A Race to Splendor (15 page)

Fog and more fog. Sometimes it seemed as if the sun would never shine again on this City by the Bay.

Chapter 13

Whether Julia Morgan realized it or not, Amelia knew full well that the race to restore the splendor of San Francisco’s hotels on Nob Hill had begun.

To Amelia’s surprise, halfway down Taylor Street, a few blocks from the charred but standing walls of the Fairmont, the increasing glare of the noonday sun suddenly made her squint and shade her eyes with her gloved hand. Shafts of silver light penetrated the low-lying clouds, and she marveled as the wispy curtain of moisture began to lift, revealing the pristine, panoramic vista of water and islands dotting the bay. A light breeze freshened the air, relieving the surrounding atmosphere of the lingering smell of smoke.

The city might be wounded, but the landscape was immutably one of the most beautiful in the world, she thought with a rush of giddy pleasure. She was gripped by an overarching love for San Francisco, piercing in its poignancy for what was lost and for what might yet be brought back to life.

Yet so much in her world depended on J.D. Thayer pulling off a financial miracle, Amelia reflected, instantly sobering. She found herself wondering to what lengths a gambler would go to secure the funds needed to rebuild the Bay View Hotel?

***

The Thayers’ housemaid was speechless when she recognized her employer’s son standing at the front door. She recovered her composure and bobbed a curtsey.

“S-Shall I announce you, sir?”

J.D. wasn’t surprised the young woman was flustered to behold the not-so-heir-apparent on the doorstep of the Thayer family mansion. After all, he hadn’t paid a call there in more than two years. “No need to show me in, Sophia, thank you. I’ll just look for my father in his study.”

“It’s good to see that you’re all right, sir, after the quake and all.”

“That’s kind of you to say. And your family? What of them?”

“Little Italy’s burnt to a cinder,” she reported dolefully. Then she brightened. “But so many of our people are in the building trades. They say our neighborhood will be the first section of the city to be put to rights.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me.” He turned toward a heavy oak door off the vestibule, paused a moment, and then reached for the glass knob and turned it.

“Big Jim” Thayer was lounging in a leather chair reading a newspaper in the curve of the bay window, taking advantage of both the sunlight and the spectacular view of the Golden Gate straits. His good fortune included living on Octavia and Pacific streets to the west of Van Ness, where the fire had finally been contained. In the glare of day, the mansion’s appointments of velvet-covered furniture and high-Victorian artifacts appeared all the more ostentatious, given the deprivations J.D. had endured of late.

The elder Thayer’s light brown mane was in distinct contrast to his son’s dark hair, as were the older man’s pale, watery blue eyes to those of his namesake, which were intensely brown. Where J.D. sported a trim mustache, his father fancied luxuriant sideburns
and
mustache, the latter twisted on each end, below which was the distinctive Thayer chin with a cleft practically as large as a one-cent piece. Both men were over six feet tall, but where the son was lean and hard-muscled, James Thayer Sr.’s, waistline bespoke overindulgence in seven-course meals at the Cliff House and too many brandies at his club.

The most distinct contrast between them, certainly, was their complexions: Big Jim’s pallid as paper, his son’s bronze, a few shades lighter than his mother’s Spanish ancestors.

It was barely three in the afternoon, but the elder Thayer held a whiskey in one hand, resting the newspaper in his lap. J.D. drew some satisfaction from the startled expression on his father’s face when he recognized the unannounced visitor.

“Well, blast and damn. The Prodigal returns. And dressed in virtual rags.”

J.D. ignored the sarcasm aimed at this threadbare attire. “Hello, Father.”

Big Jim set his whiskey aside. “I figured you might turn up one day soon. Kemp told me you were alive and sorely in need of funds.”

J.D. advanced toward a table piled high with familiar legal documents he knew detailed the particulars of his application to the Committee of Fifty to rebuild the Bay View.

“I see you’ve received my requests to the Committee.”

“So you need my help, do you?”

Thayer Sr. had not risen from his chair to greet his son. Both were well aware that Big Jim sat on the executive board of the powerful civic group charged with overseeing the reconstruction of the city—and was among its most influential members. It galled J.D. to have to make this show of deference and grant his father the required respect, but if it could gain him the required funds, he’d do it.

“Well, I definitely need your good will, sir.”

At that, the older man pointed to the last page of the document. “And you’re not shy about asking for a substantial figure, are you?”

“I believe that’s a realistic sum.”

“And why would I be moved to extend a hand to a wayward son like you?”

Big Jim gazed at his only offspring from beneath eyebrows as bushy as the wheat-colored sideburns that framed his cheeks.

J.D. strove to maintain an attitude of studied detachment. “If I can’t expect your good will, sir, then I come here to ask that you not vote
against
me.”

“I won’t have to. If I privately put in one negative word with the other members on the executive board, I could be the only ‘aye’ vote in your favor and still get my desire to withhold funds from your shameful project.”

“Let others do your dirty work for you? I’m not surprised.”

Idiot!
J.D. cursed himself silently.

His earliest childhood memories of his lawyer father were of a man who employed an infamous brand of courtroom pugilism toward friend and foe alike in an ongoing display of adversarial banter. J.D. had learned this art at the knee of a master. Even if it hurt his case, however, he took some small solace in the fact he’d obviously landed his own verbal punch to his father’s flabby jaw.

James Thayer inhaled deeply, a sign to J.D. that he was attempting to rein in his temper. “Most people would say that you’re the one doing dirty work, disgracing this family by becoming a common gambler and pimp.”

“So you will oppose my petition then?”

“Not if you make a few amendments to it.”

J.D. was surprised to be granted this reprieve. Surprised and wary.

“Such as?”

“Do not rebuild the gambling club as part of this venture on Nob Hill,” his father replied, gesturing to the sheaf of papers. “My friends there find it offensive.”

“Your friends—and you—no doubt find it competition.”

“Not very shrewd of you to insult someone whose vote you need, J.D.”

How right you are
, he thought. But goring his father’s ox was nigh irresistible after all the insults the senior Thayer had dealt him over the years.

“Are you saying, Father, that you and Schmitz and Reuf can no longer be found in Chinatown these days? That you’ve given up silently investing in brothels and gambling halls or wagering yourselves?”

“The mayor and Reuf hold no investments there now, that I know of.”

“Payoffs, protection money, and anonymous partnerships are a kind of investment, wouldn’t you say?”

Ignoring the remark, Big Jim pointed again to the documents. “I have no objection to men indulging in a friendly game of chance at their private club. And there are unquestionably places in the city where certain… recreations can be indulged without offending the larger community. What I
do
find objectionable is that a member of such an esteemed family as mine should engage in running a gaming den where any riffraff can sit at the tables in an otherwise respectable neighborhood, and Chinese harlots—”

“If I request funds simply to reconstruct the hotel on Nob Hill, will you vote yes?” interrupted J.D. It was high time he called a unilateral halt to their stupid sparring and got down to business.

His father looked at him with surprise. “You’re willing to forego rebuilding the gambling club?”

“To get the loan? Yes.”

“Then what I’ve heard must be true. The Chinese girl
did
die in the earthquake. Without her to assist you, perhaps you’ve soured on being a card shark and procurer—or maybe you fear you couldn’t succeed in such crafty businesses without her skills in or out of the bedchamber.”

J.D. had a sudden, deadly impulse to pummel his father’s fleshy face with his bare fists. Instead, he managed a shrug.

“Yes, Ling Lee was crushed in the quake. What’s important to me now is the financing.”

Big Jim’s pleased expression showed that he believed he’d finally gained the upper hand with his troublesome son. “It would please your mother no end to hear that her only child has finally come to his senses.”

“Will you vote ‘yes’ under the terms you’ve just described?”

The two men stared at each other for a long moment and then the father nodded.

“Yes.”

“And your cronies on the executive board?”

“I cannot speak for the boorish Mr. Kemp, but if you swear on your honor that you will no longer taint my good name by running a gaming enterprise or fancy house in the heart of Nob Hill—
or
overindulging in such winner-take-all contests as you have in the past—I will not poison the well with others on the Committee of Fifty.”

“And at City Hall?”

“I’m sure His Honor and the redoubtable Mr. Reuf will be happy to see that the rebuilding of the esteemed Bay View Hotel is proceeding apace.”

“Do I have your word on this, sir?”

“More to the point, do I have yours?”

“Yes. I will not run a gambling establishment on Nob Hill where Chinese women entertain customers in their bedchambers.”

He avoided promising not to gamble himself, or hire Chinese laborers, if needed, at the building site—and his father apparently overlooked that omission.

“Fine then.” Triumph flickered on Big Jim’s face as the elder Thayer set the loan application aside. “I will recommend that my friends on the executive board and in City Hall contribute toward the rehabilitation of my son as a decent member of society.”

J.D. turned and prepared to make his departure.

“How has it been working with that Morgan woman?” his father asked suddenly.

“An improvement over that fake builder Kemp recruited for the gambling club. At least she’s qualified as an engineer and is a bona fide architect, trained in France.”

“And her assistant? What’s the chit’s name? Her father was that drunkard you hornswoggled into hazarding the deed to the hotel.”

All J.D.’s senses went on high alert. His father had his spies everywhere, which obviously included Ezra Kemp.

“Amelia Bradshaw, you mean? She’s equally well trained as an engineer and architect. She’s greatly in need of employment—which means she’ll do exactly as I say. It’s an excellent arrangement in my view.”

His father stroked the ends of his mustache and smiled faintly. “Knowing you, I’m sure it is. But isn’t it a mite dangerous to entrust your future to a woman who may not have your best interests at heart? After all, I hear Charlie Hunter changed his will and she was to inherit—except for the poker game you played with her father that apparently put the hotel in your hands.”

J.D. gazed steadily at his father for a moment. “I am quite accustomed to the reality that no one has
my
best interests at heart. Good day to you, sir.”

He’d taken a few steps toward the study door when his father called after him.

“Just a moment, James. If you want these funds, I have one further condition.”

J.D. slowly turned around. “And what might that be?”

“You must visit your mother. Once a month. From now on. I’ve grown weary of her moods and tears. I dare not allow her out in public any longer. Perhaps you can improve her humor, or at least serve as a diversion.”

J.D. acquiesced with a small shrug. “You
do
drive a hard bargain, don’t you?”

Since a bitter day twenty years earlier—and for his mother’s sake and safety—J.D. never appeared to take her part against his father. Fortunately, Big Jim had just provided his son with an open invitation to monitor, at long last, how Connie Thayer was faring in her prison overlooking San Francisco Bay.

***

The grand oak staircase in the Thayer mansion ended on a second floor landing, aflame this late afternoon from a golden stained-glass sunburst embedded in the wall overhead. J.D. hesitated outside a heavy door and cocked an ear toward the murmur of hushed voices. Beyond lay his mother’s inner sanctum.

His father’s sleeping quarters were located down a long corridor to the left and behind an equally thick wooden door, leaving J.D. to wonder if, perhaps, the pair had not occupied the same bedroom since the night their son had been conceived, thirty-five years earlier. He knocked softly.