Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [92]
Later that night, when the darkness was the deepest, the men from the tong carried Sammy Morris in a covered dray to the waterfront and onto a China-bound vessel. The captain pocketed his fee and the crew looked the other way as they thrust him down the ladder into the hold. He was still alive, as Lai Tsin had commanded. But before they left they cut off his manhood.
CHAPTER 21
Six Months Later
It was midnight and Lai Tsin was in his warehouse, checking his stock and making notes for his new orders. Francie had taught him all the words for the goods he sold and he wrote them slowly and precisely.
He shook his head as he put away his notebook. He had been alone all his life—he was used to it and he had never expected more. But there was an emptiness without Francie. Everything had changed when he met her. He had become a person of respect in his own eyes as well as in others. And in return he wanted to take all her burdens onto his own shoulders; he wanted to give her back her youth and beauty; he wanted to give her the world. But first he had to earn it.
He locked the door of his warehouse and walked slowly homeward through San Francisco’s dark, quiet streets, thinking about his life. He had never expected to have a future, there was only the present and that needed no planning. Now he knew if he was to achieve his goals he must look further than his shops and warehouses. He had to be more than a mere merchant. He had to become an entrepreneur. He must progress beyond San Francisco, to Hong Kong and China, to Hawaii, India, Russia, and the Orient.
He glanced at his image reflected in a shop window and saw an ordinary Chinese peasant. The educated, prosperous Chinese had all stayed home in China, it was only the poor who had fled to America to labor in railroad gangs and in the fields, in laundries and in restaurants. Those with sharper brains and a little money had become merchants like him, but even their lives were fraught with difficulties and dangers, and not just from the gwailos, the foreign devils. There was much jealousy and trickery, and the tongs were vicious and a constant threat. The other Chinese merchants were strong because they were heads of their own large families who helped them, but he had no family. Only Francie. He thought about her for a long time as he walked slowly homeward, and he suddenly realized that with Francie as his partner he was stronger than them all. With Francie as head of his company he could buy land and own businesses forbidden to Chinese, not just in Chinatown, but anywhere in America, anywhere in the world. With Francie at his side, he could be more powerful than any of the Chinese merchants.
Later that night as he tossed restlessly on his bedmat, he told himself that what he wanted most of all was to become a man of learning. Because only then, armed with the three great powers of success, money, and learning, could he return to his village on the banks of the Ta Chiang and show them how fine the child of the poor mui-tsai Lilin was now. He wanted to erect a temple to her memory and those of her dead children so that their spirits might have a home. And he wanted to bestow all his riches on Francie and her unborn child.
Meanwhile all he could give her was the dog she wanted. He had found two big, shambling sand-colored pups with amber eyes and now he must take them to her. He had told himself he’d put off going to see Francie because he did not want to disturb her, but there was another reason: He had been to that same valley years ago and was afraid of the bad memories that returning there would bring.
He bought himself some new clothes for the trip so that she would be proud of him: a long, dark blue silk robe, a padded black jacket, and a round hat with a silk button in the center. His hair had grown and he wore it braided in a queue; he carried his wicker pannier on his shoulder and held the two eager pups on leather leads. He walked downtown to the Ferry Building