“Which part is the Jack of Spades?” I asked.
With a sweep of his arm, he said, “Jack of Spades is the near adit in there.”
“I’m looking for some information,” I said.
“Tell you, friend, if you want information on anything in this dead place, you just see Mr. Devers. He’s editor at the Sentinel.”
“You wouldn’t give me a look-in at the Jack of Spades for a dollar?”
His tongue swiped over his lips. He had coarse whiskers that stuck straight forward out of his face like gray quills. He removed his cap and scraped his fingers through a tangle of dull hair. “Can’t do that, mister. You git now.”
“I’m interested in Nat McNair and his missus,” I said.
“They’s nothing to do with Con-Ohio any more. Anyway, he’s dead, ain’t he?” He peered past me. “Oh-oh!” he muttered.
A man strode toward us from a gaping door in the main building. He was black-headed, black-bearded, wearing a black suit and boots, gesturing as he came. They were not friendly gestures. I thought he was going to walk right through me, but he stopped a foot away. Staring into my face, he addressed the crippled man:
“Who’s this, Phelps?”
“Says he’s interested in the Jack of Spades, Major.”
“Tell him we will welcome the sight of his coattails, if you please.”
“Better git, friend.”
I said to the younger man, “I’m interested in the McNairs—”
“Get him out of here, Phelps,” he said, glaring at me. He had cheeks as red as apples. He swung around and stalked back to the open door.
Phelps pointed.
The horse car seemed to have ceased operation for the day, so I walked back to town.
I found Editor Devers, the fount of information on Virginia City, in the saloon across the street from the International Hotel. He was sitting on a stool at the far end of the bar in the stance of a jockey on a fast horse. He was clean-shaven, with an unhealthy brown complexion. His dark suit was rumpled, his collar was dirty and he looked like an editor who had seen better times and did not expect to see them again. A bottle of Old Crow spiked up on the bar before him.
“Devers,” he said. He regarded me in the mirror behind the bar instead of face to face. “Josephus P. Devers, yes, sir. Wounded at Second Manassas, mustered out and came west. Seen the great days of the Comstock. Now this camp is done with. Mines closing down. They are letting them flood to water-table level. Con-Ohio’s closed down. Ophir’s closed down. Nothing but assessments-due in the Sentinel these days. They say they’ve come up with new methods for working over low-grade ore in the tailings, but nothing’s doing there yet.” He nodded at me in the mirror.
“It’ll come back, Josey,” the bartender called down to him.
He shook his head. He kept shaking it for a long time.
I said I was a friend of young Beaumont McNair and held my breath.
This time he turned to glance at me directly. His teeth and eyeballs were the same tint of yellow.
“McNair,” he said.
“The Comstock millionaire. His father, I mean.”
“Oh, yes.”
“Married a woman from here named Carrie.”
There was a silence. I had a sense of having missed the ball, maybe only strike one.
“The Jack of Spades,” I said.
“Oh, yes.” He watched me in the mirror again.
“I understand that Beau McNair’s mother no longer owns the Consolidated-Ohio,” I said.
He nodded lengthily. “Sold out, closed down. Yes. Everybody with brains in their heads is clearing out. Oh, I’ve seen the great days, but it’s all over now.”
“I understand the Jack of Spades was one of the first mines,” I said.
Nodding, Devers said, “Nat McNair took over in ‘64, I believe it was. Had some fights with the Bank Crowd—Ralston and Sharon and them. Then the Silver Kings come to bat. Flood, O’Brien, Fair and Mackay. In ‘75 the Bank of California went bust. Just in time for the Big Bonanzas! That’s when Nat McNair made his fortune. Bought up the Peterkin and Ohio right next door to the Jack of Spades. Consolidated-Ohio! Drifted into a big orebody. But he didn’t make his fortune digging silver out of the ground, he made it manipulating stocks. They all did, all the Silver Kings.” He pointed a finger at me. “There was more money made booming stocks than there was mineral taken out of the ground. Had our own stock exchange, right here! They weren’t interested in mining, they were interested in the fixed poker game they had set up. And that’s the tragedy of the Comstock Lode!”
“Well, Mrs. McNair is Lady Caroline Stearns now,” I said.
“She is a wonder of the world, that lady,” Devers said.
I said I heard something about a spades club, a Society of Spades. “Maybe it was investors who bought up Jack of Spades stock?”
He nodded for a long time. He splashed more whiskey into his glass. “Nat McNair, Highgrade Carrie—Caroline LaPlante, her name was.”
“A madam.”
“A damned fine woman! The Miner’s Angel, some called her.” Devers stuck his chin out at me as though that was a second strike. Then his forehead creased with thought. “Al Gorton. E. O. Macomber. Somebody else.”
“Elza Klosters?” I said.
Devers shook his head. “No, Elza worked for Nat McNair. Enforcer. Later on he was one of the deputies at that Mussel Slough shoot-up, as I recall.”
The Railroad again!
“Al Gorton’s dead,” he added. “Murdered down in San Francisco.”
“Clubbed?” I said.
His face jerked toward me. “Why, I believe that’s right!” he said. “Did you know Al?”
“I think Beau said something.”
“Believe I’ve got a tintype of that bunch in the files,” he said.
“I’d surely like to see it.”
“Come by in the morning. I’m not too busy these days. We’re up on B Street.”
“What I’m not clear about is how McNair ended up with control of the Jack of Spades.”
“What I said. You get a certain stock position and you can call for assessments until you drive out the weaker investors. Often enough that was how those Silver Kings got their control. Nat McNair was one of the worst of them. Will Sharon was the total worst. No offense to your friend meant, you understand.”
“So Beau’s mother got out of the Consolidated-Ohio.”
“Year, eighteen months ago. Listen: between ‘71 and ‘81 the Comstock produced about $320,000,000 and paid $147,000,000 in dividends. Last year there weren’t many dividends paid, and this year my pages are filled with assessment notices. There are not many stockholders paying assessments any more, I can tell you.”
“Did she sell out to a man called Major?”
“Major Copley,” Devers said. “He’s just the super for the bunch that bought it.” He poured more whiskey.
He was fading. He sat lower on his stool, and he didn’t face me at all any more, gazing at the mirror with drooping eyelids. Finally the bartender said, “About time to go home, Josey?”
“Home,” Devers muttered.
“Where’s Jimmy Fairleigh?” the bartender said.
“Hey, Jimmy!” one of the other drinkers called, and a bunch of them began laughing and shouting, “Jimmy! Hey, Jimmy Fairleigh!”
A little man appeared, wearing a cloth cap and a tight little suit over a big bottom. He was a dwarf, with a big, ugly face that was a curious mix of old and young. He fronted up to Devers and said, “Time to go home, Mr. Devers!”
Devers slid off his stool and, leaning on the little man and stepping carefully, as though traversing treacherous ground, made his way to the street door and was gone.
“Does he do that every night?” I asked the barkeep, who was swabbing the bar where Devers had sat.