Chapter 11
“Don’t be absurd,” he murmured back. “It’s also a saloon and gambling den.”
“B-But I…that is, we—”
“Sometimes an investigation means we have to go to unsavory places. Don’t worry—it’s quite reputable, as these things go. No one’s been murdered here in at least a week.”
I started to point out that the law didn’t allow saloons to open on Sundays, before realizing the absurdity of my comment given the circumstances. Griffin was apparently known here already; a man called out to him, and he laughed and waved back.
Draping an arm around my shoulders, he pulled me through the crowd. “These fellows are hard workers, decent enough sorts in their own way, but they have been known to skirt the law. They aren’t murderers, but digging up bodies and selling them wouldn’t be outside the realm of their experience.”
“Oh!” That made sense, at least. “You think they were involved in stealing Blackbyrne’s body? Or some of the others?”
“If not them, then one of their close associates. The Brotherhood is made up of wealthy men, most of whom haven’t done a day’s honest labor in their lives. Other people use shovels and haul caskets, not them, which is why I think these gentlemen may know something. Your task is simply to sit and listen to them talk while you play poker.”
“Poker?”
“Don’t worry.” He tucked something into my pocket. “Use this money. It’s part of my expenses, paid by my client. Don’t be afraid to lose it. Just sit and keep your ears tuned for anything interesting, all right?”
Before I could respond, we were at the table. Griffin greeted the men seated there enthusiastically. When he’d done calling them each by name, he tightened the friendly arm around my shoulders and grinned. “This ‘ere is me new mate, Weatherby. Wanted to see the sights of Widdershins, ‘e did, if ye know what I mean.”
I didn’t, but the others must have, because they all guffawed.
“Er, hello,” I said faintly.
“Siddown, then, Weatherby,” one of them said; I couldn’t recall his name. “Let us deal you in. You, too, Greg.”
“Sure thing.” Griffin took the seat by me, and a few seconds later I had been dealt a hand.
“Me friend might need the rules explained to ‘im,” Griffin added, with a quick wink.
Before I could say anything, a tide of cheap perfume swept over me. A young woman slid in between us, one arm slipping around my shoulders and her ample cleavage practically in my face. “Hello, handsome,” she said. “I ain’t seen you around here before. I know, ‘cause I’d sure remember a face as pretty as yours.”
I directed my eyes away from her, feeling my cheeks burn. I silently prayed she didn’t turn her gaze to my lap and notice a lack of arousal, which surely must be uncharacteristic in this place. Would it have been better or worse if Griffin had taken us to a bathhouse?
Oh God, why did I have to imagine that? At least there would be something to see now if she directed her attention downward.
“Leave me friend be, Nelly,” Griffin said. He slid an arm around her waist and pulled her onto his knee. “’Is wife’ll skin ‘im alive if ‘e comes home smelling of perfume. I barely talked ‘im into the whiskey and cards as ’twas.”
The other men immediately offered sympathy for my imaginary troubles. Not knowing what to say, I clutched feebly at the shot of whiskey another woman placed in front of me. The glass was filthy, and I wasn’t sure if I could actually bring myself to drink it.
“Madam saw you come in and said to send you right up,” Nelly said, tossing her arms around Griffin’s neck. “I’m jealous—why don’t you ever come to see me?”
Surely I had misunderstood. Griffin wouldn’t have dragged me here with him if he intended to indulge himself with some prostitute.
“I would, me girl, but I dinna want to get ye in trouble with the lady o’ the house,” Griffin said amiably. She left in a swish of skirts, and he rose to his feet, tipping his hat. “Well, boys, take good care of Mr. Weatherby while I’m gone, won’t ye?”
He strutted away and up the stairs to a chorus of catcalls, but it all seemed very far away and unreal. How could he do this? Yes, most men turned to hired companionship at some point or another in their lives. God knew my brother had boasted of the women he’d conquered with money when we were youths. But to watch Griffin pay to have some doxy, when he could have someone else, someone who cared for him, with the snap of his finger…
He disgusted me. Worse: I disgusted myself. What was wrong with me, burning with jealousy over a man who would never feel the same about me?
If only I’d never met him in the first place.
The dealer cleared his throat. Belatedly, I turned my attention back to the table, to the ring of faces which seemed suddenly alien, as if they belonged to some other species altogether.
“Well, Weatherby,” the dealer said with a gap-toothed grin, “shall we explain the rules o’ poker to ya?”
The others snickered and exchanged glances. Clearly, Griffin had meant me to play the rube. Well, if such had been his wish, then he should have remained. He had no right to expect me to continue his investigation while he went off and-and rutted with some woman.
Did she have him undressed even now? Was she touching his skin, his erection? Had he thrown her back on the bed and kissed her, the way I wanted him to kiss me?
I snatched up the whiskey and downed it in a single swallow. To hell with the filthy glass; I’d drink anything to stop the images in my head. The stuff was beyond foul, burning down my gullet like industrial solvent instead of liquor, but it did the trick.
Devil take Griffin Flaherty. I’d misjudged him, badly.
And he had misjudged me. “No,” I said, picking up my hand. “There’ll be no need, gentlemen. I presume five-card stud, nothing wild, and no limit is acceptable?”
~ * ~
“What the bloody ‘ell?” one of my companions asked in confusion.
And well he might. I’d spent the money that lout Griffin had given me on rounds for the table. We were all confused by now.
Even the alleged whiskey hadn’t been enough to douse the coals burning a hole in my gut. The longer Griffin was absent, the less I cared to ever set eyes on him again.
To the devil with this. None of these men had said anything remotely useful. Not so far as I’d noticed, anyway, not having paid a speck of attention to anything beyond the cards and the closed door through which Griffin had disappeared.
Well, no more. I scraped my substantial pile of winnings off the table and stuffed them randomly into my pockets. “I’m taking my leave of you, gentlemen,” I said, or tried to; my tongue had trouble shaping the words. “I doubt I will be visiting this fine establishment again, so…er…goodnight.”
I made it to my feet without falling, which was actually something of an accomplishment. Ignoring the flabbergasted stares of the would-be cardsharps, I stumbled away from the table, located the door with some effort, and made my way to it.
No one bothered me as I exited the building. I stopped and leaned my back against the brick, hoping its solidity would keep the world from spinning.
The cold air helped a bit, but not much. I’d over-indulged before, but never to this extent, and never with liquor of this awful quality. I’d be sorry in the morning. I was sorry now.
Mostly, I was sorry I’d come there at all. Peeling myself away from the building, I staggered in what I hoped was the right direction.
The rickety tenements loomed over me, blotting out the sky with their overhanging eaves. The sidewalk hadn’t been swept for a long time; years of refuse and mud obscured any sign of the stones. My shoes squished unpleasantly in the sucking mud, as did the boots of whoever was behind me…
I was being followed.
Heart pounding, I spun—and fell heavily against the nearest wall, my balance spinning out of control along with everything else in my life.
“Hey, now,” said a silky voice. “Don’t want you to hurt yourself now, do we?”
“What?” I asked, like an idiot. Two shapes emerged into the light of the nearest streetlamp. Neither of them were cloaked, and both were human, thank heavens. I’d been certain I would see the man from the woods, or something far worse. “Oh. You aren’t monsters. That’s good. Very good.”
They glanced at each other; wolfish grins appeared on their faces, and suddenly I wasn’t sure after all.
“That’s right,” the talker said. I wished the other would speak. But what if he did, and his voice wasn’t human? “Give us your wallet and your watch, and we’ll be on our way. Nice and quick.”
“I-I haven’t got a watch,” I said. I tried to step back, but I was already pressed against the side of a tenement. The rough brick dug into my shoulders. Would anyone inside come to my aid if I called for help? “Here’s my wallet.”
I dug it out and flung it at them. The talker bent down and picked it up, but the other kept coming. There was something unsettling about the way his bulging eyes stared without blinking. I had the sudden, absolute conviction he wanted something from me, and mere money would not dissuade him.
“Get back,” I gasped, my heart thudding madly. “Please, stop!”
“Oh no,” said the first one. In the streetlight, his narrow face took on a sly cast. “You’re holding out on us, aren’t you? Think I don’t see the bills sticking out of your pocket, then?”
Belatedly, I remembered I hadn’t bothered to actually put my winnings in my wallet. “Oh, I…”
The blade of his knife gleamed, competing for my attention with the awful, staring eyes of his companion. “I think we’re going to have to take you somewhere nice and quiet,” he said, and God, the way he spoke, the way his eyes grew glazed as with some fiendish kind of lust. “Yes. Somewhere we’ll have plenty of time to play.”
The loud crack of a revolver made all three of us jump, and a cry escaped me. Griffin stepped out of the darkness into the pool of light cast by the streetlamp. His expression grim, he aimed his revolver directly at the silent one’s head.
“Not tonight, I think,” he said.
Both men held up their hands. “Sorry, sorry,” said the talker, sidling away from me. Thankfully, his companion followed suit.
“Drop the wallet.”
It hit the ground with a wet slap. “Just having a bit of fun, that’s all.”
“I know the sort of fun you prefer, Billy Waite,” Griffin said coldly. “The next time I see you or your cousin around here, I won’t fire a warning shot. Am I clear?”
“Clear as glass, sir!”
“Get out of here.”
They both ran. Griffin watched until they were gone, then turned to me. “Are you all right?”
“No,” I said miserably. And then I threw up on his shoes.
~ * ~
“Whatever am I to do with you, Whyborne?” Griffin asked. He finished wiping the last specks of vomit off of his boots with his threadbare scarf, which he then tossed deep into the alley.
I huddled into my overcoat, relying on the wall to hold me up, since the world was still hurtling about like a merry-go-round. My stomach felt tight and my head throbbed, but least the nausea had subsided.
“I’m sorry,” I said, for the fourth time. Or was it the fifth? Sixth?
Thank heavens, Griffin seemed bemused rather than angry. “It’s all right. I probably should have warned you against the whiskey. Let’s hail a cab; we’ll never get you home otherwise.”
By the time we found a cab, it had started to sleet, the sting of ice on my skin adding to my misery. The only comfort came from Griffin’s arm around my shoulder to hold me steady, but the gesture came with its own measure of pain.
We climbed into the cab, and the driver urged the horses forward. The movement made me dizzy, so I closed my eyes and leaned against Griffin’s shoulder.
“Did the gentlemen you were playing cards with happen to say anything interesting?” he asked after a few minutes.
“No. I don’t know. Maybe. I won.” I took some of the money from my pocket to show him.
A laugh escaped him. “You are truly something, Whyborne. I had no idea you could even play poker, let alone clean out a table of hardened gamblers.”
His shoulder was rather comfortable. I closed my eyes and relaxed just a little. “My mother taught me. We’d play for hours. All kinds of card games. She’s sick, you know. Has been for a long time.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. But, as I recall, your job was to sit and listen, not take their weekly wages and then your leave.”
I opened my eyes. Was he mad at me? How dare he criticize me, given his own behavior? “And your job wasn’t to-to go have sex with some-some harlot.”
Griffin sighed deeply; his shoulder shifted under my cheek with the force of it. “Madam Rosa is one of my best informants. You wouldn’t believe the sorts of things men will brag about to a prostitute, when they wouldn’t think to tell their own wives. We maintain the fiction I’m one of her regulars, which allows us to meet in private without raising suspicions.”
I frowned. This sounded important, but it took a few minutes of intense concentration to comprehend what he was saying. “Wait, wait. You pay her for information.”
“Yes, Whyborne.”
“And not for carnal pleasures.”
His shoulder vibrated under my cheek; he was laughing at me, damn him. “I assure you, all of my transactions with Madam Rosa have been of a strictly professional nature. And I mean my profession, not hers.”
“Oh.” I was an idiot. A foolish, jealous, crazed idiot. What must he think of me?
“I should have said something before we went in,” he added. “I’ve gotten out of the habit of confiding my plans to anyone else, I suppose.”
“Oh,” I repeated stupidly.
Griffin lapsed into silence, and the only sound was the roll of the wheels, the tap of the sleet on the windows, and the clop of the horse’s hooves. I still slumped against my companion; his warmth soaked into my skin even through the layers of our clothing.
I opened my eyes. His face was bare inches from mine, and he looked down at me, studying me thoughtfully with those eyes as green as a field of springtime grass. The light of street lamps came in through the windows, slid across his face, revealing his sculpted mouth and strong cheekbones, then vanished to plunge us back into shadow. The aroma of damp wool, leather, and sandalwood rose from his skin, entrancing my senses. My limbs felt boneless, my blood hot with alcohol and need.
His lips parted very slightly. Was he going to kiss me? God, I wanted him to kiss me.
I didn’t say that aloud, did I?
He drew in a deep breath. Then he closed his eyes, and his mouth firmed abruptly. He turned to face the window, and although he didn’t push me away, the tension in his shoulder stole some of my contentment. Of course he wasn’t going to kiss me. People like me weren’t kissed.
I closed my eyes and hunched into him, because it was the only comfort I could have. After, things became very hazy indeed. The next thing I knew, he dragged me up the stairs to my apartment, my arm thrown over his shoulders and my feet stumbling. He must have gotten the keys from my pocket, because he opened the door and pulled me in.
Then my bed was in front of me, and I collapsed into it, fully dressed. Someone pulled a blanket up around my shoulders, and a hand lingered in my hair, trailing through the ridiculous, spiky locks, which never would lay flat. But I was on the edge of oblivion, and it might have been nothing but a dream.