Free Dangerous Journey by Joanne Pence Page A

city. In the opposite direction, it roller-coastered down to the bay.
    She walked up the hill into the hovering fog. The makeup of the street changed quickly, almost eerily so. From the bright neon lights of stores and restaurants along Grant Avenue, the shops on this street were closed and darkened.
    As she ascended Jackson, through the fog she was able to see a street sign with the name Duncombe in Roman letters, and Chinese characters below them. Something made her slow her pace. When she reached the corner of Duncombe and Jackson, she realized that her foreboding had been warranted. Duncombe was a desolate-looking alley.
    She peered down the alley. It was so dark that she couldn’t see the end of it.
    For all she knew, the black hole of Calcutta could be waiting for her down there. The old expression “being Shanghaied” struck her. It was used about people snatched off the streets of San Francisco’s Barbary Coast during the mid-nineteenth century and made to work on ships traveling to the Far East. Could Mr. Yeng, a man of influence, actually live in there?
    Groping in her purse, she again pulled out the address Alan had given her. 99 Duncombe.
    She put it away again and held her purse against her chest as if for protection. Her mouth felt dry as she took the first, tentative steps into the alley. A fog-shrouded streetlamp cast her shadow far in front of her, until even the shadow disappeared in darkness. The walls of the alley were mostly brick and stone with steel, roll-up garage doors interspersed between them. Dumpsters blocked the narrow sidewalk as she walked down the center of the pavement. She remembered reading in history books about the tong wars that took place in San Francisco’s Chinatown in the late nineteenth century, and how rival tongs, similar to today’s gangs, would line up in the dead of night facing each other in alleys like this one. Instead of guns and knives, they used hatchets. As they stared at each other, eventually someone would move—perhaps no more than the flicker of an eyelid. At that, the tongs would lunge together, their hatchets wildly swinging, inflicting horrible damage to each other. The next day, the city would wake to find the dead and dying.
    Taking a deep breath, telling herself the days of tong wars were long past, C.J. plunged into the dark alley, her heels echoing loudly as she walked. Although she looked back over her shoulder toward the main street for comfort from time to time, the fog filled the air until, as she went deeper, she could see nothing more than a dismal blur.
    A chill crept up her back, and her steps faltered.
    A doorway! That must be it, she thought, as she hurried towards an old brick building. It was three stories tall, with only a few windows.
    She stared at the heavy, dark wooden door before her. Perhaps this was just a warehouse? A daytime address? There was only one way to find out. She reached her hand towards the doorbell, but pulled it back as uncertainty gripped her.
    She was sure Alan wouldn’t send her anyplace dangerous, but maybe he had been wrong about the address. She glanced up and down the alley again quickly. She should just ring the bell and find out. But what if Mr. Yeng actually did live here? What if he answered the door and invited her inside?
    She swallowed hard. Ring the bell, C period, J period, Perkins. Show them you can’t be cowed by a little darkness and some fog!
    She was again reaching for the bell when she heard footsteps coming her way.
    Ring the bell! her mind cried. You’ve got to help Alan. She flung her hand toward the buzzer just as a pair of strong arms went around her, knocking her away from the door and pushing her deeper into the alley. At the same instant a hand was clamped tightly over her mouth, preventing her from screaming.
    The man holding her was tall and strong. She struggled to get away, but she couldn’t. His whispered voice was telling her something, but she was too frightened to make sense