The Cold Millions: A Novel, стр. 40
“You had to know I wasn’t going to bring her back here,” he said.
I looked back up at Brand.
“So I began thinking,” he said, “there must be some other reason you brought up my agreement with Ursula. And I realized that if I were in your position, I would do the same.” Brand reached into a valise next to his chair and produced another document. He handed it to me. There was a wax seal on it. It read Spokane County and Official Deed and Bill of Sale. The building was listed as the Bailey Hotel, Spokane, Washington.
“This is the hotel we talked about her running,” he said. “Fifty-two single-occupancy rooms that rent for five dollars a month. But that’s just on paper. We get three dollars a day from the thirty or so women who ply their trade in cribs on the alley side. That’s where the real money comes from. From that, I pay the police to look the other way.
“The legal owner is a man named Burke. I pay the taxes, and the upkeep, and I give Burke ten dollars a month to serve as a front for my interests.”
I looked over the document. It was two pages long. At the bottom of the second page were two lines transferring ownership from Burke, who had signed below his name, to my legal name, Margaret Anne Burns. The contract was dated that day. Brand held out a fountain pen.
“Of course, you’ll get a better deal than Mr. Burke had,” he said. Then he pointed to a paragraph in the contract. “This deed transfers twenty percent of real ownership of the building to you, as well as that percentage of monthly income from the property. You’ll be responsible for twenty percent of upkeep, improvements, and taxes. This stake requires no cash investment on your part but will be in exchange for agreeing to assume management of the property and being its public face. You have the right to sell your stake at any time, but I retain first right of refusal to match any offer.”
It was quiet in the private dining room. My investment in the hotel was clear. His eyes sought out my chest and I felt my rib cage tighten, like I was still wearing the meat-filled corset.
I looked up into his eyes. Whatever First Ursula had seen there, she was right: A woman owns nothing of this world.
“Thirty percent,” I said.
He smiled, crossed out 20 on the contract and wrote 25, then initialed it. “And you will pay Burke five dollars a month for two years,” he said.
“I will pay Burke two and you will pay him three,” I said.
He held out the pen. I took it. He pointed. “Here,” he said, “and here. And here.”
When we were done, I set the pen down. It weighed forty pounds.
Then dessert came. Bread pudding.
16
At midnight, Rye met Gurley at the Great Northern station for the overnight to Seattle. She wore her usual black dress with bulky black coat, hair tied back with a black ribbon. She carried a red and gold carpetbag. So he wouldn’t have to travel with his bindle, Rye had borrowed a boxer’s bag from Fred Moore.
They settled in second class and Rye sat by the window. He’d never been in a train, only on one. It was how he’d traveled to Seattle the first time, lying in deep grass with Gig, ducking railroad bulls, then running down a Northern Pacific freighter just as it picked up speed outside the yard. They had spent a miserable seven hours hanging ladders and riding blinds, but even so, there were worse ways to go. Class existed among tramps, too; Rye had seen Negro hoe-boys from Texas clinging to the trusses a foot above the tracks.
But now, how could he go back to riding on trains after he’d been inside one, nestled in this soft seat, lulled by the thumping rattle of the ties?
When he jerked awake, he realized he’d missed most of the trip. The sun was up and Gurley wasn’t next to him. The snow had held off and they’d made good time through the mountains, easing down Cascade switchbacks into a lush valley. Log piles and shipyards rolled past the window—farms and stacks and waterfront hamlets, and then the train slowed and they crossed a bridge onto the isthmus that held that great shithole of prosperity, Seattle.
Last time here had been a disaster for them. Gig had been sold a dock job by an employment shark, but it turned out to be unloading a contraband barge with no manifest, and on day two, when dockworkers with union badges showed up, Gig understood he was scabbing a union job. He beat it off the pier and found Rye scrounging for food in alleys. They were stranded four days down the Seattle skid, wet and cold, under a low gray ceiling. If the sun rose that week, Rye missed it.
Seattle was like an infection that started at the water and spread up the verdant hills. The smell of stewed harbor turned his guts: salt flats, log pulp, and fish guts stirred by a tide that gently rocked the city’s sewage back and forth. Gig said it was why he preferred a river town, because it took your shit away. “A man shouldn’t have to worry about his morning business coming back for him in the afternoon.”
Rye hadn’t cared for the people, either—a humorless breed of fishermen and dockworkers, and tight shop owners. In four days, they found no work and little in the way of generosity, and finally grabbed a rattler back out of town.
It felt entirely different now, arriving inside a warm passenger compartment, staring out his window at the city around him.
“See that?” asked a man with a British accent from the seat behind him.
Through the window, Rye watched a crew of workers using water cannons to blast at a steep hillside,