My Night in Chinatown

San Francisco, 1987

It was my first trip to the city. It was my first time west of the Rockies. It was my last stop on Pope John Paul II’s trip to the US that year. I had just flown up from Los Angeles where I had finished with my portion of the trip. There were a lot of firsts in that trip. It is best to remind that this was before mobile phones, the internet, Google, and to say nothing of Google maps. Travel was exotic, in part because it was complicated. I had decided to go to San Francisco at the last minute. Another producer on the trip had invited me to join her. She was a veteran field producer and had been added at the last minute to the trip.

And because she was traveling last minute, she ended up in a penthouse suite at the Hyatt Embarcadero overlooking the Bay Bridge. What a magical view of the port and the bay. I could not have asked for a better introduction to the city. She was moving on the next day, so I needed to find another place for my second night in the city. Somehow, the particulars elude me now, I found a new hotel that had just opened not far from Union Square. A lovely place that was a newly refurbished flophouse right on the edge of the Tenderloin district. I had booked my room before I got to the city and the next morning off, I went to check in. Again, the mists of time fog my memory, but when I arrived at the check-in desk, I was informed that I had made a mistake and my room had been for one night and it had been the previous night. Further, there were no rooms available, not here, not anywhere.

Being ever resourceful I was quite pleased that I managed to find a room and that is where the story truly begins. It was not too far away, in Chinatown. A narrow green building off of a busy street down a hill. I now realize that this describes almost the entirety of the city, including Chinatown. It was late afternoon, and I was exhausted. I just wanted to check-in, get to my room and collapse. It had been a hard ten days on the road, and I was whooped. I would see a bit more of the city the next day and then off to home.

I found the place easily enough. My introduction to it was less than auspicious. The entirety of the lobby consisted of the front desk and two dismal chairs. One of which was occupied by a desultory looking woman of only eighty or so. The lighting was such that it was uncertain if she was awake or not, living or not.

After getting my mammoth key I rode up in the tiny elevator to the fourth floor. I walked down the poorly lit hall and stopped before my room. It is hard to describe the foul smell or from where it might be coming. I opened the door and I swear it was like something out of a bad novel. I only wish I had had the presence of mind to take a picture but even without it I can still see it so clearly. Everything was some shade of putrid green. The bed and everything else consisted of what hadn't been sold at some garage sale in the 1960’s. The bed stand was either sturdy plastic made to look like cheap wood or just cheap wood. On it a telephone and lamp. The light emanating from it failed to give any substantial illumination or any relief to the ugliness of the room. Both of them nailed down to the surface. In fact, everything in the room was nailed down. There was a chair to the right of the door, also rooted to its spot. The small black and white TV sat on the dresser across the room, bolted in place. There was a window on the far side of the room. Dirty, small, locked and, as if living a cliché, looked across to a brick wall and was over an alley outside a Chinese food restaurant.

When I closed the door behind me, I noticed that it didn’t really lock, it just sort of well, closed, kinda. I go downstairs and ask about another room or someone to fix the door. The front desk clerk merely blinks and indicates his interest with a shrug. "Full." He responded.

I'm not sure why he had bothered giving me a key. Finding no help I return to the room and solve the issue, to some extent, by using the only moveable thing available, a phone book. Thank heaven San Francisco is a big city.

As I settle in, I notice that every movement causes everything in the room to squeak, the floorboards, the door, and loudest among them, the bed. And not some gentle, quaint squeak but a loud mechanical squelch prompted by even the slightest movement. I tried hard not to contemplate the many years of service this bed had seen. All this left me feeling as though I had been snatched away from the glittering lights of this romantic city and transported to the world that had fed Dashiell Hammett’s fevered imagination.

Stout phone book in place and it was lights out at ten pm.

At 5:30am I am awakened by a sound in the hall. As I came out of my deep sleep, I realized it was men fighting. Not just yelling and shoving but throwing punches that repeatedly connect with their target. From all the noise it was clear they are big men, and they are well and truly fighting. This is not some drunken brawl or buddies’ returning from a bar. There’s the distinct sound of fists landing and the oof that follows. Nothing is being said but I feel them getting closer to my door. So close that things inside my room are starting to rattle. Then the blows stop. There are gasps for air, and it is uncomfortably close. There is a pause, and then their voices grow closer and louder. At least one of them is still breathing heavily.

“Why did you do it? Why did you kill her?”

“I didn’t mean to kill her, I only meant to f**k her.” The heavy breathing is coming from him.

Every muscle I possess goes rigid. I am now more awake than I have ever been in my life.

“But she was the boss’s daughter, what were you thinking?” another man says.

I am not sure exactly what transpired at that point. I heard more noise, more rough shoving but the voices are more subdued. I was so jolted I had to remember to breathe. In fact, I am barely breathing for fear of revealing my presence.

I could hear snatches from the one man as he tried to explain that what he had done was a mistake. I was only hearing snippets of what they said. It had become muffled and indistinct. Had they started to move away? I waited. Soon I couldn’t hear anything outside the room. I dared not move fearing they would hear the bed screech. Even if I tried to phone for help anyone nearby would hear it. I also knew that the phonebook holding the door closed would not stop anyone. Hell, it barely stopped the door.

Some twenty minutes later I slowly sat up and tried to think what to do. What if they were still nearby? What if they were still on the floor? It was not a big hotel and there were only a few rooms per floor. Who were they?

And then I thought, what had I witnessed exactly? I didn’t have names, and other than they were really big all I could say about the men was that there were at least two of them, maybe three. One of them admitted to raping and killing the daughter of his boss.

I knew everything and I knew nothing.

As I quietly got up and dressed, I packed what little I had unpacked from the night before, I tried to figure out what to do. I played the event back in my head to see if there had been anything I could share with the police; names, when had this happened, anything. It had all been so surreal. Had I just dreamed it somehow? From what I could piece together ‘they’ had found ‘him’, and the fight had been ‘them’ trying to take ‘him’ somewhere. Had he been hiding out in this hotel? This prospect only added to the charm of the place.

The sun was coming up now. I knew this only because the dim alley outside the window was getting a little less dim. I struggled with what to do next. My name was in the registry, I had no idea what to tell the police and didn’t even know if the men I had heard were still in the building or on my floor. By seven I decided to simply leave. I didn’t say anything to the clerk as I dropped off the leaden key. I detected no stares or furtive glances from him. The same man, the same languid blink. I walked out and never looked back.

I have been to San Francisco a few times over the years, but I had never returned to Chinatown until now. As I wandered through those streets, I looked at all the narrow hotels and wondered, is this the place? Does that hotel still exist? And what happened to the men I heard fighting that night? From the conversation I'd overheard I'm guessing it did not go well from the man they came to get.

It is rare that I think about that strange night and about my actions that morning. I haven’t been plagued by my decision but sometimes wonder if I being sanguine, sensible, or simply scared? Every now and then I wonder, what if…