BUSH STREET
APRIL 16, 1906. 12:05 A.M.
My footsteps had been reverberating amongst the empty desks and file cabinets of the Evening Bulletin's editorial offices for more than an hour, every imaginable scenario for the fate of Byron Fallon skipping through my mind. The sudden jolt of electric lights made me jump.
I turned to find Fremont Older striding toward me, his face contorted in anguish.
The shrill voice of a Mary McDermitt, sent from the Midwest by Prince Benjamin of the Flying Rollers of the House of David to warn us of the disaster he was about to unleash upon us, rose above the honking horns and rumbling wheels six stories below. "Pride precedeth the fall. Hence did Babylon and Rome reap their vain glory in fiery doom!"
Older stormed to the window and slammed it shut. "Every day, it's a different lunatic. Last month, it was the nuts waving Zadkiel's Almanac, screaming that Mars was in cahoots with Saturn or some nonsense and an earthquake was going to bring everything down on top of us."
He looked at me sternly, as if just noticing my presence.
"If you are filing your Barrymore review, Annalisa, it will have to wait."
"I've already done that, sir. Do you have news of Byron Fallon?"
"Byron Fallon? How did you hear about Byron Fallon?"
I hesitated. "Mr. Feeney telephoned me at the Opera House."
He dropped his brown Fedora onto a nearby desk, and might have asked "and why would he do that?" but the look did it for him.
I breathed a long, pained sigh. The only two men who knew my identity as Byron's informant, Francis Fagen and Charles Feeney, were nowhere to be found, and I was as frightened as I could remember. That left Mr. Older as the only one in whom I could confide, as he had initiated the entire graft hunt. If my fears were realized, the oath of secrecy I had taken to the good Lieutenant was now meaningless.
"I've been his secret informant for almost a year and a half now."
"If this is a joke, Annalisa, I've heard better."
"Not much of a joking matter, sir."
I proceeded to summarize, in a strained, halting voice, my activities: reporting my findings to Byron Fallon, purloining Rolf's ledger, delivering my affidavits.
Older's breathing quickened, his face reddened and collar tightened as the veins strained in his neck. I was afraid his head might explode. I steadied myself. "Rolf's fawning pals do a lot less fawning and a lot more complaining after a little Mumm's. The only man boorish enough to serve champagne in his opera box. That might actually be his undoing." Older stammered several times before he managed to get the words out. "I'm so flabbergasted, Annalisa, I'm having trouble being angry. All these months. Working right here under my own nose. You know how this looks? It looks like I sent you in as a spy, like I used you as bait to entice Rolf's pals to turn against him."
"I was only following instructions, sir. Lieutenant Fallon and Mr. Feeney demanded that I report to no one but them."
"I should fire you on the spot."
"I'm sure the city editor at the Examiner would be more understanding."
"You would do that to me, Annalisa?"
"The question is, Mr. Older, would you do that to me? Byron Fallon may be dead and God knows who has my signed affidavits. At the moment, my employment is the least of my concerns."
He gazed toward the Ferry Building as a gaff-rigged schooner, its sails illuminated by the ghostly waterfront lights, reached toward the Washington Street Pier.
"Another boatload of those wretched little Chinese girls," he said. "This was supposed to be the day we put an end to this God-forsaken nightmare. Maybe these lunatics are right; we ought to burn in Hell for this madness."
His shoulders slumped; he put his hat back on his head and shuffled painfully toward his office. He stood there in the doorway, unable to move, teetering so that I feared he might collapse.
No one knew the fear of challenging the entrenched evil in San Francisco more than Fremont Older, who inherited the Bulletin's mantle not long after its founding editor, James King of William, was gunned down by a corrupt city supervisor following a series of blistering exposés. Older had survived lawsuits, attacks on his employees, labor strikes orchestrated by Adam Rolf, physical assaults, death threats, and editorial ridicule from the Examiner's William Randolph Hearst and the Chronicle's Michael de Young to become the principal voice of the City's reform.
The previous year, Older had devoted the majority of the Bulletin's editorials to defeating Eugene Schmitz' bid for re-election. The effort had little effect on a populace seduced by Schmitz' charm and Rolf's money. Schmitz and his entire ticket, all eighteen of Rolf’s hand-picked candidates for supervisor's seats, were swept into office, a triumph that stunned even the victors.
A disbelieving Fremont Older and his wife Cora left the newspaper offices after receiving the election results, only to encounter a jeering mob organized by a vindictive Rolf. The mob followed the couple, hurling debris and insults, all the way to the Palace Hotel where the Olders maintained a suite.
Now, even that pain seemed minor. That his crusade may have cost the life of the bravest police officer in San Francisco pushed Older's spirit to the breaking point.
I sagged into the stiff-backed chair at my cluttered desk, unsure of anything. I let my head drift to the worn surface, too numb and enraged to weep.
Out on San Francisco Bay, the mood was no less pained. The fog and churning sea had delayed the efforts of The Brotherhood by precious hours. Aboard the roiling deck of the steam launch Alcatrice, Hunter examined a nautical map as his cousin Francis struggled to steady the bulky Eveready on it.
Hunter pointed to a spot on the map halfway between the Golden Gate and Alcatraz. "If dad went overboard on the San Francisco side of the rip, the ebb tide pulls him out through the Golden Gate. With a six, seven knot current he'd be halfway to the Farallon Islands unless he got lucky and drifted ashore at China Beach or Point Lobos."
Though he was the newest member of The Brotherhood, Hunter was easily the finest sailor, having spent many childhood hours studying nautical maps and tide charts, carefully marking out the locations of the more than two hundred shipwrecks that had occurred around the treacherous bay.
"China Beach, the rocks along there, that's about a man's only chance," Francis said, his normally calm tone now pained and raspy.
A few feet behind them, Max was vomiting over the stern, brother Carlo lying across his ankles, holding him aboard in the chop.
"Then we have to pray he made it over the rip to the flood tide," Hunter shouted as a bow beater soaked them, coating the deck an inch deep in water. "I say we hit Alcatraz, Angel Island, then through Raccoon Straits to Belvedere. If he's at China Beach or on the rocks, he'd probably be safe for awhile."
Throughout, Christian said nothing. Only Max was more seasick than he.
"All right," Francis said, "Hunter's right. I've seen it a dozen times on rescues with the Harbor Police. We hit the islands. Let's move."
Patrick kissed his St. Christopher medal and mumbled a seaman's prayer. He looked over at his brother Francis, whose face reaffirmed his doubt.
It would be a long, cold, painful night, with Max and Christian so ill from the turbulent waters that they were unable to come to blows.