“I should think that a young gentleman like yourself should be grateful to have the means to enrich himself handed over to him by his family,” Mariah says. “No matter what he may think of his daddy.”
He glances up at the auntie, astonished by this speech. As usual Mariah glares at him with the face of a wooden Indian. “Damnable plague, that’s what real estate is. Interest rates and down payments, defaults and bankruptcies. Bankruptcy, Mariah, is a sin. Or it ought to be.” He plucks the crumpled note from the floor and examines it one more time.
Der Sir:
Konserning yer rekwest I tern over key to bording haus at 567 Stockton I say damm you sir is mine an I ain’t giving up nothing. Tis my haus & my borders. Yull git yer pownd of flesh when you get it. Sinseerly, Mr Ekberg
“Speaking of grateful, Mariah, Mr. Ekberg has enjoyed a year’s respite from all mortgage payments, and yet he sends me an ungrateful note like this.”
Daniel does not look forward to rousting Mr. Ekberg out of the Stockton Street boardinghouse. The crumbling Stick is a dreadful piece of work, in dire need of a new roof and a paint job. Mr. Ekberg is a Forty-niner whose modest bonanza enabled him to purchase the house in the sixties when Stockton Street was white and Portsmouth Square was a gambling haven and a dining resort. Now that Stockton Street is smack-dab in the middle of Chinatown, Mr. Ekberg’s rents from his Chinese tenants packed in like tinned fish have plummeted. Which is why he mortgaged the place in 1890 to Jonathan D. Watkins & Son. Daniel does not want to manage the place himself. Collect coins from coolies every month? No, thank you.
He crushes Mr. Ekberg’s note into a ball and flings it across the room, taking a swig of Scotch Oats Essence. Remarkable medication. He should purchase his own bottle. “Perhaps Jack London is right. Perhaps private property is no damn good.”
“Mr. Watkins,” Mariah says, “the War Between the States was fought so that my people would not remain someone else’s property. So that my people could own property of their own. Perhaps a privileged young gentleman like yourself should not be so quick to dismiss that which others have fought and died for. That which this great country of America was founded upon. Freedom, the pursuit of a free life, and owning one’s own house.”
By God, where does the auntie get her ideas? “Excellent speech, Mariah. But the numbers. In real estate, I mean. The numbers make my head ache.” At least Mr. Ekberg replied to Daniel’s notice to quit. Mr. Harvey, the other debtor who has defaulted on the shack in Sausalito, has had neither the manners nor the intelligence to reply at all. “Mortgages. Did you know that ‘mortgage’ means ‘death pledge’? It’s a deadly business, all right. Deadly boring.”
“And just how do you intend to pay Miss Malone for the rent?” Mariah asks pointedly. “Lying about all the day?”
Thank goodness he has to pay Miss Malone and not Mariah. “Do not worry your little head about that. That lady up there”—he points to the mermaid—“has paid my way around here for a while longer. Besides, that’s enough of your scolding.” He’s suddenly impatient with Mariah’s interrogation. She’s just the Negro maid. What she may think—or for that matter, what any woman, a carriage horse, or a dog may think—is not the proper subject of speculation for an educated gentleman. “My mother is in her grave. I don’t need or want another.”
Mariah stares at him. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Watkins, I forgot. You’re a-grieving.”
Daniel laughs sharply and empties the rest of the brandy bottle into his coffee. “I really should abstain from champagne at breakfast. Knocks me flat on my prat all morning. I don’t know how Miss Malone carries on so.”
“Miss Malone has got practice.”
“Thank you, Mariah. You may go.”
She turns on her heel and goes without another word. He hears her clattering across the hall to the suite she shares with Zhu Wong, riffling around in there. Is there a chance she could discover what went on in the second bedroom this morning? But no, she strides briskly out, clatters down the stairs, and bangs the front door so loudly the mirrors rattle in the smoking parlor.
Now and then he’s heard Mariah mention something about “going to a meeting” to Zhu or Jessie. He has no idea what sort of meeting a Negro