Rebecca Hagan Lee

by A Wanted Man

“Where do we stand on that issue?” Will asked.

  “Since we dare not go to the police for help, I wired my brother, Murphy, for suggestions when I went to order milk and breakfast this morning,” Jack told him. “Then I wired the Pinkerton agency requesting that the men on Murphy’s list be assigned here until further notice.” Anticipating Will’s next question, Jack continued. “I haven’t received the reply from the Denver office yet.”

  “I thought the Pinkertons maintained an office in San Francisco.”

  “A small one,” Jack replied, “but we’ve no way of knowing if it’s been compromised. Better to go with out-of-towners until we know who we can trust.”

  “Agreed.”

  Jack fixed Will with a hard stare. “Speaking of trust, did you tell Miss Parham about the threat to her safety?”

  Will’s mouth hardened into a grim line. “I did.”

  “How did she take the news?”

  “She found it hard to believe the police department is filled with men willing to sell themselves and their guns to a notorious madam for cash.”

  “She didn’t believe you?”

  “She believed me,” Will said. “She didn’t believe the city constables were less than trustworthy. . . .”

  “But you convinced her otherwise? She realizes she’s in danger?”

  Will recognized the concern in Jack’s voice. He shared it. The threat to Julia Jane was real. If Li Toy wanted Julia Jane dead, her life was forfeit. It was simply a matter of time. “She seemed more concerned about my immortal soul than with her mortal life. She assured me she could take care of herself.”

  “What are you going to do?” Jack demanded. “You can’t run this place, meet with Malcolm at Craig Capital every Tuesday, and walk the streets at night keeping watch for Miss Parham. You have to sleep sometime. . . .”

  “That’s another reason we need extra security,” Will replied. “Miss Parham may believe she can take care of herself. She may not mind risking her life, but I do.”

  “So you’re going to become her guardian angel?” Jack guessed.

  “I wouldn’t mention that around Typhoon Julia if I were you.” Will handed the broom and dustpan back to Jack.

  “Your secret is safe with me.”

  * * *

  THE ACTIVITY GOT UNDER WAY IN EARNEST ONCE THE WORKMEN FROM MONTGOMERY STREET GLASS INSTALLED THE canvas. Jack supervised the workers and hired extras to help with the cleanup while Will saw to the care and feeding of the girls.

  Speaking to them in Cantonese, Will detailed the plans for the evening and what they might expect. He explained that the two men sitting on the chairs on either side of the landing were there to protect them, and that they were to tell him if anyone attempted to accost them in any way. He assured them that he wouldn’t hurt them or allow anyone else to hurt them. He explained that they would all be staying together in one room for the remainder of their stay at the Silken Angel, and that their stay was temporary.

  Reading the expressions on their faces, Will realized they didn’t believe a word of what he was saying. They didn’t trust him. And Will couldn’t blame them. He had witnessed some of the torment they had endured while in Madam Harpy’s dubious care, and could only imagine the hell they had endured on the journey from Hong Kong. The fact that their previous captors were all Chinese should have helped him earn a measure of trust, but these girls were too wounded by the betrayals they had endured to trust the white foreign devil who had witnessed their humiliation, then purchased them and brought them here.

  And Will was honest enough to admit that he had given them no reason to trust him. Or anyone else in the Flowery Flag Nation. It would take more than food and a soft bed and a few hours of tender care to earn their trust. Or help them learn to trust.

  With one exception.

  Little Tsin. She had fallen asleep in his arms as he carried her from the Jade Dragon, trusting him to keep her safe while she slept. Trusting he wouldn’t drop her or abandon her or hurt her. Will couldn’t ask for a greater demonstration of pure trust than that. Every time she looked at him with her big brown eyes, Will was struck by her resemblance to Jamie’s daughter Garnet, who wore her heart on her sleeve for everyone to see. Reaching over, he picked up her empty bowl. “Would you like more porridge?”

  Tsin froze. She didn’t move a muscle or utter a sound of protest. She just watched in silence as he removed her bowl and seemed to will herself to disappear.

  The other girls were just as quiet. Everything stopped. Whereas minutes before the kitchen had been filled with the sounds of breakfast—with the soft clinking of spoons against pottery bowls and the sounds of mugs thudding against the surface of the table and the rattle of the older girls’ teacups against their saucers—now there was deadly silence.

  Long accustomed to the chaos at Jamie and Elizabeth’s breakfast table, where four little girls made enough racket to put the New Year celebrations to shame, Will couldn’t believe seven girls could create such profoundly deafening silence. It was as if they were all bracing themselves for whatever came next, as if the removal of Tsin’s bowl signaled the end of the endurable and the start of the new humiliations to follow.

  Will walked to the stove and added another spoonful of rice porridge to Tsin’s bowl, then returned to the table and set it down in front of her. Her face lit up as she picked up her spoon and plunged it into the sweetened mush. When he refilled her mug with the milk Jack had ordered from the local goatherd, she gave him a rapturous smile. He smiled down at the little one, then spoke to the other girls. “There’s plenty of congee for all of you. You may have more if you’d like, and more tea and milk.”

  In Will’s experience, the girls lately arrived from China were always hungry. Most had suffered starvation at home from the famine and the drought, and received only minuscule rations of rice and endured seasickness on the voyage to California. He and Jamie had learned that a diet of rice or oatmeal porridge or noodle soup or plain noodles with bits of chicken and vegetables worked best for the first few days to avoid stomach upsets. Other foods—meats and fruits, fried offerings and pastries—were introduced gradually. He took a risk by providing the goat’s milk to children who had probably never drunk anything but rice or soy milk, but the little ones were in desperate need of the rich nutrition goat’s milk provided. Although, he’d never purchased girls this young at auction before, Will knew Jamie’s little girls loved the taste of goat’s milk.

  Will had ordered the congee prepared thicker than the way it was normally eaten in China. There the porridge was little more than watery gruel, but Will had grown up eating porridge made from oatmeal and preferred it to the rice version. Unfortunately, oatmeal prepared the British way was almost unheard-of in Chinatown, and entirely unheard-of in Mr. Ming’s kitchen, where he and Jack ordered most of their meals. Thick rice congee, sweetened with honey and goat’s milk, was as close as he could come to the traditional Irish oatmeal on short notice and with a Chinese cook. He smiled down at Tsin, then grinned when the other six offered their bowls for refills in the Chinese girls’ version of Charles Dickens’s story of Oliver Twist, or The Parish Boy’s Progess that was music to his ears: “More, please.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “If you want to be found, stand where the seeker seeks.”

  —SIDNEY LANIER, 1842–1881

  They’re here,” Jack announced late that afternoon as he opened the door to Will’s private office.

  Will looked up from his paperwork. “The Pinkertons or the players?”

  “The players,” Jack replied. “They came to the back door in an Empress gin delivery wagon.”

  Will shook his head in awed admiration. “You have to love the old man’s ingenuity.”

  Jack agreed. “We’ll have to order some Empress gin labels and distill a few bottles in the event any of our regular customers ask for some.”

  “Knowing the old man, he distilled a few bottles of his own and brought them to us,” Will said.

/>   Jack grinned. “I’ll be sure and ask him.”

  “You do that.” Will’s grin matched his friend’s. “Where are they?”

  Jack delivered his status report: “I took the players up the back stairs. The ladies are in five of the rooms and the gents are guarding them. Our seven girls are in your sitting room. The old man is having a drink at the bar.”

  “What about the Pinkertons? Did you hear from them?” Will asked.

  “We got a wire from the Denver office. They’re sending men, but they won’t arrive until late tomorrow afternoon.”

  Will did his best not to show his uneasiness at that bit of information, but couldn’t bite back his groan or fool Jack.

  “We could try the San Francisco office,” Jack suggested. “It’s a risk, but . . .”

  Will shook his head. “It’s a bigger risk than I’m willing to take. If corruption permeates the city government and police, how do we know it hasn’t pervaded the Pinkerton agency in San Francisco?” He looked at Jack. “Were there any names on your brother’s list from the local office?”

  “No,” Jack replied. “None of the agents Murphy knew to be absolutely trustworthy were assigned the San Francisco office.”

  “Then the risk is too great,” Will decided. “We’ll move forward with what we have tonight. If the old man’s finished his drink, ask him to come in so we can finalize the plans.”

  Jack nodded. “I’ll send him in.”

  “Has any of your bar help arrived?”

  “Luis and Ben.”

  “Leave one of them to work the bar. I want you here when I meet with the old man so we can go over the final details,” Will told him.

  “You’ve got it.” Jack turned to the door. “I’ll go get him.”

  Jack returned a few minutes later with an elderly gentleman blessed with the visage, stature, and charm of a leprechaun, and with enough cunning and talent to dwarf a colossus. Born Humphrey Osborne, the old man had celebrated seven decades of life. He was a colleague of Father Francis Paul, the priest at St. Mary’s Catholic Church near Portsmouth Square, with whom Osborne had gone to seminary. But Osborne hadn’t remained a priest. He’d left the Church after twenty years to tread the boards as an actor. And he’d never regretted his decision. The Church had been his family’s choice for him. Osborne loved the pageantry, but had never cared much for the religious dogma. He preferred the works of Shakespeare and Marlowe and Sheridan, of Molière and the classical Greek comedies and tragedies.

  “Hello, Will, my boy.” Osborne greeted Will with a handshake and an embrace, his voice a charming Irish lilt. “It’s good to see you again.”

  “It’s good to see you again, Sir Humphrey,” Will replied, using the courtesy title the former priest had adopted when he took to the stage. “Thank you for coming. I realize Saturdays are one of your busiest performance nights and that doing a favor for us is costing you box office revenue.”

  “Not to worry, my boy,” Sir Humphrey assured him. “Your generosity has made it possible for our little troupe to take a Saturday busman’s holiday now and then without worrying about the finances. We are in your debt.”

  “Not at all, Sir Humphrey,” Will answered. “You’ve more than paid your debt to me with your discretion, loyalty, and talent.”

  Sir Humphrey scratched his grizzled head. “On that I am afraid we must agree to disagree, my boy, for you gave a poor troupe of performers a home and a place to earn our living.”

  Will had met Sir Humphrey a year earlier, when the traveling troupe of the Empire Players had spent three weeks in the mining camps of the High Sierras and Coryville, performing Shakespearean comedies and tragedies in the camps and in the Coryville Town Auditorium. During the final week of the tour, James Craig had hosted the troupe in the Coryville Hotel, and while sharing dinner one evening, Sir Humphrey confided that while he loved traveling, he was old enough to crave a softer bed and a permanent home.

  Will had offered the leader of the Empire Players a vacant San Francisco coffee warehouse he had purchased as an investment and financed the renovations needed to turn the vast warehouse into a theater and apartments for the actors. He had originally intended to rent the space to the players for a nominal fee, but he’d reconsidered and decided to give the theater to Sir Humphrey when he’d built the Silken Angel Saloon and realized the thespians could be of help with his special project.

  And Sir Humphrey had never failed him. An abolitionist to the core, he and his players had come during the two previous missions, and the members of the troupe hadn’t breathed a word about their performances at the Silken Angel Saloon.

  Will knew that he and Jack wouldn’t have been able to accomplish everything they had if it hadn’t been for the help of the Empire Players. And he was grateful.

  “What do you need us to do, my boy?” Sir Humphrey asked.

  Will gestured for Jack and the elder gentleman to take a seat while he detailed the plan for the evening. “First, we need men who look like Pinkerton detectives. . . .”

  When Will finished explaining the plan, Sir Humphrey rubbed his hands together in delight. There was nothing he loved more than a good theatrical. “With or without real weapons?”

  Will was taken aback by the question. Surprised that a former priest would think to ask about weapons—real or otherwise.

  “Real,” Jack replied before Will could. “We’ve got a safe full of cash, a small fortune in liquor, and a canvas for a front wall.”

  Sir Humphrey nodded. “Set decoration, my boy,” the wizened little man said to set Will’s mind at ease. “Weapons on make-believe Pinkerton men create the illusion of force. I couldn’t help but notice your storefront met with another unfortunate accident.”

  Will gave him a wry smile. “One we affectionately call Typhoon Julia.”

  “So . . .” Sir Humphrey grasped the situation. “The little missionary went back on her word.”

  Will was genuinely taken aback. “You heard?”

  “Of course,” Sir Humphrey told him. “San Francisco may be a city, but it gossips like a small town.” He stood up and wiped his hands down the front of his trousers. “I’d better start unloading the costumes and props.” He glanced at Jack. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to borrow one of your men. We don’t want the customers to see the Pinkertons unloading a liquor wagon in work clothes.”

  Jack stood up and headed for the door. “I’ll get Luis to help.”

  “Good,” Sir Humphrey pronounced. “Good. Start with the case of Empress gin I brought for the bar.” He looked at Will. “We’ll be wanting a nip of gin to quench our thirst after the manual labor. . . .”

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Audacity augments courage.”

  —PUBLILIUS SYRUS, 1ST CENTURY B.C.

  Returning to the Russ House Hotel after an afternoon spent meeting donors to the Salvationist mission work at the Christian Ladies’ Benevolent Society tea, Julie couldn’t shake the feeling of being followed.

  Glancing over her shoulder once again at the city policeman down the street, Julie ducked inside a store with the sign, EVANGELINE DUMOND, DRESSMAKER AND MILLINER, two doors up from the Russ House Hotel. Pretending to browse the latest selection of Parisian fashions, Julie did her best to convince herself that if the person following her was male, he would avoid the inside of a dressmaker’s shop like the plague.

  Selecting a ready-made jade-green serge walking dress and a matching green bonnet with a netted brim from a display near a willow dress form, Julie slipped into one of the two curtained alcoves the shop owner used as dressing rooms and tried the dress and the deep half bonnet on for size. The dress was an inch too long, so Julie added another stiff starched petticoat and a pair of high-heeled boots to compensate for the length. She accessorized her new frock with a matching short cape, gloves, and a brown false fringe and curls for her hair. Affixing the hairpieces to her dark auburn hair, Julie stared into the mirror mounted on the wall and debated her color choice of jade green.r />
  She wanted to blend in instead of standing out, and she decided that the man following her wouldn’t be looking for a missionary in a fashionable and expensive Parisian-style walking costume. Although there was no rule against it, no one expected Salvationist missionaries to be people of independent means. The idea that missionaries were poor was an erroneous but pervasive myth, and the Salvationists contributed to the myth by insisting their female missionaries wear ugly gray dresses and black boots that bore no resemblance to anything stylish or fashionable.

  After deciding to wear her new purchase of the green dress and carry her other purchases of a brown-and-camel-striped silk day dress with all the necessary accessories—including a black wig with a straight-cut fringe and hair that hung down her back that she thought would work with her laundry girl disguise. After quickly plaiting the wig into a long queue, Julie had her Salvationist dress wrapped in brown paper along with her new day dress and accessories, then placed her new green bonnet on her head and her old gray bonnet and black wig in a hatbox. She glanced out the front window and saw the San Francisco city constable leaning against the post of a gas street lamp surveying the boardwalk up and down and across the street, watching the late-afternoon shoppers. With her heart racing, Julie gathered her belongings and hurried into the nearest hansom cab.

  “The Russ House Hotel, please,” she directed.

  “Miss, the Russ House Hotel is two doors down,” the driver told her. “It’s hardly worth a fare when you can walk it.”

  “I have purchases,” Julie answered. “I prefer to ride. And I’ll double your fare.”

  The driver heaved a put-upon sigh. “It’s your dollar.”

  Clucking to his horse, the driver pulled out into traffic and drove Julie ten or so feet to the front door of the hotel. He parked his cab in line behind three or four others and waited for the hotel doorman to open the door for his passenger.

  Scooping her packages into her arms, Julie leaned forward in order to exit the cab. Through the window in the door she saw the doorman conversing with the city policeman who had followed her from Mission Street, and quickly called out to the driver, “Driver, I just remembered I’ve other errands to run.”