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  May Ling smiled and sang him another song. He lay back on the pillows, sipping whiskey and puffing his cigar. After a time, she put the zither away and held out her hand. He climbed to his feet, all but bewitched by her loveliness, and allowed himself to be led to her bedchamber. There she undressed him, and after stepping out of her kimono, she let him gaze a moment upon the golden swell of her breasts.

  Then she showed him that Chinese girls were, after all, no different from white women. Some were simply better than others, and she skillfully persuaded him that she was the best.

  May Ling never questioned her master’s orders, or his motives. To her, a man’s body was like a zither, an instrument to be strummed and caressed. Several times during the night, using her own body to strike responsive chords, she had taught Starbuck exquisite harmonies known only to a trained courtesan. Early the next morning, she undertook the balance of her assignment.

  After a late breakfast, she suggested a personally conducted tour of Little China. Starbuck was feeling a bit frazzled, his juices sapped by her arduous and sometimes gymnastic lovemaking. Under normal circumstances he might have hesitated, but his brain was muzzy and he suspected nothing. Chinatown was Fung’s domain, and seeing it through May Ling’s eyes seemed very much in order. He immediately approved the idea.

  On the street, she took his arm and guided him toward the center of Little China. As they walked, she chattered on gaily, explaining that the district was the largest Chinese settlement outside the Orient. Within a dozen square blocks, some thirty thousand people lived and worked, rarely ever setting foot in the white sections of San Francisco.

  The Chinese, May Ling noted proudly, were an industrious people. Some twisted cigars for a living, others worked in clothing and shoe factories, and many served in white homes as cooks and houseboys. For the most part, they were frugal, followed the ancient religious rites, and kept very much to themselves. Yet they were not the simple peasants, ignorant and humble, so commonly portrayed by whites. Almost all were fanatic gamblers, playing the lottery and fan-tan, and even a variation of poker. Opium smoking was widely practiced, and the trade in gow pills, pipe-size balls of opium, had evolved into a thriving industry. There were even exclusive establishments for white gentlemen and their ladies. Unlike common opium dens, the service there was discreet and costly, the gow pills of superb quality.

  Still another misconception, May Ling went on, was the belief by whites that Ori0entals were sexually backward. To the contrary, the Chinese were a very sensual people, connoisseurs of the flesh. A Chinese man seldom limited himself to one woman, even if he was married and had a family. Nor was it considered shameful for a Chinese woman to enjoy the act, and express that joy through inventive byplay passed down from mother to daughter. In fact, the Oriental preoccupation with sex manifested itself in many forms. The most widely known was the flourishing trade in slave girls. Nowhere else on earth was the appreciation of eroticism so vividly demonstrated.

  May Ling suddenly stopped. Her eyes seemed to sparkle with secret amusement. “Would you care to attend a slave-girl auction?”

  “Would I!” Starbuck said, astonished. “I’d like nothing better.”

  “I believe one is being held this morning.”

  “You really think they’d let us watch? I’ve heard these things are sort of private, invitation only.”

  “Oh, yes,” May Ling trilled happily. “You are with me, which means you are a very special friend of the master. We would not be turned away.”

  “Well, what are we waiting for? Hot damn, a real live slave-girl auction! You’re just a sackful of surprises.”

  “Perhaps we shouldn’t.” May Ling mocked him with a tiny smile. “These girls are not virgins, and much older than those you wish to purchase. You might be disappointed.”

  Starbuck laughed. “Don’t worry your pretty head about that. C’mon, chop, chop! Let’s go!”

  With a minxish giggle, May Ling took his arm and led him to the corner. There they turned onto a side-street, then walked toward a warehouse halfway down the block. A squad of hatchet men, uniformed in the regulation pajama suits and black hats, stood guard outside. Approaching them, May Ling let go a volley of Chinese, her tone gracious, yet somehow imperious. The men bowed respectfully, and one of them rushed to open the door. She stepped through, followed closely by Starbuck, and directed him to a vantage point along the wall. From there, they had an unobstructed view of the entire warehouse.

  Starbuck was reminded of a livestock auction. A large crowd of men, both Chinese and white, were ganged around a wooden platform. The auctioneer, a jolly-eyed Chinaman with a loud mouth and a winning smile, walked the platform like a captain commanding the bridge of a ship. Beyond the platform, huddled together in a forlorn group, were a hundred or more Chinese girls. One at a time, they were brought forward by the auctioneer’s assistants and stripped naked. Shoved onto the platform, they were then forced to parade before the crowd like prize broodmares. The prospective buyers were allowed to examine each girl before the bidding began.

  May Ling briefly explained the complex system underlying the slave-girl trade. Her master placed an order with procurers in China for delivery in San Francisco on a certain date. Upon arrival, the girls were secreted in padded crates, invoiced as dishware, and American customs agents were bribed to pass the bales without inspection. While special orders were often filled for wealthy whites and prosperous Chinese tradesmen, the cargo was generally sold at open auction. The choicest girls, selected for their youth and attractiveness, were auctioned off to men looking for a concubine and jobbers who resold to smaller, inland markets. Prices varied from girl to girl, but usually started with a minimum bid of $200 and climbed to $500 or higher. The refuse, those unsuitable for auction, were sold to waterfront brothelkeepers or put to work in the Chinatown cribs.

  The virgin market, May Ling remarked, was conducted on a somewhat higher level. Procurers in China contracted for the girls at an early age, generally two through five. The parents then raised the girls, and the procurer meanwhile contracted to deliver virgins of a specified age group, and on a specified date, in San Francisco. Even now, her master held contracts on some four hundred virgins, ages two through sixteen, who were available for delivery on demand. Thus, there was always a plentiful stock to supply future markets.

  Starbuck listened with only one ear. His attention was fixed on the platform. Several men had stepped forward to probe and fondle a girl who looked to be no more than fourteen. She stood dull-eyed and submissive, abject in her nakedness. The auctioneer began the bidding at $200, and within minutes she was sold for $375. The man who bought her paid the auctioneer, and a bill of sale, with the girl’s mark, was quickly produced. The document was legal and binding in American courts. There were quotas restricting Chinese immigration, but there were no laws forbidding the sale of Chinese girls into bondage. The young girl, now a legally bound slave, was swiftly dressed and hustled away by her new master.

  “A fortunate girl,” May Ling observed, noting his interest. “Had she not attracted a buyer, she might have joined those who work in the cribs.”

  “So young?” Starbuck said without thinking. “A girl that age in the cribs?”

  “Oh, yes,” May Ling replied, studying him with a half-smile. “But she would be much older tomorrow. The cribs age a girl quickly.”

  “How long do they last?”

  “Four years, perhaps less,” May Ling said in a low voice. “The work is hard, and men use them in cruel ways. Their minds go wrong, or they become diseased, and then they are no longer of value to their master.”

  Starbuck felt a sudden revulsion. “You mean they go crazy?”

  “Some do.” May Ling kept her tone casual. “For most, it is the sailor’s disease—the pox—that claims them.”

  “What happens then?”

  “They are sent to the hospital.”

  “Hospital?” Starbuck said, looking at her. “To be cured?”

&n
bsp; “No, to die.” Her appraisal of him was deliberate, oddly watchful. “The crib masters have a secret place they call the hospital. When a girl outlives her usefulness, she is taken there and given a pallet. An attendant places beside her a cup of water and a cup of rice, and a small oil lamp. He informs her that she must die by the time the oil burns out. Later, when he returns, the girl is almost always dead—sometimes by starvation, usually by her own hand.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Starbuck scowled, shook his head. “Some hospital.”

  “Yes.” An indirection came into May Ling’s eyes. “The people of Little China call it ‘the place of no return.’”

  Too late, Starbuck sensed the trap. He wiped away the frown and quickly plastered a dopey smile across his face. Yet he wasn’t at all sure he’d fooled May Ling. She’d brought him here, and purposely suckered him into a conversation about crib girls, all to get a reaction. That much was now abundantly clear, and he realized she was swifter than she appeared. No questions, no need to interrogate him. A night’s lovemaking, and her innocent manner had effectively lowered his guard. Then she laid the bait and waited to see his reaction. A goddamned Oriental mousetrap! And he’d gone for the cheese.

  “Well, now!” He gave her a lopsided grin. “Let’s hope none of my little virgins ever needs a trip to the hospital.”

  “Would that bother you?”

  “At a thousand bucks a head!” he roared. “You bet your sweet ass that’d bother me!”

  She giggled softly. “Do you truly find it sweet?”

  “Sweeter than sugar, and twice as nice!”

  May Ling took his arm and they turned to leave the warehouse. On the street, Starbuck gave her a squeeze and made himself a promise. One more dip of the wick, then he’d ditch her fast.

  And get the hell out of Chinatown.

  CHAPTER 8

  The miners came in forty-nine

  The whores in fifty-one.

  And when they got together

  They produced the Native Son.

  Nell Kimball scarcely heard the lyrics. She was seated in a curtained loge with Starbuck, whose attention was directed to the stage. Covertly, out of the corner of her eye, she was watching him with a bemused look. She thought him a most unlikely whoremaster.

  Onstage, a buxom songbird was belting out the tune in a loud, brassy voice. A ballad of sorts, it traced the ancestory of Nob Hill swells to the mating of whores and miners who had settled San Francisco during the Gold Rush. There was an element of truth to the ditty, and it was a favorite with audiences on the Barbary Coast. Tonight, the crowd in the Bella Union was clapping and stamping their feet, and roaring approval as the lyrics became progressively vulgar.

  Starbuck looked like a peacock in full plumage. He was tricked out in diamonds and a powder-blue suit, with a paisley four-in-hand tie and a gaudy lavender shirt. The getup fitted the image of a whoremonger with grand ideas, but Nell Kimball was having second thoughts. Even the gold tooth left her unconvinced. Her whore’s intuition told her Harry Lovett was something more than he appeared.

  Earlier, Denny O‘Brien had ordered her to entertain him royally. At first, she’d been a bit miffed, her vanity wounded. Harry Lovett had spent the last two days in Chinatown—doubtless getting himself screwed silly by Fung’s prized hussy—and that put her in the position of playing second fiddle. Around the Bella Union she got top billing, acting as O’Brien’s strong right arm. She supervised all the show girls, occasionally wooing a high roller personally, and she wasn’t accustomed to standing in line behind a sloe-eyed Chinese slut. Yet orders were orders, and she’d learned the hard way never to provoke O’Brien’s temper. He considered Lovett topdrawer business, and it wouldn’t do to let Fung outshine them in the entertainment department. However she managed it, Lovett was to be given ace-high treatment, and made to forget the China girl’s bedroom artistry. All of which meant a long night in the saddle.

  For Starbuck’s part, he felt like he’d come home. Nell Kimball was his kind of woman. Unlike May Ling’s charade, there was no pretense about Nell, nothing phony. She was a saloon girl who had fought and clawed her way to the top of her profession. A tough cookie, honed by experience, she could handle a wise-ass chump or a mean-eyed drunk with equal ease. She looked to her own interests, always a step ahead of the competition, and God pity anybody who got in her way. Her counterpart was found in mining camps and cowtowns throughout the West, and she was the only kind of woman Starbuck fully understood. Moreover, he admired her for perhaps the best of reasons. Except that she wore bloomers, there wasn’t a nickel’s worth of difference between them. In all the things that counted, they were very much birds of a feather. Hard-headed realists, blooded but never whipped, survivors.

  Then, too, Starbuck had to admit she was nothing shy in the looks department. She was compellingly attractive, tall and statuesque, with enormous hazel eyes and sumptuous figure. Her tawny hair was piled in coils and puffs atop her head, and she carried herself with assured poise. Her gaze was direct, filled with a certain bawdy wisdom, and she seemed to view the world with good-humored irony. He thought that was perhaps the one essential difference between them. He saw the world through the eyes of a confirmed cynic. She saw it through a prism that was still slightly rose-tinted, and he considered that a weakness.

  By and by, perhaps later tonight, he fully intended to exploit that weakness. His visit to the slave-girl auction that morning, coupled with May Ling’s boastful remarks about Fung, had merely strengthened his original assessment. Without an overlord to keep the peace, Chinatown and the Barbary Coast could not coexist. Denny O’Brien, given the scope of his ambition, could never resist a takeover attempt in Chinatown. Someone restrained him from doing so, and that someone was the man who cracked the whip in San Francisco. Unless he missed his guess, Starbuck thought it entirely likely that Nell Kimball knew the someone’s name. A gentle touch, and his softsoap routine, might very well persuade her to talk. Contrary to what people thought, the way to a whore’s heart was not between her legs. Affection and kindness were what turned the trick.

  The chesty songbird ended her number and the curtain rang down to wild applause. Starbuck poured champagne and lifted his glass in a toast. The evening was far along, but he’d made no overtures, no suggestive remarks. He figured it was a new experience for Nell, and certain to pique her interest. He wasn’t far short of the mark.

  “So tell me,” she said with a quizzical look. “Have yourself a good time in Chinktown, did you?”

  “No complaints,” Starbuck allowed. “Course, I’d have to say those Chinamen take a little getting used to.”

  “Yeah, that Fung’s a real pistol, isn’t he?”

  “I suppose he’s all right … for a Chinaman.”

  “On the Coast, we call him Fung Long Dong.”

  “Oh?” Starbuck saw a glint in her eye. “Why’s that?”

  “Because he’s got a permanent hard-on.” Nell laughed at her racy admission. “Screws anything that’s not nailed down. Women, girls, even little boys, so I’ve heard.”

  Her laugh was infectious, and Starbuck grinned. “Wouldn’t surprise me. After seeing that three-ring circus he runs—the dogs and his hatchet men—I’d believe anything.”

  “Forget the dogs, honeybun! You just stay clear of Wong Yee and Sing Dock.”

  “His hatchet men?” Starbuck asked. “What’s the story on them?”

  “All bad,” Nell said quietly. “When they kill someone, they tidy up the corpse’s clothes, comb his hair, and press a smile on his mouth. God knows what they do before they kill him. They’re both as queer as a three-dollar bill.”

  “No accounting for taste,” Starbuck said with a crooked smile. “I’ve always preferred the ladies, myself.”

  Nell gave him a cool look. “How’d you like May Ling? Not that anybody ever called the little tramp a lady.”

  Starbuck mugged, hands outstretched. “A gentleman never tells. You’re right about one thing, though—she’s no
lady!”

  Nell warmed to the remark. “Well, it just bears out what I’ve always said. Those China girls have got no class. You’re lots better off here on the Coast.”

  “Now that you mention it,” Starbuck said casually, “I got pretty much the same story in Chinatown. The way Fung talks, there’s no love lost between him and Denny.”

  “I guess not!” Nell tossed her head. “Denny would cut that Chink’s heart out and dance on his grave.”

  “What stops him?”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “What stops him from walking in there and taking over Chinatown? Hell, Fung and his hatchet men wouldn’t stand a chance! If I was Denny, I’d do it in a minute.”

  Nell blinked and looked away. “You’d have to ask Denny about that. I keep my nose where it belongs.”

  “I’ll bet!” Starbuck ribbed her. “Strikes me, you pretty much know what’s going on around the Bella Union.”

  “Maybe I do,” Nell observed neutrally. “But smart girls learn not to talk out of school, and I sit right up at the head of the class.”

  Starbuck let it drop for the moment. “Well, you’re the number-one girl around here. No question about that! Wish to hell I had someone like you to run my operation. It’d sure take a load off my mind.”

  “Since you brought it up,” Nell said slowly, “I’m curious about something. Have you ever operated a whorehouse before?”

  “Nope.” Starbuck’s mouth widened in a devil-may-care grin. “But I’m all set to give ’er one helluva try!”

  “You’ve got brass.” Nell cocked her head in a funny little smile. “A hundred virgins and four whorehouses! How in God’s name do you figure to pull it off?”