Patrick shook his head so emphatically that Inez thought he might lose his hat. But then he added, “You could try Johansson’s lumber yard. Johansson is a Swede, and he mostly hires Swedes. Maybe he’d know.” He pointed toward Long Bridge. “It’s one of the smaller places on the docks. Between Sierra Lumber and the San Francisco Lumber Company.”
With that, he headed back to the laundry, head ducked, hat pulled down, as fast as his long legs would take him.
Although it was little enough to go on, Inez took heart at the fact that there were three lumber companies in a row close to the bridge. Surely, this Sven would be found at one or the other of them. She started with Johansson’s, hoping luck would make her search a short one. Her inquiry at the office turned up the fact that two Sven Borgs were employed at Johansson’s: “One-eyed” Sven and “Broken-nose” Sven.
“I’m looking for the Sven who discovered the body by the bridge Monday morning,” said Inez.
“Ah!” said the foreman. “That’d be Broken-nose Sven.” He narrowed his eyes, suddenly suspicious. “Can I ask why you need to talk to him? We’re very busy right now.”
“I’m here on behalf of the family of the deceased,” said Inez. Which was true.
“Wait here,” he said and disappeared out onto the wharf. Inez cooled her heels for some minutes until the foreman reappeared with a stocky man, mid-thirties, blue workshirt, pants, waistcoat, and suspenders, silver-blond hair under his blue-and-gray checked cap, and a fulsome walrus mustache. The foreman turned to him and said, “Tell me when you’re done so you can get back to work.”
Inez introduced herself and noticed that this Sven Borg did indeed have a nose with a distinct tilt to the right.
“We talk outside, Mrs. Stannert? I just have a few minutes.” His “vee” for “we,” “yoost” for “just” and “haff” for “have” were all stamped with the typical Swedish melodic tones.
Once they emerged street-side, Borg leaned against the brick wall of the warehouse. “Do you mind if I smoke, Mrs. Stannert?”
“Not at all,” she replied. “May I ask you a few questions?”
He nodded, pulled out a pouch of tobacco and some rolling papers.
“First, I want to thank you for going to Mr. Monroe’s lodgings and notifying his roommate of your suspicions regarding the identity. You were correct. It was Mr. Monroe.”
Borg had assembled a cigarette during her short explanation. He lit it, inhaled and exhaled the smoke reflectively, then looked at her with eyes as blue as his faded denim shirt. “May he go with God. Please tell his family for me.”
“Of course. We are curious, how did you make his acquaintance? You are a longshoreman. He was a musician. What was your connection?”
“Ja. Well, I have been known to play a squeezebox sometimes.” He squinted up at the sky. “Did his roommate, Herr Klein, tell you about the unions? About Frank Roney, the labor leader?”
“He mentioned it in passing,” said Inez.
“Jamie—” he pronounced the name “Yamie”—“he was very interested in organizing the musicians. So, he came to the waterfront, to find others working for the labor cause. That is how I met him.”
“Are there union meetings here? I apologize, I do not know much about the labor activities beyond what little Jamie told us.”
Sven gave a half-smile beneath his mustache. “Ja, well, they are quiet meetings, not big as in the sandlots with the Workingmen’s Party. The eight-hour day was a worthy cause. But in the end, the party was interested in helping the working class. The party is now gone, and good riddance. Their hate of the Chinamen, I did not understand. The party leaders, they said the Chinese steal jobs from honest workers, but I have seen they work hard too, in the factories, in the workshops, in their laundries. I have nothing against hard-working people. They are not on the docks stealing my job.”
He sucked on the cigarette and exhaled, the smoke carried away in the light breeze. “Jamie, he felt the same. Do you know, there are Chinamen who are musicians? Jamie said he knew some. I think he had dreams that they should organize too.”
Inez tried to think how to frame her next question. “Do you know of anyone in the movement, maybe someone from the old Workingmen’s Party, who would have wanted to stop Jamie? Or wanted him dead?”
Borg’s cigarette bobbed as he silently chuckled. “Jamie was a musician. Why would anyone care about a musician interested in learning more about labor organizing? No. No one. Jamie, he liked to argue. Sometimes, discussions were hot. But he only fought with words, not with his hands. He needed his hands to earn a living. Me?” He glanced at his own hand—strong, scarred, scraped, calloused, scabs on the knuckles, and closed his thick fingers into a fist. “As long as I can move the lumber from the ship to the wharf, that is good enough.”
“Jamie came to meetings here, by the docks?” Inez asked.
“At a saloon, Henderson’s,” said Borg. “He played there some nights. He would come early, or sometimes stay late, after his time at the piano, and join me, Roney, others, to talk. Until Henderson wouldn’t let Roney in anymore.”
Inez stared. “At Three Sheets?”
He looked at her, bemused. “You know the place?”
“I have heard of it.” Inez thought of what Patrick had told her and how threads formed between perfect strangers, forming a web of connections. Who else was connected, caught in the web?
“We were there Sunday evening.” He tapped ash onto the ground. “There was one thing.”
“What?” Overhead, a seagull screeched, then wheeled off toward the bay.
“Jamie, he told me he had some good news, and would tell me later. Something had happened to make him very cheery. But when Jamie was done playing, he and Henderson had words. I don’t know about what. Jamie slammed the lid down on the piano, and walked out. Didn’t stay to
