THE DEVILS DIME Read online

  With a manner more gentle than most physicians she’d known, Jess slid her chemise off her right shoulder. He gently nudged the fabric down across the top of her breast and laid a small hand towel over her to protect the fabric.

  Addie winced and turned her head to the side. Not because he’d hurt her. Quite the opposite. Her response as his fingers flicked over her bare skin had been curiously unsettling. It’s the bugjuice, she decided. Her mother always said the bugjuice—that’s what she called laudanum—gave her curious sensations.

  Jess dipped three fingers into the tin cup and scooped up an ample portion of the pasty mess. She wrinkled her nose as he began to massage the smelly concoction into her shoulder, to the base of her neck, and to the very edges of her armpit.

  “I don’t see how you could play when you were in such pain.”

  His fingers rolled and pressed, soothed and smoothed as she searched for the word to answer him. “Adrimmnum...” The word refused to take shape on her tongue and she tried again. “Adren-ennnamum.” She sighed. It was just too much work to try again.

  “Adrenaline?”

  Ah! Yes! Adrenaline. She voiced her agreement with a noisy sigh. Addie closed her eyes, waiting for him to press in just the wrong spot and hoped she wouldn’t cry out too loudly. But the moment never came. He dipped and rubbed without saying a word, and Addie began to feel it was his fingers, not the mullein leaf and comfrey root that were working their magic.

  “Better?” he asked as he lifted the towel he’d placed across her. Addie knew she was exposed down to her cleavage, but the relief, the peace that had worked its way into her with the herbal remedy cast caring from her mind.

  “Mmm hmm,” she whispered.

  “One last thing, then you can get some sleep.”

  Jess disappeared for a moment and returned with the cocoa tin that had been warming over the kerosene flame. He pulled the damp, steamy muslin out, holding the hot tin with the other towel he’d just removed from her chest.

  He touched a small corner of the hot, moist fabric to her skin to prepare her for its heat, then laid it out, crisscrossing the area he’d worked the poultice into. His large, sure hands layered the muslin smoothly across her bare shoulder, pressing the heat into the smelly residue that stained her skin.

  “There now.”

  She heard his voice from far away, and felt the hot poultice glowing in stratas deep beneath the skin.

  “You’ve enough supplies for one more poultice. I’ll come back in the morning to apply it and you’ll be good as new. Guaranteed.”

  She tried to speak, but her head was already drifting. Even the pungent odor of the medicinal herbs couldn’t keep her awake. The last thing she heard before falling deep asleep was the soft click of the doorknob and a quiet voice as Jess Pepper slipped out into the hall and was gone.

  “Sleep gentle, fair lady.”

  Or maybe she just dreamed that.

  Chapter Six

  Moonlight does things to a street scene that no other natural or man-made phenomenon can effect. People walk slower, their smiles lingering on contented faces. Horses that usually move along fast enough to stir up the dust off the street plod lazily in the clear, cool night.

  And in dark corners where people forget to look, the goons come out.

  A part of his mind recognized each of these things as Jess strode along toward 41 Park Row.

  At first, his steps had been slow, reluctant. He’d wanted to stay with Addie, make sure she was all right. But the bellman knew that a man had seen Addie to her room. The last thing she needed was a do-gooder compromising her character by staying the night—and a nosy bellman blabbing it to the management.

  So Jess had left Grayburn Arms noisily, making certain he was seen—and smelled—by the elevator attendant. He even chatted idly about the poultice he’d just applied to drive home the reason for his attending to Miss Magee in her quarters. A final hint that any possible assistance in carrying things for the next few days would speed Miss Magee’s recovery had the bellman promising nothing short of heroic measures in the good lady’s behalf.

  He turned toward the offices of the New York Times on a whim, words tumbling madly in his head. Too poetic, he knew, for the daily news, but he and the Blick would work that out.

  He’d spent plenty of words on himself in the first few blocks, castigating his self-centeredness. He’d been so pleased at the prospect of spending time with Addie that he hadn’t picked up on the signals she’d tried to send. Not too clever for a self-proclaimed student of human nature. But once he knew she was suffering, he’d done the right thing.

  Uncle Dud would be proud. His poultice had already begun to heal her shoulder before he’d even left her room. That was due to Uncle Dud’s secret, he knew. Steaming the muslin.

  Jess grinned, imagining the slap on the back he would have gotten from the old bear of a man. Not really his uncle. Not really a doctor. But a better healer than most.

  Tonight it was his own fingers that had known instinctively where to apply the pungent salve. And that had nearly been his undoing.

  His chest tightened and his fingers flexed and fisted involuntarily at the memory of her softness. The fire, the passion, the determined independence of the fierce musician that inhabited that delicate, feminine frame seemed an impossible contradiction.

  Yet he’d seen it for himself. Bisque shoulders fading to palest white above the gauzy chemise. Long neck disappearing into that mass of auburn. Delicately corded musculature trailing down to the expected well-developed bicep. And the small butterfly birthmark just below her right ear. His stomach had curled at the lure of the thing. The temptation to kiss it.

  Jess stopped, suddenly disoriented. He’d nearly walked past the Times and not even known it. He dragged his mind back to his task and let himself in a side door, surprised to find it unlocked, and took the stairs to his mezzanine office. Perhaps he’d arrived just as the guard was making his rounds.

  The Blick was poised and ready for him, a fresh sheet rolled into the platen. But that page and several like it hit the waste basket before Jess could settle into the column that was taking shape in his mind.

  At first, Addie kept intruding. Or rather, his reaction to Addie intruded. He wrestled his senses into compliance and before long, he was well into a three-column masterpiece.

  If he set the metal type himself, he might even convince the night pressman to run this in place of the story he’d written for the morning edition.

  It was worth a try, anyway.

  Jess made a final proof of his typed copy and left his office for the press room. It was his good fortune that Jake Mallory was on duty, a crusty pressman who’d won a couple of hands in the back alley card game Jess had made it a point to sit in on.

  “Jake!” He could see the press manager laboring at one of the near presses, covered head to toe in grease. The grinding noise of twenty presses vibrated and amplified itself as it bounced off the steel plating of the massive machines.

  “Damn...forsaken...serpent o’ the divvil...”

  “Jake!” Jess hunkered down next to the man and shouted in his ear. “I want to run this in place of my morning column.”

  “If yer not jokin’ with me y’d better start runnin’.” Jake’s growl pierced with biting clarity over the clank of the machines.

  “I’ll set the type myself. Same exact length as the one I turned in.”

  Jake still shook his head and wiped sweat from his forehead with a red bandana.

  “Not on yer life, me boy-o.”

  “Jake, if I don’t have it in your hands before you’re ready to run, then go ahead. Just give me a chance, all right?”

  “Damn fool hotshot.”

  “Jake?”

  “All right, all right. Set the damn thing, but be quick about it.”

  Jess clapped Jake on the back and hustled to the type room. He was pleased with the way the words had come, and for him, getting to set the hot metal on a first rate column wa
s almost as good as coffee over a campfire.

  “So that’s yer masterpiece, huh?” Jake scowled when Jess handed him the finished three-column plat a half-hour later.

  Jess put a hand on his shoulder and forced Jake to meet his gaze. “If it puts you out at all, then never mind. Deal?”

  “Whaddya talkin’ ’bout, kid? I ain’t the manager fer nuthin’.” Jake turned, curled his lips up under his teeth and let loose a shrill whistle. “Hey, Pete! Pull the Salt Mine and dump this’n here instead. An’ be quick about it, y’hear?”

  He turned and contradicted his sour face with a wink and reached for his wrench as Jess saluted.

  “You’re the best, Jake!” he called as he headed out of the print room toward the front of the building. He couldn’t wait to see Addie’s expression when he showed her his column.

  . . .

  The mustardy scent of mullein leaf hovered about her as Addie walked briskly past Chase National and crossed to the far side of the street. The night before it had seemed impossible that she’d be able to work today. But morning found the excruciating pain gone and a minor ache residing in its place.

  Jess Pepper’s poultice had worked its cure. And the possibility that the smelly paste still had some punch left in it had kept her from washing the residue off before she gingerly dressed for work. A liberal splashing of lavender water served to make the scent that hung about her more tolerable or, perhaps, simply less medicinal.

  Accomplishing her tasks on the teller line today was something she felt she could manage. Playing a two-hour stint with Avalon Strings tonight was entirely another. She knew from painful experience that working the shoulder that hard while it was in the first stages of healing would just aggravate it all over again.

  Addie swung through the open door of Ballenger Baked Goods and saw the solution to her problem bobbing behind the counter straight ahead.

  “Cherise! Good morning!” Addie waved with her left hand and fell into line behind three schoolboys who were competing to see which of them could stuff a whole bear claw into his mouth in one bite. From the sputtering and drooling Addie knew she was wise to keep her distance.

  “Addie, have you seen it?” Cherise called over her shoulder as she tied off the string around a pastry box.

  “Seen what?”

  “Sit! Back there! I’ll bring it right out.”

  Addie did as she was bid and took a seat at the booth in a back corner. Men behind newspapers occupied the remaining booths and tables, while a scrawny boy scurried from table to table keeping their coffee cups full and steaming. Housemaids and the occasional nanny from Park Avenue brownstones whipped in and out picking up their standing orders. Only the most discriminating came all the way down here for morning pastry.

  “How did you manage this?” Cherise slid a tray of crullers and hot chocolate onto the table and pulled her clerking cap off as she collapsed into the booth.

  “What? Getting to work early? I–”

  “No! This!” The bubbly redhead moved a steaming cup of chocolate in front of Addie and set the other at her own place. With a theatrical flourish accompanied by a perfectly mimicked and completely indelicate trumpet fanfare, Cherise opened the newspaper that had lain folded beneath the china and held it in front of Addie.

  “All right. I see that you’re holding a copy of today’s Times.” Addie did her best to see what had Cherise so animated, but the poor girl couldn’t wait.

  “Page three, upper right. Read.”

  Addie swept her eyes to the upper right and dropped her jaw in amazement. Shedding her gloves as quickly as possible, she snatched the paper from the other girl’s grip.

  The headline, and the story beneath it, captured her attention. She read, ignoring her friend and the cocoa that cooled in the cup hidden by the newspaper she clutched.

  From the Salt Mines

  by Jess Pepper

  Return of Avalon

  In a land so very civilized and modern as ours, it is unpopular to suggest that the mystical isle of Avalon ever truly existed. But I believe I have found proof of it right here in Manhattan.

  To understand my reasoning, you must recall first that enchanting tale of a mist enshrouded isle where medieval women—descended from the gods—spawned heroic men. Most notable among these was the young King Arthur.

  In their most secret confessions, these mystic heroes acknowledged Avalon, and particularly the music of its maidens, as the source of their power.

  Many a schoolboy has wept reading of Young King Arthur standing silent on the shore as the magical isle disappears from view, shrouded in mist.

  The boy longs as Arthur did to leap from the bank and pilot his canoe to the distant, singing atoll. To rejoin the nymphs who guard in the depths of their water caves the meaning of life. To feel again the power that burns within.

  But knowledge fades and memory dims, and schoolboys grow up. As the legend goes, the way became unknown to mortal man. Only woman could navigate the treacherous blanket of white that dipped and swirled at the surface of the water.

  And with its fading went also the music of the fabled isle.

  Harps and strings that heralded the dawn and incited robed maidens to dance evaporated into the mists of time, and silence ruled.

  Yet I tell you, Kind Reader, that the music of Avalon lives. The spirit that enchanted knights in chain mail long eons ago is reborn in our fair city, in our own small band of fair maids who tap that legendary spirit to make music as the Avalon Strings.

  Theirs is no common gift. Theirs is no ordinary sound. It is driven by a fire from within, borne on fingers bloodied by repetition. Minds tormented by a thirst for perfection.

  And most startling of all is the voice that rises above, the stunning virtuoso whose example leads her small company to higher planes.

  Could any other collection of musicians achieve the heights of this illustrious few?

  I think not.

  I believe, Friends of the City, that when we witness their performance, as we may almost nightly at the Warwick Hotel, we witness history’s gift to this moment in time. And for a few brief moments in the presence of these maids, we witness the fiery spirit that endured and escaped the obliterating mists of Avalon.

  Addie re-read the final paragraph. Her lips stopped moving and stretched into an incredulous smile. Jess Pepper had just given them free advertising that surpassed anything money could buy. This was better than an endorsement by the Mayor. Or the President. Or even the Pope.

  Everyone reads the Salt Mines.

  “Cherise. This is...this is astounding.” Addie could only shake her head and gaze unseeing at the page.

  “I know! I’ll bet they’ll be turning away diners tonight.” Cherise heaved a huge, satisfied sigh, but her smile held as Addie’s fell.

  “Oh, my lord.”

  “Don’t get nervous, Addie, just play like you always do.”

  “You don’t understand. I can’t play.”

  “Addie, don’t be ridiculous.” She leaned forward and wrinkled her nose, sniffing at the paper. “What’s that smell?”

  “That’s what I was trying to tell you. It’s me.”

  “Eeooo!”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Can you really smell it that much?”

  Cherise angled her shoulders sideways and slipped her fingers through the buttons of her starched white blouse. She handed the small vial she retrieved from her cleavage to Addie.

  “If that’s really you, then you need this. I use it when I leave the bakery to cover the smell of this place.”

  “But this place smells wonderful,” Addie objected as she unscrewed the stopper of the miniature flask of cologne.

  “Not when you’ve worked here all day.” Her nose was still working double time, trying to ferret out the origins of the smell.

  “It’s my shoulder, Cherise. I’ve hurt it and I had to put a poultice on it last night. Mullein leaf and comfrey root.”

  “Oh! Poor thing! How did you manage that?
”

  Addie’s hand stilled as she dipped the tail of the cologne stopper behind an ear. Vague pictures of Jess Pepper in her apartment mixing the poultice floated in disjointed snatches through her memory.

  But that couldn’t possibly be. Addie shook her head. She was just confused. The narcotic must have made her dream.

  “The shoulder, I mean. How did you hurt it?”

  “I...tripped on the stairs and fell backwards into...into the railing.” Addie resumed daubing the perfume beneath her collar and at the back of her neck. “Just bruises, and maybe an inflamed tendon, I think, but that’s what I came to tell you. I can’t play tonight.”

  “What!”

  “You know I would if I could, but I need one more night of poultice before I dare try. You’ll have to lead tonight, Cherise.”

  “I’m not ready.”

  “Oh, Cherise, you can play everything standing on your head and you know it.”

  “The Hungarian Dance. I can’t do that one. That’s yours.”

  Addie studied her most talented member of the troupe, the spunky French-Irish violinist. Even the memory of her haunting audition piece still brought goose bumps.

  “Perhaps. But you’ve got something even better.”

  “I can’t imagine what.”

  “The Gaelic number, Cherise. Don’t you know everyone in the room weeps when you play it?”

  Cherise laughed a bit self-consciously and covered her awkwardness by using the moment to replace the small vial of perfume. “But, cushlamachree, girl, I can’t leave ‘em cryin’. The hotel would kill me!”

  “So, you open with the usual set, then do the Gaelic to get their attention, and then the ensemble picks up the pace.”

  “And a jig for encore, d’ya think?”