Bounty Hunter

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.

Slowed by the crowds and hundreds of hand-drawn carts, the cab traveled on for another fifteen minutes before stopping at a timber building set back from the street.

“We’re here, John,” Weimin said. “You will be among friends, Tong like me.”

Eager hands opened the door of the cab and Tone shoved the Enfield into the pocket of his peacoat before he stepped into the street. Weimin followed and the cab clattered away.

A man in traditional Chinese dress stood at the door of the house. He bowed low as Weimin approached, then indicated that the two men should step inside.

Tone walked into a long hallway, lined on both sides by a dozen almost-naked women. Their entire bodies were shaved and they stood at the doors of their cribs, displaying what they had on offer. Obviously this was a house of prostitution aimed at Americans, because a sign tacked to a low beam of the roof read:

Two bits lookee

Four bits feelee

Six bits doee

The air inside was thick and cloying, heavy with the smell of perfume, incense and warm woman flesh.

“This way, John,” Weimin said.

The man did not even glance at the women as he and Tone passed, and they in turn bowed their heads and averted their eyes. Chinese women were considered chattel, and whores were valued much less than that, worthless playthings to be used for a while, then tossed aside.

Whoever he was, Tone decided, Weimin was a man of such considerable power and influence in Chinatown that no fallen woman dared to look at him directly.

There was a stairway at the end of the hall and Weimin beckoned Tone to follow him. Yet another hall, this one with fewer rooms on each side, and the Chinese man walked to the last door on the right and opened it wide.

“This is where you will stay for a few days,” Weimin said. “When I think it’s safe, I’ll get you out of San Francisco. In the meantime, you will be supplied with food and drink and I’ll get someone to wash your clothes.” The man smiled. “You stink like the bilge of a ship.”

“Well, thank you very much for that,” Tone said, laying on his sarcasm like frosting on a cake.

If Weimin noticed, he didn’t let it show. “One more thing, John: don’t use the women. They are diseased, all of them.” He waved a hand around the room, expensively furnished in the overly ornate Victorian style then in fashion. “In the meantime, make yourself comfortable.”

He nodded to a filled bookcase. “I’m sure you’ll find books to your taste that will help pass the time.” Weimin smiled, a rare occurrence for him. “The last gentleman I sheltered here occupied this room for six months. He read so many books, he told me he’d gotten an education. He also got a dose of the clap. So be warned.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Tone said. Weimin turned to leave, but Tone’s voice stopped him. “Thank you for what you did tonight. You saved my life.”

“And you saved the life of my sister. The men who attacked her would have cut her throat after they’d finished with her.”

Tone smiled. “Then we’re even.”

“Not yet. When I get you out of San Francisco safe and sound, then we will be even. Not before. I’m a man who pays my debts in full. That is the way of the Tong.”

Without another word Weimin turned on his heel and left, closing the door behind him. The only sound in the room was the tick of the grandfather clock in the corner and the crack of the log fire in the grate. But the smells of Chinatown filtered through the windows, strange, exotic, alien . . . playing their own lost music.