Ragtime Cowboys

by Loren D. Estleman

  “No peg leg for you,” she said. “You’re lucky. That’s the worst friction burn I’ve ever seen. What did you do, try to brake the train the hard way?”

  “You’re close. Who told you I was on a train?”

  “You did, when the cabbie brought you in. You were in shock. What happened to your head?”

  He touched the bandage he wore like a pirate’s bandanna. He couldn’t remember when his head didn’t ache. “I fell and landed on a blackjack. There a telephone in here?”

  “No, and if there was I wouldn’t let you use it. You need to rest.”

  “Get me a piece of paper, will you?”

  Her smile was tight-lipped, more carbolic than citrus.

  “Thinking about your will?”

  “I need to send a telegram.”

  “I’ll write it.” She drew a pad and pencil from the pocket of her uniform. “Shoot.”

  “Can’t. You took my gun.”

  “It’s in the cupboard with your clothes. What’s a nice-looking young man like you need with a gun?”

  “You guessed it. I have to mow a path through the crowds of women or I’ll never get anywhere. Send it to Charlie O’Casey at the Golden West Hotel in San Francisco.”

  She took it down:

  DEAL FELL THROUGH STOP EXPLAIN IN PERSON

  PETER COLLINS

  “Who’s Charlie O’Casey?”

  “Shortstop for the New York Giants.”

  “No, he isn’t. I’m from New York.”

  “Send it collect. I left my money in my pants.”

  He waited until she went out, then threw aside his covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He was naked under a thin cotton gown. Standing, he put his weight onto the wrong foot and almost fell back down onto the mattress. The morphine was wearing off. The foot looked swollen twice its size, but it was mostly bandage. He made his way to the iron footboard and used it as a railing to get to the narrow wooden cupboard on the side of the bed opposite the door.

  There was only one shoe in the cupboard; he vaguely remembered someone cutting the other one off. He took off the gown, sat naked on the bed, and dressed himself slowly, molly-coddling the bad foot when he put on his pants. He borrowed a pillow slip, wrapped the foot in it for extra protection, and secured the slip with a sock garter.

  He rose again, standing on his good foot, checked the chambers in the .38, and was working it in its holster onto his belt when a man came in wearing a white coat with a stethoscope draped around his neck. The man was young but balding and wore rimless glasses.

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Riding a bicycle. What’s it look like?” He pulled his coat on and took his hat from the top shelf of the cupboard.

  “You haven’t been discharged. You’re a sick man, Mr. Collins.”

  “Who are you, the ice cream man?”

  “I’m Dr. Bartlett.”

  “Well, Dr. Bartlett, I’ve had this foot as long as I’ve had the other. I think I know how to take care of it. My head too.”

  “Obviously not, or you wouldn’t need a hospital. But I’m talking about your other condition. You’re aware of it, of course?”

  “You mean the T.B.? Yeah. I caught it from a toilet seat.”

  “A man with your illness ought not to be jumping off trains.”

  “Did I say that’s what happened? I was in shock. I fell off the train. All the jumping I did was to get back on.”

  “Someone hit you, you said.”

  “I’m a writer. I’ve got a big imagination. This whole business was for research.” He put his hat on gingerly, at a tout’s angle because of the bandage. He patted his pockets. “I had a flask when I came in.”

  “I had it taken away. This is a place of healing, not a speakeasy. It will be returned to you when you’re discharged. You must get back into bed.”

  “Keep the flask. They grow on trees in this state. What do I owe you, Doc?” He found his wallet.

  “You can pay your bill in the lobby. When you’re discharged.”

  “Tell you what. I’ll toss you for it.” He took out the two-sided penny he’d gotten from the plumbing-fixture salesman.

  “Do I need to have you put in restraints?”

  He flipped the coin and put it away. “If I were you I wouldn’t.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Nope. Just giving you sound medical advice. You know Pete Durango?”

  “No.”

  “He used to run with Villa. Now he runs liquor up from Mexico and sells it here in Carson City. If the cops were to pay a visit downstairs and find a couple of dozen cases of Old Quezalcoatl marked Hydrogen Peroxide all packed up for shipping, this joint might run into a jam renewing its license. On the bright side, though, there’s more dough in liquor.”

  “Mister Collins—”

  “You don’t even need to buy a truck. I used to drive an ambulance. You got any idea how much inventory you can carry in one?”

  “How long are you prepared to go on in this vein?”

  “That’s up to you.”

  Bartlett’s tongue bulged a cheek. Finally he palmed the doorknob.

  “I’ll bring you a cane,” he said. “I can’t have you stumping around on that foot and risk infecting it.”

  “Thanks, Doc. Send my bill to Apartment six, one-twenty Ellis Street, San Francisco, in care of Dashiell Hammett.” He spelled the name. “He’s my business manager.”

  *

  He took a cab to the station, reclaimed his satchel from lost and found, and went into the bathroom to inspect the contents. The sympathetic driver he’d found in the taxi line had taken it from him and given it to a red cap; he couldn’t support an injured man and carry his luggage both. Lanyard hadn’t taken anything while Hammett was dangling off the train. Even his brass knuckles and the Mason jars filled with Siringo’s moonshine were there. He unscrewed one and took a swig. It probably wasn’t poisoned.

  “Maybe he still thinks I’m dead.”

  But the man who looked back at him from the mirror above the sink wore a doubtful expression.

  For the first time since before going to Beauty Ranch, he didn’t look for signs he was being tailed. Lanyard would hightail it back to Frisco whatever Hammett’s condition. He hadn’t bought the Montana dodge and would want to know what Siringo had been up to in his absence.

  Dashiell Hammett bought a ticket and sat on a bench, resting his bandaged foot on his satchel. His makings were in the pocket where he’d left them. He rolled a cigarette and waited for his train home.

  24

  The lobby of the Alexandria Hotel was all marble and mahogany with green fronds spilling up and over the sides of copper urns and the same snooty clerk who stood behind the front desk of every fancy hotel in town. Siringo approached him carrying a long white pasteboard box bound with red ribbon tied in a bow.

  “Roses for Mr. Joseph P. Kennedy,” he said, no brogue this time. He’d traded his bowler for a cloth cap he’d bought in a shop across the street from the florist’s and wore blue-tinted spectacles that masked the color of his eyes. He’d left his necktie, collar, and suit coat at the Golden West Hotel.

  The clerk took in his working-class attire. “Is he expecting them?”

  “I doubt it. Ain’t that the point?”

  “Leave them here. I’ll see he gets them.”

  “I’m supposed to deliver ’em in person.”

  The clerk sighed and went to the trouble of turning his head three inches to look at the key pegs. “He’s out at present. He didn’t say when he’d be back.”

  “Anybody in the room?”

  “His son, I believe. I’ll have to announce you.” He lifted the earpiece off a house phone.

  “Swell by me.”

  After a moment’s conversation in inaudible tones, the man hung up. “Suite thirty-two. Third floor.”

  “Okie-doke.”

  The elevator car, located behind bronze doors and a folding cage, was au
tomated, but operated nevertheless by a Negro in a pageboy uniform. They rode up on nearly silent pulleys and came to a gentle stop.

  The door to Suite 32 was opened by a boy wearing a smaller version of the suit Kennedy had worn in the Shamrock Club. He had his father’s firm jaw and spoke in an approximation of his broad Boston accent.

  “Who sent them?”

  “No card. Maybe he’s got a secret admirer.”

  “None of my father’s admirers keep their esteem secret.”

  He held out a receipt blank. “I need a signature.”

  “Come in. Put them down anywhere.”

  Siringo shut the door behind him, laid the box on a settee upholstered in green brocade, and followed the boy to a writing desk with a green leather top. The suite didn’t lack for green. The boy opened the belly drawer and took out a fountain pen. His visitor scanned the inside of the drawer: It contained blank hotel stationery, a San Francisco telephone directory, and a brass key of a type different from those he’d seen hanging on the peg behind the front desk.

  “You Joe Junior?” he asked as the boy was signing his name.

  “Joseph.”

  “I hear your father sets a lot of store by you. You’re about two feet shorter than I had pictured.”

  “I’m ten. What’s your excuse?”

  He stifled a grin. “He said you have a good head on your shoulders. I can see he didn’t exaggerate.”

  “Do you know my father?”

  “I seen him around, not that he’d remember me. He can’t help but make an impression.”

  “Here you are.”

  Siringo took the receipt. As the boy returned the pen to the drawer and pushed it shut, the visitor grimaced and clutched at his chest, grunting.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Ticker.” He fumbled a pill bottle out of his inside breast pocket. “Could I get a glass of water?”

  Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr., hastened through a door that opened on gleaming tile. Water ran. Siringo reached across the desk, opened the drawer, snatched the key, and stuck it in his pocket. He closed the drawer just as the boy came out of the bathroom carrying a full glass.

  Siringo indicated gratitude, put a pill in his mouth, and swallowed it with water. It was one of the aspirins he took to ease the pain in his bad leg.

  “I thought heart medicine went under the tongue.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, massaging his chest. At length he let out a gust of air and smiled weakly. “They’re handing out medical licenses early back East,” he said.

  “You’re all right now?”

  “Sound as a dollar.”

  “I wish I knew who sent the flowers. My father doesn’t like surprises.”

  “Who does?”

  “May I have your name, in case he asks?”

  “Peter Collins.”

  *

  In the lobby he stepped behind a potted plant and looked at the key. It was a simple cutout with a round tab and slightly worn wards. On one side, the initials HAC were engraved above the number 12. The other side contained the legend DO NOT COPY.

  A mahogany booth opposite the front desk contained a public telephone with a city directory on a shelf. He sat down on the leather-upholstered seat and thumbed through the H’s in the business section. Harriet’s Advice Counseling seemed less than promising, as did Hassim’s Arabian Caterers. Between them reposed, in medium type:

  HARVARD ATHLETIC CLUB

  Beside it was a telephone number and an address on Sacramento Street.

  Three blocks from the hotel he entered a hardware store, waited for a man to pay for his purchase at the counter, and handed the clerk the key. The clerk, a young man in a canvas apron, turned it over and frowned. “It says ‘do not copy.’”

  “This says ‘in God we trust.’” Siringo poked a folded five-dollar bill across the counter.

  The bill vanished. The clerk found a corresponding blank on a pegboard, inserted the original in one slot of his machine and the blank in another, and switched on the motor. It ground and threw a shower of sparks. When it finished, the clerk held both keys close to his eyes, drew a rattail file from a bouquet of them in a tin cup next to the cash register, and spent a few minutes filing the wards on the new key to conform to the worn edges of the original. He inspected them twice before he was satisfied, then blew off the shavings. “That’ll be two bits.”

  Siringo flipped a coin onto the counter. “Can I get an envelope to carry ’em in?”

  The clerk handed him a No. 10 and Siringo left.

  He returned to the Alexandria Hotel and Kennedy’s floor. As he stepped off the elevator, a maid in black-and-white livery emerged from another room to pluck a feather duster from a wheeled cart parked in the hall. He gave her the original key and a silver dollar to deliver towels to Suite 32, and while she was at it to drop the key in the top drawer of the desk when no one was looking. She looked doubtful, but bit the coin, nodded, and placed it and the key in an apron pocket.

  Around the corner he stepped aboard a cable car and rode it nearly to the top of Nob Hill, home of more houses with clusters of porches and gables, but all in far superior condition to the Sailors Rest, painted in rainbow colors, with carriage houses behind. One, larger than most, had the year 1851 engraved in the stone lintel above the front door, and the address he was looking for on a gatepost. It bore no other identification.

  A tall, white-haired porter whose Boston drawl made Joseph Senior and Junior sound like Midwesterners asked him in the entryway if he was a member. He shook his head and took out the envelope he’d gotten from the clerk in the hardware store. “I got a message for Mr. Kennedy. To be delivered in person.”

  The porter checked his registration book. “He’s not in, sir.”

  “Know when he’ll be back?”

  “I’m afraid not, but if you leave the message, I can assure you he’ll get it.”

  “Orders is orders. I’ll check back later.”

  There’d been a risk Kennedy was in; but his leaving the key behind had been a hopeful sign.

  Siringo took his time crossing the tessellated floor to the exit, and when he opened the door looked back. He saw only the top of the porter’s white head bent over the registration book, possibly recording the visit. He closed the door and hustled on rubber soles to the other side of the winding staircase that separated the man’s station from the rest of the room, found a door at the back, entered a narrow passage whose unpainted plaster told him it was used exclusively by staff, followed his nose past an open door belonging to a humid kitchen—moving fast to avoid attracting attention to a stranger—and came upon a plain staircase leading to the upper floors.

  Instinct told him the gymnasium would be on the top floor, which contained the most windows and offered the broadest view of the city. There he detected the bleachy smell of disinfectant, heard water splashing, and stepped through a door into a room that took up most of the top floor, with a naked man doing the Australian crawl in a tile-lined pool and two others in trunks and undershirts sparring in a boxing ring. In the mouth of a corridor to the right he spotted the first of a line of tin lockers with louvered doors secured with padlocks.

  He drew no interest from the swimmer or the boxers—both of whom, loose-bellied and shambling, were in no condition to fight professionally. It was always a wonder to him what lengths rich men would go to in order to make up for the exercise they didn’t get by avoiding honest work.

  Number 12 was indistinguishable from the locker on either side of it. He inserted the key he’d had made in the lock, cursed when it didn’t work right away, wiggled it. The lock sprang loose. He tugged open the door and looked at some empty clothes hangers on a rod and a black satchel on the floor of the locker.

  He lifted it out and set it on the long bench that ran down the center of the hallway for the out-of-shape athletes to sit on while they put on their socks and shoes. The satchel wasn’t locked. He unlatched it and pursed his lips when he saw the contents, pantomimi
ng a whistle.

  25

  “You look like a gigolo.”

  “I been called worse.”

  They were sitting in Siringo’s room in the Golden West, the guest smoking a pipe, Hammett a cigarette. They were drinking Siringo’s moonshine from hotel glasses.

  “Tastes better from the jar somehow,” Hammett said.

  “Get used to it. Once you been to Nob Hill, you can’t ever go back.”

  Hammett added the last slug of Scotch from his new flask, both secured in Sacramento.

  “I don’t trust a man who smokes a pipe,” he said. “You ask a question, he fiddles with it for five minutes before he gives you an answer, and then it’s usually wrong.”

  “I don’t trust a man who blows up orphanages.”

  “I haven’t blown one up all year. You think because you trimmed your moustache and put on different clothes it makes you invisible?”

  “Not to a Pinkerton; but we ain’t dealing with any, are we?” Siringo swallowed a slug of liquor. “You going to tell me what happened to your foot? You’re too young and skinny for gout.”

  Hammett looked at the bundle of bandages covered by a pillow slip. “I should change the dressing.” He told Siringo what had happened aboard the train.

  “What about the toilet salesman?”

  “I may have bought myself a day off Purgatory there, made an honest man out of a sow’s ear.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Me, too. Next time he’ll just refine his methods.”

  “How’s your head?”

  “I’m working on it.” Hammett took a long draught from his glass. “What about the other?”

  “It appears we miscalculated. Lanyard didn’t go for the bait.”

  “‘We’, nothing. It was your plan.”

  “I waited for you to come up with a better one, but then the train came and we ran out of time. Not that it was a total loss. We got him off our backs for a spell.”

  “He won’t wander long. We need to get out of Frisco.”

  “For once we see eye to eye. I been hankering for that Sonoma country. Reminds me of the desert country along La Jornada del Muerto.”

  “And it’s such a restful name. You going to tell me what you found out?”