“I don’t gamble.” She did, actually. But playing bridge for money shouldn’t count.
“In a way, cops gamble with their lives protecting the city. Especially now in Chinatown. Pick one.” He extended the love charm and the gambling charm.
Anna considered. Perhaps Chinese luck worked better than Catholic luck, which was, at best, unpredictable. She was a most unfortunate girl, alone in the world, about to gamble with her life in the most dangerous quarter of Los Angeles. Joe Singer didn’t love her, the Chinese didn’t like her. Anna desperately needed luck.
But which one? Love luck or gambling luck?
Anna’s eyes focused on the love charm. She bit her lip, and pictured Joe Singer with his beautiful Arrow Collar Man face. His only real flaw was a need to get married that bordered on pathological, and that led to his faithless pursuit of other women. But every man must have a weakness. He simply needed help in reforming. He needed to be shown that Anna loved him madly, that he could still love her madly, even without marriage, as she no longer had a chaperone. Then, he would forget about his third cousin, the piano girl, and any other unsuitable person he was caressing, and return to Anna’s arms.
But . . .
Chinatown was about to explode, Anna was kicked off the crime scene, the witness wouldn’t speak to her, her primary suspect had probably left town. Anna wanted Joe Singer’s love, but she had a murder to solve and a Chinatown to save.
“I’ll take the gambling charm, please.”
Mr. Melvin handed her the pretty slip of paper. “You just burn it. That’s how they work.”
“It’s too pretty to burn.” She smiled. “Thank you.”
Mr. Melvin blushed at his shoes.
In case Joe hadn’t gotten the message from Mr. Jones, Anna hurried to his desk and left the note, scribbling on the bottom for him to meet her at the crime scene. Effects from Lim’s apartment sat in a box on Joe’s blotter—the empty teapot, a stack of framed photographs, the severed braid, which Anna decided she would later give to the Bonsors as a memento. She saw the picture she had tried to steal from Leo Lim’s apartment. She stole it now and stowed it in her desk.
Anna took the trolley to the Plaza, which was peppered with palm trees and park benches and green from the rains. She trudged across the lawn toward Chinatown. The bells of La Placita Church chimed six. Catholics, having celebrated mass, spilled through its ancient doors and scattered like beads from a broken rosary. She crossed Los Angeles Street and was back in Chinatown. Workers pulled carts or rode in farm wagons, returning home from the vegetable fields. Anna moved conspicuously among them, picking her way along the mucky sidewalk, while the men stared their curiosity.
A cop patrolled Marchessault Street in his leather helmet and blue coat, his face set in a scowl. Officer . . . she didn’t know. He swung his billy club. She tipped her hat low to cover her face and crossed to the other side of the street. She wasn’t supposed to be there alone. She also avoided the white men who had come slumming, and who Joe said were such a threat. They weren’t all unshaven rabble. Some wore proper evening clothes, but most appeared to have been drinking. Chinese men stood at the doors to shady-looking joints and called out in heavy accents, “American. American, come play.” Periodically, she heard bells ring. Then, the men calling from the gambling dens would quiet. Anna wondered about the bells, why they rang and why they stopped.
On Juan Street the chop suey joint below the crime scene teemed with diners. A table of Chinamen stared at her through the window. Anna kept her head down and slunk through the door leading to the apartments. The entryway had been aired out and no longer smelled like death, merely like chop suey. She mounted the creaking stairs and turned down the clean, though dilapidated hallway. She expected to see Mr. Jones leaning his bulk against the wall looking sullen and striking, either standing with Joe or waiting for him. No one was there. Perhaps they were already inside.
Anna knocked at the witness’s apartment. When no one answered, she called out, “Hello? Mrs. Lo?” She could see light seeping out from under the door, and a shadow crossed the peephole, but when she knocked again, no one opened. Joe and Mr. Jones were obviously not there, and she suspected that Mrs. Lo had not forgiven Anna for her earlier gaffe. Perhaps the husband would speak to Joe, if only Joe and Mr. Jones would show up.
A chair stood in the hall. Anna sat down to wait. Her stomach ached with shrinking. She regretted giving her supper to the girl prisoner and lost boy. Her eyes traced a stain down the wall, and then trained on a pair of tiny slippers set neatly by the doormat—the ones the lady had worn earlier. Anna couldn’t help but pick up the peculiar things for a closer look. They were lovely, sized to fit a doll, but they smelled foul. Not the ordinary shoe smell, but like a wound. Anna dropped them. A piece of paper stuck to the bottom fluttered off, laying face up on the floor. It appeared to be a laundry ticket. Anna brightened with an idea. It would be difficult to retrieve one’s clothes from a laundry if one had lost one’s ticket.
She stooped to pick it up, pinching it between two fingers. Chinese characters ran up and down the sides. The top had torn off, but in the middle it read:
Government Licensed Laundry Man
Three Cents One Piece For Big Dollars.
And Turned Serge, Suit and Bry Clean.
And Retape Collars.
She knocked, much harder and longer thiIt was after midnight when Annas time. “Mrs. Lo, I have your laundry ticket.” No one answered.
Anna dropped the laundry ticket. Then she picked it up again. It couldn’t belong to the manager’s wife. Judging from the state of her servant’s hands, they did laundry in-house. Since the woman never went out into the streets, it likely belonged to a tenant. Anna doubted that the woman routinely entered the men’s apartments. Judging from the state of Lim’s rooms, no one cleaned regularly, or irregularly for that matter. The landlady either picked the ticket up in the hallway, or on Leo Lim’s sticky floor when she came in to investigate the stench. Anna scanned the corridor, which had been scrubbed clean again since the afternoon. Anna’s money was on Lim’s sticky floor.
If the ticket did in fact belong to Lim, Anna could find the laundry and see if he would come back for his clothes. If Anna’s fine clothes were at the laundry, she would certainly retrieve them—fugitive or no.
Anna waited another hour for Joe and Mr. Jones, knocking periodically at Mrs. Lo’s door. No one was coming. She tried the door of the apartment where the body had been found. Joe had locked it. Then she trudged down the stairs into the street.
The sun was long gone, and she could see her breath. Rain clouds blocked the moon. Bawdy music played in some nearby saloon, and she heard the crash of a breaking window. She ought to call the station and have Joe come to collect her, but he would be angry and she didn’t know where to find a telephone. They didn’t give matrons keys to the police call boxes. She knew one thing for sure; she didn’t want to linger in Chinatown after dark.
The chop suey joint glowed on the first floor of the apartment building. Inside, every table was occupied. Chopsticks pinched noodles in competent fingers. She peered through the glass. The food on the diners’ plates did not look like the chop suey made by her father’s cook from spaghetti noodles and tomato sauce. It looked much, much better. There were heaping plates of vegetables, chicken livers, gizzards, and tripe, all piled atop steaming noodles. Her mouth watered.
Keeping a low profile did not include eating alone in an all-male, all-Chinese establishment. On the other hand, fainting from hunger wouldn’t do either. But she had given most of her money to the old laundress in exchange for nothing. The man whose plate Anna coveted noticed her staring through the window and cocked his head as if she were the strange one. She quickly turned and bustled toward home.
She approached Most Lucky Laundry, where Ma Yi-jun had been washing windows. The steam was gone, and the lanterns were dark. It was the closest laundry to Leo Lim’s apartment. Possibly he took his clothes there.
Anna pressed her face to the glass. Even if the lady were there, Anna didn’t care to pay the laundry bill to retrieve Leo Lim’s clothes. The wrinkly dog burst out of the dark, teeth bared, and charged the inside window barking viciously. Anna squealed and jumped back.
“Jupiter!” She put a hand on her chest and breathed. The dog kept barking, and Anna feared he would break through the glass.
She hurried away, planning to return in the morning with Joe and his wallet.
“Sei gwai por!” The words pinged with a heavy Chinese accent.
Anna turned. Ma Yi-jun had stuck her head through the door.
Anna lifted her chin and walked slowly and deliberately down the street. Ma Yi-jun scurried after her, wrapping herself in a quilted coat. She put one crooked hand on Anna’s shoulder. Anna could feel the woman’s delicate fingers, like bird bones. She stopped and spun around. “What? What do you want? Another dollar? Because I don’t have a dollar, and I couldn’t eat chop suey because of you, so don’t pretend we’re friends.”
A drunken whoop escaped from the door of a nearby saloon. “Sei gwai por. Your clothes are dirty. You need laundry done.”
Anna looked down at her skirt, with the marks from her scuffle with Joe on the floor. She colored. “Yes, I’m sure I do, but laundry service is not in my budget, thank you very much. And I can’t walk through Chinatown naked.” Anna pulled out the laundry ticket. “If you want to help me, I’d like to pick up my clothes and pay tomorrow. Honor system.”
“Laundry is closed.”
“So now you won’t help me? Well then, good night!” Anna put the ticket in her pocket, adopted a regal bearing, and glided off.
“Watch out, sei gwai por,” she heard Ma Yi-jun say.
When Ma Yi-jun was out of sight, Anna slunk. She wished she had more eyes and could watch all around her all at once. She was a woman alone at night in the heart of LA’s vice district. Venturing out without Joe or Mr. Jones had been a mistake, though she would never admit it to Joe. At night, Chinatown oozed with threat, and the later the hour, the drunker the men who came slumming.
This deep into the quarter, most of the men were Chinese. They watched her as she passed them, saying things she didn’t understand. Some had hungry eyes, like Mrs. Bonsor said, making Anna pull her cape tighter. But most simply looked curious or wary. An old-timer with a gray pigtail and no arm in one sleeve trailed along behind her, snapping sharply at anyone who dared speak to her. Did he fear her safety or for the safety of Chinatown if a white woman was harmed? After a few blocks, she glanced around and her strange guardian angel had vanished.
Chinese men called out from the lotteries, beckoning players, and girls called from brothel windows. Anna rushed along, head down, to the brewery, a large industrial building, which was closed at night and unlit. Bestial grunting sounds emanated from the side of it. She dared not look but jogged on.
Anna headed west toward the sordid playground of Alameda Street patronized by all races. Every distant shout and whoop from the barrooms seemed to be for her, every footfall her pursuer. Even the wind seemed to follow her, caressing her through her cape like a cold hand. Anna shuddered.
Anna turned a corner and stumbled to a stop. The hair on her scalp stiffened, and an icy tide rushed up her spine. She froze but for the trembling of her hands.
Illuminated by the hellish glow of red lanterns, a fistful of thugs in black hats and black tunics stood on either bank of the mucky road, the nearest not ten feet away. Highbinders—no doubt Bing Kong and Hop Sing, mad about the stolen singsong girls and the power play that the theft represented. The air crackled with menace as they postured. It seemed a mere spark would ignite their violence, and Anna would be caught in the midst of it. Not just Anna, but any drunken fool who stumbled by or who played in the adjacent joints.
Anna flattened herself against the wall, eyes so wide they watered. Hatchet men, people called them. Likely, one of them had chopped up Ko Chung, slowly, to maximize his terror and pain. They had thrown his pieces in the river. Tonight she didn’t see their hatchets, but their tunics were blousy enough to hide guns.
Anna inched along the wall, back toward the brewery and the beast noises, melting into the shadows, putting distance between herself and the highbinders until she could no longer see them. Until they could not see her. She hastened between a walk and a run.
Opium smoke perfumed the lane, syrupy and floral, causing her to stop her breath again lest she become a dope. It made her feel light-headed. Across the street, Anna saw a cigarette glow in the doorway of a darkened building. The cigarette, perhaps innocent, began moving in her direction.
Up ahead, a slobbering group of bounders crossed the road, engaged in an embrace that was five men long. They sang, “When I was a little lad or so my mammy told me. Way haul away, we’ll haul away Joe. That if I didn’t kiss the girls, me lips would all grow moldy.” Sailors. If Anna didn’t hurry, their paths would cross, and she’d be trapped between the cigarette man and a drunken game of red rover. She pivoted down a slim street, along a string of cribs with windows barred to keep the girls inside.
The cigarette man now trotted behind her. Anna quickened her steps to a lope. He slapped the wooden sidewalk faster. She was afraid to scream—afraid the highbinders would come or the drunken sailors. Her odds were better one-on-one. Anna twisted to glance behind her and assess the threat. The smoking man dropped his cigarette and lunged. His fist shot out. His punch landed hard. Anna’s head snapped back. She started to fall. He grabbed her arms and drove her body against the wall. She felt dizzy and disoriented. His fingers groped for her breasts, which were mostly shielded by the armor of her corset. With his mouth so close, his spoiled-tuna-fish breath was as potent as smelling salts. Anna finally reacted, slapping him on the side of the head with her silver mesh purse. It had no weight, but surely the metal stung. Grunting, he grabbed at her purse, loosening his hold just enough for Anna to twist away and poke him in the eye with all her might. He yelled.
Anna bolted, leaving her cherished silver purse in his rotten hand. She fled unsteadily, skimming the walls where the shadows were deepest—one block, two blocks, past the cribs, gambling joints, saloons, and men, out of Chinatown, through the Plaza, not stopping until she hit the relative safety of Main Street.
She stumbled to a halt and bent over gasping, her side pinched in a stitch, her breasts burning from where the man had touched her, her head throbbing.
A rider clopped by on a Morgan horse, sending up little splats of mud. A couple stepped companionably out of a restaurant, arm in arm. A gutted seagull topped the lady’s hat for decoration. It stared at Anna. Anna stared back, still dazed. The couple strolled around her, leaving her a wide berth. Possibly because she looked disreputable.
Anna straightened up. Her face ached. Her purse and money were gone. She had no trolley fare. She needed a steak for her eye. Anna let out a single sob. Holding her head with one gloved hand, she walked home.
It was after midnight when Anna slammed the apartment door behind her, eliciting a delayed bang bang on the wall from her neighbor. Her hand would not stop shaking. Her mind was racing, her body surging. She knew she wouldn’t sleep that night.
Anna had taken a punch in the face. But hadn’t every man in California at one time or another? In a way, shouldn’t she feel initiated? She sat on her hands to hold them still. What would Joe Singer do in her position? He would swear maybe, but he certainly wouldn’t cry. Anna vowed she would bear it like Joe Singer—like a cop.
Her apartment was freezing cold, but she had no coal. She looked down her front. Her uniform was filthy, and had a tear at the knee. She couldn’t possibly wash it, mend it, and dry it over an empty stove, which she could not light, in time to wear it in the morning. Anna removed her shoes and stockings and padded barefoot to the kitchen, letting her toes take comfort in the soft fur rugs. She dosed herself with headache powder, swallowing the bitterness down with a dram of whiskey.
She needed her
dressmaker to surrender her police bloomers, and she needed them tonight.
Across the room on a swirling art nouveau vanity, a satin pillow displayed itself like a porcupine’s victim, each quill a hatpin topped with some small jewel. She climbed the summit of her giant bed, crawling across goose down on her elbows, swinging her legs onto the floor so she could reach the pins. Anna didn’t know the value of her gems and hadn’t planned to part with them until she’d had them appraised. She knew the emotional cost. Each was a treasure from her grandmother, mother, or father, all now lost to her through death or abandonment. Each held a memory of some semblance of love.
Now no one loved her.
She bit the edge of her thumb and selected a luminous green sapphire surrounded with seed pearls—a gift from her father upon her sixteenth birthday. As she plucked it from the pillow, it stabbed her in the heart.
Armed with the hatpin, Anna went to visit her seamstress, who lived over the shop, never mind the hour. Sleep was an impossibility. Anna knocked on the door for several minutes, and then pounded, before the dressmaker opened in her nightgown and robe. She swiped sleep from her eyes and demanded, “What is it?”
Anna, garbed disreputably and smelling of whiskey, somberly held out her hatpin. “Collateral.”
CHAPTER 13
The next morning, Anna’s head pounded like a tuba’s oom-pa-pa. She rolled from bed, put her feet on the furry rug, and maneuvered her way past the grand piano into the corner kitchen. Her fingers were white with cold. A family of cockroaches scattered, their tiny legs skittering across the floor. Anna swatted at them madly with last Sunday’s Los Angeles Times, but they disappeared into the walls. She squeaked in frustration.
Positioning herself by the idle stove, she consumed a tin of kippers and stuck a box of Cracker Jacks into her pocket for later. Thanks to her ill-conceived generosity, she would have to make them last all day.
The Woman in the Camphor Trunk Page 9
