by Matt Braun
“No soap,” O’Brien informed him. “I gave my word to Buckley. You take off running and it’s my neck that’ll get chopped. I’d have to stop you—and I would.”
Adair’s jaw fell open, as though hinged. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Are you saying you’d kill me, Denny?”
O’Brien shrugged. “I’m saying I won’t die for you. Now that you’ve brought the Pinkertons down on us, there’s no way around it. You either sail for China or you get deep-sixed.”
“You—” Adair stammered. “You’re blaming me? It was you that opened the door to Lovett and took him under wing. I had nothing to do with it. Nothing!”
“No more of your guff!” O’Brien suddenly bellowed. “You’re the one that robbed the train, and you’re the one that led Lovett straight to the Bella Union. And to me, too! So dry up and take your medicine like a man. That’s my final word on it, Ned.”
Adair blinked several times. Under O’Brien’s ugly stare, all his courage abruptly deserted him. He gloomily bowed his head and nodded. “Have it your way, Denny. I’d sooner sail the China Sea the rest of my life than have you down on me.”
“That’s the spirit!” O’Brien laughed heartily. “We’ll sneak you down to Mother Bronson’s joint after dark, and she’ll arrange passage on the finest clipper in port. Hell, it’ll be like an ocean voyage, Ned! You’ll have yourself a grand time.”
Adair mumbled an inaudible reply. His eyes, oddly vacant, were fixed on the floor.
On the other side of the wall, Nell numbly lowered the water glass. She paled and her cheek muscles grew taut, and her face was no longer a pleasant sight. She felt swept up in a nightmare, the floodgates of fear suddenly opened and swirling madly about her. She crossed the room in a daze and sat down on the edge of the bed. Her ears rang with the words and she choked off a cry. She couldn’t believe it, wouldn’t believe it.
Harry Lovett a Pinkerton? Adair and O’Brien—even the blind man!—panicked by the dapper grifter who had shared her bed. The same devil-may-care jokester who had offered her a job and promised her a new life and sworn to take her away from the Barbary Coast. It wasn’t true, none of it. For if it was, then he had lied to her, used her. She couldn’t credit that, not from Harry Lovett.
Her head pulsated like a huge festering wound. She heard again the words of Denny O’Brien and she reasoned muzzily that it was a mistake. Some monstrous and terrifying mistake. She wondered what to do, and even as she asked herself the question, she knew she would do nothing. A girl had to live, and only a fool took sides when men drew the line.
She would wait and see, and do what she’d always done. She would go with the winner.
CHAPTER 15
Nell looked wretched when she opened the door. Ugly lines strained her face and her features were smudged downward. She stared at him with a mixture of dismay and surprise, momentarily dumbstruck.
With a last glance along the hall, Starbuck stepped into her room and closed the door. He twisted the key, locking the door, then turned toward her. As though expecting applause, he doffed his hat and flashed his gold tooth in a wide grin. Her face blanched, eyes round as saucers.
“How did you get in here?”
Starbuck chuckled. “I bribed the cook to send me up in the dumbwaiter.”
“The cook!” she repeated sharply. “Are you crazy?”
“Like a fox,” Starbuck said with a jocular wink. “I told him we had a little hanky-panky going on the side. He took to the idea right away, even wished me luck. I got the feeling he’s one of your secret admirers.”
“You fool!” Her voice rose suddenly. “He’ll report it to McQueen. He’s probably on his way out front right now.”
“No chance,” Starbuck assured her. “I slipped him a hundred, and told him there’d be another hundred when I come back down.”
“What’s to stop him from squealing to McQueen, then? Or weren’t you worried about what happens to me when you leave?”
“Don’t trouble yourself,” Starbuck said lightly. “Silence goes to the highest bidder. I’ll give him an extra hundred just to make sure he stays bought.”
Nell regarded him with an odd steadfast look. “The way you bought me?”
“Bought you?” Starbuck saw anger, resentment and a trace of fear in her eyes. “I don’t get your meaning.”
“The hell you don’t!” she said furiously. “You’re a lowdown rotten bastard, Harry Lovett! You promised me the moon and I went for it like a schoolgirl with a case of the vapors.”
“What in Christ’s name are you talking about?”
“You’re a Pinkerton!” she said loudly, staring at him through a prism of tears. “A lying, good-for-nothing snake in the grass! I know the whole story, so don’t try to deny it.”
“A Pinkerton?” Starbuck was genuinely astounded. “Where the deuce did you get an idea like that?”
“From Denny.” She sniffed and dabbed at the tears. “I overheard him talking to Ned Adair. I know you’re after Ned for robbing trains and I know—”
“Slow down,” Starbuck broke in quickly. “Ned Adair’s here? He’s somewhere in the Bella Union?”
She motioned toward the window. “You’re too late,” she said, indicating the deepening indigo of nightfall. “Denny took him—got him out of here—right after it turned dark.”
“You started to say O’Brien took him somewhere, didn’t you?”
She tossed her head. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
“I have to know,” Starbuck said urgently. “It’s important, Nell. So damned important you wouldn’t believe it.”
“Tough tit, hotshot!” She made an agitated gesture with both hands. “I don’t talk to Pinkertons.”
“I’m not a Pinkerton,” Starbuck said with a lame smile. “O’Brien was close, but I’ve never had anything to do with the Pinkertons. I work on my own.”
“Your own?” she murmured uneasily. “Are you trying to tell me you’re not a detective?”
“No,” Starbuck confessed. “I’m a detective, but I run my own operation. I don’t work for any of the big agencies.”
“What’s the difference?” Nell gave a dark, empty look. “You still conned me and fed me that line of hooey about Colorado.”
“I’m not proud of it,” Starbuck admitted. “I had a job to do and I went about it the best way I knew how. Maybe I conned you, but it wasn’t like I had any real choice. It stuck in my craw the whole time.”
“Go crap in your hat, buster! You wanted information, and you pumped me till the well ran dry. You got me hooked with your sweet talk and all the rest of that nonsense, and it never meant a thing to you. Nothing!”
“That’s not true.” Starbuck studied her downcast face. “The only lies I told you had to do with the job. Everything else was on the square.” He lifted her chin, looked directly into her eyes. “The other part—what you’re talking about—wasn’t any lie. I meant every word of it.”
“Honest to God?” She drew a deep, unsteady breath. “You’re not just saying that? You really mean it?”
“Straight gospel,” Starbuck said earnestly. “When I leave Frisco, you’re going with me. You’re through with O’Brien and the Barbary Coast and all the rest. That’s a solid-gold promise.”
Nell stared at him in an intense, haggard way. She was filled with conflicting emotions, and terrified that she might once again be played for a fool. Her lips trembled and she tried to smile, a tortured smile. There was a hungry, questing quality in her eyes, and she searched his face uncertainly. She wanted desperately to believe.
Then, suddenly, she stood within the circle of his arms. She shuddered convulsively against him and pressed her cheek to his chest. Her voice was muffled, almost a plea.
“I’m with you, lover. Where do we go from here?”
Starbuck took her shoulders and held her at arm’s length. “You know I’ve got to get O’Brien and Adair, don’t you?” She nodded dumbly, and he went on. “Then I want you to tell me where they’ve
gone. Unless I’m wrong, time’s running out fast.”
“Once you’ve caught them, is it over? Will we be able to leave then, Harry?”
“You just pack your duds and wait for me. We’re as good as on our way.”
Nell briefly recounted everything she’d heard through the wall. Listening to her, Starbuck could generally reconstruct the sequence of events since Adair’s escape at the farmhouse. It was no great surprise that everyone involved, Buckley included, now knew he was a detective. Yet one aspect of the situation left him troubled. Buckley’s insistence that Adair depart San Francisco—or be killed—was ominous. The blind man quite obviously understood that the trail led to the Snug Café, and had taken measures to sever the link. Which meant there wasn’t a moment to spare.
“That’s all,” Nell concluded. “Denny browbeat Ned into it, and I heard them leave a few minutes after it got dark.”
“You mentioned Mother Bronson’s joint. Who’s she?”
“A witch who runs a dive on the waterfront. She shanghais sailors and sells them to captains of outbound ships. I guess Denny figured she would know which clippers are sailing tonight.”
“Would O’Brien hang around until Adair ships out?”
“Probably,” Nell said hesitantly. “From what I overheard, he wouldn’t take any chances. Ned wasn’t too keen on the idea.”
“Then I reckon I’d better head for Mother Bronson’s.”
“Be careful,” Nell cautioned. “She’s tougher than most men on the Coast. And that includes Denny O’Brien.”
“I’ll watch myself.”
Starbuck walked to the door and turned the key. With his hand on the knob, he stopped and looked around. “You be ready when I get back. Things are liable to happen fast when the fur starts to fly.”
“I’ll be waiting,” she replied with a sudden sad grin. “I’ve no place to go without you, lover.”
The door opened and closed, and he was gone.
A misty rain was falling, and the night was ripe with the smell of the sea. The streetlights were dim silvery globes, their lamps casting flickering shadows on the wet streets. Sailors, stumping along with the bowlegged gait peculiar to seamen, clogged the waterfront.
Starbuck walked toward Battery Point. Out in the bay, anchored away from the wharves, were hundreds of ships. Their silhouettes were fuzzy through the mist and fog, but the ghostly assemblage indicated Frisco’s importance as one of the world’s major ports. The lanterns of small boats bobbed like fireflies on the rolling water. Known locally as Whitehall boats, the craft ferried sailors ashore for a fee. From there, once his foot touched dry land, the seaman ventured forth at his own peril.
Oceangoing ships, not to mention the men who sailed them, were a complete mystery to Starbuck. Yet the waterfront itself was infamous, with a reputation for danger and foul play known even to landlubbers. The Barbary Coast was rough and sordid, but altogether tame compared to the waterfront. Starbuck had few illusions about the hazards that lay ahead.
All along the wharves was a seedy collection of gaming dives, whorehouses, and busthead saloons. Vice was the stock in trade, and after months at sea, the sailors were victims of their own shipboard fantasies. On reaching port, Jack Tar set off in search of women, alcohol, and gambling. The wilder the women, the better, and even popskull whiskey was none too potent for a sailor with a thirst. Whether able seaman or galley cook, he had money and was eager to blow it on a non-stop, night-and-day spree. Waiting to accommodate him was an assortment of vultures in human form.
Those who operated the waterfront dives were specialists who dealt in live bodies. Their ostensible aim was to provide the seafearer with diverse forms of entertainment. Their principal business, however, was the traffic in shanghaied sailors. The seaman’s origin, whether Scandinavian or German, French or British, was of no consequence. The first step was to fleece the sailor of his wages, either at the gaming tables or at the hands of blowsy whores. Then, once he was penniless, the bartender slipped him a drink drugged with sulphate of morphine. Afterward, the warm body was delivered to a ship captain who paid cash on the spot. The sailor awoke to find himself on a voyage that lasted two to four years. Though the practice was widespread, few seamen made any effort to avoid the waterfront. The danger of being shanghaied was considered one of the lesser hazards of shore leave in Frisco.
The Whale, a sleazy dive operated by Mother Bronson, was located at Battery Point. Crude even by Frisco standards, it was a saloon with girls for rent by the trick or by the hour. The ramshackle building squatted directly on the wharf, with water lapping at the pilings below. By rowboat, the trip from The Whale to a waiting clipper was only a matter of minutes. For the shanghaied seaman, it was also a one-way trip. The next port of call was generally halfway around the world.
Starbuck drew stares the moment he stepped through the door. The patrons of The Whale were rough-garbed sailors, rank with the smell of sweat and cheap whiskey. While few of them spoke the same language, they were all dressed similarly and appeared stamped from the same mold. By contrast, Starbuck looked like a peacock among a flock of guinea fowl. His powder-blue suit and pearl-gray fedora left a buzz of conversation in his wake.
Walking to the bar, he ordered whiskey and took his time lighting a cigar. He ignored the stares and the muttered comments, idly inspecting the room. Several house girls were working the crowd, but they held his interest only briefly. On the way to the waterfront, he had formulated a loose, though somewhat credible, cover story. With a glib line of patter, and a little name dropping, he hoped to bluff his way past Mother Bronson. From there, depending on how the dice fell, he would attempt to take O’Brien and Adair without bloodshed. One elbow hooked over the bar, he sipped his drink and waited.
Presently, the door to a back room swung open. The woman who emerged was tall, with shoulders as wide as a man’s, and had the stern look of a grenadier. Her hair was pulled back in a severe bun, and her drab dress somehow accentuated the massive bulk of her figure. A lead-loaded blackjack was wedged into the belt cinched around her waist. She looked entirely capable of felling man or beast with one blow.
Plowing through the crowd, she moved directly to the bar and stopped beside Starbuck. She sized him up, her beady eyes noting every detail of his gaudy attire. At last, with her hands on her hips, she rocked her head from side to side.
“Little out of your element, ain’t you, sport?”
“You Mother Bronson?”
“That’s the name.” She gave a tight, mirthless smile. “Who’s asking?”
“Johnny One-Spot.” Starbuck thought the name had a certain ring. “I’ve got a message for Denny O’Brien.”
“Oh, do you?” Her smirk widened into a smug grin. “And what makes you think you’d find him in a dump like this?”
“High Spade McQueen sent me.” Starbuck knocked back his whiskey and wiped his mouth. “He said to tell you the plan’s been changed. I’m to explain to O’Brien himself, and no one else.”
“Are you, now?” She signaled the barkeep. “Have another drink, sport. We’ll talk about it some and see where that takes us.”
“What’s to talk about?”
The barkeep brought another glass and the bottle. His hand passed over Starbuck’s glass, deftly opening and closing, as he poured for Mother Bronson. Then he filled Starbuck’s glass and casually walked away.
“Well, Johnny One-Spot”—she lifted her glass—“here’s mud in your eye.”
She tossed down her drink and Starbuck followed suit. He puffed importantly on his cigar and looked impatient. “I haven’t got all night. You gonna take me to Mr. O’Brien or not?”
There was the merest beat of hesitation. Then her smile broadened. “Tell you the truth, you haven’t got hardly any time at all, sport.”
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“Ask me again when you wake up.”
“When I—?”
Starbuck’s eyes glazed and the cigar dropped fr
om his mouth. He slumped against the bar, then staggered sideways, and his knees suddenly turned rubbery. He pitched face down on the floor.
Mother Bronson stooped, rolling him over, and took one of his legs under each arm. Effortlessly, she dragged him toward the rear of the saloon. One of her girls rushed to open the door and she disappeared into the back room. There, waiting silently, were Denny O’Brien and Ned Adair. She let go his legs and turned to O’Brien.
“Well, dearie, there’s your man. Colder’n a mackerel!”
“No,” O’Brien said, staring down a moment. “I think he’s Ned’s man. Call it a going-away present.”
“Present!” Adair repeated with a quizzical look. “You want me to take him with me?”
“Only partway.” O’Brien smiled evilly. “Feed him to the sharks once you get out to sea.”
Mother Bronson threw back her head and roared with laughter.
Starbuck awoke to a curious yawing motion. His vision was blurred and his head felt as though it had been cleaved down the middle. Several moments elapsed before his eyes cleared and he was able to collect himself. Sitting up, he gazed around and slowly realized he was in a cargo hold. Then, with sudden clarity, it struck him.
He was on a ship! A clipper ship bound for the Orient!
His last recollection was of Mother Bronson. Everything afterward was a blank, but not too difficult to piece together. He’d walked into a trap, with Denny O’Brien very likely watching from the back room. Then, like a prize sucker, he’d never given it a second thought when Mother Bronson called for another round of drinks. Yet he hadn’t been shanghaied. Nothing so simple would satisfy O’Brien. The orders, without doubt, were to kill him and dump his body at sea.
He cursed himself for a fool. Standing, his hand went to the shoulder holster and found it empty. He lifted his pants leg and discovered they’d missed the hideout gun in his boot top. The stubby Colt was a last-ditch weapon, but deadly at short ranges. The thought occurred that it was his one hope for deliverance, and he reminded himself to make every shot count. He cocked the hammer and moved toward a ladder at the rear of the hold.