Gold Fever Read Online Free PDF

thing? A damaged whore is no good to me. She’ll return of ’er own free will, Monsieur Sterling. The world is a frightening place for a woman on ’er own.”
    â€œPerhaps,” Sterling said. He walked away without bothering to say goodbye. In his wake the street returned to life; whores opened the doors of their cribs and men crept out from alleys and side streets.
    * * *
    It was well after eight when I arrived at the Savoy. Most of the dance halls in Dawson are open twenty-four hours a day, six days a week. Even in the early hours of the morning or in the middle of the night—or what passes for night this far north in late June—the croupiers are spinning the tables and dealing cards and calling out their magic words, the bartenders are pouring rivers of liquor, and the dance hall girls are kicking up their heels for a dollar a dance and selling champagne by the wagon load. But at eight o’clock in the evening, something special settles over town as the musicians and callers come out onto Front Street, set themselves on the boardwalk, or in the middle of the street, and announce with much fanfare that the show is about to begin.
    Then they all troop back inside, hopefully followed by a crowd of eager cheechakos and sourdoughs, every one of them begging for the chance to spend their money.
    Tonight the stage at the Savoy was presenting scenes from the plays of Mr. William Shakespeare, a goodly number of heart-wrenching songs specially designed to have the lonely miners weeping in their dust-encrusted handkerchiefs, and a rather poor vaudeville act, which would have to do until I could find something better. At midnight the stage show ended, the percentage girls stepped forward to dance, and the performers changed their stage costumes for evening wear. The dancing would go on until six a.m., at which time the girls would cash in their drink tokens and stagger home.
    They were in the middle of the opening dance when I walked into the hall. I counted the girls in the row: all present and accounted for. They kicked up their heels and flashed their petticoats and the crowd roared in approval. Ellie stepped forward to begin her song. She was the oldest of my girls by far. Sometimes she struggled to keep up with the younger ones, particularly at the end of a long night. But the men liked her, and that was all that counted. Perhaps she reminded them of dead mothers and abandoned wives. She acted as a mother hen, looking out for the other girls, which relieved me of some of that chore.
    I stood at the back, inches away from the wall—it would never do to lean—and watched. Ellie finished her song, gave a deep curtsy in exchange for thunderous applause, and the dancers trooped out again. I made a mental note to tell the second girl from the left to give her petticoats a good wash before stepping onto my stage again. Chloe was so bad tonight that only nimble movement on the part of the dancer next to her avoided several collisions. Drunk, I suspected. In my dance hall, as in all the others, the girls were expected to accept drinks from the customers once the dancing began, and more than a few would be quite tipsy by the end of the evening. But to show up drunk for the stage show? That was not at all acceptable. Chloe had always been a problem—a generally miserable, lazy, pastyfaced, skinny piece of flotsam who didn’t have any apparent talents. She wasn’t popular with the men, and I would have shown her the door long ago if she wasn’t such good friends with Irene. Irene, stage name of Lady Irenee , liked having Chloe around, and as long as Irene was the men’s favourite, I would keep her happy. I thought that Chloe served as a substitute for the fussy lapdog with ribbons in its fur theatrical women like to carry around. That wouldn’t be too practical in Dawson: such a creature would disappear into the mud the first time its mistress set it down, if it avoided being eaten