Lone Star 02 (5 page)

“The leader's name is Chang Fong,” Moore began, reading from his notebook. “He's in his early fifties. Chang came to Chinatown when he was ten years old, from the Kow Gong district of Canton. He got himself a job working in a fish market for five dollars a month—and on that, this ten-year-old supported a passel of much older uncles and cousins evidently too lazy to earn their own way—”

“Excuse me, Mr. Moore,” Ki interrupted. “Allow me to correct you. Chang's relatives were most likely not too lazy, but too
old
to adapt. They came from a culture where the ripeness of their age would have afforded them much respect.”

“But they weren't in their culture. They'd come to America,” Moore pointed out.

“Indeed, but for elders to learn English, to accept menial jobs...” Ki shook his head. “It was up to young Chang to support his elders. Honor demanded it.”

“Indeed...” Moore said softly. He peered at Ki's face, scrutinizing his features, and then he smiled, and nodded to himself. “Thank you for the correction, Ki,” he said earnestly. “It helps me understand Chang. Anyway, ten-year-old Chang was soon making ten dollars a month, as the store's manager. Meanwhile, he was attending a Sunday school run by the Methodist mission, in order to learn English.”

“Why didn't he go to public school?” Jessie asked.

Lewis and Moore exchanged embarrassed looks. “Jessie,” Lewis sadly began, “Chinese children are not allowed in our public schools.”

“But the Chinese pay city taxes, don't they?” Jessie demanded indignantly. Lewis shrugged and looked down at his desk, as Ki chuckled sadly.

“Chang found himself a couple of hatchet men to make sure that the nearby fish stores didn't do so well,” Moore resumed. “By the time he was in his twenties, he owned those stores, as well as the one he used to work at. He got himself a few more hatchet men, and then began to extort protection money from both legitimate and illegitimate businesses in Chinatown. Chang's gang was still not a Tong, still not one of the official five,” Moore pointed out. “That had to wait until he had enough income to buy himself a chunk of city hall, and of the police. Once that was accomplished, he was able to move against the man who did hold Tong status, from Chang's district of Canton. Legend has it that Chang personally killed the man, not without suffering an injury in return, an injury that gave him his nickname, as well as the name of his Tong. Now he was official, and that allowed him to take over the opium and slave traffic.” Moore closed his notebook. “Do you mind if I smoke?” he asked Jessie.

“Not at all.” After a moment she asked, “What was his injury?”

Moore extracted a long, thin cheroot from a leather case. “Pardon me?”

“You mentioned that Chang suffered an injury that gave him his nickname...”

“Oh, yes...” Moore thumbnail-flicked a match and puffed his cheroot alight. He exhaled a perfect, blue-gray smoke ring, and while contemplating it, he said, “His rival managed to lop Chang's right hand off. Now he wears a five-taloned metal gauntlet where his hand used to be, and is known as the Steel Claw.” He took another puff of his cigar. “I understand that it is a formidible weapon...”

“Just incredible!” Lewis beamed. “You are to be congratulated, Jordan. To have learned so much about the head of a Tong! How ever did you pry the information out of Chinatown?”

“I didn‘t, Arthur,” Moore smiled. “There's no way a Caucasian can get anywhere in Chinatown, these days. The Chinese are too wary, too frightened.” Moore scowled as he flicked his cigar's ash into a sand-filled, standing ashtray next to his armchair. “You can blame Dennis Kearney for that.”

“Earlier today, Mr. Kearney's name was thrown into my face,” Ki said.

“And so it would be,” Moore replied sardonically. “Pardon my curiosity, but are you—”

“I am of Japanese heritage,” Ki explained patiently. “And I should think curiosity was a requirement of your profession,” he added, his smile fleeting but unmistakable.

Moore's easy grin reappeared. “Kearney's a soapbox orator who has managed to get himself a following made up primarily of unskilled workers. These men are being forced out of their jobs by Chinese who are willing to work for a pittance. The Chinese and Japanese aren't the only targets of Kearney's Workingmen's Party. He often rants about the wealthy as well. His followers are mostly decent folks, angry and bitter over their economic situation, but decent nonetheless. Unfortunately, some bad apples have caused a few ugly incidents. There have been lynchings in Chinatown, and just recently, a poor Japanese fellow was clubbed to death in Japantown.”

“I didn't know there was such a place,” Jessie said.

“Yes, there are some ten thousand Japanese living together in a neighborhood huddled on the fringe of Chinatown,” Ki informed her.

“As compared to the fifty thousand Chinese living in Chinatown,” Moore added.

“Well, then, if it wasn't in Chinatown, where did you find out so much about the Tong?” Jessie demanded.

Once again, Lewis blushed. Why, even the ever-brash Moore seemed slightly embarrassed, from the way he lowered his eyes in order to avoid Jessie's frank stare. “Will you two stop acting like bashful schoolboys and come out with it?” Jessie groaned, totally confounded.

“I already explained to her about the... bordello...” Lewis shrugged. “Just come out with it, man.”

“Well, the bordello is where I did most of my investigating,” Moore began, his voice tentative. “This is difficult to explain to a woman. I decided to pose as the wastrel son of an Oregon lumber tycoon. Fortunately, San Francisco is large enough, and I'm obscure enough, so that I was able to infiltrate the right after-hours clubs with my cover intact in order to meet the people who could get me into that bordello. I threw around a lot of money—
your
money, actually, Miss Starbuck.” Moore chuckled. “I made it known that I was looking to smuggle Chinese coolies into Oregon to work at my father's lumber mill. In that way I gained an introduction to Chang himself.” Moore shuddered. “I must say, looking into the old devil's eyes, and seeing that steel claw of his, certainly made me wonder if I was going to have to move out of San Francisco after this job is finished. Anyway, many of the city's so-called leaders—business executives, government officials, and so on—frequent the bordello, which, by the way, is extravagantly, wonderfully luxurious...” Moore's voice trailed away.

“I expect we'll see the costs of those luxuries on your expenses bill,” Jessie murmured hotly. “Would you mind telling me what my money bought?”

“Yes,
ma‘am,”
Moore winked, taking another puff of his cigar. “First of all, it bought me the acquaintance of Harris Smith, the waterfront commissioner. After I'd picked up enough bar chits, he became quite friendly and talkative. He even offered to open up the port to me. The deal was that I'd pay Chang to bring in the coolies, and pay a small bribe to Moore for letting them slip into the city. How I was to get my slaves to Oregon was to be my problem.”

“Wonderful!” Lewis enthused. “You see, Jessie? My plan in working! We can set up Moore's payment to Smith so that newspaper men can document it! The mayor will have to fire him!”

“Chang later approached me with the offer to ship the coolies directly to the Oregon coast, thereby cutting out Smith, and saving me—and my daddy—some money,” Moore scowled. “Old Chang wanted to get his steel claw into the lumber business, I could see it in his eyes, which were as cold as those of the fish he used to butcher...”

“Chang has clippers of his own?” Ki asked.

“Some,” Moore replied. “But these days he likes using iron-hulled three-masters and the new waterfront steam donkeys for unloading heavy cargo that belongs to a European-based business cartel. In order to reassure me that he could indeed deliver the coolies, he introduced me to the representative of this cartel.”

“He was also a frequent guest of the bordello, I take it?” Jessie asked dryly.

“I never knew that about old Burkhardt,” Lewis chuckled in response to Moore's nod. “So the old devil had his flings, eh?”

“Burkhardt and I became quite good drinking cronies,” Moore boasted. “He'd get soused and then bitterly complain about how this cartel he worked for was replacing him—”

“That
I
could have told you,” Lewis interrupted. “Let's get back to my plan to expose Smith's corruption.”

“No,” Jessie said, her voice polite, but steel-firm, so that there was no question as to who was in charge. “Smith is small fry. What we've got to do is disrupt the partnership between the cartel and the Tong. Smith will fall when they do. Only then will the Starbuck enterprises be able to thrive peacefully.”

“Jessie,” Lewis sighed, “you must not let the past influence your judgement. We cannot exterminate either the Tong or the cartel. Smith ought to be our main concern.”

“Arthur, I disagree,” Jessie declared flatly, but the warning look in Ki's eyes made her pause, think, and then soften her tone. “Dear Uncle,” she smiled. “Up until now, the one constant mistake the Starbucks have made is in letting the cartel have the first strike. My father made that mistake, and it cost my mother's life. Years later he made it again, and that time it cost him his life. The cartel has started this skirmish by disrupting our commerce. Soon they will resort to violence. This time, I mean to strike the first blow!” Turning to Moore, she asked, “Did you, by any chance, discover the identity of the Prussian who will take over from Burkhardt?”

“I did,” Moore replied.

After a moment's silence, Jessie demanded, “Well? What is his name?”

Moore looked apologetically at Lewis, and then confronted Jessie. “I don't think I'm going to tell you.”

“But Jordan!” Lewis gasped, clearly astounded. “Why not?”

“I think I know,” Jessie sighed. “You want more money, Mr. Moore, am I correct?”

“No, Miss Starbuck, you are
not
correct,” Moore shot back, his temper rising. “You may have trouble understanding this, lady, but there are some things in my job I won't do. For instance, I won't compromise or in any way contribute to harming an innocent person, just because the folks who are paying me harbor some grudge.”

“But you were willing to help me bring down Commissioner Smith,” Lewis began.

“That's different.” Moore shrugged, lowering his eyes to inspect the glowing tip of his cheroot. “Smith is a crook, and that makes him fair game. As far as I know, the person coming in to head up this Prussian cartel is innocent of everything but wanting to do a good job. Sure, this cartel made a deal with the Tong, but that's no reason for Miss Starbuck here wanting to—as she puts it—strike the first blow against the representative.”

“I have good reason for wanting to battle the cartel,” Jessie said.

Moore nodded noncommittally. “If you say so. I never argue with a lady.”

“But I do!” she cried in exasperation.

“So go battle them,” Moore said lazily. “But I don't intend to help.”

“Jordan,” Lewis interrupted, “I do think we've already paid for this last bit of information Miss Starbuck wants...”

“Then I'll refund that part of your advance, minus my expenses, of course, Arthur,” Moore offered. “And we can call it quits.” Moore set his cigar down in the ashtray and sat forward, his expression intensely serious, as he continued, “You all have to understand that I often work outside the law. That means I have to formulate my own rules of conduct. I don't want anything to do with some mysterious grudge—”

Ki got to his feet. “Perhaps Mr. Moore would tell
me
what you wish to know, Jessie,” he growled, advancing on the seated private detective.

Quick as a flash, Moore reached beneath the left side of his coat, bringing out a pistol. The harsh
click!
of the gun's hammer being cocked echoed in the now-silent room.

“You're a lot stronger than I am, Ki,” Moore smiled. “And from the look of you, you've probably spent a lot of years training yourself. Now, I know a little bit about Oriental fighting techniques. I've even studied a bit of Chinese boxing with a willing teacher in Chinatown.” He hefted his pistol. “I'd hate to see all your years of effort disappear in a cloud of smoke.”

“If you fire, you will miss,” Ki warned.

“And that's what's called betting your life, friend,” Moore said evenly, but his smile had faded.

“Ki, please sit down,” Jessie said. “And you, Mr. Moore, please put away your gun.” She tilted her head to get a better look at the weapon. “Unless I miss my guess, that's a double-action Colt Model T. The Thunderer, it's called. A .44-caliber.”

“Good Lord,” Moore laughed. “How did you come by
that
sort of expertise?”

“You mean because I'm a woman?” Jessie smiled back. “Perhaps someday I'll tell
you
something.” She winked. “I see you've modified your pistol.”

Moore held the gun in profile. “I've sawed off all but two inches of its original six-inch barrel,” he explained. “I really have little call for distance shooting.” He uncocked the pistol and slipped it back into the shoulder holster beneath his coat.

“What would you have done if you had not had your firearm?” Ki asked.

“I have it almost all the time, actually,” Moore said good naturedly. “I do apologize for pointing it at you, but I really did not want you to rip my head off.”

Ki chuckled. “In that case...” He waved away their confrontation.