King of the Golden Gate

Prologue

San Francisco, princess city by the Pacific, was awash with celebration. Standing at the corner of Vallejo and Kearney, on the fringe of the Barbary Coast, Jeremy Drake studied the street ahead. All roads were said to cross in the Barbary Coast, that tightly packed cluster of blocks in the northeastern quadrant of the city. If that was so, Drake thought and grinned, they were all roads to hell. Even on the Fourth of July, 1890, in a city accustomed to pandemonium, its blocks seemed brighter and noisier. The music halls were ablaze with lanternlight and alive with raucous laughter and music. Firecrackers popped and snapped. Rockets flared into the sky and exploded with blinding bursts of red and white and blue. Murder Row, Battle Alley, Hell’s Acre teemed with men of every occupation. Drunk or sober, they danced uphill and down, each with a doxy of his choice. In the Barbary Coast, somehow, there were always enough women for the men, women who, for one reason or other, had been claimed by the gamier side of life.

The crowd surged around Drake as he started down the street. A woman, her face streaked with sweat and eye shadowing, rushed forward and threw her arms around his neck. Her thighs and abdomen ground into his in time to the blaring music that pulsed through the street. Drake laughed and pushed her away. Another man caught her, and the two were swept past and out of sight.

Jeremy Drake, at twenty-four, stood a precise six feet tall in Mexican boots, black waistcoat, lace-ruffled white dress shirt, and flared black trousers. His sun-bleached hair and burnished bronze skin testified to the years he had spent at sea. They had not been totally honest years. At the age of sixteen, bored with school and teachers, pale and scrawny, with stories of life before the mast to fire his imagination, Drake had left home and shipped aboard the merchant vessel New Hampshire Mist bound for the Golden Gate. All went well until they reached the forty-fifth latitude on their way north along the coast of Chile, when disaster struck in the form of a tsunami. The tidal wave caught them broadside, and at night just as the watch was changing. Dismasted, all her rigging and crew drowned save four who had been belowdecks when the wave struck, the New Hampshire Mist was little more than a leaking hull. A week later it fell easy prey to a sleek two-masted pirate steamer under the command of a brigand and braggadocio who called himself Marco Polo. The merchantman’s cargo was transferred to the Marco Polo—naming his ship the same was either an indication of the pirate’s special reverence for the famous Venetian or his overweening self-esteem, probably the latter. In any case, Jeremy and his mates were given a choice: to join the pirates or be chained to the doomed hull. Hundreds of fathoms lay beneath him, and Jeremy decided he hadn’t come all that way to die. He was the first of the four to cast his lot with the cutthroats.

Life as a pirate exceeded Drake’s wildest imaginings. Marco Polo’s main base was a seldom-visited island in the Strait of Georgia between Vancouver Island and the coast of British Columbia, far over the horizon from where the New Hampshire Mist had sunk slowly into darkness. From there, Polo was able to swoop down to raid ships laden with goods bound for the North American West Coast and, less often, East Coast merchantmen homeward bound from the Orient. The pale lad who had fled Boston was never again seen. Drake became as tough as any of his crewmates and, with a natural shrewdness that was honed by adversity, rose in the estimation of captain and crew. Six years later, strong as a young bull and yearning for civilization, he dared tell Marco he wanted to leave. When asked for a reason, he pointed out that he had never heard of a wealthy pirate—or at least a pirate who stayed wealthy for very long. In truth, pirates usually came to bad ends, leaving what treasures they had not squandered to be dug up by some lucky clerk or ship’s cook.

Few others could have gotten away with it. Marco had laughed at his brass, though, shared a bottle of rum with him, and sent him on his way in a leaky longboat with a juryrigged mast and patched sail. Most important, as his share of the booty—wages, they both euphemistically called it—Drake wore a money belt filled with gold coins that were to be his stake in a new life. A week later, looking like the half-starved survivor he was, he was picked up by a grain ship bound for San Francisco.

His luck couldn’t have been better if he had paid for his passage. Foremast yarns were legion, but Drake could smell the truth of them as the fabled bay seduced him with promised fortunes aplenty in silver, in the vast reaches of land stretching to the mountains and beyond, and the steel tracks that connected the booming West to the rest of the nation. More fortunes waited for the bold and enterprising. Where men ate they needed food, where they slept, a bed. Where they worked, tools, where they relaxed, whiskey and women and entertainment, not necessarily in that order, but all to be paid for handsomely. If a man was to rise, this was the place. Eyes wide, heart beating wildly, Jeremy Drake plunged into San Francisco with all the abandon of a heated lover rushing to a long-awaited tryst.

His first few weeks were spent walking, watching, and listening. Within a month, he invested his ill-gotten savings in a ship in the Oriental smuggling trade. Penniless but confident, he found a job on a riverboat and settled down to wait for the ship to return. His profits were immense when it did. With them he bought his own ship, dispatched it to the Far East, and leased a warehouse on the Embarcadero.

Come along, dearie. On your feet a little longer.

Drake thought he recognized the voice, turned, and saw Dainty Lilly, a big-thighed, buxom whore with a heart as cold as winter pewter. Depending on the cut and purse of the man who had procured her services, Dainty Lilly either showed her escort a good time or lured him to one of the alleys or cellars where the lurking shanghai mongers paid hard cash for the flesh they bought. Arm in arm, she supported a horny youth of sixteen, fresh off a ship in port. The lad had been plied to the topsail with cheap whiskey and was blissfully awaiting the culmination of the evening in the arms of an exciting woman. Drake knew better, though, and caught Dainty Lilly by the wrist as she scuttled past him. Another lad to have his skull cracked and left to wake up miles out to sea, Lilly? he asked.

Let me go, Drake, Dainty Lilly hissed. This is none of your concern.

I’m making it so, Drake snapped, seeing himself in the youth’s place not too many years earlier. An old salt with sense enough to see through your sweet whispers and fat legs deserves what he’s foolish enough to ask for. But a lad like this? I’m not going to let you, Lil.

The youth rested on Dainty Lilly’s powdered shoulder and went to sleep.

I don’t work for you, Lilly retorted.

No. My sights are set higher than the throne of pimpdom. I’ll tell you what. You show the boy a good time and nothing more. Take his money belt and clean his pockets if you must. He’ll learn from that and maybe think you were worth it. But I’ll know if you sell him to the shanghai gang of head bashers, and I’ll come looking for you. You and the dung peddler you crib for.

Bastard! Dainty Lilly glanced down the street to the next alley. We already set a price, dammit.

You heard me, Lil.

The whore scowled, slapped the boy’s cheek. Wake up, dearie. It’s your lucky day.

Hi, the boy said, almost falling as Dainty Lilly jerked him away, back toward the brightly lit hotel from which she had come. Bye.

Drake smiled, thought of himself at sixteen, and the way he had changed. Whatever else his foibles, whatever his luck, he had dared, and was winning. In another day or two, a week at the most, the Lorraine Marie, loaded with jade and Far Eastern antiquities, would return from her maiden voyage. The Nob Hill nabobs, always on the lookout for new and unique treasures to clutter their mansions, paid dearly for such treasures and never questioned how legally they were obtained or brought into the country. A second ship for the smuggling trade was in the works. Long ago Jeremy Drake had promised himself a house of his own, and a complete new wardrobe. They were promises he meant to keep. Perhaps he would open a new music hall as well. Anything was possible.

The dream spun on. Drake envisioned tapping every artery that kept the city alive, and exacting his share of the tribute to this mecca of the American West. Jeremy Drake, King of the Golden Gate. He liked the title.

Chapter 1

Death watched the bark Lorraine Marie.

Death, lurking in the dark lee of Yerba Buena, glided effortlessly through the inky stillness of the fog-wrapped bay.

Death was a man dressed in black, and armed with a pair of razor-sharp, double-edged knives. Dragon knives.

Now, it may be deep everywhere else in this bay, boy, but here by Yerba Buena it shelves a bit, and you can’t let your mind wander. You got to learn to keep track of them damn knots in any case. Can’t miss if you keep good count, and kind of tick ’em off while they slip through your fingers. Learned that from Mark Twain hisself, on the great Mississippi.

You didn’t never riverboat with Mark Twain. Least not the way you told it last week, and the week before that.

Don’t you sass me, boy. I’ve broke my share of heads.

Had yours broke too, to listen to you talk.

Hudson Hastings grinned despite himself. Young Dan’l was a smart aleck, sure enough, but he’d taken to deepwater sailing like a young rooster to hens. One voyage to Hong Kong and back didn’t make a sailor, though. It was all well and good to know how to handle yourself on the deep ocean, but until a man learned the principles and rules of shallow work he couldn’t call himself a sailor. A man’s got to know not only where he’s going, but how to get there as well. And to do that, you got to learn how to take soundings in your sleep, learn to count them knots, take into account the speed of your ship, and see how deep the water is.

And just where are we going? Daniel Rosenthal asked, letting the sounding line slip through his fingers.

Hastings squinted at the scattered lights off the starboard side of the Lorraine Marie. In the wispy fog, they looked like distant fireflies on a summer’s night. See them three lights in a row? Next to a triangle of red lights? Right there. Safe harbor at Drake’s warehouse. We’ll keep on our present course, run with the wind as far south as Mission Rock, then come about and cross the wind until we’re close enough to spill it and coast in, I suspect. Another couple of hours and we’ll be on our way to Spanish Kitty’s and a hot berth for that stick of yours. Mine too, gray as I am. I’ll tell you, there ain’t nothin’ better under heaven than the first woman after a long voyage.

Daniel laughed shortly. You seadogs are all alike. Let you ashore and you drink and rut yourselves unconscious and wake without a cent.

You right about that, boy. Hastings’ cackle was dulled against the fog. But can you think of a better way? Hell, beats grubbing in a mine with no sky over you. Beats gettin’ crushed by rock, or gettin’ the lung disease. Or—he spat over the side—workin’ in a store, dolin’ out flour or nails or what-have-you for landlubbers. You had any sense, you’d think the same way. Hastings sighed, shook his head dolefully. I guess that won’t happen, though. Too much of the Jew boy in you. You’ll probably put your pay in a damn bank.

And get married, Daniel agreed, finishing the lecture the same way Hastings had the last three times he had delivered it. Crissy had adamantly proclaimed that she would not wait for a man who sailed on a ship, but Daniel knew better. The wages were good, a single voyage’s pay more than enough to start married life. And if the money was tainted with illegality, the risk of being caught and punished was minimal. The understaffed San Francisco police force turned a blind eye to the Barbary Coast, that hellish district of dives and music halls and brothels and smuggling and gambling and Lord knew what else. As long as the district, several blocks square, didn’t attempt to encroach on the better areas of the city, a truce was in effect. Daniel Rosenthal wasn’t worried. Within twenty-four hours he would have his money and be gone, find his way to Crissy’s parlor with gold in one hand and an offer of marriage in the other. He glanced over his shoulder. All the fore and mainmast sails were furled. Only the large fore-and-aft sail on the mizzenmast and a steadying jib forward were rigged, and they pushed along the old bark smartly enough.

The weighted rope touched bottom and dragged. She’s down, he announced.

Good, Hastings replied. What’s she read?

Eight fathoms, I make it, counting drag. That sound right?

Hastings nodded. Call it out.

Eight fathoms, shelving slowly, Daniel yelled aft, feeling a little foolish. The captain and the pilot both knew the bay like the palms of their hands, and practicing, under the circumstances, made him feel like an idiot. Suit you? he asked Hastings. The older man was staring into the dark as if he’d heard something. What is it? he whispered.

Hastings shook his head. Nothin’. I guess someone just walked on my grave.

That’s a hell of a thing to say.

Hastings grinned at Daniel. The voyage hadn’t been a total loss. The boy had learned to cuss. Hastings laughed and called out, Reel it in and drop her again.

I thought you were supposed to be helping, Daniel said.

Well, I am. I’m the teacher. Anyway, thought I heard an oar. If it’s the boardinghouse runners, Miss Liberty’ll need someone to keep an eye on her if she comes on deck.

Daniel arranged the sounding line in neat coils in his left hand as he pulled it aboard. This close to home, Miss Liberty’s probably safer than she has been the whole trip, he said. And not just from boardinghouse runners.

A woman like that ain’t never safe, Hastings said with a leer. Hell, if I was half my age, I’d have had my way with her long ago. By damn, what a woman! I’ll bet she’s got teats to touch a tongue to, and below is sweet and warm as ever a man dipped into.

Miss Liberty comes from one of the foremost families in the bay area. She is a lady.

A dreamy smile crossed Hasting’s face. "The best kind, a lady like that. The very best, when they get hot."

Daniel tugged on the sounding line. What the hell?

What? Hastings peered over the side.

The damned thing’s caught on something.

Snared something from the bottom, like as not. Hung up on a popped rivet, maybe. Hastings looked behind him, back over the railing. Can’t see a damned thing. Best drop another line and shinny down to free her.

Me? Daniel asked, not at all liking the dark water rushing past below him. Why me? No. Never mind. ’Cause you’re the teacher.

Why, not at all, Hastings said, the very soul of innocence. It’s just that someone’s got to show the boardinghouse runners aboard. He winked before turning away. "And keep an eye out in case her ladyship decides to take a stroll."

Daniel shook his head, tied the end of a line around a belaying pin. Clerking in Crissy’s father’s store would be a delight, after this. He swung a leg over the rail and began to lower himself hand over hand to the waterline.

Angelica Liberty loved to travel. New sights, new sounds, new smells fascinated her. She had seen virtually all of Europe, as any well-educated young lady should. More daring than most, she had visited hospitable ports along the African Coast, testing the dangerous fringe of the dark continent. Her latest excursion, a year’s journey through the far and exotic East, had been her most adventurous. Accompanied by James and Ilene Sponde and their daughter, Catherine, of Hong Kong, she had visited Burma and sailed through the Straits of Mandalay. She had toured Japan, its magic cities of Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, and, most beautiful of all, the mystical Kobe. The idyllic journey came to an abrupt and jarring halt when her party returned to Hong Kong and she received the three letters that had been waiting for her at the Amanda Lines office. The first had been from her father and was dated in late January. The second was from her brother, Nathan. Both had been originally addressed to her in Japan but had missed her there and been forwarded to Hong Kong. Both were innocuous and chatty. The third letter, also from Nathan, dated in March and sent directly to Hong Kong, was ominously sober. The end result is, Angelica, it had read in part, Father is desperately ill with a cancer and the doctors fear for his life. We all trust you will secure the quickest possible passage home. If no Liberty ship is available, take what you can, but hurry.

Her tour of the Orient was over. No Amanda Lines—the line named after her mother, who died when Angelica was three years old—vessel was in port, and no other major ship with room for a woman was available. The Spondes and the manager of the Hong Kong Amanda Lines office did their best, though, and two days later located a minuscule cabin in an old but seaworthy all-wood bark out of San Francisco. Miss Liberty could not expect luxury, the manager explained after booking her passage aboard the Lorraine Marie, but with her father and his employer on his deathbed, perhaps she wouldn’t mind. Because Angelica might already be too late, she didn’t.

The Lorraine Marie wasn’t due to sail for another three days, and the wait was maddening. Angelica stayed at the Spondes’ home and visited family friends. She tried to shop, but her mind wandered. All she could do was send a message ahead on a steamer bound for Vancouver and trust the captain would remember to relay her message via the wires to her brother in San Francisco. At least Nathan would know she was on the way, and could have someone available to meet her. With the Lorraine Marie provisioned and made ready for the high seas, her crew rounded up from shoreside dives, and the wind and tide right, they had sailed. Many weeks later Angelica learned that a passing ship carried yet a fourth letter that she never saw.

The voyage was uneventful and, save for a brief stop to take on water and fresh food in Hawaii, marked by sheer boredom and utter frustration. Finally, that afternoon, they neared Point Reyes and waited off the Golden Gate until the pilot schooner Lady Mine laid alongside and transferred a pilot from one deck to the other. Angelica had used the slow hours from that time to pack and make ready to go ashore. Now, her few bags piled on the tiny bunk behind her, she stared into the mirror and regarded with dismay how sleeplessness and lack of exercise and a diet so dull as to drive her to distraction had transformed her patrician features into a haggard mask. She attempted to brush her hair, but the bristles caught at the knotted auburn tangles curling over her shoulders. Exasperated, she threw the brush into her vanity case and, wrapping a cloak over her traveling gown, decided time would pass more quickly on deck.

The amber light spilling past her as she opened the door to the passageway colored the bulkheads a ghastly, murky yellow. When she closed the door behind her, the single coal-oil lamp that hung outside the captain’s cabin barely dispelled the shrouded shadows in the short passageway that led to the deck. Though she proceeded carefully, as much by feel and memory, she stubbed her toe and muttered an oath unfit for society’s ears—at least the society to which she was accustomed.

And then she was outside and surprised by the fog. Shapes drifted past the Lorraine Marie. The shadowy crucifixes of the masts were illuminated by intermittent, shimmering moonlight that just as quickly faded as the mist swirled about her. The bulk of Yerba Buena loomed behind them. They were passing other ships. Off to her right, she could make out lights. That was good. She had sailed the bay before at night, and recognized the Amanda Lines docks. They would be anchoring before long, and if she wasn’t the first ashore, her name wasn’t Angelica Liberty.

’Bout clears Yerba Beuna, cap’n, the pilot said laconically. You’ll want to hold your course a little further than usual. A wheat ship sunk between there and the usual turnin’ point ’bout two weeks after you left. Way the wind is, you’ll want to be sure to clear downwind of her and the coal hulks they been tyin’ to her since then.

Captain Ep Holmes’s practiced fingers gripped the spokes of the bark’s wheel. To the uninitiated, he appeared mesmerized by the broken fog. Not so. His eyes were roving the harbor, picking out the misty shapes that cluttered the choppy waters. Each vessel he identified, if not by name then by purpose, before entering it in the encyclopedia he carried in his head. Most he saw were made of steel and carried engines as well as sails. Practically every one was newer by far than his. Holmes smiled. It was good to feel pure wood underneath his feet. Almost the way it had been when he first shipped before the mast. The Lorraine Marie was an old and creaky lady to be sure, but made for the Pacific. Few other ships, to his knowledge, were faster or more seaworthy.

And few captains afloat knew more than Holmes. At sixty-five, he had sailed every sea the world had to offer, and had seen more sights than most men could have had they been given three lifetimes. Not too long before he had been master of his own ship, but that had ended when he had hove to alongside a burning steamer to take off the crew and it blew up. At the time, he had decided to take his insurance money and savings and retire, but a month of enforced inactivity had driven him to near distraction.

Then he had met Jeremy Drake. Holmes never thought about that meeting without a warm feeling. It was the first day of the new year. Depressed, Ep had been wandering the waterfront, and stopped to watch a lone man working on a wooden-hulled bark. Whoever he was, he had taken on a job and a half, for he was single-handedly replacing stay lines. The more Ep watched, the more fascinated the old captain became with the dogged determination with which the young man worked. Finally, unable to stand idly by any longer, he had gone aboard and offered a hand.

Jeremy Drake was the young man’s name, and the two hit it off right at the start. Worked well together with only an occasional word. When they finished replacing the foremast lines, they shared dinner and talked until three in the morning. Drake’s problem, it turned out, was that he had had enough money to buy the ship, but not enough to outfit or man her. He was a tenacious cuss, though, and was determined to ready her if it took his last ounce of strength. The next day when they met on the deck, Ep decided to buy in, and retirement be damned. After they shook hands on the deal, both of them grinning like schoolboys who had got away with putting a tack on the teacher’s chair, Ep had gone to his boardinghouse for his clothes and sextant, and to the bank. He slept aboard the Lorraine Marie from that day on, and hadn’t regretted the decision for so much as a second.

He let go the wheel with his right hand and rubbed his eyes. No regrets, he thought sourly, just fatigue. This would be his last trip. Oh, not that he would quit entirely. He had learned his lesson. Maybe talk to Drake about going partners on a riverboat venture so he could keep his hand in without the long, hard deepwater trips. He shook his head wistfully. Drake. A heller of a lad, one he looked forward to seeing again. Four decades younger than Holmes, but his kind of man. Strong, opinionated, willful. A sense of humor, of course. Damn! To have a son like that to carry on a man’s name! The one thing he had missed in life, as far as he knew. Holmes chuckled. When Drake found out the Lorraine Marie had carried a woman passenger, he would be furious. However, the Liberty girl had paid with a draft in her father’s name, which was as good as gold itself. A thousand dollars was a thousand dollars. Even with the cargo he carried, no man sneered at that.

O’Keefe, the first mate, snorted. Holmes sniffed the air, cleared his throat, and heard the stealthy sound of a cap being screwed on a bottle. Steady as she goes, Mr. O’Keefe.

Aye, sir, the Irishman muttered through a strangled cough.

Celebrations will be carried on ashore.

Aye, sir. Sorry, sir. Bein’ the Fourth and all, I let the suggestion run away with my better judgment, O’Keefe explained.

The matter is closed.

Thank you, captain.

Holmes rubbed his eyes again. They burned from the added fatigue of peering into the mist. Generally he conned his own ships in, but he decided to let the tradition pass for the night. Take over, seaman, he said to the man standing at his side. Hold her steady as she goes. He stepped away from the wheel, glanced upward at the rigging. We’ll be changing course in about two minutes, O’Keefe, he said. Prepare to come about, if you please. Any comments, pilot?

You’re on the mark, captain. What I’d do myself, saving for bearing a point to port.

Done, Holmes answered unhesitatingly. A point to port, please.

Aye, sir. A point to port, the new man on the wheel repeated.

O’Keefe started his rounds, making sure the men were at their posts and ready for the maneuver that would bring them about and send them toward the winking lights lining the Embarcadero. The Irishman liked Holmes. A man couldn’t ask for a better captain. He knew men and tides, where the wind lay, and where fresh water, meat, and fruit were to be had. And if he required a bit of forehead knuckling from time to time, it was a small price to pay for a successful run. There was no other man O’Keefe respected as much.

Eyes open, Newby, he said, kneeing the man responsible for the foremast jib lines. We’ll be coming about in a minute or so, now, he added, moving on without waiting for a response.

They were running smoothly. O’Keefe headed aft. His thoughts followed. It would be good to see Drake again. The young man was a bit of a mystery to him, but what little he’d heard and seen around the docks was good. O’Keefe had sailed with Holmes before, and had never seen him take so warmly to a youngster. Almost like a father to a son. Young Drake was reportedly cut from the same cloth as Holmes, but as yet untempered and too brash for his own good. Some claimed that an easier-going rascal never prowled the streets, but O’Keefe wasn’t fooled for a moment by Drake’s fancy clothes and uptown manners. He had seen the man’s unhesitating, almost instantaneous transformation from gentleman to brutal street fighter when two of the rough-and-tumble crew Holmes had picked had tried to test him the night before they sailed. Both were still spitting teeth two days out.

There was no question about it. The combination of Holmes and Drake was hard to beat. A good thing, too, considering the cargo they carried. It was packed in iron-strapped wooden boxes marked Silk, but O’Keefe knew better. The boxes were too heavy, for one thing, and had been loaded in, secret for another. More than once he had been tempted to break one open just to find out, but temptation and action were two different things. With the stakes high enough, a man just might dare take on Holmes, but then what would he do? The minute he landed, he would have to face Drake and his two friends, a crazy old mountain man and a Mexican who followed him wherever he went. O’Keefe had heard those two together could take on an army and come out winners, to say nothing of a first mate with a wooden leg. All told, the sack of gold waiting in the pay office of Drake’s warehouse would be heavy enough for the Irishman. Content with his lot, and satisfied that all was ready to come about, he stumped forward in time to hear Hastings call. And then an unfamiliar whirring noise, followed by a woman’s scream.

There were any number of ways for a man to die in San Francisco in 1890. He could be run down by a trolley or venture into the wrong shadowy alley, conclude an affair with a temperamental mistress or drop a fortune in an unproducing silver mine. He could be ousted from the board in a company power play or get caught cheating at cards or a cockfight. He could lie