Ralph Compton - Bounty Hunter

Only the six men on Sprague’s death list had those kinds of funds.

“Seems obvious who hired Tucker,” Hogg said. “It could only be the men who want the cap’n dead.”

Tone rose, reached into his coat hanging in the armoire and returned to the table. He spread out the list and told Hogg to sit opposite him.

“I’ll read out a name and you tell me what you can about the man,” he said.

“It won’t be much, Mr. Tone. The cap’n don’t confide in me like he does you.”

“Just try your best, Hogg.” Tone’s eyes dropped to the paper and he read: “John T. Moylan.”

“He owns the Bucket of Blood saloon here on the waterfront and has shares in some of the Chinese opium and whore businesses. He lives in Silver City, but I don’t know what he does there.”

“They all live in Silver City,” Tone said. He read again: “Mickey Kerr.”

“He strong-arms for Moylan. That’s all I know, ’cept he’s a bad ’un.”

“Edward J. Hooper.”

“He owns a couple of boardinghouses along the Barbary and specializes in shanghaiing sailormen and importing opium and young Chinese gals as whores. He can buy a girl for four dollars in Canton and sell her for hundreds along the waterfront.” Hogg brightened. “I know what he does in Silver City. He owns a bank and he’s a church deacon. The cap’n told me that.”

“Luke Johnson.”

“I don’t know nothin’ about him except I’ve seen him with the others.”

“Joseph Carpenter.”

“Joe Carpenter owns a couple of waterfront dives and he has a small steam yacht he keeps at the docks. He’s real good with a gun. About a year ago he shot two of his customers dead for roughing up one of his whores.”

“Last, but probably not least, Maxwell Ritter.”

“He owns as much of the waterfront as the cap’n and he’s just as rich. He doesn’t go anywhere without two or three bodyguards.”

Tone sat back on his chair, lilac cigar smoke curling over his head. “It’s not much to go on, but at least I know where to find . . . what’s his name?” He looked at the paper. “Edward J. Hooper. How many churchgoing bankers can there be in Silver City?”

“You’re going there?” Hogg asked, surprised.

“Better than staying here and making myself a target for any two-bit gunman who wants to earn fifty dollars.”

“Mr. Tone, I don’t think the cap’n—”

Knuckles pounded on the door. Luther Penman shoved it open and stepped inside. He seemed to be in an evil temper, his death’s head face set and scowling.

He ignored Tone and looked at Hogg. “Simon Hogg,” he snapped. “What an unpleasant surprise.”

“I was just leaving, Mr. Penman,” the innkeeper said, almost bowing to the man who represented all the wealth, authority and power of Lambert Sprague.

“Then go, and be about your business, nefarious though it no doubt is.”

Hogg shuffled his feet, suddenly uncomfortable in his own crawling skin. “Begging your pardon, Mr. Penman, but Mr. Tone here says he plans on leaving for Silver City. That’s what we was about to discuss, like.”

“If Mr. Tone wishes to discuss his future actions, he’ll discuss them with me and me alone.” His empty eyes fell on Hogg and the man squirmed worse than before. “Why are you still here?”

Hogg knuckled his forehead and headed for the door, a man relieved to be anywhere but in Tone’s room.

“Coffee?” Tone asked after the man was gone.

Penman shook his head and took the chair recently vacated by the innkeeper. “Why did you tell Hogg you were leaving for Silver City? Be brief now, and to the point.”

“I’m tired of making myself a target. Do you know what happened here last night?”

“I heard about it.” Penman let his shark eyes rest on Tone. “The whole point of your agreement with Mr. Sprague is that you do make yourself a target. You will remain on the waterfront, draw the six men to you that you’ve been contracted to kill and then deal with them.”

“I think—”

“Don’t think, Mr. Tone; it doesn’t become you. We hired your gun, not your brain.”

“I want to take the fight to the men who paid to have me killed last night.”

“You will let them bring the fight to you. Those are your orders and you will abide by them.” There were pinpoints of flickering blue in Penman’s eyes. “A word of warning: don’t take the Pirate’s Oath lightly, Mr. Tone. The last man who did was taken to an island off the coast, his belly was ripped open and his intestines were strung out and tied around a tree. I have it on good authority that he screamed for three days before he succumbed.”

Penman smiled with all the warmth of a python regarding a wounded rabbit. “That man’s name was Jim Riley, one of Mr. Sprague’s most trusted crewmen. I recall that he was a stout, jolly fellow. He was not so jolly when he tried to tear loose from his own guts.”

“I won’t break the oath,” Tone said, angry that he heard a catch in his voice.

“Good, it’s settled. Mr. Sprague will be in San Francisco in a week, and you can report to him personally then. Like me, he’s going to say that it’s high time you earned your first thousand dollars. And speaking of money”—Penman pulled a slip of paper from his pocket—“this is Hogg’s bill for your keep, and quite frankly your expenses are horrendous.

“Five dollars a night for whores . . . champagne . . . Havana cigars . . . it goes on and on. For instance, here—why did you feel the need to buy five dozen roses?”

Tone shrugged. “To go with the whores, champagne and cigars.”

“My dear fellow, this can’t continue. I’ve instructed Hogg that your per diem allowance for bed and board will be three dollars a day. Anything above that amount must be cleared by me or met out of your own pocket.” The lawyer sniffed. “Who buys roses for whores?”

“I do.” Tone smiled.

“Well, no longer. Roses for whores . . . pearls before swine, indeed.”

As Penman rose to his feet, Tone smiled and said, “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a likable man, Luther?”

“No.”

“Then I won’t either.”

“Remember,” the lawyer said as he stepped to the door, “Mr. Sprague will be here in a week.”

“I’ll do my best to stay alive until then,” Tone said irritably.

Chapter 9

Night fell on the Barbary Coast and the gas lamps were lit in the streets, illuminating another long orgy of intoxication, fornication and homicide.

The dance halls, concert saloons and gambling dives were open for business, already filled to the walls with sailors, miners, slack-jawed rubes from the hills, whores, pimps, robbers and cutthroats of all kinds. Everywhere could be seen licentiousness, debauchery, pollution, disease, insanity from bad liquor, dissipation, misery, grinding poverty, great wealth, profanity, blasphemy, death . . . and here and there pale-faced preachers, Bibles clutched to their breasts, warning the few who would listen that hell was yawning open to receive the whole putrid mess.

Into this maelstrom of sin that came easy but never cheap walked John Tone, his short-barreled Colt in a shoulder holster under his navy blue peacoat. Penman had told him that he was being paid to make himself a target, and he’d decided that anything was better than waiting in his room for another assassin to strike.

Pacific Street was crowded with humanity and few people paid Tone any attention, intent as they were on their own pleasures.

The alleys leading off the street were mysterious canyons of shadowed darkness, except those where the Chinese lived, which were bright with paper lanterns, teeming with male and female Celestials wearing gaudy red, yellow and blue silks.