by Megan Chance
“Help how?”
“You said Farge has your sketchbooks.”
“If they didn’t burn. Everything on Nob Hill did. The last place I saw them was at his office, but—”
“The Monkey Block is still standing,” Dante said.
I had avoided the area completely, afraid to come upon anyone I knew, and also because the memories of Ellis’s office, of Coppa’s, were not ones I wished to revisit. “It’s still there?”
Dante nodded. “They saved the whole block. Coppa’s too.”
“How lucky for Ellis.” I could not keep the bitterness from my voice.
“Luck follows him everywhere.” Dante’s voice was equally caustic. “Time for it to run out. What do you say we steal those sketchbooks back?”
I only looked at him.
“What? He’ll be lost without them. Tell me what happens when he can’t fulfill any of his contracts because his idea source is gone. He’ll be ruined.”
Of course it appealed greatly to my hunger for revenge, which felt boundless. An appropriate justice, to destroy Ellis with his own weakness. Still . . . “How exactly do you intend to steal them back?”
“It will be easy. Or it should be. If they’re in his office, we simply walk in and take them.”
“Don’t tell me they don’t know you there.”
“They do, but I’m not doing the walking in. You are.”
“Dante! They’ll recognize me. I worked with him for weeks.”
“They won’t recognize you like this.” He gestured to my attire. “They know a woman, not trousers and a flannel shirt. We’ll give you an old jacket of mine, and you can keep my hat. We’ll smudge you up a little, and there you are, Mack Kimble, errand boy. They’ll see what they expect to see.”
I would have argued with him about that if I hadn’t already known that he’d been invisible at every entertainment I’d attended. I couldn’t believe I’d never noticed him, given his magnetism, but then, I had been busy trying to fit in, and the truth was that, even when I tried, I couldn’t remember the face of any servant beyond the ones at the Sullivan house. Dante was right; I simply hadn’t seen whomever I’d thought unimportant.
“If that’s the case, maybe we should put you in a dress and let you do the stealing.”
He grinned and scraped his hand along his jaw, freshly shaved, but still beard shadowed. “We’d need plaster to disguise this.”
“What do we need Shin for?”
“To keep watch up on Nob Hill, to keep Farge from setting out for his office before we’re done. Will she do that, do you think?”
“I think she’ll do whatever she must to be free.”
He tapped his fingers restlessly on the table. “Good. Finish up then, let’s talk to China Joe and see what he has in mind for me.”
“You’re nervous.” It was surprising and amusing. He was always so confident.
“You weren’t, when you paid him a visit?” Dante asked. “You know he runs one of the tongs in Chinatown.”
I remembered Goldie’s theory that Shin had lost her finger in some fight as a tong—gang—girl. The real story was so much more horrible. But then, so was the story of my aunt at the bottom of the stairs, and the terrible destruction wrought by the corruption involved in the building of city hall and my own incarceration in Blessington.
“How is a Chinese gang different from the board of supervisors? They’re all the same. It’s only the color of his skin that makes us think China Joe more dangerous. They’re all dangerous. Every one of them.”
“San Francisco is a viper pit of corruption.” Dante rose. “Let’s go.”
I shoved the rest of the bread into my mouth and gulped the coffee, and then we were off.
Shin waited at the burned-out trolleys, and when she saw Dante walking beside me, her relief was palpable.
“You must be Shin,” he said.
Breathlessly she said to me, “He will help us?”
“I will,” Dante said. “Unless China Joe wants me to murder someone. I draw the line at that.”
“He has men to do that for him.”
It was not the most reassuring thing she could have said.
She led us again through the wrack of Chinatown while Dante explained our plan to steal my sketchbooks back from Ellis, and her part in it.
When he was finished, she said, “I told you not to show him the drawings.”
“I thought it was because you knew I would embarrass myself. Did you know what Goldie intended?”
Shin shook her head. “I only knew that she wanted him to see them, so I knew it must be bad for you.”
I snorted. “It was all too good to be true. I knew it, I just . . . didn’t believe it.”
We arrived to find China Joe sitting serenely behind his wagon-desk. He looked as if he had nothing better to do than wait for us.
“Dante LaRosa,” I introduced. “Writer for the Bulletin.”
Any hint of Dante’s nervousness was gone. There again, that self-assuredness that I found so compelling. “I understand that you’re looking for a reporter.”
Joe smiled. “And you, Alphonse Bandersnitch, are looking for the story to raise your position.”
Dante looked momentarily surprised. “Your spies have been busy.”
“In my business, it is good to know what people want,” China Joe said. “One might say it is my only business—to make everyone happy.”
The next morning, the first of four articles—each increasingly threatening—in the Bulletin was small, not on the society page, and not by Alphonse Bandersnitch, but prominently placed where the well-to-do merchants and city leaders would be sure to find it.
Chinatown Rumblings
It is rumored that the city plans to move the Chinese to Hunters Point. Authorities claim the move would be most beneficial to the Chinese, who would be safe and protected there, living in a happy society together. Those who oppose the plan point out that Hunters Point is next to slaughterhouses and mud flats, which are hardly salubrious for anyone, and note that the current location of Chinatown, in the middle of downtown, easily accessible, protected from wind, has been coveted for years by rich real estate interests. And of course, it is even more desirable now that the fire has burned away all the dangerous germs.
Chinese leaders assure this reporter that they will fight for their property rights, and say that the landlords of Chinatown will lose a great deal of income if the Chinese are forced to leave. They threaten that China can and will be pressured to stop trade with San Francisco over this matter, and that Chinese merchants will take their money elsewhere. Portland, Tacoma, and Seattle have indicated that they are anxious to reap the known benefits of Chinese investment. The Chinese consulate has confirmed that it is considering a move to Oakland, as there would be no reason for it to stay in San Francisco without a Chinese population to attend.
The Chinese currently own thirty-five lots in Chinatown, and white landlords with substantial investment in the area have also vowed to fight the move. The future of San Francisco’s Chinese population will be decided by city authorities in the coming weeks.
That morning, I braided my hair tightly and pinned it close to my skull. I wore an old and shabby bowler of Dante’s, as well as his worn jacket, which was too big, but it easily hid what curves there were of my figure, and as my legs were long, I did look remarkably like a boy.
Dante looked me over critically. “Those stitches need to come out, but we’ll leave them in for now. They help your disguise. Try not to walk like a woman—no swaying. Swagger.”
“Like this?” I took a few steps across the room.
He winced. “Can you drop your voice an octave?”
“Like this?” I tried.
“I guess that’s the best we can hope for.”
I caught a glimpse of myself in the cracked mirror in Bobby’s bedroom, and I looked nothing like May Kimble. The only thing that gave me away was the slenderness of my face and my jaw, and if I lowered my c
hin just so . . . Well, I wouldn’t be there for long.
“My guess is that no one else knows the significance of those sketchbooks,” Dante told me as we walked to the Montgomery Block. “So if you come asking for them, they won’t question that he’s sent you. Just don’t act nervous.”
Shin had promised to do her best to keep Ellis occupied.
“I’m not nervous. I’m furious,” I said.
“That won’t serve, either. You’re a messenger boy. You’re bored, and you’re tired of tromping around ruins, and Mr. Farge better give you that nickel he promised because you need a beer and a smoke.”
“I have a whole story, I see.”
Dante chuckled. “Just remember it. It will keep you in character. Like an actor.”
“You’ll be waiting right outside?”
“Looking longingly through Coppa’s window, waiting for the day he clears the smoke damage and reopens. But I’ll come running if anything happens. Do you still have your metal rod?”
“Do you think I’ll need it?” I asked in surprise.
“One never knows. Just be prepared, all right?”
“All right.”
Even having been told that the Monkey Block was still standing, I somehow didn’t expect to see it there, amid a plain of desolation, with people going in and out as if it were just another day at the office. The memories it brought held a gentle despair. Coppa’s, with its cigarette smoke–infused room, the red walls with their animated illustrations, the plates of spaghetti and the wine spilling as it was poured, and everyone crowding around. Blythe and Edith Jackson and Wenceslas and Gelett . . . What did they think about me now, if they thought about me at all? I’d been briefly one of them. Surely gossip had kept me alive for a time, but now I suspected I was not even a ghost at Coppa’s, my drawing on the wall ruined, no doubt drawn over. Nothing of me left. The thought saddened me more than I expected.
Now, the windows of the restaurant were dark. At the corner, still out of sight, Dante touched my arm. “Be careful. Remember, run if it goes wrong. I’ll be waiting.”
“Wish me luck.” I tugged at the canvas bag at my shoulder and took a deep breath.
I went to the door that I had so naively entered over a year ago. But that girl was gone now. I gripped the button in my pocket, reminding myself of everything that had happened, everything I’d vowed to do.
I went up the stairs, my mouth dry with nerves, reminding myself to look like some messenger boy on business and hoping no one looked too closely. It was dim inside. Like the rest of the city, there was no gas or electricity here. Light came from whatever studio doors were open, or oil lamps. I tried not to think of what I would do if the sketchbooks weren’t there.
They had to be there. The thought of Ellis carefully copying them, my creation turned to his hand, that plaque on the library wall bearing his name instead of mine . . . Anger cleared my head. Beyond the windowed door of Farge & Partners moved shadows. Inside, an assistant I didn’t know spoke to two dark-suited men hovering about the desk. I paid them little attention. When the assistant glanced at me, I lowered my voice and tilted my head down, not meeting his eyes. “I’m here to pick up Mr. Farge’s sketchbooks. He’s asked for them.”
The assistant barely looked at me. He nodded and called, “Robinson!” When a tall young man appeared, the assistant said, “Mr. Farge needs his sketchbooks. Take the boy back to get them.”
My heart raced as Robinson led me down the hall. The place was busy; I met no one’s eye and no one looked twice at me, a nobody, as Dante had been at the balls where I had not seen him. He’d been right; I was invisible. The door to Ellis’s office was locked, but Robinson took a key from his pocket and opened it, ushering me into a room so familiar with its smells of paper and ink and Ellis that it momentarily knocked me back. I had leaned over that desk with him, looking at plans. I had discussed the Hartford standing right there. And all the time, he’d been scheming with Goldie. All that time, he’d been meaning to rob me, not just of my freedom and my dignity, but of my talent.
“There.” Robinson pointed to a bookcase where my sketchbooks were neatly shelved. “Do you need some help?”
“No, thanks.” I tried to growl the words. I opened the canvas bag and shoved the books inside while Robinson stood by and watched. The familiar feel of their covers, their weight . . . I had missed them. Once I had them all, Robinson led me out of the office and locked it behind him.
“Good day,” he said.
I hurried back to the door. The assistant was still talking to the men; no one looked at me or seemed to note my departure. It was all I could do not to race down those stairs. “You’re a messenger boy. You’re bored and you need a beer and a smoke.”
I did not relax until I was out of the building. It was done. It was done, and they were in my hands again, and the thought of what Ellis would do now that his inspiration was gone . . . I couldn’t help smiling—a smile that faded when I saw Dante running panicked toward the door.
“He’s on his way,” he said when he reached me. “He’s just down the block.”
The bag full of books beat against my hip as I raced with Dante around the corner of the building. There, we stopped.
“Did you get them?” he asked.
“Yes. What’s he doing here? Shin was supposed to keep him—”
“She tried. She sent a boy to warn me, but he was only steps ahead of Farge. At least you got out of there in time. Come on.” Dante started off.
I didn’t move.
“Come on. Do you want him to see us?”
“He can’t see through a building.” My heart was racing again, excitement and apprehension both. “I want to see what he does.”
“This is exactly how murderers and thieves get caught,” Dante protested.
I peeked around the corner. No Ellis yet. “By standing behind buildings?”
“By watching the scene of the crime. It happens often enough that it’s almost a cliché.”
I glanced over my shoulder at him. “I’m not a murderer.”
“No, but you’re being an idiot and it’s going to be how he finds us.”
“Don’t tell me that you don’t want to see Ellis’s reaction when he finds the books gone.”
Dante hesitated.
“Come, now. You know you do. But if you truly don’t, then go ahead and leave.” I shrugged the bag from my shoulder and handed it to him. “Take these with you. I’ll meet you at the house later.”
He took the bag and slung it over his shoulder, but he didn’t move.
“They destroyed me, Dante.” The soft danger of my fury was impossible to harness, and I made no attempt to do so. I said it again, more quietly, “They destroyed me. Ellis stole my . . . he stole me. I have to see him. I have to know.”
“Know what?”
“If this will destroy him too.”
Dante’s expression was both tender and pained. “The things you say sometimes . . . It breaks my heart.”
The words and his gaze caught me and held; suddenly and unexpectedly, I wanted to step into his arms. So disconcerting . . . I lost what I’d been about to say; I lost my focus. Just then, Ellis came into view. I backed up quickly from the corner, cracking my head into Dante’s chin. “Ouch! Sorry.”
He swore quietly. “What if he stays in there for hours?”
“He won’t.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I wouldn’t.”
And in fact, we waited only another few minutes—long enough for Ellis to reach his office, to discover his treasure trove gone, to question Robinson, the assistant—before Ellis came rushing again from the building. He stood helplessly at the entrance, looking wildly about. I smelled the stink of his desperation from where I stood, and I understood it; I knew exactly how he must feel. But Ellis had made a choice, and he had not cared that it crushed me when he made it, and so when he sank back against the building and buried his face in his hands, I turned to Dante, who w
atched over my shoulder.
“Seen enough?” he asked.
“It will never be enough,” I told him.
“Don’t worry,” he assured me. “His hell has only just begun.”
When we arrived back at the house, having stopped at one of the relief lines for our portion of eggs and canned meat, bread and coffee and canned peas, Dante emptied the bag of my sketchbooks. “Do you mind if I look at them?”
The urge to deny him came first, that lingering fear that the drawings were juvenilia, or worse, that I was talentless and deluded. But my library had been built, and Dante had already told me he knew I had talent, and so I nodded, and went to the stove set among the rocks outside to cook a meal.
When I came back, bearing eggs scrambled with potted meat, he was still looking through them. He didn’t look up until I set a plate before him.
“No wonder Farge used these. They’re beautiful.”
I let myself bask in the pleasure of his praise. Again, I felt the urge that had overtaken me at the Monkey Block. I ignored it. It was only the tension and excitement of stealing the sketchbooks. “That one was inspired by hollyhocks in our back alley. They grew along the fence. The narrow windows are the slats, and the curtains and the stucco—”
“Yes, I can see it.”
“My mother showed me that when you turned the flowers upside down they looked like ladies in ball gowns. We used to dance them along the railing. She said it would be my life one day.” I hadn’t thought about that in a long time. “You’ll be like these ladies, but it won’t be pretend. You’ll be wearing a ball gown, and you’ll dance all night, and have such fun . . .”
It had been like that, hadn’t it? I had danced all night. I had worn ball gowns, and yet—“But when it was mine, I didn’t like it.”
“Hmmm.” He motioned to a chair. “Here, sit down. Let me get to those stitches.”
I did as he asked. He pulled out a pocketknife and lit a match, blackening the edge to sterilize it while I watched unseeingly, thinking instead of suppers distinguished by endless talk of nothing, teas and receptions and parties shimmering with illusion, so much emptiness. “I’d been raised to be a lady in society, but when I actually became that lady, it was boring. It was all so—”