Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [154]
He thought about his plan, reminding himself how clever it was of him to use the Mandarin’s own people against him. The hired tongs should have done their work by now, but they were late in calling and he wondered anxiously if something had gone wrong. Surely they wouldn’t dare take his money and welsh on their deal?
He resumed his pacing as another ten minutes ticked by. His valet, waiting by the door, reminded him that the train would leave in half an hour.
“I know, I know, goddamn it,” he snarled. And then the telephone rang. He leapt across the hall and snatched up the receiver. A faint smile crossed his face as he listened to the man’s garbled report.
Still smiling, he put down the receiver without a word and walked to the door. Revenge felt very sweet.
From the cab driving to the port, Francie saw the red glow in the sky ten blocks away. Then she heard the wail of the fire engines and saw the flashing lights of the police cars as they sped past them.
“Looks like trouble ahead, lady,” the cabbie said.
She felt that first fateful tug of dread. “Hurry, please hurry,” she begged. A policeman stopped the cab two blocks from the warehouse. Ignoring his protests, Francie leapt out and ran toward the blaze. A second policeman grabbed her and she turned, screaming at him to let her go. “My son is in there,” she cried. “I must find him … help me, oh please help me.” Fighting her way out of his grasp, she ran into the street leading to the offices. The heat came toward her in great waves. She stopped, stunned by the fiery inferno. The whole complex was ablaze. Flames leapt from the windows. The corrugated tin roofs had already buckled and melted.
Lai Tsin, summoned by the police, saw Francie from the top of the street and ran toward her. Taking her by the shoulders, he helped her away. Shaking with terror and shock, she told him about Sammy’s call and her fear that Ollie was in the warehouse. He shook his head in disbelief.
When Lai Tsin tried to guide her to his car, she pleaded that she had to stay with Ollie. But finally she climbed in and sat beside him, quiet and biddable as a child. In her state of shock, she reminded Lai Tsin of the night when he’d first met her. Now he was driving her back to her own home on Nob Hill and if what she had said was true, tragedy had struck a second time.
He put his arm tenderly around her waist, helping her up the stairs to her room. He summoned the servants to put her to bed and a doctor to give her an injection to make her sleep.
“Whatever shall I do?” she cried, as the Mandarin sat by her bedside, waiting for the sedative to take effect. Her eyes were wild with horror and her face ashen. He shook his head slowly, not knowing what to say. “Leave it all to me, Francie,” he said gently. “I will find your son for you.”
But as her eyes closed under the influence of the drug, for the first time in many years Lai Tsin felt fear in his heart.
The fire was so fierce it gutted the entire complex, though the firemen managed to prevent it from spreading to the adjacent buildings. By midnight it was all over. There was nothing left of the warehouses with their treasure troves of goods. Later, when the ashes were cool enough, the firemen discovered evidence that the place had been deliberately torched, doused from end to end with so much kerosene it had exploded into flames and been virtually gutted within minutes.
Later that morning they confirmed that the remains of two people had been found in the ruins, one a man, and the other an adolescent boy.
Lai Tsin’s face was bitter with sorrow as he mounted the stairs to face Francie. She only needed to look into his eyes to know