The Red Velvet Horse (Siren Publishing Allure) (7 page)

“Yes, this is the place,” she murmured to herself triumphantly.

She had found it just in the nick of time too. For on the lopsided broken-hinged door was a condemned property eviction notice posted by the health authorities.

“I’m leaving tomorrow.” The sad-eyed old crone showed her toothless gums in a horrible parody of a smile. She was the only tenant still left in the crumbling old house. “This is the only home I’ve ever known.” She ushered April inside to the gloomy damp smelling interior festooned with mouse droppings and spider webs.

“When was this house built?” April asked. “I think I may know someone who once lived here.”

“Really?” The old woman swept a bunch of newspapers off a torn armchair so her unexpected visitor could sit down.

“Her name was Hannah Wilks.” April perched on the edge of the dirty seat, and tried not to breathe too deeply. The stench of old drains mixed with fried onions was nauseating.

A look of intense interest was now imposing itself on the gnarled old features. “Hannah Wilks you say? My grandparents built this house back in the 1800s. Mother lived here all her life, and I have carried on the tradition.”

“So, your mother must have known Hannah?” April experienced a rush of adrenaline so great, it made her head spin. Even in her most optimistic daydreams, she had never dared to hope for anything as conclusive and directly personal as this. For now, she knew Hannah really had existed. And was not just a figment of someone’s overactive imagination. “She was an Englishwoman, a widow.”

The old woman nodded her head and stuck out a dirt-encrusted hand. “I’m Bettina Ruth. I can remember Mother talking about Hannah.”

And then, with a look that was at once sly and furtive, asked cautiously, “Was she a relative of yours?”

“No, just someone whose diary I found in an old cabinet.”

Bettina nodded. “I was just about to make myself a pot of tea, would you like a cup?”

April glanced around the grim and dirty room, watching the progress of a cockroach as it crawled around the filthy floor.

“Yes...please...” she answered with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, knowing that to refuse would offend the old woman, and make her less forthcoming with her recollections.

“She was a prossie, you know,” Bettina confided in a lowered tone, heaping a generous helping of tealeaves into a blackened pot. “Used to work in a cat house over here on Jarvis Street.”

“Would the building still be standing? It seemed to be quite an opulent establishment in its day.”

“Oh, that it was,” Bettina agreed. “Mother said that all the dandies from Rosedale and Forest Hill used to frequent it. But no, it’s no longer there. It was destroyed by a fire about the time Hannah worked there.”

The old woman was warming to the memories and thoroughly enjoying herself. It was strange, April thought, how age could rob one of immediate recall. Yet events, which had taken place so long ago, were remembered with ease.

“Mother had a lot of prossies living here at one time or another.” Bettina winked lewdly. “But Hannah was different…she was a really special one.”

“In what way?” April took a cautious sip at the bitter tea.

“Well Mother always said you could tell she was a real lady…high born, you know.” She crooked her little finger round the chipped cup handle, to demonstrate gentility. “Then, of course, there’s not many prossies end up marrying one of their clients, and a rich successful one at that. It created quite a stir at the time, I can tell you.”

So, Hannah’s fortunes must have changed for the better, and she married yet again, thought April. And later, as she left the squalid house, she retraced the footsteps of the nineteenth-century adventuress over to Jarvis Street. For it was here that Hannah must have walked to and from Mrs. Cloud’s bawdy house every day. In stifling weather such as this, and in the heavy snows of a bitter winter.

A small park that was home to street people and drug injecting derelicts now stood where the house of prostitution had once reigned supreme. The site of so many ecstatic orgasms April reminisced nostalgically. Many of which were achieved over the velvet back of the indomitable Neddy.

“I just don’t believe this...it’s like a nightmare...it can’t really be happening…” April held her head in her hands. The serene mood from her Toronto trip rudely smashed by the chaos that awaited her at Village Antiques.

There had been a break-in during the night, and the shop ransacked. The safe had been jimmied and all the valuables were gone.

“This is quite a horrendous end to your vacation.” Fern Daniels poured tea from an earthenware pot.

They had been assessing the damage all morning, and it seemed the thieves knew exactly what was valuable and what was not.

The Chippendale mirror had been taken, while a less expensive French Empire one had been left behind. The Tiffany lamp and vase were gone, as was the Faberge enameled egg.

“I just don’t understand why the security system failed.” April looked dismayed. “Oh this is really too much to face right at the moment.”

And Holt had been even more overcome by the scope of the theft than either one of the women.

“Good God,” he had exclaimed in horror, as the full impact of the calamity hit him.

For it wasn’t only the stolen items that caused the distress, but the many priceless pieces either broken or damaged as the thieves ransacked the store and made good their escape.

They muddled through the day in a daze, until Fern all but pushed them out the door at five. Alone in the shop, with the last smile from a retiring sun filtering through the boarded-up door, she swept up the remnants of a Loetz vase, and a jade snuff bottle.

“Damn the bastards,” she muttered angrily. Then she placed the shards in the garbage bin with something akin to reverence, before turning her attention to other broken and damaged merchandise.

It was almost midnight before she was finally finished, and the shop was in some kind of order again.

“Are you still here?” The voice so close behind her made her jump. She had been running the vacuum cleaner in the storeroom.

“Oh, it’s you, Holt,” she replied with relief. “I thought for one horrible moment it might be the thieves back for an encore.”

“We’re ruined, Fern…” His voice cracked with sorrow. She could smell the whisky fumes, and something else too, the unmistakable scent of human disaster.

“You should go home and try and get some sleep.”

He ignored her. “This was all my fault,” he said.

“No, it wasn’t. It could have happened even if April had been around.”

“You don’t understand,” he replied miserably. “It was my fault, and I don’t know how I’ll live with it…”

* * * *

“I suppose it’s only natural that Holt feels responsible. The break-in happening just when he was left solely in charge.” April stroked a purring Spice. “Even although it had nothing whatever to do with him.”

“That’s what I tried to tell him,” Fern agreed. “But he was having none of it, and seemed utterly convinced it was all his fault.”

“I’ll have a word with him later.” April had managed to have a fairly good night’s rest, thanks to a hefty dose of sleeping pills at bedtime. Now, although a little groggy with the after effects, was at least able to view the robbery with as close to a philosophical approach as she was ever likely to get.

It had been the shock, which had really knocked her for six. Viewed in perspective, they had been lucky never to have anything like this happen before. Perhaps it was just that their turn was overdue and their number had come up. Something like the unfortunate recipient of the loaded chamber in a deadly game of Russian Roulette.

She opened the Venetian blinds and was immediately blinded by a strong shaft of sunlight, piercing its way through the room and illuminating everything in its wake.

“Well, it’s another beautiful day, Spice. Let’s have breakfast on the terrace.”

What continued to puzzle her was why the alarm system had failed to go off? The Security Company insisted that either Holt had neglected to arm it when he left for the day, or the thieves knew the security code and deactivated it upon gaining entry to the premises.

April finished her coffee and pushed the cup away with a weary gesture. She would be glad when the day was over.

Holt was already in the store when she arrived. “How are you feeling?” she asked, concerned at how utterly awful he looked. She was convinced he hadn’t slept a wink, and probably spent the night on the proverbial tiles.

“Bloody awful. But then, it’s no more than I deserve.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake, stop blaming yourself for the robbery. It could have happened no matter who was here. Besides, it’s spilt milk now, regardless of who may have been at fault.”

Then seeing that this disclaimer had in no way cheered him up, added. “It wouldn’t be the first time that I have forgotten to put on the alarm before leaving. The only difference is I was fortunate nothing happened.”

A harbor helicopter whirred by, temporarily blocking out the radiance of the sun.

“You look like you could use a cup of tea. I’ll make some. And cheer up. We are insured after all.”

“Well that’s just it…” Holt looked wretched, unable to meet her eyes as he delivered the hammer blow. “We don’t have any insurance. I didn’t keep up with the premiums.”

“My God!” For one ghastly moment, April thought she would pass out. The room seemed to tilt, grow grainy, and then recede. “I just can’t take this in, how could you be so bloody stupid?”

Then with one furious sweep of her hand, she knocked the entire contents of her desk onto the floor. “We’re ruined,” she sobbed, in a curious mixture of anger and grief.

When Holt tried to console her, she spat out at him with all the fury of a mountain cat. “Goddamn you. Goddamn you straight to hell.”

* * * *

“I honestly don’t know if I could stand another piece of bad news,” April confessed to Fern, who had cautioned her to prepare herself for just that. They were sitting in a quiet corner of the Nutmeg Café while the buzz of Hermitage Quay went on around them.

“I think there may be more to this robbery than meets the eye.”

“What makes you think that?”

“The fact that Village Antiques was the only store targeted in the shopping mall, that the alarm failed, either because Holt had not put it on before leaving, or because the thieves managed to deactivate it. If they did,” she said, leaning forward earnestly. “It means they must have known the security code.”

April nodded. “I don’t understand what you’re getting at? Who do you think is behind it?”

Fern looked like a trapped animal seeking desperately for a means of escape. “Look there’s no easy way to tell you this, April. I’d rather you heard it from me in any case. Holt has been seeing someone.”

“He’s what?” April’s eyes were wide with disbelief.

“It’s been going on for some time, but I didn’t tell you before because I hoped it would just blow over.”

“I simply can’t take this in.” April took a great gulp of her cooling coffee for solace.

“She’s really just a cheap prostitute. Her name is Carla, and she runs a sleazy massage parlor over on Duthie Street.”

April felt as if a runaway train had struck her. The world she had known lay in tatters around her feet.

A smiling waitress placed a small bowl of sweet briar on the window ledge beside their table and cleared away their used plates and menus.

“Lovely.” Fern touched the delicate flowers with her fingertips, glad of the tender respite, no matter how brief, from the horrible business of infidelity and crime.

* * * *

“How could you do this?” April confronted Holt in the foyer of his apartment building. Her rage and sense of betrayal so great, she didn’t care who heard. “Throwing away everything we’ve worked so hard for. And for what? A cheap thieving prostitute.”

Holt looked as if he hadn’t slept since the robbery, his handsome face haggard and gaunt. “I…” he began haltingly. “Look let’s go up to my suite.” He attempted to take her arm to guide her towards the elevators, but she shrugged him off.

“Don’t you ever touch me again,” she raged, and stalked out the door before he had a chance to respond.

* * * *

A miserably unhappy April curled up on her easy chair and sought escape from her troubles in the ongoing erotic adventures of Hannah Wilks.

I have now been working at Mrs. Cloud’s establishment for about six months. Much of it spent either bent over or mounted on Neddy; a jiggering and buggering contraption second to none.

My bottom is in a constant state of tenderness, the faint pink lines from old birchings lying alongside fresh red stripes from recent ones. But I love every well-applied stroke of them, and never has my cunny been better lubricated or prone to such violent twitchings.

Meanwhile, I find myself employed in the tiresome task of looking for suitable accommodations. This has become imperative, as my landlady, a sharp-faced shrew named Violet Ruth, has been hiking up my rent because of my manner of employment.