by John Jakes
“Well, keep at it. I like what you’re doing.”
“Write us a letter and say so. Men of conscience are going to have to clean up this town. It’s either that or let the barbarians reign.”
The huge ornate fixture cast a circle of light on the green-covered table in the mansion’s card room. On opposite sides, with cigars and mugs of steam beer, Mack and Hellman played two-handed euchre, ten points a game. The light isolated them in the midst of a great darkness.
Hellman had been staying with his son-in-law for the past week. He no longer seemed enthusiastic about his real estate and ranch holdings, which others managed for him. His hair was nearly gone, his eyes watered a lot, he was flatulent, and he climbed stairs with difficulty. It was melancholy to contemplate. It reminded Mack that he too was growing old.
Mack took the last trick with the ten of trumps, scoring a march. He’d euchred his opponent in hand after hand. “That’s game, Swampy. Shuffle them.”
The old man did so, but listlessly. “I got a new story. A visitor goes into the auto owners’ ward at the nuthouse. He don’t see nobody. ‘What’s the matter?’ he says to the doc. ‘Where are the patients?’ ‘Oh,’ says the doc, ‘they’re all underneath the beds. Fixing the gears.’ ”
Mack finished his beer. It tasted stale.
“You didn’t laugh,” Hellman said. “You hear that one before?”
“Practically the first time I saw an auto.”
Hellman shuffled the twenty-four-card deck, then suddenly put it down. “We been doing this four nights now. It gets boring.”
Mack reached across to take the cards and shuffle. “You sound like your daughter.”
“Did you know she’s back from New York?”
“No.”
“Well, I guess she wouldn’t rush to tell you. She’s running with that arty crowd down in Carmel. Painters, writers, socialists, free-love types. Rotten bunch.”
The cards snapped and flowed together between Mack’s hands. “Not all of them.” He held out the deck. Hellman cut. “How is her—” He searched for a polite word. “Health?”
“You mean is she boozing herself to death? That’s what I hear.” He picked up his cigar and ash fell to the carpet. Ignoring it, he regarded his son-in-law gloomily. “You were the only good man Carla ever hooked up with.”
“Oh, I don’t know. There was her father.”
They looked at one another. Shared affection relieved the boredom and their miserable loneliness. Johnson had left for South America a month before.
Mack dealt three cards for each of them, then two more, then the turn-up card. “Spades are trump.”
The door opened, laying a rectangle of light on the rug, and Little Jim stood in the center, barefoot in his long nightshirt. His fair hair shone like a cap of gold.
“Come in, son.”
“I came to say good-night, Pa.”
Mack cupped the boy’s chin. His hand was hard and brown, a contrast to the child’s cheek. “Look at you. White as milk. You’re still staying indoors too much.”
Little Jim would be five in the fall. He was shooting up, slim and sturdy. “I like it indoors, Pa. I like sitting with a book or doing sums.”
“Say, don’t I know it,” Hellman said, patting him. “Jim put on a real show for me this afternoon. With that Chinee thingamajig, my grandson can add numbers faster than I can say Kaiser Bill.”
Frown lines cut in above Mack’s nose. “I want you out of the house two or three hours every day, Jim. Tell you what— tomorrow we’ll drive down to Stanford. The football team is starting spring practice. We’ll watch them scrimmage. Football’s a hell—a devil of an exciting game. You’ll like it.”
Solemnly, Jim said, “I bet I won’t.”
“Come on,” Mack said, trying not to show he was irked. “You’re going to make a fine football player when you grow up.”
“No.”
Mack raised his hand. “Don’t talk back to me—” He saw Hellman’s disapproval. Then, lowering his hand, he said, “Go to bed.”
Little Jim marched away like a soldier under orders. The door closed and darkness possessed the room again.
Mack sighed and scooted lower in his chair. “Lord, he’s a difficult boy. Nothing I say seems to get through. Or maybe I don’t know how to say it.”
“He’s growing up handsome, though. Don’t look a thing like you. Looks like Carla. Acts like her too.”
“That’s what worries me.”
“Deal the cards. Let’s get this over with.”
In the morning, Angelina Olivar said, “The boy can’t go with you today, sir. He has a bad stomach ache.”
“Is he faking?”
“Señor Chance. What a terrible suggestion. Of course not.”
“All right, Angelina.” He was unconvinced.
What am I doing wrong? he wondered as he hurried up the stairs to the day’s important business.
On a fine April day, Walter Fairbanks parked his shiny Pope-Toledo in front of Mack’s mansion. He enjoyed driving the powerful machine, which he’d bought after driving and comparing a Ben-Hur, a Luxor, and a Leland. The Pope-Toledo’s black paint was suitably rich and conservative.
The sight of the JMC cartouche on the pillars disgusted him but he tried to rein in his emotions as he rang the bell. Fairbanks wasn’t comfortable seeking favors in this house. This mission, however, transcended personal feelings.
A servant showed him to the third floor. Mack was, as usual, submerged in papers and memoranda. He felt as uncomfortable as his guest, whose secretary had telephoned for the appointment. Alex felt uncomfortable too, unconsciously twisting his swivel chair a few inches this way, a few inches the other way. He fully expected an explosion.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Walter?”
Fairbanks laid his polished stick across his knees and gripped it tightly with his right hand. “As you may know, I’m on the committee handling arrangements for President Roosevelt’s visit next month. Gene Schmitz is sponsoring the banquet on May twelfth. It’s to be a celebration of San Francisco, and the Golden State. The Palace has promised us gold china, gold utensils, cloth of gold to cover the tables—”
“At a price of twenty dollars, gold, per plate. The invitation’s around here somewhere.”
Mack’s casual hauteur infuriated Fairbanks. The worm of pain began to eat through the front of his skull. He’d argued long and hard in favor of sending someone else to plead with Mack Chance. But the harder he argued, the more the others insisted. Ruef wanted Chance at the banquet and he demanded that Fairbanks do the job.
“You’ve not sent it back?”
“I don’t intend to.”
“Mack, you’re a prominent citizen. Please reconsider. The mayor is anxious that we demonstrate San Francisco’s nonpartisan solidarity to the President.”
“I’m a great admirer of Teddy Roosevelt. But I’m afraid my admiration isn’t enough to overcome my dislike of your new friends.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about George Perkins going back to Washington. His reappointment was promoted by the SP and purchased with those four votes Ruef controls in the state senate. I’d say you now have an alliance with Boss Ruef, Walter.”
“What has that to do with a banquet for the President of the United States?”
“Everything. One hand’s washing the other. All very cozy. Well, there’s an old saying: ‘If you don’t want to get covered with tar, stay away from tar barrels.’ I wouldn’t set foot in the Palace on the twelfth of May.”
The tickers clicked and spat paper, and a gull swept past the sunlit window. Alex twisted in his chair some more.
“You’re a fool to buck Abraham Ruef,” Fairbanks said, small dots of red blooming in his cheeks. “His organization’s already immensely powerful.”
“I’m certainly aware of that. I’d like to see it destroyed before it destroys the City.”
Fairbanks jumped up. “My God you�
��re arrogant.”
Mack parried with an icy smile. “Somehow you bring out the worst, Walter.”
“You hold grudges—”
“You’re right. You destroyed a fine horse down in Riverside. You destroyed her so you could win your damn polo game. I despise any man who’d do a thing like that.”
Fairbanks trembled so hard he couldn’t speak. Jamming his hat on his head, he rushed for the door, but not before his temper boiled over. He whirled around and shook his stick.
“You keep this up—this antagonism toward the people who run this town—every business you’re involved in could suffer. You could be badly hurt.”
“Not by you, Walter. I beat you, remember? Show Mr. Fairbanks out, Alex.”
Six hundred guests attended the Gold Banquet at the Palace Hotel. President Roosevelt tactfully conversed with the mayor about music—nothing else.
The guests fretted as Eugene Schmitz rose to speak. They needn’t have worried; Ruef had written the short address and Handsome Gene had dutifully memorized it. The applause at the end was loud and sincere. Everyone was glad Schmitz was through; he hadn’t embarrassed himself, or the City.
Prominent men in the audience noted that James Macklin Chance had left town the day before, traveling down to the dedication of permanent dormitories at The Palms at Indio, his charity health camp.
A week before the November election, Mack wrote a letter that Fremont Older printed. It mentioned an increasing number of allegations of graft in the Schmitz administration and urged a vote against Schmitz’s reelection, concluding that a vote for the incumbent was actually a vote for the Ruef machine.
After Abe Ruef read it, he was livid. “Put the word out that this man’s an anti-Semite, a Jew-baiter.”
“But Abe, he isn’t.”
“What does that matter? Do it.”
When the rumor reached Mack, he immediately called on the rabbi of Temple Emanuel on Sutter Street. “I’ve never opposed any man for what he is, only what he does. How do I handle this?”
“Mr. Chance, calm yourself. I am not aware that the professed religion of Mr. Abe Ruef exerts one iota of positive influence on his character. I grant you the Jewish community holds a divided opinion of him. Many are pleased and proud to see him ascend to prominence. Others feel as you do. I am one—I dislike and distrust Mr. Ruef. Stick to your principles and follow them. Your friends won’t believe any lies told about you. Those who believe them don’t matter.”
Eugene Schmitz and his Union Labor ticket won reelection handily. Mack wrote a second letter, this one even more hostile toward Schmitz and Boss Ruef.
November 12 was a sparkling day, clear and cool. Mack felt refreshed and invigorated as he worked through the morning with frequent attention to the clock. Alex, however, seemed distraught. Mack finally pressed him for the reason.
“Sir, it’s that most recent letter. The cousin of my friend Heidi Meyer clerks in the law offices of the Boss. I am told Ruef is furious with you.”
“Are you surprised? He knows how I feel about him, and he’s had a good six months to build up steam—ever since I boycotted the Gold Banquet and decided to put my feelings on record.” Alex didn’t look reassured. Mack rested a hand on his shoulder. “Look, let me worry about Abe Ruef. I honestly don’t think it matters what I say or write. He isn’t going to bother with me. He’s too busy piling up two- and three-thousand-dollar retainers from people who want favors at City Hall.”
“I hope that is the case. However—with respect, sir—I believe you underestimate your stature in San Francisco.”
That surprised Mack, and amused him. “Do I, now?”
The office door opened.
“Pa? I don’t feel so good—”
“Nonsense. It’s a beautiful autumn day. Do you good to get out. Do us both good. Stanford against U.C. is the biggest game of the year.” He snagged his coat and pushed Little Jim gently. “You can help me check out the auto before we go.”
Alex followed. “I hear this is indeed a fierce rivalry. Very partisan crowds. Sometimes violent.”
Mack grinned. “Right. So’s the football.”
He took his son’s hand. The boy had already learned the futility of arguing with his father when he was in this kind of zestful, boisterous mood.
Alex left them at the upper landing. How sober the boy was. Except for his remarkable blue eyes. There, Alex saw the furious resentment.
51
MACK FOLDED BACK THE panels of the garage door. Inside, his new 1903 Cadillac Runabout shone like a metal gem.
Jim peered at his reflection in the forest-green lacquer of the dash panel and stuck out his tongue. So did the reflection. Jim laughed, and a rush of hope buoyed Mack. It didn’t last, though. Jim’s smile faded and he eyed his father with an uneasy, almost distrustful look.
Mack began the ritual familiar to every prudent automobilist. He checked the grease cups, oilers, crankcase, radiator. He topped the tank from a special can of gas strained through chamois. Store-bought gas was often impure and full of bits of debris—even gas refined from Chance-Johnson Oil.
While he worked, he talked to his son, hoping to cheer him up. “It’s a fine day. This will be an exciting game. They call it the Big Game. Stanford and Berkeley have played twelve times before—Stanford’s won five games, lost four, and tied three. The coach, a man named Jim Lanagan, is new. Do you know what a coach does? He tells the team how to play, when to run the ball, when to pass, when to punt…” Mack demonstrated a punt. Jim watched, blank-faced. Mack put his hands on his hips. “Do you understand any of what I’m saying?”
Little Jim, five, shook his head.
It’s your own fault. You’re talking over his head. He isn’t a little old man, he just behaves like one.
He checked the kerosene supply for the side lights, then inspected his toolbox, jack, air pump, tire iron, and extra tubes, and made sure he had all the supplies for patching stored in the bolted-on rear-entrance tonneau. He decided to leave the equipment for longer trips—the removable leather top, side curtains and storm apron, mud chains, shovel, block and tackle, rubber boots, canvas bucket, coils of rope and wire. On California’s rutty and boulder-strewn roads, motoring was a pastime for pioneers.
From a department-store box he produced a child’s cap and goggles. The boy reluctantly donned the cap and then played with the elastic of the goggles.
“Jim, put them on.”
Mack heard his own sharpness and scored himself for it. He knelt down. “Here, I’ll help you. We’re going to have a good time today.”
Wearing the goggles, Little Jim resembled a mournful owl. His expression doggedly denied any possibility of a good time. Mack lifted him to the seat, and then he started the Cadillac. He liked the Runabout’s sportiness but not its engine. The Leland and Faulconer “Little Hercules” lacked the power for racing. Mack was already thinking about other cars as he turned left out of the ground-floor garage, westbound on Clay.
A fat man studying a newspaper on the corner of Clay and Mason watched the Cadillac putter away in the autumn sunshine. The man wore a green plaid suit and a marble-sized paste pinky ring; he looked grossly out of place on Nob Hill.
He folded the paper and rushed south on Mason at what amounted to a fast waddle. Halfway down the block, two men waited in an old depot wagon with a flat top and the side curtains rolled up and tied. The vehicle, a poor man’s carriage, was twenty years old. The original black color showed where patches of scabrous pea-green enamel had peeled off.
“He just left,” the fat man said to the man in the rear seat. The man sat sideways, favoring a stiff left leg. “I don’t know how you guessed it.”
“Get your fat ass in that seat and shut up, Pinky. I don’t indulge in guesswork. I spent eighteen years on the detective force. Macklin Chance gives a lot of money to Stanford. He loves the school. He loves the Cardinal team. Today’s the Big Game. The conclusion’s obvious. Slim, get going—I don’t want to lose him.”
> “Yes, sir, Mr. Coglan.”
Slim, a tough-eyed young man, whipped the horse and wheeled the wagon in a 180-degree arc, nearly knocking down a woman with a perambulator. Lon Coglan shifted his leg. The bullet wound from the Thalia throbbed a little. Even so, he was relaxed and confident. His collar-length hair was no longer the same bright silver as his right incisor, but white. Years of drinking had coarsened his nose even more. The pores were so large it resembled a red Swiss cheese.
“There he is,” Pinky said as they turned onto Clay.
“Follow him, but not too close,” Coglan said. “We want to earn our money but we don’t want to go to the hoosegow. We’ll move only if we get a good opportunity.”
Nervously, Slim said, “I’d like to get this over with. I don’t like daylight jobs.”
Silver Tooth Coglan spread his arms against the seat cushions. “Daylight jobs are all right if you’re smart. This one’s going to be a pleasure.”
Two blocks west of Lafayette Park, a loud explosion rocked the Cadillac and the left front end sank sharply. Mack swore and steered the machine to the curb. “It’s a flat,” he said. He was furious, because he’d put on the best tires he could buy, Goodyear pneumatics. But no tire lasted more than a thousand miles—with many a flat before that.
While Jim watched, he performed the herculean job familiar to anyone rich enough to own an auto and patient enough to put up with its vagaries. Demounting the punctured tire took ten minutes, the tire iron, and a lot of grunting and sweating. The tube was pierced but not torn.
“Blast it, Jim, we’re going to be late.”
“What do I do, Lon?” Slim exclaimed, panicky.
“Don’t go past him, for Christ’s sake. Turn left here. We can’t take him on a busy street. Drive straight out to Richmond Field and we’ll wait there. Maybe he’ll arrive during play. Fifteen, twenty thousand people will be screaming their heads off. Could be a good distraction. I’d say things are breaking our way.”
The November day remained cool, but Mack was awash with sweat when he finished roughening the tube with the grater, buffing the patch with emery cloth, and cementing it on. He waited ten minutes for the cement to set, then mounted tube and tire—more struggling, more muttering—and fell to with the hand pump. Once the tire was inflated, they got going again.
