Bound for Gold--A Peter Fallon Novel of the California Gold Rush

by William Martin

  The drone hovered above the wreck, then cruised over two bodies by the side of the road: an African American in a black suit, an Asian in a blue suit. It zoomed closer on the Asian: Mr. Lum, the Dai-lo, the man from the Arbella Club steps and the Emery Mine parking lot, head wound gaping. The video ended.

  Peter said, “Did the Boyles do that?”

  “They might have,” said Wild Bill. “But the white guy isn’t there. More likely, he tapped the other two.”

  “But who ordered it?” said Peter.

  “The field is narrowing. Michael Kou is my guess,” said Wild Bill.

  “Whacking a Triad boss?” said Peter. “Very bold.”

  “Flamboyant, even,” said Evangeline, “for such a smooth guy.”

  “Smoothly washing dirty money,” said Wild Bill, “using Attorney Barber to help, mixing dirty stuff in with clean venture capital, like the M&A money—”

  “M&A,” said Evangeline. “What’s that?”

  “Mergers and Acquisitions. I’m betting Sierra Rock is like a Laundromat, washing cash from extortion, prostitution, weapons trafficking, crystal meth, all as a down payment for clean loans from Chinese banks, then—”

  Peter’s phone vibrated. Caller ID: NAME WITHHELD. He answered.

  It was LJ, calling from someone else’s phone. Peter didn’t like that.

  LJ said, “We’re on the move.”

  “On the move where?”

  “Chinatown. The building super came up in the service elevator and told us we had to get out. He said Michael Kou’s men had pulled up out front.”

  “And you went with him? People getting whacked all over the place and you just went? Jesus.” Peter sensed that the kid had no choice. “Where are you now? Who are you with?”

  “You’ll never believe it, Dad. We’re with Uncle Charlie.”

  “Uncle Charlie from Portsmouth Square?”

  “He’s taking us to another safe house … Family Happiness Herbs and Tea, on Spofford Street, in the eight-hundred block of Clay.”

  “Why aren’t you calling on your own phone?”

  “Unh … it’s being inspected.”

  “Inspected? What the—”

  Uncle Charlie came on: “Hello? Mr. Fallon Peter? You son say you got journal. You bring. Maybe we get out of big trouble.”

  “Hey,” said Peter, “put my—”

  The phone went dead.

  * * *

  THE OCTOBER SUN DID not touch Spofford Street, an alley that might have been there since the Gold Rush, lined with acupuncturists, beauty parlors, a benevolent association, and halfway down the block, the red-painted exterior of Family Happiness Herbs and Tea.

  Peter, Evangeline, and Wild Bill Donnelly stepped into a cloud of five-spice powder, ginseng, incense, and … cigarette smoke?

  But the old Chinese man behind the counter wasn’t smoking. He glanced at them, looked down at his laptop, looked back at them, then pressed a button by the register. A section of shelving, containing teas from all over China—boxed, bagged, or bricked—swung open to reveal the Family Happiness gambling parlor.

  And a cloud of smoke rolled out. At every table, players were puffing away, while conversation buzzed and mah-jongg tiles clattered, and ugly fluorescent lights—which no gambler noticed, whether on a win streak or losing every nickel—gave out a faint but audible hum.

  A stairway to the left led down to the basement. Wraparound was sitting at the top of the stairs, arms folded, face impassive.

  This surprised Peter. He said, “You made it?”

  “I’m sitting here, ain’t I? Uncle Charlie told me to get out, soon as they whacked Willie. He said he’d take care of the rest.” Wraparound held out his hand to Evangeline.

  “What?”

  “Mace. Give it, or you don’t go down.”

  Wild Bill nodded.

  So Evangeline pulled the Mace from her purse and surrendered it.

  Then Wraparound gestured to the bulge under Wild Bill’s windbreaker.

  Wild Bill, a head taller and half a lifetime older, whispered, “No fuckin’ way.”

  This brought a glare that burned right through the wraparounds.

  So Wild Bill reached up and removed them, a gesture performed with such calm confidence that Wraparound appeared shocked rather than violated. He blinked in the fluorescent light, then scowled.

  “I keep my gun,” said Wild Bill. “Want to see my badge?”

  “Badge?” Wraparound looked at Peter. “You brought a fuckin’ badge?”

  “Retired badge, but he has friends.” Without another word, Peter bounded down the stairs. He always told his son to walk into any room like he owned it. Walk into trouble the same way. But he didn’t see trouble in the basement. This was no bare-bulb dungeon with leaking pipes overhead. It was clean, well-lit, with gray walls and new linoleum, and everybody seemed pretty relaxed.

  LJ and Mary were sitting on a sofa to the left, holding mugs of tea.

  LJ stood and said, “Hi, Dad. Glad you could make it.”

  Peter gauged his son’s expression. Was that the boyishly guilty look-away eye-shift, as if to say, Sorry about all this?

  Evangeline tried to gauge Mary’s look, but Mary just smiled and went back to scrolling through her iPad, as though it was therapy … or escape.

  At a card table on the side, two grandfather types were playing gin rummy. One had a beer. Both were smoking. They looked familiar. Maybe it was the ankle holster under one guy’s trouser cuff or the Racing Form in the other guy’s jacket: Michael Kou’s bodyguards. Did that mean Kou was about to make an entrance?

  If so, he’d have to move Uncle Charlie out of the power seat, behind the metal desk, beneath the street-level window with the feet flipping past. The old man was wearing his usual uniform—windbreaker, plaid shirt, khaki trousers—but he seemed … different. He looked Wild Bill over and said, “You got big gun.”

  “I’m not good enough to hit a target with a little Walther,” said Wild Bill, “especially if I have to bend over to pull it from an ankle holster.”

  “Me neither.” The guy with the ankle holster threw a card down, then reached around and pulled a Ruger .327 out of his waistband. “That’s why I carry this.”

  Peter said to the card players, “Aren’t you Kou’s bodyguards?”

  “We let him think so,” said the other guy, squinting above the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. “But we work for Uncle Charlie.”

  “Cousins,” said Uncle Charlie. “Long time. That why they look so old. One got gray hair. One need bifocal. But both very tough. So no be bad, ’cause they badder.”

  Wild Bill leaned over the one with bifocals and pointed to a card. “Play the jack.”

  The guy threw it down. The other guy picked it up. Wild Bill got a dirty look.

  Uncle Charlie said, “That Bobby Lee with ankle holster. We call Cousin Rebel.”

  “Like the general,” said Peter. “Very historical.”

  “Bifocal guy, we call Rice Balls. One day he play horse called Rice Ball. Daily double, perfecta, trifecta … play all over. Rice Ball come in. Big payday.”

  Wild Bill said, “I’ve heard of a Chinese hit man named after a horse that used to run at Golden Gate. He has a bigger reputation than the horse.”

  “Horse gone for glue,” said Uncle Charlie, “but Rice Balls right here.”

  “You want my autograph?” said Rice Balls.

  Uncle Charlie got up, put folding chairs in front of his desk, and said to his visitors, “Sit. Sit. You like-ee tea? Tsingtao? Smoke?”

  “Tea would be nice,” said Peter, being polite.

  “But no smokes,” said Evangeline. “I’m getting a nicotine rush just breathing.”

  Uncle Charlie said to Rice Balls, “Bring hot tea. Three cup.”

  Peter and Evangeline sat in the chairs and took the tea.

  Wild Bill folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe.

  “Now,” said Uncle Charlie, dropping back behind the desk
and dropping both the accent and the act, “the Dai-lo would like to know if you have ‘The Spencer Journal.’”

  “But the Dai-lo was just killed.” Peter shot a look at LJ. What’s going on here?

  LJ said, “We’re learning a lot about Uncle Charlie today, Dad.”

  “Yes.” Mary looked up from her iPad. “Things that even I didn’t know.”

  Uncle Charlie glanced at LJ. “Good that you’ve always treated me with respect, young man, despite my apparent low station. The Dai-lo appreciates respect.”

  “My father always taught me to treat everyone with respect,” said LJ, “until they proved they didn’t deserve it.”

  “Your father taught you well.” Uncle Charlie looked at Peter. “We all owe each other respect. That’s a lesson we’ve been trying to teach here since the Gold Rush, no?”

  “Wait,” said Evangeline. “You’re the Dai-lo?”

  “Who appreciates respect.” Peter gave Uncle Charlie a nod, respect and admiration for a fine performance.

  Uncle Charlie said, “Respect makes it easier for me to protect a conflicted young man like LJ, and to bless his marriage to my niece.”

  “Wow,” said Evangeline, “that’s almost poetic.”

  Uncle Charlie smiled. He did not seem like a laugher. “You should hear it in the original Cantonese.”

  Peter looked at LJ and mouthed the word, “Conflicted?”

  “I think he means the FBI business, Dad.”

  “The FBI,” said Uncle Charlie. “Usually our nemesis but sometimes … useful.”

  “Remember what we said about flamboyance?” asked Wild Bill.

  “The less of it the better?” said Peter.

  “That’s why I appear as what I am,” said Uncle Charlie, “an old uncle who runs a tea store and a few mah-jongg tables. But the tong boys, they know not to bother me.”

  “Smart, those tong boys,” said Peter.

  “So, I tried to warn you without giving anything up, like an old uncle, warn you out of this business, warn you twice. The less you know, the less you can get hurt.”

  Rice Balls looked up from his cards. “‘Watch out for hit-and-run drivers. This can be a dangerous town.’ Sound familiar?”

  “That was you?” said Peter. “But—”

  “If we couldn’t get you out of the way, we wanted you to be careful,” said Uncle Charlie. “Then Kou tried to kill both Fallons after the father called out Sierra Rock—”

  Peter said, “Were you there?”

  “The waitress serving the wine said you could drink a lot and keep your head.” Uncle Charlie lit a cigarette from the one he was finishing. “After you mentioned Sierra Rock, she saw Kou signal the white bodyguard, the one who worked for Lum … until he killed him.”

  Cousin Rebel looked up. “Who lets a white guy guard him? No honor with the white guys.”

  “I did some work with that guy,” said Rice Balls. “Never liked him. His name’s Steele, or so he says. Used to be a D-one linebacker, or so he says. Always works for the highest bidder.”

  “Which was Kou”—Cousin Rebel threw down a card—“not Lum.”

  Evangeline’s eyes were watering from the smoke. She blinked and said, “When Lum came to see Sturgis at the vineyard this morning, the white guy spent the whole time texting.”

  “Probably giving Kou a play-by-play,” said Rice Balls. “Getting permission for the hit.”

  “Lum was on his last rounds.” Uncle Charlie took two or three quick drags of nicotine. “If he could not make good deals, he would advise the Triad to pull all its money out of Sierra Rock, call loans on mining operations, take losses, move on.”

  “Why?” asked Peter.

  “Too much regulation in California,” said Uncle Charlie. “Not enough gold. There are places to put our money where the FBI won’t follow. Poorer countries with more gold. Gold is the long play, but not here.”

  “A few years ago,” said LJ, “when the Chinese government told banks to invest in gold mining operations around the world, certain Triad Dragons of Hong Kong—”

  “—whom I serve,” said Uncle Charlie.

  “—grabbed for low-interest loans through banks where their business is welcomed. Then they started looking for gold investments.”

  Uncle Charlie flicked an ash. “Once China has gold supplies in the same proportion to GDP as the U.S., they can accelerate the movement away from the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.”

  “That’s the idea on a macro level,” said LJ. “The long play.”

  “When you have four thousand years of history, you know the long play is the best play.” Uncle Charlie puffed up a cloud. “But the Chinese play the game on every level. They encourage every Chinese family to own a kilo of gold.”

  “A lot of families.” Evangeline made a futile wave at the air in front of her face. “So a lot of gold. But why?”

  “Because the U.S. Fed may eventually let inflation take hold as a way of reducing the deficit,” said LJ. “Inflation erodes savings, but it also erodes debt. The Chinese hold trillions in U.S. debt. So they want hedges. In an inflationary world, gold could run to $10,000 an ounce. If China accumulates enough gold, Chinese debt holders will be safe.”

  “Like kung-fu fighting,” said Peter, “using your enemy’s strength—in this case his gold resources—against him.”

  Rice Balls hummed the old tune, “Kung-Fu Fighting.”

  “But Kou?” said Peter.

  “He wanted to impress the Triad by bringing them a U.S. gold deal,” said Uncle Charlie. “He also knows Hong Kong is consolidating U.S. control, from here to Boston—”

  “So, he wants to prove he can play dirty,” said Wild Bill. “Taking out Wonton Willie for the street cred, I get. But whacking Lum?”

  “Hong Kong sent Mr. Lum to ‘appreciate the situation,’ as the Brits would say. Once it became obvious that the Emery Mine may never be profitable—”

  “A conclusion he came to this week,” said LJ.

  “I know,” said Peter. “We were there.”

  “Lum wanted to make a last-ditch effort to save the investment and show Michael Kou good faith.” Uncle Charlie took a slower puff on his cigarette.

  “Good faith?” said Wild Bill. “Trust, loyalty, honor?”

  “The definition of the Triad,” answered Uncle Charlie. “We got Kou’s family out of China after Tiananmen Square. He never forgot. Always loyal. Always a team player. As soon as he heard that we wanted to get into gold, he told us about Ah-Toy and the journal and the lost river.”

  Peter was getting it now. He said, “Jack Cutler told me that Kou was trying to impress ‘certain elements in the Chinatown community.’ Would that be you?”

  Uncle Charlie kept puffing between words. “He gave me a chance to invest. Obeying the chain of command, like a good soldier. I said give the same chance to all the Chinatown people.”

  “Yeah,” said Cousin Rebel. “You’re a regular Chinese Robin Hood.”

  “But somebody tried too hard, seeding holes, cheating people. Still the Triad bosses liked Kou’s scheme to use gold mines for money laundering. Elegant way to kill two birds with one stone, so Cutler—”

  Rice Balls looked up from his cards. “When are we going to kill Cutler?”

  “Kill my father?” Mary looked up from scrolling.

  “He’s a fuck-up who cost us a lot of money,” said Rice Balls.

  Uncle Charlie told her, “Your mother loved him, so he’s protected.” Then he gave Rice Balls a scowl, as if to remind him who was in charge, then he turned back at Peter: “Kou and Sierra Rock had a smart lawyer named Barber who also did work for some old San Francisco families, like the Spencers.”

  “Did Kou and Barber know about the Spencer journal when Sierra Rock bought the Emery mine?” Peter asked his son.

  “What they knew,” said LJ, “was what Cutler had told them about proven reserves in the Emery Mine and alluvial gold in an unproven gravel band six or eight miles long, running disco
ntinuously from the ruins of an old Miwok dam, through the Boyles’ land, down across Rainbow Gulch. Cutler’s version of the lost river.”

  “Alluvial means river.” Uncle Charlie stubbed out the cigarette and lit another.

  LJ said, “It was big news all across the Mother Lode when Sierra Rock bought the Emery Mine. Some folks loved it. But retirees and ranchers and vinters felt differently.”

  “Like Manion Sturgis and Ginny O’Hara,” said Evangeline.

  “Then comes the story of the Proud Pilgrim. It’s all over the papers, the Gold Rush death ship with six bodies chained to the keel. Maryanne Rogers goes and reads about it at the historical society. Then she tells Barber about it over one of their dinners at House of Prime Rib. He tells Kou, who tells Cutler to look into it.”

  “But when Cutler goes looking,” said Evangeline, “he’s told it’s gone.”

  “Right,” said Uncle Charlie. “So Kou got Barber to put that codicil into the will. He figured all seven sections would pop right out if it was the only way to satisfy the terms of the will. Then he’d learn exactly where to look for that discontinuous river of gold.”

  “But Maryanne Rogers had to die first,” said Peter.

  “Now you know who did the hit-and-run,” said Cousin Rebel. “Kou’s guys.”

  “Surprised they didn’t run her over with one of those little fuckin’ bikes,” said Rice Balls, and he threw down a card. “Gin.”

  Cousin Rebel tossed in his hand and looked at Uncle Charlie, as if to ask, Can we get on with this?

  Uncle Charlie pulled out a briefcase, put it on his desk, and said to Peter. “Your son’s get-out-of-jail-free card. Notes, thumb drives, documents … showing how Kou collects his dirty money and how it gets washed through Sierra Rock via gold purchases and other investments. The Triad has decided it’s time to shut him down. And I want to insulate our little operation, which is mostly gambling, protection, immigration work.”

  Peter guessed he meant “immigration fraud,” but no correcting Uncle Charlie …

  … who went on, “Kou is a big liability to our more traditional tong. Give me the journal, then your son delivers this to the FBI, and all debts are paid.”