Ralph Compton - Bounty Hunter

“Yeah, Simon, me. Now we’re going to have a few words, you and I.”

“Damn your eyes, Tone, who got you off the ship? Was it Sprague?”

“I reckon Mr. Sprague will answer that question for you very soon.”

“Captain Muller and five of his men murdered, throats cut, every man jack of them,” Hogg said. “Damn him. Only Sprague kills like that.”

Hogg had been at the counter carving slices of beef from a roast. Tone picked up a slice and chewed on it. His eyes hardened to the color of blue steel. “Hogg, I’m going to ask you a question. Whether I let you live or not depends on how you answer it.”

“Ask, and be damned to ye. And leave my meat alone. It ain’t for the like o’ you.”

Tone helped himself to another slice. “Where can I find Hooper?”

“Ah, that be your question, Mr. Tone. The answer is you can’t. But he will find you, lay to that.” Hogg’s eyes grew crafty. “I can tell you this: he’s close, and I am under his protection.”

Tone drew the revolver from his pocket. The Enfield was a self-cocker, a style of weapon he had never used. He thumbed back the hammer for a shorter trigger pull and said, “Not doing a good job of it, is he, Hogg? I could blow a hole in you right now.”

“Maybe, but you’d never get out of this place alive. I have friends here.”

It was a standoff and Tone knew it. There would be much satisfaction to be gained by putting a bullet in Hogg, but the noise of a shot would bring the innkeeper’s men running.

In the end, it was Simon Hogg who decided his own fate.

He was wearing a shabby coat over a filthy white apron. His hand blurred as it dived under the coat for his waistband. He threw the knife with a quick back-hand motion, a technique much practiced among blade fighters.

But Tone had the gunfighter’s fast reactions. He moved his head to the right, only an inch or less. But it was enough that the blade missed his left eye and cut a bloody groove across his temple.

Tone fired and Hogg, hit square in the chest at a distance of three yards by the big .476 bullet, lurched back, his face unbelieving, mystified at the manner of his death. The man plunged into eternity with that expression on his face, dying as miserably and uselessly as he’d lived.

Feet pounded in the hallway outside. Tone fired a couple of fast shots through the door that brought the charge to a sudden halt.

There was a back entrance to the kitchen and Tone plunged through the door into an alley, the air vile from the smell of the outhouse and a huge pile of stinking garbage.

Tone looked around, then moved to his left into a canyon of darkness. Behind him men were yelling and a shot rang out. But the bullet came nowhere near Tone and he figured it was some drunken rooster firing at phantoms.

He flattened himself against a wall, his gun up and ready, and waited a moment, planning his next move. He did not relish returning to the silken prison of the Chinatown brothel, but he could not remain on the waterfront.

He had only one choice and he knew it: he must find Luther Penman’s office and let the shrewd lawyer plan his strategy.

The man would consider him a failure, since all six men he’d been contracted to kill were still alive and seemingly more powerful than ever. It was a bitter pill, but all Tone could do was swallow it.

Moving farther along the alley, shrouded in inky blackness, he took a narrow passageway between two warehouse buildings and walked into a parked wagon, cursing when he banged his shin on an iron-rimmed wheel.

He stopped and rubbed his aching leg as he listened to the night. There was no sound of pursuit. It seemed that the threat of his dangerous gun and the darkness had taken all the fun out of the chase.

Walking carefully along the arroyo between the soaring warehouses, Tone finally emerged onto a busy street, jammed with horse-drawn vehicles of all kinds and constant foot traffic.

He’d left the waterfront behind him. Ahead lay the residential, commercial and financial hub of San Francisco with its fine, tall buildings, tree-shaded streets and row on row of bright electric arc lamps.

But where, in a city of three hundred thousand people, could he find Luther Penman?

Away from the waterfront, sailors were rare enough in the city, and Tone’s watch cap and peacoat drew more attention than he would have liked. He tried a couple of saloons, asking after Penman, but a sailorman with no money to buy drink garnered little response.

Finally a friendly bartender told him there were some law offices on Washington Street and gave him directions to get there.

Unlike the denizens of the Barbary Coast, most people in downtown San Francisco paid their taxes and went to bed early. The streets were fairly quiet as Tone followed the bartender’s directions, walking under streetlamps that turned the falling drizzle into a shimmering cascade of shining needles.

Head bent against the rain, Tone almost bumped into a tall, burly man in blue.

“Here, watch where you’re going, boyo,” the big cop said.

Tone mumbled an apology and tried to walk around the man, but an arm as big and solid as a pine trunk shot out and stopped him in his tracks.

“Not so fast,” the officer said. “What are you doing so far from the waterfront, and you a sailorman as all can see?”

Tone decided on two things: to tell the truth and revive his brogue.

“I’m looking for my lawyer’s office, your worship, and that’s a fact.”

The policemen had a face as red and round as a ball and small, twinkling blue eyes that showed a deal of humor. “And what would a poor mariner be wantin’ with a lawyer, I ask meself.”

Tone lied easily. “An inheritance, a small one, just a few hundred pounds left to me by an uncle in Ireland.”

If the cop doubted that story he didn’t let it show. “And what would your name be, boyo?”

“John Tone, from County Wicklow.”

“Tone is an honorable name, to be sure.” The cop’s face hardened. “Why did you leave the auld country? Or did you jump ship? Answer that question, then answer another: if you did jump ship, why would you have an American lawyer?”

Again Tone settled for the truth. “I left because of the Troubles. The rebellion of sixty-seven was crushed and the English were hanging men and women all over poor Ireland. I killed some British soldiers and had to flee to America.”

The big cop was silent for a few moments, then said, “So, you didn’t jump ship, then?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“And I’ll wager you’re not a sailorman.” The man’s face brightened. “Maybe you still fight for the cause from afar?”

Tone let a significant silence answer the question, and it seemed to be confirmation enough for the officer. “Walk with me, John Tone,” he said.

“As far as Washington Street,” Tone said. “I was told there are law offices there.”

The cop smiled. “And what if I told you I was running you in?”

“For what? Being on the street?”

“Vagrancy. Loitering with intent. I could find something.”

“Are you running me in?”

This time the officer laughed. “No. I’ll walk with you to Washington Street. Auld Ireland has lost enough of her heroes as it is.”

A few people hurried past in the street, most sheltering under umbrellas that glided through the rain like gigantic bats. Cabs rattled by on the wet road, the flames of their oil side lamps fluttering, drawn by blinkered horses that looked underfed and overworked.

Washington Street was a wide boulevard, lined with plum trees, its residential and commercial buildings built in the Second Empire style, inspired by the opulent architecture of Paris.

Polished brass plaques were affixed to many of the doors Tone passed, announcing that the occupants were physicians, architects, engineers and attorneys. But none bore the name Luther Penman.