LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Yes, sir, Constable Sterling, sir. I weren’t doin’ nothing. He wandered in all on his own. Me and the boy, we was lookin’ at the cigars. Tha’s all.”

      “So help me, Greta…”

      “I wanted to buy something for Ray, really,” Angus wailed. He had no idea why Sterling was mad at poor Greta. She was just trying to make a living selling cigars.

      “Get outside, Angus,” Sterling shouted.

      Angus ran. Clearly there was more happening in Greta’s store than the selling of cigars, but right now Angus had more important things to think about: Graham Donohue. His mother’s admirer had visited a Paradise Alley whore?

      Sterling caught up with him halfway down the street. “My conversation with Donohue is absolutely none of your business, Angus.”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “I don’t know how much you overheard, but you won’t repeat a single word to anyone, do you hear me?”

      “Yes, sir.”

      “That was an official police conversation, Angus. Not to be repeated to anyone else. Not even your mother. Particularly not your mother.”

      “I’m sorry, sir. I understand.” “I doubt that you do. But, please, don’t go into that store again. You want to get a present for Walker, I’ll take you shopping, how’s that?”

      “Fine, sir.”

      “Go home, Angus. You have to work at the store tomorrow, and I’ll be on my way to the Creeks. Waste of bloody time.”

      “The Creeks? What are you going there for, sir?”

      “Police business, Angus. I’ll be away for a couple of days. I’ll tell you about it when I get back. Now get off home.”

      “Good night, sir.”

      “Good night, son.”

      Angus walked to Mrs. Mann’s boarding house deep in thought. Graham Donohue, his mother’s friend, paid money to a whore. And to make matters worse, if that were possible, to one of Joey LeGrand’s whores. Angus’s mother hated Joey, although he didn’t really understand why. There were plenty of whores in Dawson; you couldn’t be a boy running through the streets without knowing that. One of his friends, Billy Rodgers, bragged to all the boys that he’d had a whore. For free, Billy said, “’cause she’d wanted young meat for a change.” Billy’d puffed up his chest and strutted about like a peacock in the London zoo, and Angus hadn’t believed a word of it.

      But what was going on in the cigar store, anyway, that had made Constable Sterling so mad? There hadn’t been many cigars for sale, and the few there looked to be of poor quality. The woman minding the store had been wearing a lot of rouge, and when she’d looked at Angus she had made him very, very uncomfortable.

      But then again, lately, a great many women made Angus MacGillivray uncomfortable.

      He’d always liked the company of women; women were nicer to be around than men and boys. Some men didn’t like women much. They called them bad names, and laughed at them, and sometimes even hurt them. But not men like Constable Sterling and Ray Walker and, he had thought, Graham Donohue.

      Sometimes, Angus wondered if Mr. Donohue would ask his mother to marry him. Maybe he’d take them to live in America. Angus didn’t know what he thought about that. He loved Dawson, untamed, unpredictable; there probably wasn’t another town in the world where boys his age were as free to run as wild as they pleased. All of his life it had been Angus and his mother, only them, together. He hadn’t been entirely sure how he felt about the idea of having Graham Donohue as his father. But now he knew he didn’t want that to happen. It was late, and he was tired from working in the store, and sore from his boxing lesson, and his head hurt from thinking too much.

      He decided to forget about it for now—he’d figure everything out someday.

      Chapter Thirty

      “Will you marry me, Mrs. MacGillivray? I offer you a respectable name and a father for your son.” Sergeant Lancaster fell to his knees and grabbed my hands between his. The path leading to my front door was comparatively firm, and not as mud-soaked as most of Dawson. Lancaster wouldn’t find it too difficult to get the muck out of his trousers.

      He looked up at me, his eyes rimmed by years of failure and disappointment, and I didn’t know what to say.

      “I don’t know what to say.” He struggled to stand, breathing heavily from the exertion. “You are the fairest, most beautiful, kindest woman I have ever met,” he stammered, too embarrassed to look into my eyes. He struggled to say my first name. “F…F…Fiona. I can’t bear to see you labouring in that dance hall for a moment longer. Why it’s only slightly more respectable than a house of ill-repute! You deserve so much better. Mrs. MacGillivray, Fiona, I ask you again: Will you do me the enormous honour of agreeing to be my wife?”

      “I…I…I don’t know what to say,” I repeated.

      “You need time to think it over. And to speak to your son. I understand.” Sergeant Lancaster stood back. At last he looked at my face. “Take all the time you need. Fiona, my dearest. Remember that children’s opinions can be tainted; they don’t always know what’s in their best interest. I’ll be back on Wednesday for your answer.”

      He turned and disappeared into the semi-darkness. Two drunks passed by, their arms about each other’s shoulders, roaring an Irish drinking song into the night, something about someone named Johnny who they hardly knew.

      I had until Wednesday to think of a polite way of crushing the old man’s dreams. He had courageously offered to bed (with full church and societal approval) the most desirable woman in the North in order to save her from earning herself a fortune. He sincerely thought he was doing me a favour.

      It’s a strange world we live in.

      Earlier, after McKnight and Sterling had left the Savoy, leaving a residue of tension and suspicion lingering behind them, Ray had spent the rest of the night bellowing at the bartenders and croupiers as if he were an overseer at the building of the pyramids, and Pharaoh had died prematurely.

      The entertainment had come to the usual rousing end; the percentage girls, who didn’t perform on the stage and wore their street clothes for dancing, moved into the crowd seeking out partners, and the performers scurried backstage to change out of their costumes.

      Irene descended into the crowd with a huge smile, nodding to her throng of admirers like the Queen on the Horseguards parade.

      No crocodile tears for the late Jack Ireland here.

      Shortly before closing, Irene walked her dance partner up to the bar. He was properly dressed for a day of pheasant hunting in the Scottish highlands in a suit of fine Harris tweed, pants cut off at the knees, patterned socks, perfectly knotted tie.

      It is exceedingly unlikely there is anywhere else in the world where one can in a single day encounter such an assortment of dress as in Dawson, Yukon Territory.

      The pheasant hunter ordered a drink for himself and one for Irene. Ray stood to one side of the bar, watching, his eyes and expression dark. Irene tossed him a huge smile and, while her partner dug coins out of his pockets to pay for the drinks, she leaned over to whisper into Ray’s ear. A grin nearly split his face in two. The pheasant hunter reclaimed Irene, and quite properly (she wasn’t the most popular dance-hall girl in Dawson for nothing) she took his arm, eyes wide and moist mouth smiling. They walked through the doors to the back, leaving Ray with a stupid, happy, love-struck smile on his face.

      At least someone was happy. My right shoe was digging into my little toe, and I’d laced my corset too tightly.

      Finally, closing time arrived. Ray kicked out the stragglers; the bartenders tidied up their bottles; the croupiers closed the tables and stacked chips, and I saw the giggling girls out the door. Most of them had made almost

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