Fortune is a Woman (38 page)

They looked at the piece of paper that told the land was his, hardly believing it was true. Nearby was Chater Road and Statue Square, a few blocks behind them rose Victoria Peak with the palatial Government House and above it the green stretches of the botanical gardens and the rich villas of the taipans in the mid-levels. And all around them stood solid, impressive office buildings.

They stared at each other and knew that what had been a simple, cheap plot of land surrounded by wooden go-downs and mat sheds when Chung Wu's grandfather had bought it for eighty dollars many years before, was now a prime piece of real estate. "We're standing on a fortune," Francie gasped. "You could sell this tomorrow, Lai Tsin, and retire a very rich man."

He shook his head, his eyes full of the vision of a tall, white, many-windowed building with the name of the Lai Tsin Corporation emblazoned in big brass letters. He saw a geomancer placing it so as to receive the best
fung shui
and he saw bronze lions outside guarding their good joss. He said, "We will not make our fortune from selling. This is the place on which we will build our fortune."

They took a rickshaw down to the docks and then a lighter out into the bay, where the ship had already loaded its cargo and was ready to sail on the noon tide. He pointed to the prow, where the name FRANCIE I had been painted. "It will be the first of our fleet," he said, as they strode the decks inspecting it proudly. "And it is all because of you."

He gave her an envelope and said, "I have a second gift for you which I bought with the first money I made five years ago, and kept it until you were ready. Now it is yours."

Francie opened the envelope, exclaiming in surprise when she saw what it was: the title to a plot of land on Nob Hill, just a block away from her old home on the opposite side of California Street.

Lai Tsin said, "Soon you will be back in San Francisco. You cannot go on hiding forever because of your brother. You can no longer think of yourself as the worthless daughter and the sister forever in his shadow. You will be at the mercy of no one. One day soon you will build your house on proud Nob Hill and show the world your face again. And there will be nothing Harry Harrison can do about it."

***

Lai Tsin sailed for San Francisco on the noon tide. Francie was to leave early the following morning. She spent her final day with Edward. He took her to the songbird market where thousands of twittering thrushes and canaries fluttered in little bamboo cages to be sold as pets. And Sammy Morris padded softly behind them in his tattered cotton coolie shoes; he followed them through the noisy alleys of Kowloon, past open-fronted stores, little more than holes in the wall selling buckets of squid floating in their black ink, platters of gray shrimp and tanks of silver-scaled fishes swimming exhaustedly to and fro, searching for the freedom that would only come with their death. He lingered while they inspected the stalls of the craftsmen carving chops, the seals that appeared on every document in China, and the calligraphers painting exquisitely on thin rice paper. His burning eyes never left them as they passed the shoemaker and the candlemaker and the women embroidering fine linen. He waited patiently while they dined in a simple teahouse on steamed dim sum and fragrant green tea, and he told himself that if necessary he would wait forever for his revenge.

They took the little tram up the Peak to view all Hong Kong and its islands, watching as the mist rolled in, just like in San Francisco. And they laughed, feeling as if they were almost standing on their heads as they took the tramway back down the steep incline.

Edward glanced briefly at the poor coolie waiting at the bottom of the Peak Tramway, flinging him a coin as he summoned a rickshaw to take them back to the hotel, then looked back at him, surprised as they drove away; he could swear it was not a Chinese face he had seen.

It was their last night together and they dined early in the cavernous dining room of the Hong Kong Hotel overlooking the harbor and its twinkling lights.

Francie knew it was the end. The play was over and the actors had to return to reality.

Darkness fell and the harbor outside glimmered with a thousand points of light. They were silent, thinking their own thoughts, until she could stand it no longer and she told him she must go.

He took her hand across the table, inspecting the wedding band sadly and said, "Francie, why won't you let me replace this? I'll come with you to San Francisco—"

She quickly shook her head, panicked at the thought of his being in San Francisco. She had to put him off. She shrugged her pretty shoulders and said coolly, "Maybe this was just a shipboard romance after all. In a few weeks you'll have forgotten all about me. I'll just be the woman you met on the S.S.
Orient,
outward bound from San Francisco for the South China Seas."

"It's no shipboard romance," he said vehemently. "You know how I feel about you."

They walked silently to the foyer and he kissed her hand lingeringly, then she left him. She trailed up the curved marble staircase, half-turning, her hand on the banister, to look at him. He was watching her and their eyes locked for a final moment, then she walked on up the stairs to her room.

Edward waited until she had disappeared from sight. Hunching his shoulders disconsolately, he thrust his hands deep in his pockets and strode out into Pedder Street. A movement in the shadows outside the hotel caught his eye and he glimpsed a ragged coolie staring at him, then he melted back into the shadows and was gone. It was odd, but he could have sworn it was the coolie from the Peak Tramway. Shrugging, he turned away, too wrapped in his own emotions to think any more of it. Still, at the back of his mind lingered the faint memory that the face he had seen was not Chinese, but Western.

***

The next morning as dawn broke Francie stepped into the Hong Kong Hotel's white launch that would take her to the S.S.
Aphrodite,
anchored in the deep water bay. Pedder Wharf and the Praya were a seething mass of coolies and she would have been unable to pick out the one who watched her so intently as the launch sped across the bay to the waiting ship. But Sammy saw her and there was despair in his eyes; she was returning to San Francisco and he knew if he was ever to achieve his revenge he must go there too.

He turned quickly away and made his way through the streets to the docks where he had worked loading the crates onto the small lighters that carried them out to the cargo vessels in the bay. It was impossible for a poor coolie like him to join the crew of a legitimate cargo ship, but he would join up with one of the evil-smelling old trading junks no matter what port it took him to, and from there he would make his way halfway around the world, port by port, ship by ship, back to San Francisco and Francesca Harrison.

CHAPTER 29

Harry returned to the mansion on Nob Hill that Louisa had never even seen because she refused to leave her horses. He was tired of endless green English paddocks under a sheet of rain. He hoped he never saw another horse—except at the track, and he vowed never to look at another woman in britches. He wanted city streets under his feet again and more urban pleasures.

He decided to turn over a new leaf. He would go to work. The next day he rose at seven-thirty, bathed, dressed, breakfasted exceptionally well to fortify himself, and arrived at the new Harrison Building on Market Street promptly at nine.

The burgundy-uniformed doorman sprang to open the door as the Harrison Rolls came to a stop. He swept off his peaked cap and said, "Good morning, Mr. Harrison, sir. It's good to see you back."

Harry nodded distantly. He had rarely set foot in his own office building, but today he meant to make his presence felt. The double-height ground floor was given over to the Harrison Mercantile & Savings Bank's main branch, though there were a dozen others scattered throughout California. It had tall stained-glass windows and speckled rose-granite floors. The thick, polished-mahogany counters were divided by gilded iron grilles to separate the customers from the clerks, and there was a hushed atmosphere of big-number transactions and serious business deals.

Harry enjoyed walking into his bank and seeing the clerks jump respectfully. He liked the way heads turned to follow him and the whispered admiring comments that "young Mr. Harrison was back." He liked the way the pompous little gray-haired godlike bank manager in pinstripes and tails jumped up, flustered when he strode without knocking into his dark, mahogany-lined, thickly carpeted office. He liked the way the men at the ticker-tape machines on the second floor, monitoring the financial ups and downs of Wall Street and the European and foreign markets, leapt to their feet, crushing out their cigarettes, waiting nervously for his commands as he strolled through their ranks. On floor after floor, he liked the way everyone, from the lowliest office boys to the managers in charge of the Harrison enterprises quailed under his glance and hung on his every brief word.

And when he reached the topmost floor containing the directors' offices, the boardroom, and his own personal suite, he liked his big office and his solid partners' desk, his leather swivel chair and the walls of important-looking leather-bound books in glass-fronted cabinets, and the view from his tall fifteenth-floor windows. But as he sat in his leather chair and contemplated the view, what he liked most was the sense of
power.

There was no guardian secretary in his outer office, no one had expected him, but the word flashed through the building like brushfire, reaching the three men in the directors' offices before Harry had even reached the second floor.

Frank Vandenplas, his father's most trusted administrator, was the first to knock on his door. He had just held a conference with his two codirectors and decided quickly on a strategy. He walked in, his hand outstretched, his red-cheeked, gray-whiskered face beaming.

"Harry, my boy," he said, shaking his hand cordially, "I can't tell you how glad I am to see you." He looked sympathetically at him. "And how sorry I was to hear of your divorce. Still," he shrugged his hefty shoulders, "it's a small mistake at your age and easily put behind you. And now you've come to join us at last?"

It was a question, not a statement, and he took a seat looking expectantly at Harry, waiting for an answer. He hoped it was going to be no, because the young pup would cause nothing but trouble, but if it was yes, then he would give him a run for his millions.

"Good to see you, Frank," Harry replied, not meaning it. "And yes, I thought it about time I took up the reins and ran my own company, the way my father wanted."

Frank beamed again. "You could not have given me better news, my boy. Now, where would you like to start?"

Harry frowned. "Since I'm going to be in charge, it's better if you didn't call me 'my boy.' Harry will do." He wanted to tell the old buffoon to call him Mr. Harrison, but he was an old colleague of his father's, and besides, for the moment he needed him. But by God he was going to have these old men jump when he said jump. He'd soon show them who was boss.

"I'd like to know exactly where each company stands financially," Harry said. "I want to know the annual turnover and the profit and the growth patterns. I think that's as good a starting point as any, don't you, Frank?"

Frank nodded. "Correct, Harry," he said smoothly. "I'll have the accountants get their books together and meet you up here in half an hour. Meanwhile I'll send my own secretary to look after you until you have a chance to appoint someone yourself. And my fellow directors will be in to say hello. They're gonna be just as thrilled as I am to know we have a Harrison at the helm again."

Harry scowled. Frank and the two other directors were his father's contemporaries. They had been with the company for forty-five years and he knew exactly what they were like; old-fashioned, cautious, penny-pinching businessmen. Frank was a wily old bastard and Harry knew Frank would make sure to sabotage his ideas before they even got off the ground.
They would have to go.
He would appoint his own retainers, who would work for
him,
and who would carry out his instructions to the letter. Meanwhile, he wanted to see exactly where the Harrison companies stood.

In precisely half an hour the manager of his bank knocked on the door followed by a team of ten accountants and half a dozen office boys loaded with ledgers and box-files, company reports and balance sheets. Frank had drilled them well. "Tell him everything," he had said, "every last goddamn detail until his head spins and he doesn't know which end is up."

After five hours, Harry called a halt. "Okay," he snarled, standing up, his head swimming with numbers and projections. "No more bullshit. Give me the bottom line. Which are successful and which are not?"

"I'm glad to say all the Harrison companies are very successful, sir," the manager said, "particularly the railroads and the steel, though we have high hopes for the oil with the new prospecting in the northern territories."

"The net worth," Harry snarled impatiently, "what's the net worth of Harrisons, goddamit?"

"Three hundred million dollars, sir."

"And my personal worth?" Harry's fingers drummed impatiently on his desk.

"Almost a hundred and fifty million, sir."

He nodded. "Fine. Now you may leave." He waited until they had collected their papers and accounts and statements and filed from his office, then he slumped, exhausted, back into his chair. Goddamn it, all he had asked for was to know what the companies were worth, he didn't need a blow-by-blow account. But by God, he was richer than even he had thought.

But it wasn't enough simply to take over the business his grandfather had started and his father had expanded. He had to do something on his own. Something his father had not created.
This
Harrison had to make his own mark on San Francisco.

He stood and stared gloomily out the window at the newsboys calling the Extra on the street below. Hearst's morning
Examiner
competed in San Francisco with the
Chronicle
and the later editions of the
Daily News,
the
Call
and the
Bulletin.
Harry admired Hearst and his newspaper empire, he was impressed by the Scripps-Howard chain, and he thought deeply about the power and prestige of being a newspaper giant. He thought about how to do it. Money talked—he could always buy the other papers' editors and reporters by bribing them with huge salaries, he could hire away their photographers, install the latest machinery, get his paper out before anyone else's hit the streets, and give the readers what they wanted. And what did they want? A tabloid, he decided, excitedly, and at the cheapest price.
A one-cent tabloid.
Goddamn it, he would be the next Hearst. He would call it the
Harrison Herald,
he'd cover every scandal, every fire, every burlesque star, every murder,
and
show 'em the pictures. And he'd do the same in Los Angeles. In fact, he would make it a policy to open a new Herald in a new city every year, and in ten years he would have beaten Hearst at his own game. He would be "Harrison, the Newspaper King" and his name would be a household word, just like Hearst. He had the money to do it and nothing was going to stop him.