“Hell with them yella-skinned bastards.” Another vicious kick, in the stomach this time, that brought up the whiskey Qain-cannon had drunk earlier.
“That’s enough, I said! We got what we come for. You want to be seen now, for Christ’s sake?”
Shuffling noises on the hard-packed earth. A muttered epithet. And then the sounds of them moving away, sounds that faded and were lost in the humming and buzzing in his ears.
He lay there hurting, only half conscious, for a space of time. Then he was on his knees, vomiting again. Then he was groping his way up the rough clapboards, leaning against them and holding on for fear his shaking legs would give way under him. Something wet, blood or sweat, flowed down over one cheek and dripped off the end of his chin. He didn’t bother to wipe it off — just stood there shivering in the cold wind. It was another minute or two before the pulsing inside his head went away and his thoughts settled and he was able to think rationally again.
We got what we comefor.
Quincannon pushed away from the wall, stumbled but held his balance. He touched the holster under his coat, found it empty and dimly recalled the revolver being knocked from his hand; it was somewhere on the ground, hidden now in the darkness. Find it later, he thought, and moved back around the corner, toward the open door to Yum Wing’s quarters.
Inside, on a black-lacquered chest, an Aladdin lamp bathed the room in a dusky yellow glow. It let him see Yum Wing almost immediately. They had hung him from a support beam in one corner, at an outward angle so that his sandal-shod feet seemed braced against the wall. The expression on his dead face was ghastly in the pale light.
The rest of the room was a shambles; Yum Wing had put up a fight before he died. We got what we come for. The smell of death was strong in there, but it was another smell that Quincannon was remembering as he backed out of the room — the rancid stench of the small man’s breath.
Sudden Wheeler’s voice echoed across his mind: Mean little. booger with bad teeth and breath that’d knock a man over at twenty rods.
Conrad, Whistling Dixon’s shirttail cousin.
Conrad, who now worked for Jack Bogardus at the Rattling Jack mine.
Chapter 13
When Quincannon came downstairs at nine the next morning he found a message waiting at the hotel desk. Marshal Wendell McClew had sent word that he wanted to see Andrew Lyons in his office “any time before noon.”
He considered the request as he left the hotel. He doubted that it had anything to do with the murder of Yum Wing; he was reasonably certain that he hadn’t been seen leaving the Chinese quarter last night. If he was under suspicion for that or any other crime, McClew would not have sent a message; he would have come in person and either talked in Quincannon’s room or put him in custody. No, it was probably that McClew had heard about the questions he’d been asking, from Will Coffin perhaps, and wanted a first-hand explanation.
Quincannon walked up Jordan Street, moving at a retarded pace. His ribs ached and there were stabs of pain whenever he took any but shallow breaths. None of the ribs was broken or cracked, but half a dozen on his right side were badly bruised. Except for his slow movements, and a cut above one temple that he had treated with carbolic salve, he bore no outward signs of the beating he had taken at Yum Wing’s. But inside he carried a bitter rage that was thinly contained.
He reached the Wells Fargo office, entered to talk to the Western Union brass pounder. And finally found a wire waiting from Boggs. It was more fully coded than his own had been, for obvious reasons, but the telegrapher seemed to think nothing of it. Such codes were common among businessmen who preferred that their long-distance dealings remain private.
BUSINESS SLOW HERE STOP GLAD TO LEARN OF FRUITFUL POSSIBILITIES YOUR TERRITORY DESPITE BANKRUPT ACCOUNT STOP GREENSPAN ENROUTE BOISE WILL JOIN YOU ASAP STOP WMC RECORD GOOD FORMER CAP OR VOL TWICE DEC BRAV STOP MY REGARDS HT AND JB BOTH PORTLAND STOP FORMER SAL HOS LATTER MIN LAB AG AMONG OTHERS STOP SHARED ADDRESS AND BADGER FOUR YEARS AGO NO CON STOP PARTED AFTER DISPUTE NOTHING THEREAFTER STOP RECONCILIATION QMK REGARDING OT HINT PMC POSSIBLE FMFM BUT NO CORROBORATION YET STOP STILL CHECKING OTHER MATTERS
ARTHUR CALDWELL
Quincannon folded the wire and tucked it into his coat pocket. The news that his fellow Service operative, Samuel Greenspan, was on his way from Seattle to Silver City was reassuring; matters here appeared to be escalating to the point where he would need as many allies as possible. It appeared that Marshal Wendell McClew might well be another one. The fact that McClew had a good record as a peace officer, and the added facts that he was a former captain with the Oregon Volunteers during the War Between the States, and had been twice decorated for bravery, testified in favor of his competency and his honesty.
The rest of Boggs’ information was eye-opening, and answered some of the questions that had arisen the past few days. Helen Truax and Jack Bogardus were both from Portland, where she had worked as a saloon hostess and he had been a mining labor agitator, among other dubious undertakings; and they had not only known each other there but had lived together four years ago. “Shared badger no con” meant that they had worked a version of the old badger game, in which an amorous married man’s indiscretion was used as grounds for blackmail, and had managed to escape criminal conviction. This put a new light on Helen Truax’s character. If Bogardus was one of the koniakers, as seemed more and more likely, and Mrs. Truax had taken up with him again here in Silver City, then it was conceivable that she, too, was involved in the boodle game.
The telegram suggested that there might also be another game afoot here, one in which Helen Truax could also be involved. “Regarding OT hint PMC possible fmfm” meant that Oliver Truax was apparently responsible for some sort of illegal manipulation or flimflam involving Paymaster Mining Company stock. Boggs hadn’t yet been able to find out what it was. If the allegation were true it explained Truax’s eagerness to sell Paymaster stock to the mythical Arthur Caldwell of San Francisco.
Was there a connection between the counterfeiting operation and the Paymaster flimflam? It seemed unlikely, considering the obvious hatred Truax and Jack Bogardus shared for each other. Yet Helen Truax was the wife of one man and the mistress, past and present, of the other…
Quincannon wanted another talk with her. And another talk with her husband. But both could wait until after he had responded to Marshal McClew’s summons, something he did not want to put off. Besides, there was a chance Boggs would wire him again today, and the more he knew, the easier it would be to deal with both of the Truaxes.
He sent a telegram to San Francisco, laboring over it to give Boggs the full measure of his suspicions about Bogardus and the Rattling Jack mine without sacrificing secrecy. He also asked that as many other federal officers as were available be sent to Boise on a standby basis. He had to have more proof against Bogardus before he would be justified in calling for a federal arrest warrant and then organizing a raid on the Rattling Jack. But the time when he would have sufficient justification, he felt, was not far off.
Leaving the Wells Fargo office, he went to a nearby saloon for a brace of whiskeys and a pickled egg. There was talk in the place of Yum Wing’s murder; the body had been found by other Chinese early this morning and word brought to the marshal’s office. No one seemed particularly stirred by the news. “Don’t make no difference who killed him,” the bartender said. “Did the community a service. Like it said in yesterday’s paper, opium’s filthy stuff; man who sells it ain’t no better than a dog.”
Quincannon left the bartender to his bias and walked over to Washington Street to the courthouse. The marshal’s office was in the basement; he passed under the sign that said JAIL, went down three steps and through a heavy ironbound door. McClew was the only occupant, seated at a battered kneehole desk with a mug of coffee and a plate of eggs and potatoes in front of him. Egg yolk stained his mustaches; a splatter of it had even somehow found its way onto the brim of his plug hat. He looked up as Quincannon entered, gestured with his fork toward a slat-backed chair near the desk, and went on eating.