1906: A Novel

by Dalessandro, James

  At the Central Fire Station on Bush Street, Dennis Sullivan rose from his desk on the third floor and rubbed his tired eyes. He stared at the roll of blueprints that covered the desk and hung over both sides. His last chance to overcome the greed of Rolf and Schmitz and get the resources he needed would come at nine o'clock the next morning when he would present the plans to Judge Morrow.

  Maggie was in the bedroom at the end of the hall, putting on her earrings when he entered.

  "I thought maybe I'd take you to the Palace Grill and have a quick glass of champagne before the opera," he said.

  "You did, did you? Then you better hurry."

  He smiled and kissed her warmly.

  "Dennis. You haven't kissed me like that in so long I can't remember."

  "Then shame on me." He stepped to his dressing closet and pulled out the black tuxedo. "I really do hate these things," he muttered.

  "How many times in our lives will we get to see Enrico Caruso? Let's look sharp and enjoy ourselves."

  Sullivan stripped off his coveralls and unbuttoned his wool shirt. He had one leg into his tuxedo pants when the fire bell went off. In the iron cage hanging in the corner of the room the other Sullivan, a blue-green cockatiel, started squawking, "Fire! Fire! Fire!"

  "Oh, Lord," cried Maggie, "not now."

  Sullivan stepped out of his trousers and hurried to the small brass horn on the wall next to his bedroom door. "What is it?"

  Assistant Chief Dougherty shouted through the hollow tube from three stories below. "Spotter at North Point Station called it in. Looks like the California Cannery on Bay Street. It's a doer."

  "Let's send every pumper and Hayes truck from North Beach, the Financial District, two companies South of the Slot. I'm on my way down."

  A glum Maggie stared at him and started removing her earrings. "Why don't you go by yourself, Maggie? You'll be sitting with Mr. Spreckels and his guests."

  "And worry myself sick about you the whole time? I don't know why you can't let Mr. Dougherty handle it."

  "The man's sixty-eight, Maggie. I can't take the chance."

  "And as long as these thieves in City Hall keep stealing all the money, you'll have to keep rushing off every time a kitchen stove flares up." She threw her earrings onto the dresser.

  Dennis Sullivan recognized the futility of another response. He pulled on his britches and hurried to a hallway closet, sliding down the slick brass pole to the firehouse below.

  On Dolores Street near Seventeenth Avenue, in the working-class Mission District, Angela Feeney, a plain woman with streaks of graying hair, answered the door to find a handsome young man in a blue suit and tie.

  "I'm Hunter Fallon. I'm here to see Mr. Feeney."

  She smiled politely and ushered him inside. She led him past a parlor filled with stodgy furniture and down a narrow hallway to a miniscule study.

  Charles Feeney was busy typewriting a report. He looked over the top of his spectacles. "Hello, Hunter. What do you have for me?"

  Hunter produced two black disks and handed them to Feeney, who raised his eyebrows.

  "The first one is a recording of Adam Rolf discussing his bribe with the Senator's aide. They're planning to reroute the railroad from Oakland into San Francisco. The second is Kelly demanding fifty grand from Rolf for killing my father and delivering the papers he was carrying."

  Feeney removed his spectacles and stood, staring at Hunter. "You recorded these conversations? How in God's name?"

  "It was work, but we did it, sir. It's their voices, talking over the telephone, incriminating themselves as sure as we're standing here."

  "Fingerprints, voice recordings from a telephone line," Feeney said. "It's a bit farfetched but maybe we'll get lucky. My biggest concern is for Miss Passarelli's safety."

  "Kelly is withholding her name from Rolf so he can raise the price. I'll be watching her."

  Feeney handed over a manila folder. "Federal warrants for Mayor Schmitz, Police Chief Donen, and Adam Rolf for bribery, extortion, corruption, and slave trading. There are others for Donen, Rolf, Kelly, and Scarface—his real name is Willis Polk—for murder of a police officer. A guaranteed trip to the gallows if we can make it stick. This should send a wave of fear through every dirty politician from here to Boston."

  "Right now, all I'm thinking about is justice for my father and making sure Annalisa lives to tell her story."

  Feeney looked at the recordings in his hand. "You know, if these things hold up in court, it will change police work. It will give us tools we never dreamed of."

  "It's the Twentieth Century, Mr. Feeney. It's about time."

  Chapter 41

  GRAND OPERA HOUSE

  APRIL 17, 1906. 7:30 P.M.

  In his dressing room backstage, Enrico Caruso slipped into the trousers of the Spanish corporal Don Josè. His valet, Martino, knelt and pulled the white stockings over the tenor's thick calves. A knock came at the door.

  Martino answered and admitted Lincoln Staley. Caruso brightened immediately.

  "Ah, Lincoln. Now you are come I am feel better. You know, last night, they are almost to make a riot here."

  "No one who hears you sing, Enrico, will think of rioting."

  Caruso smiled. "Lincoln, you are sitting on side of stage for me. Okay? In case someone is go pazzo."

  "I'll be in the wings."

  Lincoln's forlorn look answered Caruso's next question before he asked it.

  "We are find her, Lincoln. You tell me she is come to San Francisco for Caruso? Then tonight she comes. I know this in my hearts."

  When he finished dressing, Caruso walked the dimly lit hallway to the wings, with Lincoln and Martino trailing close behind. He trod across the stage and peeked out through the curtains, just as the audience broke into applause.

  The applause was not for him. All eyes were on Emperor Milton in full-dress regalia of towering beaver fur hat and blue Prussian military coat with polished brass buttons and gold epaulets. He walked slowly down the center aisle, waving to his subjects. Milton bowed politely, and then settled in the middle seat of the front row.

  "They are all crazy in thees crazy place," Caruso muttered.

  At the railing of Rolf's box, Senator Payton sipped champagne and stared at the scene below.

  "Emperor Milton," Rolf explained. "A financial wizard. Downtown businessmen would not buy a spittoon without consulting him. Went off the deep end when his efforts to corner the rice market went belly up. He has front row seats to all the opening nights."

  "I heard things are a little different here, Mr. Rolf," the Senator said.

  "We lock up half our lunatics and make celebrities of the other half. A distinctly San Francisco tradition."

  Backstage, Caruso found Martino and pulled him aside, out of Lincoln's earshot. The pair conversed in Italian.

  "Do you have my pistol?" Caruso asked.

  "It's in the dressing room, Maestro."

  "You go bring it to me, please."

  Martino hesitated, but knew better than to challenge Caruso's orders.

  In the dressing room, Martino reached into a chest of drawers and removed the pistol from beneath a pile of shirts. He flipped open the cylinder and removed all six cartridges, stowing them in his pocket.

  Caruso was pacing anxiously in the wing when Martino returned. He took the pistol and stuffed it in his cummerbund. "These people are crazy in San Francisco," Caruso explained. "They make riots at the opera, they put crazy people in the front row. I am not taking any chances."

  My Hansom arrived and I joined the last arrivals in their anxious charge toward the entrance.

  Once inside the Opera House, I rushed up the circular stairway. I was dressed in a borrowed gray silk taffeta gown, black suede pumps, long black gloves, and an ivory choker. Whatever happened, I was certain it would be the last time I had to endure Adam Rolf.

  "Annalisa. Annalisa!"

  I turned and spotted Hunter at the bottom of the steps, dressed in a dark blue suit. He
was beaming broadly. I hurried back down and ducked under the stairway, pulling him out of sight of prying eyes.

  "Hunter. What are you doing here?"

  "I had Mr. Feeney telephone Mr. Spreckels and ask if I could join him in his box so I could keep an eye on you. I'm worried."

  "Don't worry, I made it this far." The sight of him—the blue eyes and chiseled face—made my heart race faster than it already was.

  Hunter reached inside his coat and produced a pair of opera glasses with mother-of-pearl inlay and polished brass eyepiece. He slipped the silver chain around my neck and stared into my eyes.

  "My mother brought these from Italy. She had two dreams before she died: to vote and to see Caruso. I guess you will have to do both for her."

  "What she really wanted, Hunter, was to see her son become as good a man as his father. I imagine she's a happy woman right now."

  I examined the opera glasses. "I can't possibly keep these."

  "She gave them to me the day before she died. We loved going to the opera together. She said someday my wife should have them."

  I clutched my gloved hand to my face and forced the tears back.

  "I'm sorry I don't have a ring, but I'm asking you to marry me." He then asked me again, in Italian.

  I hesitated, fighting the flood of emotion.

  Hunter went on. "I was thinking about tomorrow. It's my birthday, April eighteenth. Then I'll have two reasons to celebrate every year."

  "I think tomorrow is going to be a very good day." I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him. It would be a very good day, provided we survived the night ahead of us.

  "Go, Annalisa. Be careful. And remember, I'm watching out for you." I kissed him again and struggled up the stairs.

  I hesitated at the door to Rolf’s box, switching to a practiced, guiltless face. I entered without knocking.

  "Annalisa!" Rolf hesitated before breaking into a grin that looked strained and unconvincing. "Annalisa. One runs out of superlatives."

  "Good evening, Adam. Where is Mayor Schmitz?"

  "He's not coming."

  "Is he ill?"

  "I don't believe so." His tone was unsettling. "Annalisa. Allow me to introduce you to our honorable Senator George Payton and his wife. Senator, this is Miss Annalisa Passarelli, one of our brilliant opera and theater critics. She has been assisting Mr. Caruso."

  "Senator. Mrs. Payton. It's a great honor."

  On the opposite side of the Opera House, Hunter slipped into the private box of Rudolph Spreckels, who greeted him with Fremont Older in tow.

  "How goes it?" Spreckels inquired.

  "I have all the warrants. The informant will signal us when Rolf has handed the money to the Senator and again when Shanghai Kelly has delivered the papers taken from my father. We don't expect any of that to happen until the party."

  "Splendid," said Older. "When it is finished I will cable President Roosevelt. Teddy is a man who values results."

  Chapter 42

  WESTERN ADDITION

  APRIL 17, 1906. 7:40 P.M.

  At their tiny cottage on Webster Street, Francis Fagen's wife, Eleanor, went to the back porch where her brother-in-law Patrick rested on a cot, reading his Bible.

  "Patrick," Eleanor said. "You better come eat."

  Patrick stretched his long legs and walked to the small kitchen table where Eleanor set down plates of rabbit stew and potatoes. The three of them joined hands in prayer.

  A half block away, near the corner of Webster and Golden Gate, Carlo Rinaldi sat at the kitchen table cleaning his revolver.

  His mother Cecilia entered and removed a macaroni casserole from the wood-burning oven. "Carlo, per favore, porta via la pistola dalla cucina. Chiama il fratello a' pranzare."

  Obediently, Carlo stowed his weapon and walked to the stable. Max lay on a crude wooden bench, huffing as he pressed a rusty barbell up and down.

  "Max. M-m-mom wants you to c-c-come eat."

  Max lowered the barbell, sat up and caught his breath.

  "Y-y-you b-better sa-save som-some strength for tonight."

  "Worry about the other guys when I get my hands on them," Max replied, wiping his sweaty brow on his shirt.

  The brothers joined their mother at the kitchen table and bowed their heads as she prayed for their safety. They were distracted by horses kicking at their stalls.

  "I cavalli sono pazzi," Cecilia said. "Morning, noon, nights, crazy all the times the horses."

  When they finished eating, Max and Carlo kissed their mother. They donned their pistol belts and stuffed their pockets with extra cartridges. They pulled on long black dusters and slid sawed-off shotguns into long narrow pockets inside, then distributed extra manacles in the pockets of their coats.

  Max and Carlo joined Francis and Patrick for the walk to the United Railway trolley line, several blocks away on Geary Street.

  In the dummy car at the rear, empty save for the four of them, Patrick produced a Biblical passage he had hand-copied and read aloud.

  "But it is good to be zealously affected, always in a good thing and not only when I am present with you. Tell me ye that desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? Now we, brethren as Isaac was, are the children of promise. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."

  The four earnest young officers muttered "Amen."

  It would be the last such moment they shared.

  Chapter 43

  GRAND OPERA HOUSE

  APRIL 17, 1906. 8:05 P.M.

  Tommy stopped the Rolls Phaeton in front of the Opera House for the second time that night.

  "Do you think he'll be angry that I'm late?" Kaitlin asked.

  "You sit here yakking, you're gonna be even later. Why don't you climb down and get on in there?"

  Tommy's brusqueness did nothing to ease Kaitlin's nerves. She gathered her strength and her gown and slid out of the Rolls.

  Tommy screeched off, leaving her alone with her mounting fear. Nothing's going to happen. It's the opera. It's Enrico Caruso. This is why you came here. She took a step forward and then another, gaining momentum as the sound of the orchestra wafted through the open doors.

  She barely made it into the lobby when the sight of it stopped her in her tracks. It was brimming with massive arrangements of orchids, narcissus, and roses. Elegant women in peacock displays of lace and satin, dappled with glittering diamonds and precious jewels of every color, hurried for their seats. She inhaled the fragrant air, her attention suddenly drawn to a massive three-tiered crystal chandelier that cast kaleidoscopic dots about the lobby.

  "It's the largest cut-glass chandelier in the world."

  She wheeled to find a smiling, cherub-faced usher in a black coat and striped trousers.

  "Fifty-five feet in diameter. Weighs two tons. It was a gift from the Opera Society President, Mr. Rolf. May I help you find your seat?"

  "Yes, uhh, Mr. Rolf is expecting me."

  "He has a double box, C and D. Top of the stairs, third door to the left. Knock at C and someone will let you in."

  "Is he a nice man?"

  The usher hesitated. "I'm sure he is, ma'am. Enjoy the performance."

  Kaitlin nodded politely and ascended the stairs, her knees wobbly beneath her. She knocked timidly on the door, waited an uncertain moment, and rapped a little harder. The door lurched open and a butler's face appeared.

  "I'm sorry I'm late. I'm Kaitlin Staley. I believe . . ."

  The flood of light brought a wave of well-coiffed heads turning in her direction. A short man with a bushy mustache rose from his seat and walked to greet her.

  "You must be Kaitlin," Rolf said.

  "Yes, sir."

  She offered a gloved hand. Rolf clasped it firmly, staring up into fathomless blue eyes. Behind his smile was a cold, hungry look Kaitlin had seen in the carpetbaggers still working Douglas County.

  "I'm Adam Rolf. I am glad you could join us."
>
  She nodded and swallowed hard. Rolf took Kaitlin's arm and led her forward.

  From the railing where I had been chatting with Alma de Bretteville, I spotted a beautiful young woman slipping into the seat next to Rolf—the one most often reserved for me. My spirits sank when I recognized her: Kaitlin spotted me and waved, relieved at the sight of a familiar face.

  In the orchestra pit, a cymbal crashed, launching a torrent of strings and brass into Carmen's frenetic prelude. The melody swirled through the audience and sent heads bobbing, fingers fluttering, engulfing all in buoyant abandon. San Francisco faded and sensuous Seville exploded into the Opera House.

  The prelude yielded to a jaunty "March of the Toreadors," heralding the arrival of Don Josè's rival, the dashing bullfighter Escamillo. The joyous motif crested, and then spiraled into an ominous phrase, finally dissolving to a plaintive oboe that prophesied the fate of tempestuous Carmen and troubled Don Josè.

  I raised my beautiful opera glasses, panning across the exuberant faces in the expensive seats until I found the box belonging to Rudolph Spreckels. Spreckels and his very pregnant wife Eleanor sat next to Fremont and Cora Older. Behind them, in the shadows, Hunter gently mimed the conductor, his cheeks puffed slightly as he hummed the melody.

  Hunter raised my battered old opera glasses and scanned the boxes, until he stared at me staring at him. He subtly mouthed, "I love you."

  I lowered my binoculars and stole a glance behind me as Rolf slid his arm onto the back of Kaitlin's seat.

  "The dress fits you perfectly," he whispered to her.

  "Yes, sir. It fits just fine. Thank you, sir."

  "We're an informal lot in San Francisco, Kaitlin. Call me Adam. All my friends call me Adam."

  She nodded, tight-lipped, fighting the urge to lunge for the door. "Have you been to many operas?"

  "This is my first, sir."

  "Call me Adam."

  "Adam. I had a Victor back home. I bought it with my sewing money. I listened to Caruso so much I wore out the recordings."

  "And where's home?"