The Seekers

by F. M. Parker

  “It was the Chinaman’s Goddamn reward that got Chun killed,” Levi said in a low, angry voice to Errin.

  “Maybe, and maybe not. Now take it easy for we don’t want to fight the Chinaman and Mattoon both at the same time.”

  “We have no time to spend now,” Errin called to Scom Lip. He walked on with Levi matching strides with him. “See us later,” he said over his shoulder.

  “This is not about business,” Scom Lip called after them. “It’s about revenge and taking it without dying.”

  Errin and Levi halted abruptly and turned back to the Chinaman. “You know what happened to Chun?” Levi’s voice was sharp.

  “Of course. I’ve had my men watching and waiting since daylight for Scanlan to arrive. I have information for both of you. Come ride with me.”

  Errin’s ire rose at the thought of Scom Lip spying on Levi and him. Still, the Chinaman didn’t act guilty of having a hand in the killing of Chun. He might know something that could be useful, but he wasn’t to be trusted.

  “I think we should listen to what he has to say,” Errin said to Levi.

  Errin and Levi climbed into the carriage and took a seat. Ke, the tong chieftain’s bodyguard, sat tense and watchful beside his leader. Scom Lip closed the curtain, and at a command from him, the buggy moved off.

  “What do you want to tell us?” Errin said.

  ‘I think you and your partner will soon go to take vengeance on Mattoon for killing Chun Quang.”

  “So you know who killed Chun, and that it was Mattoon’s men?” Levi said.

  “His men killed her, and I know that for a fact.”

  “You had a reward out for her,” Levi said accusingly.

  “Yes, for I had bought her.”

  “That’s not what she told us.”

  Scom Lip moved his hand in a deprecating gesture and his voice became hard. “I’ve gone through all this with your friend here. I removed my reward from Chun while I waited for him to find work for some of my people. Now let’s get down to the immediate problem.” Scom Lip put an end to the discussion with Levi by turning to Errin.

  “I know much about Mattoon that the Americans don’t. They see him as a banker, a rich man, and he is all that, so he is highly regarded by many influential people. However they are blind to the many crimes he has committed. He is the boss of the thugs who rule the underworld of the waterfront and prey upon the ship owners and the honest businessmen there.”

  “Tell us all you know,” Errin said.

  “You are friendly with the Beremendes woman. Well, Mattoon works with Dokken to steal her land.”

  “How would you know that?”

  “Nobody pays much attention to a Chinaman sweeping the floor of a bank, or working as a servant in a rich man’s house, or simply standing on the sidewalk and quietly watching. Further, white people don’t think many Chinese understand English. You’d be surprised how many do. From them I learn many things, for I must as you and I have discussed before.”

  “And one of these things is that Mattoon and Dokken are partners.”

  “Not partners!” Scom Lip scoffed. “Mattoon would never have a partner. Dokken merely takes Mattoon’s orders. But I would think, Dokken should be killed also.”

  “So now, for your own reasons, you give us information that will help us kill Mattoon,” Errin said. “Why didn’t you tell me about him before so we could be prepared? Or why didn’t you destroy him yourself? There are many ways to do that and the other white men would never know who did it.”

  “Would you have believed me earlier? And as I told you, I could never risk attacking a white man. I want to inform you of what I know, and to warn you that Mattoon will not be easy to punish for what he has done.”

  Errin waited for Scom Lip to continue. The man’s enmity for Mattoon showed in his hooded black eyes. It was obvious Mattoon was the personal foe of the Chinaman. The tong leader was doing his best to persuade Errin and Levi to kill the man.

  “Errin, why should we trust him?” Levi asked.

  Scom Lip looked sharply at Levi. “You don’t believe me?”

  Errin saw Levi was going to reply angrily, and spoke quickly to prevent it. “I believe him, Levi. Mattoon sent men to drive Celeste’s workers away. That much of what he says is true. Mattoon deserves to be punished for that alone.”

  “What is your plan?” Scom Lip asked.

  “Just a plan,” Errin said.

  “I see you don’t trust me.”

  “Would you help us kill him if I told you?”

  “No. But I can tell you where he sometimes is at night. That’s at the Porpoise Saloon on The Embarcadero.”

  Errin laughed harshly. Levi and he were all alone in the fight with Mattoon and his thugs. “Stop and let us out. Levi and I’ve wasted enough time.”

  Chapter 27

  The sailors wearing their dress-blue uniforms came off the Union battleship with lively steps. Laughing and joking and looking expectantly toward the shore, they went down the pier to The Embarcadero. The whores knew of the ship’s arrival and waited bedecked in brightly colored clothing. The women went forward to meet the sailors and worked through them like a fish seiner. Few sailors escaped the women’s perfumed net.

  Errin and Levi halted and backed against the front of a building to let the throng of seamen and whores pass. When the last pair had disappeared into the night, the two men moved on.

  “That fellow can tell us where Mattoon’s saloon is,” Errin said. He gestured at a spindly, dapperly dressed man watching with a pleased expression after the whores and their catches. The man was a pimp, of that he was certain for he had seen a hundreds of them on the streets of London and Liverpool and knew their distinctive manners. The pimp would know every inhabitant of the street and most everything that happened on the waterfront.

  They crossed the street and stepped upon the sidewalk beside the pimp. Errin caught the man by the shoulder with an easy grasp. “Friend, where can I find Brol Mattoon’s Porpoise Saloon?”

  The man looked Errin and Levi up and down evaluating their clothing, and then cocked his thin face to regard them. “No need to go there for women,” the pimp said. “I can help you find the prettiest ones, any color, black, brown, red, or white and each one willing to satisfy two men about the city that I can see you both are.”

  “We’re not looking for women,” Levi said. He wanted to find Mattoon quickly.

  “But I can get ...”

  Errin clamped hard on the man’s shoulder, digging in with the bony ends of his fingers and thumb. The man winced with pain. “Listen, pimp, we’re in a hurry,” Errin growled and leaned close. “I asked you a simple question, now where’s Mattoon’s Porpoise Saloon? Answer quick or I’ll break your head against the wall of this building.” He dug deeper into the man’s shoulder.

  The pimp shrank under Errin’s hurtful grip. “Down that direction five blocks,” he said and pointed with his free arm along the street weakly lit by gaslights. “Just beyond Vallejo Street.”

  “Have you seen Mattoon tonight?” Errin asked in the off chance the man had.

  “Not tonight.”

  “All right. Now get on your way.” Errin released the man.

  The pimp hastened off.

  * * *

  Levi and Errin checked the Porpoise Saloon through the door that opened out onto The Embarcadero. The saloon was huge and jam-packed with patrons. Large chandeliers, each holding several lighted oil lamps, hung from the ceiling and cast a yellow illumination down on the drinking, gambling throng. The broad center of the place held many tables, every one full. A bar crowded with men standing elbow to elbow lay on the right. At the far end of the saloon was a raised platform where a band consisting of a drummer, a fiddler, and a man pumping an accordion played for half a score of dancing, promenading couples. Several men and saloon girls were on the upstairs balcony and watching down at the main floor.

  “I hope the bastard’s here,” Levi said.

  “We�
��ll soon know,” Errin said and moved through the door.

  They made their way across the room and shoved up to the bar. One of the men pushed aside, turned and glared at them. When he saw their taut, angry faces, he looked away.

  “A cold beer,” Errin told the bartender. “And one for my partner.”

  “Have you seen Mattoon?” Levi asked the man as he turned away.

  “No. Sometimes he don’t come, and when he does it’s always late. But if he comes, he’ll sit at that big table over there near the wall.” The man made a halfhearted gesture with his hand.

  The table was at least twice as large as any of the others and set off by itself. Three men with mugs of beer in front of them sat talking among themselves. All were dressed in the clothing of waterfront workers with billed seamen caps. A saloon girl came past and spoke and smiled at one of the men. He said something in reply. The woman laughed and walked off swinging her hips.

  The bartender returned with the beer. Errin handed him some coins. “I reckon those fellows at the table keep order in the saloon?” he said.

  “They do the bouncing, except when Mattoon’s here. He’s a brawler and likes to use his fists. And he’s good with them.” The bartender moved away in response to a call from down the bar.

  “Didn’t you tell me Mattoon’s men threatened to burn us out if we didn’t pay?” Errin asked Levi.

  “Among other ways to hurt us.”

  “Men who own things that’ll burn shouldn’t threaten others with fire. This place is made of wood. Let’s look around back there in the rear.”

  Carrying their beers, Levi and Errin moved slowly away from the bar and made their way past the card tables to a partially open doorway in the rear wall of the saloon. They glanced about at the patrons and found none were paying them any attention. At the big table, Mattoon’s men were talking to a woman.

  Errin looked through the door and saw a stairway leading down, to a basement storeroom he judged. “I’ve got an idea,” Errin said to Levi. “Stop anyone who tries to come down after me.” He thrust his mug of beer into Levi’s hand.

  “How?” Levi asked.

  “You’ll think of a way.”

  Errin stepped to the door and shoved it wide. He started cautiously down, his path lighted by a lantern hanging from one of the joists of the main floor above. He reached the bottom and peered around. Numerous bottles of whiskey were stored on shelves along three walls. Kegs of beer were stacked along the fourth wall.

  In the center of the basement, four pairs of wooden posts spaced some eight feet apart were set solidly in the hard dirt floor. Wrist manacles were fastened to one post of each pair, and leg manacles to the opposite posts. Between the posts, the dirt floor was worn and scuffed. Errin knew the posts for what they were, prisons for men. The seaports of England had their share of shanghaiers. Many of the shanghaiers there, like Mattoon obviously was here, chained their victims between posts and in this manner held them captive until they were forced onto some outgoing ship. Damn foul business.

  He began to grab bottles of whiskey, and breaking off their necks by smashing one against another, poured the highly flammable contents on the remaining bottles stored in the basement. Then from a bottle, he dripped a stream of the liquid to the bottom of the steps leading up to the main floor of the saloon. To lengthen the time period of his fuse, he took a sheet of newspaper found in a comer on the floor and twisted it tightly lengthwise. He placed one end on the whiskey-soaked earth. The other end was lighted with a match. He hustled up from the basement.

  He slowed at the top of the stairs, and leaving the door open, stepped out into the saloon. He took his beer from Levi.

  “What’d you do down there?”

  “Started a fire.”

  “What’s there that’ll burn?”

  “Gallons upon gallons of whiskey.”

  “That damn stuff will explode when it gets hot,” Levi said anxiously. “Best we get out of here.”

  “Don’t be in a hurry. We’ve got too be sure the fire happens. We want Mattoon to know we were here.”

  “How’re we going to let him know that?”

  “Why we’ll tell the bartender as we leave,” Errin said with a chuckle.

  Levi looked to see if Errin was joking, and saw he was deadly serious. He went with his wild friend as they wound their course slowly back to the bar.

  “Another pair of cold beers,” Errin told the bartender.

  “Right.”

  The beer came and Errin paid. He lifted his mug to Levi and winked. “Here’s to a hot time in the old town tonight.”

  They watched across the milling crowd of men and women to the doorway leading to the basement storeroom.

  “Soon now,” Errin said in a voice that only Levi could hear. “I think it’ll take about two or three minutes for the unopened bottles to get hot enough to explode.”

  A tendril of gray smoke drifted out of the basement door in the rear wall. It stretched and floated up toward the saloon’s high ceiling. More smoke poured into the saloon until there was a small cloud near the door. The fire was now burning too strongly to be put out. The real inferno should soon erupt.

  “Bartender,” Errin called along the bar, “I think something is burning there in the back of the saloon.”

  The bartender hastily looked. “Sure as hell ‘ppears so,” he said. He hurried out from behind the bar and roughly shoved a path to the back of the saloon. He disappeared into the smoke now spewing strongly from the doorway. An instant later he plunged back into view. “Get over here,” he shouted at the men at the big table and motioned frantically for them to come.

  Several patrons had noted the bartender’s actions and had followed him with inquisitive eyes. Now they saw the smoke streaming into the saloon.

  “Fire!” a woman screamed in a high, scared voice.

  The shock of the call rippled through the crowd. All voices died. The music ceased. Silence fell everywhere, and held for a stunned second. Then a mighty roar of shouts of “FIRE” rang against the rafters. A stampede started for the front entrance.

  “What now?” Levi asked.

  “We should roust out all the lovers upstairs that didn’t hear the alarm,” Errin said, nodding at the second floor where the women had bedrooms. “We don’t want to let anyone get hurt except Mattoon, or his men.”

  They mounted the stairs to the balcony and moved along flinging open the doors to the saloon girls’ rooms. Three were locked and these they kicked open. “Get out,” they told the startled, naked occupants. “The saloon’s on fire.” The men and women snatched up their clothing and fled.

  Levi and Errin followed the fleeing people down from the balcony. As they reached the main floor, the building shook with a violent explosion. The chandeliers jumped on their chains and swung violently. A fraction of time later, an even larger explosion crashed and the floor buckled and heaved upward. Errin and Levi were flung roughly against the wall.

  Errin straightened and looked at Levi. His comrade was getting to his feet. He seemed to be unhurt. “Run for it!” he shouted.

  The two men darted from the building. The roof collapsed with a crash at their heels. They pulled up quickly in the edge of the throng of people who had escaped the saloon before them.

  “So much for a job well done,” Errin said to Levi.

  “So good that it almost got us,” Levi said.

  Errin looked around at the crowd that was shocked to silence by the suddenness of the fire and explosions. Where was the bartender? He saw the man standing with two of Mattoon’s other men and staring woefully at the demolished building. As they watched, flames broke into view licking up through the jumble of beams and boards and broken furniture. Smoke and sparks spiraled skyward.

  Errin moved to stand beside the bartender. “Exploding whiskey makes a hell of a fire,” Errin said.

  “Yeh,” said the bartender. Then he quickly looked at Errin. “What do you know about the fire? Who are you?”

&n
bsp; “Tell Mattoon that Scanlan and Coffin were here.” Errin pivoted about and followed by Levi, went into the crowd.

  Chapter 28

  “Let’s burn Mattoon’s fancy house like we did his saloon,” Levi said fiercely as he looked about in the light cast by the candelabra Errin held aloft. “There’s no one here inside to get hurt, and the servants’ quarters are far enough away the fire couldn’t reach them.” His pain at the murder of Chun made him ill. Only the death of Mattoon would heal him.

  “Best we take time to think this through,” Errin said. “We’ve got Mattoon chasing us so our ambush must be damn well laid.” He could feel his partner’s sorrow, at least part of it, for he had his own deep worry about Mattoon harming Celeste.

  He turned, sweeping the light around to better see the wide, cavernous main room of Mattoon’s home. “I want to make him pay for what he’s done to you, and to Celeste, but let’s not destroy this beautiful place just yet. If Mattoon escapes from us, then we’ll burn it.”

  Levi and he had gone straight from the waterfront to Mattoon’s huge three-story mansion located high on the hill above San Francisco. Stealing onto the grounds, they had discovered the small bungalow of the servants set some one hundred yards back from the main house. Through a lighted window, they saw the servants were Chinese, a man and a woman.

  Searching around the main house they found a window on the side that they could force open and had climbed into the dark interior. Not certain whether or not the house was occupied, they had crept from room to room. They discovered no one, and then Errin had lighted the candelabra. He had expected Mattoon’s home to be grand in size and richly furnished, still he was amazed at the number of rooms, eighteen in number, and astounded by the amount of wealth the man had poured into its decoration. There was walnut and cherry paneling, opulent furnishings of thick wool carpets, overstuffed couches and chairs covered with velvet, and crystal and silver, and original paintings. A fortune had been spent to create the man’s home.

  “It’s time to plan our ambush on Mattoon.” Errin said.