J.A. Johnstone - The Loner - Crossfire

After a moment, the follower emerged from the alley and crossed the street as well, moving so swiftly and silently despite its size anyone watching might have taken it for a trick of the eyes, not something real and substantial.

The figure entered the other alley and the darkness swallowed it completely again, as if it had never been there.

Chapter 10

The area known as the Barbary Coast had grown up during the turbulent days following the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill, when Argonauts by the hundreds of thousands poured into San Francisco and used it as a jumping-off point in their quest for riches. Some of them decided to stay instead of heading for the goldfields, some came back when they abandoned their dreams of finding a fortune, and many of those who were lucky enough to strike it rich returned to San Francisco intent on spending some of their newfound wealth.

Naturally, there were plenty of tinhorns, whores, and bartenders willing to take that money from them.

Gambling dens sprang up around the old Spanish plaza known as Portsmouth Square. Houses of prostitution spread along the waterfront. A man could get a drink in any of them, or in scores of other saloons, taverns, and dives.

The atmosphere in those places ranged from high-toned and luxurious to downright squalid, and sometimes you could find examples of both in the same block along Clay, Kearny, Pacific, and Grant Streets. The boundaries of the rather nebulous area people called the Barbary Coast drifted here and there with time and according to the vigilance of the local law enforcement agencies, but the core of its existence remained the same, the twin titans of Lust and Greed. They made up the foundation upon which the Barbary Coast was built.

That was where Conrad was headed. A damp chill hung in the air along the bay, and tendrils of fog crept up from the water and curled through the streets.

The only time Conrad had visited the Barbary Coast was when he was a much younger man, still in college. He and some of his wealthy classmates from back east were in San Francisco on a lark, and naturally they wanted to see the lurid denizens of the notorious area and sow some wild oats.

In those days, Conrad had been as arrogant and obnoxious as his companions, so he had gone along willingly on the expedition. They had caroused and whored all night, and they had been extremely lucky they hadn’t wound up shanghaied, bleeding and robbed in some alley, or wasting away from some pustulent disease. He had heard it said that God looks after drunkards and fools, and he and his friends had fit into both categories.

Now, of course, things were totally different.

Time and tragedy had humbled him, stripped away most of the arrogance and pretense. But he remembered how to get to the Barbary Coast, and a short time after slipping out of the Palace Hotel, he entered a saloon called the Bella Grande, which didn’t live up to its name at all. Conrad kept his eyes down and moved in a somewhat furtive manner, but in reality he was keenly studying everything around him.

He made his way across the crowded, smoky room to the bar and slid a dime onto the hardwood. “A schooner of beer,” he told the man in the dirty apron who came to take his order.

The bartender tapped the bar next to the dime. “I’ll need another of those, and a nickel besides.”

“Two bits for a schooner of beer?” Conrad protested. “What is this place, the damn Palace?”

“It’s the goin’ rate, friend,” the bartender said. “You must’ve been at sea a long time if you didn’t know that.”

Conrad shrugged, picked up the dime, and pawed around in a handful of coins he pulled from his pocket. The ivory Golden Gate token was among them. The bartender couldn’t help but see it, but he didn’t react in any way as far as Conrad could tell. The man scooped up the twentyfive-cent coin Conrad dropped on the bar and drew the beer from a big keg. He used a paddle to cut off the head and slid the big glass in front of Conrad.

“Seen Floyd around tonight?” Conrad asked.

“Floyd who?”

“Hambrick. Floyd Hambrick.”

The bartender frowned and shook his head. “Don’t believe I know the gent.”

“Sure you do. He said he always drinks here.”

“Maybe he does, but I don’t know him by name, mister. What’s he look like?”

Conrad didn’t have Hambrick’s description. Turnbuckle’s source inside the police department hadn’t been able to come up with anything except the name. Conrad just shook his head disgustedly. “Ah, never mind. I’ll just have a look around.”

“You do that.”

Conrad picked up his beer and moved off into the crowd. He circulated for a few minutes, then set the schooner on an empty table and slipped out a side door. He wanted to keep a clear head, so he couldn’t be guzzling down suds every place he went. One of the saloon’s customers would snatch up the schooner and polish off the beer, probably by the time Conrad reached the street.

Over the next hour, the scene in the Bella Grande was repeated with minor variations in half a dozen other saloons. If anybody knew Floyd Hambrick, they weren’t admitting it. Nor did anyone react when Conrad flashed the ivory token.

He was in a place called Spanish Charley’s when he got his first break. The bartender, who wasn’t Spanish at all but rather a fat blond Dutchman, had professed never to have heard of Floyd Hambrick, and he didn’t blink at the ivory token.

Conrad still had it lying in the palm of his hand, along with some coins, when one of the women who worked in the place sidled up beside him. “Ooh, you’ve been to the Golden Gate.”

Conrad looked over at her and revised his original opinion. Despite the painted face and the low-cut dress that revealed her breasts to the upper curve of her brown nipples, she wasn’t a woman but rather a girl, no more than fifteen or sixteen years old.

He swallowed his disgust that a girl so young would be working in a place like that and put a leer on his face. It was probably what the girl was used to. He hadn’t missed what she’d said. “The Golden Gate, eh?” he repeated.

“ Sí. ” The girl, at least, was Spanish, or Mexican, more likely. Maybe a descendant of one of the proud Californio families that had settled the area long before any gold-seeking Americans arrived. “The nicest place down here. Or so I have heard. I have never been there.” Her blush was visible even with her dusky skin. “It is not a place for one such as I.”

“Don’t say something like that, darlin’. You’re worthy of going anywhere you want to go.”

The bartender rested a hand with fingers like sausages on the hardwood. “Where she’d really like to go is upstairs with you, mynheer. Ain’t that right, Carmen?”

The girl batted her dark eyelashes at Conrad. “ Sí. I mean yes.” With a noticeable lack of enthusiasm, she pushed her breasts against Conrad’s arm and cocked a hip so it pressed against his, though without any real urgency.

“She will cost you only a dollar, mynheer ,” the Dutchman went on.

Conrad pretended to think about it. The girl—Carmen, the bartender had called her, but more than likely that wasn’t her real name—was the first person he’d encountered who admitted to knowing anything about the carved ivory token. He wanted to talk more with her, and some privacy would probably make the conversation more productive.

With pretended reluctance, he slid a silver dollar across the bar. The coin disappeared into the Dutchman’s fat fingers. “She better be worth it,” Conrad said.

“Oh, she will, she will,” the bartender promised. “Won’t you, Carmen?”

“You will never forget me, señor.” The girl linked her arm with his. “Come with me.”