DELIBERATE JUSTICE: The American Way

by Thomas Holladay

  Fabrizio DiMarcello owned a bootery and leather shop on California Street, adjoining the lobby of the Palace Hotel. Judging from his own footwear and that of his family, he was a fine craftsman.

  Among the other tenants were casino workers, a police officer, a newspaper reporter for the Police Gazette, and a longshoreman.

  Though working as a longshoreman no longer seemed an option for Mikhail, he would still find a way to pay Tommy Chandler and reclaim his property, even if he must go to sea.

  Mikhail now ate with the other boarders, crowded around two tables in the dining room. He usually sat between Raul and Billy. They both helped around the place in any number of ways, whatever Molly needed. Billy restocked firewood every afternoon and cleaned up out back around the wash area, his regular chores. Sally and Martha did all the food shopping at the bazaar near the docks (called, here, a public market. These markets were called bazaars in Russia and Ukraine.) Raul carried water from a spigot on the alley, several buckets every day.

  Raul paid for his room and board, but Billy did not. Billy had been taken in three years earlier, abandoned by his parents. Whether they were alive or dead, nobody knew, not even Billy. He had awakened one morning and they'd gone.

  For more than a month, he had lived by eating discarded food around Portsmouth Plaza. Raul had found and brought him to Molly, the kid fighting against it all the way down the hill, all the way until he'd met Molly. She'd taken him in with no questions asked, much the same as she had Mikhail.

  Mikhail and Billy were her only non-paying tenants.

  One evening, after he finished eating, Mikhail found Molly in the kitchen with Sally and Martha, drinking coffee and chatting.

  "Can we talk?"

  She picked up her coffee and led him onto the back porch. The early night air felt crisp. A chill crossed his shoulders and rushed down the center of his back. She had a very pretty face, inviting eyes, and she was easy to talk to.

  He took a breath and tried to relax. "My time has come."

  "For what?"

  "My time here. My association contract. I cannot pay. The job I had arranged can no longer be open to me."

  She crossed her arms and set her jaw, no welcome in those eyes now. "So, you plan on shipping out, provided I can sell your contract down at the docks."

  "This is our agreement. Da? Yes? I will honor this, of course."

  "And, what do you suppose we'd do around here without you? You collect the rents. You keep the waiting list up to date. You're teaching Billy to read and write. You're even teaching me how to keep proper books. Why, I never knew how to manage a bank account before you . . ."

  "I told you, I was bored. I needed something to do."

  "I suppose you think I'd take advantage of your time with no compensation. Is that what they do in Russia?" She was a stubbornly proud woman.

  "I am not Billy. I cannot live on the charity of women."

  "Billy's only a boy. He needs our help."

  "Exactly so." Mikhail knew he was right about this one. "I need to pay like any other man. Raul helps around this place and he pays every week, same as everyone else."

  She thought about this for only a minute, very stubborn. She always knew what was best for everybody. She was sure about this. "You don't belong at sea with men who neither read nor write. Even though your nobility means nothing here, your education does. You need to find a position that pays well; a position that offers a good future. If you like, you can keep a book on what you owe, week to week, and pay me when you're able."

  "I do not like to be indebted to anyone, particularly to a woman." Being under a woman's charity, being taken care of by a woman—this was not something a gentleman could do.

  "Nonsense." She pushed past him and opened the back door. "Come back inside. It's cold out here."

  Dirty dishes from the dining room had been stacked on the kitchen table and at the long table by the back door. Martha and Sally were still bringing them in from the dining room, waiting to take them outside.

  Molly marched around the corner into her bedroom.

  Mikhail waited in the kitchen.

  The other two women had become friendly toward Mikhail. This felt good.

  Molly returned and handed him a gold coin, about 50 millimeters in diameter, maybe 100 grams. One side carried an imprint of the ancient Parthenon in Greece. The words "Olympic Club" had been embossed around the edge. The other side read, "$1,500—Lifetime Member." The number 5 had been impact-stamped in the center.

  This was an insult. "I will not take money from you."

  "Michael!" She propped her fists on her hips and stabbed him with her eyes. "That's exactly three ounces of gold, worth maybe one hundred dollars, melted down."

  "I will not take it." He tried to give it back.

  "What that really is, is a lifetime membership to the Olympic Club. It belonged to my dear husband. It's worth a lot more than any fifteen hundred dollars. The Olympic Club Gym is where all the finest gentlemen in San Francisco go to get their exercise and to talk about their business. It's there that you'll meet the proper people. It's there you'll have a good chance to make something of yourself."

  He had no answer for this one.

  "Now . . ." She stepped back and looked him up and down. "What to do with you?"

  Chapter Nine

  "You look like a gentleman," said Raul, smoothing the back of the altered suit jacket previously worn by the widow's dead husband.

  Mikhail knew he should feel grateful, but wearing a dead man's garments felt eerie; undignified.

  Fabrizio DiMarcello had modified boots made for a man who'd never come to pick them up. They fit perfectly. The exercise boots they'd packed in her dead husband's canvas grip had been made for Mikhail. Lacing them almost to his knees seemed impractical, but the thin leather allowed good flexibility. Fabrizio made excellent boots. Very comfortable.

  Raul spun Mikhail around and handed him the canvas grip. "This is a big day for you, my friend."

  Mid-morning, October 5, 1855, did not excite Mikhail. He felt like a peasant, but he'd obligated himself to do as these Americans asked.

  I have no choice.

  Raul stepped into the open doorway to block Mikhail's path for a final appraisal. He smirked, impossible for Mikhail to interpret. "Raul thinks you may be okay guy. You got up off your bunk and help the widow. Now, go make some friends, get up off the Barbary, and help her more." Raul's only interest in Mikhail was to help Molly O'Brien.

  Mikhail understood. "Mrs. O'Brien is a generous woman. You have all been good to me. I will find a way to repay." He would find work. He would save money.

  Raul grabbed the canvas grip from Mikhail and stretched its two leather loops over carved whalebone hooks, crisscrossing under braded leather handles, a very elegant piece of work. "Come, I get you a taxi."

  Mikhail followed Raul and the canvas grip downstairs.

  Molly, Sally, Martha, and Billy crowded at the bottom of the stair, all eager to inspect him.

  His childhood memories flooded over him, of going off to school for first time.

  Molly swept her hands across the front of the jacket, feeling for fit, checking buttons. Her green eyes sparkled with motherly affection and pride. She was too young and beautiful to be anybody's mother.

  Unfamiliar emotions rushed over him. These Americans wanted nothing but the best for him. Their willingness to help humbled him. "I hope not to disappoint."

  "Disappoint me? And how would you be doing that? I'd like to know." She beamed with confidence, not expecting any response. She spun him around, smoothing and checking the altered jacket.

  "Please, woman."

  Molly backed away with a shy smile.

  Raul came in through the open front door, still carrying the grip. "The taxi is waiting." He pushed Mikhail toward the door, speaking softly so only Mikhail could hear. "Just be yourself. Drop that count something or other. Nobody cares."

  Taxi drivers of San Francisco took pride in their
maintenance. They were always beautifully polished inside and out, all drawn by beautiful, sleek, healthy horses. The taxi owners competed for who drove the finest rig in the city.

  Mikhail climbed aboard this one.

  Raul handed him the bag, still talking privately. "From now on, you gonna be Mr. Mike Zabel. You gonna be okay." Raul closed the door, stepped back, and the taxi shot forward.

  The steady lope of hooves thudded rhythmically over the wooden plank streets of the Barbary Coast, then slapped onto brick pavement and up the hill toward the city center.

  A few minutes later, the taxi came to a stop on top of a hill. Mikhail climbed out and a chill wind slid across his face. Gray mist swept across red brick paving. He breathed deeply of the clean salt air and reached into a vest pocket for coins.

  The teamster threw up his hand and shook his head. "No need. I've already been paid. Wouldn't want Raul to hear you paid me again."

  The taxi pulled away and Mikhail walked across the road to the front of the Olympic Club Gym, a two story, yellow brick building with high windows. A well dressed doorman stood under the marquis, watching the street.

  Another taxi stopped in front. A tall, lean gentleman got out. He was maybe forty, wearing a properly fitted blue suit and black plug hat. His gray eyes pierced Mikhail with a look of recognition from under looping yellow eyebrows. Long, curly sideburns framed a narrow face and a wide, waxed mustache. "Do I know you?"

  "I think not." Mikhail shifted the canvas grip to his left hand, ready to introduce himself.

  "Something about you looks familiar." Without as much as a smile, the other man turned abruptly and marched briskly toward the front doors of the Olympic Club Gym.

  The doorman smiled with a tip of his head, opened the door to admit the man, and closed the door behind him. He glanced in Mikhail's direction.

  Mikhail approached, reached into his breast pocket, and produced Molly's gold coin. The doorman looked at the coin, smiled, and opened the door. "Welcome to the Olympic Gym, sir."

  An older, well-dressed man sat behind a carved wooden desk against the back wall of a small, low ceiling vestibule, scarcely big enough for two chairs in front of the desk. Interior doors on both sides of the desk were closed. The tall, yellow-haired gentleman from outside had already gone inside.

  The clerk looked over the top of his wire-rimmed spectacles. "Yes, sir, how can I help you?"

  Mikhail presented the coin and the clerk set it on the desk. He opened a drawer and pulled out a leather-bound ledger. He set the ledger on his desk, opened it to the first of many pages, and ran his finger down a list of numbers at the left column. He looked at the coin again and found number five near the top of the front page. He rechecked the coin again and looked over the top of his spectacles at Mikhail. "Where'd you get this?"

  "At the White Chapel Saloon."

  "From whom?"

  "From Molly O'Brien, the widow. She insisted I take it."

  The old man blinked, found a quill pen, dipped it in ink, and said, "What's your name, sir?"

  "Major, the . . . Uh, Mike Zabel, Z-A-B-E-L."

  The clerk entered the name, closed the book, put it in the drawer, took off and folded his spectacles, put those in the drawer, closed the drawer, and returned the coin to Mikhail. "Been a long time since I've seen that coin."

  The clerk opened another drawer and pulled out a tray of numbered slots with keys. He found the key he was looking for, returned the tray to his desk drawer, stood, and opened the door to Mikhail's left. "Okay, then. Let's get you situated."

  Mikhail followed him into a long, narrow room with a low ceiling and a large window at the far end. Ceiling-to-floor wooden lockers with round ventilation holes lined both walls. A long, unbroken bench ran down the center. The scent of sweat and leather hung heavy.

  The yellow-haired gentleman he'd met outside sat near the window at the end, changing into a long-sleeved knit shirt with a wide red stripe around the chest. The clerk stopped at locker 5, almost directly across from the other man's open locker.

  The clerk inserted the key and opened the locker. "This was Mr. O'Brien's locker. Now it's yours. Don't worry about the key. One of the coolies will bring it back up front later." The clerk left.

  Inside the locker was a worn pair of thin leather, high laced, dusty exercise boots and a neatly folded, dusty gymnasium costume. Mikhail removed the clothing and set it on the bench. Molly might want them back.

  The other gentleman pulled on his exercise boots and stood, shifting his weight back and forth, forcing his feet to the soles of his boots while bending down to pull them up. He sat to lace and tie them, not looking at Mikhail as he spoke. "That's where I recognize you from. You're wearing Matt O'Brien's suit."

  "You knew this man?" Mikhail got undressed and hung the dead man's altered suit inside the locker.

  "We were friends." He stood and looked at Mikhail, suspicious. "You sleeping in his bed?"

  Mikhail grimaced at the potentially slanderous probe. "Not anymore. I sleep upstairs, now." He would not lie about this. He would not lie about anything.

  "What's that mean, not anymore?" This man must be protecting her, acting like an older brother. He was too young to be her father.

  "I don't remember much about when she took me in. I could not walk." Standing in his bare feet, pulling on his knee-length knit pants, Mikhail showed the other man his missing toe. "I did not know if I was alive or dead. I've spent much of the past six months on my back." He had become irritated with being a victim.

  "She has a kind heart, does Molly."

  "She does." Mikhail sat, pulled on his exercise boots, and laced them.

  The other man's steel gray eyes stared into Mikhail.

  Mikhail stood up to pull on his long knit shirt with its wide blue stripe. He put Matt O'Brian's old gym clothes into the canvas bag, tossed the bag into the locker, and closed the door.

  "Tell her I said hello."

  "You are?"

  "Ah." The other man cracked a smile, embarrassed. "Abe Warner." They shook hands, strong and friendly. "I own a spot at the foot of Meigg's Wharf. We're still under construction. I'm building a saloon."

  "I am Major, the Count . . . I am Mike Zabel."

  Warner turned sharply toward an interior door and Mikhail followed him into a large gymnasium with a high ceiling. An oval track had been built over the top of perimeter rooms on three sides and across a fourth wall of windows overlooking the city and bay, with plenty of light.

  A few men ran the track at different rates. A staircase backed the front office wall.

  Mikhail followed Warner past an empty boxing ring to where three men tossed a big, heavy-looking leather ball from person to person, a distance between of maybe two meters. They stopped to wait for Warner, obvious friends, glancing at Mikhail.

  Warner grabbed Mikhail's arm. "Gents, this here's Mike Zabel. He'll be taking Matt O'Brian's membership."

  DURING THE LAST THREE weeks of October, 1855, Mikhail had been working out with a very elite group; all founding partners of the Olympic Club and Gym. These included Colonel William Tell Coleman, owner of a steamship line between New York City and San Francisco; John Downey, a state assemblyman from Los Angeles; James King of William, a local banker and editor of the Chronicle, a newspaper of increasing circulation and influence; and Abe Warner, admired for his honesty, his cleanliness, and his wit.

  Matt O'Brien, the man whose place Mikhail had assumed in this circle of close friends, had been the fifth of five founding partners of the club. Mikhail had grown to like them all, even the huffing and puffing politician, John Downey.

  Mikhail tossed Downey the 13.64 kilo medicine ball. Tossing it every day for 30 minutes built strength and stamina. All of them blew wind, at it for nearly 30 minutes already.

  Speaking to the group, James King said, "Any of you hear about Parsons and Felton?"

  Downey tossed the ball to Warner. "Never heard of them."

  "You will," said Warner, catching and toss
ing. "They're sending a piece of legislation your way."

  Downey always appeared uninformed about almost everything. Maybe this was a pretense.

  Mikhail caught the ball from Colonel Coleman. "Parsons and Felton are two attorneys working for the bulkheaders." Mikhail tossed the ball to Warner.

  "How is it this Russian knows so much?" Downey's quick mouth and quicker temper sometimes got him into trouble, but not today. He'd said it with a smile.

  Mikhail liked him and would tolerate the barbs. "I read the Chronicle, of course." He caught the ball and tossed it to James King.

  King, the paper's editor, smiled and tossed the ball to Coleman. "These two esquires already own seven of the larger docks." He struggled for words, breathing hard. "They're asking Sacramento to condemn most of the rest. They hope to purchase these so-called relics at a low price, with the promise of repairing them to serviceable condition."

  The discussion had no connection with tossing the heavy ball around the circle.

  Downey said, "I didn't know the waterfront was in such bad shape. Why, I thought this city was booming with trade."

  Coleman said, "It is, John. That's just the point. Most of you servants of the people in Sacramento haven't a clue. Your colleagues are as likely as not to vote this legislation through."

  "Ah." Downey understood. He dropped the ball between his legs and sat on it, ending the exercise for all of them. "What does that have to do with the bulkheaders?"

  Nyet. No.

  Downey did not understand.

  "Jesus, John." Warner shook his head and sprayed sweat from his curly golden mane. "It's a good thing you went into politics. You're too slow for anything else."

  Downey scrambled to his feet and Mikhail stepped between them, shaking his head at Downey and smiling. "Just a witticism, John."