by Wesley Ellis
They were congregated around the body of the man who had catapulted through Ki’s window only moments earlier. Ki twisted around to see that some of the fire had dropped from the bedspread to the rug, which it was now eating greedily. He looked for something to smother the fire with before it roared out of control. There was no time to go after the three surviving gunmen he could now hear crashing down the stairs into the lobby.
Hotel fires were killers. Ki knew that, for the next few minutes, the only option he had was to stomp out this fire before it spread to other hotel rooms and killed innocent people.
When he finally stamped out the last ember, the room was scorched and smoke-filled. Ki packed up his bags and was just about to leave when the sheriff stepped into the doorway. “What the hell is going on up here!” he demanded, staring at the carnage.
Ki smiled disarmingly. “A little misunderstanding, Sheriff, that is all. So sorry to have bothered you.”
The man stalked into the room and marched over to the shattered window. He stared down into the street to see the dead man. “Yeah,” he growled. “That poor bastard came through the window. You want to tell me about it now, or after I book you in jail on the suspicion of murder?”
Ki acted shocked. “I murdered no one. I was attacked by intruders who came bursting into this room without warning.”
“Why?”
Ki shrugged. “Money, I suppose.”
The lawman glanced at the expensive leather bags and then a little closer at the suit that Ki had just pulled on. Anyone could see that it was custom-tailored and of the finest materials. “Who the deuce are you?”
Ki handed the man a card he had had the foresight to have printed during the Sacramento delay. It identified him as Chen Ling, son of Sam Ling, owner and manager of the Hong Kong Shipping Company.
The sheriff studied the richly embossed card for a long moment. “This is a hell of a long way from the Pacific Ocean, Ling. What the devil are you doing in Reno?”
“I’m here on business.” Ki glanced over the sheriff’s shoulder to see a crowd of gawkers in the hallway. He would have bet his ceremonial katana sword that one of them was an employee of the Sierra Stage Line trying to fathom what could possibly have gone wrong.
“I’m listening. What kind of business?”
Ki shifted as if he were nervous. “Actually, I am here on behalf of my honorable father. He is interested in investing in a stage line.”
“A stage line? A Chinaman owning a stage line is crazy! What would your father want to do a fool thing like that for?”
“For the money. Chinese investment money is good in Reno, is it not?”
“Well, sure, but—”
“I am here on the invitation of the honorable Mr. Daniel Bonaday. It is his line that my father is interested in as a possible investment.”
The sheriff shook his head. “Don’t make sense to me. Even less sense is how come you are alive and that poor fella down there is dead.”
Ki smiled innocently. “He rushed at me and I jumped aside at the very last minute. He could not stop his momentum and went through the window. It was very sad.” Ki sympathetically clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
“It sure as hell was—for him, but not for you. What about the fire? Did he start that, too?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
The sheriff scowled. He twisted around and glared at the gawkers assembled in the hallway. “I don’t suppose any of you folks happened to see what really happened in here?”
They all said that they had not, but one of the guests swore, “There were three or four of them, by God! I heard them raising hell in here and then they all went running down this hall. They hit the stairs like a buffalo stampede and lit out like the devil himself was on their tail!”
The sheriff pinned the hotel’s night clerk, who had been on duty in the lobby. “Well,” he barked, “is that the truth, or not?”
The clerk gulped nervously. “Yeah,” he finally croaked, “there were some men that came up and down in a hurry. But I was reading the newspaper and didn’t hardly even get a look at them.”
“I yelled, ‘Fire!”’ Ki said. “I think it quite natural that people on this floor would attempt to leave as fast as they possibly could.”
The sheriff hooked his thumbs in his cartridge belt and glared at Ki. The lawman was of average height, in his mid-thirties, and wiry. He had a mustache and long side-burns and his hat was pushed back to reveal black hair heavily pomaded and smelling like freshly crushed green apples. His jaw was square and aggressive, but he looked Ki right in the eye, and the samurai judged the sheriff to be an honest, dependable man. Not clever or particularly perceptive, but a solid man who brooked no nonsense.
He handed back the business card and said, “Mr. Ling, I’m afraid I am going to have to take you to jail and hold you for the night. In the morning, I’ll get ahold of Dan Bonaday. If your story checks out, then I’ll let you out on your own word that you’ll stay around until after I have completed my investigation. That fair enough?”
Ki nodded. “I can’t stay here in this room tonight. Of course, Sheriff. My honorable father has always taught me to believe in the justice of this country’s laws. Do you intend to handcuff me?”
The sheriff gauged Ki’s size and weight and said, “Naw, you try anything, I’ll just have to put a hammerlock on you and drag you into the cell. You Chinamen don’t like to have your dignity ruffled that way, do you?”
“Only my mother was Japanese. My father was—”
“Don’t say it,” the sheriff warned abruptly. “Folks don’t like to hear about races mixin‘, especially when it comes to the opium-smokin’ Orientals.”
Ki turned away to hide his anger because the Japanese did not smoke opium like the Chinese. He had wanted to tell this man that the Japanese and the Chinese were like night and day, like oil and water. That they hated each other and always would. But Ki bit back his words because it would not matter to this man or to any of the others now listening. The only one who would take notice of it would be the spy from the Sierra Stage Line, who would immediately report this perplexing bit of inconsistent information to Orin Grayson, Lee Ford, and anyone else at the top of their dung heap.
The sheriff waited till Ki grabbed his bags. “Step aside,” he yelled. “We’re coming through. Show is over, you can all go back to bed now.”
“What about the damage to this room?” the night clerk wailed. “The rugs are ruined, the window will have to be replaced, and that bedspread down in the street was worth—”
Ki reached into his trousers pocket and found a neatly folded hundred-dollar bill. “I think this ought to be enough to cover the damage,” he said with a slight bow of apology. “So sorry to be of such trouble.”
The man stared at the money. It was more than he would earn in three months, and many times the amount required to make restitution for the hotel damages. He would pocket the profit and use the rest to buy some new clothes. But none of his great delight showed on his face as he stared at Ki with snobbish disapproval. “You have caused this establishment some embarrassment, Mr. Ling. But we will forgive the transgression and this will, I think, cover the costs.”
“George, it had goddamn well better,” the sheriff said. “I’ll put it in my report and make sure the owner knows how much the Chinaman gave you.”
George colored and snapped peevishly, “I’ll remember you too, Sheriff! The very next time you need a room and a secret kept, I’ll remember real well.”
Someone tittered. But the other people in the hall chose to ignore the damning remark and Ki felt himself being shoved down the hallway none too gently.
Jessie had known she would be too late to be of any help to Ki. She had not been able to shake free of Orin Grayson until two in the morning. The man had been an insatiable lover and possessed a remarkable amount of stamina. Furthermore, to have revealed her urgent desire to leave would have raised suspicions. Jessie had gently trie
d again to seek the names of Grayson’s colleagues. All she learned was that they were a group of financiers from Sacramento. That, and the secret that a fat mail contract as well as the possibility of an even more lucrative government contract to haul coinage to and from the U.S. Mint in Carson City were being considered. No wonder the Sierra Stage Line wanted to be a monopoly! Not only would it be able to charge exorbitant prices for passenger and freight travel, but the government contracts guaranteed a high and continuing rate of profit.
Jessie watched Ki being led away past the crowd of onlookers who had come to stare at the body lying broken in the street. She felt a deep flood of relief that almost overrode her guilt for not discovering from Grayson the other investors backing the Sierra Stage Line. At least she now knew what the stakes were and that Bonaday could win this battle and have every expectation of reaping a fair, perhaps even significant profit. The ironic thing to Jessie was that Grayson and Ford had not considered that there was going to be enough business and profit for both stage lines without having to turn to sabotage.
It was greed that drove men to destroy their competitors; greed and ego that drove them to be satisfied with nothing less than total victory over their opponents. Jessie had seen a little bit of the former and a lot of the latter in Alex Starbuck. She had never quite understood it, but she had accepted it as part of the man she loved and admired.
“I asked my pa about you,” a voice said close behind her.
Jessie turned on her heel and saw Billy Bonaday standing on the walk with a drink in his big fist. A streetlamp cast a sickly yellowish light that made his face seem sharper than it actually was with his prominent cheekbones and jawline. Jessie saw that he was weaving just slightly and guessed that he had drunk too much this evening.
“What did your father say?” Jessie asked, knowing that it must have been hard for Dan Bonaday to lie to his children but also that they had agreed there was no choice. Looking at Billy now, wild, half drunk, and angry for some reason, Jessie was glad that they had not trusted the Bonaday children. Those two did not seem capable of keeping even the smallest secret.
“He said you were my goddamn cousin, all right. Told me about your mother and how you was illegitimate and everything.”
“Does it make any difference now? You know I’m after money and you threw me out of your father’s office. I don’t see that we have anything to talk about.”
Jessie did not want to argue with this man, and so she turned back toward her hotel. In the morning, she could get a message to Ki and—
“Wait a minute, damn it!” Billy snapped, pulling her roughly about. “I want to talk to you, Cousin Vickie!”
She yanked her arm free and slapped him across the face, hard. He rocked back on his heels and Jessie reached inside her purse, ready to pull out her gun. She had never allowed any man to handle her unkindly and she would not start now.
But he did not try to strike back as she expected. Instead, he wiped a trickle of blood from his lip and took a deep breath. He emptied his drink into the dirt and, when it was all gone, pitched the glass into the alley. “I owe you an apology,” he said. “So I’m apologizing.”
She was still angry. “For what? Tossing me out like a filthy beggar, or bruising my arm just now!”
“For both, and for...” He struggled to find the words. “Well, for what my father did, or I guess didn’t do for your mother when she got pregnant. I couldn’t believe he’d turn his back on his own blood. On anyone that was down and out like your mother must have been. My pa, well, we fight and I know I don’t help him much, but I’ve always loved and respected the man. Until I learned about this.”
The anger washed right out of Jessie. She searched for some way to ease the pain he was obviously in. “Listen, Billy—”
“Bill,” he corrected, “whores and old ladies still call me Billy. Men and ladies ought to call me Bill. I’m a man full grown some years now. I may not act like one more’n one day outa every three or four, but I am.”
“Why don’t you be a little easier on your father,” Jessie said. “It happened a long time ago.”
“If I had money, I’d give it to you. But I don’t. Thought that Mr. Chen Ling was our savior, but now it don’t look too good. If he goes to a trial, they’ll hang him for no other reason than he’s half Oriental.”
Jessie blinked. “How could they put him on trial?”
“For tossing that man out his second-story window.” Billy’s face grew hard. “This is just what Grayson and Ford would have wished for on a goddamn falling star. It’s the perfect excuse to get rid of Chen Ling. They’ll bribe a judge and then a jury. Ling will be fortunate to escape the gallows before this is all said and done. He’s as good as hung now.”
Jessie’s heart almost stopped. My God! She had not even thought that something like that might happen to Ki. But of course Grayson and Ford would quickly realize the opportunity they had been presented with and capitalize on it at once.
“He’ll need the best lawyer in Reno,” Jessie said quickly. “Who is he?”
“Name is Don Blake, but he’s taken. The man is on a retainer for the Sierra Stage Line Company.”
“Then we’ll have to find an even better man. One from Sacramento or even San Francisco.”
Bill’s face brightened. “Sure! Chen Ling’s father will gladly pay all the legal expenses.” Feeling impulsive and filled with new hope, he reached for Jessie’s arm, then pulled his hand away as if he had touched fire. “Didn’t mean to touch you, Vickie,” he said quickly. “Don’t slap me again. Last time, you almost knocked my teeth out.”
Despite all the circumstances, Jessie laughed. She really was surprised to see that, underneath that bravado and arrogance, this man had a warm sense of humor and some real human compassion for someone less fortunate than himself.
“I won’t hit you. Not unless you try to grab me hard again.”
“Not a chance. Will you help me find a lawyer for Chen Ling?”
“Well—” Jessie clamped her mouth shut. My God, she thought, what am I doing! I am working for the Sierra Stage Line and trying to infiltrate their accounting department to discover all of our enemies. She wanted to crawl away in shame. “I can‘t, Bill.”
The broad smile on his face died. “Well . . . well, why not? I said I was sorry. And if you’ll find it in your heart to forgive and forget, I swear we’ll help you any way we can. I’ll even talk to Pa in the morning and maybe—”
Jessie couldn’t bear to hear another word. “Bill,” she told him, “after you kicked me out I was so mad I went and got a job with your competition.”
He was stunned. He reeled back on his heels and stared at her for a moment in full disbelief. When he realized that she was telling him the truth, a look of utter contempt distorted his handsome features. “Well damn your soul, anyhow! Between you and my sister, Pa and me have had about all the Judas betrayers we can stand.”
“Bill, I—”
“Get out of here!” he shouted in a voice so hate-filled and loud that it caused heads to turn. “Go . . . go screw the mighty Mr. Grayson, if you can pry my sister out from under him!”
Jessie felt the heat rise up in her cheeks. His words cut her to the quick and she wanted to grab this man by the neck and tell him the enormous risks that she, Ki, and Bill’s father were taking to end the killing, robberies, and sabotage that threatened to break Bonaday’s dying stage line.
But she did not. Instead, she turned and ran toward her hotel, because she was not used to men seeing her cry in pain and anger. She would turn her attention to saving Ki. She would make Orin Grayson drop all charges against him and let him go. Orin was under her power now—or if not, he soon would be.
The only joker in the deck that Jessie could see was Roxy Bonaday. Roxy, who was jealous and possessive and fool enough to be used by her own father’s enemy. Jessie would have to face Roxy and figure out a way to get her out of the picture.
She slowed at her hotel and walked t
hrough the lobby with her head up and her stride long and purposeful. She walked like a Starbuck woman. And tomorrow, she would need to think and act like one as well. Alex Starbuck had drilled self-control into her for years. No tears, no more weakness and feeling sorry for someone like Billy Bonaday.
Jessie entered her room and locked the door. She pressed herself against the door and angrily scrubbed the tears from her eyes with her sleeve. Vickie Wilson was supposed to be a real tough little chippy. All right, but she wasn’t half the woman that Jessie was. Jessie, who would portray her in this hell-busted Nevada town right to the bitter end.
Chapter 7
Ki paced restlessly behind the bars of his cell until the door of Sheriff Frank Colton’s office burst open before the angry onslaught of Daniel Bonaday. “Goddamnit, Frank, let Chen Ling the hell outa that cell! Why didn’t you send someone out to my place last night and tell me there was trouble?”
Sheriff Colton had been about to go out hunting for Bonaday if the man had not arrived within the next few minutes. “Now, simmer down a bit, Dan. I heard Chen’s story and I’m ready to accept the fact that it was purely a case of self-defense and of attempted robbery. Chen swears that he had never laid eyes on the man that did a nosedive outa his window into the street. I’m prepared to believe him and let him free. But he has to give me his word that he’ll stay here in town until all the questions have been settled to everyone’s satisfaction.”
A well-dressed man in a black suit, white shirt, and derby hat barged into the open doorway. “And I,” he proclaimed dramatically, “am prepared to file first-degree murder charges against that deadly Chinaman!”
Ki blinked and then shook his head. He had been afraid that something like this might happen. During the long night behind bars, he had had plenty of time to think. He was in a fix and Bonaday’s enemies weren’t the kind to miss an opportunity.
Dan Bonaday’s reaction to the Sierra Stage Line attorney was swift and predictable. “Mr. Blake, I’ll be damned if I’ll let you get away with that ridiculous charge!”