Part 14 (1/2)
Juan tried to sit up but only managed to scoot himself closer to the arm of the sofa, which he flopped against. He reached inside his jacket pocket. ”My ... wallet.”
The police officer looked around at me, Sue Marie, and Miss Winters. ”Who brought him here?”
Miss Winters poked her chin at Sue Marie and me. ”The two of them.”
The officer stood. ”And where did you bring him from?”
”His apartment,” I offered, frantically trying to devise some escape from the officer's scrutiny. But running was impossible-there were too many people blocking the doors. Besides, bolting would have only confirmed our guilt.
”Was he conscious then?”
”Barely,” I said, fearing Sue Marie and I were cooked. ”But he keeps his wallet on his dresser at home.”
The officer bent over Juan. ”Did you have your wallet on you at your home, sir?”
Juan nodded.
The doctor gathered up his instruments and turned to the officer. ”I'd like to get him to the hospital.”
”Of course, in a minute,” the police officer replied. He stepped toward Sue Marie and me. ”I'm afraid I'm going to have to search you two ladies.”
”Oh, I remember now,” said Sue Marie, reaching into her purse and offering up the wallet. ”I took it out of his vest when he pa.s.sed out. I thought it might have his doctor's name in it.”
The officer s.n.a.t.c.hed the wallet from her hand.
Juan held his hands up and studied his wrists. ”Where are ... my cuff links?”
Miss Winters rolled her eyes and shook a finger at Sue Marie. ”I will not put up with thieving by any of my girls.”
My G.o.d, she'd snitched his cuff links, too. Her thieving ways had finally caught up with her-and me.
The officer wagged his head. ”You won't have to, Miss Winters. Young ladies, I'm arresting you on the charge of larceny.”
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN.
SAN FRANCISCO-APRIL 1890
I have never been so mortified in all my life. Dear Lord, I prayed, may Maman never learn of this. The police officer searched us-right in front of Juan, the doctor, Miss Winters, and four gaping girls-and discovered Juan's diamond cuff links in Sue Marie's not-so-secret dress pocket. Then he carted Sue Marie and me off to the Tenderloin precinct jail and photographed each of us in front of a white wall. By the time we were marched into a ten-by-ten cell with only a sink, toilet, and two bunks, I was so angry I could have boxed Sue Marie's ears. Her shenanigans had led to nothing but complications for me. The last thing I needed was that scoundrel Reed Dougherty getting wind of this arrest and using my past to seal a conviction against me here.
We were the only prisoners on our side of the cell block, though I presumed that men inhabited the block beyond ours. Looping one of my arms around a cell bar, I watched the lone guard on duty retreat through the door at the front of our corridor. I scowled at Sue Marie. ”They've got a photograph of me.”
”Don't worry,” she said, eyeing the keyhole and removing a pin from her hair. ”They don't have your real name.”
”Pictures don't lie, you fool.”
”They took my picture, too.” She wriggled her tortoise-sh.e.l.l hairpin around in the lock, but with no results. ”You see me squawking about it?”
I took my metal hairpin out, bent one of its p.r.o.ngs to a ninety-degree angle, and handed it to her. ”You and your stupid schemes. Why couldn't you leave well enough alone?”
Sue Marie stuck her hairpin onto the top of her messed-up hair and poked the one I'd rigged into the lock. ”Because he was nothing but a skinflint.”
”We never talked about fixing his drink.”
Sue Marie smirked. ”Did you think I was planning a church picnic?”
”If I'd known, I wouldn't have gone along with it.”
”Oh, quit playing holier-than-thou. You've been complaining about him for months.”
”That was no call for knocking him out. Or stealing his cuff links.”
Sue Marie extracted the hairpin from the lock and spun around toward me. ”At least you're done with the piker.”
I gasped. ”And jail is better?”
”Maybe better than a wh.o.r.ehouse,” she said, plunking herself down on the bottom bed.
”Sometimes I wish I'd never met you,” I said, glaring at her. My affection for Sue Marie was quickly being supplanted by annoyance with her exceedingly poor judgment. ”And don't think you're getting the bottom bunk, either.”
The next hour, between the guard's occasional comings and goings, we bickered like a couple of old maids. But picking the lock was getting us nowhere. So we wised up and figured we were in this together and had better find a way out of it together. Besides, putting up with the stench of urine and clammy concrete walls for even that long was enough to turn us as agreeable as honeymooners.
When the guard, a young, pink-complexioned fellow with sandy hair and freckles, swung around again to check on us, Sue Marie played as if she were pa.s.sing out, and I asked if he could please bring us a moist cloth. The guard returned and poked a soggy rag between the bars. Once I'd revived Sue Marie, I asked his name.
”Warren, Benjamin Warren,” he said.
”Thank you for helping us, Benjamin.” I reasoned I could get away with calling him by his first name, given the barely discernible blond whiskers poking out on his boyish face.
”Think nothing of it, miss.” He shuffled his feet, as if uncertain whether to leave or stay.
I faced him square-on. ”I suppose you've seen all kinds of outlaws.”
”I could tell stories like you've never heard,” he said, nervously fingering his b.u.t.tons.
”Oh, tell us a story,” Sue Marie said, coming to life on the lower bunk.
He leaned his shoulder against our cell. ”Hmm. Well, last year we had a fellow in here who kidnapped a baby girl and tried to get the father to hand over a sack of gold for her.”
I widened my eyes and gripped the bars. ”What happened? Did you save the baby girl?”
”It took some smart police work, but they got the little girl back. The crook's over in Alcatraz now.”
”Alcatraz?” I poked my face against the bars. ”They don't put girls in Alcatraz, do they?”
”Nah, just men.”