Wicked, Wicked Women by Gardner Fox - Chapter 04

1961 Genre: Vintage Sleaze / Historical Fiction

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Men like Mike Gannon and Black John Bennett made their living off the Erie Canal, forever battling one another for control of canal shipping.

Women like Moira Kennally—the wanton widow turned Madam -- and the Egyptian, owner of the notorious pleasure parlor, The Golden Tassel - made their living off men like Mike and Black John, offering their passionate embraces in return for the hard-earned dollars the canalers wrested from "The Big Ditch."

Together and apart they lived and loved in a mad search for power and pleasure during one of the most turbulent eras in the mainstream of American life.

You can download the whole story from the Fox Library.

CHAPTER FOUR 

Ten days later, Moira Creegan was looking for a job. 

She had been to one theater after another in Buffalo, to saloons and restaurants. There was no work for a pianist or a singer. Even the men whose eyes lighted up at sight of her attractiveness shook their heads. The entertainment business was moving at a slow pace. Come back three months from now, they told her. 

Three months! At the mere thought of it, her stomach turned over inside her. She could starve to death in three months. She would already have starved if Mike Gannon had not insisted she take a hundred dollars from him as a loan. 

The money had enabled her to put little Kathy in Jennings House, a boarding house run by a childless couple who assured her that they would dearly enjoy taking care of the little girl. Moira had passed herself off as a business woman whose affairs took her great distances at times, even as far west as Cleveland and Chicago. Her husband was dead and she had no family with whom to leave her daughter, she informed them. 

"Let us take care of her, Mrs. Creegan," plump Mrs. Jennings had gushed, lifting Kathy in her arms and squeezing her. "It'll be almost as if she belonged to Tom and me.” 

Jealousy stabbed into Moira when she saw how Kathy was hugging the woman but she told herself that it was only for a little while, just until she could get on her feet. Now as she moved across Lafayette Square and up Clinton Street toward a German beer garden, she was beginning to wonder if she would ever achieve financial independence. 

Mike was back on the canal, piloting the Lucky Penny to Albany and would not return for another week. She had two crumpled dollar bills in her purse and the rent would be due again, day after tomorrow. 

A heavy-set German was standing at the entrance to the Biergarten. He moved the crook-handled pipe from his mouth as she stopped in front of him and considered her with pale blue eyes. 

"Nein, no job.” he muttered at last, shaking his head dolefully. "Not iff you vas Jenny Lind vould I haff a job for you. Times is badt.” 

He spat and looked down at his pipe. "Maybe you could gedt a job on Canal Street. They use a lodt of singers there." 

"Oh," Moira said, suddenly remembering that Mike had said something about Canal Street on the long trip from Rome. "Thank you. Thank you very much." 

She turned on a worn heel and walked south along Clinton Street. What was it Mike had said? A sin street, yes; she remembered that much of course. But he'd said a name, a coffin or—"The Mummy Case!” she breathed. 

Canal Street lay south of The Terrace, which was a wide city square between Court and Genesee Streets. A man could find just about whatever vice he craved, if he was willing to pay for it. 

The good fathers of Buffalo hated Canal Street, and from time to time attempts were made to clean it up. The police Black Maria would clang along its cobble-stoned length and prostitutes and known criminals were caught by the scruffs of their necks-not without a lot of bitter fighting, she guessed—and tossed into the barred wagon. For a few days the street would be quiet, then it would flare up again, 

"Sure, it's a blight on the face of the city," Mike Gannon had told her. “The rest of Buffalo wants it wiped out or cleaned up. But nothing ever gets done. It's as if Canal Street were a kind of sickness that takes time and rest to cure. New York City has its Bowery, San Francisco its Barbary Coast, London its Whitechapel. Why can't Buffalo have Canal Street?” 

Why not, indeed? thought Moira Creegan as she angled her stride to the south. Her chin was lifted defiantly though her heart was thudding with excitement. If it gave her a job and a livelihood, she'd be grateful. 

As she came off The Terrace the houses around her began to change. The buildings were old and worn, with the bare wood showing where paint had been flayed away by wind and rain. In some houses the windows gaped paneless, in others the glass was cracked or broken. She might have thought them tenantless except that from time to time she glimpsed a movement of sorts, as if someone had heard her footsteps approaching and had run to catch a look at her. 

The further she went, the worse the houses became. 

Once she almost turned back, for she could see drunken men now, some leaning against the walls of dilapidated buildings, others lying in the gutter where slops and garbage had been spilled. 

Moira remembered the fine words she had spoken to Mike Gannon. "I'm going to stand on my own two feet. Never again will I be beholden to any man." 

She saw the brightly painted sign that was carved to represent a mummy case from three blocks away. Long since she had become aware of the fact that she was the only female on the street, and that as bleary eyes focused on her attractiveness they recognized her for an interloper, a stranger. 

Two or three times drunken men had accosted her, but the loathing on her face was so plain to read that they had not spoken in invitation but only with obscene vituperation. 

At the head of an alleyway three men were fighting viciously, with fists and teeth and boots. One man was down, bleeding from the mouth, his body moving inertly as the others kicked in his ribs. It had been hard to repress a scream at that moment, so great had been her horror and her fright. She had kept quiet only because of an inner certainty that if she attracted attention to herself she would be dragged into a dark alleyway and raped. 

She saw women, too, blowzy creatures with unkempt hair and with only torn rags to cover their nakedness, peering from open windows or standing in wrappers and kimonos at the doors of the little sheds that served them as homes. 

Then the wooden sign was creaking overhead on rusty chains and her buttoned shoes were moving up the porch steps. The glass-paneled door opened easily to her hand. 

The interior of The Mummy Case was dim and quiet in this early afternoon. Moira studied the long bar, the sawdust floor, the brass spittoons. Her gaze flicked across the huge oil painting of a voluptuous woman stretched out invitingly on cushions above and behind the bar. 

"Anybody here?” she called. 

There was no answer. A little more boldly, she stepped into the sawdust and let the door swing shut behind her.

"Hello up there," she shouted. “Anybody around?” 

“Who's that?” somebody called from the second floor. “Cora? Maybelle? Margot?" 

She heard footsteps sound on the hallway runner, muffled and indistinct. A woman came to the head of the stairs and stared down. 

“Who the hell are you?” asked The Egyptian. 

"My—my name is Moira Creegan. Mi—Mike Gannon sent me." 

The dusky woman put a hand to her tousled brown hair, pushing it around as if its weight bothered her thinking. "Captain Gannon of the Lucky Line?” she asked. "Now why in hell would he send a woman like you down into this hell-hole?” 

Moira smiled faintly. "To get a job."

"A job?" 

"I'm a widow. I can play the piano and sing a little. I'm desperate. I've tramped all over the city seeking work. I need money." 

For the space of ten heartbeats. The Egyptian looked at her. Then she made a little gesture with a hand. “Come on up, dearie. Let's you and me talk.” She stood to one side as Moira came up the stairs, but her eyes were brightly alert, studying her from the tips of her shoes to the top of her pert Langtry bonnet. 

As Moira came level with her, the darker woman drew her wrapper together at her throat. They were of a height, she saw, and would make the same sensual appeal to men. From the way her dress rode across her hips and waist, and mounded so firmly at her bosom, her body appeared ripe and full. Put this woman in a pair of tights and black mesh hose 

“Let's go look over the merchandise, honey," she muttered. As they moved along the hall carpet, she glanced sideways at her companion. “You got any objection to wearing some kind of costume, something tight and revealing?” 

"You mean to show off my—my body for men to look at? Oh, I couldn't do that. I really couldn't." 

The other woman shrugged. "You could play a piano like Tchaikovsky and sing like Kate Vaughn and it wouldn't mean a thing. Men don't come here for culture. They want to see a woman, what she looks like, maybe dream a little about her." 

“I'm sorry,” Moira exclaimed helplessly. “I just couldn't.” 

The Egyptian regarded her a long moment. "All right. It's up to you. No skin off my nose. Give my best to Mike when you see him." 

"Isn't there anything else? A waitress? Maybe a hat check girl?” 

"I use tough waiters, in case a fight breaks out, as it does two, three nights a week—” 

Moira felt panic rise inside her as she turned to leave. The Mummy Case had been her last hope. Now it was gone. The sound of her footfalls going down the carpeted staircase tapped out a funeral dirge in her heart. 

She stood on Canal Street in front of The Mummy Case and felt sickness build into nausea inside her. Never had she felt so much alone. Hands clasped tight to her purse, she began walking in the direction from which she had come. 

A gray rat ran across the street ahead of her. She put a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream. From a window overhead, a woman leaned down, cackling laughter. "Give you a start, did it dearie? Can't say as I blame you. Never did cotton to them rats." 

Shuddering, Moira went on. Dusk was throwing long shadows across the houses and lamp-lights were being turned on here and there. In the corners of dark alleyways men were standing, slouching. Realization came to her suddenly that she was the only woman in sight. 

Fear came crawling down her spine an instant later. Her side-wise glances let her know these were human derelicts, with torn and mended garments, reeking of whiskey and urine. God! If one of them reached for her, to drag her screaming into the mouth of a forbiddingly dark alley and throw up her skirt—

A whimper began, deep in her throat. "God above, let me get out of this place unharmed.” 

"Hold up there, honey," a voice called. 

She cast a glance over a shoulder, seeing an unwashed face and blackened teeth showing where thick lips were drawn back in a ratlike grin. The man put out a hand, half running. The fingers caught her shoulder, yanked her backward. 

"No harm meant, lady,” the black-toothed man chuckled, his eyes roving. "I got half a dollar to spend. Easy money for you, if you want some cash.” 

She tried to cry out but the muscles of her throat seemed paralyzed. The tramp took her silence for assent. “Sure, you want some money. Me and the boys, we'll see you get a few bucks for being nice to us." 

Her glance went beyond him toward the half dozen men waiting in the alley shadows. The hand was drawing her along helplessly. Only when one of the waiting men began to fumble at his trousers did she break free of that agonized paralysis. She screamed, head back and mouth open. 

The others cursed and ran forward. A dirty hand went over her lips, stifling her outcry. In that moment of insane terror, she heard the shrill note of a police whistle. She fought savagely now, feet braced against the cobblestones, wrenching away from the hands that mauled her. 

Heavy brogans came pounding through the twilight. She saw a nightstick swing, heard the dull thud as it connected with a head. Then the broad bulks of three policemen were beside her, clubs flailing until they were bloody. 

In a few seconds she was free of pawing hands, watching one man beaten to his knees with his face all bloody while others dropped to lie motionless in a puddle of slops. One of the policemen turned and came for her. 

“You there! Don't you know better than to go selling yourself on the street like this?” 

Indignation made her flush. "Selling myself? I'll have you know I was visiting The Mummy Case" 

A cop winked. "One of The 'Gyptian's gals, hey? You're a new one. We haven't see you around before.” 

Almost of their own volition, Moira felt her shoulders lift into a shrug. What did it matter? What did anything matter anymore? She was hungry. Kathy was hungry. The only way she could get food was to pay for it. To pay for it meant she had to have money. To get money, she needed a job. Any sort of job. Even one where she wore something that would show off her body to any man who wanted to look at her. 

Two policemen offered their arms. "We'll escort you back to The Mummy Case, ma'am. So nobody else bothers you. What kind of an act do you do?" 

“Act? I don't know. I haven't thought about it yet." 

A thick laugh cut into her despair. "Whatever it is, I'm coming to see it.” 

She moved like an automaton between the blue-coated officers along the cobbles, up the porch steps and in through the glass doors of The Mummy Case. The woman who called herself The Egyptian was at the bar, talking to a bartender lighting an overhead lamp. She swung around, staring. 

"We brought one of your girls back, Lily." "I changed my mind,” Moira said weakly. 

The Egyptian smiled and waved a hand at the bar. "Come in, boys. Joe, set up my friends to whiskey and beer. You come along with me, honey. I know just the sort of job you'd be good at.” 

Two nights later, Moira Creegan sat huddled on the bench of a small dressing table in a tiny room a few feet from The Mummy Case stage. She was biting her lower lip hard to stop her tears from ruining her mascaraed eyes and rouged cheeks. She could not do it! It was unthinkable. To go out on that stage and take off her clothes—every last stitch—would mark her for nothing more than a fallen woman! 

Oh, my God! Mike, where are you? If you were here now I'd throw myself at you! I'd marry you in a minute. 

“A steak, honey," The Egyptian had promised. “After you do your act. There isn't anything to it, really. You pretend you're in your bedroom, see? You shuck out of everything and let the boys get a look at you. Then you slip a nightie over your head and blow out the candle." 

A fist rapped her door. "Five minutes, five minutes." 

Moira's legs felt numb as she stood up. She wanted to scream and run, but there was no place to go, nobody to care whether she screamed or not. For a fleeting instant she thought of Aunt Elvira Tomkins and Aunt Martha Creegan. Her hand went to the doorknob. It turned easily in her hand. 

The Egyptian was in the wings, gesturing. "They've set up the bed and the night table. There—Johnny's lighting the candle. Go out as soon as the curtain starts to lift. You understand?"

Moira nodded dumbly. 

Then the curtain was rising and she was striding forward, stretching and yawning as The Egyptian had taught her, trying not to look out over the long room but unable to resist the sudden glance. She whispered a prayer for thankfulness that the lamps had been turned down low. At least she could not see the men in the audience clearly. 

Her fingers had been working at the cloth buttons of her Polonaise gown. She threw back the flaps and began to slide the jacket down her bare arms. A black corselet gripped her breasts, she leaned forward to slide down the gown, she realized with a hot wave of shame that she was exposing them entirely. The room was very still. She could hear the hard breathing of the staring men. 

Her hand tossed the dress over a chair. Again she stretched and yawned, arms high over her head. She was a woman going to bed, no more. If these men were so taken by her exhibition, let them look. Let them look all they wanted. 

She told herself this but there were tears in her eyes as she bent to unfasten the garters which held up her black stockings. In the candlelight no one would see her tears, however. Maybe because nobody was looking at her face. The orchestra struck up the tune of Frankie and Johnny. 

Moira's fingers rolled down a wispy stocking of ebony silk and lifted it off her white feet. The stocking trailed through the air as she tossed it after the gown. She began to sing softly, but no one paid any attention. Every sense was focused on the length of one shapely white leg, visible from toes to hip as the men waited for the other leg to be revealed. She bent to roll down the other stocking. 

Turning, she unhooked her corselet, revealing a bare white back. The corselet went away and now she stood naked in the candlelight. 

She was supposed to swing around, to let them see all of her. She could not. No matter if The Egyptian paid her nothing, she just could not do it. With trembling hands she reached for the nightgown, lifted it over her head and let it drift down about her hips and thighs. Bending, she blew out the candle. 

Sobbing freely, she ran from the stage, not hearing the shrill whistles and the pounding of hands, the stomping of heavy feet. She wept for half an hour before the knuckles tapped on her dressing room door. The knob turned and The Egyptian entered. 

“You should have taken a couple of bows. They liked you. But you didn't like them, did you?" 

"They're animals!” 

"Well, what else? But they use the same kind of money we do, honey. Don't ever forget that.” She continued to stare at Moira, her eyes soft and full of a rare kind of understanding, then shook her head. "You just aren't cut out for this sort of thing. A shame, really. We might have made quite a success of our stage show with you around." 

"I'm sorry,” Moira whispered. 

The Egyptian laughed. “Hell, forget it. Come on out and eat your steak. You've earned yourself twenty bucks, anyhow. That's better than nothing." 

"You won't want me after—after tonight, will you?” 

"Sure, I want you. But what about you? Can you go through with it again tomorrow night, and the night after that and—?" 

"No!” Moira screamed, clenching her fists and drumming them on the dressing-table top. "No, no, no!" 

All next day, The Egyptian was at her with words. 

"It isn't so hard, honey, just taking off your clothes on a stage. Hell, you can't beat the hours. And the pay isn't so bad, either." 

"I can't do it again. I just can't.” A cold misery worked inside Moira and her lovely face was ragged with worry. 

"Of course not, if you say so. But I heard a lot of applause last night. If I know anything about men—and I do —we'll have an overflow crowd tonight. Now, just suppose I up the ante to thirty dollars? Thirty dollars will buy your little girl a lot of milk and cookies." 

"Please," Moira whispered hoarsely. 

Yet she stayed at The Mummy Case all day long, too ashamed to go uptown and face her little girl. The body against which she would hold her Kathy had been shown naked to a roomful of men, for money. The shame ate away inside her like a corrosive acid. 

When night came and The Mummy Case filled with men off the streets, off the canal barges and the Great Lakes steamers, she sat in the little dressing room listening to the waves of sound rolling against the closed door. Her hands went to her ears to blot out that pulsing throb, but the vibrations beat against her steadily like waves pounding at a beach. 

A hand rapped on the door. The knob turned. The Egyptian slid inside, cheeks flushed and eyes over-bright, holding the door slightly ajar so that now she could hear the sounds clearly. 

“Give us the sleepy-time girl!”

"Let's see the girl who gets ready for bed."

"Get those beef trust babes off the stage!”

“We want the woman with the long black hair." 

The Egyptian whispered, "Can you hear them? Can you? If you don't go out there, they'll riot. They're getting in an ugly mood, I tell you. Look, Moira—I'll make it a hundred dollars. A century note just to go out there and do what you did last night. If they riot it'll cost me close to a thousand." The saloon owner's features were tight with concern. 

Moira shivered. Now she caught the ugly note in the voices, the hard stamp of feet on the floor. Twice the piano missed its beat. There was terror in the air. She wanted no bloodshed on her account, no property smashed. 

“All right! All right! I'll do it. Only to keep them from causing harm." Moira rose to her feet and began unbuttoning her dress. “Go ahead. Make an announcement. Give me ten minutes." 

The Egyptian smiled and patted her shoulder. “Good girl. You won't regret this. And I meant it about the century note. Right after your performance, it's yours." 

Her fingers were numb as she pushed the dress to her hips and down around her ankles. Fate was an evil genie, driving her further and further along an unseen road. She bit down hard on her lip, wondering where it would end. 

Mike Gannon saw the flames even before the Lucky Penny docked alongside the Canal Street wharves. He stood by his helm, helpless, knowing one of his Lucky Line barges was afire and unable to do anything about it. He cursed monotonously between his clenched teeth as every muscle in his body sought to urge the barge faster through the water. 

He left the helm when the starboard bumper hit a piling. He was across the deck, leaping a stretch of water, landing on the wharf. He could hear the sounds of fighting now, and the strident curses of angry men. He ran as if the devil nipped at his heels, eyes hard and bright, unfastening his pea jacket and throwing it to one side. 

Three of his men were surrounded by a dozen brawny bullies, taking fists and ax handles across shoulders and faces. One of his men was down, stretched out with his battered features covered by a bloody froth. Another was on his knees, retching in an agony of smashed guts. As Mike came pounding along the wharf he saw a third man drop as the two remaining men stood back to back, flailing away with their fists. 

He slammed into a couple of the roisterers, turning one and driving a hard knee upward into his crotch. As the man screamed and fell away, Mike yanked the ax handle from his hand. 

He used the length of wood like a club, driving it into two faces at once, seeing noses mashed flat and teeth spurt from crushed lips. His left arm he used as a brace, his tensed hand whirling men out of the way, giving himself room to swing the handle. He drove the wood across the back of a skull and against the front of a throat. 

At sight of him his own men grew strong. Now they parted, choosing two men each, tackling them, knocking them into the street. Their fists hammered into jaws and cheeks. Mike was vaguely aware that he was mouthing thick, hot curses deep in his throat. These were Bennett men. He knew a couple of them. The red flames visible in the canal as the Lucky Devil was ravaged by fire added to the fury with which he used the ax handle. 

Seven of the bully-boys were down now. Gannon dropped an eighth by clubbing his forehead. He swung around to continue the fight but the others were legging it up Canal Street. 

Gannon dropped the ax handle and ran for a water bucket. There were no volunteer firemen in this section of the city. All a man could do was whisper prayers—or curses—and grab a pail of water. 

"Five dollars to every man who gives me a hand," he roared to the tramps and loungers who had gathered to watch the fight. He leaped onto the deck of the barge, reaching for a tin pail. 

His two bargemen came to help him, dropping roped buckets over-side, lifting them, passing them to the volunteers who were forming a ragged line on the deck planks. They formed a bucket brigade, passing the pails from hand to hand until they came to big Mike Gannon who sent the water sloshing down into his burning hold. 

The first few pails gave him room to stand below-decks. Now more volunteers came to earn drinking money. A bargeman dropped beside him, catching every other pail, sending water flying onto the flames. 

"How did it happen, Joe?” Gannon panted. 

"Don't know, boss. We saw them coming off the barge. We ran to meet them. We left Bill Bradley on guard. They must've knocked him out. Soon as we met up with them we started scrapping." 

"Bennett's boys. First a few fistfights, then a burning. After that more burnings—two at once, sometimes. Then he'll offer to buy me out. Damn his soul to hell! I'll make him pay for this!" 

They worked on, with the flames scorching their shirts and trousers, with flying sparks singeing hair and burning naked flesh. Time hurried on until it was only an eternity of heat and splashing water and aching, cramping muscles. Mike Gannon stood on spraddled legs using his pails with cold fury, making every bucketful count. 

It took them three hours, but they finally beat out the fire. 

The barge was saved, but the Lucky Line had lost a cargo of fine leather gloves. Mike Gannon ran blackened fingers through his hair, trying to guess at the amount of his losses. Insurance might cover the gloves; he had none on the barge. Carpenters would have to work a week to make the Lucky Devil canal-worthy again. 

"Get what men we have in Buffalo," he rasped to his panting bargemen. "Get back here as fast as you can.” 

He went up on deck, glad to be out of the smoking, stinking hold. Reaching into his pocket he began peeling off dollar bills, counting them out to the volunteers. Then he went to look at his three men lying on the wharf. One of them would have to be hospitalized. The other two were sitting up, drinking brandy from a bottle. 

"I'm paying Black John a visit, as soon as the others get here," he told them. "You boys are excused from—” 

"Don't excuse me," growled one man, wiping blood from his lips with a tattered sleeve. "I got a score of my own to settle with them bastards.” 

"Count me in, too,” said the second. "I took a handle on the head before I got a chance to blood my knuckles." 

Gannon grinned. “There'll be bonuses paid out if we do Empire enough damage. You won't be sorry." 

Thirty-seven men gathered on the still-warm planks of the Lucky Devil's deck. They were in an ugly mood. All of them had weapons of one kind or another, hammer handles, leather saps, police billies. Almost half had dull brass knuckles on their fists. 

"No quarter," said Mike Gannon. "You smash everything that belongs to Black John Bennett. If we're not stopped by the coppers, I'll burn his place down around his ears." 

There were no cheers, only throaty growls to answer him. His eyes went from one face to another. The men were in an ugly mood. They wanted trouble this night for they were tired of being pushed about by Bennett musclemen. 

"Come on," said Mike crisply. "Let's go after them.” 

They spread out across the street and men ran to get out of their way, wanting no part of this canawler feud. Silently they moved through the gathering shadows until they saw the wooden sign of the Bennett Enterprises offices ahead of them. 

Mike Gannon came to a stop before the big wooden building and his voice lifted thick and blurred with anger. “Black John—it's Gannon! Step out here and fight me like a man and save your office if you can.” 

There was no reply to his shouted challenge, so Gannon took half a dozen quick steps forward and drove a heel at the door lock. Twice he kicked before the wood splintered. Then a shoulder hit its panels and the door burst inward. "Wreck it," Mike growled. 

His men went to work with axes and iron crowbars. Wood buckled. Chairs splintered. Pictures and shipping schedules came down off the walls to be ripped apart and added to the debris piled high in the middle of the big room. The men laughed and shouted as they worked. To them it was a huge game in which each one of them was a winner. 

When the room was filled with wreckage, Mike threw kerosene over the debris and touched a sulfur tip to it. A roar of gases and a rising sheet of flame exploded together. In an instant the room was an inferno of fire and heat. 

Gannon dismissed his men and stood alone, staring about him with hard eyes and grim face. Black John Bennett would need no calling card to tell him what had happened this night. From this instant on it was open war between Bennett and himself. 

It was the way both of them wanted it. 

On the stage of The Mummy Case, Moira Creegan was draping a thin nightgown above her head, letting it slide down about her white hips, back turned to the silent audience. As the silk whispered around her legs, she realized suddenly that she had not minded this second disrobement nearly as much as she had the first; then, she had been in an agony of embarrassment; now, she was somewhat more used to letting herself be stared at. 

She turned and stretched and her eyes went over the eager, gaping men crowding the long saloon. They were so hungry for her, it was almost amusing. On an impulse she lifted fingers to her lips and blew them a kiss before turning and running lightly across the stage into the wings where The Egyptian was standing. 

The house shook with deafening applause. The maroon curtains were swinging shut but the hand-clapping and the foot-stamping went on and on. 

The Egyptian said, "Go on out and take a bow. Give them another look at you." 

Well, why not? Moira thought. She had let them see her without anything on. At least she was wearing the black nightgown now. She went to the center of the stage and pulled back the drapes, posing as calmly as any opera star. She made a deep curtsy, letting them see the white perfection of her body as far down as her navel. 

Applause beat around her like gigantic wings. 

The Egyptian bit her lip, staring through a gap in the curtain at the standing, shouting men. She could see a few of the local tavern keepers and saloon owners rising to their 'feet. Word of the new act had spread swiftly all along Canal Street. Chips Jorgensen was out there, heavy-set and wearing his perpetual derby, a cigar sticking out of his lantern jaw. There was Frenchy Duval, too, small but lithe and terrible in a knife fight, and Tank Andrews who owned The Yellow Rose. 

The Egyptian chuckled throatily. It must be some show to attract rival cabaret owners. When she heard a footfall behind her she turned and saw Frenchy Duval and Tank Andrews approaching. Andrews was a big man, close to three hundred pounds. 

"Howdy, ma'am,” he said to Moira as she came from the stage to stand beside The Egyptian. "I'm Tank Andrews. I'll pay you fifty dollars a week to put on that same show in my Yellow Rose." 

"Seventy-five," smiled Duval, making a little bow, eyes roving over the white body beneath the black silk nightgown. "Seventy-five dollars a week to strut your stuff at my Sidewalk Cafe." 

The Egyptian pushed between them. "Easy, boys! Easy! Moira here belongs to me and The Mummy Case. I'm paying her a hundred a week with a percentage of the net take, so there's no need to waste your time.” She was urging them toward the alley door. 

A stagehand was handing Moira her clothes. The Egyptian hurried toward her. "I meant that about the hundred a week, you know. That's a lot of money to pay one woman. Think about it while you get dressed. I'll be waiting in my office with a contract." 

"Oh, I couldn't,” Moira said hurriedly. "I just couldn't.” 

"And why not?” a voice roared thickly. "You've shown off everything you own this night. Why not keep on doing it?" 

"Mike!” cried Moira, and ran to meet him where he stood framed in the stage doorway. 

His face was white with rage, his voice thick with the fury pulsing in his veins. "Have you no shame, girl? I offered to make you my wife a while back. Do you like this better than being Mrs. Mike Gannon?”

"Mike, I didn't want to—but the men were rioting. I was afraid someone would be hurt!” 

"Ah, do you expect me to believe a tale like that?” 

The contempt in his eyes stung Moira. Her chin tilted defiantly. "I'm not in the habit of lying, Michael Gannon." 

"Is that so, now?" 

“Yes, that's so! Lily, go fill out that contract. I'll be in to sign it directly." 

Mike caught Moira's forearm. "I'm forbidding it, woman. Can you understand that?” 

She laughed at him and wrenched herself free. "I don't belong to you, Mike Gannon. I don't belong to Rome or my dead husband's family, either. Now I belong to Canal Street.”