Ralph Compton - Bounty Hunter

“Complications indeed, Mr. Hooper,” Hogg said, nodding, as though the man had fairly stated the case. “Sergeant Langford is a curious man.”

“Indeed, Mr. Hogg.” Hooper agreed. “I said that Langford can die like any other man, but killing a San Francisco sergeant of police can get messy. The law starts poking its nose into places where it’s not wanted and that can be bad for business.”

The man sighed. “No, I thought the matter through and decided this is the best way. The good Captain Muller will work you to death, Tone, then bury you at sea. Langford will shortly find the body of a dead whore in your room and deduce that you killed her in a fit of rage, then fled the city for parts unknown. The case will be then closed as far as the police are concerned.”

Lantern light shadowed the white mask of Hooper’s face. “Truth to tell, Tone, you are so very unimportant I wonder that I’m even talking to you. All you are is an annoying little fly that Muller will soon swat for me.”

He turned to Hogg. “When will the captain have his full crew?”

“Another couple of hours at most. Most of them will be drugged, but he’ll have enough able-bodied seamen to sail on the tide.”

Hooper nodded. “See that it’s done.”

“Aye, aye, sir,” Hogg said.

Tone’s eyes sought the big man in the gloom. “Hogg,” he said, “I’ll come after you. I’ll hunt you down and I’ll kill you.”

Hogg laughed. “Talk comes cheap, Mr. Tone. By this time next week you’ll be food for the sharks.”

He and Hooper and the others with them who had been silent and invisible in the darkness climbed out of the hatch, then let the heavy cover slam back in place.

Once again Tone was imprisoned in a dank tomb where only the blind rats were thriving.

Chapter 11

A man in absolute darkness has no sense of the passage of time.

Sometime earlier, Tone had tried to explore his prison, had tested the hatch, then went back to his place, a sense of defeat weighing heavily on him.

The drug, whatever it had been, had mostly worn off, but his head still ached, whether from the laced drink or from banging his head on the deck beam, he did not know.

The rustling, gibbering rats, some of them as large as cats, had become bolder, running over him, nipping at his exposed hands and neck. Tone fought them off as best he could, lashing out blindly in the crowding, stinking gloom. Patient as death itself, by sheer force of numbers the rats would win in the end and devour him to the bone.

Was he to be left here, or brought up on deck? He had no chance of escape from the bilges, but once out in the open, he could jump overboard, or go down fighting. Better to seek a man’s death than be slowly eaten by rats.

Above Tone, feet thumped on the deck. He guessed that Muller was getting the first of his shanghaied crew, trained seamen and country rubes who had been drugged in sleazy waterfront dives. By 1887 at least forty gangs along the Barbary Coast were engaged in the runner trade, providing unwilling crews for the notoriously savage New York ships.

More footsteps thudded along the deck, and even in his closed prison Tone thought he heard a man scream in mortal agony.

Captain Muller was a sadist, and his hellish discipline was starting early.

Suddenly the hatch cover was lifted, and Tone rose to his feet, being careful to avoid the beams. He clenched his fists at his sides, prepared to fight.

A man appeared in the hatchway and whispered: “You come, quick!”

It was a Chinese voice.

Tone asked no questions. He stumbled to the ladder and climbed. A few lanterns glowed around the ship, enough to see the bodies of several sailors sprawled on the deck, their throats cut. He hoped Muller was among them.

“Quickly now,” the Chinese man said. “You follow.”

He led the way down the gangplank and onto the dock and Tone stayed close to his heels.

Wreathed in a twisting fog, a hansom cab stood near the dock, the driver’s face concealed by a heavy coat and muffler.

“Inside, go now,” the Chinese man said. He held the door open and Tone quickly stepped inside. The door shut behind him.

A man sitting in the shadows called to the driver in Chinese and the cab lurched into movement. “Take this,” the man said. He shoved a British .476 Enfield revolver into Tone’s hand. The weapon was bulky, almost a foot long, and lacked the fine balance of a Colt, but Tone found its weight reassuring.

He turned and his eyes tried to penetrate the gloom. “Whoever you are, thank you,” he said finally.

The man turned as a gas lamp reflected on his face. “You saved my sister. Now I’m repaying the favor.”

Recognition dawned on Tone. It was the young Chinese man with the wide shoulders and European clothes he’d seen in the alley.

“How did you know where to find me?” Tone asked.

Even in the gloom Tone saw the white flash of the man’s teeth as he smiled. “All those little coolies that run around with burdens on their backs, the ones you don’t notice or even consider human, they see everything that happens along the waterfront.” The man nodded. “They know.”

Tone’s inclination was to deny that he thought as so many others did, that the Chinese were one step below blacks, who were, God knows, on the very bottom rung of the ladder. His protestation would have sounded hollow and he let it go.

“Where are we headed?” he asked.

“Chinatown. You’ll be safe there until the hue and cry dies down.”

“And then what?”

The man’s black eyes glittered in the darkness, reflecting the passing lamplight as they clattered through the shadowed night. “That will be up to you, Mr. Tone.” Seeing the other man’s surprise, he added, “Yes, I know your name. In fact, I know a great deal about you and why you are in San Francisco.”

Suspicion dawning on him, Tone asked, “Are you a detective?”

A small laugh in the creaking, hoof-clacking quiet. “Hardly that. I am Tong.”

“That’s your name?”

The man hesitated. He seemed amused. “No, that is not my name. The Tong is a business organization, set up to protect the interests of the Chinese people in San Francisco. We also control a few commercial enterprises along the waterfront.” Another pause, then, “As for my name, you may call me Weimin. In Chinese, it means ‘one who brings greatness to the people.’ ”

“You can call me John,” Tone said. “I don’t know what it means.”

“So be it. You are John I Don’t Know What It Means.”

“John will do just fine,” Tone said.

After thirty minutes of negotiating narrow, winding streets, the cab clattered into the outskirts of Chinatown, where thirty thousand poverty-stricken people were crammed into just twelve city blocks.

Despite the darkness Tone could make out dirty streets and alleys crowded with flimsy shacks and ramshackle storefronts, an alien, dangerous land where no policeman ever ventured.

Unlike the waterfront, here the alleys were not bright with paper lanterns lighting the traveler’s way, and the smell from their large underground cellars where as many as five hundred men, women and children lived their entire lives, was a cloying stench that found its way into the cab.

Even at this late hour of the night, the streets and alleys were thronged with people, a teeming mass of coolies, artisans, whores and men on the make. Some of the rich Chinese merchant princes who enjoyed slumming in Chinatown walked around with as many as ten concubines and twice that many bodyguards.

The noise was incredible, a constant babble of shrill voices and hawkers’ cries, overlaid by bawling children, barking dogs and the clamor of caged chickens and pigs.