A Race to Splendor (27 page)

His architect shot him a warning look.

“It’s a blooming miracle the place was empty,” Ira said, relieved.

“Yes, what an enormous blessing,” agreed Julia Morgan. She closed her eyes and nodded, as if contemplating the burden of answering for the safety of the construction workers—even if the Morgan firm had not been the one to hire Thayer’s crew.

“Barbary!” Amelia exclaimed. “Oh, J.D… what about the dog?”

The foursome stared as another section of the roof collapsed in a shower of sparks and intense heat. J.D. shook his head and looked away.

Julia gently seized his arm, saying “Come with us for a moment, will you?” she urged. “I want you to see what’s happening further down on Jackson. It appears you’ve had some kind of explosion.”

“That’s what a fireman said,” Thayer replied.

J.D. allowed himself to be led down the hill. A group from the brigades had been attacking the south side of the property with healthy doses of water, and successfully doused the section of the hotel where the original basement office was located.

“Where did you indicate the boilers should be installed?” Julia asked Amelia suddenly, her tone sharp. J.D. sensed Amelia’s alarm as she turned to face her former employer.

“In the basement, next to the south wall, as you approved, Miss M.”

J.D. added, “And I was the one who hired the men who installed them. The boilers were due to be inspected by the city later today.”

How simple it would have been for Ezra Kemp to get his hands on some dynamite,
thought J.D. Stores of the stuff remained from Army supplies used to create firebreaks during the great firestorm of a year ago and he suspected that Kemp could easily pay handsomely for access to contraband material whenever he wanted it.

Amelia pointed to the extensive wreckage toward the rear of the structure. “Did you have a look at the boilers, once the job was done?” she asked J.D.

“No,” he murmured. “There was no time. I had my meeting with you this morning, Miss Morgan, and then a conference with Miss Bradshaw about her taking up the reins. Then there was her driving lesson… and later, we had dinner at Tadich’s, and… well, here we are.”

The group fell silent and the only sounds were of firefighters calling for more water to pour on the roaring blaze. J.D. looked down the hill toward Chinatown and considered how one’s fate rested on small, seemingly insignificant daily decisions. If he hadn’t decided Amelia should learn to drive, would he have then taken the time to have a look at the boilers instead? Would he have known what he was looking at, anyway? And as far as the city’s inspection process, that was all a sham anyway. He’d been asked for a bribe by the city official due to inspect the boilers—and paid it. An inspector might never even have appeared.

By this time, Julia Morgan’s expression was grim. “If the guts of the boilers were installed improperly, pressure may have built up and forced them to blow on a cold night like this,” she said. “It’s only one possibility, of course. Any number of mishaps could have occurred.”

“It looks as if the whole place was dynamited,” J.D. said, voicing his darkest speculations. “I don’t think it was the boilers at all.”

“Look over there,” declared Ira. “The fire has diminished significantly now, thanks to the brigades.”

And thanks to the weather gods
, thought J.D. Fortunately, it was a windless, damp night. The volunteer firemen had arrived quickly and the near-empty lot behind the hotel had been a boon in preventing the fire’s spread to neighboring structures.

“We heard three loud explosions,” noted Ira.

“Well, a stick of dynamite under each boiler would do the trick, don’t you think?” J.D. replied with a bitter tinge to his tone. He turned toward Amelia. “Or you were right all along, Miss Bradshaw. It could well be my own idiocy that’s caused this. I hired Spitz and Kelly against your advice, and they hired workers on the cheap who most likely weren’t up to the task of installing—”

He couldn’t finish his sentence. The consequences of his desperate attempts to conserve his cash that subsequently led to tolerating shoddy workmanship during the construction felt like a huge boulder crushing the breath out of him.

“There can be tremendous force when natural gas is involved,” Amelia intervened gently. “It can build up in the line and be ignited by a spark, or the pressure was incorrectly calibrated in the boilers themselves, which certainly isn’t
your
fault. There might have been any number of problems you couldn’t have foreseen. Or Kemp did, indeed, have his bullyboys blow it all up,” she added with an edge of anger.

To J.D., her kind words about the catastrophe not being his fault were an appreciated antidote to the poisonous brew of guilt and self-incrimination. He felt Amelia’s hand on his sleeve.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, J.D.,” she said. “You’ve been required to cope as best you could during terribly trying times.”

She’d called him by his first name in front of her former employer. Her touch was tender, which steadied him somewhat, but still, there was no escaping the obvious. He’d hired Kemp’s people for expedience’s sake and against Amelia’s strong protests, and now was paying the price—either through their incompetence or their murderous intentions.

But before he could respond, Miss Morgan spoke up. “You’ll both need a place to sleep tonight. May I offer you shelter at the Fairmont? I’m certain the Law brothers would want me to extend you their hospitality. Just come over to us when you are ready to leave here. Your rooms there are still available.”

It was a generous offer from Morgan, who probably felt her fit of pique against Amelia had in a small, but perhaps significant, way contributed to this debacle.

“Thank you, Miss Morgan. That’s very kind. Miss Bradshaw,” he addressed Amelia, trying to preserve her already tattered reputation in front of her former employer, “why don’t you go along to your old room at the Fairmont. I have no idea how long I’ll need to stay here. The fire—”

His voice trailed off again as he stared at the mountain of burning embers where the rebuilt hotel had once stood. How could such catastrophe strike
twice
? His disjointed thoughts drifted to a memory of his last glimpse of Ling Lee. They’d found only bits of remains under the rubble after the earthquake and fire, so J.D. had long concluded that her spirit still lurked here somewhere.

Then there was poor Barbary, who had survived the first quake and fire only to perish in this disaster. And where was the spirit of Amelia Bradshaw’s grandfather, Charlie Hunter, who had passed away in his bed in the hotel he’d loved and lost? Had he cursed this corner of Taylor and Jackson? Or had Ezra Kemp?

“Come, Ira… Amelia. We shall be on our way now,” Miss Morgan announced. “Mr. Thayer, we’ll have your old room in the basement ready, whatever the hour.”

As Amelia prepared to follow Morgan she suddenly exclaimed, “Look, J.D! Over there! There’s my grandfather’s old safe! At least you’ve found that—finally. And when the embers cool, you’ll be able to get access!”

J.D. peered in the direction she was pointing, mesmerized by the sight of the burning wreckage.

“That’s the
safe
? Free and clear of debris?”

“Yes. Definitely,” Amelia confirmed. “Can’t you see? The explosion must have blown the last of the rubble away from it. It’s still intact and it’s supposed to be fireproof.”

He could feel a foolish grin begin to spread across his face. His life was in shambles. His rebuilt hotel was ruined. His poor dog was dead. Until a moment ago, he thought he’d run out of cards to play against Kemp. But perhaps one had been up his sleeve all along.

Or two.

And another good thing…

I’ve kissed Amelia Hunter Bradshaw and she kissed me back.

And thanks to the contents of his newly uncovered safe, he had a goodly amount of gold—at least enough to start over again. Gold was gold—in bars or melted blobs of metal. Even better, he now had Amelia in his full employ and would elevate her officially to supreme site supervisor as well as architect, once he’d fired Dick Spitz and Jake Kelly.

His vow to beat the Fairmont and open the Bay View’s doors before the April anniversary of the disaster was nigh impossible to keep now, he realized, his gaze fixed on the flames dancing around the iron safe fifty feet from where he stood.

But by some miracle, his luck had held.

Except for Barbary.

Chapter 22

Ezra Kemp’s daughter sat behind a small desk outside her father’s office at the Mill Valley lumberyard. Her large, blunt-fingered hands rested on her typewriting machine, her broad shoulders hunched as if she hoped her ungainly frame might melt through the floorboards.

“Good day, Matilda,” J.D. said pleasantly, hoping to put her at ease. “Helping your father, I see. Is he here?”

She stole a glance at him and then stared uneasily at the blank piece of paper rolled into the black machine. “Oh! I-Is he expecting you?”

“He won’t be surprised to see me,” J.D. assured the flustered soul—which was a lie—then turned the doorknob and walked into the inner office unannounced.

Kemp was sitting at his desk reading from a pile of invoices, his wire-rimmed spectacles perched at the end of his bulbous nose.

J.D. handed him a bank draft for twenty thousand dollars. “As I promised.”

Kemp reared back in his chair and removed his glasses, obviously startled to receive payment. “I heard your hotel just burned down.”

“Your information is correct. Here’s what I owe you for the wood that was in my late, lamented hotel. I’d like a receipt.”

“Where’d you get the money?” Kemp demanded suspiciously.

“From my reserves.”

“What reserves? You’re probably deeper in debt than you ever were.”

“I believe that is a better description of
your
financial situation,” J.D. replied.

Despite his own cool demeanor, J.D. felt like grabbing Kemp by the throat and squeezing the life out of him, not only for sending mismatched or unusable lengths of wood upon occasion, but also for deliberately ordering the Bay View’s boilers installed incorrectly—or perhaps even having them dynamited. J.D. was sure now, after closer examination, that one of those reasons was the cause of the explosion that destroyed his brand new hotel before its doors were even open.

The silence between the men lengthened, but J.D.’s gaze never wavered.

“All right,” Kemp replied finally. He pulled the bank draft toward him to examine it, then reached for a pen and scribbled on a sheet of paper proof that his debtor no longer owed him money. “Found your safe, did you?”

Ignoring Kemp’s question, J.D. tucked the receipt in his pocket. “I’m sure you also heard that there were tremendous explosions before the fire started. The boilers that Dick Spitz’s team installed blew up their first day of operation.”

“So I understand.” Kemp had the good sense not to smile, but his pudgy fingers fiddled with the papers on his desk. “Bad luck. Especially since the word I hear is Fairmont’s opening on April eighteenth, as scheduled.”

“Needless to say, I won’t be using your crew next time,” J.D. said, turning to go.

“Next time?”

“I’m starting to rebuild immediately.”

“What you’ll do immediately is marry my daughter.”

J.D. halted, his hand on the doorknob. “And why would I do that?” He slowly turned around to face Kemp. “I owe you nothing now.”

“Unless you marry Matilda, I will blackball you among my friends in the building trades and City Hall and make sure no one else around here will sign your building permits, sell you lumber, or hire on to work for you. And I’m guessing you didn’t find enough money in your safe to completely rebuild the Bay View, so I plan to have a word with my colleagues on the Committee of Fifty not to advance you any more loans.”

Clearly Kemp had taken off the gloves, shedding all pretensions to civility.

“And why would the Committee listen to the words of a notorious thug?”

That insult was for you, Barbary…

Kemp didn’t flinch. “You’re obviously a very bad risk. Some even think you’re cursed for employing those Chinks. Believe me, your own father is one of my allies.”

“I wouldn’t rely too much on my father’s loyalty. And as for the Committee of Fifty, I should warn you that one is
born
to that circle, Ezra. You cannot simply sharp elbow your way in.”

Kemp’s shifting gaze told J.D. more than words ever could that some of his bellicose threats were pure bluff. However, the lumber baron undoubtedly possessed the ability to sow seeds of doubts and he couldn’t allow Kemp to plant his poison. Much as it disgusted him to do it, he would throw this mean dog a bone. He walked across the office and pulled up a chair.

“Since I know perfectly well you are capable of making my life miserable, perhaps you and I can find a compromise—on one condition.”

“I don’t think you’re in a position to name conditions, J.D.”

Ignoring this remark for the bluster it was, he continued, “I will consider paying Matilda court when the hotel is finished and open—but
only
if she is truly willing.”

Kemp smiled faintly. “Oh, she’ll be willing.”

“You can’t physically force your daughter to the altar, Ezra.”

“Indeed I can.” Kemp placed his pen on the desk.

J.D. glanced at the open door, hoping that the poor, frightened creature hadn’t been privy to this entire discussion. “We’ll have to see, won’t we?” Before Kemp could comment, J.D. added, “One more thing. I will be buying my goods from other suppliers with no interference from you. Understood?”

Kemp’s smile was even broader. “That’s your decision. As long as you do as I say and court Matilda, patronize whomever you wish.”

“And I will hire whomever I wish to work on-site.”

“Again, that’s up to you, though I offer you this friendly warning: The construction workers from the hiring hall and my political associates will come after you if you keep hiring out of Chinatown. When’s the hotel to be completed?”

“By the beginning of summer.”

“Impossible!”

“Watch me—which is why I’ll be too busy to hold a wedding any time soon.”

Kemp rose from his chair. “June is a grand time for fancy nuptials.”

“But, Ezra,” J.D. said, his tone just shy of insulting, “don’t you know better than anyone that one can never predict what can cause delays in construction. I doubt the wedding will be in June—maybe July is more likely.”

By July, let us hope that those Washington investigators like Burns will have people like Kemp behind bars.

And with that, Thayer strode through the open office door. One look at Kemp’s daughter convinced him that she had overheard their entire conversation. The unfortunate creature sitting behind her desk looked as if she were about to be guillotined.

“Good-bye, Matilda.” He leaned over the desk and said, barely above a whisper, “You have far less to worry about than you think.” Then, in a normal tone of voice he added, “Please give my warmest regards to your school chum, Emma Stivers,” J.D. said, recalling Matilda’s childhood friend who was as petite as Kemp’s daughter was gargantuan. “Is Miss Stivers still visiting here? I so enjoyed meeting her that night at dinner at your papa’s.”

Matilda nodded affirmatively and replied in a low, strangled voice, “Yes… Emma’s still here… thank heavens.”

“I hope you both will pay a visit to the Bay View building site in a few weeks to see how we shall rise from the ashes after our latest misfortune. As I remember, Miss Stivers had a lively interest in life in our beleaguered city following the quake.”

“Yes…” Matilda said with a gulp, her eyes filling with tears. “She’s ever so much more curious and informed than I about what’s
au courant
.” And then she suddenly buried her face in her hands, shoulders heaving.

Rattled by this outburst of emotion, J.D. mumbled good-bye and retreated into the bustling lumberyard. Several men were loading a line of wagons with milled timber that would soon be transported by barge across the bay to scores of construction sites in the recovering metropolis.

This latest confrontation with Ezra Kemp had most likely shaken poor Matilda down to her shoe tops, but J.D. figured that at least he now knew most of the cards her father was holding in his hand.

***

J.D.’s next task was to consult with Amelia about the plans to begin at once rebuilding the twice-charred hotel.

“I want to make this hotel virtually fireproof,” he announced.

J.D. rose from a wooden box and immediately bumped his head against the top of the canvas tent that Angus had liberated from Army stores on the Presidio. He swiftly resumed his seat with a rueful shrug of his shoulders.

“I’m sure we can find a design that won’t burn like shingled construction and will also be perfectly suited for this site,” she declared reassuringly.

J.D. thought about the other equally claustrophobic tent set up next door that provided him a place to sleep and little else. Fortunately for Amelia, the morning after the Bay View fire, the civic-minded Law brothers insisted that she retain her nun’s cell in the basement of the Fairmont, despite her recent breach with Miss Morgan—and Julia had made no protest.

Or perhaps everyone was conspiring to save what remained of the young woman’s reputation. James Hopper had interviewed J.D. following the spectacular fire, and the next day, the
Call
had trumpeted Miss Morgan’s “protégée” Amelia Bradshaw having been selected to build the newest rendition of the Bay View for the indefatigable hotelier.

As for Amelia, she couldn’t care less where she slept, so long as her new employer liked her radical ideas for the latest version of the Bay View Hotel. And if Julia was upset by the newspaper article, well, it couldn’t be helped.

If J.D. wanted a design that would resist fire, she’d be more than happy to accommodate. In fact, she’d been mulling over several concepts for the lot at Taylor and Jackson and had only been waiting for the right opportunity to propose them. She launched into a brief description of the plans that had kept her up at night.

“Reinforced concrete, with terra-cotta cladding?” J.D. mused after she’d finished her excited pitch for a revolutionary design. “What about your favorite turrets?”

“I’ve ideas of a slightly altered version. We can’t make the Bay View impervious to fire, J.D., but we’ve learned a lot in the last year about making structures fire-resistant. Trust me, it’ll be a huge advancement from what was there before.”

“Precisely what will this hotel look
like?” he asked in a skeptical tone.

In response, she unrolled a large piece of paper she’d hijacked from a discarded pile of plans at the Fairmont and on the back had drawn the outline of what she was proposing. J.D. had said “fireproof” and this might be her only opportunity to offer a scheme that would both meet his requirements and be esthetically pleasing for a corner in San Francisco she still considered her special providence. Pointing to her preliminary sketch, she tried to keep her voice even.

“My concept for rebuilding the hotel this time is to create it in the same general
beaux-arts
style as the Fairmont, only make it uniquely suited to the smaller, steeper site.” A few minutes later, she was nearly breathless from explaining the rest of her ideas for a new incarnation of the hostelry.

J.D. murmured, “But isn’t the Bay View renowned for its Queen Anne shingled style?”

“Well, as you’ve said, we certainly know
that a wooden structure like the old hotel easily catches fire. And these days, wood—and especially redwood—is in short supply and most of it is controlled by blackguards like Ezra Kemp. If we build with reinforced concrete, we’d solve two problems at the same time.”

“A miniature Fairmont? Interesting…”

“No, not an imitation of your competition down the road. Rather, I’m thinking it will be more like San Francisco’s version of
Le Petit Trianon
in France,” she replied, wondering if he’d guess she was teasing. “Wonderful entablature…”

“What’s that?”

“Graceful, carved or poured concrete moldings affixed over doors and windows that give the walls a sculptured look.”

J.D.’s brow furrowed in thought. “But surely you wouldn’t try to copy a building that’s twice the size of the structure you intend to erect?”

“No, not at all,” she replied, growing serious now. “In Paris, I know of the most beautiful small hotel whose basic design could easily serve as inspiration for your site. It would be its own, perfect version of
beaux-arts
style, and be harmonious with its neighbors, including the Fairmont, to create an integrated, architectural whole atop Nob Hill.”

“I see,” J.D. replied with a nod that signaled he understood her basic concept.

Encouraged, Amelia said, “The Fairmont and the Merchants Exchange Building and many other structures reflect the grander, classical designs that forward-thinking planners envision for the new San Francisco. Don’t you think the new Bay View should be part of that movement, and yet make its own, distinct statement?”

“And does your former employer hold the same view?” J.D. asked with a mischievous wink.

“Needless to say, I haven’t discussed these ideas with Julia. In fact, she’s perfectly civil when our paths cross occasionally over at the Fairmont, but there’s a distinct chill in the air, believe me, especially since Hopper’s absurd characterization of two women architects competing with each other atop Nob Hill.”