Chapter 18 #3
Ordinarily, I am occupied with the labor of running the inn.
But here with Kodiak, very little is expected of me.
I never understood until now how leisure—the business of being idle, of existing only to enjoy the day—could be a full occupation.
This was a luxury afforded to other Sherman women, but never me.
I was equal parts servant and wife. But here, I’ve walked without purpose, let my mind wander where it pleases.
Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop, and now I understand why.
The Devil finds such favor among the idle because they have the time to entertain him.
Here, the streets thrum with life. Carriages rattle past and ladies step daintily along the walks beneath their parasols. Vendors call their wares, and a gaggle of ragged boys weaves through the crowd, their voices high and urgent as they cry the day’s news.
“Extra! Extra! Opera holdup! Thousands stolen under their noses. Read how they done it!”
The headline nearly makes me stumble. I steal a glance at Kodiak, but his expression betrays nothing, as though the words have no meaning to him at all. While there is no doubt this was Kodiak’s scheme, I was with him the entire night, his hand in mine, his voice steady in my ear.
It defies reason.
“How did you do it?” I whisper.
“I’m sure I haven’t the faintest notion what you are speaking of,” he replies in his gentlemanly accent, smooth as polished silver. How easily he wears it, how easily he casts it aside.
I release his hand and about-face, hurrying toward a boy with a stack of papers under his arm.
“One paper, please.”
“A penny.”
I give him the coin and take the sheet, the ink smudging faintly against my gloves. Ahead of me, Kodiak slows his pace, glancing back with thinly veiled irritation. Without a moment's hesitation, I unfurl the paper and see the story plain as day on the front page.
Daring Robbery at the French Opera House
The French Opera House was the scene of a daring robbery last night, the fact not discovered until some hours after the curtain had fallen.
An usher, a watchman, and the box-office clerk were set upon by unknown parties and confined during the entertainment.
Though no lives were lost, the men were badly beaten.
Upon the alarm being raised, it was found that the treasurer’s strong-box had been rifled and several thousand dollars carried off.
The perpetrators made good their escape unobserved.
No arrests have yet been made. The management announces a reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the guilty parties.
My mouth falls open. Was he two men at once? I remember his hand in mine, yet the night runs ragged in my memory, blurred by the green fairy.
He pressed the glass on me.
He wanted me blind.
The bastard.
I march up to him, paper clutched tight. Before I can speak, he holds up a hand to stop me.
“Not here,” he says, catching my wrist. He steers me off the street into a narrow court—flagstones damp, an ornate fountain ticking at the basin, shutters drawn above. He faces me, smooths the corner of his mustache once, then holds himself still, boots planted.
“Look,” he says, voice stripped of polish. “I told you it was for your own good not to get in deeper.”
“I am already in it,” I answer. “I have nowhere to go, no one I may trust. You have made me a party whether I will it or not. So tell me.”
A long breath. He rubs the back of his neck, then drops his hand.
“Walked in same as any gentleman with a ticket. Waited my moment. Pulled a kerchief over my face. Cleared my path of interruptions and worked the strongbox before goin’ back to my seat.
Simple as that.” He says it as if it were as benign as visiting the postmaster to buy stamps.
“The paper said unknown parties.”
“Well it was me who beat the starch out of all three of ’em, one by one. No one else. Told you, I work alone.”
I draw back, hand to my chest. “You truly struck them?”
“They’re breathin’, ain’t they?” A dry hitch of a laugh, without warmth. “Hell, Alice, I could’ve killed the lot of ’em. Would you rather that?”
I can only stare.
He tilts his head, the faintest curl at his mouth. “See? Mercy. That’s me bein’ kind.”
I steady the paper under my arm. “And what business keeps you here?”
“A fence,” he says. “Buys what don’t belong to me, makes it pass for clean.”
“And you plan to meet with this fence?”
He nods wearily, then holds out his hand to resume our walk.
I clasp my hands neat at my waist. “I will come with you.”
Something in him goes very still. When he speaks again, the weariness is gone, replaced with a hard, cold edge.
“No,” he says. “You will not. And don’t fool yourself—layin’ with me don’t give you a say over my business. I take care of what’s mine how I see fit. You walk in there lookin’ like a Sunday school teacher, they’ll see you comin’ a mile away.”
The words cut. My chin lifts. “Do not speak to me as if I were a child. I will not be sent off while you disappear into shadows.”
His jaw knots, a vein pulsing at his temple. The mask is gone, and I see the brute the papers warn about. He crowds the space between us, driving me back a step until my spine meets the wall. He leans down close enough that his breath scorches my cheek.
“Yes. You. Will,” he says, final. “You’ll do exactly as I tell you—or you can pack your shit and crawl back to Ohio. Your boredom ain’t my business, Alice. I done my job of lookin’ after you, and you got everything you need. If that don’t suit you, walk away and see how long you last.”
The cruelty in it slices deep. He has never stood over me like this, never let me feel the weight of his temper turned full upon me. A cold dread spreads through me.
Pride alone keeps my spine stiff. I smooth my gloves, set my hat just so, and incline my head as though we were polite strangers. My voice is flat, chilled. “Very well, then.”
I turn and walk out into Jackson Square, where the crowd swallows me, iron balconies shadowing my path, a brass horn wailing from somewhere down the street. Chin high, steps measured, I carry on to the Hotel de Chartres.
Only when I reach the hotel steps, the noise dimming behind me, do my knees weaken. I climb quickly, clutching the banister, my vision blurred. By the time the door closes on our room, the tears I held at bay come hard and fast, spilling hot down my cheeks.