Worthy Brown's Daughter (22 page)

CHAPTER 51

S
hortly after midnight, the lights of her salons and staterooms aglow, the steamship
Northern Star
drew in through the Golden Gate, passed the fortifications that guarded the narrow entrance to the bay, and steamed around the little island of Alcatraz, firing her guns to announce her arrival. From the deck, Orville Mason and Matthew Penny took in the tumultuous scene. Clipper ships filled the harbor with a forest of sails; steamers as large and showy as those on the Hudson and Mississippi lay at anchor in a blaze of light. Behind those ships, from the water’s edge to the base of her three hills, and from the Old Presidio to the Mission, flickering all over with the lamps of her streets and houses, lay San Francisco.

In 1847, San Francisco was no more than a small trading post and mission station with a population of four hundred. By 1850, as a result of the Gold Rush, the population had soared to twenty-five thousand. The metropolis the two friends stared at from the deck of the
Northern Star
now had a population of 56,802 and boasted, “New York dresses better than Paris and San Francisco better than New York.”

Matthew bulled his way through the throng around the gangplank to a hackney coach with Orville close behind. Orville told the driver to take them to the five-story, fireproof International Hotel on Jackson before settling into the silk-lined luxury of the coach. The driver snapped the whip, and the silver-loaded harness jangled as the horses pushed through the express wagons, handcarts, cabs, coaches, and people who filled the dockside streets even at this late hour.

Orville and Matthew were exhausted, but the manic energy of the city acted like strong coffee. Sikhs, Chinese, and Samoans jostled one another as they walked along the lamp-lit cobblestone streets past elegant, three-story buildings. Ragged children ran beside the coach begging for pennies. Streetwalkers mixed easily with ladies of unquestioned virtue and the gentlemen who escorted them. By day, the clattering hooves and wheels of commercial horse-and-wagon traffic filled the streets. At night, this racket was replaced by the laughter and music that poured out of the city’s saloons and theaters.

Sidewalk musicians were entertaining the crowds outside the entrance to the International. Matthew saw young boys on the fringe of the crowd openly hawking pornographic books and pictures. The coachman carried Orville’s and Matthew’s bags to the hotel entrance, knocking aside a filthy urchin who tried to interest Orville in a picture portraying two buxom women engaged in an act that guaranteed them a suite in hell. The price for the short ride from the docks was extravagant, but Orville would have been disappointed if anything in this larger-than-life city had not been dear.

Their room was on the fifth floor. Orville tipped the porter, while Matthew threw back the shutters and took in the view.

“My God,” Matthew exclaimed as he looked down from this unaccustomed height, “this must be the way a hawk sees the world.”

Orville had experienced a similar pleasure in the belfry of his father’s church, but the tranquil feeling engendered by the snowcapped mountains and virgin forests of the Willamette Valley was nothing like the electricity generated by the chaos and decadence of San Francisco.

After unpacking, the attorneys went down to the dining room for a late dinner. By the time they returned to their rooms, they could think of nothing but the pleasure of passing out in their luxurious beds. Orville was asleep in minutes, but the elation Matthew had experienced deserted him as soon as he closed his eyes.

Self-pity and a lack of hope made Matthew despair in Portland, but he had never been to sea, and the voyage coupled with the noise and lights of the City by the Bay had the effect on him that Heather had hoped it would. Once on board the
Northern Star
, tantalized by ocean breezes and the vista of an endless sea, Matthew’s spirits had risen and the distractions of San Francisco had continued to keep his depression at bay. But hope deserted Matthew as soon as he closed his eyes.

After Rachel’s passing, the worst time of day was the moment he settled in bed and closed his eyes. Darkness and the still of night provided no distractions from sad or morbid thoughts, and it was then that memories of Rachel overwhelmed Matthew. Now these visions were joined by a loop that replayed the blow Matthew had struck in Barbour’s yard, and Matthew was reminded that human beings could never travel back in time to change their fate.

A LITTLE AFTER TEN, MATTHEW
opened the shutters, expecting to be greeted by San Francisco’s famous fog. Instead, the view was so clear that he could see the buildings on the wooded shore of Contra Costa across the bay. After dining, Orville went to the docks to meet with two executives from Gillette’s shipping company while Matthew explored the city. Then, shortly after three, Orville and Matthew walked to Montgomery Street, the favorite location of merchant counting houses, banks, insurance companies, and auction houses. Montgomery also boasted handsome shops and fashionable hotels that made it the Regent Street of the West and every bit as elegant as New York’s Broadway.

Their destination was Henry W. Halleck’s unique Montgomery Block, a four-story building with nearly 150 offices built in the newly fashionable Italianate style. People laughed at Halleck when he revealed his idea, not believing it possible that he would find tenants for so many offices, but the block was now a symbol of the city’s pride. It featured bronzed iron front doors framed by stone columns modeled on those of the Diocletian Baths in Rome. Each office had the novelty of gaslight and fireplace grates. An artesian well in the center courtyard provided water on each floor, and every window had iron shutters to protect against thieves and fire. The walls were solid brick.

All these features were enthusiastically pointed out by Harold Denton, Orville’s Harvard classmate, as he led Orville and Matthew from the reception area to his office. Denton was short and rotund, with a paunch, sparkling green eyes, and a cheery disposition. His hair was bright red and his goatee and mustache stood out against his pale, baby-smooth skin. Being the only redheads in their law school class had drawn the men together, and fierce intellects and fiercer attitudes about social justice had cemented the friendship.

When they were seated, Matthew listened stoically as the friends brought each other up to date about their lives since leaving Cambridge. Finally, Orville got down to business.

“Tell me all you know about Bernard Hoxie,” he said.

Denton’s smile disappeared. “You watch yourself with Hoxie, Orville. He’s a dangerous lowlife. When he’s not representing whores and thieves, he prowls the bars looking for destitute seamen he can con into bringing spurious lawsuits against shipowners. And he’ll do anything for money, or find someone who can do it for him.”

Orville flashed an indulgent smile. “I think you’re being overly concerned, Harold. Mr. Hoxie is an attorney-at-law, a member of our profession. I’m in San Francisco to discuss a legal matter with him, not to judge his clientele.”

“Bernard Hoxie is not just an attorney,” Denton warned. “Have you heard of Shanghai Kelly or Mother Bronson?”

“I don’t believe I have.”

“Those scum run boardinghouses near the docks. They use women and liquor to lure seamen into them. Then they drug their victims and sell them to shipmasters in need of a crew. Hoxie is a silent partner of Kelly, Bronson, and others of their ilk. The whores at his saloon steer these poor wretches to the boardinghouses, and Hoxie takes his cut of the sale of each piece of human cargo without ever dirtying his hands. And that isn’t the only criminal enterprise in which he is involved.”

“I assure you that I do not intend to take up with any ladies of the night,” Orville said to humor his friend. “Now, where can we find Mr. Hoxie?”

“You’re being naive, Orville,” Denton said. “You’re not at Harvard now. When you enter the Barbary Coast, you’ll be leaving civilization behind. Lawyers like you rely overmuch on reason. Men like Hoxie are not reasonable. They are predators, and their thought processes are more akin to sharks than philosophers.”

“I appreciate your concern, but there are millions at stake here, and I have a limited time in your city.”

Denton sighed. “Hoxie’s office is in the Dancing Bear saloon on Davis.”

Orville pulled out his pocket watch and opened the face cover.

“It’s after five, Matthew. We’d better be going,” he said.

Denton looked aghast. “Surely you’re not venturing into the Barbary Coast at night. Why don’t you have dinner with me and go in the morning?”

“We can dine tomorrow, but I must see Hoxie as soon as possible.”

“May I make a suggestion,” Matthew said. Orville and Denton turned toward him. “I can tell by your tone, Orville, that you aren’t taking Mr. Denton’s warnings seriously, but I do. Men like Hoxie are not to be taken lightly. Let me go to Hoxie’s place of business and reconnoiter while you dine. If all goes well, we can return to his office in the light of day.”

“An excellent course of action, Orville,” Denton said.

“Good lawyers are hard to come by,” Matthew said. “Heather needs you.”

When Orville hesitated, Matthew removed a pistol from the pocket of his sack coat. “You are clearly my superior in a court of law. Please accept the fact that I’m more at home than you in a place like the Barbary Coast.”

Orville sighed. “You’re right, but promise me you’ll take no risks.”

Matthew smiled. “I’m as fond of my skin as you are of yours. But to assure my survival, I do need to bring one thing with me.”

“And that is?” Orville asked.

MATTHEW KNEW HE HAD CROSSED
the border between morality and sin when the cobblestoned elegance of Montgomery Street gave way to muddy thoroughfares and plank sidewalks crowded with degenerates, low- and highborn, seeking out the most vile and degrading vices. As Matthew was navigating his way through the crowds that streamed past the brothels, dance halls, cheap hotels, gambling dens, pawnshops, and saloons that lined Davis Street, a queued Chinaman, his eyes glazed by opium, lurched into his path. Matthew stepped back against the peeling paint on a clapboard wall and paused to get his bearings. A sudden lull in the street noise brought the strains of an obscene song to his ears. Though the words were raw, the voice that sang them had a certain style. He turned toward the music and noticed a handbill tacked to the wall. It advertised the headline act of the saloon against which he was standing. The handbill pictured a sensuous woman mounted by a massive grizzly bear. At first, Matthew thought the woman was being mauled by the creature, but the text clarified what was really happening and explained that those wishing to witness the act live need only enter the premises of the Dancing Bear.

Matthew steeled himself and pushed through the saloon doors just as applause and a chorus of appreciative whistles were directed at the scantily clad woman who had sung the bawdy ballad Matthew had heard from the street. Men and women were three deep at the bar. Matthew saw an opening and wedged himself between a brooding, bearded man who was working on a frothy mug of beer and the back of a fleshy woman who was chatting up an inebriated sailor. He shouted a question, and the bartender pointed toward a balcony that overlooked the barroom.

Three different women accosted Matthew as he traversed a sawdust-covered floor made sticky by spilled liquor and the occasional spray of blood. He politely refused their advances and was halfway up the stairs when the saloon’s main attraction took the stage. The buxom maiden in the handbill turned out to be a scrawny, pockmarked woman who simulated the sex act with bored detachment, and the proud grizzly was a pathetic, muzzled brown bear with patches of hair missing from its shabby coat and a drugged look in its dazed and sleepy eyes. The maiden’s dance with the fierce grizzly was as big a fraud as Sharon Hill’s marriage contract.

Matthew climbed over a drunken sailor who lay crumpled against the banister at the top of the stairs. There were several rooms on the second floor, but the one he wanted was at the end of the hall. Matthew knocked, and a deep, rumbling voice invited him in. The dim light of a solitary desk lamp provided the only illumination in the room. Stuffed behind the desk at the end of the room was a fat man whose triple chin and folds of fat obscured the natural shape of his face. Behind the fat man stood a muscular behemoth who looked as dangerous as Francis Gibney. Matthew let his hand caress the outline of the pistol stowed in the pocket of his coat.

“Mr. Hoxie?”

The fat man nodded.

“I’m Matthew Penny, an attorney from Portland, Oregon,” he said as he presented his card. “I’m here on behalf of a client to discuss a business matter.”

“Please sit down,” Hoxie said after glancing at the card. “I’ve heard that Portland is quite the up-and-coming town, but I’ve never had the pleasure.”

“That may change sooner than you think,” Matthew said.

“Oh?”

“I’m here as a representative of the estate of the late Benjamin Gillette. A woman named Sharon Hill claims to have entered into a marriage contract with Mr. Gillette, which you allegedly prepared. I’m interested in any information that can shed light on the validity, or lack thereof, of the contract.”