The Loner: Crossfire tl-11

by J. A. Johnstone

  The Palace was as modern and up-to-date as it could be, but it didn’t yet have fire escapes outside the windows the way some hotels back east did. However, it did have decorative ledges along the exterior walls. Conrad slid open the window in his bedroom and stepped out onto the ledge. It was only about six inches wide.

  Facing the brick wall, he slid his feet along the ledge toward the corner of the building. His fingers went into the cracks between the bricks and gripped tightly to take some of the strain off his toes. His suite was on the fifth floor, so there was a lot of empty air underneath him, with hard, unforgiving pavement waiting at the end of any unlucky fall. There was also a drain spout at the corner, connected to the rain gutters around the roof of the building. That was his destination.

  After a few nerve-wracking minutes, he reached it. Keeping his feet on the ledge and one hand holding the wall, he pulled on the spout to test its strength. Satisfied it would hold him, he moved both hands onto it and got a good grip. Supporting himself with the drain spout, he began walking down the side of the building.

  He knew it was a crazy thing to do, but he couldn’t carry out the sort of investigation he wanted to if he had one or more of Turnbuckle’s hired bodyguards watching him all the time. The trail led into the seamy district known as the Barbary Coast, and no one there was going to talk to the police. Those bodyguards looked like policemen, and some of them probably had been on the force, before going to work for Turnbuckle.

  Conrad had to do it alone. It was his best chance to find out what he wanted to know, so he had run the risk of climbing out of a hotel window and down a drain spout.

  He heaved a sigh of relief when the soles of his boots touched the floor of the alley next to the hotel.

  Having spent time in San Francisco he knew how to get to the Barbary Coast. Because someone who knew him might see him and recognize him, he didn’t follow the alley to the front of the hotel. He went to the rear, crossed the street quickly with his cap pulled down over his face, and found another alley that took him in the right direction. He smiled faintly, confident he had gotten out of the Palace without Morelli or anyone else knowing he was gone.

  Sliding a hand in his pocket, he touched the ivory token he had brought with him. With any luck, before the night was over he would know what it meant.

  And he would be one step closer to finding his children.

  Because he was preoccupied, as well as because he didn’t have eyes in the back of his head, Conrad didn’t see the hulking, shadowy figure that appeared at the mouth of the alley beside the hotel. He didn’t realize he was being watched, didn’t feel the dark, almond-shaped eyes tracking his every move as he crossed the street and entered the other alley. The figure was clad all in black and was next to invisible in the shadows.

  After a moment, the follower emerged from the alley and crossed the street as well, moving so swiftly and silently despite its size anyone watching might have taken it for a trick of the eyes, not something real and substantial.

  The figure entered the other alley and the darkness swallowed it completely again, as if it had never been there.

  Chapter 10

  The area known as the Barbary Coast had grown up during the turbulent days following the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill, when Argonauts by the hundreds of thousands poured into San Francisco and used it as a jumping-off point in their quest for riches. Some of them decided to stay instead of heading for the goldfields, some came back when they abandoned their dreams of finding a fortune, and many of those who were lucky enough to strike it rich returned to San Francisco intent on spending some of their newfound wealth.

  Naturally, there were plenty of tinhorns, whores, and bartenders willing to take that money from them.

  Gambling dens sprang up around the old Spanish plaza known as Portsmouth Square. Houses of prostitution spread along the waterfront. A man could get a drink in any of them, or in scores of other saloons, taverns, and dives.

  The atmosphere in those places ranged from high-toned and luxurious to downright squalid, and sometimes you could find examples of both in the same block along Clay, Kearny, Pacific, and Grant Streets. The boundaries of the rather nebulous area people called the Barbary Coast drifted here and there with time and according to the vigilance of the local law enforcement agencies, but the core of its existence remained the same, the twin titans of Lust and Greed. They made up the foundation upon which the Barbary Coast was built.

  That was where Conrad was headed. A damp chill hung in the air along the bay, and tendrils of fog crept up from the water and curled through the streets.

  The only time Conrad had visited the Barbary Coast was when he was a much younger man, still in college. He and some of his wealthy classmates from back east were in San Francisco on a lark, and naturally they wanted to see the lurid denizens of the notorious area and sow some wild oats.

  In those days, Conrad had been as arrogant and obnoxious as his companions, so he had gone along willingly on the expedition. They had caroused and whored all night, and they had been extremely lucky they hadn’t wound up shanghaied, bleeding and robbed in some alley, or wasting away from some pustulent disease. He had heard it said that God looks after drunkards and fools, and he and his friends had fit into both categories.

  Now, of course, things were totally different.

  Time and tragedy had humbled him, stripped away most of the arrogance and pretense. But he remembered how to get to the Barbary Coast, and a short time after slipping out of the Palace Hotel, he entered a saloon called the Bella Grande, which didn’t live up to its name at all. Conrad kept his eyes down and moved in a somewhat furtive manner, but in reality he was keenly studying everything around him.

  He made his way across the crowded, smoky room to the bar and slid a dime onto the hardwood. “A schooner of beer,” he told the man in the dirty apron who came to take his order.

  The bartender tapped the bar next to the dime. “I’ll need another of those, and a nickel besides.”

  “Two bits for a schooner of beer?” Conrad protested. “What is this place, the damn Palace?”

  “It’s the goin’ rate, friend,” the bartender said. “You must’ve been at sea a long time if you didn’t know that.”

  Conrad shrugged, picked up the dime, and pawed around in a handful of coins he pulled from his pocket. The ivory Golden Gate token was among them. The bartender couldn’t help but see it, but he didn’t react in any way as far as Conrad could tell. The man scooped up the twentyfive-cent coin Conrad dropped on the bar and drew the beer from a big keg. He used a paddle to cut off the head and slid the big glass in front of Conrad.

  “Seen Floyd around tonight?” Conrad asked.

  “Floyd who?”

  “Hambrick. Floyd Hambrick.”

  The bartender frowned and shook his head. “Don’t believe I know the gent.”

  “Sure you do. He said he always drinks here.”

  “Maybe he does, but I don’t know him by name, mister. What’s he look like?”

  Conrad didn’t have Hambrick’s description. Turnbuckle’s source inside the police department hadn’t been able to come up with anything except the name. Conrad just shook his head disgustedly. “Ah, never mind. I’ll just have a look around.”

  “You do that.”

  Conrad picked up his beer and moved off into the crowd. He circulated for a few minutes, then set the schooner on an empty table and slipped out a side door. He wanted to keep a clear head, so he couldn’t be guzzling down suds every place he went. One of the saloon’s customers would snatch up the schooner and polish off the beer, probably by the time Conrad reached the street.

  Over the next hour, the scene in the Bella Grande was repeated with minor variations in half a dozen other saloons. If anybody knew Floyd Hambrick, they weren’t admitting it. Nor did anyone react when Conrad flashed the ivory token.

  He was in a place called Spanish Charley’s when he got his first break. The bartender, who wasn’t Spani
sh at all but rather a fat blond Dutchman, had professed never to have heard of Floyd Hambrick, and he didn’t blink at the ivory token.

  Conrad still had it lying in the palm of his hand, along with some coins, when one of the women who worked in the place sidled up beside him. “Ooh, you’ve been to the Golden Gate.”

  Conrad looked over at her and revised his original opinion. Despite the painted face and the low-cut dress that revealed her breasts to the upper curve of her brown nipples, she wasn’t a woman but rather a girl, no more than fifteen or sixteen years old.

  He swallowed his disgust that a girl so young would be working in a place like that and put a leer on his face. It was probably what the girl was used to. He hadn’t missed what she’d said. “The Golden Gate, eh?” he repeated.

  “Sí.” The girl, at least, was Spanish, or Mexican, more likely. Maybe a descendant of one of the proud Californio families that had settled the area long before any gold-seeking Americans arrived. “The nicest place down here. Or so I have heard. I have never been there.” Her blush was visible even with her dusky skin. “It is not a place for one such as I.”

  “Don’t say something like that, darlin’. You’re worthy of going anywhere you want to go.”

  The bartender rested a hand with fingers like sausages on the hardwood. “Where she’d really like to go is upstairs with you, mynheer. Ain’t that right, Carmen?”

  The girl batted her dark eyelashes at Conrad. “Sí. I mean yes.” With a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, she pushed her breasts against Conrad’s arm and cocked a hip so it pressed against his, though without any real urgency.

  “She will cost you only a dollar, mynheer,” the Dutchman went on.

  Conrad pretended to think about it. The girl—Carmen, the bartender had called her, but more than likely that wasn’t her real name—was the first person he’d encountered who admitted to knowing anything about the carved ivory token. He wanted to talk more with her, and some privacy would probably make the conversation more productive.

  With pretended reluctance, he slid a silver dollar across the bar. The coin disappeared into the Dutchman’s fat fingers. “She better be worth it,” Conrad said.

  “Oh, she will, she will,” the bartender promised. “Won’t you, Carmen?”

  “You will never forget me, señor.” The girl linked her arm with his. “Come with me.”

  She led him toward a staircase on the other side of the room. Conrad looked up at the second floor and saw a large number of rooms arranged along a balcony.

  They were rooms only in the strictest sense of the word. Thin wooden partitions a foot short of reaching the ceiling separated them, and curtains closed off the front. The room where Carmen was taking him wouldn’t provide much privacy, but it would be better than nothing.

  She kept bumping her hip against him, seemingly out of habit, as they went upstairs. When they reached the balcony, she led him to the nearest room where the curtain was pushed back, but he steered her toward one farther along that had an empty room on each side.

  “You’re going to be yelling in pleasure,” Conrad told her with the leer still on his face. “We don’t want to disturb anybody else.”

  “Oh, señor, I am sure I will be,” she said listlessly. She didn’t argue as Conrad took her into the room and jerked the curtain closed.

  As he turned toward her, she had already reached down and grasped the hem of her dress to pull it over her head. “Wait a minute,” Conrad said. “Just hold on.”

  Carmen frowned at him in confusion. “You do not want me to take off my dress?”

  “Not just yet. Why don’t you sit down?”

  She shrugged and sank onto the narrow bed. It was little more than a cot, and it was the only piece of furniture in the room other than a small, rickety-looking table. The light came from gas fixtures hung over the balcony. Their glow spilled over the short partitions, making the room a little dim, but Conrad had no trouble seeing the puzzled expression on Carmen’s painted face as she looked up at him.

  “What is it you wish me to do?” she asked.

  “I thought we’d talk for a few minutes first. I like to get to know a girl before I—”

  “Then you are an unusual man,” Carmen said. “Most men don’t want to know anything about me.”

  “I’m not like most men. You should know that because I have that token from the Golden Gate, right?”

  She nodded. “Oh, yes, only the best people go there. Well, the best people for this part of town, anyway. I have heard there are crystal chandeliers. Is this true?”

  “I never paid that much attention to the lights.” Conrad dodged the question.

  “And a long bar made of the finest mahogany. I would love to see it.”

  “I’m sure you will, one of these days. Maybe I’ll take you. How’d you like to go sporting in there on my arm?”

  “Oh, señor, that would be wonderful.” She sounded more like she meant it. She started to push her dress off her shoulders, obviously figuring she would disrobe in the other direction, since he’d stopped her from pulling the garment over her head.

  “Hold on, hold on. It’s been a long time since I’ve been there. The Golden Gate’s on Kearny Street, right?”

  Carmen shook her head. “No, no, on Grant, near where the Chinese live.”

  “Oh, yeah, that’s right. On Grant Street. I told you it’s been a long time.”

  Carmen reached for her dress again. “Please, señor, if we do not do what we came up here for, I will get in trouble.”

  “I never said we weren’t going to.”

  “But I am only allowed so much time with each customer—”

  Conrad took the token from his pocket and held it up. “You have to show one of these before they’ll let you into the place, right?”

  “Into the private rooms on the second floor, yes, or so I have heard.” Carmen frowned again. “But you would know that, if you have been there.”

  “I just wasn’t sure what the procedure was now, since I’ve been gone for a while.”

  His explanation didn’t lessen the suspicion in her eyes. She stood up suddenly. “Did you bring me up here because you like me, señor, or because you are some sort of spy?”

  “Spy?” Conrad repeated. “That’s crazy. I just—”

  Without warning, she darted past him and jerked aside the curtain that closed off the room. As she rushed out, Conrad reached for her but missed. “Dutchy!” she cried as she ran onto the balcony. “Dutchy!”

  Conrad hurried after her. She was at the landing at the top of the stairs. The fat bartender had come out from behind the bar and was waiting at the bottom of the stairs with an angry expression on his florid face. “What in blazes is goin’ on up there?” he demanded as the men drinking at the bar and the scattered tables looked on with interest.

  Carmen ran down the stairs. “He asks too many questions, Dutchy! I think he is a spy for one of your competitors ... or a policeman!”

  “I’m not either of those things,” Conrad insisted as he reached the top of the staircase. “I was just talking to the girl—”

  “Men who come here aren’t interested in talking,” Dutchy said with a glare. “I don’t know what you’re up to, mister, but I don’t like it.”

  Conrad knew he had found out everything he was going to. Actually, it had been a pretty productive visit. But it was time to go. He wasn’t worried about the bartender being able to stop him.

  But then Dutchy shouted, “Hans! Ulrich!” and two men emerged from the shadows, one at each end of the balcony. The huge, blond bruisers stalked toward Conrad, each with scarred fists and broken noses of men who had dealt out and received plenty of violence in their lives.

  “Take him!” Dutchy ordered. “I show you what we do with spies, mynheer !”

  Chapter 11

  Hans and Ulrich were big, but they were slow. Conrad avoided their lumbering rush by bounding down the stairs toward Dutchy and Carmen. The girl shrieked and ran, but D
utchy stood his ground, bellowing, “Help! Stop him! Help!”

  Several burly customers sprang to his aid. As Conrad reached the bottom of the staircase, a man pushed Dutchy aside and swung a mallet-like fist at Conrad’s head. Conrad ducked the punch and hooked a hard right into the man’s midsection. The man grunted in pain, doubled over, and staggered backward.

  Unfortunately, that delay was long enough for one of Dutchy’s bouncers to leap down the stairs and slam into Conrad from behind. He wrapped his arms around him and lifted him off his feet. They crashed onto a table that splintered under their weight. Conrad landed amidst the debris with his attacker on top of him, knocking the breath from his lungs, stunning him.

  “Hold him, Ulrich!” Dutchy shouted.

  Ulrich’s arms tightened around Conrad, preventing him from drawing in any air to replace what he had lost. Almost instantly, Conrad’s head began to spin and a red haze drifted over his eyes. On the verge of losing consciousness, he drove an elbow into Ulrich’s belly, hoping to loosen the man’s grip, but it was like hitting a wall made of thick, sturdy planks and didn’t seem to have any effect.

  The roaring in his head rose to a thunderous level. Conrad knew he was about to pass out. Then he heard a shout that was muffled by the pounding of his pulse, and the vise-like grip around his chest and the great weight on his back was released. He rolled over and lay with his chest heaving as he dragged in great lungfuls of air.

  His blurry eyesight cleared after a moment and he saw a large, black-clad shape flashing back and forth. He pushed himself to a sitting position and got a better look at what was going on. His rescuer was a tall, broad-shouldered man who kept Dutchy, the bouncers, and the patrons of Spanish Charley’s at bay by slashing back and forth with a large, heavy-bladed hatchet.