not?”
“Prominent, hell,” Jessie declares. “Jeremiah Duff made a killing in the silver mines. Never touched a pick or a shovel in his whole lousy life. Oh no, he shipped booze up into them hills for them poor sufferin’ miners, that’s what Mr. Duff did. Married himself to Elaine Hennessy, heiress to the dry goods fortune. A proper lady if I ever did see one, with her white cotton gloves and black cotton stockings. If she was more of a slut and less of a shrew, her husband wouldn’t come to me.”
“Then you would recognize him if you saw him?” Daniel says, greatly encouraged.
“Dope fiend?” Zhu says, her voice rising, too. “What does she mean, Daniel, dope fiend?”
Fortunately, so many other revelers are shouting and laughing and drinking that no one pays them any attention. The orchestra strikes up a rousing waltz, and the pharaoh and his queen wheel onto the dance floor.
“Recognize him?” Jessie says. “Darlin’, Jeremiah Duff visits the Parisian Mansion every Thursday evening at seven. Used to ask for Li’l Lucy. Left that girl black and blue. Maybe he’s the one who left her with the pox, too. He likes my new redhead well enough. At least she listens to me about douching. The biz is the biz.”
Hope soars in Daniel’s heart, which is beating a trifle too rapidly. “Could you introduce me? Please?”
“Oh hell, why not?” Jessie says. “Then you shall owe me a favor, Mr. Watkins.”
The madam strides off, Daniel following, Zhu dogging his heels, protesting and nagging him. Jessie moves fast for a woman of her size, positively sprightly in spite of the wasp waist imposed by her corset. She sashays, bold as you please, up to a tall, gaunt man in an immaculate black tuxedo, a simple black satin mask tied over his eyes. Daniel feels like a fool. He should have had the sense to do the same. By God, a silly pirate. He must remember that the next time he attends the Artists’ Ball. If there is a next time, sneers a voice in his head. Before he knows it, he is being presented to Jeremiah Duff. Jessie knows how to be gracious.
Duff looks him critically up and down. Good thing Daniel has lost the paunch. Duff has the stringent look of a man who disapproves of the plump Ned Greenway type. They exchange gentlemanly salutations and retire to a secluded corner buffered by three marble monoliths. There’s an air of conspiracy about Mr. Duff. Splendid.
Zhu sidles up next to them. There’s no graceful way to get rid of her. “My manservant,” Daniel says. “At my beck and call.”
“Useful,” says Duff and whips off the mask. He looks Zhu up and down, too, with the same blunt appraisal. He apparently doesn’t mind her looks, either, in the disguise. “Speakee English, boy?”
“Yessir,” she mumbles in a low voice and averts her face.
Daniel heaves a sigh of relief. He must remember to behave nicely to her later tonight.
“Indeed, very useful,” Duff says. “A faithful Chink can pick up the goods for you in Tangrenbu. I may want use of him, myself.” Duff is a skeletal man with a receding hairline over a high bulging forehead, a complexion like white wax, and pale brutal eyes. The kind of mouth that never smiles, the mustache drooping regretfully down the long, stern face. Did his mother ever love him? Daniel sincerely doubts it. “Been taking Dr. Mortimer’s cure, have you?”
“Religiously. sir. Puts me off the drink well enough, but I’m at my wit’s end about the nerves. Plus, the ticker goes too fast at times. Gives me a bit of a pain through the chest.”
“Don’t sleep much, either, eh?” Duff scrutinizes him. Brutal eyes, yes, but thorough. Daniel appreciates the stringency, the conspiratorial huddle. “What did you say your age is, sir?”
“I’m nearly twenty-two.” Daniel catches a glass of champagne and a clever little pastry from a tray sailing by on the shoulder of a harried waiter.
“Twenty-two,” Duff says, ignoring the tray. “When I was twenty-two, sir, I trucked goods into the mountains. Even higher than the Gold Country, that’s where the Comstock Lode lay. Even higher, even harder, even crueler than the hills. I wore a burlap shirt, sir, and denim like your coolie here, and padded cotton crawling with lice.” He casts a baleful glance at Daniel’s silk and satin pirate’s costume, the spit-and-polished black leather boots. “We climbed rocks, sir. We ate stone soup when winter came to the mountains.” Another baleful glance at