Bounty Hunter

Chapter 29

St. Mary’s Hospital was a grim five-story building perched at the top of Rincon Hill. Around the hospital sprawled a quiet residential area, now deteriorating into lower-middle-class shabby gentility. The new cable cars had helped make swanky but steep Nob Hill the city’s most desirable address for the rich and famous, including tycoons like James Flood, the silver Bonanza King, and the railroad robber baron Leland Stanford.

But St. Mary’s, despite its increasingly blighted surroundings, still shone as a beacon of hope for the destitute and dispossessed, and the sisters never turned away anyone in need.

As the day shaded into evening, Tone and Langford took a cab to the bottom of Rincon Hill and walked the rest of the way up its abrupt slope. Above them a broken sky promised rain and the trees that lined the street were alive with wind.

A reception desk stood at the center of a large lobby, manned by a nun who pushed her glasses to the tip of her nose and studied Langford over them as he entered. She was obviously interested at a visit from a police sergeant, less so by Tone, who was dressed like the sailors she admitted for medical treatment of one kind or another just about every night.

Langford stood at the desk and looked down at the nun. “Good evening, Sergeant,” she said sweetly. “Is this official business?”

Langford was brusque. “I’m afraid so, ma’am. There’s villainy afoot and I hope I’m in time to put a stop to it.”

“Oh dear,” the nun said. “I must confess, I don’t like the sound of that.”

“We’re here to visit a seafaring man named Bandy Evans, Sister,” Tone said. “He was brought here a few days ago.”

The nun was old, wrinkled, with the glowing yellow cast to her skin possessed by the saintly who have spent much time around smoking candles.

“We have many seafaring men brought to St. Mary’s,” she said. “Let me take a look in the ledger.”

The sister pulled a thick canvas-bound book in front of her and began to flip through the pages, starting at the most recent admittance, then working back.

“Ah yes, here he is, poor soul. Mr. Evans was brought in by Captain Saul Tanner of the whaling barque Derwent Hunter. The patient was suffering from exposure, dehydration and a fractured left tibia.”

“What’s that?” Langford asked. Impatience was clearly gnawing at the man.

“Shinbone,” Tone said.

“Then why couldn’t she just say that, for God’s sake?”

“She’s a nurse.” Tone smiled. “Nurses say ‘tibia.’ ”

Langford glared at the nun. “Where is Evans? We have to see him right now.”

The nun consulted the ledger again. “Because of the seriousness of his condition, he’s in a private room.” She nodded to her left. “Along that corridor to the very end. Room 20.”

“When did someone last check on him?” Langford asked.

“Why, bless you, not more than an hour ago.”

“Good, then he’s still here and alive.”

“Sergeant, because of Mr. Evans’ condition, I can only allow you ten minutes.”

“Ma’am,” Langford said, “he’s coming with us.”

“I can’t permit that—” the nun began. But she was talking to the sergeant’s retreating back. The old lady rose to her feet and tottered down the hallway directly behind her. “Mother Superior!” she shrieked. “Murder!”

“This is the room,” Langford said when he reached the end of the corridor. He opened the door and stepped inside. Tone followed him.

The room was small and clean and smelled of carbolic acid, soap and the sickness of the man on the iron cot.

Langford stepped to his side while Tone took up a position near the corner where he could cover the door with his Colts.

He heard the cop say, “Evans, wake up,” and the cot creaked as he shook the sailor’s shoulder.

“Go away,” the man on the bed whispered. “I’m sick.”

“You’ll be worse than sick if you don’t come with us,” Langford said. “You’ll be dead.”

Tone looked at Evans and saw the man shake his head. “I can’t. Go . . . go away.”

The door burst open and Tone was reaching for his guns until he saw it was a nun, stiff, starched and boiling mad.

“What do you two think you’re doing?” she demanded. “I’m the mother superior and chief nurse of this hospital.”

“This man is going with me,” Langford answered. “It’s the only way we can save his life.”

“He is getting the best medical attention St. Mary’s can provide,” the sister said, her eyes ablaze with blue fire.

“Sister,” the sergeant said, “I’m not talking about medical attention, I’m talking about pirates, blackhearted rogues who will stop at nothing to silence this man’s tongue.”

The nun threw up her hands in disgust. “What in God’s holy name do you mean, man?”

Tone saw Langford fight a battle to contain his always hair-triggered temper. “Mother Superior, Nurse, whatever you’re called, if Bandy Evans is not taken from this hospital now, he’ll soon be killed, and you will be burying dead nuns.”

The sister opened her mouth to speak, but Langford held up a silencing hand. “This man can put a noose around a pirate rascal’s neck. Depend on it, when the pirate and his scoundrels come for him your habit won’t save you. These are hard, violent men who have made great sport with nuns in the past and they won’t hesitate to do it again.”

“Sergeant Langford speaks the truth, Sister,” Tone said. “They’ll come here for Evans and they’ll kill to get him.”

“Damn it, ma’am,” Langford yelled, “murder and rape are not pretty words, but that’s what you’re facing if I don’t get Bandy Evans out of here.”

The nun had gone from angry to thoroughly frightened. “But—but what if the pirates—I mean, what am I to tell them?”

“You will tell them that Evans is now in the custody of Sergeant Thomas Langford, and if they want him, they should come get him. Sergeant Thomas Langford of the San Francisco Police Department. Will you remember that?”

“I’ll remember.”

“In the meantime, I’ll try to convince my superiors to post some officers at St. Mary’s until this is over,” Langford said. “But the force is stretched mighty thin and I can’t guarantee it.”

The nun had regained some of her composure. “I recently read Treasure Island by Mr. Stevenson and I was of the opinion that pirates were now the stuff of sensational novels and history. I can see I was wrong.”

“Yes, you are wrong—more’s the pity,” Langford said. “The black flag still flies, as many a dead sailor lad could testify, and the California coast has its share of them, damned carrion dogs that they are.”

He looked closely at the nun. “Can he walk?”

She shook her head. “That’s out of the question. Mr. Evans has a broken leg and he’s still very weak.”

“We’ll have to carry him, Tone,” the sergeant said. “To the bottom of the hill and we’ll get a cab from there.”

“Where are we taking him?” Tone asked.

“To my house. He’ll be safer there since one of us will always be on guard.”

“Why don’t we take him to your police precinct?”

“Ha!” Langford exclaimed. “Those thick-skulled oafs would stick him in a cold cell and he’d be dead within hours. No, we’ll keep him alive at least long enough to take his statement, then we’ll get Inspector Muldoon in to witness it.”

The big cop smiled. “I think we’ve got Sprague by the balls, Tone.” He turned to the nun. “Oh, begging your pardon, Sister.”

“I’ve heard the word before, Mr. Langford, and worse.”

The sergeant gleefully rubbed his hands together. “Even Captain Sprague’s slick lawyer won’t get him out of this.”

“Unless Sprague kills us all,” Tone said.

Langford shook his head and grinned. “You Irish are such sunny, optimistic folk.”

“I know, and we get premonitions of disaster too.”

“Do you have one o’ them now?”

“Sergeant Langford, pretty soon I think we’re going to see the elephant,” Tone said.