1906: A Novel

by Dalessandro, James

  Caruso approached the headwaiter, who tried not to stare at the tenor's attire. "Hotel ees safe?" Caruso asked.

  "Yes, sir, Mr. Caruso. Mr. Sharon has assured us the building survived intact. He has activated the pumps and has men waiting if the fire turns in our direction. You know the saying, 'if the Palace goes . . .'"

  "I know. San Francisco is go boom."

  Kaitlin appeared in the entranceway, timid and uncertain. Relieved to spot Caruso, she traversed the room in long, jerking strides. "Mr. Caruso. I can't find my father. I've looked all over the hotel. Have you seen him?"

  "I no see him since he is at Opera House."

  "Oh, God. He came here because of me and now no one knows where he is."

  "I am sure is okay. 'E is strong, your fathers."

  Tired and ashen, Kaitlin slumped into a silk-covered chair.

  "Why you are leave the party last night, Kaitlin? You are look for your father?"

  "I was afraid of that horrible Mr. Rolf," she said. "I came back here with Mr. Barrymore. He got drunk and fell asleep. He snored through the whole earthquake."

  Caruso raised an eyebrow.

  "Don't worry," Kaitlin assured him. "I think he likes champagne more than women. I know one thing. I won't be forgetting this any time soon."

  Six stories above them, on the Palace roof, a fearful Alexander Sharon watched as his men hastily stretched fire hoses across the rooftop. The myriad of small fires that had flared between the hotel and the waterfront had merged into three distinct walls of flame that had begun to block the view east of the hotel, obscuring the bay and the Berkeley Hills. He looked at the flagpole above, where the Stars and Stripes flapped steadily toward the southeast. He was relieved that the wind continued to push the flames away from his beloved hotel.

  His relief turned to horror. The flag luffed, flapping about the pole in limp circles as black soot drifted down around him.

  Chapter 52

  NORTH BEACH

  APRIL 18, 1906. 9:20 A.M.

  In the basement of the Hall of Justice, Eugene Schmitz struggled to comprehend the escalating stream of reports and rumors. A written plea for help had just arrived from the Mayor of Santa Rosa, fifty miles north. The entire town now lay in rubble and the ruins were engulfed in flames. Stanford University reported that a majority of campus buildings had been leveled, and the famed botanical gardens destroyed.

  San Jose reported scores dead and hundreds injured. Nearby Agnews Asylum had split in two, killing patients and staff. The Sheriff reported surviving mental patients were running about naked, attacking anyone they encountered. Deputies had captured several and were forced to tie them to trees, where they lay shrieking in the Santa Clara Valley sun.

  Schmitz looked over at Donen, who was at a chalkboard recording rumors of unfathomable calamities. Chicago and New York had been leveled. A chasm drained the Great Lakes into the Mississippi River, now flooding the Midwestern Plains. Denver had been reduced to flat land. Los Angeles had been swallowed whole and San Bernardino was a waterfront.

  "Mr. Mayor!" a messenger shouted, thrusting a paper into Schmitz' hand.

  Donen watched as Schmitz studied the most recent missive. For a man whose most difficult decision until that day had been what to wear to the opera, the Mayor seemed remarkably forceful.

  Schmitz beckoned to Donen. "I have a report here that says a number of General Funston's troops are engaged in looting. Mostly liquor stores. You know anything about this?"

  Before the Police Chief could reply, another messenger burst into the room. "I just came from the British Consul's Office," he exclaimed. "He saw soldiers take six men into an alley behind his office and execute them."

  Schmitz looked calmly at the messenger. "The Army has orders to shoot looters on sight."

  "Yes, sir," the messenger replied, "but he says the men they shot took axes and blankets from a store to help with the rescue effort."

  Schmitz turned back to Donen. "Find General Funston! Get him in here as fast as you can. I don't care where he is. Find him! And I want any soldier involved in looting disarmed and arrested."

  "You want me to arrest soldiers?"

  "I don't care who it is. Go find General Funston."

  Schmitz spotted his secretary, Bertrand, who sported unmatched shoes and a case of apoplexy greater than his norm. "We sent a message to the Navy at Mare Island two hours ago requesting drinking water. Where the hell is it? And send a telegram to the Governor. I want every man who wears a uniform in the State of California as fast as they can get here. National Guardsmen, cadets from the military academies, every one of them."

  "Sir," Bertrand offered. "Perhaps we should post warnings about looting. Maybe give people a warning before we gun them down."

  Chapter 53

  BUSH STREET

  APRIL 18, 1906. 10:15 A.M.

  Hunter and I reached Central Fire Station after a journey made difficult by the growing stream of refugees. Through the shattered doors of the firehouse we could see a spire of the California Hotel chimney had cut the place in half.

  "That's Chief Sullivan's office on the third floor," Hunter replied. "It looks like the front part of it is still standing."

  "What exactly are you looking for?"

  "He was working on a disaster plan for his meeting with Judge Morrow. It's up there somewhere."

  We were ten feet from the door when another aftershock sent us to our knees. A shower of bricks fell from the hotel onto the rear of the fire station, smashing a portion of what it had missed in the previous assault. Hunter struggled to pull me to my feet, fatigue making our every movement an effort.

  "Stay here, Annalisa, it's too dangerous."

  "What? And let you have all the fun? This is my story, remember?"

  "How silly of me," he replied. He took his Buck knife and cut the hem loose from my tattered opera dress, freeing my legs. We stumbled forward, stepping over bricks and timbers from the hotel's spires and entered the station.

  Another small jolt sent bricks from the upper floors crashing to the concrete floor three stories below, setting loose a swirling mass of dust that stung our eyes and nostrils. We pressed against the wall for several agonizing minutes as debris spilled through the abyss.

  "The whole building is unstable," Hunter said. "Stay here. Please."

  I shook my head. Finally, the dust subsided and we scampered up the cluttered steps to the second floor landing. Through the broken windows overlooking Bush Street, we could see the towers of smoke drifting in our direction. We steadied ourselves and tiptoed across the uneven floor to the stairway leading to Sullivan's office.

  "I'll go first," Hunter cautioned. "If something happens, get the plans to Assistant Chief Dougherty as fast as you can." He kissed me and started up the creaking steps as another pile of bricks crashed off the lifeless fire engine below. Hugging the brick wall, Hunter inched his way to the third floor. I took a deep breath and followed, stepping delicately.

  When I neared the top step, I saw there was a two-foot gap between it and the landing. I reached for Hunter's hand and jumped. The stairway collapsed beneath me.

  Hunter seized my wrist with both hands and jerked me forward, carrying me onto the landing atop him. We lay there as the stairs crashed to the floor below.

  "We have to keep moving," he said.

  We forced ourselves to stand and moved cautiously into Sullivan's ruined office. On the other side of the room a birdcage lay crushed beneath a ceiling joist, tufts of blue feathers scattered about. A set of blueprints on Sullivan's desk was partially buried by bricks and plaster. A chasm of twenty feet lay between us and the desk.

  "Here's where I need a bridge," Hunter said. "Something simple, maybe two towers and a nice handrail."

  Hunter found a two-by-ten ceiling joist in the hallway outside. He dragged it in, set one end on the floor and let the other end swing through the air toward Sullivan's desk. It came down a foot short, flipping end over end until it crashed three stories below
.

  "I think that one was a little short," I observed, laughing ridiculously and battling a wave of nausea.

  Hunter looked around and spotted another ceiling joist. He grabbed hold and pulled, grimacing as splinters tore his hands.

  "Some wedding day," he gasped.

  "At least we won't have any trouble remembering the date."

  Frustrated and desperate, Hunter shoved the beam across the breach. One end landed in the center of Sullivan's desk, the other end at Hunter's feet.

  "We better hurry, Hunter!"

  We piled bricks and timbers under our end of the joist until it was fairly level. Hunter climbed on and walked gingerly over the chasm, peeking at the still-steaming boiler three stories below. "I just thought of something," he yelled. "What if those aren't the right blueprints?" He took a breath and danced over the final stretch.

  At Sullivan's desk, he lifted the beam with one arm and slid the blueprints from underneath. "This is it!" he called. "'Emergency Plans For Disruption of the Spring Valley Water System."

  Through a hole in the brick exterior, Hunter could see the waterfront, where a Navy fireboat fed water to firefighters, whose pumpers sent towering streams onto a block-long wall of fire.

  Hunter turned and spotted something behind me. "Annalisa. Work your way to the door left of the stairs."

  I climbed over a mound of debris and jerked at the knob several times before the door sprung open. "It's a fire pole!" I called. "I can't see what's down there. It's too dark."

  "We'll just have to take a chance," he called back.

  Hunter tucked the blueprints inside his shirt and walked swiftly across the beam. He slid down the fire pole, landing on the sign from the California Hotel. I quickly followed.

  "The wind has definitely shifted," Hunter said as we hit the street. "If those fires merge and jump Market Street, there may be no stopping it."

  A block from Mission Dolores, at his home on Seventeenth, Charles Feeney packed his books and legal papers as his wife loaded keepsakes into a steamer trunk.

  "Angela. Just take the things that absolutely cannot be replaced. Photographs, marriage license. Put the most important stuff in one small bag so we can keep it with us."

  A resounding knock came from the front door. Feeney headed down the narrow hallway, yanked the warped door open and stared upward at a man with a large scar on the right side of his face.

  The man flashed a seven-pointed star in a hand the size of a dinner plate. "You folks are gonna have to pull out of here," he said.

  "Who are you?" Feeney demanded. "The fire isn't anywhere near here yet."

  "Special police, deputized by the city. We got orders to move everyone out of this neighborhood."

  Feeney gazed passed Scarface at three thugs, all sporting pistols in their belts.

  "I'm Federal Prosecutor Charles Feeney. You have no authority here."

  Scarface rested his hand on the revolver in his belt. "I don't give a damn if you're President Roosevelt. You don't clear out, we're gonna have to clear you out. Get movin'."

  "Charles, what is it? Charles, what's wrong?" Angela fretted, pushing next to her husband. The sight of Scarface sent a chill through her.

  "I'll grab my papers," Feeney replied.

  Scarface slid the revolver from his belt, his thumb on the hammer. "You ain't leavin' with nothin'. Now get movin'." He stepped aside and motioned for the Feeneys to leave.

  Angela took her husband's arm and pushed him forward, onto the broken sidewalk, where Feeney stopped to stare back at Scarface. "Charles. Please. Don't start a confrontation. Please."

  The pair moved slowly up the hill. At the crest of Mission Dolores Park, three blocks away, they stopped to look at the city below. A curtain of flame stretched all the way from the waterfront to Van Ness Avenue. Angela put her hands to her face and sobbed.

  Feeney turned his attention to his Mission District neighborhood, scarcely recognizing it. The walls of the foundries and bakeries had collapsed. In the open fields near the stockyards and livery stables, cattle and horses stampeded. He looked for the Valencia Street Hotel, the most prominent structure on its block.

  It took a moment before he recognized it. The building had pancaked, the fourth floor resting where the first once stood. Rescuers chopped frantically at the roof as shrill cries drifted from the wreckage. Adjacent houses leaned against one another like barroom inebriates, their windows and doors twisted into cocky grins.

  "There's no reason to evacuate our house! The fire is still two miles away," he shouted. "Wait here, Angela."

  "Charles, what are you going to do? Don't go back there, please."

  He was already running down the hill.

  A half block from his house, he spotted Scarface loading his papers into a horse-drawn wagon.

  "Hey! You! Stop that!"

  Scarface turned and smiled as Feeney hurried toward him. He threw the last of Feeney's legal papers into the wooden bed, climbed into the wagon with his men and pulled away.

  Feeney arrived at the short walkway to his house, struggled to regain his breath, and headed inside.

  He was just inside the front door when the house exploded.

  Angela was less than a block away when the concussion knocked her to the ground.

  Chapter 54

  UNION FERRY BUILDING

  APRIL 18, 1906. 11:30 A.M.

  Frank Leach stepped off the Oakland ferry with the enthusiasm of a man who had taken a wrong turn into Hell. A crush of frightened humanity surged onto the ferry, almost knocking him backward.

  He made his way across the Ferry Plaza, fighting the human tide. On Market Street, he dodged the abandoned remnants of their hasty exodus, temporarily heartened that the city's main thoroughfare had not yet been touched by the flames.

  He turned south at Fifth Street, picking up his pace until he reached the U.S. Mint. The iron shutters, imposing columns, and granite façade showed barely a crack, while across the street, Lincoln School had fallen halfway across Fifth Street.

  A Sergeant appeared from behind a column at the Mint and pointed a rifle at him. On the rooftop, a dozen more soldiers hoisted their rifles to ready arms.

  Leach raised his hands slowly. "I'm the Superintendent," he sputtered, the fire's clamor nearly drowning out his words.

  The Sergeant stepped from behind the column and approached.

  "I'm Frank Leach, Superintendent of the Mint. I must get inside!"

  "I got orders not to let anyone past the front door."

  "Sergeant, listen to me, please. If the place catches fire and you shoot the one man who can save it, how's that going to look?"

  "You got proof?"

  Leach reached carefully into his pocket, producing a letter from the previous mayor, James Phelan, that appointed him Director of the Mint.

  Before the Sergeant could peruse the paper, another soldier approached.

  "I'm Lieutenant Armstrong, the officer in charge of this detachment."

  The calm, handsome young officer was a welcome sight. The Sergeant handed him Leach's paper.

  "Mr. Leach," Armstrong said. "My job is to protect this Mint at all costs."

  "Then you better come with me, Lieutenant. And Sergeant, if any of my employees show, I would appreciate if you would let them in to assist us.”

  Leach sprinted up the granite steps of the Mint with Armstrong next to him.

  Once inside, the two men pushed themselves up four flights to the roof, where a half dozen soldiers loitered, watching the flames.

  "Gentlemen," Leach called, "unless you're willing to burn up with us, I suggest you rejoin your fellow soldiers down below."

  A corporal saluted and led the other men from the roof.

  Leach and Armstrong hurried to the southwest corner and stared out over the burning warehouses and tenements as the pace of explosions quickened. The wind swirled and the temperature soared as heat and smoke from the inferno raging between Harrison and Folsom three blocks away began drifting in th
eir direction.

  "This roof is tar," Armstrong said, "it will burn like hell if sparks hit it. We better strip it down and start soaking it best we can."

  "There's a pump and artesian well below," Leach replied.

  He ran to the front of the roof and looked below, where soldiers argued with a handful of his employees. From Mission Street, a fire captain in uniform ran to the group, pointing at the chest of the Sergeant, then at the building. The Sergeant stepped aside and the men charged up the steps.

  Leach rushed down to meet them, noticing for the first time the mass of debris that filled every office in the building.

  "I'm Captain Jack Brady," the new arrival announced anxiously. "The wind is shifting on us. I know there's a pump in the courtyard, how much hose do you have?"

  "About three hundred feet."

  "That's all the hose you have? For a building this size?"

  "Thank Schmitz and his cronies. They'd rather risk the whole damn Mint than spend a hundred dollars for a second hose."

  Chapter 55

  HALL OF JUSTICE

  APRIL 18, 1906. 12:11 P.M.

  A soot-covered messenger stormed into the basement of the Hall of Justice, shoving through a dozen men. "Mr. Mayor! Mr. Mayor!"

  The urgency in his voice seized Schmitz' attention.

  "Mr. Mayor. The wind is shifting." The words silenced everyone within earshot. "The wind is shifting, sir," he said. "The whole mornin' it's been blowing the fire toward the train station and the waterfront. Now it's bearin' down on Market Street."

  A collective gasp went up. The messenger gathered himself, embarrassed as if the news were his fault. "That's not all, sir. A fire department spotter saw smoke rising from the Hayes Valley."

  "What? We got a report an hour ago that Dougherty's men had a handle on everything west of Van Ness!" the Mayor exclaimed.

  "Yes, sir, they did. There's one hydrant still working out there. As soon as they left, a woman on Hayes Street was making breakfast in a cracked fireplace and set her attic on fire. Now the wind is whipping it up so fast it's heading toward City Hall."