by Len Levinson
Stone came to a corner, saw the carriage parked in front of the Comstock Saloon.
A crowd of rogues and villains congregated in front. He headed toward the front door, ready for the inevitable fight, when Muggs jumped in his path and barked angrily. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
Muggs walked toward the alley, looked back at Stone as if to say ‘follow me.’
Stone strolled toward the alley. Five men shot dice in the light of a candle. An old prostitute with garish cosmetics embraced a man with a deformed leg. Stone came to the backyard, which held piles of trash and a shed falling apart. Muggs stood beside a door to the main building and performed a nervous little dance.
So that's where she went Stone twisted the knob. Locked. The Comstock was downstairs, residences on the upper floors, a few lights on. A ladder was affixed to the building, a tree close by, branches touching the walls. If I climb the tree, might see in the windows? They'll throw me in jail for a Peeping Tom.
He heard footsteps coming down the stairs. The door opened, two men emerged, cigarettes dangling from their lips. Stone held his head down so they couldn’t see his face as he entered the building. Their footsteps receded. Stone climbed stairs illuminated by one dim flickering lamp. He walked along the second floor, trying to catch a hint of her perfume. At the end of the hall, he heard two men arguing in barely decipherable whiskey-slurred tones.
He came to another door. No sign of Phyllis Redpath. On the third floor, more silence. He prowled the hallway like a panther. The faint sound of her voice came to him from the far end of the hall.
He moved toward it eagerly, pulled his guns. If the bastard lays a hand on her, I'll kill him. He paused beside the door and listened to Phyllis Redpath’s shrill voice.
‘I haven’t seen you for a week!’ Her high heels paced back and forth anxiously. ‘Please don’t send me away!’
A low gruff masculine voice came through the door. ‘Did you bring the money?’
A ray of light shot through the keyhole. Stone looked both ways, then dropped to one knee. Phyllis Redpath, in pink blouse and purple skirt, placed money on a dresser. A muscled tattooed man with a scar across his cheek picked it up. Phyllis Redpath stared at him hungrily.
‘Please, Tommy,’ she said, an expression of misery on her face.
‘Take off your clothes.’
She removed her blouse and skirt. Her body emerged, impossibly long neck, lean and strong, but covered with bruises and scars. She stood naked and stared brazenly below his belt.
He grabbed her by the throat and threw her onto the bed. She landed and bounced, eyes glittering with fear and sexual excitement. He undressed quickly. ‘Get on your back, and don’t give me no back talk. I ain’t in the mood.’ He grabbed her roughly. Stone felt nauseated, his beautiful golden goddess ravaged by an ugly vicious barbarian. Tommy showed no compassion or tenderness, he took her harshly, she cried in pain, or was it joy?
Stone couldn’t watch anymore. Respiration became difficult, his forehead dotted with perspiration. A door opened down the ball He ducked into the shadows. A man walked to the stairs. Phyllis Redpath’s voice penetrated the door. ‘More!’
Stone thought his skull would split open. Why'd I come here? This woman is crazy. He heard Tommy’s voice. ‘You never get enough, you little bitch. I’ll show you.’
Stone heard a slap, followed by a shriek. Break down the door. But she came here of her own free will. His lungs emptied. She loved the man who beat her. He wanted to die. Dizzy squiggles before his eyes, he had to get out of there.
‘More!’ she begged.
The whip came down. Stone fled to the stairs, descended five at a time, nearly broke his neck. He exploded out the back door and saw Muggs standing before him, wagging his tail. Where next, boss?
Stone didn’t know what to do, didn’t care what happened to him. He stumbled toward the street. The faint sound of her voice came to him. ‘More!’
He reached a sidewalk crowded with dangerous characters armed with knives, guns, blackjacks, brass knuckles, ready for anything, a volatile mixture about to detonate. He made his way to the front door of the Comstock Saloon and threw it open. Packed to the rafters with the refuse of seven continents. So dark he could barely see. The bartender looked like a child murderer, had a knife tattooed on the back of his hand.
‘Whiskey,’ said Stone.
The bartender filled the glass and pushed it forward, a perpetual frown on his face and a scar on his nose.
‘Who lives above this saloon?’ Stone asked.
‘What you wanna know fer?’
‘Who’s Tommy?’
The bartender turned away, ignoring Sterne’s question. Stone swallowed his whiskey and waited for the kick, but it was never as good the second tune around. He recalled Phyllis in bed with Tommy. It hurt like a dagger through his heart. Upstairs at that very moment. I can’t handle this. He charged Custer’s Wolverines at Gettysburg and never faltered a moment, but the thought of Phyllis Redpath taken by that Neanderthal was too much. Light-headed, crazy, jangled, Stone slammed his glass on the bar.
‘Hit me again,’ he said to the bartender.
The bartender approached, bottle in hand. Stone felt a desperate need to do something outlandish, to take his mind off the golden goddess. The bartender poured, Stone reached forward and grabbed a fistful of his shirt. ‘Don’t you ever turn your back on me again.’
The bartender glanced to the side. Stone followed his gaze to two big bouncers, one wearing a black leather vest, the other a necklace of bear teeth.
‘What’s the problem here?’ asked leather vest malevolently.
‘None of your business,’ Stone replied with equal ill will.
Bear teeth pointed toward the door. ‘Get the fuck out.’
‘I’ll leave when I’m ready.’
Both bouncers charged, and Stone plowed into them head down. He absorbed a solid punch to the jaw, then landed his fist on bear teeth’s nose, flattening it. Blood squirted in all directions, and bear teeth flew backward, as black vest ripped a hook to Stone’s ear, knocking him to the side.
Stone recovered quickly, ducked a right cross, and leaned backward, to sucker black vest in. The bouncer fell for the trick, rushing forward for the kill, and Stone threw his favorite punch, the uppercut.
It landed flush, and black vest’s head snapped upward. Stone buried his fist into black vest’s stomach, and when black vest lowered his elbows to protect that vital area, Stone hooked a solid right to his head.
Black vest went flying across the room, his head crashing into the upright piano. Somebody jumped on Stone’s back. Stone grabbed his arm, lurched downward, threw him over his shoulder. The assailant sailed over the bar and crashed into rows of bottles.
Stone dived toward the door. Somebody cracked him over the head with a chair, but he kept going. A knife flashed before his eyes, he grabbed the proffered wrist, pulled, elbowed his attacker in the chops. The attacker leaned backward at an impossible angle and hit the floor. Somebody opened the door, Stone dived through the opening.
He ran over the sidewalk, cut into the first alley, jumped over a sleeping man, landed in the backyard. Something made him turn around. His eyes fell on the building where Phyllis Redpath lay. The light shone in the window. The image of her in bed with Tommy dropped him to his knees. Why, God? He felt like crying. She prefers him to me. He couldn’t comprehend it. Is she crazy?
He recalled her cautious manner on the night they met. Like a frightened gazelle. Something strange and mysterious in her eyes. The prettiest smile, wonderful white teeth.
I’d better get out of here. He ran to the next alley, but couldn’t escape demons with claws in his mind. He shrieked at the top of his lungs, his voice merging with pianos and laughter, another fierce loveless night on the Barbary Coast.
~*~
Amanda lay naked under the covers and stared at the murky ceiling of Frankie Bendigo’s room. Paint peeled in thick curls, like slices of cheese in the
light of a lamp flickering dimly on the wall. A thick layer of dust everywhere. Their clothes strewn on the floor.
She tried to make sense of what happened. A strange contemptible man made love to her greedily and stupidly, thinking himself a great lothario, and she pretended passion like a consummate actress.
A world of difference when you care for somebody. Frankie Bendigo never aroused her a moment. She let herself loose just enough to do the job, but not a whit more. She derived no pleasure save in the thought that soon she’d dip her fingers in the blood of the man who killed her husband.
She turned to Frankie Bendigo lying on the pillow beside her. He had the deep-lined features of one who suffered much. But he was the lowest of the low. Any man who’d do what he’d done deserved to die.
She toyed with the idea of killing him as fatigue overtook her. The image of her Smith & Wesson floated on the ceiling as she faded into the black folds of night.
~*~
A few well-dressed drunkards played poker in the lobby of the Versailles Hotel, but could barely read their cards. At the bar, Stone leaned on his elbow and said, ‘I’d like to buy a bottle.’
The bartender placed it before him. Muggs waited on the doorstep. Stone weaved drunkenly, flailing his arms. He thought of Phyllis Redpath in Tommy’s arms, grabbed the cork in his teeth, spat it out. Then he raised the bottle and swallowed three times in rapid succession. Whiskey burned like acid in his stomach. He burped and his head swam. Muggs barked disapprovingly.
‘My faithful hound,’ Stone muttered drunkenly. He dropped to his knees before the animal and looked into his ugly face. A few months ago, horseless on the plains, nearly dead of thirst, Stone killed a lobo and drank his blood. Now he was brother creature to Muggs. He patted the animal’s helmet like skull. ‘You’re a good dog. Don’t think I don’t know it.’
They rose through the starlit night and came to Rosie’s rooming house. Muggs crawled underneath the porch while Stone entered the parlor and climbed the stairs. He found the door to his room, twisted the key in the lock, pushed.
The barrel of a six-gun touched his nose. ‘Figured you was a crook,’ said Slim, dressed in his long underwear.
Stone staggered into the room, unable to speak. Without removing hat or boots, he collapsed onto the bed and dropped into deep snoring slumber.
~*~
Frankie Bendigo gazed at Amanda LaFollette’s profile silhouetted by the lamp on the dresser. He smiled, remembering their lovemaking. A hot tomato beneath her fine manners. She'll never forget me. Probably come back for more.
He recalled the big bumbling cowboy. An easy job. I could beat Randy LaFollette on the best day of his life. He steered his eyes toward the swell of Amanda’s breasts beneath the blankets. The one on the left had a sucker bite, something to remember him by. Too much woman for Randy LaFollette, but just right fer me. Didn’t think she’d go through with it. Frankie Bendigo rolled onto his side and closed his eyes. He felt tired deep in his bones.
~*~
Two matched black horses pulled a carriage with bronze crests on the doom over deserted misty streets of the big city. The witching hour before dawn, even the great whores lay asleep in their opulent boudoirs, entwined in silk gowns and lazy erotic dreams.
The driver sat on his seat, reins wrapped around knobby knuckles. Next to him sat the brawny shotgun guard, finger wrapped around his trigger, ready to protect his precious cargo.
Horses’ hooves pounded against muddy streets, masking soft sobs within the brocade-shuttered chamber. The golden goddess sat in the darkness, shoulders bait and quaking as she wept into a handkerchief. She sounded like a lost child.
Chapter Eight
John Stone opened his eyes. He was fully dressed on a bed in a dark room. I've got to stop drinking. He took out a match, scratched it chi the floor, identified the room at Miss Rosie Donahue’s on Russian Hill in Frisco. What day is it?
He reached for his bottle of whiskey. Then he lit the lamp. The other bed was empty, dirty clothes on the floor. He felt starved. He stripped off his shirt, poured water from pitcher to basin, and washed. The golden glow of the lamp illuminated saber scars and old bullet holes on his muscular torso. He combed his thick dark blond hair, donned his one remaining clean shirt, black, double yoke shoulders to keep dampness away. Around his neck he tied a red and white cotton bandanna, wiped dirt and muck from his knives, reinserted them into his boots.
Then he checked the Colts. Barrels clear, but needed cleaning. Maybe after breakfast He checked the loads and made sure every slot in his gunbelt held lead. Slipchuck waited at the bottom of the stairs.
‘What day is it?’ asked Stone.
‘You ain’t goin’ out alone. Better wait fill I get dressed.’
‘Meet you at the first saloon.’ Stone reeled out the door. The image of Phyllis and Tommy burst into his mind. A stake rammed through his heart.
~*~
Frankie Bendigo sat at the table in his room, cleaning his Remington! He closed one eye and peered down the barrel. Not a drop of dust. He reassembled the parts, whirred the chandler in the stillness of the room.
Amanda sat on a chair in the far corner, observing him carefully. Frankie Bendigo, cold and all business, adjusted his gunbelt so the Colt would be perfect distance from his hand. Then he stood in front of the full-length mirror. One moment still, hands in the air, the next moment the Colt aimed at the center of his chest. A drunken cowboy fool will bite the dust tonight in Frisco town.
~*~
John Stone walked through the front door of the Green Lantern Saloon. He spotted a waitress in a low-cut blouse that exposed most of her abundant breastworks.
‘Bring me a steak dinner with all the trimmings, and put it on that table over there.’
She headed for the kitchen at the rear of the saloon. Stone sat at the table and pushed up the brim of his old Confederate cavalry hat. A fight broke out between two men at the end of the bar. Their friends piled on. Somebody pulled a knife. A bottle flew through the air, spilling whiskey on John Stone. The bartender hollered for the police. Somebody fired a gun.
A miner screamed as a blade ripped across his stomach. A coal-shoveler punched a hoodlum in the mouth, and the hoodlum stumbled backward across the floor, failing onto Stone’s table. Stone bumped into a brawny man wielding the leg of a chair.
Brawny swung the leg at Stone’s head. Stone ducked, the leg whistled above his hat A man in a cheap black suit jumped in front of Stone. Another punched Stone from behind. Stone staggered for a moment, wide open. Black suit rushed forward and whacked him squarely in the mouth.
Stone’s knees buckled. He thought himself in a boxing match, tried to give lateral movement and clear out the cobwebs, when somebody hit him over the head with a bottle of whiskey.
The liquid splattered in all directions. Stone sagged to the side and fell onto a table coveted with poker chips. The table tilted and he rolled to the door. He opened his eyes and saw a boot zooming toward his nose. Spinning out suddenly, he bounded to his feet. The room whirled like a carousel. Where's the back door?
Bodies writhed in mortal combat everywhere. A miner was thrown through a window, splinters of glass flew in all directions. Stone towered his head and charged toward the door. A fist came flying through the night and landed on his right cheek. Stunned, he managed to lurch forward and grab the knob. He expected to land outside, but instead found himself in the kitchen. An old Chinese man stood in front of the stove, strange oriental hatchet in his hand. ‘You come near me, I cut your fuckin’ throat!’
Stone raised his hands in a gesture of peace. ‘All I want is something to eat. I can pay.’ He leached into his pocket and removed money.
‘One dollar.’
Stone flipped him the coin. The cook dug a long fork into a frying pan, came out with an enormous steak, threw it at Stone. Stone caught it in midair, but it was so hot he nearly dropped it. The cold night air hit him, his face stung from cuts and bruises. Gnawing the steak, he he
aded for 131 Ashford Street. I look like hell, but at least it’s the real me she’ll see.
~*~
Muggs sat across the street from the Green Lantern Saloon, watching the brawl through the open door and broken windows. He couldn’t figure it out. Dozing in a darkened doorway, suddenly the world went wild.
His boss somewhere in the middle of it, Muggs whined nervously. His tail swung from side to side, he licked his chops, wondered if a female got them started. He raised his floppy ears in alarm as two men burst through the front window, clawing at each other’s throats.
~*~
‘Where the hell you a-goin’?’ asked Rosie.
Slipchuck stood in the vestibule, attired in cowboy clothes and new boots with spurs, ‘Me and Johnny got things to do.’
‘You’ll git yer ass shot off.’
‘I need to be in the wide open like a man, and if you was the woman you used to be, you’d come with me to. Texas. We could git a ranch, Johnny be ramrod, I’d be segundo. Now that’s a life I could git excited about, but I don’t want ter be the nice ole feller what brings salesmen and railroad conductors clean towels in the mornin’.’
He left the hotel. A man dressed in black pants, white shirt, black vest, and hat with silver disks walked toward him, accompanied by a young woman in mourning, black veil covering her face.
The man said, ‘We’re lookin’ fer John Stone.’
‘Friends of his?’
‘I’m Frankie and this is Amanda. Where is he?’
‘I planned to look fer ’im in the saloons.’
‘Mind if we come along?’
‘Where you know Johnny from?’
‘Our paths crossed.’
Slipchuck took stock of Frankie. Gunfighter. ‘You in the war with ’im? He’s always runnin’ into fellers he knew in the old days.’
‘Yes, the war. Known him long?’
‘’bout six months.’
Amanda smiled. ‘Then you were in Lodestone.’
‘I know what you’re a-gonna ask me,’ Slipchuck said. ‘’Bout the night he shot Randy LaFollette.’
