The boy seemed nice enough. Certainly polite and knew his manners. However, she had detected a certain nervousness in him as he held his hat, smiled and bobbed his head, and answered all her questions. She wondered what it was he wasn’t telling her. Although, if the number of words spoken was an indication of his sincerity, he was entirely guileless. In fact, he ran off at the mouth a bit, which, again, could just be nerves. But Inez had noted his gaze dart around as if looking for an escape when he described the many members of his family, particularly Katie.
Until he mentioned his father the police detective.
That gave Inez pause. Could this be the same Detective Lynch who de Bruijn had met? The Detective Lynch who was “nominally” in charge of investigating the Long Bridge murder? It would be quite the coincidence, but life was nothing if not filled with coincidences and serendipitous twists of fate.
As she mulled this development, Michael chatted on about his father, visibly more relaxed and beaming with pride, saying, “Once I’m out of school I’m going to join the force like my da and my brother Daniel. He’s a patrolman now.”
So, a policeman’s son, planning to become a policeman himself someday. One might conclude that an aspiration to join law enforcement argued for qualities of honesty and integrity, but such had not always been Inez’s experience.
Inez shook her head. Surely she was reading too much into this.
Inez watched Antonia interact with Michael, or as she called him, Mick. They chattered with an air of familiarity. Inez wondered if the friend who had invited Antonia to sup with the Lynches that evening might not have been the aforementioned younger sister Katie, but perhaps Mick himself.
From the little she saw, Mick treated Antonia with respect and the sort of boyish good nature that didn’t indicate anything but a genuine fondness. And Antonia was still young. She evinced none of the girlish blushing and batting of eyelashes that would indicate she thought of the young Irish lad as anything more than as a friend. Ah, but give her a few more years. Inez was not looking forward to those times, given Antonia’s stubborn will, which rivaled Inez’s own.
At least Mick had given her his address. And since Inez’s evening’s plans included taking the horsecar down Third to the Mission Creek waterfront, she would be going right by the house. With a little luck she might spot Antonia with Katie or Mick. That would certainly clear up any lingering suspicions regarding Antonia’s true whereabouts.
Once Antonia and Mick departed, she headed for the storage room to prepare for her expedition to Henderson’s Three Sheets. Inez hunted down one of several trunks she had brought with her from Leadville, set her lamp atop a nearby tin hat box, and opened the trunk. She drew in a deep breath, inhaling the clean aroma of cedar accompanied by undertones of wood smoke and an indefinable scent that brought back memories of the high mountain boomtown she had once called home.
The yawning trunk beckoned her to pause, to sift through its contents slowly, to remember the place, its people, her life.
Anxious to shut the container and shut away the past, Inez pushed aside soft silk petticoats, fine linen lace-bedecked camisoles, satin-lined corsets, and patterned silk stockings, all swathed in tissue to protect them from time. Close to the bottom, she uncovered the trappings for her transformation, including black trousers, dark shirt, and black waistcoat. She set aside a black frock coat, deeming it too meticulous for where she would be, and opted for a somber sackcoat of similar midnight hue. Slouch hat, celluloid collar, necktie, and a long wind of linen to bind her breasts flat. Finally, she hauled out an old pair of Mark’s boots wrapped in plain brown paper.
She slammed the trunk shut, picked up the clothing items and the lamp, and hastened out of the room as if the ghosts of all her past misdeeds were on her heels.
It had been some time since she had dressed the part she planned to play. Her hair was longer now, having grown out from that time two years ago when she had chopped it all off in a desperate bid to blend in anonymously with a certain male milieu. This evening, she would fall back on her old tricks from years earlier, tucking her braided hair under her collar and wearing her hat low. No one ever took their hats off in the various gin mills she had occasion to frequent in her past life. She suspected it would be no different in San Francisco.
She changed quickly in her bedroom and examined the results in the mirror over the washstand, with the lamp turned low. The lighting at The Three Sheets would be smoky and inadequate if the place was anything like the Barbary Coast dives the musicians occasionally discussed. “It will do,” she said to her shadowed reflection.
Two more items were required.
She opened the drawer in her nightstand and extracted her pocket revolver, a Remington Number Two Smoot’s Patent. Loaded and ready, but unused since she arrived in San Francisco. She did not expect to discharge it tonight. Still, given where she was going and the hour, it would be prudent to take it with her and foolhardy to leave it behind. She checked the revolver quickly, but thoroughly, before placing it in her jacket pocket.
Finally, she reached into the back of the drawer for the business card she had recently obtained. The simple card, as free of embellishment as the man it introduced, stated:
W. R. de Bruijn.
Private detective. Inquiry agent.
Finder of the lost.
“Let us see what we can find at The Three Sheets,” Inez said to the card. She then
