by Ciji Ware
“The word I get is you’re still not speaking to your father.”
“Well, you heard incorrectly. As a matter of fact, I’ve been invited to visit my parents’ house quite often lately. And if you noticed, Big Jim has never voted against me in the Committee of Fifty. He’s as afraid of those government Treasury agents as you are.”
Kemp was silenced for a moment, due, J.D. figured, to spies who reported on his regular visits to his parents’ house on Octavia Street and his passing acquaintance with reformer Spreckels, the redoubtable Mr. Burns, and his investigators sent out from Washington, D.C.
Ezra pursed his lips in thought, and then said, “I’ll hold off the lien if you propose marriage to Matilda tomorrow.”
J.D. threw his head back and laughed, though he regretted it as a stab of pain sliced through his chest.
“So we’re back to that, are we? A forced engagement? You’re awfully behind the times, Ezra. Young people pick their own partners in the twentieth century.”
Kemp shot him a peculiar look and then leaned toward the desk a fraction. “One day you might be thankful to hide behind Matilda’s skirts.”
“And that’s because?”
Kemp smiled faintly and pulled out his pocket watch. “The ferry leaves for Sausalito in forty minutes. I’ll tell Matilda to expect you on Saturday, as usual.” He returned his watch to his waistcoat and stood up. “You really should get someone to attend to those bruises on your face. You look as if you ran into a Chinese highbinder.” He narrowed his eyes. “Show up Saturday and it’ll buy you some time to get the money from your father to pay me back.”
Just then, Angus McClure appeared at the door. Kemp brushed past without a greeting.
“Jamie,” Angus said in a low voice, watching over his shoulder until Kemp disappeared down the corridor, “Loy tells me it will take him some time to recruit new Chinese workers. As we feared, the old ones are scared to come back.”
J.D. put his head back against his leather chair and closed his eyes. “Tell him I’ll pay double. Just get them here as soon as you can. We’ve got to dig the rest of the cistern out back.”
***
Judging from Big Jim Thayer’s expression when he looked up from his newspaper, J.D.’s father was surprised to see his son walk into his study after midnight.
“I had a bet with myself that you wouldn’t keep your word,” the elder Thayer said, pointing to the clock over the mantel.
James Thayer Sr., did not rise from his leather chair to greet J.D., but merely set his newspaper aside. The shades were drawn against the evening’s chill, and a half consumed glass of after-dinner brandy sat on a table next to the bay window.
“I was about to call on you myself when I received your summons,” J.D. said. “I told your messenger I would come, as requested, so here I am, Father. What’s on your mind?”
“Would you please go over to my desk and open the top drawer? There’s an envelope in there. Bring it to me.”
J.D. did as instructed, reining in hopes for a requested second loan payment from the Committee of Fifty. He handed over the large envelope. His father’s hands trembled slightly as he withdrew the contents.
“What are those?” J.D. asked, noting his father held a clutch of photographs in his hand. Then, with a swift intake of breath, he scanned the pictures’ sepia tones.
“Surely you recognize them,” James Senior declared acidly.
J.D. took the photos and stared at several images of himself lying naked on a filthy bed, his limbs entwined with those of a slender Chinese boy. The photos were blurred, as if the photographer hadn’t waited the requisite time for a proper exposure, but J.D.’s identity was unmistakable.
Good God! he thought with disgust. Amelia had been right. Kemp would stop at nothing to gain control of the Bay View.
“I was shanghaied, Father,” he said quietly, unable to pull his eyes away from the lewd photos. “I was drugged and these pictures were staged. I suspect Ezra Kemp is behind this.”
“And I suspect you are lying.”
“I am not lying. A group of hooligans arrived in the dead of night, jumped me from behind, beat some of my workers bloody, and took me off to Chinatown, where they blew opium into my lungs. I awoke with bruises everywhere, a sprained wrist, two black eyes, and a headache I thought might kill me. I certainly didn’t give myself this black eye, and I’ll show you my purple rib cage, if you wish—or you can confer with Dr. Angus McClure, the physician who treated me.”
“When you traffic with Chinese laborers, as Kemp tells me you have, what did you expect? They’re the ones who probably shanghaied you, if what you say is true.”
So his father and Kemp were getting cozier. J.D. wasn’t surprised. “The Chinese I employed were willing to work at night and for very little wages,” he said, fighting to keep his temper. “They wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds them, especially when no one else seems willing to hire Orientals.” A cold fury was beginning to build in reaction to his father’s disdain and Kemp’s latest move. “I’m trying to reopen the Bay View, Father. The money I make from my guests can pay Kemp’s bills for the hotel that burned and which, by the way, it’s pretty clear he dynamited to oblivion.”
“With no insurance against such calamity, I hear.”
“It’s nearly impossible to obtain, and besides, I couldn’t afford it. And as for trafficking with the Chinese, I seem to remember you were quite involved with them at one point in your life. Perhaps you still are.”
“I certainly didn’t do nasty things with Chinese boys,” his father retorted.
“Neither did I.”
“You have the temerity to deny it? The proof’s right here.” He reached out and furiously slapped the photographs J.D. held in his hand. “The whole town knows that you kept Chinese whores on your payroll on Nob Hill. Why should I be surprised if you broadened your carnal tastes to include men?”
J.D. felt the blood pound in his temples and was sorely tempted to defend himself, but it would be foolish to show the last cards in his hand. He reinserted the photographs into the envelope to gain time to control his emotions. He made no judgments when it came to people’s sexual preferences, but his father’s accusations were born of the conflict that had festered for years just beneath the surface of their strained civility.
“We’re now approaching some very dangerous territory, wouldn’t you say, Father?” He strode to the small fire crackling on the hearth and tossed the envelope with its slanderous contents into the flames. Resting on his haunches, he watched as the paper darkened and curled into ashes. Ling Lee had described to him the degradation visited upon slender young men whom the Chinese brothel owners reserved for gentlemen with certain proclivities. Opium was as strong a weapon as a pistol.
“You can be sure glass plates of those pictures still exist somewhere,” he heard his father say behind him. “You’re ripe for blackmail at some future date, of course.”
“By whom? You?”
“By the person who sent them to me.”
J.D. rose and turned around. “And who might that be?”
It was Kemp, of course, thought J.D., and then another notion occurred to him. Perhaps his father was part of the scheme. Nothing would surprise him anymore.
The senior Thayer reached for the brandy snifter.
“I have no idea if Kemp was involved in obtaining those photographs,” Thayer Sr., said, nodding toward the fireplace. “Some runner delivered them to the front door. Unmarked.” He took a draught from his glass and swallowed. “Once again, I pose the question. Is there no end to your dishonoring this family?”
“I think we’d both have to agree that behaving dishonorably is pretty evenly distributed among the Thayers,” J.D. replied, his voice low. “Let us not forget what happened to Grandfather Reims in the middle of San Francisco Bay, nor a few other black marks you’ve inflicted on our clan.” He smiled bitterly, enjoying his father’s discomfiture when he mentioned the rarely-spoken name of the elder T
hayer’s deceased father-in-law. He glanced at the fireplace, watching as the last of the blackened photographs fell into ashes on the hearth. “I gather I will not now have your vote for a second loan payment from your banker friends on the Committee?” J.D. asked, looking up from the flames at his frowning father.
“Your assumption is correct.”
“Will you feel it your duty to tell them about these photographs?”
“What difference does that make? Whoever made them has copies.”
“And will hold them as a trump card.”
“As you’ve indicated, there seems no end to the disgrace, does there?” Jim Thayer’s expression hardened but he said nothing more.
“Well, then… good night, Father. We’ll just have to wait to see how everything plays out. And incidentally, I’ll use the back entrance when I come next time. I plan to continue visiting Mother. I’m starting to see her in rather a new light.”
Before his father could respond or forbid him to set foot in his house in future, J.D. strode across the room and closed the door to the study behind him, passing through the vestibule where the tall clock noted it was half past midnight.
Perhaps those seamy photographs had served a good cause, he thought as he shrugged on his coat. Whether his father had a hand in Kemp’s scheme to ruin him or not, it was finally finished between them. As finished as these situations ever could be, given the terrible miscarriage of justice concerning J.D.’s deceased grandfather. Short of bars on the doors, Big Jim Thayer didn’t dare prevent his son from visiting his mother from time-to-time.
Considering the worsening relationship between his sire and himself, he was convinced now that Connie Thayer would need his protection all the more.
Chapter 25
J.D. glanced at a sliver of light shining beneath the door at the top of the landing. Despite Consuela’s pills and sleeping potions, Signora Reims-Diaz Thayer was apparently having another fretful night. Above him he heard the landing creak. Then, Dr. George Ellers materialized in the gloom, clothed in a dressing gown, holding a glass of water and an amber vial.
“Ah,” J.D. said in a low voice, advancing up the stairs, “the Angel of Death arrives with his nightly knock-out drops.”
J.D. was in a foul mood, aggravated by the sight of the man he knew used medications instead of padlocks to keep his mother locked in her velvet-lined cell. That Ellers had also played a role in his grandfather’s unhappy end only darkened his temper.
Ellers remained on the landing with an uncertain expression flickering across his face, as if contemplating whether to beat a hasty retreat without speaking to the son of his in-house patient. “I was just bringing your mother her medicine, but from the look of that black eye you’re sporting, you could use some as well.”
“So the doctor dispenses in his nightclothes, does he?” J.D. deliberately arched an eyebrow. “Of course, you’re probably keeping her so sedated that by this hour, she doesn’t even notice.”
“Step aside, J.D.,” Ellers demanded. “I’m only following your father’s dictates.”
“Oh, I’m sure you are,” J.D. said softly, blocking his mother’s bedroom door, “but if you don’t want to find yourself sprawled at the bottom of these stairs, be a good doctor and return to your room. At once.”
Ellers hesitated, then turned and disappeared into the gloom, his footsteps fading as he trudged toward the third floor. J.D. waited a moment longer and then gently rapped his knuckles against his mother’s bedroom door. “Awake enough for a visitor?”
“George, is that you? Have you brought the tincture? I simply can’t sleep and—”
“No mother,” he murmured. “It’s me. J.D.”
He shut the door behind him and made his way across the shadowy room. Consuela was reclining on the chaise as she had been on his previous visit. A lamp glowed dimly on the table beside her. There were deep furrows between her eyebrows, and her lips quivered as if she were about to cry.
“Why, son—”
Her voice caught and J.D. could see that she was close to tears. Fortunately, the light was so low where he stood, she didn’t notice the black and blue marks still streaking his face.
“It’s long after midnight, Mother,” he said gently. “Why aren’t you in bed?”
“I was too tired to walk across the room, and yet I just can’t seem to fall asleep. I’m so restless. George was supposed to bring my medicine earlier, but he never came.”
She seemed fragile, defenseless, no longer the fiery woman he remembered from his earliest childhood when she was determined to erase all trace of her Spanish accent from her speech. Her inability to rest had pushed her to the edge of her ability to cope.
J.D. leaned down, his lips nearly brushing her ear. “Here, Mother. Put your arms around my neck.”
“What?”
He scooped her up and carried her across the room, setting her carefully upon the large walnut four-poster bed that had been carved in Madrid by servants of her Spanish ancestors.
“In you get.” He removed her slippers and tucked her legs beneath the bedcovers, smoothing the coverlet up to her chin. He sat on the edge of the bed and brushed a strand of her black hair, so like his own, off her forehead.
“What are you doing here at this hour?” she murmured.
“I came partly to see how you’re getting along.”
“Not well, James,” she said with a sigh. “Your father says I’m too weak even to leave this room. And it’s true… I’m very tired, but sleep just won’t come. If only I had my medicine—”
“I’ve come with your medicine.”
“You? What do you mean?”
He gently strafed the back of his fingers against her cheek. Her dark eyes were limpid pools. Her lids lowered as he continued to brush his fingertips along her golden skin. “That’s right. Close your eyes and try to relax.” He reached up and smoothed the palm of his hand from the crown of her head down the length of her shoulder-length black hair, repeating the soothing gesture that he wished would banish her need for George Ellers’s potions and her underlying dread of being alone in the night.
“That feels so wonderful…” she murmured.
After a few more minutes while he stroked her hair, her eyes still closed, he turned down the lamp.
“Don’t go,” she said softly.
He could hear the panic underlying her plea.
“Not for a while,” he murmured. “I’m right here.” He remembered as a child she would sit beside his bed and caress his hair until he fell asleep. “That’s right,” he whispered in the darkness. “I’m here, Mother. I’m here. Just sleep.”
A foghorn blew on the bay, a low, lulling sound.
“Cara, cara, Madre. Buenas Noches.”
Twenty minutes later, Connie Thayer’s son slipped down the stairs and silently let himself out the front door to his parents’ house. Pulling his collar up against the damp, he walked to the Winton, turned the crank, and steered the motorcar in the direction of the bay.
A drive along the waterfront would clear his head. He would use the time to come up with another way to complete the Bay View’s reconstruction without the support of his father, Kemp, or the Committee of Fifty. And he would think of a plan to pay off his uninsured losses from the fire and help his mother secure a safe haven for the years ahead.
If Consuela didn’t have any fight left in her, any spirit remaining to push against her oppressors the way Ling Lee had, the way Amelia Bradshaw battled against forces who preferred her silent and demure, then he would find courage in his mother’s name.
Somehow.
One thing was for certain, however. His remaining funds would last about two more weeks. His father wouldn’t supply the capital necessary to complete the hotel or even help him secure a loan, and it would take him at least a month to explore some leads he had in New York. That meant there was no way he could open the Bay View ahead of Fairmont Hotel.
J.D. Thayer did not like to lose, but there was no
help for that now. He slowed down the Winton to take the sweeping view of the tranquil bay. All he could do was forge ahead and hope that his mother, along with Amelia and the precious few people who mattered in his life, never saw those photographs.
***
That same week, Amelia moved into a sparsely furnished room at the opposite end of J.D.’s basement quarters at the Bay View, to save time walking back and forth to the Fairmont and to be on hand for their constant decision-making. Another pressing duty her move accomplished was her ability to closely supervise the placement of the remaining roof joists and check over the hoped-for delivery of slate shingles for the roof.
Propriety be damned! she thought, brushing her hair her first morning in her new living quarters. If she were a man, she’d have been living on site from the project’s beginning.
Ten minutes later, she was surprised when her employer greeted her in their makeshift kitchen on their first morning under the same roof. J.D. was in a cheerful mood and with a smile on his face nearly healed of its ugly bruises.
“Here.” He handed her a mug of coffee he’d brewed on a secondhand iron stove purchased from a disenchanted resident decamping San Francisco for the eastern seaboard. Larger cooking equipment would soon arrive, C.O.D., replacing the rusty, secondhand antique, so the sixty-room hotel could feed one hundred guests a day, but for the moment, the dilapidated appliance suited their needs admirably.
“Thank you.” She took an appreciative sip and set the cup on the kitchen table. “I’ll reheat it when I get back.”
“Where are you going?”
“Outside. Joe Kavanaugh and the carpenters left the site in a mess yesterday.” Kavanaugh had turned up one day, claiming experience both as a carpenter and an expert in the art of building the wooden molds to frame the poured cement, but had proved to be nothing but a troublemaker. “I’m going to discharge him.” She paused. “If that meets your approval, of course.”
“Your reasons again?”
“Terminal laziness and rampant insubordination. I don’t trust him for a second.”
“Do you want me to tell him?”