Lone Star 02

by Ellis, Wesley

  Lewis’s office was carpeted in wall-to-wall gray wool. The walls were painted white, and were bare except for several strikingly bold, Japanese brush paintings. Lewis’s desk was of mahogany. The big easy chairs scattered about the room were of matching wood, and upholstered in rich brown leather. End tables held jade ornaments and fine vases. Bright sunlight flooded through the room’s large windows, and the air itself was fragrant with the smell of freshly brewed green tea sending up clouds of steam from a Japanese teapot. Next to the pot were four matching, handleless cups.

  “Arthur,” Jessie said, smiling, “how pleasant this room is.”

  Arthur Lewis stood up and came around his desk, a big grin on his handsome, lined face. “All that European stuff is for the clients and customers,” he winked. “These days a San Franciscan isn’t impressed unless he can surround himself with junk from what the furniture dealers like to call ‘the Continent.”’ He paused to look Jessie up and down. “My God, girl. You’ve grown into a beauty. I see your mother in your eyes, and in that reddish-gold hair of yours.”

  Jessie blushed. “You look just the same as ever,” she said shyly.

  Lewis’s laugh was deep and rich. “Then your memory isn’t what it ought to be.” He fingered his bald head, which was fringed by a horseshoe of gray hair. “For instance, I used to have hair up there.” Next he patted his protruding belly, encased in a vest of gray silk that nicely matched the gray herringbone wool of his suit. “I used to be as thin as your friend Ki here, as well.”

  Lewis turned to Ki and executed a formal bow. He kept his knees straight and his palms on his thighs. The angle of his back and the way he kept his eyes level with Ki’s were both exactly right in terms of Japanese protocol.

  Ki returned the bow, and as they straightened up, Lewis remarked, “Not bad for a barbarian, eh?”

  Ki smiled. “It was quite excellently done, my old friend, Arthur.”

  Lewis guffawed. “Hear that Jessie! Ki said it was excellent! And he smiled! This fellow must be glad to see me.” He shook his head. “My bow ought to be excellent; I’ve certainly practiced it enough down through the years. Don’t forget, Alex Starbuck and I were mates together on one of Admiral Perry’s ships back when the United States broke open the Japans. Yes, Alex and I were just lowly sailors, but he told me then what he aimed to do with his life, and I, thank the Lord, had enough common sense to stick with him.”

  “Come now, Arthur,” Jessie argued. “My father had total confidence in you. He often told me that he could never have moved to Texas if he hadn’t had your capable help to depend on.”

  “You make an old man happy, child,” Lewis said softly, his light blue eyes suddenly grown shiny. “Last time I saw you, you were little enough to sit on my lap.”

  “I don’t think I can do that anymore,” Jessie laughed.

  “And you used to call me ‘Uncle’...”

  “That I can do, Uncle Arthur,” Jessie smiled.

  “Thank you, child. Now! both of you sit down!” Lewis poured them all a cup of green tea and sat down behind his desk. “I’m so glad we can talk together so easily, Jessie. Even after all these years.”

  “Well, we haven’t seen each other for a long while, it’s true, Arthur—Uncle Arthur,” Jessie corrected herself. “But there has been all that correspondence between us since my father‘s—”

  “Death,” Lewis quickly interrupted.

  “No, Arthur. Let’s call it what it was,” Jessie firmly corrected him. “It was murder.”

  Lewis frowned, then sighed. “I see your mama’s spark more plainly now, Jessie. And I see in you your father’s iron will and intelligence.”

  “In the telegram you sent last week, you spoke of an urgent situation that required my personal attention, but there were no details,” Jessie said. “Tell me what is going on.”

  Lewis nodded. “Let’s start from the beginning. The main-stay of the Starbuck business is still the Pacific trade. It’s from this end that we get the working capital necessary to fund the Starbuck ventures into other areas. Our lumber mills in Oregon, for example, the cattle ranch in Texas, where you and Ki reside—”

  “Yes, Uncle,” Jessie patiently said. “And there’s the recent merger with that textile concern in New England. I negotiated that myself, you know.” She winked at him. “Really, Uncle. I’m no longer that little girl who sat on your lap.”

  “No...” Lewis sounded rueful. “Well, I’m aware that you’re on top of things, Jessie, so I guess I’d better get to the point. We need—our clippers need—San Francisco’s port in order to continue to do business. The port is now regulated by a corrupt city official named Harris Smith. It’s up to this Smith fellow to say when we get to unload our cargo, and when our ships can sail again. Why, he even gets to decide how much duty we have to pay on our goods! This official, or his minions, tie our goods up for ninety days at a time, making us pay penalties to our customers for late deliveries. When he does lift his embargoes, he charges us three times the proper duty rates.”

  “Can you not complain to a higher authority?” Ki interrupted.

  Lewis smacked his desktop with the flat of his hand. “Sure, I can complain all I want, Ki. But it gets us nowhere. The city government looks the other way concerning things like this. Smith’s job as waterfront commissioner is a patronage position. He’s appointed by the mayor.”

  “And the mayor won’t fire him?” Jessie asked.

  “Unfortunately the mayor is under obligation to two powerful shady interests in this city,” Lewis explained. “These two interests wish things to stay exactly as they are on the waterfront. The first interest is one of the Tongs.”

  Ki frowned. “That is bad for us, Arthur.” In response to Jessie’s confused look, Ki said, “Tong means ‘association’ in Chinese. They were once family associations that looked after the interests of their family members when the American authorities would not. But the name has recently been taken by bands of ruthless criminals who now control all commercial activity in the Chinese community.”

  Lewis nodded and went on, “There are five of these associations—called ‘families’—in San Francisco. The one that controls the waterfront is called the Steel Claw Tong.”

  “Why should they affect us?” Jessie asked. “I thought you said they only worked in the Chinese community.”

  “Unfortunately,” Arthur Lewis said, “the Steel Claw Tong has its steel claws in quite a few other places as well. Their main ‘businesses’ are the opium and slave traffic. The slaves—women, you can guess for what purpose—and the opium have to be brought into the country, and it isn’t the Chinese who run the ships. The Steel Claw Tong owns opium dens and brothels. This Smith fellow is paid off to look the other way as the Tong brings in its dope and female slaves, and meanwhile, he har asses us in our entirely legitimate importation of silks, spices, and jade.”

  “But Arthur, I’m confused,” Jessie blurted. “I understand why the Tong would bribe Smith to let them smuggle in what they want, but who would pay him to make business difficult for us...” Her voice trailed off as her green eyes widened in comprehension.

  Lewis gestured toward her with his chin, his voice filled with admiration as he told Ki, “She’s sharp.”

  “Indeed she is, Arthur,” Ki smiled back.

  “Now I understand your urgent telegram,” Jessie muttered, her face set in determination. “And the need for secrecy. The cartel is involved in all this, correct?”

  “Absolutely,” Lewis replied. “Once again they are trying to destroy the Starbuck organization.”

  “How did you ever get wise to them, Uncle?” Jessie asked. “It was clever of you, I’ll say that!”

  Lewis positively blushed with pleasure at the compliment. “I hired a private detective in order to see whether I could flush out any incriminating evidence on Commissioner Smith. It was my intention to take whatever evidence I could get on him directly to the newspapers, and in that way, force the mayor to discharge him, desp
ite the wishes of the Tong. The private detective is still working on that angle, but while he was investigating Smith, he came upon the cartel’s involvement in the situation.”

  “What do they hope to get out of it?” Jessie asked. “Besides my ruination, that is,” she wryly added.

  “And why would the Tong, traditionally a closed group, wish to associate themselves with the Prussians?” Ki interjected.

  “One at a time,” Lewis chuckled. “The detective—his name is Moore, by the way—found all that out as well. He’s quite bright, but extremely insolent, I must add. Fairly slight fellow, considering the rather dangerous nature of his work... Anyway, Moore has discovered that the Tong is playing along because the Prussian cartel is providing them with a controlling interest in a bordello being operated here in San Francisco for very rich and powerful white clients. No Tong family has ever been able to extend its slimy tentacles outside of Chinatown. For the Steel Claw Tong to achieve such expansion would put them far ahead of the other four families. As far as the cartel is concerned, you both know that Prussia, England, and the other European powers have a foothold in the Orient, alongside the United States. The Prussians send their goods into the Japans, and import Japanese raw materials to Europe, but they haven’t been able to touch the trade franchise we have here in America. With the help of the Tong, and through them, with Commissioner Smith’s help, the cartel means to so disrupt our seagoing trade that we lose our import/export licenses in the Orient. If that were to happen, it would tear out the heart of the Starbuck empire.”

  Jessie nodded. “Our organization would be crippled, all right. The Prussians could move right in on us, just as they’ve always wanted.” Jessie paused a moment to think about it. “And it wouldn’t just be in the Orient. The Prussians could take over right here in America, as well.”

  Lewis, his lips pursed, leaned back in his chair, silently nodding in agreement. “I’m a businessman,” Lewis murmured. “But this isn’t about business, it’s about war. We’ve got to stop them, but I don’t know how. That’s why I sent for you, Jessie.”

  “What is the name of the Tong leader?” Ki asked.

  “That I still don’t know,” Lewis answered. “It’s incredibly difficult for a non-Chinese to get any information at all on the Tong. Wandering the streets of Chinatown is like walking down a maze of mirrors. All you ever see is your own white image reflected back at you. Anyway, I’ve got Moore working on it.”

  “And the cartel representative’s identity?” Jessie asked sharply.

  “That too remains a mystery,” Lewis sighed. “I knew their old man quite well. Used to have a none-too-friendly-but-obligatory drink with him now and then. The cartel considered him adequate for paying Smith his bribes, and for balancing the ledgers at that bordello I mentioned, but Moore found out that cartel headquarters in Prussia considered their man not cutthroat enough to handle the next phase of their plan to crush us. Who the new man will be, and when he’s supposed to arrive, Moore hasn’t yet discovered.”

  “This fellow Moore seems to have quite an inside with our enemies,” Jessie mused. “How did he manage it?”

  Lewis blushed, the mottled pink that suffused his cheeks rising all the way up and across his bald dome. Just then there came a knock at his door, at which he seemed inordinately grateful. “I think I’ll let Moore himself explain that, if you don’t mind, child.” He called out, “Come in!”

  Both Jessie and Ki turned to watch Lewis’s private eye enter the office. He was, indeed, as Lewis had described him, a slightly built fellow for the sort of rough-and-tumble work Jessie associated with the job of a private investigator.

  “Miss Jessica Starbuck,” Lewis began, rising to his feet, “may I present Mr. Jordan Moore. Mr. Moore, Miss Starbuck.”

  Moore approached to shake hands with Jessie. He was about five feet ten inches tall, Jessie guessed, and weighed about one hundred and forty pounds. She wondered fleetingly why a stiff San Francisco breeze hadn’t already blown him out to sea.

  “And this gentleman here is Miss Starbuck’s companion,” Lewis continued. “His name is Ki.”

  Moore grinned as he stuck out his hand in Ki’s direction. “What do I call you for short?” he asked.

  Ki smiled back at the slender man. “Whatever you call me,” he said softly, “I should do it very politely if I were you, Mr. Moore.”

  “Certainly, Mister Ki,” Moore replied, his inflection just polite enough so that Ki wasn’t quite sure if he should take offense.

  “Please sit down,” Lewis said hurriedly, taking Moore by the elbow and guiding him to an armchair some distance away from Ki’s. “Cup of tea?” he asked.

  “Thank you, no,” Moore replied. He took a moment to align the razor-sharp creases in the trousers of his black wool suit, and then sat down. He balanced his derby on the head of a porcelain figurine of a sword-wielding samurai.

  Jessie held her breath as she watched Ki stiffen with anger over Moore’s flippancy, then she herself grew angry. What arrogance! Moore ran his hand through his thick black hair, which he wore combed back, but without oil, and gave his derby a tap, to make it bob up and down on the samurai statuette’s tiny head. He then beamed his wide grin around the room, like a child looking for approval, Jessie contemptuously thought. His green eyes—the color of emeralds, the color of her own eyes, she realized distractedly—sparkled with amusement. Why, the man was in his thirties, but he acted like an insolent adolescent!

  “You’ve come up with quite a good deal of information for us, Mr. Moore,” Jessie began. “I’m quite pleased with your work.”

  Moore glanced questioningly at Lewis.

  “Miss Starbuck is my employer,” Lewis said. “Need I say more?”

  Moore shook his head, smiling to himself. Once again, Jessie felt her anger flare, and then she grew doubly angry as Moore—still grinning—gazed at her until she had to blush.

  “I hope you have no qualms about working for a woman,” she declared.

  “On the contrary, Miss Starbuck,” Moore replied, his voice clear and pleasant. “A private investigator often finds himself working for a woman, but usually on cases involving a husband’s infidelity. Such women are rarely as beautiful as yourself...”

  “Can we keep our minds on business?” Jessie asked curtly.

  “Certainly,” Moore chuckled. He reached inside his jacket to remove a tiny black notebook.

  As he flipped through the notebook’s pages, Jessie asked, “Have you found out the name of the head of the Steel Claw Tong?” She noticed that not only was Moore’s suit black, but so were his boots, vest, tie, and derby. His white shirt only emphasized the starkness of his garb, and the brilliant sea-green of those eyes of his, set in his handsome, clean-shaven face...

  “The leader’s name is Chang Fong,” Moore began, reading from his notebook. “He’s in his early fifties. Chang came to Chinatown when he was ten years old, from the Kow Gong district of Canton. He got himself a job working in a fish market for five dollars a month—and on that, this ten-year-old supported a passel of much older uncles and cousins evidently too lazy to earn their own way—”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Moore,” Ki interrupted. “Allow me to correct you. Chang’s relatives were most likely not too lazy, but too old to adapt. They came from a culture where the ripeness of their age would have afforded them much respect.”

  “But they weren’t in their culture. They’d come to America,” Moore pointed out.

  “Indeed, but for elders to learn English, to accept menial jobs...” Ki shook his head. “It was up to young Chang to support his elders. Honor demanded it.”

  “Indeed...” Moore said softly. He peered at Ki’s face, scrutinizing his features, and then he smiled, and nodded to himself. “Thank you for the correction, Ki,” he said earnestly. “It helps me understand Chang. Anyway, ten-year-old Chang was soon making ten dollars a month, as the store’s manager. Meanwhile, he was attending a Sunday school run by the Methodist mission, in order
to learn English.”

  “Why didn’t he go to public school?” Jessie asked.

  Lewis and Moore exchanged embarrassed looks. “Jessie,” Lewis sadly began, “Chinese children are not allowed in our public schools.”

  “But the Chinese pay city taxes, don’t they?” Jessie demanded indignantly. Lewis shrugged and looked down at his desk, as Ki chuckled sadly.

  “Chang found himself a couple of hatchet men to make sure that the nearby fish stores didn’t do so well,” Moore resumed. “By the time he was in his twenties, he owned those stores, as well as the one he used to work at. He got himself a few more hatchet men, and then began to extort protection money from both legitimate and illegitimate businesses in Chinatown. Chang’s gang was still not a Tong, still not one of the official five,” Moore pointed out. “That had to wait until he had enough income to buy himself a chunk of city hall, and of the police. Once that was accomplished, he was able to move against the man who did hold Tong status, from Chang’s district of Canton. Legend has it that Chang personally killed the man, not without suffering an injury in return, an injury that gave him his nickname, as well as the name of his Tong. Now he was official, and that allowed him to take over the opium and slave traffic.” Moore closed his notebook. “Do you mind if I smoke?” he asked Jessie.

  “Not at all.” After a moment she asked, “What was his injury?”

  Moore extracted a long, thin cheroot from a leather case. “Pardon me?”

  “You mentioned that Chang suffered an injury that gave him his nickname...”

  “Oh, yes...” Moore thumbnail-flicked a match and puffed his cheroot alight. He exhaled a perfect, blue-gray smoke ring, and while contemplating it, he said, “His rival managed to lop Chang’s right hand off. Now he wears a five-taloned metal gauntlet where his hand used to be, and is known as the Steel Claw.” He took another puff of his cigar. “I understand that it is a formidible weapon...”