by S. L. Stoner
1Black
Drop
A Sage Adair Historical Mystery
of the Pacific Northwest
Other Books by Susan Stoner
in the Sage Adair Historical Mysteries of the Pacific Northwest
Timber Beasts
Land Sharks
Dry Rot
Yamhill Press P.O. Box 42348
Portland, OR 97242
A Yamhill Press Book published through Smashwords
All rights reserved
Copyright © 2014 by Susan Stoner
Cover Design by Alec Icky Dunn/Blackoutprint.com Interior Design by Josh MacPhee/AntumbraDesign.org
Printed in the United States. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by any means, without permission. For information: Yamhill Press at www.yamhillpress.net.
Edition ISBNs Softcover ISBN 978-0-9823184-8-5 Ebook ISBN 978-0-9823184-9-2
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication
Stoner, S. L. : A Sage Adair historical mystery of the Pacific Northwest / S.L. Stoner. pages cm. -- (A Sage Adair historical mystery)
1. Northwest, Pacific--history--20th century--Fiction. 2. Labor unions--Fiction. 3. Detective and mystery stories. 4. Martial arts fiction. 5. Historical fiction. 6. Adventure stories. I. Title. II. Series: Stoner, S. L. Sage Adair historical mystery.
PS3619.T6857B53 2013 813’.6 QBI13-600182
To the men and women of the
Amalgamated Transit Union, Division 757 for the opportunity
and to George R. Slanina, Jr.
for being the center and the source of so many great things.
“The wise man’s wealth lies in good deeds that follow ever after him.” —Tibetan Proverb
ONE
Late April, 1903, New York City
“The great corporations which we have grown to speak of rather loosely as trusts are the creatures of the State and the State not only has the right to control them, but it is in duty bound to control them wherever need of such control is shown.” —Theodore Roosevelt (T.R.)
After swinging the door partially open, the man walked away. Dropping down into a plush armchair by the window, he surveyed his visitor with narrowed eyes.
Left to close the door himself, the visitor did so, but remained standing. Immediately his eyes began to sting from heavy cigar smoke, despite the window being wide open. Once his vision adjusted to the gloom, he spied a mound of cigar butts in a crystal ashtray. A match flared and a stogie tip glowed red. Either his client was a nicotine addict or very nervous. Probably both.
“I rather like this vindow,” said the man in the armchair, his exhale a billowing cloud between them. “The pigeons, they roost on the ledge above the awning next door, the one over the restaurant’s outdoor terrace.” An accent tinged the client’s words, but neither Brit English nor French. Harsher. Maybe German since his “window” sounded like “vindow.”
“Uh, you like pigeons?” the visitor asked, though he wanted the conversation to quickly reach the main point. It wasn’t smart to stay here any longer than necessary. Since becoming a mercenary, his practice was to keep client meetings both secret and brief. So far, that practice had kept his risks to a minimum.
The other man had no such practice because he kept on about the damn birds. “No, I detest pigeons, you idiot,” he snapped, sucking deep on the cigar and letting the smoke trail from his fat lips like some Eastern potentate. “As a matter of fact, I am conducting my own little eradication program from right here.”
The mercenary suppressed a sigh, knowing he had to humor the man. “You poison them?” he asked.
“Oh, no, that vould present no challenge. I use this.” The man brandished the Y of a large wooden slingshot, “And these steel ball bearings.” The glinting spheres clanked as he shook his hand, just like a crap shooter about to throw dice.
“You’re killing pigeons with a slingshot from the window?” The foreigner sure had an odd notion of entertainment.
“I must do something. My hunting club is thousands of miles away. And I haf strict instructions to be very discrete about my presence in New York. That means, I cannot hunt with my local acquaintances this trip. Instead, I sit here and eliminate the birds.”
“The restaurant below doesn’t object?” The other man chuckled as he shook his head. “Because of the angle and the awning, no one can see me. That is the beauty of it. I am able to sit here and hone my targeting skills from the comfort of my armchair. When I am successful, the body slides down the awning to splat upon the terrace. You should hear the shrieking from below. Once, a table flipped over, dishes went crashing.” He smiled at the memory.
The client tossed the slingshot back onto the antique table, not caring that he marred its polished surface. Likely the apartment was merely the client’s temporary abode. Evidently, he cared little what its owner might think about the stink of cigars or damage to rare antiques. Flapping a impatient hand in the air the fellow dismissed any further conversation about pigeons, saying, “Enough chatter concerning my simple pleasures. I vish to hear your report on the progress of our plan.”
Momentary irritation fizzed through the mercenary. He hadn’t been the one to delay the discussion. He swallowed the irritation, though, carefully keeping his face expressionless. The payoff for this job was too big for him to indulge in an honest reaction to the man’s arrogance. Maybe later, when it was all over, after he received payment in full. So he kept his tone business like. “I’ve got most everyone lined up and in place, sir. The only slipup so far has been our Portland friend. He drinks too much when his nerves overtake him. Tends to wag his tongue more than he ought. It created a problem I was forced to fix Things got a bit messy but I think I’ve corrected the situation.”
“Humph, I trust you have explained to him the very terminal consequences should that tongue of his slip again before the deed is done.”“He knows now if he didn’t before,” the mercenary answered grimly. “I wish we didn’t have to use him but, as you say, we have no choice since you’ve made him a key element in the plan.”
“And aftervards?” The man’s tone was silky, almost playful. “Like you told me last week. Very shortly afterwards, there will be an accident,” the mercenary said flatly. “A fatal one, unfortunately,” he added a long second later.
The man in the chair bared his teeth in what the ignorant might deem a smile. Despite the surprisingly warm spring air, the mercenary shuddered but resisted the urge to twist the wall knob and light the dim room. “His tour, it is still on schedule?” the client asked, interrupting the mercenary’s thoughts.
“They’ve not announced anything different. He still plans to visit Oregon, sometime in late May. My inside informant will alert me if that changes. He will also get me the exact dates once they’re firm.”
The other man’s face turned from the window and he shook his finger, warning, “You must not fail. Millions of dollars depend upon our success in this venture. The entire future of an industry is at stake. we must make absolutely sure that the only vay our big-toothed friend leaves Oregon is inside a coffin”
* * *
Late April, 1903, Portland, Oregon
“That makes five this afternoon, six yesterday afternoon,” Sage Adair grumbled to himself as he stood up to shake the cramps from his legs and the disgust from his mind. He looked away from the enameled red door and toward the other houses along his side of the street. At the street’s end, a horse plodded past. The metal wheels of the trolley car it towed clanked every time they hit the steel joints. Soon the ugly spider webs of electrification would spread into this neighborhood just south of the city’s center. Once that happened, that horse would be out of a job, Sage thought. Given the animal’s drooping head, bony ribs and quivering shanks, he doubted
that the horse would mind.
Sage stepped from beneath the cedar branches where he’d been squatting and headed toward a well-kept square house down the block. A wide front porch spanned its entire front and wrapped around one corner. Mounting the wooden steps, Sage knocked on the door. An apple-cheeked homemaker answered, drying her hands on a blue gingham apron when she saw him.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” Sage said as he raised his hat politely. “I’m looking for an elderly gentleman I met near here last summer. He was small, frail, carried a cane. I have forgotten his name but I am certain that he lives somewhere nearby.”
The woman’s face lost its smile, and she frowned, saying, “Was he wearing a pair of square-framed spectacles, kinda thick?”
“Yes, that sounds like him.” Sage answered, slowing his words because her expression and the crinkling of her forehead signaled bad news.
“Sounds like that was Mr. Compton who you met. I’m sorry to tell you, but he died just this past December. It was pneumonia, they said.”
That discouraging information gained, Sage returned to squatting beneath the drooping cedar branches. This time though, he felt the heavy weight of guilt across his shoulders.
He’d let that old man down. His ears recalled the sound of his confident voice promising Mr. Compton that the abominable house would be closed. Now the old man would never have the satisfaction of seeing Sage deliver on that promise. Sage had waited too long.
“I’ve got to believe you are still hovering about, like some well-meaning spirit,” Sage said aloud, his words directed toward the bench where he’d last seen the old man sitting.
Time inched past as three more men entered the house just as two others left. Dusk began to fall and Sage finally rose to leave, his legs threatening to fail after all that squatting. The total lack of street lights meant that soon, he would no longer be able to see who was mounting that steep staircase to knock
on the red door. Not that seeing their faces mattered all that much. Despite two such afternoon vigils, Sage still couldn’t figure out how to deliver on last June’s promise to the dead Mr. Compton.
The wind rose suddenly, setting the cedar boughs above him to creaking. Sage stepped out from under the tree’s shelter. He glanced around the small park and froze, his attention caught by an abrupt movement in the second floor window of the adjacent house.
He squinted, trying to see into the room but he saw only window glass reflecting a darkening sky alive with wind-driven clouds. Possibly, his eye had simply caught the reflection of a cloud blocking the sunset.
Sage shoved his hands into his coat pockets and shook his head. He needed to get warm and eat something. It was nothing, just his mind starting to play tricks, he told himself. Because, otherwise, why would a man have been standing at that window, a pair of binoculars raised to his eyes?
TWO
Dispatch: May 4, 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt’s train arrives in Denver, Colorado, his tour of America’s Far West is about to begin.
“The demands of progress now deal not so much with the material as with the moral and ethical factors of civilization.” —T.R.
Lingering outside Mozart’s Table, Sage momentarily savored the contrast between the dark chill outside and the scene of warm normalcy within Mozart’s interior. He saw his mother bustling about a dining room reputed to be one of Portland’s most elegant eateries–second to only the Portland Hotel. No doubt she was wondering where he was. As the restaurant’s official greeter, he should be already fully costumed and ready to perform as its gracious host. His role as John S. Adair, Mozart’s well-to-do proprietor, was crucial to their work for the national labor leader, Vincent St. Alban. They were his undercover operatives in Portland. These last two days had taken him away from that role. Sage sighed, noticing that the weather had finally warmed to point that his breath could no longer make vapor clouds.
In an hour, Mozart’s doors would open. Carriages would wheel up to the curb and the restaurant’s well-to-do patrons would alight. Among those patrons might be one of the men he’d watched mount those weathered steps and knock on that damnable door. Such an encounter was inevitable because, from his vantage point beneath the cedar boughs, he’d recognized more than one Mozart’s customer. Would he be able to hide his disgust? Would his gracious host persona crack, letting his contempt show through? And, there was a bigger problem. Now that he had confirmed that there was still a thriving business operating behind that red door, how could he put an end to it without revealing he was something other than Mozart’s attractively shallow owner? Dare he jeopardize St. Alban’s ongoing Portland mission that way?
Crossing the dark street with purposeful steps, Sage strolled through the front door. He quickly headed up the stairs to the third floor, not stopping to explain his tardiness despite seeing the irritated look Mae Clemens shot him as he crossed the foyer.
He’d barely begun to strip off his street clothes when his ostensible houseman, Fong Kam Tong, slid into the room, his face serene as always.
“Did you enjoy your day, Mr. Fong?” Sage asked in a mild tone he thought unlikely to trigger the other man’s alarm bells.
“Most illuminating and very puzzling,” Fong responded though his expression remained bland. Sage short him a quick glance. Sure enough, those dark brown eyes were twinkling.
Sage stepped to the walnut bureau. “I saw you,” he said to Fong’s reflection in the mirror as he looped his bow tie into order.
“That is very good,” Fong said, his smile revealing some teeth.
“You were that ‘thick dark’ in the ‘thin dark’ you’re always talking about. The space between the those two houses is narrow but there is still just enough light to tell the difference. Since whoever it was stayed motionless for hours, I knew it had to be you.”
“Ah, student is showing improvement.” Fong’s face reflected smug satisfaction. As Sage’s teacher in a Chinese fighting style he called the “snake and crane,” Fong had spent many patient hours training his Occidental student in the fine art of observation. Despite this effort, Sage felt his skills, if they were improving, were doing so at the proverbial snail’s pace. “Was it your idea or Mother’s to follow me?”
“We both have same idea. I because important to keep senses sharp, yours and mine. She because you are ‘up to something’.”
Sage finished by quickly combing pomade through his hair and shrugging the fines suit coat onto his broad shoulders, “And, you going to tell her what?” he asked.
“That you are ‘definitely up to something.’ Not sure what. For many hours you watch house with a bright red door and you get very upset because you wiggle under that cedar tree like man sitting in ant nest.” Fong’s forehead wrinkled with some thought and then he said, “You better learn how to stay still, important skill.”
“How’d you figure out I was up to something so quickly? I’ve only been watching that house for a few days.”
Fong cocked his head to the side, the lines in his face deeper, giving it a bleak cast. “Past week,” he said, “your smile never reach your eyes.”
* * *
“So, what gave me away?” Sage asked his mother, Mae Clemens. The restaurant was closed and the three of them were sitting around the table in his room on the third floor. Her room also was on the third floor as was Fong’s. But the Chinese man only used it intermittently. He preferred, instead, to walk the few blocks to his Chinatown provision store where he and his wife had their living quarters.
Mae didn’t hesitate. “You’ve been acting like your mind is slipping gears. Once you called Horace by the wrong name even though he’s waited Mozart’s tables for nearly two years. Then there’s your gazing into space like a cow chewing cud. I’ve had to ask you the same question more than once before you answer. Also, you’ve turned snappish as a roused bear in winter. Besides, it’s your pattern. You always stir the pot whenever St. Alban doesn’t have a job for us. It’s been nearly four months. That enough reasons? You
going to tell us what’s going on or does Mr. Fong need to keep sticking to you like burrs on a bunny?”
Sage laughed. “It isn’t a secret exactly. I was just gathering information. Matter of fact, I could use your help figuring out what to do.”
Chair feet scraped across the wood floor as the other two scooted closer to the table, their faces alert. Obviously, he wasn’t the only one yearning for some action. Sage explained what he knew and had seen.
“What do your Mr. Confucius and Mr. Lao think of such things?” Sage asked Fong once he’d laid out the situation.
“This is somewhat a problem for Chinese wise men. Two man pillowing together is yang and yang, instead of yin and yang. So, not in balance. But, if man also father children to keep up family line, nothing said. Not like Christ church that calls it ‘sin’ but people do it anyway.”
“But what about ‘pillowing’ between a grown man and a young boy?”
Fong shifted in his seat, clearly ill at ease. “China still has slavery. Whenever someone can be owned, like cow, many bad things happen. Letters from home say maybe slavery end soon.”
Now it was Sage’s turn to shift uncomfortably. He looked into his mother’s narrowed dark blue eyes, so like his own, and caught the warning. Fong’s wife, Kim Ho, had been a slave in San Francisco’s Chinatown until the day Fong had bought her freedom.
Sage cleared his throat. “Well, in this country, men with boys is definitely frowned upon.”
His mother spoke, her voice quavering with indignation, “What I cannot believe is that the manager of the Boy’s Christian Shelter is selling young boys. Are you sure?”