Bounty Hunter

Chapter 39

Dawn came slowly to the waterfront. Out in the bay a gray mist hung over green water and the sky had cleared, shading from scarlet to violet, adorned with ribbons of jade. Gulls squawked and quarreled around the topgallants of the tall ships at the docks and the morning smelled of salt air and timbers worn by wind and sea.

A sorry procession of hungover sailors and miners, exhausted by rum and whores, made their way to their bunks in the brightening light, seeking sleep or a merciful death.

Tone and Langford sat in Tilly Tucker’s Tea Room off Pacific Street, watching the world go by as they yawned over coffee and Tilly’s famous hot rolls and unsalted Wisconsin butter. There were few other patrons at this time of the morning and the three men and two women who were present sat pale, silent and numb.

Tilly was a little old lady, bent and wrinkled, with lively brown eyes and hands mottled with the same color. She stepped to the table, opened the lid of a cigar box and displayed them to Langford. “A morning cigar, Sergeant?” she said. “You look all in.” Then to Tone, “And so do you, young man.”

“It’s been a long night, Tilly.” Langford sighed. “A man gets tired.”

He selected a cigar and the woman reached into the pocket of her pinafore, found a match, thumbed it into flame, and lighted his smoke.

She did the same for Tone, who marveled at her expertise. He’d been around Texas drovers who lit matches like that, but none of them had possessed the old lady’s casual skill.

He told her so, and Tilly smiled. “Young man, I’ve been lighting cigars for gentlemen since I was fourteen. That was when these”—she slapped her flat chest—“were out to here.” She cupped both hands an exaggerated distance in front of her. “Back in those days, on the riverboats, they called me Tits Tucker.”

The last was so unexpected, coming as it did from the prim mouth of a little old lady, that Tone laughed, his first real bellow in a long time, and it felt good.

Tilly toddled away to wait on another customer and Tone and Langford smoked and drank coffee, letting a comfortable silence stretch between them.

After a few minutes a police whistle warbled in the distance. Tone looked at the sergeant and raised a questioning eyebrow.

The big cop shrugged. “Ah, let him get his head kicked in. I’m off duty.”

Then more whistles, strident and urgent.

Tilly was at her far window, craning her neck so she could see the waterfront.

“What’s happening out there, Tilly?” a man asked.

“I don’t know. Some kind of disturbance at the docks. Policemen running . . .”

Langford sighed and got to his feet. He looked at Tone. “I guess we’d better get down there.”

“Is Sprague making his run, you think?”

“Could be. Or they caught a drunken sailor pissing off the dock.”

There were two dozen policemen milling around the dock area when Tone and Langford arrived, the sergeant with a cigar in one hand, a half-eaten roll in the other.

“What’s going on?” he asked the nearest cop. “And where’s Inspector Anderson?”

“He’s escaping, Sergeant!”

“Damn it man, who’s escaping?”

“The Ripper! Look, out there in the boat.”

Langford’s eyes moved to the bay, where the boat was a dark dot in the distance, almost lost between a shoaling sea and the flaming sky. Desperately he turned to Tone. “Can you see anything?”

Tone’s far-sighted gaze searched the bay. “I think maybe six, seven men. Is Sprague’s longboat still tied up?”

Langford hurried to the edge of the dock, glanced down, then yelled, “No, it’s gone.”

Agitated, he tossed away his cigar and roll and walked back to Tone. “It’s got to be Sprague and Penman must be with him.” He looked around at the milling cops. “Who saw the boat leave?”

An officer stepped forward. “We did, Sarge, my partner and me. We were proceeding to relieve the two officers on duty here and that’s when we saw the rowboat pull away.”

“How do you know it was”—Langford hesitated—“the Ripper?”

“One of the individuals on board answered his description: a slight, small man wearing a gray coat.”

“Did you recognize any of the others?”

The officer shook his head. “No, but one of the men at the oars was a real giant.” He jerked a thumb at Tone. “Even bigger than him.”

“That could be Blind Jack,” Tone said.

“Sergeant Langford!”

Langford turned to the voice. “Inspector Anderson, I was wondering where you were.”

“I’ve got two dead officers back there, hidden behind the stack of whale oil barrels yonder. Their necks are broken.” He looked into the bay. “I believe the men who murdered my officers are in that boat, and quite possibly the Ripper is with them.”

“And Lambert Sprague,” Langford said. “If he’s harboring a fugitive from justice we could put that damned pirate away for years.”

Anderson was a young man with a full, spade-shaped beard and intelligent blue eyes. At that moment he looked both frustrated and helpless.

“Inspector, I’d bet my pension that they’re heading for Sprague’s steam yacht anchored off the Golden Gate,” Langford said.

“Then we’ll never catch them,” Anderson said. “We don’t have a steamboat or any other kind of boat. And even if we can find a rowboat they have too much of a start on us. We’re police officers, not expert oarsmen.”

Suddenly Tone recalled his conversation with Simon Hogg, the night the man described the six men Tone had been contracted to kill.

“Langford,” he said, “Simon Hogg once told me that Joe Carpenter kept a small steam yacht.” He looked at the crowded rows of sailing ships lining the docks, a forest of masts stretching away in the distance. “If we can find it and get the thing going we have a chance of catching them.”

Anderson was willing to clutch at straws. He yelled to his men, “Spread out and search for a small steam yacht. It must be anchored around here someplace.”

“How will we know which one it is, Inspector?” an officer asked.

The inspector was on edge and he let it show. “Damn it, man, find any steam yacht. How many can there be?”

Fifteen minutes passed while Anderson fretted and fumed, pacing up and down, occasionally throwing a long-suffering glance at Langford.

Finally he glanced at Tone, then said to the sergeant, “I don’t believe I’ve met this gentleman before.”

Langford made the introductions, then, anticipating a possible objection from Anderson, he said, “Mr. Tone plans to join the department soon.”

“Excellent, but still, he’s a civilian and—”

A whistle sounded and a policeman waved frantically in the distance.

“By God, they’ve found it!” Anderson yelled. Then he was running.

Tone and Langford pounded after him, their tiredness forgotten along with Anderson’s lowly estimate of civilian status.