Rebecca Hagan Lee (13 page)

The front desk was empty when Julie rang the bell. The desk clerk came out of the back, discreetly wiping his mouth with a napkin he then surreptitiously tucked inside his trouser pocket. She had purposely waited until the middle of the man’s supper break to interrupt him. “Good evening, Miss Parham.”

“Good evening, Mr. Bishop,” she returned the greeting. “May I have my room key, please?”

“Yes, of course.” He pulled the key from the room box on the wall behind the front desk and held it out to her.

“Would you happen to know if my cousin has arrived?”

He nodded. “She checked in a little while ago. She is in the room beside yours. Haven’t you seen her?”

“How could I, Mr. Bishop?” she asked, “when I’ve only just returned from the mission?”

“Oh. I didn’t realize . . .”

“That’s quite all right.”

“I gave her your laundry.”

“You gave my laundry to my cousin?”

He nodded. “The China girl from Wu’s laundry delivered it for you. I had it here behind the desk and Miss Burke offered to take it to her room in order to save me a trip up the stairs. I also made your cousin aware of the hotel’s ‘no Celestials’ policy.”

Julie arched one elegant eyebrow at him and put a questioning note in her best Queen’s English voice. “A ‘no Celestials’ policy? What, may I ask, is that?”

Bishop explained the hotel’s policy barring Orientals from entering the hotel.

“I contracted with Mr. Wu to provide laundry services,” Julie told him, pretending ignorance of a bigoted and blatantly biased policy. “How will he be able to meet his obligations? I cannot take a carriage to Mr. Wu’s. The alleys are too narrow. And I’m not inclined to walk to Mr. Wu’s and carry my laundry back when I’m paying him to deliver it.”

“Of course not, Miss Parham!” He sounded shocked, although he was most likely very much aware of her mission work. “Chinatown is no place for a lady. Especially the rabbit’s warren of alleyways where most of the Chinese laundries—including Wu’s”—Julie noticed that Mr. Bishop refused to honor Wu by attaching the courtesy title of “Mr.” to his name—“are located. If you will come to the front desk whenever you need laundry services, we will see that a bellman is sent to collect it and take it to the laundry of your choice. When your laundry is ready, we’ll send someone to collect it for you. With this system in place, there is never any need for one of our guests to come in contact with an Oriental. We at the Russ House Hotel strive to make our guests’ stays as comfortable and trouble-free as possible. As I explained to your cousin, Miss Burke, we simply can’t have Celestials running about the hotel. Our guests find it objectionable.

Julie pinned the desk clerk with a look. She wondered whether, if she complained to the hotel’s owner, he would eliminate the desk clerk she found objectionable. “I apologize for my ignorance, Mr. Bishop.” She said the right thing, in the right tone of voice, without meaning a word of it. “I grew up in the Far East, where Celestials, as you call them, work as house servants in my home. I do not find their presence a nuisance. I did not know I was the exception, rather than the rule, in San Francisco.”

“Now you do,” Mr. Bishop said.

“Yes,” Julie agreed, “now I do.” Taking the key from him, she turned on her heel and went upstairs to her room.

After spending three-quarters of an hour shuttling belongings from one room to the other, separating what might belong to Julie Parham and what might belong to Jane Burke into two rooms that gave the appearance of being fully occupied, Julie returned to her original room, locked the door, slipped off her missionary dress, hung it in the armoire, and lay down on the bed to rest her eyes.

Chapter Fifteen

“I am escaped by the skin of my teeth.”

—JOB 19:20

S
omeone was in her room.

Julie awoke with a start to discover she had fallen asleep dressed in everything except her dress.

Her heart was pounding as if she’d run a race, her senses heightened in awareness as she tried to figure out what had brought her out of a deep, dreamless slumber. Everything seemed to be just as she’d left it, but something had awakened her.

And then she heard it.

The sound of quiet rustling and footsteps.

Barely daring to breathe for fear of discovery, Julie lay as still as death, afraid to move. She held her breath. Her lips moved in silent prayer, but the rest of her didn’t. She lay in the darkness listening as a stranger rifled through her belongings, thankful that she’d put the bundle of laundry Zhing Wu had left for her in the other room.

Moving as quietly as possible, Julie eased off the bed. The soft creak of the bedsprings was deafening to her ears. She half expected the intruder to grab her, but his back was turned and he was busy rummaging through the dresser drawers, flinging silk stockings and delicate garters about the room, scattering her underthings.

Her pulse beat a rapid staccato.

Sneaking a peek over her shoulder, Julie saw that his back was still turned, his focus on the chest of drawers. It was now or never. Summoning all her courage, she slowly, carefully inched toward the door.

“Where do you think you’re going, Miss Parham?” he hissed a moment before he grabbed her by the back of the neck and yanked.

Julie grabbed for the knob and jerked the door open a few inches. “Help! Somebody!”

Placing his white-gloved hand against the door, the intruder slammed it shut. Julie barely registered the sound of it echoing through the hotel corridor before he locked an arm around her waist.

Acting on instinct, Julie flung her head back and connected with his face.

Yelping in pain, he reacted, hurling her toward the bed. She bounced off the side of it and hit something hard. Or something hard hit her. She rocked back, momentarily stunned. It took her a moment to comprehend the fact that he’d hit her with his fist. She shook her head, tried to focus, and saw stars before he grabbed a handful of her petticoat, lifted her off her feet, and threw her back on the bed, facedown.

And held her there. With one hand against her head and his knee in her back, he pressed her face against the mattress while he fumbled for something just out of reach. . . .

Struggling to breathe, her lungs burning, realizing he was smothering her against the feather bed, Julie fought, twisting and bucking, trying to dislodge him, until she managed to turn her face to the side. She inhaled, sucking precious air into her lungs. . . .

“Oh, no, you don’t!” he growled, trying to subdue her, his breathing as labored as hers.

Fighting like a wildcat, Julie wriggled free, then rolled onto her back and reached out her right hand, searching for something, anything, to use as a weapon as he balled up his fist. Julie vowed that she was going to do whatever she had to do to survive. She was not going to allow this man to take her life. Not today. Not ever.

Feeling the smooth, cool surface of the Ghirardelli’s chocolate tin, Julie latched onto it and swung with all her might, clouting him on the side of the head. Reaching up, he managed to take hold of her wrist, twisting it until she cried out in pain and let go of the chocolates. The tin bounced off the bed and hit the floor with a clatter.

Her attacker grabbed hold of her throat, shoved her hard against the mattress, and squeezed, cutting off her air once again.

“Hey! What’s going on it there?” Someone pounded on the wall separating her room from room four. “Some of us are trying to sleep. Keep it down!”

Realizing that the assault was loud enough to disturb the neighboring guests, Julie’s attacker froze.

Seizing the opportunity, knowing it was her last chance to save herself and Su Mi, Julie clawed at his hand, managed to grab hold of his little finger and bend it backward. He eased his grip on her throat and reached for something in his boot.

Julie gulped in a breath, then wasted no time in rolling off the bed once again.

Breathing hard, but breathing, Julie stumbled toward the door, pulled it open, and yelled, “Fire!” It came out as a croak. Inhaling as deeply as she could, Julie tried again. He grabbed her skirts to pull her back inside. Refusing to let go of the door, and bracing herself for whatever came next, Julie kicked out with all her might and connected with his knee. Hearing his grunt of pain, she made another attempt at escape. Ignoring the agony in her throat and her wrist, she stumbled into the hall. “Help! Fire!”

Her shout sounded loud in her brain, but it was barely audible. A mere whimper, but it was a sound. Suddenly her attacker burst out of the room and shoved her to the side.

She saw the flash of the blade a moment before he stabbed her. The pain seared through her shoulder as her would-be assassin hurried down the hall toward the stairs.

Julie pressed herself against the door to number eight, fumbling with the ribbon around her neck that held the key to Jane Burke’s room as blood ran down her arm and over her fingers, staining her neck and the muslin of her corset cover.

Finally managing to unknot the key, Julie gritted her teeth against the pain, leaned heavily against the door, and shoved the key into the lock. She turned the knob and practically fell into the room.

Dizzy with blood loss , Julie jerked the key out of the lock, then closed the door and relocked it. She leaned against it, marshaling her strength before she pushed away from it and began undressing. Hands shaking, shoulder and wrist throbbing, she unbuttoned the waistband of her petticoats and let them fall to the floor. Standing in her corset, corset cover, boots, and stockings, Julie ripped the paper off the laundry bundle lying on the foot of the bed and reached for the long cloth and began winding it around the top of her corset cover as tightly as she could manage, hoping the cloth would help stanch the flow of blood from the wound in her shoulder. She thought she might faint from the pain and the exertion, but Julie knew that if she did, she would die here. Operating on a combination of terror and determination, she forced herself to pull the tunic of her laundry girl disguise over her head. She sat down on the bed, but her fingers were trembling so badly she couldn’t manage the laces of her boots. Giving up, Julie worked her trousers over her boots, tugged on the drawstring, then stood up and retrieved her black wig from the hatbox from Madam Dumond’s. Biting her bottom lip till it bled, Julie managed to pin her hair atop her head and secure the black wig, which she had braided into a queue. She completed her look with one of the hand-painted conical straw hats street vendors hawked to tourists as Chinamen hats.

She’d left her tinted rice powder at Wu’s, but found a stub of a kohl pencil in the bottom of her reticule. She thought she would line her eyes with it using a tiny mirror and the sliver of moonlight coming from the window, but one eye was rapidly swelling shut and the other had a bleeding cut above it. With her face battered and bruised, there seemed little point in trying to disguise her eyes. At night and in her present state, no one could tell they were blue. Dropping her pencil on the dresser, Julie decided it was time to go.

Unlocking her door as quietly as she possibly could, Julie eased it open and slipped through it. She paused long enough to relock it and pocket the key. There was no going back. Only forward. Taking a last look around to make sure the hallway was deserted, she headed for the back stairs and the service entrance as fast as she dared, walking at a brisk pace, keeping her head low, praying she could make it to her destination before anyone noticed her.

It was late. Past the Chinese curfew. According to the city ordinance, any Chinaman or Celestial woman caught on the city streets past the hour of midnight was subject to a fine or arrest or both. Going out as Jie Li was a risk, but it was a risk Julie had to take. She had no choice but to walk. And if she hurried, she might make it before her strength or her luck failed her.

Julie hurt all over. But she didn’t stop. She was gasping for breath, but she didn’t slow her pace. She kept walking—away from the Russ House, past the Salvationist mission and the women’s dormitory, right to the only place she felt safe.

The Silken Angel Saloon.

Chapter Sixteen

“Let us run into a safe harbor.”

—ALCAEUS, C. 625–C. 575 B.C.

H
ey, Keegan, you missing one of your little China dolls?” one of the regular poker players called out as Will walked by.

It was a few minutes before closing, and Will was exhausted and doing his best to persuade the regulars it was time for them to leave and go home so he could lock the front doors. Jack had already called for the last liquor orders before closing and the saloon girls had called it a night an hour earlier after a long, busy evening.

Sunday through Thursday, the Silken Angel operated as a rather staid, conservative establishment in much the same way as a British gentleman’s club. Men came to socialize, drink, play billiards or poker, or try their hands at roulette or faro. It was a quiet, expensive saloon where members of the upper class relaxed and conducted business in the absence of saloon and dance hall girls whose sole objective was to convince men to buy them drinks or to pay for a dance.

Two nights a week—on Fridays and Saturdays—the atmosphere of the Silken Angel mirrored that of the dozens of other drinking and gaming establishments in San Francisco. It was filled with saloon girls soliciting drinks and dances from customers while the piano player banged out lively popular tunes. The card and billiard rooms were packed and the balls were clattering around the roulette wheels at a steady pace. Along with all that activity were customers who purchased tokens granting them access to the second floor and the four women occupying the bedrooms. None of the men were seeking Chinese brides and none of women were prostitutes—Chinese or otherwise. The men buying tokens were “bridegrooms” carefully chosen by Sir Humphrey Osborne and Father Francis from members of the Empire Players stock company, students studying for the priesthood at St. Mary’s Seminary, and a network of the underground Silken railroad conductors. The ladies were actresses, carefully chosen friends, and crusaders brought in by Will and James and Elizabeth to help with the rescue work. There was every appearance of a thriving weekend upstairs business, but it wasn’t real. There were no ladies of the evening upstairs, only ladies willing to play a part and games of chess or checkers or engage in intellectual discussions with gentlemen for a few hours. Even James’s staff in Coryville took turns in the roles. The Treasures’ governess and several teachers at the Coryville Training Academy had spent the weekend helping. A good many of the amateur actors and actresses were teachers, one or two were distinguished journalists, and all of the men and women involved in the drama were abolitionists dedicated to the rescue of San Francisco’s poor, unfortunate Chinese slave girls.

And so the weekend bustle at the Silken Angel seemed perfectly normal, but most of it was a carefully orchestrated ruse designed to hide the true nature of the venture. Will made sure his customers knew that the girls he purchased at auction were off-limits to everyone except the men who had asked him to find them wives. In this case, he let it be known that the youngest girls were sisters of the brides who would be joining the bridegroom’s household. The new
husbands
were an essential part of the carefully cultivated fiction. They existed for Li Toy, the members of the San Francisco Saloon and Bordello Owners Association, and the tongs. The story Will told of finding Chinese brides for well-to-do bachelors wanting the exotic, rather than the ordinary, gave him the touch of authenticity he needed to convince Madam Harpy his invitation to her auctions was mutually beneficial. It provided Will with the nefariousness he needed to operate on the fringes of the underworld. They viewed him as a procurer, rather than the matchmaker he professed to be.

The participants weren’t random choices. They were part of the expensive, elaborate plan Will and James had spent the past year organizing and implementing. There was a great deal of money at stake and the work of the amateur players was crucial to the success of the rescue missions; everyone took it seriously.

Sir Humphrey and the female Empire players who had pretended to be working prostitutes all evening had quietly gone home the way they had come, through the hidden entrance at the back of the saloon, using the gin wagon to return to the theater after a successful evening’s performance. The male actors pretending to be the evening’s bridegrooms also departed quietly through the private exit, while Will and Jack escorted the seven girls to safety in Coryville. Other players and legitimate customers departed in ones and twos through the front doors, as patrons were wont to do after a long evening of drink and entertainment.

The actors pretending to be Pinkerton detectives were still on duty and staying the night. They would be handsomely rewarded for their time and devotion to their craft when the real Pinkertons arrived. Until then, they were working in shifts, guarding the grand parlor and the bar and the doors of the upstairs rooms until the ruse ended, taking turns sleeping in the cots Jack had set up in Ah So’s former room.

The only other people left in the saloon with Will and Jack were the regular poker players who spent a large percentage of their waking hours at the Silken Angel. One of whom had just asked Will about the Chinese girls.

“Not that I know of, Royce,” Will replied. “Why do you ask?”

“I just saw one slip past the parlor door.”

Will was instantly alarmed. “Are you sure?”

“Sure I’m sure,” he retorted. “I haven’t had that much to drink, and I know an Oriental when I see one.”

Will closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and prayed for the patience for which he was well-known. “Are you sure it was a Chinese
girl
?”

“Looked like a girl,” Royce told him. “From the brief glance I got. But I wouldn’t bet on it. Could have been a boy or a little man, but definitely wearing a Chinese getup with black leather boots.”

“Chinese girls don’t wear black leather boots.” Will knew there were no Chinese girls upstairs. He and Jack had just spent the past six hours moving them from the Silken Angel through the underground tunnels that began in the wine cellar and wound their way through the city. It had been a long, exhausting journey. They had taken the girls into the tunnels as a group, but had been forced to pair them off because the tunnels were too narrow in places for them to walk in anything other than twos. The tunnels were badly lit and claustrophobic, and little Tsin, separated from her sisters for the first time, had cried during the entire trip, and no amount of cajoling or bribing or promises from him that she would see them again as soon as they reached their destination had stopped the steady flow of tears. It had torn at Will’s heart and made his head ache.

“I thought that was odd, too,” Royce remarked. “But, hell, this is San Francisco. It’s cold and damp. Could be she’s tired of having wet, frozen toes, or she likes boots. I don’t know. I only noticed because I was expecting to see those little cloth shoes and white stockings.”

“Was she heading upstairs or downstairs?”

“I didn’t notice that,” he admitted, glancing at his cards. “It was my deal.”

Will understood. Cards came first. After all, Royce was a professional cardsharp. “Thanks, Royce. I’ll check it out.” He looked at the other players. “We’re closing in a few minutes. Of course, you’re welcome to stay and play, but the doors will be locked and the bar closed until eight a.m.”

A city ordinance declared that all saloons and bawdy houses within the city limits close by four o’clock in the morning and remain closed until eight in the morning if they were open to the public for breakfast. If the saloons chose not to serve breakfast, they were required to remain closed until ten.

“We paid for half a case of sipping whiskey to see us through until breakfast before Jack shut down.” Dennison shuffled the cards, passed the deck over to McNamara for the cut, then began to deal. “He’s gone to the storage room to get it.” He nodded toward the door that led to the wine cellar and the storage rooms. “We know where the glasses are. We’ll serve ourselves.”

Will nodded. “The Pinkertons will be on duty,” he told them. “The coffee is on the stove and the mugs are behind the bar. I’m going to see if I can find our mystery girl.”

Jack came out of the storage room carrying a wooden box with six bottles of whiskey in it. He set the box on the table beside the poker players’ table. “What mystery girl?”

“The little China doll I just saw sneaking around,” Royce answered without looking up from his cards. “Came in the front doors and went that way.” He pointed toward the entry to the grand parlor. “Could have been heading up the stairs,” he reasoned. “Or toward the back to Jack’s place.”

The regular poker players knew the layout of the Silken Angel Saloon almost as well as Will and Jack did. They had been coming to the saloon since it opened—had come to view the construction and offer suggestions even before it opened—using it the same way they would use a gentleman’s club: to play cards and drink and smoke cigars all night without interruption. They made use of the bar and the kitchen and the facilities attached to Jack’s apartment, and occasionally the washroom upstairs, but they never rounded the bar or helped themselves to the liquor without paying for it, and they never ventured into the wine cellar and storage rooms. Those areas were off-limits to customers, and the poker players respected Will’s rules. They weren’t interested in flirting with saloon girls or finding Chinese brides, their only diversions were good whiskey and cards. They knew Will had bought girls at auction on two previous occasions and knew the Silken Angel was a temporary rest stop before the girls began their lives with their husbands elsewhere. The regular poker players knew that the only time ladies were present upstairs was Friday and Saturday nights and, since Jack and Will were the only staff members who granted tokens, the clientele was very exclusive. The only time Chinese girls were upstairs was immediately after an auction. If they suspected the upstairs business was a sham, they gladly kept it to themselves in order to retain the privacy and the privileges afforded to them at the Silken Angel.

Jack looked to Will for confirmation. “I didn’t see her,” Will said.

“But it could be the same one. . . .”

Will gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head. “You search the downstairs. I’ll take the upstairs.”

“She’s not in the wine cellar,” Jack said. “I just came from there. I would have seen her on the stairs, and I locked the door behind me.”

“Search the kitchen and the rest of the downstairs,” Will instructed. “She may be hungry again and looking for food. I’ll lock the front doors and look around upstairs.” Glancing at the poker players, he offered an explanation. “We had an intruder last night who helped herself to some food and an empty bed. She may have returned.”

Jack frowned, trying to relay coded information to Will with the poker players none the wiser. As far as they knew, Will’s new China dolls were still upstairs. “I moved Ah So into a different room and set up the cots for the Pinkerton agents in that room.” It wasn’t a lie. Jack had moved Ah So through a web of tunnels and onto a private CCL railway car that would take her to Coryville and a different bedroom. Not that Jack thought it mattered to the regular poker players, but you couldn’t be too careful in a city where the walls had ears.

He needn’t have bothered. The only reply from the poker players was a grunt and a comment that there were a lot of desperate Chinese girls in San Francisco.

Will acknowledged Jack’s message, then turned and headed toward the front doors. He noticed something unusual as soon as he left the grand parlor and approached them. There was a smear of blood on the wallpaper just inside the entry. It looked as if someone had leaned against the wall to rest and left blood behind. There had been a great deal of scattered glass after Julia Jane’s tirade. One of the workmen removing the remains of the front window, installing the canvas, or cleaning up the debris might have cut himself earlier.

Reaching out, Will touched a drop. It was fresh. Too fresh to have been left there earlier in the day. Pushing the front doors closed, he locked them and pocketed the front door key, then rattled the handles to make sure they were secure before he vaulted the stairs to the second floor, following the trail of blood droplets all the way up. He reached the second-floor landing and cautiously made his way down the dimly lit corridor. The chairs outside the bedroom doors were empty, the actors pretending to be Pinkerton agents having all turned in for the night. Will knocked on the door of Ah So’s former bedroom, opened it, and stuck his head inside. “Good job, gentlemen,” he congratulated them. “The saloon is closed. All the customers except the five regular poker players have gone home. I discovered fresh blood on the floor and on the wall on the way up here. Anyone wounded and bleeding?” He looked around, but the three men occupying the room seemed to be fine.

“No, sir,” one of the men answered.

“Have you seen anyone other than me, Jack, and your colleagues up here?”

“We haven’t seen anyone,” another one offered.

Will nodded. “Well, feel free to make use of anything you need. You’ll find extra toothbrushes, tooth powder, and shaving supplies in the hall closet. If we don’t have what you need, we’ll get it.” Will indicated the door to the closet. “Well, good night, gentlemen, and thank you again for your excellent work tonight. See you in the morning.” Will closed the door and walked to the washroom at the end of the hall. He gave a courtesy knock, then opened the door.