by Megan Chance
Joe said, “You convince him to help me keep Chinatown safe from the city schemers and Jonathan Sullivan.”
I had no idea what he meant or how he expected a society reporter to help him accomplish that. But before I could ask, he went on, “You get me that, I give you the proof you want, and I give Chen Shin what she wants. If you do not—” A shrug. He looked at Shin, such a cold look. “Shin stays in my employ; your cousin finds out what happens when I don’t get paid, and you . . .” He didn’t have to say it. David Emerson.
Shin’s expression was desperate, pleading. This was the freedom she’d wanted. From my uncle, yes, but from something worse. Until this moment I’d not realized how tightly she was bound, or that it was not my uncle who held her, but China Joe.
China Joe said, “Send him to me. I will be waiting.”
With a flick of his hand, we were dismissed.
I was glad to go. Shin seemed equally so. Neither of us said anything until Shin paused a few blocks later and said, “I must leave you here.”
But I wasn’t ready to let her go. I could not forget the way he’d looked at her. “What did he mean when he said that Goldie would find out what happens when he doesn’t get paid?” I asked softly.
Shin hesitated.
“Tell me.” I struggled for the right words, not wanting to offend. “How did this happen, Shin? What debt do you owe him? Why must you do as China Joe says?” Then, as I sensed her discomfort, “No, never mind. You don’t need to tell me. It’s none of my concern.”
“I was brought here five years ago.” Shin stared at the men digging for bronze in the rubble. “In China, my parents were very poor. I had a brother and two sisters, both younger than me. When a man came looking to buy children, they sold me to him.”
“They sold you?”
“It was the way things were.”
“Yes, but . . . your parents sold you?”
“They could not feed me. What else were they to do? He told them I would have a better life, that there were good jobs in America, and that if I was a good worker, I could send money back to my family. Many girls from my village were sold. I was not unhappy to leave. He made America sound like a blessing. He was a kind man, who gave gifts to my parents. He said he would be a second father to me.” Again, a small smile, this time caustic. “He brought us here on a ship—me and ten other girls. When the immigration men stopped us and tried to send us back, men stepped forward to claim us as their wives.”
I stared at her in horror. “Wives? How old were you?”
She didn’t answer, but I could guess by her face. She couldn’t be older than eighteen, which meant she would have been thirteen when they’d brought her here. “Those ‘husbands’ sold us to be whores. I bit mine and ran away—he was old and lame, and I outran him easily. I hid for days, until one of China Joe’s boys found me.”
Alone, in a strange city, sold to a stranger, and then to another, and meant for prostitution, probably in the worst parts of town, the alleys of Chinatown, the warrens of the Barbary Coast. Places I knew about because everyone knew, places carefully avoided, ignored, only mentioned obliquely, “Oh, never go there!”
Shin looked at me. “He paid my debt and put me to work as his spy. Yes, I owe him.”
I didn’t know what to say.
“I have been his eyes and ears for a long time, but I want to leave San Francisco. He has refused to let me go. I tried once.” She held up her hand, fingers splayed to showcase that terrible missing finger. “This is what he did. What do you think he would do if I tried again?”
“He cut off your finger?” I could hardly speak it.
She fisted her hand. Her expression told me better than words what she’d endured, the things I could not know. “He has people everywhere. But he needs what you have, a connection to a reporter. He asked me to bring you to him if you appeared again. I did not want to, because I was afraid for you, but . . . you are different now.”
I laughed shortly. “Yes, you could say that.”
“You must not disappoint him, Miss May.” Her eyes said what she did not. Or me.
Her words weighed heavily. I heard in them her disillusionment, and a bitter pragmatism. She hoped I could do this, but she would not allow herself to believe I could. It had been one thing when it was only me depending on my success. It was something else to be responsible for someone else’s future as well.
“Be careful. China Joe is not the only dangerous man. Mr. Sullivan is too. He could make me disappear. And you . . .” Shin trailed off, but she didn’t need to finish the sentence. I knew very well what would happen if Joe exposed me to my uncle’s private investigator.
But it was time now to play the game I’d schemed in the asylum. It was time to make the next move. “I’ll convince Dante to help. And when I win back my inheritance, if the Sullivans haven’t spent it all, I’ll give you some money so you can—”
“I don’t want your money, Miss May,” she said, raising her chin, and I knew that I should not have offered it.
The sounds of the city faded. Shin and I seemed to stand in a vast plain of silence.
Very quietly, she said, “Your aunt meant to cheat you too, at first, when your mother sent the letter, but then she changed her mind when your mother died. She felt guilty, I think. She talked often of her sister, and the past.”
I thought of how worn and creased my mother’s letter had been. As if it had been read and reread. As if Aunt Florence had worried over it.
“She threatened to tell you everything. Mr. Sullivan told me to give her the laudanum and wrote the letter inviting you here. Then he made me give her more and more, but I could not bear to watch her stumble and she was so confused. The less I gave her, the more she wanted to tell you. They argued all the time. I was afraid. I knew you were looking for the letter, and so I decided to give it to you. That night, I waited, but—”
“The night she died.”
Shin nodded. “I must get back.”
“Yes, they mustn’t become suspicious.” When she turned to go, I said, “I’ll do whatever I must to help you leave San Francisco, Shin, I promise it.”
“I’m glad you’re free, Miss May,” she said.
“Not yet.” I tried, not very successfully, to smile. “But soon, I hope we both will be.”
The Bulletin had set up temporary headquarters on the roof of the Merchants’ icehouse, but the last thing I was going to do was march into a den of reporters all looking for a story. Nearby was a cluster of tents and a still-standing fence where children played with their dog. Beyond, a relief wagon handed out eggs and water to those standing in line. I went to join them, just one more woman waiting for her portion. I didn’t take my eyes from the icehouse.
Several men came and went, none of them Dante. I worried that I might not recognize him, but I hadn’t yet made it to the front of the line when he stepped out, and I knew him immediately. His walk, the way he held himself, that palpable charisma that I’d noted that first time I’d met him. I’d thought I was prepared for the sight of him, but I wasn’t. All I could think about was the last time I’d seen him, at Coppa’s, my juvenile drawing in response to his challenge—so embarrassing. That, coupled with what he must know about my imprisonment at Blessington, suffused me with sudden panic and humiliation.
But he was key to both my plans and China Joe’s. I gripped the vest button in my pocket, steeling myself, and stepped from the relief line. By then, Dante was striding away; I ran after him, not allowing myself to think. I did not call after him. The last thing I wanted to do was bring attention to us both. When I reached him, I fell into step beside him. He lost his stride, looked at me in puzzlement, a double take, then stopped completely.
“Hello,” I said through the tightness in my throat.
“Well, well, if it isn’t May Kimble.” That he’d been mucking about the city was obvious. His shirt was gray with dust and ash and open at the throat to show both his long underwear and the start of the hai
r on his chest. Healing blisters reddened his cheekbones, dark shadows of sleeplessness marked beneath his eyes, and his beard shadow was heavy.
“I wasn’t certain you would remember me.”
“I’m not likely to forget the woman who made Ellis Farge an artist.”
I must not have heard him correctly. “What?”
His dark gaze swept me. “You’re a mess.”
“You don’t look much better.”
He glanced about, and then he took my arm, gently at first, as if afraid I might bolt, and my heart sank, because I recognized the care in it, the kind of care one took with a madwoman, and when he tightened his hold, I knew it was a mistake to have come upon him this way. He was going to turn me in to the authorities.
“Come with me,” he said quietly.
I pulled back. “No. I’m not going anywhere. I’m sorry. I’ve obviously made a mistake—”
“I just want to talk to you, May,” he said earnestly. “But not here. There are too many people. You’ll be safe, I promise.”
“Safe from whom?”
“I’m assuming you sought me out for a reason—ah, I’m right, I see. You can trust me. I swear it. Come on.” He pulled me with him to the narrow stairs of what was now only side walls of mostly collapsed brick and burned frontage. Up those stairs, and then into a corner against a soot-blackened wall that partially shielded us from the street. I was grateful for that at least. All around us, the sounds of rebuilding were a constant music, clanging, hammering, sawing, shouts and wagons and horses. No one was going to overhear our conversation. It was only then that I noted how neatly he’d trapped me. I was in the corner, and though he was not the least bit threatening, he stood before me in a loose stance, one I was certain was deceptive. He could easily stop me should I try to bolt.
Dante looked at my forehead and said, “It’s a bit Frankensteinian, but it makes you even more interesting. You’re going to have quite a scar.”
Gingerly, I touched the stitches. “A building fell on me.”
“Ah. No doubt the reason for your release.”
“I will say that it was rather unexpected.”
“Is it true? What they said about you?”
“You’re the reporter,” I answered. “What do you think?”
Slowly, thoughtfully, he said, “I think you know something about the Sullivans that they’re desperate to keep secret. I think you have the answers to questions I’ve been asking for a long time.”
“You’re wasting your talents being a society reporter,” I said. I met his gaze. “I need your help.”
“All right.”
I frowned. “Just like that? You know where I’ve been and you don’t even know why I want your help.”
“I don’t care. I’ve worried about you. I’ve wondered . . . too many things. Whatever they did to you, you didn’t deserve.”
The words pleased me, but I’d been fooled by words before. “How can you say that? You hardly know me.”
He shrugged. “I know you well enough. I’d been watching you for months before we met, remember. You aren’t mad. Easily manipulated, maybe. Foolish, yes. But not mad. Out with it, May. We’re friends, remember? Tell me what you want me to do.”
So I told him. To his credit, he took no notes, but only listened. When I got to the part about following Goldie to China Joe’s, he whistled low and patted his pockets, searching. “Christ, I need a cigarette.”
“I hope that doesn’t mean you’re afraid of China Joe.”
“I don’t like the sound of that.”
I told him about my meeting in Chinatown. By then we were sitting on the ash- and rubble-strewn floor.
“China Joe wants me to help him keep Chinatown,” Dante said when I finished. “How exactly?”
“He said something about needing a reporter to remind the city what it owes the Chinese. I’m not sure what he means.”
“Hmmm.” Dante mused. “He means that for all the city complains about the Chinese, we can’t exist without them. Imagine it . . . the Chinese are driven out, and with them go most if not all of San Francisco’s servants, as well as all the men willing to work for low wages. Entire industries would be crippled—cigars, boots, men’s clothing . . . The landlords would find the rents they can charge for their Chinatown properties cut in half; white tenants won’t pay those prices, and they won’t be quiet about it, either. Most of the gambling halls close down, prostitution, opium dens . . .”
“You can’t tell me that wouldn’t be a good thing.”
“Except revenues from vice run the city. They’re all in on the graft. The board of supervisors—your uncle included—the police, the commissioners . . . The Chinese who run Chinatown are more powerful than the city wants to admit; they’ve got their hands in everything. And that’s not even to mention China itself. There’ll be no more silk imports for society dresses, not to mention opium. San Francisco would fall to its knees without Chinese investment.”
“China Joe knew what he was talking about when he suggested you, then,” I said with a smile. “You’re very well informed.”
Dante waved that away. “I wouldn’t be any kind of reporter if I didn’t know this.”
“Once you write the articles China Joe wants, he’ll help me. He has the proof I need to ruin Goldie and my uncle.” I heard the chill in my voice, and I saw Dante note it, his stilled attention.
“What about Farge?”
I frowned. “What about him?”
He rose and held out his hand for me. “Come on. I want to show you something.” I let him pull me to my feet, but halted as he started off, and he paused and looked back. “What is it?”
“I probably shouldn’t be seen with you.”
“Why not?”
“The advertisement. The detective. I can’t risk being noticed.”
He frowned. “No one knows who I am, remember? Thanks to Alphonse Bandersnitch.”
“Ellis knows who you are. And don’t be so modest. You draw attention. You know you do.”
He looked genuinely puzzled, and then he grinned. “Maybe it’s only that I draw your attention.”
“Dante,” I said patiently, “I’ve escaped an asylum. I’ve been accused of murder. I’m in hiding. My family is searching for me. I cannot be recognized.”
“You don’t look like yourself. You look like you’ve been through a disaster, honestly. Here.” He took the hat from his head and tossed it to me. “Put this on and tuck your braid under it. Swagger a bit. Pretend you’re a man. I’ve got a reporter’s pass to keep us from being inducted into a work crew. Now come on, it’s important.”
I did as he suggested, put on the hat, shoved my braid beneath it, and followed him back into the street. I was mystified as to what he wanted to show me, and why now, this minute. He gave me no clue, but walked quickly. We were stopped twice for work crews, and Dante offered his pass with an ease that told me he was asked often, took firm hold of my arm when they looked askance at me, and said, “My fellow reporter, Mr. Hardy,” and then led me away before the officer had a chance to question us.
“Mr. Hardy?” I asked.
“A good name, don’t you think? You’ve proved to be a hardy soul.”
As if to belie his words, I nearly tripped over the edge of twisted steel poking from a cascade of fallen brick. “Where are we going?”
“Not much farther now.” All the humor left his face, his full lips pressed tightly together. “It was just completed, so of course they worked hard to save it. It should rightfully have burned to the ground.”
I frowned in confusion. “What should have burned?”
“This.” He stopped as we turned the corner.
There before us was a building I’d never before seen. It was obviously new, three stories, stone and brick, with stairs rising to a pedestaled front. Like the Fairmont, it showed earthquake and fire damage, cracked stairs and pillars, soot from flames staining the stone, and several windows missing glass.
I turn
ed to Dante. “What is this?”
“The new Parson Library for the Arts.” His expression was strange, wary and hesitant. I had the sense that, although he’d felt it necessary to come here, he regretted it. “It was built while you were away.”
Uncertain what reaction he hoped for, I said, “It’s very nice.”
“Let’s go inside,” he said grimly.
“That might be difficult.” I gestured to the two soldiers guarding the door.
Dante started up the stairs. I followed him, still curious, but with increasing tightness in my chest, fed by his wariness or regret or whatever it was.
At the door, he pulled his pass from his pocket. “Reporter for the Bulletin. My associate is an illustrator. We’re doing a story about the library. Since it’s one of the most notable surviving buildings.”
The soldiers glanced at his pass. One of them opened the door. “We’ll have to search you when you come out,” he informed us.
Dante nodded. He stepped back to usher me before him. I gave him a curious glance, but he only offered a small, sad smile, as mysterious as everything else about this.
The foyer was marble, the light sconces on the walls dark, which wasn’t unusual; there was no city light. On either side of the foyer, stairs led to a second story. Another set of wooden doors were before us, light leaking from beneath. I went to them, hearing our footsteps echo forebodingly into the stairway.
I opened the door and went inside.
The room reached the full three stories, with mezzanines at every level. Wooden flat files and bookcases lined the walls, though there were no books—either they’d been taken to save from the fire or they hadn’t yet been shelved. In the center, a squared pillar rose to spread into an arched ceiling. Desks were positioned all around it.
I knew every detail of this room, every single line, though I’d never stepped foot in it before.
“You could put in a few statues.”
“The books are the decoration. Imagine their colors. Calfskin bindings and morocco and gold-leaf—”
“All with uncut pages, no doubt. What’s the point of a book if no one reads it? Are there any paper covers on those shelves?”
