The Loner: Crossfire tl-11

by J. A. Johnstone

  “So you think he’s a killer?”

  Nash leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know if he’s ever killed anyone personally, although it wouldn’t surprise me if he had. But I’m confident he’s ordered plenty of executions. So are the police, but they haven’t been able to prove it.”

  “How long has he been around?”

  Nash cocked his right ankle on his left knee and toyed with a pencil on the desk. “That’s an interesting question. He bought the Golden Gate about three years ago. Old Cletus Snyder owned it before that, but Snyder was in bad health and wanted out of the game. Lannigan came out of nowhere and took over the place. Some of us looked into his background afterward and found he’d been involved with some of the gangs along the Barbary Coast, but only as a low-level hoodlum. There was nothing in his history to indicate he had the money to buy a place like the Golden Gate or the skill to run it. Obviously he had both, since he’s made it more successful than it already was.” Lowering his voice he went on. “Some important people in San Francisco have been known to patronize the private rooms of the Golden Gate. I suspect Lannigan has a pretty good blackmail racket going on.”

  Conrad nodded. He was intensely interested in everything Nash had said so far. The timing of Dex Lannigan’s rise to power was very suspicious. Pamela had arrived in San Francisco about three years ago, Conrad thought. If she had somehow made contact with Lannigan, she could have bankrolled his purchase of the Golden Gate Saloon. She wouldn’t have done that without getting something in return, though, such as his promise to send killers after Pamela’s former fiancé if Conrad showed up in the city by the bay looking for his missing children.

  It was also possible Pamela had enlisted Lannigan’s help in finding a place to hide the twins. Conrad knew he was going to have to have a faceto-face talk with Mr. Dex Lannigan, and soon.

  “What else can you tell me about him?”

  Nash shrugged. “There’s not much else to tell. His wife’s a bit of a social climber. He’s managed to get them invited to some parties where a cheap sharper like him has no business being. That’s another reason I think he indulges in a little blackmail. Sometimes instead of money he demands at least an illusion of respectability for himself and his wife.”

  That was an interesting angle. “You don’t know if Lannigan’s going to be attending one of those society parties any time soon, do you?”

  “Not my department,” Nash replied with a shake of his head. He smiled. “But I know how we can find out. Come on.”

  They stood, and Nash led him out of the big editorial room and into a corridor lined with smaller offices.

  “Where are we going?” Conrad asked.

  “To see Francis Carlyle. I’m sure you remember her.”

  As a matter of fact, he did. Francis Carlyle wrote a popular column for the Chronicle about the doings of San Francisco’s high society. Not many women were involved in journalism, but Mrs. Carlyle, a widow, held an important and respected position among the city’s elite. Conrad had met her on several occasions when he’d accompanied his mother to San Francisco, before Vivian Browning’s vicious murder at the hands of an outlaw gang ... a murder which had later been avenged by Frank Morgan.

  Conrad didn’t like to think about those days. Some of those same outlaws had kidnapped and tortured him, mutilating one of his ears before Frank was able to rescue him. He kept his hair long enough to hide that deformity.

  If he had found himself in such a situation now, he would have figured out a way to kill those varmints himself, rather than relying on Frank to save him. He had changed a great deal since then.

  But not enough to keep Francis Carlyle from recognizing him when Nash ushered him into her office after knocking on the door and being told to enter. Mrs. Carlyle, a still-attractive woman in her late forties with a husky voice and dark, curly hair only lightly touched with gray, stood up behind her desk. “Well, for heaven’s sake. If it’s not Conrad Browning himself.” She came around the desk and extended a hand. “Conrad, my dear boy, how are you?”

  Conrad took her hand and bent to brush his lips across the back of it in the courtly European manner. He recalled that while Mrs. Carlyle was quick to use her column to cut through what she regarded as pretense and hypocrisy, she enjoyed being played up to. He held her hand in both of his as he straightened. “I’m fine, Mrs. Carlyle. You haven’t changed a bit, as beautiful as ever.”

  She smiled, obviously pleased, then grew solemn. “My deepest condolences on your loss.”

  Conrad nodded. “Thank you.”

  “I was very happy when I heard you were alive after all. That blasted Claudius Turnbuckle was tight-lipped about it for a long time.”

  “At my request,” Conrad said.

  “Yes, well, I’m accustomed to people talking to me. I maintain a position of absolute trustworthiness.”

  Mrs. Carlyle could be trusted, all right ... trusted to gossip—which, of course, was exactly why Conrad was in her office. He understood why Jessup Nash had taken him there.

  “Sit down and tell me what brings you to San Francisco,” Mrs. Carlyle went on. She waved a hand at Nash. “Thank you for bringing Conrad to see me, Jessup. You can go now.”

  Nash looked pained, but didn’t argue. “Stop by my desk on your way out,” he told Conrad, who nodded in agreement.

  After Nash left, Conrad settled on the opposite side of the desk. “I’m relying on your absolute discretion here, Mrs. Carlyle.”

  “My goodness, call me Francis. It’s not like you’re a callow youth anymore. You’re a grown man.” The blatant interest in the woman’s gaze made it clear how aware of that fact she was.

  Conrad smiled. “All right, Francis. I want to ask you about a man named Dex Lannigan.”

  A look of surprise and distaste appeared on Mrs. Carlyle’s face. “Dex Lannigan?” she repeated. “Why are you interested in a cheap hoodlum like that?”

  “From what I hear, he’s not all that cheap. He owns a very successful business.”

  “A saloon. And a saloon in the Barbary Coast, at that.”

  “And he’s become a member of San Francisco society.”

  Mrs. Carlyle shook her head. “More of a pretender than a member. But for reasons I can’t fathom, he’s been issued invitations to a number of soirees the likes of him and that crass woman he’s married to never should have attended. I think she must be the one behind it. She has that desperate hunger for approval you find in women who come from a less than sterling background.”

  As Conrad recalled, Francis Carlyle’s background wasn’t all that sterling itself. Her father had been a railroad conductor. But she had married a man who was a stockholder and an important executive with the Southern Pacific, and that had been her entry into society.

  Conrad didn’t say anything about that. “Do you know if Lannigan is going to be attending any of those parties in the near future?”

  “Why do you ask? Don’t tell me you want to meet the man!”

  “It might be mutually beneficial for the two of us to have a conversation.”

  It might be easier to do while they were on neutral ground, Conrad thought, rather than him trying to approach Lannigan at the Golden Gate. If Lannigan wanted to keep his wife’s position in society secure, he wouldn’t cause a scene at a party.

  “You intrigue me.” Mrs. Carlyle’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Something’s going on here, and I want to know what it is.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you any more ... right now.” Conrad’s words held the promise of future information, as they had with Jessup Nash.

  “Quid pro quo,” Mrs. Carlyle snapped. “I know you studied Latin. You’re familiar with the concept.”

  “Of course. But my hands are tied at the moment. However, I can tell you this much. If my conversation with Lannigan goes as I hope, I can promise you there will be a story, and a good one.”

  “And that story will be mine?”

  Conrad shrugged and inclined his head
, indicating agreement without actually saying as much.

  Suddenly, Mrs. Carlyle laughed. “You’re trying to trick me, young man. It won’t work. I’m on to all the tricks young men use to make poor women like myself believe they’ve promised something when they really haven’t.” She picked up a copy of the newspaper lying on the desk and tossed it closer to Conrad. “I won’t haggle with you, especially since what you want to know is already in print. And you’d already know it if you had bothered to read my column this morning,” she added caustically.

  Conrad picked up the paper, which was that morning’s edition folded back to Mrs. Carlyle’s column. He had scanned those pages that very morning while eating breakfast, but hadn’t noticed what seemed so obvious to him now.

  One of the notes in the column was about a party to be held in four days at the Nob Hill mansion of Mr. and Mrs. Madison Kimball. Among a long list of guests expected to attend were Mr. and Mrs. Dexter Lannigan. The name had meant nothing to Conrad when he read it in the paper that morning, but he should have noticed the D.L. initials, he told himself.

  It hadn’t occurred to him the man possibly responsible for trying to have him killed would be attending a high society ball.

  He looked up at her. “Do you think you can arrange for me to be invited to that party?”

  “I don’t think it’ll be any trouble at all,” Mrs. Carlyle said. “If Roberta Kimball knew you were in town, you would have already gotten an invitation, even if she had to deliver it personally. I’ll mention that I’ve seen you, and you should hear from her before the day’s over. Where are you staying?”

  “At the Palace.”

  “Of course you are. I’ll tell Roberta.”

  “Thank you.” Conrad put the newspaper back on Mrs. Carlyle’s desk.

  “Oh, a simple thank you isn’t going to be enough. Not by a long shot.”

  “Then what can I do to repay you for your help?” he asked with a smile.

  “Let me share the story with that little reporter Nash when the time comes. And have dinner with me.”

  Conrad had a hunch Francis Carlyle’s plans for him included more than dinner. But he would deal with that when the time came. As for sharing the story with Jessup Nash, he was confident he could make some sort of arrangement.

  “I think that’s fair enough.” He got to his feet. “Thank you for your help.”

  Mrs. Carlyle came around the desk and laid a hand on his arm. “Don’t forget, we have a deal.”

  “I won’t,” Conrad promised.

  “If there’s anything else I can do for you while you’re in town, don’t hesitate to let me know.”

  Conrad leaned closer and kissed her on the cheek. “Of course,” he murmured.

  She was smiling when he left the office. As he eased the door closed, his thoughts immediately turned back to Dex Lannigan. Waiting four days to confront the man would be difficult, but that seemed like the best course of action. He would just have to be patient, Conrad told himself.

  He had waited this long to find his children. A few more days wouldn’t hurt anything.

  Chapter 14

  “Did you find out what you wanted to know?” Nash asked as Conrad stopped at his desk.

  Conrad nodded. “I hope so.”

  “The old witch didn’t make you promise your firstborn in return for her help?”

  Conrad managed not to wince. Nash didn’t know anything about the reason he was in San Francisco, he reminded himself. The reporter didn’t mean anything by the comment about Conrad’s firstborn.

  “We reached an equitable arrangement. And I’d hardly call Francis Carlyle an old witch.”

  Nash shrugged. “I’m probably being unfair to her. But watch yourself when you’re dealing with her, Conrad. She’ll steal a story right out from under you if you’re not careful.”

  “But I’m not a reporter,” Conrad pointed out.

  “She can be a little predatory when it comes to young men she finds attractive. At least so I’ve heard,” Nash added. “I don’t seem to be her type, thank God.”

  Conrad shook hands with his old friend. “I’ll be in touch.”

  When he reached the lobby, he spotted Patrick Dugan sitting in a chair next to a potted palm. Dugan was reading a newspaper, or at least pretending to. His gaze roved around the lobby constantly as he kept a lookout for trouble, the way a good bodyguard should.

  He spotted Conrad and stood up, leaving the paper in the chair. “Get your business taken care of ?” he asked as he walked over.

  Conrad nodded. “Yes, we’re going back to the hotel now.”

  He wasn’t sure how he was going to fill up the time during the next four days as he waited for the ball at the Kimball mansion. Maybe he could actually force himself to rest and relax, as Claudius Turnbuckle had suggested, although if he was being honest with himself, he considered that possibility rather remote. After everything that had happened, he didn’t think he was capable of going back to a life of leisure.

  A thought occurred to him as he and Dugan walked back toward the Palace. “Were you ever a policeman, Patrick?”

  “Because I’m a big, redheaded Irishman, you mean?”

  “Because you seem to know what you’re doing.”

  “Oh. Well, in that case, yeah, I was on the force for ten years. Did right well for myself, too. Worked my way up to bein’ a detective. But then Mr. Turnbuckle offered me more money to work for him, and well, I had hungry mouths to feed. I couldn’t turn down the job.”

  “What do you do for Claudius besides bodyguard work?”

  “Whatever needs doin’. I’ve handled quite a few investigations for him, workin’ on one case or another.”

  “When you were with the police, did you ever have anything to do with the tongs?”

  Dugan bristled. “What do you mean? Are you askin’ if any of those heathen Chinamen ever paid me off to look the other way while they went about their mischief ?”

  “Good Lord, no,” Conrad said without hesitation. “I just wondered if you handled any cases involving them.”

  “Oh. Sorry,” Dugan muttered. “Reckon I jumped to a conclusion there. Yeah, some of the cases I worked on took me to Chinatown, and you can’t turn around in Chinatown without bumpin’ into somebody from one of the tongs.”

  “Are they still at war with each other?”

  “There’s still some trouble now and then, but it’s not like it used to be. Diamond Jack took care of that.”

  “Diamond Jack?”

  “Yeah. His real name is Wong Duck, but he calls himself Diamond Jack because he’s got a little diamond mounted right here.” Dugan tapped a blunt fingertip against one of his two front teeth. “He came up through the Woo Sing tong and finally took it over. That wasn’t enough for him, though. He managed to talk the other tongs into callin’ a truce. He said they could all make more money if they weren’t fightin’ each other all the time. That makes sense, of course, but I didn’t figure he’d ever talk all those other Chinamen into goin’ along with the idea. Somehow he did.”

  “So they don’t have hatchet men anymore?”

  Dugan laughed. “Oh, the tongs still have their hatchet men, all right. The leaders don’t trust each other all that much, and I reckon none of ’em completely trust Diamond Jack.” The bodyguard frowned. “Why are you askin’ about tongs and hatchet men and such like?”

  Conrad couldn’t very well explain about his perilous adventure at Spanish Charley’s the night before. Dugan would tell Turnbuckle about the incident, and Turnbuckle would increase the number of guards watching over Conrad until it would be impossible to get out from under their scrutiny.

  “I saw a big fellow on the street the other day,” he said vaguely, deciding he might be able to risk a description of the man who had come to his rescue. “He was Chinese, dressed all in black, with a half-moon shaped scar on his right cheek.” Conrad traced a finger along his own cheek to indicate the path of the scar. “When I saw him, I said to myself,
now that looks like a hatchet man. So the sight made me curious, that’s all.”

  Dugan grunted. “Sounds like a hatchet man, all right. Most of them are big, ugly scoundrels. You want to stay away from them, Mr. Browning, and you should steer clear of Chinatown, too. There’s nothin’ down there but joss houses, opium dens, brothels, and eatin’ joints where they serve things you’re better off not knowin’ what they are. No reason for a white man to have anything to do with that place.”

  Conrad was sure plenty of white customers patronized those places Dugan had mentioned, but he didn’t point that out. “I’m not going there. I was curious, that’s all.”

  “You just listen to old Pat Dugan, sir. I won’t steer you wrong.”

  “I’m sure you won’t,” Conrad agreed.

  At the same time, he wondered about the man who had saved his life in Spanish Charley’s. Dex Lannigan’s Golden Gate Saloon was on the boundary between the Barbary Coast and Chinatown. Was it possible there was a connection between the tongs and his mission to find his children?

  Would Pamela have hidden the twins somewhere in the depths of the Chinese quarter? Conrad didn’t want to think so, but at the same time, was anything beyond the realm of possibility when it came to Pamela Tarleton?

  Despite what he had told Dugan, he might have to pay a visit to Chinatown after all.

  The rest of the day passed quietly, and that evening Conrad was sitting in his suite after supper when someone knocked on the door. Morelli was on duty in the corridor again, and Conrad knew that after being caught sleeping the night before, the bodyguard was unlikely to let anybody into the suite who wasn’t harmless. Conrad opened the door and found a man in a sober black suit standing there, bowler hat in hand.

  “Mr. Conrad Browning?” the man asked. Morelli stood a few feet away, watching with his arms crossed and a suspicious frown on his face.