1906: A Novel

by Dalessandro, James

  The door creaked open and a figure entered the dark compartment. I screamed when he grabbed my shoulder.

  "Annalisa? What are you doing here?" He stowed his revolver. "You can't keep sneaking up on me like this."

  "I was merely being cautious."

  "Look. Annalisa. I want to know what is going on. Everything."

  The pale light streaming through the half-opened door illuminated his anguished face.

  I stopped, my mouth half open, struck by the familiarity of the gaze: the inquisitive cock of the head, the disarming blue eyes, the steady tone of the voice. They were not the characteristics of the impetuous young man I had encountered the previous day.

  They were his father's eyes, his father's mannerisms, Byron's measured and resolute tone.

  "Annalisa?"

  The fear and horror I felt over his father's death was replaced by an eerie sensation, simultaneously warm and disconcerting: the unearthly feeling that Byron's spirit had passed to his son.

  Chapter 19

  PACIFIC HEIGHTS

  APRIL 16, 1906. 8:00 A.M.

  As Hunter gathered evidence aboard the ill-fated launch, I conveyed what I knew of his father's activities in the days and hours prior to his death. I gradually realized Hunter was crafting his entreaties to elicit any hint that I might have tipped off someone to his father's activities. I had been tortured by the possibility since I learned of Byron's disappearance. Nothing terrified me more than the notion I might somehow be responsible. Hunter's insinuations did nothing to ease my distress.

  While Hunter and I searched the launch, Mayor Eugene Schmitz was leaving his house on Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights. Sporting his trademark slouch brim hat, he climbed into the red Model N Ford driven by Chief Jessie Donen, who had just left the Ferry Plaza, where his men were still arresting demonstrators.

  "His idiot sons found him floatin' facedown near Angel Island," Donen offered. To the Pacific Heights residents they passed, the burly chief seemed almost jubilant, clear-eyed and cocksure beneath his blue cap, the brass buttons on his whipcord uniform glowing in the morning light.

  Schmitz, in contrast, appeared tired and wan as they putted up Union Street, dodging milk wagons and bakery drays. "So, Chief, what do I tell reporters when they ask me?"

  "Tell 'em you don't know nothin' from nothin'. Just like you always do when things get dicey."

  Donen had never been fond of Eugene Schmitz, and the Mayor had always chafed at Donen's abrasiveness. That morning, it was the least of Schmitz' worries. The Mayor was scheduled to meet that morning with Daniel Burnham, famed designer of the Chicago World's Fair, to discuss his sweeping plans to remake the entire city of San Francisco.

  Burnham's plan, delivered months earlier, was to paddle-shovel the city into oblivion and recreate it on the order of Paris. It called for arrondisements arranged in concentric circles, neighborhoods wrapped around neighborhoods, transforming the hills into bulls-eyes of boulevards and gardens. Schmitz had hated the idea since inception, but Boss Rolf insisted it be their legacy to make the city more than just a symbolic "Paris of the West," not to mention reaping millions in construction contracts, building permits, and franchise fees.

  Donen turned south on Van Ness, stopping at Clay Street for cross-traffic. He idled in the shadows of a French-empire mansion with towering parapets and tiled mansard roof, the home of Rudolph Spreckels, sworn enemy of their regime.

  A folded newspaper hit Schmitz in the chest and nearly sent him out of his gray English tweeds. As the Ford jerked forward, he pulled a nickel from his watch pocket and flipped it toward the curb, where the dirty-faced newsboy caught it in his apple hat.

  Schmitz opened the Bulletin to the front page and scanned the story on Byron Fallon's disappearance. It offered scant information but substantial speculation, finishing with "if foul play is proven, then let those responsible find themselves dancing at the end of a noose."

  On the second page, Schmitz located Fremont Older's latest editorial invective, written prior to the awful events.

  THE PAINT EATERS

  A sane populace would soundly defeat the ridiculous Burnham Plan if put to a referendum. Only another conflagration of Jerichon proportions could make its implementation anything but corrupt folly. His Honor, Mayor Eugene Schmitz, who once described his greedy minions at City Hall as 'so desperate for boodle they would eat the paint off a house,' is now prepared to start eating the houses.

  The Ford stopped on Larkin Street near the side entrance to City Hall, beneath the shadow of the massive bronze Goddess of Progress that sat astride the towering Beaux Arts dome, her nose upturned as if to avoid the scent of things below.

  Donen sped off the moment the Mayor's feet touched ground.

  Schmitz crossed the wide street in spasmodic jumps, cursing the tardiness of the manure trucks. An onslaught of journalists in shapeless suits started huffing in his direction, shouting questions.

  "Mr. Mayor. What about the rumors Byron Fallon's own men did him in?" While Schmitz scanned his sparse imagination for a suitable response, more shells were lobbed.

  "The Tongs are fumin' about the brothel raids. Is Chief Donen plannin' to haul the hatchet-swingin' bastards in?"

  "Shanghai Kelly has been kicking up dust about the war on the crimps and boardinghouse keepers. Is he a suspect?"

  Schmitz gazed over their heads, losing himself in the spring explosion of poppies and marigolds in the planter boxes around City Hall Plaza. He had become adept at sidestepping every challenge to his administration, but that morning fear had left him without defense. "Chief Donen is heading a thorough investigation of this tragic accident. He has requested that all responses come from his office. Lieutenant Fallon was a dedicated public servant who will be greatly missed."

  Schmitz found reprieve when Adam Rolf's Phaeton turned the corner from Market Street onto Larkin.

  Immediately the reporters flocked in Rolf's direction, leaving His Honor a chance to slip inside his ostentatious palace. Tommy's scowl informed all that City Attorney Rolf had no comment.

  Schmitz' heels resounded off the marble portico and echoed into the hollow dome seven stories above. He and Rolf, with Tommy trailing, reached the elevator and stepped into the polished mahogany interior.

  "Eugene. You look positively frightened."

  "Excuse me, Adam, it’s not often I'm the entrée at a lynch party. Every damn reporter from every damn newspaper wants to know what we're going to do about the death of the most popular police officer in the whole damn city!"

  "And the profanity, so uncharacteristic. Perhaps when Caruso leaves, you might consider a trip to Monterey. Play a little golf at Del Monte, have a mineral bath."

  The elevator stopped at the second floor. Schmitz strode quickly ahead of Rolf, bursting into the anteroom of his office.

  Before he was halfway through the room, the mayor's secretary intercepted him with a stack of messages.

  "Not now, Bertrand. Tell everyone I'm holed up in my office with a bout of apoplexy."

  Bertrand slunk back to his desk as Schmitz and Rolf barreled into the Mayor's office, leaving Tommy outside standing watchdog.

  Tommy managed to leave the inner door ajar, a fraction of an inch, as per Rolf's standard order.

  "Tell me you know nothing about this, Adam. Tell me Byron Fallon just happened to fall off his boat the same night Shanghai Kelly decided to attend the theater."

  "You know, Eugene, I'm a small man. No one listens to a small man, regardless of how brilliant his ideas. You, you are magnificent; imposing, attractive, an empty vessel into which I pour these grand ideas. I can make a governor, a senator, maybe even a president of you. Or, you can defy me, start pretending you are not party to all this, and God's wrath will seem a minor inconvenience compared to mine."

  Bertrand squeezed past Tommy and stuck his head inside the door, just far enough to remove it quickly if circumstance demanded. "Mayor Schmitz, sir. Mr. Daniel Burnham is on the phone. He insisted I inter
rupt you."

  "Tell Mr. Burnham that we won't be razing and rebuilding the city of San Francisco for at least a few more days. And don't bother me again!"

  Bertrand slid out, closing the door until Tommy caught it and motioned him back to his desk. The burly goon stood with his back to the door, his ear turned toward the thin opening.

  "Wonderful speech, Adam. The sword and the olive branch, Heaven and Purgatory as simple alternatives. Now. Tell me. What happened to Inspector Fallon? And try not to leave anything out."

  Chapter 20

  MISSION WHARF

  APRIL 16, 1906. 9:05 A.M.

  "So that's how you got into Rolf’s safe? You had an informant inside his mansion?" Hunter asked me.

  "The chef, Pierre. Your father staked out an all-male brothel in the Tenderloin where Pierre was moonlighting as a party boy, very popular with city officials. A waiter drilled a small hole from a pantry next door and took some rather compromising photos. Pierre liked to give cooking tips in the middle of fellatio."

  Hunter seemed shocked, then amused, that I would use such a word. "I figured the Latin term was the most civil approach," I said.

  "All manners of perversion seem more appealing in Latin," he laughed.

  "Only in San Francisco do you get culinary insight with your jollies." Hunter packed away his slides and instruments as we spoke, concluding the search for evidence on his father's launch. We had found no trace of the ledger photographs or my affidavits.

  "Actually, we have two informants in Rolf's little circle," I said. Hunter looked at me, staring again into my eyes as I spoke.

  "Tommy Biggs, Rolf’s bodyguard. He did a three-year stretch in San Quentin, developed a predilection for male companionship. Pierre started taking him to the Lonely Eye."

  "My father told you all this?"

  "It was our arrangement. Except for the names of the men involved in the corruption probe, he couldn't keep anything from me, regardless of how salient. Tommy also has a morphine and opium habit, compliments of San Quentin. When he gets a snoot full, he likes to wander over to the Lonely Eye, dress in frilly garments and wrestle with the biggest bull in the place while some of the city's more esteemed citizenry lounge in satin chairs and—how shall I put this—amuse themselves."

  Hunter seemed thoroughly captivated by my unlady-like candor. Even I had to smile. Byron had hemmed and stuttered when I pressed him for the details, searching for the most genteel words he could find. It was the first I had ever spoken to anyone of such matters, and I was surprised at how easy it was.

  "He must cut quite a figure in a whalebone corset," Hunter replied. "Tommy and Pierre, did either of them know the other was working for my father?"

  "No. Your father was adamant about that, and both of them are too frightened of Rolf to risk confiding in anyone else. Tommy is by far the most valuable. He kept Byron informed of Rolf’s whereabouts. Never leaves his boss's side in public. Your father made Tommy write things down, he gave Tommy a small ledger book. Every few days, Tommy would tear out the pages and leave them at Molinari's deli where your father picked them up."

  We left the launch and approached the end of the dock.

  "You can ride with me," he said.

  I stared with uncertainty at the motorcycle, gleaming black, trimmed with shiny chromed elements, a not unappealing sight, though I am little enamored of machinery. It had wide, sweeping handlebars, levers and cables and handles attached everywhere, and a long, flat leather seat, unlike the bicycle seats I had seen on several others.

  "I built that seat special," Hunter said. "Had the saddle maker down at Stanford upholster it for me so I could take someone along if I had to. I've seen similar ones in photographs. It's plenty strong."

  After Hunter started the contraption, I held my breath and gingerly climbed on behind him, dismissing the inclination to ride sidesaddle out of fear for my life. I squeezed close, arranged my skirt to keep it from being entangled in the spokes and, at his urging, wrapped my arms around him. It was more intimate than I cared to be, more intimate than I had been with the several men who had courted me, but survival seemed more important than social etiquette.

  Within seconds, we began a hair-raising ride along the Embarcadero, weaving in and out between drays and honking automobiles.

  We charged up Broadway, then up even steeper Kearny, up, up the southern slope of Telegraph Hill, as I clung to Hunter for dear life, frightened that the whole thing was going to flip over on us like a bucking horse.

  We skidded to a stop in front of the Fallon house, where I staggered off, coughing up a tot of soot.

  "You'll get used to the smell, Annalisa. You just have to outrun it sometimes."

  "Great. If the fumes don't kill you, you can always use your face for a braking mechanism."

  Entering the front door, neither of us was prepared for the surfeit of calm and emptiness. Hunter gamely forced a smile, trying to ease my distress.

  "My mother loved this house, she said it reminded her of the Almafi Coast just below Naples. There isn't a hill in the world too steep for the Italians to build a house on. She and I used to walk up to Pioneer Park just above and identify the boats coming through the Golden Gate: brigantines, clippers, yawls, junks, Whitehalls. Have you been here before?"

  "It was the only place we could work without the fear of someone seeing us together. He became almost a substitute father to me. I have no kitchen in my place; I used to cook for him sometimes. He made me feel safe."

  Referring to Byron in the past dismayed me. "I know that's inappropriate, Hunter, a single woman visiting a widowed man like that."

  "He was a caring man, my father. He would never admit it, but I could tell he was lonely with my mother gone and Christian and me away. I'm thankful he had someone to talk to. I would feel much worse if he had spent his last days alone."

  I dabbed at my eyes. "I did not know all the men involved in the corruption probe, but I knew they were going to reinstate James Phelan as Mayor. He was going to appoint your father Chief of Police once Donen was taken off." I had to pause again.

  Hunter stared, and I stared back. Despite the heartbreak, I felt a comfort and attraction developing between us. It helped ease the pain.

  "There were several times that we worked until the sun came up," I said. "Your father always walked over to the window and muttered something in Italian."

  "La luce splendida. The splendid light. My mother's favorite time of day. She used to say it every morning. He took to saying it for her after she died. He had started hearing her voice sometimes. Always in the morning, as though she was calling him home."

  Hunter paused and composed himself. "He promised to protect you if something went wrong, didn't he?"

  I nodded, finding it difficult to speak.

  "Then I want you to stay here so I can protect you now. I'll take my father's room and you can have my old one. I'm not interested in social convention, Annalisa. You'll be safer here. If we can prove he was murdered the whole city will rise up in arms."

  "You believe someone murdered him? Rolf or someone had him killed?"

  "As sure as I'm an orphan in my parents' house. Now we have to prove it."

  He squeezed my arm, gently, and I rested my hand on his. I fought the urge to hug him.

  "I need your help, Annalisa. We have to move before evidence starts disappearing. My books and microscope are in the wine cellar in boxes. I need them set up."

  "I'll let Mr. Lee know we won't need his services for a while." I hesitated and looked at Hunter. "I'll do anything I have to, Hunter. Anything to put away the men who murdered your father. But there can be no secrets, no matter how repulsive or dangerous. You tell me everything. I'm going to finish this story and see that it gets printed."

  "You will have plenty to write about before we're done."

  He handed me the test tubes and slides from his leather bag and exited quickly, leaving me alone in the unnervingly silent house.

  Chapter 21


  HALL OF JUSTICE

  APRIL 16, 1906. 10:25 A.M.

  While I was busy unpacking and setting up his laboratory instruments in the wine cellar of the Fallon house, Hunter drove through the crowded streets of North Beach. He chained the motorcycle to a telephone pole on Kearny and dashed into the Hall of Justice, avoiding the pack of reporters loitering outside.

  He ran down the granite steps to the basement, through the door marked "San Francisco County Coroner," pushing through a second door marked "Official Entry Only—All Others Prohibited" into a dank brick corridor, pungent with the smell of formaldehyde and carbolic acid.

  He entered the autopsy room and stopped abruptly at the sight of his father on the table, a white sheet covering all but his very pale feet and head. The overhead light cast a yellowish glow on the bald pate, dusty traces of dried salt glowing faintly on his thick eyebrows and mustache.

  On the other side of the table, Christian stared blankly, a sweat magnifying his pallor.

  "Where's the coroner, Christian?"

  "He left a half-hour ago."

  "What did he do, spend all of ten minutes with dad?"

  "He drowned. When we turned him over the water came pouring out of him."

  "That means he was still breathing when someone cut his life line." Hunter plopped his leather bag onto a small metal table. "Did he photograph the body or take any samples?"

  "No."

  "Then he didn't do his job."

  "It was him and Anthony, remember? Unless somebody just happened to swim by and shove him overboard."

  Hunter used a scalpel to probe beneath his father's fingernails, scraping a sticky black substance onto a slide. "You Catholic still, Christian? Come Judgment Day, maybe you can explain how you traded his life for another shot of whiskey."

  "Like that story about him sending you on patrol on the Barbary Coast, damn near getting both of us killed? Six years humping little college girls and staring at test tubes while me and Francis and Max are out getting stabbed and shot at every day."