Bounty Hunter, page 16
“She’s a nurse.” Tone smiled. “Nurses say ‘tibia.’ ”
Langford glared at the nun. “Where is Evans? We have to see him right now.”
The nun consulted the ledger again. “Because of the seriousness of his condition, he’s in a private room.” She nodded to her left. “Along that corridor to the very end. Room 20.”
“When did someone last check on him?” Langford asked.
“Why, bless you, not more than an hour ago.”
“Good, then he’s still here and alive.”
“Sergeant, because of Mr. Evans’ condition, I can only allow you ten minutes.”
“Ma’am,” Langford said, “he’s coming with us.”
“I can’t permit that—” the nun began. But she was talking to the sergeant’s retreating back. The old lady rose to her feet and tottered down the hallway directly behind her. “Mother Superior!” she shrieked. “Murder!”
“This is the room,” Langford said when he reached the end of the corridor. He opened the door and stepped inside. Tone followed him.
The room was small and clean and smelled of carbolic acid, soap and the sickness of the man on the iron cot.
Langford stepped to his side while Tone took up a position near the corner where he could cover the door with his Colts.
He heard the cop say, “Evans, wake up,” and the cot creaked as he shook the sailor’s shoulder.
“Go away,” the man on the bed whispered. “I’m sick.”
“You’ll be worse than sick if you don’t come with us,” Langford said. “You’ll be dead.”
Tone looked at Evans and saw the man shake his head. “I can’t. Go . . . go away.”
The door burst open and Tone was reaching for his guns until he saw it was a nun, stiff, starched and boiling mad.
“What do you two think you’re doing?” she demanded. “I’m the mother superior and chief nurse of this hospital.”
“This man is going with me,” Langford answered. “It’s the only way we can save his life.”
“He is getting the best medical attention St. Mary’s can provide,” the sister said, her eyes ablaze with blue fire.
“Sister,” the sergeant said, “I’m not talking about medical attention, I’m talking about pirates, blackhearted rogues who will stop at nothing to silence this man’s tongue.”
The nun threw up her hands in disgust. “What in God’s holy name do you mean, man?”
Tone saw Langford fight a battle to contain his always hair-triggered temper. “Mother Superior, Nurse, whatever you’re called, if Bandy Evans is not taken from this hospital now, he’ll soon be killed, and you will be burying dead nuns.”
The sister opened her mouth to speak, but Langford held up a silencing hand. “This man can put a noose around a pirate rascal’s neck. Depend on it, when the pirate and his scoundrels come for him your habit won’t save you. These are hard, violent men who have made great sport with nuns in the past and they won’t hesitate to do it again.”
“Sergeant Langford speaks the truth, Sister,” Tone said. “They’ll come here for Evans and they’ll kill to get him.”
“Damn it, ma’am,” Langford yelled, “murder and rape are not pretty words, but that’s what you’re facing if I don’t get Bandy Evans out of here.”
The nun had gone from angry to thoroughly frightened. “But—but what if the pirates—I mean, what am I to tell them?”
“You will tell them that Evans is now in the custody of Sergeant Thomas Langford, and if they want him, they should come get him. Sergeant Thomas Langford of the San Francisco Police Department. Will you remember that?”
“I’ll remember.”
“In the meantime, I’ll try to convince my superiors to post some officers at St. Mary’s until this is over,” Langford said. “But the force is stretched mighty thin and I can’t guarantee it.”
The nun had regained some of her composure. “I recently read Treasure Island by Mr. Stevenson and I was of the opinion that pirates were now the stuff of sensational novels and history. I can see I was wrong.”
“Yes, you are wrong—more’s the pity,” Langford said. “The black flag still flies, as many a dead sailor lad could testify, and the California coast has its share of them, damned carrion dogs that they are.”
He looked closely at the nun. “Can he walk?”
She shook her head. “That’s out of the question. Mr. Evans has a broken leg and he’s still very weak.”
“We’ll have to carry him, Tone,” the sergeant said. “To the bottom of the hill and we’ll get a cab from there.”
“Where are we taking him?” Tone asked.
“To my house. He’ll be safer there since one of us will always be on guard.”
“Why don’t we take him to your police precinct?”
“Ha!” Langford exclaimed. “Those thick-skulled oafs would stick him in a cold cell and he’d be dead within hours. No, we’ll keep him alive at least long enough to take his statement, then we’ll get Inspector Muldoon in to witness it.”
The big cop smiled. “I think we’ve got Sprague by the balls, Tone.” He turned to the nun. “Oh, begging your pardon, Sister.”
“I’ve heard the word before, Mr. Langford, and worse.”
The sergeant gleefully rubbed his hands together. “Even Captain Sprague’s slick lawyer won’t get him out of this.”
“Unless Sprague kills us all,” Tone said.
Langford shook his head and grinned. “You Irish are such sunny, optimistic folk.”
“I know, and we get premonitions of disaster too.”
“Do you have one o’ them now?”
“Sergeant Langford, pretty soon I think we’re going to see the elephant,” Tone said.
Chapter 30
Between them, Tone and Langford carried the blanket-wrapped Evans into the street. The man was small and light, but their way down Rincon Hill was slowed by the steepness of the grade and the slick sidewalk underfoot.
A light drizzle was falling and the sky was as black as ink. Lightning throbbed in the clouds to the north and a rising wind tossed the tree branches, throwing sudden cascades of rain against the three men.
Evans’ head rolled and he groaned deep in his throat and Langford was alarmed. He glared at the man in his arms and growled, “I swear, if you die on me, I’ll kill you.”
He turned his head and looked at Tone. “Do you remember any of that stuff the nun told us about his care and feeding?”
Tone shook his head. “I wasn’t listening. I thought you were.”
“Hell no, I didn’t pay any heed to that stuff.” Langford was quiet for a while, then said, “We’ll feed him plenty of beef stew, whiskey and cigars. That’s good food for a sick man.”
“I recollect that the sister said something about chicken broth, soft-boiled eggs and custard,” Tone said, smiling, knowing what the big cop’s reaction would be.
He wasn’t disappointed.
“Damn your eyes, Tone, we don’t have any of that shit!” Langford roared. “He’ll eat what we eat.”
“Great, then your vittles will kill him quicker’n scat.”
Growling under his breath, Langford retreated into a sulky silence and didn’t speak again until they flagged down a cab and had Evans safely wedged between them.
“So far, so good,” the sergeant said. He glared at Evans. “Just don’t die on me, you son of a bitch.”
Evans opened his mouth and his breath smelled like death. “Where are you taking me?” he asked weakly.
“To my house,” Langford said. “You’ll be safe there.”
The little seaman managed to raise his head. “Who wants me dead?”
“The men who sank your ship,” the sergeant answered. “Now, don’t talk and waste what little strength you have left.”
Evans turned pleading eyes to Tone. “The pirates are trying to kill me?”
Tone nodded. “I reckon so, Bandy. You’re fast running out of room on the dance floor and we’re the only chance you’ve got.”
“But . . . but how did they know?”
Langford laughed. “Hell, man, by this time the whole damned Barbary Coast knows. You were picked up by whalers and like seafaring men everywhere, after they get a few grogs down ’em they talk.”
Still smiling cheerfully, he dug an elbow into Evans’ side. “Bandy, you’re a good man who can put the hemp around the neck of a blackhearted pirate rogue by the name of Captain Lambert Sprague, hell curse him. He’ll try to rub you out for sure.”
Evans was in a panic, his face ashen. “I know nothing! I didn’t see nothing!”
“Too late, Bandy,” the big cop said. “Now just relax and enjoy the drive. You’re safe and sound with us.” He beamed, put his huge arm around the little sailor’s quaking shoulders and hugged him close. “Safe as the snuffbox in your granny’s apron, my lad.”
Three minutes later, as the cab turned into California Street and the rain began in hammering earnest, the horse was shot down in its traces.
The dying Morgan rolled, kicking, to its right and tipped the cab violently over on its side. The driver was sent sprawling into the street and Tone, Langford and Evans were thrown together in a tangle of arms, legs and curses.
Bullets rattled through the thin wood of the cab’s bed, followed by a load of buckshot, and Evans screamed. Tone, a sharp stinging in his calves telling him that he’d been hit in both legs, pushed on the door that was now directly above him.
It refused to budge.
He lay on his back, putting all his weight on Evans and the cursing Langford, and kicked out hard. The door splintered off its hinges and thudded into the street. From somewhere Tone heard a woman scream, then another bullet slammed through the cab.
Standing on Langford, who was cursing even louder, Tone shoved his head though the door opening and looked outside, one of his guns drawn, up and ready in his right fist.
The three would-be assassins were already running, weaving their way through the people on the sidewalk, shoving both men and women to the ground as they stampeded toward a nearby corner.
Tone had no chance for a clear shot. There were too many people about. He watched the men disappear around the corner, then climbed out of the cab.
From inside, Langford roared angrily, “Damn you, Tone! You stood on my nose and broke it!”
Ignoring the enraged sergeant, Tone limped to the cabbie. The man’s neck was broken, his gray head lying on the street at an impossible angle, dead as he was ever going to be.
“Tone! Get me the hell out of here!”
After he picked up the cabbie’s top hat and placed it on the man’s body, Tone stepped back to the overturned hansom, pushing his way through a crowd of chattering gawkers. In the distance he heard a police whistle that was soon answered by another.
He looked into the cab. “You all right, Langford?”
“You stood on my nose, damn it! I think it’s broke.”
Tone smiled. “Take my hand.”
The big cop grabbed Tone’s outstretched hand and pulled himself erect. His nose was bloody and his mustache was already stained red.
“How is Evans?” Tone asked.
The little sailor was hunched over in a fetal position, whimpering. Langford was standing on him.
“I think he took some buckshot up the ass,” the cop said. “But I’ll get rid of it when we get him home.” He looked at Tone. “You didn’t shoot.”
“I was too late. I saw three men running for the corner, but there were a lot of people in between.”
“Did you recognize any of them?”
Tone shook his head. Langford stooped, and with one hand pulled Evans erect. He studied the man’s pale face and asked, “How badly are you hurt, Bandy?”
“I want to go back to the hospital,” the sailor whined. “I always told my ma that I’d die in my bed.”
“Did you get shot up the ass?”
“Yes . . . no . . . I don’t know. Please, I beg of you, take me back to the nuns.”
Langford spoke to Tone. “Help me get him out of here.”
As gently as he could, Tone lifted the man clear and leaned him against the bed of the cab. “Here, hold on to the wheel,” he said. He looked at the little man. “How are you feeling, Bandy?”
The sailor shook his head, his eyes pained. “You two are going to get me killed,” he said. “Take me back to the hospital, matey. I’ll take me chances with the pirates.”
“It was the pirates who just tried to kill you, Bandy,” Tone said. “They missed you, but murdered the cabbie.”
Evans saw the man’s body for the first time and he groaned. “I always said the Benton was a bad-luck ship and now I know it for sure.”
“What’s going on here?”
Tone turned and saw a policeman walking toward him, another at his heels. Rain drummed on their oilskin capes and the steel studs of their boots thumped on the slick roadway.
Langford, who had extricated himself from the cab, pushed past Tone and glared at the young cop. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.
The man’s eyes moved to the five-pointed sergeant’s star on Langford’s chest. “We got here as soon as we could,” he said defensively. “We were a ways off when we heard the shooting.”
“Then you should have come running,” Langford snapped, refusing to be mollified.
“What happened, Sarge?” This from the other officer, a middle-aged man with bulging green eyes and a ragged, pipe-stained mustache.
“We were set upon by assassins, that’s what happened,” Langford said. “Three damned amateurs, if you ask me. If they’d been professionals we’d all be dead by now.”
“The cab driver was killed when the cab turned over,” Tone said. “His neck is broken.”
The sergeant turned to Evans and felt his shoulders. “Soaked to the skin. He’s going to catch his death of cold.” He pointed at the younger cop. “You, give me your cape.”
With marked reluctance, the cop parted with his cape and Langford draped it over Evans. He turned to the two cops again. “There were three assailants, two firing revolvers, the third a shotgun. I have no description of the men, but you can ask around the crowd and see if anybody got a good look at them.”
“You’ve got a bloody nose, Sarge,” the older officer said. “It might be broke.”
“Don’t you think I already know that?” Langford said testily. “Now, get on with your investigation. You’ll need written statements from me and Mr. Tone here. I’ll bring those to the station later tonight.” He glanced at the dead cabbie. “And get that poor man off the street.”
Tone flagged down a cab and they bundled Evans inside. The little sailor didn’t look good; he was pale and drawn, his black eyes glazed and unfocused.
As they headed for his house through a pelting rain, Langford looked over Evans to Tone. “That ambush back there, was that what you meant by seeing the elephant?”
Tone shook his head. “We caught a glimpse of it, maybe. I believe there’s a lot worse to come.”
“I hope you’re wrong about that.”
“I wish to hell I was,” Tone said.
He looked at his legs. Both calves were bloody, but the buckshot had been slowed by the floor of the cab and none of his wounds were deep.
Beside him Evans was whimpering again and Tone told him to shut the hell up.
Chapter 31
“I’ve only got one spare bed, and that’s yours,” Langford said. “I’ll have to put him in there.”
Tone shrugged. “I don’t mind. I have a feeling that there’s not going to be much sleep for either of us.”
They laid Evans on the cot and Langford, fairly gently, covered him up to the chin. The man was wailing about being murdered in his bed, begging to be taken back to St. Mary’s and the sisters.
Langford poured a glass of whiskey and pulled a chair up to the bedside. “Drink this, Bandy,” he said. “It’s good for your nerves, like.”
He lifted the whiskey to Evans’ mouth and the man drained the glass, then coughed, phlegm rattling in his skinny chest.
The sergeant beamed. “That’s the ticket, Bandy. By the way, the buckshot missed your ass, and here’s some more good news—later you can have some beef stew and a cigar.”
“Eggs . . . ,” the man whispered. “Soft-boiled . . . with a bait o’ toast and butter.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t have any o’ that,” Langford said, rising to his feet. “Stew is good grub and it will put meat on your skinny bones.” His smile was about as sincere as the grin of a cobra studying a rabbit. “You sleep now, Bandy, and later you can talk about what you saw the day your ship was pirated.”
“Nothing . . . I saw nothing.” He groaned. “Oh, God help this poor sailorman.”
Langford gave Tone an incline of his head and stepped out of the room. When they were in the kitchen, the sergeant said, “I’m on duty tonight. You’ll have to stay with Evans.”
Tone nodded, but he wasn’t really listening. “Smell something?” he asked.
The sergeant sniffed. “What the hell? Is it Evans?”
But his disgusted expression changed to one of alarm when he saw Tone draw his guns. He sniffed again. “Where is it coming from?”
Tone had already stepped from the kitchen into the hallway. Langford’s room lay at the end of the short corridor, the door ajar.
“Did you close that when we left for the hospital?” Tone asked.
Langford shook his head. “I don’t remember.”
Warily, Tone walked to the door. He lifted his boot and kicked the door hard, then as it banged noisily back and forth, he stepped inside.
“Oh my God,” he whispered.
Then Langford was at his side. His horrified eyes moved to the bed.
“Those bastards!” he yelled. “Those blackhearted, murdering bastards!”
Willie Sullivan, his face frozen in his last agonized scream, lay on his back in the bed. Naked, the little man’s thin white body was splashed in blood, and his wrists and ankles were tied to the bedposts. The stench in the room was almost unbearable, like an overflowing outhouse in the sun. The source of the smell was Willie’s ripped open belly and the guts that had been piled on his chest.
Langford glared at the nun. “Where is Evans? We have to see him right now.”
The nun consulted the ledger again. “Because of the seriousness of his condition, he’s in a private room.” She nodded to her left. “Along that corridor to the very end. Room 20.”
“When did someone last check on him?” Langford asked.
“Why, bless you, not more than an hour ago.”
“Good, then he’s still here and alive.”
“Sergeant, because of Mr. Evans’ condition, I can only allow you ten minutes.”
“Ma’am,” Langford said, “he’s coming with us.”
“I can’t permit that—” the nun began. But she was talking to the sergeant’s retreating back. The old lady rose to her feet and tottered down the hallway directly behind her. “Mother Superior!” she shrieked. “Murder!”
“This is the room,” Langford said when he reached the end of the corridor. He opened the door and stepped inside. Tone followed him.
The room was small and clean and smelled of carbolic acid, soap and the sickness of the man on the iron cot.
Langford stepped to his side while Tone took up a position near the corner where he could cover the door with his Colts.
He heard the cop say, “Evans, wake up,” and the cot creaked as he shook the sailor’s shoulder.
“Go away,” the man on the bed whispered. “I’m sick.”
“You’ll be worse than sick if you don’t come with us,” Langford said. “You’ll be dead.”
Tone looked at Evans and saw the man shake his head. “I can’t. Go . . . go away.”
The door burst open and Tone was reaching for his guns until he saw it was a nun, stiff, starched and boiling mad.
“What do you two think you’re doing?” she demanded. “I’m the mother superior and chief nurse of this hospital.”
“This man is going with me,” Langford answered. “It’s the only way we can save his life.”
“He is getting the best medical attention St. Mary’s can provide,” the sister said, her eyes ablaze with blue fire.
“Sister,” the sergeant said, “I’m not talking about medical attention, I’m talking about pirates, blackhearted rogues who will stop at nothing to silence this man’s tongue.”
The nun threw up her hands in disgust. “What in God’s holy name do you mean, man?”
Tone saw Langford fight a battle to contain his always hair-triggered temper. “Mother Superior, Nurse, whatever you’re called, if Bandy Evans is not taken from this hospital now, he’ll soon be killed, and you will be burying dead nuns.”
The sister opened her mouth to speak, but Langford held up a silencing hand. “This man can put a noose around a pirate rascal’s neck. Depend on it, when the pirate and his scoundrels come for him your habit won’t save you. These are hard, violent men who have made great sport with nuns in the past and they won’t hesitate to do it again.”
“Sergeant Langford speaks the truth, Sister,” Tone said. “They’ll come here for Evans and they’ll kill to get him.”
“Damn it, ma’am,” Langford yelled, “murder and rape are not pretty words, but that’s what you’re facing if I don’t get Bandy Evans out of here.”
The nun had gone from angry to thoroughly frightened. “But—but what if the pirates—I mean, what am I to tell them?”
“You will tell them that Evans is now in the custody of Sergeant Thomas Langford, and if they want him, they should come get him. Sergeant Thomas Langford of the San Francisco Police Department. Will you remember that?”
“I’ll remember.”
“In the meantime, I’ll try to convince my superiors to post some officers at St. Mary’s until this is over,” Langford said. “But the force is stretched mighty thin and I can’t guarantee it.”
The nun had regained some of her composure. “I recently read Treasure Island by Mr. Stevenson and I was of the opinion that pirates were now the stuff of sensational novels and history. I can see I was wrong.”
“Yes, you are wrong—more’s the pity,” Langford said. “The black flag still flies, as many a dead sailor lad could testify, and the California coast has its share of them, damned carrion dogs that they are.”
He looked closely at the nun. “Can he walk?”
She shook her head. “That’s out of the question. Mr. Evans has a broken leg and he’s still very weak.”
“We’ll have to carry him, Tone,” the sergeant said. “To the bottom of the hill and we’ll get a cab from there.”
“Where are we taking him?” Tone asked.
“To my house. He’ll be safer there since one of us will always be on guard.”
“Why don’t we take him to your police precinct?”
“Ha!” Langford exclaimed. “Those thick-skulled oafs would stick him in a cold cell and he’d be dead within hours. No, we’ll keep him alive at least long enough to take his statement, then we’ll get Inspector Muldoon in to witness it.”
The big cop smiled. “I think we’ve got Sprague by the balls, Tone.” He turned to the nun. “Oh, begging your pardon, Sister.”
“I’ve heard the word before, Mr. Langford, and worse.”
The sergeant gleefully rubbed his hands together. “Even Captain Sprague’s slick lawyer won’t get him out of this.”
“Unless Sprague kills us all,” Tone said.
Langford shook his head and grinned. “You Irish are such sunny, optimistic folk.”
“I know, and we get premonitions of disaster too.”
“Do you have one o’ them now?”
“Sergeant Langford, pretty soon I think we’re going to see the elephant,” Tone said.
Chapter 30
Between them, Tone and Langford carried the blanket-wrapped Evans into the street. The man was small and light, but their way down Rincon Hill was slowed by the steepness of the grade and the slick sidewalk underfoot.
A light drizzle was falling and the sky was as black as ink. Lightning throbbed in the clouds to the north and a rising wind tossed the tree branches, throwing sudden cascades of rain against the three men.
Evans’ head rolled and he groaned deep in his throat and Langford was alarmed. He glared at the man in his arms and growled, “I swear, if you die on me, I’ll kill you.”
He turned his head and looked at Tone. “Do you remember any of that stuff the nun told us about his care and feeding?”
Tone shook his head. “I wasn’t listening. I thought you were.”
“Hell no, I didn’t pay any heed to that stuff.” Langford was quiet for a while, then said, “We’ll feed him plenty of beef stew, whiskey and cigars. That’s good food for a sick man.”
“I recollect that the sister said something about chicken broth, soft-boiled eggs and custard,” Tone said, smiling, knowing what the big cop’s reaction would be.
He wasn’t disappointed.
“Damn your eyes, Tone, we don’t have any of that shit!” Langford roared. “He’ll eat what we eat.”
“Great, then your vittles will kill him quicker’n scat.”
Growling under his breath, Langford retreated into a sulky silence and didn’t speak again until they flagged down a cab and had Evans safely wedged between them.
“So far, so good,” the sergeant said. He glared at Evans. “Just don’t die on me, you son of a bitch.”
Evans opened his mouth and his breath smelled like death. “Where are you taking me?” he asked weakly.
“To my house,” Langford said. “You’ll be safe there.”
The little seaman managed to raise his head. “Who wants me dead?”
“The men who sank your ship,” the sergeant answered. “Now, don’t talk and waste what little strength you have left.”
Evans turned pleading eyes to Tone. “The pirates are trying to kill me?”
Tone nodded. “I reckon so, Bandy. You’re fast running out of room on the dance floor and we’re the only chance you’ve got.”
“But . . . but how did they know?”
Langford laughed. “Hell, man, by this time the whole damned Barbary Coast knows. You were picked up by whalers and like seafaring men everywhere, after they get a few grogs down ’em they talk.”
Still smiling cheerfully, he dug an elbow into Evans’ side. “Bandy, you’re a good man who can put the hemp around the neck of a blackhearted pirate rogue by the name of Captain Lambert Sprague, hell curse him. He’ll try to rub you out for sure.”
Evans was in a panic, his face ashen. “I know nothing! I didn’t see nothing!”
“Too late, Bandy,” the big cop said. “Now just relax and enjoy the drive. You’re safe and sound with us.” He beamed, put his huge arm around the little sailor’s quaking shoulders and hugged him close. “Safe as the snuffbox in your granny’s apron, my lad.”
Three minutes later, as the cab turned into California Street and the rain began in hammering earnest, the horse was shot down in its traces.
The dying Morgan rolled, kicking, to its right and tipped the cab violently over on its side. The driver was sent sprawling into the street and Tone, Langford and Evans were thrown together in a tangle of arms, legs and curses.
Bullets rattled through the thin wood of the cab’s bed, followed by a load of buckshot, and Evans screamed. Tone, a sharp stinging in his calves telling him that he’d been hit in both legs, pushed on the door that was now directly above him.
It refused to budge.
He lay on his back, putting all his weight on Evans and the cursing Langford, and kicked out hard. The door splintered off its hinges and thudded into the street. From somewhere Tone heard a woman scream, then another bullet slammed through the cab.
Standing on Langford, who was cursing even louder, Tone shoved his head though the door opening and looked outside, one of his guns drawn, up and ready in his right fist.
The three would-be assassins were already running, weaving their way through the people on the sidewalk, shoving both men and women to the ground as they stampeded toward a nearby corner.
Tone had no chance for a clear shot. There were too many people about. He watched the men disappear around the corner, then climbed out of the cab.
From inside, Langford roared angrily, “Damn you, Tone! You stood on my nose and broke it!”
Ignoring the enraged sergeant, Tone limped to the cabbie. The man’s neck was broken, his gray head lying on the street at an impossible angle, dead as he was ever going to be.
“Tone! Get me the hell out of here!”
After he picked up the cabbie’s top hat and placed it on the man’s body, Tone stepped back to the overturned hansom, pushing his way through a crowd of chattering gawkers. In the distance he heard a police whistle that was soon answered by another.
He looked into the cab. “You all right, Langford?”
“You stood on my nose, damn it! I think it’s broke.”
Tone smiled. “Take my hand.”
The big cop grabbed Tone’s outstretched hand and pulled himself erect. His nose was bloody and his mustache was already stained red.
“How is Evans?” Tone asked.
The little sailor was hunched over in a fetal position, whimpering. Langford was standing on him.
“I think he took some buckshot up the ass,” the cop said. “But I’ll get rid of it when we get him home.” He looked at Tone. “You didn’t shoot.”
“I was too late. I saw three men running for the corner, but there were a lot of people in between.”
“Did you recognize any of them?”
Tone shook his head. Langford stooped, and with one hand pulled Evans erect. He studied the man’s pale face and asked, “How badly are you hurt, Bandy?”
“I want to go back to the hospital,” the sailor whined. “I always told my ma that I’d die in my bed.”
“Did you get shot up the ass?”
“Yes . . . no . . . I don’t know. Please, I beg of you, take me back to the nuns.”
Langford spoke to Tone. “Help me get him out of here.”
As gently as he could, Tone lifted the man clear and leaned him against the bed of the cab. “Here, hold on to the wheel,” he said. He looked at the little man. “How are you feeling, Bandy?”
The sailor shook his head, his eyes pained. “You two are going to get me killed,” he said. “Take me back to the hospital, matey. I’ll take me chances with the pirates.”
“It was the pirates who just tried to kill you, Bandy,” Tone said. “They missed you, but murdered the cabbie.”
Evans saw the man’s body for the first time and he groaned. “I always said the Benton was a bad-luck ship and now I know it for sure.”
“What’s going on here?”
Tone turned and saw a policeman walking toward him, another at his heels. Rain drummed on their oilskin capes and the steel studs of their boots thumped on the slick roadway.
Langford, who had extricated himself from the cab, pushed past Tone and glared at the young cop. “Where the hell have you been?” he demanded.
The man’s eyes moved to the five-pointed sergeant’s star on Langford’s chest. “We got here as soon as we could,” he said defensively. “We were a ways off when we heard the shooting.”
“Then you should have come running,” Langford snapped, refusing to be mollified.
“What happened, Sarge?” This from the other officer, a middle-aged man with bulging green eyes and a ragged, pipe-stained mustache.
“We were set upon by assassins, that’s what happened,” Langford said. “Three damned amateurs, if you ask me. If they’d been professionals we’d all be dead by now.”
“The cab driver was killed when the cab turned over,” Tone said. “His neck is broken.”
The sergeant turned to Evans and felt his shoulders. “Soaked to the skin. He’s going to catch his death of cold.” He pointed at the younger cop. “You, give me your cape.”
With marked reluctance, the cop parted with his cape and Langford draped it over Evans. He turned to the two cops again. “There were three assailants, two firing revolvers, the third a shotgun. I have no description of the men, but you can ask around the crowd and see if anybody got a good look at them.”
“You’ve got a bloody nose, Sarge,” the older officer said. “It might be broke.”
“Don’t you think I already know that?” Langford said testily. “Now, get on with your investigation. You’ll need written statements from me and Mr. Tone here. I’ll bring those to the station later tonight.” He glanced at the dead cabbie. “And get that poor man off the street.”
Tone flagged down a cab and they bundled Evans inside. The little sailor didn’t look good; he was pale and drawn, his black eyes glazed and unfocused.
As they headed for his house through a pelting rain, Langford looked over Evans to Tone. “That ambush back there, was that what you meant by seeing the elephant?”
Tone shook his head. “We caught a glimpse of it, maybe. I believe there’s a lot worse to come.”
“I hope you’re wrong about that.”
“I wish to hell I was,” Tone said.
He looked at his legs. Both calves were bloody, but the buckshot had been slowed by the floor of the cab and none of his wounds were deep.
Beside him Evans was whimpering again and Tone told him to shut the hell up.
Chapter 31
“I’ve only got one spare bed, and that’s yours,” Langford said. “I’ll have to put him in there.”
Tone shrugged. “I don’t mind. I have a feeling that there’s not going to be much sleep for either of us.”
They laid Evans on the cot and Langford, fairly gently, covered him up to the chin. The man was wailing about being murdered in his bed, begging to be taken back to St. Mary’s and the sisters.
Langford poured a glass of whiskey and pulled a chair up to the bedside. “Drink this, Bandy,” he said. “It’s good for your nerves, like.”
He lifted the whiskey to Evans’ mouth and the man drained the glass, then coughed, phlegm rattling in his skinny chest.
The sergeant beamed. “That’s the ticket, Bandy. By the way, the buckshot missed your ass, and here’s some more good news—later you can have some beef stew and a cigar.”
“Eggs . . . ,” the man whispered. “Soft-boiled . . . with a bait o’ toast and butter.”
“Yeah, well, we don’t have any o’ that,” Langford said, rising to his feet. “Stew is good grub and it will put meat on your skinny bones.” His smile was about as sincere as the grin of a cobra studying a rabbit. “You sleep now, Bandy, and later you can talk about what you saw the day your ship was pirated.”
“Nothing . . . I saw nothing.” He groaned. “Oh, God help this poor sailorman.”
Langford gave Tone an incline of his head and stepped out of the room. When they were in the kitchen, the sergeant said, “I’m on duty tonight. You’ll have to stay with Evans.”
Tone nodded, but he wasn’t really listening. “Smell something?” he asked.
The sergeant sniffed. “What the hell? Is it Evans?”
But his disgusted expression changed to one of alarm when he saw Tone draw his guns. He sniffed again. “Where is it coming from?”
Tone had already stepped from the kitchen into the hallway. Langford’s room lay at the end of the short corridor, the door ajar.
“Did you close that when we left for the hospital?” Tone asked.
Langford shook his head. “I don’t remember.”
Warily, Tone walked to the door. He lifted his boot and kicked the door hard, then as it banged noisily back and forth, he stepped inside.
“Oh my God,” he whispered.
Then Langford was at his side. His horrified eyes moved to the bed.
“Those bastards!” he yelled. “Those blackhearted, murdering bastards!”
Willie Sullivan, his face frozen in his last agonized scream, lay on his back in the bed. Naked, the little man’s thin white body was splashed in blood, and his wrists and ankles were tied to the bedposts. The stench in the room was almost unbearable, like an overflowing outhouse in the sun. The source of the smell was Willie’s ripped open belly and the guts that had been piled on his chest.
