Ragtime Cowboys (19 page)

“Why do they call him that, do you suppose?”

“On account of he's too short to serve as a leprechaun. They named him after a shrimp in a comic strip.”

“What about Bathhouse John? Cleanly fellow, is he?”

“He's a big fat slob, and you can smell him in Indiana; but he's a fine fellow for all that. He was a rubber in a bathhouse before he got bit by politics.”

“How big's the First?”

“Big enough to raise a blister on a brogan. She runs from the river clear down to Twelfth Street.”

The catechism continued for half an hour. Some of his answers had been supplied by William Pinkerton, consulting Agency records. Others he remembered from working out of the Chicago office. He'd hated the town; he hated towns in general as low spots where vice and corruption bred like leeches in stagnant water, but he knew it well. And he'd been through enough such interviews to know better than to answer every question correctly: He stumbled on some minor items, confessed his ignorance on some others. Nobody knew everything—unless he'd been coached.

They were interrupted frequently by one or the other of the telephones on the table. Muldoon purred into some of them, snarled into others, listened to the caller on still others, saying little. Siringo saw why he'd been installed in his present position. He conducted conversations the same way he'd fought.

Finally Muldoon ran out of questions. “I don't know why Ahearn sent you to me. I'm a persuader, not a politician. I make sure the polling places are safe for the party, keep the boys in line when they get a snootful the day after election: That kind of thing can hurt us come next round. When money's pledged and slow in coming, I remind the contributors of their promise. When they're still absentminded, I bring a couple of boys along.”

“Don't the police interfere?”

“I go where they won't. Around here I'm known as the unofficial police chief of San Francisco.”

“I ain't too old for a little dustup. I used to be pretty good at it and I can be again.” Another ladleful of pure truth: It was the first good thing to come of doing that kind of work for Pinkerton.

“You're kind of little.”

“I ain't got far to fall when I do get knocked down.” He demonstrated his fitness by grasping the back of a folding chair with each hand and dead-lifting them above his head. He set them back down gently.

“We'll give you a try.” Muldoon slid a hand inside his suit coat hanging on a chair behind the table and produced a folded sheet of paper, which he handed to Siringo. “Don't pay any attention to the names I crossed off. They're all true-blue. The rest need a gentle nudge. You heeled?”

He unbuttoned his coat to expose the butt of the Forehand & Wadsworth above his belt.

“Leave it with me. No rough stuff this far from November.” Muldoon held out a hand.

Siringo hesitated, then took out the revolver and laid it in his palm. He felt naked immediately.

“Where you staying?”

“The Golden West.” It was around the corner from the St. Francis, where he'd been registered under his real name, and just as handy to Hammett's apartment.

“I'll have it sent round.” Muldoon laid the pistol on the table. “Don't come back here until I send for you. It helps when not all the birds who work for me know all the others.”

“Jake with me.”

He left, sticking the sheet inside his coat. The old sailors were still in their rockers, leaking smoke from their pipes and looking out toward Hawaii. Standing on the sidewalk, he unfolded the sheet and ran a finger down the names that were typewritten on it. A line ran through the one he most treasured:

Joseph P. Kennedy

Alexandria Hotel

 

23

A nurse was doing something to Hammett's foot.

“What's the name of this place?” he asked.

“Carson City Memorial Hospital.” She was a tall woman with slightly Oriental eyes, a toneless professional sort of voice, and some citrus scent that clashed with the carbolic they'd used to disinfect the room. Nothing like Jose.

“How's the hoof?”

She finished dressing his foot and threw the old bandages into a metal rubbish bin with a pedal that swung the lid up and down.

“No peg leg for you,” she said. “You're lucky. That's the worst friction burn I've ever seen. What did you do, try to brake the train the hard way?”

“You're close. Who told you I was on a train?”

“You did, when the cabbie brought you in. You were in shock. What happened to your head?”

He touched the bandage he wore like a pirate's bandanna. He couldn't remember when his head didn't ache. “I fell and landed on a blackjack. There a telephone in here?”

“No, and if there was I wouldn't let you use it. You need to rest.”

“Get me a piece of paper, will you?”

Her smile was tight-lipped, more carbolic than citrus.

“Thinking about your will?”

“I need to send a telegram.”

“I'll write it.” She drew a pad and pencil from the pocket of her uniform. “Shoot.”

“Can't. You took my gun.”

“It's in the cupboard with your clothes. What's a nice-looking young man like you need with a gun?”

“You guessed it. I have to mow a path through the crowds of women or I'll never get anywhere. Send it to Charlie O'Casey at the Golden West Hotel in San Francisco.”

She took it down:

DEAL FELL THROUGH STOP EXPLAIN IN PERSON

PETER COLLINS

“Who's Charlie O'Casey?”

“Shortstop for the New York Giants.”

“No, he isn't. I'm from New York.”

“Send it collect. I left my money in my pants.”

He waited until she went out, then threw aside his covers and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He was naked under a thin cotton gown. Standing, he put his weight onto the wrong foot and almost fell back down onto the mattress. The morphine was wearing off. The foot looked swollen twice its size, but it was mostly bandage. He made his way to the iron footboard and used it as a railing to get to the narrow wooden cupboard on the side of the bed opposite the door.

There was only one shoe in the cupboard; he vaguely remembered someone cutting the other one off. He took off the gown, sat naked on the bed, and dressed himself slowly, molly-coddling the bad foot when he put on his pants. He borrowed a pillow slip, wrapped the foot in it for extra protection, and secured the slip with a sock garter.

He rose again, standing on his good foot, checked the chambers in the .38, and was working it in its holster onto his belt when a man came in wearing a white coat with a stethoscope draped around his neck. The man was young but balding and wore rimless glasses.

“What do you think you're doing?”

“Riding a bicycle. What's it look like?” He pulled his coat on and took his hat from the top shelf of the cupboard.

“You haven't been discharged. You're a sick man, Mr. Collins.”

“Who are you, the ice cream man?”

“I'm Dr. Bartlett.”

“Well, Dr. Bartlett, I've had this foot as long as I've had the other. I think I know how to take care of it. My head too.”

“Obviously not, or you wouldn't need a hospital. But I'm talking about your other condition. You're aware of it, of course?”

“You mean the T.B.? Yeah. I caught it from a toilet seat.”

“A man with your illness ought not to be jumping off trains.”

“Did I say that's what happened? I was in shock. I
fell
off the train. All the jumping I did was to get back on.”

“Someone hit you, you said.”

“I'm a writer. I've got a big imagination. This whole business was for research.” He put his hat on gingerly, at a tout's angle because of the bandage. He patted his pockets. “I had a flask when I came in.”

“I had it taken away. This is a place of healing, not a speakeasy. It will be returned to you when you're discharged. You must get back into bed.”

“Keep the flask. They grow on trees in this state. What do I owe you, Doc?” He found his wallet.

“You can pay your bill in the lobby.
When
you're discharged.”

“Tell you what. I'll toss you for it.” He took out the two-sided penny he'd gotten from the plumbing-fixture salesman.

“Do I need to have you put in restraints?”

He flipped the coin and put it away. “If I were you I wouldn't.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Nope. Just giving you sound medical advice. You know Pete Durango?”

“No.”

“He used to run with Villa. Now he runs liquor up from Mexico and sells it here in Carson City. If the cops were to pay a visit downstairs and find a couple of dozen cases of Old Quezalcoatl marked Hydrogen Peroxide all packed up for shipping, this joint might run into a jam renewing its license. On the bright side, though, there's more dough in liquor.”

“
Mis
ter Collins—”

“You don't even need to buy a truck. I used to drive an ambulance. You got any idea how much inventory you can carry in one?”

“How long are you prepared to go on in this vein?”

“That's up to you.”

Bartlett's tongue bulged a cheek. Finally he palmed the doorknob.

“I'll bring you a cane,” he said. “I can't have you stumping around on that foot and risk infecting it.”

“Thanks, Doc. Send my bill to Apartment six, one-twenty Ellis Street, San Francisco, in care of Dashiell Hammett.” He spelled the name. “He's my business manager.”

*   *   *

He took a cab to the station, reclaimed his satchel from lost and found, and went into the bathroom to inspect the contents. The sympathetic driver he'd found in the taxi line had taken it from him and given it to a red cap; he couldn't support an injured man and carry his luggage both. Lanyard hadn't taken anything while Hammett was dangling off the train. Even his brass knuckles and the Mason jars filled with Siringo's moonshine were there. He unscrewed one and took a swig. It probably wasn't poisoned.

“Maybe he still thinks I'm dead.”

But the man who looked back at him from the mirror above the sink wore a doubtful expression.

For the first time since before going to Beauty Ranch, he didn't look for signs he was being tailed. Lanyard would hightail it back to Frisco whatever Hammett's condition. He hadn't bought the Montana dodge and would want to know what Siringo had been up to in his absence.

Dashiell Hammett bought a ticket and sat on a bench, resting his bandaged foot on his satchel. His makings were in the pocket where he'd left them. He rolled a cigarette and waited for his train home.

 

24

The lobby of the Alexandria Hotel was all marble and mahogany with green fronds spilling up and over the sides of copper urns and the same snooty clerk who stood behind the front desk of every fancy hotel in town. Siringo approached him carrying a long white pasteboard box bound with red ribbon tied in a bow.

“Roses for Mr. Joseph P. Kennedy,” he said, no brogue this time. He'd traded his bowler for a cloth cap he'd bought in a shop across the street from the florist's and wore blue-tinted spectacles that masked the color of his eyes. He'd left his necktie, collar, and suit coat at the Golden West Hotel.

The clerk took in his working-class attire. “Is he expecting them?”

“I doubt it. Ain't that the point?”

“Leave them here. I'll see he gets them.”

“I'm supposed to deliver 'em in person.”

The clerk sighed and went to the trouble of turning his head three inches to look at the key pegs. “He's out at present. He didn't say when he'd be back.”

“Anybody in the room?”

“His son, I believe. I'll have to announce you.” He lifted the earpiece off a house phone.

“Swell by me.”

After a moment's conversation in inaudible tones, the man hung up. “Suite thirty-two. Third floor.”

“Okie-doke.”

The elevator car, located behind bronze doors and a folding cage, was automated, but operated nevertheless by a Negro in a pageboy uniform. They rode up on nearly silent pulleys and came to a gentle stop.

The door to Suite 32 was opened by a boy wearing a smaller version of the suit Kennedy had worn in the Shamrock Club. He had his father's firm jaw and spoke in an approximation of his broad Boston accent.

“Who sent them?”

“No card. Maybe he's got a secret admirer.”

“None of my father's admirers keep their esteem secret.”

He held out a receipt blank. “I need a signature.”

“Come in. Put them down anywhere.”

Siringo shut the door behind him, laid the box on a settee upholstered in green brocade, and followed the boy to a writing desk with a green leather top. The suite didn't lack for green. The boy opened the belly drawer and took out a fountain pen. His visitor scanned the inside of the drawer: It contained blank hotel stationery, a San Francisco telephone directory, and a brass key of a type different from those he'd seen hanging on the peg behind the front desk.

“You Joe Junior?” he asked as the boy was signing his name.

“Joseph.”

“I hear your father sets a lot of store by you. You're about two feet shorter than I had pictured.”

“I'm ten. What's your excuse?”

He stifled a grin. “He said you have a good head on your shoulders. I can see he didn't exaggerate.”

“Do you know my father?”

“I seen him around, not that he'd remember me. He can't help but make an impression.”

“Here you are.”

Siringo took the receipt. As the boy returned the pen to the drawer and pushed it shut, the visitor grimaced and clutched at his chest, grunting.

“What's wrong?”

“Ticker.” He fumbled a pill bottle out of his inside breast pocket. “Could I get a glass of water?”