Authors: Princess of Thieves
Before she could stop him, he was charging
down the hall. She heard the door open, and before she had time to
think, he was bellowing for the police at the top of his lungs.
Though she was numbed with shock, paralyzed in her alarm, her
predicament nonetheless began to penetrate the fuzziness in her
head. She had to move fast. There was no time now to grieve. She
didn’t know why McLeod was here. But it was possible that, being a
trusting sort, Jackson had told him her story. If so, she knew
she’d be found guilty even before the trial. McLeod was a
frighteningly influential man. Against his testimony, no amount of
explanation would convince the police that a clip artist who’d set
out to marry into one of New York’s first families hadn’t shot them
when they’d found out what she was up to.
Blind panic clouded her brain. She flew up
the stairs to Winston’s room and grabbed the valise that lay packed
and waiting for their honeymoon in Niagara. She looked around for
any money on the dresser, but there was none. And there was no time
to explore further. She could hear McLeod’s frantic calls all the
way up the street. In the heart of Fifth Avenue, it wouldn’t be
long before a policeman heeded the call.
She slipped down the stairs, raced through
the house, and rattled the back door. It was locked. She fumbled
with the latch. She could hear voices in the front hall. Her hands
shook at the lock, but she refused to give up. Her instinct for
survival was too strong, too deeply ingrained by generations of
perilous getaways. As the footsteps sounded throughout the house,
the latch finally opened beneath her quaking hands. She ran out,
just in time, into the cold dark refuge of the harboring night.
At any hour, the Bowery seemed to breathe and
pulsate its own peculiar brand of life. A haven for bargain-hunters
during the day, it transformed itself into a wicked, pleasure-laden
quarter after dark. Saranda passed barrooms, hotels, beer halls,
music halls, cheap theaters, restaurants, and an assortment of
small and offbeat museums.
Violence was no stranger to the district.
Illegal prizefights were staged nightly by the rowdies, vagabonds,
and drunken thugs who populated the area. Frustration was the
mother of these pugilists. While the city attracted men of unusual
strength and physical vitality, their intelligence and ambition
were often squandered by their limited resources. Often, the only
path of employment open to them was by the brutal exploitation of
their fists.
As much as anything, though, it was an area
that flaunted its disrespect of the law. Justice, being blind, was
a danger to immigrants shoved like rats in a crate into the slums
of a teeming city. Laws threatened the very activities that made
existence bearable. Temperance men were continually threatening to
close down saloons on Sundays, the only time when a working man
could drink in an area where social clubs were almost nonexistent.
Tavern keepers and hackmen were required to have public licenses
but had to be citizens to apply. While the uptown reformers decried
the vice, violence, and evasion of law, the Bowery closed its ranks
and protected its own.
In short, it was the perfect place to
hide.
* * *
The beer hall was thick with smoke, rank with
the smells of stale brew and unwashed male bodies. The men,
drinking from tankards at long wooden tables, glanced up as she
came in. She was bound to cause a commotion, dressed as she was in
her wedding gown. She squirmed uncomfortably beneath their gaze.
She’d have preferred to blend in less conspicuously. But there was
little she could do at the moment. There’d been no time to change,
and her first order of business was finding a place to hide.
She finally spotted the man she was looking
for laughing and slamming tankards on the table with some of his
friends. She made her way to him as swiftly as possible, wanting
nothing more than to become invisible.
“Stubbs, I have to talk to you.”
He was called Stubbs because he had thick
stubs for fingers. But he was the best safecracker in the business
and he’d helped her get oriented when she’d first come to the
city.
The men were outdoing each other by bragging
about their exploits. Stubbs looked up at her in the middle of a
guffaw, and his leering face quickly changed to one of respect.
“Why, hello,” he greeted her, obviously surprised to see this
vision, glowing in white satin and diamonds and tumbling,
pearl-strewn hair, looking like an angel sent from heaven.
Recovering himself, he said, “Boys, we’re in the company of
royalty. Meet the best damn—”
She cut Stubbs off before he could go too
far. “I need your help,” she said urgently.
He sensed her agitation and, with a parting
nod to the boys, stood and led her to a back table as ribald
comments floated in their wake. Ignoring them, Saranda sat with her
back to the room, feeling the safety of darkness swallow and
comfort her, even as her heart continued to pound.
“I’m in trouble,” she began without preamble,
keeping her voice low.
“
You’re
in trouble?”
“They think I killed the Van Slykes.”
He grew serious. “Who thinks?” Like her, he
spoke in little more than a whisper.
“The police.”
“What makes them think so?”
“They were murdered earlier tonight. I was
upstairs. I was bending over Winston when Sander McLeod came in the
room. He said he was in the washroom. In any event, he leapt to
conclusions and yelled for the police. I came here as quickly as I
could.”
“Sander McLeod, Jesus. What was he doing
there?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know he
was
there. He must have come to toast the marriage with Jackson, or
some such thing.”
“Could he have killed them?”
“No. I saw who did it.”
“Then who?”
She put her face in her hands. Even now, she
didn’t want to believe it. She knew the Blackwoods had resorted to
murder before. But that was Lance. She’d found no evidence that
Mace had been involved. After last night, she’d wanted to
believe—
What?
In spite of what she’d told him, she’d never
thought of him as a murderer. Lance Blackwood had been an
incompetent con man, and consequently had been forced into
desperate measures. But Mace was good. In fact, he was the best
she’d ever seen. She would never have thought him capable of
cold-bloodedly gunning down people who’d trusted their hearts to
him.
But he had. She’d seen him running away.
There could be no mistake.
Dear God! How could she have been so wrong?
The only man she could ever love—and he’d done a thing like
this!
She rubbed her aching forehead. “I was set up
by a clipper named Blackwood. It’s a long story. The streets are
already crawling with police. Stubbs, I need a place to hide. Just
until the smoke clears.”
“Done. You can use my room upstairs. I’ll
bunk with a pal.”
“Thank you. And I need some clothes.
Something plain and unnoticeable. Gingham. No, better yet, brown
muslin. Or grey. Something to blend in with the surroundings. I
can’t walk about in Worth gowns and diamonds. Speaking of diamonds,
see what you can get me for these.” She removed the diamond
bracelets from her wrists and handed them over. They’d belonged to
Winston’s mother, Lalita, and had been part of Winston’s wedding
present to her. “I need the money.”
He inspected the jeweled cuffs with a
practiced eye. “Shame to part with these. They’re old Dutch
settings. Eighteenth century’s my guess. Diamonds are flawless. You
won’t get five percent on them, in these parts.”
She thought regretfully of the blue diamonds
in the Van Slyke safe. “They’re all I have. Oh, except these.”
Reaching up, she unfastened the pearls and pulled them from her
hair.
“Don’t you want to hold on to them?”
“I don’t care about the jewels. I just want
to stay alive long enough to let Blackwood know what I think of his
handiwork.”
Stubbs pocketed the gems and heaved a sigh.
“I won’t lie to you, Saranda. I’ll do what I can. I’ll hide you
out, get you clothes, and even see what I can find out. I owe it to
you. Professional courtesy, you might say, and I know you’d do the
same for me. But killing the Van Slykes, for Chrissake—”
“I told you, I didn’t.”
“I know, and I believe you. But I have to
tell you straight. Sander McLeod’s about the biggest man in this
town, next to Jackson Van Slyke himself. With him pointing the
finger... you don’t have a prayer.”
* * *
Three days later, Saranda was beginning to
realize she was in even more trouble than she’d first imagined. The
newspapers Stubbs brought her were filled with sensational
front-page stories exploiting the murders and decrying her name.
Worse, Sander McLeod had brought startling and inexplicable
accusations. He’d not only accused her of murdering the Van Slykes,
he’d disclosed the fact that she was a known criminal, that her
real name was Saranda Sherwin, and that she’d killed Jackson and
Winston because they’d discovered her identity after the wedding
and ordered her to leave. He claimed Jackson had confessed all of
this just moments before he’d died.
“It isn’t true!” she told Stubbs, tossing the
paper aside. “Jackson and Winston did know the truth. But they knew
before
the wedding, not after. They forgave me and still
wanted me in the family. Jackson couldn’t have told McLeod he was
throwing me out. He’s lying.”
“Then how’d he find out the rest of it?”
There was only one way he could have.
The
Globe-Journal
was the worst
offender. Outraged by the death of their beloved publisher and his
son, the
Globe-Journal's
employees vowed Saranda would hang
before she’d live to inherit the paper. Under normal circumstances,
under the terms of Jackson’s newly drawn will, the paper would
already be hers. To prevent what it called a travesty of justice,
the
Globe-Journal
blasted her in print, offered a
ten-thousand-dollar reward for her capture, and called for a
citywide offensive to hunt her down. It ran under the headline
PRINCESS OF THIEVES. The next day every other paper dubbed her the
same. An old photograph of Lalita accompanied the articles, with
Saranda’s resemblance to the woman—and her blatant exploitation of
it in her con—outlined in detail. In one masterstroke, her own
newspaper destroyed her anonymity.
Only Blackwood could have supplied those
details. After killing them, what better way out of it than to have
her arrested and convicted? But what did he want out of it? Would
he really go to this much trouble to blow her con?
There was only one possible answer.
The
newspaper
.
A horrible thought occurred to her. Had he
been planning the murders all along, as a safeguard in case she
succeeded with the marriage? If she was convicted of the crimes,
the
Globe-Journal
would go into receivership, and if he
could raise the money, Blackwood could snap it up. Jackson had
spoken openly about his earlier intentions of leaving the paper to
“Archer” when he died. As gifted as Blackwood was with words, he
could easily make a case for himself. Any number of wealthy,
lonely, lovesick women would likely give him the money he needed.
And no one would ever suspect the truth.
No one but Saranda
.
If this was true, he needed her captured at
the first opportunity. Hence, the all-out attack.
But that didn’t explain Sander McLeod. What
possible reason could he have to lie to the police? He’d been
outspoken in his criticism of the paper’s “bleeding heart”
editorials. Was it possible he was working with Blackwood in some
way? They’d argued at the paper the day of Bat’s tour. But that,
like everything else in Blackwood’s life, could easily have been
faked. Knowing Winston would bring Bat by his office, he and Sander
could have timed the altercation accordingly.
There was no time to investigate. Once the
reward was announced, she became the most-wanted woman in New York.
The
Globe-Journal
announced publicly it was hiring Pinkerton
detectives to track her down. Everyone else in the city, it seemed,
was joining the chase.
Police were everywhere. When she saw a group
of thugs with their heads together behind a copy of the
Globe-Journal
, Saranda knew it was time to move on. It was
too dangerous where she was, surrounded by pickpockets, whores, and
thieves. The phrase “no honor among thieves” hadn’t been coined for
nothing. Any one of the lowlifes haunting the Bowery could turn her
in at any time.
When she came downstairs on the third day to
find a policeman questioning the bartender, she knew she could wait
no longer. Racing back up the steps, she grabbed her packed valise
and headed for Stubbs’s temporary room.
“Where will you be?” he asked when he heard
she was leaving.
She thought frantically. She had to leave the
city. Her heart cried out for revenge, but she knew she must not
indulge it. She’d been thoroughly outmaneuvered, and the only thing
she could do was get away. If she stayed even another day, she
risked capture and certain conviction. There was no one in the city
she could count on. Where could she go?
Bat. Bat would offer her sanctuary while she
figured out what to do. Bat, who’d said on parting,
As long as
I’m alive, you’ll have someone to turn to
.
“Kansas,” she said, brightening for the first
time since the murders. “I’m going back to Dodge.”
Dodge City. Like everyone else in New York,
Saranda had heard the wild tales coming from the western Kansas
town. Spawned from the military post of Fort Dodge, it quickly
became a booming camp of buffalo hunters, where the hides of the
slaughtered beasts were bought and sold by the thousands.
Bullwhackers launched their wagons from Dodge, carrying freight to
all the forts, ranches, and camps within two hundred miles. But it
was cattle and the cowmen that had put the town on the map. A river
of livestock herded up the dusty trails from Texas to be shipped
from Dodge on the railroad east, or to continue on through to
Ogallala.