The Six Messiahs

The grip relaxed enough for him to croak out an answer. 'Little Pete.'

'Little Pete? What sort of name is that for a civilized person?'

'Real name is ... Fung Jing Toy. Chinatown boss.'

'Which tong does he lead?'

'Sue Yop Tong.'

'Where will I find Little Pete?'

'On Leong Society Building,' croaked the trustee.

'The Chamber of Tranquil Conscientiousness?'

The trustee nodded again. For a Chinese demon, this one spoke pretty good English, he thought, just before its grip tightened on his neck like a band of iron; another blinding flash in the air. The trustee blacked out.

When he came to, a crowd of men from all the building's rooms milled around the decapitated remains of well-known neighborhood tough Charlie Lee. The trustee scrambled to his feet, sharing their happiness that the reign of terror had come to such a satisfying end: It wasn't a demon after all! Picking up the extortionist's grab bag, the trustee began to distribute its coins to the residents: What a stroke of fortune! He took none for himself; a change of heart had come over the trustee, a spurt of generosity that might last as long as another two days: The demon had let him live!

In his elation, the trustee took no notice of the slender, quiet man who had come in the day before, the last to leave his pallet and step into the hallway with the others. The man stood near the back of the crowd, apart from them, his bundle over his shoulder. Ready to go.

Fung Jing Toy noisily sucked out the marrow between the webbing of the pickled duck's foot. A delicacy his lower-caste family could never afford, duck's feet served every afternoon was one of the more genteel ways in which Little Pete reminded himself of the good fortune that twenty years of back-breaking work and self-sacrifice had given him. Although of modest stature befitting his nickname and an outwardly mild disposition, Little Pete was in his basic nature a man of ravenous appetites, and he rarely obeyed any impulse to hold them in check.

He was the only tong leader with whom 'Blind Chris' Buckley and the corrupt white political establishment of San Francisco could negotiate comfortably; the rest of these top-dog Chinamen acted too high and mighty by half for their taste. Little Pete was the only one of them who laughed at the insults they casually tossed in his face, a clown who bowed and scraped in a manner reflecting his inferior racial status.

But Chris Buckley and his cronies recognized in Little Pete a man fiercely dedicated to an objective dear to their own hearts: the perpetual containment, subjugation, and enslavement of the city's Chinese population. The residents of Tangrenbu lived in mortal fear of Pete and the vicious henchmen of his Sue Yop Tong. Although five other criminal tongs owned significant holdings in Tangrenbu, Little Pete's On Leong Society controlled the flow of opium into the quarter. He owned many of the sweatshops where addicts slaved away for the pennies they spent to fill their bowls every night and most of the verminous flophouses where they slept it off.

In trade for their cooperation with the political machine, the six tongs had been granted sole responsibility for the importation and regulation of all workers from mainland China. And through Buckley's cozy association with the powerful railroad barons of San Francisco—Hopkins, Huntington, Crocker, and Stanford—Little Pete had become chief supplier of 'coolie' labor for the expansion of the western lines. In Mandarin dialect, kuli signified 'bitter strength.'

So for the privilege of resettling in this land of opportunity, once a lower-caste worker passed through the sheds at the embarcadero he was chattel, owned and exploited to the grave by Little Pete and the Six Companies. At which point one of Pete's funeral parlors would perform the cremation and turn a tidy profit on shipping the ashes—by no means necessarily those of the worker—back to the departed's family in China.

Bitter strength, indeed.

Little Pete was a creature of habit. One of his established routines: hearing requests from his constituents during the business day lunch hour on the second-floor balcony of his Kearney Street town house. Little Pete liked to stuff himself heartily while his workers and shopkeepers humbled themselves before him. On occasion, if a request was sufficiently innocuous or inexpensive enough, he would demonstrate his rare and therefore legendary magnanimity.

But here it was half past noon; already on his third helping of duck's feet and no one had yet arrived to petition him with their stupid problems. He yelled out to his houseboy, Yee Chin: Why is no one here? If they have been left waiting downstairs, someone will be punished!

No answer. He threw down the bones on his plate and demanded more food. No one appeared. Now he was angry: His kitchen boys had orders to stand by inside the balcony with extra helpings to bring out the moment he called; they had all felt his crop on their back when a dish landed on his table cold. Little Pete rang the little porcelain bell he kept by his plate and shouted again.

Nothing. Yee Chin would catch unholy hell for this incompetence.

Little Pete wedged his bulbous stomach from behind the table, lifted his generous behind off the silk pillows on his hand-carved Tang dynasty chair, picked up his riding crop, and waddled into the sitting room, thinking of creative new ways he was going to punish these useless domestics.

A silver dome covered the serving that waited for him on the cart inside the door. If his next course had gone cold, heaven help Yee Chin. He lifted the dome off the tray....

Little Pete fell to his knees and violently retched up his lunch, mind blanked, senses obliterated; blind, deaf, and dumb.

There were feet on the tray.

Human feet.

Little Pete crawled quickly away on hands and knees, instincts for survival surfacing. Where were his bodyguards? Four on duty downstairs around the clock; someone got past them. The attack could come from any direction, at any moment. He would have to defend himself. There had been a time when no one bested him with a knife, but he hadn't been in a fight that mattered for over ten years.

A pistol in the top drawer of that table. Little Pete scampered over, pulled the gun out, hands shaking wildly, gripping onto the table for support. He wiped the drool from his lips with the sleeve of his gun hand, tried to summon enough voice to call out for his guards, but the words died in his throat; heart beating too hard, tongue cottony and sluggish.

Slow, slow down now, Pete. This is a good place. You can see every door and window from here. Steady the gun with both hands. Wait until they come close: Don't waste any bullets____

A tremendous force slammed his head down from behind onto the tabletop. The layer of thick glass covering its hardwood surface cracked, his face locked in place motionless against it; Little Pete felt heat run down his face, saw his own blood flowing freely into the splinters. His arm wrenched backward and the gun was taken from his hand like a rattle from a baby.

'You understand how easily I can kill you,' said a quiet voice.

'Yes,' croaked Little Pete.

'Your guards are dead. No one is coming to help you. Answer my questions; don't waste time and you will live.'

The voice spoke flawless, unaccented Mandarin. He didn't know this man. Little Pete tried to nod in agreement, grinding the shattered glass deeper into his face.

'You sell workers to the railroads,' said the voice.

'Yes,'

'Tunnel men. Chinese. Good with explosives.'

'Yes, a few ...'

'There can't be many of them.'

'No, not good ones.'

'You would know who they are, then, the good ones.'

What in heaven's name was this about?

'Yes. If they're demolition; they used to be miners mostly. They came here for the gold rush....'

'You sent some out to the desert.'

Little Pete's mind raced: There weren't many Chinese demolition men left, the good ones were always in demand—hard to think now....