WISH YOU WERE THERE!
Jantallian
Holiday Snapshot 3
The next morning the clothes were still wet, which seemed odd, given that the sun had finally come out and the temperature was already climbing to new, baking heights. This posed a problem, if the fair-haired man was not to continue the investigation in his underwear. In fact, his underclothes posed a problem too. Searching through his neatly packed bag for some dry ones, he discovered to his dismay that he had inadvertently packed only his winter long-johns – hardly suitable attire for the sunny climes of California. He held them up with a groan: "What in the world was I thinking of when I packed these?"
"Guess y' were thinkin' of Miss Rachel," muttered a muffled voice from under more than its fair share of the bedclothes.*2
How did he manage to sleep under all that lot in this heat?
"I did no such thing!" The blonde man was indignant and rightly so, since he had done all his thinking first and concentrated efficiently (or so he thought at the time) on his packing. "What am I going to do now?"
There was no response to this query, other than an irritated grunt from the heap of bedclothes. Gone was the 'fresh as a daisy' fellow sleuth and de facto tourist of the previous morning: the excesses of the night before last seemed to have caught up with him. Or maybe he was just reverting to his normal imitation of a hung-over raccoon in winter torpor.
"Jess! Wake up!"
He should have known better. There was not a drop of coffee within smelling distance. The only answer was a ferocious snarl and the impression that the one who had made it was now trying to excavate a burrow in the mattress.
"Wake up!" The older man grabbed the water ewer with one hand and dragged the bedclothes off wholesale with the other. "Pay attention! Or this is going right over you! I've got a problem."
"You are a problem!" was the unkind reply. "You ain't safe let loose in a big city."
"Yeah? Well at least I don't stay up all night doing heaven knows what and go to bed at sunrise!" The problem one paused and then, side-tracked by the possibilities, enquired, "What exactly were you doing, anyway?"
The dark head disappeared under a pillow with the usual response: "You don't wanna know!"
"Probably not." Common sense reasserted its usual dominance. "But I do need to know how to get some cool drawers."
"Well you ain't borrowin' mine!" growled the pillow.
Refraining from pointing out the impossibility of this option, given the difference in their relative sizes, the tall man pleaded, "Come on, Jess – think!"
"You're the thinker," he was told, but the tone sounded marginally less truculent, given the lack of caffeine to placate the late-sleeper. There was a pause, then a muffled compromise: "Le'me be 'n I'll think o' somethin' …" The words faded into peaceful breathing and a faint snore.
The soporific one was saved some of this unaccustomed activity by the arrival of a tiny Chinese child from the laundry with the unlucky man's clothes. There was also a note for the friend of the Orient. This dragged him from slumber sufficiently to struggle out of his pit with a blanket hitched round him for decency's sake. The rest of the bedclothes ended up in a heap on the floor.
The owner of the cleaned clothes was obliged to tip the messenger, while the other hopped about, tearing open the envelope with one hand and pulling on his own clothes with the other. Reading the note quickly, he gave a satisfied grunt. His room-mate looked at him enquiringly.
"May be a lead. If it is, Wen'll let us know where to go this evening."
"We should still keep looking ourselves."
"Yeah, but it helps to know where to look. This ain't a small town."
"Miss Rachel did say Barbary Coast."
"Yeah? Well, there nine blocks' worth of it an' more alleys and rat-runs than you can shake a rag at. We need someone in the know."
"But we don't know anyone here."
"Yes, we do. The nosiest person in San Francisco!"
"Who? No, don't tell me – I don't want to know."
The dark man looked round in surprise from the mirror in which he was adjusting the set of his tie. He's wearing a tie – for the second day running! "Ok. If you don't wanna know, I'll keep it a secret."
The secret was located down another narrow, noisome alley, along which they had to pick their way with due attention to where they were putting their feet. The dark man also seemed to be paying equal attention to the recesses, doorways, piles of boxes and other places of concealment, as a result of which they arrive in one piece, eventually, at a big set of double doors. The cautious one knocked, while his companion looked around at the blank walls with a puzzled expression. "What is this, a prison?"
"No," the other grinned. "Not unless you work here, of course."
The door opened and there was a shout of laughter, a flurry of bodies and they were swept into a dark passageway, which was full of metal stands, pieces of wood, curtains, lamps and miscellaneous items of an uncertain nature, mainly made of papier-mâché. In the squash, the blonde man managed only to take in that the people surrounding them seemed to be clad mostly in flimsy garments liberally decorated with sequins and that they were all hugging his companion and thumping him on the back with a fervour that suggested he was a long lost relative. Then the crowd melted away and another door opened in front of them, letting out a blast of light and heat.
"Get your hands up, you side-winding son of card-sharp!" ordered a harsh voice of indeterminate sex. "Back against that wall!"
The dark man side-stepped and pressed against the wall as commanded. "Stay where y'are!" he warned his companion.
It was as well that the confused one obeyed, for the next thing he knew there was a hissing sound and a feeling of displaced air in front of his face, followed by a series of rapid thuds. He turned his head cautiously and saw that the long-lost relative had been outlined against the wall by ten or so accurately thrown knives.*3
"I see you ain't lost your touch, Aunty Mae, even if you ain't all that drunk."
"Any more of your cheek, young man, and the next one will be somewhere guaranteed to make a big difference to your future career!" The speaker, a tough, muscular woman whose age was anyone's guess, was sprawled in an armchair in front of a blazing fire. Isn't it hot enough for her in California? the blonde man pondered, wishing fervently that he was not wearing his winter underwear and that she was dressed in something more than hers and a lurid silk wrapper.
"Did you bring any liquor?" the knife-throwing woman demanded.
"Y' think I'm stupid enough not to?" The dark man reached into an inner pocket and produced a bottle of brandy.
The woman grinned and lounged out of the chair to scoop up a couple of glasses from the big dressing table which stood below a vast mirror. "Who's your friend?" She grabbed the bottle, pulled out the cork with her teeth and splashed a liberal amount into the glasses. She handed one to her target and, with her free hand, retrieved the knives, tossing them one at a time into block of cork obviously kept for the purpose.
"He's a problem," the dark man admitted as he took a swig of the brandy. The problem one began to protest, but the other continued, "Anna-Maria still with you, Mae?"
The woman nodded. "You want her?"
"Thought maybe she could help him with some shoppin', while we're catchin' up."
"Thought you'd be more likely to want to catch up with her than me," the woman countered. Then she shrugged, went over to the door and yelled, "Anna, get yourself in here pronto!"
A few seconds later another woman came through the door. The over-heated one felt his temperature rise again. She was obviously Mexican and had all the dark, svelte beauty of her race. She also did not seem to be armed to the teeth with sharp knives, which was an improvement on the first woman. And not only was she beautiful, she was young and fully clothed. She said crossly "What now, Aunty Mae?" Then, "Jess!" She flung herself across the room and administered another one of those fervent hugs, somewhat to the detriment of his glass of brandy.
"Quit wasting good liquor, you two!" Mae ordered. She was quite one of the bossiest women the fair-haired tourist had ever met.
"Oh, yeah. " The dark one detached himself from Anna-Maria and held her at arm's length. "My friend needs some help, Anna. Can you take him shoppin' and make sure he don't get fleeced – and that includes by you!"
The Mexican girl laughed, "Sure, Jess!" She looked the other man up and down and added with enthusiasm, "It'll be a pleasure."
The blonde man grabbed his companion and whispered urgently, "I'm shopping for underwear! You can't do this to me!"
"Stop spillin' my drink! You're in safe hands," the other told him. "Anna-Maria is in charge of the costumes. And believe me, there ain't nothin' she ain't seen!"
"This is a theatre?"
"Yeah. Where did you think you were?" The dark man looked puzzled for a moment, then he added a final piece of advice: "And don't let her get anywhere near a hat shop!"
"I don't need a hat." The potential purchaser held out the one he was carrying.
"A female hat shop, idiot! Now get along with y'. I need to listen to Aunty Mae."
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SS – JH
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"You bought silk underpants?" Jess regarded his friend's purchases with a mixture of amusement and surprise. Anna-Maria went up several notches in his estimation, which was pretty high already.
"She said it was the only cloth for this climate." Slim looked both sheepish and defiant.
"She did?"
"Yeah." Slim tossed a parcel across the room. "She made me buy these for you. She said she could remember your size."
There was a little silence. Then Jess slit open the package and, shaking out the garments in question, remarked casually, "Accurate girl, Anna-Maria."
"Shirts, too." Slim produced more parcels. "Do you think these can go on our expenses?"
"Can't do the job without 'em. Ain't gonna do anythin' if we faint from heat exhaustion."
Slim thought for a moment of the piled bedclothes and the furnace-like theatrical dressing room. Then he shrugged mentally and gave it up. He was rapidly coming to the conclusion that he would never understand life on the Barbary Coast and fervently wished things were more normal.
"Come on, I'm starvin'!" Jess had donned a clean, new shirt and was once more looking quite unlike his usual dishevelled self. His appetite was, however, reassuringly normal.
"But I need to change!" Slim protested. Who needed the summer underwear anyway?
"Later." And in next to no time they were heading for the nearest eating house. As they did so, Slim's voice could be heard plaintively saying: "I wish he'd been there in that theatre." But that would have made it all too easy.
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2. This is the mid 19th C and well before we all got hung up about people sharing beds. Incidentally, RF appears to do so in Incident at Phantom Hill,when he's hotelling with Dan Duryea (although Matt Martin might just have been cussed enough to have sat up all night in a chair with a gun trained on that smarmy villain!)