Anna tried the brass doorknob. It clicked, and the door opened with an eerie creek. She stepped over the threshold and saw no one. The stone lions and deities stood unguarded. Anna could have taken her pick of the statues and hauled them away.
This boded ill. Tom Foo Yuen was so greatly feared he didn’t need someone to watch his treasures; no one would dare steal from him.
Anna wandered across the black and white tiles, the tapping of her steps sounding loud to her ears. It was all right. She planned to be discovered. She passed through an arched doorway into a kitchen where a long iron stove waited, scrubbed and dormant, for the cook to return. The air smelled strongly of garlic. There was an icebox, which Anna didn’t open, and a cupboard, which she did. Lovely blue china bowls and plates formed towers next to boxes filled with bamboo chopsticks.
She heard faint music begin to play—something sweet and haunting, something strange. At the far end of the kitchen, a cotton curtain hung from a rod. One side looked frayed. Pushing deeper into the room, Anna put her hands on the fraying place and pulled the curtain aside.
It obscured a simple door.
Anna pressed her ear against it, but heard only music—slightly louder now. She hesitated, seeking her courage. She was about to come face-to-face with a ruthless killer—one she had foolishly insulted. She still had time to change her mind.
Anna deliberated. Life was cheap in Chinatown. Her life was cheap. Hadn’t Mr. Jones said that the tongs could make a white woman disappear? If she didn’t return tonight, no one would know where she’d gone. If she turned around immediately, she could avoid that fate.
Anna closed her eyes and pictured Joe Singer in the forest in his underwear. She found her courage.
She opened the door, which led to a staircase. It set a string of bells to clanging loudly. She cringed and descended the steps. The stairs ended in a metal door. She tried the handle, but the door was locked.
Anna rapped with her fist.
CHAPTER 21
A gun answered her knock. The barrel poked through a slim space between the frame and the steel of the slightly opened door. The music stopped. She could see part of a man holding the gun.
“I come in peace,” Anna said in a squeaky voice.
The metal door swung outward revealing a man built like a boxcar—one of the highbinders from Wong Nim’s death house. His hands were like giant clams. He lowered his revolver and cocked his head, squinting at her.
Anna recognized two more of Tom Foo Yuen’s henchmen—the fat one and the one with a crooked nose. They were standing on high alert around a table strewn with Chinese playing cards. Anna had interrupted a game. In the corner, a lady perched on a stool, staring dumbly at Anna, no longer playing a giant harp. Her hair was shiny black and wonderfully done up with silk flowers.
Across the room, Tom Foo Yuen, his ugly face slack from shock, sat straight on the edge of a carved mahogany couch. In one hand, he held a small glass of something alcoholic. In the other, he held a smoldering cigar. Anna supposed she was the first white woman to ever visit his lair. No other woman she knew was quite that stupid.
Anna lifted her chin, “Forgive my interruption, Mr. President, but I am Assistant Matron Anna Blanc, and I’ve come about the singsong girls.” She remembered herself and bowed.
No one bowed back. They simply stared at her.
After a moment, Tom Foo Yuen said, in his tar-thick accent, “You are a brave, strange woman, Matron Blanc.”
Anna had heard that before.
He continued. “Why have you, a woman, come to speak to me? I don’t buy white women, and I’m not interested in your god. I can’t release the singsong girls because I don’t have them.”
“Your singsong girls are dead. I saw them drown with my own eyes at the port in San Pedro.”
“Are you lying to me?”
“Why would I lie? You are a great man, so kind to your people,” she lied. “You give the men places to live and such, like the Saint Vincent de Paul Society.”
His lips curled as if he saw right through her. “I may not cross the Silver Bridge to heaven, but the gods see my good deeds. What do you care if a poor Chinese man starves in the streets? If he’s alone?”
“I care that the singsong girls are dead. Their bodies will wash up and you’ll know I tell the truth.”
“I’m sorry, then. They were beautiful. Such small feet.”
“I’ll pay you for the girls if you’ll rescind the order to have Joe Singer’s head. How much did Wong Nim pay for them? Four thousand dollars? That sum is nothing to me,” she lied again.
“Why would you do this? Is he your husband or your brother?” He curiously perused Anna’s person from her hem to the crown of her feathered head. At least Anna looked the part of a wealthy woman. He appeared thoughtful, then smacked the arm of the couch as if he had just remembered something important. “You’re Joe Singer’s favorite whore. Such loyalty!”
“I’m his fiancée, not his whore.” This wasn’t true either, but Anna was tired of everyone thinking she was a whore.
“Partly correct. You are no longer Joe Singer’s whore. He took my girls. I take his girl in return. Too bad there aren’t two of you.”
There were two, actually. Anna thought about giving up Miss Robins but decided it would extend her time in purgatory, and she imagined her stay would be long enough. She would avoid it unless absolutely necessary. She ignored her own fear and set her chin. “Don’t be rude. I can pay—”
“Detective Singer will pay his own debts.”
“He didn’t take your girls. It was someone else.” Anna thought fast. “I saw him. He was a Chinaman with blond hair and . . .” Anna wasn’t good on her feet. By the disdainful look on his face, she knew she was losing.
“I don’t care about the girls. I never paid for them. Joe Singer must die, or I will lose face.”
Tom Foo Yuen had left her no choice. Anna lifted her giant mink muff and aimed it at the scoffing president. It was his life or Joe’s, and no one would take Joe Singer out of this world. Not if she could prevent it.
Anna fired through the muff. The shot went wide and hit the arm of the highbinder who had come to stand beside his master. Tom Foo Yuen and his man screamed. The musician rushed for the door.
Anna raised her muff again and aimed. Giant clam hands clamped on her two arms from the rear and pulled them roughly behind her back. They tore a puff of fur from her expensive muff and sent the gun and accessory clattering to the floor. “Biscuits!”
Tom Foo Yuen breathed hard. His wide-set eyes protruded in anger, glassy and bright. “I have lost two hatchet men in just one month—faithful brothers who have gone missing.”
Ko Chung and Chan Mon, thought Anna—the headless man and the mountain lion food. “That wasn’t my fault!”
“I avenge violence against my brothers.” The president reached out his hand toward Anna and said something to his men in Chinese.
Anna wondered if it would help to mention that she had been aiming at Tom Foo Yuen.
The boxcar man swept Anna forward as though she didn’t weigh anything, which, thanks to her limited cooking ability, was almost true.
“Joe Singer is not here to protect you, and he won’t live to avenge you.” Tom Foo Yuen rose and slapped Anna hard across the cheek. “Like my little brothers, you’re going to disappear.”
She spun to the side and cried out. The highbinder tightened his grip on her arms, squeezing so hard she felt her skin would slide off. Her cheek stung as if a whole hive of bees had done their worst. She knew it would bruise. The president slapped her again, back-handed across her other cheek. It made her dizzy, but the hatchet man held her up. Her eyes watered so that her vision blurred. Anna tossed her woozy head. “At least my cheeks will match.”
She looked about for help, but the harpist had fled into the street. Tom Foo Yuen lifted his knee and rammed Anna in the gut, throwing her up against his hatchet man. Anna wheezed. Her wind was gone and her gut burned
.
The president cocked his head for a moment as if contemplating something. “Yes, you are my whore now.” He nodded toward the highbinder with the clam hands. “And he will kill Joe Singer. He’s a man of formidable strength.”
“And you aren’t a man of formidable strength?”
The president gave her a self-satisfied smirk. “So you shall see.”
A ball of cloth clogged Anna’s mouth and her head swam. Tom Foo Yuen must have knocked her out. A highbinder carried her over his shoulder like a sack of beans into the back alley and loaded her into a wagon, covering her with a blanket. She stared up at the woolen cloth that draped her nose and brushed her lashes and had the vague notion that this might be unfortunate. She felt very, very woozy. She closed her eyes. When she opened them, she no longer rode in the wagon but lay on a bed. She moved her arms and felt them slip across the sheets like a skate on ice. Satin on satin.
She saw a red trunk with ornate brass rings, a settee of latticed rosewood, a table and chairs made entirely of jade. On a table next to the bed, someone had left a tray with tea, a china plate of bread, and a honeypot. Anna felt foggy and heavy-limbed, plagued by a vague sense of panic. Her head ached.
The man with clam hands sat in a chair, blocking the only door. He appeared to be sleeping. She wondered what time it was. There were no windows that would enable her to judge by the color of the sky.
Anna felt dopey. She knew escape was imperative and the need for it urgent, or President Tom Foo Yuen would come and show her his formidable strength. She examined the room. There were two windows with shutters that had been nailed closed. The only opening out of the room appeared to be the door.
Anna searched the sparse room for a weapon and saw none except for a gun strapped to the chest of the sleeping man. His bulky arms were crossed over it, making theft impossible. Anna thought of Miss Robins and the coke bottle and Anna’s recent incapacitation. There was a stone statue of a woman, which Anna thought she might lift. She lugged the goddess in her arms over to the sleeping man and, using all her strength, raised it high over her head. Sensing her presence, his eyes flashed open. Anna brought the deity down onto his head. She missed the crown of his head, grazed his brow, broke his nose, and hit squarely on his man parts. Anna winced as he crumpled to the ground, blood leaking from his nose.
She moved the chair so she could open the door. She slid back the deadbolt, but when she tried the handle the door was locked from the outside, too. Anna mouthed a silent curse, “Biscuits,” and slid the deadbolt back into position. If she could not get out, at least the president could not get in.
Anna didn’t believe she had killed the highbinder, though she had no desire to touch him and find out. She would need to escape before he returned to consciousness. She imagined he would not be pleased, and that his large hands could punish, and his large lungs could wake the dead. She gingerly stole his gun. Anna turned back to the room. It had high walls with ornate moldings in the European style. This was undoubtedly a grand house. If this were true, then a bedroom should have a laundry chute to the basement. Anna walked the circumference of the room, examining the walls and floor until she found what she was looking for—a small, square trap door in the floor. Only a woman or child could fit through. Anna dropped to her knees, pulled on the rope handle that opened the door, and peered down the empty space. It melted into darkness. She felt it with her hands. The inside was lined with tin. Anna wasn’t certain how far down it was to the basement. She could be on the first floor or, for all she knew, the top floor of a very tall building. Even if she were at ground level, the drop to a basement would be significant, possibly high enough to fracture a bone, even with a great pile of fluffy laundry to break her fall.
Someone knocked on the door. She heard the president’s voice, “Yaen.”
Anna still felt woozy from her concussion, but not so disoriented that she didn’t know the meaning of the knock.
He called out again, “Yaen!”
Anna considered the chute. Spiders walked on walls, but their feet were sticky. Anna was not, dressed in satin from gown to drawers. She glanced over to the tea tray with its bread and honey. Honey was sticky. She took off everything, because satin clothes were slippery, and dumped them down the chute for extra cushioning. She could put them back on when she landed. She retrieved the honey pot and rubbed the entirety on her hands, feet, knees, and bare backside. Holding the gun, she lowered herself into the tunnel, spreading out her knees to catch herself, clutching the floor with one hand, her fingers near the trap door hinge. The door pinched her fingers. She pressed her honey-covered bottom against the wall, pushing against the tin with two feet. She let go and the trap door thumped shut.
Anna hung in complete darkness, afraid to move—a daddy longlegs spider clinging to the walls of a cave. She took deep breaths of mildewed air and sang off-key inside her head to calm her nerves, just like Joe would. “The itsy bitsy spider went down the water spout . . .”
The president started rattling the door. She forced herself to move, walking down the wall, step by step, trying to be quiet, because all eavesdroppers knew that sound carried in laundry chutes. Unfortunately, the tin creaked with each step, and the gun clanged against the metal. Gaining confidence, she let herself slowly slide, her hand, knees and bottom hot from the friction. She felt like Santa in a chimney, only naked and covered with honey.
Anna descended one floor, creeping past a second opening, a swinging door in the side of the chute.
Upstairs, the bedroom door boomed like a canon, over and over. The president must be ramming it with something, using his formidable strength. She slid faster, her skin burning, passing two more openings.
She felt a crash reverberate in the tin walls and heard wood splintering—the demise of that lovely door. Tom Foo Yuen cried out, “Yaen!” His anguish sounded real. He seemed to care for his fallen henchman.
“Cursed woman!” The president’s words blew down upon her like a blast of cold fury, so chilling, so vacuous and devoid of light that she felt she could be sucked down into it, like an undertow. A square of brightness appeared above her, and the silhouette of her captor’s head. Anna pushed against the wall, bracing herself.
She raised her gun, and shot up at the head.
The gun recoiled in her hand, slamming her wrist against the tin. She felt the boom in her entire body, then a drip of something sticky—Blood.
Her knees went weak and she fell—a spider washed out by the rain.
Anna dropped a few feet and landed in darkness, in a fluffy pile of dirty pajamas, socks, and drawers.
Male voices boomed upstairs, spewing angry words that she could not distinguish. Anna heard feet pounding down stairs, down one flight, down the next.
She heard a familiar voice calling, “Assistant Matron Blanc!” It was Wolf.
Anna shouted, “Help me! I’m naked and covered in honey!”
Wolf slid across the kitchen tile, heading for the basement stairs like Hermes in a footrace. “Hold tight, honeybun! Here I come!”
Joe Singer charged behind him with the lantern. Wolf was not going to see Anna in her honey, even if he had to shoot him. This was not police work. This was personal. He hurled himself at Wolf. “She’s my girl!”
“Not anymore!” The men went down. The lantern rolled and extinguished, leaving the kitchen in darkness. They scrambled up, bracing themselves on each other, their eyes adjusting to the darkness, even as they hurtled toward the steps to the basement.
At the top of the stairs Joe stopped. “I’m warning you, Wolf. If you come down here, we are not friends.”
“You got to play baseball with her. I should get the honey.”
Joe took a blind swing at Wolf, connected, and heard him go down. Joe hit the top step and slammed the cellar door. It was pitch black. He blindly took the stairs six at a time, his hand skimming the rail. “Anna! Sweetheart! Anna! Talk to me!”
No amount of whiskey would assuage his guilt or numb his
pain if anything happened to Anna. She was his songbird.
Anna called back, shrill as a gull, “Joe!”
With no light to guide him, he plowed toward her voice, crashing through wash tins and buckets of water, making the floor slick and wet. “Are you hurt?”
Her voice rippled with panic. “No.”
Relief flooded Joe as he groped for her in the dark.
His face hit a clothesline, flapping with rags and wooden pins. “Ow!”
He felt the clothesline bend under Anna’s hands and heard her rapid, ragged breathing. He stretched his arm out and touched a sticky finger. “Here, Anna. I’m here. Take my hand.”
She made a sobbing sound. He pulled her into him and pressed her head onto his shoulder until she gasped. Anna’s breasts heaved against his sweat-dampened shirt. Her words came out in hiccups. “I thought Tom Foo Yuen would kill you for sure, so I got the drop on him.”
Joe made a scoffing sound. “Did it occur to you that I might kill Tom Foo Yuen? I could take Tom Foo Yuen!”
“Well . . .”
Joe tangled his hands in her loose hair, found her mouth and kissed her. She smelled like honeysuckle and a man’s sweaty armpits.
Joe’s hands moved from her silky hair down to her sticky body.
That was disappointingly unnaked.
Anna sobbed. “I fell into the laundry pile, and when I heard you and Wolf coming, I quickly got dressed in Tom Foo Yuen’s dirty pajamas. My frock would take too long.”
Wolf hit the bottom step, carrying the lantern, flooding the basement with light. He wore an official cop face, now swelling with a bruise, and searched the room with blazing eyes. “Miss Blanc!”
He saw Anna draped in Tom Foo Yuen’s clothes and his face fell. He snapped his fingers. “Damn!”
CHAPTER 22
Anna paced the station floor wearing her own silk velvet bicycle bloomers and not her remaining matron’s uniform, which required boiling and mending and who knew what else. Wolf had not chastised her, possibly because of her recent ordeal and bruised cheeks, which garnered sympathy, if not respect, among the men. She still trembled when she thought of Tom Foo Yuen, which was most of the time.
The Woman in the Camphor Trunk Page 24