Ralph Compton - Bounty Hunter

He climbed to his feet and looked back. Sprague’s house was gone, and the others on each side of it, leaving only blackened, smoking spars of wood on which a few scarlet flames still fluttered.

Weimin, his face blackened by smoke and debris, stepped to Tone’s elbow. “No one could have survived the explosion,” he said. “They’re all dead.”

Tone, still numb from shock, nodded to the house opposite, the front window a shattered nightmare of glass and wood. “I saw a steel beam go through—”

“Yes,” Weimin said, “I know. I saw it too. That was the front parlor where families gather. We’ll find nobody still alive.”

In the distance, Tone heard the clamor of fire engines and saw that there were bodies lying in the street near the destroyed house.

Bitterly he reflected that Sprague had eliminated his five rivals and the fact that he had killed innocent men, women and children in the process would not trouble him in the least. Inside his house, now all dead, had been whores, musicians, waiters, cooks and others trying to earn a rich man’s buck. People had been killed in the neighboring homes, and women and children had been slaughtered, scythed by a whirling steel beam in their own parlor.

“Sprague is indeed a formidable adversary, a man without a conscience,” Weimin said, as though he’d been reading Tone’s thoughts.

Tone nodded. “It’s going to take a lot to kill him,” he said.

The Chinese man’s smile was as brief as a lightning flash. “Yet I will kill him very soon.”

Reading the question on Tone’s face, Weimin said, “We must leave here.” He handed the other man his guns, then added, “Walk with me.”

As they headed for Pacific Street, several fire engines passed, bells clanging, their big Percheron drays at full, ponderous gallop. Gaping crowds were already clustered around the blasted buildings and cursing firemen yelled at them to get the hell out of the way. The rain was still falling, turning the cobbled streets into thoroughfares of polished iron.

Walking under the blue cone of a streetlamp, Tone turned to Weimin and said, “I didn’t know you had a beef with Sprague.”

“I don’t, not with him personally. But I am Tong and we are moving to take back what is rightfully ours. With five of our enemies dead, the time for us to strike is now. Sprague has two choices: Stand, fight and die or run for his life.” The man smiled again. “He can always go back to his old profession, piracy on the high seas.”

Tone stopped, looking down at Weimin, who seemed small and frail next to his wide-shouldered bulk. “You plan on getting rid of Sprague and taking over the whole waterfront?”

“Yes. At first it was Sprague’s plan, now it is the Tong plan.”

People jostled past them, and Weimin pushed a reeling drunk away from him. “Mr. Tone, half the whores on the Barbary Coast are Chinese. The opium and slaves that make men like Sprague rich are from China. We Chinese will no longer step back and let white men reap the rewards. If there are Americans along the waterfront who wish to keep their saloons and dance halls, they can do so, but only by paying tribute to the Tong. That is how it will be.”

“Do you even know where Sprague is?” Tone asked.

Weimin shook his head. “No, but he will crawl out from under his rock quickly enough when we start to take over his business interests.”

Tone looked at the Chinese man. “Right now, Weimin, my fight is with Sprague, not you. But later we could become enemies.”

“Better the Tong than Sprague, Mr. Tone. We are only taking back what is rightfully ours.”

“You really think you can fight him?”

This time Weimin’s smile was genuine. “There are twelve hundred Tong in Chinatown, Mr. Tone. I will bring every one of them here to the waterfront if I have to.” He looked into Tone’s eyes. “You did me an honorable service not long ago. I would not like it if we became enemies.” Weimin looked around him. “We must part ways now. Good luck, Mr. Tone.”

Before Weimin turned to leave, Tone said to him, “You saved my life tonight. Your debt to me is settled.”

The man smiled and shook his head. “No, I will always be in your debt, Mr. Tone. That is the way of the Tong.”

Chapter 36

Whiskey glass in hand, Sergeant Thomas Langford stood back and admired his new mattress. “Beauty, isn’t it?” he asked Tone. “Genuine goose down. Look as hard as you like, you won’t find a corn shuck in that bed.”

“I reckon it’s comfortable.”

“Sure is, and the salesman said it’s good for the rheumatisms. He said Queen Vic sleeps on that very same mattress and she hasn’t had an ache or pain in her poor old bones this twenty year.” As though he felt remiss, Langford turned to the younger man, flustered. “Of course, I plan on getting one for your bed, just as soon as I have the extra cash.”

“No hurry,” Tone said. “I’ve spread my blankets on granite ten thousand feet above the flat, so I don’t mind the floor.”

Langford sipped his whiskey, then said what he’d been planning to say: “Bad business, Tone. First Sprague blows up his house, killing two dozen innocent people in the process, and now the Tong are moving in all over the waterfront.”

A week had passed since Tone had talked with Weimin, and the gang leader was now making good on his threat.

Sprague was being pushed hard. All but one of his late rivals’ businesses had been taken over by the Chinese, and they had begun to corner the opium and slave trade. So far there had been only two casualties. The owner of a gin mill on Pacific Street who had objected to paying the Tong protection money was gunned down behind the bar of his saloon. One of Sprague’s whores, a woman named Ella Alden, was murdered on Washington Street in broad daylight. It was suspected that it had been a Tong revenge killing, but there were rumors that Sprague himself had ordered the woman’s death. Ella’s sister had died in the explosion at Sprague’s house, and she may have tried to shake down the man by threatening to tell the coppers what she knew.

But the day Langford bought his mattress, the war had come right to Sprague’s doorstep.

“The way I heard it,” Langford said as he led the way to the kitchen, “Sprague was at the docks, speaking to Wilson Tyler, that captain of his, a man who’s sailed under the black flag a time or two, the damned villain.”

He watched Tone light a cigar, then said, “The two were deep in conversation when six or seven rifles opened up on them from the top floor of a rooming house. If my sources are correct, a couple of Sprague’s men were killed in the first volley and”—Langford sipped his whiskey, smiling, savoring the moment—“Sprague got a bullet burn in the shoulder.”

Tone slapped the table in front of him. “Damn, I thought the man was indestructible, bulletproof!”

“So did he, apparently,” Langford said. “I’m told he’s back in hiding, nursing his wound, and that the Chastity Christian woman is caring for him.”

“You reckon he’s running scared?”

“I’d bet the farm on it. I believe he was talking with Tyler about making a fast getaway back to his ship if things suddenly go bad. And they are.”

Tone poured whiskey for them both. Outside the day was shading into evening and a mist was creeping like a thief into the garden. Somewhere a bird greeted the arrival of the night and among the flowers small creatures scurried.

Langford raised his glass, stopped it halfway to his mouth and said, “Sprague is learning the hard way that you can scare white men into backing off for a spell, or for good, but the Tong keep coming at you. The Chinese Exclusion Act of ’82 made the Celestials mad as hell when it took away what little rights they had. Now they want their slice of the pie and the Tong will give it to them, for a price.”