Gunter Erickson, a bearded Dane with one dead eye and skin more pickled than anything that left his tannery, handed the tiny sample back to Hunter, who handed it to me.
I turned it over several times, feigning the same ignorance Hunter displayed.
"This one has a coating on it, Mr. Erickson, slick, like some kind of waterproofing," Hunter said.
"Seems strange, waterproofing a seal," I added.
Erickson flashed the chipped ruins of tobacco-stained teeth floating in a sea of ebony gums and laughed, "It's only waterproof when the seal is wearin' it. Once you cure it, the oil in the skin dries up."
Hunter already knew that. Despite Byron's efforts to guide his son to other pursuits, he had schooled him since childhood in the subtleties of the detective trade, including the art of making a subject feel smarter than his inquisitor.
"What is this then?" I asked.
"Cold water suits. Somebody got the bright idea you could survive in the bloody bay if you wore a suit like this. Hell if I know if it works. Just what is your interest in this, you don't mind me asking?"
I gazed through the office window to the work floor below. In the strained sunlight streaming through the grimy windows, two dozen bearded, filthy men covered with sores and carbuncles used long wooden sticks to fish hides from enormous vats, dragging them to hanging racks.
"Mr. Erickson," Hunter said, "You employ a lot of Scandinavians. Danes, Norwegians, Swedes. Seafaring men, mostly?"
"Steady work's a shade better than a life at sea."
"Real popular with the shanghaiers," Hunter replied. "You ever lose anyone?"
Erickson hesitated, examining us carefully. "In the last two years I had three men up and disappear. Two of 'em family men. Ain't never heard from them again. You think this seal man had something to do with it?"
Once he let the 'seal man' comment slip, Hunter gently closed in. "I think he killed a good man last night. A police officer."
"That detective they found floatin' near Angel Island?"
"That detective was my father."
The Dane let out a low, soft hiss. Hunter waited for him to bite.
"I'm sorry, son, I don't need no trouble around here. I pay them regular to leave my place alone. Buildin' inspectors, health inspectors, tax man, those thieves from City Hall like to bleed me dry. I don't want no trouble."
"You already have trouble, it sounds to me. My father was trying to put an end to it when they murdered him."
Erickson hesitated a long minute, staring nervously at the floor. "Guy with a long scar on his face come in about a week ago, askin' about the seal suits. We make 'em up special." He paused again, shaking off an obvious wave of fear. "Shanghai Kelly's man. One of my skinners seen him at Kelly's place on the Coast."
"And you made a seal suit for him?"
"A mate of his. This scarfaced guy, he give me the other man's measurements. Brought him in two days ago to make sure it fit proper."
"What did he look like, the other man?"
"Meanest lookin' bastard I ever seen, give me the shivers. Tattoos everywhere, like a bulldog he was built. They was up to somethin'. Never give me no names, nothin'. That's all I can tell you."
"Thank you, Mr. Erickson."
A few minutes later, I was enduring another hair-raising ride along the waterfront.
We arrived at Meigg's Wharf and walked to a dock where the Fallons kept a twenty-two foot Whitehall skiff.
We shoved the boat clear of the dock and jumped aboard. While I sculled the tiller, he untied the sail from the boom and hoisted it skyward. "You ever sail one of these, Annalisa?"
"I started fishing with my father as soon as I could stand. He believed whatever a man could do, a woman could, too."
A fresh puff filled the sail and heeled us to starboard, the boat surging through the blue waters of the bay.
"How did you ever get Rolf to trust you, working for Fremont Older?" Hunter yelled over the stiff wind.
"Rolf tested me at first," I shouted back, "he'd tell me things, maneuvers he was getting ready to make. See if the information wound up in the Bulletin's editorials. After about six months, I managed to convince him I hated Mr. Older's crusade. I made sure Rolf’s cronies and their wives got plugs in the society column. That made me very popular. I heard things no one else did. Not even your father or Mr. Older."
"You dance with rattlesnakes, Annalisa, you eventually get bitten."
"Not doing anything was more dangerous."
After struggling against a flood tide for nearly half an hour, we passed before the open mouth of the Golden Gate and stared out into the dark blue Pacific.
"It won't be that long before they build a bridge," Hunter said. "Then a sane man won't have to risk his life every time he needs to get to Sausalito."
"I don't know. The current is so strong, the water's so deep, how would they ever do that?"
"Thomas Edison believes that some time in this century, engineers will put a man on the moon and scientists will cure cancer. Building a bridge across this little mile of open water is just the beginning, believe me."
"Great. We can put all the ferry boats out to dry dock and fill the place up with the stink of all those God-awful automobiles," I argued. "Did you see the trough outside the tannery, dumping all that poison in the water? And the workmen, with skin you wouldn't wish on a leper? What good is all this progress if it kills us?"
The wind funneling through the Golden Gate suddenly stiffened. I jumped to the boom and reefed the sail.
"I tell you what's bothering me about your father's death. If someone was hiding below deck, in a custom-made seal suit, they had it planned for days, even weeks."
"That's what I've been thinking" Hunter said. He paused a long moment, looking a bit sheepish. "I had a chance to kill Scarface last night and I botched it."
"My God, before they murdered your father?"
"No. After. I should have killed him like Christian wanted."
"Then he couldn't lead us to the men who put him up to it. Your father believed in the law, not the cycle of murder and revenge. Without justice we're just barbarians trading places on the chopping block."
"I'd still like to know how they knew."
A flock of seagulls suddenly exploded from their roosts on Angel Island, squawking and swirling frantically.
"That's twice I've seen that," Hunter said. "Something is sure spooking them."
A half hour later, we scrambled off the boat at Angel Island, near the spot where the Spaniards first anchored in San Francisco Bay.
"We found my father's body near this cove. Let's keep a sharp lookout for your papers."
We hiked through thickets along the water's edge, an exchange of wistful looks between us managing, ever slightly, to ease the grim task.
I was staring into the brambles when I fell over something lying in the path.
It was a man's outstretched legs.
"Hunter!"
He ran over and pulled me to my feet, then leaned over to examine a thick body in a black seal suit. A pool of blood had formed on the man's chest, the result of two gaping holes. Near the right shoulder were two spent brass cartridges.
Hunter used a twig to lift one, inhaling the smell of fresh gunpowder. Then he examined the man's stiffened arms. On the right wrist of the seal suit were four small gouges. On the left arm a tear in the suit revealed a cut from the man's elbow to the wrist.
"Those gouges on his right arm are where my father grabbed him, that's how the seal skin got under his nails. The tear in the left sleeve is where seal man fell against the boiler cage and bled all over."
Hunter pulled a camera from his bag and clicked several photographs of the body.
We each grabbed an icy cold ankle and dragged him to the middle of the path. With a Buck knife, Hunter slit the suit up both sides and laid it open like a sandwich. I watched with a grisly fascination.
"What's that tattoo on his forearm?"
"A prisoner's identification number. You see the
USMC tattoo above it? This guy was a Marine. A military prisoner. What do you bet his fingerprints and palm print match those on my father's launch?"
I spotted something near where the body had lain, partially obscured by thickets. I stepped into the weedy marsh, my ankles disappearing into the muck, and emerged with a leather portfolio, its exterior ashen gray from the salty water.
The clasp had been ripped from its mount. It was empty. I handed it to Hunter, who examined it, trying to soften his concern.
"Well, Hunter," I said. "Whoever killed the seal man has the photographs of Rolf's ledger. And my signed affidavits." It was not the cold wind that made me shiver. "What are we going to do with the body?"
"Drag him back in the bushes and try not to let anyone know we're onto them. There was a Chinese general named Sun Tzu, who said `through subtlety and secrecy, the enemy is mine.' With my father dead, they think there's no one left to stand up to them."
I followed Hunter back to the boat, still a little jumpy. We shoved off in silence and caught a fresh breeze.
In barely half an hour, we were tying up at the landing on Alcatraz. "Halt! Military Police! Who goes there?" At the top of the long wooden steps, a guard in blue uniform appeared, cradling a rifle.
"Hunter Fallon. San Francisco Police." Hunter steadied the boat and held up his badge.
"Since when did the department stoop to hirin' college boys?"
"Who is that?" Hunter called.
A young man with mutton-chop sideburns slid back his cap and offered a broad grin.
"Jesus, Ernie, last I heard, the Navy shipped you off to Panama."
"Hell, the Navy shipped me all over Creation. Said if I'd be a prison guard, they'd send me back to San Francisco. Been here almost a year, freezin' my ass off."
We tied the boat to a dock piling and trudged up the stone steps. Hunter extended his hand. "Ernie, this is Annalisa Passarelli. Annalisa, Ernie Trombetta."
"Pleased to meet you, Miss Passarelli. Christ, Hunter. It's a God-awful thing I read. Your dad falling off his launch like that. My mother is just sick over it."
"Thanks. Tell me something. You got a Marine prisoner, number G368433 bunking here?"
Ernie searched Hunter's face for a clue and then walked back to the guard shack. He pulled the logbook from inside and started thumbing through it.
"Oh, yeah. Felix Gamboa. Meanest son-of-a-bitch on Alcatraz, even the guards stay out of his way."
"Not any more they won't. I found him over on Angel Island with two bullet holes in his chest. I was wondering how the hell he got there."
Ernie thumbed through the ledger to the back of the book. He ran his finger down several lines that looked like fresh entries. "I can't tell you how he got to Angel Island, but I can tell you how he got out of here. The assistant warden signed him out three days ago."
"Does it give a reason?"
"No, but I remember hearing a Lieutenant say Gamboa was testifying in a trial somewheres. That's a hoot. Only thing Gamboa knows about is shivin' people when their back's turned. Been on the Rock four years, most of it in solitary for tryin' to escape. Dumb bastard tried to swim the bay once, covered his self in grease from the boiler room." Ernie flipped to another page and found a notation. "The assistant warden turned him over to the police chief, it looks like."
"He turned Gamboa over to Jessie Donen?"
"Awful queer, ain't it? Police chief comin' out to Alcatraz just to escort a snake like Gamboa? Don't hardly make no sense."
"Thanks, Ernie."
"They havin' a service for your father?"
"Mission Dolores, tomorrow morning."
"He was a real good man, your dad."
"Ernie, you want to do me a favor? Don't tell anyone I was here. Don't say anything about Gamboa to anyone. Nothing."
Ernie nodded.
Hunter and I returned to the Whitehall and started across the bay. "This is getting uglier by the minute, Hunter. Donen helping to murder his Chief Detective? How can this go on in the Twentieth Century?" Hunter remained silent. We trimmed the sail as the sun sank in the Pacific, firing the sky in a rainbow of scarlet and gold.
"I want you to leave, Annalisa. I have a cousin down in Santa Cruz, a deputy sheriff. You can be safe down there."
"Your father risked his life every day. Christian and The Brotherhood do it. Now you're doing it. I'm not hiding from anyone."
"That's different."
"Because you're men?"
"Because it's a dirty, dangerous job that professionals should do and yes, that's a man's work."
"When Adam Rolf took control of City Hall," I said, "my parents had just opened a bakery on Fillmore Street. A Health Inspector came by demanding two hundred dollars for an oven permit. Then came a garbage permit for garbage they rarely collected, assessments for utilities that never appeared, levies for new sewers they never built. They suggested if we didn't want to pay we should join the Merchant's League and hire an attorney. One named Adam Rolf."
"Honest graft," Hunter said. "As long as Rolf can claim it's a fee for legal services, he can say it's not a bribe. Same old game dressed up in a fancy suit."
"My father refused to pay," I said. "They broke our windows and vandalized our store. Then our insurance was mysteriously canceled and the place burned down. My parents left Italy to avoid men like that. My mother sold her wedding ring to buy the tickets back to Rome. I was sixteen. I had just won a scholarship to attend Berkeley. They begged me to go with them. I was four when we came over; this was the only home I really knew. They're buried outside of Rome, along with a few thousand other influenza victims. They'd probably still be alive if it weren't for Adam Rolf. That makes it my fight."
Hunter had watched me attentively throughout the day, searching my face, appearing to record every gesture and movement.
"May I ask why do you look at me that way when I'm talking? One minute I think you're taking an interest in me, the next minute I think you're suspicious of something."
"Charles Darwin. Emotion in Man and Animals. You remember those photos in the cellar, with people's faces all skewed up? I took those for a research project. Darwin believes we can tell what people are thinking by reading their faces. Words lie. Expressions don't."
"You believe you can detect lies by reading people's faces?" I said, trying not to scoff.
"We do it every day. You ask a question, someone looks away, hemming and hawing. Stuttering. You ask something serious; they make a nervous joke of it. It worked so well I just got in the habit."
"You used it on me to determine whether I had anything to do with your father's death. If I tipped off Rolf or Kelly."
"It was nothing personal, Annalisa. Somebody betrayed my father; I just wanted to know who."
"I hope I passed the test."
"You did nothing wrong, Annalisa, nothing you're aware of."
"What else did you notice while reading my face?"
He hesitated and looked away.
"I guess that would be one of those evasive responses, no?"
He looked back, embarrassed. "Despite all the turmoil, you are becoming somewhat—enamored of me."
I was still too irritated to be embarrassed. "I guess the good news is I'm not a murderer."
"My father was murdered. I meant no offense, Annalisa."
"I would be obliged if you cease trying to read me in the future."
I pulled out my opera glasses, struggled with the adjusting screw and looked toward the illuminated clock above the Union Ferry Building.
"We better hurry. The last thing I want is to be late and make Rolf suspicious. Assuming he doesn't already know me as Little Miss Judas."
Chapter 25
LAKE TAHOE, NEVADA
APRIL 16, 1906. 5:10 P.M.
In Enrico Caruso's private Pullman car, Lincoln Staley finished a snifter of Louis XIV cognac, a gift from the Mayor of Carson City, Nevada, where Caruso had made a brief stop. The dapper tenor thanked the Mayor by launching into a few bars of Pagl
iacci from the rear platform of the train, sending the small crowd into delirium.
"'Ow you are like the cognac, Sheriff?" Caruso inquired.
"Fine, Mr. Caruso. Thank you. I'm not much of a drinking man."
"No, no 'Mr. Caruso.' Enrico, per favore. I am a simple persons from Napoli. I no like peoples who make, 'ow you say, hairs?"
Lincoln smiled. "Putting on airs, like arias. Enrico."
Caruso twirled his finger in the air and laughed. He swallowed his drink, rose and tucked his thumb in the front of his pants, easing the pressure of the earlier dinner. "Mi scusi, per favore. I must go make the rehearsal."
Once alone, Alfred Hertz of the Metropolitan Opera turned his hawk-eyes on Lincoln. "Have you considered my proposal, Sheriff?"
Earlier that day, Hertz had told him about Caruso's tribulations in New York. A man had approached the tenor with a photograph of Caruso's family, demanding a ten thousand dollar tribute for the local boss of Il Mano Nero, the Black Hand. A phalanx of opera-loving Irish and Italian cops had rescued Caruso, shadowing him constantly, but the experience left the jovial tenor fearful and apprehensive.
"We would pay you handsomely for your efforts and provide you accommodations at the Palace, adjacent to Enrico's room," Hertz said. "It would certainly calm Enrico's uneasiness over all the wild stories he has read about San Francisco."
"I would love to help you, Alfred, but I must spend every minute looking for my daughter. The sooner I find her and drag her back to Kansas, the happier I am going to be."
The sound of the orchestra drifted from the car ahead, a dozen violins, softening the rumble and clacking of the wheels.
Hertz nodded for Lincoln to follow him.
They entered the rehearsal car as the tenor launched into song. Lincoln instantly recognized "Il Lamento di Federico," from L'Arlesiana, one of the arias Kaitlin played incessantly on her Gramophone.
"È la solita storia del pastore / il povero ragazzo vuole a raccontarla / e s'addormir / C'è nel sonno l'oblio / Come l’invidio . . ."
Instantly, the plaintive lilt, the aching emotion of the astonishing voice coursed through Lincoln and eased the vise around his heart. This is an old story of a country boy / the poor boy wanted to tell it / but fell asleep / there in the oblivion of slumber / How I envy him, he whispered. He had translated the song several times for Kaitlin, but it was the first time he recognized the tale as his own. The wistful country shepherd, imprisoned in loneliness on a barren prairie, lost in the sweet oblivion of his dreams.
1906: A Novel Page 14
