“Any problems, Doc?”
Butler watched his brother seat himself across from the woman. Doc just had a fluid way about him, an ease of movement, as though he were a man for whom the world had no more surprises.
Doc said, “Keep an eye on Amy. I dosed her for the clap. And I treated the new girl, Gina, for hysteria. I suspect that’s all she needed, but if she complains about pressure in the next few days, I might need to relieve her again.”
Phillipa nodded, lowering her head so that her double chins appeared. “Not my concern anymore. Not after tomorrow. I’m on the street.”
“The girls said something about it. What happened?”
She gave him a humorless and wide-lipped grin that exposed the missing premolars in her jaws. “A woman like me shouldn’t gamble. That’s how I met Big Ed in the first place. He staked me to build this place. Fanciest house in Denver when it went up. Paid him off two years later. And what happens? I’m in the free and clear for less’n a year, and I wager it on a sure thing. A goddamned horse race. Oh, it was a sure thing, all right. Clear up to the moment my horse, two lengths ahead, snaps his right foreleg in two. Tossed the rider down the track for fifty yards.”
“If we’re talking about the same race,” Doc told her, “I set the rider’s broken bones.”
Phillipa waved around at her fancy parlor with its cut-glass lamps, marble fireplace, and elegant piano. “Difficult come, but sure easy go. Maybe I can start over again. Get another stake from Big Ed.”
“And if you can’t?” Butler asked offhandedly.
Phillipa fixed him with her faded blue eyes. “Well, crazy man, there’s always the whore’s slow demise. For as long as the fine clothes last, I can set up in a crib. But at my age, it’s gonna have to be dark if I’m going to lure the johnnies in. And after that runs its course, there’s always the street. Walking up on a drunk and riding his johnson in the alley for two bits a go.”
“And after that?” Doc asked quietly.
“Maybe I’ll land on your porch and beg for a full bottle of laudanum to take down to the river and chug to the dregs. But, enough of that. What do I owe you, Doc?”
“Same as always. Two dollars a girl and five for Amy’s dosing.”
Butler watched Phillipa count out twenty dollars, hesitate, and add another five.
“Call that last a gratuity, Doc. You were always decent with me and the girls.” She glanced at Butler. “Even your crazy brother minded his manners when cunt was flashed in his face.”
Doc pushed the five back. “You have more need of that, given the circumstances.”
She studied Doc, nodded, and slipped the five into her bosom.
Doc stood, saying, “Phillipa, stay in touch. You have skills. If I hear of anyone needing a manager…”
“You’re a good man, Doc Hancock.” She winked. “You looking for a randy, older wife who could still squeeze your johnson hard enough to … Ah, I see. I didn’t think you were. But it’s nice to get a declining smile instead of a look of outright revulsion.”
Doc led Butler to the door, saying, “It’s a hard life they’re facing, isn’t it?”
“‘Oh, soft Eros and Cyprian lady, devise some surge of beauty, I pray.
“‘To smooth between our nipples, and oh, Aphrodite slip beautifully between our brave thighs!” Butler quoted.
“What dat be?” Kershaw asked behind his ear.
“Aristophanes at his cynical best in Lysistrata.”
Doc stopped at the door, giving him a look askance. Then he glanced back at Phillipa, still sitting at the table, and called, “This new owner? Who is it?”
“Some Yankee. Tough-looking bastard. Said his name was Win Parmelee.”
74
October 5, 1866
That night in Aggie’s parlor house, Sarah bent over the ledger book. Its columns of numbers had been carefully entered by her steady hand. Beside her—already stained by the grease on the kitchen table—were her work sheets. On them she first made her columns, writing down from each of the receipts what the expenses were. Only after she had totaled them three times did she laboriously copy them into the ledger book with the sums at the bottom.
She straightened her back, winced at the cramp in her muscles, and paused long enough to sip from her lukewarm coffee cup. Her butt was sore from the uncomfortable wooden chair. The kitchen—always too warm—had brought a sheen of perspiration to her underarms and neck.
Aggie had a cramped but efficient kitchen, with a cast-iron cookstove sporting a warming shelf and water heater. A wooden counter for preparing meats and vegetables stood waist-high along one wall. An icebox, the table at which she labored, and a wall full of shelves that brimmed with pots, pans, cups, and plates completed its furnishings. Just off the back door was a pantry stuffed full of tinned foods. Fresh meat hung in the closed-in porch out back.
Through the kitchen door she could hear the professor’s voice rising and falling over the hired violinist and cellist playing music. Central City, with its cosmopolitan and diverse population, produced men with lots of unexpected talents—including remarkable musicians.
Raised as Sarah was in backcountry Arkansas, she’d heard of Mozart but never thought she’d actually hear his music played. The same with Brahms and Beethoven, Handel and Bach. In the months she’d worked at Aggie’s, she’d come to appreciate how much life she had missed on the Upper White. As she did, bits and pieces had begun to form in her head. Things she anticipated she would do when she and Bret made their stake and moved to San Francisco. Opera. Symphony. Plays. Books she had never read. So many opportunities awaited her.
But dang! In the meantime
