by S. L. Stoner
“Crowley, these are two associates of ours, just come down from Grays Harbor,” Drake said, gesturing for the two men to sit.
The strangers snagged two chairs from a neighboring table without bothering to ask the occupants’ permission. Sage could see why they felt no need to be polite. Their faces said they were mean. The big one’s nose was mashed to one side, his small eyes almost lost in his round, pig-like face. The razor thin man wore a pencil mustache. His dead, pale blue eyes reminded Sage of the Yukon’s winter sky. No doubt about it. These were the men who’d beaten Stuart Franklin nearly to death, he was sure of it. They also fit the description of the two men who’d visited the Millmen’s saloon on the night Joseph Kincaid disappeared.
TWENTY SIX
SAGE NODDED WHEN DRAKE raised a questioning eyebrow. Once he’d signaled for two additional glasses, Drake poured whiskey for the strangers and said, “Men, this is Twig Crowley. He’s our new man, just hired today. Worked down in Frisco for a while. Crowley, this big fellow here is Mister Bendt.” Here he jerked a thumb toward the big man, “and this other one is Mister Krupps.”
Krupps spoke, his voice as reedy and thin as the moustache above his lip.“Crowley, huh? I worked as a runner down in Frisco a few years ago. Thought I knew every one of the Crowleys who worked the trade.”
Sage fumbled for a response. “Few years back, you say? I wasn’t in Frisco then. About that time, I was in the Yukon trying to strike it rich. Too damn cold, so I went back to crimping in Frisco and then awhile ago I decided to see a bit of the countryside. Things got a little too hot around the Bay, if you know what I mean.”
“Hmm. Didn’t hear no talk of a Crowley being up in the Yukon,” Krupps continued to push.
“I’m a distant cousin. There’s a bit of bad blood between my ma and the rest of the Crowleys.”
“Don’t worry about it, Krupps,” Drake said. “Me and Fogel will vouch for him. He’s been working a few weeks around here and seems to know how to handle a boat and that’s all that we need him to do for us.”
Krupps dropped the subject, but Sage soon caught the man squinting at him over the rim of the whiskey glass. Sage doubted the man was squinting to keep drifting tobacco smoke from his eyes.
Their gathering broke up once they’d emptied the whiskey bottle. Krupps’ suspicious scrutiny made Sage too nervous to probe for additional information about Matthew. As he tried to think of a way to ask where the six prisoners were being kept, Drake signaled the waiter. “Bring me six sausages and hunks of bread wrapped up in paper and a jug of plain water,” he ordered.
“Aw, Drake, why you feeding them?” Fogel whined. “Food just cuts into our profits, and they’ll be gone tomorrow night anyway.”
“You heard Mordaunt. He wants them looking healthy. They haven’t eaten for two or three days. Besides, we need them to swallow the water, and by now, some of them have figured out that water has a dose of the dog that bit them in it. They eat the sausage, they’ll be thirsty.”
After the waiter delivered the food and water, the five men moved to stand outside on the boardwalk. Sage waited to see where they were heading next. He heard a gasp and turned to see the wide eyes and small o-shaped mouth of a man who’d come up behind them. It was Chaplain Robinson, the preacher from the Floating Society meetings. The look on his face showed he’d recognized Sage. Still, his reaction seemed overwrought. Sage had taken no vow of abstinence nor made any promises to the man. The chaplain recovered himself, mumbled something unintelligible and hurriedly moved past, leaving all five men staring after him.
“Wonder what’s got into him?” Drake said. He turned to Sage, “Crowley, you go ahead on. We don’t need you anymore tonight. Meet us, say, around eleven o’clock tomorrow night, right here at Erickson’s. We’ll need you to help us load the men and row them out to the Calypso. It will take at least three trips since they won’t have their legs under them. We have to make sure they stay peaceable until the Calypso crosses the bar. Can’t have the fools jumping overboard thinking they can swim to the riverbank. Our deal with the captain is to deliver them sleeping like babies.”
No excuse to stay with them came to mind, so Sage bade them a goodnight and headed off. He rounded the corner only to turn back and peek around it. The four headed south. He followed from the other side of the street, stepping lightly on the sidewalk planks, trying not to scrape his boots when he hit paving stones. Here and there, from darkened doorways, women’s suggestive voices called, but he silently shook his head and kept moving. Sweat soaked his hatband as he strained to keep Drake and the other men in sight. He stayed far back because Bendt kept swiveling to look behind, as if sensing they were being followed.
After a few blocks, the four men halted before a three-story stone-block building. To reach the front entrance of the building, one would have to climb stairways on either side of a broad porch some ten feet above the street level. Between and below these two stairs, an arch provided entry to a stairway that led down to the building’s basement. The four talked for a while and then the Gray’s Harbor men lifted their hats and departed.
Drake and Fogel descended the steps beneath the arch, the wrapped sausages and water jug in Drake’s hands. Sage waited until all four men were out of sight before crossing the street. He stepped down the stairs to the basement door. It was locked. He noted the location. He hoped the runners had taken the shortest route through the underground to visit their captives. It was all he could do. At this stage, he didn’t want them to catch him breaking into the underground. He’d have to wait for the best chance to find and rescue Matthew. One misstep could doom the boy and the other shanghaied men imprisoned somewhere in the dark below.
Next morning, Sage stood in Laidlaw’s front parlor watching his mother and Hanke come up the street and listening as Laidlaw gave the day’s instructions to his clerk over the telephone. The instrument held a place of honor on the small table in Laidlaw’s front hall. Might not be a bad idea to get one for Mozart’s, save time and all the message carrying. Then he dismissed the idea. The exchange operator would learn too much about their business. Besides, he’d just purchased a bicycle for the ostensible reason of message carrying. That recollection summoned Matthew’s freckled face to mind, the vision jerking Sage’s thoughts back to the task at hand.
As Mae and Hanke reached the stairs, she took Hanke’s sturdy forearm for balance. The morning sunlight caught her hair and it seemed more silvered than he remembered. Dark circles lay under her eyes, and her shoulders stooped. Her night had been as restless as his. Mordaunt’s boardinghouse was a hell hole compared to Pratt’s. Raucous drunks–men and women both–sang, laughed and fought throughout the night. Mordaunt, himself, lived elsewhere.
Once they were seated, Laidlaw told them of his activities. “I went around to every one of our supporters and told them to be ready to act fast first thing tomorrow morning.” Seeing alarm in Sage’s face, he hastened to add, “Do not worry yourself. I gave no hint as to our planned activity. Some speculated that we intend to parade around the mayor’s house with signboards. I let them think that.”
When it came Sage’s turn to talk, he spread Fong’s map of the underground across a polished table. “This is the entrance they used,” he said, putting a finger down on the map. “Sergeant Hanke, any chance you and a few men can trail them from Erickson’s to make sure they go to the same place and then follow them in?”
Hanke shook his head. “Don’t think that’d be a good idea, Mr. Adair. Me and my men are too well known down there in the North End. They’d spot us.”
“I’m just as well known to them,” Laidlaw said, “and I don’t have your gift of disguise, Adair.”
In the pause that followed, Mae Clemens spoke up, “Won’t be any trouble for me to hunker down in a doorway near the saloon and trail them when they come out. None of those rascals know me.”
When Hanke and Laidlaw looked shocked, Sage laughed. He recalled the picture she’d made when she “hunkered dow
n” beside old Pratt’s doorstep. “That would work,” he said with a grin that she returned, “and once you meet with up Hanke you can confirm where we entered the underground.”
“Now, wait a minute. I’m not sure I can agree that we should put Miz Clemens . . .” Hanke got no further because Mae interrupted.
“It’s not up to you to agree, Sergeant Hanke. Besides, I’ve been in scarier situations than that. Nobody’s going to bother a crazy old woman. They’ll give me wide berth.” Her adamant tone signaled she would tolerate no opposition. Hanke wisely held his tongue.
“So we’re set. Mrs. Clemens will follow me and Mordaunt’s runners when we leave Erickson’s to see where we enter the underground and then she’ll tell you, Sergeant. Once you and your men enter the underground, she can keep a lookout for problems on the street.”
“What should I do if I see trouble coming?” she asked.
Hanke pulled a silver whistle from his belt and gave it to her. “Get into the underground, if you can, and blow this whistle loud. Not sure what we’ll do when we hear it, but at least we’ll know trouble is heading our way.”
Their plans laid, the meeting broke up. Laidlaw planned to prepare a few more people for action and Hanke needed to enlist the aid of three policemen he trusted. Just four police officers didn’t seem enough to Sage. In any potential fight they’d could be evenly matched. They would have to count on surprise and hope that Mordaunt’s manpower totaled no more than the four runners Sage had already met.
The four of them left Laidlaw’s house together. Sage touched his mother’s arm to hold her back from starting down the front steps with Hanke. Seeing that Sage wanted a private word, Hanke continued to the sidewalk while Sage and his mother remained at the top of the stairs. Once Hanke and Laidlaw were conversing and looking away from them, Sage voiced his newest worry.
“You’ll be careful, won’t you?” he asked her. He figured he could handle just about anything except losing her. They’d just gotten to know each other again, after all those years of separation.
“Sage, my boy, you’re the one at greatest risk. Like I said, my part’s safe. I’ll be so crazy looking people will be crossing the street to get away from me.” She mugged a manic roll of her eyes.
“I wish Hanke could round up more police officers,” he said. “I don’t like the numbers.”
“I don’t either,” she agreed. Then her gaze seemed to sharpen and fix on a thought in the far distance. “Hmm,” she said after a moment of silence.
“Hmm what?” Sage asked, his voice sharp. He didn’t like it when she got that faraway look in her eyes. In the past, his mother’s “hmm” schemes had delivered more scares than he liked to remember.
She reached up to pat his cheek. “Nothing to worry about, son. Take care–you mean everything to me.”
Sage’s eyes stung, as he realized they’d both been thinking the same thing. “You, too,” he said, wishing he could enfold her in his arms and squeeze her tight. But Laidlaw and Hanke would find an action that intimate most peculiar. Always, she and he were to maintain their employer-employee pretense. Yet another precaution upon which St. Alban had insisted. It was a precaution that had likely saved her life a few months back.
Her gentle smile told him that his expression revealed his yearning. “No regrets about this mission, Sage?” she asked softly.
Sage thought about Grace Kincaid’s wan face and the fierce determination in Stuart Franklin’s weathered one. And then there was awkward, eager Matthew, somewhere underground in the dark, alone and fearful. “Not a single one,” he told her firmly. “How about you?”
She didn’t hesitate. “I’m happier today than I’ve been in years. We’re doing the right thing, Sage. And in the end, when all is said and done, that is the most a body can hope for in this life–no matter what the cost.” With that, she patted his arm and turned down the steps, her back ramrod straight. Taking Hanke’s proffered arm she gave a little wave before she and the big policeman strolled east toward Mozart’s.
One piece of their plan called for Sage to meet with Ben Johnston, editor of the Daily Journal. Fortunately, this was arranged with relative ease given Laidlaw’s house telephone and the fact that the Journal’s newsroom also possessed a recently installed instrument. That was so the newspaper could “get scoops before the competition,” according to Johnston’s explanation when he reported the need for the additional expense.
A few hand cranks and Sage had arranged to meet the newsman at their customary place–a coffee stand tucked away between two vegetable stalls in the farmers’ market. Sage wound his way through the four blocks of stalls lining both sides of Yamhill Street. As usual, the flower blooms momentarily distracted him. So did the sellers who shouted for him to examine chickens in net-covered cages, bricks of churned butter and piles of summer squash, tomatoes, cucumbers and other produce. It being the height of the growing season, the small stalls overflowed. The market was the result of combined consumer and farmer agitation. It effectively cut out the middlemen, allowing the two parties to deal directly with each other. As a consequence, the participating farmers realized higher profits while the consumers enjoyed lower prices. It had been a hard fight but, after unrelenting public demand, the city council finally gave in and issued the street market a license to operate.
Ben Johnston waited at a small table tucked between a fish stall and a vegetable stand–both operated by Chinese men who were yet more of Fong’s “cousins.” Sage nodded at them and they merely nodded back, used to seeing this strange white man in his ever-changing apparel. All they needed to know was that he was someone Fong called “friend” and they would watch over him as if he were one of their own. Today, he could detect no difference in their reaction to seeing him. Evidently, Fong hadn’t informed them of his recent falling out with Sage.
Johnston had departed his office in a hurry. Ink blotches spotted the detachable shirt cuffs he hadn’t bothered to switch out. Johnston’s haste was typical for him. He was a newsman first and foremost, and Sage had offered him a front-page story.
“My God, Adair. I don’t know if I would have recognized you if I passed you on the street,” Johnston declared when he caught sight of Sage. “What did you do with that white blaze in your hair?
“That’s the idea, Johnston. As for the blaze, lamp black does the trick unless a man is looking up close. The way I smell, nobody’s going to want to step that near,” Sage said.
“Something tells me this story is going to be damn good.” Johnston appeared to quiver like a race horse at the starting gate.
He wasn’t disappointed. Beginning with the death of Kincaid–with Sage being deliberately fuzzy about how he got involved–the story unfolded. By its end, Johnston was hunched forward so far that it looked as if he was using his shoulders to hug his ears.
“Boy, oh boy! If you can put Kaspar Mordaunt in jail, it will blacken all their eyes!” he chortled. No need to explain whose eyes would be blackened. Johnston made no secret of his prejudice against the establishment types running the city.
“Think of it. They just crowned Mordaunt ‘precinct captain.’” Johnston chortled. “Fact is, they’re having one of their little gatherings at the Portland Hotel this very evening, and he’s sure to be there! By golly, what a story!”
“Does your enthusiasm mean that if we pull it off and Mordaunt’s arrested, you’ll make sure they can’t sweep it under the rug?”
“Will I ever. By gosh, we can make it the front-page story for five days running. Interview the Kincaid widow, Reverend Quackenbush, Laidlaw and Franklin’s doctor. I’ll make it so darn public that when those judges come back from Seaside, they won’t want to touch it with the proverbial ten-foot pole!”
“Okay, then,” Sage said standing up and putting out his hand to shake. “Stay by your telephone and be ready to send a reporter with his flash camera when you get the call.” He turned to leave and then turned back. “Promise me one thing, though.”
“Anything, anything,” Johnston said fervently.
“Nothing goes in the story about me or anyone else being involved except the police. You have to tell it like Hanke and his fellow officers pulled it off by themselves.”
Johnston raised a quizzical eyebrow but promised, “It’s a deal,” he said.
Cautious elation filled Sage as he walked away toward Mordaunt’s boardinghouse where he intended to keep his ears open for news about the kidnapped men. The mission was nearing its end. The players were all lined up and success seemed possible. He passed a bin overflowing with green beans and sobered. Their mission to destroy Mordaunt’s operation remained secondary to rescuing Matthew from a future career as cabin boy, or worse. Sage paused when a stab of doubt hit him, then he pushed on. He felt like something was missing. Then he realized what it was. This would be the first time in two years that he would be going into battle without Fong at his side.
TWENTY SEVEN
A TATTERED BUNDLE SPRAWLED in an entryway across from Erickson’s. Her scuffed boots strayed onto the sidewalk and forced passersby to step around them. Sage did, too, but not before giving her foot a nudge with his own.
They were waiting inside Erickson’s at the same table. All four of them. Not just Drake and Fogel but also the two runners from Gray’s Harbor, Krupps and Bendt. Sage slid into the only empty seat. Drake was talking and didn’t pause. The others only glanced at Sage, except for Fogel, who spread his lips in a smile so wide that his scummy teeth showed. It was the first smile Sage had ever seen on Fogel’s face and so unexpected that Sage smiled back without thinking and then felt awkward, as if he’d bumbled into a tea party where he didn’t belong.
“Like I said, the boss ain’t worried about the nosy do-goods stirring up trouble down at the state house or picketing the mayor’s house–whatever it is that they’re planning. We’ve built the business up to where we’re the biggest crimp operation in town. Won’t be long before we take over all the crimping business. Now that you boys, and Crowley here,” Drake paused to nod in Sage’s direction, “are on board, we’ll be running the whole shebang in no time at all. The sea captains will be scared to deal with anybody but us. And we’ve got people looking out for our interests. Fact is, the boss is becoming an important man about town, thanks to us. We’ve delivered the votes in the last three elections!”