The Frenchman's Revenge (25 page)

Alex leaned against the wall
,
trying to absorb the meaning of what he saw. He had heard Bai castigate the dignitaries for allowing child prostitution
in their city
and
refuse
d
to turn the girls
over
to the
sheriff and his
fifteen
deputies
.
But until
he saw the
girls
lying in the infirmary beds or sitting quietly at the
dining
tables
,
he had not
understood the
magnitude
of
last
night’s
events
. Fifty young girls being used as prostitutes
were an
abstraction
,
but the girls in
front
of
him
were real.
If
Alex
felt horror before knowing what Bai had done, he couldn’t begin to explain the feelings
roiling over him
now.

To make matters worse, he saw the girls at the tables physically cower and pale when he walked in and
realized
with a start that they were afraid of him. He was a man
,
and a white man at that.
The nausea he had felt earlier threatened again and he
choked down
the rising bile
that
bubbled in his throat
.

Alex
stood in the doorway between the two rooms and
watched Elena walk through the infirmary
kissing
each of the
girls
who lay in the beds. She whispered so
ftly
as she
tucked the
ir
blankets tightly around them.
After she spoke to each o
ne
,
s
he joined Lei
in
the dining room
and
moved from table to table
,
talking to
the
girls
in a soft pleasant voice. Most of them continued to look down at their hands
,
but
several
who
at first
hesitated
began answering her. She had a note pad and a pen
and a
s each girl said her name, Elena wrote it on the paper and pinned it
to
the front of the girl’s
ragged
dress.
Alex
saw that Elena and Lei had written their names on papers and pinned them
on
their
blouses.
Alex doubted that any of the girls spoke English and knew that Elena spoke only a little Chinese
,
but her gracious smile and soft voice seemed
to cross the linguistic divide
.

After an hour of
standing back
watching his sister and stepmother
,
but not moving away
from
the safe
ty
of the wall, Alex saw Lei in the corner talking to a young woman he first thought was
a
Chinese servant
,
but then realized from her
tattered clothes
that she was one of the prostitutes.
In addition to looking older
,
she was
stunningly beautiful a
n
d
Alex
was thunderstruck.
She was small, slender
,
perfectly proportioned.
Thick black hair fell in shining waves around her shoulders and e
very feature on her lovely face had been
crafted with a delicate touch.
Only the hard lines around her eyes and
lips
and her tight unsmiling mouth spoke to the pain and injury she had suffered
. B
ut to Alex,
taking in her
wide
almond shaped eyes
fanned by thick black lashes
, high cheekbones and dainty chin
,
she was ethereally beautiful.

Lei motioned to Elena to join her and the young woman and
the three of them
walked over to where Alex was standing.

“Jeng Ming, this is Elena, my stepdaughter, and this is Alex, my stepson. Elena
is in charge of the infirmary and
will marry Bai the day after tomorrow. ”

Jeng Ming bowed low to Elena and looked dismissively at Alex
,
then turned back to Lei.

Lei said to A
lex and Elena,
“
Jeng Ming speaks several languages including English
,
and has been helping the healers with the girls.
Many of them are so frightened they won’t talk to anyone except Jeng Ming. She has agreed to help us reach the girls and also to give us a list of the personal things they will need.”

Lei turned back to Jeng Ming and said, “I am g
lad
that you just arrived at Madam Torrento’s and hadn’t yet been put to work
,
but your story of how you came
here
is horrific.
If you are willing
,
I would like you to
meet
with Bai in the morning.
You have information he needs and he will be grateful for your help.”

Jeng Ming nodded and asked,
“Will
you and Elena be there?”

“Of course
,
we will
,
if you want us to be,” Lei said and Elena
agreed
.

Alex was so taken with her beauty
that
he
couldn’t
stop staring at
Jeng Ming
.
He jumped in
eagerly
and said,
“I
just got back f
rom
China
and speak Chinese fluently.
If I can help
you
in any way
,
I w
ill
be honored.”

In a haughty voice tight with distain
,
Jeng Ming said in perfect English, “I can’t imagine that would be necessary.”

S
he bowed low to Elena and Lei
,
then
turned to go back to the infirmary.
Alex tried
to convince himself the dismissive look she gave him was due to shyness
,
but her sharp retort removed any doubt. As compared to the way he
was reacting
to her, Jeng Ming was decidedly unimpressed with him.

Two days that
Alex thought
could not get any worse had just prove
n
him wrong.
D
ismissed out of hand by the most beautiful woman he had ever seen
, he
watched
Elena and Lei
walk back to the hacienda together
,
leaving
him standing
alone
– very much alone
.

Chapter 11

Ma
nchu
and his coterie of Sing Leon guards formed a tight phalanx
guarding the entrance to
Bai’s
complex
.
The sheriff’s deputies clustered in a group fifty feet away
,
waiting for the sheriff and the others to join them for the return trip to San Francisco
.
Even
though the
number of guards to deputies
was
equal
, there was no question who
was in control
.
Compared to the
fierce
K
u
ng fu warriors with their hard bodies and equally hard eyes sitting astride incomparable horses, the deputies
were
a ragtag
bunch
.
I
n truth
,
except for the three men who worked with the sheriff as genuine deputies, the other men were strays, pickups looking for a fast dollar and the excitement of
rec
apturing
the stolen prostitute
s
and
win
n
ing
one over
t
he Frenchman
.
It wasn’t
t
he triumphant adventure they
had
expected. Th
e farthest they got to glory was tea and scones
in the servants
’
dining room
before being escorted to the
road by
warriors
they
would
be loath to confront
.
This was not the tale they had intended to regale their drinking buddies with at the saloon tonight.

Nianzu and Quitin
accompanied the
five
dignitaries
to the
ir
waiting
followers
.
From the time they left the conference room and in the process of retrieving their horses and bein
g
unceremoniously escorted off Bai’s property, Greg For
e
ster
maintained
a
one-sided
conversation with
Nianzu about the range and reach of Bai’s enterprise.
To hear Greg’s
affable
chatter
,
one would think
that
he had led a successful mission rather than being ignominiously
dismissed by the man he despised.
Nianzu responded to his questions succinctly
,
more often than not in monosyllables.
With a concerted effort
,
he hid the scorn he
and Bai
shared for the pompous public servant.

~~~

A
fter being released by the sheriff,
the deputies gratefully galloped off
,
not wanting to prolong the humiliating experience any longer
.
Greg and Martin
Quince
said their goodbye’s to Bai’s men and
rode up
beside
Sheriff Thompson.
D
one
acting as if
they had accomplished a strategic
coup
,
and furious that the sheriff had caved to Bai,
Greg accosted the sheriff.

“What the fuck was that about, Jim?”

The
sheriff,
who had as much tolerance for the
overbearing governor’s chief of staff as
Bai and Nianzu did
,
pushed his Stetson back off his forehead and said, “Care to be more specific, Greg?”

“Goddamn it, Jim.
You know what I am talking about.
How exactly do you expect me to report to the governor that the San Francisco County Sheriff and a U
.
S
.
m
arshal
and
fifteen goddamn deputies were unable to bring back a bunch of prostitutes who were stolen in plain sight after the perpetrators burned down the
most prosperous
fucking
San Francisco
brothel in front of – what would you say
,
200 witnesses--or was it closer to 300?”

“From what I’m told
,
it
’s
more likely
there were
500
eye
witnesses,” the sheriff said with a
sardonic
grin.

“Fuck you, Jim.
You may think this is a joke
,
but you just got your ass handed to you by a goddamn
Chink
criminal who perpetrated the crime of the century right under your fucking nose
.
The bastard as much as
told you to suck his dick and get the hell off his property.”

With a laconic toss of his head
,
the sheriff replied, “
It’s a little early in the century, Greg
,
to give last night
’
s event that degree of infamy, but who knows, you might be right. Tell you one thing I do agree with you on
,
and that is that it took one hell of a pair of cajones to do what
t
he Frenchman did.”