“Forgive me,” Sayers said, but the stranger was not prepared to let it go so easily.
“I should think so!” he said. “Conduct yourself better, or get out of my sight. I don’t care whose guest you are.”
He was bullet-headed and barrel-chested, in off-white planter’s clothes and with a waxed mustache. Before Sayers could speak again, a stranger had interposed himself between them.
“I witnessed the incident, such as it was, Mister Burwell,” the stranger said. “I can tell you that no offense was intended or offered.”
He drew Sayers away.
“Thank you, but you don’t have to frog-march me,” Sayers said as soon as they’d moved out of earshot. “I can see it when a man’s spoiling for an argument.”
“And I can spot when a man’s ready to rise to one,” the stranger said. “Calvin Quinn, at your service. I don’t believe I’ve seen you here before?” Quinn was a spare-looking man of about his own age, and in a rather better suit.
Sayers gave his own name and added, “Just got into town a couple of days ago.”
“Well,” Quinn said, “if there’s anyone you want an introduction to, just let me know. I’ve had dealings with most people here. I’m a lawyer. What line of business are you in?”
Sayers thought it best to mention no profession. He’d held down a range of jobs since the age of eleven. Bricklayer’s boy, boxer, actor, theatrical business manager, warehouseman, fruit picker, road digger, carnival hand…none of them likely to win him much respect in a place like this.
So he just said, “I had a windfall. That’s what I’m living on right now.”
“Ah,” Calvin Quinn said, and his interest seemed to increase. “So, what do you make of us?”
“I can’t say I’ve been here long enough to form an opinion,” Sayers said, glancing back as the noise level behind him continued to rise. The man who’d tried to provoke him was now trying to get a rise out of a young, good-looking man with a broad forehead and sideburns.
“Well,” Quinn said, “don’t form one based on the likes of him. That’s Henry Burwell. He’s angry, he’s rich, and he was born unpleasant. It’s not a healthy brew.”
At the sight of that ruddy, aggressive countenance thrusting itself into the face of the younger man, Sayers was reminded of a belligerent Turkish wrestler he’d once had to share a trailer with. On a winter’s morning, the strongman would strip to the waist and break the ice on one of the water butts, roaring loudly enough to wake up the whole camp as he splashed his bared skin with gallons of frozen slush. He would drink heavily, and when he got drunk he always wanted to arm-wrestle somebody. There seemed to be something about men of such build and temperament: the older they grew, the more hardened they became, and the more determined to seek out any opportunity to prove it in pointless competition.
Sayers said, “What’s he angry at?”
Quinn could only shrug. “Who knows? We don’t choose our natures. Any stranger is game to him. He spots an unfamiliar face and off he goes.”
“Someone ought to stop him.”
“Stop him? People contrive to get their worst enemies in here and then wait for the fireworks. You did well not to fall for it. So, what brings you to Richmond? Are you looking to invest some of that windfall money? I’ve got all the connections you could ask for, if you do.”
So that was it. Quinn probably moved in on every stranger as a possible business prospect. Such contact was, after all, a main purpose of circles such as these.
“I’m looking for someone,” Sayers said, and reached inside his borrowed coat. He brought out Louise’s picture. “She came down from Philadelphia a few weeks ago. Might you have seen her?”
Quinn took the photograph and studied it politely. He seemed to grow quiet.
“It’s an old picture,” Sayers said. “She may have changed.”
The lawyer handed it back. “I fear not,” he said. “An actress?”
“On the British stage. In another life.”
“I don’t recognize the name.”
“The name could be different now.”
“How very mysterious.”
It was then that the altercation behind Sayers grew so loud that the entire room began to fall silent and was turning to listen. “You seem to think you can insult your betters with impunity,” the bellicose Henry Burwell was all but shouting.
“I insulted no one,” the young man protested, raising his voice in response. “I never met a man so set on being offended.”
“We shall settle this,” Henry Burwell said, and gave the younger man a shove that sent him staggering back into his companions. It was a move that determined the only course that this confrontation could take.
“You seek a lesson?” the young man said, regaining his balance with the help of his friends. “You will have one.”
It was as if someone had fired off a signal. The doors to the adjoining ballroom were flung open, and the entire club began to decamp from the bar. Sayers was carried by a human tide. He’d lost sight of his conversation partner by the time he’d reached the door.
There was something unsettling about the speed with which preparations fell into place. A rope was produced and run around a series of hooks, one on the inside corner of each of the ballroom’s four wooden pillars. The crowd fell into shape around the ring that this formed. Burwell’s seconds took his coat from him and had his sleeves rolled up before the young man and his friends had even taken in what was going on. Eager helpers propelled them toward one of the newly created corners, with everyone shouting advice.
One of the young man’s friends called out, “Who’s got the gloves?”
“Gloves?” Henry Burwell shouted back. “Only women fight with gloves!”
And a man somewhere close to Sayers’ ear could be heard to say, “This has got to be the absolute best thing since the opera house did the naked nigger wrestling.”
Sayers glanced around. Some of the clubmen were grinning while others were expressing disapproval, even though they were doing nothing that might interfere with the object of their annoyance. He’d seen this phenomenon before: those who decried a thing, while ensuring they missed none of it. Indeed, they’d seek it out in all its forms so that they might disapprove of it more thoroughly.
He eyed the young man in the makeshift ring, who was now down to his vest and shirtsleeves and was handing his watch and chain to a friend for safekeeping. He was narrow-hipped and wide-shouldered, with a nice taper to his form; he might well give the local brute a few surprises and make him think twice about issuing such challenges in the future.
And if he did not…well, who was Sayers to pass judgment? This hardly differed from the way he had made his living for at least five of the past dozen years. The goaded challenger, the unequal contest, the knockout blow. The only real dissimilarity was that Sayers had taken no pleasure from his victories.
He’d just taken the money, at the end of every day.
“I’d say you had a narrow escape,” Sebastian Becker said from right beside him.
THIRTY-EIGHT
As he spoke the words, Sebastian took a firm grip on Sayers’ upper arm and held him fast. Sayers looked at him in astonishment.
“Sebastian?” he said. “What are you doing here?”
“Don’t Sebastian me,” the onetime policeman said. “You thief under my roof.”
“I stole nothing from you!”
“You’d have ruined my good name if I’d let your crime stand,” Sebastian said, his voice rising to compete with the racket all around them. “And I’ve damn near ruined my own family with what it’s taken to cover for you. I’ll have back what you took, and I’ll have it right now.”
With that, he turned Sayers around and started to shove him through the crowd toward the doors.
In among all the gentlemen, Sebastian was aware that he stood out in his travel-creased suit and his dusty shoes. He’d barely slept in two days and was sustained on a fuel of strong black coffee and indignation. He’d spent
