The Bughouse Affair

9

SABINA

The open field at dusk was brightly lit by lanterns and torchlights, and packed with gaily colored wagons presided over by an array of pitchmen; phrenology and palmistry booths; the usual hodgepodge of temperance speakers, organ grinders, balloon and pencil sellers, beggars, and ad carriers passing out saloon handbills for free lunches; and a constant flow of gawkers and curiosity seekers, which Sabina joined. Music filled the air from many sources, each competing with the other. The loudest was the Salvation Army band pouring forth its solemn repentance message.

From the wagons men hawked both well-known and obscure patent remedies: Tiger Balm, Miracle Wort, Burdock’s Blood Bitters, Turkish Pile Ointment, Dr. Sage’s Catarrh Remedy, Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound for Ladies. Others offered services on the spot: matrimonial advice, spinal realignment, head massages. Sabina, who had attended the bazaar with John after moving to San Francisco-a must, he’d said, for new residents-recognized several of the participants: the Great Ferndon, Herman the Healer, Rodney Strongheart.

The din rose as a shill for Dr. Wallmann’s Nerve and Brain Tonic stood in his red-and-yellow coach to extol the alleged virtues of the product. “This miracle tonic,” he intoned, “cures all bilious derangements, including but not limited to dyspepsia, costiveness, erysipelas, palpitations of the heart, and persistent and obstinate constipation, and drives out the foul corruption that contaminates the blood and causes decay. It stimulates and enlivens the vital functions, being as it is a pure vegetable compound and free from all mineral poisons. It promotes energy and strength, restores and preserves health, and infuses new life and vigor throughout the entire system.”

Sabina smiled ironically as she passed by. The only thing Dr. Wallmann’s tonic promoted was drunkenness, since its central ingredient, as was that of most such patent medicines, was alcohol.

The crowd of onlookers was largely composed of men; the women among them were for the most part prostitutes strolling in pairs and wearing flirtatious smiles, or the wives and lady friends of men too poor to afford the luxuries of the Cocktail Route. There were relatively few unescorted women, and those Sabina encountered were the wrong age or size or facial structure, or not outfitted in the sort of concealing hat and dress the pickpocket favored.

On a platform at the back of one of the wagons, a dancer draped in filmy veils was peforming. Unfortunately for her, during an awkward pirouette, the veils slipped and fell open to reveal her scarlet long johns-an accident that elicited howls of laughter from the watchers. At another wagon nearby, a salesman began expounding upon the virtues of Sydney’s Celebrated Cough Killer, only to fall into a fit of coughing, which resulted in more derisive laughter. In the group that stood watching him was a lone woman in a rather large hat. Sabina moved close enough to determine that the face under the hat’s brim was elderly, with age-fissured cheeks and gray hair. She moved on.

Wide-brimmed hat with bedraggled ostrich feathers: a badly scarred young woman whose affliction made Sabina flinch. Toque draped in fading tulle: red hair and freckles. Another feather-bedecked chapeau: porcine, with a double chin and heavily rouged cheeks

The proprietor of a small, tawdry freak exhibit urged Sabina to surrender five cents for the privilege of viewing a deformed infant preserved in formaldehyde. She declined-not at all pleasantly.

Extravagant hat with many layers of feathers and a stuffed bird’s head protruding at the front: long blond hair and an unblemished chin.

A pair of temperance speakers warning of the evils of drink and painful death from diseased kidneys and handing out tracts to support their claims. No, thank you.

Yet another bird-themed hat. What was the fascination with wearing dead avian creatures on one’s head? The woman beneath the brim looked not much healthier than the bird that had died to grace her headpiece.

Another pitchman tried to entice Sabina to buy a bottle of something called the Kickapoo Indians Tape-Worm Secret. An emphatic no to that, also.

In front of the next wagon, a single woman wearing rather baggy clothes and a green hat with a wide brim drawn down low on her forehead caught Sabina’s eye. The woman seemed less interested in the miraculous electrified belt filled with cayenne pepper whose purveyor was claiming would cure any debilitation, than in the faces of the men grouped around her. Sabina’s blood quickened. She moved closer-close enough to recognize the large blue glass Horner hatpin overlaid with gold that decorated the green hat.

The woman evidently found none of the men around her suitable prey. She moved on at a leisurely pace, her gaze roaming all the while. Sabina followed a few paces behind.

The pickpocket stopped to listen to the Salvation Army band. Paused again in front of a shill exalting the virtue of White’s Female Complaint Cure. Accepted a flyer from a man hawking the Single Tax doctrine and pretended to read it by the light of a flickering torch. All the while her head and her eyes continued their restless search.

An elderly chap leaning on a cane, walking haltingly nearly ten yards away, struck Sabina as a likely candidate. But no, the dip passed him by. A well-attired man carrying a malaca walking stick. No. A tall blond gent dressed in a broadloom suit and gaudy vest. No.

More wandering. More pretended interest in the shows and wares. Sabina was careful to maintain a measured distance, with her small body shielded from the woman’s view by those of the larger men.

In front of the bright red-and-yellow coach belonging to the purveyor of Dr. Wallmann’s Nerve and Brain Tonic, the woman stopped again. Stood watching as a fat, middle-aged man wearing a plug hat and sporting a gold watch chain questioned the pitchman, then examined one of the brown bottles as if he were having difficulty making up his mind whether or not to buy it. Sabina sensed he was the dip’s choice even before the woman sidled up next to him, stretching an arm up as she did so to snatch the Horner pin free from her hat.

Sabina elbowed in behind her, calling out a warning that was lost in the sudden shrieking of an organ grinder’s monkey. The fat man suddenly twisted, clutching at his corporation, and the dip had his purse. She was turning away when Sabina reached her and caught hold of her right arm, bending it so that she dropped the purse, then pinning the arm behind her back. The pickpocket emitted a cry of pain, then a curse, and began struggling and trying to stab her captor with the hatpin she held in her other hand. Sabina pulled the arm higher, making her cry out again, while she clutched at the dangerously flailing wrist.

Men surged in around them, voices raised in alarmed query. Sabina cried, “Help me, she’s a pickpocket!” to the man nearest her-a mistake, as it turned out. The man made a clumsy effort to assist, which earned him a puncture wound from the slashing pin. He yelled in pain and reeled into the two women, throwing Sabina off balance and allowing the dip to squirm out of her grasp. A hatpin thrust grazed Sabina’s arm, then she felt a painful blow to her ribs-and the woman lunged away past the medicine pitchman’s wagon, bowling him over when he tried to stop her.

Sabina gave chase, but to no avail. Once again her quarry managed to escape into the milling crowd.

As galling as this was, there was some small comfort in the fact that she now knew who she was after. She had had a clear look at the woman’s face during their struggle, and was certain of her identity: Clara Wilds, who had evidently forsaken the extortion racket for the equally lucrative trade of cutpurse.

What made the identification even more provocative was the fact that Clara Wilds’s last-known consort was Dodger Brown, the slippery yegg John suspected of being responsible for the recent string of home burglaries.