by Janet Fox
“Talks to Jameson.” She wrung her hands. “I hide up here with Yue.”
All my sorrow coalesced into anger at Wilkie. “He can’t take her away. She’s not his slave. He doesn’t own her.”
“He think so. She a slave to him.”
“How could he know where she is, Mei Lien?”
“Someone tells.”
I shook my head. “But, who . . .” Miss Everts—it must have been her. I stormed out of my room to confront Miss Everts at once, but she was not in her room. Jameson materialized in the door.
“Where is she?”
“She’s gone out.” His blank eyes regarded me.
“Jameson, I—I wish to do some shopping. Take me into town.” If I couldn’t find Miss Everts, I’d look for Wilkie. I’d look where I’d seen him before.
Everything was at an end for me. David was gone. Will had betrayed me. My pa . . . I had no more hope. I had nothing left to lose, except the fight over these girls.
It was time to make an end of this business.
Chapter TWENTY-EIGHT
April 16, 1906
“The Barbary Coast! . . . That sink
of moral pollution, whose reefs are strewn
with human wrecks . . . The coast on which
no gentle breezes blow . . .”
—San Francisco Call, November 28, 1869
JAMESON TOOK ME DOWN TO MARKET STREET. I ASKED him to drop me near the department store where Miss Everts had purchased my gown.
“I’ll walk home.” Jameson looked skeptical. I didn’t care. “I’ll be back by four.” By that time, I knew I would have found Wilkie, or I’d have given up.
I went into the store and made a few purchases with some of the money Mr. Gable had paid me for the sittings. Things for Yue, mostly: a shawl, a skirt and shirtwaist, and some underthings, all of which I arranged to be delivered to Mei Lien at Miss Everts’s.
Then when I was sure Jameson had left, I slipped out the side door and headed straight for the alley where I’d last seen Wilkie.
It was silent and deserted. I walked all the way down to the end, but found nothing save for scraps of paper that eddied along the gutter. I turned and headed back toward Market. The sun didn’t reach to the ground in this alley, and the place felt like the underworld.
I was glad to be on my way back toward safety, and stumped as to where to look next, when a door in a brick front opened ahead and Wilkie stepped out into the alley. Quick as a fox, I darted into the shadows along the wall.
He was the very devil. I felt like I’d called him up from the depths of hell. But now that I’d found him, what on earth was I going to do?
I’d follow him. Perhaps I’d discover something I could use against him. Something to put him behind bars for good.
Thankfully, he didn’t look in my direction but stopped to pick his teeth, his other hand resting casual on his hip. He tossed the toothpick into the street, tilted his hat forward over his brow, and walked out of the alley and onto Market.
Stepping as quietly as I could, I followed him down the street. When he paused, I paused, staring into windows at my own reflection, or rifling through my things, my back turned to him. Wilkie had caught me unawares too many times before—I would not let it happen again. I’d honed some keen skills for stalking in the woods, to the misfortune of more than one rabbit.
Wilkie marched down Market toward the Embarcadero, the ferry landing and trolley station at the edge of the bay. He seemed fixed on a destination; I was fixed on him. Cable cars trundled past; autos honked and tooted; boys whistled. The air was choked with the acrid, raw smells of the city, masking the clean salt smell that wafted in only when the breeze picked up.
I was a block or so behind him when Wilkie suddenly turned right, and I stopped, realizing where he was headed. The Barbary Coast.
I waited for what felt like several long minutes, but was most likely only a few seconds, staring across Market, dwarfed by the buildings that towered above my head and blocked out the late-day light. Fear pressed against me—I dared not go back to the Barbary Coast. And yet the thought of Yue hardened me.
I took a deep breath and pressed on. When I reached the intersection where Wilkie had turned, I stopped again.
Wilkie had disappeared. I’d waited too long, and lost him. I stared down the street. Within sight of the thriving businesses of Market, the Barbary was a seedy refuge, with saloons spilling music and raucous laughter. I took a few halting steps.
Men staggered and women leaned and loitered. At one tavern a man thrust his head out the door and hollered at me, using foul, coarse words. I kept my head up and continued walking, looking for Wilkie, determined to find him.
But instead I found Min.
She hovered in a doorframe just beyond the corner, slipping in and out of the shadows, but there was no mistaking. I stopped, then stepped backward, turning to put the corner between us. She’d saved me from Wilkie—perhaps this was my chance to help her at last. If she was finally alone, away from Wilkie, why then, maybe I could spirit her away. But I needed to be sure.
From the far end of the alley a man approached Min’s doorway. I jerked back from the corner, plastering myself out of sight. I put my hands on the cold stone, pressed my back against the wall, mashed myself against it, closed my eyes. David. The man coming down the alley toward Min was David.
I heard their voices; I was only just around the corner. I couldn’t make out words; in fact, they spoke in their own tongue. Their tone was enough. Familiar, hushed, affectionate. David, familiar and affectionate with Min. With Wilkie’s Min.
David had let me go. He hated Wilkie. It must be that David was trying to rescue Min, just as I was. But for different reasons. Of course, David and Min—it made sense. They were the same.
I shut my eyes. I could hear them talking, so familiar. A tear rolled down my cheek, stopped at my trembling chin.
David’s voice became animated; I opened my eyes and leaned around the corner, trying to see.
“Ah, missie. And here we are again.” That familiar cadence, rasping and harsh, came from behind me like a slap right between my shoulder blades.
I’d forgotten how big Wilkie was. He stood so close, my stomach clenched from the stench of his breath.
A bubble of loathing and fear rose up quick at the sight of him. Fear that was compounded by the thought of Min and David standing just around the corner, unaware that this evil man was merely a few feet away. A prickle of sweat beaded on my forehead.
I sucked in my breath. “Wilkie, I was looking for you.” I tried to edge down the wall away from the corner, to draw him with me and away from David and Min. But he only angled closer, so I couldn’t move.
“Ah! Well, what d’you know. That makes two of us. Me looking for you, too, that is. And you know what? You thought I didn’t know you were on my tail?” He gestured with his finger. “You weren’t following me, girl, I was following you.”
“Stay away from Yue.” My knees shook, but my voice was sure.
His eyebrows shot up. “Now, Kula, that’s no way to talk to your friend.”
“I’m not your friend. You stay away from those girls. You don’t own them.”
“Ah, don’t I now?”
“No, you don’t! Stay away. And I’ll make sure you suffer for every injustice done to them.”
He smiled, that missing tooth a gaping black hole. “You can make sure of nothing, girl. I got to your father, and now I have you.”
“No one has me.”
“That so? You know, you’d fetch a fair price, you would. Now what if I was to tell you them girls is mixed up in the business about your pa’s box?”
That stopped me, choked my words in my throat. From a distance I heard a steamer horn and the clang of a cable-car bell. “How is that possible? You don’t even have the box anymore—Will told me.”
“Oh, so you know that everybody’s mixed up in it. Will, that Miss Everts, and that man of hers is, too.”
&
nbsp; A weak sickliness weighed on my limbs. Wilkie moved closer to me still, close enough I had to turn my face away. My back was pressed so hard against the bricks, I thought I might push right through the wall.
He whispered. “You ever hear tell of folks being shanghaied? It’s when someone’s knocked for a loop and wakes up to find hisself—or herself—on a ship. Bound for the Orient. Where there’s good money for girls like you. Just a wink and you’d be gone, and no one would ever find you. This place around here, nobody cares what happens.”
Even though people moved about and it was broad daylight, anything I did was useless. What had I been thinking coming after him? Coming here? Wilkie could throw me over his shoulder and march me away, and even if I screamed, it’d merit scarcely a look. No one knew where I was, and even if they did, no one in this town cared for me—not Will, not Miss Everts, not David . . .
David—David was right around the corner. David and Min. Wilkie had followed me, and I’d led him straight to a meeting between David and Min.
I didn’t want Wilkie to see them together. I feared for them, too. I thought about the money I’d earned from Sebastian Gable. “What if I told you I could pay you?”
“You?” He threw back his head and roared with laughter. And then to my horror, he stepped to one side, and caught David and Min in his line of sight. Wilkie’s laugh cut short, and I saw David and Min, their faces, and I knew. And so did they. We were all caught in Wilkie’s web.
“Well,” said Wilkie. David stepped in front of Min, putting himself between her and Wilkie. “Ain’t that a pretty sight. And don’t that beat all. And now I know who’s been betraying me.” Wilkie’s face grew dark, and I saw in it the hurt, the anger, and all directed at Min.
I tried to reach Min before Wilkie did, but she was faster. She pushed past David and past me and went direct to Wilkie. He took her chin in his great fist as David tried to press on them, but Min thrust out her arm against David. She succumbed to Wilkie.
“Shall we have a talk, yes, my love?” said Wilkie.
Min’s eyes closed, and she nodded as best she could.
“You leave her alone.” David started forward.
“Or what?” Wilkie turned his narrowed eyes on David. He lowered his voice. “What are you going to do to me? Look around. You think you start a fight in here you can finish? I got more friends in this here byway than you have in the entire country. So back off. You think you can protect that one there, too?”
He meant me, and now I saw—David could not help Min and me both, not here.
“Back off,” Wilkie repeated.
David stepped away.
Min reached her hands up and took Wilkie’s in her own. “I love you.”
“Yes, I’m sure you do. And I love you, too, my Jezebel. So off we go then, right? And you”—Wilkie looked back at me—“don’t you worry none, I’ll come find you again, girl. I’ll find you.” Wilkie took Min’s arm in that vice grip, and David and I, helpless, watched them walk away, Min stumbling behind Wilkie.
“He’ll kill her,” David said. I heard the anguish in his voice.
“He loves her. I’ve seen it. He hurts her, but he’d never . . .”
David looked at me as if I were simple. “Do you think that matters anymore, Kula? Come on, Wilkie was right. We’re fish in a barrel here in the Barbary.”
“You were here for her.”
He laughed as if I was an idiot. “She’s a spy. She watches Wilkie’s movements. That’s what he meant—he knew there was a spy on him, and now he knows it’s been her. She’s been helping us so we can find out where the girls are, when to get them out. She’s been doing this for months. And if you hadn’t interfered, it wouldn’t have turned out like this.” David grabbed me by the shoulders. “What are you doing here? You’ve been interfering right from the start. All that business about your father’s box. You’ve been messing with things that we’ve set up, and so many lives in the balance. You’ve cost us so much. And Min’s life, now, that’s almost certain.”
“I was trying to help!” His words stung—though I knew they were true. It was because of me that Min . . . I’d as good as led Wilkie right to her. I pressed my palm to my forehead, shut my eyes.
“No, Kula. You weren’t helping anyone but yourself. Let’s think. You said you were trying to find a way to get your father out of a jam, but really you wanted whatever treasures were in that box. When we first met, you pretended to be Miss Everts’s guest, not her servant. You played all sincere when you just wanted to become a society girl. Between me and Will, you chose Will because he has the money, the power. You’ve been playing two sides of the fence for too long.”
I pulled away from him and leaned back against the bricks. “You’re right.” I knew what my heart wanted now, but it was too late. Too late.
He waved his hand in the air, not looking at me. “That won’t help Min.”
“What can we do?” I’d lost him forever, but I couldn’t lose Min.
“We need to see Miss Everts.”
“Miss Everts—no! David, she’s in league with Wilkie. I’ve seen it! We can’t—”
“No.” David shook his head, with a harsh laugh. “No, she’s not. Phillipa Everts has been walking a very tight rope for a very long time. You’ll see.”
“But I saw her giving him money. She’s—”
“Come on. You’ll understand.” I followed him out of the alley, and out of the Barbary, but he wouldn’t look my way.
David was right. I hadn’t saved my father. I’d let myself believe that I stood a chance in Will’s world, and threw away the one man who held my heart. And I hadn’t saved Min, but doomed her. David was right. I’d had my mind fixed on myself.
Chapter TWENTY- NINE
April 16, 1906
“It was then I began to understand that
everything in the room had stopped,
like the watch and the clock, a long time ago.”
—Great Expectations, Charles Dickens, 1861
MISS EVERTS WAITED IN HER DRAWING ROOM, ALMOST as if she knew we were coming. At first glance, she looked as she always did: done up in her silk and satin. But when David and I walked into the room, I noticed something new. The dress she wore today—expensive, surely, for the fabric was blue silk and the details finely made—was fraying a bit along the hem, and the lace had been mended more than once. And she wore no jewelry.
David spoke first. “Miss Everts, Wilkie discovered Min with me. He knows about her.”
“That’s unfortunate.” She spoke softly and, I was surprised to hear, not without compassion.
“We have to get to Min—”
Miss Everts pursed her lips and didn’t respond.
I clenched my fists. I could no longer play these games. “Miss Everts. I’m hiding a girl in my bedroom. I’d wager you know that already.”
She nodded. “The clothes you bought her were delivered in your absence. And Jameson isn’t blind.” She smiled, a fleeting smile. “I’m proud of you for thinking to protect the poor thing.”
I straightened my shoulders. “And I saw you with Wilkie. I saw you hand him money at the Hendersons’. You’re working with him. You’ve been working with him all along.” My voice rose with every word I spoke.
David, standing at my elbow, coughed.
She said, “Well, now. David, tell her, for pity’s sake. She knows enough of it anyway and is only going to keep getting it wrong.”
“Kula, Miss Everts is trying to save the girls. But to do that, she has to either buy them or steal them away. It all has to be done with great care and secrecy; that’s why no one told you anything. No one in the law wants to get mixed up in Chinese business. No one in the government will back us up. Wilkie has powerful connections. We have to do what we can.”
“I have a home across the bay, if you remember,” Miss Everts said. “That’s our way station. We smuggle them out, to safety.”
“So,” I said, “Yue and Mei Lien, you stole the
m?”
“Not Mei Lien,” said Miss Everts. “Jameson bought her straight off the docks. We’ve let Josiah Wilkie think that Jameson has a . . . fetish. That’s what you saw me doing that night—buying girls.” Miss Everts sighed. “But it’s expensive. I haven’t enough money left for buying these poor girls outright. I’ve just about run through everything. Stealing them before Wilkie gets his hands on them is our only recourse now.”
The candlesticks, the silver, the worn clothes, the missing jewelry. I knew where the money had come from. She was, indeed, trying to save souls. I’d misjudged her, and badly. In that instant, Miss Everts gained my undying devotion. I bit the inside of my cheek, took a breath. “But I don’t understand. Mr. Henderson was there when you paid Wilkie . . . How are the Hendersons involved? And what about my father?”
David spoke up. “Wilkie’s been in and out of the business for years, trafficking in human flesh. The Hendersons, well, William Henderson, and now Will, employ Wilkie to do various bits of their dirty work.”
This was beyond imagining. “But how could they? How could the Hendersons let Wilkie do such a thing? Trafficking in girls . . .” I could hardly form the words.
“They don’t know.” Miss Everts was firm. “At least young Will does not. He thinks it’s all import and export of art and other goods, not slaves. When you saw me in that room, Kula, William Henderson thought I was paying Wilkie for some stolen art.”
I whispered, “Why didn’t you tell me?” I thought about what I might have done differently, what might have changed . . .
David said, “We didn’t want to involve you. This is dangerous business. We didn’t want you to know.”
“But whyever not?” My blood boiled up. “If I don’t know about it, then I can’t help to stop it, can I? I hate it! It’s outrageous and ugly.”
“Of course it is,” said Miss Everts. “Dear girl, it’s the way the world works. Unfortunately, there’s much that is ugly about life.”