Land Sharks

by S. L. Stoner

  Once settled into leather arm chairs, Sage related to Solomon, Fong’s Snake River story. Throughout the long story, Solomon sat motionless, his long hands steepled before his face, its high cheekbones making his face regal, like that of a tribal chieftain, though whether African or American Indian, Sage could not have said. This Carolina man could claim ancestry from both continents.

  Solomon listened without speaking until Sage finished, after which he said,“My poor friend, such an awful tragedy for his heart to bear.” His reaction was not surprising. Solomon and Fong had discovered an affinity and forged a friendship based on mutual admiration. The black man was one of the few men Fong quoted with regularity, along with Chinese sages, Confucius and Lao Tse.

  When Sage spoke of Kincaid’s death in the Columbia River and the organizer’s widow and baby, Solomon’s dark face softened and he seemed to gaze inward at yet another troubling memory.

  “Always the mothers and the children,” he said with a deep sigh, “Always the mamas and babies are left behind.”

  Having given Solomon the story, Sage made his request. “Fong said that the underground runs beneath the New Elijah, right below our feet.”

  Solomon nodded. “The underground is under most of these buildings in the North End and under some commercial buildings to the south,” he affirmed, leaning forward, intent on making a point. “It’s not just white men that are shanghaied using the underground. Seems like some captains have a real fondness for Negro cooks, galley hands and servants.” Solomon’s lips twisted with rueful bitterness. “We black folk have our own Judases who make a tidy living delivering up their brethren to the crimps.”

  “I understand that the business owners don’t have much of a choice about whether to allow it to go on,” Sage said. He spoke carefully, afraid of giving offense by sounding judgmental.

  Again Solomon nodded and this time, he sighed heavily before saying, “The crimps came to me and offered me money. Somehow, I couldn’t see myself, a deacon in my church, taking money so they could make other men slaves.”

  “The crimps let you refuse?”

  “Oh, no. They didn’t let me refuse. But I walled off a portion of the hotel’s basement and put in a strong door that’s bolted from this side. They can’t enter the underground through my hotel kitchen. I told them that there were always too many folks about. Anyway, I promised we would stay inside the walls I built. It’s a deal with the devil, but it is one I have to live with. I refuse any payment from them.”

  Sage paused, uncertain after that declaration, about how Solomon would react to his request. Still, the question needed to be asked. He told the man what he planned for LaRue.

  Solomon’s response came quickly, without hesitation, as if he’d already anticipated and considered Sage’s request. “What you want to do makes sense. It seems like the best solution.” Solomon stood up and walked to a large desk containing pigeonholes filled with papers. Ledgers were stacked high on its writing surface. Opening a drawer, he removed something and returned to Sage.

  “You get into the basement through the kitchen, just inside the door. It’s a sharp right turn. Come in through that kitchen door anytime the kitchen’s open. I’ll tell the kitchen help to keep their eyes to themselves and out of your business. Otherwise, you’ll have to come through the lobby and ask for me.” Solomon held out a shiny bronze key. “You will need this to get into the rest of the underground. A kerosene lamp hangs by the door this key opens. Take the kerosene lamp with you.”

  Sage reached out and took the key. The metal felt so icy cold that it stung his hand.

  TWENTY

  SOLOMON AND SAGE RETURNED to the kitchen. Solomon nodded toward a door that Sage opened. A flight of narrow wooden steps descended into the dark. Just inside, a kerosene lamp hung from a hook and a box of safety matches lay atop the ledge. Sage lit the lamp and started down. The oily smell of burning kerosene brought to mind the old whaleman, Thimble, and his dire predictions about the future of whaling. That turned out to have been a fateful meeting.

  Once in the New Elijah’s cellar, Sage raised the lamp high. Solomon’s basement looked no different from Mozart’s: provision boxes neatly stacked, scattered pieces of discarded furniture, and a single cot tucked into one corner, its blankets smooth and neat. A stout door stood midpoint in a wall that was about twelve feet out from the bottom of the stairs. Near it hung another kerosene lantern. Sage set his burning lamp down and crossed the room to unlock and slide open the bolt. As he slipped the key into the brass lock, his mouth went dry. But he lit the second lamp, opened the door and stepped across its threshold, pulling it closed behind him.

  The musty smell hit him like a blow. With a shaking arm he lifted the lantern high so that its light pushed back the inky blackness to either side.After taking a final look at his surrounding, Sage twisted the lantern off. Immediately small gray spots seemed to swim into his eyes and he blinked rapidly to clear them. His lungs started heaving as if all the air were sucked away. Struggling to breathe, he felt fine particles of dust coating, then clogging, his throat. He began choking. The lantern handle became slick from his suddenly wet palm. Then his vision blurred red, as though the blood pounding in his heart were flooding his eyes. One thought overpowered all others: “I have to get out of here!” Sage whirled back toward the basement door, his free hand groping blindly for the door handle, terrified it was no longer there.

  Once safe inside Solomon’s cellar, Sage locked the door, extinguished the lantern with fumbling fingers and returned it to its hook. Snatching up the other lantern, he fled up the stairs as if one of Conan Doyle’s hounds was snapping at his heels.

  Pratt sat at the kitchen table, shoveling food in as fast as the cook heaped it onto his plate. “Finally hauled those lazy bones of yours out of bed?” he said. “Sit down and eat up. We have a lot to do today.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Pratt, I have to quit my job with you. I have some personal business I need to take care of,” Sage said.

  Pratt’s matronly cook dropped tinware into the metal dishpan with a loud clatter. As Sage expected, Pratt’s outrage was immediate and loud. “Why, you ungrateful whelp, Crowley. After everything I taught you, you’re going to leave me high and dry? I could tell right from the beginning that you were a worthless so-and-so. ‘Twig Crowley’ my foot. Never believed that for a moment. I know the San Francisco Crowleys and you don’t look nothing like them.”

  Pratt raised his voice to follow Sage as he went to collect his few belongings. “Don’t you come crying back to me when you run out of money and need work. It’d be a cold day in hell before I’d hire the likes of you again.”

  Sage answered Pratt’s invective under his breath while he stuffed his clothes into a duffle bag, “And it’d be an even colder day in hell, old man, before I’d think of working for the likes of you again.”

  Sage entered Mozart’s through the underground tunnel and climbed the hidden stairway to the third floor. Once there, he began assembling a different kind of wardrobe. He packed a suit, bow ties, and white shirts into a leather-bound drummer’s suitcase. Faint noises from overhead arrested his motion. Floor joists creaked as a slight weight moved across them. Fong was in the attic.

  Sage hurriedly finished packing and then climbed the stairs to join him. When Fong saw Sage, a brief smile relaxed his otherwise tense face.

  “Mr. Sage. I am glad to see you. I apologize for harsh words yesterday. I know you trying to help. I am glad for your friendship.”

  “Mr. Fong, no apology is necessary. You are confronting a very serious problem and you must have many conflicting thoughts. I would feel the same in your shoes.”

  Fong sighed aloud but changed the topic. “And you, what do you plan to do about murderer of young Joseph Kincaid?”

  Now Sage sighed. “Solomon was good enough to give me access into the underground, but I don’t how to use it. I panic the instant I step into the dark.”

  “Ah,” Fong said. “I have been thinking on tha
t problem of yours. I have an idea, but first we practice the form. All right?”

  “Sure.” Sage kicked off his shoes and pulled his shirt loose from his pants. “I’m ready.” They moved through the one hundred and eight positions of the snake and crane, only to have Fong begin the series again as soon as they reached the end. After four repetitions they stopped.

  “Tell me, how go your thoughts right now?” Fong asked.

  Sage said the first thing that came to mind. “Empty, open, I don’t know. Relaxed. No thoughts, really.”

  “Ah!” Fong smiled, as if Sage’s words pleased him greatly. “That empty mind is how to control panic. I have taught you to move through snake and crane in your thoughts. To control panic, go back into underground, breathe through nose, keep lips shut with tongue touching roof of mouth. Do exercise form in mind over and over. Let no thought fix itself. Keep mind empty, like during exercise. This way, you will understand difference between what you fear and what exists. Remind self basement is not cave deep inside mountain.”

  Fong reached inside his tunic and pulled out a paper. He squatted and spread it open on the polished floor. Sage knelt beside him and saw a map of Portland’s North End and commercial district. It showed the names of each street and each building. Here and there were x’s. Fong’s finger stabbed at one such mark. “Each x is way to escape from underground. See little tubes going from one block to next neighbor block? These are tunnels under street. Try to memorize. Maybe carry compass.”

  “Mr. Fong, how in the world did you get this?”

  “Like I told you before, Chinese everywhere underground. They made this map that I buy from cousin. I wrote English street names on it.”

  Fong folded up the map and handed it to Sage, who said, “So, you think I should sit in the underground and perform the snake and crane exercise in my mind?”

  “Yes, with light out. That is only way you will defeat panic. Every man has something that make him afraid. When fear make man unable to take action, then mind must be made empty so the person can tell difference between what real and what fear.”

  Sage cringed at the thought of sitting in that musty blackness, but he assented. “I’ll do it. I can see how it might work. Anyway, I have no choice. If I can’t go into the underground, I’ll never get close to that crimp Mordaunt, and that’s the only way I’ll get proof against him.”

  “Good,” said Fong. Then he hesitated before saying, “Now, Mr. Sage, I must tell you that I will not be here tomorrow night. So, please not take action then.”

  The words sounded insignificant but Fong’s tone sent foreboding scrabbling up Sage’s backbone. He faced it head on. “So, tomorrow you’re going after LaRue?”

  “If I wait any longer, he may leave, taking opportunity with him.”

  “I don’t suppose that there’s anything I can say to change your mind?” Sage asked, despite knowing the answer.

  Fong shook his head. “We Chinese are strong believers in fate. Life send LaRue to me. I must act.”

  “You’re saying that because Life has brought LaRue to you, you are obliged to take advantage of that turn of events?”

  “That is it. You understand. Yes.”

  “Of course, life also delivers such opportunities to others, doesn’t it?”

  Puzzlement wrinkled Fong’s forehead. “Why, yes, it does Mr. Sage. Has something happened in hunt for murderer of Kincaid fellow?”

  Sage spoke lightly, “Nope. Just checking, wanting to make sure that your philosophy applies to us round eyes, as well as to wise men from China.”

  TWENTY ONE

  FACED WITH THE NEED TO take immediate action, Sage, instead, found himself distracted. For the first time in days, Lucinda filled his thoughts. He needed to see her. Dressed in his gray morning suit, Sage strolled up the street, anticipating her keen interest and even keener observations when he told her what had been happening during the two weeks since he’d last seen her. He sniffed the air with pleasure. On late summer days the heat wafted fragrances from the flowers making fall’s chill, with its eye-stinging wood smoke, unimaginable.

  Sage paused, looking down at the bouquet in his hand, halted by a sudden realization. Lucinda, as madam of the fanciest parlor house in the city, might know a thing or two about shanghaiing. After all, her customers made money from it. “Why didn’t I think of talking to her sooner?” he asked himself as he rounded the corner onto her block.

  A shiny, black-lacquered open carriage stood at the curb outside her house. From half a block away, Sage saw the bordello’s heavy front door swing open and Lucinda emerge, her afternoon dress the sky-blue color of her eyes. She wore a velvet hat of the same color on her gold hair, the hat’s red feather curling against her pale face.

  The tall, well-dressed man beside her offered her a forearm to hold. When they reached the sidewalk, he opened the carriage door and helped her in with a theatrical flourish. As the man seated himself, they exchanged words and Lucinda’s laughter rang out. With a pang Sage realized that it had been too many days since he’d heard that sound. White-hot jealousy stabbed him. He thought she only laughed like that when she was with him. The carriage rolled north, leaving Sage staring after it. Lucinda never looked back.

  When Sage arrived at the drummers’ hotel, the clerk was effusive in his welcome since it was Saturday and the hotel was nearly empty. After receiving a key and instructions concerning the hotel’s supper hour, Sage climbed the staircase. His clean room contained the unadorned factory-produced furniture usually ordered from the Sears catalogue. He didn’t linger. Within minutes he was exiting down the rear staircase onto the sidewalk of the North End, garbed in rough clothes. His suit and sales case were left behind, neatly tucked away in the room’s serviceable wardrobe.

  All around, men leaned on stoops and buildings, ready for a Saturday night that would be followed by Sunday, that one day a week when it was futile to search for work. Sage lacked their anticipation of impending relaxation since his destination was the underground’s stygian blackness. His determination to confront the terror that had gripped him ever since he was nine years old made his stride lengthen and quicken. Although the bright sunlight felt hot on his back, he shivered in anticipation of the dark that would soon envelop him.

  The kitchen workers in the New Elijah Hotel glanced up when he entered but quickly snapped their eyes back to their work. Good. Solomon had followed through on his promise. Sage descended the stairs, noting that the lantern’s fumes seemed to intensify in the stifling air below.

  The brass key released the lock as smoothly as before, but the air streaming inward from the darkness smelled more fetid than he remembered. He resisted a nearly overwhelming urge to slam the door shut. Finally he did, but only after he passed through it.

  This time, he breathed shallowly through his nose and lifted the lantern so he could study the floor joists and floorboards that formed the underground’s ceiling. Openings in stone and brick walls led into unbroken dark. An overturned freight box sat in the dust a few steps away. He took a seat. After one last searching look and with a shaking hand, Sage twisted the valve handle until the lantern’s flame fluttered and went out.

  Blackness dropped like a heavy choking weight. He sensed that the stone walls were moving closer. His mouth fell open and his breath turned into short shallow gasps that seemed loud in his ears. A sudden prickle of sweat turned his skin into a magnet for the floating dust particles. The smell of decay drifted up from the dirt floor like a living thing.

  “Whoa,” he said aloud, trying to divert his thinking. “Snake and crane, Sage. Snake and crane.” He closed his mouth and then his eyes to the blackness. In his mind he began envisioning the exercise. “First crossed hands, commence form, grasp bird’s tail, single whip, raise hands, and step up . . .” As his imagination began to move him through the physical sensations of the exercise, his surroundings seemed to become less intrusive, receding into an amorphous threat that no longer pressed as close. Gradually, discrete a
spects of his surroundings inserted themselves into his mind, but he allowed those thoughts to flow through and out, holding on to none of them, focusing only on the next form in the exercise.

  He began to notice that not all of his fleeting impressions triggered fright. Overhead, he heard the scrape of a chair and once a woman laughed without restraint. A scuttle in the darkness, the screech of a rodent in mortal terror and the yowl of a cat said life existed here beneath the city’s buildings. The distant rumble of carts, drays, wagons, and carriages issued from a tunnel where it burrowed eastward beneath a street. From that direction, a faint breeze brushed against his cheek, carrying the tangy scent of the river. None of these thoughts, nor the darker ones, anchored in his mind. Instead, they came, caught lightly, loosened and passed without breaking his concentration on the exercise.

  Finally, something occurred that did abruptly break his concentration. First he heard the scuffling sounds of feet, then a light glimmered in the neighboring basement beyond the arch in the stone wall. As he watched, a man holding a lantern and, talking softly to two other men, moved into view. From his vantage point, cloaked by the dark, Sage experienced a sense of power and control. His already dilated eyes watched the three men as their shadows grew on the walls and floor. They passed in front of him, completely unaware they were being observed. Once they were past and the impenetrable darkness returned, Sage realized that he no longer feared it. Instead, he felt bemusement and a new awareness that the underground offered opportunities and a haven, if he could learn it well.

  Fong was right. This murky space beneath the buildings, roofed over by beams and floorboards, was but thinly separated from the life above. These interconnected basements beneath the city were not rock tunnels carved through a mountain’s dark, resisting heart. Dirt and dark were the only similarities and those were superficial.