J.A. Johnstone - The Loner - Crossfire

“The boy should have told me.” Frank frowned. “I would have come and given him a hand.”

“I believe he was determined to do this himself,” Turnbuckle said.

“He had Arturo here helping him.” Frank waved his hand toward the Italian.

“It’s not quite the same thing,” Arturo said. “Mr. Browning and I are not related, therefore no emotional complications and implications existed that would have had he called on his father for assistance.”

“That never stopped him before,” Frank muttered, thinking of all the times he and his gun had come to Conrad’s aid.

“He was never searching for his own children before.”

Frank shrugged and turned back to the lawyer. “So the trail led here?”

“That’s right. Conrad felt—and I agreed with him—that he was closing in on the children at last. We located some clues pointing toward a man named Dex Lannigan who owns a saloon in the Barbary Coast. We figure Pamela Tarleton made a deal with Lannigan. He may even know where she hid the children.”

Frank leaned forward in his chair and set his cup on Turnbuckle’s desk. “Then I reckon it’s time we went and had a talk with this fella Lannigan.”

Turnbuckle held up a hand. “It’s not that simple.”

It’s always that simple , Frank wanted to say, but he reined in the impulse.

“Lannigan is going to be at a society party tonight that Conrad was also going to attend,” Turnbuckle went on. “He hoped to find out more information that way. But this morning, when one of the bodyguards I’ve hired to look out for Conrad went to the Palace Hotel, where he’s staying, Conrad wasn’t there ... and neither was the guard who was on duty last night.”

“They might’ve gone somewhere and just haven’t come back yet,” Frank suggested.

A weary sigh came from Turnbuckle. “I might have thought the same thing ... if not for the fact that the police showed up here with the news that Thomas Morelli’s body was pulled out of San Francisco Bay this morning. Morelli was the man who was with Conrad. He had been badly beaten, and his throat was cut. His wife knew he was working for me and told the police about it when they talked to her. The poor woman sent them here.”

That sounded pretty bad, all right. Frank knew there was a good chance Conrad and this fella Morelli had been together. Since Morelli was dead, then ...

Frank gave a little shake of his head. He wasn’t going to let himself think the thought that had just crossed his mind. Conrad wasn’t dead. He knew it in his heart. “What did you tell the police?”

“That Morelli had been guarding Conrad. There was an attempt on his life as soon as he got to town.”

“Lannigan had men watching for him, probably at the train station,” Frank said.

Turnbuckle nodded. “That’s what we think now. We didn’t know about Lannigan at the time.”

“You didn’t tell the police you think Lannigan’s to blame for what happened to Morelli?”

“There’s no proof of that,” Turnbuckle said. “And I know Conrad didn’t want the police involved in the matter of the children. He thought he stood a better chance of recovering them safely himself. I knew you’d be arriving today, and I wanted to consult with you first.”

“Why did you track me down and send me that telegram, if you knew Conrad didn’t want me mixed up in it?”

Turnbuckle’s fist thumped down on the desk. “Because you and I are friends, Frank, and those are your grandchildren we’re talking about! It seems to me you have a right to be involved. Besides, Arturo wired me from Carson City and told me Conrad seemed to be getting more reckless and obsessed about the whole thing.”

Arturo spoke up. “I didn’t want to go against Mr. Browning’s wishes, but the more I thought about it, the more I came to believe you could help him, Mr. Morgan. And he needed that help.” Arturo smiled. “Did you know when we first met, Mr. Browning was calling himself Kid Morgan? For the longest time I thought he was just some Western gunslinger. I had no idea he was actually a financier and businessman, and a quite successful one, at that.”

“Back then he had put all that behind him,” Frank said. “I reckon he thought he was Kid Morgan, too. That’s who he wanted to be.”

“But we can’t be someone we’re not,” Turnbuckle said heavily. “Our pasts won’t allow that.”

Frank shrugged. They were drifting off the trail here. “If Conrad’s still alive, Lannigan’s probably got him stashed somewhere. You said Lannigan owns a saloon in the Barbary Coast?”

“That’s right. It’s called the Golden Gate. What are you going to do, Frank?”

The Drifter pushed himself to his feet. “I reckon it’s time to pay a visit to Dex Lannigan and his Golden Gate Saloon.”

The only good thing about the pain in his head, Conrad thought, was that the dead no longer felt such agonies. That meant he was still alive ...

Unless he had died and gone to hell for all the evil things he had done in his life.

Even though he was no expert on theology, it seemed unlikely to him that hell would smell like rotten fish. That unpleasant odor filled his nostrils, with another smell lurking under it that might be salt water.

He kept his eyes closed and didn’t move, making an effort to keep his rate of breathing from changing. If anyone was watching him, which certainly seemed possible, he didn’t want them to realize that he was awake.

As he lay there, he concentrated on letting details about his surroundings seep into his mind, helping him to not think about how bad his head hurt. He was lying on his stomach, with his head turned to the right and his left cheek pressed into what felt like a hard wooden surface. That surface moved under him, not much, just a faintly perceptible rocking motion.

When Conrad put those things together—the tang of salt water, the reek of fish, the steady movement of the boards on which he lay—he came to the inescapable conclusion that he was on a boat, lying either on deck or down in a hold. Probably in a hold, because he didn’t feel any air moving.

Even through closed eyes all he could sense was darkness. That meant it was either still night, or the darkness was another indication he was belowdecks.

He decided to risk cracking one eye open. He raised his right eyelid a fraction of an inch, not really enough for him to see anything but enough to let in any nearby light.

Nothing. The blackness continued to surround him.

If he couldn’t see anything, that meant nobody could see him. He opened both eyes. After a moment, he lifted his head. Fresh waves of pain rolled through his skull, so intense he had to squeeze his eyes closed again until the throbbing subsided. Eventually the pain lessened.

Conrad shifted to determine if he was tied up. His arms and legs were free, which was a bit surprising.

On the other hand, if he was locked up in the hold of a ship, where could he go?

Shanghai ...

The word sprang into his mind and a horrified shudder went through him. He was in San Francisco, after all. The town was notorious for all the men who had been drugged, kidnapped, and taken aboard ships bound for the Orient. By the time those unfortunates regained consciousness, the vessels were well out to sea, and they had no choice but work. If they refused, it was a simple matter for their captors to knock them in the head and toss them overboard for the sharks. Because of the destination that lay across the Pacific for many of these ships, it became common to say that a man had been shanghaied when he was drugged and forced to join the crew.

Would Lannigan do such a thing to him? Conrad didn’t doubt for a second the man was capable of it. He might think dooming Conrad to such a hellish existence was more punishment than simply killing him. It was even possible Pamela might have come up with the idea herself when she struck her deal with Lannigan three years earlier.