Read The Loner: Crossfire Online
Authors: J.A. Johnstone
The Loner: Crossfire (11 page)
Conrad heard some pleading, but figured it wouldn’t do the sailor any good. Then the captain ordered, “Throw him back in the hole.”
Conrad felt himself hauled around and shoved. He couldn’t keep his balance. He crashed down on the deck. The place stunk of the recently extinguished fire, to go along with the sickening smell of rotten fish.
The door closed, and darkness surrounded him again. On the other side of the door, the captain laughed harshly. “We sail tonight, Browning. Once we do, you’re all mine. This voyage is gonna be a living hell for you, mister.”
Too late, Conrad thought. He was already in hell.
That was his last thought as he passed out.
Chapter 20
Frank had the feeling he was being followed even before he reached the Golden Gate Saloon. The instincts developed over a long, hazardous life sensed the eyes watching him.
But when he glanced around on Grant Street, he didn’t see anybody particularly suspicious. The sidewalks were busy on both sides of the street, but no one seemed to be paying much attention to him. A man dressed in range clothes was something of an oddity in the big city, but not enough to make most folks stare.
Most of the people bustling back and forth on the other side of the street were Chinese, since Grant Street was the boundary line between the Barbary Coast and Chinatown, but none of those scurrying figures even glanced at Frank. Their heads were down as they went about their business.
Frank spotted the saloon up ahead. It was large and prosperous-looking, and he couldn’t help but wonder how much of it had been paid for by Pamela Tarleton’s money.
It was early in the day, but even so the Golden Gate was busy when Frank went in. Quite a few men were lined up drinking at the long, horseshoeshaped bar. To the right were tables where more men sat with glasses and bottles, and to the left were the poker tables, faro layouts, roulette wheels, and other games of so-called chance. The place was elegantly furnished with lots of polished hardwood, gleaming brass fixtures, and crystal chandeliers. The air in the Golden Gate practically reeked of money, along with the usual saloon smells of sawdust and beer.
In the rear of the room a broad, carpeted staircase led up to a second floor. Frank took note of that, but went to the bar and ordered a beer from a bartender in a red silk shirt. All the bartenders wore shirts like that, as did the men running the games. The women were clad in low-cut red gowns. The colorful getups made the workers easy to identify.
“There you go, cowboy.” The bartender set the mug of beer in front of Frank. He didn’t let go of the handle, however. “That’ll be four bits.”
Frank frowned. “Sort of expensive, isn’t it?”
With a sigh of weary patience, the bartender said, “If you can’t afford it, there are plenty of other places in San Francisco where you can get a drink, Tex.”
“Didn’t say I couldn’t afford it,” Frank grumbled. “Just said it was sort of high, that’s all.”
He dug a fifty-cent piece out of his pocket and slid it across the hardwood. The bartender let go of the beer mug and made the coin disappear.
The fella would be more than a mite shocked if he knew what this customer who looked like a down-on-his-luck grub line rider really could afford, Frank mused. He didn’t waste a lot of time thinking about the riches he had inherited from Vivian Browning, but his lawyers assured him he was one of the wealthiest men west of the Mississippi. Lawyers had been known to lie, of course, but Conrad kept a pretty close eye on the ones who worked for him and his father.
Or at least he had before all the business about the missing children had come up. Frank knew what it was like to find out suddenly that you’re a father, and couldn’t blame Conrad for being distracted after he’d found out about the twins.
Frank had never been much of a drinker. The few times in his life he had found himself crawling into a bottle had come close to being disastrous for him. A good cup of coffee or a phosphate was more to his liking. But he was able to nurse the beer convincingly as he looked around the saloon’s big main room.
His gaze lingered on the games, and the bartender asked, “Thinking about trying your luck? Our games are strictly on the up-and-up, cowboy.”
Like the little boy on the cable car, the bartender was making the same mistaken assumption that Frank was a cowboy. Frank didn’t bother correcting him. He said, “I’ve heard stories about the fella who owns this place. Rumor is he’s some sort of shady character.”
The bartender shrugged. “You can’t believe everything you hear.”
“This was in the newspaper.”
“You can’t believe everything you read, either, especially in a rag like the
Chronicle
.”
Chronicle
.”
“Maybe not, but before I risk my hard-earned money, I wouldn’t mind meeting the hombre. I can size up a fella pretty fast and tell whether or not he’s square.”
“You really think you’re gonna just waltz in here with God knows what on your boots and meet a man like Mr. Lannigan?” The bartender laughed and shook his head. “Wise up, mister. We don’t need your business. Maybe you better just move on.”
“Hold your horses. I didn’t mean any offense. It’s just that where I come from, when you do business with a man, you get a chance to shake his hand first.”
“This ain’t Texas.” The bartender sneered and glanced around.
Frank had already spotted several big, rugged-looking gents who didn’t seem to have any reason for being there unless it was to take care of any trouble that started. He didn’t want the bartender setting the bouncers on him, not because he was afraid of the men but because he hadn’t found out anything yet. He hadn’t even laid eyes on Dex Lannigan, as far as he knew.
One of the bouncers had caught the heads-up from the bartender, and started in Frank’s direction, his craggy face hardening into a cold mask as he approached. Frank was debating whether to leave quietly or start a brawl—that might get Lannigan’s attention, he thought—when the need to do one or the other suddenly vanished.
Several men burst through the saloon’s front doors, brandishing hatchets, and letting out unnerving yells as they charged at Lannigan’s bouncers, upsetting tables and knocking customers aside on the way.
The violent intrusion brought screams from the women and startled yells from the men. The bouncer who had been closing in on Frank forgot about him and swung around to leap into action as he and his comrades met the attack.
Frank was as surprised as anybody, but he stayed coolheaded as trouble erupted around him. The intruders wore silk hoods over their heads that completely concealed their features, along with quilted jackets and loose-fitting trousers. It was impossible to tell from their yells what nationality they were, but he had a hunch they were Chinese. The hatchets told him that much, along with the Golden Gate’s proximity to Chinatown.
One of the bouncers pulled a gun from under his coat, but as he brought it to bear, one of the attackers leaped in and swung his hatchet. The bouncer screamed as Frank saw the gun fly into the air with the man’s hand still clutching it.
The razor-sharp hatchet had chopped it off cleanly at the wrist. Blood spurted from the stump where the hand used to be.
The customers scattered as they tried to get out of the way of danger. Chaos erupted all through the saloon. One of the bartenders reached under the bar and brought up a sawed-off shotgun.
Frank was ready to dive to the floor, knowing that buckshot was about to spray all over the place, but before the bartender could fire the scattergun, one of the hatchet men threw his weapon. It spun glitteringly through the air and hit the bartender in the forehead, knocking him cold. The bartender dropped the shotgun and collapsed as crimson flooded over his face.
Guns began to roar. It wasn’t Frank’s fight, so he knelt between a couple overturned tables to let the violence ebb and flow around him. One of the saloon girls was on her hands and knees nearby, trying to crawl through the madly charging horde. She was about to fall down and probably get trampled to death when Frank reached over, took hold of her bare arm, and hauled her to relative safety next to him.
She threw her arms around his neck and clung to him. “Oh, my Lord!” she gasped. “Mister, help me!”
“Hang on,” Frank told her. “We’re gonna stay right here until things settle down.”
“They’re crazy! They’re going to kill us all!”
“Who?”
“Those Chinamen! Diamond Jack’s men!”
The girl’s words confirmed his guess that the attackers were Chinese. He knew the tongs, the criminal societies ruling Chinatown’s underworld, often warred with each other and with the white hoodlums from the Barbary Coast.
The daring, broad daylight attack had to be part of some ongoing hostilities between Dex Lannigan and one of the tongs, Frank decided. It was the only explanation that made any sense. He hoped Lannigan didn’t get killed in some tong skirmish before he could find out what had happened to Conrad.
Most of the saloon’s customers had made it to safety, either fleeing up the stairs to the second floor, piling out through the doors—or in some cases the windows—or huddling behind the bar. The battle continued, however, between Lannigan’s men and the hooded invaders.
The girl shrieked and clutched at Frank as the body of one of the bouncers landed on the floor close to them. The man’s throat had been laid open by a swipe from one of the hatchets, and blood poured out of the gaping wound.
The shooting stopped, and Frank risked a look. He saw that all of Lannigan’s men were down, and so were a couple of the tong warriors. Some of the other hatchet men picked them up and carried them toward the doors. Somewhere outside, whistles blew shrilly as policemen rushed toward the scene of the bloody battle.
One of the remaining hatchet men suddenly strode toward the overturned table where Frank and the girl had taken cover. He was a big man, and the outlandish garb made him seem even bigger. Blood dripped from the hatchet he held.
Frank pushed the trembling girl down so he could shield her better with his body and reached for his Colt. It might not be his fight, but he sure as blazes wasn’t going to just sit there while some loco hombre chopped him up with a hatchet.
The man stopped him by saying in a deep, powerful voice, “Please, Mr. Morgan, you must come with us. Your son’s life depends on it.”
Chapter 21
Frank was so surprised by the words he heard that for a couple seconds all he could do was kneel there and stare at the hooded figure in front of him. Then he closed his hand around the butt of the Colt and asked harshly, “What do you know about Conrad?”
“There is no time to explain. You must come with us.” The hatchet man reached for the girl. “And this one, too, since she heard me speak your name.”
The girl screamed in terror and tried to scramble away. Frank saw the hatchet man’s hand tighten on the handle of his weapon, and realized the man might kill the girl rather than leave her behind to talk.
Frank had no doubt he could draw his gun, fire, and kill the hatchet man before the hooded killer could strike. But there were more of them, and if he gunned down one, the others might chop him up, along with the girl. Besides, they knew who he was, and they knew something about Conrad. He realized he had to play along in order to find out what that was.
“Come on,” Frank told the girl as he grasped her arm again. “I won’t let them hurt you.”
“No! No!” She tried to pull away.
With a sigh of regret, Frank closed his other hand into a loose fist and struck a short, sharp blow to the girl’s jaw that stunned her. As a Westerner, every part of his being rebelled at hitting a woman, but she didn’t understand that if she didn’t cooperate, the hatchet man would take the easy way out and kill her.
Frank would have to rely on his ability to take care of her. As she sagged against him, he lowered his shoulder and let her weight drape over it. As he came to his feet, his powerful muscles taking the burden of the girl without straining, he told the hatchet man, “Let’s go.”
As they started toward the door, he heard a voice he recognized as belonging to the bartender who had served him. “Hey! Hey, that crazy cowboy’s kidnapping Connie! Somebody stop him!”
Nobody got in Frank’s way, though. Not with the hulking figure beside him gripping a bloody hatchet. They passed through a lane created by the other hooded men, then suddenly were outside in the sunlight.
The hatchet man led the way across Grant Street toward a throng of people on the opposite sidewalk. That crowd opened like magic before them, and they trotted into an alley. Gloom closed in around them, as on the sidewalk the crowd came back together as if there had never been a gap.
Frank was confident none of those folks would ever admit to seeing anything unusual if the police questioned them. The grip of the tongs on Chinatown was strong.
Instinct warned him that by going with the hooded hombres he might be waltzing right into a trap, but he didn’t know of any reason why those powerful Chinese gangs would have any grudge against him. He had never clashed with the tongs during any of his rare trips to San Francisco in the past.
Except for the big hatchet man at his side and another who trailed behind them, the men who had launched the improbable raid on the Golden Gate had scattered. If they took off those hoods and hid their weapons under their jackets, they wouldn’t look that different from all the other men in the Chinese quarter. They could blend in and disappear in a matter of moments.
The girl on Frank’s shoulder began to stir. He stopped and let her slide down onto her feet. She was unsteady and pressed both hands against his broad chest to steady herself. As her wits returned to her, she lifted her head, stared wildly around her, and opened her mouth to scream.
“That wouldn’t be a good idea,” Frank told her before she could make a sound. He put his hands on her shoulders, which the low-cut dress left bare. “You don’t want to annoy these fellas.”
He felt her trembling like a bird as he took his first good look at her. She was on the small side, only a couple inches over five feet, and slender although her body had the sort of mature curves that made the red silk dress look good on her. Thick, dark brown hair fell to her shoulders. Her gray eyes were wide with fear.
“Your name’s Connie, right?” Frank asked, remembering what the bartender had yelled as they were going out.
She bobbed her head in a shaky nod.
“Well, listen to me, Connie. You’re gonna be all right. I give you my word on that.” Frank gave the big hatchet man a hard look as he said that, so the hombre would know he meant it. “I don’t know exactly what these fellas want with me, but their only interest in you is making sure you don’t tell anybody they came into the Golden Gate to get me.”
He was making a guess there, but even in the dim light of the alley he saw the big hatchet man and his smaller companion stiffen momentarily in surprise. Their reaction told Frank he was right.
“Once they’re through with me, they’ll let you go,” he continued. “And they’ll keep you safe the whole time, or else they’ll have a lot of trouble on their hands.”
Again he was making an assumption, that his cooperation was important to the men and to whoever they worked for. The two hatchet men didn’t say or do anything to contradict what he’d said.
“Do you understand?” He squeezed Connie’s shoulders. “You’re going to be all right.”
She didn’t look quite so terrified, although she was still plenty scared. She managed to swallow hard and nod. “I ... I won’t cause any trouble. I’ll do whatever you tell me.”
“Good.” Frank kept one hand on her shoulder as he turned to face the big hatchet man. “All right, you can go ahead and take us to your boss now.”
He heard a rumbling sound from under the hood and realized after a second it was what passed for laughter in the big man. The man said some swift words in Chinese to his companion, and they started off again.
For a while Frank tried to keep up with all the twists and turns they took through the maze of alleys and narrow streets, but finally gave it up as hopeless. He had no idea where they were or how to get back to the Barbary Coast. His frontiersman’s instincts were all but useless there. Even though it was midday, the spaces between the buildings were so small and clogged with laundry hanging from lines strung across them that nothing got through except a dim, dusk-like half light. Frank’s nerves crawled. He was used to wide-open spaces and didn’t like being closed in.
At last the big hatchet man opened a door and motioned for Frank and Connie to go up a dark, steep, narrow flight of stairs. Connie shrank back against Frank, who turned to the man and said, “How about one of you go first so we know we’re not walking into an ambush?”
The man gave that rumble of laughter again. He gestured toward the smaller hatchet man, who reached through the doorway and brought out a candle from somewhere. He lit it with a match he produced from a pocket in his quilted jacket, then started up the stairs in the lead with the candle held high. Its flickering glow revealed the stairs were covered with a dirty, threadbare carpet runner. The grimy walls seemed to close in on each side.
Frank prodded Connie into going next. His guts were tight with the impulse to draw his gun as he followed her, but he left the Colt in its holster. Not only did he have the big hatchet man right behind him, but he also felt like eyes might be watching them through hidden portals. He didn’t want to spook anybody.
When they reached the top of the stairs, the man with the candle led them along a dingy hallway. From the looks of it, the building was abandoned, but Frank didn’t fully believe that. The corridor made several turns, then they came to another staircase, leading down.
“Where are we going?” Connie asked in a trembling voice. “Where are they taking us?”
“I don’t know,” Frank said, “but I hope we’ll be there soon.”
They reached a landing, turned, and kept going down. Frank figured they were below street level. At the bottom of the stairs was a door, and when the man with the candle opened it, the light revealed a tunnel with earthen walls and thick beams shoring up the ceiling, like in a mine.
Connie stopped short and shook her head. “No, I can’t. I can’t go in there. They ... they have earthquakes here sometimes. The tunnel could collapse. I can’t go in there!”
She turned with panic in her eyes and tried to run, but Frank caught her. “It won’t take us long to get through it. We’ll be all right.”
He wished he could be as sure of that as he sounded.
The big hatchet man motioned impatiently for them to go on. The tunnel was wide enough for Frank and Connie to walk side by side. He kept an arm around her waist to steady her as they followed the man with the candle.
Even though Frank had had no way of knowing how long the tunnel was, it turned out that what he had told Connie was right. They were in it only for a hundred yards or so, then came to another door with stairs behind it leading up. Obviously glad to be out of the tunnel, Connie climbed them without any prodding.
They emerged into another hallway where the walls were covered with colorful, intricately embroidered tapestries. The hardwood floor was polished to a high sheen, and light shone from ornate brass fixtures that held gas lamps. Frank figured they were in a completely different building. The tunnel they had used probably passed underneath one of Chinatown’s streets.
The hall ended in a small, square room with a fine rug on the floor, a couple of impressively ugly chairs that didn’t look all that comfortable, and some small but exquisitely detailed paintings on the walls. A pair of doors on the opposite wall were closed. The big hatchet man, who had put away his blood-stained weapon, went to those doors and opened them. “Please, Mr. Morgan.”
“The girl stays with me,” Frank said.
The hatchet man inclined his hooded head in agreement.
Frank led Connie into the room on the other side of the doors. It was as large and opulent as he expected it to be. This was where he would meet the boss, he sensed, the man who had sent those hatchet men into the Golden Gate to fetch him. Maybe
now
he would get some answers.
now
he would get some answers.
There were no windows. The walls were covered with more tapestries. The room was furnished with a divan and several well-upholstered armchairs, but the large desk in its center dominated it. It was the sort of desk you’d find in the office of a successful banker or lawyer, like Claudius Turnbuckle, Frank realized.
The man who stood behind it was dressed like an American businessman, in a sober gray suit, white shirt, and black cravat. He was young, probably around thirty, and had sleek dark hair and a mustache. At first glance you might not even take him for Chinese, although the golden skin and dark, almond-shaped eyes testified to his heritage. He regarded Frank and Connie solemnly. “Mr. Morgan? Mr. Frank Morgan?”
Frank nodded. “That’s right.”
The man’s eyes cut toward the big hatchet man. “Ling Yuan, I did not tell you to bring any ... entertainment. . . with you.”
The man finally pulled the hood off, revealing a stolid face that bore the marks of many battles in the past. “She heard me speak Mr. Morgan’s name, and I thought it best not to leave her behind to tell Lannigan of our interest in him.”
“Then you should have—”
“A thousand pardons, illustrious one, but Mr. Morgan insisted we bring her along.”
Anger had flared in the man’s eyes at the interruption, but he suppressed it. “Very well. You adapted to the situation and performed your task admirably as always, Ling Yuan. Since we’re going to be working closely with Mr. Morgan, cooperating with him in this matter should convince him of our good faith.”
“I’d be more convinced,” Frank said, “if you’d tell me what you know about my son.”
“Of course.” The man came out from behind the desk and extended his hand to Frank. “But first, introductions are in order. My name is Wong Duck.” He smiled for the first time since Frank had come into the room, and the light from the gas lamps winked on the tiny jewel embedded in one of his front teeth. “But you can call me Diamond Jack.”
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