J.A. Johnstone - The Loner - Crossfire

But no matter whose idea it was, Conrad knew he had to get out. He could tell by the slight motion of the ship that it was still riding at anchor, probably in San Francisco Bay. If it had already sailed, it would be moving around much more as it rode the waves. If he could get out of the hold, he could still escape before the ship was out at sea.

He pushed himself into a sitting position and waited for the pain in his head to subside. Looking around, he searched for even a tiny crack of light that would indicate the location of a hatch. He didn’t see anything. Maybe there wasn’t a hatch that led on deck. There had to be some way into the chamber, though. A door in a bulkhead, maybe.

Before making a move, he made sure he was alone. He hadn’t heard anyone else moving around, nor had he heard any breathing, but it was possible the men who had attacked them on the dock had thrown Morelli in with him. In an urgent whisper, he said, “Morelli! Morelli, are you there?”

Silence was his only answer.

But it wasn’t complete silence. Now that the pounding in his head wasn’t as bad, he could hear a faint sloshing sound—water moving around in the bilge—which meant he was low down in the ship. He heard something that might have been far-off footsteps, and a low, barely heard moan, but not a human one. That was a foghorn, Conrad realized.

He reached out in the darkness and felt around him, searching for a bulkhead or possibly the ship’s curving hull. When he didn’t feel anything he moved onto hands and knees and crawled forward, using his left hand for balance and keeping his right extended in front of him.

He hadn’t gone very far when his fingertips brushed against something. At first he thought it was a wall, but in feeling around, he discovered it was a large crate.

It gave him something to lean on as he struggled to his feet. His head spun crazily as he stood up, and for a few seconds he thought he was going to fall. Forcing himself to stand still, he took some deep breaths, and the world steadied around him.

He swallowed the feeling of sickness welling up in his throat. Steadfastly ignoring it, he sat on the low crate for a few minutes, bracing himself with his hands on his knees.

With the resilience of youth and the rugged life he had led the past couple years, some of his strength came back to him. While sitting there, he took stock of what his captors had left him.

It wasn’t much. He had his boots, his trousers, and his shirt. His coat and hat were gone, and so were the shoulder holster and the .38 Smith & Wesson he had carried. His pockets were empty. No coins, no matches, nothing.

If he was still locked up when the ship sailed, he would have no way to prove he was Conrad Browning ... not that the captain and crew would have cared, anyway. They had to know what was going on. Probably Lannigan had paid them off.

His only chance was to get off the ship before it sailed.

The footsteps he suddenly heard coming closer in the darkness might be the key to doing just that.

Chapter 19

Frank insisted on paying a visit to the Golden Gate Saloon alone. “If this fella Lannigan knows who Conrad is and has spies watching him, he’s bound to know who you are, too, Claudius.”

“What about me?” Arturo asked.

“You’ve got a bullet hole in you that’s still healing,” Frank pointed out. “You probably shouldn’t have traveled all the way here from Carson City to start with.”

“The doctor assured me it would be all right as long as I took it easy.”

“That means you don’t need to be getting mixed up in a ruckus,” Frank said.

“Do you intend to start a ruckus in Lannigan’s saloon?” Arturo asked.

Frank chuckled. “I’m not exactly planning on it, but you never know what’s going to happen. Sometimes I think trouble’s in the habit of following me around.”

“Yes, I know the feeling quite well. The same thing is true of your son.”

“I don’t doubt it. He comes by it honestly.” Frank paused. “Anyway, no offense, Mr. Vincenzo, but you don’t exactly look like the sort of hombre who’d patronize a Barbary Coast saloon.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Arturo admitted. “But please, call me Arturo.”

“That’s Italian for Arthur, isn’t it?”

“That’s right.”

“I used to know an old mountain man whose real name was Arthur, even though nobody ever called him that. He barely remembered it himself. Haven’t seen him in years. He must be dead by now. He’d be almost a hundred if he’s not.” Frank pushed those thoughts aside and got back to the matter at hand. “The chances of Lannigan or anybody who works for him knowing who I am are pretty slim. Anyway, even if somebody recognized me as Frank Morgan, not all that many people know Conrad and I are related.”

“Pamela Tarleton did,” Turnbuckle reminded him. “There’s no way of knowing what she might have told Lannigan.”

“That’s true,” Frank admitted, “but I’m willing to run the risk. If I can get Lannigan alone, he’ll tell us what we need to know.”

“My God, Frank,” Turnbuckle said. “You can’t be thinking about torturing the man.”

In a hard, flinty voice, Frank said, “This is my son we’re talking about here ... and my grandchildren. And a man who’d make a deal with a she-devil like Pamela Tarleton who brought nothing but suffering to everybody around her. I’ll do whatever I have to, Claudius. I don’t reckon it’ll come to torture, though.”

“If it does, I don’t want to know about it.”

“Deal.”

Turnbuckle told him how to find the Golden Gate Saloon and described Lannigan to him. Frank said his good-byes to the lawyer and Arturo, who was going to the Palace Hotel to get some rest after the train trip from Carson City.

Frank left the building where the offices of Turnbuckle & Stafford were located. The Barbary Coast was too far to walk in cowboy boots, he decided, so he swung up on one of the electricpowered cable cars that carried him in the right direction.

It wasn’t the first time he had ridden one of the cars, which ran on rails and got their power from overhead cables, but it always seemed strange to him to ride in something that wasn’t pulled by a locomotive or a team of horses or mules.

The day was far enough advanced that the fog had burned off, and as a result the view was spectacular as Frank rode the cable car over the steep, high streets. He could see the blue waters of the bay stretching out to the hills on the far side. Closer at hand were the heights of Nob Hill and Telegraph Hill, and the docks along the section of waterfront known as the Embarcadero, where ships from a score of different countries were tied up. Frank would never like big cities—he was too old and set in his ways for that—but he had to admit San Francisco was a pretty place.

The Garden of Eden was supposed to have been a pretty place, too, he reminded himself ... but a serpent had lurked in it. The same was true there, only instead of one devil, San Francisco had an abundance of them.

“Mister?”

The high-pitched voice broke into Frank’s thoughts. He looked around and saw a little boy about eight years old staring at him. Frank smiled at him, emboldening the boy to ask, “Mister, are you a cowboy?”

A nice-looking woman who was probably the boy’s mother sat beside him on the cable car bench near the pole Frank hung on to. She put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Jamie, don’t bother that man.”

“It’s no bother, ma’am,” Frank assured her. To the boy, he said, “No, son, I’m not really a cowboy, although I used to be when I was younger. Some things you never forget, though, so I reckon I could still make a hand if I needed to.”