Port Hazard (7 page)

“What'd it cost?”

“Only my reputation as a cardplayer.”

He steadied himself on the bar. He was on the verge of asking a question he didn't want to know the answer to. Then he changed directions. “Just what
is
a ponce?”

“We'll ask him when we see him.”

We smelled the
Hoodlum before we saw him.

This was no small miracle, given the variety of stenches that had laid claim to the venue. The alley between the Slop Chest and the warehouse next door—home to an illegal and unadvertised game of Chuck-a-Luck that Pinholster swore had been going on without interruption, through fire and famine and fanatic reform, since 1851—was so narrow a man could put out his hands and touch both opposing walls at the same time. Beecher and I resisted the temptation. Mold and green slime coated the warehouse brick and a wriggling heap of rats covered whatever had been flung out the side door of Nan Feeny's establishment.

Somewhere in the direction of the respectable part of the city a tower clock gonged out the hour of eleven. The last chime reverberated on the damp air like a coin wobbling to rest on a plank bar. The spill from a corner gas lamp illuminated the far end of the alley, but fell short of the bricked-in doorway where we waited, a rectangular recess six inches deep in the warehouse wall. The shadows were as thick as poured tar and a light ground fog—light for San Francisco—tickled our ankles. We took turns breathing in the close atmosphere of that medieval corridor.

The lilac smell when it came was unexpected, and oddly more repugnant than the stink of slops and garbage; it didn't belong, and like a drop of honey on the tongue when lemon was expected, it struck me as unpleasant, nauseating. It was followed by a low, inaccurate whistling, some tinpenny tune that had swept across the frontier faster than the transcontinental, and had already been forgotten in Montana, and then an amphora-shaped shadow, slung across the Slop Chest wall by the distant gas lamp. The shadow grew smaller and more distinct as its owner came around the corner of the warehouse. Something kicked a loose stone rattling across the hardpack and a wrenlike figure followed it into the alley.

There the foul odors met him and he paused to draw something from his right sleeve and press it to the lower part of his face. A fresh puff of lilacs reached us. Beecher stirred, blew air out his nose. I touched his arm and he grew silent. We watched the newcomer return his scented handkerchief to his sleeve and continue walking. He wasn't whistling now. We could hear him breathing through his mouth.

He was my height, but lighter by at least forty pounds, buttoned snugly into a black frock coat with the kind of peaked sleeves that thrust up above the shoulders where they're stitched to the yoke and make the wearer appear as if he's hunching himself against a stiff wind. The lower three buttons were unfastened to expose a velvet vest that looked ruby red even by outdoor gaslight, and he wore calfskin boots to the knees of his pale trousers and a narrow-brimmed black hat with a low flat crown. The clothes differed in some details from those worn by the Hoodlum who'd accosted us on the train platform, but the effect was identical. They were the regimentals of a strict society. I knew then that the whispers about Wheelock were true; only a man of singular influence and determination could compel a ragtag gang of hugger-muggers and slash-throats to leave their roomy pickpockets' overcoats and anonymous black watchcaps at home and parade the streets in uniform. It went against centuries of conditioning, of lying low and playing things close to the vest. “You can't arrest/revile/annoy me,” the clothes said. “I'm a Hoodlum!”

He stopped before the side door of the Slop Chest and rapped out a jaunty knock; part of the tune he'd been whistling. The door sprang inward and Nan Feeny's white head showed against the light from inside. She wore voluminous skirts, and a white shirtwaist buttoned to her throat, surmounted by the vigilant ribbon.

“'allo, Nan,” said the Hoodlum. “Where's that skycer what shares your crib? Go to blow his conk and bash in his neb?”

His cockney was even broader than Hodge's. It had come straight from London and lost nothing during the voyage.

“He's tending bar tonight. Billy's got Venus' Curse.” She thrust out a sack. Coins shifted inside.

The Hoodlum didn't take it. “Don't lope just yet. Let's inside and break a leg.” He laid a hand on her hip.

Nan raised the pepperbox pistol from her pocket.

He withdrew his hand. “I ain't so spooney as you think. You wasn't always no iron doublet.”

“Who says I am? You're Molly's goods. Take your pony and scour back to Queen Street.”

He snatched the sack from her, hefted it. “The game's flush this trip. You ain't been flying hop, by any chance? Cap'n Dan wouldn't like that by half.”

“I don't even let celestials in the place. It's been a rum week, is all. I've got aces over sevens.”

“Full house is the word. You got tappers in your crib. Two U.S. coves. Been squeaking?”

“Go hoist a huff, you kept jack.” She stepped back and banged the door shut.

“Old cow.” The Hoodlum bounced the sack of coins a couple of times on his palm, then slipped it into a side pocket and turned away, whistling.

Beecher's clothing rustled. I touched his arm again, settling him. When the Hoodlum was halfway up the alley, I drew the Deane-Adams and stepped out of the doorway. Beecher slid the Le Mat out from under his shirt and joined me.

We were within ten feet of the Hoodlum when he stopped and reached across his body. We thumbed back our hammers. The crisp double-click racketed off the walls.

The Hoodlum turned, holding his scented handkerchief. When he saw us, he dropped it and reached for a pocket. I fired a round over his head. Both hands shot upward, palms empty.

There was an awkward pause. I'd never robbed anyone before; I wasn't sure about the order of events. During this space, no windows or doors opened, no one came running to investigate the report. A night in Barbary without at least one unexplained gunshot would have been worth half a column in the
San Francisco Call.

The Hoodlum's face was narrow and pinched, old pox scars visible in the gaslight reflected off the Slop Chest's salt-stained wall. Small clumps of stubble sprouted like Indian paintbrush between the craters. He blinked incessantly—not, I was sure, from fear. Nan had called him squint-eyed.

“You blokes can't stick me up,” he said. “I'm—”

I said. “I know what you are. Molly's goods.”

His face went dead. It was a young face. A woman with narrow options might have considered it handsome, despite the scars and his predisposition against razors. I was pretty sure I knew what a ponce was now. Someone had bought him his red vest and it wasn't Daniel Webster Wheelock.

“Throw the sack at my feet,” I said.

He blinked more rapidly. “Cap'n Dan—”

I snapped a slug into the dirt between his feet. He jumped straight up and down like a startled rabbit. Looked down at his boots to count his toes.

“The sack.”

He lowered his hands. One went into his pocket. I made a motion with the five-shot.

“If anything comes out of there besides a sack of coins, you can ask Axel Hodge who fitted him with his ball and chain.”

He drew the sack out slowly and gave it an underhand flip. It clanked when it hit the earth.

“Empty all your pockets.”

Again he hesitated.

“Pepper his legs with buckshot.”

Beecher lowered his aim a notch.

“No!” The Hoodlum turned out all his pockets and threw the contents after the sack: a squat-barreled pistol, brass knuckles, a weighted sock, three clasp knives in assorted sizes.

I asked him if he was expecting trouble.

“Just looking after me regulars. Times are dusty.”

“Stay away from the waterfront,” I said. “If you fall in they'll need a crane to pull you back out. What's your chant?”

“My what?”

“Your name. Your monoger. What do people call you when they're not mad at you?”

“Tom Tulip.”

I took aim at his red vest.

“It's me name!”

“Well, Tom, tell your friends there's a new tax in Barbary. Penny a head for every Hoodlum who shows his face outside the Bella Union.”

“You ain't the tickrum to collect it! When Cap'n Dan gets drift of this, you'll be whiffling out the hole in the back of your nob!”

“He'll want names. Mine's Murdock. This is Beecher.”

“And who in Black Spy's skipper is Murdock and Beecher, if you please?”

I slipped the deputy's star out of my pocket and flung it at him. He caught it against his chest in both hands, turned it toward the light.

“Tell Wheelock to take good care of it,” I said. “I'm responsible for it.”

“U.S. coves.” He leaned forward and spat on the ground.

“Bang on, Tom. Tell him to send the swag to the Slop Chest. We're cribbed up there this week.”

“He'll send the whole bleeding Bella Union! The frogs'll fish your black ointment out of the briny.”

“Put out this spunk,” I told Beecher.

He tilted the Le Mat a few degrees and emptied the shotgun barrel over Tom Tulip's head. In those tight quarters it sounded like a powder keg blowing its top. The Hoodlum spun on his heel and took flight, coattails fluttering. We heard his pounding feet long after the echo of the blast faded.

Beecher changed hands to blow on his fingers. He was chuckling. “I believe I missed my right calling. How much you calculate we got?”

I stepped forward, picked up the sack, and gave it a couple of shakes. “Dollar and a half and change. If we're going to make a living at this, we'd better hold off till Tom finishes his rounds.”

“Drop the swag.”

This was a new voice. I looked up to see Nan Feeny standing in front of the open side door with her pepperbox trained on my chest. I dropped the sack.

 

“I offered to topper 'em both in their dosses the first night,” Hodge said.

“Shut your mummer and let me think.”

The little man stood swinging his iron ball rhythmically back and forth and watching Nan pace the floor of her room. His eyes beneath the brim of his bowler were as expressionless as a shark's.

Beecher and I were the only ones sitting. Tom Tulip's pocket arsenal occupied the bed, along with my Deane-Adams, Beecher's Le Mat, and the sack of pennies, which had surely established a record for depth of feeling for so small a sum. Hodge had done the disarming and carrying. We had our legs crossed.

“The swag and Tom's trinkets blow back to Cap'n Dan, that's settled,” she said. “If they don't he'll hush us all and burn the place for spite.
How's
the thing what's got me smoky. If we come a-crawling with the skep in hand, he'll hoist the tariff, and who's to stubble him? We're scraping close to shinerags as things stand.”

Hodge said, “Send it to him in an eternity-box with these two inside. That ought to show him we're plumb.”

“I ain't turned up the toes of so much as a slingtail hen in forty years of grief, and I ain't about to set precedent. What was that game about? You both gone cranky?” She'd stopped pacing to stand in front of us.

I said. “I got the idea from no one but you, right here in this room. ‘Stifle a Hoodlum,' you said; but I'm not that blood-thirsty.”

“I was just pecking words. I never thought you'd try it on, I'll smack the bishop's calfskin I didn't. Anywise, you'd of done better to twist his nub and give him an earth-bath than buzz him and leave him leg to peach to Cap'n Dan. We'll be up to our arses in Hoodlums come morning.”

“Take the air, Nan,” Hodge said. “Sluice your gob down at Haggerty's. When you come back, it'll all be rub.” He smacked his widow-maker against his open palm.

She said nothing. Her face was impossible to read. I wondered if I could get to the weapons on the bed before Hodge caught up to me and swung his ball, and if Beecher had the reflexes to slow him down. Then there was Nan and the eight loaded chambers in her pocket. I was thinking about all this when someone knocked. The sound came from the direction of the side door to the alley.

Nan looked at Hodge.

“Could be a fish looking to flop,” he said.

She shook her head. “Tide's out.”

The knocking came again, louder. Someone was kicking the door.

Nan picked up Tom Tulip's bulldog pistol and gave it to Hodge. “If it's more than one, empty it. Then leg it for the front door. I'll be scarce by then.”

“What about these two?”

She took out the pepperbox. He nodded and withdrew.

Beecher started to say something. Nan eared back the hammer. He fell silent.

The knocking ceased. A powder-charged silence followed. Voices rumbled. Another silence, longer than the first. None of us was breathing.

A floorboard yelped outside the room. Nan swung her pistol that way. Hodge came in. He had the bulldog stuck under his belt and an envelope in his hand.

“Just a cove with a stiff.”

Nan took the pistol off cock and put it in her pocket. She snatched the envelope. The address side was blank. She frowned at the signet on the crimson seal, cracked the wax, and fumbled with the flap. She frowned again and tipped something out onto her palm. It was a deputy's star.

Hodge snorted. “Crikey! The old town's full to the facer with tin. Who's minding the store?”

I said the star was mine. He told me to shut my mummer.

Nan unfolded a square of paper, read what was written on it, and held it out toward me. I got up from my chair and took it.

The letter was written in neat copperplate on heavy linen bond with gold edges.