Belle Cora: A Novel Read online

  “This woman is bad; she has forgotten her chastity—fallen by early temptation from her high estate; and among the matronage of the land her name shall never be heard. She has but one tie, she acknowledges but one obligation, and that she performs in the gloom of the cell and the dread of death; nor public opinion, nor the passions of the multitude, nor the taunts of angry counsel, nor the vengeance of the judge, can sway her for a moment from her course. If any of you have it in your heart to condemn, and say, ‘Stand back! I am holier than thou,’ remember Magdalene, name written in the Book of Life.”

  Well, in fact, all over the world, wretched women cling to the ankles of the brutes who kick them and sell their flesh; I realize it better than you do. God knows it is no recommendation of a man to say that his whore is loyal. Still, in a faithless world, the spectacle of loyalty moves us. So it was a touching speech, and I wish I had been present when it was delivered. I have imagined it often, and, having heard Baker speak since, I feel as if I remember it: his sonorous vowels; his high collar, wild hair, stagey gestures, one hand gripping his coat, the other flung out toward the accused or his persecutors, or pointing at heaven, or clawing the air as if gripping the jury’s collective heart.

  “They were bound together by a tie which angels might not blush to approve.” Newspaper editors took special note of that sentence; soon even people who could not read knew it. Many were shocked, and more were derisive, including, I should think, most whores: whores look with disfavor on free love. But we have our sentimental moods, too, so some probably adored it.

  For two days the jury deliberated. Each of those days, all day long, I sat in Frankie Garcia’s café, usually with Lewis and Jocelyn, waiting for a messenger to bring me the news. A few men, strangers to me, stayed for the entertainment of seeing my face when I heard the verdict. At last a man from McDougall’s office came. I stood up, my fist before my mouth. Lewis put his arm around me. “Hung jury,” said the messenger, and I relaxed in Lewis’s grip and sat down again.

  The results of the final ballot were four for murder, six for manslaughter, and two for acquittal. One of those for acquittal was Albert Patterson.

  LX

  CHARLEY WAS NOT FREED. He was denied bail, and returned to the county jail to await a second trial. Baker warned me that it might take months. He said the delay would work to our advantage. In time, public hysteria would abate; we would have a less partial jury. There was simply not enough evidence to convict Charley. He would be released.

  “Not if this man has any say over it,” said McDougall mildly from across the room—we were in his office—and he held a copy of the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin, in which the editor, James King of William, had written, on the subject of the deadlock, “Rejoice ye gamblers and harlots!” and “Hung be the heavens with black!” and that only bribery and corruption had saved Charley’s neck, and he could well understand why so many good people were calling for a revival of the Vigilance Committee.

  I began telling them the story of James King of William’s love for the courtesan Pauline, and the anatomical misfortune that made his love so tragic, though I knew they had heard it before. I told them—I had told them often—how envious this feeble excuse for a man was of Charley, who was his superior in every way.

  And little McDougall, in his plain laconic way, and big double-chinned Baker, in his florid, high-flown way, explained, as they had often done before, that it was nothing personal. It was all politics. King’s masters were Know-Nothings. They wanted to do in 1856 what they had done in 1851, and we must keep cool heads and not give them an excuse.

  That year, San Francisco was James King of William’s city. He set the tone of the place. He created its mood. The Bulletin had the widest circulation of any newspaper in the city. King packed each thrilling issue with libelous editorials and partly true articles harmful to the reputations of sundry rogues, fine men, and men no worse than average.

  I had seen him on the street once, during the trial. “King! Wait!” I called out, and crossed Montgomery Street. He started, not wanting to dishonor himself by running. I stood there haranguing him about the case, in the helpless, obsessive way of people embroiled in legal battles. As I spoke, the sun came out, bringing shadows and color: King’s eyes became pink, and within his pale skin I saw blue and red blood vessels and a feverish flush; on the hand gripping the lion-faced brass handle of his cane, the nails were cracked and flattened. “Diathesis.” I suddenly remembered the word. “You’re consumptive. Well along. And this wet climate is killing you. You ought to take your family and go—somewhere dry—you’ll last longer.” Whereupon he turned with a swirl of his short black cape and walked off. In that evening’s Bulletin, King wrote that Belle Cora, the murderer’s paramour, had told him he must leave town or lose his life.

  It was certainly true many people wanted to kill James King of William. Lewis, for one, had often announced his eagerness to dispatch him. But it was just talk. He knew it was impossible. It would be wonderful if, tomorrow, King coughed his life out, or was found hanging in his office near a suicide note. But if any of his enemies killed him, the vengeance would fall on us all.

  MONTHS DRAGGED BY. I VISITED CHARLEY in his cell every day. Once a week, twice as often as before, I saw Jeptha. We met as furtively as ever, far out of town. When we were done slaking our bodies’ thirst for each other, I complained to my lover Jeptha about the hard luck of my other lover, Charley; and Jeptha agreed that it was unfair and promised me that it would come out all right in the end.

  Sometimes we talked about Agnes. Did she read the Alta California and the San Francisco Daily Evening Bulletin? Now that the trial had put Belle Cora in the newspapers, and so many strangers were speaking of Charles Cora and Belle Cora, did she speak of me, did they speak of me? Or was her mind too disordered for that?

  “We talk of it,” he said the first time I asked him. “She takes your part.”

  “I can imagine,” I said, remembering her looks of pity from on high in the Clay Street Unitarian Church.

  “No,” he said. “You don’t understand. She means it. She’s different that way. She hates herself for what she’s done to you. She’d do anything to make it up to you.”

  You don’t know her, I wanted to say. But by now, surely, he knew her. The truth was, I didn’t want to believe it. I did not want her to change, and demand forgiveness, and force me to say, in front of Jeptha, that I would never forgive her.

  ONE MORNING IN THE MIDDLE OF MAY, a boy from Baker’s office came to my house. Gasping like a messenger in a play, he told us, “Casey has shot James King of William. He’s in the jail. There’s a mob outside it.”

  The boy didn’t have to say “James Casey.” We all knew. Casey had started a newspaper of his own, hostile to the Know-Nothings. A day earlier, an anonymous letter in Casey’s paper had attacked King through his brother Thomas. The charge made in that letter didn’t amount to much; it wouldn’t have meant anything to an ordinary man. But this was James King of William, whose whole being was as sensitive as a blister. On the front page of last night’s Daily Evening Bulletin, James King had fired back with every piece of dirt he had on Casey. We had all been apprehensive. Casey was as touchy as King, and much more violent.

  “Adelia,” I said, “Fetch Lewis. We’re going to the jail.”

  Within two blocks of the jail, the crowd was too dense for the carriage to get through. Lewis and I got out and pushed forward on foot. Draymen and their carts stood immobilized, islands in the human sea. Everyone was talking so loudly that we could not hear the words of a man two yards away. People craned their necks out of windows, stood on roofs, and clung to lampposts. At one point, a wave of movement traveled through the bodies massed in the street, pushing us to the sidewalk, as men with rifles held before their faces trotted in two columns toward the jail. “What’s going on?” we kept asking, and were told, among other things, that toughs were assembling all over the city, determined to spring the murderers, Casey and
Cora, and behind it all was the notorious madam Belle Cora. We were told that the riflemen we had just seen were here to prevent the two assassins from being freed.

  With Lewis’s help, I reached the steps of the jail, and by begging and pleading and insisting and reminding them that I was only a woman—have pity, had they no hearts?—at last I was let in to see Charley.

  The jailers I had come to know so well were outnumbered three to one by people who had been hastily deputized, including members of the militia, who would join the vigilantes just a few days later. Two of the most hostile of them brought me to Charley’s cell, along with a sheriff’s deputy who had the key. One of them suggested I take off my clothes to prove that I had no weapons. The other told him to shut up, but, to prove that he was not on my side, either, immediately added that if I moved any closer than two feet away from Charley, he would shoot us both. The key turned in the big padlock, the heavy door swung open, a man walked in before me, another after me, Charley rose to his feet, and we embraced.

  “I told you not to touch him!” growled the man who had made that foolish threat.

  “Oh, Papa, Papa,” I said, nuzzling his face with mine. “You know what happened.”

  “They keep coming up to the door to tell me.”

  The sheriff’s deputy searched Charley to make sure I had not passed him a gun, and then we sat on the bed and talked over what we knew so far about the shooting of King. While they were bringing in Casey, the guards, for their amusement, had let him stop in front of Charley’s cell for a few minutes. Casey had said that it had been a fair fight and he had given King plenty of time to draw his weapon. Charley had replied, “You’ve put the noose around both our necks.”

  “Oh God, Charley, let’s hope not.”

  “Sure, let’s hope,” he said.

  On the way out, I left the militiamen behind me for a moment, impulsively thanked Billy Mulligan for his goodness to Charley all these months, and clasped his hand—putting into it a note that read “$10,000.”

  EVERYONE KNEW THAT THE VIGILANCE COMMITTEE was busy recruiting members; already, twice as many had joined as last time, and it was going to be a lot bigger. That night I got messages to Baker and McDougall, asking them to get me in touch with men who were likely to be accepted as vigilantes. With their help, within a few days I had three vigilantes on my payroll, but none of them were very high up in the organization, and they could not tell me much or do anything to influence events.

  Morning and evening editions of each of the town’s newspapers contained the latest news about James King. Half a dozen doctors were working on him. Edward’s paper, the Herald, published an editorial roundly condemning the idea of reviving the Committee of Vigilance. By the next day, every businessman in town had removed his advertising from the paper, and the vigilantes were burning stacks of it in the streets.

  The Alta California and the Bulletin—now, supposedly, edited by Thomas King—published the preamble to the committee’s otherwise secret constitution, which said that the citizens of San Francisco had no security of life or property and their rights had been violated because of election fraud. A paramilitary junta led by a few of the town’s richest men was the only way the people’s will could be manifested.

  SOON THE NUMBERS OF THE VIGILANTES SWELLED to the thousands. The city bristled with rifles, bayonets, and marching men. I was woken by the sound of their boots rhythmically stamping the wooden planks of the streets. I raised my window. I observed their newfound pride. A great many of them had become unemployed or had been forced, by the recent business slump, to take jobs they considered beneath their dignity. Now they were part of a force that had, without a struggle, usurped the regular government and was able to shut down gambling hells, open jails, and hang men.

  The leaders were millionaires. They thought of themselves as righteous men, and they needed to make a lot of excuses whenever they did anything violent. But in the ranks were men of assorted character, as may be found in any army.

  The committee claimed the right to search any house it wished without a warrant. On Friday morning two days after Casey shot King, a detachment of ten vigilantes pounded on the door of my house on Pike Street. I looked out the window of my bedroom and saw them. When Niobe opened the door, they pushed her aside and walked in, carrying rifles and pistols. I was downstairs just as they entered. The parlor filled with the stink of chewing tobacco, body sweat, and whiskey. Big and little, fat and thin, bearded and clean-shaven, they looked around as though to say, So this is Belle Cora’s place.

  A fellow with long blond hair, wearing stained breeches and a faded blue shirt too small for his fat belly, sat on a divan and began stroking the red satin fabric and squeezing a cushion with his dirty hands. “Stop him, that’s expensive,” I said to another man, who seemed to be the leader—he had given orders to the others. He had a short mustache and a neat little chin-puff beard, and a resigned-looking expression, as though he had learned not to expect much of people. “Off the sofa,” he said, and the fellow in the too-tight shirt rose, taking his rifle. “Stand by the door,” said the leader, and announced generally, “We’re searching the house. Let no one leave.” He gave orders, calling his men “you”—“You by the clock … You with your hand on the rail”—telling them to block the doors front and back and to let no one out, and telling each man which floor to search. He did not use a single name. Could it be because they had been organized so recently that he did not know the names of his own men?

  “What are you looking for?” I asked, worried that it must be Lewis and glad that he wasn’t here. He was keeping watch on the jail, along with my lawyers and assorted other members of San Francisco’s Law and Order Party, who opposed the vigilantes.

  “Shut up,” said the world-weary man.

  “What is the name of your company?” I asked—the Vigilance Committee was organized on military lines into companies and battalions. He didn’t answer. “Who sent you?” I asked. “What’s your name?”

  With a blank expression on his face, he rammed the butt of the rifle into the middle of a big mirror. He examined his work, cocking his head skeptically, and struck again. Cracks spidered from center to frame; long, knifelike shards hit the carpet. They weren’t looking for anybody.

  Jacqueline began walking briskly toward the hall. A man held a rifle to block her path.

  I knew then that they weren’t looking for anybody. I knew what they were here for.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “We got off on the wrong foot. Why don’t we talk it over upstairs, you and I?”

  “That’s better,” said the sad-eyed man. He followed me up the stairs. I turned just once to say, “Girls, show these boys a good time,” and then he kicked me and I fell on my face. I rose without complaint. He kicked me down again, and after that I understood what was wanted: I crawled.

  The house resounded with thuds and crashes as furniture was toppled, china vases were smashed, and doors were kicked in. By the time I reached the landing, there were also cries and unheeded shouts for help.

  They left after about two hours. My driver, Neil, and the pianist, Mr. Rice, the only men on the premises, had been badly beaten while trying to help us. Neil, it was found later, had two broken ribs. Mr. Rice had lost two teeth. The women had been beaten and kicked, and been taken more than once, by different men, in different ways—the servants Niobe and Adelia along with the rest of us. Two of the girls, another maid, and the cook could not be found.

  In a crooked piece of mirror I examined my face. The worst of the bruises were in places Charley would not see. I gathered up the women. Some stumbled aimlessly from room to room in the rags that had so recently been their finery. A few I found weeping, and a few methodically taking drink after drink of whiskey and rum and whatever route to forgetfulness was near to hand. Everywhere were pieces of glass, spilled liquor, broken chairs. I sent Antoinette to fetch a doctor. I spoke to each of the girls in turn. I told them that I would arrange for them to go to a hotel in Sac
ramento City until things in this city had settled down. We went to the kitchen. I made coffee, and we had hard-boiled eggs and bread and ham, but not all of the girls could eat, or keep the food down once they had eaten.

  One of the girls had mentioned overhearing the men carelessly calling each other by name—first names only. I found a pen and nib and a bottle of ink and made a note. I decided to ask the rest if any of them had overheard names, but the ones I asked first became so upset that I decided to postpone these questions until we were all feeling a little better.

  You may wonder if such an ordeal was less upsetting for us than it would have been for women who do not sell their caresses. I don’t know how one would confirm such a theory. Certainly even fancy prostitutes must expect to undergo harsh experiences eventually—some at the very beginning. My girl Marianne had been introduced to this life by a man who had kept her in a locked room, raping her, beating her, and letting his friends use her every day until she was tame enough to be let out. Though it had happened thousands of miles away, and years ago, I had more than once known her to give a start and look for a place to hide, thinking she had seen him in the street or in our sitting room.

  As for me, and my feelings, I must have had a lot of them, but all I remember is that I didn’t want Charley, helpless in a jail cell, to hear one word about any of this and I wasn’t ever going to tell Jeptha.

  Our regular doctor came. A few days earlier, he had joined the Vigilance Committee. He could not deny the evidence, but insisted that the men who had done this must have been impostors. I saw no purpose in arguing.

  We swept and cleaned. The two girls and the cook who had escaped came back and apologized. They had hidden in an outhouse behind a saloon, too frightened of the vigilantes to go for help. At first, wanting everything to be just as it was, I forgave them, happy that they had been spared. But after thinking about it some more, I changed my mind and told them they must take their things and leave.