Authors: Maddy Barone
There was no conversation while they drove, since the engine was so loud it drowned out all other sound. Rose looked out the window as the car accelerated. The engine was loud, but the ride was smooth. She could get used to this. Well, she could get used to the comfort. Seeing the way people on the street scurried out of the way as if they were slaves fearing the lash of an overseer was not so comfortable. She half expected them to bow as the car went past them. No one did, but she saw resentment on more than one face.
They went up a hill, passing a number of large, elegant homes, and at the top of the rise was a castle made of mellow gold stone, with a round tower topped with crenellations, arched openings on the porch, and a porte-cochere where the car stopped. Rose stepped out of the car, staring around. Behind the castle, flowers made vivid splashes of color against the green lawn. Sky gave her arm a gentle tug to move her around the car to the ornately carved side door of the castle. Inside, in what in another home might be the mudroom, was a wide hall paneled in rich polished wood. The mayor led them through this hall to a spacious foyer with a marble floor and a stately staircase. This must have been a historic site in 2014, maybe a museum. Rose couldn’t stop looking around with her mouth open.
A man in a dark suit stepped into the foyer and made a small bow. “Good evening, sir. Mrs. McGrath is in the gold parlor.”
“Good. Davidson, Mr. and Mrs. Wolfe will be joining us for supper, so be sure to set two extra places.”
“Very good, sir. Supper will be served in twenty minutes.” The man bowed again and left.
Rose worked to keep her face polite. The mayor had a castle and a butler. Pretty good for this day and age. Well, pretty good for any age. And he had his personal army of City Guards. She could tell he was rich and powerful. According to Sky, he was greedy as well. If that was true, it was a deadly combination for Omaha. She didn’t have any reason to doubt Sky, but it was hard to believe anyone could be as evil as Sky made the mayor of Omaha out to be. She would form her own opinion.
“Let’s step into the parlor.” The mayor held out his hand to indicate the way.
Like everything else in the house, the parlor was magnificent, but after glancing at more exquisite woodwork, Rose fixed her attention on the only living thing in the room. A woman who must be the mayor’s wife sat in a chair by the window. Her dark blond hair was silvering with age, twisted up in a chignon that showed off the jewels flashing on her earlobes and at her throat. She looked like she belonged in this castle. She lifted her cheek for her husband’s kiss and looked past him at them.
“Guests,” she said in a husky drawl. “How nice.”
“Darling, this is Sky Wolfe and his new bride. I know you’ve met him. Mrs. Wolfe is newly arrived from Kearney.”
“Oh, yes.” Mrs. McGrath didn’t stand, but held her hand out to Sky. “Mr. Wolfe. It’s always a pleasure.”
“Ma’am,” Sky murmured, taking her limp hand and giving it a light pat. “This is my wife, Rose.”
“Charmed.” Mrs. McGrath gave Rose a languidly haughty look. “Can I get you a drink? Wine? Bourbon? Beer?”
“Wine, thank you,” Sky said.
It took Rose a moment to realize two things. First, the chair Mrs. McGrath sat in had wheels, and second, she had already had quite a bit to drink. At first glance she looked young, but a closer examination showed wrinkles on her face and skin that sagged slightly on her neck. Rose revised her estimated age from forty to sixty.
Mayor McGrath poured wine into three glasses and handed two of them to Sky, who passed one to her. Rose sipped cautiously. The corn liquor brewed by the Clan was familiar to her, but wine was a new experience. Back in 2014 she’d been too young to drink, and unlike some of her friends, she hadn’t broken rules. The wine flowed in a light, bubbly stream down her throat, somewhat tart, somewhat sweet. She decided she liked it.
She glanced around the room while Sky and the McGraths exchanged pleasantries. It was similar to the restored Victorian mansion she’d toured in ninth grade. The hardwood floor gleamed and the furniture appeared to be antique. The fireplace was flanked with marble pillars, and the carved wooden mantle was cluttered with a candelabra, a bunch of carved fruit spilling out of a cornucopia, and a set of delicate shepherdess figurines.
Centered directly above the mantel was a painting in a magnificent gold frame. It showed a teen-aged girl in a wedding dress. A sheaf of red roses lay over one arm and her other hand was tucked into the arm of the elderly man standing beside her. Rose tried to puzzle out who the man was. The girl’s grandfather?
Mrs. McGrath noticed the direction of her stare. “My daughter Anna, on her wedding day with her husband.” Her voice was expressionless.
Husband? Rose swallowed her wine too quickly and fought not to cough. The girl looked like she was fifteen. The man had to be fifty years older. “It’s a beautiful picture.”
“My daughter was a beautiful girl.” The cool voice held a shadow of bitterness. “She died in childbirth less than a year after the wedding.”
Rose’s gaze shot back to the portrait. “How terrible. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.” Mayor McGrath was formal, standing as stiff as a fencepost. “It was nearly twenty years ago.”
The bitterness grew on Mrs. McGrath’s face. “Sixteen. A mother never stops grieving for the loss of a child.”
Rose shifted her weight and scanned the room for a change of topic. A row of faded photographs lined the wall behind the mayor’s wife. They showed a boy grow from a curly headed toddler to a lanky teenager. “And is that one of your children in those pictures?”
The mayor topped off his glass, frowning over the simple task. “Our son, Ryan. He’s gone too.”
Great. Rose couldn’t look at the McGraths. She focused on her wine and almost cheered the appearance of the butler when he stepped just inside the door and announced, “Dinner is served, madam.”
“Wonderful. I have worked up quite an appetite.” McGrath handed his wife his wineglass and she held his and hers while he positioned himself behind her chair. “Follow us, please,” he said, casting Rose a too-warm smile that would have earned snarls from Stone.
Sky extended his hand in a gesture for Rose to follow them. She walked behind the McGraths through the parlor. The furniture with its gold velvet upholstery was placed strategically to allow Mrs. McGrath’s wheelchair a clear path to the door. They passed along a short corridor to the dining room, which featured a glossily polished cherry wood table that could comfortably seat twenty. It was set with fine china and crystal, and the silverware gleamed. She wondered if this was where the McGraths usually ate their quiet family suppers.
McGrath positioned his wife on the right side of the table where an open space allowed her to sit in her wheeled chair while she dined. He stood at its head and waited for Sky to seat Rose to his left before sitting down himself. The west-facing windows poured golden light from the setting sun into the room. It would have been beautiful except the glare hit Rose square in the face and she had to squint to see anything. The Mayor gestured to the butler.
“Davidson, close the blinds and put on the lights.”
The light, to Rose’s amazement, came from an electric chandelier above the table. She stared up at it with her mouth hanging open. Electric lights? She hadn’t seen light appear at the flip of a switch in eight years.
“You look amazed, Mrs. Wolfe,” the mayor said.
“I am amazed,” Rose said almost reverently. “You have electric lights. And a car.” And hand-painted portraits and multiple photographs. She didn’t want to mention those and remind the McGraths of their grief, but both were expensive luxury items. Clearly the mayor of Omaha liked the finer things in life.
The mayor leaned back in his chair so Davidson could serve cream of potato soup in beautiful bowls that would have been antiques in 1998, when Rose had been born. The smug, self-satisfied smirk on McGrath’s face screamed his impression that Rose was a hick from the country.
“Just a few of the perks of living in Omaha. You’ll need to visit our museum. It has a marvelous display showing how Omaha has grown since the Terrible Times. It’s probably immodest of me to point out just how much of our advancement is due to my leadership. The last mayor, Mike Belsly, did a lot for Omaha, but I was the one to find the money we needed to maintain order. I established the Omaha City Guard. Now Omaha has an extremely low crime rate.”
Rose touched the whistle that hung from her neck and listened politely while he spent the next ten minutes describing the glories of Omaha and why he deserved the credit for each one. He finally came to a halt when the butler entered to remove the soup bowls.
“Fascinating,” she said earnestly. “Does everyone have electricity?” She looked at Sky beside her. “Do you have electricity?”
“Yes, my house has electricity.” He buttered a slice of bread. “It’s available to most businesses and the wealthier neighborhoods of Omaha. We don’t use it all the time, though, because it’s expensive and I want to save money.”
The mayor waved his spoon at Sky. “True. Electricity costs money, and if we want to be able to provide electricity and other luxuries to Omaha, the Single Status Tariff and the Marriage Tax must remain high enough to generate the necessary income.”
Rose kept smiling, but inside she was frowning.
What about the less wealthy neighborhoods? Do they get electricity? Aren’t they part of Omaha?
There was a lull in the conversation while the butler brought in plates of lobster and gingered carrots. Rose was amazed again. Lobster and ginger weren’t local, so the cost of shipping them was exorbitant. Without refrigeration food would spoil, so the lobster must be brought to Omaha live. She imagined huge fish tanks where delicacies swam until they were needed for dinner. If this was McGrath’s idea of a quiet family meal, she wondered what his formal dinners were like. She also wondered how much of the income from the taxes on women went to pay for his quiet family dinners.
“The Single Status Tariff and the Marriage Tax are the backbone of our economy,” the mayor proclaimed. He sounded like a lawyer making closing arguments. She knew what that sounded like because her mom used to practice in their living room. “Without that source of revenue, Omaha couldn’t afford to pay the City Guard, and without the Guard, law and order would fail.”
Beside her, Sky ate lobster with relaxed movements, but Rose had been around wolves long enough to know he was covering acute tension, and she was sure she knew why. Since McGrath already thought she was a moron, she put an expression of wide-eyed innocence on her face and leaned toward him.
“Wasn’t there going to be some sort of vote on that? The taxes, I mean?” She tilted her head to the side to look at Sky. “Didn’t you say something about that, dear?”
The mayor answered before Sky could. “Absolutely right, Mrs. Wolfe. Sky, you’ll be glad to know the vote hasn’t been taken yet. It’s been postponed until next Monday.”
Sky gave no sign at all that he was relieved, but Rose was sure he must be. “I am glad to hear it,” he said with what Rose called his smarmy smile. “I agree, Tim. Without the revenue the Women’s Acts have brought in, Omaha wouldn’t be what it is today.”
He sounded so reasonable, so respectful, that Rose almost missed the hidden meaning in his words. If women hadn’t been forced into prostitution, Omaha would be a different, and better, place today. That’s what Sky really meant. He turned to her with an earnest expression. “You see, my dear, just as the city was sliding into chaos, Tim found a way to save it. He considered what resources Omaha had, and found the one which no one had considered tapping into, and one which any man would be willing to pay for.”
She was utterly incapable of mimicking his respect. “Sex?” she guessed, hands clenched under the table.
“Exactly. I understand there was some resistance at first, but Tim knew how to quell that. The City Guard was new at that time, but they received the bulk of their pay in services. At least, at first. Later, when the city had more funds at their disposal, regular wages were paid to the Guard.”
Rose could imagine the men of the Guard dragging girls from their homes and raping them in the houses the city forced them to work in. In her world of 2014 something like that would never happen. Except…Well, maybe in some countries where women didn’t have rights. Sky’s fingers brushed her fist under the table. She couldn’t look at him or she’d slap that smirk off his face, fake or not.
Sky turned toward McGrath. “But now that order is established and the city treasury is full, revenue can be generated in other ways. When I was in Kearney I had the chance to see how the Eatery works. Men come from all over to be served by waitresses, and they pay well for the privilege.”
“Yes, yes.” McGrath waved that away and waited for Davidson to serve dessert before continuing. “But no man will pay as well for a dinner as he will for a woman’s puss…” He trailed off, glancing at Rose. “A woman’s company in bed.”
The apple crisp was still warm, and Rose would have enjoyed it a lot more in other company, discussing a different topic. She forced a forkful into her mouth.
“A man will pay what he believes the product is worth,” Sky argued. “Six years ago, an hour with one of Ms. Mary’s girls cost a twenty bit, just one twentieth of a strip of gold. Today, an hour with Cayla or Tasha costs one gold. If a man has only a twenty bit or a ten bit, he can either enjoy an hour of conversation and dancing with one of my other ladies, or he can go to an inferior girl at another house.”
“Well, I’ve never argued with your business sense,” the mayor conceded. He waved his fork at Rose. The man liked to use utensils to make his point. “When your husband told me he didn’t expect any woman in his house to give more than she was willing to, I saw red. Thought he was going to ruin everything I worked so hard to build. I don’t know how he did it, but his house brings in more and better paying business than any other whorehouse in Omaha.”
Sky ate a bite of crisp. “It’s no mystery. A worker who is happy in their job, whether it’s digging ditches or pleasuring men, will do their work better and give more satisfaction to the one paying their wages than someone who is unhappy. While I was working for Ms. Mary I learned that most men don’t get much pleasure from a frightened woman. But an hour with a woman who knows her business, and enjoys it, is worth a lot more than the other kind.”