The Sporting House Killing by G. Powell (free ebook reader for pc .TXT) 📗

less comely and the prices got lower the further down you went.

A drunk lay sprawled in the alley. Otherwise, only mangy curs had ventured out. A messenger boy on a bicycle sped by, causing the colonel to growl, before turning down the alley and almost running over the drunk.

“Colonel’s leery of contraptions,” he said, scratching the dog’s ear.

Harley elbowed him. “He must get that from his master.”

There was neither a sidewalk nor a porch in front of Miss Jessie’s. They stopped in the street while Catfish examined the building from the foundation all the way up to the top of the metal cornice.

“Harley, look up there.” He pointed to the pole next to the building. “Any of those electricity wires?”

“The top one is. The one on the bottom is a telephone line.”

“So she has a talking-phone?”

“It looks that way.”

He glanced across the alley. “And Miss Ella’s got one too.” He went to the corner of the house where he could view the other sporting houses down the alley. “The others don’t. How many folks in Waco you reckon got talking-phones these days?”

“I don’t know, maybe one in fifty residences. Half the businesses at most.”

Catfish slapped the telephone pole as he passed. Five hundred folks jabbering on those wires. The modern world was a wondrous thing. “How much ours cost us?”

“Oh, maybe several dollars a month.”

A luxury for those who could afford it. “So consider this. Miss Jessie Rose’s got a two-story brick place with a fancy cornice in a neighborhood of falling-down frame houses. She’s got electricity. She’s got a talking-phone. I don’t see an outhouse, so I expect she’s got indoor plumbing. And all that right here on a nice piece of Washington Avenue real estate, only a hop, skip, and jump from all the fellas working downtown and on the river.”

“True.” Harley looked a bit mystified. “What’s the point?”

Catfish swiped his mustache with one hand. His son needed to learn that facts had to come before conclusions. Doing it the other way around would get a client convicted. “Don’t have one yet. But it’s particularly interesting, isn’t it?”

He moved closer to the building. The bricks around the window framing were charred black on every window. “Huh.”

Inside, a flicker of movement whisked by in the split between the closed drapes.

Somebody was home.

Catfish drew back from the window. “Look to you like there’s been a fire?”

“It does,” Harley answered. “You know, I think I remember some building here burning up in a fire last year, maybe the year before.”

The front door opened and a man stepped out. Big, burly fella dressed in a plaid shirt, sleeves rolled up to the elbows. Curly brown hair. One drooping eyelid. No smile. He was the same fella who’d been with Miss Jessie in court.

He cut his eyes between Catfish and Harley. “Can I help you gentlemans?”

“How do, mister.” Catfish extended his right hand. “Name’s Catfish Calloway, and this is my son, Harley. We were admiring the architecture.”

“Yes, sir,” he said, crossing his arms. Not moving.

“This your house?” Catfish continued.

“I work here.”

“Is it Miss Jessie’s house, by any chance?”

Stock still. “What of it?”

“I was wondering if we might have a word with her?”

“She’s busy right this very minute.”

Catfish smiled. “Mind if we wait inside?”

“Miss Jessie don’t allow no dogs.”

“Set!”

Colonel plopped on the edge of the street, eyes on Catfish.

The man nodded for them to follow and led them into the parlor. Nobody else was there.

“You can be waiting in here.”

“Thanks. And your name is?”

“Joe.”

“Joe Riley, by any chance?”

“No.” He disappeared down the hallway.

“Who’s Joe Riley?” Harley asked.

“Nobody I know.”

The place reeked of sweet perfume, like somebody had emptied a bottle somewhere. Catfish had expected the place to be gaudy, but it wasn’t—with the exception, perhaps, of the art. There were more photographs of naked women than you could shake a stick at. But for them and the gilt statue and the perfume, this might have been the parlor of a banker’s house.

There was a framed certificate on the wall. He put on his pince-nez and read aloud. “‘Know ye that whereas Miss Jessie Rose, on the first day of April 1894, paid to the city secretary the sum of fifteen dollars and seventy-five cents, being the license imposed on a bawdy house, and otherwise complied with the regulations of the city ordinances in this behalf, therefore, the said Jessie Rose is hereby authorized and empowered to operate a bawdy house of five rooms for the term of three months, from the first day of April 1894. Signed William C. Cooper, secretary of the city of Waco.’”

He drew back for a look at the walls and trim. “This room’s been painted not too long ago, and the molding’s new.”

“May I help you gents?”

Miss Jessie glided into the room with a different bearing than she’d displayed at the courthouse. She was more casual in her dress today. As a matter of fact, there was considerably more of Miss Jessie than of her dress.

“How do, ma’am,” he replied. “I’m Catfish Calloway and this is my son, Harley.”

“I’m pleased to make your acquaintances. Have a seat. Would you care for some amusement?” She lit on a chair and winked.

“Well, that’s awful kind of you to offer us your hospitality, but we’re here on business,” he answered, as though she’d offered a cup of tea.

She eyed him closely. “I remember you from the inquest. Are you a new deputy?”

“Oh no, ma’am, nobody so important.” He handed her his calling card.

“What’s your business here?”

“Would you mind answering a few questions about the killing? And maybe let us take a gander where it happened?”

She glanced at the card and tossed it on the table. “Whose partem are you representing?”

“We’re defending the boy accused of the killing.”

“The murderer?”

“Well, folks say he’s a murderer. Do I understand correctly you’re one of those?”

She raised her eyebrows. “He shot her in her bed.”

“You have any differences with Miss Georgia?”

“No.”

“How about this house? Own it yourself?”

She pressed something on the table next to her chair and