A-Splendid-Ruin(88)
“If that’s the case, maybe we should put you in a dress and let you do the stealing.”
He grinned and scraped his hand along his jaw, freshly shaved, but still beard shadowed. “We’d need plaster to disguise this.”
“What do we need Shin for?”
“To keep watch up on Nob Hill, to keep Farge from setting out for his office before we’re done. Will she do that, do you think?”
“I think she’ll do whatever she must to be free.”
He tapped his fingers restlessly on the table. “Good. Finish up then, let’s talk to China Joe and see what he has in mind for me.”
“You’re nervous.” It was surprising and amusing. He was always so confident.
“You weren’t, when you paid him a visit?” Dante asked. “You know he runs one of the tongs in Chinatown.”
I remembered Goldie’s theory that Shin had lost her finger in some fight as a tong—gang—girl. The real story was so much more horrible. But then, so was the story of my aunt at the bottom of the stairs, and the terrible destruction wrought by the corruption involved in the building of city hall and my own incarceration in Blessington.
“How is a Chinese gang different from the board of supervisors? They’re all the same. It’s only the color of his skin that makes us think China Joe more dangerous. They’re all dangerous. Every one of them.”
“San Francisco is a viper pit of corruption.” Dante rose. “Let’s go.”
I shoved the rest of the bread into my mouth and gulped the coffee, and then we were off.
Shin waited at the burned-out trolleys, and when she saw Dante walking beside me, her relief was palpable.
“You must be Shin,” he said.
Breathlessly she said to me, “He will help us?”
“I will,” Dante said. “Unless China Joe wants me to murder someone. I draw the line at that.”
“He has men to do that for him.”
It was not the most reassuring thing she could have said.
She led us again through the wrack of Chinatown while Dante explained our plan to steal my sketchbooks back from Ellis, and her part in it.
When he was finished, she said, “I told you not to show him the drawings.”
“I thought it was because you knew I would embarrass myself. Did you know what Goldie intended?”
Shin shook her head. “I only knew that she wanted him to see them, so I knew it must be bad for you.”
I snorted. “It was all too good to be true. I knew it, I just . . . didn’t believe it.”
We arrived to find China Joe sitting serenely behind his wagon-desk. He looked as if he had nothing better to do than wait for us.
“Dante LaRosa,” I introduced. “Writer for the Bulletin.”
Any hint of Dante’s nervousness was gone. There again, that self-assuredness that I found so compelling. “I understand that you’re looking for a reporter.”
Joe smiled. “And you, Alphonse Bandersnitch, are looking for the story to raise your position.”
Dante looked momentarily surprised. “Your spies have been busy.”
“In my business, it is good to know what people want,” China Joe said. “One might say it is my only business—to make everyone happy.”
The next morning, the first of four articles—each increasingly threatening—in the Bulletin was small, not on the society page, and not by Alphonse Bandersnitch, but prominently placed where the well-to-do merchants and city leaders would be sure to find it.
Chinatown Rumblings
It is rumored that the city plans to move the Chinese to Hunters Point. Authorities claim the move would be most beneficial to the Chinese, who would be safe and protected there, living in a happy society together. Those who oppose the plan point out that Hunters Point is next to slaughterhouses and mud flats, which are hardly salubrious for anyone, and note that the current location of Chinatown, in the middle of downtown, easily accessible, protected from wind, has been coveted for years by rich real estate interests. And of course, it is even more desirable now that the fire has burned away all the dangerous germs.
Chinese leaders assure this reporter that they will fight for their property rights, and say that the landlords of Chinatown will lose a great deal of income if the Chinese are forced to leave. They threaten that China can and will be pressured to stop trade with San Francisco over this matter, and that Chinese merchants will take their money elsewhere. Portland, Tacoma, and Seattle have indicated that they are anxious to reap the known benefits of Chinese investment. The Chinese consulate has confirmed that it is considering a move to Oakland, as there would be no reason for it to stay in San Francisco without a Chinese population to attend.
The Chinese currently own thirty-five lots in Chinatown, and white landlords with substantial investment in the area have also vowed to fight the move. The future of San Francisco’s Chinese population will be decided by city authorities in the coming weeks.
That morning, I braided my hair tightly and pinned it close to my skull. I wore an old and shabby bowler of Dante’s, as well as his worn jacket, which was too big, but it easily hid what curves there were of my figure, and as my legs were long, I did look remarkably like a boy.
Dante looked me over critically. “Those stitches need to come out, but we’ll leave them in for now. They help your disguise. Try not to walk like a woman—no swaying. Swagger.”