Blaze! Hatchet Men

by Michael Newton

  A noble effort, some might say, yet the Barbary Coast still thrived, offering every form of pleasure any man, woman or child could possibly desire, for those who had the asking price. To J.D., that meant some police, perhaps not all, were being paid to look the other way.

  The hour had tipped past midnight when the captain got around to them, and J.D.'s pleasant alcoholic haze had long since vanished—right along with Kate's winnings from the abandoned poker table. As he scanned the room, he saw that her accuser from the interrupted game was laid out with a chest that looked like ground meat, probably from tangling with the Chinese blunderbuss.

  The captain swaggered up to them, his lackey trailing with the notebook. "Captain Brogan," he announced. "And you are...?"

  "J.D. Blaze and my wife, Kate."

  "The family that plays together, eh?"

  "What can we do for you?" Kate asked.

  "To start with," Brogan said, "what were you doing on the second floor?"

  "Chasing a Chinaman," J.D. replied.

  "And why was that?"

  "He was the first one through the door. The others showed up afterward and started shooting when they couldn't find him."

  "The celestials shot first?" Brogan inquired.

  J.D. responded with a question of his own. "Somebody tell you otherwise?"

  "It fits with what we've heard so far. What made you chase this Chinee?"

  "We were curious what brought him here," Kate said.

  "And that made you mistake yourselves for ... what? Police?"

  "He was escaping," J.D. answered. "Anyone can make a citizen's arrest."

  "How'd that work out? I don't see any Chinee with you."

  While the captain's sidekick snickered, J.D. said, "He got away."

  "Do tell."

  "Jumped out an upstairs window," Kate elaborated. "On the north side of the building."

  "Gone by now, I guess."

  "Unless you thought ahead and put some men outside," she answered, smiling sweetly.

  "Hmpf! I don't need neither one of you tellin' me how to do my job."

  "We wouldn't dream of it," J.D. confirmed. "But since we're talking, can you tell us what this shooting match was all about, Captain?"

  "No reason why I should. But since you asked nice and polite, it has to do with kidnapping."

  "Who's missing?" Kate chimed in.

  "No one who matters," Brogan said. "A Chinee gal called Soong Mai-ling. Her daddy's mixed up with the Chee Kong Tong, one of the gangs in Chinatown. We figger she was snatched to put some kinda pressure on him, by the Kwong Duck Tong. Kwong Duck and Chee Kong hate each other worse than cats and dogs, something about the differ'nt cities they come from in China and the way they feel about some emperor who died a hunnerd years ago. Stupid, but what can you expect?"

  "So those," J.D. said, nodding, toward the Chinese corpses near the bat-wing doors, "were Chee Kong men?"

  "If you wanna call 'em men," the captain's sidekick said, then withered when his boss gave him the bad eye.

  "We believe that is the case," Brogan replied, as if his underling had never spoken. "Can't be sure until they've been identified, o' course, assumin' that they ever will be."

  "That's a problem?" Kate inquired.

  "Well, think about it, little lady," Brogan said. "First off, they all look pretty much alike, and tong boys all dress up the same, to make it worse. Next thing, they're sneakin' in from China all the time, as stowaways or comin' down from Canada. We've never had a decent census on them. No one even knows how many of 'em live in Chinatown, unless maybe you ask one of the tongs."

  "And these tong groups fight in the streets?" Kate asked.

  "Not normally along the Coast," Brogan replied. "But over there in Chinatown it's dog eat dog."

  "More ways than one," his partner said, and this time Brogan laughed along with him.

  "He means be careful what you order in a Chinee restaurant," the captain said.

  "Sounds like a piece of good advice," J.D. said. He was anxious to be out of there and get on with the honeymoon, but Kate still wasn't done.

  "How many tongs are there in Chinatown?" she asked.

  "Writin' a book?" Brogan parried.

  "Just curious."

  "Uh-huh. The Kwong Duck and the Chee Kong are the biggest two, but I'd allow there must be three, four others, anyway. There's On Leong, Hop Sing, and Suey Sing, just off the top."

  "And Hip Sing, sir," his lackey added.

  "Right. I get the Hip and Hop confused, sometimes. Now, if we're finished here..."

  "You tell us, Captain," J.D. answered. "Are we free to go?"

  "Hold on a second." Brogan stepped between them, bent down toward their matched Colts on the bar, and sniffed their muzzles. "Neither one's been fired tonight," he said.

  "We could've told you that," said Kate.

  "Folks have been known to try'n pull the wool over my eyes," the captain said, turning away.

  When he was gone and they'd retrieved their pistols, Kate asked J.D., "Did you know about these tongs before?"

  "Not these, specifically," he said. "But tongs in general, sure. You'll find them in most Chinatowns from coast to coast. 'Protective associations,' some call them, helping new arrivals to get settled in, find work, stay out of trouble, get a lawyer if they need one."

  "What about the other side of things?"

  He shrugged. "Like any other bunch of immigrants, back to the Pilgrim days, some of them can't abide living within the law. The tongs sell opium and women, run the gambling dens in Chinatown. You'll find them everywhere, from New York City and Chicago to Hop Alley in St. Louis, all the way out west. They're big in California, since the most Chinese land here, looking for jobs on railroad crews or mining."

  "That's a long damned way to travel on a gamble," Kate said. "Then wind up where most folks seem to hate you."

  She was right on that score. Lately, on the West Coast, strict laws had been passed that targeted Chinese. The Disinterment Ordinance slapped heavy fines on Chinese families who tried to ship their dead back home. Another law, the Queue Ordinance, decreed that any Chinaman arrested for a crime—never mind convicted—would be shorn of his pigtail, which some Chinese reportedly believed was mandatory for their passage to the afterlife. J.D. had never grasped that kind of thinking, picking on another person for his race alone, but he'd encountered it wherever he had traveled in the South and West.

  Suddenly feeling tired, he told Kate, "Let's get out of here."

  "I'm with you."

  They cleared the Beauregard Emporium and soon left the Barbary Coast behind, walking beneath streetlamps to their suite at the Grand Hotel, on the corner of Market Street and New Montgomery. When they were nearly there, Kate said, "I'll race you under covers."

  "That's a deal," J.D. replied. And suddenly, he wasn't tired at all.

  Chapter 3

  The Grand Hotel lived up to its name, standing three stories tall and stretching for a block in each direction, north and west. It had high-ceilinged rooms and turrets that resembled sawed-off towers from an ancient castle on its roof, a lobby that could host a large cotillion, and a restaurant that claimed its chef came all the way from Paris, France. Best of all, it featured indoor plumbing in its rooms, which allowed for private baths and saved a mad dash to some privy in emergencies.

  J.D. had booked a suite with their Wells Fargo money, which meant three rooms overall, letting them close a door between the sitting room and bedroom if they felt like it. Their windows looked out over Market Street, crossing the heart of downtown San Francisco, opposite a building full of offices and two smaller hotels.

  Tonight, however, J.D. only cared about the view inside his room.

  As soon as he had closed and locked the door behind them, Kate said, "Ready?"

  "Ready," he agreed, smiling.

  "Okay, then. Go!"

  She had her gunbelt off before he managed his, and had attacked the buttons on her shirt. She wore a variation of a corse
t underneath, not stiff or cinched around in back, more of a satin thing that gently cupped her ample breasts. They needed no help standing on their own, as Kate proved when she stripped the garment off and started on her pants, J.D. distracted and a beat behind her.

  "You're not even trying now," she scolded, in a teasing way.

  "Am too," he said, while thinking, Even if I lose, I win.

  Kate beat him to the birthday suit, and J.D. wobbled, watching her while he tried kicking off his boots. He nearly landed on his backside, but a bedpost saved him, and a moment later he was naked, reaching for her.

  "I said under covers," Kate reminded him, as she whipped back the sheets and blankets on their big four-poster bed.

  "I thought you might like—"

  "Maybe later, if you haven't worn me out."

  Once they were under covers, J.D. took his time, letting her feel his urgency without rushing the moment. He explored her ripe young body with his hands, lips, tongue, until he had her panting, blond hair fanned around her flushed face on a pillow. When she reached down for him, trying to reciprocate, J.D. moved out of range, drawing a little whimper from her throat.

  "No fair."

  He flicked her with his tongue again, then peered across her smooth, flat stomach, through the valley of her breasts. "You never told me what the winner gets," he said.

  "Nothing you haven't had before."

  "Oh, well, if that's all..."

  Kate slapped the top of J.D.'s head, then grabbed a handful of his hair and drew him up until his face was inches over hers. Her free hand snared him then, and brought him into contact with her heat. Kate's ankles locked behind him, heels against his buttocks, urging him inside her.

  J.D. worked against that pressure, could have wrestled free if he had wished it, but he wasn't going anywhere. It was a game they played sometimes, J.D. resisting till she begged him, loving how Kate looked when she was at the point of no return. And when they—

  "Better watch that hand," he warned her.

  "Sorry," she replied, and gave him one more little squeeze before her fingers slipped away, sliding around behind his back.

  When J.D. entered her at last, Kate gasped and arched her back to meet him, turgid nipples grazing J.D.'s chest. Thighs clamped around his hips, she matched him stroke for stroke, moaning as J.D. rode her toward her first climax. She'd manage two or three most times, if he put in the effort, and tonight he didn't figure that would be a problem.

  After all, it was their honeymoon, albeit five years late.

  "Hold on!" she warned him, shuddering inside and out. Kate drew him closer as her legs fell open, hips still pumping rapidly in time with his. "It's coming. Just ... just ... oh, my God!"

  They rode the wave together, nearly drowned before it passed, then lay together with their bodies intertwined. When she could breathe again, Kate whispered into J.D.'s ear, "So, what about a stroll through Chinatown tomorrow?"

  * * *

  "This is horrible! A tragedy! How could this happen, Kevin?"

  Emile Beauregard stood in the ruins of his grand emporium, jewel of the Barbary Coast, and felt tears fill his eyes. Maybe a sign of getting old, he thought, and blinked the angry tears away.

  "One word," Kevin Gillan replied. "Chinese."

  "Bastards! What were they doing here, for God's sake?"

  Gillan shrugged. "Who knows what they were thinking, if they even can think. What I'm told, one ran in off the street with five more chasing him. It was a tong fight, basically. Black uniforms mean Chee Kong. Little rat that they were after wore the Kwong Duck's navy blue."

  "But here?" There was a hitch in Beauregard's deep voice as he surveyed the wreckage: bullet-punctured walls and furniture, the backbar mirror he'd imported from Chicago shot to hell, and maybe worst of all, the bloodstained floorboards that had dried from scarlet to a rusty brown.

  "We'll scatter sawdust over that," Gillan advised. "The rest of it, mirror aside, can likely be patched up before noon."

  "The Emporium is not supposed to be a sawdust joint!"

  "No, sir. But the alternative is painting floorboards or replacing them, which means more time and loss of revenue."

  "I've worked my whole life for a place like this" said Beauregard. "You understand that?"

  "Crystal-clear, sir."

  Sixty-three years since his birth on a Louisiana plantation, old enough that he'd been raised on tales of Andrew Jackson and the Battle of New Orleans. He'd survived the War Between the States by getting out and heading west before the storm clouds gathered over Dixie. Following the gold and silver strikes, he'd swiftly realized that panning streams and chiseling at mountainsides would never make him rich—the one thing that he absolutely longed to be.

  His next thought: men with hard-earned money in their pockets craved a place to blow it, gambling, drinking, whoring, working overtime to blank out memories that in the morning they'd be back to grueling work, trying to squeeze a fortune out of stone. Emile had started small, his first place nothing but a clapboard shack with cribs in back and homemade rotgut giving men the nerve to make that walk. When they were spent, if they had any money left, a card shark sharing with the house would pick them clean. No one complained—well, very few, and those who generated too much fuss could normally be silenced, one way or another.

  Almost as an afterthought, he asked Gillan, "How many dead?"

  "Four customers, so far. A couple more may not survive the night. One of the working girls. Oh, and the four celestials."

  "Disgraceful, that they'd come in here to kill each other, when the place for that is Chinatown. Or, better yet, in China!"

  Beauregard could always tell when he was working up a head of steam—bad for his aging heart, the doctors said—but how was he supposed to keep an even keel, when Chinamen could barge in off the street and turn his beautiful Emporium into a shooting gallery? Who among his stylish uptown patrons would be caught dead—not a pun, in this case—in a shot-up bucket of blood?

  Of course, there was a chance the massacre might actually help his business in the long run, drawing morbid visitors who'd buy a drink or three while basking in the aura of a battleground, maybe get riled enough to take one of the girls upstairs. It had potential, but it felt to Beauregard like backsliding, losing the years he'd worked and saved to build a place this grand, to be a leader in his field.

  "What's that?" He'd missed something that Gillan said and was embarrassed now, on top of everything.

  "I said I'm getting word out for a rally of the Sons, first thing tomorrow. Well, today, now. This could help us, if we handle it just right."

  Beauregard frowned at that. "What we don't need is any rioting. If you can't keep a lid on that—"

  "Leave it to me," Gillan replied. "It's all under control."

  * * *

  Huo Xiang was uneasy as he sat and waited in a small room at headquarters of the Chee Kong Tong, in Chinatown. He had survived one brush with death tonight, already, but the danger had not passed. There was a chance, perhaps a good one, that the last sunrise he'd ever see had happened yesterday.

  Huo Xiang was stoic, like most Chinamen, long practiced in concealing his emotions. That skill was critical back home, and none the less so in the Land of Golden Opportunity where he now found himself. A soldier of the tong, he would accept whatever verdict might be handed down by his superiors, accepting blame even if none of it was rightly his to bear. And if tonight turned out to be his last on Earth, Xiang hoped that karma would be kind to him.

  Perhaps he would return as a white man of wealthy parentage.

  A red pole came to fetch him, one of the Chee Kong's enforcers, with a rank analogous to captain. Xiang rose silently and followed him, stood waiting while the red pole knocked twice on a plain, unlabeled door, then held it open for him to pass through. Inside a smallish room, Xiang found the Chee Kong's master, Kot Bocheng, facing him from behind a desk. His formal rank was dragon head, and Bocheng wore a dragon's face tonight.

&
nbsp; Between them, on the desktop, lay a pistol and a dagger with a short, curved blade.

  "What have you learned?" Bocheng inquired, without preamble.

  "It is as you said, Master. The Kwong Ducks think we are responsible."

  "And so the war begins?"

  "Not war, perhaps. Tonight, Master, I think they only wanted me, for asking questions and to answer some of theirs."

  "It is an insult, even so," Bocheng replied.

  "I am unharmed, Master. If you wish to negotiate—"

  A slashing gesture of the dragon head's right hand cut off Xiang's flow of words. "Negotiate for what? If we had taken Soong Mai-ling, perhaps, but as it stands..."

  "I have confirmed her disappearance, Master. The round-eyed police are not concerned."

  "Did you expect they would be?"

  "No, sir. But—"

  "This dispute should be resolved amongst ourselves. The Kwong Ducks overstep by taking it among the white men. There may be retaliation."

  Xiang said, "Let it fall on those responsible, Master."

  "Round eyes see all of us the same, Xiang. You know that as well as anyone."

  "Yes, Master." And he had the scars to prove it.

  "As for your performance..."

  Here it came: the judgment for his role in what had happened at the Beauregard Emporium. Xiang wondered if the verdict would be death, or only minor mutilation, a reminder of his failure to maintain a low profile.

  "I am prepared, Master," he said.

  "You showed poor judgment, seeking refuge as you did among the round eyes," Bocheng said, "but it was an emergency. The Kwong Ducks showed worse judgment following you there and killing white men on their own ground. There will be a price to pay for that miscalculation, shared by all of us."

  "Master..."

  "You are absolved of this," the dragon head proclaimed. "For this favor, your life belongs to me."

  "Always," Xiang answered, without hesitation.

  "You may soon be called upon to spend it for the brotherhood."

  "And gladly, Master."

  "Take these," Bocheng commanded. "When the time comes, use them well."