A Wanted Man

by Rebecca Hagan Lee

  Will Keegan. The Silken Angel Saloon.

  Ignoring the pain in her legs and feet, Julie shifted her position, peered through the gap between the barrels, saw that the light shining from the small lantern on the table was brighter than it had been earlier, and recognized Will Keegan as the man seated at the table closest to her corner making notations in a ledger. Julie gasped, the air leaving her lungs in a rush as she recalled William Burke Keegan’s assurance that there were no girls upstairs in the Silken Angel Saloon. That he lived upstairs. Alone.

  And she’d believed him. Trusted him.

  Fury swept over her like a tidal wave. Julie clenched her teeth to keep from screaming her outrage. He was either a liar or the living arrangements at the Silken Angel Saloon were about to change.

  Will Keegan had just purchased a woman at auction for one thousand American dollars.

  But that wasn’t the worst of it. Ten more women—girls, really—were auctioned that evening as Julie sat hidden in the dark corner behind the beer barrels. Ten more girls were paraded almost naked onstage in front of the foot lamps. Ten more girls were poked, prodded, and pinched while being inspected as merchandise.

  Will Keegan purchased seven of them. Without giving them more than a cursory glance. Without leaving his table. Without inspecting the merchandise.

  Hugging herself, Julie pulled her knees to her chest, gagging as anger and nausea and regret threatened to swamp her.

  She, who prided herself on being a good judge of character, had made a mistake.

  He was a liar and a scoundrel. He wasn’t a gentleman.

  And she was a fool for believing otherwise. Julie felt the sting of betrayal like bitter quinine on her tongue.

  She wanted to scream. She wanted to stand up and confront the beast masquerading as a gentleman, to bear witness to his perfidy. She wanted to run. She wanted to soak in a steaming-hot bath to rid herself of the sounds and sights and smells of the Jade Dragon, soak until she felt clean again, then curl up on her bed, pull the coverlet over her head, and forget everything she’d seen and done since she’d come to San Francisco, but she sat frozen in place, determined to stay to the bitter end. To see what happened after the auction. To see what happened to the girls . . .

  Julie pinned her gaze on Will Keegan and waited for her opportunity to escape. . . .

  * * *

  “HOW WE DO?”

  Will looked up from his ledger as Li Toy approached his table. He waited until the other attendees began filing out the door before replying. “You’re a few thousand dollars richer. I’m a few thousand dollars poorer.”

  Li Toy laughed. “You charge ten dollars and keep girls on their backs at the Silken Angel, you make that money back in no time.”

  Will narrowed his gaze at the madam. Her shrill laugh grated on his nerves. He had to steel himself to keep from flinching when Li Toy leaned over and placed her hand on his shoulder.

  “Ten dollars?” He didn’t like to think how long it would take the girls to earn a thousand dollars apiece one customer at a time. “You must be joking.”

  Li Toy shrugged her shoulders. “The Silken Angel is very nice. You charge twenty dollars.”

  “Is that your going rate?”

  “For very nice house,” she replied. “Ten dollars top price for the Jade Dragon and the Lotus Blossom.”

  Will tapped the ledger with the end of his pen. “And all your other parlor houses . . .”

  Li Toy laughed again and gave him a playful shove. “You know better than that. Ten dollars for parlor houses Jade Dragon and Lotus Blossom. Five dollars for boardinghouses. One dollar for nice cribs. Twenty-five cents for cheap cribs.”

  He’d never seen evidence of there being any nice cribs. “And auctions?”

  “You tell me,” she said. “You pay me seven thousand dollars. Now. In cash.”

  Will smiled. She was testing him. There were formalities that must be observed in order for the sales to be finalized. He knew it and she knew it. Reaching into the inside breast pocket of his jacket, Will pulled out his wallet, removed seven thousand-dollar banknotes, and stacked them neatly on the table before him for her to see. “I believe the contracts require me to make payment to the young ladies in question.”

  Will didn’t consider the contracts legal or binding, but the Chinese merchants who imported the slaves from China demanded that each girl sign a bill of sale or indenture for five years and willingly accept cash payment for their services. That meant the money must be placed in each girl’s hand before she signed the documents. After signing the contract, the girl immediately gave the cash to the person who arranged her sale. Because there were laws forbidding the importation of Chinese women for purposes of immorality, the contracts afforded the buyer legal protection from prosecution for trafficking in slavery.

  Li Toy gave him an unwilling nod. “You pleased with auction?”

  “I don’t care for the process,” he told her. “I would have paid you fifteen thousand for the lot to avoid it.”

  “And have other buyers say you Li Toy’s favorite gentleman?” She shrugged. “Then nobody come to Li Toy’s auctions no more.”

  “If I buy your entire shipment you won’t need to arrange auctions,” Will pointed out.

  Li Toy shrewdly narrowed her gaze at him. “If Keegan not like competition, why you want so many girls? You building a parlor house to rival Li Toy’s?”

  “I have a very exclusive clientele,” Will said. “Gentlemen visit the upstairs of my saloon in order to meet the brides they pay me to find. Those gentlemen can’t afford to risk disease. They prefer untried partners and pay handsomely for opportunity to be first. As a consequence, I’m always in the market for virgins.”

  “You crazy, Keegan,” she scoffed. “You no need new virgins. You can keep the same one for years. Men not know the difference.”

  “These men know the difference,” Will told her.

  She relaxed. “Then I sell you more girls.”

  Will nodded.

  “For now, tell me how much I make tonight.”

  “Seven thousand from me and two thousand for the other four.” He scratched some numbers in the ledger. “Minus the twenty-five hundred you paid for them equals sixty-five hundred.”

  “Minus more expenses,” Li Toy added.

  “How much more?” Will asked.

  “Two hundred fifty dollars for miss expenses.”

  “Miscellaneous expenses?”

  Li Toy nodded.

  “Sixty-five hundred minus two hundred fifty dollars equals six thousand two hundred fifty dollars,” Will answered.

  “Profit?”

  He nodded.

  She clapped her hands together. “Very nice for me.”

  “Indeed.” The idea of paying Li Toy a princely sum for seven of her unfortunate countrywomen made Will’s blood boil.

  The madam laughed once again. “For you, too,” she reminded him. “You get seven lovely Celestial virgins for your gentlemen who pay top dollar.”

  “According to you.”

  “According to Hong Kong broker, but I inspect girls myself.” Li Toy shook a finger at him. “I guarantee.”

  “What, no Chinese physician?” Will emphasized the fact that Chinese madams generally used Chinese physicians because they could be bribed and controlled more easily than American doctors. Chinese doctors understood the trade and profited from it. They weren’t terribly interested in rescuing the unfortunate victims of prostitution.

  “Physician cost money.”

  “I believe the contracts specify a physician.”

  “Bah!” She dismissed his concern. “You no good businessman, Keegan. Why pay doctor when you can inspect girls yourself before you buy?”

  Will did his best to erase the mental image of Li Toy inspecting those poor girls. The knowledge of what they had endured to come to California was sickening. These women—most of whom were little more than girls—had been betrayed at every turn: first by their families who so
ld them to the “bride” brokers, who in turn shipped them to California in the company of men whose job it was to break them to the idea of a life of prostitution and slavery. Then they’d arrived in San Francisco and been handed over to this vile little woman, who stripped them of their clothing and their personal modesty and sold them at private auction to the highest bidder. In this case, Will knew his ends justified the means, but the burden of guilt he carried for buying human beings weighed heavily on his Knoxist conscience.

  “They’ll need clothes,” Will said.

  Li Toy held out her hand. “Four dollars apiece.”

  Will shook his head. “You try this ploy every time we do business,” he chided the madam. “They were wearing clothing when they docked. They didn’t come into port naked, and I can’t very well parade them through Chinatown the way you had them dressed, can I?”

  “New tunics and trousers cost four dollars apiece,” she insisted. “You owe me.”

  “What happened to their other tunics and trousers?” he demanded.

  “Filthy rags.” She shuddered. “I burned them.”

  “If you burned their clothing instead of having it laundered, you’re responsible for replacing it.” He looked Li Toy in the eyes. “I just paid seven thousand dollars for these young women. I am not paying for new tunics and trousers in addition to that. The way I see it, you owe me twenty-eight dollars.”

  Li Toy cackled in delight at his response. “You learn fast, Keegan. You better businessman than I thought.”

  Will closed the ledger. He wanted to laugh at the irony of the situation. He was an investment banker by trade. During his years with Craig Capital, Ltd., he’d made good investments and amassed a tidy fortune. He could buy and sell Madam Harpy a dozen times over, but the illiterate Chinese madam was complimenting him on beating her out of twenty-eight dollars’ worth of clothing for seven women for whom he’d paid seven thousand dollars. Of course, any price was worth it, but Will was aware of the irony all the same. “I’m just a saloon keeper,” he told her. “Certainly not the businesswoman you are.”

  Li Toy gave him a conspiratorial smile. “I like you, Keegan.”

  He couldn’t say the same. Lifting a shot of the whiskey from the bottle he’d brought with him, Will gave her a mock salute. “Then I’m a fortunate man.”

  “You pay too much money for worthless girls, you know.”

  “Perhaps.” He took another sip of his drink. “But it’s only money. . . .”

  “Only money?” The concept was sacrilege to a woman like Li Toy. In her world, money was everything. “You one crazy foreign devil.”

  “Perhaps,” he drawled once again. “But I believe the ladies are worth it.”

  “Bah!” She waved a dismissive hand at him. “These girls no different from any other loungei girls.”

  “I beg to differ, madam.” He stared at the little woman.

  Li Toy lifted one thinly plucked eyebrow.

  Will smiled. “These girls are special. They’re my girls. And I’d like them dressed and delivered to me inside the hour.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

  —WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  She’s gone.” Will glanced over at the corner several minutes after Li Toy left the cellar to secure clothing for his purchases and to see that they were readied for delivery. “You can come out now.”

  Julie sucked in a breath. If he thought she was going to stand up and present herself to him, he was drunk or mad or both.

  “I know you’re behind the beer barrels,” Will continued. “I heard you rustling around back there earlier in the evening. I don’t know who you are or what you’re doing here, but if you’re one of Kip Yee’s men, tell him the auction is over, the merchandise is sold, and any attempt he might make to seize it would be foolhardy and unsuccessful.”

  Julie stayed frozen in the corner.

  Will stood up and stretched, then turned his back and took a moment to straighten his notebook and the ledgers. “Are you going to stay there and hide or make the most of your chance to escape? There’s only one way in and out of here. If you’re going to flee, might I suggest you do it while my back is to you? Before Li Toy returns with her bodyguards.” He paused a moment, listening to the rustling behind the beer barrels as the stowaway scrambled out of his hiding place.

  “No need to thank me,” he called after the figure scurrying through the cellar door. He raised his glass in a private salute, refilled it, and returned to his seat at the table. “Consider it my good deed for the day.” Will hoped it didn’t turn out to be his only good deed of the day. He had purchased seven girls, removing them from the life of degradation and hardship Li Toy had planned for them. His purpose was to guarantee them a better life. These girls hadn’t come to America for the opportunities it afforded them. Almost to a woman, they had come unwillingly. They’d traveled thousands of miles away from everyone and everything they loved to be enslaved for someone else’s gain. Will clenched his teeth and firmed his jaw at the idea. Just because they hadn’t come willingly didn’t mean these young women should be denied their piece of the American dream.

  “I brought unworthy girls.” Li Toy entered the cellar followed by the seven young women he’d purchased, all properly clothed in trousers, tunics, and shoes. Two hulking hatchet men she’d employed for her protection brought up the rear. She marched the girls to Will’s table.

  “Contracts? Bills of sale?” Will glanced at the madam.

  Li Toy clapped her hands and one of her hatchet men removed a bundle of papers from the sleeve of his tunic and handed them to the madam, who placed them on the table. “Here.”

  Will pulled the contracts and the bills of sale in front of him, opened his ledger, and dipped his pen in the ink bottle. He looked at the first girl. “Name?” he asked in English.

  The girl didn’t reply until Madam Harpy translated his question into Cantonese. “Ah Lo.”

  Will wrote her name in the blank space on the indenture contract, then handed her a thousand-dollar banknote, which she handed to Li Toy in response to her impatient prompting. He recorded the amount of money he’d paid the girl in the place allotted for that purpose, then handed her the pen and watched as Ah Lo made her mark at Li Toy’s urging.

  He repeated the process with Ah Fook, Ah Woo, Ah So, Ling Lau, Ling Yee, and Ling Tsin. When he finished, Will paused long enough to take a sip of his whiskey in hopes of erasing the bad taste in his mouth. He had drawn up and signed hundreds of contracts during his tenure at Craig Capital, all of them fairly negotiated to suit the needs of all the parties involved.

  There was nothing fair about the contracts binding these young women to him. The contracts, drawn up by the madam, were slanted in the purchaser’s favor. The documents secured the rights to each woman’s body for a term of five years in order to repay the sum of money paid for them. The women were entitled to purchase their freedom at the end of service, but there was little likelihood of that happening, since they did not receive wages and there were penalties for missing work and for escaping or attempting escape. Three months of service were added to their indenture for any attempt at escape, and a month was added for each day of work missed due to sickness—including days of the month the women endured their menses. If they had menses. Will’s heart ached as he looked at the two youngest girls, sisters Ling Yee and Ling Tsin, who at eight and seven years of age had yet to reach puberty. He couldn’t fathom the sort of man who would choose to slake his passion on a female child. And yet Will knew those depraved individuals existed. And what was worse was knowing that he had probably crossed paths with more than one of them on any number of occasions.

  Taking the pen from little Ling Tsin’s fingers, Will dipped it in the ink pot and recorded their names and ages on the bill of sale. The deal was done.

  It was time to take the girls to the Silken Angel Saloon.

  * * *

  AFTER MAKING HER ESCAPE FROM THE BAS
EMENT OF THE Jade Dragon, Julie hurried to Wu’s Gum Saan Laundry to retrieve her Salvationist dress, but the business was closed and locked, and Julie had been unable to wake Zhing or her father-in-law without drawing attention to herself and waking Wu’s neighbors. She had no choice but to leave her missionary costume where it was. Unfortunately, that meant she wouldn’t be able to return to the room she’d rented at the Russ House Hotel dressed as a Chinese laundry girl, or return to her cot in the women’s dormitory at the mission. She had no place to stay—unless she could find a way inside the Silken Angel Saloon before Will Keegan led the girls he’d bought at the auction to his place of business.

  But fear of discovery kept Julie confined to the shadows at the rear entrance of the saloon. On Friday night the place was a beehive of activity, with men coming and going along the side alley and through the opened front doors. Julie listened to the music of the slightly out-of-tune piano, the low rumble of voices, and the occasional roar of laughter while she waited for her chance.

  Shivering in the cool night air, Julie shifted her weight from one foot to the other, doing her best to ignore the dampness seeping through her cotton shoes and socks. Her feet were as cold as blocks of ice, and she longed for the warmth of her ugly missionary boots. But wearing boots with her tunic and trousers in her disguise as a laundry girl might have aroused suspicion in Chinatown and brought questions she would rather not answer, so she had reluctantly left them behind.

  She had only herself to blame for the impulsiveness that had led her to Li Toy’s cellar. She could be safely tucked into bed at the hotel or sleeping in the dormitory with her fellow female missionaries—not that the women sharing her dormitory cared where she slept as long as it wasn’t in the male dormitory. Salvationists were free to come and go as they pleased and to seek lodging elsewhere. Her bed was hers until she informed the head of the mission that she no longer needed it. In her desperation to find Su Mi, she’d once again acted without thinking, and it was going to cost her more time spent hiding in the miserable damp and cold of night in San Francisco.