Ralph Compton - Bounty Hunter

Tone headed toward the alley, his heart thumping in his chest.

Was he about to walk in the tracks of a monster?

Fog had drifted into the alley and, sheltered from the wind, hung in the air like an empty shroud. There were no lights, no sound, only a vast quiet that so unnerved Tone he slowed his pace as he began to clothe every shadow in a coat of gray.

Alert for any noise, he walked to the end of the alley and stopped. There was no sign of Penman, if it had really been him, or the woman.

The cross lane was as he remembered it, the rear walls of Pacific Street buildings to his left, a collection of reeking outhouses and piles of debris of all kinds littering the ground. To his right were the tumbledown shacks of whores, saloon workers and tinhorn gamblers, all of them in darkness.

Tone glanced toward the far end of the lane. A light burned in a shack about a hundred yards away, the pale blue glow of a gas lamp. He walked in that direction, gun in hand.

Gravel crunched under his feet and the rain drove into his face and the darkness around him was inky black. A tiny calico cat glared at him from the shadows and hissed, arching its back, tail puffed in alarm.

Tone walked on, his mouth dry as bone.

There were no curtains in the windows of the shack. He stopped and stepped wide, where he could see inside the house. A woman stood in the middle of the floor and she lifted a small child, then turned her head and as though speaking to someone in another room. A man appeared at the doorway, said something in return, and walked out again.

Penman was not there.

A growing sense of frustration in him, Tone retraced his steps. He had just passed Murder Alley when he saw a window in a shack ahead of him casting a rectangle of lamplight on the wet ground.

There had been no light there a few minutes before. Tone quickened his pace. He was a few yards from the shack when a noise from inside made him pause . . . a loud cry followed by a long, sighing gasp.

Had it been an outburst of passion—or a shriek of pain?

Tone didn’t wait to figure out the answer. He ran for the door of the shack.

The door was locked, but he put his shoulder to it hard and it burst inward, its frail timber splintering.

The room and what it contained hurtled toward Tone, as though he was seeing it from the cab of a speeding locomotive . . . fleeting, vivid, scarlet and white impressions that took time to register on his overwhelmed brain.

A naked woman propped again the wall, slashed wide-open like a gutted deer . . . the woman’s crimson-painted mouth agape in her last, frantic scream of agony . . . Luther Penman, bloodied knife in hand, staring at Tone with demented eyes . . . Penman snarling, like a wild beast at bay . . . then . . .

“Wait, Tone, it’s not what you think. I was passing by and—”

Suddenly a gun in Penman’s hand . . . a shot . . . beside Tone the gas lamp shattered and went out. . . .

Tone fired, fired again, flashes of harsh orange light slamming into the darkness.

The back door crashed open, then slammed shut. . . . The sound of running feet . . .

Taking a moment to turn off the hissing gas, Tone went after Penman, sprinting into the open ground behind the shack. Where was the man?

A bullet split the air beside Tone’s right ear. He saw the flare of the gun and fired in that direction. Then he was running again, stumbling around in the littered gloom.

Ahead of him rose the ominous black bulks of several tall warehouses and scattered outbuildings, including one with the sawdust smell of a carpenter’s workshop. Beyond the buildings to his right lay Mansion Avenue, its streetlamps winking in the distance, and to his left the back of the waterfront dives.

Gunshots were not rare in this neighborhood, and nobody was paying any attention.

Tone stepped warily, his restless eyes searching the darkness. From somewhere in front of him, a bottle clinked. He stopped. “Penman, you son of a bitch, show yourself!” he yelled. “You’re heeled, so let’s have this out.”

A strange laugh floated into the night like black gossamer. “Everything is going to shit, Mr. Tone. But Jolly Jack is still having fun. If you want me, come looking.” A pause, then, “Be circumspect, now. I’m pretty good with a revolver.”

Stepping toward the sound of the man’s voice, Tone banged his knee on a rusted plate of sheet iron and bent to rub it, cursing.

The stooping motion saved his life.

A bullet whipped through the air where his head had been a moment earlier.

“Did I get you, Mr. Tone?” Penman cackled. “Are you dead, dead, dead, like the filthy whore back there?”

Tone made no answer, crouched behind the plate, probably part of an old ship’s hull, and waited for Penman to show himself.

“She smelled, Mr. Tone, like a perfumed fish.” A pause, then, “Jaunty Jack still thinks all women are dirty, Mr. Tone, and that their only real purpose is to breed pretty boys.” Another moment passed. “Are you dead, Mr. Tone? I’m quite the gentleman, you see, and I shouldn’t be talking to the corpse of a low person like you.”

Tone made some quick calculations. The warehouses would stop his bullets from reaching the street and he had a fair idea of where Penman was located. It was now or never.

He drew his second revolver, stood up and cut loose. He hammered his guns dry, a rolling thunder that lasted only a couple of seconds. Wreathed in smoke, he waited, listening into the darkness.

A few moments ticked past . . . then came the hollow clap of mocking applause.

“Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah nah! You didn’t even come close, Mr. Tone!”

“Penman!” Tone roared, his anger a fearsome thing. “I’m going to tear you apart.”

He ran in the lawyer’s direction, cursing through teeth clenched in an ungovernable fury . . . and he charged into emptiness.

Luther Penman was gone.

John Tone searched the darkness for thirty minutes before he finally admitted to himself that Penman had made a clean getaway.

He returned to the shack and established that all was as it had been before, only now there was a haunting quiet that only the presence of the noiseless dead can bring to a house.

Chapter 38

“So the search is on for Luther Penman,” Langford said, refilling Tone’s whiskey glass. “I never did like that man.”

“The detectives seem convinced that he’s the Ripper, and they’re bringing in more officers for the search, starting tomorrow morning.”

“Who’s in charge?”

Tone thought for a minute. “A young inspector named . . . I think it’s Anderson.”

“Pete Anderson?”

“I didn’t catch his first name.”

“It’s got to be Pete Anderson.” Langford looked pleased. “Well, at least he’s got a lick of sense.”

“Sorry about not finding Weimin.” Tone paused, smiling. “Hey, who am I talking to?”

“Mr. Langford.”

“Then I’m reporting failure all round. I didn’t contact Weimin, I did nothing to prevent the woman’s death and I missed her killer with ten shots.”

Langford shrugged. “In the dark, it happens.” He sat back in his chair and studied Tone thoughtfully. “How do you feel about joining in the hunt for Penman? I want that man real bad.”

“Do you think it will do any good? He could have left town by now.”

“Maybe he’s skipped, but he likes fog.”

“I’m not catching your drift.”

“Penman will stay where there’s fog to cover his tracks and a plentiful supply of whores to slaughter. The man is insane and the waterfront is his happy hunting ground. He won’t move on unless he has to.”

“Now he calls himself Jack.”

“Jack the Ripper.” Langford shook his head. “Tone, we’ve got to keep that name quiet or the damned newspapers will be all over it like flies on shit.”