Saturday Afternoon
“AND THAT’S WHERE IT ends,” said Peter Fallon through the headset.
The helicopter was veering south over the San Rafael Bridge, cleared for landing on a perfectly blue October day.
“Just ends?” said Evangeline. “Before they bury Flynn, the journal just … ends?”
Peter had skimmed much of it on the ride, noting all the references to Rainbow Gulch, the bags of Chinese gold, and the ancient rivers of it.
“Why didn’t Spencer finish it?” she asked.
Peter’s voice dropped with the helicopter. “Maybe he ran out of energy.”
“Or died,” said Wild Bill Donnelly.
“So,” said Evangeline, “Barber asked you to find the original because the last notebook answers some unanswered question that the transcription apparently doesn’t?”
“But he couldn’t just say, find Notebook Seven. That would have been too obvious,” said Wild Bill.
Peter said, “Spencer and Emery may have done the only real prospecting at the so-called Flynn’s Bend, especially if Janiva was against hydraulic mining.”
“Also possible,” said Evangeline, “that the whole journal is just a good story. A tale of immigrants making their way.”
“Well, it’s no treasure map,” said Wild Bill. “Geologists keep telling us about undiscovered ore bodies—”
“Geologists like Jack Cutler,” said Peter.
“But he never discovers them,” said Wild Bill. “And he could never convince Manion Sturgis to allow core sampling.”
“Can’t disturb the precious grapevines,” said Peter.
“Manion doesn’t care about gold,” said Evangeline, “or money.”
“Easy not to care about money if you have a lot of it,”said Peter.
“I’m on the goddamn helicopter with you, Peter. Kill it with the sarcasm.”
Peter knew enough to back down, always the best course, epecially in the midst of a crisis. “Yes, Ms. Carrington. You’re the common sense on this whirlybird.”
“You’d better say that.” She turned back to the transcription in the gray archival box. “And common sense says we have what everyone’s fighting for, so—”
“So the question is,” said Wild Bill, “how do we use it to help your son and his future wife?” And he started running down the names: “We got LJ Fallon, Johnson ‘Jack’ Barber, Wonton Willie—”
“I’m sorry he’s gone,” said Evangeline. “He was a character.”
“Too much character will get you killed in Chinatown,” said Wild Bill. “You stand out, people notice. They don’t like it. They frown on flamboyance.”
“What about Kou?” asked Peter. “Nice, conservative. The perfect m.o.”
Wild Bill nodded. “And Christine Ryan, FBI, who says there’s someone on the inside, other than your son, so—”
As the helicopter touched down, Peter received a text from LJ: “On the move. Call ASAP.” He hurried out of the prop wash and placed the call.
It went to voice mail. Voice mail.
Wild Bill said, “They’re probably moving quickly. Stay calm.”
“But why are they on the move at all? I told them to stay put.”
* * *
JUST BEFORE THEY BOARDED the ferry, Wild Bill got a callback from his SFPD contact, listened, clicked off. “They whacked Willie in front of Good Mong Kok on Stockton. Every Saturday morning, he buys a pork bun, an egg tart, and a cup of black tea. He sits on the hood of his limo, meets his peeps, buys the local kids dumplings, and just as he bites into his pork bun, two guys come by on those Dahon folding bikes, both in hoodies—”
“Hoodies on Dahons,” said Peter, “all over town.”
“One comes up the street, distracts the bodyguard, pops him. And as Willie turns, the other guy rockets down the sidewalk, gives him two in the hat, and zips away.”
“Bulletproof vest is no good against a head shot,” said Peter.
“A Detective Immerman on the case.”
“We met her the other night, the first time they tried to whack Willie.”
“The question is,” said Wild Bill, “who is they?”
Once aboard, seated on the lower deck, Peter checked his phone. No texts from LJ. He called again. Voice mail.
Evangeline saw the look on his face. She gave his hand a squeeze.
“Stay calm,” said Wild Bill, which he did by flipping through his emails.
Then Peter got the text he’d been waiting for: “We’re OK. Will call soon.”
That made everyone feel better.
Then Wild Bill got an email and said, “Wow.”
That made everyone feel worse.
“What?” said Evangeline over the roar of the ferry engine.
“Check your email from Larry Kwan, subject line: ‘Dai-lo laid low.’”
“That Larry … such a jokester,” said Evangeline.
The email read: “Driving back with Cutler. Before we left, saw smoke north of Rainbow Gulch. Sent drone to investigate. Watch.”
On the attached video, the drone flew over Rainbow Gulch, past the little fenced-in cemetery, then northwest toward a column of smoke rising from what Wild Bill said was Lost Gulch Road. It cut along the southern boundary of the Boyles’ property and meandered around the Emery Mine, tracing the twists and dips of that timeless, brown-grass nowhere. Just another back road in the rolling hills of Amador County …
… except for the big blue SUV on its side about half a mile from Highway 49. It was burning. And the landscape around it was spreading into one of those scary late-season brush fires. But Amador emergency vehicles were everywhere, red-and-yellow, black-and-white, flashing lights, water streams.
The drone hovered above the wreck, then cruised over two bodies by the side of the road: an African American in a black suit, an Asian in a blue suit. It zoomed closer on the Asian: Mr. Lum, the Dai-lo, the man from the Arbella Club steps and the Emery Mine parking lot, head wound gaping. The video ended.
Peter said, “Did the Boyles do that?”
“They might have,” said Wild Bill. “But the white guy isn’t there. More likely, he tapped the other two.”
“But who ordered it?” said Peter.
“The field is narrowing. Michael Kou is my guess,” said Wild Bill.
“Whacking a Triad boss?” said Peter. “Very bold.”
“Flamboyant, even,” said Evangeline, “for such a smooth guy.”
“Smoothly washing dirty money,” said Wild Bill, “using Attorney Barber to help, mixing dirty stuff in with clean venture capital, like the M&A money—”
“M&A,” said Evangeline. “What’s that?”
“Mergers and Acquisitions. I’m betting Sierra Rock is like a Laundromat, washing cash from extortion, prostitution, weapons trafficking, crystal meth, all as a down payment for clean loans from Chinese banks, then—”
Peter’s phone vibrated. Caller ID: NAME WITHHELD. He answered.
It was LJ, calling from someone else’s phone. Peter didn’t like that.
LJ said, “We’re on the move.”
“On the move where?”
“Chinatown. The building super came up in the service elevator and told us we had to get out. He said Michael Kou’s men had pulled up out front.”
“And you went with him? People getting whacked all over the place and you just went? Jesus.” Peter sensed that the kid had no choice. “Where are you now? Who are you with?”
“You’ll never believe it, Dad. We’re with Uncle Charlie.”
“Uncle Charlie from Portsmouth Square?”
“He’s taking us to another safe house … Family Happiness Herbs and Tea, on Spofford Street, in the eight-hundred block of Clay.”
“Why aren’t you calling on your own phone?”
“Unh … it’s being inspected.”
“Inspected? What the—”
Uncle Charlie came on: “Hello? Mr. Fallon Peter? You son say you got journal. You bring. Maybe we get out of big trouble.”
“Hey,” said Peter, “put my—”
The phone went dead.
* * *
THE OCTOBER SUN DID not touch Spofford Street, an alley that might have been there since the Gold Rush, lined with acupuncturists, beauty parlors, a benevolent association, and halfway down the block, the red-painted exterior of Family Happiness Herbs and Tea.
Peter, Evangeline, and Wild Bill Donnelly stepped into a cloud of five-spice powder, ginseng, incense, and … cigarette smoke?
But the old Chinese man behind the counter wasn’t smoking. He glanced at them, looked down at his laptop, looked back at them, then pressed a button by the register. A section of shelving, containing teas from all over China—boxed, bagged, or bricked—swung open to reveal the Family Happiness gambling parlor.
And a cloud of smoke rolled out. At every table, players were puffing away, while conversation buzzed and mah-jongg tiles clattered, and ugly fluorescent lights—which no gambler noticed, whether on a win streak or losing every nickel—gave out a faint but audible hum.
A stairway to the left led down to the basement. Wraparound was sitting at the top of the stairs, arms folded, face impassive.
This surprised Peter. He said, “You made it?”
“I’m sitting here, ain’t I? Uncle Charlie told me to get out, soon as they whacked Willie. He said he’d take care of the rest.” Wraparound held out his hand to Evangeline.
“What?”
“Mace. Give it, or you don’t go down.”
Wild Bill nodded.
So Evangeline pulled the Mace from her purse and surrendered it.
Then Wraparound gestured to the bulge under Wild Bill’s windbreaker.
Wild Bill, a head taller and half a lifetime older, whispered, “No fuckin’ way.”
This brought a glare that burned right through the wraparounds.
So Wild Bill reached up and removed them, a gesture performed with such calm confidence that Wraparound appeared shocked rather than violated. He blinked in the fluorescent light, then scowled.
“I keep my gun,” said Wild Bill. “Want to see my badge?”
“Badge?” Wraparound looked at Peter. “You brought a fuckin’ badge?”
“Retired badge, but he has friends.” Without another word, Peter bounded down the stairs. He always told his son to walk into any room like he owned it. Walk into trouble the same way. But he didn’t see trouble in the basement. This was no bare-bulb dungeon with leaking pipes overhead. It was clean, well-lit, with gray walls and new linoleum, and everybody seemed pretty relaxed.
LJ and Mary were sitting on a sofa to the left, holding mugs of tea.
LJ stood and said, “Hi, Dad. Glad you could make it.”
Peter gauged his son’s expression. Was that the boyishly guilty look-away eye-shift, as if to say, Sorry about all this?
Evangeline tried to gauge Mary’s look, but Mary just smiled and went back to scrolling through her iPad, as though it was therapy … or escape.
At a card table on the side, two grandfather types were playing gin rummy. One had a beer. Both were smoking. They looked familiar. Maybe it was the ankle holster under one guy’s trouser cuff or the Racing Form in the other guy’s jacket: Michael Kou’s bodyguards. Did that mean Kou was about to make an entrance?
If so, he’d have to move Uncle Charlie out of the power seat, behind the metal desk, beneath the street-level window with the feet flipping past. The old man was wearing his usual uniform—windbreaker, plaid shirt, khaki trousers—but he seemed … different. He looked Wild Bill over and said, “You got big gun.”
“I’m not good enough to hit a target with a little Walther,” said Wild Bill, “especially if I have to bend over to pull it from an ankle holster.”
“Me neither.” The guy with the ankle holster threw a card down, then reached around and pulled a Ruger .327 out of his waistband. “That’s why I carry this.”
Peter said to the card players, “Aren’t you Kou’s bodyguards?”
“We let him think so,” said the other guy, squinting above the cigarette in the corner of his mouth. “But we work for Uncle Charlie.”
“Cousins,” said Uncle Charlie. “Long time. That why they look so old. One got gray hair. One need bifocal. But both very tough. So no be bad, ’cause they badder.”
Wild Bill leaned over the one with bifocals and pointed to a card. “Play the jack.”
The guy threw it down. The other guy picked it up. Wild Bill got a dirty look.
Uncle Charlie said, “That Bobby Lee with ankle holster. We call Cousin Rebel.”
“Like the general,” said Peter. “Very historical.”
“Bifocal guy, we call Rice Balls. One day he play horse called Rice Ball. Daily double, perfecta, trifecta … play all over. Rice Ball come in. Big payday.”
Wild Bill said, “I’ve heard of a Chinese hit man named after a horse that used to run at Golden Gate. He has a bigger reputation than the horse.”
“Horse gone for glue,” said Uncle Charlie, “but Rice Balls right here.”
“You want my autograph?” said Rice Balls.
Uncle Charlie got up, put folding chairs in front of his desk, and said to his visitors, “Sit. Sit. You like-ee tea? Tsingtao? Smoke?”
“Tea would be nice,” said Peter, being polite.
“But no smokes,” said Evangeline. “I’m getting a nicotine rush just breathing.”
Uncle Charlie said to Rice Balls, “Bring hot tea. Three cup.”
Peter and Evangeline sat in the chairs and took the tea.
Wild Bill folded his arms and leaned against the doorframe.
“Now,” said Uncle Charlie, dropping back behind the desk and dropping both the accent and the act, “the Dai-lo would like to know if you have ‘The Spencer Journal.’”
“But the Dai-lo was just killed.” Peter shot a look at LJ. What’s going on here?
LJ said, “We’re learning a lot about Uncle Charlie today, Dad.”
“Yes.” Mary looked up from her iPad. “Things that even I didn’t know.”
Uncle Charlie glanced at LJ. “Good that you’ve always treated me with respect, young man, despite my apparent low station. The Dai-lo appreciates respect.”
“My father always taught me to treat everyone with respect,” said LJ, “until they proved they didn’t deserve it.”
“Your father taught you well.” Uncle Charlie looked at Peter. “We all owe each other respect. That’s a lesson we’ve been trying to teach here since the Gold Rush, no?”
“Wait,” said Evangeline. “You’re the Dai-lo?”
“Who appreciates respect.” Peter gave Uncle Charlie a nod, respect and admiration for a fine performance.
Uncle Charlie said, “Respect makes it easier for me to protect a conflicted young man like LJ, and to bless his marriage to my niece.”
“Wow,” said Evangeline, “that’s almost poetic.”
Uncle Charlie smiled. He did not seem like a laugher. “You should hear it in the original Cantonese.”
Peter looked at LJ and mouthed the word, “Conflicted?”
“I think he means the FBI business, Dad.”
“The FBI,” said Uncle Charlie. “Usually our nemesis but sometimes … useful.”
“Remember what we said about flamboyance?” asked Wild Bill.
“The less of it the better?” said Peter.
“That’s why I appear as what I am,” said Uncle Charlie, “an old uncle who runs a tea store and a few mah-jongg tables. But the tong boys, they know not to bother me.”
“Smart, those tong boys,” said Peter.
“So, I tried to warn you without giving anything up, like an old uncle, warn you out of this business, warn you twice. The less you know, the less you can get hurt.”
Rice Balls looked up from his cards. “‘Watch out for hit-and-run drivers. This can be a dangerous town.’ Sound familiar?”
“That was you?” said Peter. “But—”
“If we couldn’t get you out of the way, we wanted you to be careful,” said Uncle Charlie. “Then Kou tried to kill both Fallons after the father called out Sierra Rock—”
Peter said, “Were you there?”
“The waitress serving the wine said you could drink a lot and keep your head.” Uncle Charlie lit a cigarette from the one he was finishing. “After you mentioned Sierra Rock, she saw Kou signal the white bodyguard, the one who worked for Lum … until he killed him.”
Cousin Rebel looked up. “Who lets a white guy guard him? No honor with the white guys.”
“I did some work with that guy,” said Rice Balls. “Never liked him. His name’s Steele, or so he says. Used to be a D-one linebacker, or so he says. Always works for the highest bidder.”
“Which was Kou”—Cousin Rebel threw down a card—“not Lum.”
Evangeline’s eyes were watering from the smoke. She blinked and said, “When Lum came to see Sturgis at the vineyard this morning, the white guy spent the whole time texting.”
“Probably giving Kou a play-by-play,” said Rice Balls. “Getting permission for the hit.”
“Lum was on his last rounds.” Uncle Charlie took two or three quick drags of nicotine. “If he could not make good deals, he would advise the Triad to pull all its money out of Sierra Rock, call loans on mining operations, take losses, move on.”
“Why?” asked Peter.
“Too much regulation in California,” said Uncle Charlie. “Not enough gold. There are places to put our money where the FBI won’t follow. Poorer countries with more gold. Gold is the long play, but not here.”
“A few years ago,” said LJ, “when the Chinese government told banks to invest in gold mining operations around the world, certain Triad Dragons of Hong Kong—”
“—whom I serve,” said Uncle Charlie.
“—grabbed for low-interest loans through banks where their business is welcomed. Then they started looking for gold investments.”
Uncle Charlie flicked an ash. “Once China has gold supplies in the same proportion to GDP as the U.S., they can accelerate the movement away from the dollar as the world’s reserve currency.”
“That’s the idea on a macro level,” said LJ. “The long play.”
“When you have four thousand years of history, you know the long play is the best play.” Uncle Charlie puffed up a cloud. “But the Chinese play the game on every level. They encourage every Chinese family to own a kilo of gold.”
“A lot of families.” Evangeline made a futile wave at the air in front of her face. “So a lot of gold. But why?”
“Because the U.S. Fed may eventually let inflation take hold as a way of reducing the deficit,” said LJ. “Inflation erodes savings, but it also erodes debt. The Chinese hold trillions in U.S. debt. So they want hedges. In an inflationary world, gold could run to $10,000 an ounce. If China accumulates enough gold, Chinese debt holders will be safe.”
“Like kung-fu fighting,” said Peter, “using your enemy’s strength—in this case his gold resources—against him.”
Rice Balls hummed the old tune, “Kung-Fu Fighting.”
“But Kou?” said Peter.
“He wanted to impress the Triad by bringing them a U.S. gold deal,” said Uncle Charlie. “He also knows Hong Kong is consolidating U.S. control, from here to Boston—”
“So, he wants to prove he can play dirty,” said Wild Bill. “Taking out Wonton Willie for the street cred, I get. But whacking Lum?”
“Hong Kong sent Mr. Lum to ‘appreciate the situation,’ as the Brits would say. Once it became obvious that the Emery Mine may never be profitable—”
“A conclusion he came to this week,” said LJ.
“I know,” said Peter. “We were there.”
“Lum wanted to make a last-ditch effort to save the investment and show Michael Kou good faith.” Uncle Charlie took a slower puff on his cigarette.
“Good faith?” said Wild Bill. “Trust, loyalty, honor?”
“The definition of the Triad,” answered Uncle Charlie. “We got Kou’s family out of China after Tiananmen Square. He never forgot. Always loyal. Always a team player. As soon as he heard that we wanted to get into gold, he told us about Ah-Toy and the journal and the lost river.”
Peter was getting it now. He said, “Jack Cutler told me that Kou was trying to impress ‘certain elements in the Chinatown community.’ Would that be you?”
Uncle Charlie kept puffing between words. “He gave me a chance to invest. Obeying the chain of command, like a good soldier. I said give the same chance to all the Chinatown people.”
“Yeah,” said Cousin Rebel. “You’re a regular Chinese Robin Hood.”
“But somebody tried too hard, seeding holes, cheating people. Still the Triad bosses liked Kou’s scheme to use gold mines for money laundering. Elegant way to kill two birds with one stone, so Cutler—”
Rice Balls looked up from his cards. “When are we going to kill Cutler?”
“Kill my father?” Mary looked up from scrolling.
“He’s a fuck-up who cost us a lot of money,” said Rice Balls.
Uncle Charlie told her, “Your mother loved him, so he’s protected.” Then he gave Rice Balls a scowl, as if to remind him who was in charge, then he turned back at Peter: “Kou and Sierra Rock had a smart lawyer named Barber who also did work for some old San Francisco families, like the Spencers.”
“Did Kou and Barber know about the Spencer journal when Sierra Rock bought the Emery mine?” Peter asked his son.
“What they knew,” said LJ, “was what Cutler had told them about proven reserves in the Emery Mine and alluvial gold in an unproven gravel band six or eight miles long, running discontinuously from the ruins of an old Miwok dam, through the Boyles’ land, down across Rainbow Gulch. Cutler’s version of the lost river.”
“Alluvial means river.” Uncle Charlie stubbed out the cigarette and lit another.
LJ said, “It was big news all across the Mother Lode when Sierra Rock bought the Emery Mine. Some folks loved it. But retirees and ranchers and vinters felt differently.”
“Like Manion Sturgis and Ginny O’Hara,” said Evangeline.
“Then comes the story of the Proud Pilgrim. It’s all over the papers, the Gold Rush death ship with six bodies chained to the keel. Maryanne Rogers goes and reads about it at the historical society. Then she tells Barber about it over one of their dinners at House of Prime Rib. He tells Kou, who tells Cutler to look into it.”
“But when Cutler goes looking,” said Evangeline, “he’s told it’s gone.”
“Right,” said Uncle Charlie. “So Kou got Barber to put that codicil into the will. He figured all seven sections would pop right out if it was the only way to satisfy the terms of the will. Then he’d learn exactly where to look for that discontinuous river of gold.”
“But Maryanne Rogers had to die first,” said Peter.
“Now you know who did the hit-and-run,” said Cousin Rebel. “Kou’s guys.”
“Surprised they didn’t run her over with one of those little fuckin’ bikes,” said Rice Balls, and he threw down a card. “Gin.”
Cousin Rebel tossed in his hand and looked at Uncle Charlie, as if to ask, Can we get on with this?
Uncle Charlie pulled out a briefcase, put it on his desk, and said to Peter. “Your son’s get-out-of-jail-free card. Notes, thumb drives, documents … showing how Kou collects his dirty money and how it gets washed through Sierra Rock via gold purchases and other investments. The Triad has decided it’s time to shut him down. And I want to insulate our little operation, which is mostly gambling, protection, immigration work.”
Peter guessed he meant “immigration fraud,” but no correcting Uncle Charlie …
… who went on, “Kou is a big liability to our more traditional tong. Give me the journal, then your son delivers this to the FBI, and all debts are paid.”
That, thought Peter, was a no-brainer. So he put the gray box on the desk.
Uncle Charlie opened it, took out the journal with great care, like a man who respected history, flipped through it, read here, grunted there, made a few comments, flipped to the end and read: “We bumped over the Rainbow Gulch water trench and came finally to the north rim of the ravine…” He flipped back as if he had missed something, then flipped again, almost frantically.
Then he looked up. “Where’s the ending?”
Peter said, “We think Spencer died before he transcribed it.”
Uncle Charlie slammed the book down and raised his hand to slam it again.
Peter said, “Ah … could you go easy on that? We hope to return it to its rightful owner. It’s very fragile.”
“Very fuckin’ worthless, too.” Uncle Charlie put the book back in the box and the briefcase back on the floor. “Hong Kong wants the ending. Cutler said the ending might have core sample results, so we know for sure if there’s gold under the vineyard.”
Peter looked at LJ and Mary. “How would Cutler know that?”
Mary said, “Speculation. It’s what he does.”
“If there’s gold there,” said Uncle Charlie, “we can still recoup our losses.”
“Manion Sturgis won’t sell,” said Evangeline.
“We’ll make him an offer like in the movies,” said Rice Balls.
Uncle Charlie fished out his pack of Lucky Strikes. Empty. So he went over to the card table, pulled a butt from the pack offered by Rice Balls, lit, took a long draw, told Peter, “You need to find that original. And fast, because now that Kou has cut loose, there’s no more time for watching and waiting. He sent L.A. muscle to kill Cutler in the apartment and found you instead … he hit Lum in gold country … he’s spilling lots of blood so he can be the new blood.”
Rice Balls said, “Not happenin’.”
“Right.” Uncle Charlie exhaled smoke through his nose. “Nothing in this briefcase incriminates me or my people. You get it if you find last section. Otherwise, appraise the library, then go back to Boston, all of you, because I can’t protect you.”
Peter looked at LJ.
LJ said, “Maybe that’s what we should do, Dad.”
“What?”
“Appraise the library. I didn’t look there. I’ve looked everywhere else.”
He said, “Do you think we can get into the library?”
LJ said, “Mr. Yung is—”
“Don’t trust Yung,” said Uncle Charlie. “He’s on Barber’s payroll. But he also takes Saturday off. Usually visits his big-time architect son in Palo Alto.”
“How do you know that?” asked LJ.
“I know many things. I also know the house is alarmed. Hard to get in.”
* * *
SO, THE FIRST PLACE to look for the key: Sarah Bliss, the executor. Peter called her.
She answered with: “Even if you allow me to see your caller ID, the answer is still no.”
“To what?”
“I just told you. I’m giving up nothing.”
“Just told me?” Peter looked at the others. “I didn’t call you—”
But she kept talking, “You aren’t getting to go through my things here. And you aren’t getting the key to Arbella House. You aren’t on our side.”
“Listen, Sarah,” said Peter, “I didn’t call you. Somebody is using my name. Don’t let anyone in. Don’t talk to anyone. Don’t do anything until we get there.”
Peter clicked off. “Somebody’s after her notebook. Should we call the cops?”
“No cops, for fuck’s sake,” said Uncle Charlie.
“She’s in Sausalito, right?” said Rice Balls. “So we go rescue her. Go by boat.”
“Good idea,” said LJ, and he and Mary stood.
“You’re not going, either of you. Too dangerous.” Uncle Charlie pointed at Mary. “You’re my closest relative. And the next Charlie Chan generation comes from—”
“Wait,” said Peter. “Your name is Charlie Chan? Like in the movies?”
“You should be the detective here, not me,” said Wild Bill.
“Stop with the jokes. I’m out on a limb as it is,” said Charlie. “Nobody in Hong Kong knows that my future nephew is working for the FBI. Mary stays here. Your son stays with her. As soon as you get the rest of chapter seven, scan it and send it to me. I send it on to Hong Kong. And your son gets the briefcase. I’m good for my word. Right, Rice?”
“It’s why we been with you forever.”
“Then Barber and Kou go down for wire fraud, money laundering, SEC violations, and the Triad knows all there is to know about the lost river of gold. The young people can go live their lives so long as—” He looked at Mary and LJ.
“So long as what?” said Mary.
“So long as you name the first kid Charles Chan Fallon. Not Peter.”
LJ put an arm around Mary. “You have my word.”
* * *
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, A Grady-White Fisherman 257 rocketed across San Francisco Bay, with Peter, Evangeline, and Wild Bill Donnelly aboard and Rice Balls, whose real name was Hector Chan, at the helm.
He shouted over the roar of twin Yamaha 200s, “Sausalito is about three miles. We’ll be there in no time. A little bumpy but it beats the traffic all to hell.”
“Nice boat,” said Wild Bill.
“Won it on a dice roll. Good bulk, displacement hull to cut through the chop, fast as a Jet Ski…”
The Bay, thought Peter, remained one of the wonders of the natural world—just as James Spencer had written when the William Winter ran through the Golden Gate—no matter how it had been used and abused for a hundred and fifty years.
The boat bounced and the cold spray showered everyone.
“Sorry,” shouted Rice Balls, “but I need all the power I got with that current tryin’ to suck us out through the Golden Gate. Up inside Sausalito, it’ll smooth out nice. And there’s a twelve-foot channel right along the houseboat wharf, so we can get close.”
After a few minutes, they tucked under the north footing of the Golden Gate Bridge, all grand and orange above them, and made for Waldo Bay, dropping to “No Wake” speed when they came up on the channel marker.
Rice Balls said to Peter, “Do you want binoculars?”
“How close can you get?”
“As close as you want. This channel was dredged for the Liberty ships they built up in here.”
“Get close, then. Binoculars might be too obvious.” Peter grabbed a red ball cap with a San Francisco 49ers logo from the forward locker, pulled it low, and took off the sport coat he had been wearing since the day before.
Rice Balls cruised slowly ahead, about twelve feet from the decks of the houseboats. At low RPMs, the four-stroke engines quieted to a whisper.
“Keep up some chatter,” said Peter, “like we’re out on a sunset cruise.”
“I got a better idea,” said Rice Balls. “There’s cold Buds in the cooler. Grab a few.”
“Beer?” said Evangeline. “At a time like this?”
“It’s a fucking disguise, lady. Drink beer, look casual.”
Wild Bill flipped her one. She popped it, and the suds fountained out all over her. Rice and Wild Bill laughed like boaters having big fun. Perfect cover.
The slider was closed but the drapes were open aboard the Tree Hugger, and Peter knew right away that something was wrong. A big guy was standing over Brother Bliss’s wheelchair, holding the tube from the oxygen generator. Holding, releasing, holding, releasing. But that was all the view they had as the boat went past.
Peter said, “Black leather … could be one of the guys who chased us last night.”
“If they work for Kou,” said Rice Balls, “they shoot first and ask questions later, or they get their questions answered, then they shoot. But they always shoot.”
Wild Bill said to Rice Balls, “What are you carrying?”
“I got a Walther with a silencer and a nine-millimeter.”
Wild Bill patted his holster. “I’ll stay with the cannon. The .44 will go through the glass.”
The plan: Peter would jump off on the dock, a hundred yards up the channel, then walk back and knock on the front door to distract the guys inside. Wild Bill and Rice Balls would go in shooting, right through the sliders … so long as Evangeline could drive the boat.
“I can handle a yacht,” she said. “I’ll put this little thing up against that sun deck like I was parking a Toyota Corolla.”
“All right,” said Peter. “When you hear me yell Sarah’s name, come fast.”
The boat swung and dropped Peter. Then he started back along the dock toward the Tree Hugger. A few people were out, working on their window boxes or sitting in the late-afternoon sun. Some nodded. A few gave this stranger the once-over.
Peter started whistling, as though he was part of the scenery, just moving to his own inner beat. But as he went, he was setting his speed to the Grady-White moving back down the channel, slowly, almost silently.
At the Tree Hugger, Peter stopped, took a deep breath, knocked on the door. No answer. Bad sign.
He tried the handle. Locked. Worse sign.
He lifted the welcome mat. The key was right where Sarah said it would be. He put it into the lock, turned, heard the door click open, and cried, “Hello! Sarah! Sarah Bliss! It’s Peter!” He pushed the door open and stepped inside.
And a guy in black leather pressed a pistol to his head. The other guy in black leather was standing over Brother B., who lay on the floor by the slider.
Sarah Bliss said, “Fallon! What the hell are you—”
And the whole houseboat shook with the impact of the Grady-White, knocking everyone off balance.
The guy by the slider turned his face right into a blast from the .44 Magnum that tore through the glass, then through his forehead, then threw him backward onto the deck.
Sarah screamed.
The guy covering Peter swung his pistol toward the slider, so Peter swung his hand, knocked the pistol loose, sent it skittering across the floor.
Then a switchblade popped and slashed at Peter, who jumped back.
And that was all the slashing he did …
… because Sarah Bliss grabbed the pistol from the floor and put two shots through the black leather. Then she pivoted as Wild Bill pulled at the slider.
“No!” cried Peter. “He’s one of us.”
She didn’t put the gun down.
“Don’t fuck with Sarah,” said Brother B., rising to his elbows. “She might be an old hippie broad, but she’s licensed to carry and—”
“Don’t fuck with my husband, either,” she said.
Peter looked at the two: black leather, both Asian. “These guys chased us last night. What were they after?”
Sarah Bliss said, “The journal. They didn’t believe me when I told them I didn’t have it.”
“So they were chokin’ me,” said Brother Bliss, “the motherfuckers.”
“Relax,” said Peter. “Make some tea.” Then he and Wild Bill helped Brother Bliss back into his wheelchair.
Sarah lowered the gun and said to Peter, “7-5-4-4-4-7.”
“What’s that?”
“The code for the burglar alarm once you’re in the foyer at Arbella House.”
“Is Notebook Seven there?”
“How in the hell should I know? But it makes sense to look.” She pulled two keys off her ring. “These will get you in the outer door, then the inner. Yung won’t be there. He—”
“—visits his son in Palo Alto?”
“You know a lot,” said Sarah. “So … once you’re in the foyer, it’s 9-9-9-7-1-9 to unlock the pocket doors on the library.”
Peter pulled out his phone and wrote those codes on the Notes page.
“Now scram,” said Sarah. “The cops are coming. And you, Mr. Peter Fallon, need to end this. I don’t give a damn who does what anymore. Whether there’s gold under that vineyard or not, this world has gone too crazy for me.”
On the boat, Rice Balls was leaning over the side, inspecting the hull where it had hit the dock. He was growling at Evangeline, “Like parking a Corolla?”
“It’ll buff out,” she said. “A little rubbing compound. Good as new.”
“Rubbing compound, my ass.” Rice Balls took the helm and said, “Hang on.”
Peter handed Evangeline a beer. “You’ve earned one. You did fine.”
She took a sip and gave it back to him. “You, too.”
He put his arm around her.
Wild Bill gave a shove off the dock, and Rice Balls said, “We’re out of here.”
* * *
IT WAS JUST AFTER dark when they turned onto California Street, which was always a Whole Foods traffic jam at dinner hour on a Saturday.
Rice Balls was driving a blue Nissan Rogue. He made one pass by the house and said he’d dropped them on the next pass, then park around the block, so as not to attract attention. On the second pass, they hopped out right in front of Arbella House, went through the gate, onto the porch, without anyone noticing.
One key and they were in the vestibule. Punch the code, then the second key, and they were in the foyer. They waited a moment, listened, then Peter called, “Mr. Yung!”
No answer.
“Uncle Charlie was right.” Peter turned to the library, punched in the code on the keypad beside the pocket doors, heard a pop, and the doors slid open, revealing the room where this had begun a few nights before.
The drapes were pulled. Peter flipped on the lights.
Wild Bill said, “Wow. Is that a Tiffany pendant lamp?”
“You have a good eye.” Evangeline pointed to the Bierstadt. “Recognize that?”
Wild Bill looked, went closer, and said, “That’s the view from my patio.”
“Spencer commissioned it, we think,” said Evangeline. “His first view of the Mother Lode.”
Their plan was simple. Go through every book and hope that no one came to interrupt them, although Michael Kou’s team was surely closing in.
Peter said, “Look first for leather bindings without title. Spencer wrote on folio’d foolscap, eight and a half by thirteen and a half. Look for taller items and skinny bindings because the notebooks aren’t more than sixty or seventy pages each.”
“And if it’s not here?” said Evangeline.
“We’re fucked. Or shot. Or arrested. Or all three.”
“I’ll take the first,” she whispered.
And they dug in.
Before long, Peter was reminded of something he had heard when he was searching for a Shakespeare manuscript in the Harvard library: “A man will be known by his books.”
James Spencer still lived in his library, and he showed himself to be a man of breadth, depth, erudition, and patriotism. But they were not stopping to appraise or admire. They were looking quickly, not even reshelving. And after forty-five minutes … nothing.
That was when Wild Bill found a section of books marked with Chinese characters, down near the floor. “There are a couple of skinny ones over here, but—”
Peter knelt and pulled one: a children’s book in Chinese, illustrated. Then two or three thicker volumes. Then, at the very end, something long and skinny … the right size, the right vintage, but … an empty notebook. Peter sat back. “For a minute there, I thought we had it.”
And a voice behind them said, “You don’t.”
John Yung was standing in the doorway. As on the day that he first guided them into the library, he wore his white jacket, smoothed his black hair straight back, and offered a presence so preternaturally composed as to appear either disconnected from reality or in complete command of it. Given the cannon he held at his hip, it could go either way.
Wild Bill looked at Yung, then at the gun. “What the hell is that?”
Peter counted seven barrels. “It’s a Nock gun. Named after the inventor. Load it with buckshot, and you can sweep the deck of a wooden ship in a battle or knock down a dozen mutineers with a single pull of the trigger. Very rare.”
“I can sweep this room, too,” said Mr. Yung.
“That gun is ancient,” said Peter. “It could blow up in your face.”
“You’ll hit the rare books,” said Evangeline, “the Tiffany, the Bierstadt. Think of the mess you’ll make.”
Yung looked at the books on the floor. “You’ve already made a start on that. Glad I stayed home today, or you might have torn the house apart.”
“We’d never do that,” said Peter. “But what would Maryanne Rogers say if—”
“She’d be happy, if we could bring an end to this madness.”
“Madness?” Peter sensed that Mr. Yung was hiding something.
“Mr. Barber calling her, bothering her, even telling her he loved her.”
“Loved her? Barber?” said Evangeline. “He’s about fifty. She was—”
“Seventy-six.” Yung lowered the Nock gun.
Wild Bill let out a deep breath, “Not the first May–December romance.”
Peter chalked up another reason to dislike Johnson “Jack” Barber.
“How do you know what he told her?” Evangeline stepped closer.
Mr. Yung gestured to the console telephone in the corner. “Intercom to the kitchen. Once the height of high-tech.”
“Still a good eavesdropper if you leave the switch on,” said Wild Bill.
“I heard Barber say, ‘If you love me, sign the new will.’ He had brought George Sturgis to witness. She always trusted George more than Manion.”
“Most people do,” said Evangeline.
Yung nodded. “So she signed. But as Mr. Manion said, undue influence.”
“Why didn’t you speak up?” asked Peter.
“Barber saw the hit-and-run. He was waiting in front of the restaurant. He said it looked like I pushed her. But he said if I kept his secrets, he would keep mine.”
“What were his secrets?” asked Peter.
“He did not specify. He only wanted me to keep my mouth shut.”
“But you didn’t push her?” said Wild Bill.
“My people have worked for the Spencers since Mickey Chang. Why would I push her? Besides, I know things no one else does.”
That got everyone’s attention, but then they heard something outside, in the driveway beside the house.
Wild Bill stepped to the curtains and peered out. “Two guys, out on the sidewalk. And one of them just jumped the gate.”
“I’m surprised it took Kou’s boys this long,” said Peter.
Then they heard footfalls on the porch.
Peter said to Yung, “The guys out there are a lot worse than Barber.”
The doorbell rang.
Wild Bill said, “But polite assassins always ring first.”
“Maybe they think I’m off at my son’s,” said Yung. “Or alone.”
“Alone with the seven-barrel Nock gun,” said Peter.
“It’s not loaded,” answered Yung. “And it has no flint.”
The bell rang again.
Wild Bill went to another window, peered onto the porch, and whispered, “Big white guy. Dark suit.”
“The bodyguard who turned on Lum?” said Evangeline. “The one named Steele?”
Wild Bill reached for his shoulder holster. “Mr. Steele may meet Mr. Magnum.”
Peter said, “Are you sure we can’t run, instead?”
“Running is preferable,” said Wild Bill. “But to where?”
Then they heard a different doorbell, a sharper buzzer.
Yung said, “The back door.”
“And we’re surrounded,” said Peter, as if he was expecting it.
“I wish I had my Mace,” said Evangeline.
“Relax, miss,” said Yung. “This house is a fortress.”
Wild Bill said, “The white guy is leaving. Down the steps … back onto the sidewalk … crossing the street … taking up a spot at the lamppost … making a call.”
Peter looked out. “Lamppost becomes command post?”
Three hoodies, riding Dahon bikes, appeared from the shadows.
“Calling in the reinforcements,” said Wild Bill.
Yung gave them a jerk of the head, had them step out of the library. Then he punched in the code and the pocket doors rolled shut with a thunk. “Those are steel, clad in wood. The windows are impenetrable. If there’s a fire, halon gas will extinguish it. So the books and the Bierstadt are safe. Come on.”
He led them up the stairs, past the portrait of Maryanne Rogers in the sitting room, past James Spencer’s master bedroom in the turret, to another flight that rose to the servants’ quarters. Yung bolted the door behind them and pointed them up the stairs to a beautiful circular room, with a 180-degree view of California Street below.
“We’ll be safe up here,” he said, “until help arrives.”
“Very cozy,” said Evangeline.
Yung said, “After our children went to college, my wife and I moved in. When she passed, I stayed to care for Mrs. Rogers. She was like family. And this is my home.”
“And you don’t want to lose your home?” said Evangeline.
“Would you?”
Wild Bill went over to a window and looked down. “White guy is still by the lamppost, still on the cell.”
From somewhere down in the house, they heard pounding on the door.
“They should know that the house is alarmed,” said Yung.
“So am I,” said Evangeline.
Yung took out his cell phone.
“Who are you calling?” asked Peter.
“The police.”
“No police,” said Wild Bill. “Not yet. I’ll text Rice Balls first. See what he suggests.”
“Rice Balls wants the journal,” said Peter. “Finding it is what he suggests.”
“Rice Balls?” said John Yung, pure deadpan. “How … Oriental.”
Evangeline said to Yung, “Mrs. Rogers was killed for those notebooks, probably by one of the guys trying to get into this house right now.”
“But once the journal is complete,” said John Yung, “they will sell this house and all its history. And my ancestors have a past here, too, just like the Spencers. It says so, right in the last notebook.”
That caused Peter’s heart to pop toward the back of his throat. “Last notebook? Then you’ve read it?”
Mr. Yung led them from the turret bedroom into the sitting room under the eaves, to a steamer trunk with oak strapping. “The Spencers gave this trunk to Mickey Chang when he was a boy in an orphanage. He kept it all his life. Others who lived in these rooms have added things. But it started with gifts from the Spencers.”
“Like the Nock gun?” said Peter. “That was Mrs. Spencer’s.”
“I found the Nock gun here … and this.” Yung pulled out a wooden box that contained a Walker Colt, wrapped in an oiled rag. The initials M.F. had been scratched into the grip. Michael Flynn. Then came an ancient hat, all moth-eaten and squashed, with a cracked leather brim.
“My God,” said Peter. “Flynn stole this from Spencer the day they met. Janiva picked it up the night they hanged him.”
Yung nodded. It was hard to tell if he was impressed with Peter Fallon’s knowledge or feeling smug about how much more there was for him to see.
Then came an envelope out of which Yung removed a rag of red and yellow-paisley neckerchief … then a back strap shovel, manufactured by Ames & Co., Easton, Massachusetts … a rusted pan that looked like a deep-dish pie plate … a crumbling copy of the Alta California from June 11, 1851, the day after Flynn’s hanging, with the headline, “Justice Is Served!”
Then came other items from other generations: a tasseled silk mandarin hat, an unopened bag of ginseng, a framed photograph of a Chinese man in dark, padded jacket and fedora, seated behind the wheel of an ancient automobile, and a well-dressed white man beside him. On the back: October, 1905—Mickey Chang drives Mr. Spencer in new Ariel autocar.
And from the bottom, John Yung brought forth a long notebook that he put reverently into Peter’s hands.
Peter took it just as reverently, opened it, and read the inscription, “‘To be given to Mickey Chang for his years of service, so that he may know his family and his father.’”
Peter felt the synapses firing again across the decades, between himself and James Spencer and the Chinese man who had been given this notebook. The feeling never got old. He muttered, “My God.”
“My God,” said Evangeline. “But why?”
“Read on,” said John Yung.
“Before you read”—Evangeline waved her phone at Peter—“remember why we’re here.”
“Right.” Peter pulled out his iPhone and scanned every page while Evangeline turned them. It didn’t take long. Another wonder of modern technology. Then he emailed it all to LJ and Uncle Charlie as a single document.
“That should do it,” said Wild Bill, who was looking out from a little porthole window under the eaves, watching the movement in the street.
“Do you see anything?” asked Peter.
“Steele is still at the lamppost. The bike boys are down in the shadows around the driveway, trying to open the gate, it looks like.”
“Do you have other security?” Evangeline asked Mr. Yung.
“Of course. But if I’m here, I don’t always turn on the cameras.” He grabbed his iPad and brought up a screen. “I can start everything with this. I can have police here in four minutes.”
Wild Bill put out his hand. “Wait, at least until I hear from my friend—”
“Mr. Balls?” said John Yung.
“That’s Mr. Rice Balls to you,” said Evangeline.
“No middle initial,” said Peter, and he flipped through the notebook.
Not a lot changed from the final version … some phrasing here, bits of the story there, until he came to a passage not in the final transcription. It was entered about nine months after Michael Flynn’s death:
One cool March eve, as Janiva rocked the baby and I read by the wood stove, there came a pounding on the door. Despite the retreat of the Sydney Ducks and other gangs, I never answered the door at night without my pistol, so I armed myself and asked who was there.
Receiving no answer, I cautiously opened and heard someone leaping down the stairs, running off into the night. Then I heard the mewling cry of a baby in a basket left on the landing. I brought it into the warmth, and upon closer examination, discovered a child, male, newborn, with a Chinese cast to his features and skin color. Had someone left him here because we had helped establish the orphanage? Or was there another reason? I determined to get answers the next morning.
Chin was behind the counter at Ah-Sing’s. When he saw me, he spoke without prelude, angrily, almost in mid-emotion, as if he had been expecting me. He said, “Mei-Ling dead.” And the anger in his voice implied that, somehow, he blamed me.
“In childbirth?” I asked.
He did not answer directly. He said, “I try protect her. I try find happiness for her. But white man’s world destroy her.”
I said I had not seen her in some time. “Did she go into hiding?”
He said she went to work for Ah-Toy. “Where else woman work with no husband and swelling belly, thanks to Flynn? But Mei-Ling no make fuck at Ah-Toy’s. Never fuck.”
So there it was. Michael Flynn was the father.
Chin said he could not raise Flynn’s child. His bitterness toward the Irishman, for all the hurt he had brought them, all to plant his seed in Mei-Ling, was a thing that would never die. So Chin had left the child with us. “Skin light enough, maybe he pass.”
But I told him I could not take this child into my house.
“Flynn your friend. You loyal to your friends. Be loyal to their seed.”
I said that the child was his blood. He should be loyal, too.
“Then who raise him? Ah-Toy? No real Chinese mothers here.”
I did not mention Chin’s dabbling in female slavery. Instead, I looked into his eyes and gave him the answer I had been considering since the night before. “My wife cannot take in another child. It will kill her.”
“Kill?” he said, puzzled.
And I considered telling him the truth. He knew nothing of the rape, nothing of the deep well of pain bored into Janiva on that awful day almost two years before. As I have written, she did her best to cover it, to ignore it, to rely on her straight spine and fierce will to bring her through. But sometimes, that well overflowed. When it did, I had no answers. I could only wait in quiet understanding and wish silently that we lived closer to family, for a wise mother might offer the surcease that a young husband could not.
Then our son was born. And when Janiva should have been overflowing with love, an even greater sadness bubbled out of her. And its dark waters threatened to drown us all. She could barely bring herself to suckle, to comfort, even to love our innocent babe.
Mrs. Brannan explained that this sadness sometimes afflicted women who had given birth, and she suggested a wet nurse. But where? The answer betook me to the establishment recently opened by the two soiled doves who sang so sweetly the night I killed Hodges, Sheila and Roberta. Rumor had it that Roberta had given birth to a stillborn. So I offered her an ounce of gold a day to wet nurse my son.
And little by little, with the help of Roberta and the steady rise of the sun toward the equinox, Janiva emerged from despair. Her strong spine held her upright. The lead of sorrow melted from her jaw. In time, she smiled again. But I feared that at any moment, sadness might swamp her once more, especially if we overwhelmed her now with a foundling.
But I did not tell any of this to Wei Chin. I said only, “We have an infant of our own. We cannot take another. If you cannot take your sister’s child, I will see to his care in the orphanage.”
Janiva felt considerable remorse at turning Flynn’s child away. I felt it myself. But we agreed. As for Wei Chin, he was a man in whom pride and anger were stirred in equal measures, making for a volatile mix, and in this matter, anger seemed to have won. So we placed the child in the orphanage we had helped to establish at Second and Folsom.
Then I sent Roberta to suckle him.Soon she was wet-nurse and mother to half a dozen motherless infants. And she pronounced herself happier than she had ever been.
“Wow,” whispered Evangeline. “Postpartum depression.”
“Did they even have a name for it back then?” asked Peter.
“Whether they did or not,” said Evangeline, “Janiva had it.”
“Not surprising, after all she had been through,” said Peter.
And for a few moments, they were silent in the attic, absorbing the pain of those lives, lived so long ago on those San Francisco hills.
Then they heard a vehicle pull up out front.
Wild Bill peered down. “Our friends have figured out how to get the gate open. A black panel truck is now in the driveway.”
Peter said, “Is it the truck that hit Maryanne Rogers?”
“That one was white,” said John Yung.
“They could have painted it,” said Wild Bill.
“They have ladders,” said Evangeline, peering out. “What do they want with ladders?”
“Maybe they’re planning to try the second-floor windows,” said Yung. “They will be disappointed.”
“Or maybe,” said Wild Bill, “they’re thinking of cutting the power.”
“There are back-up systems,” said Yung.
“And”—Wild Bill looked at his phone—“Rice Balls just texted. The cavalry’s on the way. We should sit tight.”
“Sit tight and keep reading,” said Peter. “Nothing ends until we finish.”
He flipped to the last pages, looking for answers there in James Spencer’s attic, and for the last time, he felt the persistence of Spencer’s humanity, the decency of his character, sometimes flawed but always positive:
… We followed the rolling path across hills and through stands of trees. We bumped over the Rainbow Gulch water trench and came finally to the north rim of the ravine, where the graveyard had grown, filling with so many who had come to California in pursuit of a dream that life promises but seldom delivers.
There are tales of gold country burials in which actual gold nuggets appeared in the turned earth of a fresh grave, but no such miracle occurred when we dug for Michael Flynn that day. We lowered him, said a few psalms, and prayed for his orphan child.
The boy’s uncle, Wei Chin, had become a great Mandarin by then, a “ticket broker” bringing cheap labor from China, and he had recently imported a childless couple named Chang. They had agreed to raise young Mickey, as he is called, with the financial support of Uncle Wei. As the Changs had worked “in service” to British officials in Hong Kong, I hired them for the new home we were building on California Street. So Mickey would grow under our roof, after all.
We stayed a few days with the Emerys in Broke Neck and negotiated with the Gasparich brothers, who owned the stretch of land which in April was a river of budding vines. These brothers had been diligent and hard working, but they had far to go to make wine that would last. So we offered to partner with them in wine if they would partner with us in gold.
Then we prospected for alluvial deposits, following the volcanic soils from the north-facing slope of the ravine all the way to the turn in the landscape that we now call Flynn’s Bend. We dug a coyote hole and hit gravel at twenty-six feet. But there was no gold. In the next few days, we dug a dozen other holes with the same results. Whatever ore this ancient river had been carrying, it dropped elsewhere, into Rainbow Gulch, perhaps, or at the site that we exposed on the night we blew up the Sagamore dam.
So I decided that the best I could do for my old friend would be to buy that vineyard, and from its profits, establish a trust for Mickey Chang. Janiva approved. And thus did our Gold Rush come to an end.
Machines and mighty jets of water were doing the work that independent men once did with shovels and pans. The adventure and romance, the misery and heartbreak, the joy and sorrow of those early days were becoming no more than memory, as evanescent as the fog on the bay.
But we learned much in those hills, from great friends, from resolute enemies, and from those who began as one and ended as the other. I can close my eyes and see a hundred faces flying past, feel a thousand emotions pouring forth, and remember how brilliantly gold illuminated every dream and base instinct in all of them.
I have come to believe that human nature may appear to change, but in its hatreds and obsessions, in its hopes and generosities, in the bedrock places where decency and deceit reside, people never change. Gold cannot turn a man from one thing to another, from good to evil, from miser to philanthropist. Gold and the getting of it can only reveal him, as it did so many of us. And yet any man can be raised up with fair treatment. No matter the words of Cletis Smith, there is no such thing as too much mercy.
So we build our society in California, at once the promised land of the grand old song and yet another American paradise lost. Janiva and I will strive to make of this city a golden place, bright and hopeful, not because it will profit us but because it is the right thing to do.
* * *
FOR A MOMENT AFTER that, the four people in James Spencer’s ancient attic sat in silence, considering his words.
Then John Yung nodded and gave a laugh.
Evangeline said, “What? What’s so funny.”
“That trust. It helped pay for my son’s education at Stanford.”
But that was a glow that no one had time to bask in, because a ladder thunked against the side of the house. The whole building shook.
John Yung said, “They are very stupid, whoever they are.”
Wild Bill pulled the Magnum. “They’re in for a helluva surprise.”
Peter unwrapped the Walker Colt and popped the cylinder. Empty.
Evangeline said, “It would take you twenty minutes to load that thing, and you might still end up with a misfire.”
“In that case”—Peter pointed to the iPad and told John Yung—“light her up.”
John Yung tapped, swiped, tapped, swiped, and outside lights came on all around the grand old Victorian mansion.
Dark shadows scrambled in every direction. Dahon bikes went speeding toward Van Ness. The panel truck rocketed up California Street.
And across the street, the big white guy in the dark suit started down California, moving as casually as if he was on the way to Whole Foods. Then he stopped, because someone was walking up the hill toward him, a shadow of a small man in a windbreaker.
Mr. Steele reached for his gun. But the other man raised a pistol and fired once. Mr. Steele’s head snapped back and he dropped onto the sidewalk. The shooter shoved the pistol into his windbreaker and kept going up the hill. Hector Chang, aka Rice Balls, disappeared onto Pacific Heights.
And the flashing blues arrived.
* * *
JAMES SPENCER’S LIBRARY BECAME an interview room with Detectives Immerman and Nauseda interrogating two young toughs in hoodies, caught on ladders outside the house, along with Peter Fallon, Evangeline Carrington, and former detective William “Wild Bill” Donnelly.
Immerman looked at Peter and said, “So this is where you’re working?”
“With the permission of the family, yes. We’re appraising the books.”
“That was the story they told me the other night,” offered Detective Nauseda.
Immerman said, “Somebody called us, said we might have trouble here. They said these boys may have wacked Wonton Willie, and if we look around out in the shrubs, we might even find their getaway vehicles, a pair of folding Dahon bikes. Do you know anything about that, Mr. Fallon?”
“It’s a long story,” said Wild Bill.
“I have all night,” said Darcy Immerman.
Peter figured that once the pages had gone to Hong Kong, Rice Balls had been given the okay and called in the SFPD “cavalry.”
Darcy Immerman said, “I always liked Wonton Willie, even if he was a lot of trouble. A real character. But too much character will get you killed.”
“Too much mercy won’t,” said Peter.
Detective Immerman gave him a look. She didn’t get it. But some people did.
Detective Nauseda got a text, then said to the guys in hoodies, “Who knows Michael Kou?”
“No talkin’ till we get a lawyer,” said one of them.
“Well, don’t count on Kou to get one for you. Somebody just whacked him.”
“Gang wars,” said Detective Immerman. “I hate gang wars.”
Peter recognized one of these kids now. He had been the accidental photobomb, that first day on the cable car. So Michael Kou had been following them from the start.
Then came more commotion at the door, and in walked a redheaded woman in a blue pantsuit, followed by an Asian guy wearing an FBI windbreaker.
Darcy Immerman said, “Who the hell are you?”
Evangeline whispered to Peter, “Your girlfriend from the Mark Hopkins lobby.”
“And other places.”
“Along with the guy who was watching us in the restaurant the other night,” Evangeline added.
“And other places,” Peter repeated.
The redhead showed her badge. “Special Agent Christine Ryan, and I have a Federal warrant to search this house and library.”
Peter’s stomach dropped. “In the case against—”
“Johnson ‘Jack’ Barber. You can read the complaint online, as soon as it’s filed.”
Darcy Immerman looked at Ryan’s badge. “You can have the house, but the collars are mine.”
Christine Ryan said, “They’re yours, so long as I can question them.”
“I want a lawyer,” said one of them.
“Anyone else in the complaint?” Peter asked Agent Ryan.
“The bureau does not anticipate that any of Barber’s legal associates will be under indictment, if that’s what you’re asking.” Then Christine Ryan stalked into the library and looked around, saw the painting, and said, “Wow, is that a Bierstadt?”
Evangeline whispered to Peter, “Our work here is done.”
* * *
NO ONE WOULD EVER know who eliminated Michael Kou, although LJ told his father that Cousin Rebel and Uncle Charlie had a long talk in Cantonese, just after Notebook Seven was emailed to Hong Kong. Then Cousin Rebel slipped out and never came back.
As for Johnson “Jack” Barber and the late Michael Kou, their scheme to launder millions through Sierra Rock, by repaying Chinese gold purchase loans with dirty money, would earn Barber extended time as a guest of the U.S. government.
When the Federal indictment was handed down, there were numerous references to an informer. And he was named. But it was not James “LJ” Fallon. The informer was William Ling, aka Wonton Willie, of Jackson Street in San Francisco, formerly of Hong Kong.
He had been the other asset on the inside.
* * *
THREE MONTHS LATER, PETER Fallon returned to complete the appraisal.
And Manion Sturgis invited everyone to Amador for the weekend. He set the table at the edge of the patio, in the warm sun.
Sarah Bliss and Brother B. came out from Sausalito and drank wine instead of their usual tea.
Wild Bill Donnelly brought his wife, Jane. Peter delivered him a signed first edition of Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity.
Jack Cutler, enjoying his anonymity in Amador County, came to toast his daughter. Since Uncle Charlie had put word out on the street that Cutler was okay, he no longer had to worry in Chinese restaurants.
And Mary Ching Cutler finally seemed as happy as any young bride-to-be. The only one more relaxed was LJ.
Manion raised the first glass. “To Peter Fallon of Boston, who found the seven notebooks.”
“It was LJ who found them,” said Peter. “I was just along for moral support.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you, Dad,” said LJ.
“In some things, Fallon,” said Manion, “no one is your equal.”
“Why, Manion, so much Mr. Nice Guy,” said Evangeline. “What’s come over you?”
“That.” He gestured to a pickup truck pulling into the parking lot.
A woman in her late fifties got out and came up the path, moving with straight-up confidence in a nice pair of jeans, a silk blouse, and leather jacket: Ginny O’Hara.
She took a seat next to Manion and said, “Sorry I’m late. I had animals to tend.”
They drank the best Manion Gold old-vine Zinfandel with bacon-wrapped petit filets, hot-house tomatoes, and garlic-grilled bread.
“Perfect for lunch or dinner.”
That was the pronouncement of brother George. And Manion gave him the honor of announcing that the brothers would be buying Arbella House from the estate and creating a new trust to keep it in the family.
Then they toasted John Yung, who had come out with his son. “He will continue as our caretaker.”
They drank and talked and laughed in the warming sun. They admired the way the land rolled up from Rainbow Gulch, then turned at that bump that Flynn had first noticed and Spencer had named after him.
But when Cutler suggested “just a little” core sampling, Manion said he was planning to grow Chardonnay grapes out there, and if the wine was good, they would call it Flynn’s Bend Chardonnay.
“That will be the gold,” said Peter.
“The best gold of all,” said Evangeline.
“Gold in the glass,” said Jack Cutler.
“And gold in the future.” Peter raised his glass toward LJ and Mary. “To the golden future of two fine young people.”
“Here, here,” said Jack Cutler.
“I’d love to host a wedding,” said Manion. “Or two?”
“Or two?” said Evangeline. “I don’t know.”
“I was talking about us,” said Manion, and he took Ginny’s hand.
* * *
AFTER LUNCH, MANION GAVE a vineyard tour to the newcomers.
But Peter and Evangeline went off on their own in a golf cart, off to Rainbow Gulch. They parked amidst the first ancient vines planted by two Croatian brothers. They clambered down into the dark bottom of the ravine, then climbed again, up into the afternoon sunlight, up to the little graveyard where so many dreams, the fulfilled and the forgotten, lay forever in the earth.
They combed through the markers, some blank or weatherbeaten, a few identifying the remains beneath, until they found it, overgrown and brush-covered: MICHAEL FLYNN, 1823–1851. A RIGHT CHARMER, A REAL LOVER, AND A FINE SINGING VOICE, TOO.
“A fine epitaph,” said Peter.
Evangeline knelt to touch the stone. “You can feel the ghosts.”
“They’re always here.” Peter looked along the ravine that once had throbbed with so much life, then he gazed south along the river of grapevines. “Always showing us the way.”
Evangeline stood and took his arm. “Maybe they can show us the way back to the guesthouse.”
“Separate beds?”
“No. As James Spencer would call it, our Bower of Bliss.”