Dearest Natalia. Arriving on Pacific Star, March 25. Wire a thousand dollars to port of San Fran. Dimitri
The breath left her in a rush. Dimitri was the only person in the world who addressed her as “Dearest Natalia,” but this message made no sense. It didn’t sound like Dimitri. It was probably a fraud, and a cruel one at that.
She slid the card back under her stack of papers. She wouldn’t let herself be distracted from the discussion about the subway because of a nonsensical telegram. Soon there were questions from the other bankers, and she tried to put the odd message out of her mind.
But it was hard to concentrate, and she slid the telegram out to read it again. Someone was clearly trying to defraud her. Boris Kozlov, the hard-bitten policeman she’d hired to find news of Dimitri, was the most likely suspect. She’d never quite trusted Boris. He took bribes from the owners of local stores to stop by several times a day. He probably assumed that a rich woman like Natalia wouldn’t hesitate to wire money to a friend in need.
But how would Boris know about the “Dearest Natalia” greeting?
She thrummed her fingers against the card, one ear listening to the subway discussion while her mind was halfway around the world. Plenty of people knew that was how Dimitri addressed her. It was an open joke among the telegraph operators on the third floor, and Boris could have easily learned that detail.
Why would he ask her to wire money to San Francisco, though? If he was trying to impersonate Dimitri to trick her out of a thousand dollars, why send the money to the other side of the country? Granted, it would be harder to trap a fraudster in San Francisco than if Boris asked for the money to be wired someplace like Boston or Philadelphia, but still....
“Natalia!” her father said, jerking her back to the present. “I asked about your plans for structuring the loan.”
She cleared her throat and supplied the answers, heat flushing her face. On the other side of the table, Silas Conner gloated at the way she’d been caught woolgathering.
She needed to concentrate on getting this loan finalized and waste no more time worrying about the unknown scoundrel trying to swindle her out of a thousand dollars.
12
Dimitri stepped off the ship and into the port of San Francisco, looking around in appalled amazement. It was huge! Dozens of piers crowded the port, where steamships unloaded people and cargo. Other ships waited offshore, ready to dock as soon as a pier was open. His own ship had been forced to wait six hours before it could claim a space on a wharf, all while Dimitri cooled his heels on deck, eager to get ashore and claim the payment Natalia had sent. The moment he had his hands on it, he’d buy a meal, a bath, and some decent clothing.
Except now that he was on land, the experience was overwhelming. Piers, wagons, warehouses, and drays cluttered the shore as far as his eye could see. To the south, dredging equipment widened the harbor, while on the north, dozens of railroads funneled into warehouses. And the noise! It made the chaos even more unnerving.
How would he find the telegraph office where Natalia had sent his money? He hadn’t expected San Francisco to be so big, and he kept walking down the harbor path, looking for sign of a telegraph station. It had rained this morning, and the damp soaked through his tattered lapti shoes, which had outlived their usefulness. The woven strips of birch bark began to frayduring the voyage, but he had tied pieces of string around each shoe to hold them together.
The port stretched for miles in each direction, but the largest and fanciest building was straight ahead. It was a white, neoclassical building with two long wings on either side and a clocktower in the center. It seemed a logical place to start looking for a telegraph station.
A long arcade stretched down the interior of the building, its high ceiling framed by exposed ironwork arches. It was a feast for the eyes. Cheese shops, flower stalls, casks of wine, and merchants selling all manner of imported goods filled the arcade. The scent of hot coffee mingled with baking bread made him weak with hunger.
People looked at him oddly, probably because of the conglomeration of clothes he wore. The flaps of his Mongolian deel were loosely held together with the red sash, and his shoes were falling apart, but he didn’t care, especially after spotting the Western Union telegraph office straight ahead.
A grumpy clerk with wire-framed glasses stood behind the front counter as he haggled with a woman who didn’t want to pay for the telegram she’d just sent. Behind the clerk was a wall with hundreds of tiny slots filled with telegrams either waiting to be picked up or delivered. Dimitri’s heart pounded so hard it made him dizzy, but at last he arrived at the front of the line.
“Please,” he said. “My friend has wired a message for Dimitri Sokolov. Please see if it has arrived.”
The clerk looked taken aback. “What?” he asked. “You need to speak English.”
Dimitri hadn’t even realized he’d spoken in Russian. He repeated the request in English as the clerk’s suspicious gaze flicked to Dimitri’s hair, tied up in a topknot. He frowned in disdain but turned to scan the mail slots. It didn’t take long.
“There is nothing here for you,” he said. “You’ll have to move along. There’s a line behind you.”
Dimitri clenched his fists. “It was scheduled to be here today. Can you consult the arrivals again?”
The clerk shook his head. “I don’t need to look again. I’ve been here all day, and nothing like that has come in. Move along. There’s a line behind you.”
Dimitri stood, poleaxed. It could not be! There was no way Natalia would have failed to respond to his plea for help. If she knew of his desperation, she would have moved heaven and earth to help him.
A headache began to pound, and he battled a wave of anxiety as terrible thoughts descended. What if Natalia learned he’d been condemned for cowardice and wanted nothing to do with him? Knowing she might think badly of him scorched. He would have to find her and explain. If it took the rest of his life, he would clear the stain of dishonor from his name.
What was he going to do now? No clothes, no food, no money. Strange land. He wasn’t too proud to work, but who would hire a sickly man whose shoes were held together by string?
He could not accept this. He’d traveled too far to be discouraged this easily.
He headed to the other side of the telegraph station where an older man was sorting messages in a back office. Dimitri raised his voice to get the clerk’s attention.
“Sir,” he called out, “can you check for a message? Please! It will be coming from New York, from Natalia Blackstone.”
