by Hailey Lind
Frank, on the other hand, looked great. I loved his mussed-up look. I saw it so rarely.
“You drive me insane, you know that?” Frank spoke in a low, intense whisper.
“I—”
“Come here.”
“What?”
“Come over here and kiss me.”
So I did.
He was hungry, demanding. I matched his ardor and then some, melting into him, the pain and fear and frustration of the day’s events dissipating in the face of desire. Finally I pulled away, clamping down on the impulse to crawl right into his lap.
I was startled by a face in my window.
It was Jumpsuit, giving me a thumbs-up, wearing his ski mask like a hat. I sketched a wave in return, and he and Harvard ambled on down the sidewalk.
“Friends of yours?” Frank asked, his arm still curled around me.
“Sort of. Informants, actually. They gave us a lead on your Hermes.”
Frank raised his eyebrows. “That was fast.”
“They said they tried to talk to the management at your club, but no one would speak with them.”
We watched the men push their grocery cart past homes whose mailboxes were worth more than all the pair’s worldly possessions.
“I’m sorry to hear that. Had I been there—”
“I know.” Frank could be stuffy, but he was not a snob.
“Stay with me tonight,” Frank said softly.
“For my protection or for...?”
He chuckled. “I know I’m a Type-A personality, but that is one area of my life I don’t like to plan. Let’s play it by ear, let nature take its course.”
We fell silent. I don’t know about Frank, but I was thinking about nature taking its course. That was followed up, almost immediately, by the horrifying knowledge that I hadn’t shaved my legs in more than a week and that I was wearing my plain-Jane underwear, boring cotton briefs. Oh, and I didn’t have a toothbrush or—
“We could have dinner,” Frank said. “Make it a real evening.”
“You mean a date?”
“What the hell, Annie, we’ve known each other for, what—two years? I say we throw caution to the wind.”
“Whatever happened to your girlfriend?”
“Who?”
“Hildegard. Svenska? Something Swedish.”
“Ingrid. And she’s not my girlfriend.”
“You’re sure?”
He smiled. “Very. Tell you what: I’ll even tell you all about Ingrid. I know you’ve been curious.”
Hairy legs be damned. I could pick up a disposable razor, take a quick shower to freshen up and rinse out the hair goop, and be good to go. I was never one for primping. “What time?”
“How about now? We’ll play hooky. That way I’ll know you’re safe.”
“Oh... I, uh, have to do a couple of things first.”
“Like what?”
“Talk. To...some people.”
“Drop the Hermes case. It doesn’t matter. Or better yet, just give me whatever you turned up and I’ll hand it over to the police, help them with their own investigation.”
“There are a few other things I need to follow up on....”
Frank’s eyes narrowed. “You’re going to keep at this Anton thing, aren’t you? Even though he nearly died last night, Inspector Crawford’s on the case, and you’ve thrown down the gauntlet to one of the most powerful men in Northern California?”
I avoided his eyes. What could I say? The man was right. As high as my blood was running, I couldn’t stop thinking about Anton. I had to pursue this.
“Annie, I’m dead serious. You’ll be lucky to survive the night if you go traipsing around accusing a man like Balthazar Odibajian.” His voice dropped. “And what would I do without you to annoy me all day, every day?”
I leaned forward and kissed him again. For a long time. When I spoke, my voice was husky. “Thanks for worrying about me. I’ll annoy you tomorrow. Promise.”
And hopped out of the car.
* * *
My hormones were stuck in overdrive. Before getting into my truck I stopped in at a corner store and bought comfort chocolate: a Snickers bar and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. What was my problem? Frank was smart and funny and a successful professional. My mother adored him. My sensible friends were fond of him. My looney-tunes friends thought he was a riot. He kissed like...well, like Frank. He made me tingle and my heart race. I was scared to say it, but the truth was, it was easy to picture a future with a man like Frank.
The problem was that this future included a lot of him telling me what to do—or more precisely, what not to do. Maybe I had lived on my own for so long that I didn’t know how to negotiate with anyone. I like things on my terms. I’m not any good at taking orders; hell, I’m not very good at taking broad hints. So did that mean I was destined to wind up alone; a lonely, sad lonesome loner? Wouldn’t I have to learn to spin if I were to become a spinster?
I devoured the Snickers and licked my fingers. A rotund spinster.
Then again, if I was happy with my life the way it was, why was I fretting?
One thing I knew for sure: I couldn’t deal with Anton’s assault and pursue a romantic relationship with my stud-muffin landlord at the same time. Best to concentrate. Forget Frank’s kisses. All of them. Right.
I polished off the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, because they were, after all, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, grabbed the carryall from my truck, and headed back to the women’s room at the Fairmont Hotel to change into my street clothes. The doorman saluted as I breezed past.
Next stop: Cameron House.
Leaving my truck in its precious parking space, I hiked to nearby Chinatown. Within the space of a few city blocks, Nob Hill’s fine homes and apartment buildings give way to storefronts selling lumpy root vegetables, bunches of leafy greens, salt-dried shrimp and fish, myriad varieties of mushrooms—inelegantly advertised as “fungus”—and twisted, unfamiliar fruits that to all appearances had been cultivated on an alien planet. Commerce was alive and bustling in this part of town, and crowds thronged the sidewalks clutching bags of fresh produce or bakery boxes full of delicacies such as sesame balls or pork-filled buns called char siu bao. San Francisco’s Chinatown is a perennial favorite for tourists but is also home to thousands of immigrants and their American-born descendants, and the community is vibrant with cultural variety. In some alleys off the main drags, one could imagine being in a foreign country altogether.
I wandered aimlessly for a few blocks, up one alley and down another, hoping to spot a sign for Cameron House. Chinatown wasn’t that spread out; how hard could it be to find a big brick Presbyterian mission?
Harder than one might think, so I gave up and popped into one of the hundreds of souvenir shops that were jammed with mementos of San Francisco, disposable cameras, sets of embroidered silk pajamas, cheap plastic shoes, and carved jade chess sets. A woman behind the counter obligingly directed me up the hill to the corner of Sacramento and Joice.
The pediment was inscribed OCCIDENTAL BOARD PRESBYTERIAN MISSION HOUSE, but it was more familiarly known as Cameron House. It was an imposing, square brick structure in a city without many brick buildings because, as any California schoolchild can tell you, when you live in earthquake country, mortar is not your friend. Either Cameron House had held up remarkably well over the years or it had been built after the 1906 earthquake and fire that leveled most of the city’s brick edifices. I took a moment to appreciate the beautiful masonry. At regular intervals the bricks were misshapen: twisted, bubbly, and blackened. Intrigued, I ran my fingers over one, slick and glass-like.
“Those are called clinker bricks,” said a young woman coming down the front steps. She wore her glossy black hair in a loose knot at the back of her neck, and a bright quilted backpack was slung over one shoulder.
“They’re different,” I said. “How did they get this way?”
“When bricks are fired some will melt and twist, and are cons
idered throwaways.” She spoke with the breezy confidence of an experienced tour guide. “These bricks became clinkers because of the explosions and intense heat of the fire in the wake of the ’06 quake. The firefighters dynamited the original Cameron House, and much of this section of Chinatown, to save the mansions on Nob Hill.”
“It didn’t work.”
“No, it didn’t. Kind of ironic, isn’t it? Cameron House survived the natural disaster but not the city’s elite.”
“That’s a depressing commentary.”
“I sometimes wonder if the architect who rebuilt Cameron House used the clinker bricks because she liked the way they looked, or as a reminder of how they came to be that way.”
“Who was the architect?”
“Julia Morgan.”
Morgan was also architect of famous Hearst Castle, halfway down the California coast. She rebuilt the Fairmont Hotel after the fire, and the Chinatown YWCA a block away from here, as well as dozens of stunning Italianate Gothic Revival homes and buildings across the bay in Berkeley and Oakland. Not long ago I had done some restoration work in Oakland’s historic Chapel of the Chimes, another Morgan masterpiece. The woman got around.
“Do you work here?” I asked.
“Used to. I practically grew up in this place, along with half of Chinatown.” She held out her hand. “I’m Laurene Chan.”
We shook. “Annie Kincaid. Actually, I was looking for someone by the name of Chan. I thought they might know my Uncle Anton.”
There was no sign of recognition. She shook her head.
“Good luck.” She smiled. “Chan’s a common surname, the Chinese equivalent of Smith or Jones. I have about forty cousins named Chan in the neighborhood, and that’s not counting all the Chans I’m not related to.”
“Oh.” This wasn’t going to be as easy as I’d hoped.
“I even married a Chan, so technically I’m Laurene Chan Chan. Sounds like a dance from the Roaring Twenties, doesn’t it?”
“It does,” I said with a smile. “I’m trying to find someone who might have spoken to my uncle recently. He was...assaulted. Hospitalized.”
“And you think someone named Chan did it?”
“Not at all. But he mentioned meeting with someone named Chan at Cameron House, and I was hoping he or she might be able to help me figure out who did hurt him.”
She glanced at her watch. “Come on in, I’ll introduce you. My cousin Nicole is working today, maybe she was the one he met with.”
We walked into a dark wood-paneled foyer in the spare, sturdy architectural style of the Arts and Crafts movement to which Julia Morgan belonged. A stairwell dominated the ample entry, beyond which a pair of pocket doors opened into a large hall with a small stage at one end. Surrounding the pocket doors was a beautiful mural depicting the history of the neighborhood and Cameron House.
Laurene poked her head into a small office near the foyer. “Hey Nic, this is Annie Kincaid. She’s asking about a man named Anton.”
“Anton Woznikowicz?” She said without hesitation, though I still had a hard time pronouncing his name. “He’s not here today.”
“He’s in the hospital,” Laurene put in.
“I’m so sorry!” Nicole said. “What happened? I just saw him the other day.”
“When was that?”
“Thursday...Friday, maybe. He’s been giving us some advice on preserving our mural. He’s a sweetheart. The kids love him.”
“That’s all he’s been doing here? Working with the kids on the mural?”
“Pretty much.”
“Did he mention anything about fireworks?”
“We don’t sell fireworks,” Nicole said. “We offer services to the community. Not fireworks sales, which are illegal, by the way.”
“I didn’t mean to imply... It’s just that I think he was looking to buy some.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. When you saw Anton did he say anything, do anything unusual?”
She shook her head, pensive. “Not that I remember. He did ask for a tour of the place. I think he was interested in the tunnels.”
10
Today finds me in my adopted city (are you listening, Interpol?) The city of my heart and dreams: Paris. Ah, is there any splendor that compares? The cafés, the opera, les musées...even the subterranean secrets. Except for the smell, the arched brick sewers of Paris are among the most beautiful passages in the world. And they have proved most handy when outrunning Nazis...or Interpol, for that matter.
—Georges LeFleur, “Craquelure”
“What tunnels?”
“I’m afraid I have to run,” Laurene said, heading for the door. “I’m sorry about your uncle, Annie. I hope he’s feeling better soon. I’ll leave you in Nic’s capable hands.”
Nicole waved good-bye and turned to me. “Let me guess: you want to see the tunnels?”
“If it’s not too much trouble.”
“Nah, that’s okay. One of the downsides of working in a historic building—people want to see it. Just don’t be surprised if I hit you up for a donation to the building fund. Let’s start with some history to get you up to speed, shall we?”
Nicole led me to a display case containing an exhibit of sepia-toned photographs from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Groups of young Chinese men, dressed in traditional clothing and with long braids, paused in their labors to peer at the camera, unsmiling. Photo after photo illustrated the challenges facing the immigrants.
“Anti-Asian sentiment was strong in the U.S., especially in California, which drew most of the Asian immigrants in the nineteenth century. Conditions were brutal for the Chinese in San Francisco in those days. The 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act ended legal immigration from China, which meant married men could not bring their wives and families over, nor were unmarried women permitted to immigrate. The result was an illegal trade in young women and girls. Their futures were bleak in China, but when they arrived here they were forced to work as prostitutes. Young girls were sold as domestic servants called mui tsais, though many were also forced into prostitution. Most survived no more than five years.”
“That’s appalling.”
“Not everyone ignored what was happening. In 1895, Donaldina Cameron came to work as a sewing teacher at the Occidental Mission Home for Girls, as Cameron House was then known. A few years later she became the home’s superintendent. When she learned where some girls were being held, she and a few strong men armed with axes would stage a raid in the middle of the night, grab the girls, and bring them to Cameron House.”
“Wow.”
“The girls called her Lo Mo, Beloved Mother. Occasionally the girls’ ‘owners’ bribed the police to attempt a ‘rescue.’ The girls hid in the tunnels until Donaldina Cameron could persuade the police to leave.”
“Do the tunnels still exist?”
“There’s an entrance, but it’s been sealed off. We store sports equipment there now. I can show you if you’d like.”
We descended a set of narrow, steep stairs into a bright basement, where half a dozen elderly Chinese were sorting and packing groceries into paper bags and cardboard boxes.
“Community food bank,” Nicole told me. “Pardon us.”
Nicole led me across the basement to a set of cupboards, and opened the doors to reveal a collection of soccer balls, basketballs, baseball bats, orange cones, and lacrosse nets. Immediately in front of us was a wall of concrete, the side of the street. On each end was clean white wallboard.
“That’s it?” I asked.
“Kind of a letdown, isn’t it?” Nicole asked. “When the original building was imploded after the earthquake, the tunnel was sealed off. That’s assuming it was actually a tunnel; I don’t know if it linked up to anything. It may have been more like a secret room. Look here.” She opened another cupboard and we peered inside. At the top, near the low ceiling, was a gap about a foot high and two feet wide. “Here’s another entrance. I think it must have been bigger back in the da
y.”
“Where does it lead?” I asked.
One of the elderly women spoke to Nicole in Chinese.
Nicole nodded. “She says it leads to a coal chute. Big enough for kids to hide in.”
The elderly woman was gray-haired and stooped, but unless she’d discovered a miracle cure for aging she was nowhere near old enough to have had personal experience with the tunnel. The woman spoke some more, and Nicole answered my unasked question. “Her mother was hidden there.”
“When was that?”
Nicole translated. “Nineteen-oh-four or -five, she thinks. Her mother was rescued from a brothel. She was twelve years old and had been working there for two years.”
I was speechless. I returned the old woman’s smile and nod, but couldn’t stop wondering what must it have been like for a ten-year-old girl to be taken from her family and village in China, smuggled across the ocean, forced to work as a prostitute for two years, seized by strangers in the middle of the night, and hidden in a dark tunnel? I silently thanked the powers that be for my life of privilege and my somewhat insane but always loving family.
“If the girls had been smuggled into the country—no matter that it wasn’t their choice—weren’t they in legal limbo?” I asked.
“They were, and the slave traders counted on that. But they hadn’t counted on Donaldina Cameron. She used her social status and connections to petition sympathetic judges for guardianship of the girls. When the building was about to be destroyed in the chaos after the earthquake, Lo Mo ran back into the mission to retrieve the guardianship papers. She wasn’t about to risk losing her girls.”
“What a remarkable woman.”
I thought about Julia Morgan, another woman who had accomplished great things during a time when there were so many barriers to women’s ambitions. I liked the idea of Cameron and Morgan working together to rebuild Cameron House to make sure vulnerable children were safe and cared for. I also finally had a response for that cocktail-party conversation starter: If you could go back in time, with whom would you like to have dinner?