Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [150]
Sammy read the article leaning up against the noisy bar of a Barbary Coast saloon. He was wearing a shabby woolen jacket and pants and a worn collarless blue shirt he had acquired from the Church Army charity in Liverpool, England, the previous year, on just one of the many stopovers in his long, backbreaking, tedious journey to San Francisco. He had not been able to afford the extra sixpenny piece to purchase an ancient cast-off overcoat, and that winter, while he waited for a ship that would take him on as a stoker or a deckhand—anything that would get him one more step closer to California and Francie, he had thought he would die of cold. But he had refused to give in. He couldn’t. Not yet.
During that long winter in England he had thought many times of going back to Yorkshire to see his mother, but he didn’t even know if she was still alive and anyway he was sure the police would be on to him in a flash. But the main reason he didn’t go back was because he did not want his mother to see what he had become: a nothing, the lowest of the low. Not even a man.
He counted the coins in his pocket, ordering another drink and thinking about his next moves. It hadn’t been hard to find out all about Francie Harrison; she was the most notorious woman in San Francisco, living openly with her Chinaman on top of Nob Hill. And they said she had a son, too—Sammy had seen him with his own eyes, though only at a distance—and it was then he had come up with his plan. He’d kept watch on Francie for weeks, he knew her movements and he knew that on Thursdays she went out for a few hours in the late afternoon. And that would be the time he would strike.
The bartender glanced anxiously at him as he passed him the drink; even in this rough area this guy looked wild with his lined yellow skin and hungry eyes. His back was permanently hunched and he looked as if for two pins he’d run a knife into you. Stepping discreetly into the back, he telephoned the local precinct and told the cops he had a suspicious-looking character in his bar. He glanced at Sammy as he returned and their eyes met. The bartender looked quickly away, nervously whistling an off-key melody. With an intuition learned from years of practice, Sammy sensed trouble; he downed his whiskey, threw a final menacing glance at the barman, and hurried outside.
The police understood the rarity of a call from any Barbary Coast saloonkeeper and sped to the scene, but by that time Sammy Morris was long gone, back to whatever hole in the wall or doorway would shelter him for another cold night.
CHAPTER 32
Lai Tsin devoted his life to his work. He traveled frequently to Hong Kong and each time he returned to his homeland he journeyed up the Yangtze River to visit the ancestral temple Elder Brother had built according to his strict instructions.
Elder Brother was growing fat on the monies he received from him monthly, but at least now Lai Tsin had the satisfaction of seeing that his child was no longer ragged and his wife’s face was less haggard. The exquisite little gilded wooden temple had been built on the hill in the most favorable fung-shui position, sheltered in the curve of two adjacent hills and fronted by the winding slow-flowing river on the plain below, so that it received the best ch’i, or cosmic breath. It was immaculately maintained, though Lai Tsin doubted his brother had much to do with it, and he always managed to slip a little extra money into the poor wife’s small hand, earning her undying gratitude.
Lilin’s ancestral temple was small, the eaves and cornices were intricately carved and it was painted a deep vermillion that glowed like a flame on the distant gray-green landscape. When the evening sun glinted from the curving green-tiled roofs, turning the gilded eaves to burnished gold, the villagers and the river-travelers stopped to stare at its beauty and offer a prayer for the happiness of the spirits of Lai Tsin’s mother and her children.
When he returned to San Francisco he summoned nineteen-year-old Philip Chen to