CHAPTER 26
Hattie straightened her blouse, tossed her hair behind her shoulders, and stepped through the batwings. She paused to look around the shabby room, with its dirty windows and dusty animal heads mounted on the papered walls above a five-foot-high strip of shabby, bullet-pocked wainscoting.
The horseshoe-shaped bar lay straight ahead, curving into the middle of the room from the left. A wooden stairway flanked the bar, rising to the second story, all the rooms of which faced the first floor from behind a railing that ran along all four of the building’s walls.
Despite the dust and bullet holes, the place tried for a Victorian splendor, with its carpeted stairs, papered walls, varnished oak bar, leaded backbar mirror, and the large oil painting of hard-charging wild horses above the piano abutting the wall on the saloon’s far side, on the other side of the bar. Instead of sandboxes, brass spittoons stood here and there around the room, though one had been kicked over and not picked up yet, muddy brown liquid oozing from its lip onto the dark brown wooden floor.
There was even a crystal chandelier, an elaborate, expensive trimming for these far-flung parts, plunging down from the second-floor ceiling. Hattie wouldn’t have been surprised to see a bird’s nest in it.
The Honeysuckle Saloon was nearly deserted, though it must have had a profitable lunch hour, for several tables were still cluttered with dirty plates, beer glasses, and coffee cups. One old man sat at the bar, pensively drinking a beer and smoking a cigarette. He found Hattie’s figure in the backbar mirror, and smiled at her, half-closing his eyes as though enjoying a particularly vivid waking dream.
Three other men were toiling on the far side of the bar, to the right of the piano and a potted palm. Two were toiling, rather, installing a new window in that wall, while the third man stood behind them, his back to Hattie, issuing orders in a thick Irish brogue.
“Easy now, Clell. Go easy there, Beau—that window came all the way up from Denver. It’ll likely get shot out again on Saturday night, but by God I want it put in right and without so much as a nick!”
The toilers merely grunted and grumbled as they fitted the window, with a stained-glass upper quarter—the stained paintings portraying lounging, naked women—into the frame. The toilers were beefy men in shabby work clothes, a wooden toolbox bristling with tools on the floor near their hobnailed boots.
The third man was short and stocky, a thick, unruly brush of silver-gray hair clumsily swiped to one side of his head. As Hattie walked around the bar, heading toward him, the man glanced toward her, glanced away, then turned back again, his blue eyes flickering with sudden male interest.
“Are you Clifford?” Hattie stopped before him, clenching her hands together in front of her. She was only half-feigning nervousness. She did in fact want the serving-girl job. She knew from experience that from such a position she could find out in a very short time far more about the under-workings of a town than she could if she wandered about the boardwalks with a notebook in hand, interrogating the town’s citizens or sitting in cafés and saloons, hoping to eavesdrop on a particularly informative conversation.
“Why, yes . . . yes, I am,” Clifford said, smiling unctuously at the pretty Pinkerton, not bothering to restrain the indiscreet forays of his goatish gaze. “What can I help you with, young lady?”
“I wanted to apply for the job you have posted on the porch rail—the serving-girl job.”
“The serving-girl job? You? Really?” There went his eyes again. It was almost as though he could see right through her clothes. The man’s scrutiny made her skin crawl, but she’d better get used to it. She’d gotten used to it before. She could get used to it again.
“Yes. Aren’t . . .”—Hattie closed her hands together, dipped her chin demurely, and made her voice small—“aren’t I pretty enough?”
“Oh, I don’t know . . .” Clifford used the occasion to give her another thrice-over. He chuckled under his breath, brushed his fist across his nose, and said, “Well . . . it sorta depends on how you look in your uniform.”
Hattie just realized that the two window installers had stopped their work to stare at her. The shorter of the two was down on one knee, on one side of the window, while the other one, taller, was on his feet, on the other side of the window, holding a hammer down low by his side. Nails bristled from between his thick, chapped lips as he breathed, his lumpy chest rising and falling heavily.
Clifford realized they were staring at her, too. “You two get back to work. I hired you to install a window, not ogle my prospective help!”
Reluctantly, they returned to their work.
“Uniform?” Hattie asked.
Clifford walked around behind the bar. He leaned down, looked around some shelves, and finally pulled out a flat box from beneath the bar. He set it atop the bar and said, “You run along upstairs and try that on. Let me see you in it. Then I’ll know if you’re right for the job. My business depends on a servin’ girl who can look good in the uniform. I haven’t had one in a coon’s age—not since the gold boom, what little there was of it, fizzled out before it really got started and half the town, purty girls included, left for the lower climes.”
“A uniform, eh?” Hattie hefted the box in both hands. “Sure is light.” She laughed a little uneasily.
“You go on upstairs and try it on. You can have Lilac’s old room.”
“Lilac?”
“My last serving girl. Iris an’ Lilly work the line. I call all my girls flower names. You know—so they fit in with ‘honeysuckle’?”
“Brilliant.”
“Iris an’ Lilly don’t normally have time to sling drinks. They’re professionals, you understand. Big moneymakers.” Clifford winked meaningfully at Hattie, and chuckled.
The other two men snorted laughs as they installed the window, casting quick furtive glances over their shoulders at Hattie.
Clifford added, “I like to keep a girl on special for hustlin’ drinks out from the bar, an’ maybe dancin’ to the piano on Saturday nights now an’ then. I got a good piano player. That’s him at the bar.”
Hattie glanced at the old man at the bar, who raised his beer glass to her in salute.
Clifford said, “The girl’s gotta look good in the uniform.”
“I understand, Mister, uh . . . ?”
“Hicks. Clifford Hicks. You can call me Mister Hicks until we see what you look like in the uniform.”
Again, the window installers laughed.
“All right... Mister Hicks.” Again, Hattie’s skin crawled.
“Go on upstairs, now,” Clifford said, giving Hattie a gentle shove toward the stairway. “Room number four. You’ll see the plate. I’ll look you over, and if you don’t look too bad, we’ll talk turkey.”
“Turkey,” Hattie said, fingering the light-as-air box in her hands. “All . . . all right. Room four it is. I hope I don’t disappoint you, Mister Hicks.”
“Me, too, honey,” Hicks said. “Hard to find a girl who looks good in the uniform. Damn hard.”
Feeling the eyes of all three men on her, hearing them snickering softly, Hattie drifted on up the stairs and into a room off the balcony, opposite the side of the saloon in which the window was being installed. She came out ten minutes later.
Clifford Hicks had been waiting impatiently, pretending to be supervising the two window installers. In reality, he was imagining what was going on behind the closed door of room four on the balcony.
Now, as he heard the door latch click and turned to see Hattie step out of the room, a giant fist tightened around his gut. He stepped heavily out toward the middle of the room, where he could get a better look at the girl in the red-and-black, lace-edged corset and bustier, as well as fishnet stockings and the black stilettos she’d obviously found in Ivy’s room.
She stepped up to the railing and looked down at Clifford gazing up at her, his lower jaw hanging, his cheeks turning crimson. “Do I look all right?” Hattie asked him.
Clifford’s throat went dry. Sweat beads popped out on his forehead.
Behind him, the two window installers—the shorter one holding up one side of the window, while the taller one tacked the other side into place—both stopped what they were doing to turn around and stare up in openmouthed fascination.
Behind them, the window lurched, glinting, then slipped out of its frame. The bottom right corner struck the floor with a bang, and the entire pane shattered loudly, glass flying every which way.
Clifford wheeled to stare in silent horror at his precious window.
Hattie chewed her thumbnail. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, and flounced back into the room.
* * *
Slash and Pecos took a ride around town, getting the lay of the land, before riding over to the barbershop. They tied their horses outside, then Slash walked up onto the boardwalk and pushed through the door, making the bell jangle loudly.
The bespectacled little barber had been sacked out in one of the two barber chairs, his arms crossed on his chest. Now he jerked his head up with a wailing yell, startled out of a deep sleep. He thumbed his glasses up his nose and eyed the two newcomers as though they were grizzlies busting into his shop for a meal.
“Oh . . . it’s you two,” he said, relaxing slightly but remaining in his chair, his hand on the arms. The horror left his gaze, but a wariness remained. Glancing at the two strangers’ holstered pistols, he appeared to be wondering if he were about to be robbed.
“Just us,” Slash said, holding his hands out away from his guns as he stepped into the room. Pecos walked in behind him. “How much for a bath, amigo? Me an’ my pard here been rode hard an’ put up wet.”
The little man climbed out of his chair. He snapped his brocade vest down at the bottom, flattening out the wrinkles, and turned his chin to a chalkboard on which his prices were printed. “Twenty cents per bucket for a bath.” He regarded each of the two dusty newcomers critically, adding, “Are you sure you both couldn’t do with a hair trim and a shave in addition to a bath?”
Pecos ran his hand along his jaw. “I think we just been insulted, pard.”
“Maybe later,” Slash said. “Me, I just wanna a good long soak in a hot bath. But . . . twenty cents a bucket?” He scowled at the little man incredulously.
“Boomtown prices,” the little man said, lifting his chin imperiously and pooching out his lips, which were mantled by a little, carefully trimmed pewter mustache.
“Look around you, pard,” Pecos told him, glancing out the window to his right. “I do believe you’re livin’ in the past.”
The little man glanced out the window at the deserted street, then drew his mouth corners down in defeat. He drew a deep, fateful breath, stared at the floor, and said, “All right—ten cents a bucket.”
“A nickel,” Slash said. “Or we’ll go wallow in the stream yonder.”
“Oh, for cryin’ in the—” The little barber cut himself off sharply. He swung around and disappeared through a rear door. “Right this way!”
He led Slash and Pecos out the rear of the barbershop building, across a ten-foot strip of hardpan, then up four steps and into the bathhouse beyond it. The bathhouse resembled a small, wooden-floored dancehall outfitted with six copper tubs. Pegs and benches lined the walls, as did shelves housing towels. A big range abutted the front wall, and two boilers steamed on the burners. A wooden bucket hung from the mouth of a pump poking up out of the floor near the range.
While the little barber stoked the stove, Slash and Pecos walked over to one of the benches, took off their coats and hats, pegged them, and sat down. Slash kicked out of a boot, glanced at the tubs lined out before him, and said, “Looks like you got a tub for every man remaining in the town, amigo.”
He gave a wry chuff.
“Go ahead an’ laugh. You’re obviously not from around here or you’d feel the sting, as well.”
“Nah, just passin’ through,” Pecos said, pulling off one of his boots with a grunt.
“Trail up here had plenty of traffic on it,” Pecos said, trying to make the comment sound offhand as he kicked off his second boot. “I mean, judgin’ by the tracks. A fairly good-sized bunch must have passed through here yesterday. Must have been a small rush on your place, eh, Mister, uh . . . ?”
The little man whipped around from the range, his pasty cheeks reddening. “Let me give you two strangers a bit of advice.”
“Please do,” Slash said. “We could use it.”
“Leave here. Soon. Tonight. Tomorrow morning at the latest. Or . . . if you decide to stay, which I wholeheartedly discourage, keep your mouths shut. In other words, don’t go around asking questions. Even innocent questions up here in Honeysuckle will get a man killed!”