The Loner: Crossfire

Chapter 18

One of Turnbuckle’s assistants had brought in cups of coffee for the three men. As they sat in the lawyer’s elegantly appointed private office, Turnbuckle said, “I suppose the best thing to do is just start at the beginning. You’re a grandfather, Frank.”

“What are you talking about, Claudius?” Frank was stunned, the cup in his hand forgotten.

“Do you remember Pamela Tarleton?”

Frank grunted. “Be hard to forget her, after what she did to Rebel.”

“Yes, well, that wasn’t the extent of Miss Tarleton’s evil. I don’t wish to be indelicate about this, but it seems that when Conrad decided to call off his engagement to her, she was, ah, already in the family way.”

Frank sighed. “Conrad’s grown into a fine young man, but before that he could be a damned fool sometimes.”

Turnbuckle didn’t comment on that. “Following the affair in New Mexico in which Miss Tarleton’s father was arrested and then murdered, she returned to Boston and gave birth to twins. A boy and a girl.”

“Named Frank and Vivian,” Arturo put in.

That news rocked Frank. Learning he had a pair of grandchildren had been a shock without hearing they were named after him and Conrad’s mother, the great love of his life. To cover how shaken he was, he took a sip of the hot, strong coffee. Then he nodded and said, “Go on.”

For the next half hour, Turnbuckle and Arturo explained how Conrad had found out about Pamela’s cruel plot against him and how he had set out on a cross-country odyssey to find the missing twins.

“The boy should have told me.” Frank frowned. “I would have come and given him a hand.”

“I believe he was determined to do this himself,” Turnbuckle said.

“He had Arturo here helping him.” Frank waved his hand toward the Italian.

“It’s not quite the same thing,” Arturo said. “Mr. Browning and I are not related, therefore no emotional complications and implications existed that would have had he called on his father for assistance.”

“That never stopped him before,” Frank muttered, thinking of all the times he and his gun had come to Conrad’s aid.

“He was never searching for his own children before.”

Frank shrugged and turned back to the lawyer. “So the trail led here?”

“That’s right. Conrad felt—and I agreed with him—that he was closing in on the children at last. We located some clues pointing toward a man named Dex Lannigan who owns a saloon in the Barbary Coast. We figure Pamela Tarleton made a deal with Lannigan. He may even know where she hid the children.”

Frank leaned forward in his chair and set his cup on Turnbuckle’s desk. “Then I reckon it’s time we went and had a talk with this fella Lannigan.”

Turnbuckle held up a hand. “It’s not that simple.”

It’s always that simple, Frank wanted to say, but he reined in the impulse.

“Lannigan is going to be at a society party tonight that Conrad was also going to attend,” Turnbuckle went on. “He hoped to find out more information that way. But this morning, when one of the bodyguards I’ve hired to look out for Conrad went to the Palace Hotel, where he’s staying, Conrad wasn’t there ... and neither was the guard who was on duty last night.”

“They might’ve gone somewhere and just haven’t come back yet,” Frank suggested.

A weary sigh came from Turnbuckle. “I might have thought the same thing ... if not for the fact that the police showed up here with the news that Thomas Morelli’s body was pulled out of San Francisco Bay this morning. Morelli was the man who was with Conrad. He had been badly beaten, and his throat was cut. His wife knew he was working for me and told the police about it when they talked to her. The poor woman sent them here.”

That sounded pretty bad, all right. Frank knew there was a good chance Conrad and this fella Morelli had been together. Since Morelli was dead, then ...

Frank gave a little shake of his head. He wasn’t going to let himself think the thought that had just crossed his mind. Conrad wasn’t dead. He knew it in his heart. “What did you tell the police?”

“That Morelli had been guarding Conrad. There was an attempt on his life as soon as he got to town.”

“Lannigan had men watching for him, probably at the train station,” Frank said.

Turnbuckle nodded. “That’s what we think now. We didn’t know about Lannigan at the time.”

“You didn’t tell the police you think Lannigan’s to blame for what happened to Morelli?”

“There’s no proof of that,” Turnbuckle said. “And I know Conrad didn’t want the police involved in the matter of the children. He thought he stood a better chance of recovering them safely himself. I knew you’d be arriving today, and I wanted to consult with you first.”

“Why did you track me down and send me that telegram, if you knew Conrad didn’t want me mixed up in it?”

Turnbuckle’s fist thumped down on the desk. “Because you and I are friends, Frank, and those are your grandchildren we’re talking about! It seems to me you have a right to be involved. Besides, Arturo wired me from Carson City and told me Conrad seemed to be getting more reckless and obsessed about the whole thing.”

Arturo spoke up. “I didn’t want to go against Mr. Browning’s wishes, but the more I thought about it, the more I came to believe you could help him, Mr. Morgan. And he needed that help.” Arturo smiled. “Did you know when we first met, Mr. Browning was calling himself Kid Morgan? For the longest time I thought he was just some Western gunslinger. I had no idea he was actually a financier and businessman, and a quite successful one, at that.”

“Back then he had put all that behind him,” Frank said. “I reckon he thought he was Kid Morgan, too. That’s who he wanted to be.”

“But we can’t be someone we’re not,” Turnbuckle said heavily. “Our pasts won’t allow that.”

Frank shrugged. They were drifting off the trail here. “If Conrad’s still alive, Lannigan’s probably got him stashed somewhere. You said Lannigan owns a saloon in the Barbary Coast?”

“That’s right. It’s called the Golden Gate. What are you going to do, Frank?”

The Drifter pushed himself to his feet. “I reckon it’s time to pay a visit to Dex Lannigan and his Golden Gate Saloon.”

The only good thing about the pain in his head, Conrad thought, was that the dead no longer felt such agonies. That meant he was still alive ...

Unless he had died and gone to hell for all the evil things he had done in his life.

Even though he was no expert on theology, it seemed unlikely to him that hell would smell like rotten fish. That unpleasant odor filled his nostrils, with another smell lurking under it that might be salt water.

He kept his eyes closed and didn’t move, making an effort to keep his rate of breathing from changing. If anyone was watching him, which certainly seemed possible, he didn’t want them to realize that he was awake.

As he lay there, he concentrated on letting details about his surroundings seep into his mind, helping him to not think about how bad his head hurt. He was lying on his stomach, with his head turned to the right and his left cheek pressed into what felt like a hard wooden surface. That surface moved under him, not much, just a faintly perceptible rocking motion.

When Conrad put those things together—the tang of salt water, the reek of fish, the steady movement of the boards on which he lay—he came to the inescapable conclusion that he was on a boat, lying either on deck or down in a hold. Probably in a hold, because he didn’t feel any air moving.

Even through closed eyes all he could sense was darkness. That meant it was either still night, or the darkness was another indication he was belowdecks.

He decided to risk cracking one eye open. He raised his right eyelid a fraction of an inch, not really enough for him to see anything but enough to let in any nearby light.

Nothing. The blackness continued to surround him.

If he couldn’t see anything, that meant nobody could see him. He opened both eyes. After a moment, he lifted his head. Fresh waves of pain rolled through his skull, so intense he had to squeeze his eyes closed again until the throbbing subsided. Eventually the pain lessened.

Conrad shifted to determine if he was tied up. His arms and legs were free, which was a bit surprising.

On the other hand, if he was locked up in the hold of a ship, where could he go?

Shanghai ...

The word sprang into his mind and a horrified shudder went through him. He was in San Francisco, after all. The town was notorious for all the men who had been drugged, kidnapped, and taken aboard ships bound for the Orient. By the time those unfortunates regained consciousness, the vessels were well out to sea, and they had no choice but work. If they refused, it was a simple matter for their captors to knock them in the head and toss them overboard for the sharks. Because of the destination that lay across the Pacific for many of these ships, it became common to say that a man had been shanghaied when he was drugged and forced to join the crew.

Would Lannigan do such a thing to him? Conrad didn’t doubt for a second the man was capable of it. He might think dooming Conrad to such a hellish existence was more punishment than simply killing him. It was even possible Pamela might have come up with the idea herself when she struck her deal with Lannigan three years earlier.

But no matter whose idea it was, Conrad knew he had to get out. He could tell by the slight motion of the ship that it was still riding at anchor, probably in San Francisco Bay. If it had already sailed, it would be moving around much more as it rode the waves. If he could get out of the hold, he could still escape before the ship was out at sea.

He pushed himself into a sitting position and waited for the pain in his head to subside. Looking around, he searched for even a tiny crack of light that would indicate the location of a hatch. He didn’t see anything. Maybe there wasn’t a hatch that led on deck. There had to be some way into the chamber, though. A door in a bulkhead, maybe.

Before making a move, he made sure he was alone. He hadn’t heard anyone else moving around, nor had he heard any breathing, but it was possible the men who had attacked them on the dock had thrown Morelli in with him. In an urgent whisper, he said, “Morelli! Morelli, are you there?”

Silence was his only answer.

But it wasn’t complete silence. Now that the pounding in his head wasn’t as bad, he could hear a faint sloshing sound—water moving around in the bilge—which meant he was low down in the ship. He heard something that might have been far-off footsteps, and a low, barely heard moan, but not a human one. That was a foghorn, Conrad realized.

He reached out in the darkness and felt around him, searching for a bulkhead or possibly the ship’s curving hull. When he didn’t feel anything he moved onto hands and knees and crawled forward, using his left hand for balance and keeping his right extended in front of him.

He hadn’t gone very far when his fingertips brushed against something. At first he thought it was a wall, but in feeling around, he discovered it was a large crate.

It gave him something to lean on as he struggled to his feet. His head spun crazily as he stood up, and for a few seconds he thought he was going to fall. Forcing himself to stand still, he took some deep breaths, and the world steadied around him.

He swallowed the feeling of sickness welling up in his throat. Steadfastly ignoring it, he sat on the low crate for a few minutes, bracing himself with his hands on his knees.

With the resilience of youth and the rugged life he had led the past couple years, some of his strength came back to him. While sitting there, he took stock of what his captors had left him.

It wasn’t much. He had his boots, his trousers, and his shirt. His coat and hat were gone, and so were the shoulder holster and the .38 Smith & Wesson he had carried. His pockets were empty. No coins, no matches, nothing.

If he was still locked up when the ship sailed, he would have no way to prove he was Conrad Browning ... not that the captain and crew would have cared, anyway. They had to know what was going on. Probably Lannigan had paid them off.

His only chance was to get off the ship before it sailed.

The footsteps he suddenly heard coming closer in the darkness might be the key to doing just that.