by Will Rayner
The sixth, he told himself. That’s a whole month ago, almost. Wait a minute. Sam sorted through the file on his desk until he found T.J.’s report on his visit to the fourth floor. The same day. Was it possible T.J. and The Greek were there at the same time? He was trying to sort out the consequences of that coincidence when the phone rang again. This time, it was Wellington Koo.
“I was allowed a peek at the autopsy report on the late Mr. Gatopoulis,” he told Sam. “Those two rounds in the back of his head were fired from close range. Very close.”
“Silencer?” Sam asked. He was thinking of how Benny was killed.
Koo gave his impression of a chuckle. “That’s exactly what Jimbo Bracken asked the coroner, I’m told. Can’t say for sure, the coroner says. Lieutenant Bracken showed me the report because he’s looking for somebody who does his business with a .22. Thought there might be a Chinatown connection. One of those weird tong cult rituals, as he put it.” This time, Koo’s chuckle was unmistakable. “I told him all our weird tongs used hatchets. He half believed me.” Koo paused. “The real reason I called is your inquiry of the other day about, ah, a certain shipment into our fair city. The word around my part of town is that a big load was heading here for transshipment somewhere else and it has gone missing. But it’s not missing in Chinatown.”
“I agree that we have to accept that there are outsiders involved,” Sam said. “And it must be a very profitable shipment, valuable enough that people are being killed. Thanks for bringing me up to date, Wellington. If we do come up with a connection to your beat, I’ll inform you right away.”
“I know you will,” Wellington Koo said with finality.
Chapter 17
T.J. angrily twisted around to see who was clutching his arm. He was tired of being pushed around by cops or Commies or anybody in particular. And being bopped on the noggin. And being interrupted in the pursuit of his lawful business by people asking stupid questions. You’ve grabbed me at the wrong time, pal, he told himself, then relaxed when he saw who was grinning up at him.
“Well, well, well, young Peter McNully. Fancy bumping into you here.” McNully looks a lot more prosperous than the last time I’d seen him, T.J. thought. Clean shirt, shaved, hair neatly trimmed, a decent, although inexpensive suit. Sears-Roebuck, by the look of it. His fedora had a big, white card stuck in the hatband. ‘PRESS’, it said in black, block letters.
“Covering this little dustup for the Western Worker, I guess,” T.J. continued.
“Nope, they dumped me. Harry Bridges got me fired. Said I was spending too much time with the oppressor class. That’s you, Tommy. I’m working for The News now.”
“Me, the oppressor class? I think not,” T.J. answered. He found himself grinning at McNully’s obvious exuberance.
“You really didn’t work for the Bee, did you, Tommy? Harry and Hank Schmidt think you’re some sort of plant.”
“I never said I worked for the Bee,” T.J. protested. “I said I was a stringer. That’s a freelancer, works for himself, you know that.” Then he changed the subject. This wasn’t the time to explain what he really did. “So you finally caught on with a real rag, looks like. Good for you.”
“Yeah, I lucked out, so far. The city editor at the News liked some of the features I did for the Worker and is giving me a chance. I cover the waterfront. Not by myself, there’s a more senior reporter, too. But it’s real newspaper work, not propaganda.”
“So what about your Party card? What about the downtrodden proletariat? Did you tear it up or are you a secret Bolshie now?”
McNully grinned at Flood’s teasing. “Yeah, I tore it up. No more Red stuff for me. It was kid’s stuff anyway.”
T.J. glanced over at Fenton. He was standing quietly, head down, being inconspicuous as hell. “Well, me and my pal here have sort of decided to ankle down Steuart Street. Any inkling of what’s going on, what started this?”
“The Industrial Association started it, on Tuesday. They decided to move some cargo through the picket lines, break the strike. Looks like they guessed wrong. Hey, I don’t think Steuart’s a very good idea, by the way. The longshoremen’s headquarters are down there, at 113, and I heard the mounted police are heading that way. I gotta hang around the Ferry Building anyway. That’s my assignment. Cover the violence and phone rewrite before the next deadline.”
By this time, the three of them had edged around the corner onto Steuart. They were being buffeted by men pushing past them, some of them running toward what was occurring further down the street. McNully waved goodbye and started edging his way through the crowd toward the Ferry Building. The first stinging tendrils of tear gas hung suspended in the air, coming from somewhere up ahead.
Partway down the block, T.J. spotted a set of swinging doors, with men streaming in and out. A saloon. “Let’s duck in here,” he told Fenton, lightly propelling him ahead. “I’ve got an idea.”
Inside, the joint was crowded and raucous. “First of all, a question,” T.J. said as he steered his ward toward the bar. “Why the Seaboard? Why a fleabag on the waterfront? Why don’t you just go home to Buchanan Street?”
“I’m afraid to go there,” Fenton mumbled. “They’re looking for me there. I know they are. I can’t go back.”
Fair enough, T.J. thought, although he wasn’t quite sure who ‘they’ were. “Well, it’s your, ah, tea party,” he said, shying away at the last moment from saying “funeral.”
He motioned the barkeep over with a sharp jerk of his head. “Let me have a couple of those big bar cloths of yours,” T.J. said, fishing in his pocket for his change. “I guess a dime oughta cover it.”
“Those cloths are a hot item, they’re going for ten cents each,” the bartender said.
T.J. favored the bartender with his patented sheriff’s deputy’s steely gaze and slowly reached around to the small of his back. He kept the Detective Special pointed downward, close to his leg, but visible enough that the bartender could see it. “We only want to rent them, not take out a mortgage,” he said.
“Stow the hardware,” the bartender said. “There’s enough pieces in here right now to arm the Fighting 69th. But for you, a special deal. Two for fifteen cents.”
T.J. found an extra nickel and spun it across the bar. He handed one of the cloths to Fenton. “For the tear gas,” he said. “Might come in handy.”
At that moment, a guy burst in through the swinging doors. “The bulls are coming!” he shouted. “They’re clearing out all the drinking joints! They’ve got clubs and they’ve got gas!” Good police thinking, T.J. privately admitted. A drunken rioter is infinitely more dangerous and unpredictable than a sober one, so the obvious tactic was to stop the rabble from drinking too much. “Let’s go, Mr. Fenton,” he said as the pair joined the exodus from the saloon. “Once more into the fray.”
They hadn’t gone more than a few dozen yards, however, before T.J. began thinking he had made a big mistake. Despite his size, the pressure of the mob was propelling him toward Mission Street at a pace he could barely control. T.J. had a firm grip on the little accountant’s coat collar, but he didn’t know how long that would last. They couldn’t turn back. The stream of humanity would trample Fenton in a minute, and there were no side streets until they got to Mission. T.J. looked at the faces of the men around him. Some were vacant and some looked scared, but on many there was a flush of excitement. He could hear angry curses and shrieks of defiance. On more than a few faces, the eyes glittered with hatred.
Gradually, the crowd’s momentum slowed. T.J. and Fenton were now embedded in a slowly solidifying mass of men stretching around the longshoremen’s headquarters. Taller than most of those around him, T.J. could see what was going on outside the building. A bunch of cops were stationed there. They had riot guns, drawn revolvers, nightsticks and tear gas guns. He didn’t know whether they were guarding the headquarters or preventing the mob from entering it. Across the street, the crowd was jeering and cursing and hurling a variety of objects.
Men on top of buildings were peppering the cops with missiles.
Suddenly, T.J. heard a shot, then another. A police inspector stood in the middle of the intersection, training his riot gun on the crowd, when a flying rock struck him squarely in the forehead. Another cop fired his riot gun, and more pistol shots rang out. T.J. saw one of the rioters fall. His blood ran along the sidewalk, then pooled in the gutter. For some time, T.J. had been hearing dull booms from the vicinity of the Embarcadero; now he heard them again, but much louder. It was the sound of tear gas bombs being launched and T.J. watched as the riot squad began firing them through the windows of the ILA headquarters.
The crowd had fallen silent at the sight of the body on the sidewalk and T.J. could now hear the clatter of hooves. Rapidly moving up Mission from the Embarcadero was a squad of mounted police. T.J. watched as they leaned down from their mounts and swung their truncheons at the heads around them, as if they were polo players swatting at a ball. The firing into the union building had been accompanied by a blue haze and T.J. realized this was the tear gas being released. He also realized the riot squad had turned its attention on the crowd and the boom of their launchers was quickly followed by the hazy blue of the gas settling over the intersection.
“Gotta get out of here, pardner,” he told Fenton. “Get ready to use that towel of yours.” He dearly wished he could get up Mission and leave Fenton’s piece of paper for another time, but the crowd had decided otherwise. By now, the mounted police were getting ready to charge the intersection and the mob was panicking. T.J. found himself trotting further down Steuart toward the intersection with Howard Street, Fenton firmly in tow. Oh well, he thought philosophically. At least we’re heading straight for the Seaboard.
*
However, it was not to be — not right at the moment, anyway, T.J. realized a few minutes later. He and Fenton had managed to loop around the corner onto Howard, but now, maybe half a block away from the Embarcadero, they were entangled in another knot of rioters and spectators.
A vacant lot had been set afire at Steuart and Howard, and the smoke from the burning grass mingled with tear gas lacing the air. Fenton was bent over, pressing the bar cloth to his eyes and retching. T.J. was having trouble coping with the stinging gas, too. Should have made sure the cloths were wet, he told himself. He could hear the firing of weapons and the boom of the gas bombs from just ahead. The mob around him was increasing, and aiming missiles at the coppers blocking the way.
“What the hell is going on down there?” T.J. asked a fireman struggling to attach a hose to a hydrant.
“Bunch of guys were fighting each other on Main Street. They came wheeling around the Embarcadero and some of them stopped in front of that hotel on the corner and took on the cops. The cops just opened fire on them, plain and simple. Some guys got wounded, then the cops opened up with the gas, right into the lobby. Made a hell of a mess.”
The whole situation’s a hell of a mess, T.J. told himself. He also had a sudden thought. How damaged was the interior of the Seaboard — including Fenton’s room? The accountant was now upright and recovered somewhat, which was a good thing because a phalanx of coppers was advancing up Howard Street toward them. T.J. had just enough time to ask Fenton the number of his room and receive “28, in the back” as an answer before they were running away from a fresh gout of tear gas.
Suddenly Fenton was gone. One moment, T.J. had a firm grip on him with one hand while wiping his eyes with the other, then he collided with something or somebody heavy and solid and his charge was spun out of his grasp.
In a few moments, T.J. found himself out of the gas cloud and on a small rise near the intersection of Howard and Spear streets. For anxious minutes he scanned the crowd in front of him as the gas drifted away, looking for the telltale clue of Fenton’s derby hat. The accountant was nowhere in sight. Where had he gone? To his hotel? Probably, T.J. guessed, but if that’s where li’l Wally is headed, he’ll have to take the long way around. So will I.
“Room 28, second floor, toward the back,” he muttered as he jogged down Spear Street. I’ll try Folsom, then come back along the Embarcadero to the Seaboard. A radio car bounced by him, siren going and cops riding the running boards.
Chapter 18
It was, T.J. would tell Sam later, like a war zone. Some sort of revolution in a third-rate banana republic. Standing amongst a bunch of pickets near Pier 16, he was appalled at the scene across the Embarcadero.
There were bodies lying on the pavement and in front of the Seaboard. The hotel’s facade looked like Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders had given it a going over. It was pocked by bullets and all the front windows were smashed. He watched as police, their faces anonymous behind gas masks, removed injured men. Radio cars kept shrilling by from both directions. There were rifle squads and shotgun squads and gas squads milling about. At least they’re not bumping into each other ... yet, T.J. thought.
He had progressed along Folsom by the simple strategy of avoiding the gangs of thugs and police looking for each other, and mingling with curious pedestrians and people who actually had business in the area. Crossing over to the other side of the Embarcadero, he had deflected the suspicious comments from strikers still at their posts by waving cheerily and shouting, “Press!” Now, it was time to figure out a way to get past all those cops and into the hotel. He hadn’t spotted Fenton during his journey and hoped the little guy had used a shortcut and was safe in his room. It was in the back, so it shouldn’t have been damaged by the police assault.
All of a sudden, the police stopped their aimless manoeuvers and moved out. Some of the squads went up Howard again to clear the crowd, while the others headed for the Ferry Building. T.J. wondered whether Pete McNully was having as much fun as he was. The Embarcadero was reasonably clear now. There were still some police and ambulance attendants around, tending to the wounded and injured, but there was nobody aiming a riot gun at him. Casually, he crossed the street.
Inside the lobby, the gas was pretty well all gone, but T.J. had his towel up around his face just in case — as well as to obscure his identity. There was no electricity, although the daylight streaming through the shattered windows made it easy enough to see. Somebody shouted at him, but T.J. ignored it and bounded up the steps to the second floor in three seconds flat.
Upstairs, it was considerably darker and he could sense a long, narrow corridor stretching into the blackness. Keeping in contact with the wall, T.J. edged along until he felt a door. He dug out his box of matches and lit one. Holding the flame up higher, he read, ‘23.’ Odd-even, he thought, so 28 is on the other side, further along. Momentarily distracted by the flame coming into close proximity with his fingers, he dropped the match with a muffled curse and looked down to make sure it went out.
At that moment, a door opened, throwing a pool of dim light onto the corridor. Belatedly looking up, T.J. gained the impression somebody had left one of the rooms and disappeared into the darkness of the nether regions. At any rate, it was easier to navigate now, with the open door a reasonable focal point. It was in fact Room 28, as T.J. realized uneasily. Had that been Fenton disappearing down the corridor, or ... ?
He didn’t finish the thought. Instead, he drew his Detective Special and eased through the door. The window was open and the curtains tied back, letting a cool breeze and the late-afternoon daylight fall on Wallace Fenton’s body. The accountant was lying face down on the well-trodden carpet. His remains were still warm, but he was quite dead, T.J. quickly established. The neat hole in the back of Fenton’s skull testified to that.
Ten, fifteen minutes ago, T.J. estimated. Was Fenton done in by that bozo who slipped out of the room, or was he in here, looking for something? Like, for instance, the piece of paper from California Street. Quickly, he searched the room. It was a spartan cubicle, with a narrow bed and a small, empty closet. The sorry, chipped dresser was empty, its drawers hanging open. The bed had been stripped and its mattress removed. Fenton’s small valise had be
en emptied out, too, and the meagre detritus of his desperate life lay scattered on the carpet.
It was obvious someone had already tossed the room. Still, T.J. made sure nothing was hidden among the thin bed coverings, stuck under the open drawers or among Fenton’s scattered belongings. He patted-down the body, then probed under it with only a fleeting shudder of distaste, avoiding the trickle of blood from the bullet wound. Fenton’s list, the piece of paper he hoped would lead to a better life, was not in Room 28.
Out in the corridor, a sliver of light from a slightly ajar fire door down at the far end made it a simple task to take his bearings and locate the front stairs. The rear exit had also made it easier for Wally Fenton’s murderer to make his escape, T.J. realized. In the lobby, two harness bulls were arguing with the desk clerk and he broke in to tell them there appeared to be a dead man upstairs.
“Another one?” the clerk wailed.
“Yeah, another one. Room 28.”
The clerk looked distraught, but the two cops immediately focused their attention on T.J. Flood. They wanted to know who he was, what he was doing here and how come he had found the body. T.J. showed them his PI’s license, and lied that he was on a divorce case, had noticed the open door and saw the body.
“How did you know he was dead?” one of the cops asked, jerking his head to tell his partner to check out Room 28.
“Well, I checked him out; he was lying on the floor. I thought he maybe needed some help. But he had this bullet hole in the back of his head.”
“How could you see? There ain’t no power in this building at the moment.”
“The window was open, there was lots of light. And the back door, the fire door, was open. Probably that’s how the mug who did it got away.” While the cop started making notes, T.J. heard the other one clattering down the stairs. “Sure enough,” the cop told his partner. “Dead guy. Shot in the back of the head, a .22 probably.”