San Francisco’s Tenderloin is a twenty-square -block district that contains some of the greatest contrasts in the city. One of these confronted me as soon as I got out of my parked car one sunny December morning: a street preacher in baggy pants, stocking cap, and signboards, setting up in front of the Sensuous Showcase Theatre. Down the sidewalk came another study in opposites: schoolchildren, ten or twelve of them, who parted ranks for a slow-moving old bag lady as they ran for a Muni bus. The woman was intent on the trash in the gutter and didn’t even look up as the kids—chattering and yelling in what had to be Vietnamese - surged around her. I watched them clamber aboard the bus, then put my keys in my shoulder bag and started off down Eddy Street.

It was funny, I thought, how much of this part of the city had changed without my really observing it. The last time I’d worked a case down here—over three years ago—I hadn’t seen many children on the streets. The Tenderloin was the refuge of the poor, the disabled, the disturbed, and the vicious; parents hadn’t allowed their offspring to wander unattended. But then had come the great influx of Southeast Asian refugees, people with little money and many dreams. And the character of the area had begun to alter, slowly.

Now many of the storefronts were spruced up and offered produce and Oriental groceries. Hole-in-the-wall restaurants bore names such as Saigon Palace and Vientiane West. Dingy hotels were made more cheerful by the presence of plants on windowsills and fire escapes. And everywhere were the children—being pushed in their strollers, playing on the sidewalks, running in and out of stores. True, the pimps were still here, as well as the prostitutes and drug pushers and purveyors of pornography. But an uneasy truce had been negotiated between them and the newcomers that permitted all to live in a prickly sort of peace. And the city had even gone so far as to build a playground not far from here on Jones Street.

The place where I was headed was called the Globe Apartment Hotel, a narrow, dark brick structure I spotted midway down the block. It was six stories tall with bay windows jutted out on either side of a central fire escape. Someone had festooned the iron railings with tattered green garlands and red Christmas ornaments that had lost most of their glitter. I took a piece of paper from my jacket and rechecked the address, then went into the lobby.

At one time this had evidently been a regular hotel, because there was a registration desk to the right with pigeonholes in the wall behind it. The holes were empty now and the desk unmanned, although the resident with the case of Christmas spirit had struck here too. A plastic tree, garish green and three feet high, sat on the desk; it was decorated with the same kind of worn out ornaments as the fire escape. Several brightly wrapped packages lay on a white cotton skirt underneath it.

It seemed like a big risk, leaving Christmas presents in the unlocked lobby of a Tenderloin hotel. I went over and picked one of them up; it was light, and shaking it produced no rattle. Just as I was about to set it down, the front door opened. I stared guiltily and turned.

The woman who stood there was tall, about five-ten, and must have weighed two hundred pounds. A sacklike dress in red-and-white stripes fell in billowy folds from the enormous shelf of her bosom, and in her unruly gray hair was a corsage of holly and red carnations. This, I thought, had to be Mother Christmas.

She said, “There’s nothing in them.”

Quickly I replaced the package, smoothing the cotton out around it. “I didn’t think there would be, but I was curious. I had to check.”

“And if there had been—then what?”

“I’d have put it back.”

“Yeah?” She folded her arms and regarded me sternly.

I was used to being taken for many things, but never a thief who would stoop so low as to steal someone’s Christmas present. “Look,” I said, “I was just being nosy.”

“Everyone is.” She closed the door and came toward me, seeming to fill the tiny lobby. “Since I’m here, can I help you?”

“Uh, yes.” As a rule, I’m not easily intimidated, but all that fat seemed to convey authority. I fumbled in my pocket and produced the paper I’d consulted earlier. “I’m here to see Mrs. Lan. The Refugee Assistance Center sent me.”

She ignored the paper. “You mean Mrs. Vang.”

“I’m sorry?”

“The last name’s Vang. You’ve got it backwards.”

“Oh.” I looked at the paper again. There, in my boss’s bold script, was the name, Mrs. Vang Lan.

“Vietnamese names all sound alike to Westerners,” the woman said. “They don’t take the trouble to get them right.”

Feeling a little defensive—after all, it wasn’t even
my
mistake—I said, “Well, I suppose our names all sound alike to them.”

“Probably.” Then she smiled a big, gap-toothed grin, to let me know she wasn’t really hostile. “You must be the detective from the legal service. Lan said the Center told her they would send someone over.”

She’d probably guessed who I was all along. “Right. Sharon McCone.”

“Sallie Hyde.” She held out a big hand that completely engulfed mine. “I live across from the Vangs. Come on, I’ll take you up there.” She squeezed around me and waddled toward the elevator at the back of the lobby.

Between the two of us, we filled the little cage. Sallie Hyde slammed the iron grille, punched the button for the fourth floor, and the elevator wheezed upward. I glanced anxiously at the certificate posted above the control panel to see when it had last been inspected.

“Don’t worry, it won’t fall,” my companion said. “It’s been days since it even got stuck between floors.”

I smiled thinly and watched the buttons light up—two, three, then four. There the cage came to such an abrupt halt that it bounced up and down several times.

“At least it has good brakes,” I said.

“Works better than anything else in this building.” Sallie Hyde yanked on the iron grille, pushed down the lever on the heavy outer door, and ushered me into a narrow, dim hallway.

I’d been in other Tenderloin hotels; this one was different. All the light builds worked, the worn green linoleum squares on the floor looked clean, and the paler green walls appeared to have been recently washed. The underlying smell was the usual harsh odor of disinfectant, but those overlaying it were not typical: garlic, fish, and something spicy like hot red peppers. I followed Sallie’s red-and-white-striped girth to the right, where a red Exit sign glowed at the end of the hall. She knocked on a door midway between it and the elevator.

The woman who greeted us was around five feet tall and wore a shapeless flowered cotton dress and rubber shower thongs on her feet. Her face was round and plump, and her short black hair was parted in the center and tucked behind her ears. She looked from me to Sallie Hyde, then back over her shoulder into the apartment.

Sallie said, “Hello, Lan. This is Sharon McCone, the lady from the legal service.”

Lan Vang smiled and motioned for us to enter. I stepped forward first and was confronted by a sea of faces. There were about ten people in the small room, ranging in age from Mrs. Vang—who must have been around forty—to a baby crawling on the floor. They looked expectantly at me, and then one of them stood.

“Thanks for coming, Sharon.” It was Carolyn Bui, a Eurasian woman—half Vietnamese, half American—whom I had met while on a case the previous spring. Shortly afterward, she had been appointed director of the Refugee Assistance Center, a nonprofit organization that aided Southeast Asian refugees in getting settled in their new city. Partly because of her connections with me and partly because of All Souls’ low rates for nonprofit groups, she had brought the Center’s legal work to the cooperative where I am staff investigator.

“It’s good to see you again.” I said, clasping her hand.

Carolyn glanced at the door, where Sallie Hyde still stood. The fat woman was surveying the assemblage, obviously realizing there was no way she could squeeze into the already crowded room. Before Carolyn could speak, Sallie said to me, “You need anything, I’m right across the hall. It’s my day off, so I’ll be home.” Then she turned and lumbered off. Lan Vang shut the door, and I immediately began to feel claustrophobic.

I turned back to Carolyn. She said, “I see you’ve met Miss Hyde.”

“Yes. She’s . . . quite something.”

“A nice lady. She works in a flower stand down at Union Square, and when she’s not doing that, she plays surrogate mother to everyone in the building.”

As she spoke, I studied Carolyn’s delicate oval face, framed by curving wings of shoulder-length hair. She’d been through some rough times in the past year, and the last time I’d seen her, she had been too thin and had looked strained. Now, however, she’d gained weight and there was a sparkle in her eyes. Life must be looking up for her, and I was glad.

“Speaking of everyone in the building,” I said, “are they all here in this room?”

She laughed and said something in Vietnamese to Mrs. Vang, who laughed too. “Hardly. You are looking at the Vang family, minus Mr. Vang, who is at work.”

“What! They don’t all live . . .” I motioned around us. The room—clean, but sparsely furnished—was no more than twelve-by-fourteen. A couch, where Carolyn had been sitting held three young women, and the rest of the family members perched on its arms or sat on the floor.

“It’s a two-bedroom apartment,” Carolyn said. “And they make do.”

Quickly I counted noses. Eight people, including the baby—and the absent Mr. Vang made nine. Suddenly my little five-room earthquake-relief cottage seemed palatial.

Carolyn was watching me. “In Saigon,” she said, “the Vangs lived in a large house, Mr. Vang owned a wholesale food business, and the children attended private schools. The family fled their homeland in the final hours of the Republic, losing everything. Now they are starting over.”

I glanced at Lan Vang and the others. They were listening intently. “What does Mr. Vang do now?”

“The
family
owns a small café on Taylor Street—Lan’s Garden, after Mrs. Vang. All who are able work there; in addition, the children go to school or college. Everyone contributes, and they are hoping to one day buy a home in the Sunset District.”

The tone of Carolyn’s voice and her careful phrasing told me far more than just the outward circumstances of the Vang family. They said,
These are valuable people, and they are not looking for sympathy or charity. They had a great deal once, and they will again.

Ashamed of my initial condescending reaction, plus the fact that Carolyn and I were speaking as if the Vangs weren’t there, I said, “I’d appreciate it if you’d introduce me to everyone.”

She nodded and turned to Mrs. Vang. “You’ve already met Lan Vang, head of the household in her husband’s absence.”

Mrs. Vang shook my hand formally.

“On the couch,” Carolyn went on, “are her daughters—easier to give you their American names they have chosen for themselves—Amanda, Susan, and Dolly.”

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