The Gilded Age, a Time Travel (19 page)

New
red wine will surely taste dreadful. Zhu doesn’t drink, and anyway, what does
she know about wine? “No, thank you, Mr. Parducci,” she says. “How much for
twelve cases of well-aged Chianti for the Parisian Mansion? We’re celebrating
Columbus Day tonight.”

“Twelve
cases? Eh, fifteen cents a bottle.”

“Dear
sir, since Miss Malone is your steady customer, I think that is way too much.
Ten cents.”

He’s
drunk. He’s also staring at her. “Yeah, okay.
Avanti
. Ten cents. Is done
deal.”

Ah.
Each bottle of Chianti from Mr. Parducci, then, costs ten cents. Each drink
from that bottle, poured by Jessie’s girls into tiny thimbles, will cost the
gentlemen two bits. After two drinks of the stuff, most won’t notice the
expense. And Jessie’s girls will make sure they imbibe at least two drinks.

Why
should Zhu be surprised? San Francisco, 1895, is capitalism at its finest hour.
Yet she has to laugh. Food and water rationing in her Now—corrupt officials,
markups through the roof--isn’t so very different from capitalism at its finest
hour.

Not so
very different. Does this mean people haven’t changed so much in six centuries?

But
surely men and women and their relationships with each other have changed.
Haven’t they?

Surely
women like Zhu have changed. Perhaps Daniel can change, too?

“You
work at Miss Malone’s, eh
bella?
” the wine merchant asks, handing her a
receipt. He’s a handsome graying man, though he’s eaten a bit too well over the
years and is probably due for his coronary arrest anytime soon. Well, maybe not.
They’ve actually proven in Zhu’s Now that consumption of wine, especially red
wine, is good for the circulation. “You too nice to work at that place.” He
surreptitiously hands her a coin as his dark, round wife watches them
suspiciously. “Nice girl, you go find work in a nice house up on Snob Hill. You
good washee washee girl, no?”

“Actually,
no, Mr. Parducci,” Zhu says. “I am Miss Malone’s bookkeeper and administrative
assistant. Sometime I negotiate contracts on her behalf, as well.” She lets the
wine merchant puzzle over that. “I am no one’s washerwoman, Mr. Parducci.”

She
cannot hide her smile—yes, of pride and triumph—as the wine merchant’s jaw
drops. He could not be more surprised at her reprise of her job description if
she were a talking dog.

“Happy
Columbus Day,” she says, oddly cheered by the man’s discomfort, and signs the
wine merchant’s receipt. “
Ciao.
”

Zhu
supervises the wine merchant’s driver as he loads the cases onto the wagon and
climbs up next to him on the driver’s seat. The ride is welcome. The afternoon
has warmed beneath this beneficent sun. It’s hot and that dreadful dust
billows. Zhu holds her handkerchief over her face.

The
wagon clatters up to the Parisian Mansion. A conservative brass plaque simply announces
the moniker of the place between two simpering but decently clad cupids. Nice. Such
plaques have been the subject of much civic dispute. Lucy Mellon, also known as
Miss Luce, caused a quite a stir by mounting a brass plaque above her
Sacramento Street house announcing, “Ye Olde Whore Shoppe.” The bulls made her
take it down.

Zhu
sniffs. And a good thing, too. How crude.

The
Parisian Mansion’s plaque is the most conservative item of its exterior. Cast
plaster cupids smile from every newel, post, archway, portico, and window hood.
Jessie calls the paint job Pompeiian red. The elaborate gingerbread is detailed
in ivory, eggplant purple, and a startling pale teal. The place is positively
hallucinogenic. Zhu can’t quite decide if it’s dreadful or magnificent. Daniel
only remarked, “How else does one paint a
maison du joi?
”

Zhu
steps down from the wagon, carelessly swishing her skirts, revealing a flash of
her calf, the lace hem of her slip. Although she is swathed in traveling togs,
her collar buttoned up tight against her sweaty throat, the driver—a dashing
dark-eyed swain with olive skin and masses of black hair—stares, openmouthed.
She wears stockings of a pale pink silk. She gets them from Jessie. They’re far
more comfortable than the heavy black cotton stockings proper ladies are
supposed to wear.

That
snippet of pink silk, however, is an unmistakable sign to the
driver—homewrecker. A sporting lady, a moll, an owl, a fallen angel, a hooker.
A whore.

Suddenly
she is fair game.

“Well,
well, miss. How much for a whistle?” And he’d been such respectful boy just a
moment ago, chatting about the drought.

Zhu ignores
his rude question, points to the trademen’s entrance around the side of the
Mansion down a well-swept narrow alley. “You may take the cases there.”

“I
got time.” He fishes a coin from his shirt pocket. “And I got jack.”

“I
don’t
have time. Please hurry up.”

He
steps in her path, slaps his fist in the palm of his hand. “Who do you think
you are, chit? I said I got jack.”

She
waves the receipt at him, stamps her foot. “Take the cases in there or I’ll
speak to Mr. Parducci about you.” She looks around. “And I’ll call the cops.”

“Cops
ain’t gonna help you none.” He spits. But he shoulders a case and follows her
down the alley. He deposits her purchases on the floor of the hall, one by one,
sweat and anger rolling off his skin.

She
watches him, tapping her toe. She reaches into her feedbag purse for the mollie
knife, closes her fingers over the smooth little shaft. The mollie knife is mostly
intended for mending and healing, but she can hurt him with it if she has to.
Hurt him bad. She can also aim the side of her hand against his windpipe and
really
hurt him bad. And to think she was going to tip him. She says instead, “Get
out.”

All
over the glimpse of her pink silk stocking.

*  
*   *

Zhu
steps into the kitchen of the Parisian Mansion.

“How
you, miss?” Chong, Jessie’s chef at the Mansion, abandons his huge cast-iron
pot boiling with wide flat ribbons of lasagne noodles and comes to inspect her
delivery. A wiry, shrunken fellow with a graying queue that reaches to the
backs of his knees when he unwinds it from around his head, Chong’s usual
expression is dour. Now he positively scowls. “Miss Malone want me cook
Eye-talian. I no cook Eye-talian. French my special!”

“I
know, Chong. But you know Miss Malone. Once she gets something in her head.”

Chong’s
scowl deepens. Even Zhu, Miss Malone’s right-hand girl, can’t save him. He
scurries back to his pot, cursing softly. Chong is one of the finest French chefs
in San Francisco, hired away from Marchand’s. Jessie covers her overhead at the
Mansion with the girls, but she makes her real profit from the food and drink.
The Mansion has a culinary reputation, along with its other reputation. Chong’s
specialty is terrapin in heavy cream, sweet butter, and sherry cooked in its
own shell with a certain spice Chong will not reveal. Jessie traditionally
serves Chong’s terrapin at 4:00 A.M., along with sentimental songs on the
calliope, after the gentlemen are well soused and sexed.

“Five
dollars for a tiny dish of turtle meat?” Zhu asked, scandalized when she first
observed this ritual. “Never mind that this species of turtle will be endangered
in less than a century and will never be seen on menus again.”

“In
danger,” Jessie said. “In danger of what?”

“That
must be a thousand percent markup.”

“Jar
me, missy,” Jessie said, furrowing her brow. “We gotta make a profit.”

Now
Zhu inspects the large immaculate kitchen. Chong’s sideboard is stacked with
zucchini and yellow squash, Roma tomatoes, sacks of every kind of dried noodle
known to North Beach, casks of olive oil, salmon and crabs dripping with bay
water, a saddle of veal, a side of beef, fat garlic bulbs, bunches of
scallions, bouquets of oregano and basil fresh from the farms in Cow Hollow,
wheels of Parmesan cheese. Chong can cook anything, French or otherwise. He’d
be a celebrity chef in Zhu’s Now.

She
goes to the parlor, dreading what she’ll see. She hears tinny chords from the
calliope, but everything else is still and deserted. Not much business this
time of day. Stale tobacco smoke clogs the room. She wrinkles her nose at the
stink of spilled booze mingled with the animal scent of sweat and semen. The
spittoons are spattered and slick, the ashtrays overflowing.

Another
busy night, apparently, and no one has freshened the place up. This is
definitely not acceptable. Zhu storms down the hall to the bedroom where the
parlor maid sleeps. The biz is the biz, as Jessie says. Zhu raps sharply on the
door. “Myrtle.” Silence. “Myrtle?”

She
tries the door, swings it open. A rustle of bedclothes, soft laughter. Myrtle
is a black woman who trained for service at the Palace Hotel, but she’s much
younger and wilder than Mariah. Zhu peers in. Myrtle is trying to hide another
body on the bed beside her. Zhu doesn’t want to know and doesn’t much care.

“You’d
better attend to the parlor before Miss Malone shows up,” Zhu says. “She’ll tan
your hide.”

She
doesn’t wait for Myrtle’s answer and returns to the parlor, fuming. Red velvet
curtains are drawn over the windows, shielding all but a sliver of sunshine.
The lamp with the scarlet shade is turned down low. The city has forbidden red
lights over the doors of sporting houses, so Jessie—and every other madam in
town—has resorted to placing the table lamp with its scarlet shade by the window
and tossing lacy undergarments over the telegraph wires outside. The parlor has
a tired, overused air, but at night it transforms itself into an opulent, dark
scarlet cave. Gaslight is so much more flattering than sunshine or electricity.

“Hey,
Miss Zhu,” says Li’l Lucy. She hunches at the calliope, staring at the keys as
they automatically depress and spring back. Her fingers curl around jigger of
whiskey. She raises the glass to her lips. “Drink?”

Zhu
shakes her head. “You’re stinking, Li’l Lucy.”

She
pouts. “Some Snob Hill gorilla slugged me.”

“It’s
barely past noon, kid.”

“Day
and night don’t mean nothin’ to me, Miss Zhu.”

“Where
is Daphne?”

“Hell
if I know, Miss Zhu.”

Daphne
is the door maid for this shift. She’s supposed to manage the biz in Jessie’s
absence—screen men, serve drinks, collect money, monitor the girls. Jessie will
be furious.

Now Li’l
Lucy’s personal maid, Pichetta, drifts in. “There you are,” Pichetta says
coldly, eyeing Li’l Lucy with barely concealed contempt. Pichetta is a swarthy
young Peruvian with the hint of a mustache over her lip. Her black and white
maid’s uniform crackles with starch. “You need to get some sleep, Lucy.”

“Ain’t
tired yet, Pichetta,” Li’l Lucy drawls.

“Hmph.”
Pichetta surveys the parlor with disgust and commences emptying ashtrays,
though that isn’t her job. Now Myrtle rushes into the parlor. “Hmph,” Pichetta
says again when she sees Myrtle. Together the maids lift and carry the Persian
carpets to the patio to be beaten free of ashes.

Li’l
Lucy giggles. “You gonna tattle-tale on me to Miss Malone?”

“I
don’t have to,” Zhu says, raising her eyebrows at Pichetta’s retreating back.

“Ooh,
you think she’s a rat?” Li’l Lucy stands unsteadily and stretches, finds the
bottle and pours herself another round. She wears a thin, low-cut silk slip
over her corset and garters. Large dark bruises stain her flabby thigh, her
drooping arm, her thick neck. Dark circles underscore her pouchy eyes. Even
with her golden blond hair gleaming in the semidarkness, Li’l Lucy doesn’t look
good at nineteen years old.

“I
don’t think so, I know so,” Zhu says.

“Hells
bells, that can’t be. I gotta pay her wage outta my draw.”

Zhu
shrugs. “She’s hired to rat on you.”

“Says
who?”

“Says
no one.”

Zhu
finds a silk fan, flips it open, circulates the stale air in front of her face.
She ought to know, she’s Jessie’s bookkeeper. That’s the standard
arrangement—each girl pays Jessie a flat fee per day, scaled to her
marketability, to stay at the Parisian Mansion for the stipulated term of her
contract. Each pays extra for clothing and personal effects and must take what
Jessie purchases for her. Such items are of the best quality and taste, and
Jessie gets a discount for purchasing in bulk. Still the wardrobe is expensive.
Jessie pays six thousand dollars a month for dresses, undergarments, stockings,
and fans. Jessie demands the best, demands that everything is fresh and new. Each
girl also pays for a personal maid, who is required to groom her and dress her
properly and—surprise--Jessie pays the maids extra for information. The maids
don’t have it so bad. Pichetta is probably thrilled that Li’l Lucy has turned
out to be such a mess.

Well.
Zhu knows that Jessie is considered one of the fairest madams in town. A girl’s
fees and tips are all hers after expenses are paid. But Jessie does not
tolerate deadbeats or drunks or drug addicts. She does not tolerate
slovenliness or bad behavior. She does not tolerate any girl who doesn’t earn
out a pro rata amount of her expenses each night. The biz is the biz.