Waltzing In Ragtime (16 page)

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Authors: Eileen Charbonneau

BOOK: Waltzing In Ragtime
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He cleared his throat. “You’re to talk with Miss Whittaker, Selby. About what you know of the waterfront. Especially those men like McPeal who the ships hire to shanghai folks like you. Which ships still do business that way. Who owns them.” He tilted his head toward Lunt. “What else, Sidney?”
“When.”
“Yes. When they do their dealings. And where they meet, is that right, ’Lana?”
She nodded. He liked the fire in her eyes. But the boy looked from him to Sidney, finally settling on him as the less mad, Matthew Hart surmised. “But Miss Whittaker — she’s a lady.”
“She’s a lady with a mission, Selby. You want to help her and Mr. Lunt and their newspaper to put an end to what almost happened to you?”
“I do, sir.”
“Answer their questions. I’m going back to bed.”
Sidney Lunt caught up before he’d reached the first landing of the back stairs. “Matt. You’re not angry, are you?”
“About what?”
“Me. You know, following you down there —”
“Scraping me off the floor?”
“You never hit the floor. And Serif did that.”
“He was real then, the crocodile man?”
Sidney Lunt laughed. “Real? Yes!”
“Introduce him to ’Lana, will you? She thinks I cracked my head harder than I did. And thanks. You two and that deadly rum allowed me to annihilate the effects of my foolishness.”
“That foolishness was calculated, not born of any whim to raise hell instead of swallow Salmon Victoria all night.”
The ranger’s eyes went cold. “So?”
“So tell me how some backwoods forest ranger knows Wharf-side Inn, then walks into an innocent being shanghaied? How did you know where to hit McPeal? That he had a glass jaw?”
“That’s not your story.”
“It’s a hell of a story, though, Matt. I smell it.”
The ranger stood. “Do something useful, will you, Sidney? I thought that’s what you wanted for your damned paper.”
Matthew Hart waved off his following steps. But when trudged up to the next landing Sidney Lunt was still at his heels.
“Here,” he said, putting the morning edition of the Gold Coast Chronicle in Matthew’s hands. It was folded over on the editorial page. Matthew pulled his spectacles from his pocket, eased down on the step, and read.
“I was at the paper at three A.M. to get it into the morning edition.” Sidney waited, pacing. “What do you think?”
Matthew raised his head slowly. “Mr. Parker says there’s not a newspaper in California brave enough to take a stand like this —”
“Bravery be damned! It’s bound to sell papers! So there you have it. Olana’s got her start.”
“Olana? I thought you said you —”
“Look at the byline.”
“Who in hell is O. Lanart?”
“That’s precisely what I hope all of San Francisco is wondering this morning! When you didn’t take your place at table last night, and her mother was about to put her next to Moore, Olana took your seat. She became you, Matt. Hence her
nom de plume.
They are your ideas, but they’ve gone through her, you see? It came out of her in a way that puts a whole new slant on the debate! Most stimulating!”
“She wouldn’t sit beside Moore?”
“Matt, I want you to encourage her to keep up that fine-edged anger, that challenge to their very masculinity!”
“Masculinity?”
“Yes! That’s her angle! Oh you should have heard her last night! And the old fools were so taken with her rendition of you that they paid no heed at all at the insults she was hurling! They’ll be storming about my new essayist without ever connecting O. Lanart to James Whittaker’s amusing daughter.”
“Appears I missed more than Salmon Victoria.”
“Well, you were out dredging up waterfront scandal.”
“I’ll get you for leaving my carcass out in plain sight,” Matthew promised.
Sidney laughed. “We couldn’t budge you from under that damned sassafras tree!”
The ranger sighed. “Sit down, Sidney,” he said. Matthew watched the delight enter the man’s eyes as he took a place by his side. Why? Damned if everyone in this house wasn’t doing strange things lately. ’Lana’s editor, whom he didn’t think could be still long enough to take in a sunset along the Pacific, was perched on the backstairs beside him, not displaying his wit, but listening.
“’Lana’s got a place there now, at your newspaper?”
“Hell, yes!”
“Good.”
Matthew Hart put his hands on his knees to rise, but knew the pain inside his head would stay there unless he opened the subject somehow, with someone.
“Sidney, you’ve know ’Lana a long time, haven’t you?”
“Since we were children.”
“And you came after her, out there in the cold I mean. And before that, you visited her clear across the Atlantic, didn’t you?”
“Well, yes.”
“So you’re fond of her.”
“Matt —”
“I’ll be going away from here come Christmas. You’ll look after her, won’t you? I mean, steer her away from bad decisions and such?”
“We’re not talking about trees or the Barbary Coast anymore.”
“No.”
“Damn. How is it you know before I do? Dora’s won, hasn’t she? The old man’s given Moore permission to court Olana.”
“Yes.”
“Probably part of a package.”
“What?”
“Keeping you on till the end’s part of the arrangement, and hiring Selby. Maybe letting Olana pretend she’s a writer, too. Until the wedding divests her of all her silly notions.”
The ranger put his head in his hands. He’d contributed to Olana’s predicament? “Damnation, Sidney, what’s going on in this house?”
He felt the editor’s hand on his hair. The gentleness of the gesture startled him. When he lifted his head, Lunt was smiling his usual cynical smile, relieved by a touch of sadness.
“Layers, Matt. It’s the layers you’re not used to. I don’t think she’ll have him, do you?”
“No. But if she should come to you, for advice —”
“Done, my friend.”
The men rose, shaking hands. Sidney Lunt was shaking his head too. “Damned if you two don’t look after one another, as you say, too. But you’ll drive me out of business, between your reticence and her daring.”
“Daring?”
“This story. It could lead us all into some very hot water.”
“How?”
“Matt, the Barbary Coast has been flourishing since the Spanish trading days. And the middlemen like McPeal are the dangerous ones. They stand between petty criminals and their contacts. Those contacts are sometimes among the most powerful men in San Francisco. And the city government looks the other way.”
“Wouldn’t the city want it stopped?”
“If there’s money to be made?”
“What? How?”
“Graft? Corruption? Bribes? Ah, you are an innocent about some realities. Go. Get your rest. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”
“Sidney, how can you think in here?”
“What?”
“The noise!”
“Oh, yes. Invigorating, isn’t it? Watch your step Olana, there’s a missing floorboard.”
Matthew steered her around the hole. “If I couldn’t dance come Christmas due to my being here, Papa would — She didn’t bother to finish. Sidney was already out of hearing, and pulling a disheveled man with a huge red mustache over to them.
“Matt, Olana, you must meet Alisdair Dodge — best shutter in the city!”
Matthew Hart put out his hand. “Shutter?”
“Photographer,” Alisdair explained. Olana could barely tolerate the burnt and chemical smell emanating from his clothes. It was worse than the cigar smoke, the printer’s ink, and turpentine scents that pervaded the entire
Chronicle
building. Matthew Hart seemed less bothered by this or the large room’s continual uproar as Sidney sent them off to the photographer’s darkroom. He steered her into his office. There, at least, it was quiet.
“Tea?” he asked her.
“That would be marvelous.”
He sprang to a door and knocked twice, poking his head inside. “Three for tea, Serif, there’s a good fellow.”
Olana stared in wonder when the mammoth servant arrived. Matthew, she realized, wasn’t inebriated enough to misrepresent this giant.
“Does he speak, Sidney?” she asked, her eyes following the tray with what looked like a doll’s tea service in the massive hands.
“Not much. But he understands every other form of communication — from the whines of the building’s cats to the rumbling presses.”
She smiled. “And he does tea?”
The giant took the linen napkin from the tray and artfully placed it in her lap. “Oh, do excuse me, Serif. I mean you do tea, very well. I’m sure this will settle me nicely.”
When he bowed, Olana saw a tiny tuft of braided hair sprouting up from the top of his head. He left the room noiselessly.
“He sees me as a bit of a savior,” Sidney Lunt explained as he poured her cup. “Never liked circus work — the thing he was born into. We understand each other that way.”
“Whatever do you mean?”
“Olana. You and I — we go back a long time together. Thousands of garden parties. When my parents bought me the
Chronicle
they thought it was a whim, like the dozens of projects I’d started, never completed over my life. They’d buy it, loose a few thousand, I’d move on, and we’d all be closer to the time I’d settle down, take on the life of a gentleman. I was born into leisure, like you, and as sure as Serif was born into the circus. My parents, the dear old bores, expected me to stay inside my class. But the paper’s teaching me daily how much else there is! And I think someone is performing that feat with you now.”
Olana longed to talk to about her feelings for Matthew Hart. Sidney would be a perfect confidant, if she could trust him. Was Sidney inviting himself into that position, or still looking for her wild man’s story?
“Why did you send Matthew off like that?”
“I merely took advantage of his enthusiasm. I want to talk with you about your work here.”
“Oh?”
She sipped at her tea. Olana didn’t want to do this part without Matthew. The notes from her interview with Selby were in her lap. Now he’d abandoned her. And Sidney was speaking too gently. She knew something unpleasant was coming.
“Olana, I wish you’d take time. To develop your editorials. You need to acquaint yourself with the preservationists, conservationists, Sierra Club, history, plants and animals indigenous to California. Matt can help Alisdair identify, photograph the giant trees north of the city. Your pieces will be illustrated from life, from the best photographer in the city. Matt can help you, too. Isn’t he always hauling around plants from your father’s —”
“Now I must write to please him?”
“No. But you can’t cut your teeth on a story of waterfront corruption, woman! Reconsider.”
“Matthew thinks I can do it.”
“Your bear fighter is an innocent in the ways of men. And of this city. It almost cost him his life the other night. He doesn’t understand where it could lead.”
“And you do?”
“I have some notions.” He took her hand. “Olana, Serif is a splendid bodyguard. But he can’t look after us all.”
“Who in heaven’s name is asking him to?”
“Heaven might be our only protection, you silly girl!” He rose abruptly and began pacing the length of the small office.
Olana made her chin stop quivering, made herself stop thinking not you, Sidney, not you too. She stretched her arm along the dusty sofa’s back. “I realize you have to flair dramatic for your readers, but surely we’re talking about common criminals, not a beast —”
“We’re talking about a many-headed beast, Olana. And an instigator who will be taking his leave back to a simpler world soon.”
She stood, adjusted her hat. “Sidney, if you haven’t the courage to pursue this, perhaps the
Sun
or the
Times
will.”
Matthew Hart and the photographer bounded into her as she reached the door. Olana could see the pandemonium of the main room reflected in Matthew’s spectacles. And now both men smelled horrid.
“’Lana, Alisdair’s taken photographs of animals at night, in flight! And Chinatown, on festival days! You’ve got to see —”
“I don’t have to do anything!” she snapped, then strode past him. He didn’t catch up until she was outside the building, and had her hand on the carriage’s door.
“Hey, ’Lana,” he urged. “Let’s walk. The sun’s out. You know what a miracle that is in this city.” He waited. “All right?” She nodded, waved off the carriage then let Matthew guide her through streets swollen with people. Even strides, slowed for her benefit. She didn’t look up until she realized there was green around them, and the street noises were in the distance. He had found Golden Gate Park.
His pace slowed further as they found a walk lined with trees. “A bad start? With Sidney?”
“He took the Barbary Coast story away from me.”
“What? After he told me —”
“You don’t have to bully me into my assignments, Mr. Hart!”
“Aw, ’Lana, I only just —”
“I’d prefer you didn’t.”
“Oh. All right, then.” His voice softened. “What are you going to do now?”
“Walk.”
“Good.”
They did.
“’Lana,” he finally said, “I’d like to think breaking a few jaws would cure the waterfront, but Sidney knows better.”
“Then why doesn’t he want to use his knowledge to stop what almost happened to Selby? What did happen to you years ago?”
Olana saw a vein appear, ugly and distorted around the bruise
on the side of his head. He stared down the walkway that led to the Mechanics’ Building. “Did I tell you about — that?” he whispered.
Olana was glad his eyes weren’t on her. “Don’t you remember?” she asked softly.
“Not real well, no.”
“You said they took you on one of those ships, when you were a boy. Did they really, Matthew?”
“Yes.” The vein in his head disappeared. “Sidney’s your friend, ’Lana. He’s looking out for you.”
“Is that why he put that ridiculous name to an editorial I never even saw, never mind wrote!”
“Wasn’t he writing down your dinner convers —”
“Was he looking out for me when he sent me to Sequoia? No! He was looking to keep me out of his hair, for as long as possible. Like all the rest! Out of sight, unless I’m doing my duty, like a good little girl. For him in editorials, behind a name that’s not mine, now that he’s all on fire with your cause. For my father, who, if he ever found out — Oh, he’d forgive even that as long as I stay attractive to rich men who’d like the chance of getting richer!”
Olana picked up her skirts and ran, but he caught up with her under a bower of bare grapevines. He touched her back. She whirled on him. “Go ahead,” she challenged him. “Tell me I’m wrong, spoiled, ungrateful!”
It was too public a place, but he didn’t know that. And Olana didn’t care, not once his arms were around her, his heated breath warming her. “You’re not wrong.”
She turned, touched his face. “Just spoiled and ungrateful?”
Instead of the teasing she expected, he closed his eyes and kissed into the palm of her hand. The shiver of delight rode up her arm, burst through the secret places he’d opened in his treehouse in the woods. His hands took her hips.
“I wish —” His eyes left her, followed a seabird’s flight.
“What do you wish, Matthew?”
“That you were not your father’s daughter. That I was not my
mother’s son. That there was nothing between us.”
He lifted her hat netting and kissed her, there, under the bower, kissed her desperately, hungrily, as if she’d disappear. His hands searched for the end of her corset, searched for a part of her not reined in. Olana’s breath quickened. She gulped great doses of the city, her father’s cigars, the photographer’s flashpots. Her thighs warmed, her breasts hardened, her knees became, suddenly, unreliable. She was lost in kisses that touched her temples, cheeks, lips, neck.
“Oh my darling, not here,” she warned softly. He raised his head from her neck. They both saw the couples strolling on a parallel path.
 
 
The back entry to the Golden Dragon was dimly lit. Incense heavy with jasmine was winning the battle with urine and rendered grease of pressed duck as the dominant stench. As McPeal climbed the stairs, it was hard for him to listen for signs of danger because of the noisy, shuffling footsteps behind him. He hated doing business in Chinatown.
“Walk on your toes!”
“Don’t have many, sir.”
“What?”
“Lost seven between us, my brother and me, after the ranger took our boots. Ever been frostbit? It’s fearsome pain.”
McPeal shook his head. The choirboy had, indeed, grown up. Made enemies. They made his job much easier. “Wait here,” he told Ezra Carson before he entered the room lit only by a bottle-green, glass-shaded oil lamp on the desk. His client, the man sitting behind the desk, was not lit at all. McPeal could barely see the white cuffs of his shirt.
“Mr. Hopkins? That you?”
“Sit.”
McPeal did, smelling both profit and revenge, a rare and glorious combination. “I brought one of the brothers, sir.”
“One?”
“The other’s still nursing his injuries. I figured we could strike a better deal with the idiot, eh?”
“We?”
“Mr. Hopkins,” McPeal said, “we are men of the world. You’re working on one side of town to keep an honorable family honorable. I’m working on the other, seeing that the rabble stays in its place when it wants to make life unpleasant for you and yours. You’re a middleman, same as me, right? So we should understand each other. We’re both in noble, serving, and profitable positions.”
The rolled wad thudded at McPeal’s chest. He’d been shot at close range twice in his fifty-four years. The shock he felt now was close enough to those two instants to make him hate Hopkins. He’d remember that hatred, when the time was right. The projectile fell into his lap. Now was not the time, McPeal decided, as the fingers of his left hand felt the unmistakable texture of money.
“Let him in,” the man behind the desk said.
McPeal rubbed the sore spot at his sternum with his iron stub. Then he rose, opened the door.
Ezra Carson stared into the darkness, mystified. “Where in hell are you?” he bellowed, blindly stumbling forward.
“Ah, Mr. Carson. Poacher, prospector, sheep herder, thief, whoreson, and general
persona non grata.
”
“Now, now, you got it backwards, Mr … . Mr. Hopkins! It’s me come to do some name calling! Of that crazy ranger and his woman!”
“Woman?”

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