“And mine,” Tomoatooah added between bites. He talked with his mouth full. I’d better make sure Miss Bethel didn’t see that.
Fortunately, she was still abed with her gripe. I only say “fortunately” because she was already feeling better from the night before, you understand.
“Anyway,” Reeves added, pushing his polished plate back. There was still one smear of butter and molasses on it: he picked up a corner of flapjack off Tomoatooah’s plate and scrubbed it away, then disposed of the evidence. “I’ve already given an awful lot of me to this case. I can only hope that Judge Parker will still pay my expenses when I get back, and they’ll probably only do that if I get my man. Now, I ain’t no Texas Ranger—”
Tomoatooah worked his jaw as if he meant to spit, then recollected the dining room rug and took a swig of coffee instead. I was getting to like this rough man. Comanche had a reputation as the fiercest of Indian braves; I knowed even the other Plains tribes was afraid of them, though I thought they was all supposed to be on reservations since that Quanah surrendered a few years back. And this one might of been a hardened killer — but so was the U.S. Marshal sitting across from him, and I was finding myself more and more enamored of both their senses of humor.
“Tell me your plan,” Marshal Reeves finished.
I hid my scorching cheeks behind my hands, thereby losing any chance of pretending it was just the cold in the room growing as the fire died down. “I read in a dime novel that you was a master of disguise,” I said. “Now I know them books ain’t worth the dry yellow paper they’re printed on. But…”
The Marshal’s mustache was doing its little burlesque shimmy on his lip again. “Master of disguise? You know not to believe what you read—”
Tomoatooah leaned across the table and jabbed him in the shoulder with the handle of a butter knife. “She’s got your number, gunslinger.”
I had to finish on a rush, because otherwise I just wasn’t going to get the words out. Quickly I told him about Priya’s sister. I finished, “So. If you was to go to Bantle’s crib,” I said. “And say you was to say you’d heard he had a girl called Aashini that gave a real good ride. And wanted to have a go…”
“But according to what you just said, your friend Priya said she didn’t know if she was at Bantle’s, last she knew.”
“You don’t know Peter Bantle the way I do. Priya meant something to him. Nothing good. But she got away, and so he’s gonna get his hands on her sister to punish her. Same as he’ll do whatever he can to punish Madame, and me. And Effie too, I don’t wonder. I’d wager Aashini Swati’s in Bantle’s crib now, because he knows it’d make Priya suffer.”
It was a little while before I recognized the look on Marshal Reeves’ face, though it silenced me. It was respect, and I hadn’t seen that from a man who weren’t Crispin since I don’t know when. “That’s not half-bad,” he said, having chewed it over for a bit. “And it might of worked, too. Except Bantle knows I’m here, now, and he knows I’m looking for … well, not him, maybe. Unless he’s out of town often, on a lot of long trips…?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I wish I could say so. Hell, I wish he was gone so often we’d never heard of him.”
“It was too much to hope for, really. And I’d still be glad to help you, on account of your friend’s sister might be able to tell us a thing or two about Bantle and his friends. But anyway, the meat of it is, he knows I’m here. And while I know a few tricks — making myself look smaller in the saddle and the like — I can’t change out my nose for another.” He tapped it with a forefinger. “More’s the pity.”
“Damn.” I looked at Tomoatooah. “Maybe you—”
“Only thing lower than a nigger is a savage,” he said, shaking his head, the long muslin tails of his scarf rustling over his beadwork. “It wouldn’t work. Even crib whores aren’t for sale to Indians.”
“Goddamn.”
“Karen, darling. Language, dear.”
A horrible shock seethed through the pit of my belly, cold and sharp. I turned in my chair to see Miss Francina pushing the hall door Signor had cracked the rest of the way open, frowning down at me.
“How much of that did you hear?” I asked her.
“Enough to know what a bad plan it is,” she said. She pursed her lips and shook her head. Signor purred at her from Marshal Reeves’ lap, arching his neck to see over the table.
“But Priya—” I started.
Miss Francina held up one kid-gloved hand. “Yes, Priya. I’m not insensible, sweet child.” She flipped a glorious waterfall of golden ringlets behind one white shoulder, baring the delicate line of her collarbone and the creamy swell of her little bosom. I didn’t know how she managed that effect, but I knowed some small-chested girls who might kill to find out.
She tapped her fingers on her lips. Then she sighed and said, “Well, there’s nothing else for it. I’ll do it.” And as we all three gaped at her, she smiled with one half of her mouth and said, “I can pass for a man, sugar. I’ve known enough of ’em. Besides, it’s for Priya.”
* * *
We determined to strike while the iron was hot. Having helped Merry Lee pack up her few things — and let her into the plan, because we could think of nobody in all Rapid City more qualified to lead a daring rooftop escape if we should need one — we resolved to do the thing that very night.
We also agreed not to tell Priya just yet. It would be cruel to get her hopes up while there was still so much that could go wrong. We couldn’t bring Aashini back to Madam Damnable’s, either. She hadn’t expressly forbidden it, but she had not beaten around any bushes in making it plain that she didn’t wish to work her way any further into Bantle’s bad graces.
Merry Lee said she had a place and Bantle had never found it. And that he never would find it, she figured, since Chinatown residents didn’t have much to say to Peter Bantle. “He had his girls led through the streets in collars once a week,” she said. “To show off the wares. It’s the only sunshine most of ’em get.”
There was not much any of us could say to that stone look in her wide-set black eyes. So we all sat dumb, and after a while she took pity and said that she’d feel safer all around if rather than telling Miss Francina where her safe house was, she just waited for Miss Francina and Aashini to make their escape and then guide them to it.
“Well, I’ll wait with you,” the Marshal said, which kicked off a brief argument that wasn’t settled until he agreed to let Tomoatooah and me come with him, too. He looked dubiously at me at first, but I reminded him that I could handle a gun, and he finally tipped his head and shrugged in that way he had. “Well, ain’t you a regular little Annie Oakley.”
Once that was settled — and I make it sound easier than it was, but there ain’t no point in regurgitating fifteen minutes of circular arguing — Miss Francina raked a hand through her curls, snagging her fingers on a jeweled comb. “All right then,” she said. “We won’t meet here.”
“There’s a bar down by the docks,” the Marshal said. “It’s called the Lion’s Den. You know it?”
Miss Francina smiled. “I know it,” she said. “I’ll see you there at three A.M.”
But then Marshal Reeves looked at me, kissed air, and said, “Miss Memery, can you ride?”
I purely don’t mind saying my heart fell through to my boots. No, well. Actually, I do mind saying it. But that’s what happened, all the same.
I just concentrated on keeping all my doubt and confusion and sadness off my face while I figured out what I was going to say.
“If I gotta,” I answered at last, and the Marshal was kind enough to leave it at that.