JONATHAN STEADMAN’S ARTICLE on the crime syndicate appeared in a special afternoon edition of the Clarion. It wasn’t exactly what Gatling expected. The headline read: MADMAN OR JUSTICE SEEKER? The subhead was: Self-styled Avenger Accuses Chief Mahaffy of Criminal Conspiracy.
Not bad, Gatling thought, drinking coffee as he read the story. But he didn’t like the use of the word “madman” because it took away some of the sting.
The facts were more or less as he related them to Steadman, but there were some changes, and he blamed the Clarion’s lawyers for that. The MADMAN in the headline must have been their idea, and so was the faintly derisive tone of the disclaimer, which suggested that there was no truth to the story but that it was worth publishing just the same.
“That one man, single-handed, wiped out the notorious Specs Margate Gang is scarcely believable,” the disclaimer read. “In addition, if an unmentionable bordello operated outside the twelve-mile limit, where is the need for police ‘protection,’ since our police have no jurisdiction in international waters? Indeed, where is the ship? Our anonymous telephone informant claims to have sunk it with all hands aboard. However, despite our skepticism, we believe this fantastic story should be printed exactly as it was taken down in shorthand by our reporter.” The disclaimer ended with: “It is, after all, up to our readers to decide.”
Well there it was, Gatling thought. The Clarion got to publish a juicy story while bending over backward to keep from being sued. But at least there was a weak-kneed suggestion that “something must be done for these wretched street urchins.” That meant some kind of reform school, but even that couldn’t be as bad as life on board the Dixon. Charges had been made against Mahaffy, and that was something, and maybe the readers of the Clarion would decide the charges were true.
Asked to comment on the article, Chief Mahaffy said the rightful place for the Clarion was in the outhouse. “Steadman should understand that. The man is a s-t head.”
Gatling didn’t want to read any more. If his idea hadn’t fizzled, it hadn’t made much of a bang. Still, there was no way to know how readers would take it. Mahaffy was an unpopular man, a hated man, and there were many people who would like to see him taken down. It would be a bitch if he survived and went on to bigger and worse things.
The next day, Monday, was the day of the Giuseppe DiSalvo insanity hearing. A big turnout was expected in Judge Dockery’s courtroom. Gatling didn’t know a thing about the judge, but figured he was up to his armpits in graft and politics, which had little difference between them. He wondered if the judge would get DiSalvo off the hook with a lot of legal mumbo jumbo, or would he simply defy the public and press when he handed down his ruling? It would be interesting to see how he handled it.
That night, on his way home from a steak and chophouse, Gatling stopped to listen to an elderly man making a speech on a street corner. Grady Sims, also known as the Hangman, twice-defeated candidate for Mayor, was calling on all “concerned citizens” to reestablish the Gold-Rush-era Vigilance Committee to combat the crime wave that was sweeping “our fair city.” Sims, a native of Georgia, had campaigned to hang criminals for many felonies besides homicide.
Sims roared, “Many a time I have pulled on the rope that sent some miscreant to meet his Maker, and though many years have passed since then, I am more than willing to once again do my duty. If there is one thing to be said for hanging, it insures that the dead murderer will murder no more.”
Good for you, Grady, Gatling thought. But you’d get more votes if you threw away your Uncle Sam suit.
He didn’t feel like making any more jokes by the time he locked himself into the Norwegian’s basement. DiSalvo’s hearing was only hours away, and he had to think about it. Against all odds, the police and the gangs had failed to catch up with him. But he wasn’t a miracle man who couldn’t be captured, couldn’t be killed. He knew he had survived because of his experience on the violent side of life, his knowledge of guns. Now he had to decide how much further he could push his so-called luck.
He thought back to the old man ranting on the street corner. Crazy or not, the old codger was right: A dead murderer murdered no more. Giuseppe DiSalvo was a murderer, and if the judge let him off on the murder charge, then the judge was a murderer too.
Gatling was no great champion of justice, but he couldn’t let them get away with killing Metcalf. There wasn’t much to like about the attorney, and Gatling knew he wouldn’t have liked him, whole man or not, but that had nothing to do with it. Metcalf was entitled to live out his life. One mindless thug had ruined his life; another had taken it. They had destroyed a man as they would destroy a cockroach. And he himself, in a way, was responsible for Metcalf’s death.
So he owed the man.
Attending the court hearing could get him killed; worse, he could be captured. He wasn’t afraid of much, but he was afraid of ending up strapped to a chair while Murrill thought up ways to make him talk. His death would be slow and agonizing; Murrill would make sure he didn’t nod off. And when they finished with him, when they finished butchering him while still alive, he would simply disappear.
Just the same, he would be there when the judge made his ruling. The judge’s life depended on how he ruled. Gatling had no doubt that he would rule the “right” way. So the judge would have to be killed. Too bad about the judge’s family, but every man, good or bad, had a family. Not that Judge Dockery would think of himself as a badman; in politics, you got along by going along. You couldn’t buck the system unless you were very rich or dying of cancer or stupid enough to be brave.
Killing the judge in the courtroom would be suicide. Trigger-happy coppers and gunmen would be all over the place. They would riddle him with bullets before the judge stopped breathing—and the hell with innocent bystanders. The Police Department would have given the judge a bodyguard to keep him from being murdered by this gang-hating killer who was shooting up the town.
Gatling wondered how he would kill the judge without killing the bodyguard. He didn’t even know how many bodyguards there would be. Wanted or not, Murrill’s gunmen might be dogging the judge to make sure he didn’t stop a bullet with his head.
Gatling’s final plan, so called, was to listen to the judge’s ruling, then follow him when he left the criminal courts building. Judge Dockery wasn’t likely to hear any more cases after he disposed of DiSalvo’s, which was sure to go into the law books. Gatling knew a little law, and he figured Judge Dockery would cite the MacNaughton Rule, which had established precedent for all insanity decisions.
Judge Dockery would be riding high, but a single bullet could bring him down.
Gatling didn’t kid himself that killing the judge would be easy. Far from showboating for the press, Judge Dockery might shun the limelight, go home, and lock himself in. Nothing was for sure, one of Gatling’s oldest rules. Judge Dockery might sleep with a squad of bluecoats watching his windows and guarding his bedroom door. Gatling knew some policemen could shoot. They used their own money to buy bullets to shoot at targets. And how good a shot did a man with a sawed-off have to be?
Finally, all he could do was to examine the situation and take it from there. But Judge Dockery had to die; he had made up his mind to that. Easy or hard, he wouldn’t be satisfied until the judge was tucked away in his coffin.
It was time to try out the Borchardt autoloader on a human target. With its very long barrel and high velocity, the 9mm pistol was a fine weapon for killing a man at a fair distance. In its way the Colt .45 was a dependable weapon, but it didn’t have the long barrel or the range. Fitted with a scope, the new experimental Lee-Enfield-—short barrel, short bolt action—would certainly do the job, though it wasn’t right for killing in crowded streets. More than a few amateur assassins had been captured or killed because they fired a rifle from the top of a tall building. Killing was easy; getting away was a bitch.
Killing was like baseball: You weren’t satisfied until you were home free.
He took the Borchardt from where it was hidden. If a weapon could be described as a work of art, then the Borchardt would have been on display. It was fairly heavy, yet felt light in the hand. As Colonel Pritchett had said many times, it had a “perfect point,” meaning that the long barrel and front sight seemed to lock in on a target.
Gatling slapped in a magazine and pointed the pistol at one of the plants he had promised to water every three days. Damn right it locked in. It pointed as naturally as a man pointed his finger. Tomorrow he would be pointing it at Judge Dockery. Or the day after. Or the day after that. The judge wouldn’t run away unless he tried to kill him and missed.
Which was something he didn’t intend to do.
Yet there was always the possibility that they would search everybody going into the courtroom. If so, he would back off, hide the weapon, and hope it was still there when he came back to get it. It was late enough to break into the criminal courts buildings and tape the Borchardt to the underside of a bench. Sure he could, but what would he do if some doddering night watchman happened along? Kill the poor old geezer? Hell no! He’d let Judge Dockery live to be ninety before he’d kill some old gent who never did an evil deed in his life.
Be patient, he told himself. Let’s see how the horses start from the gate. But no breaking into the criminal courts building. He felt it was a lousy idea, and he had learned to trust his hunches.
He took a bottle of San Francisco Steam Beer from the ice chest and drank most of it before he went to sleep.
Feeling like a fool in a straw hat and a pair of clear glasses from a theatrical store beside a theater, he walked up the steps of the criminal courts building. It was a rotten disguise, but he couldn’t think of anything else. He had discarded the notion of appearing in court as an Amish farmer with chin whiskers and pegs instead of buttons. He limped with a cane, hoping for sympathy. The Borchardt was stuck inside his belt, covered by his coat, snug against his thigh.
One bluecoat stood at the main entrance, but he wasn’t searching anybody for anything. So far, so good. Gatling found a seat in the back and waited for DiSalvo’s case to be called. While he waited, Mahaffy came out of the judge’s chambers and sat beside the court reporter.
Two men were on the bench reserved for witnesses. “All rise,” the bailiff bellowed, and Judge Dockery appeared in a sweep of black robes. Every inch a judge, Gatling thought. Dockery was in his sixties, had beautiful white hair, a handsome red face, a practiced judicial manner.
“Be seated,” the bailiff roared.
Judge Dockery spoke to the court clerk, who spoke to a court officer. Giuseppe DiSalvo, looking shaky, was brought into court by two court officers.
The charge was read and DiSalvo was asked how he wanted to plead. Before he could answer, his lawyer, Bertram Abernathy, jumped to his feet and pleaded his client not guilty of murder by reason of insanity.
Judge Dockery ran his hand through his beautiful white hair. He looked as serious as a Puritan divine condemning a loose woman to the whipping post. He should have been a senator, Gatling thought. Not a criminal courts grafter.
“This is the most serious charge of all,” the judge said sternly. “Do you intend to cite the MacNaughton Rule? Do you have expert testimony to establish the legitimacy of your client’s plea?”
“I do, your honor,” Bertram Abernathy said.
“Proceed,” Judge Dockery said.
Bertram Abernathy was a strutter; he was so sure of himself, he couldn’t help it. “I call on Dr. Gunther Auslander, chief of St. Martin’s Insane Asylum.”
Dr. Auslander had a beard and walked on crutches. After bowing to the judge, he stated that he had received his medical degree in Berlin, in 1870. Later he had specialized in various forms of dementia under the great Wilhelm Voss. There was no doubt in his mind that the accused, Giuseppe DiSalvo, was suffering from an advanced form of dementia known as persecution dementia.
“To use layman’s terms,” Dr. Auslander said, “the accused, Giuseppe DiSalvo, is convinced that people are out to get him. To kill him if he doesn’t kill them first. Why he killed Mr. Metcalf remains a mystery. DiSalvo perhaps saw his name in the newspaper, something as simple as that, Your Honor. A tragedy certainly, but one for which DiSalvo is not responsible.”
Judge Dockery said, “Based on your considerable experience, that is your opinion?”
“More than an opinion, Your Honor. A certainty.”
Judge Dockery stroked his white hair. “Eben Metcalf was a fine man and a personal friend. I am grieved by his death at the hands of this foreign misfit. What I would like to ask our immigration authorities is how creatures such as this get into our country.”
“The poor fellow is deranged,” Bartram Abernathy protested.
The judge silenced him with an imperial wave of his hand. “I realize that, Mr. Abernathy. To think of a fine man such as Eben Metcalf ... However, the law is the law and I must abide by it. What do you suggest, Mr. Abernathy?”
“That the accused be confined to St. Martin’s Insane Asylum for an indefinite period.”
Judge Dockery banged his gavel. “So ordered,” he said.
The judge had just sentenced himself to death, but he didn’t know it. Would never know it. Gatling filed out with the curious, the coppers, the gunmen. Mahaffy went into the judge’s chambers after he left the bench. No other police bodyguards were in sight. It looked like Mahaffy was going to take personal care of the judge. Gatling liked that: two birds with one stone. Maybe two birds with a whole magazine of bullets.
Only one flatfoot was shifting from one foot to another when the judge came out laughing. Mahaffy was with him. The Chief of Detectives didn’t look so happy, but he showed his teeth like a bad dog about to bite a postman. The judge waved to the police guard and walked on down the steps.
At the bottom Gatling was standing next to a kiosk that sold newspapers and cigars. The owner, a very old man, was trying to open a bundle of newspapers with a carpet knife. He was cursing in some foreign language. Now was as good a time as any, Gatling decided. No better place for justice than the halls of justice.
He took out the Borchardt and killed the judge and Mahaffy with two shots to the head. The long-barreled autoloader was that good. Dockery and Mahaffy rolled down the steps. Gatling gave them two more bullets before he walked away fast. A woman began to scream. Gatling walked faster.
It was the easiest kill of his life, so easy that he could hardly believe it. Two shots, two dead men, fish in a barrel. He was sure nobody had seen him. He was sure the screaming woman hadn’t seen him, she was screaming at the dead men. The screaming was lost in the sound of traffic.
As in baseball, he was home free. Except that he didn’t go home to the Norwegian’s locked and barred basement. Something nagged at him, but he didn’t know what it was. There was a sense of danger that wouldn’t go away, and he had lived too long among the Indians to disregard it. There were things that couldn’t be explained; this was one of them. He remembered a young Zuni who woke up one morning and announced that he was going to die that day. Before sundown he was dead, bitten in the hand by a coral snake, a creature so reclusive that it was seldom seen by anyone.
Gatling didn’t feel that death was right over the horizon, but the dark sense of danger persisted. But he didn’t want to go to the basement, lock himself in, and sit with the machine gun across his knees. It was early—the hearing had been short—and he ate breakfast in a converted streetcar that served working man’s food. A line of stools, bolted to the floor, ran along a corridor with two men behind it. A short-order cook, with all the signs of a drinker, was shoving in plates of food through a serving slot.
Only three men were in the place, eating bacon and eggs and drinking coffee. Gatling saw that the back door, the exit door, was boarded up and painted over. Obviously it had been sealed off to keep patrons from ducking out on their checks. Yet for reasons he couldn’t explain, it gave him an uneasy feeling. He ordered a second cup of coffee, though he really didn’t want it.
He knew it wasn’t a case of nerves; he was not a nervous man. A man who came down with the jitters wouldn’t be working for Colonel Pritchett. A heavyset man about thirty came in followed by another man. The second man was thin, slow moving for a man of his build, and he yawned over his coffee after it was served to him. They didn’t sit together.
They left minutes apart, but didn’t finish their coffee. It was a chilly morning and most men would have finished their coffee. The coffee was all right, so it couldn’t be that. If they had wanted to kill him the little restaurant would not have been a bad place to do it. Long and narrow, with only one door, the restaurant would have been an ideal place to kill somebody. But as he knew damn well, they hadn’t showed the faintest interest in him.
Usually he was good at placing people, and it had saved his life at least a dozen times. But he couldn’t hang the two men on any peg. As far as he could tell, they weren’t laborers, and they didn’t look as if they worked in an office. People sometimes got to look like the jobs they worked at. He was pretty sure they weren’t detectives. They could have been gamblers, except their clothes weren’t good enough. All right. Maybe they were busted, small-time gamblers.
Gunmen? Well yes, they could have been gunmen. But if they knew him and wanted to kill him, why hadn’t they tried it? If they knew him, had been told about him, they’d know how good he was with a gun. Possibly they had come in to look him over, to see what he was like up close. Often that was what hired killers did.
He paid his check and left. The noon bell of a church clock tolled the time. No sign of the men from the restaurant. But of course there wouldn’t be, if they were professionals.
One way to find out was to walk around and see if they followed him. In the restaurant they had tried to look as if they weren’t together, but now he was sure they were. As they sat on their stools, glumly drinking coffee, some sort of silent communication had passed between them.
Staying far away from his hideout, he walked around for the best part of the day, stopping now and then for a beer or a cup of coffee. He sat in the public library with a book in front of him. He looked at a display of Gold Rush mining equipment in the city museum. He watched a threadbare artist making quick charcoal sketches of passersby. It was getting dark when he decided to bring this thing out in the open. If, indeed, there was anything to bring out.
Dusk wasn’t the best time to do it, or maybe it was. If they were there, they might think they could sneak up on him in the thickening light. Still taking his time, he walked down to a deserted dock where heavy construction was being done. Paving stones had been torn up and stacked. There was no fog, no rain, but the light wasn’t good. Seawater splashed against the pilings and gulls squawked in the wind.
He was moving away from a huge stack of tarred pilings when they opened fire from two sides. They were firing fast with heavy double-action pistols and they sure as hell were no amateur gunmen. He ran for the cover of a wooden shanty, but the door was fastened with a massive chain and padlock. He ran and heard them running behind him. He threw himself down behind a pile of paving stones and opened fire with the Borchardt. If he hit anything, nobody yelled.
One of them threw a piece of iron, a bolt or something. Gatling held his fire. It was darker now, with no movement that he could hear.
A chip of stone cut his face when they opened up again from two sides. He was boxed in; the only thing left was to jump off the dock. He ran to the edge of the water, then turned and emptied the Borchardt.
A bullet hit him in the arm without breaking the bone. He staggered back and fell off the dock into the water. As he surfaced, his hand felt a dock support and he held onto it. Down where he was the water felt oily and there was a bad smell. A bunch of sea wood tangled itself around his ankle and hung there, its tendrils trailing in the water. Right over his head, one of the killers was cursing a blue streak.
“What you shoot him for?” he snarled. “You knew the orders, so why’d you shoot him? You know what Gomez’s man said. ‘We want him alive. Get that straight. Gomez don’t want him killed.’ So what’d you do? You shot him, Joe. You’re gonna catch it. So am I.”
The other killer said, “He was shooting at you, Marco. What am I supposed to do? I ask you that. Let him kill you?”
“Gomez and the big man won’t be innerested what he was doing,” Marco said angrily. “He had his back to the water, so where could he go? We could a got him.”
Marco was in charge. Joe didn’t like the way Marco was talking to him. “Well he’s dead, ain’t he? Shot or drownded. I’m sorry what happened, but we go to get our story straight. They’ll blame you’s much as me.”
“More,” Marco said. “They’ll blame me more. You ask me I’d have to say you was in the wrong line a work. Never mind your story, you stupid guinea.”
Joe got mad. “Who’re you calling a guinea? You’re a guinea.”
“No, sir,” Marco said. “I was born this country. You’re the guinea. Ah, for Christ sake, what’m I saying? Our story is this. They was no shooting till he jump off the dock and try to swim for it. We had to shoot him or he’d of got clear. We borrowed a rowboat and searched all over. Which is what we should be doing this minute.”
Gatling’s wounded arm was still bleeding. At first, when the bullet hit, it was numb from wrist to shoulder. Now it hurt like hell. He heard the two killers walking out onto the wooden jetty that was moored to the dock. Their shoes made a hollow sound.
Moving from one support to another, he felt his way along the underside of the dock. The wooden supports were crusted with barnacles that cut his hands. Waves slapped against the timbers; the tide was going out.
The killers were in the rowboat, trying to get under the dock. The one at the oars didn’t know how to row. “Let me do it,” the other killer said. But he didn’t do much better. The boat spun around and he cursed.
“Any sign of him?” Gatling knew this was the one called Joe.
“Wouldn’t I tell you if there was?” Marco sounded like a man at the end of his patience. “There’s a what—a gaff on the floor there. Poke around the thing. See if you can hook him.”
Joe probed the black water. “Too bad we don’t have a dark lantern.”
Marco said irritably, “Got any more bright ideas? Tell you what. Find a hardware store that’s open late and buy a dark lantern. If they just had a run on lanterns, take a candle from a church. But leave an offering.”
Joe kept on probing.
Gatling hoped the filthy water wouldn’t infect the wound. The water was a cold, foul broth of everything dirty. He couldn’t see but he could feel the blood leaking out of him. If he passed out from loss of blood, he would drown.
After banging the boat against a wooden support, Marco said, “Aw shit! We’re just getting dirty down here. Less get away from all this stink. The man is dead. We have to pray he’s dead.”
“It was an honest mistake,” Joe protested.
“Try telling that to Freddy Gomez. Get on down to Los Angeles and tell him.” Marco swore as he tried to maneuver the boat from under the pier.
Joe said, “You think the big man is with him?”
Marco spat on his hands and tried to get a better grip on the oars. “What do you know about the big man? You ain’t s’posed to know shit-all about the big man.”
Joe didn’t see it that way. “I hear things, you hear things.”
“What I hear I keep to myself. Frigging stupid boat. You ought to do likewise.”
Joe was stubborn. “What’s so wunnerful about the big man? Man eats and shits like the rest of us. Who is he anyways? You talk like he’s Garibaldi or something. I just ask is he with Gomez and you jump on me.”
Marco said there was a splinter in his frigging finger. “Better get this straight, dumbhead. You want to know if the big man is with Uncle Freddy. The answer is, the big man could be anywhere. I hear he’s gone from Frisco. Don’t be asking how I know that. The big man could be with Gomez waiting for the good news we don’t got. This guy we was s’posed to bring him, they’s talk he could of done the Specs job. Gomez’s man told us catch this man, right? Big responsibility, right? Only we—you—dint do it right. All we got to offer is a story that prob’ly won’t wash.”
“I’m thinking about New York,” Joe said. “Big burg like that, ought to be easy to hide.”
“Hide your ass,” Marco growled. “I’m thinking of a drink. Rye with a beer chaser. You go where you want, paisan. They want to find you, they’ll find you.”
Gatling heard them walking back to the dock. They didn’t tie up the boat, but let it drift. Their voices faded. He waited a long time before he pulled himself up onto the jetty, then crossed the dock to where warehouses made big shadows. He kept to the shadows as much as possible. No sign of Marco and Joe; that didn’t mean they weren’t waiting around the next corner.
Blood dripped from his hand and he knew he must look like hell. He buttoned the top button of his jacket and stuck his hand inside, making a kind of sling. No time to dodge about and take the long way home. A good thing it was late, with not so many bluecoats laying down their flat feet. He spotted a patrolman, but he had a streetwalker backed into a doorway and had his mind on other matters.
Before he unlocked the basement gate, he checked the street. Inside, with the door bolted, he looked at the wound. A deep gouge had ripped through the meaty part of his arm above the elbow; the bullet had passed on through. Blood still dribbled down his arm. A tourniquet stopped that, and he took a short drink before he washed out the wound with whiskey. Done with that, he put on a tight bandage.
Another drink dulled the pain. Lying there in the dark, he knew he was pushing too hard. But some good had come out of his brush with death. He had the name of a man—Freddy Gomez—who dealt with Murrill directly, knew what he looked like. Narrowing it down to a man instead of a shadowy figure ought to take him a little closer to the end. Murrill was responsible for so much evil. Not that the brutes he’d brought under his sway were any less evil, but they were brutes, after all. Crime was their profession; it was how they made their living. The more successful they became, the more they were inclined to retire to the life of the country gentleman.
The only way to retire Murrill was to kill him. Gatling hoped they would be face to face when the last moments came.