Bounty Hunter, page 9
“Then you’ll be a rather large Chinaman, that’s all.” Penman shook his head irritably. “Mr. Tone, nobody notices Celestials. To the toughs along the waterfront they’re just little brown, harmless people who come and go. Despite your imposing stature, you will be invisible, trust me.”
Tone opened his mouth to protest again, but Penman’s upraised hand stopped him. “You will not be alone. You’ll have someone else by your side, a person of the same profession, a bounty hunter.”
“Who is he?”
“He is a she.”
“A woman!” Tone was scandalized. “Hell, there are no women bounty hunters. That’s—that’s an abomination.”
“Maybe so. But nonetheless, that’s exactly what she is. She was one of the first lady Pinkerton detectives and later a successful outlaw hunter. That is, until I lured her away from her wild frontier ways by pointing out that she could make more money working for Mr. Sprague than she could gunning badmen.”
Now Tone was angry. “Penman, I’m not going to put my life on the line and depend on a . . . a . . . petticoat to help me out in a shooting scrape.”
“You might change your mind when you see her.”
“Yeah, I bet I love her mustache.”
Penman consulted his watch. “She’ll be here shortly. I put her up at a hotel nearby and asked her to step round to be briefed. Of course, her first task would have been to find you.”
“What’s her name?” Tone asked stiffly.
“Miss Chastity Christian.”
“Oh my God,” Tone said with a groan.
“Names, like appearances, can be deceiving, Mr. Tone,” Penman said dryly.
Chapter 14
Barnabas Dale scratched on Penman’s door.
“Enter,” the lawyer said.
“Miss Christian is here, sir.”
“Send her in.”
Chastity Christian was a pretty brunette, dressed in the latest New York fashion, the bustle of her gray silk morning dress huge, the hat perched on top of her mane of dark, upswept hair tiny. She had large, expressive brown eyes and a wide, full-lipped mouth, little arcs at the corners revealing a quickness to smile. Her waist was tiny, her bust large, firm and high.
She was, Tone admitted to himself reluctantly, a very desirable woman. But she was not what she claimed to be—of that he was equally sure.
Penman made the introductions, then said, “I briefed Miss Christian earlier on what she must do at the waterfront, Mr. Tone. She will disguise herself as a Chinese woman and assist you in any way you require. Of course, her task has been made easier since she no longer has to find you first.”
“It will be an honor, Mr. Tone,” the woman said, her small white teeth flashing. “I’ve heard of you, of course. You are much talked of in Texas.” Her smile grew wider. “And other places. Oh, and please call me Chastity.”
Horrified, Tone looked past the woman to Penman. “Get rid of her,” he said. “She’ll be nothing but trouble, and totally useless besides. Maybe at one time she did some nice ladylike detective work, but she’s never hunted a dangerous outlaw in her life.”
He didn’t expect what happened next, although it did serve to confirm his suspicions about the woman.
Looking like she’d just been slapped, Chastity’s eyes misted and she opened her drawstring purse and pulled out a lacy white handkerchief. Tone didn’t see the derringer wrapped inside until the muzzle was jammed hard between his eyes.
“Mister,” she said, her voice suddenly cold and flat, “even a woman can scatter your goddamned brains at this distance.” The sound of the hammer being pulled back was loud in the office. “In the past eighteen months I’ve killed three men and wounded two others. I don’t know where you’ve stashed your hogleg, but go for it and see what happens next.”
Penman seemed amused. “Now, now, Miss Christian, no unpleasantness, please. Mr. Tone is a little overwrought and didn’t mean what he said. Did you, Mr. Tone?”
Tone kept his head very still, but dropped his eyes to Chastity’s. “You’re sudden,” he said.
“Yes, Mr. Tone, and really quite good with a gun.” She thumbed down the hammer and let the derringer drop to her side. “Now, you were saying something about me being useless? I’ll let the trouble part go, because for some men that’s exactly what I am.”
Tone nodded, iron in him. “I’m impressed, and I see how you work. Get a man to believe that he has nothing to fear and everything to gain by getting close to a pretty, harmless young lady. Then blow his damfool head off.” Tone had been smiling, but now his face was stiff. “But a word of warning: You ever pull a gun on me again and I’ll put a hole in you, woman or no woman.”
“Don’t count on it, Mr. Tone,” Chastity said. “You’ll live longer that way.”
Tone and the woman were standing as close as lovers, but both knew that something had come aborning between them that was far from love, a dangerous thing that could one day demand a reckoning.
Penman, a perceptive man, knew he had to end it. “This is getting us nowhere,” he snapped. “Your fight is with the enemies of Mr. Sprague, not each other. Mr. Tone, Miss Christian is now your partner in this endeavor and that’s my final word on the matter.”
He looked at the woman. “You remember my instructions?”
Chastity stepped back from Tone and nodded. “We get to the house of Chang in Murder Alley. He will supply us with suitable clothing and tell us the whereabouts of our targets.”
“Mr. Chang is in my employ and he has spies all over the waterfront,” Penman said. “You will be safe and well informed in his hands.” He lifted his eyes to Tone. “It would be excellent, Mr. Tone, and good for your future well-being, if you can greet Mr. Sprague’s arrival with news of at least one kill.”
“I’ll do my best,” Tone said. “In the meantime I need money and”—he pulled the Enfield from his pocket and laid it on the desk—“a handier piece than this.”
Penman’s eyes dropped to the big revolver and then went back to Tone’s face. “Money is tight right now, but I’ll tell Barnabas to give you a hundred from the strongbox. As to guns, since you so carelessly lost yours, the cost of their replacements will be deducted from your first fee.”
Penman opened a drawer, rummaged around among papers for a while, then pulled out a card. “This is the name and address of a gunsmith. He and I do business regularly, so tell him I sent you and that he should send me the bill.”
The lawyer looked from Tone to Chastity. “Are there any questions?” Neither of the two answered and Penman said, “Excellent. Well, good luck. I’ll see you both at the dock when Mr. Sprague arrives.”
He rested suddenly hostile eyes on Tone. “One thing, Mr. Tone: please don’t disappoint me again.”
Penman picked up the Enfield and dropped it into his desk drawer.
Tone and Chastity Christian rode in the rain-lashed cab, close together but separated by a frosty silence. The woman kept her eyes to the front, ignoring Tone, while he, conscious of her warm, shapely body next to his, battled a tangle of emotions.
She was undeniably beautiful, but she had the cool ruthlessness of a born killer that Tone had encountered before only in men of a certain breed. Men like himself, perhaps.
How would she be in bed?
He let his mind wander . . . wondering . . . straying far from the cold rain of his immediate surroundings into soft, scented, silken places. . . .
The cab rocked to a halt. “Here is it, folks,” the driver called from his perch. “Hans Gruber the gunsmith.”
Tone helped Chastity from the cab and retrieved the bags that they’d earlier picked up at her hotel. He paid the driver and saw that the woman had already walked into the gun store, a small one-story building wedged between a couple of run-down office blocks within sight of the waterfront.
Stepping inside, Tone took a moment to enjoy the familiar odor of gun oil and leather and the gleam of light on blue metal, then walked up to the counter.
Chastity was browsing display cases of revolvers when Gruber stepped out of his workshop and greeted Tone. The German was a tall man, stooped, with large, capable hands, surrounded by that almost unworldly aura of serenity that all good gunsmiths seem to possess.
Tone explained his needs: something small but hard-hitting and the leather to conceal it effectively.
The gunsmith beamed. “You’re in luck, mein Herr. I have the very thing.” He disappeared into his workshop and when he returned he laid two beautiful guns and a fancy double-rig shoulder holster on the counter.
“A matching pair of double-action, Colt Model 1877 revolvers, ivory grips, nickel-plated, in .38 caliber,” Gruber said proudly. “They have two-and-a-half-inch barrels and I tuned the triggers myself for the gentleman who owned them.”
“Why did the gentleman part with them?” Tone asked.
“It was an unwilling parting, I’m afraid. The gentleman was a gambler, now deceased, who was fast on the deal but slow on the draw. Since he owed me money, I claimed the guns from his estate.”
Tone picked up the Colts, smiling as he admired their heft and excellent balance. He tried the triggers, which were as smooth as silk, breaking crisp and clean, like glass rods. Chastity looked over his shoulder, nodded her approval, but said nothing.
Deciding to strike while the iron was hot, the German said, “I’ll throw in the leather at no charge. Now, the price for the pair of revolvers is—”
“I don’t care what they cost,” Tone said. “Luther Penman is paying for them.”
Gruber looked slightly disappointed. “In the past, Mr. Penman has sent several gentlemen here to be armed,” he said. “He always pays his bills, of course, but never on time.”
“I’ll take the Colts,” Tone said. “And a box of cartridges to go with them.”
“I load my own ammunition,” Gruber said, brightening. “Each round is top quality, mein Herr, and I guarantee that you will never have a misfire.”
The gunsmith sacked up the guns, then said, “If you ever need anything else, you know where to come . . . Herr . . . um . . .”
“Tone, John Tone.”
It was obvious that Gruber had heard the name before. Men talk of arms in gun shops and of the pistoleros who use them.
“Would you be the John Tone from up Reno, Nevada, way?”
“I would.”
“Then this is an honor, Herr Tone. I spent many hours tuning those Colts and I’m happy that they’re going to a man who can appreciate them and use them well. Their last owner was a fine gentleman who fancied himself a gunfighter, but wasn’t.”
“What was his name?” Chastity asked, speaking for the first time.
“Nathan Black, ma’am,” Gruber answered.
“Never heard of him,” Chastity said.
The gun shop was within walking distance of the waterfront, but Tone waved down a cab, not wanting to take a chance on being recognized by an early riser, unlikely as that was.
The driver, an elderly man wearing an oilskin coat and a battered top hat, allowed that if it was after dark and not morning, it would take a hundred dollars and a cavalry escort to get him to set foot in Murder Alley, but since the thugs and dance-hall loungers would still be in bed he’d take the chance and be damned to all of them.
As they clattered over the cobbles, Chastity determinedly kept her eyes to the front, saying nothing. But her rounded hip pressed closer to Tone on the seat, whether by accident or design, he could not guess.
Chapter 15
The Barbary Coast’s Murder Alley was so named long before the Chinese took it over. So narrow that the rain barely fell on its cobbled street, it was lined with gimcrack stores, opium dens and brothels. Even at that early hour, the alley was thronged with people speaking a rapid language that rose and fell like the call of birds.
Tone stopped men and women, asking for Chang’s house. They bustled past him without answering, either not understanding what he said or at least pretending they didn’t.
Finally Chastity convinced an old woman sitting in the doorway of a store to point out the house, a rickety, unpainted frame and timber building that teetered alarmingly into the alley as it soared to a second and then an overhanging third floor.
A tiny wizened man, who seemed to carry the wisdom of centuries in his black eyes, opened the door. He had obviously been well briefed by Penman because he looked at Chastity and smiled. “I am Chang, Miss Christian. Welcome to my humble abode.”
Chastity and Tone stepped into a hallway that smelled of incense, boiled cabbage and sex. This early in the morning, there were no women in evidence, but nailed to each doorway along the corridor was a framed, well-painted picture of the specialty of the woman inside. It seemed that every facet of men’s lust was covered, plus a few even the most perverted of them probably never imagined.
Tone expected to see a maidenly blush on Chastity’s cheeks and downcast eyes, but instead she closely studied each illustration and finally gave her verdict to Tone, summing it up in a single word: “Exhausting.”
Chang led the way to the end of the hall and opened the door to a sparsely furnished room with a dresser and chair, a rice-paper screen painted with cherry blossoms and, Tone noticed immediately, a single iron bedstead made up with a thick mattress and clean sheets and pillows.
If Chastity took note of the sleeping arrangements, she didn’t let it show. “Mr. Chang,” she said, her voice brittle and businesslike, “you have clothing for us?”
“Yes, Miss Christian, for you and the gentleman.” He looked Tone up and down. “I had his specially made by a seamstress I can trust.”
He opened a door that Tone had thought led to another room, but it turned out to be a closet, with a variety of folded pants and colorful tunics on the shelves.
Chastity stepped to the closet, inspected the clothes, then turned to Chang. “Those will do nicely. You will arrange food and drink, should we require it?”
The Chinese bowed. “But of course, Miss Christian.”
Chastity sat on the edge of the bed. “Do you have information for myself and Mr. Tone?”
Chang shook his head, his lined face grave. “I have no information to give. I am not an informer, for that is a dangerous occupation along the waterfront. But I can pass on good news. Good news is always welcome, is it not?”
“I like to hear good news,” Chastity said evenly.
The Chinese man smiled. “Then here is a good-news story. Once there was a certain bandit who lived with his five brothers in a big house by the great ocean. Now this bandit did not wish to stay home, but left almost every night to visit a fallen woman. The bandit’s behavior was so strange that his brothers began to laugh and say that he’d fallen in love with a whore. The young bandit didn’t mind; he went on visiting the woman, and still does to this very day. All this was very good news for his enemies, for they hated the young man and planned to cut off his head.”
“And this young bandit, do you suppose he is with the woman now?”
Chang shrugged. “If he was a real person, I think he would wait until tonight.”
“And where would the woman dwell?” Chastity asked.
“If she was a real person, she would have a room above the Opera Comique at the corner of Jackson and Kearny.”
“And this young bandit, does he have a name?”
“He is not a real person, so he has no name.” Chang looked sly. “But he was the least of the bandits because his brothers were much more feared and powerful. You can give him a name and, if I like it, I will nod.”
Chastity looked at Tone. “There’s only one man suits that description. His name is Mickey Kerr and he strong-arms for the others.”
Chang was nodding vehemently and the woman said to him, “A very interesting story, Mr. Chang. A pity it’s not true.”
“Yes, a pity. But alas, it is just a good-news fairy tale.” Chang bowed to Chastity. “If you need anything, Miss Christian, my office is at the front of the hallway.”
After the man left, Chastity threw a bundle of Chinese clothes to Tone. “Wear these and get used to them.” She took hers behind the screen and began to undress.
“I’m going after Mickey Kerr tonight and start earning my money,” Tone said, talking to rice paper and cherry blossoms.
“No, we are,” Chastity said. “Both of us.”
“It’s something I have to do myself.”
Chastity screeched in horror and Tone stepped quickly to the screen. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just discovered what Chinese women wear in place of bloomers. They’re . . . they’re . . . indecent.”
“Let me see,” Tone said.
“Back off,” Chastity said. “I told you, they’re downright indecent.” A rustling pause, then, “But comfortable, though.”
Tone was having his own problems. Chang had obviously described him to his seamstress as a giant, because his blue tunic swamped him, the sleeves falling over his hands. The baggy black pants were also voluminous, the crotch sagging between his thighs.
Then he remembered his holsters. Sighing, he yanked off the shirt and strapped himself into the harness. A two-gun rig is uncomfortable at the best of times, but the leather and buckles chafed against his bare chest when he moved around.
There was nothing to be done about it. He couldn’t wear his guns over the tunic in full view of everybody.
“Ready?” Chastity asked from behind the screen.
She stepped into the room and Tone felt his breath catch in his throat. She wore a pink embroidered tunic that showed off every luscious curve of her body and her dark hair fell in glossy waves over her shoulders.
“You look . . . You look . . .” Tone couldn’t find the words.
“Ugly?”
“No! No! You look . . . wonderful.”
The woman joined her hands together in front of her breasts and bowed low. “Thank you, kind sir.” She studied Tone from his shoes to the top of his head. “And you look—”
