She turned her head slowly and gave him a look.
Before Francis could decide what to do or say next, the stable hostler came gimping over. A crabbed man of indeterminate age, in filthy clothes, he gave the appearance that his entire body was in a permanent squint. "Ah, my good man," Francis said inaccurately. "We were hoping to rent a victoria for the day."
"And how about a Myrtle for tonight?" The hostler giggled, wheezed and hugged himself until he noticed Vangie looking at him; then he got surly and just stood there, squinting over his whole body. "Got no victoria," he said, and spat something brown into the mud.
"What do you have?" Francis asked. Years ago, he'd decided the only way to survive in this life was to pretend that everybody else was also civilized, no matter what they did. Sometimes the pretence was harder to maintain than at other times.
"What you see right there in front of you," the hostler said, and jabbed a thumb at the line of wagons along the fence.
Gabe joined them then and pointed to one of the wagons. "What's that?" he said.
Everybody looked at him. Nobody could figure out what question he was asking. Doubtfully, the hostler said, "It's for rent."
"I know. What's it called?"
The hostler squinted more than ever. "You havin' fun with me?"
Francis said gently, "Gabe, you're such a city person."
"Yeah, I've noticed that about me."
"It's called a buckboard."
"We could all three sit up on front there, couldn't we?"
"Yes, of course," Francis said. He frowned toward Vangie, wondering if she would accept a buckboard after he'd built her up to anticipate a much more elegant victoria. But her mulish expression hadn't changed at all, either for the better or the worse. "A buckboard," Francis said again, trying to sound enthusiastic. "Why, it might be a lot of fun at that."
"It'll get us there," Gabe said, and turned to deal with the hostler.
Once a swaybacked roan with a sty in its off eye had been attached to the buckboard and the squinting hostler had been dealt with in a financial way, Francis, Gabe and Vangie crowded together up onto the seat. Gabe said, "Okay. Who drives?"
Francis looked at him in astonishment. "Can't you?"
"I was never more than two blocks from the trolley line the first twenty-five years of my life," Gabe said. "What would I be doing driving one of these things?"
Francis swallowed. "Well," he said, "I must confess I've always considered myself too butter fingered to want to…"
"Oh, give me those," Vangie said in disgust, picking up the reins. "YYAAAAAAHHH!" she told the roan. "Giddap!"
The wagon bolted away with a jerk that almost flipped Francis off the seat.
***
The August sun on the Peninsula was hot, far too hot. Francis dragged his limp lace handkerchief over his face and regretted the moment of weakness in which he'd agreed to come out here. "I've only been to this awful hole in the ground twice in my life," he said. "I'm not sure I can find it again."
"Oh, you'll find it," Gabe said. Between them, Vangie held the reins and watched the roan and occasionally glanced around at the barren countryside. Her bad temper seemed to have worked itself out on the act of driving, much to Francis' relief, and though there hadn't been that much conversation on the ride out at least they'd all been friendly to one another.
But now there was the problem of finding the supposed mine. "But what if I can't find it?" Francis asked. "I'd hate to have brought us all out here for nothing."
"You'll find it," Gabe told him, "because we're gonna stay out here and look for it until you do."
The sun instantly became ten degrees hotter. "Uh," Francis said, and mopped his brow, and looked around harder for something to recognize.
They passed a place where some hopeful hardrocker had tried to strike it rich. Vangie said, "I didn't know anyone ever found any gold on the Peninsula. I thought it was all in the mountains across the Bay."
"Well they did find a few traces, apparently," Francis said. "But to my chagrin that's all they were. Traces."
"But there's a tunnel," Gabe said.
"Yes."
"Well that's all we need."
"For what?" Vangie asked.
"Just an idea I have," he said.
"It's still that craziness about the Mint, isn't it?"
"Could be," Gabe said easily. "What's wrong with that?"
"Only one thing," she said. "If you try anything anywhere near that Mint they'll catch you. If they don't kill you on the spot, they'll put you away somewhere until you've got a long grey beard. Or maybe they'll just fall all over you-ten or fifteen of those guards we saw up there-and by the time they get finished with you, your skin won't be worth tanning. That's what's wrong."
"Well," Gabe replied obscurely, "chicken today, feathers tomorrow." And he grinned at her.
It was all steep hills down the spine of the Peninsula here, stands of pine and redwood among the rocks. As they prowled farther into the morning and into the noon sun, Francis drooped lower and lower in the seat. He was afraid he'd missed the turnoff, and he didn't doubt that Gabe had meant what he'd said about keeping him out here until he found the mine. It looked like it was going to be a long dry spell… No. There it was, right ahead. He straightened up. "That little dirt track. Turn off the road there."
Vangie swung the buckboard expertly into the twin ruts and they went jouncing up into the trees. It was cool here in the shade and Francis began to feel somewhat less suicidal. "Just ahead now, on the left. There'll be another fork and we take the left one."
"Well I told you not to expect anything," he said defensively.
The place was nothing but a wide spot in the rocks and a man-sized hole in the hillside. The tunnel disappeared back into the mountain. Claim stakes stood at the corners of the claim; the previous owners' names had been scratched out and FRANCIS CALHOUN was printed conspicuously on each stake.
Gabe stood backed against a rock, thumbs hooked in his pockets, scowling, chewing a cigar, while Vangie fashioned a torch out of a broken branch and some twigs and grass. When she handed it to Gabe she smiled with mock-sweetness but Gabe ignored it, ducked into the tunnel, and lit the torch.
It had been a long and bumpy ride, coming out. "Excuse me," Francis said to Vangie and went off into the woods to commune with Nature.
When he returned he found Gabe and Vangie wrapped around each other as if they were the only survivors of a volcanic eruption. Francis rolled his eyes upward and said, by way of announcing his presence, "Have you two met?"
They broke apart, both showing their embarrassment in the hue of their cheeks. Gabe grumbled something and went prowling back into the mine. Vangie fidgeted with her hair; Francis tipped his shoulder against the buckboard and folded his arms across his chest. "Well?"
She shrugged, accepting no blame. "He likes the place."
"He does?"
"Francis, don't ask me. I don't know any more than you do."
"Well he does seem sure of himself, doesn't he. But frankly I was a little worried right from the start. I mean, he said he wanted my help. Now that does make one a bit dubious of his judgment, doesn't it? I mean, what do you suppose he wants me to do for him? Maim and disfigure people and kill the ones he doesn't like?"
"Well I imagine that's not exactly what he has in mind. Though God knows what he does have in his mind." She moved closer and dropped her voice to a confidential half whisper. "Francis, what was he like in the old days?"
"Gabe? You mean back in New York? Oh, he was about the same. He always talked a bigger brand of meanness than he owned. I mean, he's deliciously rough on the outside, isn't he, but underneath he's really very kind."
"Does he have a girl back there?"
"He usually did. I don't know about now. I hadn't seen him in years and years, you know."
She looked pensively toward the tunnel. "I don't know if I could like New York," she said.
Surprise on surprise. Francis looked at h
er and said, "Why on earth should you ever go there?"
She shrugged again, looking more like a lost orphan than usual. "I don't know," she said. "Gabe keeps saying he's going back there just as soon as he gets enough money."
"Back to New York? Whatever for?"
"He says it's the only place to live."
Francis' own memories of the Big Apple were less delicious. "After seeing San Francisco?" he said, astonished.
"He says San Francisco is a lumpy Newark."
"And you'd actually go with him?"
"I don't know," she said. Her brow was as furrowed as the hillside. "I wouldn't want to, but I guess if he asked me I'd go, yes."
"Oh, I can't lose you both," Francis said. "We'll just have to convince Gabe to change his mind."
She looked hopeful. "Do you think we can?"
"We can only try."
She clasped his hand in both of hers. "Francis," she said, "I'm glad you're on my side."
His heart full, Francis told her the simple truth: "You're my dearest friends," he said.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Gabe stood outside the Mint. He had been standing there for hours in the fog, watching.
About eleven in the morning the fog burned off. He shifted his weight to the other foot.
A little past noon Vangie brought him his lunch in a paper bag. He ate mechanically, watching the Mint, totally self-absorbed.
At one-fifteen there was an alarm of bells, and Gabe stepped back into a doorway. Fire horses careened into the street, and the great red fire engine went thundering through the city.
It went downstreet toward the waterfront. Up over the lower rise and then on toward Pacific Street. From his hilltop vantage point Gabe watched narrowly, thoughtfully.
At half-past three he was still standing there when he saw McCorkle, the tall red-haired cop, staring at him dubiously from across the street. McCorkle took a huge notebook out of his hip pocket, jotted something down, and then went on around the corner out of sight.
At five Gabe headed downhill.
Five-oh-three, another fire alarm. He got off the street. The fire-engine went past with an earsplitting noise-flash of white, flash of red.
Down below near the foot of the hill, two figures stood out in isolated silhouette because they were the only two people still on the street. Gabe narrowed his eyes to pierce the five-block downhill distance. Finally he recognized the two figures.
It was Ittzy Herz's mother dragging Ittzy across the street by the ear.
Mme. Herz was talking. Evidently she was talking so loudly that she didn't hear the fire engine.
It filled Gabe's vision, blocking Mme. and Ittzy from his view. The fire engine was obviously going to trample them both.
But then the dust began to settle in the engine's wake and Ittzy and his mother were still walking across the street, unperturbed; Mrs. Herz continued to drag Ittzy by the ear and yell at him.
Gabe shook his head in renewed amazement and went on down to the Golden Rule Saloon.
Inside, Vangie and Francis were at the usual table-the one just big enough for three glasses and six elbows. Gabe threaded a path to them and sat.
They were having coffee and Francis was complaining about it. "They brew it up six weeks in advance and pour some molasses in and, my dears, they simply let it sit. And then they drop a horse-shoe into it, and if the horse-shoe sinks the coffee isn't strong enough."
Gabe adjusted his elbows on the table. "What do you expect from this burg? Real coffee?"
Vangie put on her arch look. "And just what's wrong with this burg?"
"It's too far from New York."
"Will you forget New York?"
"No."
Vangie turned to Francis, who was touching the surface of his coffee with a doubting fingertip. "Francis," she said, "you used to live in New York. You like San Francisco better, don't you?"
Francis looked up. "Well, I do, yes, I suppose," he said. He licked coffee from his fingertip, made a face, and gave Gabe a quick worried look. His brow furrowed in his obvious effort to please everybody. "But different people are, uh, well, different. Gabe might rather…"
"Gabe," Vangie interrupted fiercely, "could do just fine in San Francisco. He could make a million dollars here."
"Yeah," Gabe said. "That's just what I'm going to do. I want to talk to you about that, Francis."
But Vangie wouldn't let the conversation be changed. "This is a city of great opportunity," she said, leaning closer to Gabe and holding tight to his forearm on the table. "A man with your brains, Gabe, why, you could own this city if you wanted."
"I don't want."
"But…"
Gabe made one more effort to get his point across. "The city I want to own," he said, "is New York. All I want from this burg is enough cash money so I can go back to New York in style."
Francis said, "Why did Twill throw… that is, why did you have to leave?"
"Aagh," Gabe said in disgust, "the fat son of a bitch said the neighborhood needed a little shaking up. Said they were forgetting who the boss was, some of them. So I had to go out and shake things up a little. Or down."
"Down?" Vangie said.
"I shook somebody down. A pushcart peddler. I mean, you got to keep these people in their places, otherwise they start thinking maybe you're not as tough as you say you are."
Francis said, "So you shook down a pushcart peddler. What did you do to him?"
"Hardly a thing. I just looked fierce and took a little kick-back from him for allowing him the privilege of working on Twill's turf."
"Well what went wrong then?"
Gabe threw up his hands. "How was I to know he was the wrong peddler to push? How was I to know his nephew was one of Twill's ward bosses? The guy had no right pushing a cart. I mean if he was my dear old uncle and I was the ward boss, would I let him push a crummy cart around the streets? I ask you."
"And so this ward boss complained to Twill?"
"Complained? I guess maybe he complained. He wanted them to dump me off a pier."
"But one gathers they didn't."
Gabe let his lip curl. "This ward boss wasn't as high as me on the neighborhood ladder."
"Then why'd Twill listen to him at all?"
"Because the ward boss's sister is Twill's mother-in-law." Gabe shuddered. "Mother-in-law." He turned swiftly to Vangie. "Listen, you haven't got a mother hidden out somewhere around here, have you? Because if you do, the whole…"
"She died when I was nine," Vangie said.
Gabe gulped. "Oh, hey, listen Vangie, I'm sorry, I didn't mean… I just got kind of carried away. I mean…"
"Never mind. It's all right." She patted his hand. Then she stiffened. "What about your mother?"
He darkened immediately. "Are you trying to besmirch my good mother's sainted memory?"
"I'm sure I'd have loved her," Vangie said soothingly. "She has… passed on, then?"
"Yeah," he grunted, then he gave her a suspicious look, but she was smiling guilelessly.
Francis said, "So Twill told you to leave town because his mother-in-law was angry with you."
"Yeah." Gabe made a fist. "It wouldn't have happened if I hadn't been broke at the time."
Vangie said, "Why not?"
Gabe glowered at the tabletop. "Listen, you can buy a lot of smiles with money. If I'd only had a few thousand dollars to grease the right people I'd still be running that neighborhood. Instead of out here in the sticks. But I'm gonna get enough money out of this burg to fix all that. A man with a million dollars doesn't have enemies. Not even mother-in-law enemies."
Francis said, "A million dollars?"
"What do you think they keep up there at the Mint? Chicken feed?"
"You don't really think you can… The Mint?"
Gabe leaned forward earnestly. "Kid, you know me from the old days. Now if Gabe Beauchamps says he's going to do a thing, does he do it?"
Francis beamed. "He does. He certainly does."
Va
ngie turned angrily on Francis. "You… double-crosser!"
"What?"
"What do you mean agreeing with him? You can't possibly agree with him. Nobody on earth could rob the United States Mint."
"Well, I don't know, Vangie," Francis said. He was in the middle again. "If anybody could do it," he said, "I guess Gabe would be the one."
"But nobody can," she insisted.
Gabe had heard enough of this. "I can," he growled.
Francis looked from Vangie to Gabe, from Gabe to Vangie, and from Vangie to Gabe again. His mouth opened a few times, but he didn't say anything.
Gabe finally took the poor fish off the hook. "Don't worry about it, Francis," he said. "Vangie just feels protective toward me, that's all."
"I suppose that's it," Francis said, giving them both a shaky grin.
"Though I don't know why I should," Vangie said, glowering at the table at large.
Gabe grinned at her. She was a feisty little thing and that was a lot of her charm. He could put up with a certain amount of disagreement, just so she didn't overdo it. "That's okay, honey," he said. "You make me think things over an extra time, and that's good."
"It would be," she said, "if it would ever change your mind."
He grinned again, patted her hand, and turned back to Francis. "I told you," he said, "there's room in this for you, if you want in."
Francis looked interested. "Do you know how you're going to do it?"
"I've got my idea pretty well worked out," Gabe said.
Vangie said, "Francis, do you want to go to jail?"
Which put Francis in the middle again. "Well," he said, and moved his hands around.
This time he was saved by a tremendous crash. Gabe was almost inured to spectacular noises around here by now but this one was so close it almost knocked him off his chair. He whipped around, ready to duck, run, or fight, and at first saw nothing but a thick cloud of dust in the middle of the saloon. But then he made out what had happened.
It was the main chandelier, which must have weighed half a ton, all heavy crystal and pewter. It had fallen to the floor as though going to China the quick way. Smoke, dust, and debris filled the air in a big billowing cloud; the echoes of the crash rang back and forth like mission bells in a thunderstorm.
Gangway! Page 8
