The Ten of Spades

The Dilemma The door slammed in my face. A cold breeze flapped the corners of my overcoat, and I quickly reached up to keep my hat atop my head. My lady’s maid Amelia Dewey sighed. “I’m sorry, mum.” Carriages and horses, women and men passed by, never giving me a glance. The wooden banister snagged my glove as I descended the cracked steps. The midmorning light was weak, thin, pale. Amelia glanced around. “Do we go on?” Did I have any choice? “We go on.” But it was much the same on 24th Street as on all the rest. The response varied from fearful curtsies to angry curses. The answer still was no. No, they didn’t need an investigator. No, they knew no one who might. No, I couldn’t come in. “f*****g Pot rag” was the most blunt way it’d been expressed, but their eyes all said it. The worst was on West 4th, when an old widow woman offered me charity. Even in the Pot I wasn’t a beggar, nor — as some put it — a new way for the Spadros Family to gouge their quadrant. I wasn’t so far gone as to take their pity. We returned home for luncheon. My butler, Blitz Spadros, opened the door for us. “Any luck?” I sighed, shook my head, went past him into our home. It was a good place, those few apartments. Now that I think of it, the place was built to be a boarding house. An entry, a small parlor through a door to the right. My two rooms lay to the left: the front one my bedroom, the next my office, each with their own bath and toilet. Another unoccupied room lay beyond that. Straight ahead, stairs rose to a large room which had picture windows overlooking the street. Behind the parlor, a door led to our kitchen. The hall beside the stairs passed first the kitchen (accessible through a door to the right). Then the hall passed our empty room and turned behind the kitchen to the rooms Blitz and his wife Mary shared. A closet nestled under the stair. The building was a duplex: our half faced onto 33 1/3 Street. It had a side door from the kitchen, which opened onto an alley barely wide enough to walk down. This was all I owned in the world, and if something didn’t happen soon, I’d lose it too. I went through the parlor into the kitchen. My housekeeper Mary stirred a pot of soup. We often had soup these days. Mary Spadros was a pretty woman of one and twenty, with pale skin and straight light brown hair. She smiled when she saw me. “Almost ready.” I slumped into a chair. “It smells wonderful.” Amelia came in. She now wore her maid’s uniform, black with white hat and apron. “Mum, you need out of these clothes.” I let out a snort of amusement. “Always wanting to change me.” “You’ll feel better once you’re into something comfortable.” I did feel better, especially once my corset came off. I hated the thing. Even as a child, I hated anything which tried to constrain me. We sat around the small kitchen table, Amelia bustling about to serve our soup and bread. A bit of graying black hair had fallen from its bundle under her hat to lie damp along her pale doughy cheek. While she placed my food precisely, she was more careless with Blitz and Mary’s items. A bit of soup slopped over the side of Mary’s bowl onto the white lace tablecloth. Mary rolled her eyes, but not so Amelia might see. I said, “Won’t you have a cup, Amelia?” “I may.” She ladled the steaming liquid into a wide mug. “I’ll sit on the back stair.” Amelia would seldom join us — sitting at the table with your “betters” was apparently forbidden to servants in Bridges. But this didn’t bother me today. Amelia had made it quite clear that her first loyalty was to my husband, Anthony Spadros. And Tony didn’t need to know about this. Once she’d closed the door, I asked, “What’s our situation?” Blitz put his elbows on the table. “We have this month’s Family fees. We have enough to pay for your medication. And for food, if we’re careful. The main problem is the property tax.” When Dame Anastasia Louis left me the deed to the building after her murder, it was about to be sold for back taxes. So his words disturbed me. “Fortunately, it isn’t due for a few months yet.” He glanced aside. “Sawbuck should be here today with your allotment.” Tony sent money each month by way of his first cousin Ten Hogan (who everyone called Sawbuck), supposedly for “all I needed” — the minimum required by law for a woman “of my station.” But it was much less than the Court had provided during my trial. We’d had to replace the parlor windows several times after rocks and bricks were thrown in. A fine metal mesh placed outside the lower windows, held up two feet away by rods of iron thrust deep into the earth, stopped that. But we were still making payments for the work. And I owed Mr. Doyle Pike — the lawyer who’d saved my life — a great deal. Aside from a few cases which were little more than messenger service, I’d earned nothing. I had no idea how to pay the thousands of dollars I still owed him. It was more money than I’d ever seen in my life. After the trial, Mr. Pike immediately filed a lawsuit against the city for everything he could think of: false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, libel, failure to protect me whilst in custody. That last one almost got me killed. We did everything the judge asked, yet one day Mr. Pike brought bad news. “The Four Families want no more scandal. The court has been instructed to delay until we give up.” Mr. Pike had patted my hand, yet I could see his disappointment. “My dear, I can pursue this further if you wish. But it’ll be less costly, both to your pocketbook and reputation, if we stop now.” I had no money to pay what I already owed him, much less continue on. But he’d shown no inclination to forgive the debt. Each time Mr. Pike had come calling since then, I’d told Blitz to inform him I was not at home. And I hadn’t answered any of his letters. But I knew how this worked: eventually, he’d tire of being polite and hire enforcers. Anyone Mr. Pike hired would hesitate to attack me, if only out of fear of the Spadros syndicate. But there were many ways to make my life miserable which didn’t involve physical violence. Blitz and Mary looked glum. They were living on the little they’d been able to save before they married and left Spadros Manor. I’d forbidden them to spend any of that on me, or if they did, to keep an accounting. But I knew they’d spent their money anyway — we still had meat in our soup, after all. Blitz — also Tony’s cousin — had been his night footman. Mary — the daughter of Tony’s butler — had been Tony’s maid. But since Blitz and Mary left Spadros Manor to become my staff, Tony seemed not to care if they starved. As one of Spadros Manor’s servants, Amelia had plenty. And I wondered if this was deliberate, a way for Tony to show what I could have — if I would only return to him. Was he truly that petty? Mary rested her hand upon mine. “You’ll find someone who needs your help, mum. I know you will.” People were always telling me to “go back to the Pot.” It was times like this that made me wonder if they weren’t right to say that after all. * * * I couldn’t spare a penny up and back several times a day for taxi-carriages, so my feet hurt most of the time. After our brief luncheon, I sat in my bedroom, put my feet up, and counted my business cards. One hundred twenty-seven left of the 500 I’d bought before the trial, with no way to purchase more. I’d sent a card to my former dressmaker Madame Marie Biltcliffe (who used to arrange cases for me, until we’d fallen out) and received no answer. My best friend Jonathan Diamond had pinned my cards in places where families of the accused gathered and given one to every attorney in the city. I wiggled my toes inside my boots. Twenty-three years old, and not much to show for it. My birthday had come and gone, with my few retainers and the smallest Yule log for company. And every day, from the time I woke to the time I fell asleep, I wanted a drink. I wasn’t sure that would ever leave me. But I was free. I had a roof over my head, and my stomach was full. The steam pipes worked and the lighting too. I hadn’t frozen over the winter. All I needed was a job. I lit a cigarette and read a day-old copy of the Bridges Daily Amelia had brought from Spadros Manor. The new Mayor, Mr. Chase Freezout, seemed to be recovering from the terrible beating my father-in-law Roy Spadros gave him on the courthouse steps in early November. At the Grand Ball on New Year’s Eve, Mayor Freezout had given a brief speech from a rolling chair at the top of the balcony. But he hadn’t been seen in public until now. According to the paper, he made a proclamation — “firmly grasping the lectern” — to denounce the “ruffians plaguing this city.” I imagined Mayor Freezout referred to someone other than the Four Families. The sight of the police standing idly by as he was beaten bloody by the Spadros Family Patriarch on the Courthouse steps couldn’t have failed to make an impression. Inventor Etienne Hart and his mother Judith had moved from their ancestral home at the racetrack to a mansion on 190th Street, Hart quadrant, right next door to Mayor Freezout’s former home. The paper said the new Hart property was being heavily guarded. I could only imagine. At the time, I felt certain Mrs. Hart was being questioned most thoroughly. She’d almost caused a war between the Spadros and Hart quadrants. But what would her husband Charles Hart do? As Patriarch of the Hart Family, he couldn’t let a scandal of this magnitude go unpunished. Inexplicably, Roy Spadros hadn’t pursued the matter. Which was odd, because Roy hated Charles Hart more than anything else. And why had Judith Hart turned against me in the first place? From all my observations, she believed I was her husband’s lover. The idea repulsed me — the man was old enough to be my grandfather! And while perhaps Mr. Hart had some feeling towards me, we had firmly resolved the matter. I regarded him as a rather dangerous but highly useful acquaintance. But clearly Mrs. Hart was in league with the notorious Red Dog Gang, who’d tormented me and the Spadros Family for over a year now. District Attorney Freezout — now Mayor — indicated after the trial that Mrs. Judith Hart had been part of his framing me for the zeppelin bombing. Could the motivation for all the crimes the Red Dog Gang had committed — kidnapping, blackmail, theft, murder — possibly be as simple as Mrs. Hart’s jealousy? I laughed aloud at the idea. You didn’t bomb a zeppelin, killing hundreds of people, because your husband was in love with another woman. It was absurd. So there had to be much more at stake. But what? I sat up, squared my business cards, and put them in their case. If we were to survive, I had work to do. I’d made it down 24th Street. With any luck, Amelia and I might visit the east half of 25th before darkness fell. The bell rang. I reached my door just as Blitz knocked. “Sawbuck’s here.” I opened the door; Blitz stepped back, startled. Sawbuck loomed behind Blitz in the open doorway. While the money was welcome, Sawbuck, not so much. I leaned on the door-frame. “Master Ten Hogan. What a pleasant surprise.” Sawbuck flicked out a dollar bill. “Here’s your cash.” I almost laughed. A dollar. “Why doesn’t he come himself?” Sawbuck hadn’t moved, the dollar still standing upright between his fingers. At my words, his face darkened. “Why do you think?” He flicked the dollar into the air, and it fluttered down. “I’ve done my duty,” he snapped, and stalked out. Blitz picked up the dollar. “It seems Mr. Anthony has had a bad day.” That made sense. Sawbuck was utterly devoted to Tony, and had not forgiven me for leaving Tony the way I had. The horror on Tony’s face when he saw me and Joseph Kerr together that night in my study swam in front of my eyes. “I imagine so.” But I had to focus on today. “Amelia.” She emerged. “Yes, mum?” My feet hurt terribly, but I could think of no other options. “Let’s see how far we get on 25th.”