J.A. Johnstone - The Loner - Crossfire

Conrad had a feeling it was going to be a good long while before he made it to the hotel for that rest and relaxation Turnbuckle had urged him to take.

Conrad and Turnbuckle finally reached the hotel long after midnight. They had spent a couple hours at police headquarters, being questioned separately and together by several different detectives on the San Francisco force. The detectives were suspicious, and Conrad knew they didn’t fully believe Turnbuckle’s story about how the attack must have been an attempted robbery.

On the other hand, the carriage had been an expensive one before it was wrecked, Turnbuckle was a well-to-do attorney, and Conrad was a highly successful businessman. It was possible they had been tempting targets for a gang of thieves.

Conrad knew it wasn’t actually what had happened, of course, but he didn’t admit that to the police. He had sensed all along that bringing the authorities in on his search for his missing children would be a mistake. To Pamela’s warped mind, the whole thing had been a game, and instinct told him if he didn’t play by her rules, he would regret it.

The police were taking the incident seriously.

Nine men were dead: the six bodyguards Turnbuckle had hired, and two strangers, who must have been members of the gang, and the driver. If the detectives knew the names of those men and who they associated with, they weren’t sharing that information with Conrad and Turnbuckle.

When the two of them were told they were free to go at last, Turnbuckle accompanied Conrad to the hotel. Conrad’s bags, which had been brought separately to the hotel, had arrived safely.

When they reached Conrad’s suite, they found a bottle of brandy waiting for them, ordered earlier by Turnbuckle. Conrad poured drinks, then told the lawyer, “I want you to see to it that the families of the bodyguards who were killed tonight are taken care of. I’ll pay for all the funeral expenses, and the families shouldn’t be hurting for money for a while, either.”

Turnbuckle nodded. “I’ll make sure of it. I would have, anyway, even if you hadn’t said anything. They were working for me, on your behalf.”

“Exactly.” Conrad sipped the brandy. “Do you have any sources of information inside the police department?”

“Perhaps,” Turnbuckle replied with a lawyer’s habitual non-committal caution.

“Maybe you can find out the identities of those gunmen who were killed. Knowing who they were and where they spent their time, might lead us to whoever hired them.”

“The same thought crossed my mind. I’ll have our investigators look into that, as well as continuing the search for the Golden Gate and D.L.”

“All right,” Conrad said. “If I think of anything else, I’ll be in touch.”

“And if we find out anything, I’ll let you know immediately.”

“Claudius ... I’m sorry my troubles have put you in danger again.” Several months earlier, Turnbuckle had been wounded by a gunman hired by one of Conrad’s enemies, as part of the ongoing plot against him.

Turnbuckle waved a hand. “Think nothing of it. Since we’ve started representing the interests of you and your father, there’s been more excitement in my life than ever before.”

“Not necessarily the sort of excitement you might want, though,” Conrad pointed out.

“Speaking of your father,” Turnbuckle said, “have you thought about getting in touch with him to see if he could help you with your search?”

Conrad frowned. “You know where Frank is?”

“Well, not exactly. I could probably locate him, though, if I set out to do so. The last I heard, he was in Alaska.”

“Alaska?” Conrad repeated with a smile. “That sounds like Frank. Always wandering.”

“They don’t call him The Drifter for nothing.” Turnbuckle paused. “What about it? Do you want me to try to find him?”

Conrad shook his head. “No, this is my problem, not Frank’s.”

“He’s always been glad to help before. And those children are his grandson and granddaughter, after all.”

Conrad tossed back the rest of his drink and set the empty snifter on an expensive, hand-carved sideboard. “No.”

“Very well. It’s up to you, certainly.” Turnbuckle finished his drink. “I should be going and let you get some rest. I’m glad we both survived the night.”

Conrad nodded. Surviving was generally a good thing ... although there had been a time when he wished more than anything in the world that he had died along with Rebel, so he wouldn’t have to live without her.

Once Turnbuckle was gone, Conrad stripped off the clothes that stunk of stale beer and tossed them on the floor. The hotel staff could clean them or burn them or whatever they wanted to do. He washed up, then fell onto the soft, luxurious four-poster bed in the elaborately decorated bedroom.

Despite his weariness, sleep didn’t come easily to him. He thought about everything that had happened, and something occurred to him. He got up and padded over to the clothes he had discarded. From a pocket in the trousers he took the little object he had picked up from the street next to the beer wagon.

It was round, about the size and shape of a silver dollar, but it was lighter because it wasn’t made from metal but rather carved from what appeared to be ivory. The thing reminded Conrad of a poker chip, but it was bigger than most poker chips he’d seen, and it had a picture carved in relief on it. It might be an identification token, he decided as he turned it to get a better look in the light from the gas lamp he had turned on. Something a man might flash to gain entrance to a place, or to identify himself to others who might not know him otherwise.

He realized almost instantly the scene depicted on the item was a familiar one. Two points of land extended toward each other, with a wide stretch of water between them. Conrad had been to that place on numerous occasions, and he had ridden a ferry from one side of that strait to the other. His heart began to beat faster as he took in the implication of what he held in his hand.

He was looking at a representation of the Golden Gate.

Chapter 9

Turnbuckle arrived at the hotel the next morning while Conrad was having breakfast, which a waiter had delivered and served in the sitting room of his suite. The lawyer looked tired, which was not surprising considering his age and the fact that he had gotten only a few hours sleep.

He had news to report. He took the cup of coffee Conrad offered him and said, “I’ve been in touch with one of those sources inside the police department you mentioned. One of those would-be assassins killed last night was named Floyd Hambrick. He was a known criminal suspected of a number of killings along the Barbary Coast. His grandfather was a Sydney Duck.”

Conrad raised his eyebrows to indicate he didn’t understand the reference.

“That was a gang of Australian criminals who dominated the San Francisco underworld back in the fifties, in the days after the Gold Rush,” Turnbuckle explained. “A lot of them were hanged by the Committee of Vigilance, but some survived, and even married and had children and grandchildren. In Hambrick’s case, evidently the proverbial apple didn’t fall far from the proverbial tree.”

“Have the police been able to tie this fella Hambrick in with anybody else?” Conrad asked.

Turnbuckle shook his head. “Not so far. I suspect it may not be a very productive lead. Hambrick, and no doubt the other two men, were simply hired assassins, the sort who would kill anyone if the price was right.”

Conrad sipped his coffee and nodded. It wouldn’t be the first time such men had come after him since he’d started his search for the twins. Someone was always masterminding those efforts, though, someone who had been paid off directly by Pamela while she was still alive. He was confident that would turn out to be the case.