Lone Star 02

by Ellis, Wesley

  Now he was less than six feet away from the dog. Once again the low growl became a warning snarl. Ki knew that from the dog’s point of view, he was now taller than the space separating them was long. This was the moment of truth. The dog had to decide whether it wanted to fight or capitulate.

  Its hackles rose as its instincts took command. The ruffling of its fur was to make it seem larger to Ki, and in that way, help to intimidate him.

  Ki rose up on his own toes, and now stared directly down at the dog. He gripped the two sides of his suit jacket and held them wide, like bat’s wings, to further increase his mass, the way certain birds will fluff their feathers and stretch their wings to frighten foes.

  The dog’s pointed ears flattened against its skull, and its lips pulled back to show still more yellowed fangs as its eyes narrowed. Its snarl rose in pitch as the animal became more and more tightly wound.

  “Hi!” Ki sounded his kiai, the sharp, sudden shout delivered with the breath’s exhalation, intended to shock the enemy and help focus one’s ki. At the same time he raised his knee to deliver a front snap-kick, square on the dog’s wet, sensitive nose. The kick was soundly executed, but Ki doubted that it would register as much more than a cuff. It did not matter. Ki had not meant to injure the dog, but to startle it and establish his mastery over it.

  The animal leapt back, at the same time issuing a surprised yelp. Then it lowered its head and shoved its broad snout between Ki’s knees.

  Firmly, Ki patted the animal’s side—soft touches excited animals, while firm touches calmed them—and scratched its ears.

  The hard muscles beneath the dog’s skin quivered with pleasure. It licked Ki’s hand.

  He stepped past the dog, into the patch of light coming down from the open cargo bay. He began to climb up the ladder.

  “Yes sir, Commissioner Smith!”

  It was the voice of the one named Matty. Ki climbed silently up the last few rungs of the ladder and peeked out over the rim of the open cargo bay. He saw the three crew supervisors, the guard he and Jessie had confronted earlier, and a short, fat fellow, nattily dressed in a three-piece suit of crushed red velvet. The man’s black derby was in his hand. His reddish-brown, thinning hair was worn slicked back, and his mustache was neatly clipped.

  “As soon as Willie gets back, I’ll see that he gets this, Commissioner,” Matty was saying. He tapped a blunt forefinger against the sheet of paper in his hand. “This is slick! ‘Tea,’ it says here. A ton of tea.”

  “That’s what the official record will read,” Smith agreed, his hoarse, gravelly voice suggesting that he’d spent more than this one day in the damp, salty air of the waterfront. “I wanted to sign the duty sheet on this load of goods myself,” the commissioner continued. “No one will dare question it now.”

  Ki shook his head sadly. The cartel would pay the trifling duty imposed on tea, and then would have a perfect cover for their crates of opium. No wonder the profits shared by the cartel and the Tong were so huge!

  “You make sure Willie gets that when he returns,” Smith instructed Matty as Ki climbed the rest of the way out of the hold and came toward them.

  “I forgot you was here, sir!” Matty beamed.

  “Not you again!” the guard exploded angrily. “Where’s Bart? Bart! Here, boy!”

  The dog bounded up the ladder and onto the deck. On its way to its master, it paused to nuzzle Ki’s hand.

  “What the hell?” the guard muttered in consternation. “What’d you do to my dog, you son of a bitch?”

  “Christ, Terry,” Matty hissed out of the side of his mouth, while still smiling at Ki. “Don’t you know who he is?”

  “No,” the guard named Terry snorted.

  “You don’t?” Matty asked, turning his face toward the guard.

  Ki took the opportunity to drive his fist into Matty’s stomach. The crew supervisor dropped like a stone.

  “Bart! Sic ‘em!” Terry the guard screamed. The dog took a tentative step toward Ki, and then looked inquiringly at its master.

  “Somebody sic him!” Commissioner Smith groaned as he hurried away toward the gangplank.

  Ki stooped to snatch up and stuff in his pocket the duty sheet lying crumpled between the fallen Matty’s limply curled fingers. The other two crew supervisors were now closing in. One was armed with a baling hook, while the other flashed a glittering stiletto. The guard, Terry, was clawing for the revolver in his belt.

  The gun had to be disposed of first, Ki decided. Still facing the two crew supervisors, so as to slow them down, Ki crabbed sideways, toward the guard. The man’s outstretched arm was just bringing the pistol to bear on Ki when the samurai executed a yoko-geri-keage, or sideways foot strike. Ki had never even looked at Terry, but his foot still hit the guard’s wrist perfectly. The revolver went flying end over end, over the ship’s side, to land in the water with a satisfying splash.

  The gawking coolies who’d been watching all the action now laughed and applauded Ki’s prowess. Ki gave them a smile.

  “Shut up! Shut up!” Terry screamed at the coolies in frustration. He circled around to charge Ki’s back as the other two—the crew supervisors—went for the samurai from the front, awkwardly waving their weapons.

  The barking dog darted to and fro in excitment. The animal gave Ki an idea. He had no wish to kill. The very clumsiness with which they handled their weapons revealed that they were not professional warriors. No, he would not kill them ...

  “Bart!” Ki commanded in clear, firm tones, at the same time driving his elbow straight back in a devastating empi-uchi strike, catching Terry in the chest. The dog’s head instantly snapped upward in attention as its previous master crumpled, moaning, to the deck. “Bart!” Ki repeated, and pointed at the hook-wielding man. “Sic him!”

  “No!” the man wailed. In utter panic, he dropped his hook and turned to run. The dog covered the space between them in one bound, to clamp its snarling jaws on the baggy seat of the longshoreman’s overalls. Screaming either in pain or fear—Ki wasn’t sure which—the man ran for the far side of the clipper, the dog right with him, its jaws chewing and mauling while a deep growl hummed from its throat. The unlucky crew supervisor threw himself overboard. The dog braced its front paws against the gunwale and held on.

  The man dangled for a moment before the suspenders of his overalls gave way. There was a sharp tearing sound, and then the man’s long, high-pitched wail as he plummeted the fifteen feet into the chilled waters of the bay. The dog turned and pranced back toward Ki, proudly displaying the torn and tattered overalls that it still held in its mouth.

  The stiletto man was so mesmerized by what had happened to his comrade that Ki was able to simply reach out and twist the man’s wrist. The stiletto fell, point-first, to stick into the wooden planking of the deck. The crew supervisor, his wrist still held by Ki, attempted a clumsy, roundhouse left at the samurai. Ki caught that wrist as well, and then bent both of the man’s wrists backward. The howling crew supervisor had no choice but to fall down in order to ease the excruciating agony in his wrists.

  Matty, the man Ki had earlier dropped with a stomach punch, was just now on his hands and knees, attempting to push himself into an upright position. Ki took a running start and leaped, to land with both feet on Matty’s back, pile-driving the fellow right back down onto his belly and chin. Ki used the man like a trampoline, to rise high into the air and somersault over the clipper’s side, landing on his feet, safely on the dock.

  Another scattering of applause came from the coolies. They were clearly happy to see their cruel taskmasters get their long-overdue comeuppance.

  Commissioner Smith was busy untangling the now semi-conscious foreman from beneath the canvas tarp where Ki had stashed him. As Ki ran past, his eyes locked with those of the commissioner.

  Smith reached into the watch pocket of his vest and pulled out a derringer. But Ki had never stopped running. Within seconds he was around the comer, and well out of range of the miniatur
e firearm.

  Back near the Starbuck dock, Ki took the duty sheet out of his pocket to examine it. At the top of the sheet was inked the designation, Shipment #8452. At the sheet’s bottom was Smith’s signature. Ki next removed the splinter of wood he had cached away in the deep breast pocket of his suit coat. Stenciled upon it was the number 8452. Completing his souvenirs of the encounter was a small chunk of opium, pinched off from a larger block of the stuff, and now safely wrapped in a scrap of brown paper.

  In all, it was not enough to get Smith convicted, but it was a start in the right direction. Ki thought Jessie would be pleased.

  Chapter 4

  Jessie spent several hours going from shop to shop along the Line, San Francisco’s six blocks of renowned stores that began at the Baldwin Hotel, paraded down Market to Kearney Street, and then wound its way around Kearney to Bush Street. She bought a wide selection of fabrics to be shipped back to the Starbuck Ranch, for herself and for her housekeeper, Myobu. The glittering window of a cutlery shop next caught her eye. Inside, she bought a matched set of Sheffield steel throwing knives. They were imported from England, and came handsomely displayed in a velvet-lined wooden case. The bone handles of the knives were suitable for engraving. Jessie arranged for the etching of the Circle Star insignia, a message of endearment from herself to Ki, and the date. This gift, as well, would be delivered to the Starbuck office, and then shipped to the Texas ranch.

  At a florist’s shop she ordered bouquets of orchids sent to both her own and Ki’s rooms. The stem, stoic samurai was also a Japanese; he would appreciate the beauty and grace of the floral arrangement even more than she did.

  As Jessie walked, she dodged the colorfully frocked shop and office girls who flooded the lunchtime streets. She modestly returned the smiles and nods of the dapper gentlemen strolling along in their fine suits and derbies. How delightful it was to encounter men armed not with Colts and Winchesters, but with walking sticks and umbrellas!

  The bay windows that were the most distinctive feature of San Francisco’s architecture greatly amused her. The jutting windows were designed to catch every glimmer of available light in this often gloomy city of gray skies and tall, shadow-casting buildings.

  Several times, Jessie dashed out into the center of the street, avoiding the dense traffic of horsedrawn cabs, private gigs, delivery wagons, and cable cars, in order to stare up at the stacked windows of the four-and five-storied buildings in this part of town. She had to remind herself that there were entire unexplored worlds above the ground-level shops. Not only watchmaking schools, painless dentists, and attorneys-at-law, but furriers, bootmakers, and fine jewelers.

  But the dresses, shoes, hats and parasols displayed in the picture windows along Market Street gave Jessie plenty of window-shopping. Although she could afford just about anything in the world she wanted, she found it more fun to look than to buy. Somehow, knowing that she could have anything made Jessie feel as if she needed less. But it was certainly fun to look!

  It was while she was standing beneath the awning of an exclusive silver and chinaware shop, evaluating the tea sets artfully arranged behind the store’s plate glass window, that she first noticed him. She’d been thinking about how her own silver serving sets, crafted in Mexico, were nicer than the ones being offered here, when she caught his reflection. He was across the street behind her, but he was staring at her, and Jessie’s instincts told her that this man was not just another admiring gentleman.

  He was a very large man, dressed in an ill-fitting suit of blue wool. The derby perched on his head looked about three sizes too small. It tottered on the man’s head. Jessie waited for a wind gust to send it sailing back to the little fellow this man had filched it from.

  Jessie casually strolled past several doorways on Market Street, and then stopped to peer into the window of a haberdashery. The storekeeper inside saw her looking, and enthusiastically waved at her, beckoning her in.

  Jessie paid no attention to the clerk, but positioned herself so that this window too acted as a mirror. The man across the way had kept her pace. He was still staring at her. Suddenly he turned his back to Jessie, perhaps sensing that she was really looking at him and not at the men’s woollen scarves, silk ascots, and leather gloves behind the window. Jessie saw that the man was now staring into the window of a dress salon.

  She smiled, fleetingly. Too bad we can’t trade windows, she thought. The idea made her chuckle, but at the same time she felt herself sadden. For a little while this morning she had been able to forget her troubles and lose herself in the wonders of the city. Now it all flooded back up on her: the bitter rivalry that had cost her parents their lives, the crooked waterfront scheme that now endangered her business, the ever-present knowledge that her own life would never cease to be in danger.

  Jessie continued walking. She turned the comer at Kearney, and headed north. Here there were more stores and shops, but now Jessie paid no attention to the fine merchandise displayed in their windows. Past Geary Street, Post Street, Sutter, and then Bush, she walked, all the time watching out of the comers of her eyes. Her shadow was staying right with her.

  Years ago, Ki had taught her that there were several ways to handle a situation like this. If she was in a busy area, surrounded by people, the best thing to do was to simply turn and wave at the tail. Once he knew that he’d been spotted, he often gave up and went away. The thing was, Ki had cautioned her, that you then had to make sure there wasn’t another tail somewhere about. Very often, the first tail had been meant to be spotted, and in that way lull you into a false sense of security.

  But Jessie did not want to scare this shadow off. She wanted to catch him. The cartel thought they could find something out about her, did they? Well, she was going to find out a thing or two about them!

  Just to make sure she wasn’t imagining the whole thing, Jessie did an about-face at Pine Street, and then headed back toward Bush. The fellow on her tail paralleled her actions from across the street. Jessie felt a moment’s panic, but banished it. The cartel wanted her to be afraid, but she was damned if she was going to let them have their way ...

  She headed east on Bush, looking for a quieter thoroughfare, one where she could set and then spring her trap. She found what she was looking for between Kearney and Montgomery. It was an alleyway which stretched for two blocks. It was not used for trash, but for the businesses of shopkeepers of more modest means: cobblers, tailors, and the like. The pastel-painted doorways were clean, but their windows were dark and narrow, most of them wire-grated against burglars and vandals.

  Jessie doubted that any clerks could see through their barricades and out into the alley. It was perfect.

  She ducked into the alleyway, went several doors down the thoroughfare, and then stood in a deep doorway. She quickly lifted the hem of her skirt up past her gartered thigh, and drew the ivory-gripped derringer. It held two .38-caliber rounds. She palmed the little gun and waited.

  And waited.

  Evidently the man following her had sensed that something was up. Jessie strained her ears for the sound of his footsteps on the cobblestones of the quiet alleyway. When she finally heard the slap of shoe leather, she had to remind herself to wait at least until the man was directly abreast of her, so that she could be sure it was her tail. How embarrassing it would be if she ended up accosting some innocent gentleman on his way to his tobacconist!

  But it was not some innocent gentleman. It was the man in the blue wool suit. He looked even bigger to Jessie, now that he was so close. She took a quick step out of her doorway and jammed her gun into the spot on the man’s neck just below his ear. He was so tall she had to stand on tiptoe to do it.

  “You don’t move a muscle, mister!” she hissed. “Now put your hands up!”

  “How can I, if I don’t move a muscle, lady?” he said contemptuously.

  Jessie snapped back the hammer on the derringer. “Just do it! I’ve killed more than one man who didn’t take me seriously,” she wa
rned, pushing hard to grind the derringer’s snout into his neck.

  “Okay! Take it easy with that thing!” the man winced. He slowly raised his big, hamlike hands. “A woman gets the drop on me ... I don’t believe it!” he scolded himself. He so shook with anger that his too-small derby toppled off his head and into a puddle. “That’s a new hat, dammit!”

  “Hope it doesn’t shrink,” Jessie said. She carefully came around to face the man, all the while keeping her gun tight against his neck. He had a flat, broken nose, and a lantern jaw. His full head of wiry, salt-and-pepper hair was cut short. There were deep creases around the fellow’s gray eyes, and more of them around his mouth. He was clean-shaven. Jessie figured him to be around fifty.

  “I could tell you that you’re making a big mistake, Miss Starbuck,” the man began wearily.

  “That’s what you could tell me,” Jessie said scornfully. She unbuttoned his suit jacket and reached inside on his left, finding and extracting from its shoulder holster a nickel-plated Smith & Wesson .38-caliber Detective Special. “But what I’d rather hear from you is who you are, and how you know my name!” She dropped the man’s gun to the cobblestones.

  “Hey!” he cried. “You’ll nick the finish!”

  From his right breast pocket she took his wallet. She flipped it open and extracted a business card from one of its folds. The pasteboard rectangle read:ANDREW SHANKS, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR Inquiries Discreetly Conducted

  When Jessie looked back at her prisoner, he was smiling. “Can I put my hands down now, Miss Starbuck?”

  “Oh, yes, of course, Mr. Shanks,” Jessie said, quite flustered.

  “Would you take your gun out of my ear?”

  Jessie lowered and uncocked her derringer, slipping it into the pocket of her skirt. “I’m very sorry, but how could I know it was you following me? I told Mr. Moore that his services as a bodyguard were not necessary.”

  “Yes, ma‘am,” Shanks said. “But Jordan was worried about you, so he asked me to keep an eye on you whenever I wasn’t busy tailing Smith.” He grinned sheepishly. “I guess I can tell him that you can take care of yourself, Miss Starbuck. You sure got the drop on me!” He stooped to gather up his gun and hat.