We arrived at the top, and crossed what felt like a passage between two buildings, and beyond a row of nicer suites with private dining rooms and kitchens and fancy beds, then a final hallway, which ended at a door. Behind the door, muffled weeping.
Hank paused before knocking.
“Come,” said Rose.
The Chinese girl was on her knees, begging. Earlier, I assumed she was a child, but I was mistaken. She was older, Pie’s age at least, with a woman’s high forehead, and breasts. She was weeping. Her tears dripped onto her white silk tunic, which, in the harsh light, shone threadbare. Tan stood behind her, grim and proud.
We’d caught them mid-negotiation, that much was clear, at the point where the girl had asked for something and had been denied. Rose leaned forward—as if speaking to a beloved child. With a lace hanky, she wiped the tears from the girl’s cheeks.
When she saw me, Rose barked, “Hank, what the hell is this?”
Hank thought to explain, got half a word out, when I stepped forward. “I hid in the carriage. Hank, Tan, they didn’t know I was there.”
“Gawd,” Rose said. “Suddenly, I am swimming in daughters.”
That’s right, she said “daughters.” I didn’t take kindly to being linked with the Chinese girl; she didn’t take it kindly either. She glared at me.
“Tan, escort Lifang downstairs,” Rose said. “Fix her something to eat.”
Lifang began to argue, she had that in her, but she wouldn’t, not then. She climbed solemnly to her feet, eyes downcast, the way you do when the fury you feel is so heavy, it weights the lids of your eyes. I knew that anger, I knew it well.
Hank saw them out and closed the door behind him.
I was alone with my mother. If I thought kneeling would help my cause, I would have knelt. But I figured I had to prove that I was stronger.
“That girl, she’s also your daughter?”
Rose regarded me. “You have an odd habit of asking a question that is three steps ahead of where you belong. Has anyone told you that?”
“No one tells me anything.”
“Ha, I bet.” Her gaze softened ever so slightly. “So, you came down here on your own steam, did you? And has something transpired since last night—something terribly urgent?”
“I don’t belong there; I never did. I’ve come to live with you. To work for wages. I… need the money.”
“Good Christ,” she said. She looked to her left and to her right, as if an audience were on hand to witness her frustration.
“I’ve known the family a long time,” she explained. I thought she must be speaking about Morie and Pie, but no, it was Tan. She’d known Tan’s family a long time.
“Tan came to work for me when he was just a bit older than you,” Rose went on. “You didn’t know that, did you? He’s worked all these years to provide a better life for his daughter, Lifang. Now, it appears, she needs my protection. It isn’t safe in Chinatown for a young, pretty girl. Tan wants her here, not as a working girl, no, never that, but in my care. Lifang, she is like—”
“Your chosen daughter?” Tears stung my eyes.
“Ahh, stop. You’re angry at the wrong things.”
“Am I? Tell me, what should I be angry about?”
She batted that away. “No one is coming to live with me,” she scoffed. “A girl steps through that door and she is ruined.” Rose glanced at me, letting that sink in. “Marching in here, you took a grave risk. Let’s hope no one saw you. Or the jig is up, eh? Let’s hope they think you’re the butcher’s girl, and in that dress—where did you get that awful sack? My God, why doesn’t she put you in proper clothes, with all the money I give her? You must have grown two, three inches since that frock was hemmed. Shame on her.”
“No one saw me,” I declared.
“So you say.” She tapped her palm with the tips of her long nails. “Tan has a serious problem. He has reason to believe that one of the tong gangsters running Chinatown has his eye on Lifang. They will kidnap her and force her to become one of their brides, or, should she prove difficult, they’ll turn her into a slave in one of their crib dens. It’s all the same to them—bride or whore—it’s all the same. But she’s special, that one. She doesn’t think so, but I can see when a twig’s so narrow it will break.”
“I won’t break.” My face burned with too much feeling.
Rose showed me her fox smile, lips pressed. “Maybe not. But you’ve put me in a tight squeeze with Tan, haven’t you? Making obvious his little bit of thieving. Let me tell you something: we’re all thieves, Vera, one way or another.”
“I’m not a thief.”
She tipped her head, deciding. “Mmm. Maybe not. Or perhaps not yet. Let’s see when you’re pushed too far, then you’ll know, eh? Meantime, there is to be no peace with you.” She smiled wearily. “This place, you think it’s fun and games. It’s not. Trust me on that score.”
“I can see for myself.” I saw the piles of papers, the broken furniture, the tufted divan with its rows of missing buttons, her chair, sad and worn.
“Oh my, have we disappointed you?” she mocked.
I shrugged. I couldn’t exactly tell her it was not The Rose of my Rose. That I’d imagined hallways lined with velvets and dewy flowers; I had pictured her inner sanctum with silk chaises and fine carpets—but that place didn’t exist. The room resembled a cramped storeroom, with desks and cabinets overflowing with papers and maps and plot diagrams pinned to the wall, and bolts of fabric and frayed lampshades with no lamps, and boxes of candles stacked on top of crates of whiskey. A safe was fitted among the ledgers and newspapers and crates, and what she had hidden inside that shiny pachyderm, I needed.
“I’m good with numbers,” I said, pressing my
