Sitka (10 page)

“It may be a coincidence.”

“He has wheat which he will not sell to a friend, but will sell to Alaska. He has a political friend to whom he writes. He asks questions about Alaska, and he has a friend who would gladly see the Yankee flag flying over the whole continent. I think, Helena, this young man may help us. He may help us very much indeed.”

Jackson and Kearney Streets met at an intersection known locally as Murderers’ Corner. The Opera Comique faced Denny O’Brien’s Saloon across this corner and there was but little to choose between them. The saloon was the hangout for Sydney Town hoodlums and later for those toughs known as the Barbary Coast Rangers. It was burned and rebuilt with few added features and no change in clientele. In the cellar beneath the saloon were other forms of entertainment than the usual drinking and gambling. In a pit situated in its center dogs were fought against each other or a variety of other animals. A man who had a job to be done by tough men could be sure of finding them at O’Brien’s.
 
On the Tuesday following the meeting between LaBarge and Zinnovy, three men sat at an inconspicuous table in O’Brien’s. Charley Duane, Royle Weber and the Baron Zinnovy had scarcely seated themselves when O’Brien himself appeared. Weber and Duane he knew very well, especially Duane who was a fixer, a politician, and a man with a hand in a number of illegal pies. These two were enough of a magnet; but the elegantly cut clothing of the Baron smelled of money, an odor calculated to draw immediate attention from Denny O’Brien. He went to the table rubbing his fat hands on his vest front. “Somethin’ for you, gents?” “A bottle of Madeira,” Zinnovy said. He measured O’Brien with his cold eyes.
 
O’Brien smiled. “Yes, sir! We have just what you want. We cater to all tastes an’ kinds, don’t we, Mr. Duane?”

He brought the wine and the glasses himself and lingered over the decanting, for Denny O’Brien was a knowing man and these three had not come here without a reason. O’Brien had had his dealings with Duane and Weber. He was, after all, known to them both as a man who could be counted on to deliver five hundred votes at election time, provided several of the boys repeated their voting. He could also be counted upon to deliver almost anything else.
 
O’Brien leaned his fat hands on the table. “Girls, maybe? Got any kind you want.

“No,” Duane came to the point. “We want to talk to Woolley Kearney.” O’Brien did some fast thinking. Kearney was a former Australian convict who made his boast that he could whip any man alive in a brawl. He had killed a fellow prisoner, then killed a guard in escaping, and in San Francisco he had killed at least one man publicly, with his fists. If it was Kearney they wanted it was a beating somebody was to get.

Kearney would hog all the money and O’Brien would never see a red cent of it.

“Kearney?” he said doubtfully. “The man’s not been seen around, last few days.” He lowered his voice. “Who be the gent you want called upon? I know just the lads for it.”

Weber shifted in his seat. He was sweating a little. Duane glanced at Zinnovy and the Baron shrugged. “It will be Jean LaBarge.” Zinnovy was surprised at O’Brien’s sudden change of expression. The saloonkeeper drew back a little and touched a tongue to his lips. “LaBarge, is it? You’d want Wool Kearney, all right. Or maybe three of my boys.” “Three?” Zinnovy lifted an eyebrow.

“He’s a skookum man, that LaBarge. Most of those about town will have no part of him, but I know three lads who’ll do just the job for you, and no kickback.” Zinnovy’s eyes were chilled. “If there is a kickback, as you phrase it,” he said quietly, “I’ll have you shot.”

Startled, O’Brien looked at Zinnovy again. The man was not joking. “Is it a beating you’ll be wanting?” he asked.

“I want him out of business for a while.” Zinnovy did his own talking now. “A beating, but a broken arm or leg included. Also, I want the warehouse that holds his wheat burned to the ground.”

O’Brien hesitated. “It will cost you one thousand dollars,” he said at last.
 
Baron Zinnovy looked up, his gray eyes showing no interest. “You will be paid five hundred. If LaBarge gets a very severe beating, five hundred more. If the warehouse is destroyed, another five hundred.”

O’Brien took a long breath. “It’ll be done tomorrow night.” Zinnovy pushed a small sack across the table. It tinkled slightly as O’Brien’s fat hand closed over it. “See to it,” Zinnovy ordered.
 
Duane lingered as they started for the door, and whispered, “Don’t slip up. He isn’t playing games.”

“When did I fail, Charley? Ask yourself that—when did I fail?”

Captain Hutchins stood at the window of the small office above the warehouse. It was late afternoon and a dismal, rainy day. Now, for a few minutes, the rain had ceased and the waterfront lay wet and silent The sea in the harbor was a dull gray and the hulls of the vessels had turned black. Here and there a few anchor lights had appeared. There were two windows in the office, and the one at which Hutchins stood, hands clasped behind his back, looked out over the edge of the dock and the bay. The other window looked across the street and up the length of the dock to where the shore curved away into distance. The office held little furniture. A roll-top desk, a swivel chair, a bank of pigeonholes on the wall, each stuffed with invoices or receipts, a black leather settee and two captain’s chairs, very worn.

From the window there was noboby in sight but a tall man who stood looking out over the water, yet several times he turned and glanced back at the warehouse.
 
Hutchins frowned. In a city practically ruled by hoodlums such a fact was not to be overlooked. Behind him, Jean was outlining his plan for the trip north.
 
The man at the dock edge turned again and for the first time Hutchins got a brief glimpse of his face. “Jean, do you know Freel? The fellow who hangs out with Yankee Sullivan?”

“I know him.”

“What would he be doing on the dock at this hour?” LaBarge got up and walked toward the window. Freel, one of the Sydney Ducks, was known to him as a thoroughly vicious character, figuring in a number of knifings and assaults. He stepped closer to the window and noticed a flicker of movement farther up the waterfront. After a moment he saw that two men stood in the shadows near a darkened warehouse about a block away. “He’s not wasting his time looking at sunsets. He’s got something else on his mind.” “They’ve left us alone so far.”

Jean walked back to the center of the room and drew his pistol, checking the loads. “If they start trouble, Cap, I’m taking it to them. We’ve been lucky so far, but if they start it—“ “That’s quite an order, son.”

“Coyotes run yellow in the pack. I’ve hunted them before.” He turned to his lists. Spare sails, heavy cable, lines. He had never done this for a ship of his own, and it was a wonderful feeling. Item by item he went down the list. The heavy gear was his own idea. Kohl had questioned the usefulness of the heavy blocks and wire rope, but Jean had been adamant. What lay before them they could guess, but there was always the unexpected, and they might need to make repairs somewhere in those strange channels to the north. He wanted to be prepared for any emergency. And if a man had enough blocks and tackle he could move the world.

The men on the dock came briefly to mind. Ben Turk and Larsen would be staying in the warehouse, and neither was a man to back up from trouble.
 
“It’s late, Jean, and that work will keep.”

“Are they still out there?”

“Yes.”

The door opened and Larsen came in, followed by Ben Turk. Larsen was a rawboned Swede with thick blond hair that fell over his brow and curled over his collar at the back of his neck. His shoulders and arms were massive and blue anchors were tattooed at the base of thumb and forefinger of each hand. Ben Turk was a man of slight build, a compact and swarthy man with a black, handle-bar mustache. He was lean, alert, and dangerous. He had served on whaling ships and had made three voyages to the sealing grounds of the Pribi-lofs. He had trapped in Canada and Oregon.

“Where’s Noble?”

“He’s strutting it around Bartlett Freel, trying to egg him into a fight.”

“Get him in here.”

Briefly, he gave them their instructions. One was to keep awake at all times.
 
Hutchins’ carriage came and Jean walked to the door with him. Hutchins hesitated with a foot on the step. “Sure you won’t come with me?” “Later.” LaBarge glanced at Freel who was looking unconcernedly across the bay.
 
“I’ll walk up.” He deliberately spoke loud enough for Freel to hear. If Freel wanted him he wanted him to know exactly where he could be found, but if Freel followed Hutchins, LaBarge could be right behind.
 
There was nothing reckless about Jean LaBarge. He avoided trouble when he could, never sought out a fight until the proper moment for it. He considered the situation tactically. The men up the street, and there seemed to be two of them, were at least sixty yards away. Freel was close.
 
There are times when trouble cannot be avoided, and he knew that if they wanted him, they could get him. The thing to do was to choose his own ground, and he was ready now. The way to be left alone was to let them know what the alternative was.

He knew that Larsen, Turk and Noble would relish a fight. None of them had any love for Freel and his crowd, who frequently shanghaied and robbed seafaring men, but Jean did not want help. This was a situation he wanted to handle himself. He wanted it understood that he did not need help, even when it was ready to hand.

“You fellows sit tight,” he told them when he was back inside. “Watch if you want to, but don’t interfere. And stay inside.” “There’s at least three of them out there.” Turk looked at him curiously. “That Freel is bad with a knife.”

LaBarge dropped his hand to the latch. Suddenly he felt very good. He felt better than he had for a long time. There was too much fear in San Francisco, too many people were afraid of the hoodlums, of their beatings, their murders, of their looting. “Just stay out of it, boys. This one’s my show.” He pulled the door shut after him, and stood on the dock.

The edge of the wharf was perhaps fifteen steps from the door of Hutchins & Company. And Bartlett Freel was standing over there under a dock light. A light rain was falling, a fine mistlike rain. The hour was not late but due to the clouds it was already dark. There was a faint light showing from the front window of the warehouse, and besides the light under which Freel stood, there was another light on the street corner a dozen yards away, and there was a light up the dock, perhaps a hundred yards off.

Obviously they would not attack near the warehouse where help waited, but would follow him up the street into the darkness. They would have no reason to doubt their success and little reason to expect retaliation, and certainly there was nothing to fear from the law or the corrupt political machine behind it. Since the Vigilante movement the town had shown little disposition to fight back.
 
Without too much reason Jean decided the attack had been instigated by Baron Zinnovy. Freel moved to the dictates of Yankee Sullivan who was a henchman and friend of Denny O’Brien, and O’Brien was a man who would arrange beatings, murders, disappearances for a price. Neither LaBarge nor Hutchins had had trouble with the hoodlums, neither had antagonized any of them, and neither had any local enemies. The attack that he could see shaping up came immediately following his trouble with Baron Zinnovy. True, there had been only a few words passed between them, but Jean’s hunch was that Zinnovy had other motives.
 
Suppose Zinnovy, for reasons of his own, did not want wheat shipped to Alaska?

Or did not want Jean LaBarge taking it there.

As Jean LaBarge moved away from the building Freel turned. Up the street the two men started to move; Jean heard a foot scrape up there in the darkness.
 
The reading of Greek history might seem a dull occupation, but there is an axiom to be found there that suggests the military principle of “divide and conquer.” It was a good thought ... Jean started for the corner and when Freel moved to follow Jean turned quickly and faced him, his hand gripping his left lapel.
 
“Looking for me, Freel? The name is LaBarge. Jean LaBarge.”

Freel hesitated. Why didn’t those fools huriy? “And if I am?”

“Who sent you, Freel?”

Harriett Freel was a lean, savage man, surly even among those who knew him best, but more intelligent than most of his kind. He had a flaring temper and he both envied and resented LaBarge. “You won’t know,” Freel said, “you’ll never know.

There was a time for words, but the other two men were coming swiftly now.
 
LaBarge’s left hand gripped his lapel lightly and when he struck he struck from that position and he stepped in with the punch. He felt Freel’s nose crumple under the blow but before the man could even stagger, Jean hit him hard with his right fist.

The other men ran up. Grabbing Freel, who was badly hurt, Jean turned swiftly and threw him into their path. The nearest of the oncoming men tripped and fell and Jean kicked him in the head, and the second man, holding a knife low down in his right hand, took the moment to move in.

Jean struck swiftly with the barrel of his pistol, hastily drawn. The descending weapon caught the knife-wrist and the knife clattered on the dock, the man dropping to his knees clutching a broken wrist.
 
The man he kicked was on his feet now but Jean had him stopped with the gun muzzle. “Can you swim?” Jean asked pleasantly.