Dry Rot

by S. L. Stoner

  Sage grinned. “Good work! Unless this O’Connell fellow realizes we’re watching him, he won’t feel the need to change hotels. He’s not going to suspect that a Chinese man would be keeping an eye on him. That’s the last thing he’d think of.” Sage reached for his boots. “If he’s not there now, he’ll turn up there sooner or later. What happened to the other two, the ones we clouted at the lumber mill? Any luck in finding out where they are holed up?”

  Fong gave a tired smile. “Oh yes, we know the boarding house where they are staying. It’s up in Northwest Portland. They are not there now.”

  “Oh, they managed to give your cousins the slip?”

  Fong smiled again. “You maybe like this, Mr. Sage. Remember prison cell in underground where those shanghai men kept Matthew prisoner?”

  Now there was a memory. Of course Sage remembered that cell. A few months prior it was a holding pen for all those poor souls the crimp Mordaunt had drugged, mugged and otherwise kidnapped from Portland’s streets. Before Sage, Fong and Sargeant Hanke came to his rescue, Matthew had spent a few days on the dirt floor of that cell, nearly insensibile from opium, along with other shanghai victims.

  “They’re down there? How did they fetch up there?” Despite weariness, Fong’s eyes managed a twinkle. “Yes,

  they are down there,” he said. “You said you wanted to question them. We not own a cooperage or a lumber mill like the Mackeys. So, when they came out of saloon staggering first one way and then other, two cousins tap them on side of heads. When they fell down, cousins helped them into underground. Cell still there.” His face sobered. “I think maybe shanghai men are using it again. I am sorry. We stopped watching it last few days.”

  Sage didn’t doubt that the cell was in use once again. They’d done no more than slow the shanghai trade when they broke up Mordaunt’s crimping operation. That was the discouraging fact about humans. Whenever there is money to be made, there will always be an unscrupulous somebody eager to step into the breach—no matter how disgusting the endeavor.

  “Have they regained consciousness yet?”

  “Just before I came here, they start to make groaning sound so they are awake by now. I think listening to underground rat noise going to make them ‘spill beans.’” He smiled his toothy, wicked smile from which Sage gathered that some of that “rat noise” would be Fong’s cousins helping the prisoners’ fear grow.

  “What if the shanghai men turn up expecting to find an empty cell?”

  Fong laughed. “If shanghai men come, we make them fall over each other’s feet to run away. In underground, we Chinese are masters. Not to worry. We know how to frighten people away when we need to.”

  s s s

  Sage moved out through Mozart’s cellar tunnel shortly after first light while Fong exited out the kitchen door, heading home to rest. They’d decided the two thugs might benefit from a longer stay in the underground cell. The Stygian blackness, the scuttling of rats and the fear of being shipped to the Orient might inspire them to be truthful when questioned.

  Climbing up into a misty morning and turning to lower the trap door, Sage froze. Johnston’s words from the day before hit his tired brain like a lighthouse beam. He dropped the trap door and stood in air so damp that it left droplets on his mustache, as he pondered the publisher’s words in connection with the strike, testing the logic of his sudden insight. “Mackey’s public persona

  . . . was that the key? Was a criminal conviction all that important?” he asked himself. Hope surged. If what Sage suspicioned about the elder Mackey’s death was true, maybe it was possible to save the strike and Leo at the same time.

  Unexpectedly resolute about his next course of action, Sage stepped up his pace. His heart lightened as his spirits rose for the first time since they’d rescued Chester. He stopped in at the bricklayers’ union hall. There he obtained the permission necessary to accomplish the first part of his plan. Going on to the cul de sac, he found only Henry and a few steadfast strikers still manning the strike line.

  “Few” was the correct description. No more than seven men slowly circled in the picket line, defeat bowing their shoulders. Even a weak sun break failed to enliven their steps.

  “Howdy, Sam, any news about Leo?” Henry asked, as soon as Sage reached the group.

  “His lawyer says the trial starts tomorrow,” Sage said and the other man’s face paled.

  “Dear Lord, is there no way to save him?” Henry asked. The men crowded around, each face weary and careworn beyond its years.

  “Believe me, I’m working on that. Right now, that’s not anything you men are in a position to help me with. Besides, you’re doing enough by coming down here and keeping the pressure on Mackey. I’m here because I have a plan that should win this strike tomorrow,” Sage said, sweeping his hand in an arc that encompassed the end of the cul de sac. “To make it work I need each of you to undertake one more task. Go out and find all the guys. Ask them to gather together one more time at the bricklayers’ hall, Second and Yamhill, at three o’clock this afternoon. Tell them we intend to expose us a little dry rot and win the strike tomorrow. Don’t invite or tell that O’Reilly fellow if you come across him. It’s vital he not know what we’re up to. Be sure everyone knows that.”

  Maybe if Sam weren’t Leo’s nephew and maybe if they weren’t at the end of their collective rope, they’d have told him to go to hell. But he was, they were and, so, they didn’t. Instead, they meekly dispersed, heading out to find the strikers who’d either stayed home or were out drowning their sorrows in a mug of five-cent beer.

  The sight of them trudging away up the road stabbed into Sage’s heart. It was going to be long, hard work to restore the pride and optimism the Mackeys had stolen from them.

  A scuffling sound caught his ear. Turning around, he saw Earl Mackey and a few of his bodyguards standing on the porch of the partially burned construction shack a hundred feet away. He thought Mackey exposed his teeth in a grin. Sage didn’t stick around to make sure. Instead, he pulled his hat brim down, buried his chin in his collar and headed up the road. He didn’t want Mackey looking too closely at his face, since they’d be meeting soon.

  s s s

  A few hours later, Sage exited Mozart’s during the dinnertime rush. This time he wore businessman’s attire so that his passage through the Covington Hotel’s lobby wouldn’t draw attention. And it didn’t. Sage confidently strode through the hotel doors, across the lobby and up the wide stairway, his peripheral vision on the desk clerk, who glanced up briefly before returning his attention to the newspaper draped across his counter.

  The third floor was quiet as Sage stepped softly down the carpeted hallway to the door numbered 309. He knocked softly, figuring the O’Connell fellow was likely gone. If the man answered, Sage planned to say he’d knocked on the wrong door. That way, he’d see the man’s face.

  The door remained closed. He strained to hear sounds inside the room. There was nothing. He took a pliable sliver of whale bone from an inside pocket. After making sure the hallway was empty, Sage slipped the flexible piece of bone between frame and door until there was a metallic snick. He twisted the door’s ornamental brass knob and pushed the door open. After one final glance down the hallway, he stepped into the room, quietly closing the door behind him.

  Inside, an ornate iron bed stood against the long wall, a table beside it. Gas wall jets jutted out here and there while a hardwood dresser created a narrow pathway at the bed’s foot. A tall oak wardrobe filled one corner of the outside wall, a sink hung in the other corner. Obviously, the hotel maid had come and gone since the bed’s coverlet was professionally taut. Sage dropped onto his knees to look under the bed. Nothing, not even dust fluffs. Mae Clemens would approve. He crossed to the dresser and pulled open its three drawers. Each drawer held neatly stacked garments. The abundance of clothes meant that this O’Connell fellow was not a passing-through traveler. Still, nothing indicated who he was or why he was in Portland.

 
Sage sighed. Only the wardrobe remained to be searched. He crossed the room and tugged its door open. Inside, a metal rail sagged under the combined weight of tightly packed suits, shirts, pants and a heavy, long black coat. He quickly slid the hangers along the rail, his fingers searching the pockets of every garment. As he riffled through the coat’s pockets, he noticed a crumple of brown fabric on the floor of the wardrobe. Shoving the black coat aside, Sage reached down to pull out a working man’s jacket, shaking it out to study it closer. He’d definitely seen it before.

  “Who the hell are you, mister?” the voice snarled into his right ear as an icy gun barrel jabbed into his neck.

  TWENTY SEVEN

  The instant cold steel touched his skin, Sage reacted. Hours of training with Fong took over. His weight shifted to center on his back leg, making the gun barrel slip off of his neck into the space in front. Sage twisted, his left arm slicing sideways in “warding off” and sending the gun flying through the air. The sight of the man’s face caused no hesitation because Sage already knew who he fought.

  The other man, his face straining with intent, lunged forward even as Fong’s voice rolled through Sage’s mind like a calm wave: “Best time to attack your enemy is when he is on the attack, because his Yi is on attack and not on defense. Sage’s right hand scooped down, swooped up—first repelling the punch, then grabbing his attacker’s right wrist. Sage twisted to the right, moved his left leg behind the man’s right leg, pressed his upper arm against the other’s ribs and shifted his weight forward. The man fell backward onto the bed and stayed there.

  “What the hell kinda move is that?” O’Reilly asked from his supine position.

  “I believe it’s called ‘part the wild horse’s mane’,” Sage answered, his voice calm, his breathing even. He bent down, snatched up the gun and held it loosely in his hand. The thought

  of Fong’s approval of this outcome made him smile slightly. This self-congratulatory moment was brief. O’Reilly had been able to sneak up behind him. That meant Sage was not going to avoid more of the forehead-thumping alertness-training Fong insisted Sage still needed. Fong was right, once again. In his mind, he heard Fong’s patient voice murmur, “Like crane, Mister Sage, you too intent on searching for insects,” or some such bird-based lesson.

  O’Reilly struggled to sit upright on the mattress.“Just what might you be doing in my room?” he asked, his brogue thick.

  “When I entered, I didn’t know this was your room. After all, how could any of us know that an itinerant ‘working man,’ such as yourself, lived in such luxurious surroundings? Let alone possess a wardrobe stuffed with the very finest of worsted suits?”

  O’Reilly said nothing, merely sending Sage a narrowed look from his ice-blue eyes.

  Sage continued on. “I guess this means you’re working for Mackey. What are you? Dickinson?” The detective agency was the arch-enemy of every man who united with his co-workers to get better hours, wages and working conditions.

  The cold, watching eyes narrowed further.

  Sage wagged an admonishing finger in the man’s face. “Don’t trouble to deny it. Back East, agent provocateurs like you crawl out from under the rocks every time there’s a labor dispute. Funny how all of you agent provocateurs use the same tactics. Sow discontent among the strikers, spur them into acting rashly.”

  A smirk lifted one side of O’Reilly’s face. “It’s not my fault if those losers don’t learn any better. They always start fighting amongst themselves and acting stupid sooner or later. I just help things move along faster, according to the boss’s schedule. What’s that saying, ‘The sooner begun, the sooner done?’”

  Sage noticed the Irish brogue no longer softened the man’s speech. “Your name’s not O’Reilly or O’Connell is it?”

  “It’s O’Reilly, same as your name’s Sam Graham. I’m betting that we’re both mercenaries in this war—just on different sides.”

  “Except, unlike you I don’t try to murder people and I’m motivated by something other than greed,” Sage said, not bothering to suppress the contempt he felt.

  “I never tried to murder anybody!” Indignation sharpened O’Reilly’s voice. He started to rise up off the bed.

  A vision of a wet Herman Eich tied up in the ravine hut flashed through Sage’s mind. He raised the gun so it pointed at O’Reilly’s midsection. “Nuh, uh. You stay right where you are.” O’Reilly ceased moving. Sage decided to say nothing about Eich’s near fatal encounter with O’Reilly’s thugs. It was better for O’Reilly to continue thinking that the ragpicker was nothing more than a nosy bystander.

  “Cut the lies, Mister O’Reilly.” Sage said instead, sarcasm thickening his words. “I’m the guy your two flunkies planned to stuff in a barrel and dump in the river. And, of course, there’s that big, sharp bandsaw blade those two planned to use on Chester.” O’Reilly’s laugh barked and he shook his head. “A one-way train ride out of town was the worst we planned for you and that Chester fellow. I specifically instructed my men to just scare the bejesus out of the two of you. That’s all. Glad to see they loosed your innards some. Reason enough for me to make use of them again.”

  The urge to pummel the smirk off O’Reilly’s face balled Sage’s fists. But, he made himself breathe deeply and relax. Now was not the time to go for personal satisfaction. “I’m supposed to believe that crap coming from someone who’s proven he’s crooked as a rattler in a rock pile?”

  O”Reilly shrugged.“You may hate my side of this war, but I don’t hold still for murder and neither does the company I work for.” O’Reilly talked past Sage’s snort of disbelief. “’Course I also don’t hesitate to defend myself,” he added. “Anyway, you’re a fine one to throw accusations around. You best look in that mirror over there,” O’Reilly gestured toward the mirror atop the dresser. “Seems to me that your suit is a mite too fine for Leo Lockwood’s unemployed, so-called, ‘nephew.’ I’d say there are at least two liars in this room.”

  O’Reilly nailed him on that point. Sage folded his arms across his chest and changed the subject to the one that mattered most.“Why’d your boys kill old man Mackey? He raise some objections to taking you on board?”

  O’Reilly shook his head. “You’re chasing the wrong squirrel up the tree on that one, Graham. He didn’t know his son hired me on board. Besides, Lockwood killed Mackey. We only steered the police in Lockwood’s direction. We all know Lockwood went to the construction shack, found the old man there and killed him.

  “I suppose you’ll also claim your two men didn’t try to burn down Horace Bittler’s house the other night.”

  O’Reilly’s lips twisted.“Damn fools. I told them to scare the man into leaving town, not try to burn up his damn house. You ever noticed that no matter however clear your orders, men still must somehow put their own peculiar stamp on them? Just like a dog having to hit every bush. I already told them no pay for that job since they were stupid and damn near got caught.”

  O’Reilly shot Sage an inquiring look. “Why, I bet you’re the fella who shot at them. Sure enough Bittler wouldn’t have the gumption to face them down. You scared them pretty good too,” he said. “They’re out looking for you right now—not to kill you, of course. Just give you a little thank-you present. Since you are here with me now, I suspect they never found you.

  O’Reilly’s eyes turned chilly as he said,“By-the-bye, I didn’t appreciate your fine performance the other night. It ruined me with the strikers.”

  The man’s shoulders lifted and dropped dismissively. “Doesn’t matter all that much, don’t you know? You only had a few men picketing this morning. That strike of yours is deader than a doornail,” he added with a smug smile.

  Sage didn’t respond, distracted as he was by the thought that O’Reilly might be telling the truth about not killing Abner Mackey. And, he realized, O’Reilly also didn’t know his two men had fallen into “enemy” hands. Good. Maybe he’ll stew a bit when they don’t show up.

  Sage aske
d a question of his own. “So what’s the next step you plan on taking in this ‘war’ of ours?”

  O’Reilly spread his arms wide and grinned. “Oh, my work is done here. We figure we’ve won this war, hands down. Those strikers are all out of fight. Their president is going to be kicking the air in a few days. Their leaders won’t find another job anywhere in the city and the rest of them will crawl back to Mackey with their tails between their legs. Even better, Bittler has bolted to parts unknown and I hear tell that he’s out of a job now too, so he won’t be coming back. All in all, the agency’s client and I are quite happy with the outcome.” O’Reilly’s grin widened. “Yup, it looks to me that our little war is over and I won. Fact is, just before I came back to find you riffling through my belongings, I stopped and bought a ticket on the morning train to San Francisco.”

  He pulled the train ticket from his pocket and waved it in the air. “Job well done is what I’d say.” He smiled wide. “Completed it in record time with a minimum of fuss. Agency will give me a bonus, I expect.”