The Flimflam Affair

18 Quincannon

Monday, like Sunday, was another uneventful day. Or it was until that evening.

He heard nothing from Ezra Bluefield or any of his other contacts regarding the coney game, there was no old business that required his attention nor any new business at all. The only thing that made it tolerable was Sabina’s presence in the office, and at that she refused to allow him to do nothing more than sit at his desk smoking his pipe and meditating; instead she coerced him into helping her with billing matters and the updating of the agency’s file of dossiers on known criminals. Paperwork, bah! He was a man of action, when there was any action to be had, not a glorified clerk.

He made the mistake of saying that last to Sabina, and received a tongue-lashing in return. “Is that what you think I am, a glorified clerk?” she said crossly.

“No, no, of course not...”

“I do most of the invoicing and bill-paying, as you well know. Not to mention writing reports, handling our finances, and now and then conducting an investigation such as the one for Winthrop Buckley. And yet you growl and grumble every time I ask you to do a few simple tasks to ease my burden, even when you’re not busy.”

Quincannon swallowed a sigh. A small crisis last night, and now another today. Women could be difficult on occasion, an emancipated woman twofold. Not that he blamed her for pointing out what few shortcomings he possessed. She did spend a great deal of her time attending to office chores he avoided, and clearly found them as dull and repetitious as he did.

He poured oil on the troubled waters by saying, “You’re right, my dear, and you’ll get no more argument from me. What would you like me to do?”

“Write the report on the Buckley case. I’ll give you my notes.”

And a long, detailed report it was bound to be. Ah, well. He tackled it with as much good humor as he could muster. He made sure to give most of the credit for the investigation’s successful resolution to Sabina — she deserved it, after all — and to minimize his own role in the matter. When he showed the finished report to her and she’d read through it, she nodded and smiled her approval.

“Now that wasn’t such a difficult chore, was it, John?”

“Not at all.”

The white lie earned him another smile, a warmer one to show that he was back in her good graces.

The rest of the day crawled away. The prospect of an intimate dinner for two would have made the slow passage of time more tolerable, but he’d been thwarted once again by her involvement with the suffrage movement: she was dining tonight with her cousin Callie French and other female members of the social set in an effort to raise more funding for the upcoming convention. Another dull evening loomed ahead for him.

Sabina departed early and Quincannon closed the office shortly afterward. Home? No, Hoolihan’s. There, at least, he would have the company of other lonely souls in a convivial atmosphere.

Hoolihan’s Saloon was a haven for those who disliked the noisy grandiosity of the tony saloons that catered to the politicians, judges, businessmen, and prowling gay blades who indulged in the nightly Cocktail Route bacchanal. Small merchants, office workers, tradesmen, Embarcadero dock-wallopers were its clientele — men who preferred a place free of the glitter of crystal chandeliers and fancy mirrors, a floor coated with sawdust, a back room packed with pool, billiard, and snooker tables, and a stomach-filling free repast of corned beef, strong cheese, rye bread, pigs’ feet, hard-boiled eggs, and pickles. Some were solitary drinkers, whose privacy was respected by staff and patrons alike. Quincannon had been drawn there in his drinking days, and even after taking the pledge continued to frequent it. He knew most of the regulars well and considered the head bartender, Ben Joyce, a friend.

“Hello, you bloody Scotsman,” Joyce said, his usual greeting, when Quincannon bellied up. “Back again tonight, eh?”

“In spite of having to look at your ugly face.”

“Hah. At least mine doesn’t resemble a black sheep’s hind end.”

He poured a mug of warm clam juice without being asked, set it in front of Quincannon with a feigned expression of distaste. “Only a barbarian would drink the likes of this,” he said.

“You must have a fair lot of barbarians among your customers, else you wouldn’t stock it.”

Quincannon had been there for the better part of half an hour, and was helping himself to a generous plate of free food, when a little, seedy-looking fellow in a patched coat and lye-colored pants sidled up to him and tugged on his sleeve. No one he’d ever seen before, and not the sort to be drawn to or long tolerated in Hoolihan’s at any rate, dressed as he was and giving off a ripe odor of unwashed flesh.

“You be Mr. Quincannon, eh?” he said in a voice like a frog’s croak. An Australian frog, judging from the slight accent. Like as not a second-generation Sydney Duck.

“And if I am?”

“I was told I might find you here. Me name’s Owney.”

Quincannon extricated his sleeve from the grubby fingers. “What do you want?”

“A private word with you, sir, to your benefit.”

“Who told you to look me up?”

“A gent I knows gives me your name. An acquaintance, as you might say, of Mr. Ezra Bluefield.”

Quincannon’s interest sharpened considerably at the mention of Bluefield’s name. “Come along, then,” he said. “We’ll have our private word at one of the tables.”

Owney was eyeing the plate of food, his tongue flicking over chapped lips; obviously it was much more appetizing fare than he was used to. “Would you mind, sir, if I was to have a bite to eat meself? Pigs’ feet’s always been me favorite.”

“We’ll talk first. If what you have to say is worthwhile, you can have this plateful.”

“And p’raps a glass of beer to quench me thirst?”

“That, too.”

“Ah, I can tell you’re a gentleman, sir, a true gentlemen. You’ll not be disappointed in what I haves to tell you, I guarantee it.”

Quincannon steered him to an empty corner table near the window, set the plate down in the middle of it. Owney started to sit down beside him, but Quincannon waved him to a chair opposite. The ripe body odor was not quite as palpably offensive at a distance.

“Speak your piece,” he said then.

“Well, sir, I gets around a bit and keeps me ears open. Couple of nights ago I happens to be in a Terrific Street resort and overhears a mug in his cups tell another mug how happy he was to’ve hooked up with them that was takin’ the Treasury Department for a ride. His exact words, sir. So when I hears that a pal of Mr. Bluefield’s is interested in just such dirty business as that, I comes lookin’ for you straightaway.”

“What else was said on the subject?”

“Nothing that I hears. The second mug says hard, ‘Shut up, Dinger, or the boss’ll cut your tongue out.’”

“Dinger. You’re sure that was the name?”

“That I am, sir. No mistake.”

“Was the boss’s name mentioned? Or any others?”

“Dinger was all I hears.”

“Any idea where Dinger or the other one hang their hats?”

“No, sir. Strangers to me, they was.”

“Where was it you overheard them talking?”

“The Red Rooster. You knows it, sir?”

“I know it,” Quincannon said. The Red Rooster was a dance hall and bagnio on Terrific Street, as Pacific Avenue was known to habitués, in the black heart of the Barbary Coast. “Was anyone else with the pair while they were talking?”

“Not then there wasn’t, but one of the girls joined them up just after. Joined Dinger up, that is.” Owney punctuated the last with a wink and a leer. “Wasn’t long before they goes wobblin’ off together, headed upstairs.”

“No stranger to him, then, this girl?”

“Chummy as you please, they was.”

“Do you know her name?”

“Mollie. That’s what he called her.”

“What does she look like?”

“Hefty as them that likes ’em that way. Ringlets what fits right in with the name of the place, red as a rooster’s comb.”

“And Dinger?”

“Well, now. A mite taller than me, speckled-egg bald without his hat. Nose bent funny, like it was broke once and not fixed proper. Fond of his liquor, I’d say — face as red as Mollie’s hair.”

“Age?”

“Who can tell, sir? Not so old, not so young.”

“The other man, the one who told Dinger to shut up — describe him.”

“Shaped like a wrestler, he was, with a mustache so thick it looked like he was eating a cat.”

Paddy Lasher, like as not. “Did you notice his eyes, if one was blue and the other brown?”

“Hoo. One blue, one brown? No, sir.” Owney gave an emphatic headshake. “I never looks them in the eye as I don’t know, and even if I did, the Rooster ain’t too well lit up like some resorts.”

“Anything else you can tell me about either man?”

“Not a thing, sir. If I’d knowed then what I knows now, I’d’ve waited around and followed Dinger and his pal when they left the Rooster. As ’twas, I had some business of me own to tend to.”

Scruff’s business, no doubt. Men like Owney had their fingers in the bottoms of all sorts of unsavory barrels.

Owney leaned forward, his gaze shifting eagerly between Quincannon and the plate full of free lunch. “Was me information worth this here tucker for a hungry man?”

Quincannon pushed the plate toward him.

“And a glass to wash it down with?”

“Yes.”

“Ah. And not to be askin’ too much of your charity, sir, pr’aps a gold sovereign or two for me empty purse?”

The idea of paying money to a scruff as disreputable as this one, particularly when there was no chance of an expense-account reimbursement, chafed at Quincannon’s sense of propriety, not to mention his thrifty nature. A promise, however, was a promise. He got to his feet, withdrew a handful of coins from his pocket, extracted two dimes, and placed them on the table.

“One for the promised beer,” he said, “the other for your empty purse.”

Owney looked half crestfallen, half irritated, but he knew better than to offer a remark. He pounced on the coins, made them disappear. When last seen he had a pig’s foot in one hand and a hunk of cheese in the other and was greedily devouring them in alternate bites.