CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

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"Pneumonia," Moreno told Creed. They sat on the back porch while Coconino ran around the backyard. "How sick is she?" On the way back to headquarters, Creed had decided that the tea Agatha Augustus offered him sounded refreshing, after all. Selena made two pitchers full. He poured a glass full and took a long swig as he waited for Moreno to answer.

"It's hard to say. She's coughing up mucus as green as a bullfrog, but not a lot. And you saw—her breath doesn't seem labored. I doubt that's why they sent her to the hospital.”

Creed raised an eyebrow.

Moreno sighed and tapped at his own glass of tea. "Herpes. She has that, too, Selena says. Once you have it, it never really goes away. Hard living makes it worse. My guess? That’s why they sent her. It won't kill her. It won't even keep her from having a husband someday, if that's what she wants. I guess even the cow yards don't want to spread infection."

"They don’t want to lose business," said Creed.

Moreno lifted his glass. "Of course."

Creed rested the rest of the day. He read up on the history of San Francisco in the library. The Brotherhood had a full, well-organized collection with a few books about San Francisco and the Gold Rush, more than a hundred novels, tomes on human anatomy, both volumes of Zell's Popular Encyclopedia, and more than a hundred others. Later, he dozed off in his room. Moreno wanted him to rest, so he rested. In the evening, he played fetch in the backyard with Coconino.

Considering what he’d learned, Creed contemplated his next move. That hospital executed sick women but grafted machinery onto others. He knew of two such women, Sun Jing and the one who attacked him at the Palace Hotel. Did they bring the mechanical parts there, or did they send the women elsewhere? Who were “they?” Members of the tong? Wu Tingfeng? Someone working with him?

Once Ace arrived, Creed would ask Juan what she knew.

The next day, Creed arrived at the train station riding Johann and holding the reins of a rented horse behind him.

He figured Feng would leave Mai Yun in Santa Cruz, and he was right. When Feng stepped out of the terminal and onto the street, warmth filled Creed’s chest, and he gave the watchmaker a rare smile, albeit one hidden behind his mask. They met outside the station building on the corner of Fourth and Brannan with a firm handshake.

Feng slung his bags over the back of the borrowed horse and they rode back to Pinel’s Hostelry. Feng started walking out before Creed put a hand on his shoulder and said, "No, this way."

Genuine surprise lit up Feng’s face as Creed found the hidden panel beneath a dusty board, turned the lock, and opened the door to the secret headquarters. Feng stepped into the yard carrying his saddlebags and breathed, "Wow!"

Behind them, Creed shut and locked the door.

Selena served the Clampers a platter of pastries left over from the day’s baking at Panadería Moreno. Feng sat back, smiling broadly as he bit into a canalé. While Creed stared at the spiraling sponge cake of a pinono, he pushed down his anxiety. He’d wanted Ace to speak with Juan on their arrival, but Moreno informed him she was asleep.

“Her cough’s worse,” Moreno said. “Selena’s caldo del pollo soothed Juan’s throat and helped her doze, but I insist you let her rest. Talk to her tomorrow.”

Creed exhaled slowly to ease his frustration. “You’re right, of course. We can do that.”

Feng, O’Leary, and Pinel discovered their mutual love for technology and discussed clockwork, ether, and magnetism for nearly an hour. Moreno showed Feng to the room he would be staying in—it was across the hall from Yan Juan's—and everyone retired for the night.

In the morning, Creed and Feng settled in at the meeting side of the dining room with Yan Juan. Each had a cup of hot tea resting on curious brass coasters emblazoned with the Brotherhood of the Golden Cog emblem. Creed sipped his strong Earl Gray, wetting his mouth.

The doctor encouraged Juan to take a more comfortable rocking chair.

She remained mostly still, taking sips of her steaming drink and holding the cup in both hands. She seemed oddly nervous around Feng. Juan coughed, stopped rocking, and sat with eyes closed for a moment.

"I told her what we're doing. So you can ask your questions any time," Feng told Creed.

With an open notebook on his knee and a pencil in his right hand, Creed started the conversation. "I'm aghast at the situation in Chinatown. You and hundreds of other women are kept in slavery."

Juan looked at Feng, who translated Creed's words into Cantonese. She nodded.

"I wish I had the power to end it myself," Creed continued. "I returned to San Francisco because of a former prostitute named Sun Jing." After each sentence, Ace translated Creed’s words. He recounted Jing's death and described the mechanical parts grafted to her head, neck, and wrist. He showed her his own, including the glass dome over his heart unit and the moving number dials underneath. Her mouth dropped open.

"I can't get over that, no matter how many times I see it," Moreno said. "Es maravilloso."

Juan stared into her tea as though reading the leaves. "I knew Sun Jing. She lived down the row from me at Blossoms. A strong woman. Beautiful. Some ladies age so much, but not her. Not so much, anyway. The pain eats you." She shut her eyes and a tear escaped.

"Do you remember when Madam Chang sent her away?"

"I can't say when for sure. Six weeks ago, I noticed her absence.”

"Was she in the hospital when you arrived?"

"No. They sent me there eight days ago.”

Creed rubbed his beard. "You kept track of time?"

"Yes, I kept track of the days." She took a lingering drink of her tea.

Creed sipped from his cup to wet his mouth.

"I see. Sun Jing died two weeks ago." Creed jotted down what she told him. Before he asked another question, she spoke, and Ace recounted her words in English.

"The food is horrible at the hospital. At least in the brothel, we get meat and vegetables. They want to keep us healthy to work us to death as long as possible."

Creed nodded, encouraging her to continue.

"In the hospital, it's all oatmeal and water. Sometimes moonshine at night to put us to sleep." She said the word "moonshine" in English. "The guards bring the food and change our chamber pots. There's no plumbing. Why? This isn't the Ming Dynasty." Feng barked a laugh before translating this part, but his voice held no humor. "The old man you knocked to the ground said he was a doctor. He checked me the first night. Checked my, ah..." She used another English word: "Pussy."

"For diseases," Creed said.

"Yes. And, he checked my temperature with a thermometer every night. He didn't want to make me better. Twice, I watched them bring women out on stretchers, and the police took them away."

Creed clenched his jaw. "How did they die?"

"One illness or another." She watched Creed as though trying to read his thoughts, then continued. "You want to know what happened to Sun Jing after she left the hospital but before she made it to your town."

"That's right. Did you have some idea?"

She nodded, and at that, Creed sat forward. "Tell me."

"I saw one of us leave alive, and not with the police. She left with a Chinese man and another—an Indian, I believe."

"No idea which tribe, I suppose," said Creed.

"Not tribal. An Indian from India, or maybe an Arab. Not from Asia, and not white or Mexican. One of the many guards from the hospital brought her out with her arms bound in cuffs. He forced her into a carriage."

So, they took living women elsewhere. No doubt, they had moved Sun Jing in the same manner.

"Did you know the woman—the one you saw them take?” Creed asked.

"Her name is Lang Yu. We were friends at Blossoms." Juan brushed a tear from her cheek with the back of her hand. "She left the brothel before me by a few days. She didn't seem sick at all, and she's younger than I am. Sixteen. The same men took Sun Jing."

Creed tilted his head. "You’re certain?”

"They came back the day before you arrived."

The investigator exchanged a serious look with Moreno and Feng, but he felt a tingle of excitement. "Tell me about that."

"After dawn, but before the man who brought oatmeal came, the old doctor gave me a wooden cup of water.”

Wooden, sure. They wouldn't want to provide the girls with breakable glass that could be used as a weapon. "I was coughing. That's why he brought me a drink. I heard horses outside and peeked out. This time there were two Chinese men, the Indian or Arab, and a white man. The doctor let them in.

"They talked loudly in the hall in English, and I lay back in my bed. It’s depressing looking out of the bars that block those windows and knowing you’ll leave on a stretcher. I thought those were my last glimpses at life." She let out a shaky sigh. Her teacup empty, she set it on its coaster.

"They entered my room without the doctor. The Indian man’s English sounds different, more like how the British visiting San Francisco speak. I’ve serviced a few. He tossed aside my blankets and pushed up my skirt. One of the Chinese men laughed when I struggled. 'What are you doing?' he said to me. 'Lots of men have seen your pussy!'

"The other guard spoke gently. He called the Indian man a doctor and said he needed to check my condition. That doctor looked, then pulled my skirt down. The men talked in English. The white man is not very tall. Normal for a white man, though, with dark hair and a Van Dyke beard." She traced the style on her face.

"That must have been an uncomfortable encounter," said Creed.

"Not compared to my life before." She shook her head and, for the first time, Creed heard her laugh.

"The white man stared hard at the Chinese men. They ignored him. The Indian and the others talked for a few minutes in English. The white man must have been in charge. Typical here. He pointed at me. The Indian waved his hands. He seemed angry. Then they left and shut the door.

"I waited. Sometimes people leave and come right back. When no one did, I got up and listened. The hospital walls are thin like dollars. I hoped the tong men would speak to each other and they did, while the others rattled on and on in English. The tong men stepped away, but I had no trouble understanding them.”

Creed set the notebook and pencil on the coffee table. Moreno, too, stared in rapt attention at Juan.

"Did they say what they had planned for you?”

"No. They talked about a man who was pleased with one woman from the hospital. They said she willingly did some of the dirtier sex acts with him. They laughed because he's a Catholic priest. No, a bishop."

Creed leaned forward, arms on his legs. He clenched his fists. "Did they say his name?"

She leaned her forehead on her hand, shut her eyes, and rocked in the chair. After half a minute, she said in her thick Cantonese accent, "Ivan Graham."

"Obispo Graham?" Guillermo gasped and made the sign of the cross.

"I'm sure he wouldn’t want that information to come out," said Creed.

Guillermo shook his head. "No Señor, he wouldn’t."

"They said it was a shame Sun Jing escaped. They said this angered the spice woman. She's their new madam."

Feng asked her a question and translated her answer. "They use 'the spice woman' like a name. That's Xiangliào Furén in Chinese."

"Who's she prostituting them to?" Creed asked.

"Men with influence or money. White men," Feng translated.

"Why white men?"

"We rarely service any others," said Juan. "Most of the Chinese men here, especially those with wealth, would rather bed white women. White men make up most of the customers who want Chinese girls."

"They want what they don't get at home?" Creed asked.

"Yes," said Feng. Juan looked at him with a curious expression, so Feng translated for her. She nodded emphatically.

"Thank you," Creed stood and gave her a bow. She stood as well, stifled a cough, and bowed back. "Looks like I have a bishop to interrogate."