Ralph Compton - Bounty Hunter

“Then here’s what you do, John,” the cop said. “No, wait, let me ask you first if you have money for a hotel room.”

Tone smiled and shook his head. “I have money in a bank in Reno, Nevada, but not here. I didn’t expect to spend so much time in San Francisco.”

“Then you’ll sleep in the doorway of one of the offices, and come morning when the attorney shows up for work you’ll ask him where you can find your lawyer friend.” The man winked. “Lawyers know other lawyers. And so they should, given the time they spend bickering with each other in court.”

The cop put his hand on Tone’s shoulder, a friendly gesture he had not expected. “I’ll be sure to pass this way several times tonight to check on you. Footpads are always about, and so too are the Hoodlum Gang, a nasty lot of young thugs, female as well as male, who rob and kill all over the city. I’ll be watching for them most of all, and so should you. Sleep light and be on guard. If you see them, you’ll know who they are. They wear hoods, the scoundrels, and add ‘lum’ to every word that comes out of their lying mouths.”

Short of getting arrested, Tone had no better suggestion than a doorway to offer, and the rain was falling heavier, fat drops ticking from the branches of the plum trees. He found the deep portico of a lawyer’s office that offered shelter and settled into a corner.

He looked up at the cop. “You haven’t told me your name.”

“Ah, me name is Thomas O’Brien, so it is.”

“An honorable name.”

O’Brien nodded. “And I should think so, since it was the one borne by the high kings of Ireland.” The big cop raised a hand. “Now I’ll bid ye good night, John Tone. I must be about my duties.”

“Thank you,” Tone said.

“No thanks needed, since it’s little enough I’ve given you, a doorway to sleep in on a cold, rainy night.”

“It’s enough.”

O’Brien waved again, then walked into the splintered darkness, light from the arc lamps gleaming on his wet shoulders.

Cramped and stiff, Tone eventually found an uneasy sleep. He dreamed of dead whores and Hoodlums.

Chapter 13

Someone was shaking his shoulder. John Tone woke up with a start, his hand reaching for the gun in his pocket.

Officer Thomas O’Brien saw the motion and smiled. “The British are not at the gates. It’s only me.”

Tone rose to his feet, stretched and groaned the kinks out of his back. “What time is it?”

“Almost seven, and time I was getting home or Mrs. O’Brien will take a stick to me, fine woman that she is.” The cop held out a thick ceramic mug. “A dish of hot tea. And here”—he reached into his pocket and produced a bread roll—“it’s got butter and a nice slice o’ ham. As good a breakfast as any and better than most.”

For a few moments O’Brien watched Tone eat hungrily, then asked, “Did you sleep well?”

“I dreamed that Hoodlums were chasing me.”

“Better to dream of Hoodlums than meet them for real.”

Tone smiled. “I guess so.”

O’Brien sounded apologetic. “I have to wait for the mug, since I took it from the station and I’ll have to return it. They count them, you know.”

Tone drained his tea and finished off his sandwich. He handed the mug to O’Brien and thanked the man again.

“Ah, well, it’s me for my bed,” the cop said. “I expect the lawyer”—he peered at the plaque on the door—“Mr. Matthew Petty, Attorney-at-Law to the Gentry, will be here shortly to point you in the right direction.” O’Brien stuck out his hand. “Well, good luck to you, John Tone. And when you return to Ireland, stay well clear of an English noose.”

Tone said he’d bear that in mind, and when the cop left he huddled in the doorway again. It was still raining.

The lawyer showed up an hour later, a small, bent man with white hair and a sour expression. He was startled when he spotted Tone, and then frightened.

“Who are you, and what do you want with me?” he asked, his voice quavering.

For his part, Tone understood the man’s anxiety. A huge, unshaven and rough-looking sailor blocking his doorway was not a thing Mr. Mathew Petty, Attorney-at-Law to the Gentry, would encounter every day.

Tone stood where he was, not wanting to alarm the man further. “I’m looking for a lawyer,” he said quickly.

The old man threw up his hands. “No, no, I can’t take on any new cases for at least a twelve-month.”

“His name is Luther Penman,” Tone persisted.

Recognition dawned on the lawyer’s crabbed face. “I know him. He’s a shady character and a sodomite who should have been run out of San Francisco on a rail years ago. What business do you have with Penman?”

“It’s a private matter.”

“His establishment is on Grant Street.” Petty pointed to the west. “Two blocks that way.” He managed a smile. “If I were you, I’d count my fingers after I leave his office. And my toes. Now, will you step aside and give me the road?”

“I’m obliged for the information,” Tone said, stepping down to the sidewalk.

Petty’s harsh voice stopped him. “Remember what I told you, young man—to his everlasting shame, Penman is a damned sodomite.”

Luther Penman’s office was one of four businesses crammed into a two-story brick building huddled behind a hostile spiked iron fence. His door was to the left of the lobby, a wooden sign affixed to its front that said only:

L. PENMAN, ATTORNEY

Tone knocked, then pushed on the brass handle. The door, locked from the inside, didn’t budge. He rapped the heavy oak with his knuckles.

After a few moments a small, timorous voice asked, “Who is it?”

“Tell Mr. Penman it’s John Tone.”

Tone waited, then heard footsteps scuttle behind the door. It swung open and a small, worn-looking man with thin black hair and sad brown eyes waved him inside.

Having recently read Mr. Dickens’ A Christmas Carol , Tone grinned at the man and said, “Your name wouldn’t be Bob Cratchit, would it?”

The little man either missed the reference or thought it wasn’t funny because he didn’t crack a smile. “No, sir, my name is Barnabas Dale. I’m Mr. Penman’s clerk.”

He almost bowed. “This way, please.”

Dale led Tone into a dusty office, every available surface piled high with books and legal briefs. There was an oil portrait of a stern Civil War officer on one wall and for a reason known only to Penman, an oval print of old Queen Vic, looking even sterner, on the other.

The lawyer rose from behind a parapet of legal tomes, the morning light gleaming on his glasses and the scalp of his skull head. “Barnabas,” he said, “find Mr. Tone a chair. Then shut the door, but stay close. I will need you later.”

The clerk did as he was told, and when he’d quietly shut the door behind him, Penman said, “Why are you here?”

The office was cold, the lawyer chilly and rain trickled down the windowpanes like a widow woman’s tears.

“By this time I think you probably know.”

“Don’t speak to me of probabilities, Mr. Tone,” Penman said, baring his yellow teeth. “I don’t deal in probabilities. Give me the facts. Now, I ask you again: why are you here?”

Tone fought to overcome his dislike for the man, then recounted how he’d been kidnapped by the banker Edward J. Hooper and later rescued by a Chinese Tong leader. Then he told how he’d been forced to kill the traitorous Simon Hogg.

Penman listened in silence. When Tone was finished, he waved a dismissive hand. “Hogg was of no importance, but the fact that Hooper can now recognize you is.” The man looked at Tone over his steepled fingers. “All six of the men you’ve been contracted to kill are now in the Barbary Coast, and they’ve already moved to take over Mr. Sprague’s business interests along the waterfront. Unless he’s changed his plans, Mr. Sprague is scheduled to arrive two days from now and he is determined to fight for what is his. Consider the revenues from opium, prostitution, slave running and gambling alone and you will comprehend that a vast fortune is at stake. There will be war and Mr. Sprague will need your gun.”