SAGE GOT MOVING, PRODDED into action by a conclusion as inescapable as Oregon’s December rains. Matthew was dependable and he was missing. Someone must be keeping him from returning home. Drake, always on the lookout for easy prey, probably noticed the boy. Drake needed to find a cabin boy. An innocent kid from a small coastal village, who knew nothing about shanghaiing, fit the bill perfectly.
What was the name of that ship, anyway? The Calypso, that was it. And, Mordaunt said it was sailing soon. Two days, he said. Was that whole days? Part days? What? Sage arms tensed to slam the trap door open without first confirming the coast was clear. But, he stopped himself. Not the time to panic. The underground was enormous. He didn’t know where Mordaunt kept his captives. So, he needed to remain calm, to get closer to Mordaunt before the Calypso sailed and find out where Matthew was imprisoned. Sage raised the door cautiously, climbing out only after making sure the alley was empty.
Once on the street, Sage dithered, uncertain what to do. If his fear was justified, searching the North End streets wouldn’t turn up Matthew. He could start searching the underground–but where? There were blocks and blocks of interconnecting basements, walled-in cellar areas below every basement area. Or, maybe they were holding Matthew above ground–like in a room at Mordaunt’s boardinghouse. A frantic search would only draw attention to himself and take him out of the game before he could find Matthew.
It would be hard doing nothing, but Sage concluded he would have to wait until his eight o’clock meeting with Drake and Fogel. What then? He could try beating the truth out of them, but that would put an end to the mission. It meant he’d lose the opportunity to bring Mordaunt to justice for Kincaid’s death and for Stuart Franklin’s brutal beating. Somehow, there had to be a way to achieve both: rescue Matthew and bring Mordaunt to justice.
How much time did he have? When did the Calypso sail? James Laidlaw could answer the last question, so Sage headed to the British consul’s office. Laidlaw knew the sailing schedules better than anyone.
The minutes dragged by as he stood in the doorway of a closed shop across from Laidlaw’s office. He was waiting for the consul’s clerk to go home. Slowly the sun’s line traveled up the brick until, at last, shadow covered the building’s front and the sky overhead was the darkening blue of twilight. More than once, Sage caught himself twitching with anxiety. He used another of Fong’s sayings to calm himself into stillness: “Waiting crane must stand still so fish does not notice.” It wasn’t all that helpful since the sound of Fong’s voice in his inner ear also triggered a feeling of overwhelming loss. His mother was right. Apart from everything else, Fong was first, and foremost, his friend.
At last the clerk exited the consul office, pulled the door shut behind him and set off down the street at a jaunty pace. As soon as the man turned the corner, Sage scuttled from the doorway, slipped into the office and drew the door shade down as he locked the door. Laidlaw, exiting his inner office, hat already on his head, started before breaking into a smile. “Adair! I didn’t recognize you at first. Pardon me for saying so, my man, but your attire today is not up to its usual standard. Back into your disguise?”
“Glad to hear it. That’s the idea. Meet Twig Crowley, new runner for Kaspar Mordaunt.”
Laidlaw grinned and clapped Sage on the shoulder. “Kaspar Mordaunt’s operation–I can’t believe you did it. This is wonderful.” Face sobering, he added, “and extremely dangerous for you.”
“Right now, danger is the last thing I’m worried about. We’ve got a much bigger problem,” Sage replied and told Laidlaw of Matthew’s disappearance and why he thought Mordaunt had the young boy imprisoned.
Laidlaw’s lips twisted ruefully. “If I were a superstitious man, I’d be thinking that the whopper you first told me about looking for Ida’s nephew has come back to bite you in the nether regions.” Laidlaw said, even as he pawed among the papers on his desk. He found the sailing schedule. Running a finger down the list, he said, “The Calypso is scheduled to sail very early Wednesday morning so she can catch the high tide over the Columbia bar. That doesn’t give us much time to find the boy, just tonight and tomorrow.”
“I’m meeting Drake and Fogel in a few hours at Erickson’s saloon. I’ll try to find out from them where they keep the men they’ve kidnapped. Is there some way of making sure that the honest judge is sitting on the bench tonight when we get Mordaunt? I forgot his name.”
“Judge Clarence Berquist is the one we want. I’ve been checking on that and I think we are in luck. Like I told you, the rest of the local judges have already left town to attend that meeting in Seaside. Berquist stayed home. Says all they do is drink, whore, and tell each other lies. So, Berquist is the only judge in town for the next few days.”
“Perfect. He sounds like he might just be our best hope,” Sage said. “So, if we’re going to get Mordaunt indicted, we need to wrap things up. But even if Judge Berquist issues an indictment, how will we be able to make it stick? Won’t the rich men behind the crimps just see that the case is transferred to someone else when the other judges return from their conference?”
“I have been thinking about that very problem ever since you decided to launch this scheme, Adair. The way I see it, there’s enough interested individuals here in Portland and across the state that a loud public outcry would prevent the death of Kincaid from being swept under the rug. But we still must catch Mordaunt’s men red-handed. I wish I knew how to get the press on our side from the beginning.”
“That’s the one area where I can definitely help,” Sage assured him, thinking of his friend Ben Johnston, publisher of the fledgling Daily Journal. “The Portland Gazette won’t stick its neck out because you tell me too many of the city’s wealthy are benefitting from shanghaiing. But I know the Journal will jump on the chance to make this a lead story. I’m certain of it.”
Sage didn’t mention that, as a major investor in the Journal, he possessed some pull with the publisher. While he’d come to trust Laidlaw, the information he gave to the British consul remained strictly limited to what Laidlaw needed to know. That was another of St. Alban’s rules.
“So, we just have to figure out how to catch them redhanded and then twist an arm or two to get one of them to admit shanghaiing Kincaid,” Sage said, thinking that task would be the hardest and most dangerous part of the whole scheme.
As if reading his mind, Laidlaw said, “You make it sound so easy, Adair, but I’m at a loss as to how we go about doing it.”
“I’ve been thinking that we need the help of an honest copper and a few of his like-minded colleagues,” Sage said.
Laidlaw gave a bark of derision, “Good luck. I cannot imagine how you will find one without tipping your hand to Mordaunt. Most of them are on the take.”
“Actually, I already know an honest policeman. He is also a friend. He’s helped me out before. I’ll get a message to him and get him to meet us.”
Both were silent until Sage gave voice to his biggest fear. “The question is, can we find out where Matthew is and get everything in place so that we can bring this whole matter to a head by tomorrow night–before the Calypso sails?”
“Doesn’t look like we have much choice. We will have to make plans and move quickly,” Laidlaw said, his mouth a grim line.
Sage hesitated to ask his next question because he feared the answer. He asked anyway, “Is Stuart Franklin still alive?”
Laidlaw’s mouth turned down, his face grave. Sage stiffened against the answer. But when it came, it wasn’t the worst.
“Just barely. He remains unconscious, so they don’t know if his mind functions. One thing for certain, his sailing days are over. He’ll be lucky if he can walk.”
On that disheartening note, they parted, agreeing to meet at Laidlaw’s house early the next morning. Sage slipped out Laidlaw’s rear door and hurried back to Mozart’s, where he threw on enough appropriate clothes so he could summon his mother from Mozart’s dining room and tell her the plan. She agreed to find Hanke and bring him to Laidlaw’s house for the meeting.
“Any word from Fong?” he asked.
“Nothing at all,” she responded, her eyes softening with compassion.
As he left, she said nothing about being careful, though the hug she gave him was firm enough for his ribs to remember it for some minutes afterward. The news that Fong remained absent expanded the hollowness Sage’d been feeling until he forced himself not to think about it. “There is too much to do and too much at stake,” he muttered to himself as he headed back down the tunnel. In just minutes he was to meet up with Drake and Fogel. Maybe he could learn where they were holding Matthew.
As usual, the tobacco smoke lay thick in the air when Sage entered Erickson’s saloon. This time, the band’s vigorous playing, the women’s shrill laughter, and the men’s hearty guffaws sounded muted. Sage’s intense fixation on Drake and Fogel, as they sat at their customary table, had maybe stopped up his ears. As he made his way toward them, the proverbial butterflies turned so riotous in his stomach that he thought of detouring to the toilet first. But he resisted and stayed on course. Reaching the table, his hearing returned and he felt himself smiling with unexpected ease at the two men. Their faces were unsmiling.
“Gentlemen,” he acknowledged as he pulled out a chair and sat.
“Evening, Crowley,” Drake said, while Fogel narrowed his small eyes, each of which now sported a shiner turning purplegreen.
Sage spoke quickly. “Thanks for talking Mordaunt into hiring me. Especially you, Fogel, for letting me take the credit for your shiners. Mordaunt knows it isn’t easy to buffalo you two. Letting him think I did it, instead of dumb luck, is what did the trick. Tell you what, let me buy you both drinks.” Sage gestured to a hovering waiter. “Bring us a bottle of your best whiskey,” he commanded and Fogel’s scowl softened.
“That’s decent of you to say,” Fogel said in his low growl. “‘Course, we’re getting something out of you getting hired, remember. Don’t be thinking we did it for charity.”
“Don’t worry, I haven’t forgot my promise about the training money,” Sage replied, thinking that, with luck, they’d both be in jail before any such payoff came due.
Drake spoke. “We can take it easy tonight, boys. We filled all our orders so we don’t have nothing to do but load the cargo aboard just before the ship sails, and that won’t be until late tomorrow night.”
“You talking about the Calypso?” Sage asked.
“Yup, she’s the ship that needed men. She sails real early Wednesday morning, day after tomorrow.”
“How many does she need?”
“We rounded up five and the cabin boy,” Drake said as he reached, without asking, for the whiskey bottle the waiter sat on the table.
“So you found a cabin boy?”
“Just like plucking a baby rooster from the chicken pen,” Drake bragged.
Fogel gave a rasping laugh at the image and Sage looked at him inquiringly.
“Drake here made that rooster joke ‘cause the new cabin boy’s got red hair.” Fogel offered in explanation.
Sage’s gut tightened as his fears were confirmed. Matthew’s red hair was his most noticeable feature. It did call to mind a rooster’s comb. Sage cast frantically about in his mind for a way to find out where they were holding the boy. Suddenly he became aware of two strangers standing, too close for comfort, on either side of him.
“Crowley, these are two associates of ours, just come down from Grays Harbor,” Drake said, gesturing for the two men to sit.
The strangers snagged two chairs from a neighboring table without bothering to ask the occupants’ permission. Sage could see why they felt no need to be polite. Their faces said they were mean. The big one’s nose was mashed to one side, his small eyes almost lost in his round, pig-like face. The razor thin man wore a pencil mustache. His dead, pale blue eyes reminded Sage of the Yukon’s winter sky. No doubt about it. These were the men who’d beaten Stuart Franklin nearly to death, he was sure of it. They also fit the description of the two men who’d visited the Millmen’s saloon on the night Joseph Kincaid disappeared.