Page 19 of Blowing Off Steam

Rushy frowned. “Wouldn’t it also blow up the opium?”

Field protested. “No, not if I set it just the right way to blow the door ajar, if I set it against the jamb of the iron—”

“Possums,” Calliope said in a warning tone. Then, “Possums!” more stridently.

The men looked. Kwok Lee staggered to the safe and appeared to be attempting to tip it over—upon himself.

“What’s he doing?” Field asked Maurice.

Maurice reported, “He says maybe if safe is turned sideways, on floor, we can open it more easy.”

“Hey now,” said Rushy, halfheartedly shaking Kwok Lee by the arm. “That won’t help any.”

“Besides,” said Field. “It’s facing the wrong way.”

Field’s word came out “way—aaaaaaaay!” when he realized the safe was tipping over on the Celestial big dog. Of course Rushy and Field darted over to prevent the giant iron box from smashing Kwok Lee. The phrase “squished like a bug” came instantly to mind when the safe teetered and slammed the riceman to the floor, only his arms emerging to momentarily flail. The fingers twitched as everyone stared dumbly down at him, then stopped.

“Oh, my,” Calliope said blandly, with less emotion than she’d shown when Kwok Lee had stepped on the beetle.

The safe door suddenly swung wide open, further bashing Kwok Lee’s dead fingers into the floorboards. A porcelain bowl rolled out, stopping against the toe of Field’s boot.

Field looked at Rushy. Rushy looked at Field.

Both men took a dive into the cavern of the safe, pulling out bowl after blue porcelain bowl. They were all lined with rows and layers of flower petals, and Field swiftly saw this was one of their methods of transport—the opium was rolled into balls and pressed into the bowls, separated by layers of petals.

“Maurice!” Rushy ordered. “Hand me that burned mat.”

They stacked the bowls up to a height of about two feet per stack, wrapping them in the layout mats, and when done, they had four stacks of the things.

“Let’s take off before those guards come in,” Calliope begged.

“What about that quill of gold Kwok Lee already took?” Rushy asked.

Field replied, “It’s underneath the safe. Anyway, it’s a small price to pay for all of this opium.”

“But,” Calliope said, “you just killed your opium supplier!”

That wasn’t true. They hadn’t killed him. He had killed himself. Field continued stacking bowls. “Should we admit that we didn’t kill him?”

Maurice said, “Killing Kwok Lee will make you big men. If you can depart this building without being killed.”

So they departed the way they had entered. Rushy insisted on taking the poor downtrodden Chinese toddler in his arms. He said he intended on dropping the child with some Mormons he knew who could ascertain who the parents were, so Field and Calliope strode slower behind Rushy and Maurice, two stacks of bowls apiece in their arms. They wended past coolies swinging heavy loads at the ends of bamboo poles balanced on their shoulders and launderers who held their baskets of soiled clothing on their heads.

Field regretted bringing Calliope to witness that scene. She hadn’t always been a hooker, and no lady should have to view a wallpapered riceman crushed to death by a safe, the other one knocked out perhaps for good. “Calliope,” he started to say, dodging around a huge hanging cloth sign that must have advertised goose fetuses for sale. He continued shouting over the heads of a few Celestials. “I’m sorry to have brought you there. We never should have involved you in our business. I really feel I must explain to you. I have a son—”

But Calliope was nowhere to be seen. Field’s heart lurched, and he teetered this way and that, straining to find her. She must have ducked into that secondary alley draped with laundry, and Field followed, using his chin to prop the bowls.

Yes, she was there. Her bowls were on the ground and she leaned against the wall wearing a foxy look, hands at her sides. “There you are! I was shaking in my boots when I saw you missing! Why did you duck down this alley?”

Calliope nodded her head to indicate he should put his own bowls down. Only then did she say, “Because. This.” And she wrapped her long, satin arms around his neck, pressing him to the wall. Field was aghast. No woman had kissed him since his wife, and his mind suddenly went blank. Standing on tiptoes, she tilted her lovely head and kissed him like a wildcat.

Her mouth opened, and she dined on his lips, sucking them into her mouth seductively. She squiggled her tongue about his and seemed to delight in making loud smacking sounds as she threaded her fingers through his hair. It occurred to Field, Calliope probably hadn’t kissed a man—properly—in months if not years. Hookers normally didn’t kiss their clientele. Had she ever been married? He made it his business to find out soon.

He enjoyed licking her cinnamon mouth and dared to encircle her waist in his palms. When he heard feminine giggling, he knew Calliope had darted down an alley of hookers, but he didn’t want to let her go. Calliope sighed little girlish sounds into his mouth, and when he lifted one hand to her hair, he found it smooth as glass, soft as a rabbit’s fur. Although she pressed her pelvis to him, Field hoped her layers of skirts prevented her from feeling his bulging erection.

She pulled back to sigh against his face. “Field, Field…This is what I wanted. You in my arms. Stealing from that damned riceman only excited me even more, and I just could not resist.”

“Well.” Field sighed against her forehead. “We did pay him for some of it. Only the gold got smashed underneath the safe, too.”