1906: A Novel

by Dalessandro, James

  Lincoln reached the middle of the street and looked skyward, bewildered by a towering shroud of fire and smoke.

  Earthquake. A damn earthquake. The whole city is on fire.

  He looked up Battery Street, trying to recall the route he had taken with Tommy.

  Lincoln navigated the wrecked neighborhood, straining to clear his thoughts and dodge the Barbary Coast's garish survivors. Garbled laughter drifted from a saloon, where dozens of people crowded around a barrelhouse piano. A whore with rouge-stained cheeks and matted hair limped through the swinging doors to stare at him, the fire's glow adding a ghastly tint to her cadaverous face.

  The battered sheriff spotted the closest thing to salvation. He plunged his head into a half-empty horse trough, the water stinging his blistered mouth.

  On Clay Street, Lincoln approached a familiar house. A Negro butler deposited a trunk into an automobile parked askew on the crooked sidewalk. Through the house's open door, Lincoln recognized a heavy-set woman.

  He hurried up the steps as gamely as his legs allowed.

  "Hey, you! Where you goin'?" the colored man yelled as Lincoln slammed the door, flipping the bolt behind him.

  "What the hell do you want?" Tessie asked defiantly, then shouted. "Joseph! Joseph!"

  Lincoln grabbed her by the throat and slammed her against the wall. By instinct, his other hand found the derringer in a small pocket inside his duster. He cocked the upper cylinder and rested it against her chin.

  "My daughter," he said in a raspy voice.

  "Your daughter. Who the hell is your daughter?"

  Joseph banged at the door. "Miss Tessie! Miss Tessie! You all right? Miss Tessie!"

  Lincoln shoved the barrel of the derringer deeper into Tessie's ample chin.

  "Ah, yes. I remember. Rolf told me to help get rid of you. If it wasn't for this damn earthquake you'd be halfway to Shanghai."

  "Where is she? If you lie, I'll kill you."

  "That'd be the day Adam Rolf is worth dying for. Try his house on Nob Hill. Top of California Street. That's the last anybody saw her, at the shindig after the opera. Now, get the hell away from me."

  Chapter 58

  VAN NESS AVENUE

  APRIL 18, 1906. 4:00 P.M.

  Christian, Francis, Patrick, and Carlo arrived at the Spreckels mansion, the only building ablaze for a mile in any direction.

  "Damn," said Christian, "they beat us here. I'll kill them, I swear to God."

  An old man ran toward them, waving to attract their attention. "Are you friends of Spreckels?" he gasped.

  "We're police officers," said Francis, "we came to help him."

  "You're too late. Mrs. Spreckels had her baby on the sidewalk. He took them to the hospital at the Presidio." The old man caught his breath. "I'm James Stetson. I live on the next corner."

  "Did you see who did this?" Christian asked.

  "I saw some men running out. The kind of swine you see on the Barbary Coast. One was real tall, had a big scar, his pal looked like one of those circus strongmen, tattoos and a bald head. Mrs. Spreckels was still lying on the sidewalk with the baby, the whole damn place was on fire."

  "Is anyone hurt in your house?" Francis asked.

  "I live alone. I got my bathtub and all my pails filled with water and I'll fight if it comes knocking on my door."

  "Feeney's dead, Spreckels is probably safe at Letterman Hospital," Francis said to the others. "Ain't nothing down Van Ness in that direction except Christian's place. I got a hunch Kelly and his thugs are out to settle a score." He looked at Carlo, who stood staring at the ground, his breathing labored.

  "Mr. Stetson," Christian said, "my brother is supposed to meet us here. Hunter is his name, he should be on a motorcycle. Tell him we're at my place on Union Street."

  "You're Byron Fallon's boys. Cryin' shame what happened. I'll wait for your brother as long as I can."

  "Thank you, sir." Christian turned to Francis. "I'm about ready to finish this."

  A mile east, Hunter and I worked our way down Montgomery Street through the mounting debris and flood of refugees, the sound of dynamiting now as rapid as an artillery barrage. On California Street, Hunter spotted Amadeo Giannini and two clerks carrying sacks from his Bank of Italy office to two dump wagons loaded with vegetable crates.

  "Mr. Giannini," Hunter cried, "are you alright?"

  "Yes, Hunter," he replied, settling onto the wooden bench and seizing the reins. "I've got every dime of the bank's money in these sacks. I'm going to try to make it to my brother's house just down the Peninsula a few miles."

  "Are you armed?"

  "I have an old pistol. I'm not sure it works, don't think I've ever fired it."

  "You best go up Broadway, cut across to the Great Highway and El Camino Real. It’s the only way."

  Giannini saluted. "Please share my condolences with Christian. Your father was a great man." His horses had barely moved when an explosion down the street panicked them.

  While Giannini fought to steady his team, Hunter and I looked skyward as flaming debris spread over two blocks in each direction. A burning couch landed atop a three-story building a hundred yards away. In seconds, the wood shingle roof, bone dry from the heated wind, burst into flames.

  A group of twenty soldiers stood in the center of California Street near a caisson full of black powder, admiring the results of their handiwork.

  Hunter appeared ready to intervene when I tugged at his arm.

  "It's useless, Hunter, they're following Funston's orders." We were about to leave when we heard the soldiers shouting "Halt! Hey, you! Halt!"

  Half a block up California, a man ran from a butcher shop, a box of food in his arms. Two soldiers raised their rifles and aimed at his back. "Hey, you! Halt!" a Sergeant yelled.

  The man kept running. They fired. He pitched forward, spilling meat and sausages across the cluttered street. He rolled onto his back, motionless.

  Hunter ran to the Sergeant in charge. "Are you crazy?" he yelled. "How could the poor bastard hear anything that far away?"

  The Sergeant moved toward Hunter menacingly. Hunter produced his badge.

  "I got my orders to shoot any looter on sight" the Sergeant answered.

  "How do you know he didn't own that butcher shop? How do you know he wasn't taking food to his family in Golden Gate Park so they could eat tonight?"

  "I got my orders. Now, you get the hell out of here before I take you in for interfering with the military." The Sergeant headed toward his troops.

  "This is insanity," Hunter raged. "No one has the right to suspend the Constitution and order summary execution. Funston couldn't wait to make himself emperor."

  A few doors from where the body lay, soldiers emerged from a liquor wholesaler, carrying wooden boxes filled with whiskey. Several empty bottles already littered the sidewalk where they set the cases down.

  "Looters. They got soldiers shooting people for looting, then looting stores themselves," Hunter said.

  "And he'll answer for it," I argued. "Come on. We can't stop the whole Army. There's nothing we can do except find Francis and Christian."

  I seized Hunter's arm and pulled him away as another building exploded, showering flaming wreckage on top several stores, instantly setting them on fire.

  "April eighteenth, nineteen-oh-six," he said. "The day the world went crazy."

  We motored up Sacramento Street to avoid the soldiers. Block by block, we passed soldiers forcing people from their homes, the occupants pleading for the right to salvage their possessions or stay and fight the flames. Just below Nob Hill, we could see the Stanford, Crocker, and Rolf mansions still intact and imperious.

  At Van Ness, we found James Stetson standing before the flaming Spreckels mansion.

  "You Hunter Fallon?"

  "Yes, sir. Did Mr. Spreckels and his family get out?"

  "He took his wife over to the Presidio, she just had her baby. Your brother Christian was here. They went to his place. I think they're gunnin
' for the scum that did this."

  "Are you going to be alright?" Hunter asked.

  "I'm old and rich and I lived a good life. I got nothing to complain about."

  Hunter re-engaged the gear lever and powered down Van Ness, through streams of water as broken mains continued to gush.

  It dawned on me that horses had become scarce, trolleys and cable cars non-existent. With the ruptured streets and fallen buildings and abandoned possessions piling up everywhere, Hunter's motorcycle and a handful of automobiles were the only vehicles moving.

  We wheeled onto Union Street, raucous music and drunken laughter pouring from dozens of barely upright saloons.

  Two short blocks from Christian's flat, Patrick jumped from the shadows and flagged us down. Hunter killed the Waltham's engine and coasted to the wooden sidewalk, where he leaned it against an iron lamppost.

  "You don't want to go down there just yet," Patrick warned. We followed him through the splintered door of a boarded-up storefront and up narrow wooden steps to a loft on the second floor where Christian and the others waited.

  "What the hell are you guys up to?" Hunter asked.

  "Staking out a burglary," Christian replied.

  "We're chasing burglars now?"

  Hunter moved next to Christian. Beyond the rooftops of Union Street, the reflection of the billowing flames, a mile behind us, danced off the surface of the bay, adding a disturbing crimson hue to the dark water. Christian pointed toward his flat, where Shanghai Kelly stopped a heavy dump wagon near a pile of familiar furniture.

  "They're robbing your flat!" Hunter said.

  "Elizabeth's mother bought that furniture during the Civil War. Good riddance. Besides," Christian added smugly, "it's insured. Three grand. Way more than it's worth."

  We watched as Shanghai Kelly pulled the hitching pin and led the horse to a water trough further down the street. Scarface and Dumbrowski emerged from Christian's flat with a wooden file cabinet, hoisted it above their heads and smashed it on the cobblestones. They laughed like jackals.

  "How many are there?" Hunter asked.

  "Kelly, Dumbrowski, Scarface," Christian answered. "Plus three more rummies from one of Kelly's crews." He noticed me for the first time.

  "Annalisa."

  "Hello, Christian," I replied. He looked pained and worn, his face still bruised. He smiled, but it was a hollow effort.

  "That was a brave thing you did," he said.

  "Your father was worth it."

  "I meant agreeing to marry my brother."

  Everyone laughed, a scant respite from the tension and ominous task at hand.

  "What say you, little brother?" Christian asked. "Time to settle the score?"

  "I'm in," Hunter said.

  "Are you going down there to arrest them, or pick a gunfight?" I asked.

  "That's up to them," Patrick interjected, fondling his revolver, his pale blue eyes intense, unflinching.

  "That's just what they want," I answered. "Draw you out in the open so they can kill you."

  "We tried doin' it civil-like," Christian said. "The time for talk is over."

  He shouldered his shotgun and started for the door. Francis, Patrick, and Carlo followed, the latter without looking up from the floor.

  I seized Hunter's arm. "You are the man who was going to change things, remember? The one who is going to do things differently?"

  "I'm part of them now, Annalisa. If Kelly and his men raise their hands and throw down their weapons, we'll arrest them."

  "And if they don't?"

  "A gunfight makes for better copy."

  The cavalier response dismayed me. "I thought you were taking after your father. Now you're starting to sound like Christian."

  "We're family, Annalisa, you get a little bit of everything in every one of us." Hunter gazed anxiously toward the stairway. "Either way, Kelly and his lot have killed their last good man."

  "I pray to God you're right, Hunter."

  Hunter pulled his revolver and ran down the steps to join Christian, who was waiting in the doorway, gazing up Union Street.

  "You think they've spotted us yet?" Hunter asked.

  "No, but they will if we march down there like Pickett's Charge. That's what Kelly's hopin', that's why he's makin' a spectacle out of bustin' up my place like that."

  Christian spotted an abandoned camelback trunk ten yards away with a mound of women's clothes spilling out. He crouched low and ran to the trunk, where he pulled out an antique blue gingham dress, holding it against his chest.

  "This lady here ate real well," he said grinning. "There's enough fabric in this one for a small tent."

  Outside Christian's flat, Kelly and Scarface were on alert, watching for trouble as their cohorts carried Christian's belongings to a wagon.

  From the window, I could see Kelly fix his gaze on two women who approached from a block away, partially hidden by a trunk they pushed atop a child's wagon.

  Kelly turned away and took a fire ax to a chest of drawers.

  Christian and Hunter, crouching behind the trunk, maneuvered the wagon over the craggy surface of Union Street. Hunter tried to shove the floppy brim of his flowered bonnet back far enough so he could see, with little success.

  "Elizabeth has a fit deciding what dress to wear," Christian said, "and look at you. Gussied pretty as an oil painting. Nice strand a' pearls and maybe Annalisa can get you in the society page."

  "Too bad I couldn't find a purse to match the outfit," Hunter added, peeking over the trunk as they closed within half a block.

  "It was Anthony," Christian blurted.

  "What?"

  "Anthony. I always thought he was just plain loopy, but it looks like opium cooked his brains. Donen found out, told Anthony if he didn't keep him apprised of Dad's activities, he'd fire him."

  "What did you do to him?"

  "He's a foot away from a straightjacket, permanent. Killing him would be a favor. It was my job to protect Dad and I couldn't even do that."

  "Seasick as you get, Gamboa would have killed you both. Let's just get the guys who did it."

  I paced frantically at the second-floor window, watching as Francis, Patrick, and Carlo slid from the doorway to a debris pile, fifty yards behind the dress-wearing Fallon brothers.

  Somewhere, a tinny piano and a screeching woman's voice played "It'll Be a Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight."

  Christian clutched his sawed-off shotgun against the back of the trunk and wiped the sweat trickling down his face. "Once the shootin' starts, don't stop until all of them are dead."

  "We should give them a chance to surrender," Hunter said.

  "You're not going to start that again, are you? Just keep your head down, keep squeezing, and cover each other while we reload."

  They closed the gap, my fear mounting so that I had to force myself to watch.

  Kelly studied the enormous trunk moving down the street in his direction. A gust of wind lifted the bonnet of the shorter one, revealing the battered face of Christian Fallon.

  "Cops!" Kelly screamed, jerking the revolver from his belt.

  Christian and Hunter ripped off the restrictive hats and dresses. Kelly fired first, splintering a corner of the trunk.

  Christian squeezed the trigger of his shotgun and ripped a hole in the dump wagon a foot from Kelly's head.

  Hunter aimed at Scarface as the big man dove toward an overturned table. The slug missed, smashing into the cobblestones.

  Francis, Carlo, and Patrick, outlined by the devilish red light, fired as they charged.

  Hunter saw a man emerging from the flat, his revolver aimed at Christian. Hunter fired: the bullet exploded in the man's chest and dropped him in the doorway.

  Kelly's shot bounced off the trunk and grazed Christian's shoulder.

  A blast from Christian's shotgun smashed the oak table where Kelly had crouched and sent the Irishman scampering for better cover.

  Carlo, howling like a madman, charged down the middle of the s
treet firing repeatedly at Dumbrowski. A slug from Carlo's revolver shattered his lower leg and sent the giant sprawling.

  Someone leaned out from a doorway and aimed at Carlo. Before the man could fire, Christian dropped him with a single shot.

  "Carlo, get down!" Hunter screamed.

  Scarface put a shot through Carlo's side; Dumbrowski put another through his shoulder. Still, Carlo charged.

  "Take cover," Patrick yelled. Carlo never heard him.

  Dumbrowski, trying desperately to crawl to cover, screamed as Carlo's next shot caught him in the groin. The next silenced the tattooed giant by taking off the top of his head.

  Carlo's revolver clicked empty. He threw it down and pulled a hunting knife, closing on Scarface from twenty feet. Christian and Hunter fired furiously, trying to keep Kelly and Scarface pinned down as Carlo closed.

  Scarface leaned around the edge of the oak table and pumped another shot into Carlo's side. Carlo stumbled, but still he charged.

  Francis opened up on Scarface, desperately trying to keep him from firing at Carlo.

  A bullet from Scarface's revolver entered Carlo's open mouth and exited the base of his skull. Carlo staggered and collapsed at the tall man's feet. I sagged to my knees and sobbed, clinging to the window sill. Christian put a round close enough to the oak table to take off most of Scarface's ear.

  A red-bearded man poked a rifle from the window of Christian's flat. Francis and Patrick fired, peppering the man with lead. He fell headfirst onto the sidewalk, a bloody spray arching from his shattered skull.

  Kelly poked his head from behind the dump wagon, firing at Christian and Hunter, bullets ricocheting inches from their legs.

  Patrick and Francis moved forward, ducked into a doorway, and fired at Kelly, who pulled another revolver from his belt and fired back. Kelly's round shot off a doorframe and caught Patrick in the shoulder.

  Patrick staggered onto the sidewalk, grimacing, blood oozing through his shirt. Francis stepped in front to shield him, firing at Kelly and Scarface until his revolver ran dry. He grabbed Patrick's revolver and fired one shot before it too expired.