THE KILLING LOOK

by J. D. Rhodes

  The Pinkerton man’s stony expression never wavered. “She’s fine, ma’am. The Irish girl is with her.” Sure enough, as the song ended, she heard Bridget’s bright clear voice join with Violet’s.

  Oh, make my grave

  Large, wide and deep

  Put a marble stone

  At my head and feet

  And in the middle

  A turtle dove

  So the world may know

  I died of love…

  The tears flowed more freely now, and she turned and fled to her own room, pausing only to lock the door behind her. She stood just inside the door, taking deep breaths to calm herself. A rustling sound at her feet made her look down. Someone was shoving the papers under the door. She heard John’s voice.

  “You have until morning,” he said. “After that, I’ll have no choice but to have Mr. Tremblay begin the lunacy proceeding.” She heard his footsteps fading as he walked away.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  To Cade’s surprise, they didn’t take him directly to the cells. Webster, the big lieutenant who’d taken part in the interrogation at Hamrick’s, joined them at the doorway of the police station and conducted them to a room furnished with only a desk and two chairs. Dunleavy shackled Cade to one of the chairs. Captain Smith took the other, with Webster leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest.

  Smith smiled at Dunleavy. “That will be all, Sergeant.”

  Dunleavy’s face looked like he was sucking unripe persimmons. He’d already taken out his baton, clearly ready to use it on Cade. As he exited, he leaned over and whispered, “I’ll see you later, shit-kicker. Count on it.”

  Smith sat for a moment, looking at Cade without speaking. Cade stared back silently.

  It was Webster who finally broke the silence. “I think we can conduct this interview like civilized people. Don’t you agree, Mr. Cade?”

  “I reckon,” Cade said. “Unless you think it’s uncivilized to tell you again that this is bullshit.”

  “I don’t think so.” Smith held out his hand. Webster handed him a sheaf of papers and Smith sifted through it. “You’ve been asking for McMurphy all over the Barbary Coast, and then he turns up dead. That suggests to me that you found the object of your search, and did what you’d been paid to do.”

  Before Cade could answer, Webster spoke up, his voice dripping with disgust. “What kind of white man would debase himself by working for the God-damned Chinese?”

  That one rocked Cade. How the hell did Webster know about that? He decided to bluff. “What the Sam Hill are you talking about?”

  Webster advanced on the chair where Cade was shackled, towering over him. “You think we don’t have informants in Chinatown? We know you’re taking money from the Green Dragon Tong.” He looked for a moment as if he was going to backhand Cade. He straightened up and looked down at his prisoner as if regarding some new breed of loathsome insect. “Do you deny it?”

  Cade didn’t see any point in trying to if they had informants. “Yeah. I lost my job with Hamrick. But the head of the tong still wanted McMurphy found.” He looked back at Smith. “But more than that, he wanted to know who McMurphy was plotting with to make the Chinese look like they were attacking a white family.”

  Webster scoffed. “You want us to believe that nonsense? It was the Chinese who attacked the Hamricks. And they haven’t yet begun to pay for that.” He shook his head as if unable to believe Cade’s stupidity. “These heathen scum are a plague on San Francisco, Cade. Literally. They bring disease. They corrupt God-fearing people, particularly females, with their vile drugs and potions. If I had my way, I’d put them all on ships back to China. Then I’d sink the ships.”

  Cade shrugged as best he could in the cuffs. “I get it. You got a burr up your ass about the Chinese. Truth is, I ain’t totally pleased with ’em myself. But I wasn’t hired to kill McMurphy. Just find him.”

  “And once found,” Smith said, “what did you expect the tong to do? Invite McMurphy to tea?”

  “I don’t know. I just know I didn’t kill him.” A thought occurred to Cade. “What about his daddy? The crazy street preacher? He’s still alive, ain’t he?”

  Smith nodded. “For now. But he’s in the hospital. Unconscious. He was beaten so severely about the head that the doctors say he’s bleeding inside his skull. It doesn’t look good for him. Or for you.”

  “Shit.” Cade slumped in his chair and stared at the table. The old man could clear him if he woke up, and if his brains hadn’t been scrambled by the beating. But those were two huge ifs on which to be staking his life. He looked back up at Smith. “So, let me get this straight. You know I travel heeled. When I find McMurphy—who I wouldn’t recognize by sight if he jumped up and bit me—you think I’d beat him to death, and his daddy, with my bare hands? All by my lonesome? That’s the tale you’re going to tell?” He shook his head. “Pretty damn thin, boys. Pretty damn thin.” He leaned back in the chair. “I think we’re done here. Either let me go, or I need a lawyer.”

  Smith and Webster looked at each other. Smith got up and went to the door of the interrogation room. “Sergeant Dunleavy,” he called out. In a moment, the door opened and Dunleavy was standing there smiling that unpleasant smile.

  “Take Mr. Cade to the cells,” Smith said.

  Dunleavy nodded and pulled his baton from his belt. “With pleasure, sir.”

  Cade shuffled ahead of Dunleavy down the dank, gloomy corridors that led to the cells. They’d shackled his ankles now as well as fastening his wrists behind him with the heavy iron cuffs, and Cade didn’t much like his chances of surviving the beating he knew was coming if he was bound up like this. When he hesitated, Dunleavy prodded him in the back with the baton. “Move your ass, shit-kicker,” he growled.

  Cade picked up his shuffle. “I could get along a little faster if you’d take these damn chains off my legs.”

  Dunleavy poked him in the back again. “Oh, I don’t think you’re in much hurry to get where you’re going.”

  They’d reached the cells. The tiny rooms were stuffed with wretched humanity, desperate faces looking out through the barred doors, filthy hands gripping the bars. Some were silent, some were shouting insults and demands in a Babel of languages. The smell of untended shit buckets and unwashed bodies nearly made Cade gag. It was hot as hell down there, and beads of sweat were beginning to run down Cade’s face. One rolled to the end of his nose and hung there annoyingly. Cade shook his head like a dog to dislodge it. “What’s the matter, Dunleavy? Afraid of what I’ll do to you if I’m loose? Scared of a stand-up fight,” he took a deep breath and took the plunge, “you ball-less, cousin-humping, Paddy son of a bitch?”

  The ruse didn’t work. Dunleavy just chuckled. “Keep talking, cowboy. You’ll be singing a different tune in just a bit. You’ll be begging to confess your sins, and more.”

  “I got plenty of sins, you cocksucker,” Cade growled, “but none I’m going to confess to a yellow-livered, tater-eating bottom feeder like you.”

  They’d come to the end of the line of cells. An iron door with a small barred window set at eye level in the brick wall. Dunleavy opened it and stepped aside. The shouting from the cells grew louder and more intense. The men in the cells knew what went on in that room. Some were jeering Dunleavy, others taunting Cade. Dunleavy ignored them both, pushing Cade against the wall and reaching for the ring of keys on his belt. The movement caused him to take his eyes off Cade for a moment. Cade braced himself. I may be about to get a whaling, he thought, but I’m damned if I’m going to just lay down for it and not get a lick in myself. As Dunleavy swung the heavy iron door open and turned toward him, Cade leaped forward and smashed his forehead into the policeman’s nose.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Dunleavy screamed with pain, bright crimson blood erupting from his broken nose. He brought both hands up to his face, dropping his keys on the floor. He kept a grip on his baton, however, so
Cade rammed into him again, hard, driving him back against the door of the last cell. Black and brown hands reached from between the bars to grab him and pull him backward. Shouts and curses from the other cells rose to a deafening cacophony. Dunleavy squealed and lifted the baton, but someone reached through and snatched it away. Dunleavy struggled against the clutching hands, crying out in a terrified, high-pitched voice. Cade dropped to his knees, looking for the keys Dunleavy had dropped. When he spotted them, he plopped down on his ass and felt for them with his bound fingers, picking them up and fumbling them into his palms. Dunleavy was still trying to break free from the hands that held him against the bars. Someone had brought the baton across the copper’s throat and was pulling hard. Jesus, Cade thought, if he dies, I’ll hang for sure.

  “Don’t kill him!” he cried out. “We can use him to get out of here.” The advice was ignored. Cade swore and turned back to the people in the cell behind him. Four Chinese faces regarded him with expressions ranging from curiosity to terror. “Look.” He turned and showed them the keys he held behind his back. “See if you can get these cuffs off my wrists.” They looked at him blankly. “God damn it,” Cade muttered. He looked back to where Dunleavy was beginning to turn blue. “Don’t kill him, you damn fools,” he yelled. There was the clang of a door from the far end of the cellblock and a thunder of booted footsteps. What looked like a dozen officers had piled into the corridor and were pounding their way toward him.

  “Ah, shit,” Cade said disgustedly. He turned to the men in the cell who were still engaged in choking the life out of Dunleavy. “It’s over!” He called out. “Let him go!” Then the officers were on him, fists flying. He took a punch to the head that knocked him cross-eyed, then another to the gut that doubled him over. He fell to his knees, then another punch knocked him over onto his side. Everything turned into a blur of fists and boots and pain until mercifully the red world turned black.

  ***

  Cade awoke with the taste of blood in his mouth and every muscle screaming with pain. He slowly sat up, groaning as the motion hurt him in even more places.

  He’d been lying on a rough wooden board fastened like a shelf to the wall. His hands and feet were free, but as he swung his legs over, he saw his boots were gone. He blinked in surprise and looked around.

  He was in one of the barred cells, three walls surrounding him and the bars on the fourth. Boards like the one he’d been lying on were fastened to the other walls. Two other men sat on the makeshift beds, watching him. One, a big bruiser with an unshaven face and a walleye that wandered off to one side of its fellow was regarding him defiantly, his prominent jaw stuck out as if he was daring someone to punch him in it. He was wearing Cade’s boots.

  “God damn it,” Cade muttered. He stood up, wavering a little. His head wasn’t fully recovered from the last beating, and it looked like he was headed into either taking another one or handing one out. He wasn’t thrilled with either idea, especially since, given his condition, the first possibility was the most likely one. But he knew if he just let someone take his boots, his life in that jail cell, what there was left of it, would turn into a living hell.

  “Gonna need those boots back, fella,” Cade said as reasonably as he could.

  The walleyed man didn’t move. “Don’t know what you mean, friend.”

  Cade crossed the narrow cell in two steps, trying not to stagger. He stood over the thief. “I mean, friend, those are my fucking boots, and you’re gonna give them back. I’m having a truly shitty goddamn day, and I’m not in any fucking mood for any of your bullshit. Take the boots off, and give them the fuck back to me.”

  The man started to rise. “Go to—” Before he could get the last word out, Cade grabbed him by the throat and slammed his head against the wall. The thief tried to throw a punch with one hand and grab the hand strangling him with the other. Cade pulled him forward, then slammed him into the wall again, the back of his head striking the brick with a sharp crack. Both eyes seemed to focus together for the first time before rolling back in his head. The man went limp and collapsed back onto the makeshift bunk. Cade let him fall, then bent over and pulled the boots off the unconscious man’s feet. As he sat back on his own bed to pull them on, he glared at the other man in the cell, a skinny Mexican with a drooping moustache. The Mexican held up his hands to show he was no threat. Cade nodded and finished putting on his boots. He sighed and leaned back against the wall of the cell. “So, what time do they feed us down here?”

  The Mexican shrugged without speaking.

  “Hey,” Cade said, “you habla the English?”

  The man looked at him, blinking in confusion.

  Cade sighed. “Guess that’s my answer.” He leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes. He probed with his tongue where a tooth had been knocked loose. He needed to lie down and let his bruises heal, but he didn’t want to be asleep when the boot thief woke up. If he did. A thought made him get up and check to see if the man was still breathing. He couldn’t tell at first, and a feeling of dread ran through him until he saw the slow rise of the man’s thick chest. He let out his own breath and took his seat back.

  He didn’t know how long it was before he heard the scrape of a key in the lock. The door swung open with a creak of metal on metal. Captain Smith stood in the doorway. “Cade. Come with me.”

  Cade stood up. “If you’re takin’ me to another beatin’, thanks, but no, thanks. I kinda had my fill of those for the day.”

  “Shut up and get moving. You’re going before the judge.” Smith’s mouth was set in an angry line. “Someone hired you a lawyer.”

  Cade blinked in surprise. “Well. That was mighty neighborly of someone. Who was it?”

  “Like you don’t know.” Smith stepped back. “Get moving.”

  The other detective, Webster, was standing in the corridor. He looked even less happy than Smith. He held a pair of cuffs in his hands.

  Cade sighed and held out his wrists. “I honestly don’t know, fellas, who’d spring for a lawyer for me.”

  This time it was Webster’s turn to snarl at him to shut up. So he did. He fell in between them, with Smith leading and Webster bringing up the rear.

  They walked through a maze of narrow corridors, clanging iron doors, and steps, finally entering the courtroom from a side door. It was crowded and noisy, a hubbub of voices bouncing off the dark paneled walls. Cigar smoke hung in the air. A line of wretched defendants sat on a bench before the Bar, shackled together. Most of them appeared to be Chinese. The pair of rough-looking young white men on the bench were trying to shove themselves away from the stolid Chinese and not getting far. The spectator seats behind the Bar were packed as well. Cade saw someone stand up at the back of the room, leaning forward as if to get a better look. It was Mei. Cade suddenly realized with a sinking feeling who his benefactor was.

  A group of well-dressed men who Cade assumed were lawyers was gathered to one side of the room, chatting and smoking. One noticed him and peeled away from the group, walking over to greet Cade with a big smile that made him instantly nervous. “You’d be Mr. Cade, then? Mr. L.D. Cade?”

  Cade shifted uncomfortably. “I would. And you are?”

  The lawyer’s smile widened. “Jenkins, sir. Walter B. Jenkins, Esquire. At your service.” He turned to Smith, who was glowering at Jenkins. “Captain Smith. So nice to see you again.” He nodded at Webster, standing behind Cade. “And Lieutenant Webster.” Webster muttered something under his breath that Cade couldn’t fully hear, but it sounded like “shyster.”

  Jenkins went on as if he hadn’t heard. “Gentlemen, may I have a moment to confer with my client? Alone?” He looked at Cade’s wrists. “And out of those cuffs?”

  “You can talk to him,” Smith said through gritted teeth. He nodded to the jury box on the other side of the room. “Over there. Where we can see you. But the cuffs stay on.”

  Jenkins was still smiling. “Very well.” He led Cade past th
e little knot of lawyers, who looked at him curiously. Jenkins held open the little gate to the raised area where the jurors were seated during trials and Cade stepped up. They took seats side by side. Jenkins leaned over and spoke to Cade in a low voice. “The judge will be in in a moment. Say nothing. Everything has been arranged.”

  Cade answered in the same low tone. “I might feel a smidge better if I knew what the arrangement is.”

  Jenkins chuckled. “All you need to know is you’ll be released. On your own recognizance.”

  “I thought I was being charged with murder.”

  Jenkins shook his head, a disgusted expression on his face. “They have nothing to hold you on, and they know it.”

  “Glad we see eye to eye on that. But, ah, there’s something you should probably know.” He took a deep breath. “When they were takin’ me to the cells, a sergeant named Dunleavy was gettin’ ready to rough me up. I kind of pushed back, and, well…”

  Jenkins just nodded. “I know. And a minor riot ensued.” He patted Cade on the knee like a fond uncle. “As I said, Mr. Cade. Fear not. Everything is arranged.”

  Cade grimaced. “Sounds like the fix is in.”

  Jenkins smiled. “This is San Francisco, Mr. Cade. The fix is always in. Just be happy that this time, it’s in your favor.”

  “That’ll be a nice change,” Cade muttered.

  A door at the back of the courtroom opened. “ALL RISE!” an officer bellowed.

  “Remember,” Jenkins said. “Say nothing.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  “Oyez, Oyez, Oyez!” the bailiff called out in a deep, gravelly voice as everyone stood. “This Police Court for the county and city of San Francisco is now in session. The Honorable Sebastian K. Apple presiding. God save the State and this Honorable Court. Be seated.”

  Cade looked the judge over. He looked to be about sixty, with a fierce, craggy face and an impressive mane of dark hair, streaked with gray and brushed back. He looked like the kind of judge who’d sentence you to hang and charge you for the rope.