I promised to be there. That night I found Cocky and readied him up for Sunday evening. He showed up on the minute, and we were in the alley by Madam Kate’s early. Julia was waiting at the window and out came the bundle. I threw it into the hack. A minute later Cocky snatched her off the fence, leaving part of her wrapper behind. More of it was streaming out of the hack door as I slammed it and we drove away.

She wiped the powder and rouge off her face. “No more of that stuff,” she said.

On the way back to my neighborhood she spotted a “Housekeeping Rooms” sign in the window of a dingy-looking house. She stopped the hack and put some money in my hand. “Dash up there, kid, and hire a room, anything that’s vacant.”

I secured a room quickly enough, came down, and got her. Cocky followed with the bundle of clothes. I lit the gas, Cocky threw the clothes on the bed.