California Gold

by John Jakes

  “I know,” Mack sighed. He rolled over and looked up at the priest. “You didn’t say why you’re in here again.”

  “Tonight I spoke to another public gathering. The police objected, I refused to step down—here I am.” A bitter smile. “Last time I was charged with disturbing the peace. This time it’s more serious—criminal syndicalism. It’s nonsense. But there are men in this city and this state who believe that the slightest improvement in the lot of the workingman is somehow a direct threat to their property. That’s so misguided. A worker’s right to join a union is his by his very nature as a man. The Holy Father himself proclaimed it so. But the men who hate the idea have great influence and many friends in city government—”

  “So I’m learning. I still don’t understand why a priest has to go to jail. Can’t your superiors raise bail?”

  “They can, they do. It takes a little time. My work causes controversy within the archdiocese. Archbishop Riordan is lenient with me. But he’s a fair man, so he listens to all factions—the relative few who support me, and a much larger number who do not. I can’t despise those priests who oppose me. They are my brothers in Christ, men of conservative mind but sincere conviction. They are sure that the owners are right, and the labor movement a dangerous, Satanic force.”

  He clasped his hands again, now under his chin. “They don’t see the one-sided nature of the battle. The poor and downtrodden have few resources. Their rights must be upheld—militantly, if necessary—and all the more so because the richer classes have the wealth and the influence to defend and promote themselves more than adequately. That precept shapes my ministry. Sometimes, though, a strong inner voice says I’d be more effective—less restricted—if I didn’t wear this collar, or have to deal with my enemies with Christian restraint. When I saw what they did to my father—shot him down for the murderous outlaw he became after he lost everything—I was grieved and angry, but overcome by the futility of his last years. I chose the Church because I thought God’s glory could effect more change than my father’s gun ever did. So here I am, not punishing those who oppose me, but praying for their enlightenment.”

  “I’ll pray for their defeat.”

  Marquez chuckled wryly. “Yes, I expect you would, Mr. Chance.” It was a compliment.

  The iron door at the end of the corridor opened and a cretinous guard shuffled in and unlocked the holding cell. He waved his truncheon.

  “Chance.”

  Mack pushed up with both hands, elated, almost forgetting his various aches and bruises. “Did someone put up bail?” The Examiner, probably; their police reporter routinely scanned the blotter for new arrivals.

  The guard said, “Oh, sure, sure, all arranged.”

  “Good news,” Marquez said as Mack stepped outside. Then the guard whipped his truncheon into Mack’s kidneys from behind, and Mack slammed face-first into the bars of the empty cell opposite. He spun around, blood oozing from his nose. The guard grinned, tapping his truncheon on his fingers, a sadistic little invitation.

  “Bail for you? Not hardly. One of the detectives is waiting to have a word. Lon Coglan—Old Silver Tooth. Hardest man on the force, Silver Tooth. You’re in for a fine time.”

  Detective Lon Coglan wore a natty striped vest and a heavy silver watch chain that matched his hair and his tooth. All of his upper front teeth protruded, the silver right incisor most prominently. It had a rodentlike sharp point. Coglan wore his silver hair long, beautifully combed, but years of cheap whiskey were written on his red cucumber nose. He was half a head shorter than Mack, whom he’d shoved into a chair under a sputtering gas fixture trimmed to its dimmest level.

  The room smelled damp, and there was the faint sound of water trickling somewhere. Chunks of plaster lay crumbling amid rat droppings; no one had patched the small craters left when the plaster fell. Another detective stood by the door with arms folded. Coglan walked round and round Mack’s chair while he talked.

  “Somebody from the Hearst rag knows you’re in here. So we’ll be letting you go soon. Mr. Huntington won’t file charges.”

  Mack couldn’t believe such good luck. And he didn’t—not just yet.

  Coglan’s silver tooth gleamed, reflecting the flames of the gas. “I talked to the arresting officer who collared you at the Palace. I understand you accused Mr. Huntington of sinking your boat and killing your partner.” The detective leaned down, smiling. “Did you really do such a thing, laddie buck?”

  “You already know.”

  Coglan hit him.

  The blow, unexpected and powerful, caught him below the breastbone. He jerked backward, choking on vomit. He didn’t fall out of the chair because Coglan had tied his hands in back.

  “I do, and it’s a damn outrage, because Mr. Collis Huntington is an honest, patriotic, law-abiding gentleman. That’s my personal opinion, I want you to know. He didn’t put me up to saying it. But I’m the detective assigned to this case, so I reckon you have to listen to my opinions, eh?”

  Mack blinked, gasping for air. “I—guess I do.”

  Coglan hit him.

  “Louder, laddie buck. I had trouble hearing that.”

  “I said…” Red drool ran down Mack’s chin. A lower canine tooth wobbled in his gum. “I’ll listen.”

  “That’s a lot better.”

  Coglan was amiable again. Mack felt tight as a twisted wire. The detective resumed his walk around the chair.

  “You’re a nobody in this town, Chance, and you’re an asshole, too, if you think you can sling mud at the SP and get away with it. Two cousins of mine work for the railroad—decent fellas, Christian men, with big families—and I’ll tell you, if they heard your accusations against Mr. Huntington, they’d tear you apart. When Mr. Huntington and his partners built their railroad, they united this great country of ours. The railroad’s done more for businessmen and farmers—more for the state of California—than you and all your thieving slant-eyed pals could do if you lived a hundred years.” Coglan paused, letting his words sink in. “Something else, too. The jailer told Jackie here”—Coglan indicated the other detective—“that you were chummy with that communist priest. Is it true?”

  “I know him. Is it against the law?”

  Coglan hit him.

  The blow knocked him over, chair and all. He bit his lip to stifle a yell. Coglan sucked his silver tooth noisily and signaled Jackie forward to help him right the chair.

  “Don’t give me lip, laddie buck. You’re not the one with the authority to ask questions.”

  Mack glared. Coglan chuckled; he liked that.

  “If you know Marquez, that tells me a lot about you. We don’t want your kind in the City. I’m here to make sure you’re absolutely clear on that.”

  The softness of those words made Mack’s scalp crawl.

  “I want to impress on you that we don’t want and won’t tolerate radicals like you stirring things up, threatening and insulting our civic leaders. I want to demonstrate that to you so you’ll never forget.”

  He extended his right hand, palm up. A big paste diamond in a pinky ring glittered.

  “Jackie, give me the knucks.”

  He slipped them on his right hand. Mack stared at the ridges of yellow metal.

  “This will just be a light lesson, Chance. I sense that you’re a smart enough fella to learn it right off. After we let you out, you’ll have twenty-four hours to leave San Francisco. Mr. Fairbanks persuaded Mr. Huntington to drop charges—avoid a lot of useless bad publicity—in exchange for assurance from headquarters that we’d get rid of you.”

  He grabbed Mack’s hair with his left hand and yanked. Mack clenched his teeth and slitted his eyes. Pain seemed to come from all parts of his body, consuming him.

  “After midnight tomorrow, if a member of the force spots you anywhere in the City, you’ll come back to this room for another visit. After that one, you won’t be in any shape to walk anyplace.”

  “You fucking ape,” Mack gasped. “If I ever catch y
ou by yourself in a fair fight I’ll kill you.”

  His words reverberated and died. When Coglan got over his surprise, he put on a pious face.

  “That was nasty, laddie buck. Rash and nasty. That’ll prolong your lesson a bit.” And Coglan hit him.

  Blood glistened on the metal knuckles. Coglan’s merry eyes belied his soft tone. By the door, Jackie scratched his groin and watched with a smile.

  Sit up, Mack shouted in the silence of his ringing head. Don’t make a sound. He wants crying and screaming.

  Coglan hit him again.

  Mack rose with the blow, taking the chair six inches up and slamming it down again. Coglan’s gold-plated fist rose and fell, rose and fell, administering his lesson.

  “Beginning to catch my drift, are you?” Coglan was breathing hard. Mack’s eyelids were almost swollen shut. The detective was a shimmering blur that divided into two Coglans, then fused again.

  “I don’t hear you, laddie buck.”

  Mack spat at him. It landed between his own feet, blood-red. And Coglan hit him again.

  Two policemen carried him out and flung him on the curb. There was a glitter of blue-white as rain obscured buildings and haloed lights. Mack groped for a purchase on the curbstone, missed, and slid into the gutter face-first.

  He jerked his head up, sputtering, and water sluiced some of the dried blood from his face. A lightning bolt excited a horse harnessed to a hack across the street, and it neighed wildly and pawed the air.

  The hack door flew open, and a woman jumped out, then a man. They splashed through puddles while Mack floundered, rain dripping from his brows and nose and chin. In another burst of lightning, Mack recognized Bierce.

  “Christ. This town is a moral leper colony.”

  “Stop your posturing and help me, Ambrose.” Nellie tugged Mack’s arm out of the gutter. They got him into the hack and away while the policemen watched from the shelter of the jail doorway, amused.

  “They broke your nose,” said the elderly doctor Nellie had awakened at 2 A.M. Mack sat gingerly on a chair under the gas in the doctor’s surgery. He was bare to the waist. His torso was a landscape of purple and yellow, and he could barely see through his slitted eyes.

  “As to internal injuries, I detect nothing, but we’ll have to wait and reexamine you to be certain.”

  Mack thought of Coglan’s deadline.

  “The physical damage will take plenty of time to heal,” the doctor continued. “For a month or so, you’re going to look as though you boxed thirty rounds with Jim Corbett.”

  “And lost,” Mack said. Only Bierce smiled, leaning against the wall next to a hanging skeleton.

  “Send the bill to the Examiner,” Nellie said.

  “I want to see him again in three days.”

  “Sure,” Mack said through his cut and swollen lips. “Thanks for your help.?

  He woke in the sitting room of Nellie’s flat, which was located, fittingly enough, on the slope of Russian Hill. The gray light of day fell through a huge bay window awash with windblown rain. It cast strange moving shadows on Mack’s ruined face. Every limb, every joint hurt in some fashion.

  He’d been sleeping on a pallet of furs, sables and sea otters. Nellie didn’t believe in killing wild animals. Where, he wondered, did these pelts come from? The sitting room had other unusual features. Contrary to fashion, it contained very little furniture beyond four plain, solid-backed chairs, a table, and a sideboard, all of which looked old, handmade. Three framed photographs of stern dark-eyed men hung over the mantel. One man wore a huge round fur hat. No carpets covered the beautifully finished floor, just the scattered furs. A four-foot silver samovar decorated with elaborate filigree dominated one corner. Nellie had once told him vehemently that she was American, her Russian ancestors existing only as memories. He wondered.

  Nellie brought him a bowl of golden broth. “You look horrible.”

  “I can thank Walter Fairbanks.”

  “At least you’re not going to prison.” She sat while he spooned up some broth. He had trouble swallowing. “I have a valise for you in the bedroom, and clean clothes.”

  “Nellie, I won’t run.”

  “You haven’t any choice. They own the police force. I’m not saying any money changes hands. It’s just that the SP is such a power, such a presence. Mr. Hearst wouldn’t dare oppose them if he didn’t have the senator’s fortune and prestige behind him, and the newspaper.”

  “Those people are too damn powerful. They’re nothing but dictators.”

  “A lot of Californians agree. Mr. Huntington and his partners have had almost twenty-five years to entrench themselves. But you can’t kill the Octopus by yourself, nor can I. Not even Mr. Hearst can do it alone. If it’s ever to happen, it will take time, thought, and a great deal of courageous effort from people in every part of this state. Meantime, the railroad runs things. At the moment they’re running you. I don’t want you to leave, but you won’t be safe unless you do.”

  “It’s cowardly.”

  “It’s good sense.”

  Under her prodding, he told her of things that needed to be done when he left. Captain Barnstable was owed money from the receipts on deposit in Oakland. “Bluedorn’s Coal Yard too.”

  “I’ll see that both are paid.”

  “I have twenty-one dollars on deposit at Wells, Fargo…”

  “Leave it. Anything else?”

  “No. Everything I owned sank with the Bay Beauty.”

  “Except this.” From the mantel she brought T. Fowler Haines. She brushed the cover with her palm. “I thought you’d want to take it. I’ve also been curious about this.” She drew Carla’s gold scarf from between the pages. “It’s expensive.”

  He thought quickly; she still didn’t know about Carla. “My mother’s.”

  “Indeed. Unusual. I would have guessed it belonged to a younger woman. From the color.”

  At another time, he might have been amused, flattered by the jealousy of some unknown rival, but he was relieved when she didn’t pursue it. She replaced the scarf and gave him the guidebook.

  Mack turned the book in his hands, riffled the pages, and read a few sentences. A more beautiful, hospitable country never spread its panorama to the human gaze! He shook his head.

  “I was going to get rich in a year or so. Walk right through the golden doorway…” His hand clenched the spine of T. Fowler Haines. “Swampy Hellman was the first one who shut the door in my face. Then there was Fairbanks. The scum from the Oakland piers. Coglan…” Something hard, gnarled, grew within him. He sat up straighter on the pallet of furs. “They slammed the door this time, but it won’t stay shut forever. They can bolt their goddamn door and hammer in a hundred nails. I’ll still come back and kick it down and break it up for kindling. I’ll tell you something else…”

  He struggled to his knees, alarming her. “Be careful, Mack, you’re not—”

  “Next time,” he interrupted, taking hold of her shoulders, “next time, Nellie, I won’t come sneaking into San Francisco aboard some little fishing skiff. I’ll sail right up to the SP pier in the biggest, longest steam yacht you’ve ever—”

  “Stop.” She whispered it, pressing her hand to his lips. Her eyes shone wet as the rain that slashed the bay window and hid the hills of Marin. “Please stop. You’ll only make yourself feel worse.”

  “You don’t believe I can do it.”

  “I believe you should get out of San Francisco before midnight. Do you have anyplace to go?”

  “No. I guess I’d better try the other city—Los Angeles. A man I met said there was a land boom down in the cow counties.”

  He rested his hands lightly on his legs, kneeling there while she walked to the window. She crossed and uncrossed her arms in a restless, troubled way.

  “Nellie.”

  She looked at him.

  “Any possibility that you’d come along?”

  She caught her breath, trying to hide her emotions, but a huskiness in her
voice gave her away. “No.”

  He knew she meant yes, there was a possibility, she wanted to go. She was slim and fragile and yet, gazing at her, Mack thought her perhaps the toughest person he had ever met. It made her all the more desirable.

  “No,” she repeated more strongly. “I have work to do here. I have a place where I can be heard. Maybe make a difference.”

  “You’re damn near as ambitious as I am.”

  She didn’t deny it.

  He went to her in the window, slowly, hurting, and touched her hair. “I hate to leave you. I don’t altogether understand you, and I don’t think too much of your ideas about women or what they should do with their lives, but ever since Yosemite—maybe since that day I jumped in the water and ruined your stunt—you’ve meant a lot to me.” He curved his bruised hand, nestling her chin in his palm, caressing her cheek with the inside of his fingers. He felt tears. “You still do.”

  Some fierce storm raged in her dark eyes then. He saw the turmoil without fully understanding it. She reached up and clasped his hand against her face.

  “Oh God, Mack. I think I’d have been better off if I’d never met you.”

  “Maybe I should say the same but I can’t. It’s like the falls where we loved each other. They go over the edge because there’s no other way. No way to stop the force—”

  “You’re a strange, complex young man. Driven.”

  “You’re not driven?”

  “Yes, but not into the shackles of matrimony. I have too much to do with my life.”

  “Who ever said…?”

  She tore away, crossing her arms again. “It comes to mind when two people lo— When they have feelings for one another. You have to know what I am, that’s all. Then, if you know and you still want me…”

  Their eyes held. The rainy light cast its moving shadows on them. “I’ll be here if you come back,” she added.

  “I will. To open that door.”

  “I believe you, I believe you.”