Brol Mattoon leaned on the end of the long mahogany bar and ranged his view over the Porpoise Saloon. It was a huge place with tables for two hundred patrons, a dance floor where twenty couples could swing and promenade to music without being crowded, and thirty poker tables that he rented out by the week to professional gamblers. There were rooms upstairs for the saloon girls to entertain their male customers.
Mattoon was a large man, thick in chest and legs. His face was darkened by a two day’s growth of coarse black beard. He was dressed all in gray, wool trousers, broadcloth shirt and a jacket. His jacket was cut to fit so there was space for the .36- caliber Colt revolver in a shoulder holster, and so he could move freely and quickly.
It was late at night and the throng that had crowded the saloon earlier had left. Only the bartender filling shelves with full bottles for the next day’s customers, and Sadie, a tall blonde woman who managed the Porpoise for Mattoon when he was away on other business, which was most of the time.
Sadie was one of the prettiest women he had ever seen—and also the most deadly. For that reason he had never bedded her, though he knew he could if he wanted to. Best to use her kind of woman strictly for business. He knew she was skimming a substantial sum of money off the top of what the Porpoise brought in. The time would come when she stole more than her services were worth. When that happened he would shanghai her off to China. With her blonde hair and white breasts, and the white other parts of her, some rich Chinaman would pay a fortune to possess her.
He prized the Porpoise Saloon, located on The Embarcadero, the main street fronting San Francisco Bay, the most highly prized of all his possessions. From the Porpoise he sent out his men to collect monies for the protection of waterfront businesses. He had little concern for trouble from the police. Though San Francisco was a lusty, rapidly growing city of 150,000 people, its police force consisted of but 130 men. No more than fifty men were on duty at any one time. Rarely did one of them venture onto the waterfront at night or to the wild Barbary Coast where he had several sailors’ boarding houses.
Mattoon was proud of the fact he shanghaied more seamen than any other crimp in the city. The live body of a strong man was worth several hundred dollars to a ship’s captain heading out to sea on a two, or three-year whaling or sealing voyage. The pimps and their whores who plied their trade in the bawdy houses and on the streets paid Mattoon for protection. The businessmen on the waterfront, and the owners of the tugboats on the bay paid protection money, and it was a rare ship that brought cargo to San Francisco and got off again without its captain paying Mattoon’s gang of collectors.
“Be certain to lock everything up tight,” Mattoon called out to Sadie.
“You’re leaving?”
“I’ve got other business to take care of.”
“When will you be back?” Sadie asked.
“What the hell difference does that matter?” Mattoon snapped, instantly angry at Sadie’s prying question. “Just do your job.”
The woman backed up a step, knowing she had overreached herself. Her eyes became hooded, and keenly alert. She had witnessed Mattoon’s quick temper before, a flash of anger that was often immediately followed by a blow from his fists. The fact she was a woman would not protect her, she was sure.
Mattoon saw Sadie was wary of him, but not afraid. However if she ever realized he had discovered she was skimming money off the top of the saloon’s take, she was vicious enough to take action to protect herself, even to try and kill him. He decided at that moment to send her on the long voyage to China in the very near future. He smiled at the thought. Sadie, seeing the smile, gave a tentative smile in return. He widened his smile and watched her relax. Fool, you won’t like what I have in store for you. He turned and went across the saloon and let himself out the door onto the street.
Fog had joined with the night to make The Embarcadero full of cold, damp darkness. The streetlamps, spaced every two blocks, were but small, yellow pools in the murk. Mattoon moved off without hesitation.
He reflected on the task yet to complete this night, and the payment that would follow. With pleasant anticipation, he began to whistle as he strode along.
* * *
Captain Groton, master of the clipper ship Roamer, matched the stride of Brol Mattoon as they went swiftly through the foggy night. The captain heard the muffled tread of the felt-shod feet of the fifty-six Chinese virgins as they hurried close behind them. Louder still came the thudding bootfalls of Mattoon’s six armed guards flanking the virgins on both sides and bringing up the rear.
The time was an hour before dawn, when the government harbor officials would be asleep and the streets deserted. With luck the transfer of the girls from his ship to Chung Pak, the noted Chinese auctioneer, could be made without detection. The girls would be hidden in a secure place until their sale.
Even with Mattoon’s men the captain still worried about the Chinese tongs for he knew that they would be aware of the arrival of his ship late in the evening and the beautiful virgins hidden below decks. The tongs always knew everything that happened in the Chinese world of San Francisco. Without Mattoon it was a certainty that a band of the tong fighters would attack out of the darkness and carry off the captain’s valuable cargo.
The virgins were the most prized cargo that he could have brought from the Orient. He had been very fortunate to discover the dealer in women in Canton. The man had just returned from the inland provinces with a collection of unbelievably beautiful girls. Groton had used all his money to purchase a portion of them, selecting only the most lovely. The price had been high, four hundred dollars for each girl. He had guarded them vigilantly from his female-starved crew during the long voyage from China. Now they would be quickly sold to the rich and lonely Chinese merchants in San Francisco for large sums of money. The most beautiful would bring at least three thousand dollars. He stood to make a fortune from the girls, and he did not want to lose them, not even one.
A stiff ten-minute walk ended when Mattoon halted at a large warehouse. He opened a heavy door and entered the building. The procession of girls and their guards followed him inside.
Mattoon found a lantern hanging beside the door, raised the globe and lit the wick with a match. He lifted the lantern so that its yellow light washed over the assemblage of people.
“Groton, are all your girls here?” Mattoon asked.
“I’ll check,” said the captain. He made a quick count of the frightened ivory faces. “They’re all here,” he said.
“Vetter stand watch,” Mattoon ordered one of his men. “I don’t expect any trouble now that we’re inside but stay awake.”
“Right, Brol, nobody’ll get past me,” Vetter replied. He closed the door and put his hand on the butt of the pistol stuck under his belt.
“Come with me,” Mattoon said to Groton. He led on past huge piles of goods in boxes, crates, and barrels toward a distant, lighted comer of the warehouse.
Mattoon slowed as he approached the Chinaman sitting at a table upon which rested two brightly burning lanterns. The man was aged, and very gaunt with a sparse, gray beard. He was dressed in the most plain brown silk clothing, trousers, shirt and simple jacket with its collar turned up as if he was cold. Two wary young Chinamen, strung taut as bow strings, stood close behind the old man. Their hands were inside their loosely fitting, brocaded silk coats. One of the men wore maroon and the other black. A flat-crowned hat of matching color sat upon each man’s head. Their long, braided queues hung from under the hats and reached down below their shoulders.
Mattoon halted and glanced briefly at the seated Chinaman, Chung Pak. Then his view swept over the two standing men. He knew the men represented the two strongest fighting tongs in San Francisco, the Chee Kong Tong and Kwang Duck Tong. Each man would be armed with a revolver and knife. The tongs were the only worthy competition Mattoon had. When laced with opium and their blood pumping wildly, the tong fighters were totally fearless. Men without fear were the most dangerous animals in the world.
The old Chinaman arose and bowed very low to Mattoon and then to Groton. “It is a pleasure to see you, Brol Mattoon. And you also Captain Groton.”
“Hello, Chung Pak,” Mattoon said. You lying, yellow bastard. Glad to see me, my ass. You and your kind are my worst enemies.
“It’s my pleasure to meet you again, Chung Pak,” the captain replied.
Pak focused his black eyes on Groton. “The message that your seaman brought requested that I meet you here. So I have come.”
“Thank you.” Groton was pleased that Pak had accepted. Through his hands passed nearly every Chinese woman that arrived in the city. The master of every fighting tong needed the assistance of the trusted auctioneer to such an extent that once the virgins were placed in his custody, they would be totally safe from being stolen. Any tong member who broke the cloak of protection given Chung Pak would be put to death in the most horrible manner. The two tong fighters with Chung Pak were there to show the protection still was in effect. They would be the strongest, and most fierce fighters the two tongs had.
“‘I have brought fifty-six young virgins from your land that lies so far away. They are very beautiful and should end the loneliness of some of your countrymen who now live in America. I wish that you would arrange their sale to men who will be kind to them.”
“Maybe you have only fifty-five virgins to sell,” Mattoon said in a coarse voice. He ran his eyes over the girls.
“Maybe so for I must pay you for your protection,” Captain Groton said, trying to keep his dislike for Mattoon out of his voice. The man ruled the underworld of the waterfront, with his own motley army composed of scores of head-knockers, murderers, riffraff spawned in a dozen countries and now washed upon the San Francisco shore. Ship owners paid bounty to him to see that harm did not come to their cargo or vessels. Unlike Mattoon, the tongs of the city never directly attacked white men, though they would steal newly arrived Chinese girls from them if the opportunity presented itself.
In those first months after Mattoon’s arrival in San Francisco eleven years before, a few ship captains had refused to pay his collectors when they came with hands out asking for money and promising nothing except to leave them carry on their business in safety. When denied his tribute, Mattoon never made a second request, or threatened reprisal. In the night a swarm of men would rush aboard the ship, overpower the crewmen and set fires at several locations. The landward end of the dock would always be blocked with mounds of cargo, placed there by Mattoon’s men from elsewhere on the waterfront, to slow the fire engines. The ships often suffered severe damage, and one had burned to the waterline and sunk at its mooring. All during an attack, Mattoon would be in some saloon drinking with a dozen men who would be his witnesses that he had no part in the fires.
“One thousand dollars in gold, or one of the girls, wasn’t that your price?” the captain asked, hating Mattoon and fearing which option he would choose.
“That’s my price, and a damned fair one too.” Mattoon chuckled at the tone of Groton’s voice. Why was the man angry at the price? Mattoon had given protection as promised, guarding the girls until they could be put under the care of Chung Pak. Further, the sale of the slave girls was unlawful and carried risk beyond that which might come from the tongs.
“Which do you want, the gold or the girl?” the captain asked.
Mattoon spun around and swept his eyes over his men bunched in the edge of the lantern light. He called out to them. “What’ll be your pleasure, lads, the gold to divide among you, or one of these beautiful heathen virgins to share?”
“You always take most of the gold leavin’ only a little for us to divide,” a stoop-shouldered Italian with a pockmarked face called back. “I’d get the same thing you get if we took a girl.”
“I agree with that,” said a broad faced German. “We all do, don’t we fellows?”
The remainder of Mattoon’s men shouted out their agreement. All were grinning with wolfishly anticipation.
“You’ve had your say,” Mattoon replied. He turned back to Groton. “You heard the lads. Line the pretty girls up and let me look them over.”
“I’ll choose you one,” the captain said hastily.
“No you won’t,” Mattoon said and laughed at Groton. Miserly bastard would give him the least pretty one. “I’ll pick the girl. Tell them to form a circle around the lantern so I can see them good in the light.”
The captain started to protest, for he knew Mattoon would select the most beautiful virgin, and therefore the most valuable. But he caught himself up short and said nothing. He could not win, so why be stupid and argue and arouse Mattoon’s anger.
“I don’t know how to tell them that,” the captain said. “Chung Pak, will you tell them?”
Pak dreaded what he knew was about to happen, but he kept his countenance composed. The beauty of a woman was often a very great danger to her. Men such as Mattoon and his underlings did not cherish beauty as it should be cherished. God created female beauty for the enjoyment of man, and most certainly to satisfy his deepest needs and desires. So it was natural that a man should love a woman, even with some vigor, but never so roughly as to mar her loveliness. Mattoon and his band would destroy any woman Pak selected. They were nothing but dog offal.
Pak looked sorrowfully at the young girls huddled together where they had first stopped. They watched him closely staring up with frightened eyes from lowered heads. They sensed something was about to happen to them, something very bad.
“Come closer into the light, my daughters.” Pak spoke in the language of the girls and motioned with his hands. Still thinking about Mattoon, Pak’s voice and gestures were more brusque than he intended.
The small, young women in their loosely fitting clothing shuffled forward. They never took their eyes off Pak. I’m no protection for you, Pak thought.
“I want them in a circle around me, Pak,” Mattoon said.
“Form a circle around the big ugly white man,” Pak said.
The girls did as Pak said. Their eyes were turned down now and staring at the floor.
“Have them look at me,” Mattoon ordered the old Chinaman. “I want to see which one has the prettiest face, and other parts.”
At Mattoon’s harsh, insulting tone, Chung Pak’s hate for the man swelled until it almost escaped him. He heard the angry growl of his two tong fighters close beside him. They were his to command, so why shouldn’t he signal and send them flying at Mattoon with their knives and pistols? They were fearless fighters and just might slay Mattoon before they were shot down. To succeed in that effort was worth the lives of the two fighters and even Pak’s also. For years Mattoon had harassed and slain the Chinese men of the city, and abused the women terribly. He could do it safely, for no Chinaman could testify against a white man in an American court. How many of Pak’s countrymen had Mattoon and his men destroyed? Scores surely.
None of Pak’s thoughts had registered on his face. He put up his hand to silence the tong hatchetmen. He could not launch an attack on the white men now. He must discuss the intolerable situation surrounding Mattoon with Scom Lip. That tong leader would know what to do, and could organize the proper method of obliterating the enemy.
He spoke again to the virgins. “My fair, young daughters, please look at the white man.”
Reluctantly but obediently, the eyes of the girls rose to the face of the giant white man with the big head.
Mattoon walked slowly around the circle of virgins, examining each face and body. Now and again he reached out and pressed the loose clothing tightly to a girl’s body and felt her breast and hips. He completed the circle and started a second turn.
He halted before a slender girl, and leaned over her with his mouth open and teeth exposed like a hungry animal. She began to tremble looking up at the huge man towering above her.
Mattoon’s hand snaked out and caught the front of the girl’s gown at the neck. He hesitated for a moment staring into her eyes, enjoying her total fear. Then he jerked roughly, strongly downward. The girl cried out as she was yanked forward and her gown ripped down to her navel. She caught her forward movement just inches from Mattoon.
“I’ll take this one,” Mattoon said.
He bent and caught the tail of the torn gown and pulled upward, stripping it from the girl’s body. She stood naked before him and all the men. She cried out and her hands jumped to cover her breasts, then hastily moved to cover her pubic region. Then so scared and so uncertain as to what to try and hide, her hands fluttered back and forth like crippled birds between her breasts and lower region.
Mattoon’s fingernails had raked a furrow across one of the girl’s small, firm teats. Now blood began to flow from the injury, coursing down and dripping from the nipple.
“My men will like her,” Mattoon said to Groton and Pak. “And, Groton, thanks for bringing some real heathen beauties to choose from. Now take the others and leave.” He laughed a short string of chuckles at the angry expression on Groton’s face. He would like to know what Chung Pak with his unreadable face was thinking.
Groton turned away without replying. The girl no longer belonged to him. Her fate was sealed, and with Mattoon guiding, it would be a very bad ending.
Pak spoke to the remaining girls and they hurriedly pulled back from the naked one, as if she was a leper. The two tong fighters did not move. They stared at Mattoon with black, hostile eyes.
Mattoon nonchalantly looked back at the tong men. His mouth stretched into a grin as white and dead as a bleached bone. In their domain of the yellow-skinned heathen Chinese, the tong fighters were much feared. Mattoon had no fear of them. He spread his hands toward them, daring them to come at him and fight.
“Let us go,” Pak said to his two guards. The odds must be better when they did attack Mattoon.
Mattoon lowered his hands. “Leave one of the lanterns, Pak. Take the one at the outside door as your second light.”
“Very well, Brol Mattoon,” Pak said. He pointed at one of the lights and again spoke to his fighters. “Bring one and lead the way out of this cursed place.”
The fighters glanced at each other and then questioningly at Chung Pak. He watched them stonily. Do as I told you, he willed them.
The fighter in maroon clothing made one shallow nod as if he had heard the silent command. “Yes, Honorable Pak.” He took a light and went toward the outside door. Pak herded the girls after him. The second fighter came last, watching to the rear.
The girl left behind near Mattoon whirled suddenly and started to run after the last Chinaman. Mattoon grabbed her by her long, black hair and yanked her back. He spun her to face him.
He caught the girl by the waist, his long fingers completely encircling her body. She began to tremble violently as he lifted her off the floor. He brought her close, and taking most of her injured teat into his maw of a mouth, sucked long and hard on it. He liked the copper and salt taste of her warm blood, and her trembling body brought him immediate tumescence.
“Right tasty,” Mattoon said, removing his mouth from the girl’s teat and licking his lips. “Now for the rest of her.” He folded the girl in his arms, pressing her tightly against him, and carried her to a pile of burlap sacks used to hold wheat.
The girl realized what he meant to do to her and began to strike and kick, trying to break free. Mattoon smothered her arms with is and laughed at her futile efforts. “I sure like them when they fight me,” he said.
He opened his trousers with one hand, and then knelt and laid the girl down on her back on the sacks. He forced her legs apart with his knee and positioned himself. With one savage thrust, he entered her. She shuddered with the pain and screamed. God! how he liked to take the virgins. There had never been any doubt as to what he would choose for his payment. His men only thought they had made the choice. He took her completely in a flurry of deep thrusts with all his men watching.
Mattoon rose from the girl and fastened his clothing. He did not once glance down at her lying trembling on the rough burlap sacks.
Now to give the men his leavings, Mattoon thought, and at the same time bind them to him, as much as you could bind such scoundrels. He looked at Vetter who was just arriving from his station at the door of the warehouse. “Your turn’s next, Vetter. But listen to me. You like to hit women when you make love to them. Don’t you hit this one. Leave her face pretty for the others.”
“All right,” Vetter said, but showing his disappointment.
“When all the men are done having their fun, take the girl to Fat Genevive,” Mattoon said. “Tell that old whore that I want one thousand dollars for this little moon-eyed Celestial. She’s been used a little, but she’s still worth a thousand dollars and I’ll not take a penny less. You hold the money until I see you next time.”
“I’ll do that,” Vetter said.
“See that you do.” Mattoon went off through the dark warehouse with a jaunty stride and whistling.
Vetter lay down upon the ivory skinned girl. She shoved at his chest with her small hands trying to push him off. He crushed her arms against her, and entered her. She cried out with a sobbing moan.
* * *
Mattoon stepped from the warehouse onto the street. He glanced skyward through the fog and could see the night was beginning to fade and daylight not more than an hour away. He struck out walking swiftly.
He passed a section of the city containing sailors’ boarding houses. He owned a block of them. A quarter mile further along, he entered a street of older one-and two-story houses. In a hurry, he did not wait until he reached the gate of a nondescript one-story house surrounded and almost completely hidden by shrubbery and trees, but stepped over the low fence and into the yard. Immediately he was lost to view by anyone watching from the street or from one of the nearby houses.
Within the house, a middle-aged Chinaman heard the heavy footsteps on the stoop. He sprang from his chair where he had sat waiting throughout the night. Never did he sleep during the dark hours, for the master might arrive at any moment—and the master demanded instant service. The Chinaman scurried across the room to the door and stopped. He bowed deeply as Mattoon shoved the door open and came inside.
“A bath and see to it that the tub’s full and hot,” Mattoon said, moving past the Chinaman without slowing. “Lay out my clothes.”
The Chinaman held his bow until Mattoon had crossed the room and entered the bath, then he hastened to an adjoining room and to the tank of water he had kept warm by a fire beneath it. He opened the valve to allow the water to flow from the tank through a pipe in the wall and into the tub in the bathroom. He had tested the temperature of the water several times and knew it was correct.
Mattoon heard the water spilling into the tub as he undressed.
He tossed his stained clothing onto the floor, then dipped his hands into the water, wet his face, and lathered it with soap from a mug. Standing naked before the mirror, he began to shave.
“Po, come here,” Mattoon ordered.
The Chinaman appeared in the doorway. “Yes, Mr. Mattoon?”
“Any visitors come here today?” Mattoon watched the man in the mirror.
“No, Mr. Mattoon.” Po looked steadily back into the eyes watching him intently from the mirror. He feared the man, but he must not show it, and he could not leave his employment until he had permission. He lowered his view to Mattoon’s pale-skinned body, more than twice his size. With every motion the man made, his cord-like muscles rippled and knotted. He could and would kill without hesitation if he knew, or only guessed who Po’s real master was.
“Good. Are my boots polished?”
“Certainly, Mr. Mattoon.”
“Saddle my horse,” Mattoon said, dismissing the man.
* * *
Mattoon had finished his bath and dressed. He wore a white silk shirt and a black, wool suit, very elegant and cut to perfectly fit his heavily muscled body. His boots shone like polished steel and a black hat sat at a rakish angle upon his head. He left by the rear door.
He moved along the tree-lined path to the stables behind the house and went inside. Po handed him the bridle reins of a black gelding. Mattoon always walked when on the waterfront, but uptown he rode wherever he went. He checked the girth, cursed loudly enough for Po to hear him, and tightened it a notch. The Chinaman never got it right.
He mounted and rode the gelding out of the stable and along the alleyway to the street. He reined the horse up the slanting street toward San Francisco’s heart. He felt tremendously alive as he rode through the cool morning breeze sweeping the city. Every muscle of his body was bursting with energy, as if he had the strength of half a dozen men. He laughed at that thought, a loud laugh with no mirth, like rocks hitting. The sound sped up the man-made canyon of the street, ricocheting and echoing.
Mattoon, in his mind’s eye, soared upward from the ground until all San Francisco lay spread below him. He could see the great blue bay with its scores of ships, miles of jutting piers, and the warehouses and factories lining the waterfront and The Embarcadero. Landward from the waterfront, sand hills rose covered with a multitude of office buildings and businesses, and higher still the homes of the rich. In this uptown world beneath a thin veneer of fancy clothing and polite manners, ruthless men connived against each other in cut-throat competition, took bribes, and robbed with forged documents. When all else failed, they committed murder by the ritual of the duel. A strong man who acted boldly could do whatever he wanted in this town.