Fortune is a Woman (16 page)

The hours ticked slowly by, evening changed to night, but still he did not return. She heard the drunken shouts of revelers on the streets and the strains of music from the dance hall and remembered how happy and alive it had made her feel only that morning. The moon shone brilliant as a spotlight through her window and she could see the clock said three A.M.

The endless night was worse than any she had spent alone in her old room on Nob Hill because then she had not been in love. In the moonlight the pretty daffodils Josh had given her looked like stage props in a play that had taken place years ago, instead of just that morning. She closed her eyes and lay perfectly still; her life was suspended until Josh came back, and if he didn't come back, she knew she would just die.

The moon faded, the sun took its place, and the street was suddenly filled with noise and life again. And still Josh did not come.

Francie lay still as death on her bed, so drained of emotion she couldn't even cry. It was two o'clock in the afternoon and outside the call newsboys were shouting, "Extra, Extra." She heard another noise, a faint rustling outside her door. She leapt up and flung it open, but no one was there. Just a copy of the Extra the newsboys were crying in the street. The huge black banner headline shouted the news: WOMAN MURDERED—STABBED TO DEATH IN BARBARY COAST ALLEY.

Francie closed her eyes, afraid to read anymore. She dropped the newspaper and sank down onto the bed, but her eyes were drawn back to the terrible headlines. And across the top of the paper she saw scrawled in pencil:
Don't say I didn't warn you.

The words danced before her eyes as she read about the girl... "only twenty-one... brutally stabbed, her throat slashed..."

Her hand stole to her own throat and she groaned out loud as she remembered Josh's gentle smiling face as he had waved good-bye to her only yesterday. But Josh had not been home last night. And it had all happened exactly as Sammy had said it would.

CHAPTER 11

1906

A
thin, dank fog rolled in from the bay, shrouding the wharfside tenements, and fingering the windows of the grand houses on Nob Hill. Its chilly tendrils touched the soft cheeks of the women hurrying home along lonely nighttime streets, making them shudder and glance nervously over their shoulders, as if they already felt the murderer's touch.

But Francie slept the sleep of the exhausted. She did not hear the door open, did not even know Josh was there until she felt his hand on hers and his breath against her cheek.

"So cold," he murmured, "you are so cold, little lass."

Too frightened to move, she watched him cross the room and turn up the gas lamp. He walked to the window and stared out at the fog, his brow furrowed, and then he turned to look at her. He picked up the newspaper and read the bold, black, terrible headlines.

"Sammy told me about you," she sobbed. "I said he was just jealous, that it was all a lie, I wouldn't believe him. But it happened, just the way he said it would."

He sat next to her on the bed and put his hand under her chin. "Do you believe him, Francie?"

She looked at the face of the man she loved, the man who had saved her life, not threatened it. Goodness radiated from him, even the nuns had said so. Yet Sammy had known a girl would be murdered and Josh had been out all night....

He said quietly, "What if I told you I would never kill any living creature, not even the lowliest moth."

"But Sammy was so plausible."

"Aye, Sammy is always that. And many's the time I've regretted it. We swore when we were little lads we would never let each other down. 'Thick and thin' was what we said. And we've both kept that promise."

He stared sadly at her and then said, "He told you how we ran from the police? I didn't want to believe it was Sammy, my friend who had done those murders, but now I know it's true. He came to the bar yesterday afternoon full of wild talk, he told me what he'd said to you and I was afraid for you. I followed him from bar to bar, dance hall to dance hall. I saw him with a girl, but then I lost him, he just disappeared. And now this. He's insane," he said, his gray eyes full of bitter disillusionment. He held out his hand and said, "Please believe me, Francie. Sammy is the killer, not me."

"Oh, of course I believe you, Josh. I'll always believe you," she cried, her young face glowing with love.

He put his arms around her, kissing her hair, her eyes, her lips. "You look exhausted," he said tenderly, "and I'll bet you've not eaten. Let's go to a cafe."

As she walked down the stairs on Josh's arm all thoughts of Sammy and the murder disappeared into the back of her mind like a bad dream. She was so relieved and happy she didn't even notice the burly, red-faced man in the derby hat detach himself from the crowd outside the Venus Dance Hall and follow them at a discreet distance down Pacific Avenue.

And she didn't know either that Sammy Morris heard them leave. He waited, his ear against the door of his room, until their footsteps disappeared. Then he ran quickly up the half dozen steps into Francie's room. A look of bitterness and despair crossed his face and he put his hands to his eyes to shut out the sight of the rumpled bed where they had lain together, and at the newspaper with its terrible headline tossed carelessly on the floor as though it didn't even matter. He fingered the bowie knife in his pocket, thinking of them lying together in the bed, his sick mind inflamed with rage and jealousy, and then he turned and stalked from the room.

***

Harmon Harrison and his handsome young son, Harry, walked up the steps into the Grand Opera House near Mission Street. The season had started badly, but tonight the Metropolitan was redeeming itself with a performance of
Carmen
featuring the legendary tenor Enrico Caruso as Don Jose, and everyone who was anyone in San Francisco was there. Harmon waved and nodded to their friends as he and Harry took their places in their box. The orchestra struck up the overture, the enormous crystal chandeliers dimmed, and the curtain slowly rose. With a rustle of anticipation the glittering audience settled down to hear the voice of the century in one of his most famous roles.

But even though the performance was magical, Harmon could not concentrate. He could not get his daughter out of his mind. He told himself that all women were the same, that Francie was just like his own whore of a mother, the woman from Maloney's Cat House, Virginia City. The memory of her burned him like hot coals; his doctors had told him he had developed ulcers and that his blood pressure was too high. They said he should relax and forget all about his worries but he could not. His fingers drummed nervously on the burgundy velvet of the chair arm while his eyes darted restlessly to and fro across the shadowy audience, looking to see if people were watching him, if they were gossiping about him and his slut of a daughter.

He stared at his son. Harry was leaning forward in his chair, his chin in his hands, listening to the great tenor, and Harmon vowed that nothing would ever sully his boy's reputation. He would not rest until he had locked Francesca behind the bars of the state asylum, where she could never ever tarnish the Harrison name again.

After the performance he took Harry to Signore Caruso's champagne reception at the Palace Hotel and then on to a late supper party, and it was after four o'clock when they finally returned home. The footmen had the door open before the expensive new Stanley Steamer automobile had even stopped, and the butler said a gentleman was waiting to see him. "I told him you would be very late, sir, but he insisted on waiting. He said you would be expecting him."

The red-faced man hovered in the background, his derby hat clutched to his beefy chest, and Harmon said, "Take him to my study, I'll be with him in a few moments."

"Who is it, Father?" Harry stared, surprised, at the odd late-night visitor. "Go to your room, son. What he has to tell me is not for your ears."

When his father went to his study and the butler had disappeared into the servants' quarters Harry tiptoed back down the hall and put his ear to the door.

"I noticed the girl when she came into the Barbary Saloon," the man was saying. "I saw right away she fitted the description, sir. She looked pale and nervous and even though she had a shawl over her head I could see her hair was blond. She asked the bartender for a man called Josh Aysgarth. He told her he wasn't there but I understand that Aysgarth works at the saloon. Naturally I followed her and saw that she went up the stairs into the Barbary Rooming House—it's over the top of the saloon, you understand."

"Yes, yes, yes," Harmon snarled impatiently.

"The bartender later established that Aysgarth also has a room there, and that he was paying the rental on the woman's room." Harry heard his father's quick indrawn breath and the sound of his fist slamming on his desk as he cursed her.

"Tonight, sir, I finally saw them together. They walked arm in arm down Pacific Avenue to a cafe. And afterward, they returned to that same rooming house. The man's arm was around her waist, sir, and they both went into her room. I waited for some time, but the man did not emerge. They are there now, sir."

"I'll kill her," Harmon roared. "This time I'll kill her...."

Harry jumped back from the door. He ran back down the hall and waited by the foot of the stairs. A few moments later he saw the man come from the study, a wad of notes on his hand and a satisfied smirk on his face as the night-footman hurried him out through the servants' door.

His father strode into the hall. His face was a dark purple-red and contorted with fury. There was a pistol in his hand and Harry knew what he meant to do and he knew that even Harmon Harrison could not get away with that. He caught his arm urgently. "Father, no...
No."

"I'll kill her," Harmon raged. "You don't know what she's done—"

"Yes, yes I do," Harry cried. "I heard it all. But
you can't kill her,
Father. You'll only cause more scandal.

Horsewhip them. Put her away in the state asylum the way you planned. It's only what she deserves, and no one will blame you for it."

Harry took the pistol from his father's hand. He ran to the study and carefully put it back in the top drawer of his father's desk, locked it and pocketed the key. Then he picked up the old dog lead and returned to the hall and gave it to his father. "Use this on them both," he said savagely, "and then we'll make sure she never bothers the Harrisons again."

Harmon strode to the door. He turned to look proudly at his tall, handsome, clear-thinking son. He said, "Harry, you just saved me from doing something very foolish. You kept a cool head. Thank you, my boy."

***

Dawn was breaking. The early morning air was still and clear, promising a fine April day, and Old St. Mary's Church clock struck five as Harmon drove by. His mind was churning with thoughts of Francie and her lover and he barely noticed the dray turn onto Pacific Avenue, almost into his path. He stepped on the brakes, sounding his klaxon and the big shire horses reared in terror, overturning the dray and hurling the driver onto the road. The man lay motionless amongst his fallen load of cabbages and Harmon cursed him for a fool. Now the road was completely blocked.

Workmen came running from the nearby produce market, grabbing the leading reins and trying to quiet the kicking horses, bending urgently over the drayman, shaking their heads as a cry went up for a doctor.

"Damned fool," Harmon said angrily, "almost ran me down. He should be more careful, driving a heavy dray like that, he might have killed me."

"Looks like he killed himself instead, sir," a shirtsleeved workman said bitterly.

"Killed himself?" Harmon shrugged. "You can be thankful there's only one of us dead."

A crowd had gathered and Harmon felt their eyes boring into him, taking in his smart automobile, his white tie and tails and his richness. He picked up the leather dog lead and said curtly, "I shall send my chauffeur to pick up the car. If any of you touch it you will have Harmon Harrison to deal with."

Slapping the leather strap against his thigh as he strode away, he burned to take his revenge on all women. The street was full of drays on their way from the early-morning market and he cursed the drivers; it seemed none of them could control their horses, the beasts were rearing and whinnying, dancing sideways across the road as though they had gone mad. There was a sudden rumble and he glanced up, expecting thunder clouds, but the sky was blue and innocent. The noise grew louder like the roar of an express train, and he glanced around again, puzzled. Then suddenly the road was undulating toward him in a great wave—it rose under him and hurled him to the ground. He struggled to his feet and staggered to the doorway of an adjacent building, but the roar became even louder and the earth shook so violently he was thrown to the ground again. Steel girders shrieked as they were wrenched apart and bricks and masonry crashed past his terrified eyes into the street. Then with a final mighty heave the building collapsed, and bellowing with fear like a wild animal, Harmon was buried beneath a ton of bricks and masonry.

***

Francie jolted awake, filled with a sense of foreboding. Josh was sleeping peacefully, one arm flung protectively over her. She heard a great roaring noise and she pressed her hands over her ears and sat up. But the noise grew even louder and the room began to shake. The vase of daffodils crashed to the floor and Josh flung his arms around her, pulling her closer. The whole earth seemed to shake, the room trembled and shivered, and the window exploded into a thousand glittering fragments. With a scream of steel the whole building crumbled, and still in the bed in which they had so recently made love they plummeted from the fourth floor of the Barbary Saloon and Rooming House into the basement.

PART II:  The Mandarin

CHAPTER 12

1906

Lai Tsin was tall for a Chinese, pale-skinned and cleanshaven with narrow, piercing dark eyes and glossy black hair. He wore a blue high-necked smock, wide black cotton trousers, and black cotton shoes. He carried his worldly possessions in a straw pannier on his back and he clutched a small boy of maybe four years tightly by the hand.