Land Sharks Read online

  Across from him,his mother sipped her coffee and munched a biscuit while paging through the latest issue of Collier’s. Under her breath, she either clucked at extravagance or thoughtfully hmm’d when something interesting caught her eye. He studied her face with its high cheekbones. The morning light exposed faint lines around her eyes and vertical grooves that bracketed her wide mouth. Otherwise, her skin was still smooth and her chin firm. In her mid-fifties, Mae Clemens was a striking woman. Not head turning but a woman whose beauty grew more apparent the more often you looked at her. Only her rough, big-knuckled hands betrayed years of eking out a living in the coal field towns of Pennsylvania. He knew that those had been years of extreme poverty, endless work and unbearable loneliness. Yet, they hadn’t broken her.

  “You’re doing it again,” she remarked, her eyes still on the magazine, her tone a tad irritated.

  He tossed the paper onto the table. “I think I am entitled to look at you. After all, I didn’t see your face for almost twenty years. That’s a lot of time to make up.”

  She looked at him, her dark blue eyes exactly like his. “Sage, I don’t mind you watching me, but leave go of those regrets. They darken the day like a low hanging cloud.”

  An old conflict. Yes, now they both lived in improved circumstances. Life was good. She was here, living in their third-floor rooms at the top of a building he owned, thanks to his Klondike gold. They operated the elite Mozart’s Table, a restaurant second only to the Portland Hotel’s elegant dining room. And, best of all, they worked as partners in a secret mission. It was a mission that gave meaning and purpose to both their lives.

  Still, playing the urbane restaurant proprietor, John Sagacity Adair, was trying at times. From his twelve years as the rich mine owner’s foster child, Sage knew what to say and wear. He also knew how to insert himself into a group of wealthy men and win their confidence. His mirror told him why their wives seemed to like him; his six-foot height, even features, jet black hair with its dash of white at the temple, and his luxuriant waxed mustache always drew favorable attention from their direction.

  But all of that was the public John S. Adair. Few in Portland knew of Sage Adair or his many itinerant worker personas. Also hidden was an internal toughness. One forged during the lonely years when he’d lived with the cold-hearted mine owner and later, in the Klondike, where that toughness saved his life in situations where most men died.

  He counted on the fact that Portland’s wealthy elites were so taken up with their showy excesses that they failed to see beneath John Adair’s well-groomed exterior. They had to remain oblivious to his purpose, a purpose as unyielding as the hard rock coal he’d mined as a child. He intended to make sure that economic justice triumphed over their selfish greed.

  Sage shook off his reverie. “I keep waiting for St. Alban to write. I’m ready for some excitement,” he said, his fingers absently drumming on the table top.

  “Do tell,” Mae responded, slapping the magazine shut. She tossed it on the table, “You might say that today. As I recall, a few weeks ago, you were singing a different tune entirely. Fact is, I recollect you telling me you’d reconsidered your adventuring life while you rode in that boxcar, all trussed up like a Christmas goose.”

  Her jab sent him back to that boxcar ride. It had been a very close call. Only Fong’s remarkable fighting skills prevented the killers from bashing Sage in the head and dropping his body off a railroad bridge into the river.

  He smiled wryly. “You know how it is, Mother. Memory fades. Besides, next time I’ll be more careful. Think things through before I act,” he assured her.

  “Ha! John Sagacity Adair, rashness is your trait and always will be. You flirt with risk like a moth ‘round a candle,” she sputtered before seeing his wide grin. “Here, eat some of these,” she said, nudging a plate of jelly-filled pastries toward him, “Ida baked them this morning, just for you. That poor woman is tiring herself out cooking up all these tokens of gratitude.”

  Sage patted his flat stomach. As part of his boxcar escapade, Sage had also saved Ida’s nephew, Matthew, from being hung as a murderer. He hoped the restaurant’s cook would reach the bottom of her gratitude bucket while he could still button his trousers.

  He held up his hand. “Can’t eat now, Mother. I’m heading up to the attic. It’s time for my lesson with Mr. Fong. He says that I’ll get sick if I eat beforehand. And as you know, Mr. Fong is always right.”

  Her eyebrow arched. “Humph! Nobody is always right unless he can walk on water. And I haven’t seen our Mr. Fong perform that particular little feat yet.”

  Sage smirked. He knew she relied on the Chinese man’s insights as much as he did. Although they’d been working together less than two years, it was hard to envision any of their St. Alban missions succeeding without Mr. Fong Kam Tong’s assistance. “Yup,” he thought with satisfaction, “The three of us form a team as sturdy as a well-built, three-legged stool.”

  A soft tap sounded on the door. It swung open just wide enough for the red-haired Matthew to poke first his head, then half his body, into the room.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Adair. A messenger,” he cleared his throat and continued, “I brought a letter for Mrs. Clemens from her cousin in Telluride, Colorado, and I thought that maybe she’d want it right away, leastways that’s what Aunt Ida thought, so I hoped it was okay if I disturbed you . . . I will come back later if you’d rather . . .” Matthew had already started edging backward, even as his words continued pouring forward.

  Sage raised his hand to gesture the boy forward into the room. “No, no, you’re fine, Matthew. Mrs. Clemens does want the letter. You did right to bring it up. Thank you.”

  A blush flooded the boy’s freckles as he shambled awkwardly forward, ducking his head politely to Mae Clemens. After handing over the letter, the boy hastily backed out of the room but not before first planting the door’s edge squarely into his back. Face now scarlet, the boy scooted into the hallway, shutting the door with a bang.

  “Good Lord, that poor boy is as bad as his aunt when it comes to worshiping you. I think if it were possible to hide in your pocket, he’d climb right in.” Mae shook her head but a smile tweaked the corners of her mouth. She handed the unopened letter to Sage. There was no “cousin” in Telluride. The letter was from St. Alban.

  Sage thought about the boy as he slit open the envelope. Matthew was indeed showing a marked tendency to get underfoot. Not good if it required continually dodging the boy. “Well, Matthew’s still unsettled from his brother’s murder and his own time in jail. He’ll get his feet back under him. He’ll get over it.” Sage said, unfolding the single sheet of stiff paper. “Besides I’m thinking to buy him one of those bicycles. That’ll take his mind off what . . .”

  Sage looked up, a surge of excitement sweeping through him and into a wide grin. “It is from the Saint. He’s assigned us another job!” he said.

  THREE

  A DUSKY PINK ROSE stood in a sapphire blue vase, its velvet petals glistening in the sunlight streaming through the skylight. Fong sat before it, cross-legged on the polished pine floor. His half-closed eyes seemed focused on the flower, his long face a serene mask. Sage dropped into a similar cross-legged position. He wanted to confer with Fong about the new mission but Fong was strict when it came to their training regimen. No talking until it was completed. Sage chaffed over the delay but it was useless to try to push.

  As they sat in silence, the sound of wagon wheels rattling on the wood block paving four stories below mingled with the sound of the pigeons’ burbled cooing in their rooftop coop. As the sunlight heated the room, a sweet rose fragrance began layering the air.

  Cramps began to tighten in Sage’s legs. He shifted and hoped that Fong was nearing the end of his meditation–not that the older man would allow anything as insignificant as leg cramps to intrude upon his internal quest. Not only could Fong sit cross-legged for hours, but when done, he uncoiled lithe as a snake.

  Fong’s eyes ope
ned and he looked at Sage. His smile was gentle; his voice quiet as he observed, “This flower you placed in vase is most beautiful. One day your flowers will grow this beautiful.”

  Heat traveled up Sage’s neck into his face. His recent rooftop gardening efforts were another outcome of that terrifying train ride. He marveled at the contentment he felt puttering around his sprouting plants.

  “This flower,” Sage said, touching a petal with his finger, “came from the garden of an elderly woman up near City Park. She gave me this rose and a small cutting when she caught me standing on her lawn admiring it.”

  “Ah,” Fong said. “A gift, more precious.” He rose to his feet in a single fluid motion. “Come, we begin.”

  “Before we begin, Mr. Fong, there’s news from St. Alban,” Sage said, lurching to his feet, one leg numb from holding in one position for too long.

  Fong raised a hand to halt Sage’s speech. “First, we exercise. After, we talk.”

  As sunlight slowly traversed across the floor, they moved through the snake and crane exercise. After the final movement, the raising and lowering of parallel hands, they immediately faced off to practice the attack-and-defend fighting style Fong called “push hands.” At last, Fong halted their workout after he’d effortlessly flipped Sage to the floor five times in quick succession.

  “Not good today. You too distracted. Like riverbank fish. Sucking air and swimming at same time. No good.” Fong tossed him a towel.

  Sage caught the towel and laughed. “There’s no such thing as a riverbank fish.”

  “You never fish river, so how you know?”

  “Anyway, it’s your fault, Mr. Fong. I wanted to tell you the news but you made me hold it in until we’d finished. My mind wouldn’t let go of it. I tried.”

  “Hah,” said Fong, his face momentarily splitting into a smile. “That is point! Always there is distraction. Distraction is another enemy in battle. To defeat, focus on firm ball in center of belly. Let distraction flow in and out without sticking, like ocean wave on beach. When thought stick, relax and release it.”

  Sage shook his head ruefully. “Another one of your lessons within a lesson, Mr. Fong?”

  “Of course,” Fong said. He turned and climbed the ladder that led to the roof.

  Exasperated at yet another delay, Sage looked around the attic. Acknowledging that there was no one with whom to commiserate, he shrugged and followed Fong up the ladder.

  The late summer morning was heating up and the rosebush leaves drooped. Sage crossed to the rain barrel and used a tin can to dip up water. He watered the dirt around the plants that grew in the four wooden boxes he’d recently installed on the rooftop, careful not to wet their leaves. That task completed, he joined Fong on a south-facing rough bench that was also a new addition to the roof. To the east, just beyond the waterfront warehouses and the naked spars of sailing ships, the sun glinted on the Willamette River. Directly across the street, to the west, a six-story building obstructed their view of the Vista Ridge hills. The air smelled of roof tar, pigeon coop straw, and the warming dirt in the garden boxes.

  Sage marshaled his thoughts, eager to talk about Kincaid and the other missing organizer. Yet again, Fong forestalled him by saying, “This garden is both peaceful and always changing. Like the snake and crane way of life we Chinese call ‘tai chi.’ Many hundreds of years old. Means all things must be in balance and done with moderation.”

  “Yes, I know. I think I’ve learned part of that lesson the last few months.” Sage waved a hand at the flower boxes. “That’s the reason why there’s now a garden up here on this roof. It’s me trying to create a little balance in my life.”

  To cut off the subject, Sage plunged in, determined to begin discussing St. Alban’s problem of the missing union organizers. “Right now, let me tell you what St. Alban has asked us to do. He wants us to discover what has happened to two union organizers. He says that they were helping plywood workers form a union in their factory. Now both organizers are missing. The first man was unmarried. One day, about six months ago, he didn’t show up for work at the factory. Didn’t say a word to anyone. St. Alban thought maybe he’d just gotten discouraged by his slow progress and abandoned the job.

  “Problem is, about two weeks ago, the same thing happened again. Only this time, the missing organizer is a married man–with a wife and baby. That made St. Alban think that maybe these men didn’t leave on their own. He’s afraid they’re dead. He wants us to find out what happened to them and stop it from happening to the next guy he sends.”

  Fong squinted across the rooftop toward the river. Sage waited patiently. The other man was a full partner in their missions for St. Alban–ever since that night a few years ago when he’d rescued Sage from a beating and learned of Sage and Mae’s secret life. Fong had asked to join their efforts, explaining, “You fight same men who harm my people. They pay us pennies and kick us like dogs or worse.” As Fong spoke, a painful memory seemed to wash across his normally impassive face. Sage hadn’t probed the other man’s wound. He and Mae accepted Fong’s offer to help and had been grateful for it every day since.

  That was the past. Today, keen interest shone in Fong’s dark eyes as he asked, “Where is plywood factory?”

  “Upriver, near that small town called Milwaukie. Not too far, maybe ten miles or less.”

  “I know of Milwaukie. Cousin own laundry there. What are names of missing men?” Fong’s question wasn’t an idle one. “St. Alban wrote that the first organizer who went missing is a middle-aged fellow named Walter Amacker. The last one’s name is Joseph Kincaid. He gave me the address of Kincaid’s wife. I thought I’d start there–with the man’s wife. Might as well figure out whether he deliberately scampered off or whether someone did something to him.” As he spoke, Sage realized that it was not going to be an easy interview. Labor movement activists worked in constant danger. Too often their women and children end up alone in the world. His mother, Mae, was proof of that.

  Fong sent Sage a sympathetic look as he said, “I will ask cousins if they hear anything about plywood workers named Walter Amacker and Joseph Kincaid.”

  The other man’s use of the word “cousin” was not strictly correct. Sage doubted whether any of the men Fong called “cousin” were his blood relations. Rather, he’d told Sage that the term “cousin” referred to men who belonged to Fong’s mutual aid organization; something Fong called his “tong.” Over time it became clear that there was immense value in having access to Fong’s fellow tong members. The cousins knew things about people, things those people thought securely hidden. And, often the cousins ferreted out what they didn’t know. Sage gazed up the river. Again he mused over the strength of their team: Fong, his mother and himself. He was certain that their unbreakable unity was sufficient to overcome whatever challenges this search for the missing organizers delivered.

  An hour or so later, Sage was ready to make his exit from Mozart’s as John Sagacity Adair. He’d need to arrive at the Kincaid’s, however, as a man named John Miner. Miner was someone else altogether different. As John Miner, Sage was an itinerant worker, just one more hungry fish in a sea of thousands.

  At night, Sage used the secret tunnel extending from the restaurant’s cellar into an alleyway one building over. It made his departure virtually undetectable. During the day, however, that exit was risky. There was too much foot traffic on the street outside the alley, making it more likely he’d be seen clambering up through the trap door. This dilemma called for a variety of stratagems. Today, as John Adair, he planned to stroll into the most elite parlor house in town just like any other gentleman customer. Once there, he’d change his clothes, traverse its basement and exit from a milliner shop one street over as John Miner.

  His passage down the sidewalk was accompanied by fragrant wafts of the extra bay rum face tonic he’d patted on just in case the establishment’s proprietor, Lucinda Collins, was at home. He was looking forward to seeing her face brighten when he walked throu
gh her door. She always lifted his spirits, especially in these days following his recent brush with death. Although they hadn’t discussed it, he believed that Lucinda now reserved all her affections for him. He found himself feeling similarly exclusive toward her.

  “Oh, Mr. Adair,” said Lucinda’s maid Elmira. Her cafe-au-lait-colored face twisted with distress when she saw him on the doorstep. “Miz Lucinda will be so upset that she missed you. It’s been some days since you’ve stopped by. She took one of our girls to see the Sisters at the St. Vincent’s hospital. Some kind of trouble in her internal workings, we’re thinking.”

  “Which girl?” Sage asked, handing Elmira his hat. She hung it carefully on the hall tree, next to the two men’s hats already adorning its carved branches.

  “Carrie Lynn, her name is. She’s down from Seattle, trying to escape from some persistent customer. Says he liked to hit her. We’re afraid he broke something loose inside her.”

  Sage didn’t have time to wait around for Lucinda’s return. Kincaid had been missing for more than two weeks, Amacker for six months. It would take at least an hour to reach Milwaukie. Then he had to interview Kincaid’s wife, talk to others and make the trip back.

  “Please tell Miz Lucinda events prevented me from waiting for her return. If you don’t mind, I’d like to take advantage of her special exit down the back stairs and through the basement after I pick up a few things I keep in her closet.”

  Elmira raised her eyebrows. A soul of discretion, she nevertheless didn’t bother hiding that she knew he was frequently up to something. The twinkle in her eye told him that she was well aware of his odd duds in the madam’s closet. She’d seen him in disguise sneaking out the back entrance like a dodgy politician. Lord knew what the woman thought. He’d always been afraid to broach the topic with her.

  Once in Lucinda’s room, Sage changed into what he thought of as his John-Miner-going-to-church suit. Minutes later, he was crossing the dim basement, grateful for its casement windows. He climbed the wooden steps onto the shop floor and strode to the alley door. As usual, the women treadling the sewing machines never glanced up from their work. They’d likely seen this bolt hole exit used by far more noteworthy townsmen than the nondescript John Miner wearing his Sunday best. Regardless, they’d never say anything—not if they wanted to keep their jobs. Poverty forged a strong chain, keeping them firmly beneath the milliner’s heel. The milliner, in turn, kept quiet because of the extremely low rent Lucinda charged for the space.