Caruso staggered in from his bedroom, clad in satin nightshirt. Impossibly heroic on stage just five hours before, he appeared as dazed as an orphaned child. Hertz ran to keep him from walking barefoot across a pile of broken glass.
The singer clutched his throat. "Alfred," he whispered hoarsely, "I am lose my voice. La voce è morta. Is died, my voice." The building swayed again, casting the distressed tenor to his knees, a pose as comic and tragic as his beloved clown in Pagliacci.
In her room two floors below, Kaitlin picked her way around the fallen chandelier and overturned furniture to find John Barrymore in an armchair, snoring contentedly. In one hand he clutched a half-empty bottle of champagne; the front of his shirt bore the other half.
"Mr. Barrymore, Mr. Barrymore!"
She shook him several times. A chorus of lurching, guttural hacks was all the effort earned her. She stumbled across the room and slipped into the hallway, where she was pinned against the wall by the rush of people shoving to escape as the hotel continued to waver.
Atop Washington Street, Frederick Funston emerged from his house for the second time that morning. He stared toward the waterfront, tracing the sea of destruction. Clouds of dust obscured portions of North Beach, the Barbary Coast, and the Financial District as the unending collapse of buildings rumbled through the morning air.
The General marveled at the throngs of people rushing about him, dazed but silent, their paths jagged and footsteps wobbly. He had seen the same phenomenon in Cuba and the Philippines, when hardened soldiers returned from battle, unable to perform tasks as simple as opening a canteen.
What he saw next sent a shudder through him: seven distinct plumes of smoke stretching from the waterfront to the Financial District, their dark tails rising through the clouds of dust. He ran into the house and dressed in his uniform.
At his house on Fillmore Street, Eugene Schmitz fumbled with the buttons on his suit, his house intact save for a handful of broken knick-knacks. The impact of the tremor had seemed so mild at the Schmitz residence that the Mayor had considered returning to bed.
A honking horn drew him outside, where Chief Donen's red Model N Ford idled at the curb.
"Just how bad is it?" the Mayor asked.
"Half the buildings downtown look like somebody took a paddy shovel to 'em. All the telephone and telegraph lines are down, everything's busted."
Schmitz shivered. They motored down the cracked cobblestones of Fillmore Street as shopkeepers picked gingerly among the broken windows and fallen shelves.
Donen wheeled east onto Bush Street, the damage worsening by the block. Houses leaned against each other at comic angles, telephone and electric lines lay entangled in piles of bricks and mortar. Scores wobbled from their houses naked or in nightclothes, silent and rudderless. Schmitz gripped the dashboard and mumbled a prayer.
Donen whipped onto broad Van Ness Avenue, its mansions virtually undamaged. The Ford's rubber tires began to slip as a torrent of water poured over the shattered street.
"That water is from one of the three main Spring Valley lines," Schmitz said. "It runs right below Van Ness. This is worse than bad."
In the eerie light ahead of them loomed a sight so alien that Schmitz' foggy mind dismissed it as an illusion. A colossal steel skeleton, like a giant birdcage, towered over Market Street where City Hall should have been. The Mayor searched for other landmarks to confirm he had misjudged the site's location.
Donen stopped the Ford in the middle of Larkin Street, directly across from City Hall.
"Sweet Mary, Mother of God," Schmitz uttered. Not a square of marble or a slab of granite still covered the steel skeleton. The enormous support columns were shattered to their bases. To their left, the massive dome of the Hall of Records had collapsed upon itself, taking the interior of the building with it. Piles of expensive waste surrounded the ruins of the entire three-block structure, with floating papers and clouds of dust hanging so heavily above it that the sunlight was divided into shafts.
Schmitz stepped over the twisted noodles that had once been trolley lines. At the rear entrance of City Hall, he stared down into the hollow core of the shattered pillars. Mounds of compressed newspapers, which corrupt contractors had used for filler, stared back, several of their headlines still legible.
A young reporter from the Bulletin stepped up next to him. "I wouldn't fret, Mr. Mayor. Concrete is expensive. It scarcely leaves enough money for bribes."
Schmitz stared at the reporter for a moment, and then turned to Donen. "We still have a Hall of Justice, do we?"
"It ain't pretty, but it's standing."
Schmitz looked past Donen to the new Central Emergency Hospital a block away. Each of the six floors had collapsed onto the one below. Doctors and hospital staff tore at the wreckage with bare hands, trying desperately to reach patients and nurses who had fallen into the first-floor operating room. Schmitz at last realized the piercing sounds he heard were cries for help.
To their left, across the wide plaza from the damaged hospital, the enormous Mechanics' Pavilion seemed intact. "That's the biggest open floor in the city," Schmitz said to Donen. "Let's set up a makeshift hospital over there."
On Bush Street, the men of Central Fire Station fought desperately to reach Dennis Sullivan. Steam pouring from the station house boiler hindered their efforts to pull a mountain of bricks off their beloved Chief. An aftershock sent more debris raining down on them. The sweating, choking men finally pulled Sullivan free and slid him onto a stretcher as blood seeped from the right side of his skull. They cut through his clothes to find several broken ribs, at least one of which had punctured a lung. Steam had scalded half his body.
They lifted his stretcher as two firemen carried a bleeding Mrs. Sullivan down the shattered stairway.
"Where's my husband? Where's Dennis?"
"He's here with us, ma'am," one of them answered. "We need to get him to Southern Pacific Hospital as fast as we can."
She stepped forward, and her eyes focused on her husband's burns and the blood streaming from his head. Mrs. Sullivan shrieked, collapsing into the arms of her rescuers.
Sullivan's men hoisted his stretcher onto their shoulders and ran toward the hospital at Fourteenth and Mission Street, twenty blocks away.
On Market Street, shock had given way to mounting alarm as Donen and Schmitz bumped their way through a carnival of the bizarre. A woman ran across their path, naked beneath her fur coat, carrying a broken lantern. Sleepy-eyed children dragged their mattresses and favorite toys down the filthy street. A businessman clad in striped undershorts and tuxedo tails stumbled about, holding an empty birdcage. A man on crutches struggled over the jagged cobblestones, a candelabrum dangling from a long black scarf draped around his neck.
A psalm-chanting young woman ran pell mell, holding a naked baby by its ankles like a boiled chicken. Scores of trunk rollers and trunk draggers struggled to move their belongings over lumpy streets and sidewalks. To complete the carnival, masked and costumed roller skaters from the previous night's Mardi Gras at the Mechanics' Pavilion glided in and out of the wreckage.
At the corner of Fifth and Market, Schmitz caught sight of something that frightened him more than any thing yet. Above the tenements South of the Slot rose four plumes of smoke. Another two stretched behind the Emporium near Fourth Street. Before Schmitz and Donen turned left on Kearny, they noticed another black tail arching skyward just beyond the Palace Hotel.
They bounced through the Financial District, dodging businessmen shoving roll-top desks and claw-foot chairs stacked with files. Schmitz gripped the door of the Ford, fighting a wave of dizziness.
Donen stopped the car before the Hall of Justice, cracked in a jigsaw pattern up its entire seven-story façade. Across the street, Portsmouth Square was filling with shouting people who had escaped the devastation in Chinatown. Two-dozen police officers had set up a cordon in front of the Hall and struggled to control a crowd that had already reached two hundred. A young patrol
man ran to Donen. Shouts and calls from the crowd made it difficult for Donen and Schmitz to hear.
"Chief. We got reports of looting breakin' out all over the bloody place. These people here got family trapped in the rubble. They're demandin' we help 'em."
Schmitz inserted himself in front of Donen. "Listen, officer. I want you to take Chief Donen's car and go to every precinct in the city and see that every officer reports for duty. I want a full damage report on every station house, firehouse, and hospital as fast as you can get them, understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Chief Donen, I want you to round up every clerk in this building and have them meet us in the basement." Schmitz hesitated, watching a dozen plumes of smoke growing in the distance. Then he shoved through the cracked front door and skipped down the steps.
Several employees, left over from the night shift, were straightening cabinets and shoveling debris from the floor. "All right," bellowed Schmitz. "Listen to me. I need everyone's cooperation. Is there a printing press anywhere that is still functioning?"
"Yes, sir," replied a bearded secretary. "There's one just up on Sacramento Street, near the Bank of Italy. I was picking up some forms when it hit."
Schmitz found a writing tablet amid the debris and scribbled a note with his fountain pen. "If that press isn't working, find another one. Have this proclamation printed as fast as they can get it out. If they refuse, I'll have them arrested. Understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"I want every bar and liquor store in the city closed down. Anyone who dispenses alcohol will have their stock destroyed immediately. I smelled gas when we were driving in. People are not to use their gas or electricity until further orders. No fires, no indoor cooking is to be done until we get a handle on this thing."
Schmitz handed the order to the trembling young man, who saluted him halfheartedly and ran out. The sound of desperate cries carried from somewhere above them.
"What's that screaming?" the Mayor demanded.
"The prisoners, Mr. Mayor," someone responded. "The jail cells are leaning and the roof looks like it might give in."
"Close the doors and ignore them until we can find a place to transfer them. Now, I want situation boards set up on everything, the hospitals, the fire department, the police department, the telephone and telegraph lines. Casualties, relief efforts, damage reports, everything. Does anybody have any idea how we can send a message?"
"Yes, sir," called a lanky clerk. "A man come by, said the Army office over in the Phelan Building has got a line."
"Get a message to the Governor in Sacramento, the Mayors of Oakland and Berkeley. Tell them we need pumps, fire hoses, and all the men they can spare. And we're going to need drinking water. Send a telegram to the Navy at Mare Island and see what they can do." It dawned on Schmitz that there might not be a Berkeley or an Oakland. "Get those telegrams off," he said, "and find out their conditions. Where is Fire Chief Sullivan? Has anyone seen Sullivan?"
"He's on his way to Southern Pacific Hospital," a gravelly voice called from behind him. Schmitz turned to face Assistant Fire Chief Dougherty, a slumped and white-cheeked man. "He's unconscious. His head is busted; the steam from a boiler burned him something awful."
The news almost knocked Schmitz off his feet. He wanted to close his eyes and pretend that none of this had happened, that the one man he desperately needed had not been lost.
"He was the first casualty recorded," Dougherty added solemnly. "First name to make it onto the sheet."
Schmitz stared into the cloudy blue eyes of the sixty-eight-year-old Assistant Chief, whose engineering expertise had kept him in the department long after his days as a firefighter had ended.
"Mr. Dougherty, that leaves the burden of the department on your shoulders."
"Yes, sir," he said. "I'm a bit long in the tooth, but I will do my best."
"What is the condition of the department?" Schmitz asked Dougherty. "Every fire station I passed is damaged. All the wet cell batteries in the central alarm office over in Chinatown are busted, which means the whole alarm system is down. There's fires burnin' everywhere, and the main feed lines from the Spring Valley are split wide open and spittin' water up through the cobblestones."
"We need a map of the city," Schmitz bellowed. "Somebody find us a map!"
Three blocks east, Hunter and Francis turned from California onto Kearny, shepherding Tommy, Scarface, Adam Rolf, and Shanghai Kelly in front of them. Ting Leo squeezed my hand tightly as we trailed behind.
"How long have you been on the police force?" Rolf demanded of Hunter.
"I'm a veteran," Hunter said. "Today makes three days."
"Three days. Three days and you think you're going to arrest me and get away with it?"
"There are a lot of surprises coming, Mr. Rolf," Francis interjected. "Especially how fast you hit the end of the noose when the trapdoor drops."
I tapped Hunter's arm and pointed to a furniture store two doors down on Sacramento. Three ragged men threw a trash can through the window and began pulling out expensive lamps.
"Hey, you!" Hunter yelled. "Police! Stop!"
Two of the men started to run. The third hesitated and extended a raised middle finger in Hunter's direction, then bolted and dropped the lamp, which shattered on the sidewalk.
Shanghai Kelly scowled. "Don't you bloody Fallons ever mind your own business?"
We approached the growing mob scene on Kearny. Behind the crowd, four columns of soldiers, rifles on their shoulders, turned the corner and headed toward the Hall of Justice. At the head of the pack strode Frederick Funston, his face lost beneath the brim of his campaign hat.
"I'm not sure I like the looks of that," Hunter said as we squeezed past the crowd.
In the basement, Schmitz barked orders to two-dozen men working feverishly around him. "I want someone to make a list of the city's business leaders. I don't care which party they belong to. I want them down here as fast as we can find them."
He was interrupted by the arrival of a limping Adam Rolf, still in his evening attire, his hands manacled behind him. Following him marched Tommy, Scarface, and Kelly.
"Adam," Schmitz called, "what the hell is going on here?"
Francis stepped from behind them and lowered his shotgun. "These men are under arrest, Mayor Schmitz."
"On what charges?"
"Three of them for the murder of Lieutenant Fallon, Mr. Rolf's bodyguard for the attempted murder of Miss Passarelli."
Jessie Donen stormed over. "What the hell is this?"
Francis looked his chief in the eye. "We have proof that Mr. Rolf and Mr. Kelly here conspired to kill Lieutenant Fallon. Scarface and Felix Gamboa did the dirty work, but I guess you already know that since you sprang Gamboa from Alcatraz."
Donen turned livid, growling through clenched teeth. "Talk like that can you get you and your dippy cousin here in a lot of trouble, Officer Fagen. Who the hell gave you the authority to march the City Attorney through town with a shotgun in his back?"
"Prosecutor Feeney."
Donen started unlocking Rolfs manacles. "And where would you have us keep 'em? You hear that yellin' and bangin' upstairs? Them that's locked up now like to bust their way out."
"This is a murder charge," Hunter said angrily. "These men murdered my father and we have enough evidence to hang every one of them."
"This earthquake must have made you boys as loony as the rest of them," Donen answered, his fury growing.
"What I'd like to know, Annalisa," Schmitz inquired, "is what you have to do with all this."
"I collected evidence against Mr. Rolf that helped lead to the indictments."
Before Schmitz could reply, Brigadier General Funston stormed into the room.
"What can I do for you, General?" the Mayor asked.
"It's what I can do for you, Mayor Schmitz. On my way from the Presidio, I chased off a half dozen looters and counted a dozen fires. In a couple of hours, the whole South of Market is going to be on fire. T
his city is going to require order. Military order. I've got two thousand men at arms, ready to follow my every command and protect this city."
"You can't do that, Mayor Schmitz," Hunter argued angrily. "You cannot declare martial law without the authorization of President Roosevelt!"
"And who are you?" glowered the impatient general.
A frightened, baby-faced police officer ran into the room and pushed his way to Chief Donen. "Chief, Mr. Mayor. We got a situation outside. There's rumors runnin' wild a gang of two hundred men are gatherin' down to the train station and fixin' to rob the Mint."
"There's millions in gold bullion in the Mint. General Funston," Schmitz barked, "I want a detachment of your men to surround the building. And I want you to coordinate all the other activities of your troops with me. Is that clear?"
Funston motioned his duty officer over. "Send twenty riflemen to guard the Mint, tell them to double-time over there."
The officer saluted and ran off. Funston returned his attention to Schmitz. "And what about looters?" Funston demanded.
"Shoot them" Schmitz ordered. "Anyone caught looting is to be shot on sight."
I struggled to control myself. "Mayor Schmitz," I blurted. "You're going to let privates and corporals shoot people like they're hunting rabbits?"
"Who is this woman?" Funston demanded.
"I'm a reporter for the Bulletin."
"Ma'am," Funston responded, "if you say another word or try to interfere with the military authority, I'll arrest you and have you carted off to the brig at the Presidio. Now stand back."
Donen finished removing the manacles from Kelly and Tommy.
"Sir," Hunter implored Schmitz, "These men killed the best police officer in the city and we have proof. If you can't keep them in custody, we'll take them to jail in Oakland."
1906: A Novel Page 26