Fortune is a Woman (39 page)

He called back the bank manager and the accountants, but he didn't call in Frank and the other directors. This was his baby and they would have nothing to do with it. He gave his orders: find premises, find the latest machinery, find out costs, get him the names of the top editors and news reporters, not just on the West Coast but in New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Washington. Whatever underhanded means it took to do it, find out the operating figures of the rival newspapers. Maybe he could just take over one of them. And just one other thing. He wanted it all done this week.

Smiling, he looked into their astonished faces as he buttoned his jacket and smoothed back his fair hair. "Good afternoon, gentlemen," he said, walking to the door and leaving them, mouths still agape, to do his legwork.

Buck Wingate listened doubtfully when Harry called him to explain his new plans. "I guess we should just be thankful he's doing something other than chase girls and spend money," he said gloomily to his father. But if he thought Harry spent money like water before, it was nothing compared to the sums he began lavishing on the
Harrison Herald.

He bought a small printing plant on Mission, expanded it into the building next door and installed five brand-new presses and the latest in composing rooms and darkrooms. He cleared the three middle floors of the Harrison building for the
Harrison Herald
offices and ordered a bewildered Frank to find room for the displaced workers on other floors. He installed a direct private elevator to his office and had that redecorated. He hired away an editor from New York, a night-desk editor from Philly, and stole reporters and photographers and experienced compositors and printers from the other San Francisco journals. He personally designed the
Herald
logo, a sunrise behind a phoenix, which would appear at the top of the front page of his newspaper, and he opened branch offices in every small California city. He spent millions and he got what he wanted: the best. Now all he had to do was sell it.

On the day the first edition was being prepared, he sat in his huge editorial office in his shirtsleeves, his feet on his desk, a cigar clamped between his teeth and a green shade over his eyes, reading every story as it came off the typewriter. Before giving his approval he examined every photograph while the
Herald'
s
real editor fumed in his cubicle, trying to make his deadline and get his paper to press. That night Harry threw a huge party at the printing plant. He filled the place with debutantes, movie stars, and playboys, and he himself pressed the button to start his gleaming presses rolling. Champagne corks popped and he watched, satisfied, as the first
Harrison Herald
rolled off the press.

Buck Wingate shook his head. The place was like a society jamboree, not a beat-the-deadline, kill-the-competition, hard-nosed newspaper enterprise. He surely hoped Harry knew what he was doing, but he knew it was no good giving him advice. He wouldn't take it.

It seemed this time he was wrong. Harry worked hard. He made promotional visits to all the
Herald'
s
offices, he gave speeches at street corners in every little town, extolling the virtues of his new one-cent tabloid, and his face appeared on a daily basis on the front page of his own newspaper. Sales of the
Herald
took off. ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DAILY SUBSCRIBERS AFTER ONLY ONE MONTH his headlines announced proudly. One hundred and twenty-five thousand in two months, one hundred and fifty thousand... Even if it wasn't true, Harry thought it looked good, and besides, people always believed what they read in the papers. Yet though the
Herald'
s
stories and pictures were as good as anybody else's, they weren't any better. San Franciscans already had their loyalties to their own newspapers and sales began flagging.

Harry liked to drop in at the office at night, peeling off his jacket and sipping whiskey while he pulled stories off the spike on the nightdesk, issuing them to reporters to write while the night editor glowered furiously at him. The cynical hard-nosed newspapermen mockingly called him "young Harrison Hearst," and stories flew around San Francisco about how he couldn't keep his hands off the women staff and wouldn't take any backtalk from the men. "Fuck and fire, that's all Harry knows how to do," they said.

A new circulation war broke out. Harry's newsboys were beaten up by hired toughs and copies of the
Harrison Herald
were torn and scattered to the wind. Harry vowed to get the perpetrators, but strangely, even the chief of police wasn't able to find out who did it.

Harry went out on his publicity rounds again. He put ads in his own newspaper telling the public that the
Herald
was already expanding and that this was only the first in a chain of
Harrison Herald
newspapers across the country.

It was a small item in the financial column of his own paper that caught his attention. It said that L. T. Francis was on its way to becoming one of San Francisco's richest companies, still small but worth watching. It prophesied that with good forward-looking management the merchant company—which had just purchased the first of what promised to be a fleet of cargo vessels—was firmly set on course to becoming one of San Francisco's most successful.

Harry wondered why he had never heard of it. He called Frank and asked him, but he said he had never heard of it either; it certainly wasn't part of the establishment. Still curious, he called the journalist who had written the piece and asked where he'd gotten his information.

"L. T. Francis is really a Chinese company," the man explained, "working out of offices and warehouses on the waterfront. It's all a bit of a mystery—except their success is very much a financial fact. The rumor is that it's some Chinese guy with a Western woman partner. They're in property and shipping and she fronts for him on all the deals. Nobody knows if it's really true, but if it is, it's a clever idea to get around the prejudice."

"A Western woman partner?" Harry echoed thoughtfully. "What exactly does that mean?"

The man grinned. "Your guess is as good as mine, but I have heard her called his 'concubine.' "

Harry laughed. "Sounds like just the kind of story we need for the
Herald.
Tell you what, why don't you dig around a little, find out about this concubine and the mysterious Chinaman. Try to get some pictures and we'll drum up a nice juicy scandal for our readers." He laughed again. "That'll take care of the L. T. Francis Company. Mark my words, you can watch their profits drop to zero the minute a sex-scandal raises its ugly head."

Harry thought no more about it until a couple of weeks later when the journalist came back to him with more information and pictures. He thought the reporter looked at him strangely, but he was more interested in the pictures he offered him.

He stared silently at the photographs. Minutes passed and the man shifted uncomfortably in his chair, but still Harry did not look up. Finally he spoke. "What other information do you have besides the pictures?"

"Not a great deal, sir. The boss is Chinese but he has American papers, probably got them after the quake, same as all the others. He's known locally as 'the Mandarin' because of the long Chinese robes he wears. He is not involved in local Chinese affairs and politics and has no contact with the tongs. He works hard and is said to be extremely clever. The business is sound and growing."

"And the woman?"

Harry's glance was ice and the reporter shuffled the papers nervously. "She's young, has a five-year-old son, lives in Aysgarth's Boardinghouse on Union. As does the Mandarin. And by the way, he's financially involved in that little boardinghouse, too, and I understand that soon there will be an Aysgarth's Hotel."

"Did you find out her name?"

The man cleared his throat. "Er, we understand she is a Mrs. Harrison, sir. And the child's name is Oliver."

Harry's stare was implacable. "A
Chinese
child?"

"I couldn't say, sir. I haven't seen him."

"And you don't know who this woman is?"

"Well, no sir, just that she's Mrs. Harrison."

But looking into his eyes Harry knew that he knew exactly who Mrs. Harrison was, and that his entire workforce now knew his crazy, long-lost sister was the Chinaman's concubine.

"You may go," he said coldly. "Oh, and by the way"— the man turned from the door and looked expectantly at him—"pick up your paycheck on the way out. You're fired."

The journalist stared at him, astonished. Harry was leaning back in his chair, gazing at the photographs of Francie. "You bastard," the man snarled. "You deserve all you get."

Harry ignored him, wincing as the door slammed violently. He spread the photos across his desk and bent over them intently. There was no doubt about it. His sister was living in sin with a Chinaman and their bastard son, just a few blocks away. His hands shook as he shuffled the photos back into a pile, his anger rising like steam in a simmering kettle until it suddenly boiled over. He could stand it no longer... he would go and see with his own eyes.

He thrust the photographs into his desk drawer and locked it. Then he called down to the darkroom and told them to destroy the plates immediately. Slamming into his private elevator, he cursed its slowness as it descended sedately to the ground floor. The doorman saluted, but Harry didn't even see him as he strode across the street in the direction of Union Square.

It was a dark, wintry evening and the lamps were already lit. A fire glowed in the grate of Francie's private sitting room, where Ollie lay on the hearthrug, his arm around the dogs, listening intently while Francie told him again all about Hong Kong. She had been back over a year, but he still couldn't hear enough of it. "I'm coming with you next time," he told her authoritatively. "You promised. Besides, I want to see for myself."

"Of course you will. Only now it's bathtime, so let's go." She added, "And I just happen to know that Annie has made brownies this afternoon. Your favorite."

He grinned cheekily at her and her heart turned over. He was almost six years old now, tall for his age with a lanky thinness that belied his appetite for Annie's baking. His gray eyes were as direct and candid as his father's and there was a joyous quality about him that charmed all who knew him. Still, she reminded herself quickly, he was no paragon of virtue, he was an ordinary boy who hated to take baths and tried to avoid his chores. He often came home from school with grazed knees and occasionally bruised fists, and he squandered his few cents' weekly pocket money on marbles and tin soldiers and Hershey bars. And he was the apple of the boarders' eyes as well as her own.

Francie's mind returned to Hong Kong as she ran his bath, and to the letter from Edward Stratton tucked safely in her pocket. It was exactly a year and three months since they had met. He had bombarded her with letters and cablegrams and even international telephone calls all the way from London, but she had steadfastly refused to see him. Now he had refused to be put off any longer. He was on board a liner to New York and in a few weeks he would be here in San Francisco.

"I insist on seeing you, Francesca," he had written. "Even if you say no, I shall waylay you. Why are you being so stubborn? You know as well as I it was no shipboard romance, and I intend to ask you to marry me again, and this time I will not take no—or any other excuse—for an answer."

"Sounds very forceful," Annie had commented when she showed her the letter. "Sounds like a man who knows what he wants and intends to get it." She'd glanced shrewdly at Francie and added, "And if I were you, love, I'd jump at the chance to marry him. You and Ollie would have a wonderful life, and why shouldn't you? You've done nothing wrong.

"There's no reason for him ever to know what really happened. I'll tell him you were married to my brother and who's to disprove it? Your marriage certificate was destroyed in the earthquake, along with everybody else's." Annie shook her head regretfully. "You're a fool, Francesca Harrison, if you don't say yes."

Francie thought longingly of Edward. She wanted so much to see his dear face, hear his voice, touch his hand. She wanted to marry him more than anything on earth, but she couldn't deceive him. "I'll see him," she agreed at last, "but I must tell him the truth and let him decide. You just can't base a marriage on a pack of lies."

Annie sighed exasperatedly. "You're a fool," she said bluntly. "Do it first and then tell him. Once he marries you he'll never want to let you go."

Ollie was bathed and in his pajamas when the doorbell rang and Annie went to answer it. The man standing on the doorstep said arrogantly, "I'm here to see Francesca Harrison."

Annie stared at him, puzzled; she knew his face but she couldn't put a name to it. "Hurry up, woman," he snarled, and suddenly she knew. "There's no Francesca Harrison here," she said firmly, pushing the door shut.

He quickly put his foot in the gap and pushed it open again.
"Mrs. Harrison,
then, if that's what you call her," he retorted, striding past her into the hall. He turned to look at her. "Tell her that her brother, Harry, is here to see her."

Annie squared her shoulders, glad she didn't have her apron on and that she was wearing her good maroon wool dress. Not that it mattered to Harry Harrison, but at least she didn't look like a servant and it gave her an edge of badly needed confidence. "I'll see if she is at home," she said in a firm voice even though her knees were shaking. "Kindly wait here in the hall."

Harry watched her walk up the stairs. She was small and rounded and attractive, and under any other circumstances he might have fancied her, he had always liked older women. But his mind was on more urgent matters. His anger boiled again as he thought of his sister, here in this very house—flaunting her bastard child and her illicit relationship with a Chinaman right under his goddamn nose. All of San Francisco must have known, except him.

Annie walked into Francie's sitting room and closed the door behind her. She leaned against it, her knees still shaking, and Francie glanced up at her surprised. "It's Harry," she said bluntly. "He's downstairs. He knows you're here."