The Loner: Crossfire

Chapter 21

Frank was so surprised by the words he heard that for a couple seconds all he could do was kneel there and stare at the hooded figure in front of him. Then he closed his hand around the butt of the Colt and asked harshly, “What do you know about Conrad?”

“There is no time to explain. You must come with us.” The hatchet man reached for the girl. “And this one, too, since she heard me speak your name.”

The girl screamed in terror and tried to scramble away. Frank saw the hatchet man’s hand tighten on the handle of his weapon, and realized the man might kill the girl rather than leave her behind to talk.

Frank had no doubt he could draw his gun, fire, and kill the hatchet man before the hooded killer could strike. But there were more of them, and if he gunned down one, the others might chop him up, along with the girl. Besides, they knew who he was, and they knew something about Conrad. He realized he had to play along in order to find out what that was.

“Come on,” Frank told the girl as he grasped her arm again. “I won’t let them hurt you.”

“No! No!” She tried to pull away.

With a sigh of regret, Frank closed his other hand into a loose fist and struck a short, sharp blow to the girl’s jaw that stunned her. As a Westerner, every part of his being rebelled at hitting a woman, but she didn’t understand that if she didn’t cooperate, the hatchet man would take the easy way out and kill her.

Frank would have to rely on his ability to take care of her. As she sagged against him, he lowered his shoulder and let her weight drape over it. As he came to his feet, his powerful muscles taking the burden of the girl without straining, he told the hatchet man, “Let’s go.”

As they started toward the door, he heard a voice he recognized as belonging to the bartender who had served him. “Hey! Hey, that crazy cowboy’s kidnapping Connie! Somebody stop him!”

Nobody got in Frank’s way, though. Not with the hulking figure beside him gripping a bloody hatchet. They passed through a lane created by the other hooded men, then suddenly were outside in the sunlight.

The hatchet man led the way across Grant Street toward a throng of people on the opposite sidewalk. That crowd opened like magic before them, and they trotted into an alley. Gloom closed in around them, as on the sidewalk the crowd came back together as if there had never been a gap.

Frank was confident none of those folks would ever admit to seeing anything unusual if the police questioned them. The grip of the tongs on Chinatown was strong.

Instinct warned him that by going with the hooded hombres he might be waltzing right into a trap, but he didn’t know of any reason why those powerful Chinese gangs would have any grudge against him. He had never clashed with the tongs during any of his rare trips to San Francisco in the past.

Except for the big hatchet man at his side and another who trailed behind them, the men who had launched the improbable raid on the Golden Gate had scattered. If they took off those hoods and hid their weapons under their jackets, they wouldn’t look that different from all the other men in the Chinese quarter. They could blend in and disappear in a matter of moments.

The girl on Frank’s shoulder began to stir. He stopped and let her slide down onto her feet. She was unsteady and pressed both hands against his broad chest to steady herself. As her wits returned to her, she lifted her head, stared wildly around her, and opened her mouth to scream.

“That wouldn’t be a good idea,” Frank told her before she could make a sound. He put his hands on her shoulders, which the low-cut dress left bare. “You don’t want to annoy these fellas.”

He felt her trembling like a bird as he took his first good look at her. She was on the small side, only a couple inches over five feet, and slender although her body had the sort of mature curves that made the red silk dress look good on her. Thick, dark brown hair fell to her shoulders. Her gray eyes were wide with fear.

“Your name’s Connie, right?” Frank asked, remembering what the bartender had yelled as they were going out.

She bobbed her head in a shaky nod.

“Well, listen to me, Connie. You’re gonna be all right. I give you my word on that.” Frank gave the big hatchet man a hard look as he said that, so the hombre would know he meant it. “I don’t know exactly what these fellas want with me, but their only interest in you is making sure you don’t tell anybody they came into the Golden Gate to get me.”

He was making a guess there, but even in the dim light of the alley he saw the big hatchet man and his smaller companion stiffen momentarily in surprise. Their reaction told Frank he was right.

“Once they’re through with me, they’ll let you go,” he continued. “And they’ll keep you safe the whole time, or else they’ll have a lot of trouble on their hands.”

Again he was making an assumption, that his cooperation was important to the men and to whoever they worked for. The two hatchet men didn’t say or do anything to contradict what he’d said.

“Do you understand?” He squeezed Connie’s shoulders. “You’re going to be all right.”

She didn’t look quite so terrified, although she was still plenty scared. She managed to swallow hard and nod. “I ... I won’t cause any trouble. I’ll do whatever you tell me.”

“Good.” Frank kept one hand on her shoulder as he turned to face the big hatchet man. “All right, you can go ahead and take us to your boss now.”

He heard a rumbling sound from under the hood and realized after a second it was what passed for laughter in the big man. The man said some swift words in Chinese to his companion, and they started off again.

For a while Frank tried to keep up with all the twists and turns they took through the maze of alleys and narrow streets, but finally gave it up as hopeless. He had no idea where they were or how to get back to the Barbary Coast. His frontiersman’s instincts were all but useless there. Even though it was midday, the spaces between the buildings were so small and clogged with laundry hanging from lines strung across them that nothing got through except a dim, dusk-like half light. Frank’s nerves crawled. He was used to wide-open spaces and didn’t like being closed in.

At last the big hatchet man opened a door and motioned for Frank and Connie to go up a dark, steep, narrow flight of stairs. Connie shrank back against Frank, who turned to the man and said, “How about one of you go first so we know we’re not walking into an ambush?”

The man gave that rumble of laughter again. He gestured toward the smaller hatchet man, who reached through the doorway and brought out a candle from somewhere. He lit it with a match he produced from a pocket in his quilted jacket, then started up the stairs in the lead with the candle held high. Its flickering glow revealed the stairs were covered with a dirty, threadbare carpet runner. The grimy walls seemed to close in on each side.

Frank prodded Connie into going next. His guts were tight with the impulse to draw his gun as he followed her, but he left the Colt in its holster. Not only did he have the big hatchet man right behind him, but he also felt like eyes might be watching them through hidden portals. He didn’t want to spook anybody.

When they reached the top of the stairs, the man with the candle led them along a dingy hallway. From the looks of it, the building was abandoned, but Frank didn’t fully believe that. The corridor made several turns, then they came to another staircase, leading down.

“Where are we going?” Connie asked in a trembling voice. “Where are they taking us?”

“I don’t know,” Frank said, “but I hope we’ll be there soon.”

They reached a landing, turned, and kept going down. Frank figured they were below street level. At the bottom of the stairs was a door, and when the man with the candle opened it, the light revealed a tunnel with earthen walls and thick beams shoring up the ceiling, like in a mine.

Connie stopped short and shook her head. “No, I can’t. I can’t go in there. They ... they have earthquakes here sometimes. The tunnel could collapse. I can’t go in there!”

She turned with panic in her eyes and tried to run, but Frank caught her. “It won’t take us long to get through it. We’ll be all right.”

He wished he could be as sure of that as he sounded.

The big hatchet man motioned impatiently for them to go on. The tunnel was wide enough for Frank and Connie to walk side by side. He kept an arm around her waist to steady her as they followed the man with the candle.

Even though Frank had had no way of knowing how long the tunnel was, it turned out that what he had told Connie was right. They were in it only for a hundred yards or so, then came to another door with stairs behind it leading up. Obviously glad to be out of the tunnel, Connie climbed them without any prodding.

They emerged into another hallway where the walls were covered with colorful, intricately embroidered tapestries. The hardwood floor was polished to a high sheen, and light shone from ornate brass fixtures that held gas lamps. Frank figured they were in a completely different building. The tunnel they had used probably passed underneath one of Chinatown’s streets.

The hall ended in a small, square room with a fine rug on the floor, a couple of impressively ugly chairs that didn’t look all that comfortable, and some small but exquisitely detailed paintings on the walls. A pair of doors on the opposite wall were closed. The big hatchet man, who had put away his blood-stained weapon, went to those doors and opened them. “Please, Mr. Morgan.”

“The girl stays with me,” Frank said.

The hatchet man inclined his hooded head in agreement.

Frank led Connie into the room on the other side of the doors. It was as large and opulent as he expected it to be. This was where he would meet the boss, he sensed, the man who had sent those hatchet men into the Golden Gate to fetch him. Maybe now he would get some answers.

There were no windows. The walls were covered with more tapestries. The room was furnished with a divan and several well-upholstered armchairs, but the large desk in its center dominated it. It was the sort of desk you’d find in the office of a successful banker or lawyer, like Claudius Turnbuckle, Frank realized.

The man who stood behind it was dressed like an American businessman, in a sober gray suit, white shirt, and black cravat. He was young, probably around thirty, and had sleek dark hair and a mustache. At first glance you might not even take him for Chinese, although the golden skin and dark, almond-shaped eyes testified to his heritage. He regarded Frank and Connie solemnly. “Mr. Morgan? Mr. Frank Morgan?”

Frank nodded. “That’s right.”

The man’s eyes cut toward the big hatchet man. “Ling Yuan, I did not tell you to bring any ... entertainment. . . with you.”

The man finally pulled the hood off, revealing a stolid face that bore the marks of many battles in the past. “She heard me speak Mr. Morgan’s name, and I thought it best not to leave her behind to tell Lannigan of our interest in him.”

“Then you should have—”

“A thousand pardons, illustrious one, but Mr. Morgan insisted we bring her along.”

Anger had flared in the man’s eyes at the interruption, but he suppressed it. “Very well. You adapted to the situation and performed your task admirably as always, Ling Yuan. Since we’re going to be working closely with Mr. Morgan, cooperating with him in this matter should convince him of our good faith.”

“I’d be more convinced,” Frank said, “if you’d tell me what you know about my son.”

“Of course.” The man came out from behind the desk and extended his hand to Frank. “But first, introductions are in order. My name is Wong Duck.” He smiled for the first time since Frank had come into the room, and the light from the gas lamps winked on the tiny jewel embedded in one of his front teeth. “But you can call me Diamond Jack.”