Hearts of Smoke and Steam Read Free Page B

There was no reply.
    She gave a harder knock, this time using enough force to make the door rattle in its frame. “Mr. Grieves?” she said loudly, “It's Susan from 309!”
    She could hear the sounds of someone stirring in the apartment. She rapped again, still harder, and this time was rewarded with a mumbled shout, “Just a minute!” After a few seconds there was the clank of a bolt being pulled back, and a small crack opened between the door and the frame.
    The man who peered out at her was quite disheveled and was wrapped in a tattered silk robe of red and black. The long whiskers on his face were not only uneven but contained numerous unidentifiable crumbs trapped in the patches of hair. He looked up at her through red-rimmed eyes. “Whatcha want?”
    “I hope you could help me,” she said, trying to retain a bright and positive tone. “I think there's been a mistake.”
    He licked his lips, and then opened his mouth with a terrible, wet smacking sound that made Sarah think of someone kissing a frog. Not content to do it once, he made the noise a few more times before he started to speak. “And what kind of mistake would that be, Miss Standish?”
    “It's my apartment. I'm afraid that someone has put a padlock on the door and I'm locked out.” She gave him the best winsome smile she could muster under the circumstances. “I don't suppose you could get the key and open it up for me?”
    “No mistake there, Miss,” he said and then slipped his left hand down into the pocket on the front of his robe. The pouch lay right over the top of his potbelly, and when he lifted up his fingers, the sound of jingling keys rose up from it as if they were laughing at her. “Mrs. Brooks is planning to sell the building to the church, and she don't want the priests seeing fallen women hanging around, so she's throwing you out.”
    Sarah understood what the words meant, but it took a moment for her to fully comprehend everything that had been implied in Mr. Grieves's sentence. She felt a flush of anger as she realized that her perfect day now had a large crack running straight down the middle of it. “Fallen Woman?” she said, the tone of her voice rising in both volume and pitch as she spoke. “That's my apartment Mr. Grieves, paid for through the middle of this month!”
    “Ain't none of my business, I'm afraid,” he said, shaking his head sadly, as if he was somehow sympathetic to her situation but helpless to take any action to actually improve it. “Me, I just do what I'm told.” He started to shut the door. “You want to argue about it, take it up with Mrs. Brooks.”
    Sarah could see that her window of opportunity was also about to close with the door, and inserted her boot into its path. Wood hit leather with a thump. “Now see here,” she said, her voice taking on the commanding tones that she could remember her mother using when she ordered the servants around, “all the things in the world of any value to me are in that room—in my room—and I won't let you steal them because some old biddy has decided to try and impress the clergy!”
    Grieves gave the door an exploratory pull, determining that he had indeed been effectively stopped from closing it, before responding. “I don't care about your things one way or the other. I was told to lock it up and I did.” He pulled on the door again, harder this time, still looking surprised that it wouldn't simply smash her foot. “If you could please move, Miss.”
    “I won't!” Sarah replied sternly, managing to somehow wedge the boot even a little further in.
    Realizing that the door was going to remain open, he took the opportunity to take a long look at Sarah from top to bottom. “You seem like a nice young lady…pretty, too. And things being what they are, perhaps we could work something out between us.”
    Sarah knitted her brows together, wondering if what he seemed to be implying was what the man was actually trying to say. “Now see here…”