PALACE HOTEL
APRIL 17, 1906. 6:40 P.M.
Three floors below where an uneasy Kaitlin primped, Enrico Caruso and Alfred Hertz climbed into the chauffeured Rolls Royce that Adam Rolf had provided. Caruso was weary from his journey and the tumultuous rehearsal. The prospects of a ruinous opening night complicated his melancholy.
"Signorina Fremstad is maybe correct," Caruso said. "Thees chorus are imbecilli! They no know where to stand, where to sing, niente."
"Enrico, everyone will come to hear the great Caruso. Look around you. Look at the banners and the poster cards. This is the most exciting thing that has ever happened here. If the extras failed to show up for the performance, no one would even notice. Tonight, you will make history."
Caruso let Hertz' words sink in. "You are right, Alfred. They are pay to see Caruso. Tonight, I am give best Caruso ever."
Out in Pacific Heights, in the bedroom of his Italianate Victorian on Fillmore Street, Eugene Schmitz paced like a condemned man. The crushing suspicion that Adam Rolf, despite vociferous denials, was behind the death of Byron Fallon had deeply unsettled him. The visit to Ah Toy's house of horrors had been the final straw.
He walked through the French doors to his rooftop terrace and leaned against the rail, staring through the Golden Gate where the silver canopy of evening hung above the dark water. He scanned the bay to Angel Island where Byron's body had been found.
"Eugene. Eugene!" his wife called impatiently. "You haven't bathed or shaved yet. You know how upset he gets when you're late."
"Telephone Mr. Rolf and tell him we're not going."
"What do you mean, we're not going?"
"We're not going, Julia, and I'm not in any mood to argue. Just tell him we're not going. Tell him I'll explain later."
At the Central Fire Station on Bush Street, Dennis Sullivan rose from his desk on the third floor and rubbed his tired eyes. He stared at the roll of blueprints that covered the desk and hung over both sides. His last chance to overcome the greed of Rolf and Schmitz and get the resources he needed would come at nine o'clock the next morning when he would present the plans to Judge Morrow.
Maggie was in the bedroom at the end of the hall, putting on her earrings when he entered.
"I thought maybe I'd take you to the Palace Grill and have a quick glass of champagne before the opera," he said.
"You did, did you? Then you better hurry."
He smiled and kissed her warmly.
"Dennis. You haven't kissed me like that in so long I can't remember."
"Then shame on me." He stepped to his dressing closet and pulled out the black tuxedo. "I really do hate these things," he muttered.
"How many times in our lives will we get to see Enrico Caruso? Let's look sharp and enjoy ourselves."
Sullivan stripped off his coveralls and unbuttoned his wool shirt. He had one leg into his tuxedo pants when the fire bell went off. In the iron cage hanging in the corner of the room the other Sullivan, a blue-green cockatiel, started squawking, "Fire! Fire! Fire!"
"Oh, Lord," cried Maggie, "not now."
Sullivan stepped out of his trousers and hurried to the small brass horn on the wall next to his bedroom door. "What is it?"
Assistant Chief Dougherty shouted through the hollow tube from three stories below. "Spotter at North Point Station called it in. Looks like the California Cannery on Bay Street. It's a doer."
"Let's send every pumper and Hayes truck from North Beach, the Financial District, two companies South of the Slot. I'm on my way down."
A glum Maggie stared at him and started removing her earrings. "Why don't you go by yourself, Maggie? You'll be sitting with Mr. Spreckels and his guests."
"And worry myself sick about you the whole time? I don't know why you can't let Mr. Dougherty handle it."
"The man's sixty-eight, Maggie. I can't take the chance."
"And as long as these thieves in City Hall keep stealing all the money, you'll have to keep rushing off every time a kitchen stove flares up." She threw her earrings onto the dresser.
Dennis Sullivan recognized the futility of another response. He pulled on his britches and hurried to a hallway closet, sliding down the slick brass pole to the firehouse below.
On Dolores Street near Seventeenth Avenue, in the working-class Mission District, Angela Feeney, a plain woman with streaks of graying hair, answered the door to find a handsome young man in a blue suit and tie.
"I'm Hunter Fallon. I'm here to see Mr. Feeney."
She smiled politely and ushered him inside. She led him past a parlor filled with stodgy furniture and down a narrow hallway to a miniscule study.
Charles Feeney was busy typewriting a report. He looked over the top of his spectacles. "Hello, Hunter. What do you have for me?"
Hunter produced two black disks and handed them to Feeney, who raised his eyebrows.
"The first one is a recording of Adam Rolf discussing his bribe with the Senator's aide. They're planning to reroute the railroad from Oakland into San Francisco. The second is Kelly demanding fifty grand from Rolf for killing my father and delivering the papers he was carrying."
Feeney removed his spectacles and stood, staring at Hunter. "You recorded these conversations? How in God's name?"
"It was work, but we did it, sir. It's their voices, talking over the telephone, incriminating themselves as sure as we're standing here."
"Fingerprints, voice recordings from a telephone line," Feeney said. "It's a bit farfetched but maybe we'll get lucky. My biggest concern is for Miss Passarelli's safety."
"Kelly is withholding her name from Rolf so he can raise the price. I'll be watching her."
Feeney handed over a manila folder. "Federal warrants for Mayor Schmitz, Police Chief Donen, and Adam Rolf for bribery, extortion, corruption, and slave trading. There are others for Donen, Rolf, Kelly, and Scarface—his real name is Willis Polk—for murder of a police officer. A guaranteed trip to the gallows if we can make it stick. This should send a wave of fear through every dirty politician from here to Boston."
"Right now, all I'm thinking about is justice for my father and making sure Annalisa lives to tell her story."
Feeney looked at the recordings in his hand. "You know, if these things hold up in court, it will change police work. It will give us tools we never dreamed of."
"It's the Twentieth Century, Mr. Feeney. It's about time."