Ambrose Bierce and the Queen of Spades

10.

INTIMACY, n. – A relation into which fools are providentially drawn for their mutual destruction.

–THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY

Bierce had written: “San Francisco will welcome the returning Lady Caroline Stearns, formerly High-grade Carrie of the Washoe and Mrs. Nathaniel McNair of the City.”

“She is a woman of distinction, whether the bootstraps are stretched or not,” he said to me. “I cannot think of many such. Adah Isaacs Mencken, Ada Claire, Lillie Coit. For the most part the gender has little to recommend it except for its role in the continuation of the species, which is an arguable concept at best. I am unconcerned with her maculate past.”

He often described whores as the most honest members of their sex. Sometimes he did get tiresome in his fulminations.

He had spoken with Judge McManigle, who had served with Judge Hamon on the Circuit Court, and had not been much impressed: “Who ne’er took up law, yet lays law down,” he said. “Still, he knew what cock horse Judge Hamon was riding. He was denouncing Senator Jennings for subornation and barratry, never mind that it was rancor over the Railroad choosing Jennings to ordain a state senator rather than himself. He had chapter and verse on Jennings’s purchase in cases that concerned the Southern Pacific in general, and the trials of the Mussel Slough farmers in particular. That was what your arsonist friend disposed of in Santa Cruz.”

“Did Brown kill Mrs. Hamon then?”

“Or Jennings himself. In any case Jennings was surely the instigator.” Bierce leaned back in his chair, regarding me with his handsome, high-color, cold face. He wore a blue silk cravat, and his vest buttoned with the gold chain of his watch across it. The chalky skull grimaced at our conversation.

“How do these matters fit together?” I asked. “Highgrade Carrie. The Spades. The murder of Julia Bulette. The proposals. The pregnancy. The murder of Al Gorton. Beau, who is no longer engaged to Amelia Brittain. The slashed Morton Street whores. And Senator Jennings, Mrs. Hamon and the man called Brown.”

I did not mention James M. Brittain.

Bierce handed me another typewritten sheet, with an item for Tattle:

“The Senator from Southern Pacific has been especially active lately, in Morton Street and Santa Cruz, as well as the Giftcrest palm-greasings.”

“I will see him hanged,” he said. “And the Giftcrest defeated. And the Railroad powerfully smitten.”

Tattle also contained an item on a lady poet who had sent a volume of her poems to Bierce: “Miss Frye makes comment that her best inspirations come to her on an empty stomach. The quality of her verse has caused this reader’s stomach to empty as well—”

And a stab at the Reverend Stottlemyer: “It has been related to me that the Reverend Stottlemyer, renowned for his ability to separate wallets from the bills within, was asked by a fellow Deacon to exercise his powers on the Deacon’s congregation, for which our Stottle would receive one fourth of the monies collected. This was assented to on the proviso that Stottlemyer take up the collection himself. He did so and pocketed the funds, whereupon the Deacon raised an outcry. To this Stottle responded, ‘Nothing is coming to you, Brother, for the Adversary hardened the hearts of your congregation and all they gave was a fourth.’ ”

“I hope to show the tintype to Captain Pusey, when it comes,” I said.

“Who perhaps will have a photograph of the bravo Klosters in his archive. I wonder if we will not find that Klosters is your menacing Mr. Brown.”

“Amelia Brittain told me that Beau McNair explained to her that redheaded Jewesses were the most popular of the parlorhouse women. I wonder if there is a particular one.”

“I suppose the topics of conversation of the younger generation will always be shocking to the older,” Bierce said. “Yes, that is grounds for investigation.”

“What do you think of Beau’s alibi?”

“The young man’s mother’s pet employee? Young McNair is not out of the forest by any means, but I don’t think he is the Morton Street Slasher.”

I warned myself not to become as obsessed with Beau McNair as Bierce was with the Southern Pacific Railroad.

“Would you like to come to St. Helena for the weekend?” Bierce asked. “Meet Mrs. Bierce and the children?” He looked grim again. “You will have to meet Mrs. Day as well‌—‌my Mollie’s mother.”

I said I would be very pleased to come to St. Helena for the weekend.

I did not know much about Bierce’s family, except that they lived across the Bay to the north. Bierce himself rented an apartment on Broadway, near The Hornet. He kept to himself after work, although I knew he belonged to the Bohemian Club, and he often spent evenings at cards with his literary friends Ina Coolbrith and Charles Warren Stoddard, who were the editors of the Overland Monthly. His drinking friends were Arthur McEwen and Petey Bigelow of the Examiner, and there were evenings when those three cut a considerable swath at the Baldwin Theater Bar at Kearny and Bush, and the saloon at the Crystal Palace. And I knew he consorted with women who were not Mollie Bierce, in the French restaurants such as the Terrapin Oyster House, or the Old Poodle Dog, which had elevators to the private rooms upstairs and were open all night. I had in fact met one of his women, a Mrs. Barclay, a willowy, wispy dark lady who sparkled with diamonds and fawned on Bierce as though he was in fact Almighty God.

Bierce had suggested that I try my hand on a side piece on Leland Stanford of the Big Four, who had just been nominated for the senate with more than the usual degree of political shenanigans. I showed him what I had written:

All the surviving Big Four are big men. Collis B. Huntington weighs 240, Stanford upwards of 260, Charles Crocker downwards from 300. The Nob Hill mansions of these former Sacramento storekeepers are big. Their fortunes are big. It is estimated that when Hopkins died he was worth $19,000,000. Crocker’s fortune is larger than that, Stanford’s still larger, Huntington’s the largest of all.

Stanford, who was governor of California during the War, is pleased to be referred to as Governor Stanford. He has been likened to Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Lorenzo the Magnificent, Napoleon Bonaparte, John Stuart Mill and Judas Iscariot.

A man of closely considered opinions, he is outspoken against the proposed government regulation of corporations. He considers such regulation contrary to America’s traditional respect for property rights, and against the interests of the small man who needs the cooperation of others of his class, in the form of corporations, to protect him from the greed of the moneyed.

“It is pleasant to be rich,” he told a reporter. “But the advantages of wealth are greatly exaggerated. I do not clearly see that a man who can buy anything he fancies is any better off than the man who can buy what he actually wants.”

And he added: “If it rained twenty-dollar gold pieces until noon every day, at night there would be some men begging for their suppers.”

During the governmental investigations of the profits earned by the transcontinental railroad, the partners announced that the line was “starving.” This was somewhat belied by the wonders of their mansions under construction. In his California Street palace, with its fifty rooms, its seventy-feet-high glass dome and bay windows stacked like poker chips, Stanford likes to show off his orchestrion. This is a complete mechanical orchestra housed in a large cabinet. He also takes pleasure in demonstrating his aviary of mechanical birds. These are perched on the branches of artificial trees in the art gallery and operate by compressed air, opening their metal beaks to sing when the governor presses a button.

Bierce considered my piece much too long. He was not interested in the death of the boy, Leland Stanford, Jr., nor the founding of Leland Stanford Jr. University as a memorial.

He commented that I should leave irony to the ironists and satire to those who possessed a lighter touch.

“Moreover, do not employ ‘moneyed’ for ‘wealthy.’ You might thus say ‘the cattled men of Texas,’ or ‘the lobstered men of the fish market.’ ”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

A messenger delivered to me a scented square envelope addressed in florid feminine handwriting. I admired the look of Mr. Thomas Redmond, Esq. as penned by Amelia Brittain in bold, elaborate copperplate.

Dear Mr. Redmond,

This is to inform you that since I am no longer in a situation of attachment, you are welcome to call on me at 913 Taylor Street if you are so inclined.

Expectantly yours,

Amelia Brittain

PS I look forward to discussing with you my “shadow”! AB

I presented myself at number 913 on a steep block of Taylor Street, a narrow, tall, bay-windowed house with the facade bisected by a porch furnished with a wicker settee, chairs and a table. Bilious stained-glass windows gazed out at me, and the late sun glinted on the cut glass of the door. A butler in a striped waistcoat answered my crank of the bell. He had pale hair combed in a pompadour, and eyes that looked straight through me to see the printer’s devil instead of the journalist. He held out a silver salver, upon which I laid my calling card, and disappeared.

He returned to say that Miss Brittain was not at home and closed the door in my face. I retreated down the steps, and down Taylor Street off Nob Hill.

In the Barnacles’ cellar I whaled the stuffing out of the buggy seat, panting and dusty.

When I quit the Fire Department I had kept my helmet, for I loved it dearly, with the beaked eagle on the crown and its long beavertail; the crown made of gleaming black heavy cowhide, reinforced by strips built up into gothic arches, and the inside padded with felt. I still sometimes admired myself in the mirror, capped by its magnificence. Once I had been ambitious for the white and black of a Chief’s Aide’s hat, and even the white of the Chief himself. I was still stirred when I heard the fire bell of the Engine Company over on Sacramento Street, and often I hastened along to see the action.

Today there was a three-alarmer on Battery Street. Pumpers and hose reels blocked the street, and arcs of shining water flashed against the sun. This was a warehouse fire, bales smoldering and flaming glimpsed through open gates. Next door was a narrow-fronted saloon with the dilapidated sign: WASHOE ANGEL.

The Chief in his white helmet was directing the fight, yelling at firefighters scampering with their hose-laying. Out of the saloon appeared a slouch-hatted young fellow in an overall, struggling with a painting that must have been four feet by six. I had only a glimpse of the naked woman delineated. She was mounted on a magnificent white horse, her long golden hair artfully arranged to advertise as much as conceal her charms, the stallion with one foreleg raised and bent. It was the typical saloon painting, but more magnificent than most. The woman’s flesh, white as gardenia blossoms, seemed to illuminate that chaotic scene. Struggling with the painting, which seemed to be buffeted by winds generated by the flames and the arching sprays, the young man staggered up the street and disappeared into an alleyway. That vision of saloon female nudity moved me to start after him, but my way was blocked by the team of horses maneuvering one of the pumpers. And the Lady Godiva of the Washoe Angel disappeared from my ken.

At Mrs. Johnson’s establishment in the Upper Tenderloin, I sat in the parlor waiting for Annie Dunker. Mrs. Johnson sat on the far side of the room, stout in shiny black, talking to a gray-haired man in a brown suit, to whom I had nodded politely in response to his nod, without a meeting of eyes. I lounged in an overstuffed chair looking out the window at the traffic of Stockton Street. It was early for callers, but Mrs. Johnson had always been friendly. She had a personal style of accepting dollars, folding them and with a sleight-of-hand slipping the bills inside her black cuff.

Annie tripped down the stairs in her ankle-length shift, which revealed interesting swells and swales, and had a blue ribbon at the neck. She trotted to me, pushed me back as I rose and seated herself in my lap.

“It’s been so long, Tommy!”

She was a kitten-faced, dark-haired girl a couple of years older than I, who had worked in Albany and Chicago before coming to San Francisco. She squirmed in my lap for a moment before springing to her feet. We went upstairs arm in arm. In her room I sat on the bed and said I wanted to talk.

“First or second?” she said.

“Do you know who Beau McNair is?”

“Everybody knows of him.”

“What do you mean?”

“Everybody in the better places, I mean.”

“Is there a redheaded Jewess he might spend time with?”

“Rachel, at Mrs. Overton’s. My cousin’s there too.”

“What do you know about him?”

“Just that he is‌—‌very attentive, Tommy. The way you used to be with me.” She had a way of making a two-syllable word out of “me.” She giggled, rubbing her hands down her shift.

“Can you find out about how he is with her? How he acts? What he says? Anything interesting?”

“They don’t think he is that terrible‌—‌butcher!”

“This is just for me to know. What he’s like.”

“I’ll ask Lucille. I know Rachel is popular.”

“Have you ever had a client who didn’t have a—” I pointed. “You know?”

She covered her mouth as she giggled, shaking her head. “What would be the point, Tommy?”

“Have you heard of anyone like that? He has to use a leather thing he strapped on. A dildo, I guess.”

“Well, there are men that do that, Tommy. Old men that can’t get it up any more.”

“This would be a young man.”

She shook her head some more, looking puzzled.

“Could you ask around about such a fellow? I’ll get some money.”

“I’ll do it for you. Tommy. For you and me-ee.”

“Anything you can find out will be helpful.”

“Now?” she said, and with a swift motion stripped her shift off over her head. She stood there naked and posed like a garden statuette. I thought of her astride a white stallion and my breath caught in my throat.

“You look grand,” I said. Although all I could think of was Amelia Brittain, there was no hitch at all in taking pleasure with Annie Dunker.