Chapter Twenty-two
I took the gambling controversy to my boss at the slaughterhouse. Half way into the story, he put up his hand to stop me and said we needed to continue this at a bar. Sandy had several favorite bars. The closest one was called the Terminal Saloon. We took a back table and Sandy ordered a scotch. I settled for some coffee.
“Let me understand. Topo’s daughter gave Al Lee the impression she was going to help him fix a horserace. Al Lee bets a ton of money, loses it all and blames the girl.”
“His name is Ah Lee,” I said.
“I know his name. Your father-in-law and I have done business with him before. There are a ton of Ah Lees in Chinatown. To keep the name straight, we call him Al Lee. You are saying that he blames your wife for losing money on a horse race?”
“Blames her enough to try and have her killed,” I said. “Why would he try to assassinate her if he knows her father?”
“She goes by your last name. Western names probably confuse the celestials as badly as Chinese names confuse us. I can’t believe he would be stupid enough to murder her over money,” Sandy said and took a slice of bread from the basket the waiter had left for us.
I held up my bandaged hand and nodded toward the wound.
“How did you end up married to her anyway?”, he asked.
“I haven’t always had luck on my side.”
“I wouldn’t call it bad luck. She’s about the most beautiful woman I ever saw. It’s just that the relationship between the two of you doesn’t seem very traditional.”
“Even so, do you think you can contain this problem with Ah Lee?”
Sandy took a long pull on his very expensive scotch. He could drink all morning and afternoon without showing the effects of alcohol. That was good, because I had never seen him go long without a drink.
“I can deal with Al Lee. I’ll go see him when I leave here.”
“You know him that well?”
“Sure, I know him that well. He runs one of the Triads and most of Chinatown. Topo and I sold him some city lots not far from here. Everybody who has a power base knows everybody else in this hamlet.”
The next morning, Sandy met me at the office at daylight. He was bright eyed and sharply dressed as always. He handed me a cup of coffee and gave me his best smile.
“You talk to the Chinaman?” I asked.
“I told the silly son-of-a-bitch to think about what kind of grief he would bring on himself if he killed Lucinda Topo. If he didn’t have the money to lose on a horse race, he shouldn’t bet.”
Sandy reached into a desk drawer, took out an envelope and handed it to me.
“There’s your four thousand back. I told Al Lee, Topo and I would let him in on a contract to lay a water line the city is putting in. We were going to cut him in anyway because he controls the Chinese labor force.”
“That was all there was to it?” I asked.
“No. I told him if he didn’t want to forgive a small misunderstanding, I could arrange to have the vigilante committee march down to his headquarters and lynch some suspected Chinese criminals in his employ. He kowtowed and went into a long drawn out apology about not knowing the girl was the daughter of his esteemed friend, Don Topo.”
Sandy must have felt like the problem was rectified because he ordered a late breakfast for both of us. The sight of someone eating eggs and bacon while drinking scotch was unnerving. I tried to put that out of my mind and tend to my own breakfast, which was excellent.
That morning, I sent a letter to the Sandwich Islands addressed to Lucinda but she hadn’t waited for any assurances regarding her safety. In less than five weeks she arrived back at our house on Kennedy Street. I didn’t ask her about her romantic ocean voyage to the islands, for fear she would tell me. For a few months she devoted herself to being a better mother and tending to our house. I was still gone most of the time, which may have contributed to the decline of our relationship.
The shooting club I belonged to was an excuse to drink whiskey, smoke cigars and be out of the house on Sunday. Through steady practice, I was becoming a better shot. The real reason I went was for the gossip and business contacts. There was a great deal of information to be gained about ranches, cattle and local politics by attending the shooting matches. Especially when the whiskey started flowing. Had Topo lived in the region, he would have been a regular. I tried to think and behave as he would have. As evening approached, I declined the usual dinner invitation from my fellow target shooting enthusiasts and rode back to where I stabled my mare, Luna. Taking the very valuable Henry Rifle with me, I walked back to the house from the livery barn.
I hung the rifle in its rack in the foyer of the house and walked into the sitting room. Lucinda was resting on the couch. A remarkably handsome man was standing by the fireplace. He was dressed in an expensive suit with brightly polished boots. A gleaming gold watch-chain hung from his vest. He looked familiar but I couldn’t immediately place him.
Lucinda waited a moment too long to introduce me and I felt my heart start to sink. Looking at the clock on the mantle, I saw I was home an hour earlier than I said I would be.
“Charlie, this is Procopio Bustamonte,” she said by way of introduction. I didn’t know if I had gotten there after some interaction had occurred or before, but it seemed my presence had interrupted something besides a social call. After something traumatic takes place, it requires several seconds to gather your wits enough to speak. Years ago, I had been kicked in the stomach by a disgruntled horse I was trying to shoe. Looking at the two of them, I felt the same lack of breath and the sensation of helplessness. The feeling of helplessness was quickly replaced by rage.
“You were at the coffee house five days ago. I watched you put your hand on the back of Lucinda’s neck and whisper in her ear. Now I find you in my house.” The choking voice was mine, but it felt like someone else was talking.
“Are you going to do something about that?” Procopio asked in wonder, then broke into a cold smile. “Do you know who I am?”
“According to the wanted poster, you are known as Red Hand. I hear mothers use your name to scare little children. I myself am so frightened it’s amazing I can still stand upright.”
With the smile still on his face, Procopio squared himself and brushed his coat back over the butt of a revolver. I held out my arms to show I wasn’t wearing a side arm.
“If you wish to take some sort of action over an imagined affront, I am at your service,” he said.
“Don’t underestimate my husband. He has a history of shooting people,” Lucinda said.
“So do I,” the man responded.
Lucinda turned her gaze toward me. “There is no need to spill blood in the house, Charlie. Procopio, let’s talk about business some other time.”
“Where is Patricio?” I asked.
“With his aunt across town.”
“That is surprisingly decent of you. Removing your child before bringing another man to our house,” I said, feeling my face redden as the blood pounded in my temples. My heart rate had accelerated so much my vision became hazy.
Procopio shrugged, picked up his hat where it was lying on a chair and calmly walked out the door. I stood still for thirty-seconds, then walked to the Henry Rifle leaning against the wall and picked it up. Chambering a round, I stepped onto the porch and shouldered the weapon. The light was bad and the street was crowded. I brought the back of Procopio’s head into my rifle sights. He was no more than thirty yards up the street. The slug from the Henry Rifle would explode his skull like it was a dropped watermelon.
“What if your shot passes through him and kills an innocent child? You are upset over nothing, Charlie,” Lucinda said and stepped close to me. I could smell her perfume on her skin and her hair. She put her fingers on my neck so softly, they felt like warm silk.
“It’s all right. It is going to be all right.”
Like magic, the anger and rage went out of me. I took a breath and put down the
rifle. Lucinda took my hand and led me back into the sitting room. She sat me down on the sofa and stood in front of me for a moment. Then, her expression changed to one of amusement. She swayed for a moment, then, keeping her eyes locked on mine, slowly took off her clothes.
For a second I wondered if a jury would convict me of murder were I to snap her neck. Then that thought faded, like it always did. I stood up from the sofa and roughly pulled her to me.
Our lovemaking that Sunday evening in the sitting room was the most intense and the most violent of our history. We finally quit sometime in the early morning. I dozed for a moment, then woke up with a clarity of thought concerning my situation I had never before experienced.
“I have to get out of here,” I said to the ceiling.
“To where?” Lucinda asked, her voice thick with sleep.
“I don’t know and I don’t care as long as it isn’t San Francisco and I am not around you. It’s been almost a year I have lived in this cesspool. I have fulfilled my commitment to your father.”
Lucinda ran her hand up the inside of my thigh, then she gripped me.
“Is this about Procopio being at the house? Is that why you are thinking about getting out of this warm bed and running into the cold fog? That was nothing. He wants to invest money in a bar across the street from my coffee house and we were talking about that,” she said.
I moved her hand and sat up in the bed.
“The fog you put me in is worse than anything I would meet with outdoors. Cattle thieves like Bustamonte don’t invest money.”
“If you were not so insecure about me, our life could be very enjoyable,” she said in her slow, bedroom voice.
“Perhaps you are right and it is acceptable for one of California’s better known outlaws to be at my house when I am not expected home. Perhaps I need to start thinking in new ways.”
“Why must you be so dramatic?”
“Because when I get deranged enough to point a rifle at someone, it is a dramatic moment.”
“You weren’t going to shoot anyone, Charlie. Nothing happened to shoot anyone over.”
I thought of the way Lucinda had laid her hand on my skin when she brought me back inside the house. How she had erasing all of my anger and jealousy. No one should have that much power over another person. I shook my head in confusion.
“At least your outlaw was pretty. Maybe not the charismatic personality of Tiburcio, but very handsome. I would hate to see you drop your standards.”
I rolled out of bed and stood up, reaching for my pants. My desire to leave was so strong, I twitched.
“Where are you going? It’s one in the morning.”
“Any place but here. Tell your father that city life doesn’t agree with me. Tell him you keep odd hours and your son would be better served living in Monterey with your aunts.”
“Why leave now?”
“Because if I don’t, you will convince me rain isn’t wet or that shit doesn’t stink. When I listen to you I feel like I’m falling down a bottomless well.”
“You only think you know what happened this evening,” Lucinda said. Her hair looked soft and silky in the moonlight that shone through the window. It fell past her shoulders and framed one of her breasts. When I looked at her, it seemed like I could also smell her sex.
“I need to go. The things you expect me to believe gut me like a butcher guts a cow.”
“Do what you think is best then. Do you want to take your clothes or leave them here in case you come to your senses?”
I pulled on my pants and shirt as I watched her lying there so calm and relaxed. I took a deep breath and stood by the bed, feeling as alone as I had ever felt.
“You have been lucky so far. Most men would not accept your behavior as peacefully as I do.”
“If you ever raised your hand to me you could never sleep safely again.”
Only Lucinda could threaten me with such calm and factual certitude. The twitching passed and I smiled at her as she lay in the tangled sheets of the bed.
“Another reason that leaving seems the right choice.”
“You are going to get on your priceless mare and ride off into the dark?” she asked, shifting in the bed till she was half-sitting against the pillows.
“No, first the accounts at the slaughter yard need to be attended to. The men who work there need instructions and your father needs to be informed. After that, I will withdraw what I have coming to me from the firm and then I will leave.”
“That is my Charlie. Even when rushing into the night in a fit of jealous rage he stops to attend to business. Don’t drown crossing a swollen creek like El Judio did,” Lucinda said, referring to a rich Californio who drowned in the Pajaro River.
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her not to get killed in a crossfire if the law showed up while she was entertaining a bandit, but there was no purpose in saying anything else.
I left the house with my pistol hidden under a heavy overcoat. Summer mornings in San Francisco were nearly as cold as the mountain passes. I wasn’t quite sure where I was going to spend the night. I guessed I would sleep in a stall next to Luna.