Adam's Daughter Read Online Free Page B

smoke hovered near the ceiling.
    A pang of disappointment went through Adam. The San Francisco Times city room looked just like the one in Oakland, just bigger.
    Yes, bigger, Adam thought with satisfaction.
    “Bryant? Come on in.”
    Adam looked back to George Ringman, standing behind his desk. Adam shook Ringman’s hand and took the offered chair.
    “Sorry I’m late, Mr. Ringman,” Adam began.
    “Late? You’re early. And by the way, call me George.”
    “But the clock outside—”
    George Ringman laughed. “Jesus, that thing hasn’t worked since the Bickford family built this place in eighteen sixty-five. Just like half the stuff around here.”
    “Well, I didn’t want to be late my first day.”
    “Joe Davenport said you were that kind of guy. And that you were the best reporter he ever had.”
    “Best one he trained,” Adam said with a smile.
    George Ringman laughed.
    “Mr. Ringman...George.” Adam paused. “We never discussed my exact salary. You said only that it would be generous.”
    "I’m starting you at fifteen hundred dollars a year,” Ringman said. “That’s what all our young street men start at.”
    Adam struggled to hide his disappointment. The figure was only a hundred dollars more than he had been making at the Oakland Tribune .
    “When do I start?” Adam said.
    “Right now. But first you have to go upstairs and meet the owner. Old man Bickford likes to meet every new man. He’s expecting you.”
    As Adam rode the elevator up to the tenth floor his disappointment over the salary hardened into anger. He was worth more than what Ringman was paying. It would not take long to prove that. But more important, it was the last time, he resolved, that anyone was going to take advantage of him.
    Robert Bickford’s office was a mahogany-paneled fortress guarded by a ste rn secretary. Bickford himself was not nearly as imposing as his surroundings. He was a short fat man, his red face straining above the crisp collar of his immaculate white shirt and finely tailored suit. He sat behind his desk, lobbing questions at Adam about his background.
    “ So, you are from Oakland?” Bickford said.
    “ I was born in San Francisco but after my parents died in the earthquake, I was sent to an orphanage in Oakland.”
    Bickford sobered. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “ Yes...April eighteenth, 1906, a black day.” He paused, his eyes drifting to the window. “My father ran the Times in those days,” he said. “We couldn’t publish, you know. We lost the house on Nob Hill and had to move my family over to Oakland. We lived over there for almost eight months while we rebuilt.”
    His eyes came back to Adam, lingered for a moment then he picked up Adam’s resume. “H ow did you come to be in the newspaper business? I don’t see anything here before your job with the Oakland Tribune .”
    “I left the orphanage when I was fourteen and worked at a bunch of odd jobs -– street cleaner, caulker’s assistant in the shipyards,” Adam said. “When I went to apply as a printer at the Tribune I got off on the wrong floor. The first person I met was Joe Davenport. We started talking and he asked me what I really wanted to do for a living.”
    Adam paused . The memory of that day was still vivid -- the smell and bustle of the newsroom. “I told him I wanted to be a reporter,” he said. “Joe offered me a job as a copy boy. I worked my way up from there.”
    “So why did you want to leave Oakland?” Bickford asked.
    Adam could recall the exact day he had asked himself that very question. It was five years ago, January 16. Prohibition had just become law and Adam was assigned to cover how it was creating economic chaos in the wine country and in San Francisco. It was his first trip to the city, and it instantly ignited his imagination and all his latent ambitions. Suddenly, his happy existence at the Oakland Tribune seemed too small. Or maybe the rest of the world was too alluringly big. Adam became