Chapter 19

Later that day, Malik pushed through a framed glass door, setting off the bells suspended from the door frame above. Their ringing was all but lost amid the combined clatter of four treadle sewing machines.

All four women looked up and Eve Palmer said, “Good afternoon, Mister Malik. How can I help you?”

“Good afternoon Missus Palmer, ladies,” he said, bowing hid head slightly to acknowledge them. “Missus Palmer, I have a business proposition for you. Would you have a half hour or so to come to my office and hear me out?”

“Right now, Mister Malik?”

“Now, or at a more convenient time.”

Palmer looked around at the other women, who had returned to their stop-and-go sewing. She looked at a clock on the wall and said, “Ladies, why don’t you take a fifteen minute break. I’m going next door to Mister Malik’s office. I’ll be back, shortly.”

The youngest of the women leaned back in her chair and stretched her arms up over her head, arching her cramped back. Then she suddenly pulled in her arms and her face turned pink as she realized the display she was making with a man in the room.

Palmer lifted a heavy knit shawl from a table and gathered it around her shoulders.

“Shall we, Mister Malik?”

Malik opened the door to allow Palmer to precede him. He took two steps and opened the door leading to the stairway to the upper offices in his building, again allowing Palmer to precede him.

He locked that entrance door, as it was usually kept, and, leaning in, announced to the reception office, “Missus Eve Palmer is meeting with me in my office.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll put it in the journal,” Peng Delan said.

“Missus Palmer, if you’ll follow me.” Malik led the way up the carpeted stairs.

After he’d settled her in a visitor’s chair and offered her coffee or tea, which she declined, he went to sit behind his desk.

She said, “So this is what all the hammering was about. You made yourself a third office up here.”

“Yes, it was here or the cellar. And I admit, the cellar might be preferable in the summer. But, even so, it’s been getting crowded in here.”

“I can see that. For me, too. Is that what this is about? Are you going to cancel my lease so you can expand into that building?”

“That’s what it’s about, but I don’t think I’ll be canceling your lease any time soon. Instead, I’ve got an offer to put on the table.”

“Then you’ve turned my worry into intrigue. What do you have in mind, Emil?”

“Niles had mentioned that your second bedroom had been overtaken with bolts of cloth, sewing notions, and supplies and Gabriela had told me you were thinking of having a child, so I know you’ve outgrown that apartment, too.

“What I would like to do is to build you a building and an apartment to suit your needs. It would be directly behind your present location, but twice the size of what you have now. In other words, like putting these two buildings together., which is what it would be, essentially.”

Palmer slid forward in her seat and put her hands on Malik’s desk. “On Wagon Road Avenue, you mean? Really? Hold on, what’s that going to cost?”

“I’ll get to the cost in a minute. But yes, on Wagon Road Avenue. I own the two lots directly behind you.

“What I will do is build you two buildings that can be connected together or separated again in the future. The inside, non-supporting walls will be to your specifications. There will be a stairway in each building, at the adjoining walls, but the rest of the floor plan would be up to you.”

“With cellars?”

Malik leaned back in his chair, tented his fingers, and pressed them against his lips and nose.

Dropping his hands into his lap, he said, “The problem with cellars is that they flood during the late summer rains, and sometimes in the spring. The one in my building has a gravel floor so that the water can drain away. I have to treat it once or twice year with carbolic acid, to keep down the algae or mold or whatever grows in the dark. Anything stored down there on the floor would get wet. I only have a few things hanging from the ceiling joists, including a few shelves.

“The Inn’s cellar has a sump basin with a hand-operated pump. We have to check it hourly during heavy rains.”

“Are you sorry you have the cellar here?”

He thought a moment. “No, not sorry. But it didn’t provide the utility I was hoping for. I suppose the best of it is that I have some cool storage. I keep water carafes on a big stone slab on the floor where it’s the coldest and I keep my cigars on a shelf up near the ceiling. Cowboy kept his bows down there, where they wouldn’t dry out.”

“Are his bows still there?” Palmer asked.

Malik hesitated, then said, “Yes”

He sat up straighter in his chair. “Let me put it this way. It’s not worth it to me to dig out and block-in a cellar, nor to use more floor space for another stairwell. If it’s worth it to you, I’ll split the cost with you.”

“What sort of rent are we talking about?”

Malik pushed a typewritten sheet forward. “Here’s a payment schedule. The first six months are the same as you’re paying now. Then it will go up in two equal increments at six month intervals. The final amount will be this one.

“I know you’re getting plenty of business where you are. Mostly, though, you need more space. But being on Wagon Road Avenue will give you just enough cachet to satisfy the blue bloods, if any should happen to move here.”

“Sara Lewin and Beverly Kagan would bleed blue, I’ll bet,” Palmer retorted.

“I’m sure they would. But they’d also patronize you if your shop was squeezed in between the Golden Spike and Stella Norman’s house over on East Railroad Avenue. What I mean are the nose-in-the-air women who want to be seen on our Main Street entering the best dress shop in town.”

She nodded. “I’ll allow that.

“Well, this looks pretty good.” She paused, looking at the figures, then she looked up at Malik. “You realize this is only about forty percent more than I’m paying now?”

“What? Really? That can’t be right. It should be much higher. Let me see that.”

Palmer reluctantly slid the paper toward Malik.

Instead of taking the paper, Malik sprouted a grin and he said, “I’m just kidding, Eve. I know what I put there. You’re a good tenant and I’d like to keep you as one. I don’t want you going off and building your own shop. So I have to make the rent commensurate with conflicting goals.”

She squinted at him briefly, then said, “You’re even trickier than Molly says you are.”

Malik just raised and lowered his eyebrows.

“And she says you always call her the ‘smart one.’”

Malik grinned again.

“But maybe not the smartest one,” Palmer said. “Well, I’ll have to talk this over with Niles.”

“Of course.”

The next morning, Thursday, April fifth, Jonathan Nicholson joined the other three partners at the conference table on the second floor. He wasn’t due to start until the following Monday, but he had had a run-in with his supervisor and had exited early.

“He told me he was tired of my manner. I told him I couldn’t help feeling happy I was leaving. He shouted that I should get the hell out and not come back. At least five other staff lawyers heard him say it, so I took him at his shouted word.

“Ada wanted to visit with her mother for another couple days. She’ll come down on Saturday.

“So, what have you boys been up to?”

The other three looked at one another, then Malik stood and went into his office and behind his desk. Once there, he pulled on a cord affixed to the edge of his desk, next to a short cone mounted on a flexible hose. The cord was attached to a bell downstairs. He removed a plug from the narrow end of the cone, where it adjoined the tube, blew into the tube, and immediately said into the cone, “Miss Peng?”

“Yes, Mister Malik,” came back, momentarily. The tonal dimensions were compressed and the volume reduced by the tube’s inch-and-a-half diameter and twenty-two foot length. While Peng Delan’s speech was distinct, it was noticeably quieter and tinny.

“Please bring the journal for the past four weeks and be prepared to take notes.”

“Yes, sir. I will be right up.”

In fact, it would have been easier for Malik to shout down the stairs, but the partners had agreed that a measure of office decorum would be expected by clients. Besides, it allowed them to show off their technical innovation.

For the next hour and a half, Malik, Bream, and Lewin described their growing involvement with the Sonora, the development of the Spa, the intrigue and adventures with the Nestors, Malik’s appointment as a Marshal, Miss Peng’s sister being made a deputy marshal and her assistance in apprehending and being wounded by the Nestors, trips to Wichita and Dos Picos, as well as some of the notable happenings in the office itself.

Ultimately, Bream said, “I’m sure we’d be glad to go into more detail, but that’s the story in summary.”

“Wait,” Lewin said. “We haven’t told him our Sonora names, yet. Wil’s called Law Thinker and they call me Counts Horses, because I’m an accountant, see?”

Nicholson, chuckling, said, “So what does that make me? ‘Comes Lately’?”

“Best be careful,” Bream said. “David ended up with his name because Emil explained what an accountant was by saying they help trade by counting things, like horses.”

“But what did I hear you discussing with Eve Palmer yesterday, Emil?” Bream queried. “Are you changing her lease?”

“In a manner of speaking. I offered her new and expanded quarters on Wagon Road Avenue, directly across the alley from her present location.” Malik turned to Nicholson and explained, “She owns the dress shop next door. Well, she owns the business but she leases the building from me; it’s a mirror image of this one.” Then he addressed all of them: “Here’s something I want to bring to the table:

“I’d like to build two adjoining buildings for her business, more or less just like these two, though I’ve given her the option of designing most of the floor plan, with the two spaces to be connected on each level.

“Then I’d have us be able to expand into her former dress shop, but just the first floor, initially. We’ll keep the apartment upstairs until we need the space. In fact, we don’t even have to occupy the first floor until we feel it’s needed. I’m not intending to force unnecessary expenses on the partnership.”

Lewin said, “We could take on more bookkeeping customers if we had space for another bookkeeper or two. I could do more tax work, then, and actual audits.”

Malik said, “There’s also another idea I had. Since my father died, I’ve generally tried to sell the properties he had purchased in Jackson, Franklin, and Sonora Counties. Most of the residential lots in Franklin have been sold, though I still have four good commercial lots in the Crossing. There’s also some ranch land in Sonora. It’s south of Flat Grass Creek and west of Smoky Valley. It’s four sections of good grass and about one section of mountains, but there are five year-’round streams. Most of the remaining small parcels are here in Waypoint.

“What I was thinking is that I might get into the real estate business, itself. You know, sell property for other people, maybe put more rentals on the lots I have, do rental management, maybe buy some land for residential development, pretty much the whole ball of wax.

“What I’m thinking is to put up a third building, like this one, on the other side of Eve Palmer’s shop, the one she’s in now, I mean, next door. I’d run the real estate business out of that.

“Now, I can handle that by myself, but if any of you want to throw in with me, that would be fine, too. But don’t feel you have to. And I reckon there’ll be other opportunities. But think about it or talk about it. Let me know what you decide or ask if you have a question.

“But, speaking of opportunities, I’ve arranged for us to have one of the first telephones in Waypoint.”

The brothers cut short their end-of-week visit to Ranch Home so that they could chair a mid-afternoon Sunday meeting of select citizens and county officials at St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, at the corner of First Street and Courthouse Avenue. The Reverend Ansel Jansen had proved to be the most sympathetic of Waypoint’s pastors and preachers when approached about protecting the rights of minority residents, particularly the Chinese. One or two of the men of god were almost hostile, including the Maliks’ own pastor at St. Francis Xavier Church, Father Drew Jones. While insisting he did not oppose the effort, Jones was adamant that he could say nothing from the pulpit until he consulted with the bishop, in Meseta.

There were fifty-three people gathered at St. Paul’s that Sunday afternoon. Most of the members of the Waypoint Mining Partnership were there, but more than twenty others were, too. Many attended with their spouses.

Maylon Rademacher, the county’s chief judge, attended with his wife, Molly. Rademacher had been agreeable to being master of ceremonies, giving brief descriptions of other communities’ violent experiences, and setting the tone for finding the means to foster a peaceful and prosperous Jackson County.

Two attendees requested specifically by Malik were Fu-Chun Li and Mortimer English, the latter being the sergeant and second in command of the K&ASR’s six-man Fort Birney Division police force. English was a fit, if florid-faced, man of about forty, dressed in a police style uniform of black trousers, tan shirt and black jacket and a brass badge embossed with “K&ASR Police.” He had a sergeant’s chevron on one sleeve and a shoulder patch featuring the railroad’s stalks of wheat and saguaro cactus logogram on the other. Since much of Waypoint was still owned by the railroad’s subsidiary, Malik wanted the railroad police informed of relevant happenings. He had met English at a Board of Directors’ meeting.

Early in his remarks, Malik said, “I want to make it clear that my brother and I have a particular interest in protecting the Chinese workers because we are employing many of them in special projects. This came about when we agreed to help protect a number of Chinese families and workers who had been displaced following the anti-Chinese riots in Wichita. We agreed to let a group of about one hundred move to the northeast corner of our ranch, where conditions are favorable for growing rice.

“But I also want to make it clear that we got into this before we had those special projects, before we knew any Chinese would be working for us, when all we thought we were doing was helping fellow human beings survive in our sometimes inhospitable land of immigrants. Without any thought of gain or advantage, we gave them a place to build a community on a portion of our ranch. I mention this now only so that all aspects of our motives are understood in this important humanitarian effort.

“But equally important to us is the preservation of peace and justice in our community, in Waypoint, in Ranch Home, in Utica, and in the rural areas that comprise most of Jackson County. Mob rule benefits none of us. Mob rule is dangerous to our families, it is damaging to our businesses, it is a threat to our lawmen, it causes property damage, and it would give us a reputation that would make decent families shy away from moving here, while attracting all the wrong element.

“That’s why we believe that it is necessary, if we are ever confronted with mob violence, for ordinary citizens to stand up and say ‘No! Not in our community.’ And we think we’ve devised a way for us, as a group of neighbors, to face down the danger.

“I’ll let my brother, Andy, give you the details.”

Later, Rademacher introduced Fu-Chun. He was accompanied by Peng Delan, whose arrival Malik hadn’t noticed.

Fu-Chun was dressed in outdoor work clothes, though they were new and neatly pressed, including a collared shirt and a hip-length riding jacket of tan canvas. It suggested a dressier style but still evoking the notion that he was ready to go to work. Peng Delan was dressed in typically American clothing, including a long skirt, appropriate to her work in a business office. Her hair was pulled into a tight bun and she wore eyeglasses Malik had not seen, before.

Fu-Chun addressed the group, successfully suppressing the more common accent-related mispronunciations that Americans were fond of ridiculing.

“Thank you for demonstrating your concern for me and my countrymen. The young woman with me is Miss Peng Delan. She is trained in bookkeeping and performs clerical duties in Mister Malik’s law offices.

“But her name exemplifies one of the many differences between our cultures. In China, we place our surname first, and then our given name. So Miss Peng’s given name is Delan, but we would address her as Peng Delan. In China, Mister Malik might be known as Mister Malik Emil.

“But that is what I wanted to talk about, for just a minute. In fact, one’s name is one’s name. The order of the words does not change that. Most of the differences between our cultures carry the same importance, which is ... not that much. Those odd differences fade from importance because, underneath all of them, we are all human beings who want pretty much the same things: to raise a family, hold a decent job, and have a secure and comfortable home. Most of the other differences arise because we Chinese have been doing it one way for thousands of years and you Americans of European descent have been doing it another way for thousands of years. Our ways seem no stranger to you than many of yours seem to us. The essential thing to keep in mind is that those ways of doing things, whether yours or ours, have been working well for millions of people for thousands of years. One culture demanding that the other culture change to its ‘better’ ways is really an absurd notion.

“However, I thought it might be more interesting if you simply asked questions, of myself or Miss Peng. Just to be clear, my name is Fu-Chun Li, so I would be addressed as Mister Fu-Chun. Now, who has a question?”

“Yes, sir. Your name please?”

“I’m Jacob Baylor. Why do you eat with those sticks?”

“Well, Mister Baylor, my usual answer to that is because we do not want to eat with our fingers.” There were a few chuckles. “But I think you are asking why we do not prefer a fork.

“The English word for those sticks is chopsticks, and is likely from some misunderstood term in the past. We Chinese call them ‘kuaizi,’ (KWAI-zuh) which means ‘quick,’ and quick describes the way we use them. Kuaizi, or chopsticks, have been in use in China and other Asian countries since a millennia before the birth of Jesus. So we’ve gotten very used to them. They are handy, easy to make, easy to carry, they can even be thrown away and then replaced from the nearest bamboo stalk. Children in China have no more trouble mastering their use than American children have in learning how to use a fork and spoon. We prefer them because they are familiar to us and easy to use.”

“But, hold on,” Baylor insisted. “How could you eat a beefsteak or a bowl of soup?”

“Well, the soup is easy. We just tip the bowl and drink it. However, many people in China use spoons.

“But the beefsteak is another matter and one I find quite interesting. In most of Asia, meat is cut up into bite-sized pieces, usually before it is cooked. It is never served in slabs at the dining table. In fact, most people in China would think that is uncivilized to serve a piece of meat that your guest would have to cut up himself. Chiefly, though, it is simply a difference in the way we think of our food. One culture cuts it up in the kitchen, the other culture cuts it up at the dining table. It is really no more than a difference in style.