HE BOUGHT A horse and rode to the second train stop south of San Francisco. There he boarded the next Southern Pacific train going to Los Angeles. He sat in the back of the last car, his hat brim low over his eyes, a man trying to catch up on his sleep. The cased Skoda lay at his feet; the Colt .45 and the Borchardt pistol were concealed by his coat. With its long barrel and extended toggle mechanism behind the butt, the Borchardt was difficult to hide. Basically it was a military firearm and was still undergoing some refinements that would make it less cumbersome for civilian use.
The barrel would be shortened and the toggle mechanism moved forward. A more compact toggle operation would increase its rate of fire, to make it one of the two fastest-firing autoloaders in the world. One great advantage the Borchardt had over the Bergmann was the Bergmann had to be loaded one round at a time, while the Borchardt’s magazine could be pushed home with the heel of the hand.
Gatling loved good guns, the way they felt in his hand, and he could grow as enthusiastic about guns as other men were about fishing and horses. He lived for guns, though they might be the death of him.
Once a sleepy Mexican town, Los Angeles had grown since he’d been there last. He got off at the next-to-last stop and rode a horsecar into town. That took most of an hour.
There were miles of orange groves, tens of thousands of acres of land for sale. Above the city, the sky was a stainless blue. No fog here, no rain; the air was so clear the gray-brown mountains seemed closer than they were.
Horse-drawn streetcars moved along wide, empty boulevards. After the San Francisco dampness, the heat felt good. Gatling had been raised by the Zunis in New Mexico and he loved the baking heat of the desert. This quiet city had been built in the desert. Over the years a lot of people with lung trouble had come there to be cured by the sun.
It was the last place you’d expect to find an important branch of the crime syndicate.
Ames, the Maxim caretaker, had sent the Hotchkiss Cannon on by rail. It would be waiting in storage. The colonel wanted it tested in combat. Orders were orders, and he always needed more money than he made, but he would pick the time and the place. If no opportunity presented itself, then the cannon would go back to New Jersey. There might be an argument with the colonel, but that couldn’t be helped.
Still, there was a fair chance he would have to use the Hotchkiss before this was over.
Gomez was surely one of the commonest names in the city. But Marco, the short-tempered killer, had called Gomez “Freddy,” which probably meant that his given name was Ferdinand. Ferdy was short for Ferdinand, and somewhere along the line it had probably been changed to Freddy. That ought to narrow it down. Obviously Gomez was in some kind of big-money racket because he was tied in with Murrill. The big man wouldn’t be interested in small fry.
The cashier in the Telephone Exchange on Pico Street had a copy of the City Directory, the white businessman’s Bible. In Los Angeles there were hundreds of people named Gomez; the City Directory listed just two; Freddy Gomez ran the Mex-US Export-Import Company at 47 Downey Plaza. In spite of the name, Downey Plaza was in the old Mexican quarter. It was named after Mayor and Governor Downey, who began his political climb before the Civil War.
Gatling walked over there; he didn’t expect to kill Wilson Murrill that afternoon. The Gomez company was located in a very old, very large adobe building with rounded corners and a deep porch that ran around the entire structure. Not listed in the Directory was Freddy’s cantina, to one side of the main entrance. A Chinaman came out carrying a bottle in a bag. Other Chinamen lounged in the shade of the porch.
Doing business with Chinamen didn’t have to mean opium. You could buy opium, cocaine, and morphia in most drugstores. Opium in cough medicine and painkillers was called laudanum. Whores and ladies loved it.
Gatling figured Gomez was smuggling Chinamen into the country. In earlier years, mostly the late sixties and seventies, the railroads welcomed the Chinese as long as there was a need for cheap labor. But now that most of the railroads were built, they didn’t want any more chinks coming in. In 1882 they barred them altogether by an Act of Congress. Those already in the country could stay and do whatever chinks did; all other yellow men were turned back.
Gatling went into Freddy’s and bought a mug of beer. Dark and low-ceilinged and long, the cantina had the usual cantina smells. Some of the Mexicans hunched over rough tables were smoking potaguaya. Another name for it was marijuana. Mexicans and some Indians smoked it, a few whites. It was hardly worth selling. It grew everywhere.
A middle-aged Mexican with a belly and good American clothes came in. A brown cigarette hung from his lower lip like a burning fuse. His white stockman’s hat hung down his back on a braided cinch. His handmade boots had built-up heels and his dyed black hair glistened with pomade.
The two bartenders straightened up and began to dump beer slops, to wipe the bar, to fill the salt dishes and slice lemons for the tequila drinks.
Gomez was as popular as all get-out; some of the potaguaya smokers called him “Uncle Freddy,” and he passed through the smoky bar like royalty: a slap on the back for one, a roguish greeting for another. He went behind the bar, emptied the cash boxes into a leather bank-deposit bag, and went up the narrow stairs at the end of the bar.
An elderly Chinese in a black suit and collarless white shirt came in looking at his watch. Nodding to no one, he put the watch away and went upstairs without a word to the bartenders.
At the bar three American hardcases were drinking whiskey. One was drunk and inclined to be rowdy. “No tickee, no washee,” he said to the man next to him, who said, “Put a stopper in it, Jed. That kinder bull don’t go round here.”
Jed was drunk enough to be nasty, but he looked around before he spoke. Gatling liked Texans well enough, but he wondered why so many were hammered-down and runty, short legs and long belt guns. Jed was just like that. A proddy, big-mouth troublemaker who couldn’t hold his liquor.
“Since when was you a chink-lover, Billy boy? ’Fraid you’ll lose your meal ticket?”
Billy refused to take offense. He was a pinch-faced short man with bow legs. His wispy yellow mustache was stained with tobacco juice.
“Drop it,” he warned. “This ain’t the time or place. Uncle Fred ain’t going to hold still for you badmouthing his chinks. Dry up and drink your drink.”
“Damned if you ain’t fretting over the money part,” Jed sneered. “Never thought I’d see the day my friend Billy Dawes’d be sticking up for lousy dog-eating chinks. Takes more’n a few chink dollars to shut this boy up. I go where I want, do what I want, and ain’t beholden to no chinky Charlies.”
The Mexicans were trying to hear what was being said. If they understood, they weren’t offended on behalf of the Chinese. Probably the Chinese meant nothing to them; it was the Americans they hated.
Billy held onto his temper. This was the wrong end of town to get tangled up in a fight. And maybe he was wanted by the law in some part of the country.
“Sure thing,” he said. “Everybody knows you ain’t skeered of nothing. Me and Murph is leaving. You coming or staying?”
Swaying on his feet, Jed followed along. One of the potaguaya smokers made a joke and the drugged Mexicans laughed. Gatling didn’t catch the rapid Spanish.
He got another beer. The three Americans were part of a gang, headed by Gomez, that ran Chinese across the border to southern California. Didn’t take much to figure that out. He had seen three men; many others had to be on the payroll. Gomez probably brought in small groups at a time; the capture of a few Chinese would mean a loss of hundreds of dollars at least; a large group would be worth thousands.
The border was poorly patrolled—Congress wouldn’t vote the money—but there were risks. A Chinese speaking little or no English couldn’t get across by himself. If Mexican bandits didn’t get him on one side of the line, American thugs would get him on the other. So the Chinese illegals would have to fork over every cent they had. No money, no land of opportunity. Once they reached California, the Chinese would be taken north to Los Angeles. Gatling knew he was guessing, but Los Angeles did seem the likely place to take them. Could be the old Chinese gent in the black suit was Gomez’s interpreter and middleman. Anyway, someone like him. The Los Angeles middleman would deal with a middleman in some Chinese port. The Chinese were suspicious of all whites, with good reason, and they would want to deal with their own kind.
An operation as big as that would be sure to attract Murrill’s attention. He would want to make it bigger. Gatling wondered if they brought in women. That’s where the real money was. Young, pretty Chinese girls were in demand all over the country, even when there was no scarcity of women. It was said that Chinese women were built differently “down there.” A girl who wasn’t a whore could be “turned” in a week. All but a few cathouse patrons liked whores who didn’t act like whores; even an experienced whore could learn to pretend.
Gatling crooked a finger at the bartender who seemed to be in charge. The man shuffled over, twisting a dirty rag. He wanted Gatling to know that he didn’t jump for gringos.
“I’d like to talk to Mr. Gomez,” Gatling said. “I hear he’s looking for men.”
Instead of giving an answer, the bartender called down the bar to the other bartender. “Hey Jorge, you hear Uncle Freddy is looking for men?”
The other bartender shrugged. “I don’t hear, but who knows?”
“Tell him,” Gatling said. “He’ll want to hear about it. You don’t tell him, he won’t like it.”
The bartender went upstairs and then came back. “You go up now,” he said. “Knock and wait.”
Gomez told Gatling to come in. The door wasn’t bolted. Gomez sat at his ease behind a very old, highly polished desk bare except for a few papers.
“What do you want?” Gomez asked in good English, very little accent. “Suppose you start with your name.”
Gatling looked around the office. The Turkey carpet was soft and thick. Everything smelled of money, from the carpet to the desk to the antique pistols, inlaid with gold and silver, in a display case. Against one wall was a dark wood cabinet with liquor decanters in it.
Freddy Gomez liked the good things of life.
“My name is Myles Lawson,” Gatling said. “I’m with the United States Government. Special Section, U.S. Coast Guard.”
Gomez smiled complacently. “You’re no Government agent. May I ask you what has the Coast Guard got to do with me? I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt.”
“The Coast Guard is investigating the smuggling of Chinese.”
That got another laugh. “The Coast Guard’s got nothing to do with that. I know these things. I make it my business to know. Better think up a better lie.”
“Your information is out of date,” Gatling said. “My section just got orders to take over. You’re in serious trouble if you don’t cooperate. We know you’re not the brains of this outfit.”
Stung by the suggestion, Gomez said, “And I say you’re no agent. If you’re an agent, where’s your badge?”
Gatling said, “We don’t carry badges, we carry these.”
He drew the Colt so fast it made Gomez blink. But he recovered his composure fast enough. “So you’re fast with a gun. That doesn’t make you an agent. How many agents are gunslingers? You don’t look like an agent, you don’t act like one.”
“How do Government agents act?”
“Not like you. I had Secret Service men in here last year looking for counterfeiting plates.” Gomez had been staring at Gatling. He lurched forward in his high-backed chair. “Now I know you. You’re the crazy man that’s been shooting up San Francisco.” Gomez didn’t sound scared. “What’s all that got to do with me? All right. I do bring some Chinese across. Is that so bad? I don’t take their money and leave them to die in the desert like others I could mention. I don’t kill them so they can’t get me in trouble. They get to work, they get to eat. My man provides papers proving they’ve been here since before 1882.”
“Forget the Chinese,” Gatling said. “Where’s Wilson Murrill? Don’t try to string me along. Don’t make me mad.”
Gomez had his hands flat on the desk. “I don’t know any Murrill,” he said calmly. “I do business with a lot of Americans, but nobody named Murrill. Somebody or something has set you on the wrong track.”
“If you don’t know Murrill, how come you know me?”
“The police are looking for you. Looking hard. San Francisco is only four hundred miles from here. You’ve been described in the local papers, and the description is pretty good. That’s how come I know you. Look, I’ve got no grudge fight with you. How could I? I never saw you before in my life.”
“You sent two killers after me on Murrill’s say-so. I think Murrill has you in a bind you’d like to get out of.”
Gomez was less confident than he had been. “How could this Murrill put me in a bind? I’ve got a nice business here, more illegals than I can handle. Why would I want a partner?”
“Because you didn’t have much of a choice,” Gatling said. “Because Murrill told you how you could make more money. Greed and fear, that’s why you have a partner. Maybe Murrill had a couple of Black Handers along to help persuade you. Your pistoleros and American gunmen are no match for those boys. At first you thought, why lose my life if I can keep it and get richer than I am?”
“My gunmen are good enough to protect me.” But Gomez didn’t seem so sure of that. “If you think you can shoot me and get away with it, you’re crazy. My boys will be up the stairs soon as they hear a shot. There’s only one of you. Want some advice? Walk out of here while you can. I won’t run to the police. I don’t want to get mixed up in this. What happened up north’s got nothing to do with me.”
Gatling reached down and took the long-bladed, double-edged knife from the lining of his boot. “Suppose I kill you with this. Makes no sound. You won’t either.”
Gomez’s hands had been flat on the desk. Now they were out of sight.
“You’ll never make it,” Gatling warned. “You aren’t fast enough. If there’s a gun in the drawer, you’ll be dead before you can touch it. I’ll put this through your neck. But you don’t want to die, you want to talk.”
Gomez put his hands back on the desk. “Talk about what?”
At last Gomez was frightened, but he tried to keep his voice level. Downstairs they were singing some plaintive Mexican song. Gatling had the end of the knife blade gripped in the throwing position.
Gomez looked away from the knife. “What is this between you and Murrill?”
“Murrill is an evil man who deserves to die.”
Gomez showed genuine surprise. “Is that all? I thought he murdered someone in your family.”
“Never mind the reasons.” Gatling wanted to get on with it. “Listen to me good. You don’t have to be as scared as you are. I mean to kill the son of a bitch. Frisco was just for openers. From here on in he’ll be too busy trying to survive. If I can’t kill him soon, I’ll kill him later. I’ll keep hitting him wherever I can. The gangs will turn on him. They’ll be like you, Gomez. They’ll want to go back to the good old days. Business as usual.”
Gomez’s sweaty hands were leaving streaks on the shiny desk. He had the look of a man who didn’t know what was happening to him. Not long before he had been safe downstairs, slapping his pistoleros on the back. Now he had a knife aimed at his throat.
“He’ll get you first,” he said. “One man can’t do it. You’re going to slip up.”
Maybe the Mexican was right. Marco and Joe had come close. “You sent two men to kill me. Was that Murrill’s idea?” Gatling knew it was.
Gomez nodded. “He wanted two men who could be trusted. Not part of a regular gang. I knew Marco and Joe from here. They like their freedom. They move around.”
Gatling raised the heavy-bladed knife. “Tell me, Ferdinand, where is Murrill right now? Lie to me and you’re a dead man.”
“He’s in Tijuana.” Gomez didn’t hesitate. “A meeting to explain what he’s doing, has done, about you. Tijuana is safer, he thinks. Safer than Los Angeles or San Diego. You can get away with anything in Tijuana. All the big bosses have been notified. Not everybody will show. Like you said, some of them are getting unhappy.”
“How come you’re not invited? Not big enough?”
“That’s not it,” Gomez said, his mouth set in a sullen line. “I’m big enough, you bet I am. Murrill ordered me to stay here and get some good men after you, Murrill figured you’d kill the judge after he fiddled the DiSalvo case. Marco and Joe were to watch the judge, knowing there was a good chance you’d show up. They should have done for you. I guess they didn’t.”
“I should kill you for that,” Gatling said, pretending to lose his temper. “I would’ve been tortured.”
Gomez tried for an apologetic smile. “Nothing personal. How could it be? A part of business. And Murrill doesn’t like people to say no.”
Gomez was talking freely now. Soon he would get him onto Murrill. “You heard from your hired killers?”
“Not a fucking peep,” Gomez said furiously. “Lousy rats ran out on me. Mind if I ask you something? Did they even get close?”
“Close enough so I could take their guns like they were two old biddies. They talked their heads off and they named you.”
“Nothing personal,” Gomez repeated. “You can’t kill me for that.”
“I won’t kill you,” Gatling said. “But if you lie to me, you know I’ll be back. You won’t know the time or the place, but I’ll be there. I swear on my mother’s grave.” Gatling thought that was a ridiculous thing to say, but he figured it would impress Gomez. It seemed to. “This big meeting, where in Tijuana?”
Sweat beaded the other man’s face. “I don’t know. On my mother’s grave I don’t know. Murrill is so suspicious he doesn’t trust himself. Do one thing, will you? Make sure you kill him.”
This was what Gatling had been waiting for. “What does he look like? Describe him and don’t leave anything out.”
Gomez described the man Gatling had seen at Specs Margate’s funeral. An inch or two under six feet. Long, thin, sallow face. Dark, burning eyes. Thinning brown hair, average length, going gray. Skinny build.
“Does he speak with a French accent?” Gatling asked.
Gomez nodded vigorously. “That’s right. A French accent.”
Gatling had about all he needed. “If your killers did the job, how were you to tell Murrill? Telegraph?”
More nodding. “But not to Tijuana. San Diego. That’s right across the line. Care of Western Union, San Diego. He wrote it on a card. I’ll show you.”
Gomez started to reach for the desk drawer. Gatling told him to keep his hands on the desk. He got behind Gomez and found the card. Written on it was Jean Laffite, c/o Western Union, S.D.
Gatling told Gomez to stand up. “You’re walking out with me, Freddy. We’ll be smiling and talking, the best of friends. One wrong move will get you killed. Think on this. Soon you’ll be short of Murrill. Stick to smuggling chinks. It’s safer. Start moving now.”
Gomez got up from the desk. “Anything you say. I knew we could do business.”
“You first,” Gatling ordered, and when Gomez turned he clamped his hand over his mouth and killed him with one hard thrust of the knife. He held the body until there was no life left in it. Then he put the corpse behind the desk where it wouldn’t be seen at a casual glance.
Opening the door to the stairs, he called out, “See you tomorrow, Freddy.”
Nobody in the cantina was curious enough to get in his way.
Heading for the depot he took another look at the card Murrill had left with Gomez. The card was clean and the ink was fresh; it hadn’t been in the desk for long. All the name Jean Laffite brought to mind was the old Louisiana Coast pirate of the same name. But could be any Jean Laffite, maybe one of Murrill’s New Orleans thugs. Whoever he was, he was expecting a message from Gomez. There was, Gatling thought, some kind of Louisiana tie-in.
The Southern Pacific went to San Diego, then east to El Paso. A narrow-gauge line crossed the border to Tijuana, but there might not be a Western Union office there. Or “Jean Laffite” had decided that San Diego was more reliable.
Gatling was sure that Gomez hadn’t sent any message. Unless Gomez was lying, Marco hadn’t reported yet. He might not report at all. Marco and Joe could be on a coastal steamer to Vancouver, a train to New York.
The pistoleros wouldn’t go to the police when they found the body. Hardly that. The body would disappear and somebody would try to fill Uncle Freddy’s high-heeled boots. Eventually Murrill would learn that Freddy’s was under new management, but there wasn’t much he could do about it.
Gatling made the short trip to San Diego. The Skoda was in its leather case. Back in Los Angeles the Hotchkiss Cannon was safe in railroad storage. Gatling knew he could trust Ames to do it right.
At the main Western Union office he told the manager he was a private detective looking for a bank embezzler, James Lang, who was going by the name Jean Laffite. Lang was expecting a telegraph message addressed to Laffite.
Gatling pushed a ten-dollar bill under the grill before the manager could ask for identification.
The manager palmed the bill before the other men behind the counter saw it. “Yes, sir, Mr ...”
“Jack Kent,” Gatling said.
“Wilfred Emmons is who I am,” the manager said.
“Mr. Emmons,” Gatling said. “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to hang around till our friend Lang-Laffite arrives to claim his telegraph. That is, if he arrives. These crooks have a way of smelling out the law. Be that as it may, I’ll be watching for your high sign when he comes in. Fan yourself with a bunch of papers, something he won’t notice. We don’t want to scare him off. I’ve tracked him all the way from Colorado. I’d hate to lose him now.”
Mr. Emmons clucked his tongue. “That’d be a downright shame, Mr. Kent.”
Gatling said sternly, “Bank embezzlement is a crime that hurts all of us. The bank will appreciate your cooperation, and so will I.”
The manager adjusted his green eyeshade, giving it a more resolute tilt. “Only too glad, Mr. Kent. We’ll nab the thief when he steps through that door. Why don’t you watch from in here, sir. It could be a long wait, don’t you know. Take off your hat and coat and sit back there so customers won’t bother you. You want a cup of Western Union coffee? Guaranteed to be pretty bad.” The manager laughed thinly. “Nobody wants to clean the blamed pot.”
Gatling nodded his thanks. The manager brought him black coffee, a tin of condensed milk. The coffee wasn’t all that bad. He took off his hat but not his coat; there might be blood on his shirt.
A lot of customers came and went; it was a busy office. A rumpot in need of a shave complained that he had been coming in for three days and the money order he was expecting still hadn’t arrived. He tried to borrow a dollar from the manager on the strength of the money order and was turned down.
Gatling drank coffee and waited.