by S. L. Stoner
Rachel paused until silence cloaked the room before leaning forward to say firmly, “Remember what the Greeks and our own country’s founding fathers told us, ‘United we stand, divided we fall.” As she shouted the motto, she raised a clenched fist to pound the air.
The noise was deafening as everyone leapt to their feet to raise their voices and fists in return. Mae joined in even though she had seen it all before and feared how it might end.
Chapter Seventeen
“You know, at this point, I’m just letting the current carry me along,” he told the unconscious woman on the bed. Feeling an awkwardness akin to shame, Sinclair studied the strong features, the bold brows, the dark lashes against the smooth cheeks. There was nobility in that face. Perhaps it was her race. Jews survived and lived to triumph despite centuries of persecution. Panama. Could she survive even that? Illness would make a fine bone structure like hers first sharper then skeletal.
“Stop it,” he told himself. He shifted on the chair, wanting to get up and leave the room. To descend downstairs where, even though it was just early afternoon, liquor-fueled riotousness seemed to have erupted. He looked at her again, thinking how little she must know about the way of life taking place right outside her prison.
“I’ve been following your sister, Rachel,” he told her, feeling a trifle silly talking to an unconscious woman. “She hasn’t given up her union work, you know. We thought she would, but she hasn’t. And things are getting tougher for her. Cobb’s fired her. He’s locking the rest of them out tomorrow morning.”
Sinclair gazed at the rough boards across the window. Outside, the streets echoed with drunken shouts and the clatter of fast moving cabs and carriages. The North End was a rowdy place for men who possessed little other than hope. He wondered what it must be like for her, hearing people beyond the window but prevented from catching their notice.
He turned back to tell her, “You will soon be out of here and on a ship, you know. It’s important that, once you’re aboard, that you obey the captain. I thought I’d pay him extra, just to make sure the men leave you alone. It’s a rough ship. Not suitable for a lady, I’m afraid. When you reach San Francisco, someone will be waiting for you. After that . . .”
Sinclair’s monologue trailed off as shame speared his throat, killing his words. He stared down at the unconscious girl. How much alike, in character, were the two sisters? It was strange, sitting here looking at the still form of one sister while remembering the on-going liveliness of the other. Too lively. She’s causing me problems. For certain, even when he finally managed to capture Rachel, she’d be a fighter. That was her nature.
Besides, now there was that other woman, Mae something, from the laundry. She looked to be older than him by nearly two decades but his gut told him that didn’t matter. She’d be a fighter as well. A blue-eyed hawk she was. And tough, he could tell that about her. Some women emitted a fiery confidence that warned a man to take care. She was one of those. She was wary, too. She barely let Rachel out of her sight once they were on the street. Because of her, he’d been forced to drop much farther behind whenever he trailed the pair of them.
Sinclair looked down to see his hands rapidly turning his hat brim. Damn, he was nervous. He hated this job. Why was he bothering these women? They wanted nothing more than they deserved. Besides, he hated Cobb’s smug confidence and little twists of cruelty. And Cobb is a coward who can’t do the dirty work himself. No, instead he hires men to do it. That’s why it was him, Paul Sinclair, who had to stand at the laundry door and hand out that spiteful letter and watch those exhausted faces turn angry and alarmed.
For some reason he thought again of that stupid needle and too big camel. Maybe it wasn’t wealth in itself that blocked a rich man’s progress into heaven. Maybe it was what he did to get that wealth. A string of words—ruthless, devious, greedy, cruel and inhumane—came to mind.
“What do you think, girl?” he asked the still figure. She said nothing. Faced with her continued silence, he heaved a sigh and left the room, snapping the padlock shut behind him.
The madam waited for him at the bottom of the stairs. “You’re still going to take her out of here in four days?” she asked before rushing to assure, “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the money but, it is extra work and, well, business has picked up. We could use that extra room.”
His smile felt like a grimace but he answered readily enough as he clapped the bowler onto his head, “Yes, we are still on schedule. She should be out of your hair in four days. I’ll let you know if that changes but I don’t expect that it will.”
It was the ninth day since Rebecca Levy had gone missing. Early morning gusts drove welcome rain against the windows. In a few more months, everyone would be tired of the drizzle but, after days of searing heat, people would celebrate this wetting. Except maybe others like himself, Sage thought to himself. That was because he had to drag himself out from between his dry sheets, don his John Miner outfit and hit the wet streets. On the brink of feeling sorry for himself, he remembered that the laundry workers would also be out in force, standing in the rain before the locked doors with their newly-made picket signs.
He’d escorted his mother and Rachel Levy back to the boarding house, warning them that the pencil fellow said someone had been following them. Perhaps it was the man who’d taken Rebecca.
Mae was unsurprised at the news, saying, “I figured as much. My shoulders kept feeling the so-and-so’s beady eyes on us. I talked to Mr. Eich about it. He said he’d glimpsed someone a time or two but it wasn’t enough for him to be sure. With all the factories around here there’s plenty of folks on the street just before and after work.”
This further alarmed Sage so he went to find Fong to make plans. One of Fong’s cousins would follow in addition to Eich. That way, if the two women separated, Fong’s man would follow one while Eich stuck with the other. Fong immediately set off to make the arrangement. More than once Fong had drawn on his cousins’ skills—sometimes at the loss of their own life. Maybe their willingness to assist was because of Fong’s reputation as a tong conciliator or it was simply the habit of mutual aid they relied on to survive in the hostile white world. Something else played a part too. Fong once told him that the Chinese also yearned to see economic and social justice in their adopted country. These were the thoughts running through Sage’s mind as he dressed and again exited through the tunnel into the cooler but wet day.
Fortunately, the rain had ceased and he merely had to navigate his way around puddles. Once across the river, he avoided walking dirt streets churned into muddy morasses by early morning wagon wheels. Sure enough, about forty people, mostly women, stood before the Sparta Laundry, holding aloft hand-painted placards. “Unfair to Workers,” said one. “Women Laundry Workers Are Being Abused,” said another. “Women’s Health Not Profits,” declared a third. Someone started a rousing union song and all joined in.
Sage was relieved to see Eich’s cart parked nearby. That meant the ragpicker was somewhere close and so was Mae Clemens. Twitching willow fronds high up in the willow tree drew Sage’s gaze upward where he saw the features of a grinning Chinese face. It was one of Fong’s regulars. What an agile fellow, he thought as he smiled back. For now, Rachel and Mae were safe.
No longer worried, Sage turned and strolled away south. As he hoped, the United States Laundry was open and operating with steam billowing from its high, open windows. He entered the waiting room and found a woman clerk standing behind the counter. He asked her if he could speak to the manager.
“I am sorry but Mr. Finley is not here at present,” she said, before adding apologetically, “He’s asked me to tell folks that he, regretfully, has no open positions at present. We know the other laundries have locked out and wish we could hire their workers. But, we just can’t.”
“Mr. Finley intends to stay open?” he probed.
The woman’s answering nod was hesitant. “If he can.” Then in a rush, she let her outrage spill
forth, “He thinks those scamps from the laundry association have threatened our supplier. The supplier should have delivered new chemicals to us on Saturday. When Mr. Finley sent word, asking where the chemicals were, the supplier wrote back that it had run into difficulties. That’s where he is now, across the river at the chemical company.”
“What will Mr. Finley do if the supplier doesn’t deliver the chemicals?” Sage asked, remembering that he’d watched Cobb’s entourage call upon a chemical business the week prior. To verify his suspicion he asked, “Would that be the City Chemical Supply Company?”
The woman nodded glumly. “That’s the only place in town that sells steam laundry chemicals. If they won’t sell to us, then we can’t continue doing laundry—plain and simple. Mr. Finley will have to close us down.” Sage saw the worry in the woman’s eyes. He wished he could reassure her but suspected the chemical company had bowed to Cobb’s demands. It wasn’t a novel tactic. When the majority of its regular customers threatened to withdraw future business unless a supplier complied with their wishes, the supplier inevitably complied. There’d been a recent news story in The Daily Journal about a discrimination lawsuit making its way through the courts. In that case, anti-union lumber mills were refusing to provide a unionized construction company with lumber. They hoped to turn the construction company against its own workers.
Sage could think of nothing to say. The United States Laundry was in a dire situation. So was this woman, since a closed laundry meant unemployment for all its workers. She must have seen sympathy in his face, however, because she smiled faintly and said, “I expect Mr. Finley will think of something.”
When a second downpour let loose, Rachel declared the picketing over. She asked that everyone head toward the union hall across the river. Mae wandered over to stand beside Eich who was sheltering in a nearby doorway. “You go on and find yourself some place to dry off, Herman. Rachel and I will go over to the union hall with the whole group,” she told him.
“There’ll be plenty of folks around so we’ll be in no danger. Also,” she nodded toward the upper branches of the willow tree, “thanks to Mr. Fong, we are being watched over by our Asian angel. So, you needn’t worry.”
For once, Eich didn’t object. She could tell by the deep lines and slight pallor of his face, that he was good and tired. His guard duty had to be cutting into his sleep. Even though his lean-to was crude, its cot was still much more comfortable than bedding down on the ground. The heavy rains last night probably meant he’d slept curled up in some doorway.
“Alright, Mae,” Eich said, but raised a cautionary finger, “But, I do so only because I am trusting that you will stay with the group and wait at the hall until I am outside to escort you two back here across the river.”
She’d given Eich those assurances and set off with the others for the union hall. It was already crowded when they arrived. In the far corner, a huge pot of soup simmered on the cook stove. People lined up to receive full bowls, hunks of bread and a sympathetic smile from the volunteers drawn from the ranks of other unions. Mae looked around and saw the Caroline woman washing bowls while engaged in lively conversation with the woman drying them. For a new gal, that Caroline sure does have a way of wiggling right into the middle of things, Mae thought sourly before Rachel beckoned her to join a group of women. Soon after, Mae stopped thinking of the newcomer all together.
About an hour later there was a disturbance at the door as four women swept in. They were uniformly dressed, wearing well-tailored walking suits, their skirts grazing the tops of shiny dress boots. Mae had seen these women before. They frequented Mozart’s during the lunch and tea hours. She had filled their water glasses and overheard their conversations often enough to know why they were here. These were some of the city’s well-off suffragette leaders. She watched them approach the union president and engage him in discussion. Soon faces flared red and voices rose. The president gestured for Rachel to join him and she, in turn, grabbed Mae’s hand, tugging her along.
Mae couldn’t pull away. It would cause a scene. The four women would for sure notice her. At the same time, if she got too close they’d remember her face from Mozart’s Table. She just hoped that her rain bedraggled hair, shabby clothes and averted face wouldn’t trigger their recollection of the restaurant hostess who’d sometimes seated and served them.
She took care to stand a bit behind Rachel but soon realized she needn’t have worried. The four women were too incensed to even notice her. One of them shook with anger as she shrilled, “We women must insist that you drop this campaign for a nine-hour day.”
The union president responded in a tight, overly patient tone that signaled he was repeating himself—probably not for the first time, “The working conditions are brutal, these women need to get relief however they can.”
“You are undercutting our campaign for equal rights,” cried another of the suffragettes. “You are basing your whole nine hour campaign on the claim that women are the ‘weaker’ sex and deserve ‘special’ protection.” She practically spat the words, “weaker” and “special.”
Another one of the four added, in a more measured tone, “You can’t possibly believe that these women,” here her sweeping hand indicated the laundry workers gathered around the uproar, “are in any way less capable, strong or enduring than men.”
The president shook his head. “As I keep telling you, you are missing the point. We don’t think any human, man or woman, should have to work sixty hour weeks. But we have to start somewhere. This is how we begin to chip away—by focusing on the laundry women. Their job is the hardest, most brutal. And if that means we must pander to ignorant men by calling these women ‘the weaker sex’ then so be it!” The president was bristling as he began to lose his temper, sending a dull red creeping up his face.
His words had no impact because the four women jumped in, repeating their protests, even stepping on each other’s points.
Rachel moved to face the women. “You are correct. Some of us believe that not only are women not the weaker sex, but that many of us are stronger physically, mentally and morally than men. But, that is not the point. The point is that the steam laundry job is killing, maiming and brutalizing mostly women. Whatever it takes, we are going to stop that.”
One of the women sniffed, “Hah! All I see before me is a traitor to her sex.”
Before Rachel could defend herself, the newcomer Caroline stepped forward, one hand briefly touching the small cross at her neck. “Ma’am,” she said politely, “I notice the four of you are wearing gloves, may I ask that you please remove them so that we may look at your hands?”
That request took the women completely by surprise, so much so that they began removing their gloves before they thought to question the reason. Soon eight hands were bare. Everyone could see that at least three of them displayed the pale fingers and unblemished hands of those who used hired help to keep their households.
Caroline turned to her co-workers and raised an eyebrow. Some of the women understood immediately and stepped forward, their bare hands extended. Soon red, cracked, and scarred hands appeared next to those smooth white ones. It was a sharp contrast. As if two different species were involved: so much so that the suffragettes’ hands vanished behind their skirts.
Caroline, her tone calm and eyes kind, quietly drove home the point, “These women suffer daily. Yes, you are absolutely right. Women need equal treatment and your fight is a noble one. But, you must recognize that our fight is also noble. We fight to relieve our suffering now, today. And to relieve the suffering of our families, now, today. We are not abstract human beings. We cannot sacrifice our families’ health and happiness; we cannot ignore our pain and suffering, in order to obtain some future goal for some unknown future people. We are here today. We must fight for ourselves, today.”
There was such entreaty in the young woman’s face that, on one hand, Mae felt her suspicions weaken. On the other hand, she wondered why such an obviously edu
cated woman was working in a steam laundry.
These thoughts took place even as quiet nods rippled through the surrounding crowd. One of the four suffragettes seemed to understand because her eyes filled with tears and her gaze dropped to the reddened hands still extended toward her.
Silence settled over the group until harrumphing in irritation, the most hectoring of the four turned and headed toward the door. The others followed, though the teary one cast an apologetic look over her shoulder as she exited.
Chapter Eighteen
“Where’s the big fellow?” Farley asked the waiter as he nodded toward the podium at the entrance.
The waiter paused, glanced at the podium and said, “Oh, you mean Mr. Solomon. He does not work the breakfast setting, only lunch and dinner.”
Farley saw Cobb enter the restaurant and gestured for the waiter to fill the empty cup across from him. “My guest may also want to order breakfast. Please bring a second menu.”
The frown on Cobb’s face telegraphed that the Sparta Laundry manager was in a foul mood. Sure enough, the first words out his mouth were, “Fine kettle of damn rotten fish!” He grabbed the just-delivered menu and snapped it open, even as he flicked a dismissive hand at the waiter.
“What’s happened?” Farley asked, frantically trying to anticipate what he or one of his three operatives had done wrong. Sinclair was a problem because that Rachel woman was still on the loose and stirring up trouble. But, the other two operatives were right where they were supposed to be.
“That damn trade union council plans to open up its own steam laundry. That’s what’s wrong,” Cobb said.
Farley repressed a sigh of relief and showed what he hoped was a sympathetic face. “Surely, that will take some time. They can’t do it overnight. We can go ahead with our plan. Everything should be over and done with by the time they can get a new steam laundry operational.”
