Bounty Hunter

Chapter 15

The Barbary Coast’s Murder Alley was so named long before the Chinese took it over. So narrow that the rain barely fell on its cobbled street, it was lined with gimcrack stores, opium dens and brothels. Even at that early hour, the alley was thronged with people speaking a rapid language that rose and fell like the call of birds.

Tone stopped men and women, asking for Chang’s house. They bustled past him without answering, either not understanding what he said or at least pretending they didn’t.

Finally Chastity convinced an old woman sitting in the doorway of a store to point out the house, a rickety, unpainted frame and timber building that teetered alarmingly into the alley as it soared to a second and then an overhanging third floor.

A tiny wizened man, who seemed to carry the wisdom of centuries in his black eyes, opened the door. He had obviously been well briefed by Penman because he looked at Chastity and smiled. “I am Chang, Miss Christian. Welcome to my humble abode.”

Chastity and Tone stepped into a hallway that smelled of incense, boiled cabbage and sex. This early in the morning, there were no women in evidence, but nailed to each doorway along the corridor was a framed, well-painted picture of the specialty of the woman inside. It seemed that every facet of men’s lust was covered, plus a few even the most perverted of them probably never imagined.

Tone expected to see a maidenly blush on Chastity’s cheeks and downcast eyes, but instead she closely studied each illustration and finally gave her verdict to Tone, summing it up in a single word: “Exhausting.”

Chang led the way to the end of the hall and opened the door to a sparsely furnished room with a dresser and chair, a rice-paper screen painted with cherry blossoms and, Tone noticed immediately, a single iron bedstead made up with a thick mattress and clean sheets and pillows.

If Chastity took note of the sleeping arrangements, she didn’t let it show. “Mr. Chang,” she said, her voice brittle and businesslike, “you have clothing for us?”

“Yes, Miss Christian, for you and the gentleman.” He looked Tone up and down. “I had his specially made by a seamstress I can trust.”

He opened a door that Tone had thought led to another room, but it turned out to be a closet, with a variety of folded pants and colorful tunics on the shelves.

Chastity stepped to the closet, inspected the clothes, then turned to Chang. “Those will do nicely. You will arrange food and drink, should we require it?”

The Chinese bowed. “But of course, Miss Christian.”

Chastity sat on the edge of the bed. “Do you have information for myself and Mr. Tone?”

Chang shook his head, his lined face grave. “I have no information to give. I am not an informer, for that is a dangerous occupation along the waterfront. But I can pass on good news. Good news is always welcome, is it not?”

“I like to hear good news,” Chastity said evenly.

The Chinese man smiled. “Then here is a good-news story. Once there was a certain bandit who lived with his five brothers in a big house by the great ocean. Now this bandit did not wish to stay home, but left almost every night to visit a fallen woman. The bandit’s behavior was so strange that his brothers began to laugh and say that he’d fallen in love with a whore. The young bandit didn’t mind; he went on visiting the woman, and still does to this very day. All this was very good news for his enemies, for they hated the young man and planned to cut off his head.”

“And this young bandit, do you suppose he is with the woman now?”

Chang shrugged. “If he was a real person, I think he would wait until tonight.”

“And where would the woman dwell?” Chastity asked.

“If she was a real person, she would have a room above the Opera Comique at the corner of Jackson and Kearny.”

“And this young bandit, does he have a name?”

“He is not a real person, so he has no name.” Chang looked sly. “But he was the least of the bandits because his brothers were much more feared and powerful. You can give him a name and, if I like it, I will nod.”

Chastity looked at Tone. “There’s only one man suits that description. His name is Mickey Kerr and he strong-arms for the others.”

Chang was nodding vehemently and the woman said to him, “A very interesting story, Mr. Chang. A pity it’s not true.”

“Yes, a pity. But alas, it is just a good-news fairy tale.” Chang bowed to Chastity. “If you need anything, Miss Christian, my office is at the front of the hallway.”

After the man left, Chastity threw a bundle of Chinese clothes to Tone. “Wear these and get used to them.” She took hers behind the screen and began to undress.

“I’m going after Mickey Kerr tonight and start earning my money,” Tone said, talking to rice paper and cherry blossoms.

“No, we are,” Chastity said. “Both of us.”

“It’s something I have to do myself.”

Chastity screeched in horror and Tone stepped quickly to the screen. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just discovered what Chinese women wear in place of bloomers. They’re . . . they’re . . . indecent.”

“Let me see,” Tone said.

“Back off,” Chastity said. “I told you, they’re downright indecent.” A rustling pause, then, “But comfortable, though.”

Tone was having his own problems. Chang had obviously described him to his seamstress as a giant, because his blue tunic swamped him, the sleeves falling over his hands. The baggy black pants were also voluminous, the crotch sagging between his thighs.

Then he remembered his holsters. Sighing, he yanked off the shirt and strapped himself into the harness. A two-gun rig is uncomfortable at the best of times, but the leather and buckles chafed against his bare chest when he moved around.

There was nothing to be done about it. He couldn’t wear his guns over the tunic in full view of everybody.

“Ready?” Chastity asked from behind the screen.

She stepped into the room and Tone felt his breath catch in his throat. She wore a pink embroidered tunic that showed off every luscious curve of her body and her dark hair fell in glossy waves over her shoulders.

“You look . . . You look . . .” Tone couldn’t find the words.

“Ugly?”

“No! No! You look . . . wonderful.”

The woman joined her hands together in front of her breasts and bowed low. “Thank you, kind sir.” She studied Tone from his shoes to the top of his head. “And you look—”

“I know what I look like.”

“Since you don’t have a pigtail, a hat will cover your hair, but the big mustache has to go.”

Tone was horrified. “It’s taken me years to get this mustache to where I like it. It stays. Rather than shave it off, I’d dress like a sailor again and take my chances.”

Chastity shrugged. “Your funeral, Mr. Tone.” “Thanks, but when we’re in bed you can call me John.”

Chastity gave him a sidelong glance but said nothing.

She picked up her bag off the floor and laid it on the bed. She removed her .41-caliber Remington over-and-under derringer and a strange-looking gun rig that Tone had never seen before.

The woman held it up for him to see. “It’s a sleeve holster. Not something I use often,” she said. She raised an arm, revealing the wide sleeve of her tunic. “But tonight, this will conceal it.”

The holster was finely crafted of soft, thin leather, and two thin straps secured it to Chastity’s forearm. The derringer snapped into a leather-covered metal clip.

Chastity let her sleeve cover the rig, then she raised her arm and opened her hand. The derringer sprang into her palm, hammer up and ready.

“I had it made for me in El Paso,” she said. “It’s uncomfortable to wear, like your shoulder holsters, but, under certain circumstances, quite effective.”

Tone smiled as Chastity replaced the derringer in the rig. “I’ve got to get me one of those,” he said.

“Then you’d better wear a coat with roomy enough sleeves or the gun will snag inside and you’ll be a dead man.”

“A thing to remember,” Tone said, immediately losing any passing interest he might have had in sleeve holsters.

He stepped to the window and glanced outside, bending to see the sky. It was still raining, but the dark clouds were splintered with light.

“Long time until dark,” Tone said. He looked at Chastity and raised an eyebrow. “What can we do to pass the dreary hours?”

“I’ll get Chang to bring you a book,” the woman said.