Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [57]
After the first chaotic hour the citizens had thrown themselves into the dreadful task of digging out the wounded and the dead, but City Hospital had been destroyed and the other hospitals were badly damaged and no one could hold back the flames. It seemed to Lai Tsin that the very sky was on fire and he knew that by midnight Chinatown, too, would be just a heap of ashes.
His face was expressionless as he walked with the boy along California Street. Workers were hurriedly carrying treasures and paintings out of the old Mark Hopkins mansion, which had been donated by the millionaire’s widow as an art school and gallery. It and the other big Nob Hill houses still stood intact, but the flames were spreading threateningly closer as the firemen battled with an uncertain water supply.
Unsure where to go, he sat on the steps of the mansion and took the tired little boy onto his knee. The child was poorly dressed, his little blue cotton smock was torn and his dark eyes darted about in terror. Lai Tsin gave him a rice cake to eat but there was nothing to drink and the child began to cry soundlessly as though he were too afraid to make any noise. Tears squeezed between his tightly shut eyelids and Lai Tsin held him close, patting his back soothingly. “It’s all right, Little Son,” he told him. “Do not cry for your mother and father. I will look after you.”
After a while the child fell asleep, his thumb tucked securely into his mouth and his gay little cap with the multicolored ribbons askew. It was then that Lai Tsin noticed the girl.
Her face was as gray as the ashes and he could see a bandage beneath the shawl she wore wrapped around her head. She was dressed poorly in an old skirt and blouse and her bruised eyes looked haunted as she stared fixedly at the door of the grand mansion opposite.
Francie was unaware of Lai Tsin’s eyes on her. She shrank back as a small dray drove swiftly up California Street and stopped outside the mansion, watching as the men leapt down and hurriedly removed a stretcher from the back of the cart, tucking the red blanket more securely over the body it contained before they lifted it and carried it up the steps.
Her eyes grew even wider as the door was flung open and she saw Harry standing there. His face was white and tense and his pale blue eyes were hard with anger.
She shrank quickly back into the shadows as she heard him say, “Bring my father in here, please,” and the men obeyed. They placed the stretcher on the great oaken hall table and a few minutes later emerged from the house, pleased smiles on their faces as they pocketed their gold pieces.
The doors were wide open and Francie could see the staff gathered in the hall as Harry drew back the blanket and looked at his father lying broken and bloodied, his dead eyes still staring angrily at the world he could no longer see. Harry raised his eyes to the great stained-glass dome that glowed like a jewel in the light of the flames.
“You did this, Francesca,” he cried savagely. “If he hadn’t gone after you he would have been safe at home. You killed him just as surely as if you had taken a knife to him. And by God, I’ll see you dead, if it’s the last thing I do.”
Standing in the shadows, Francie shivered. She knew Harry meant what he said and that his hatred was even more powerful than her father’s. If Harry ever found her, he would keep his promise.
Lai Tsin saw the rich black chariot of the undertakers arrive and a silver-handled ebony coffin hurriedly carried in, and he stared puzzled at the young girl crouched