A Race to Splendor

by Ciji Ware

  Amelia paused. “No, but thank you. I think it’s important for the other workers to know that I was the one who took this action—with your say-so, of course.”

  J.D. nodded. Amelia could detect a gleam in his eye reflecting either admiration or skepticism—she couldn’t tell which.

  “Good luck,” he said. He pointed to the kitchen door leading to the hallway. “I’ll just be in my office if you need me.”

  Amelia found Joe lounging on a low pile of lumber while the other workers were busy at their morning tasks.

  “Mr. Kavanaugh,” she said quietly, “may I see you a minute? Inside.” Tall and muscular and with the appearance of a retired pugilist, the carpenter followed her into the kitchen. Amelia pointed to a chair. “Have a seat.”

  “I’ll stand.”

  She regarded him for a moment and then reached into her pocket and extracted an envelope. “That’s our problem in a nutshell, Mr. Kavanaugh.”

  “What is?” He leaned a shoulder against one wall, looking bored.

  “You are not very good at following orders. I’ve just asked you to do a simple task—take a seat—and you somehow consider it a challenge to your manhood. From the very first day, you have shown your disrespect by not doing the tasks I’ve assigned to you, or doing them shoddily. I have explained our ongoing situation to Mr. Thayer—that a carpenter and chief pour man cannot demonstrate such insubordination in front of his crew—and your employer concurs with what I’m about to do. I’ve given you many chances to reform, but you have made a choice not to work as a member of my team.” She indicated the envelope in her hand. “This is your pay packet for your work to date. Please take whatever tools you’ve brought to this site and leave the ones that belong to us. Consider this your last day, effective immediately.”

  “W-What?” Joe said.

  “In plain and simple language, Mr. Kavanaugh, you are discharged.”

  The man looked outraged. “I want to talk to Thayer. He won’t cotton to some piece of fluff—”

  “As I’ve already said,” she interrupted in an even voice, “Mr. Thayer has vested full authority in me and has already agreed with my recommendation to ask you to leave his employ.”

  Just then J.D. appeared at the hallway door.

  Joe said, pointing a forefinger at Amelia, “She said you wanted me out. That true? Or is she just actin’ like some high and mighty little—”

  “If she says you’re discharged, you’re discharged. Good day, sir.”

  Joe Kavanaugh narrowed his gaze and balled his fists by his side.

  “You can’t do this, you two! I’ll take everyone else with me.”

  “Whoever wishes to leave this site is certainly free to go,” Amelia said coolly, though her pulse had started to pound.

  “I’ll complain at the hiring hall.”

  “And I will submit affidavits of witnesses who saw the quality of your work on this project. Or more to the point, the lack thereof. I’m afraid you don’t have many friends here at Taylor and Jackson, Mr. Kavanaugh.”

  The construction worker glared at Amelia and J.D. with an expression of impotence and barely contained fury. Amelia willed herself to keep her gaze steady. At length, Joe snatched the pay packet from her hand and stormed out the kitchen door.

  “Quite the hard head you are, Amelia,” J.D. said with an unmistakable look of admiration.

  “I just hope it all doesn’t come down on our heads,” she replied soberly.

  ***

  By noon, J.D. and Amelia drove down the hill to Little Italy and discovered that her favorite workers released to date from the Fairmont project were already employed on other buildings downtown. Fortunately, the Fairmont’ head carpenter, Lorenzo Pigati, had a brother, a concrete specialist named Franco Pigati, who was available. He would come to work on the Bay View Hotel project as the new pour man, bringing along several Pigati cousins as his crew, including Nico, Aldo, Dominic, and Roman, who knew the carpentry and plumbing trades.

  “Problem solved,” Amelia said gaily as she and J.D. drove back up the hill.

  “You are… amazing,” he said with a look of obvious relief.

  “Now it’s your turn,” she replied as J.D. parked the Winton in front of the Bay View. “We have to pay their wages remember. What’s your next move?”

  “Ah… yes, the minor matter of money.”

  He didn’t elaborate. Was he was considering another trip to a gambling parlor on the Barbary Coast as one of his “options”? Or did the strapped hotelier have other plans to cut costs until regular channels of additional finance materialized?

  The following day, she was astonished when her employer joined Pigati’s crew, serving as impromptu supervisor of building supplies.

  “Saves one salary, right?” J.D. shrugged when she asked him what he thought he was doing. “If you can face down the likes of Jake Kelly and Joe Kavanaugh and climb scaffolding without a qualm, I can certainly act as courier to buy more nails or take delivery of lumber down at the docks.”

  “Are we down to pennies?” Amelia demanded.

  “We’re down to dimes. But don’t worry. I’m waiting to hear from a banker I know in New York.”

  “Is there no chance your father would help now?” She was more than aware of the father-son estrangement, but as a prominent member of the powerful Committee of Fifty, the senior Thayer was on a first-name basis with every banker in San Francisco.

  Amelia could see tension take hold around J.D.’s jaws. “My father and I haven’t seen eye-to-eye since I was fifteen. He’s probably the last person from whom I can expect help, Amelia.”

  “Well, what about your mother? Isn’t she an heiress of some sort? Surely, after all your misfortune, she’d extend a helping hand to her son?”

  “My mother has probably never paid for anything directly in her life. Her entire estate is managed by my father.”

  “Rather like the problem that faced my mother and me,” she reminded him. She didn’t wait for his reaction before she asked, “Well, what about your late grandfather? He left you no bequest? My mother once told me that he was one of the wealthiest miners to emerge from the Comstock Lode.”

  J.D. pursed his lips and was slow to answer. Finally, he said, “Grandfather Reims drowned in the bay when I was a teenager.”

  Amelia was immediately contrite. “Oh, I’m so sorry, J.D. Did he die sailing? The bay can be so treacherous in a small craft.”

  “No. He fell from a ferry. Some say he jumped. Others wondered if he were pushed. I was underage when he died so his estate automatically went to my mother, which of course, meant that it was under my father’s control—and still is.”

  “No wonder you have so few options,” she murmured.

  “We have so few options,” he reminded her. “You signed on for this adventure, remember, so it would seem we’re full partners in this folly, my dear Amelia.”

  In that instant of camaraderie, she wished they could be trustworthy allies instead of former adversaries, forced by necessity to cooperate. But of course, in truth, that’s just what they were. J.D. Thayer might be a handsome specimen, and a very charming one—and Amelia frankly admitted to herself she found him devilishly attractive—but the Lord only knew what he had done to achieve his current tenure at the Bay View. She reminded herself that the only reasons she’d been thrown together with J.D. in such unlikely fashion were fate and circumstances.

  Even so, as on the night she’d help rescue him from Chinatown, for the briefest moment, they both seemed utterly in tune with each other’s thoughts. She locked gazes with J.D. across the kitchen table and it seemed to her that they perfectly understood the odds against their enterprise and their mutual commitment to do whatever was necessary to succeed. It made her wonder what kind of relationship might have developed had they met again as adults in Paris, or on an ocean liner, or on her transcontinental train ride across America—and not in the basement where her grandfather had once had his office.

  Put th
e genie back in the bottle, Amelia, she admonished herself.

  How could it be that one kiss and a look exchanged on top of a half-finished building—and now these recent moments of complete understanding—had uncorked such a potent force?

  She turned toward the door. “I’ll just be getting back to work,” she said, and exited the office.

  That evening, her employer was noticeably silent as Shou Shou served their evening meal on mismatched plates. Amelia caught J.D. gazing at her soberly.

  For her part, she concentrated on the rice and fish. Two planks of wood resting upon sawhorses served as their communal dining table, and their seating consisted of mismatched chairs and wooden boxes they’d scavenged in the neighborhood. After dinner, J.D. assisted Amelia and Foo in the nightly chore of filling the kerosene lanterns used by the Chinese laborers to light the lot next door. Amelia touched a match to the wick of the first of twenty lanterns.

  “I think we should leave the remaining piles of rubbish on the Pacific Street side where they are for now and employ Loy’s men to finish digging the second cistern,” she proposed. “I think it’s prudent to get it operational as soon as possible. We can clean up the last of the trash at the end of the project when we’re ready to landscape the terraced garden.”

  “That sounds fine,” J.D. agreed, “because we definitely need to have plenty of water in case of fire. I believe I have finally learned that lesson.”

  Loy’s latest crew would work all night, hopefully finishing this difficult job before daybreak. Exhausted by the long day she’d had, Amelia poured herself a cup of chamomile tea and sank into a kitchen chair.

  “I take out lanterns too?” asked little Foo.

  “Yes, please.” The boy’s grasp of English was improving each day, as was his confidence. Even though he was by far the youngest of her helpers, he eagerly took on any task she requested of him.

  Amelia relaxed while J.D., Loy, Shou Shou, and Foo ferried the lanterns outside. She knew by the clatter and clang of shovels and picks that the night crew had arrived and immediately gotten down to work.

  She must have dozed off, for she nearly jumped out of her chair when J.D. burst into the kitchen, followed by a group of Chinese laborers chattering in Cantonese while transporting an old chest as if it were a coffin.

  “Look what we found!” J.D.’s customary sobriety was transformed into boyish glee. “Buried in the backyard of the old woman’s place. The crew had barely begun to dig down beside the old well when they struck this.” He pointed at the trunk that still had clods of dirt clinging to its sides. “I told them to bring it in here. God knows what that harridan was doing with it the day she took a shot at you.”

  “I know exactly what she was doing with it.” Amelia ignored J.D.’s enthusiasm as she rose from her chair to address Loy. “If you’ve dug down that deep, your men need to continue at least ten more feet. Be sure to tell them to shore up the sides with the lumber stacked on the ground out there. We don’t want any cave-ins.” She reached for her shawl. “In fact, I should go out there and keep an eye on things.”

  “They’re doing fine,” J.D. assured her. He gestured toward the battered trunk that now stood in the middle of the kitchen’s concrete floor. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

  “A dead dog is what you’ve got,” she said, as Loy and his group of workers trooped outside. “And it probably smells to high heaven.”

  J.D. paused, crowbar in hand. “A dog?”

  “I saw the old woman burying it. The poor animal was killed in the big aftershock on the morning of the quake. Her Chinese manservant carried the creature around from the side of the house and they stashed it in the trunk. When I stepped forward to offer them a ride to the Presidio in your motorcar, that’s when she pulled out the revolver and took aim. Don’t you remember about all that?”

  “Angus related your near miss, but I was out of my mind with pain from my cracked ribs when we came back to fetch you. But are you telling me you survived the earthquake and then nearly got shot by a crazed old lady burying her dog?” He turned to the trunk and added, “Well, let’s see what else she was protecting. It’s been a year. The dog is probably mummified by now.”

  “Mummy or not, I don’t want to see it,” Amelia declared, thinking, suddenly, about poor old Barbary, killed in the second fire. “I’m going to bed.”

  By this time, J.D. had pried the rusty fastenings open and was lifting the heavy cover. Sure enough, a bulky bundle wrapped in a blanket was obviously the dog. J.D. bent over the trunk and began to lift out the corpse.

  “Good night,” Amelia said firmly, turning to leave the kitchen. A second later, behind her, she hear J.D. swift intake of breath.

  “Well, well…” he said, “will you take a look at this!”

  Chapter 26

  Amelia turned around as J.D. placed the bundle on the floor. Heaps of ornamental silver and metal strong boxes peeped below the trunk’s edge.

  “Oh glory…” J.D. said gleefully.

  She sped to J.D.’s side. “So Angus was right! That’s why she shot at me. She thought I would try to steal her valuables!”

  The newspapers had been filled with stories of homeowners returning to their burned residences and digging up the trunks they’d buried in advance of the fire sweeping up Nob Hill. For many San Franciscans, the collections of precious worldly goods they’d sequestered below ground had provided them with the means of starting over.

  She peered into the trunk as J.D. lifted out a set of magnificent silver candlesticks and a large, polished wooden box filled with twenty-four place settings of sterling silver flatware. Then he glanced down at the dog’s body wrapped in the blanket. “I’ll just take this outside.”

  “An excellent idea.”

  A minute later J.D. appeared at the kitchen door. “I put the poor thing behind the construction shed and will ask Franco to have one of his men bury it in the morning.”

  “I thank you for that,” Amelia said, wrinkling her nose.

  “Don’t worry. I think the fire took care of the odor. It just smelled musty. Open the jewelry cases,” he directed, pointing to a stack of tooled leather boxes with TIFFANY and GUMPS stamped in gold.

  Her fingers trembled as she flipped the catch on a flat box encased in burgundy leather. “J.D?” she said faintly. An array of gems winked at her from its velvet lining. “I think I’ve just found something that will pay the wages of Loy and his men, plus Franco Pigati and his entire crew for weeks. Look!”

  Even in the diffused kerosene lamplight, the ruby and diamond necklace shone like stars in a night sky. The next box contained a diamond and emerald bracelet and matching pin. A black velvet pouch held five smaller leather boxes, each housing platinum rings with large diamonds, sapphires, and other precious stones in their settings. One velvet pouch contained a handful of unset gemstones, mostly emeralds and diamonds, whose value Amelia couldn’t begin to estimate.

  J.D. breathed a long whistle when she placed them in his hands. “Now, isn’t this nice?”

  Amelia snatched the lantern from the table and held it over the trunk. Lining the bottom were layers of gold and silver bars reaching half way up the sides.

  “Hot damn…” she whispered, an echo of Henry Bradshaw’s favorite exclamation when excited or upset. “That’s more than you found in your safe, isn’t it?”

  “Much more. And how much do you suppose this will fetch?” J.D. assumed his full height and held a lady’s pearl-handled revolver by one finger.

  Amelia put a palm out. “Hand that over, thank you.”

  Laughing, J.D. shook his head. “Not so fast!”

  “Absolutely!” she insisted. “Since the old woman nearly killed me with it, I’m the one who should keep it under my mattress for protection.” She eyed the astonishing booty with growing excitement. “It certainly looks like I might need it.”

  “The gun’s even got a velvet-lined box of its own, chocked full of ammunition.”

  “How ladylike.�
� Then she broke into a smile. “Just think! We don’t need bankers, J.D.! We don’t need help from your family. And you certainly don’t have to go gambling to raise money to pay for the building of this hotel, if that was your plan-of-last-resort.”

  “I’m not at all convinced I should let you have this gun,” he teased. And instead of handing her the small weapon, he placed it on the makeshift kitchen table. Then, without warning, he enfolded her in a bear hug. “Can you believe this?” He kept hold of her and tilted his head back to smile at her. “Who could have imagined such luck?”

  Meeting his glance, she replied gaily, “I’d say we’ve just been presented with a very large, very fortuitous way of paying for continuing construction.” Before he could kiss her, as she sensed he clearly intended, she stepped out of the circle of his arms. An awful thought had just occurred to her. “Are you sure that you can claim all this as yours?”

  “O ye of little faith!” He grabbed her around the shoulders for a second squeeze. “Of course this belongs to us! I own the lot back there, free and clear. The lawyer for the estate told me the old woman and her houseboy died in the fire and she had no heirs. The lot and everything on it—or under it—now belong to me, and it should just about cover the cost of making the Bay View the most elegant small hotel that San Francisco has ever seen! As far as opening our doors April eighteenth, we may not beat the Fairmont, but no one will hold a candle to us as far as our beautiful appointments.”

  “Yes, yes, yes!” Amelia cried, finally allowing herself to be caught up in his excitement. J.D. swung her around in his arms several times and then they broke apart and danced an impromptu jig in front of the rust-incrusted iron stove. She pointed to the treasure trove. “God knows how much all this is worth, J.D. Calm my racing heart, will you please, and let’s put everything in Grandfather’s safe, right now.”

  “Another excellent idea. We’re just full of them tonight, aren’t we?” and before she could draw away, he bussed her on the nose.

  Amelia had never seen J.D. so lighthearted. His rather forbidding dark looks had been transformed by a wide grin and a continuing cackle as he surveyed his treasures.