Anna glanced down at her cuticles. “They cook for you.”
“They cook for themselves. They share it with me because I buy the food.”
How long have you had them here?”
“Six weeks.”
“Jupiter.”
“I’ll say. I’m sleeping on the floor. I can’t open the windows. The grocer looks at me funny because I’m buying so much rice and toilet paper. He knows I’m a bachelor.”
Anna gasped at his mention of toilet paper and covered her mouth.
Joe smiled. “For the first two days, they wouldn’t talk to me. Miss Robins kept telling them I was their American brother. She brought them clothes, picture books, paper. Told me what foods to buy. She’s been incredibly brave, coming here at night. She’s risked her reputation and her neck.”
“She’s wonderful,” said Anna flatly.
“Yes, she is. On day three, the girls started talking. Once she got going, Yuk-Lin wouldn’t stop. I would point to things and she’d tell me the Chinese word, I’d tell her the English. It was good for me, because of the Chinatown Squad. Then she started cooking.” Joe rolled his eyes. “The lady knows her way around a kitchen. She learned how to cook in China from her grandmother apparently. Ting Ting was too young, so she does the chopping. Ting Ting’s kind of timid, but Yuk-Lin is downright bossy. And smart.” He grinned. “She plays a mean game of poker.”
“It’s unseemly.”
“Nothing unseemly has happened. You know that.”
Anna did know. For all his faults, Joe Singer did not take advantage of girls. She closed her eyes and nodded.
“They’ve been through a lot. I don’t think they much care for men, but especially white men. They consider it an abomination for a Chinese woman to sleep with a white man.”
“But not the other way around?”
Joe shook his head. “But they’re starting to tolerate me.”
“The Squad has been tearing Chinatown apart. How did you find them?”
He gave her a cocky half smile. “I figured that if I were the Hop Sing president, I wouldn’t leave my favorite singsong girls alone with a bunch of highbinders. So, I asked myself, who would I trust.” He looked Anna in the eye and squinted. “Who would you trust more than anyone in the world with a couple of young girls?”
Anna thought for a moment. Not the nuns at the convent school where Anna had spent much of her girlhood. Just thinking about them made her bottom sting. Who did Anna wish had cared for her? “That’s easy,” she said. “My mother.”
“I knew Tom Foo Yuen was raised in San Diego and he was no little angel.”
“Tom Foo Yuen?”
“The Hop Sing president. The man who threatened you. He stole the singsong girls from the Bing Kong president. I have a friend who got me his mother’s address from his juvenile record. She still lives there. That’s where he took the girls. They were locked in a shed. I slipped in, stole the key when the mother went to the market, and snatched them. Of course they didn’t know who I was and didn’t want to come—”
Anna couldn’t help but feel admiration. “And you freed them all by yourself?”
“No.”
There was a knock on the door. Anna and Joe leapt to their feet, and the girls slipped silently into the bedroom.
Joe went to the threshold and put his ear to the door.
A man’s voice came from outside. “It’s okay. It’s just me.”
Joe opened the door. Detective Wolf came in breathless. “I’ve got bad news.”
Anna gaped. She wondered if she knew anything at all about the world.
Wolf looked twice when he saw Anna. “It’s always good to see you, honeybun, except now.” He turned on Joe. “Why did you involve her? It’s not safe for her to be here.”
Joe said, “She figured it out.”
Wolf’s brow furrowed. “Someone at the San Diego police department ratted us out. They didn’t know who was asking about Tom Foo Yuen’s mother, but they suspected it was someone with the LAPD. They told the Bing Kong and the Hop Sing.”
Joe closed his eyes. “Oh God.”
“It gets worse. A witness in San Diego saw two white men on the train with two Chinese boys the night the girls went missing. They have good descriptions and they know we got off in LA.”
Anna sunk to the bench. “If they saw Joe, they’ll think the Arrow Collar Man was involved.”
Joe gave her a bemused smile. “You think I look like the Arrow Collar Man?”
Anna nodded solemnly. “It will be your downfall.”
Joe swore and rubbed his face with both hands. “Wolf, how did you find this out?”
“Apparently all of Chinatown knows about it. Mr. Jones heard it and came by the station to let Captain Dixon know there might be some retribution.”
Joe said, “There are hundreds of cops on the force. No one is going to finger us. We’re not that distinctive looking.”
“You’re distinctive looking,” Anna said to Joe.
Wolf put his hand on the doorknob. “I’ve got to go back to the station. The Chinatown Squad is organizing to canvass for witnesses at the train station. They’re putting up posters with the girls’ pictures and our descriptions. I’m going to go take them down.” He slapped Joe on the shoulder, and then he was gone.
Anna said, “You can’t keep these girls in your apartment. You’re putting yourself in terrible danger. Why don’t you give them to me?”
“Then you would be in danger. They’ve been here for over a month. It’s just two more nights.”
“And then what?”
“There’s a missionary with a refuge for singsong girls in San Francisco. Yuk-Lin says they want to go there. Miss Robins has arranged for a fishing boat to take them north Monday night. We just need to lay low until then and get the girls to the port at San Pedro.”
Anna couldn’t wipe the hurt and disbelief from her face. “Miss Robins? Did you tell her about the murder, too?”
“Anna, she helped us free the girls. They would never have come with us without a woman along. They would never have stayed with me. Miss Robins explained what was happening in Chinese. She’s very good with the language.”
“She was with you on the train?”
“No. She waited and took the next train, in case we were caught.” He looked out the window. “Sherlock, I think we shouldn’t talk for a while. For your own protection.”
Joe didn’t want her help, didn’t need her detective skills. He needed Miss Robins. Anna felt as if she were falling down a precipice, as if she’d lost hold of anything solid.
That night, it rained. Anna dreamed of ringing bells, of letters written in invisible ink, and of men so enslaved by the tong that they would shoot Anna, as if she were a marked man, even if all of Central Station were standing by watching. Anna awoke with the terrible feeling that she was going to die. Some hatchet man would kill her dead and she would never get to see Joe Singer naked. Never get to sleep a whole night in his arms. Never know the mysteries of physical love. It awoke in her an urgent need to live her life fully, now—to do those things that filled her with joy. And nothing gave her greater joy than police work and Joe Singer’s lips. Anna resolved to make unrestrained love to Joe Singer, whether he was speaking to her or not. She would tell him that he made her feel alive, and that she was feeling dead without him, and would he please come to her room tonight and reanimate her, because wasn’t it the duty of a police officer to save lives, and no one else would do, only him. His lips, his skin, and his Arrow Collar Man eyes. And maybe she would have to make some concessions. The idea of a ten-year engagement came to mind. But she absolutely had to have him and would even stand a small bit of bossing, and would simply counteract it with a little bossing of her own. She needed him, and would have to tell him.
CHAPTER 17
The following night was the Chinese New Year celebration. It was the year of the Monkey, and Anna was determined to go. Her father had never permitted her to attend, e
ven in more peaceful times. But now she controlled her own destiny. Not only could she see the festivities, she could hunt for Chan Mon and Leo Lim to atone for her father’s sins. The Herald had printed an article promoting the event, despite warnings from the LAPD to stay away, and Anna wondered if many tourists would come. She knew who would be there—the Chinatown Squad.
After work, Anna changed into a yellow chinoiserie frock. She darkened her lashes with walnut stain, powdered her arms and décolletage with talc until they glowed, and dabbed her lips with Princess Pat rouge, lightly so that no one could tell. She twisted her hair up around a tournure frame to make her bun look bounteous, and gazed in the mirror. She was perfect, like a calla lily waiting to be plucked.
The crowded, unpaved streets of Chinatown were still wet from last night’s rain. Pyrotechnics lit the sky and fizzed in the streets, the air a blue cloud of powder smoke. The sidewalks teemed with people—men and women of every color, spilling out into the road like a tide, coating their shoes and hems with mud. Everywhere there were punk sticks burning, releasing their incense, blending with the smell of firecrackers, muck, and tobacco. A Chinese orchestra played. The doors of homes were welcoming wide, every building open to visitors, opened to be searched for Chan Mon and Leo Lim. Anna didn’t know where to start.
Men stood in the thresholds of their stores offering strangers sweetmeats, nuts, cakes, and glasses of wine. Anna accepted a cake. She slipped through the crowd, her eyes large with wonder, savoring the pleasing flavor—an unfamiliar one. The rough streets had been transformed into a miracle of iridescent lights. A few proper Chinese ladies, rarely seen under normal circumstances, were out in their bright silks, their glossy hair neatly pinned up. Anna tried to catch their eyes, but their eyes were averted. Their less-respectable sisters peered out from windows, tapping on the glass of wickets. Cheeks and lips painted, hair braided with colored artificial flowers, they beckoned to the fellows passing by.
Anna heard bells ringing in the distance—a sounding of the alarm that an officer was near. The painted girls rattled their wickets, and the banging traveled like a wave down the street. Then their heads disappeared from the windows.
She surveyed the crowd looking for her officer and finally caught a glimpse of him floating down Marchessault Street sucking on a candy. When she caught Joe Singer’s eye, his face lit up, and he began to make his way quickly through the crowd toward her.
He arrived in front of Anna grinning. “Hey, Sherlock. You shouldn’t be here.”
There was something in that smile that made Anna feel joyful and light. She surveyed his neat black suit and derby hat. “A person would never know you were a cop.”
“I’m undercover.”
“Me too.” She twirled around so he could admire her chinoiserie dress. She came to a dizzy stop and found his brows furrowed in disapproval.
Anna felt perplexed. She had thought she looked beautiful. At least people’s heads had turned to watch her walk by. “What?”
“Why do you insist on coming here alone?”
“I didn’t. I came with friends. We got separated.”
He smirked.
Anna bit her lip. “If you’re so worried about me being alone, you can walk with me.”
“I can’t, Sherlock. I’m here to put down hooligans.”
“I’ll misbehave. I promise.”
“I expect you will.” For a moment, he looked as if he was debating, and then he slipped his arm through hers. “All right.”
As soon as Joe touched her, Anna felt a charge that shot through her body, settled in her nether parts, and sizzled there. Suddenly, she wasn’t thinking about Miss Robins, the piano girl, or all the other women with bottoms in Los Angeles. She could only think of this moment, and him, his arm on hers, and the ways their bodies felt, like the opposite poles of magnets.
Above them, paper lanterns hung from wires and cast colored glows on his face. Joe looked handsome green, red, blue, and yellow. He always looked handsome, and he always smelled good, like minty, manly deliciousness.
They passed the temple on Benjamin Street, where bowls of strange confections sat before happy guardian deities standing twelve feet tall. Joe took a scoop. “Hold out your hands, Sherlock.” Anna did, and he filled them with candy. She wanted to kiss him thank you, but contained herself. Making a declaration was unladylike. Doing it in public was unconscionable. She put the treats in her pocket.
They passed a tobacconist handing out cigars, and Joe accepted one. He tucked it in the pocket of Anna’s dress and whispered in her ear. “Do me a favor and smoke it in private. I wouldn’t want to have to arrest you.”
Anna took a candy and popped it in his mouth.
There was a bang, bang, bang, as two drunken cowboys hollering near them on the street shot their guns into the air. Anna and Joe jumped, covering their ears. Joe took her hand and they zigzagged through the crowd, away from the whooping vaqueros.
People threw firecrackers. A bright light dazzled Anna’s eyes, accompanied by the blare of a horn so loud she was sure they could hear it in Venice Beach. A locomotive came rolling slowly down the street, spewing black smoke. Joe pulled Anna back onto the sidewalk, away from the tracks as people scattered. He smiled down at her with his blue Arrow Collar Man eyes, and her heart fluttered. His hands grazed her sleeves as he dropped his hands from around her shoulders. It made her tingle everywhere. He took her arm again. “What do you want to do? I’m on until dawn.”
Anna considered as she tingled. She wanted to make love. But there were homes to visit, new foods to eat, strange music to hear. Most of all, there was a villain to capture, and Joe Singer to win back. She felt light, like she should sing, because in a way, when she learned that Joe was not a slave trader, she did get him back. She tilted her head and beamed up at him. “I want to do everything.”
“Then I’ll show you the lilies.” Smiling, he tugged her along, passing stables where horses flinched and whinnied at the pops, bangs, and drumming. He led her away from the lights and celebration. Stable after stable stood interspersed with barns where buggies and wagons awaited the next vegetable market. Anna stopped to soothe a particularly wild-eyed bay, offering him a candy. A man lay in the corner of the stall wrapped in a blanket. He squinted at her as if she were an over-bright star.
She drew in a shallow breath and squeezed Joe’s arm. “That man sleeps here.”
Joe said something to the man in Chinese, perhaps an apology, and the man rolled over. Joe lowered his voice. “I’ll bet a hundred men sleep in the stables in Chinatown, Sherlock. Maybe more.”
“I’d like to sleep outside on a warm clear night and stare at the stars.”
“It’s clear tonight.”
Anna threw back her head and looked up at the tiny pricks of light, and the wash of the Milky Way, a river of wishing stars. “It’s becoming very clear.”
Joe took her hand and tugged. “Come on. You’ve got to see this.”
Anna let him lead her past an old brick house to an open space. She held her breath. A thousand white lilies bloomed in a field, reflecting the moonlight, more beautiful than a picture postcard. They infused the air with their lily scent.
Anna breathed. “Jupiter.”
“The Chinese believe it’s good luck if the lilies are in bloom at New Year. It’s going to be an auspicious year.”
Anna’s heart lifted like a bumblebee nourished by the flowers, her love for Joe buoyed by beauty. He grinned at her. Like the lilies, this was auspicious. Tonight, she would tell him that she needed him and that she might consider a very, very long engagement. She simply had to find the words.
She said, “You made a wise choice to keep me, you know. If you’re undercover, you’re far less suspicious if you have a girl with you. People think we’re lovers, not officers of the law.”
“Yeah, but I need an ugly girl. You draw too much attention.” His dimples deepened.
Anna flushed with pleasure. “Hah! I’m not that beautiful.”
She knew that she was.
“You got those long eyelashes . . . and those honeyed lips, they’re just crying out ‘ooh please kiss me.’”
She scoffed. “Ooh, please kiss me?”
Joe Singer had stopped strolling and was staring at her mouth.
“Oh, please kiss me,” Anna breathed.
Joe took a step away. “See what I mean. You said that twice in one minute. Your lips are very conspicuous.”
Anna resolved to make them even more so. She threw her arms around his neck and drew his head down. He groaned and turned his check so that her kiss landed awkwardly against his ear. “Anna, no. I’m sorry. I was just fooling. I . . .”
Anna was no quitter. She held her lost love tight, grazing her nose and mouth against his evening stubble, his cheeks, his chin, his reluctant lips, until his protestations quieted, their lips were nuzzling, and he fell to kissing her. His kiss, though slow in coming, was like fire and burned with all the intensity of their situation, all the passion required to overcome it—his other women, her fierce independence, his pathological obsession with marriage, and a Chinaman snoring in the background.
Desire seared her, a need to touch and be touched, and somehow merge into him. She felt that there was more to do, more to know, and she wanted to know it and do it with Joe Singer.
She took Joe’s hand and moved it onto her bottom where it belonged. She murmured, “Let’s be in love again, because I can’t stand it when we aren’t. And yes, I will marry you, even though I don’t want to.”
Joe Singer pulled away from her, taking his hand with him. His face contorted in a look that Anna could not interpret, but it was not joy. Then he exploded, sputtering something blasphemous and kicking the stable wall.
“What?” she asked in distress.
“Anna, I can’t. I’m . . . I’m already getting married.”
“You’re doing what?” Anna shrieked.
“Anna, I wanted a family, and you said—.”
The Woman in the Camphor Trunk Page 16