California Gold (11 page)

He shouted a good-bye, promising to stay in touch, and Bao waved and pushed off. As the launch wake whitened and broadened, Mack studied the busy waterfront curving around toward the northwest. A hundred yards of dark-green water separated this wharf from the next, much larger one; it contained the slips of the SP Central Ferry Terminal.

Passengers streamed in and out of the unattractive wood building, which was little more than a vast dark shed. Ferry officials—the kind who’d kicked him overboard—bustled about. One ferry was coming in across the Bay and another,
Alameda
, was just heading out with a flurry of bells and whistles.

Then Mack saw her.

She was a young woman, poised on the edge of the pier about a hundred feet away. Stylish and very neat, she was wearing a tubular gray skirt, a shirtwaist with vertical stripes of peppermint and white, little white gloves, and a jaunty flat straw hat held in place by a large brass pin. She was slim, with small round breasts and no bustle.

He started walking toward her. She gave the departing ferry a final glance, consulted a small gold watch pinned to her bosom, then clasped her gloved hands together at her waist and matter-of-factly stepped off the pier.

There was a quick flash of her skirt lifting above ankle-high shoes, yellow, with buttons, then Mack heard the splash. He ran toward the spot where she’d jumped. The lone fisherman couldn’t help; he was too frail. Mack waved his arms at the ferry churning from its slip. Clearly, the pilot, crew, and excited passengers had seen the girl’s suicide leap.

“Save that girl!” Mack yelled across the water. But the ferry engines kept rumbling;
Alameda
did not change course or slow down.

From the edge of the pier, Mack saw the girl’s straw hat floating below. Her face was out of the water, her eyes closed, and for some reason she didn’t sink.

He shouted at the ferry again. No response. He dropped his bundled possessions, thinking not of his inability to swim but her impending death, and jumped in. As he dropped, he wondered if he could swim well enough to pull her back to the pier. His feet struck, he sank, shot back up sputtering, and reached for the limp girl. His hand found her slippery throat.

Her eyes opened—large eyes, a warm vivid brown.

“Damn you, get away, I can swim.”

“Hang on to me,” he gasped, splashing, kicking to stay up. “Killing yourself’s no answer for anything—”

“Let
go
of me!” Under the surface, her flying feet struck him. He realized she’d been treading water since the moment she went in. One of her white gloves fisted and bashed him. “Idiot. I’m trying to get a story. I’m a reporter.”

Mack let go then. And sank.

She hooked an elbow around his neck, wrenching it, severely. He struggled a moment, but then realized she must be trying to save
him.
She kicked and paddled, dragging him behind, and in a moment his head knocked against the slimy rungs of a pier ladder.

She climbed up first, dripping water all over him. When they were both on the pier again, he confronted her, angry and mightily confused. He saw a woman his age or a bit older. Her skin was brown from exposure to the sun and she had a wide, determined mouth and a certain strong bluntness to her chin. She looked not at him, but at the SP ferry, now well out in the Bay.

“Those inhuman curs. Their schedules are more important than anything. They probably would have let me drown. Of course, I can hardly prove that now, can I?” Her glance back at him was withering.

Mack snorted to clear his nose and snatched at something sticky on his forehead. Green seaweed. He flung it away. “If that’s your attitude, I’m sorry I bothered. Hell, I can’t even swim very well.”

“Do you mean it?” Her gaze softened now as she turned her attention to him. “I thought you were just clumsy.”

“Clumsy. God,” he growled, snatching up the bandanna bundle.

“You’re furious with me—”

“Why, no, I always expect to be bit and cursed and ridiculed when I try to help somebody. So long, whoever you are.”

“Please, don’t go. I shouldn’t have blown up at you. What you did was generous, and brave. It’s just that I hate to lose a story.”

“What story? Would you mind telling me what’s going on here, Miss…?”

“Ross. Nellie Ross.”

“Mack Chance.”

He stood there, waiting, and she thought,
What a curious young man. Poor, bedraggled, with a bumpkin look to his clothes.
But he neither acted nor spoke like a bumpkin; he was forceful, and unexpectedly interesting to her. Instead of dismissing him—her first impulse—she pointed to a bench at the head of the pier. “Come rest a minute and I’ll explain.”

Mack followed the girl; he, too, was doing some appraising. She was about his height, with a quick, assertive stride and a distinct tomboy air. Somehow that didn’t make her less feminine.

“It’s very simple,” she said, patting the bench beside her. He sat, his soaked clothes squishing and leaking water. “Do you read the
Examiner
?”

He shook his head. “I’m new here.”

“My employer, Mr. Hearst, took it over just this year from his father, the senator. He’s the silver millionaire, the senator. Young Mr. Hearst intends to stop the flood of red ink and make the
Examiner
the best paper in the West. I write for him, under the byline Ramona Sweet. I cover murder trials, train wrecks—the thrill stuff. When there’s no real news, we go out and make news. That’s Mr. Hearst’s way.”

Mack was fascinated. The girl had a short, blunt nose—the peasant touch again—and a forthrightness that added an intriguing spice to her. “Is that what you were doing here?”

Nellie Ross nodded. “Staging a stunt. Mr. Hearst hates the Southern Pacific as much as I do. They’re indifferent to passenger safety. Last month a boy age seven fell off one of their ferry boats. The crew was slow to stop the engines to pick him up, and he drowned. That’s why I jumped in—to see how quickly anyone from the boat or the terminal would rescue me. Or
if
they would.”

“And I ruined your stunt.”

“Well, never mind—there’ll be other opportunities. I was excited; I just blew up. I’m the one to make amends, I think.” She pressed water from her straight dark hair. “So tell me, Mr. Chance, what is it that you do—besides interrupt journalists at work?” She smiled, perhaps to soften the gibe.

Water oozed from his squeaky shoes as he flexed his toes. “Nothing so far. I just arrived in San Francisco. I hail from Pennsylvania. I need a job.”

“I’m afraid we have nothing at the paper, but there’s always a big enamel pot of coffee on the stove. You could warm up and dry out.” She stood, smoothing her soaked shirtwaist. It clung to her, and he could see clearly that she didn’t have the kind of billowy figure women prized—not Carla Hellman’s kind of figure. But he found her exceedingly attractive.

“I honestly didn’t know women wrote for newspapers,” he said.

“Do you disapprove?”

“Well…” He looked away at some gulls.

“Mr. Chance, your opinion’s written on your face. A woman belongs in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant. That’s your concept, isn’t it? You and a million others.”

“Miss Ross, you keep wanting to start a fight.”

“You keep inviting it. You’re living in the past, you and every other man I know. There aren’t many women in journalism so far. But that’s changing—despite the outraged squeals of my colleagues, most of whom seem threatened by the mere sight of a skirt in the editorial rooms. But I’m there, and I’ll stay there. I’m what some people call a sob sister…Mr. Chance, do stop gawking at me. Come along.”

But he couldn’t help gawking; he’d never met any girl like this Nellie Ross—independent, a trifle hard, pretty in an unconventional way. There was something exotic about the shape and tilt of those warm brown eyes.

He hoisted his bundle and followed her up the pier past the old fisherman, who kept his guilty gaze on the water. She said, “If you like, I’ll ask around the office about a job. Someone might know of something. It’s the least I can do for my rescuer.”

“Am I hearing an apology, Miss Ross?”

She seemed to see him, actually see and appraise him, for the first time. And not unfavorably. The tip of her tongue rolled inside her cheek a moment.

“Reporters never apologize. It weakens the air of authority.

“Follow me, Mr. Chance.”

They walked up Market Street, the busiest thoroughfare Mack had ever seen—drays, buggies, horse-drawn trams, impressive buildings, and people everywhere. Above the din, Nellie asked why he’d come to California.

He showed her the guidebook. “Because I’ve always believed what this says…that a man can get rich out here.”

A smile flirted over her face, but an innate kindness suppressed it. Bedraggled and poor as he was, he looked so serious, so determined, that laughter would have cruelly insulted him. She found herself admiring his dogged sincerity, in spite of her earlier anger.

“I understand that kind of ambition,” she said. “I have it too. My ambition is to write. Not only news stories, but novels one of these days.”

“Is that a good way to make a lot of money?”

“Don’t be exasperating. Not everyone here worships wealth. I write to tell the truth. To change things. We turn here,” she added, striding around the corner two steps ahead of him.

The
San Francisco Examiner
, Monarch of the Dailies, W. R. Hearst editor and proprietor, operated from rooms at 10 Montgomery Street. Mack had never encountered such a place, full of shouting and cigar fumes and boys racing up and down the aisles snatching foolscap pages from the reporters at their desks. He actually saw a man speaking into a wall telephone. He’d seen pictures of the device, but to watch someone using one was a marvel.

Nellie took him to an alcove at the back and poured him some hot coffee. His clothes were already drying stiffly. He sat down at a cheap table, not a little intimidated by this girl and the general air of worldly sophistication in the office. He heard men shouting expletives as casually as other people said good-day.

Nellie took a chair. “That was a good hat that floated away. Oh well.” She noticed his expression. “Yes, it’s noisy,” she added, taking a sip of her coffee, “but in most respects it’s a fine place to work. The senator lost over a quarter of a million dollars after he bought the paper, but then Mr. Hearst was thrown out of Harvard, and he came home and asked the senator to let him take over. Mr. Hearst is only twenty-four, but he has wonderful ideas—a real genius for newspapering. He spends money to cover the news. A lot of people don’t like him and call him Wasteful Willie, but he’s perked up the paper with controversy and much better writing. Our circulation has already passed twenty-five thousand. Two months ago he personally lured Mr. Bierce away from the
Argonaut
to write general news and his ‘Prattle’ column—a real coup.”

A long rail of a young man, in shirtsleeves with garters and natty striped trousers, shot around the corner and dashed to the coffeepot. His center-parted yellow hair, drooping mustache, and pop eyes didn’t impress Mack.

“What about the drowning stunt, Nellie?” the man asked, gulping coffee. He had a high-pitched voice.

“It wasn’t the right moment, Mr. Hearst. I’ll try again tomorrow.” Nellie didn’t so much as glance at Mack. He warmed to her all over again.

“Well, do—we haven’t stuck it to the railroad for a week now. Hello,” Hearst said to Mack in an offhand way. He leaped into the aisle to snare the arm of an older man wearing a coat and cravat in the midst of general sartorial disarray. The man had cool, sardonic eyes.

“Bierce, what’re you working on?”

“Avoiding colds and drafts. This place is a pest house.”

“You can fixate on your health on your own time. Answer my question.”

“The story of the moment is Supervisor Smiley and that little tart he’s been keeping over in Sausalito,” Bierce said. “At taxpayer expense.” Thumb in his waistcoat pocket, he studied Mack with lofty curiosity.

“Be careful—Smiley’s a thug. If he finds out, he’ll be after you,” Hearst said.

“Trust in God, but carry Smith and Wesson,” Bierce said, patting his coat. Mack saw the outline of a pistol.

Bierce showed Hearst a small leather-covered book. “Also, one of my alcoholic informants got a job as a janitor at Fourth and Townsend. He managed to purloin this.”

“What is it?” Nellie asked.

“Southern Pacific cipher book. Copy number seven, one of Crocker’s.” He licked a fingertip and turned a page. “The word ‘bold’ means ‘cash payments.’ ‘Concave’ means ‘do not commit yourself.’ ‘Gorilla’ stands for ‘the state legislature.’ My favorite is ‘adultery.’ Translation—‘admit nothing.’ There’s twelve pages of the stuff.”

Hearst snatched the book gleefully, and Bierce pressed a handkerchief to his lips and coughed. “Don’t excite yourself, Mr. Hearst. It’s worthless without copies of the encoded dispatches they use to conduct their rotten business. They’ll soon discover this copy missing, change the cipher, and issue eight new books.”

“The railroad does business in code?” Mack asked, astonished.

Bierce raised his nose. “Who is this naïve young gentleman, Nellie?”

“Mr. Chance, an acquaintance who put himself out to help me at the ferry terminal.”

“Well, Mr. Chance,” Bierce said, “the answer is yes. The three surviving members of the Big Four, the Messrs. Crocker, Huntington, and Stanford—Uncle Mark Hopkins died this year, God rest his skinflint soul—are creatures of enormous resource, and even greater cupidity. A large segment of the public is aware of it, and growing more so. Thus a countervailing passion for secrecy has developed within the SP bureaucracy. The man who really cracks the whip, old Collis P., operates from the East—further reason why sensitive management messages are transmitted in cipher.”

“Mr. Chance is new here,” Nellie said. “He doesn’t know a lot about the gentlemen of the SP.”

“One of my favorite subjects,” Hearst said with a fierce look. “Let me tell you how crooked that bunch is, Mr. Chance. When the line was under construction, they rigged geologic surveys to convince Congress that the Sierras begin forty miles
west
of the commonly accepted point. The per-mile construction subsidy from the government was higher in the mountains than on flat land, you see. Congress swallowed it and the fraud netted those four bandits half a million. That’s how they operate. The public is there to be robbed.”