The Body Snatchers Affair

2

In his twenty years as a detective John Quincannon had visited a great many strange and sinister places, but this September night was his first time in an opium den. And not just one — four of the scurvy places, thus far. Four too many.

Cellar of Dreams, this one was called. Supposedly one of the less odious of the reputed three hundred such resorts that infested the dark heart of San Francisco’s Chinatown in this year of 1895. (Another Caucasian-generated myth like the one that claimed the existence of a subterranean honeycomb of secret rooms and passages throughout the Quarter; in actuality the number of opium dens was well under a hundred.) Located in Ross Alley, it was nonetheless a foul-smelling cave full of scurrying cats and yellowish-blue smoke that hung in ribbons and layers. The smoke seemed to move lumpily, limp at the ends; its thick-sweet odor, not unlike that of burning orange peel, turned Quincannon’s seldom-tender stomach for the fourth straight time.

“The gentleman want to smoke?”

The question came in a scratchy singsong from a rag-encased crone seated on a mat just inside the door. On her lap was a tray laden with nickels — the price of admittance. Quincannon said, “No, I’m looking for someone,” and added a coin to the litter in the tray. The statement, he thought corrosively, was no doubt one she had heard a hundred times before. Cellar of Dreams, like the other three he’d entered, was a democratic resort that catered to Caucasian “dude fiends” — well-dressed ladies and diamond-studded gentlemen from the upper stratum of society — as well as to Chinese coolies with twenty-cent yenshee habits. Concerned friends and relatives would come looking whenever one of these casual, and in many cases not so casual, hop smokers failed to return at an appointed time.

Quincannon moved deeper into the lamp-streaked gloom. Tiers of bunks lined both walls, each outfitted with nut-oil lamp, needle, pipe, bowl, and supply of ah pin vin. All of the bunks in the nearest tier were occupied. Most smokers lay still in various postures, carried to sticky slumber by the black stuff in their pipes. Only one here was a Caucasian, a man who lay propped on one elbow in the shadows, smiling fatuously as he held a lichee-nut shell of opium over the flame of his lamp. It made a spluttering, hissing noise as it cooked. Quincannon stepped close enough to determine that the man wasn’t James Scarlett, then turned toward the far side of the den.

And there, finally, he found his man.

The young attorney lay motionless on one of the lower bunks at the rear, his lips shaping words as if he were chanting some song to himself. Had he been here the entire two days since his wife had last seen him? If he was in fact an expendable cog in the brewing trouble between the rival Hip Sing and Kwong Dock tongs, as their client, Andrea Scarlett, was afraid was the case, Chinatown was the worst possible place for him to hole up.

Quincannon shook him, slapped his beard-stubbled face. No response. Scarlett was a serious addict who regularly “swallowed a cloud and puffed out fog,” as the Chinese said, and escaped for hours, sometimes days as in the present case, deep inside his pipe dreams — no doubt the reason he had sold his services, if not his soul, to the corrupt elements in the Hip Sing tong. An unlimited supply of opium was as great a lure to a hophead as the money he was paid to give legal aid to hatchet men and other Chinatown lowlifes.

“You’re a blasted fool in more ways than one,” Quincannon told the deaf ears. “It’s a wonder you’re not dead already.”

He took a grip on the attorney’s rumpled frock coat, hauled him around and off the bunk. There was no protest as he hoisted the slender body over his shoulder. The hanging opium smoke had begun to make him dizzy; he lurched a little as he groped toward the door with his burden. He was halfway there when his foot struck one of the cats darting through the gloom. It yowled and clawed at his leg, pitching him off balance. He reeled, cursing, against one of the bunks, dislodged a lamp from its edge; the glass chimney shattered on impact, splashing oil and wick onto the filthy floor matting.

The flame that sprouted was thin, shaky; the lack of oxygen in the room kept it from flaring high and spreading. Quincannon stamped out the meager fire, then strained over at the waist and reached down to right the lamp with his free hand. When he stood straight again, fighting off the dizziness, he heard someone giggle, someone else begin to sing in a low tone off-key. None of the pipers whose eyes were still open paid him the slightest attention. Neither did the smiling crone by the door as he staggered past her.

On the boardwalk outside, he paused to breathe deeply several times. The cold night air cleared his lungs and his head of the ah pin vin smoke, restored his equilibrium. He shifted Scarlett’s inert weight on his shoulder. “Opium dens, a hophead lawyer, and a brewing tong war,” he growled aloud. “Bah, what a muddle!”

It was his fault that Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, had agreed to take it on; Sabina had been less than enthusiastic. Ah, Sabina. Thinking of her immediately reminded him of the disturbing new development in her personal life that he’d only just learned of — her new suitor or beau or whatever the devil he was. Out with him on the town again tonight, no doubt, while her erstwhile and doting partner prowled the Chinatown alleys. Yes, and for all he knew, the fellow, one of the blasted society Montgomerys, was entertaining her this very minute in his digs, or perhaps they were together in her rooms on Russian Hill. The unholy images this conjured up made him gnash his teeth.

He thrust the images away as Scarlett stirred, the cold night air having roused him somewhat from his stupor. The lawyer mumbled incoherent words, his body remaining limp in Quincannon’s grasp.

Nearby, an old-fashioned gas street lamp cast a feeble puddle of light; farther along Ross Alley, toward Jackson Street where the hired hansom and driver waited, a few strings of paper lanterns and the glowing brazier of a lone sidewalk food seller opened small holes in the darkness. It was late enough, nearing ten o’clock, so that no pedestrians were abroad. Hardly any law-abiding Chinese ventured out at this hour. Nor had they in the past dozen years, since the rise of murderous tongs such as the Kwong Dock in the early eighties. The Quarter’s nights belonged to the hop smokers and fantan gamblers, the slave-girl prostitutes ludicrously called “flower willows,” and the boo how doy, the tongs’ paid hatchet men.

Grumbling to himself, Quincannon lugged his semiconscious burden toward Jackson, his footsteps echoing on the rough cobbles. James Scarlett mumbled again, close enough to Quincannon’s ear and with enough clarity for the words — and the low, fearful tone in which they were uttered — to be distinguishable.

“Fowler Alley,” he said.

“What’s that, my lad?”

A moan. And again, “Fowler Alley.”

“Yes? What about it?”

Another moan, then something that might have been “Blue shadow.”

“Not out here tonight,” Quincannon muttered. “They’re all black as the devil’s fundament.”

Ahead he saw the hansom’s driver hunched fretfully on the seat of his rig, one hand holding the horse’s reins and the other tucked inside his coat, doubtless resting on the handle of a revolver. Quincannon had had to pay him handsomely for this night’s work — too handsomely to suit his thrifty Scots nature, even though he would see to it that his client, Mrs. James Scarlett, reimbursed him. If it had not been for the fact that highbinders almost never preyed on Caucasians, even a pile of greenbacks would not have been enough to bring the driver into Chinatown at midnight.

Twenty feet from the corner, Quincannon passed the lone food seller huddled over his brazier. He glanced at the man, noted the black coolie blouse with its drooping sleeves, the long queue, the head bent and shadow-hidden beneath a black slouch hat surmounted by a dark-colored topknot. He shifted his gaze to the hansom again, took two more steps —

Coolie food sellers don’t wear slouch hats with topknots … they’re one of the badges of the highbinder …

The sudden realization caused him to break stride and turn awkwardly under Scarlett’s weight, his hand groping beneath his coat for the holstered Navy Colt. The Chinese assassin was already on his feet. From inside one sleeve he had drawn a long-barreled revolver; he aimed and fired before Quincannon could free his weapon.

The bullet struck the flaccid form of James Scarlett, made it jerk and slide free. The gunman fired twice more, loud reports in the close confines of the alley, but Quincannon was already falling sideways, his feet torn from under him by the attorney’s toppling weight. Both slugs missed in the darkness, one whining in ricochet off the cobbles.

Quincannon struggled out from under the tangle of Scarlett’s arms and legs. As he lurched to one knee he heard the retreating beat of the highbinder’s footfalls. Heard, too, the rattle and slap of harness leather and bit chains, the staccato pound of the horse’s hooves as the hansom driver whipped out of harm’s way. The gunman was a dim figure racing diagonally across Jackson. By the time Quincannon gained his feet, he had vanished into the black maw of Ragpickers’ Alley.

Fury drove Quincannon into giving chase, even though he knew it was futile. Other narrow passages opened off Ragpickers’ — Bull Run, Butchers’ Alley with its clotted smells of poultry and fish. It was a maze made for the boo how doy; if he tried to navigate it in the dark, he was liable to become lost — or worse, leave himself wide open for ambush.

The wisdom of this slowed him to a halt ten rods into the lightless alleyway. He stood listening, breathing through his mouth. He could no longer hear the highbinder’s footsteps now. Not that it mattered; even if they had been still audible, they would have been directionless here.

Quickly he returned to Jackson Street. The thoroughfare was empty, the driver and his rig long away. Ross Alley appeared deserted, too, but he could feel eyes peering at him from behind curtains and darkened glass. The hatchet man’s brazier still burned; in its orange glow James Scarlett was a motionless hulk on the cobbles where he’d fallen.

Quincannon went to one knee beside him, probed with fingers that came away wet with blood. His words to Scarlett a short time ago echoed in his mind: This is the last section of the city you should’ve ventured into this night. It’s a wonder you’re not dead already. Well, the attorney was dead now, dead as the proverbial doornail. The first bullet had entered the middle of his back, shattering the spine and no doubt killing him instantly.

But three shots had been fired. Either the highbinder had been unsure of his marksmanship in the darkness, which was not generally the case with one of the boo how doy assassins, or Quincannon had been a target along with Scarlett. The second prospect both added to his anger and puzzled him. There was no sensible reason why the Kwong Dock tong, if in fact they were responsible for this outrage, would want him dead. For that matter, how could they have known he was on the hunt for the attorney tonight? Scarlett’s wife had only just today retained the services of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, and she would hardly have told anyone in the Quarter of her decision, as frightened as she was for his safety.

One thing was certain: An already tense situation had now become that much more volatile. A tong war between the Kwong Dock and the Hip Sing could erupt at any time. The theft of venerable Hip Sing president Bing Ah Kee’s corpse four nights ago, assuming the Kwong Dock proved responsible for that as well, was fuel enough to fire hostilities. The murder of a Caucasian shyster and attempted murder of a Caucasian detective not only increased the likelihood of violence between the Chinese factions, but once the city’s yellow journalists fanned the flames with their usual inflammatory zeal, there was the serious threat of retaliation by police raiders and mobs of Barbary Coast and Tar Flat toughs.

All of Chinatown, in short, might soon be a powder keg with a lighted fuse. And Quincannon, like it or not, was now caught up in it.