She held his trousers out to him and he put them on. They were still warm.
24
The sky was the palest of greys, and street vendors had begun setting up tarps and awnings to protect their wares from the drizzling rain. The city’s nightlife had wound down and the saloons had emptied out. Hammersmith’s eyes were grainy. He needed sleep, but the coming day beckoned.
He had been in every pub and opium den in the neighborhood of the Shaws’ brownstone, and in the last hour had extended his search several blocks out, but with no luck. He decided he had time to visit one more establishment before returning to the flat to get ready for his shift.
The place in front of him was drab and run-down. The timbers of the steps were split and rotting, but a yellowed paper sign in the window read NO GRIDDLING, meaning that panhandlers and peddlers weren’t allowed inside. The peeling sign above the door read THE WHISTLE AND FLUTE, which was Cockney rhyming slang for a gentleman’s suit. Hammersmith imagined the original proprietor had started out with more optimism than the neighborhood had finally permitted.
He pushed the door open and stepped inside, stopping long enough to let his eyes adjust to the sudden cavelike darkness of the pub. When he could see well enough to move forward, he approached the long bar that imposed itself before the back wall. It was really nothing more than a few well-worn planks that had been nailed to four uprights. The barkeep, a heavyset man with a wild beard and thick tattooed arms, nodded to him from behind the counter. The barkeep’s eyebrows met in the middle and struck out from there across his forehead. Pink cheeks and beady eyes were the only artifacts of the man’s face still visible through the thickets of hair.
Hammersmith ordered a pint and stood surveying the room. Two worn-out tarts hunkered at a small table near the end of the bar. They weren’t looking his way. No doubt they were ready to turn in for the day without company. At the other end of the room, a handful of shadowy figures hunched over four tables that had been pushed together. Hammersmith could hear cards being shuffled and bets murmured through the smoke. The barkeep set a mug on the counter and backed away. Hammersmith took a courtesy sip. He had no intention of drinking the ale, but he didn’t want to appear out of place. The people in this pub weren’t here early in the morning. They were here late at night, hard-core drinkers who didn’t want to stop.
The ale tasted of ashes. Hammersmith set the mug back down and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He noticed he needed a shave and wondered if he had time for it before his shift.
As he reached for his wallet, he felt a hand on his arm and turned, ready for a fight.
The girl in front of him was no more than fifteen years old. She wore a low-cut white blouse and a skirt that was immodestly tight. Her long dark hair hung loose over her shoulders, and she leaned in toward Hammersmith, breathing heavily, the tops of her breasts visible under the blouse’s scooped collar.
“You look lost,” she said. She giggled, covered her mouth, and looked up at him with her head lowered. “Would you be wantin’ some company?”
Hammersmith understood. He looked toward the end of the bar and saw the two worn-out whores watching them. The girl was bait. She was a working girl, but it was her job to lure men outside or upstairs or to wherever business was done. Once a man was committed to the deed, a switch would be made and one of the others would take her place. The young woman would then sidle up to the bar once again to be dangled in front of the clientele. Hammersmith assumed that in another year, maybe just a few months, this girl would assume her place with the harder-working women and a fresh young girl would be recruited to act as the bait. It was a sad fate awaiting her, and he wondered how much of her future life she was aware of.
“No, thank you,” he said.
Her face turned red and ugly. “Well, you’re a ponce, then, ain’tcha?”
“Hardly.”
He put the girl out of his head and frowned at the mug on the bar. He had struck out again at the Whistle and Flute, and he didn’t have time to visit another pub this morning. Besides, most of them would be closing soon, if they weren’t closed already. Only the least reputable places were still open, which was why Hammersmith was still out looking. The least reputable places were the places most likely to attract his quarry.
“Oh!”
Hammersmith turned in time to see the girl fall to the floor.
“You didn’t have to get rough,” she said.
He didn’t see anyone else around, and the men at the card table across the room hadn’t budged. Hammersmith realized he was about to fall into yet another trap arranged by the same girl, and he moved quickly away from the bar just as the giant hand of the barkeep came crashing down where he had been leaning.
“What’s this, then?” the hairy brute said.
Hammersmith felt like a fool. Evidently, if the girl couldn’t coax a man upstairs where the older women might gain a shilling from him, then she’d fake an insult and the barkeep would beat or intimidate the hapless mark for a few coins. The entire establishment was set up to swindle anyone who wasn’t in on the game.
Hammersmith took another step back and reached for his club. It was strapped to his side, under his jacket. He brought it out as the barkeep produced his own club from beneath the counter. The barkeep’s club was three feet long and had iron spikes set into it. Next to it, Hammersmith’s nightstick looked like a toy. The barkeep raised a hinged portion of the bar’s surface and stepped out from behind the counter. In one smooth move he was standing in front of Hammersmith.
Hammersmith glanced toward the other end of the room. The two older prostitutes had disappeared, presumably into a back room or up the stairs. The card players had left their table and were ranged out across the wall, their features still hidden in the shadows, waiting either to resume their game or to head Hammersmith off if he ran for the door.
Hammersmith raised his hands, showing the barkeep his pitiful nightstick. The barkeep blinked and punched Hammersmith in the nose. Blood poured out across the front of Hammersmith’s shirt and spattered the floor.
He swung his club. It hit the barkeep on the shoulder and bounced off. The barkeep grinned. His teeth were uneven and brown, crumbled nuggets of bone. The young prostitute grabbed Hammersmith from behind and he shrugged her off, but he was distracted long enough that he almost missed seeing the barkeep’s club as it whistled toward him. He ducked and the club sailed over his head, thunking into the stool behind him. One of the spikes on the big man’s club stuck in the wooden seat, and the barkeep braced the stool with his foot to try to pry it out.
Hammersmith seized the moment and turned to run, but the girl hung on to his jacket and blocked his retreat. He swatted her hands away, but by now the barkeep had freed his club from the bar stool and was taking aim again.
Hammersmith turned to the side, hoping the club would hit him in the arm rather than the head, but he tripped over the girl’s leg and fell back. The girl fell the other way and the club clipped her shoulder. She screamed and Hammersmith hit the floor rolling. He jumped up, but the barkeep had already dropped the club and was hovering over the girl, who had pulled herself into a ball under the seats, her legs drawn up to her chest and her back against the counter. Blood flowed freely down her left arm, and she was trying to stop it by batting at it with her right hand.
The barkeep squatted down in front of her and grabbed her flailing hand, trying to get a look at the damage. Hammersmith was frozen in place. He knew he should run, but he was riveted to the spot, unable to look away.
“Hush now, little one,” the barkeep said. “Let me have a look at it.”