Tucson lay on his back in bed with one arm doubled up under his head and the other curled around Cathy’s shoulders as she snuggled up to him. It was well past midnight, Nob Hill was asleep and quiet, and he watched the shadows thrown over the walls by the clouds drifting across the moon.
Cathy had come to his room early and they had spent the rest of the evening making love. Possibly because of the nervous energy running through both of them due to recent events, they hadn’t been able to get enough of each other. It was only with the tolling of midnight that, exhausted and bathed in sweat, they finally fell back on the rumpled sheets to take a break.
“Lily Jordan is such a nice girl,” Cathy murmured, as she idly traced one of the scars on Tucson's chest with a slim finger. “It makes me sad to think of what she’s been through.”
“I appreciate it that you took her in the way you did,” Tucson replied.
“Of course...” She was silent for a moment. “Is saving Lily the original reason you came to San Francisco?”
“Yes...she managed to get a letter to me in Denver where I call for mail. I got here as soon as I could.”
Cathy hugged him tightly. “I’m certainly glad you came.”
Tucson sighed. “You understand that I’ll be leaving again don’t you?”
She lifted up on an elbow and stared down at him. Her eyelids were dark and heavy and her lips were red and swollen from their love-making. “Is there nothing I could say or do that would get you to stay?”
“No...”
She dropped back onto the bed and punched him lightly in the ribs. “You’re not very good for a woman’s ego.”
Tucson reached over, lifted her chin with his finger and gazed into her green eyes. “Don’t take it personally. You’re an attractive woman and I’m glad that I had the chance to know you. But hanging out here in San Francisco, attending soirees, maybe getting a job from your father, isn’t who I am.” He leaned back and stared again at the ceiling. “In a couple of days, once Lily has had a chance to rest, I’ll escort her back to her parents’ home.”
“I suppose I always knew that was the way it would be,” Cathy sighed.
Tucson’s voice sharpened. “There’s an important job that I need you to do for me.”
“What is it?”
“I want you to go to the hospital early this morning, get Frank Connolly out of bed and bring him here by ten o’clock.”
Her eyes flashed with outrage. “That’s impossible...!” she cried. “Frank’s only just regained consciousness. He can’t be moved—it would be cruel to even attempt such a thing!”
Tucson’s voice went hard. “All that's a load of crap! You go to the hospital, drag him out of bed and get him up here even if you have to carry him on a stretcher. I want him standing outside your father’s study at precisely ten o’clock, dressed in a suit, with his badge and gun, on official business. The study door will be closed,” he added. “Frank is not to open it - he’s to wait outside.” He glared uncompromisingly into her eyes. “I need you to get it done.”
Cathy recoiled under his stare and gazed at him in disbelief. Then, finally, she bent to the power of his will. “Alright,” she whispered. “I’ll do it. I assume you have a good reason for demanding such a thing.”
“Trust me,” Tucson replied. “It’s important for both Frank and you. And you’re not to tell anyone what you’re doing, not even your father.”
“Alright...”
“I want your promise.”
“I promise...”
* * * *
Tucson, William Harrison and Jack Morris walked into Harrison’s study, and Tucson closed the door behind them. Harrison went behind his desk and sat down, and Tucson and Morris took the chairs sitting in front. Harrison passed around the cuspidor; Tucson and Morris took cigars then the three men sat back, lit up and smoked in appreciative silence.
“I think the one thing I’m going to miss most when I leave San Francisco,” Tucson murmured dreamily, “is these fine cigars.”
“I’ll send a box along with you when you go,” Harrison replied, blowing a plume of grey smoke toward the ceiling.
“When are you leaving, Kid?” asked Morris.
“Probably tomorrow morning,” Tucson answered. “Which reminds me,” he eyed Harrison, “I’m going to need a mount for Lily Jordan. I’d be happy to pay you for one of the horses in your stable.”
The older man swung forward and planted his elbows on the desk. “Do you think for one second that I’d allow you to pay for one of my horses?” he demanded indignantly. “You can have your pick of the lot,” he waved his cigar, “except, of course, for Prince, my daughter’s personal mount. Speaking of payment,” he added, reaching into a drawer in the desk and pulling out his checkbook. “I owe you seventy-five thousand dollars.” He picked up a pen. “Do you want a check right now?”
Tucson laughed. “Not even I would feel safe with seventy-five thousand dollars in my pocket. I have a bank in Denver where I keep my funds—I’ll give you the address and you can wire the money there.”
“Sound judgment,” Harrison observed, and replaced the checkbook in the drawer.
They continued to smoke in silence, each man lost in his own thoughts. At last, Tucson turned to Morris and asked quietly, “Why did you do it, Jack?”
Gagging on his cigar, Morris gaped at Tucson in surprise. Harrison’s brow furrowed questioningly.
“What the hell are you talking about, Kid?” Morris demanded.
“Why did you sell out to the Tongs?”
Coughing, Morris reached forward and dropped his cigar into the ashtray. “Why the devil would you ask me a question like that?”
“Yes, Kid,” Harrison chimed in, his voice edged with anger. “Jack and I have been after those Tongs for years. I appreciate what you’ve done more than I can ever say, but you’re stepping over a line here. You need to explain yourself. Why ever would you suspect Jack of collusion?”
Slumped in his chair, his long legs thrust out before him and crossed at the ankles, Tucson studied the glowing tip of his cigar. “When the three of us first talked about this job, you told me that the Tongs always seemed to be one step ahead of you, and that three of your best agents had ended up floating in the bay, one of whom was Chinese.”
“That’s true...” Harrison’s cigar was clamped between his teeth.
Tucson continued. “I suggested at the time that it sounded like there was someone in the police department who was feeding the Tongs information.”
“But that hardly points to me!” Morris objected. “It could have been anyone.”
“No, not just anyone,” Tucson pointed out. “It had to be someone high enough up in your task force to know the plans ahead of time—in other words, a leader. That leader would then be able to get the information to Ah Ting in time for him to shift his operation somewhere else. It would take a leader to feed him the identities of the undercover agents you’d sent in, so that he could eliminate them before they discovered anything.”
“What you’re saying makes sense, Kid,” Harrison put in. “But that’s hardly new information. Jack and I have discussed the problem many times.”
“But you missed the main point.” Tucson stared hard at the older man. “Given the factors I just pointed out, the traitor could only have been you or Morris.”
“Good god, Kid!” Morris burst out angrily. “You’re forgetting who you’re talking to.”
“No, I’m not,” Tucson responded, his face drawn with sadness. “I remember very well that you were there for me when I was a boy and needed a helping hand. I remember very well that I looked up to you as a role model. It doesn’t make me happy to see you become what you’ve always fought against.”
Glaring at Morris out of the corners of his eyes, Harrison ground out his cigar in the ashtray. “I hear what you’re saying, Kid, but I’m still not convinced.”
“When I faced Ah Ting last night at the Golden Dragon,” Tucson went on, “he not only knew who I was, but he knew that I was staying here at your house.”
“Really...!” Harrison exclaimed.
“Only four people knew I was staying here.” Tucson counted on his fingers. “You knew, Bill, Jack Morris knew, Cathy knew, and I knew.” He glanced from one man to the other. “I don’t think you'd allow your own daughter to be kidnapped, Bill, and I don’t think Cathy arranged her own kidnapping.” His gaze came to rest on Morris. “That only leaves you, Jack.”
Morris’s eyes had gone wild and his face was drenched with sweat. Suddenly, an over-under derringer appeared in his hand and he pointed it at Tucson. “Don’t move, Kid. I don’t want to kill you, but I will if you go for one of your guns.”
William Harrison had fallen back in his chair, his jaw slack, staring at Jack Morris in a state of shock. It didn’t even occur to Tucson to go for a gun. He just sat there, a sad expression on his face, watching Morris.
“Why...?” Harrison got out in a strangled croak.
“Why...?” Morris turned on him in a rage. “You, a millionaire several times over, ask me why? You have wealth, Bill, but I’m getting older, close to retirement age, and what will I get when I retire—a gold watch and a few hundred a month? With the deals that were going down with Ah Ting, I would have made you look like a piker.”
Tucson was watching him curiously. “Mike Ryan and Jack Quinn weren’t really after John Riley, were they, Jack? They didn’t need all that firepower to take him out. You gave them the order to kill me.”
Morris waved the derringer in Tucson’s direction. “I couldn’t believe it when you showed up here. We were this close,” he held up his thumb and forefinger, with a tiny space between them, “this close to taking over the city. With me calling the shots down at City Hall and Ah Ting masterminding the underworld, we were inches away from having San Francisco in our hip pockets. Then you arrived and started to spoil everything. I didn’t know why you were here, but I couldn't take the chance. I couldn’t let you live. So, I came up with the idea to send you into Chinatown on a fool's errand to put you into position to get assassinated.”
“And when I survived Ryan’s and Quinn’s murder attempt,” Tucson continued, “you passed the word to Ah Ting to have me killed. I was supposed to disappear down in the dungeons below the Golden Dragon.”
“God damn you, Kid!” Morris spat out. “You’re a hard man to kill.”
“Why would you kidnap my daughter?” Harrison asked. His voice was distant, as if he was still having trouble getting his mind around it all. “What could she possibly have to do with all of this?”
Morris’ shoulders slumped. “I’m sorry about that, Bill. That wasn’t my idea—I was against it. But Ah Ting insisted that the task force had to be disbanded. Even with me feeding him information, it was still a nuisance—it disrupted business. He was going to use Cathy as leverage to get you—us—to eliminate it.”
He stood up and moved toward the door, keeping the derringer trained on Harrison and Tucson.
“Neither of you move,” he said. “I’ve got enough money stashed away to last me the rest of my life. I’ll be able to get out of the city all right and then I’ll be in the clear.”
Tucson swiveled in his chair to keep his eyes on Morris.
The commissioner moved backward toward the door. When he got to it, he reached behind him, turned the knob and flung it open. Then he backed into the barrel of the revolver Frank Connolly was holding in his hand.
“Hold it right there, Jack,” he muttered hoarsely, speaking without moving his jaw. “We heard everything you just said, and you’re under arrest.”
Tucson watched Morris’ face crumple—in a second, what he had done, the disgrace, and his future in prison passed like a kaleidoscope of despair across his features. His hand was limp when Connolly reached around and took the derringer from his fingers.
“Cuff this man, officer,” Connolly said to one of two uniformed policemen standing behind him.
Further back, Tucson could see Cathy Harrison standing at the foot of the stairs, her hand at her throat, watching.
As the uniforms took Morris down the front steps and out to the waiting police wagon, Tucson rose and walked to the door. “This is your collar, Frank,” he told Connolly. “You should be able to do a lot with it.” He looked Connolly over. The detective’s face was bruised and swollen beyond recognition, his jaws were wired shut and he had to brace his hand against the door frame to stand upright. “You look like hell!” Tucson grinned. “After you book Jack Morris, you’d better get back to bed.”
Then he moved to the stairs, went past Cathy without speaking to her and climbed on up to his room.
* * * *
Tucson sat on the edge of the bed and watched Cathy Harrison throw her robe over her naked body then pick her nightgown up off the floor. Dawn was just creeping over the city and the pale light revealed a scene of dis-arranged blankets and rumpled, sweat-stained sheets. He sighed regretfully over losing the stunning vision of her ivory skin, pert, pink-tipped breasts, rounded hips and full thighs. She noticed the expression on his face and paused, smiling down at him bemusedly.
“It could all be yours, you know,” she murmured.
Tucson grimaced. “Don’t torture me!”
“I know...” she imitated his voice and thrust her slender shoulders back and forth. “Where the Tucson Kid rides, he rides alone. Isn’t that it...?” she asked, returning to her normal tone of voice.
“I think you do that better than I do,” Tucson replied with a laugh. “But,” he shrugged, “I suppose that’s the long and the short of it.”
Cathy reached down, took Tucson’s hand and drew him up to his feet. Sliding her arms around his neck, she pressed her soft body against his and leaned her head against his chest. “You know,” she whispered, “I understand that city-life isn’t for you—perhaps in the same way that camping out in the mountains and the desert isn’t for me. If you stayed here in San Francisco and tried to fit yourself into my world, it would destroy who you are.” She gazed up at him and her eyes swam with tears. “I’m just glad we had this time together, and I release you with no hard feelings.”
She pulled Tucson’s head down and kissed him gently and feelingly - then she spun around and moved to the door. About to open it, she turned back, leaving her hand on the knob. “Thank you for what you did for Frank.” Her face glowed with admiration. “It was incredibly generous of you. My father thinks that if he plays his cards right and makes the right decisions, he could use it to lever himself all the way to the governor’s mansion.”
“Everyone deserves a chance,” Tucson replied. “This is Frank’s. I hope he uses it wisely.”
“You could have informed me about what you had in mind, you know,” she accused. “It was cruel of you to leave me in the dark.”
“You've already told me that I’m cruel,” Tucson answered with a warped smile. “Besides, don’t you have any sense of drama?”
She wrinkled her nose at him then slid through the door and closed it softly behind her.
Tucson turned around, surveyed the wreckage of the bed and sighed. Then he padded into the bathroom to shave and bathe.
* * * *
When Tucson descended the stairs with his saddlebags thrown over his shoulder, he could hear voices in the dining room. When he entered, he saw that everybody was already seated around the table. Even Jim Harrison, Cathy’s brother, was present. Lily Jordan, dressed in one of Cathy’s traveling dresses, sat next to Cathy. Both women were laughing over something. It pleased Tucson to see Lily once again the vivacious girl he had known before. Probably knowing that her brother was almost certainly still alive had something to do with her quick recovery.
“Come on in, Kid,” William Harrison called from the head of the table. “You and Lily need to get some good food into you before you start your trip.”
Tucson sat down and filled his plate with steak, eggs and potatoes as the conversation rippled around him. As he ate, he watched the others. It seemed that a huge weight had been lifted off of everyone. William Harrison, his iron-grey hair freshly barbered, and dressed in his maroon velvet morning coat, had regained his former spirit and dominance—he looked quite the patriarch presiding over his family. Cathy, her face glowing and her long brown hair tied at the neck with a blue ribbon, showed no signs that she had been up all night. Even her brother, Jim, seemed somehow renewed—perhaps matured by the recent events.
Finally, he pushed the plate away and glanced at Lily. The girl wiped her mouth and dropped the napkin on the table. They both stood up, and Tucson moved to the rack where he had hung his saddlebags and sombrero. As Cathy hugged Lily, William Harrison stepped forward and extended his hand to Tucson.
“I can’t thank you enough, Kid,” he exclaimed. “That one man, even the Tucson Kid, could wipe out the bosses of the Barbary Coast and break the backs of the Tongs of Chinatown is beyond belief. It’s epic—the stuff of legend!”
“I’m glad I could help out,” Tucson replied simply, and took the older man’s hand.
He and Lily went through the kitchen and out the back door then crossed the grass to the stable. Jeff was throwing a saddle on a beautiful bay mare. His son, Jack, stood to the side, staring shyly at Tucson.
“This hoss is fer da lady,” Jeff said with a wide smile, as he ran a palm over the horse’s muscled rump. “I hope dis pleases yer fancy, ma’am.”
“Oh, she’s beautiful!” Lily exclaimed, running her hand over the mare’s muzzle.
Tucson moved on into the stable where the stallion was kicking impatiently against the slats of its stall. “I know, big fella,” he murmured, as he opened the gate. “It’s been too long, but now we’re on our way out of here.”
He slipped the bridle into the stallion’s mouth then threw the blanket and saddle on its back and cinched it up. The horse was bursting with excitement over getting on the road again, and Tucson grinned in sympathy.
He guided the stallion out of the stable where Lily was already mounted and waiting for him. Then he paused and turned to Jeff and his son. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Jeff,” he said, extending his hand. As Jeff took it, Tucson patted his son on his shoulder. “Grow up to be a good, strong man like your father, Jack.”
With Lily riding beside him, Tucson led the stallion down the gravel driveway to the street. Then he stopped again, this time in surprise.
At the curb, leaning against a single-horse buggy, was Frank Connolly. He was dressed in a suit, but he still looked awful. Tucson came on until he was three feet from the detective, then he halted and gazed at the other without smiling.
Connolly pushed himself upright and faced Tucson. “I wanted to come up here and thank you personally, Kid,” he muttered, still talking without moving his wired jaws. “I’m not clear that I deserve what you did for me, but I want you to know that I appreciate it.”
Tucson smiled. “You’re a good man, Frank. You just make wrong decisions sometimes. But that’s a problem time and experience can solve.”
Connolly nodded in agreement, then added, “You’ve made my career. I’m already up for promotion.” He tried to smile, grimaced at the effort then stuck out his hand. “I won’t ever forget it.”
Tucson took the hand then stepped up close and spoke quietly in Connolly’s ear. “You have a good woman in Cathy, Frank. You should take her with you to the governor’s mansion.”
He turned away and swung up into the saddle, nudged the stallion in the ribs then he and Lily rode down the hill.