CHAPTER 6

The Glory Hole was beginning to look respectable again.

Cat couldn’t ignore the obvious, no matter how hard she tried.

In fact, she conceded grudgingly, it looked far better than she’d thought possible.

Canton’s workmen had painted the exterior a bronze color that, when the sun hit the building in the afternoon, looked like pure gold. For a saloon called the Glory Hole, it was perfect. Part of her admired the imagination; the other less generous part scorned it.

The Glory Hole was gaudy, she told herself, where the Silver Slipper was a model of elegance. Still, the Glory Hole represented trouble, and its owner, with all his male arrogance and amused eyes, even more so. She felt it deep in her bones.

And in other places she didn’t wish to consider.

Her resentment smoldered, just waiting to break into white-hot flame. This was her corner. She had built it through damned hard work. He had no right to take advantage of her success. Why, for all that was unholy, had she not allowed him to be shanghaied?

It gave her the smallest crumb of pleasure to imagine she had, to conjure the picture of Canton climbing masts—or worse. At least she had a powerful secret weapon: a spy planted in the enemy camp. Word had gone out that the Glory Hole was looking for a bartender/manager, and Teddy had encouraged his cousin to seek the job. It had not taken much convincing, since Hugh O’Connell was out of work and had five children and a wife to support.

Cat glanced through her bedroom window toward the Glory Hole, even as she hated herself for it. It was almost as though she’d sensed he would be there. And, he was! He was leaning against the railing in front as newly painted shutters were being hung. He started to turn, and Cat stepped back, out of sight.

Cursing herself as much as him, she put just the slightest amount of color on her cheeks and prepared to go downstairs. She looked around the room: the rolltop desk where she did the books, four-poster bed, the small sitting area with its fine chairs. She had to admit that the room looked far warmer than usual with some whimsical pillows and a colorful covering for her table. She’d finally discovered something Molly could do well—sewing—and secretly she was preparing a future for the girl, unless, of course, Teddy overcame his timidity and Molly her fear of most men. There was an obvious attraction between the two. Molly seemed to relax around him, and Teddy … well, his face showed adoration.

As for her other girls, three of whom lived in two rooms above the Silver Slipper and four others who lived elsewhere, she felt a certain amount of satisfaction. One had announced she would marry in a month and would be leaving. Two others, including Wilhelmina, who had been with her three years, were being courted by customers.

San Francisco was still a town with a shortage of available women, and her hostesses, as she called them, were uniformly pretty and personable. She didn’t employ those whom she thought might want to do business on the side. Much of the attraction of the Silver Slipper was its respectability, at least as much as possible for a saloon. It attracted the politicians and businessmen who needed a private place to do business as well as take a drink and play a game of poker. While a pretty face was welcome, nothing more was required.

She wondered what her neighbor planned. Those hard gray eyes were pitiless, and yet Molly, when questioned at length, had absolved him of any aggressive behavior. It had been the gun, she’d said, the gun and that steely-eyed hardness that had so frightened her.

It also frightened Cat, but not in the same way. For the first time in her life, she felt like a woman. A woman with desires. She had thought that any such prospect had been wrenched away a long time ago, in the house where her mother had sold her and later in countless hotel rooms when her husband had done the same.

What frightened her even more was the fact that she had actually enjoyed her exchange with Canton the other day, had been stimulated by the challenge in his eyes, had felt so completely alive as her every nerve reacted to him. She wasn’t afraid of him in a physical sense, but by the way she was so drawn to him.

Like attracts like. Heaven help her if that was true.

Even if she didn’t believe in heaven. Only hell.

And fallen angels.

Hugh O’Connell was the fifth man David Scott interviewed.

Marsh had spent the entire afternoon listening to prospects in David’s office, only occasionally throwing in a question of his own. He hadn’t liked any of the candidates until O’Connell. The others had eyed him warily, had wriggled in their seats after understanding Marsh would be their boss, then fairly bolted for the door, despite Scott’s quiet questioning.

Hugh O’Connell did none of that. He was not a big man, but he carried himself with confidence. He did not appear rattled when told the hard man with the icy eyes would be his boss.

“I need this job,” he said.

“Why?” Scott asked.

“I have a wife who’s expecting and five younguns already here,” he said. “I was the head bartender at the Cairo in the Barbary Coast area before it burned down a month ago and haven’t found anything steady since.”

“It’ll be long hours,” Marsh said.

The man nodded. “I’m used to them.”

David looked at Marsh a moment and then at the applicant. “There could be trouble. Mr. Canton has already been attacked, and we believe it’s because he’s reopening the Glory Hole.”

O’Connell stared straight ahead. “I’m used to trouble. I worked on the Barbary Coast.”

Marsh stepped in again. “I want to run an honest place. No crooked gambling. No prostitution.”

O’Connell looked relieved. “Good, I hated the Cairo,” he said. “I would like the chance to work at a clean place.”

“You would be working for me.”

O’Connell didn’t blink.

“Can you handle the hiring of a staff?”

O’Connell grinned. “I know some bloody good men.”

“Can you start tomorrow?”

“This afternoon,” O’Connell said.

Marsh looked over at Scott, who shrugged helplessly. He knew Marsh had made a decision. “Of course I’ll have to check your references,” the attorney said.

O’Connell nodded.

“In the meantime, you can start,” Marsh said. He didn’t like dickering, especially when he’d made a decision.

“When do you plan to open?”

“Three weeks from now,” Marsh said with a smile. “I had hoped to make it earlier, but I had a slight complication.” He rose lazily. “You know where the Glory Hole is?”

“Everyone knows where the Glory Hole is. It has an … interesting history.” O’Connell didn’t add “unfortunate,” but the implication echoed in the room.

“It’s going to be even more interesting,” Marsh said dryly. “Oh, and there’s a dog there. Just ignore him and he’ll ignore you.”

“I like animals. He got a name?”

Marsh remembered his first thought when he’d seen the animal: as ugly as the wrong end of a Winchester.

“Winchester,” he said. “Win, for short,” he added with a slight smile that seemed to hint at a joke only he understood.

Miss Lotta Crabtree, one of San Francisco’s most popular entertainers, will reopen the Glory Hole, San Francisco’s newest palace of entertainment, Saturday night.

Miss Crabtree has been appearing in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston and has returned home for a month’s engagement at Maguire’s Opera House. Prior to that engagement, however, she will perform as the first entertainer at the newly renovated Glory Hole.

Many of our readers may remember that the Glory Hole closed two years ago. The new owner, Taylor Canton, a distinguished businessman from Texas, has promised that the refurbished establishment will take its place among the most sparkling entertainment centers in the city.

The announcement that Lotta Crabtree will perform there lends substance to that claim. We welcome Mr. Canton to San Francisco.

Catalina crushed the newspaper. She’d read similar articles in the other city papers. Damn him. How in the name of Lucifer had he engaged Lotta Crabtree?

And “distinguished businessman” indeed. More like a … a brigand. A plague. She wondered how much he had paid for those little announcements.

She muttered to herself. Lotta Crabtree was a legend in San Francisco. The daughter of a ne’er-do-well miner, she had started performing as a child in the mining camps and had been the rage of San Francisco’s music halls until she went east, where, rumor had it, she was the highest-paid actress in America.

But she still occasionally returned home to San Francisco, although she rarely performed in the city now, certainly not in saloons. Which renewed Cat’s original question. How had Canton enticed Lotta Crabtree to perform in a mere saloon? Especially the notorious Glory Hole?

And why hadn’t Cat heard the news from Teddy via his cousin instead of from the newspaper?

She threw the newspaper across the room. The opening would attract a tremendous crowd to the Glory Hole, the disreputable Glory Hole with the sullied reputation. This one event would erase every bad thing that had ever been said about it.

How did he do it?

He didn’t appear to be the type of man who had friends. He was always alone, and she suspected that when he was with people, he was still alone.

She always was, and she recognized that same isolation in him.

She knew about David Scott, because Teddy had described his cousin’s interview. She had asked a few of her customers about the attorney and had received precious little information other than he appeared to be honest, a virtue many of her customers avoided in an attorney. The source of the coup could be Quinn Devereux, whom Canton had mentioned, but why would he help a man who appeared to be totally ruthless?

It didn’t make sense, and Cat didn’t like things that didn’t make sense.

She liked even less being checkmated.

Did the announcement mean that Canton would continue featuring entertainment after the opening? If so, Cat would have to do the same.

Now, how on God’s green earth could she surpass Lotta Crabtree? But she must—unless she was to lose face … and business. Everyone in San Francisco knew, or suspected, she was at least partially responsible for the previous problems of the Glory Hole. Her power and reputation as hostess to the powerful in San Francisco had been heightened by an aura of invincibility. It was an aura that protected her personally as well. She had promoted a rumor of a great love killed during the war, an everlasting love that she would always honor. She had even found and purchased an oil painting of a handsome uniformed man, which hung in a conspicuous spot.

But she knew the first sign of weakness would crack that wall she so carefully kept between herself and her customers.

Damn Canton.

She picked up the paper again and smoothed it out, ignoring the item that had so offended her. She was looking for something else now, something that would strike a chord.

On the sixth page she found it.

Teddy was taking her for a walk. Molly looked from under her wide-brimmed bonnet. Only the steady presence of him beside her kept her legs moving in any kind of stable manner. It was the first time she’d ventured more than a stone’s throw from the Silver Slipper in the six weeks she had been there.

Her gloved hand trembled. Apparently Teddy noticed, for he took it, tucking her arm in his protectively.

What if she saw him?

The thought made her shiver, although the midmorning was warm. She had already taken risks, the greatest one working, however briefly, as a hostess for the Silver Slipper. He wouldn’t find her there, she knew. He decried the use of alcoholic beverages as the work of the devil. The hypocrisy of those pronouncements would have made her laugh, if she’d had any laughter in her. Instead, there was only a crunching terror that never left.

She had been so very desperate when she’d arrived in San Francisco, desperate enough to swallow her fear of being with a man, even in a crowded place.

She had run away, wearing a modest wool dress. She’d had no money, only a chance to hide herself in a wagon of hay bound for San Francisco, and when she’d arrived, she had been at a complete loss as to what to do next. Hungry and frightened, she had found a dark corner to pass the night and the next day had sought a job. But the owners of the shops she approached glanced over her disheveled appearance, listened to her stuttering, hesitant voice, and sent her away quickly.

When asked about skills, she hadn’t known how to answer. She hadn’t thought of the samplers she’d been required to sew since she could pick up a needle, perhaps because she had hated them so much, had hated everything they represented. So she hadn’t mentioned she could sew.

The next few days were full of hunger and terror. Terror that she would be found, terror of the streets, of the dark nights that had, for so long, held their own devils. And then she overheard someone say a cook at the Silver Slipper had left. Swallowing the knowledge that she knew nothing about cooking, but desperate for something to eat and a safe place to sleep, she decided to try. Cooking couldn’t be that difficult. She had watched Inez cook, until Inez had disappeared and was replaced by a woman who never allowed anyone in the kitchen.

Molly had tried to hold her head up when she entered the back of the Silver Slipper and found Teddy, who had looked at her with curious pity. And then Miss Catalina had appeared. At first Molly had been tongue-tied and frightened at the elegant perfection of the woman, at the cold green eyes that seemed to peer deep inside her.

The questions had been sharp. Where had she worked? How much cooking had she done? Molly had lied, had made up several places, and she had seen the doubt in the woman’s eyes. But the cold green had seemed to soften for the slightest of seconds, and she was hired on trial. Miss Catalina had offered her a room and, after another searching look, said she needed several days of rest before starting—and different clothing. Molly had been grateful beyond words.

But then, unfortunately, she burned the first bread she baked and almost set the saloon on fire.

Molly had gone to her room, taken off the dress Miss Catalina had given her and put on her woolen one. She’d left the dress on the bed, looking at it with regret. It had been a pretty blue calico, brighter than any she had ever owned, though not nearly as expensive, but now the sleeve had a burned patch. Even then she would have kept it, but it wasn’t hers, and she couldn’t steal from someone who had been kind to her.

Miss Catalina’s voice had stopped her just as she started to close the door behind her. “Molly?”

Her hand had frozen on the doorknob. She couldn’t conceal the shiver that ran down her body; she was used to punishment, both verbal and physical.

Miss Catalina’s facial expression was as indecipherable as always, but the eyes had a sort of sad understanding in them that stopped the quaking within Molly. Her employer was so beautiful, Molly sometimes thought she wasn’t real, that she was someone who had stepped out of a painting. But now there was a question on her face.

“Are you going someplace?”

“I thought … I’m so sorry.”

“Because you lied about being able to cook, or because you almost destroyed the Silver Slipper?”

Molly felt an inch high, but the fear was fading. “Both,” she said.

“Where do you plan to go?”

Molly could only shrug hopelessly.

Miss Catalina sighed. “And that dress …” She shook her head.

“I didn’t really think I was lying,” Molly stuttered. “I really thought I could.”

“But you hadn’t before?”

“No, ma’am.”

Miss Catalina had smiled at that. “Well, what can you do?”

Molly wasn’t up to any more lies. She hung her head. “Nothing, I’m afraid.”

Catalina studied her carefully. “You speak well. You could be very pretty if you wore your hair down. Would you like to try as a hostess?”

Molly went very still. A chance. Another chance. A chance to hide and perhaps make enough money to go east, far enough that he could never find her. But what would she say to the men? Could she even talk to them? She knew from the bartender that no one was allowed to mishandle or mistreat the hostesses, that nothing more was expected of them than to look pretty and drink tea. She’d had that confirmed when one unruly customer, who’d made another kind of demand, was forcibly ejected from the establishment the previous night. She had heard about it from the two girls with whom she shared a room.

But still …

She remembered hands, those reaching hands that wouldn’t be stopped, and she wasn’t sure she could talk easily to men, not like the others.

But she had no place to go. Nowhere to hide. Here, at least, was some protection. She would try. And she had tried.

She shivered in the warm San Francisco air, moved closer to Teddy, and increased the tempo of her steps. She looked up, and her eyes met Teddy’s. It had been a long time since she’d had a friend, much less a protector. It felt good having both.

If only she felt safe.