Hell's Gate Read online

  “What happened? Where’s Ginny?”

  “She’s not here,” Miss Gertie said, coming up behind him. “I had to let her go. She stole from one of the customers.”

  “Stole? Money?” Mike could not believe what he was hearing though he knew it was certainly common enough in her trade. He’d had his wallet lightened a few times himself over the years. But Ginny? The possibility had never crossed his mind.

  “Ja, Money. It happens,” Miss Gertie said with a shrug of her ample shoulders, “but not here. I had to send her packing.” She folded her arms over her fleshy cleavage, frowning for emphasis, but then smiled widely. “But we have many lovely girls here, girls that would be happy to entertain a gentleman like you. Come,” she said, putting an insistent arm through his and steering him to the back room. “I have a new girl just today. She is Creole, an octoroon of the finest color, very nice.”

  Mike pulled his arm away. “Where is she?” he said.

  Miss Gertie pretended not to understand. “She’s just back here, with all the—”

  “You know who I’m talking about. You must have some idea where she’s gone.”

  “You don’t vant a girl like dat.” Gertie clucked like a mother hen. “She stole! I saw the money.”

  Mike wasn’t sure what to believe. The idea that he’d badly misjudged Ginny, seen her through a fun house mirror, twisted by sex, had him suddenly doubting all he thought he’d known about her.

  Miss Gertie saw Mike’s indecision. She hated to lose a good customer like him, especially one with his connections. A little lie was surely the right thing in this circumstance. “She wanted to leave this place too badly. She maybe wanted to use people to do it, take a man’s money or maybe even his heart.” Gertie was silent for a moment, watching Mike closely before going on. “Ginny would not be the first. I have seen it many times. I do my best to guard against such things, but it is not so easy.” She sighed and shook her head with what appeared to be genuine regret.

  Mike sighed. “And you don’t know where she’s gone?”

  “I don’t,” Miss Gertie said. “I’m sorry. Maybe it’s for the best, no? Maybe better to find out this way before…”

  Mike said nothing, but a part of him began to think that Gertie might be right. It wasn’t as if the idea had never crossed his mind. He too had seen it done and to men he’d thought to have better judgment on such things. Maybe Ginny had been playing him and he’d been too blinded by her attentions to see it.

  “Come,” Miss Gertie said in a reassuring, almost motherly tone, “come see my new girl. Her name is Chloe and she is well trained in all the ways of French love.”

  Mike allowed himself to be led, his head so muddled it hurt to think, his heart like lead in his chest. Chloe was indeed a gorgeous creature just as Miss Gertie had said. She was young and more than a bit exotic; skin like coffee with cream and eyes so wide and dark that a man could fall right into them and lose himself altogether. Mike allowed himself to be charmed into her bed, but he hadn’t more than taken his shirt off when he stopped for a long moment and shook his head almost regretfully. “Chloe. You’re a peach,” Mike said with a sad smile, “but I have to go.”

  14

  MIKE WAS STEPPING through the front door of Miss Gertie’s when he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “Somethin’ ta tell ya,” Kevin said in a low voice, following Mike out onto the wide brownstone stoop. “Listen, Ginny, she didn’ steal nothin’.” He lit a cigarette and flicked the matchstick toward the curb. “Don’ think she did anyhow.”

  “How you know that? I mean she didn’t seem the type, but then…” Mike paused. “But who knows sometimes?”

  “Yeah. Sometimes ya can’t be sure o’ t’ings, but I had a strong feelin’, like. It’s like ya said. She ain’t da type. B’sides da prick she was wit, he was a right bastard. Roughed her up pretty good. I seen worse mind ya, but it went pretty hard wit Ginny. She clipped the mug wit’ a pitcher though. Give ’er credit for that. Gertie got sore about it, can’t have the girls bustin’ heads. No good fer business, ya know.”

  “So Gertie’s story was bullshit?”

  Kevin gave a long pull on his cigarette and finally said, “Dat’s right.”

  Mike thought for a moment as he leaned against the cast-iron railing at the top of the steps. A curtain moved in a front window, catching his eye. “We’re being watched,” he said with a nod toward the house.

  “Miss Gertie,” Kevin said dismissively. “She knows it wasn’ right what she done; kicking Ginny out.” He spat on the stoop. “Gertie’s getting kinda skittish lately, I guess. Business ain’t so good an’ da precinct’s always wantin’ more money. She don’ need da trouble.”

  “Who’s the guy she was with, the one she brained?” Mike said.

  “Johnny Suds, least dat’s what everybody calls him. Don’ know his real name.”

  “Where’s the bastard live?” Mike asked.

  Kevin grinned. “Now dat I can tell ya. Payin’ him a visit?”

  “Could be,” Mike said. “And you don’t know where she went, huh?”

  “Wish I did. Got da feelin’ youse’d pay good money ta know it.”

  Mike showed him a twisted grin while Kevin gave him the address, then started down the stoop. He stopped suddenly though, two steps from the bottom, turned and went back up. “I wanna take a look at her room.”

  * * *

  A wave of guilt swept over Mike as he walked east toward Longacre Square an hour later. It was an entirely new feeling and it surprised him. Guilt had never been something he’d associated with women. The allure of the sporting life had always meant the total absence of it. Maybe even more magnetic than the endless variety of women available in New York, the guiltlessness of it had always made his indulgences weightless, effortless, and all the more pleasurable. He’d never cheated on a loving wife or a doting girlfriend. He’d had no reason to take anyone’s feelings into account save his own—no lies, no stories, no out-of-the-way assignations, no repercussions or disapproval—these were things no married man enjoyed. He had been free to whore to the depths of his wallet with no one to say a word to the contrary. Until now there had been nothing to stand in his way, least of all guilt.

  But he’d found Ginny’s diary when he searched her room, and though he hadn’t read it all, he’d seen enough to make his temptation with Chloe feel like the deepest betrayal. He tried to shrug it off as he walked past the new Times Building at the triangle between Broadway and Seventh. But he could still feel its weight on his chest. The diary was damp in his sweaty right hand and his left ached under the plaster cast. Years of rationalizations, carefully constructed, layer upon layer, seemed suddenly transparent. It was true that his lifestyle had required no lies or excuses to others. But that freedom was a myth. He’d been lying to himself, believing he was hurting no one, that somehow the stones he’d cast into life’s pond left no ripples. That lie now seemed infinitely more damning than those he’d avoided.

  Mike stopped at the reservoir near the corner of Forty-second and Fifth, the weight of the diary more than he could carry any farther. He leaned against the towering stone wall of the reservoir, the huge blocks cool against his back. People passed in clusters, wagons and carriages rumbled, and hooves clopped on the hard pavement. A cop’s whistle blared from the corner and brass horns honked like geese on migration. Surrounded by the din and clang, the endless tide of flowing humanity, Mike had never felt more alone. He opened Ginny’s diary and began to read.

  A heart is the heaviest of organs. Mike would never have believed that without reading Ginny’s diary. As he read the words on those pages, writ with perfectly formed, rounded letters, their weight bent his back and bowed his head. Her heart was his to carry. That much was clear, even before he reached the last few pages, especially with the last entry. “Mike sent flowers today,” it read, “his note broke my heart.”

  The apartment at Sixteenth and Second showed no signs of life. No light shone from u
nder the door or through the transom window above. It was late, though Mike didn’t realize it until he checked his watch.

  * * *

  Not thinking, Mike banged on the door with his cast, sending bolts of pain up his arm. “Sonofabitch,” he muttered. It did nothing to improve his mood. He banged again with his good hand, shaking the door in its hinges, and rattling the transom glass. “Johnny! Johnny Suds? Open up!” No answer. He tried again, figuring Suds for a heavy sleeper, but got the same result.

  He tried the knob, but it turned in his hand and Suds was suddenly in the open doorway, a nightstick in his hand. “Who the fuck’re you? Gimme an answer you fucker ’fore I bash yer head in.” Suds raised the stick and shook it under Mike’s nose for effect.

  Mike didn’t hesitate. He swung around as he grabbed the arm, locking his own under it, and yanking up on the elbow until Suds gasped in pain and let the nightstick clatter to the floor. He put a finger at the base of Suds’s neck and pushed Suds back into the room. “You should be more careful who you wave your fucking stick at.” He gave a shove to the man’s neck and Suds fell back, gasping against a table and holding his throat.

  “Who the fuck’re you? I don’ owe you nothing. I paid the—” Suds started to say, but stopped himself in midsentence. “I know you,” he said, frowning. “You was in the papers. You was that cop. Saw your picture.”

  “You were about to say something, Johnny? You paid the Bottler already?” He knew it was a long shot, but figured it was worth a try. “And you did pay him, didn’t you?”

  Suds gave Mike a disbelieving look. “Dunno what da fuck yer talkin’ about,” Suds said, standing up, still massaging his throat.

  Mike’s attention flickered for an instant as he considered what angle to take next with Suds. It was Suds who made up Mike’s mind, launching himself, hands grabbing for Mike’s throat. Mike grabbed and twisted in one fluid motion, using Suds’s momentum against him. He threw the man over his outthrust leg, catapulting him into the open door where he crashed in a heap. Mike didn’t wait for him to get up. In the dim light he came down hard on the man’s shin, feeling it break under his heel. Suds shouted out and grabbed for his leg, his breathing rapid and ragged. The automatic was in Mike’s hands without his thinking about it.

  “Lemme see your hands!” He kicked at the leg and got a high-pitched yelp. “Your hands. Now!”

  A pair of hands shook in the light of the doorway, as pale as dead squid at the Fulton Market. “You were saying you’d paid the Bottler,” Mike said calmly. Suds started to sob. “Fuckin’ Bottler’ll kill me,” he said between gasps. “But you don’ give a shit, do you?”

  “Shut up or I’ll kill you myself. The Bottler was behind that thing the other night,” Mike said as if he was sure.

  Suds nodded. “He’s been shipping in the makins for his rotgut; cocaine, whiskey, the rest he gets legal. The stuff on that ship; that was Kid Twist’s. The Bottler figured he was tired of the competition. But how the fuck you get on to me?” Suds said, shaking his head while he grasped his broken leg. “I’m just small potatas. Just sell the stuff around is all. Ain’t no law against it.”

  Mike grunted. Suds was technically right. There wasn’t, but Mike wasn’t about to let that stop him. He kicked again at Suds’s leg, wringing another wail out of him. “I want your complete attention, Suds.” Mike crouched down and pulled out a leather sap from his back pocket. “Now you’re going to be completely honest with me. And any time I think you’re holding something back, I’m gonna make sure I have your attention. We understand each other?” Suds nodded and Mike stood to close the door, eyes never leaving Suds. “Now, you’re going to tell me everything you know about the Bottler,” Mike said as the door slammed shut.

  * * *

  It was at least an hour before Mike was satisfied that he’d gotten everything Suds had to spill. It wasn’t a lot really, but it was enough. He’d only had to use the sap a couple of times, though in a way he’d hoped for more. “You know,” he said as he stood, helping Suds into a chair. “I didn’t really come here to find out about the Bottler.”

  “Huh?” Suds’s brow knotted with confusion.

  “That ain’t what I came here for,” Mike repeated.

  “What da…?”

  “I came here because of Ginny, you pile o’ shit.”

  “The little whore?” Suds asked, shaking his head in confusion. “That gash I fucked last night? Wha’ da fuck? Who gives a shit about a twist like that?”

  Mike was ready for it. He hit Suds in the nose, hit him so hard Suds shot backwards, the chair going out from under him, bouncing his head off the floor. “Little whore, huh,” Mike growled. “You’re lucky I don’t kill you, you sack o’ shit. You talking about Ginny? That girl?”

  “I didn’ do nothin’,” Suds moaned through his hands, blood running between his fingers and down his cheeks to the floor. “She done it all and liked it. Hit me with a fuckin’ pot, the bitch.”

  Mike’s vision blurred, going red around the edges, his ears buzzing like a hive full of bees. He lashed out, kicking Suds again and again while the man screamed and blubbered. There was no kung fu in it, no trained precision, just a fury beyond his control. He didn’t know how many times he kicked Suds or even where he hit him. He just kept at it until Suds cried like a baby, his screaming high-pitched and helpless.

  Mike went down on one knee, thrusting his face close to Suds. He pushed the muzzle of the Colt into his gasping mouth. “How you like that? You want more? How you like I blow your fucking head off? You think you’d like that?”

  Suds sobbed around the barrel of the Colt, his body shaking as if he was still being stomped.

  “Where is she? You know? You got three seconds.”

  Suds shook his head, but couldn’t manage anything more than sobbing moans. Mike thumbed back the hammer.

  “No! No!” Suds managed, his eyes going wide. “No!”

  It was all Mike could do not to pull the trigger. The thought of what the groveling piece of shit before him had done to Ginny had him as close to losing control as he’d ever been. The Colt shook in his hand. To stop it, he jammed it even farther down Suds’s throat. Suds choked and drooled around the barrel.

  “Who’s there?” a voice called from down the hall. “I’m calling the police, damn it. I’m callin’ the goddamn cops, see. See how ya like that.” A door slammed.

  Mike eased up on the pistol, the voice like ice water dashed in his face. “Where is she?” he hissed at Suds. “Tell me now or the cops’ll be picking up your fuckin’ corpse.”

  “Don’ know. Don’ know. Gertie’s,” Suds gurgled around the pistol. “Swear I dunno.”

  Mike waited a few moments before he took the pistol from his mouth and wiped off the spit on Suds’s pant’s leg. Without another word, Mike stepped to the door, the pistol staying on Suds like a compass needle.

  “I need a doctor,” Suds managed through swollen lips. Mike stopped. He almost pulled the trigger then, could feel his finger tightening of its own accord. There was no thought of consequences, no sense of right or wrong, just the blur again and the buzzing. He stood for a long time, almost a minute, not giving a shit if cops were called or not, holding the automatic on Suds’s head, his nerves crackling, ragged and sparking beneath his skin in little jumps and starts.

  Slowly he regained control. With great effort, the pistol lowered. Mike tucked the automatic into his shoulder holster and disappeared.

  15

  GINNY SLEPT LONGER than she could ever recall. She slept all through the next day, remembering it only because she had used the toilet down the hall. She had a foggy vision of shuffling bare feet on the cold hallway floor, and sometime later settling back into her creaking bed like an autumn leaf. She’d discovered the secret of plumping her single, thin pillow into something passably comfortable. It smelled faintly of old drool, but felt like heaven.

  When she finally woke, she was hungry. The window above her door was the color of firepl
ace ash. She figured it was sometime around six. It was strange, yet somehow marvelous, to have lost a day like that. At Miss Gertie’s she’d often worked until the iceman came knocking at the kitchen door in the morning. It had been a scrambled existence with sex the only real timepiece.

  Ginny’s stomach growled as she dropped her feet to the floor. She realized that she hadn’t had a proper meal in nearly two days, not counting the apple she’d bought from a girl on the street while searching for a room. She splashed some water on her face and sprayed a little cologne behind her ears, hoping it would hide her unwashed condition. She smoothed the wrinkles from her clothes as best she could, realizing that she’d have to add an iron to the growing list of things she needed to buy. Her reflection in the small mirror screwed to the back of her door was indistinct and gray. She blinked and rubbed at the glass. She looked like a ghost, her skin pale and strands of hair straying off in a frazzled aura around her head. “You look a sight, girl,” she said to her reflection. It was one of her mother’s standards. She’d come back from playing with her brothers, or working with the cows or chickens and hear those words, colored with equal parts of disapproval, exasperation, and love.

  She was changing, her old self dropping away. She was becoming something new, something entirely more ordinary, more regular, and respectable. Ginny brushed the errant hairs back and secured them in a neat bun. She smiled at her reflection. A factory girl smiled back, or a shop girl or maybe even an office girl, definitely not a whore.

  She would set about making that transformation the next morning. She’d get herself a respectable job, new clothes with a bit less flash and with them a new way of thinking about herself. She’d put the old Ginny away. It would be the new Ginny who would find Mike. She wondered if he knew what had happened, if he was already looking for her. She hoped he was, but didn’t want to be found, not just yet.

  Ginny stepped into the street a few minutes later, her stomach growling, but her spirits high. She found a sandwich shop on Forsythe where she joined a small crowd of showgirls, whores, rubes, panhandlers, gamblers, and hawkers, sitting so close it looked as though they shared arms. The soup was hot and not as watery as she expected. She wolfed down a plate of boiled ham, slathered with mustard, and with burnt biscuits on the side. She just about cleaned the crumbs off the table, but still felt she could eat more. She thought about going back in line for more, but her purse wouldn’t allow it. She had to watch her money until she got a job.