Her shout sounded loud in her brain, but it was barely audible. A mere whimper, but it was a sound. Suddenly her attacker burst out of the room and shoved her to the side.
She saw the flash of the blade a moment before he stabbed her. The pain seared through her shoulder as her would-be assassin hurried down the hall toward the stairs.
Julie pressed herself against the door to number eight, fumbling with the ribbon around her neck that held the key to Jane Burke’s room as blood ran down her arm and over her fingers, staining her neck and the muslin of her corset cover.
Finally managing to unknot the key, Julie gritted her teeth against the pain, leaned heavily against the door, and shoved the key into the lock. She turned the knob and practically fell into the room.
Dizzy with blood loss , Julie jerked the key out of the lock, then closed the door and relocked it. She leaned against it, marshaling her strength before she pushed away from it and began undressing. Hands shaking, shoulder and wrist throbbing, she unbuttoned the waistband of her petticoats and let them fall to the floor. Standing in her corset, corset cover, boots, and stockings, Julie ripped the paper off the laundry bundle lying on the foot of the bed and reached for the long cloth and began winding it around the top of her corset cover as tightly as she could manage, hoping the cloth would help stanch the flow of blood from the wound in her shoulder. She thought she might faint from the pain and the exertion, but Julie knew that if she did, she would die here. Operating on a combination of terror and determination, she forced herself to pull the tunic of her laundry girl disguise over her head. She sat down on the bed, but her fingers were trembling so badly she couldn’t manage the laces of her boots. Giving up, Julie worked her trousers over her boots, tugged on the drawstring, then stood up and retrieved her black wig from the hatbox from Madam Dumond’s. Biting her bottom lip till it bled, Julie managed to pin her hair atop her head and secure the black wig, which she had braided into a queue. She completed her look with one of the hand-painted conical straw hats street vendors hawked to tourists as Chinamen hats.
She’d left her tinted rice powder at Wu’s, but found a stub of a kohl pencil in the bottom of her reticule. She thought she would line her eyes with it using a tiny mirror and the sliver of moonlight coming from the window, but one eye was rapidly swelling shut and the other had a bleeding cut above it. With her face battered and bruised, there seemed little point in trying to disguise her eyes. At night and in her present state, no one could tell they were blue. Dropping her pencil on the dresser, Julie decided it was time to go.
Unlocking her door as quietly as she possibly could, Julie eased it open and slipped through it. She paused long enough to relock it and pocket the key. There was no going back. Only forward. Taking a last look around to make sure the hallway was deserted, she headed for the back stairs and the service entrance as fast as she dared, walking at a brisk pace, keeping her head low, praying she could make it to her destination before anyone noticed her.
It was late. Past the Chinese curfew. According to the city ordinance, any Chinaman or Celestial woman caught on the city streets past the hour of midnight was subject to a fine or arrest or both. Going out as Jie Li was a risk, but it was a risk Julie had to take. She had no choice but to walk. And if she hurried, she might make it before her strength or her luck failed her.
Julie hurt all over. But she didn’t stop. She was gasping for breath, but she didn’t slow her pace. She kept walking—away from the Russ House, past the Salvationist mission and the women’s dormitory, right to the only place she felt safe.
The Silken Angel Saloon.
Chapter Sixteen
“Let us run into a safe harbor.”
—ALCAEUS, C. 625–C. 575 B.C.
Hey, Keegan, you missing one of your little China dolls?” one of the regular poker players called out as Will walked by.
It was a few minutes before closing, and Will was exhausted and doing his best to persuade the regulars it was time for them to leave and go home so he could lock the front doors. Jack had already called for the last liquor orders before closing and the saloon girls had called it a night an hour earlier after a long, busy evening.
Sunday through Thursday, the Silken Angel operated as a rather staid, conservative establishment in much the same way as a British gentleman’s club. Men came to socialize, drink, play billiards or poker, or try their hands at roulette or faro. It was a quiet, expensive saloon where members of the upper class relaxed and conducted business in the absence of saloon and dance hall girls whose sole objective was to convince men to buy them drinks or to pay for a dance.
Two nights a week—on Fridays and Saturdays—the atmosphere of the Silken Angel mirrored that of the dozens of other drinking and gaming establishments in San Francisco. It was filled with saloon girls soliciting drinks and dances from customers while the piano player banged out lively popular tunes. The card and billiard rooms were packed and the balls were clattering around the roulette wheels at a steady pace. Along with all that activity were customers who purchased tokens granting them access to the second floor and the four women occupying the bedrooms. None of the men were seeking Chinese brides and none of women were prostitutes—Chinese or otherwise. The men buying tokens were “bridegrooms” carefully chosen by Sir Humphrey Osborne and Father Francis from members of the Empire Players stock company, students studying for the priesthood at St. Mary’s Seminary, and a network of the underground Silken railroad conductors. The ladies were actresses, carefully chosen friends, and crusaders brought in by Will and James and Elizabeth to help with the rescue work. There was every appearance of a thriving weekend upstairs business, but it wasn’t real. There were no ladies of the evening upstairs, only ladies willing to play a part and games of chess or checkers or engage in intellectual discussions with gentlemen for a few hours. Even James’s staff in Coryville took turns in the roles. The Treasures’ governess and several teachers at the Coryville Training Academy had spent the weekend helping. A good many of the amateur actors and actresses were teachers, one or two were distinguished journalists, and all of the men and women involved in the drama were abolitionists dedicated to the rescue of San Francisco’s poor, unfortunate Chinese slave girls.
And so the weekend bustle at the Silken Angel seemed perfectly normal, but most of it was a carefully orchestrated ruse designed to hide the true nature of the venture. Will made sure his customers knew that the girls he purchased at auction were off-limits to everyone except the men who had asked him to find them wives. In this case, he let it be known that the youngest girls were sisters of the brides who would be joining the bridegroom’s household. The new husbands were an essential part of the carefully cultivated fiction. They existed for Li Toy, the members of the San Francisco Saloon and Bordello Owners Association, and the tongs. The story Will told of finding Chinese brides for well-to-do bachelors wanting the exotic, rather than the ordinary, gave him the touch of authenticity he needed to convince Madam Harpy his invitation to her auctions was mutually beneficial. It provided Will with the nefariousness he needed to operate on the fringes of the underworld. They viewed him as a procurer, rather than the matchmaker he professed to be.
The participants weren’t random choices. They were part of the expensive, elaborate plan Will and James had spent the past year organizing and implementing. There was a great deal of money at stake and the work of the amateur players was crucial to the success of the rescue missions; everyone took it seriously.
Sir Humphrey and the female Empire players who had pretended to be working prostitutes all evening had quietly gone home the way they had come, through the hidden entrance at the back of the saloon, using the gin wagon to return to the theater after a successful evening’s performance. The male actors pretending to be the evening’s bridegrooms also departed quietly through the private exit, while Will and Jack escorted the seven girls to safety in Coryville. Other players and legitimate customers departed in ones and twos through the front doors, as p
atrons were wont to do after a long evening of drink and entertainment.
The actors pretending to be Pinkerton detectives were still on duty and staying the night. They would be handsomely rewarded for their time and devotion to their craft when the real Pinkertons arrived. Until then, they were working in shifts, guarding the grand parlor and the bar and the doors of the upstairs rooms until the ruse ended, taking turns sleeping in the cots Jack had set up in Ah So’s former room.
The only other people left in the saloon with Will and Jack were the regular poker players who spent a large percentage of their waking hours at the Silken Angel. One of whom had just asked Will about the Chinese girls.
“Not that I know of, Royce,” Will replied. “Why do you ask?”
“I just saw one slip past the parlor door.”
Will was instantly alarmed. “Are you sure?”
“Sure I’m sure,” he retorted. “I haven’t had that much to drink, and I know an Oriental when I see one.”
Will closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and prayed for the patience for which he was well-known. “Are you sure it was a Chinese girl?”
“Looked like a girl,” Royce told him. “From the brief glance I got. But I wouldn’t bet on it. Could have been a boy or a little man, but definitely wearing a Chinese getup with black leather boots.”
“Chinese girls don’t wear black leather boots.” Will knew there were no Chinese girls upstairs. He and Jack had just spent the past six hours moving them from the Silken Angel through the underground tunnels that began in the wine cellar and wound their way through the city. It had been a long, exhausting journey. They had taken the girls into the tunnels as a group, but had been forced to pair them off because the tunnels were too narrow in places for them to walk in anything other than twos. The tunnels were badly lit and claustrophobic, and little Tsin, separated from her sisters for the first time, had cried during the entire trip, and no amount of cajoling or bribing or promises from him that she would see them again as soon as they reached their destination had stopped the steady flow of tears. It had torn at Will’s heart and made his head ache.
“I thought that was odd, too,” Royce remarked. “But, hell, this is San Francisco. It’s cold and damp. Could be she’s tired of having wet, frozen toes, or she likes boots. I don’t know. I only noticed because I was expecting to see those little cloth shoes and white stockings.”
“Was she heading upstairs or downstairs?”
“I didn’t notice that,” he admitted, glancing at his cards. “It was my deal.”
Will understood. Cards came first. After all, Royce was a professional cardsharp. “Thanks, Royce. I’ll check it out.” He looked at the other players. “We’re closing in a few minutes. Of course, you’re welcome to stay and play, but the doors will be locked and the bar closed until eight a.m.”
A city ordinance declared that all saloons and bawdy houses within the city limits close by four o’clock in the morning and remain closed until eight in the morning if they were open to the public for breakfast. If the saloons chose not to serve breakfast, they were required to remain closed until ten.
“We paid for half a case of sipping whiskey to see us through until breakfast before Jack shut down.” Dennison shuffled the cards, passed the deck over to McNamara for the cut, then began to deal. “He’s gone to the storage room to get it.” He nodded toward the door that led to the wine cellar and the storage rooms. “We know where the glasses are. We’ll serve ourselves.”
Will nodded. “The Pinkertons will be on duty,” he told them. “The coffee is on the stove and the mugs are behind the bar. I’m going to see if I can find our mystery girl.”
Jack came out of the storage room carrying a wooden box with six bottles of whiskey in it. He set the box on the table beside the poker players’ table. “What mystery girl?”
“The little China doll I just saw sneaking around,” Royce answered without looking up from his cards. “Came in the front doors and went that way.” He pointed toward the entry to the grand parlor. “Could have been heading up the stairs,” he reasoned. “Or toward the back to Jack’s place.”
The regular poker players knew the layout of the Silken Angel Saloon almost as well as Will and Jack did. They had been coming to the saloon since it opened—had come to view the construction and offer suggestions even before it opened—using it the same way they would use a gentleman’s club: to play cards and drink and smoke cigars all night without interruption. They made use of the bar and the kitchen and the facilities attached to Jack’s apartment, and occasionally the washroom upstairs, but they never rounded the bar or helped themselves to the liquor without paying for it, and they never ventured into the wine cellar and storage rooms. Those areas were off-limits to customers, and the poker players respected Will’s rules. They weren’t interested in flirting with saloon girls or finding Chinese brides, their only diversions were good whiskey and cards. They knew Will had bought girls at auction on two previous occasions and knew the Silken Angel was a temporary rest stop before the girls began their lives with their husbands elsewhere. The regular poker players knew that the only time ladies were present upstairs was Friday and Saturday nights and, since Jack and Will were the only staff members who granted tokens, the clientele was very exclusive. The only time Chinese girls were upstairs was immediately after an auction. If they suspected the upstairs business was a sham, they gladly kept it to themselves in order to retain the privacy and the privileges afforded to them at the Silken Angel.
Jack looked to Will for confirmation. “I didn’t see her,” Will said.
“But it could be the same one. . . .”
Will gave an almost imperceptible nod of his head. “You search the downstairs. I’ll take the upstairs.”
“She’s not in the wine cellar,” Jack said. “I just came from there. I would have seen her on the stairs, and I locked the door behind me.”
“Search the kitchen and the rest of the downstairs,” Will instructed. “She may be hungry again and looking for food. I’ll lock the front doors and look around upstairs.” Glancing at the poker players, he offered an explanation. “We had an intruder last night who helped herself to some food and an empty bed. She may have returned.”
Jack frowned, trying to relay coded information to Will with the poker players none the wiser. As far as they knew, Will’s new China dolls were still upstairs. “I moved Ah So into a different room and set up the cots for the Pinkerton agents in that room.” It wasn’t a lie. Jack had moved Ah So through a web of tunnels and onto a private CCL railway car that would take her to Coryville and a different bedroom. Not that Jack thought it mattered to the regular poker players, but you couldn’t be too careful in a city where the walls had ears.
He needn’t have bothered. The only reply from the poker players was a grunt and a comment that there were a lot of desperate Chinese girls in San Francisco.
Will acknowledged Jack’s message, then turned and headed toward the front doors. He noticed something unusual as soon as he left the grand parlor and approached them. There was a smear of blood on the wallpaper just inside the entry. It looked as if someone had leaned against the wall to rest and left blood behind. There had been a great deal of scattered glass after Julia Jane’s tirade. One of the workmen removing the remains of the front window, installing the canvas, or cleaning up the debris might have cut himself earlier.
Reaching out, Will touched a drop. It was fresh. Too fresh to have been left there earlier in the day. Pushing the front doors closed, he locked them and pocketed the front door key, then rattled the handles to make sure they were secure before he vaulted the stairs to the second floor, following the trail of blood droplets all the way up. He reached the second-floor landing and cautiously made his way down the dimly lit corridor. The chairs outside the bedroom doors were empty, the actors pretending to be Pinkerton agents having all turned in for the night. Will knocked on the door of Ah So’s former bedroom, opened it, and stuck his head inside
. “Good job, gentlemen,” he congratulated them. “The saloon is closed. All the customers except the five regular poker players have gone home. I discovered fresh blood on the floor and on the wall on the way up here. Anyone wounded and bleeding?” He looked around, but the three men occupying the room seemed to be fine.
“No, sir,” one of the men answered.
“Have you seen anyone other than me, Jack, and your colleagues up here?”
“We haven’t seen anyone,” another one offered.
Will nodded. “Well, feel free to make use of anything you need. You’ll find extra toothbrushes, tooth powder, and shaving supplies in the hall closet. If we don’t have what you need, we’ll get it.” Will indicated the door to the closet. “Well, good night, gentlemen, and thank you again for your excellent work tonight. See you in the morning.” Will closed the door and walked to the washroom at the end of the hall. He gave a courtesy knock, then opened the door.
It was empty. As was the hall closet Will checked as he walked by. After searching the six other guest bedrooms and finding them unoccupied, there was only one more place to look.
Will took a deep breath and opened the door to his suite of rooms. He had left several lamps burning, and at first glance his room looked as empty as the others, but there was a spot of blood on the floor beside his bed. He looked closer and saw other drops of blood leading to his private washroom, where the door he’d closed before going downstairs for the evening was standing ajar, and a pair of small black leather boots lay on the threshold. The owner of the boots, wearing black trousers and a white tunic, was lying facedown on the washroom floor, feet still in the boots, a straw Chinaman’s hat hanging by its ties resting on the back of the tunic.
A Wanted Man Page 14