjoyed that evening.
“Let me guess. Arson, right?” O’Dell speculated.
“Right you are, sir! How’d ya know?”
O’Dell grinned at the boy. “Fires are something of a hobby of mine.”
Stick grinned back in complete admiration. “Lordy, that lady had some bad luck, I’m tellin’ ya. First her husband drowns in the ocean, then somebody burns her out, and on top of that, they made her stand trial fer burnin’ her own place!”
“She do it?”
“Her? Heck no. Ever’body ’round here feel kinda sorry fer her, ya know? It were a big scandal. Prac’ly ran her outta town—an after that they prove’ she din’t do it. Guy who did got away, though.”
“Then what did she do?”
“Dunno. Nobody knows where she gone. She shore were a pretty lady, too. Long, blond hair, jest like moonlight.”
Something kept niggling in the back of O’Dell’s mind, and he almost brushed it away . . . almost.
“Tell me about this woman again?”
“Well, sir. She an’ her husband owned this store, see. He went off to some big eastern cities to buy some fancy stuff for a new store. Then he got on this boat and it sank, ya see, an—”
The hair stood up on the back of O’Dell’s neck, and he shuddered. “When was this?”
~~**~~
