Bill Pronzini - The Bughouse Affair

Sabina’s roaming two-hour search had taken her on a tour of the park grounds on the scenic railway, and for a thrilling boat ride down the Chutes waterway-so thrilling that, despite the generous meal she’d eaten at the Sun Dial, she had rewarded her bravery with a cone of vanilla ice cream. No person or activity had struck her as suspicious until she spied a youngish, unaccompanied woman wandering among those clustered around the merry-go-round. The way in which the woman moved and looked over the men in the crowd struck Sabina as furtive. She grew even more alert when the woman sidled up next to a nattily dressed man in a straw bowler, closer than a respectable lady would venture to a stranger. But when he turned and raised his hat to her, she quickly stepped away.

Sabina moved nearer.

The woman had light brown hair, upswept under a wide-brimmed straw picture hat similar to Sabina’s that was set low on her forehead so that her face was shadowed. She was slender, outfitted in a white shirtwaist and cornflower blue skirt. The only distinctive thing about her attire was the pin that held the hat to her head. Sabina-a connoisseur of hatpins-recognized it even from a distance as a Charles Horner of blue glass overlaid with a pattern of gold.

When the slender woman glanced around in a seemingly idle fashion, Sabina had a glimpse of rather nondescript features except for a mark on her chin that might have been a small scar. If it was a scar …

After a few seconds the woman’s gaze seemed to focus on a man to her right. She took a step in his direction, but when he reached down to pick up a fretting child, she didn’t approach him. Instead she veered away toward a fat burgher in a fawn-colored waistcoat, only to stop abruptly when a young girl hurried up and took hold of his arm.

The actions of a pickpocket, for certain; Sabina had observed how they operated on a number of occasions. They prowled a crowd, chose a would-be mark, studied the possibilities carefully before proceeding. The hatpin woman had backed off when two promising marks were joined by another person. It was much easier to rob an unaccompanied individual in a public place.

But who was she? Not any dip known to Sabina. And yet that blemish on her chin, the plain features, and the brown hair were familiar.…

The woman sauntered along, scanning the sea of faces, looking only at members of the opposite sex. Men were easier marks than those of her own sex, who were likely to cry out when they felt their purse strings cut or clutched upon. Also, men were assumed to carry larger amounts of cash and more easily sold valuables.

Apparently she saw no other prospects to her liking along the midway, and eventually approached a group of revelers clustered in front of an ice-cream wagon. She paused there, then approached a portly man who glared at her when she brushed up close beside him. She moved gracefully away, paused again outside the group, then abruptly turned to cast a long sweeping glance behind her as if sensing that she was being watched. Sabina pretended interest in a sticky-faced, weeping child who had been jostled into dropping her cotton candy, until the hatpin woman turned again and moved off at a quickened pace. Sabina followed as inconspicuously as she could without losing sight of her.

The woman’s destination soon became apparent-the park gates between Cole and Clayton. By the time she reached them, she was moving as quickly as though she were being chased.

Guilty, Sabina thought.

There was a row of hansom cabs waiting outside the gates of the park. The woman with the distinctive hatpin claimed the first in line; Sabina entered the second, asking the driver to follow the other hack. He regarded her with perplexed curiosity, no doubt unused to gentlewomen making such requests, but he neither objected nor refused. A fare was a fare, after all.

Sabina smiled wryly as she settled back. She’d seen the same bemusement on John’s face. The new century was rapidly approaching and with it what the press had dubbed the New Woman; very often these days the female sex did not think or act as they once had. Men didn’t necessarily dislike the New Woman-at least the progressively intelligent among them didn’t-but in general they failed to understand her. What did she want? Sabina had heard them asking one another on more than one occasion. Wasn’t the American woman-particularly those in cosmopolitan San Francisco-among the most prized, revered, and coddled in the world?

What they were unable to grasp was that many women were no longer content with being treated as fragile pieces of china and were tired of being considered intellectual inferiors. Such treatment, to one of Sabina’s temperament, was both demeaning and insulting.

The hatpin woman’s cab led them north on Haight and finally to Market Street, the city’s main artery. There she disembarked near the Palace Hotel-as did Sabina-and crossed Market to Montgomery. It was five o’clock, and businessmen of all kinds were streaming out of their downtown offices, many on their way to travel what the young blades termed the Cocktail Route.

The pickpocket’s destination was of no surprise to Sabina. A professional thief operated in more than one venue, and while there were plenty of potential marks at the Chutes, the Cocktail Route was a virtual dip’s paradise.

From the Reception Saloon on Sutter Street to Haquette’s Palace of Art on Post Street to the Palace Hotel Bar at Third and Market, the influential men of San Francisco trekked daily after five, partaking of fine liquor and bountiful “free lunches.” More like banquets, these lavish tables consisted of cheeses, platters of sausages and salamis, hams, small sardines, pickles, green onions, and rye and pumpernickel breads. Later came the hot dishes; terrapin cooked in its shell with cream, butter, and sherry being the most favored of all.

It was along this route that friends met, traveling in packs like so many well-trained-and sometimes ill-trained-dogs. In the various establishments, business was transacted and political alliances formed. Women were not admitted, and often, Sabina’s cousin Callie had told her, messenger boys scampered to take notes to wives waiting at dinner that stated that their husbands would be “unfortunately detained” for the evening. The festivities often continued with lavish dinners and, for the recklessly adventurous and immoral, visits to the Barbary Coast or the parlor houses in the Uptown Tenderloin, followed by stops at the Turkish baths and culminating with breakfast-and more champange, of course-at various restaurants throughout the city.

As a respectable woman, Sabina had had no chance to frequent such establishments, but she had ample knowledge of them from Callie and from John’s tales of the days when he had been a hard-drinking Secret Service operative unabashadly savoring the liquors and fine wines, the rich foods and seductive women of this glittering city.

The hatpin woman was now well into the crowd on Montgomery Street-known as the Ambrosial Path to cocktail hour revelers. Street characters and vendors, beggars and ad-carriers for the various saloons’ free lunches, temperance speakers and the Salvation Army band, all mingled with well-dressed bankers and attorneys, politicians and physicians. The men called out greetings, conferred in groups, some joining, some breaking away. Conviviality was in the air. It was as if these men had suddenly been released from burdensome toil-although many did not reach their offices until late morning and then indulged in long recuperative luncheons.

Sabina made her way through the Ambrosial Path throngs, never losing sight of the pickpocket’s blue hat, brushing aside the importunings of a match-peddler. The woman moved along unhurriedly, scanning for marks as she had at the Chutes, and after two blocks turned left and walked over to Kearney Street at the edge of the Barbary Coast.