Lone Star 02 (2 page)

Off to one side of the cavernous building stood dozens of cable cars. Many of them were shaking and rumbling, reminding Jessie of a herd of cattle about to stampede. “Market Street! Clay Street! California Street!” shouted the conductors, the clanging bells of their brightly painted, candy-colored cars adding to the din. There was the shrill, steam-whistle blast of a departing ferry, and the pungent aroma of snorting horses, who shook their bridles in impatience to collect a fare and draw their cabs out of this foul-smelling place so filled with the machines that many people were saying would soon render horsedrawn vehicles obsolete.

There was so much to take in, so much to listen to and see, that Jessie—spinning around like a top—suddenly grew dizzy. Ki came up behind her placing his firm hand on her elbow to steady her.

“I see that as usual,
you're
totally in control,” Jessie remarked wryly. “But your Stetson is out of place here. We'll have to get you a derby.”

“Do not forget that it was this city where I arrived as a young man, when I stepped off one of your father's clippers. It was in that first office of your father that I presented myself to him for hire.”

“Just because he'd owned the clipper that transported you,” Jessie marveled, shaking her head.

“It was an omen,” Ki said, quite earnestly. “A sign. Such things are not to be ignored. Surely your father's housekeeper, Myobu, taught you
that
when she taught you the arts of the geisha?”

“Yes, she did,” Jessie smiled. “Among other things...”

“I remember your father's office quite well,” Ki continued, smiling now himself, as the memories came back to him. “He had only one floor in a frame building on Pacific Street, overlooking the wharf.”

“Now the Starbuck home office takes up an entire block-long building,” Jessie remarked proudly. “We took over one of the banks that went bust after the Comstock Lode began to fizzle.”

“California Street!” shouted a conductor.

“That's where our office is located!” Jessie cried out. “Oh, let's ride the cable car there!”

“I am afraid your ride will have to wait,” Ki laughed. “I must see to the luggage before the ferry carries it all back to Oakland.”

“Well, I'll ride it on my own,” Jessie countered. “I can certainly take care of myself as far as—”

“Look there,” Ki interrupted.

Standing with the rest of the cabbies was an elderly fellow dressed in a frayed, blue serge suit, and a lopsided, black leather visored cap. Above his head he held a square of cardboard on which was written, in uneven block letters, MISS JESSICA STARBUCK.

“How do you do, Miss,” the old fellow said as Jessie and Ki approached. “And you, sir, how do
you
do? Mr. Lewis, of the Starbuck Import and Export Company, has engaged me to drive you to your hotel, wait for you while you refresh yourself, and then take you to Mr. Lewis's office for a meeting at three o‘clock.”

“You certainly know a lot about Mr. Lewis's affairs,” Jessie observed. Arthur Lewis was an old family friend. He had been with Alex Starbuck from the beginning, and he was vice-president in charge of Pacific trade. In reality, Lewis just about totally ran all of the various enterprises comprising the Starbuck dealings with the Japans and China.

“Begging your pardon, Miss Starbuck,” the cabbie said, doffing his worn cap. “My card—” He held out a small white rectangle. “Thaddeus Simpson is the name. And like it says there—” He tapped the card Jessie held. “Driver for hire.”

Jessie eyed Ki, as if to say,
“A cabbie with a business card?”

“This is San Francisco,” Ki reminded her.

“Mr. Lewis keeps me on retainer,” Simpson explained. “I don't carry no other fares but the folks he wants me to carry. He gets an awful lot of business folks come to see him, you know,” he added sagely. “He's made you both a reservation at the Palace Hotel, Miss. And we ought to be on our way, if you're to have the time to rest a bit before going—”

“—to the meeting. Yes, thank you, Mr. Simpson,” Jessie laughed. “Oh, well, I guess my cable car ride will have to wait.”

“You go along,” Ki said. “I'll get a porter to fetch our luggage, and then take another cab to the hotel. That way you will have more time to rest.”

Ki watched until Jessie was safely inside Simpson's hack. The cabbie clucked his horse into a brisk walk toward the daylight-flooded, high-arched portals of the huge building.

Ki turned to summon a porter. Through experience, both he and Jessie knew how to travel lightly. Ki had one bag for this trip, and Jessie one trunk of clothing.

A somewhat surely-looking porter appeared, and Ki gestured toward the bags and said, “To a cab, please.”

Then he turned and began to walk before the porter, whose luggage cart had wheels that squeaked like mice as he followed. Suddenly the porter stopped, grabbed Ki's arm, and spun him around, to peer angrily at his face.

“Say, you're an Oriental, ain‘tcha?” the porter glowered. “A Chinaman—”

“I am Japanese,” Ki corrected him gently.

“Jap or Chinaman, it don't make no difference to me,” the porter growled. “But I'll take my money in advance, seeing that I'm not dealing with no white gentleman.”

Ki felt his temper rising, but he got control of his anger, reminding himself that this fellow was not worth crushing. “Here is your money, then, in advance,” he said, being careful to keep his voice level as he handed the porter his coins.

Mollified, the porter began pushing his noisy cart once again. “That's the way I like it,” he nodded. “Money in advance from Chinamen. I'm a member of Mr. Kearney's Working-man's Party of California,” he boasted.

“And what is that?” Ki asked, now genuinely curious. He had already waved away the man's previous insult, the way he might a bothersome fly.

“What, you don't know?” the porter snorted. “You'd better find out, else you might get hurt, Chinaman—”

Ki reached out to gather up some of the porter's jacket front. He then lifted the man into the air, using just one hand. “I am
not
Chinese. Understand?”

“Put me down, dammit!” the porter squealed, his shoes dancing on thin air.

Ki gave him a little shaking, the way a terrier might shake a rat. “Do you understand?” he softly repeated.

“Yes,” the porter pouted. “Yes...
sir.”

Ki put him down. “I have already paid you,” he said softly. “I wish to hear no more insults. Fair enough?”

The porter said nothing, but glumly went back to pushing his cart. Ki chose to interpret his silence as acquiescence.

The woman's wail came as shrill and shockingly sudden as a steam-whistle blast from one of the ferryboats. Ki whirled around in the direction of the cry. He saw two men closing in on a solitary woman traveler. The bigger of the two hoodlums had locked his burly forearm across the woman's throat, while his smaller friend waved a length of iron pipe in her face.

“Let her go!” Ki shouted, and began racing toward the scene.

“My purse!” the woman cried. The little fellow had taken it. He'd tucked it under his arm as he began to run toward the cable cars. The big one released the woman in order to confront Ki's charge.

“What have we got here? A hero, is it?” the big man laughed. He was dressed in tattered denims, his shirt sleeves rolled up to display the knotted masses of his muscles. His hands were large, his splayed fingers grimy and padded with calluses.

Ki saw that the woman, brandishing her umbrella, had set off after the other robber. Ki attempted to swerve around the larger man, in order to pursue the one who had the woman's purse.

“Oh, no you don‘t,” the big man laughed, crabbing sideways, to block Ki. He was bald, and wore a thick black beard, and had one gold earring in his right ear. His smile revealed a mouthful of gold teeth that matched the earring. “My friend will do the lady right proper,” he nodded. “And I'm going to do you,” he growled. He rushed forward, his fists balled, windmilling right and left.

Ki brought his own hands up to distract the robber's attention, and then executed a
mae-geri-kekomi,
a forward foot-thrust. His ankle-high, black Wellington boots allowed his foot the proper mobility. His foot-strike caught the man squarely on his bearded chin. The fellow's knees buckled, but he shook off the effects of the kick and aimed a roundhouse right at the side of Ki's head.

Ki sidestepped outside the swing. He clamped his right hand around the other's outstretched wrist, and slammed the heel of his left into the other's elbow. There was an audible crack, and then the big man fell to the floor, howling in agony.

“Oh, God! Oh, you broke my arm!” The robber's face, beneath his beard, had gone white as a sheet. He writhed about, cradling his elbow and moaning.

“You!” Ki commanded, pointing a finger at the porter. “Stay with my luggage.”

The porter nodded. “Yes, sir!” He himself had grown a shade paler as he looked down at the big bruiser crumpled on the floor, and thought about how he had so impudently sassed the soft-spoken, rather thin-looking gentleman who had put the lug there.

Ki was already in the midst of the empty, currently out- of-service cable cars. There were at least thirty of the cars scattered about on a crisscrossing network of track. He peered under the first few, his frustration rising. The one who had the purse could be hiding anywhere—assuming he was even still in the building...

“Over here!” came a woman's shout.

Ki hurried around the side of a pink cable car emblazoned with the words HYDESTREET. He saw the woman who had been robbed bent over at the waist, prodding beneath the car with her umbrella. “He's under here!” she declared triumphantly.

Ki had a moment to admire the woman's shapely backside before she straightened up and hurried away. The robber slid out from beneath the cable car, the purse still clutched in his left hand, and that deadly length of pipe still in his right. He was dressed in denim pants and a floppy canvas jacket, and was about five nine, but his wiry body was far from puny. Ki knew that this one would be twice as quick as his larger, lumbering partner, and that would make him twice as dangerous.

“I'll bash your head in,” the purse-snatcher snarled. “Then I'm gonna do the same for you, lady,” he warned the woman.

Ki had grown weary of the game. He reached inside his jacket and extracted one of his
shuriken
throwing blades from the sheath sewn into the lining of his garment. The four-inch, hiltless blade flew from his fingers to pin the pipe-wielder's loose sleeve to the wood-paneled side of the cable car.

The pipe fell from the surprised man's fingers and rolled out of sight beneath the car. Dropping the purse, the little man shrugged out of his jacket and ran off, leaving his garment hanging the way a lizard leaves behind its severed tail.

Ki wiggled his blade out of the cable car's paneling, letting the robber's jacket fall to the floor. He slipped the
shuriken
back into its sheath, and then bent to retrieve the lady's purse.

“Thank you so much,” the woman enthused. “You have been so kind, so brave—”

“I am glad that I could be of help,” Ki said, bowing slightly. Now that the woman was speaking normally, and not in a series of frightened exclamations, Ki could detect a European accent. The woman's voice was lilting and quite pleasant, as was the rest of her. She was wearing a tightly fitted, high-necked dress of dark blue velvet. It emphasized the elegant lines of her body. Her hat was cut from the same velvet as her dress, and was perched on her mass of auburn curls. The hat was tipped at a rakish angle that made her look quite cosmopolitan, and more than a bit daring. That daring look was only heightened by the lascivious sparkle in her catlike eyes as she looked Ki up and down.

“I must go now—” Ki began.

“No! Wait!” the woman exclaimed. “I mean...” Her white gloved hands rose to her rouged cheeks. “I mean... I do believe that with all this excitement, I'm beginning to feel faint.” Her long lashes began to flutter as she swayed toward Ki, falling into his quickly outstretched arms.

The warmth of her this close to him, and the sweet scent of her perfume, made Ki himself feel like swooning. This close to her, Ki could see the faint crow's feet around her eyes, and the slightest hint of a burgeoning double chin. She was in her late thirties, Ki reckoned, but still a lovely woman. She had about her that fecund ripeness, that promise of bursting sweetness, that only the most mature, late-summer fruit can have.

“Perhaps my hero would like a kiss in reward for his valor?” she murmured.

Ki gathered her in his arms, and pressed his mouth against hers. She tasted vaguely of cinnamon; there was a hint of tobacco. Her kiss was heady, as intoxicating as wine. Her thighs, beneath her velvet dress, locked about Ki's leg. One dainty, white-gloved hand dipped to stroke him, bringing him rapidly erect within the confines of his trousers.

“I wish to thank you more profusely,” she breathed into his ear. “We are alone here. We could slip into one of these empty cars—”

There was no denying the urgency in her husky whisper, and there was no denying the randy, bucking urgency Ki himself felt in his loins. He swept her off her feet and into his arms, and strode with her toward the pastel-pink Hyde Street car.

“You are so strong,” she warbled, nuzzling her upturned nose and full lips into Ki's neck. “I hope you are strong down below, as well...”