The Wicked City. Beatriz Williams
too fine and good to be sitting here in this lousy dump. You deserve a better life, out in the country, where you don’t have to lift a finger, where you don’t have to spend eight hours a day in slavery to some lecherous banker, where you don’t have to think about anything so crass as—”
“You know something, Billy-boy? I generally find that people who say they don’t care about money are the exact same people who’ve never had to earn any.”
“You’re right. You’re quite right. And that’s what I want for—”
“Cherub,” I say kindly, returning his hand, “will you excuse me a moment? It seems my company is required at the bar.”
NOW, BEFORE you go forming any ill opinions of me, let me assure you I’ve never taken a cold dime from Billy the Kid. A drink or two, maybe, but no kale. I don’t allow any gentleman to pay for the privilege of my company. I’ve seen too many girls get into hot water that way, and anyway Billy’s such a dear fellow. We met several weeks ago at some uptown party or another—I think Julie Schuyler introduced us, she’s a friend of mine, if you can call it that—and he looked at me and I looked at him, and he had this lovely sheepish clean-eared handsomeness, this scrubbed jaw and pink cheek and full lower lip, this brown eye just waiting for a match to set it smoldering. Lean, straight shoulders and new skin, his shirtfront as white and flat as pure marble, his head tilted forward and his mouth cracked open, his pink tongue fumbling for a greeting. I said, Hello there, I’m Gin, and he said, I’m Billy, and I said, Pleased to meet you, Billy the Kid, emphasis on the pleased, and he just blushed into his blond, curling hair and I fell in love. I took his hand and we danced a bit, and then we went out into the cold Manhattan morning and kissed right there on the corner of Fifth Avenue and Sixty-First Street, while the frozen branches of Central Park scratched against the nearby wind, and his lips were exactly as soft and warm as I feared. Later, he asked me if my name was really Gin, and I said no, it was Geneva, but people called me Ginger because of my hair, and Ginger became Gin. His face showed relief. I guess he was afraid I might be a drunk.
UNLIKE BILLY—THAT tall, slender sapling, full of promise—the stranger at the bar is a live oak. Limbs thick, neck like a trunk. Ears planted on each side of his head. His shorn golden-brown hair puts me in mind of a pelt. Next to his elbow, atop the plain black overcoat, his hat contains the perfect curves of a Fifth Avenue haberdashery, the kind that charges you a mint and sends you out a gentleman. Next to his other elbow sits a glass of sweet milk, straight up.
“Evening, Gin.” Christopher nods to the stranger. “Fellow was asking for you.”
I point to the milk. “Make it two, will you?”
Christopher turns away, and I hold out my hand. “Ginger Kelly. I couldn’t help admiring your shoulders. Do you swing from trees?”
“Not since I was ten.” (Voice like a bass drum, beaten by a knotted rope.)
“Crush coconuts between your bare palms?”
“That depends on what you mean by coconuts.” He takes my hand. “Oliver Anson.”
“What a civilized-sounding name. Irish?”
“English.”
“My mistake.”
The milk lands on the counter. Christopher adds a look that asks whether I require any assistance, and I return a look that says, Keep an eye on Billy for me, will you? I lift my glass. “Cheers.”
“Cheers.”
Clink.
Drink.
The band starts a new piece, drawling, full of blues. Bruno’s bass thrums up and down. The milk is ice-cold and creamy and pure on the tongue, the taste of childhood, and as I study Anson’s face over the rim of the glass, I consider the contrast between his genteel clothes and his rocky, tanned face. His eyes, so dark a blue they are almost without color at all. I can usually take down the measure of a man at first glance—it’s a talent of mine, the way some folks can whip up a soufflé or paint someone’s face—but this one isn’t adding up. A cop doesn’t have the dough to dress like that. A gangster doesn’t have the taste. Anyway, he’s young. Not as young as Billy, but younger than I thought. The few lines on his face are new and kind of faint, as if sketched by a needle. I set down the milk.
“Tell me something, Mr. Anson. Just how did you come to know my name and whereabouts?”
“Does it matter?”
“It might. A girl making her way in the big city can’t be too careful.”
“I quite agree.”
“And you can’t trust a living soul, I’ve found. Always some do-gooder skulking around, you know, the vice patrol, looking to catch a girl out on the town for the crime of having a good time.”
“You think I’m some kind of bull?”
“Now, what kind of question is that? We’re just standing here, drinking our milk like good little boys and girls. Nothing wrong with that.”
He glances at Billy and back again. “Is he yours?”
“Maybe he is and maybe he isn’t. I don’t believe that’s any of your business.”
“I think he’s about to make it my business.”
So Billy storms up, flushed to the temples, neck pink against his white collar, and inserts himself between me and Anson. Demands to know what the devil he thinks he’s doing. They’re the exact same height, maybe six feet and a hair of the dog, but I believe Billy weighs about half as much. Anson replies to this perfectly legitimate question with the polite tolerance you might lay on a stale doughnut. Says something about having a private word with me.
“Well, you can’t have a private word with her.”
“Can’t I?”
“No. Miss Kelly has nothing to do with you, nothing at all. She’s here with me, do you understand? Minding our own business.”
“I see.” Mr. Anson finishes his milk, lays a dollar bill on the counter. Collects his hat and his overcoat. Nods to me in such a way that you could almost call it a bow. “A pleasure, Miss Kelly.”
“All mine, Mr. Anson.”
He walks away, leaving that whole dollar bill unchanged on the counter, straight up the steps and out the door, and Billy turns to me, all bright and crackly with triumph, the dear young thing.
“Well! I sure as hell showed him, didn’t I?”
THE POWDER room at the back of Christopher’s isn’t much to speak of, and I’ve seen a crapper or two in my time. I mean, it’s a basement of a basement. What are you going to do? There’s about enough room to swing a cat, if you’re the kind of damned brute who swings cats, and your cat belongs to a pygmy tribe. The tiles are black and white, the mirror’s chipped, the sink bears the stains of a thousand furtive cigarettes. The toilet’s liable to flush you down whole, if you’re not careful. In the corner, there’s a narrow ventilation shaft—I use the term loosely—leading to the stinking back garden of the next-door grocery, and I am presently contemplating said shaft as a means of possible escape. Not from poor Billy—whose bravery in the face of Tarzan has just about melted down the sides of that place in my chest where the heart’s