The Highbinders

by Matt Braun

  “At the time,” Tallman said with exaggerated gravity, “I saw no alternative. He was trying to kill me.”

  Blackburn nodded, pursing his lips. “What about McQuade? Suppose we were to offer him immunity from prosecution. Would he turn state’s evidence?”

  “Not in my opinion,” Tallman allowed. “He doesn’t strike me as a turncoat. Quite the opposite, in fact.”

  “How do you suggest we proceed, then?”

  “By the back door,” Tallman explained. “We know Ordway’s involved in a railroad scheme. Somehow, we have to link that to the sabotage and the overall conspiracy. I’m convinced Ordway isn’t acting alone. The scope of it is too big—too ambitious.”

  “Bigger than you think,” Blackburn pointed out. “We’ve known for some time that the Santa Fe plans to extend track from New Mexico to California. It’s all hush-hush, very secretive, but we have our sources. Their goal is to establish a second transcontinental line. We had no idea the project was so far along . . . until today.”

  “Now it makes sense!” Tallman’s eyes widened. “That strip of land to the southeast provides the Santa Fe with a right-of-way into California. Ordway makes a fortune and Bakersfield becomes the terminus on a new transcontinental route. All of southern California would then have a direct outlet to the eastern markets. No wonder they organized a farmers’ revolt.”

  “Exactly,” Blackburn said in a crisp tone. “But that makes the threat far more serious than we thought. The Santa Fe has to be stopped before its tracks reach the California border. As of this moment, I’m broadening your original assignment.”

  “To include the Santa Fe?”

  “Only indirectly,” Blackburn informed him. “I want proof that Harlan Ordway engineered a criminal conspiracy. Once we have him under indictment, our problems are solved. We’ll tar the Santa Fe with the same brush and stop them cold.”

  “Ordway’s a slippery character,” Tallman remarked. “Without witnesses, we need something tangible in the way of evidence. We might have to take a new tack—extralegal means.”

  “Your methods don’t interest me. I want an indictment and I want it damned fast! Then we’ll turn our attention to the Settlers’ League.”

  Tallman looked surprised, then suddenly irritated. “Perhaps I failed to make myself clear. Ordway and McQuade are the ones we’re after. The settlers were strictly dupes, innocent bystanders. They had no part in the conspiracy or the sabotage.”

  Blackburn waved the thought aside. “Dupes or not, they’re dangerous to the Southern Pacific. We intend to make an object lesson of them, and in no uncertain terms. We want the farmers’ rebellion to end there!”

  “How do you plan to accomplish that?”

  “You are to wire me,” Blackburn ordered, “once you have the goods on Ordway. I’ll then arrange for Sheriff Wilcox and a couple of our men to meet you. Wilcox will explain the plan at that time.”

  “I think not,” Tallman said in a measured tone. “I told you before I won’t work with hired guns. Nothing’s happened to change my mind.”

  Blackburn unfolded a letter and tossed it across the desk. “Here’s the latest word from Allan Pinkerton. Considering your attitude at our last meeting, I figured we ought to establish who’s in charge. The letter speaks for itself.”

  Tallman quickly scanned the contents. The message was unequivocal and bluntly stated. He was directed to follow Blackburn’s instructions and complete the assignment to the client’s satisfaction. No excuses would be tolerated. His mouth tightened and he took an instant to collect himself. Then he gave Blackburn a long, slow look.

  “You’ve snookered me pretty good.”

  “So good,” Blackburn said with vinegary satisfaction, “that you’d be wise to play along. I gather Pinkerton doesn’t approve of agents who exercise their own judgment.”

  “We’ll take it a step at a time.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means we’ll get the evidence on Ordway—and go from there.”

  “Obey my instructions,” Blackburn said, his head angled critically, “or you may find yourself out of a job.”

  “You’ve got your money’s worth so far.”

  “So far doesn’t count,” Blackburn said curtly. “We’re talking about what’s to come.”

  “Hide and watch,” Tallman said with a clenched smile. “You’ll be the first to know.”

  “I warn you—”

  Tallman stood and walked from the room. On his heels, Vivian turned at the door and flipped Blackburn a saucy salute. The door closed with a soft click.

  Outside the building, Tallman and Vivian paused on Montgomery Street. Dusk was settling over the city and the business district was all but deserted. Tallman lit a cigar and puffed angry clouds of smoke. His eyes were like chips of quartz.

  “Damn Pinkerton anyway!”

  “What did you expect?” Vivian asked reasonably. “He’s built his reputation on loyalty to the client.”

  “Blind loyalty!” Tallman fumed. “Doesn’t he know Blackburn’s the original son of a bitch? Christ, anybody would!”

  Vivian was silent a moment. “Do you intend to follow orders?”

  “Oh, we’ll get Ordway and McQuade. But the settlers are another matter entirely. They deserve a fair shake.”

  “Ash, be realistic.” Vivian’s voice was soft and troubled. “Either you deliver or Pinkerton has no choice but to assign another operative. So it’s really an exercise in pragmatics. If you don’t do it, somebody else will.”

  “I suppose,” Tallman agreed reluctantly. “Of course, that’s not to say I have to deliver them body and soul. Something less than a crucifixion might do.”

  Vivian looked at him with utter directness. “Blackburn’s no fool, so don’t get too cute. You’re no help to the settlers unless you remain on the case.”

  Tallman was quiet so long she began to think he wouldn’t answer. But he finally took a long pull on his cigar and his mood seemed to change. A lazy smile spread over his face.

  “I need a diversion.”

  “Anything particular in mind?”

  “How about dinner in Chinatown?”

  “Sounds good.”

  “And I know just the place.” Tallman laughed. Vivian tucked her hand in his arm and they walked off into the dusk.

  The Street of a Thousand Lanterns teemed with people. Otherwise known as Washington Street, the central thoroughfare of Chinatown reeked with the sweet smell of opium and the oppressive aroma of sweaty bodies. Women wore floppy pantaloons and long smocks, and the men were dressed in long jackets and baggy pajama pants, their hair braided in pigtails. Sidewalk shops displaying pickled squid and skinned ducks merely added to the rank odor.

  Crib whores, the lowest form of slave girls, bartered their wares openly. Behind barred windows, they stood in their squalid cubicles, offering themselves to passersby in a singsong chant. Naked from the waist down, they wore only short blouses, and their trade was conducted at bargain rates. A customer who cared to check out the plumbing paid six bits upon entering the crib. His stay was short, for the girls were fast workers and operated on the principle of quick turnover. Their clientele consisted mostly of drunken sailors, freshly arrived in port. Business was brisk tonight.

  Vivian was all eyes. Tallman smiled, amused by her fascination with the crib girls and their approach to the oldest profession. While they walked, he explained that Chinatown was actually a city within a city. The district was the largest Chinese settlement outside the Orient, and the culture of Old Cathay still prevailed. Some thirty thousand people lived and worked within a dozen square blocks, and seldom set foot in the white man’s San Francisco. Frugal and industrious, they followed their own customs and made only surface concessions to the outside world. To enter Chinatown was to step backward in time.

  Their destination was the Jade Palace. The owner, who wore a silk mandarin gown and a black skullcap, greeted them profusely. His deferential manner indicated that Tall
man was no stranger to the place. They were escorted along a corridor and ushered into a room with sliding doors. One part of the room was a bedchamber and the other part was a dining area, with a low teakwood table surrounded by plush cushions. The walls were decorated with silk prints and the floor was covered by a rich Oriental carpet. The scent of joss sticks filled the air with a heady, intoxicating aroma.

  “Ash Tallman!” Vivian laughed and glanced at the bed. “Fun and games the Chinese way. Aren’t you the sly one?”

  “Viv, the best is yet to come!”

  Somewhere a zither struck up a haunting melody. Then serving girls glided spectrally into the room, laden with dishes and trays. The meal was one exotic delight after another. The girls served prawns and pork, cooked in delicate sauces, complimented by steamy bowls of vegetables faintly reminiscent of spiced seaweed. With each course,

  there was another vial of rice wine, mild to the palate and deceptively potent. The meal was lavish and unhurried, every bite a savory experience. And always there was another vial of rice wine.

  While they ate, Tallman explained that Orientals were very sensual people. Food was merely one aspect of sensual pleasure, a prelude of sorts. In fact, the Chinese were connoisseurs of the flesh, and generally considered whites to be a sexually backward race. A Chinese man, whether married or not, wouldn’t dream of limiting himself to one woman. For their part, Chinese women took great pride in inventive foreplay and ancient techniques passed along from generation to generation. Nowhere outside the Orient was there such a preoccupation with sex, and a reverent appreciation of eroticism. The Chinese treated lovemaking as one of the higher art forms.

  After dinner, the table was cleared and the serving girls disappeared. Vivian was light-headed with wine and tingling with anticipation. The atmosphere, combined with Tallman’s discourse on things sensual, had put her in a sexy mood. She leaned across the table and took his hand. Her eyes gleamed with invitation.

  The door suddenly opened and a Chinese girl of evocative beauty stepped into the room. She was tiny, with a breathlessly slim waist and firm, youthful breasts. Her complexion was honey gold, and her almond-shaped eyes were framed by hair the color of obsidian. She wore a cream white kimono that hugged her body like melted ivory. She closed the door and bowed, her mouth curved in an enigmatic smile. Then she extended her hand to Vivian.

  “Ash—?”

  “Let her help you.” Tallman waved his wine cup. “It’s the custom.”

  Vivian rose a bit uncertainly from her floor cushion. She accepted the girl’s hand and allowed herself to be led to the bedchamber. There the girl assisted her out of her gown and undergarments, all the while admiring her voluptous figure. When she was naked, the girl helped her into bed and then turned to Tallman. He stood and moved forward with no hesitation. The girl swiftly undressed him, laying aside coat and shirt, boots and trousers. His shoulder holster and sleeve rig were removed without comment and gently placed on the table. At last, she pulled his shorts down and murmured appreciatively as his manhood stiffened, erect and swollen. He chuckled softly and climbed into bed with Vivian.

  The girl disrobed with doelike grace. She stepped out of the kimono and daintily let it drop to the floor. Her body was sleek, with lovely pink-tipped breasts, rounded hips and exquisite legs. Her pubic mound was shaved bare, the fold of her vulva visible between her thighs. She looked like a bronzed Venus.

  “Ash?” Vivian’s gaze was fastened on the girl. “Is she . . . staying?”

  “No rules here, Viv. Let yourself go—enjoy.”

  Tallman kissed her before she could reply. He ran his hand up her flank and across the swell of her breasts. Then the bed jiggled and the girl slipped between Vivian’s legs. He shifted, and as his mouth closed over one of her breasts, the girl’s tongue traced an invisible line up her thigh. She gasped, and then, suddenly, a flood of pure sensation rippled through her body. His tongue teased her nipple erect and the girl’s tongue darted quickly into her luxurious bush. He sucked and tantalized, all of her breast within his mouth, and the tip of the girl’s tongue flicked faster, found the magic nub within the lips of her vulva. A low cry spiraled from her throat and her eyes were transfixed in space. Her back arched, moving to meet the girl’s tongue, and a mask of unendurable pain touched her features. Her mouth opened in an agonized moan.

  The girl instantly scooted away, moving to the foot of the bed. Vivian’s thighs were still parted wide, her eyes heavy-lidded and her breathing ragged with passion. He swung into position, kneeling between her legs, and spread the damp fold of her muff with one hand. His other hand gripped his cock and he gently rubbed the head back and forth over the node of her clitoris. Her buttocks lifted off the bed, her eyes feverish and begging, and a long exhalation wracked her body. Her arms went out to him, her face twisted in a look of desperation, and she whispered his name over and over again in an imploring litany. He inserted the head of his shaft and wiggled it round and round within her moist cleft. Her breasts heaved with a soundless whimper and she seized his shoulders in a frantic clawhold. He drove the hard length of himself to the very wellspring of her chalice.

  Vivian screamed and her legs spidered around his back. He still knelt upright and he grasped the globes of her bottom, hoisting her completely off the bed, her loins locked against his groin. The girl, positioned directly behind him, turned onto her back, wedging her head between the fork of his legs, and began laving his balls with her tongue. Vivian clung to him, her eyes shut tight and her hips bucking wildly. He dipped deep inside her and slowly withdrew, guiding her with his hands to control the rhythm of their thrusts. Her mouth closed on his with sobbing urgency and she trembled violently as she peaked and broke through the barrier. He met the upward slam of her hips and a raw jolt of power surged up the base of his spine. She spiked his shoulder muscles with her nails and the girl took his balls in her mouth, her tongue fluttering like butterfly wings. He exploded, flooding Vivian with fiery come, and her legs scissored him in a frenzied contraction. Her head arched back in a muted cry of delirium.

  Lowering her, he brushed her lips with a kiss and stared tenderly into her eyes. Then he rolled onto his back and lay spread-eagled on the bed. He was still erect, and his cock towered like a colossal scepter. The girl moved between his legs and her tongue performed a sinuous dance along the length of his shaft. For an instant, Vivian was mesmerized, watching as the girl licked and teased and finally engulfed the whole of him within her mouth. A wounded look crossed Vivian’s features, as though she was somehow excluded and no longer partner to the union. Abruptly, his arm went around her waist and he pulled her into a close embrace. He smiled and kissed her, gently bit her lip, and then directed her gaze downward. She saw the girl pause and swirl the head of his cock with her tongue. With feline grace, the girl then straddled him, her almond-shaped eyes wide and expectant, and sat down. His staff vanished into the bare, slippery fold of her pubis.

  The girl sat perfectly still for a moment. Her taut buttocks bunched tight and she squeezed down, holding him entrapped within her warm haven. Her nipples were hard and pointed and her eyes glistened with kittenish lust. Then her hips writhed and she began moving round and round in a circular motion. The sight of her pumping on him kindled a mounting excitement in Vivian. She took one of his teats in her mouth and suckled, felt it stiffen. Her hand unwittingly went to her clitoris and she massaged herself while she watched his cock appear and disappear into the girl’s mound. His haunches rose upward in harmony with the girl’s downward plunge, and they joined in a clash that steadily quickened. The girl’s eyes closed and her mouth sagged open and she humped faster and faster. He rammed to the core and burst inside her and she climaxed as Vivian brought herself across the threshold. The bed shook with their simultaneous eruptions and their voices were raised in a chorus of ululating groans. Then, as one, the three of them went limp.

  Their bodies warm and their legs intertwined, they floated on a quenched flame. Vivian was nestled d
eep in the hollow of one shoulder, and on his opposite side, the girl pillowed her head against his chest. His arms pressed them tight and their breasts were softly cuddled on his hard frame. He stroked their buttocks, kissing first one and then the other, and there was a natural intimacy to their nakedness. Time lost measure and meaning, and some while later the girl drifted into a childlike sleep. Then a velvety breath eddied through the hair on his chest and he glanced around. Vivian snuggled closer, her mouth to his ear in a throaty whisper.

  “Ash.”

  “Ummm?”

  “You’re a devil.”

  “Any regrets?”

  “Only one.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It ended too soon.”

  “Shall we awaken our friend and start again?”

  “Let me.”

  Vivian slipped from his embrace and knelt between his legs. Her hand went to the girl’s bare cleft and her finger explored the inner wetness. Her tongue swathed the underside of his balls and then moved upward. Her eyes sparkled with a mischievous look and she caressed him with the Chinese butterfly flutter.

  His cock stood straight and tall.

  EIGHTEEN

  Sunset cast a ruddy haze across the Fresno depot. The locomotive slowed as the engineer throttled down and set the brakes. Belching steam and smoke, the train ground to a halt.

  Tallman stepped off the lead passenger coach. Three days had elapsed since his meeting with Otis Blackburn. In that time, he had dropped Vivian off at Fresno, instructing her to engage a hotel suite. Then he’d continued on to Bakersfield, and once more assumed the guise of Edmund Scott. Late the night before, he had burglarized the offices of the Kern County Land & Development Company. Over the years he had been tutored by some of the best safe-crackers and yegg-men in the business, so he’d encountered no problem in breaking into Ordway’s private safe. Afterwards with certain documents in his possession, he had wired Blackburn. In the morning, he’d boarded the train for Fresno, and now he was hurrying toward the hotel. Time was running short.