The Plague of Thieves Affair (16 page)

“Maybe. What's Jones's dolly's name?”

“Flora.”

“Where does she live?”

“Can't tell you that because I don't know.”

“Her last name, then?”

Gunderson produced and lighted a stogie. “I think better when I'm playing, friend. Another game, same stakes?”

“All right.”

The shark pocketed his greenback and Quincannon ponied up a five-dollar coin to join the two quarter eagles. “To show you that I'm a sport,” he said, “I'll pass the break to you again.”

Quincannon's break was off this time, too, pocketing nothing. Gunderson eyed the table, then cut the twelve ball neatly into a corner pocket—stripes again—and after that dropped the ten ball. Reverse english on the cue ball left him a clean stroke at the fifteen.

“The dolly's last name,” Quincannon said as evenly as he could. His patience had begun to run thin.

Down went the fifteen ball. Gunderson sucked at his stogie and released a stream of smoke before he answered. “Delight,” he said.

“How's that?”

“Delight. That's her last name. Flora Delight.”

“Sounds like a stage name.”

The shark lined up and then sank the nine ball on a moderately difficult combination shot. “My eye is better than usual this morning,” he said.

Quincannon let that pass. “Stage name, is it? Flora Delight?”

“Sure. Nobody ever born with one like it.”

“Where does she perform?”

Gunderson made his next shot with ease, said, “Eight ball in the side,” and promptly ended the game. “My lucky day, for a fact,” he said. “I'm not usually this accurate.” Then, casually, “I don't suppose you'd be interested in one more game?”

“If you'll tell me where Flora Delight performs and what it is she does,” Quincannon said. “And if you'll give me a chance to win my money back and your fiver along with it.”

Gunderson tried not to show how much he liked that suggestion, but the gleam of avarice shone in his eyes. “Double the stakes? Why, sure, friend, I'll oblige you,” he said. Then, as he racked the balls, “The Variety Gay, on Stockton. Cancan and buck-and-wing dancer, afternoon and evening shows. Hot stuff, according to Jones.”

“Sundays included?”

“Seven days a week.”

Quincannon laid twenty dollars in greenbacks on top of the previous stakes. “You mind if I break again?”

“Not at all.”

Quincannon chalked his cue, set the cue ball in position. When he broke the rack this time, it was with a perfectly placed stroke that dropped the one ball cleanly. He eyed the table and then proceeded to run it, swiftly and methodically, finishing up with a long cut on the eight into a corner pocket. Then he laid down the cue, scooped up his winnings, said “
My
lucky day, friend,” to the slack-jawed shark who would never know that he'd spent hundreds of hours in Hoolihan's and elsewhere holding his own against some of the city's best pool and billiard players, and walked out of the Elite whistling a temperance tune.

*   *   *

The Variety Gay was a typical Barbary Coast melodeon, of the sort which featured a collar-and-elbow variety show—bawdy songs and comedy skits, and scantily clad dancers. One of the older and cheaper houses; an ancient mechanical reed organ, the instrument from which the name melodeon had derived, was still in evidence, though now as nothing more than a decoration; it had been supplanted by a modern honky-tonk piano currently being played by a sweating fat man in accompaniment to one of the skits. At tables and in boxes the all-male audience—the only women allowed in such places were the waitresses and performers—was early Sunday afternoon sparse, the laughter from the dozen or so customers desultory. Even at this hour, layers of tobacco smoke hung in the room and the atmosphere was odious with the stale smells of beer, wine, and the cheap perfume worn by the serving and dancing girls.

Quincannon stood for a few seconds, breathing through his mouth while he scanned the men. Two or three matched the description he had of Xavier Jones. He made his way to a table midway along, and was immediately pounced upon by one of the several waitresses who sold drinks on commission—a plump, nearly bare-bosomed girl whose skirts ended almost at her knees. None of her displayed attributes held his eye; she would have been slightly more appealing, in fact, if they had been fully covered up.

He ordered a beer, which he had no intention of drinking, and when she brought it he asked, “Do you know a gent named Xavier Jones? Friend of Miss Flora Delight.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “Why're you asking?”

“I was told he might be here. I have some money for him.”

“That so?” The suspicion had quickly given way to greedy interest. “How about some for me? He don't need it, but I sure do.”

“You do know him, then. Is he here now?”

She held out her hand. In addition to a dime for the beer, Quincannon filled it with a fifty-cent piece. This seemed to satisfy her.

“Most nights and some afternoons,” she said. “He's got a real big crush on Flora, always buying her flowers and trinkets. Champagne, too, can you believe it? She can't, hardly.”

“Which one is he?”

“Gent up front there, with the glass of wine.” The waitress leaned forward, revealing even more of her freckled bosom, and said chummily, “You wouldn't like to buy a girl some champagne, would you? Later on, I mean, somewheres else. She'd be awful grateful if you did.”

“A tempting offer, but I'm a married man with five children.”

“That don't matter none to me.”

“I also have an unfortunate social disease.”

“That does,” she said, and made a rapid departure.

The skit on stage ended with a borderline obscene joke and a final tinny riff on the piano, to a smattering of applause. The piano player shuffled off into the wings, and a gaudily dressed gent came out to announce a brief intermission. The stage lights dimmed then, deepening the smoky gloom in the rest of the room. Quincannon stood, went to the table where Xavier Jones was sitting, drew out a chair and parked himself in it.

Jones turned his head, frowning. He wasn't such-a-much: medium-sized, balding, his thin-lipped mouth partially concealed by brown mustaches waxed at the ends. He wore a suit and tie, the only man in the Variety Gay besides Quincannon who did.

“Hello, Xavier. Waiting for your dolly's next specialty number?”

“What the hell do you mean, dolly?”

“Flora. Unless you have more than one.”

“I never seen you before, mister. What do you know about Flora and me?”

“I know she's a Delight. And that you buy her flowers, trinkets, and champagne and spend a good deal of time watching her perform and in her company afterward. Which is one reason you're such a hard man to find, though mayhap not the only one.”

“Who the devil are you? What do you want?”

“Otto Ackermann's steam beer formula and Elias Corby, among other things.”

Jones's jaw unhinged like a puppet's. He went board stiff in his chair. “Christ Almighty,” he said.

“No, John Quincannon. A name you recognize, I'll wager.”

“… I don't know nothing about what happened at Golden State.”

“We both know that's not true.”

“I don't have to talk to you,” Jones said, and started to stand up.

Quincannon caught his coat sleeve and yanked him back down. At the same time, with his other hand, he opened his coat to reveal the handle of his Navy Colt. “You'll talk to me if you value your hide.”

“You wouldn't dare draw that sidearm in here—”

“Wouldn't I?” Quincannon smiled his predatory smile. “I can unholster it fast as a lightning strike, crack you over the head, and holster it again without anybody noticing, then haul you up and carry you out to the alley where you'll talk when you wake up or suffer a variety of other meannesses. Put me to the test if you believe I'm bluffing.”

In the smoky, lamplit gloom Jones's eyes were shadowed, but his fear-rippled expression was plain enough; so was the fact that he seemed to be making an effort to swallow his Adam's apple. “I don't believe you're bluffing,” he said.

“Smart lad. Now then. Sit calm, answer my questions truthfully, and I'll leave you to watch Flora's next number. Fair enough?”

“Just … walk away? That's all you'll do?”

“That's all. There's no need for the coppers unless you give me trouble.”

“I don't want no trouble with you or anybody else, least of all the police.”

“We'll get along then,” Quincannon said. “First question. Where is the formula?”

“I don't know.”

“Bunkum. What did you do with it after it was turned over to you?”

Jones licked his lips, not meeting Quincannon's eyes. His gaze kept flicking to the Navy, as if it might jump out of the holster of its own volition and bite him like a snake.

“You gave it to the man on whose orders you were acting, didn't you. Your employer, Cyrus Drinkwater.”

“No. No, it was my idea to, ah, get the recipe. Mr. Drinkwater, he didn't know nothing about it.”

“Bunkum,” Quincannon said again, more sharply this time. “The theft was his idea, not yours. And you passed the formula on to him. The truth now—I take a dim view of lies and evasions.”

“… All right. But if he finds out—”

“He won't find out, not from me as long as you keep giving straight answers. What did he do with it?”

“Put it in his safe.”

Quincannon sighed inaudibly. He'd been afraid that would be the case. “At West Star?”

“No. In his office downtown.”

“Still there, so far as you know?”

Jones gave a jerky head bob.

“Did you make a copy?”

“No. Wasn't any need.”

“Did he?”

“Not that I know about.”

“So then you've yet to make use of it at West Star.”

“That's right. Still brewing with our old formula. Mr. Drinkwater … he said it was too soon, we should wait a while.”

“Good advice. See that you follow it,” Quincannon said. And when Jones bobbed his head again in agreement, “Now then. Elias Corby. Where can I find him?”

“I don't know. I never had nothing to do with Corby.”

“Remember my warning about lies, Xavier? Corby and Caleb Lansing worked in cahoots to steal the recipe—that's a fact and I can prove it. It's also a fact that they murdered Otto Ackermann, then Corby murdered Lansing—”

“Murder! No, listen, all I did was recruit Lansing and pay him off. He's the one brought Corby into it. Ackermann wasn't supposed to get hurt, nobody was. Them damn fools—”

“Where's Corby now?”

“I told you, I don't have no idea where he is. I hardly know him, only saw him a couple of times.”

“Does he have a dolly, too, one he spends his money on?”

“I don't know. He never said nothing if he does.”

“Did he say anything about what he intended to do with his share of the payoff?”

“No. Not to me.” Then, as if struck by a memory, “But once Lansing said something about a farm…”

“About Corby and a farm?”

“That's right. Some farm owned by a widow he knows that he was thinking of buying.”

“Located where?”

“I don't remember. Upcountry someplace.”

“Upcountry covers a good deal of territory.”

“Not too far away. Lansing said Corby'd been up there and back in the same day.”

The piano player had returned; he tinkled the ivories, then erupted into a tinny rendition of a cancan number. Out came half a dozen high-kicking dancers in long skirts, petticoats, and black stockings, to applause and wolf whistles from the small crowd. One of them must have been Flora Delight; in spite of the pressure Quincannon had put him under, Jones's head swung toward the stage and his gaze held there.

Ah, love and lust. Even more powerful emotions than fear—temporarily, anyhow.

Quincannon got to his feet. He was done with Jones for the nonce, and his memory had disgorged a possible lead to the location of the upcountry farm. He made a swift exit from the Variety Gay, leaving the lovestruck dolt still gazing raptly at his heart's Delight.

 

17

QUINCANNON

Two middle-aged women dressed in their Sunday finery were blocking the stoop to Elias Corby's boardinghouse. Gossiping about a neighbor, from the segment of their conversation Quincannon caught as he walked up. “Good afternoon, ladies,” he said, doffing his hat.

They responded in kind, though it was plain that they begrudged the interruption of their tittle-tattle.

“Pleasant Sunday weather, wouldn't you agree?”

“I wouldn't,” one of them said. “Too much wind, not enough sun.”

“Indeed. If you'll excuse me…” He started past them to the stairs.

“Here, now,” the other woman said, “you're not familiar to me, sir. Visiting or a new tenant?”

“Oh, I've been here before. More than once.”

“That doesn't quite answer my question—”

“Indeed,” he said, smiled, doffed his hat again, and proceeded jauntily to the door. Behind him, the women resumed their conversation in lowered voices. Gossiping again, probably about him now.

The upstairs hallway was deserted. He had no difficulty picking the lock on Corby's door for the third time; in fact he'd become so adept at it that he was through the door and inside in something under twenty seconds. A quick look through the two rooms assured him that everything was as it had been when he'd accosted and arrested the murderous bookkeeper. The fact that he'd then failed to hold on to Corby after having failed to yaffle Lansing, through no fault of his either time, still galled him. And would until Corby was once more in his clutches, with all possible safeguards in place against another escape.