He turned toward the launch, struggling to contain his anger. "Anthony" he yelled above the noise of the boiler, "can you handle this thing?"
"I never steered one this big, Uncle Byron, but I think I can handle it. We better get a move on, it's gettin' rowdy out there."
"Dad, please. If you won't let me help you, at least let me help The Brotherhood. I can fight as well as any of them."
"You don't know what you're asking, son. Now, deliver the message to The Brotherhood and go home. We'll talk over breakfast." Then he did something he had not done since Isabella's funeral. He hugged his son.
In the pilothouse above deck, Anthony readied the throttle while Byron cast the bow and spring lines. Byron looked back at Hunter, offering a terse salute as they drifted away.
Hunter returned a half-hearted salute, seething with anger at his brother. He fired the Waltham and roared off down the wharf.
"Belvedere," Byron shouted in the stiffening wind. "Get me to Belvedere as fast as you can!"
Anthony pointed the launch northward, opening the throttle. The wind howled and sent a rainbow of spray over the deck.
Outside the Golden Gate, the sun sank in an explosion of red and orange, a fantail of eerie mauve igniting the cloudy heavens above.
They slipped into the ebb tide, Anthony angling the launch slightly eastward to keep them from being pushed out past the Marin Headlands and into the Pacific. Before them, Belvedere Island was disappearing beneath a wispy tail of fog meandering through the Golden Gate toward Raccoon Straits and Richardson Bay.
Christian arrived on the wharf to see the lights of Byron's launch growing smaller as it headed into deep water. He cursed and stomped as the launch pushed out past the cliffs at Fort Point, to the full expanse of the gaping Golden Gate.
On board, a gust hit them like a sledgehammer. The wind and waves lifted the bow clear, slamming the launch on its starboard side. A wave breached the deck, sending Byron sliding toward the stern.
Anthony stumbled to his knees, still clutching the wheel.
Then they entered the rip.
Chapter 9
BELVEDERE ISLAND
APRIL 15, 1906. 7:25 P.M.
Just north of the Golden Gate, at the Spreckels weekend mansion on Belvedere Island, five men waited anxiously for the arrival of Byron Fallon. Three of the men would soon be known by a common name: the Graft Hunters.
The financial leader of the group, Rudolph Spreckels, paced about the room, periodically raising a brass telescope to his eye, his efforts to spot Byron's launch impeded by the fog blanketing San Francisco Bay. At age thirty-eight, Spreckels was medium of height and build, long on courage and integrity. His father, Claus, had been a penniless German who became the sugar magnate of America by developing a process to extract sugar from beets.
Rudolph had made millions on his own. He was a yachtsman, opera lover, and zealot for clean government. He developed a simmering hatred for Rolf when the Boss tried to coax him into buying $15 million in city bonds at half their value, offering to trigger their devaluation with a punishing city rail strike. Rolf demanded half the profits once the strike was settled and the bonds regained their value.
Spreckels had stormed off, too furious to reply. The two had been enemies ever since.
Seated behind Spreckels was Evening Bulletin editor Fremont Older, who had launched the crusade in the spring of 1905. Older had traveled to the White House and enlisted the aid of President Theodore Roosevelt in combating the tidal wave of corruption that followed Rolf’s Union Labor Party sweeping the Mayor's and Supervisors' offices. Roosevelt, who had failed to end graft while Police Commissioner of New York, offered the services of his finest prosecutor, Charles Feeney, but had no money in the Federal treasury to support the effort.
When he returned to San Francisco, Older engaged the help of his friend Rudolph Spreckels, who offered the astonishing sum of $100,000, plus the use of his homes for planning sessions.
"It's getting darker by the second," Spreckels reported, looking glumly down at Older, who was fiddling with his notes and gulping buttermilk in a vain attempt to pacify his ulcerous stomach.
Next to Older sat the worried Fire Chief, Dennis Sullivan. Next to him was James D. Phelan, the reformist Mayor who had been ousted by Eugene Schmitz five years before.
Apart from the group sat mustachioed Federal Prosecutor Charles Feeney, who clutched indictments for half the members of the city administration, from Rolf and Schmitz to the county dogcatcher.
"I'm curious," Older inquired, "as to the presence of a military commander in a domestic affair. Are we expecting another Civil War?" His question was directed to the group's newest and least welcome addition, added that very day at Spreckels' behest: Brigadier General "Fearless" Frederick Funston, Deputy Commander of the Presidio and Medal of Honor winner for his heroics during the Philippine Insurrection.
"We weren't expecting the last one, Mr. Older," Funston answered, failing to conceal his contempt for newspapermen, even one who shared his loathing for the Rolf/Schmitz machine.
The level of tension and uncertainty at the Spreckels house could not match that unfolding on San Francisco Bay.
The wind and waves tossed the launch about like a toy boat. With the fog shrouding them, Byron and Anthony suffered a terrifying, undulating form of vertigo. And they were caught in the riptide.
Anthony battled desperately at the helm, freeing the launch from one swirling eddy, only to be gripped by another. The wind tore at his clothes and torrents of water poured over the bow, slamming against the cabin house and soaking the pilot's roost above. He had vomited a half-dozen times already.
He looked at the deck below, where Byron clung precariously to the railing. A wave crested the bow and swamped the deck, washing him halfway overboard. He dangled by the crook of his left arm, refusing to surrender the leather portfolio he clutched with his right.
Anthony tethered the wheel and slid down the slippery steps, scrambling desperately toward his uncle. He seized Byron by the britches and pulled him back aboard, the pair collapsing on the deck. Anthony thought to take him below, but dismissed the idea for fear Byron might slide into the boiler.
"Hold on, sir! You gotta hold on!"
Anthony grabbed the stern line and tied it to the railing with a double bowline. He pulled the other end of the line around Byron's waist and tied it firmly, anchoring him with five feet of slack.
"Get us out of this damn rip and get us to Belvedere, Anthony. Now!" Anthony pulled himself back up to the pilothouse. He reached for the wheel as a wave hit the bow and knocked him backwards. His foot caught the top of the steps, preventing him from plummeting headfirst to the deck below. He dangled painfully, his foot wedged between the steps, his ankle crushed, until he could muster the strength to grab the rail and pull himself up. He crawled to the wheel, trembling with pain and weeping from exhaustion.
Seconds later, he saw a torrent of water hit Byron in the chest, pushing him toward the stern until the rope jerked him to a wrenching halt. Anthony sobbed, too weak to cry out.
At the mansion on Belvedere, Spreckels scanned the bay through the telescope. "Nothing. It's as black as I've ever seen it."
Dennis Sullivan returned from his fourth trip to the telephone closet. "The conditions are so bad the Life Saving Station can't send anyone out after them," he said, his face a deathly pallor.
Somewhere south of Belvedere, Anthony rode the lip of a whirlpool, gunned the throttle, and vaulted free. He worked the wheel to a heading of approximately twenty degrees northeast and attached the tethers. He staggered down the steps on his one good foot and sloshed his way along the lower deck, grasping the rail for support.
He spotted the rope hanging over the side.
"Uncle Byron! Uncle Byron!"
The boat tossed and knocked him to the seat of his sopping pants. Gasping, he crawled on bruised and bloodied knees through stinging salt water until he reached the rail. From his knees, he jerked the line wit
h all his strength.
The effort sent him reeling backward, clutching an empty rope.
Chapter 10
THE TENDERLOIN
APRIL 15, 1906. 7:40 P.M.
Oblivious to the terror on San Francisco Bay, I was seated in the luxurious Delmonico Restaurant on O'Farrell Street, enduring what seemed, at the time, a horror of my own. A steady stream of Mumm's champagne had loosened Adam Rolf’s tongue and swollen his self-importance. He was singing a wearisome tune that had lasted for hours, making me question if a sudden death for trespassing in his office would not have been a less painful affair.
"The bloody railroad, the curse of the great Leland Stanford. No man will ever obtain real power in this country until he buries the Stanford blight. That's why I let them build the Fairmont Hotel—it blocks my view of his onion-domed monstrosity."
The rant against Stanford had become the chorus of Rolf's verbal memoirs. It had begun, over cheese toast and lobster bisque, with a detailed recollection of his father Warren buying up ships in Yerba Buena Cove after their crews abandoned them for the gold mines in '49. Between mouthfuls of baked oysters, candied yams, and Chateaubriand, he explained how the Rolf proprietorship of the waterfront created "the true Gold Rush. The one that never runs dry."
It left me wondering which component in alcohol encourages a man to hold the floor for hours, reciting ad nauseam the minutiae of his life as though it were some missing biblical text. I am not a temperant woman, but I could well become one.
"Once a man obtains his worldly desserts, Annalisa, he thinks of a legacy. The future. How he'll be remembered. He asks himself 'what can I do for future generations? What can I do to see that able men, men like myself, continue to dictate the course of human affairs? How does one preserve the state of things, insure proper selection, and keep the unwashed and unworthy from destroying what we men of destiny have built?'"
Cross-eyed and beaming with delight over his personal rendition of Social Darwinism, he reached across the Irish linen to stroke the back of my wrist with his index finger.
With the thumb of my other hand, I caressed the razor-sharp tines of my silver dessert fork and fought the urge to pin his hand to the table. "My, goodness," I muttered instead. "We're going to be late for the theater. I doubt Mr. Barrymore will go on without us!"
Forcing a smile, Rolf reached for my arm and led me across Delmonico's thickly carpeted dining room, nodding to all who proffered the slightest genuflection.
Morning, and his arrest, could not come soon enough.
We climbed into the back seat of his newest prize, a gleaming, onyx, block-long Thomas Flyer, for the trip to the California Theater. Tommy cranked the lever and jumped into the driver's seat, and soon had the Flyer at twenty-five miles per hour, scattering horses and angry pedestrians. I squirmed on the tucked-and-rolled red leather seat while Rolf shouted over the noise.
"Fifty horsepower, nineteen precision bearings, same number as there are jewels in a fine Swiss watch. About four thousand, a reasonable price with the leather bonnet. Much less than I paid for the Rolls Royce. And she's faster."
The bumping of the Flyer, the unavoidable bouquet of horse manure and half-burned petroleum sent my stomach reeling. We motored past Union Square, spun a dizzying turn up Bush and in three blocks jerked to a stop at the California Hotel, next door to Central Fire Station.
Overhead, on a wire stretched between the California Hotel and the Bulletin across the street, hung banners featuring Caruso in costume for Carmen and La Boheme.
Tommy jumped from the driver's seat and opened the rear door, extending a calloused hand, a leer across his cratered face.
I entered the theater on the arm of my reptilian host as the fog began pouring down Bush Street, raising my concern for Byron Fallon.
Ten blocks away on the Barbary Coast—in a warehouse dubbed Fort Gunnybags by the Committee of Vigilance, from which they had lynched a half-dozen murderers decades earlier—The Brotherhood prepared for battle. They were minus their principal warrior, Christian Fallon, and none too happy for it.
"Alright," Francis Fagen said, spreading a map onto the planked floor, "we're going to proceed as we are. The Merchant Seamen's Office has requests for seventy able-bodied seamen. They don't have ten available. With the fog coming in, the shanghaiers will be out in force." At age twenty-seven, six feet, three inches tall, Francis was the tallest man in the department. He was a tee-totaling Catholic with a missionary's zeal and a natural instinct for guiding men that made him, along with Christian, shared leader of The Brotherhood.
"Damn Christian, that bastard," Max Rinaldi raged, "leaving the Lieutenant with his ass hanging out like that. I'll kill him when I find him." At five feet ten, two hundred and twenty pounds, with fists like Christmas hams, Max was easily the department's strongest man. He showed more hair on his upper lip than on his head, where a single curl pointed toward a bony brow. He was the only member of The Brotherhood fool enough to do physical battle with Christian Fallon.
Next to Max stood his younger brother Carlo, stout as a whiskey barrel, with arms and hands that could crush a boulder. A lifelong stutter rendered him painfully shy in everything save physical confrontation.
Steadying a lantern above Francis' head was his younger brother Patrick, at twenty the youngest of The Brotherhood, whip thin and nearly as tall as his sibling. He was blue-eyed and slight of physique, as quick with a Bible quote as he was with a nightstick or revolver.
Hunter, the last to arrive, had delivered the news of Christian's failure to arrive at Meigg's Wharf.
"And you're tryin' to tell us your father said you could take Christian's place?" Max inquired.
"That's what he said."
"Strange," Max countered, "seein' he'd never stand for you bein' a cop."
"Right now," Francis said, "we can use every man we got. Hunter can work with me and Patrick. Now, Scarface and the Whale, they work Pacific and Jackson, workin' the slop holes to pay off the bartenders for slippin' Mickey Finns. We'll start on the north side."
The heavy oak door behind them banged open, a silhouette burst in, fingers pointed like six-shooters.
"Bang! You blue bastards are all dead!"
Max was about to pump a slug into the silhouette when Christian stepped into the flickering light cast by the lantern, shouting, "What's the matter, you guys jumpy?"
Christian's boot heels echoed through the cavernous room, halting only as Max holstered his revolver and lunged for him. Before he could wrap his hands around Christian's throat, Patrick and Francis managed to dive for the big man, pinning his arms to his sides.
"I'll kill you, Christian, leaving your father hanging like that. Who's with him, Anthony, that damn idiot?"
Hunter stepped in front of Christian to keep him from counterattacking.
"What are you going to do, Max, hang me for being two minutes late? It's a boat ride, not a gunfight. Save the piss and vinegar for Shanghai Kelly's men." Then he turned to Hunter. "Why didn't you go with dad?"
"He wouldn't let me. He told me to get The Brotherhood after Kelly's men for what they did to Jessie and Elliot."
"He told you to go with us?"
"Since you're too busy slugging down booze to give a damn about your own father, somebody had to do it."
Christian seethed.
Max made another attempt to free himself from the grip of the Fagen brothers.
"Enough of this," Francis ordered. "We got a war going on, the Lieutenant will settle this matter when it's over. Understood?"
Max calmed himself enough that Francis and Patrick let him loose, though they maintained positions between him and Christian.
"All right," Francis continued, "let's get on with it. If Hunter wants to go, he can deal with the Lieutenant later. Divide into two three-man teams."
"We'll divide into three two-man teams," Christian argued, "that way we cover more of the Coast."
"That's not smart, Christian," Patrick said. "Kelly's men work four
to a crew. It's risky, just two of us."
"Three men, too easy to spot," Christian said. "Half of them recognize us a block away as it is. Two-man teams. Let's put the hurt on 'em for what they did to Jessie and Elliot."
Though Francis held the superior rank of Sergeant, power on the Barbary Coast lay in the fist and the revolver, where Christian reigned. At one time or another, he had rescued every one of them.
"Brothers with brothers," Christian said. "Max, you and Carlo start from the south, work Clay Street to the piers. Francis, you and Patrick start north on Broadway. Hunter and I will take Pacific Avenue in the middle and meet up with everyone at the Tiburon ferry slip."
"You're gonna take a green rookie ain't never been on the Coast through Murderer's Triangle?" argued Max. "Who you trying to get killed, you or him?"
"My kid brother can handle anything. Right, Hunter? What were you, middleweight champ down at Stanford two years running?"
"Three. Undefeated. I won every amateur contest in San Mateo and Santa Clara County from middle to heavyweight."
"See?" Christian said, grinning broadly. "If we run into any opium-crazed fraternity boys, Hunter can handle 'em."
Christian extended a hand toward Francis, who passed over a sawed-off, double-barreled Remington and a handful of shells. Christian hung the shotgun upside down from the leather strap inside his coat, trapping the stock beneath his armpit.
They stepped outside and walked silently up Jackson Street, careful to keep Max away from Christian, and passing the night crew and the day crew at Hotaling's Whiskey as they traded shifts.
On Montgomery, Hunter peered up at the banner strung between two Edison light poles that read BENVENUTO ENRICO CARUSO, and in smaller, cursive print, I CUGINI NAPOLITANI. The whole city had succumbed to Caruso fever. Victors and Gramophones blared from apartment windows, smiling schoolgirls twirled their hips, mimicking Carmen's saucy dance. Restaurants and theaters were full, Broughams glistened more brightly and even the whores on the Barbary Coast appeared better dressed.
1906: A Novel Page 7