“A pal of Paddy Lasher.”
“Yeah? I know Paddy’s pals and you ain’t one of ’em.”
“I am now. Flynn’s the name. He didn’t mention me?”
“No. Why should he?”
“We’re in the game together.”
“What game?”
“He didn’t tell you that, either? Just as well. It’s not smart to talk about it the way Dinger does, even to pals.”
“Who’s Dinger?”
“I thought you said you knew all of Paddy’s pals.”
“I don’t know you,” Baxter said. “What you want with me?”
“I don’t want anything from you. Just doing a favor for Paddy.”
“What favor?”
“He asked me to bring you this.” Quincannon produced the paper sack, set it on the countertop, and removed the jar of foot juice from inside.
Baxter stared at the jar, a tongue more gray than pink flicking out to lick cracked lips. The bloodshot gaze was avid.
“Well, now,” he said. “Well, now.”
Gambling that Lasher had been kept too busy passing counterfeit bills to pay social visits, Quincannon said, “It’s been a while since Paddy’s been to see you and he knew I had business up this way today.”
Baxter leaned forward, reached up with both deformed hands. His arthritic fingers locked around the jar, pulled it down to him, then he managed to twist the cap off, lift the jar, and drink deeply — all without spilling a drop. He smacked his lips, wiped his mouth with the back of a not very clean hand.
“Good old Paddy. He don’t never forget his pals, even if he don’t come around much anymore.”
“There’ll be plenty more where this came from,” Quincannon said, “and of better quality, too, now that he’s in the chips.”
“Wish I could’ve got into the dodge with him,” Baxter said. He drank again. “But these goddamn hands... I can’t hardly do nothing no more. Hurt like hell day and night. This here medicine’s all that helps.”
“So he did tell you about the game, eh, Ben? About him and Dinger shoving the queer.”
“Never said nothing about nobody named Dinger. Hinted about the game. Always did like to brag when he’s into something good, and he knows I ain’t one to flap my gums.” Baxter added bitterly, “Knows I can’t never go out no more on account of the goddamn arthur-itis, neither.”
“His hints include how he got into the game? Or who’s running it?”
“Nah. And I didn’t ask.”
“Good. Do you happen to know where he hangs his hat?”
Baxter took another long pull from the jar. “Sure. Ain’t you seen him there?”
“No. Only at the place where the queer’s being made.”
“Where you hang your hat, Flynn?”
“Down near the Embarcadero.”
“Yeah? Which end?”
“North. The warehouse district.”
“Paddy’s up that way, too.” Baxter drank again. The jar was more than half empty now. As Quincannon had hoped, the foot juice had loosened the old mug’s tongue and was making him flap his gums in spite of his claim to the contrary. “Got the waterfront in his blood. Me and him used to be in business together, he tell you that?”
“Mentioned it. The crimping dodge.”
“Man, them was the days. Made plenty of scratch, spent it all on liquor and whores.” He cackled reminiscently. “Not cheap whores, neither. Young and fancy, all sizes and colors.”
“Whereabouts is Paddy’s crib?” Quincannon said. “Maybe I’ll go look him up there.”
“Icehouse Alley.”
“What number?”
Baxter frowned and said muzzily, “Can’t rightly recollect. Oughtn’t to say anyways, even to a pal of his. He wouldn’t like it.”
“He won’t know because I won’t tell him. Try to remember the address, Ben, would you?”
Baxter tried, scrunch-faced, but the foot juice had taken its toll on his memory. Finally he shook his head. “Icehouse Alley ain’t big,” he said, “you’ll find him easy enough.” He took another swig from the jar, swiped a hand across his mouth, and treated Quincannon to a slobbery grin. “You’re a pal, Flynn. You and Paddy, real pals.”
Quincannon turned away. Behind him Baxter said, “Come back any time, I’m always here. And bring some more medicine for my goddamn arthur-itis when you do.”
Icehouse Alley.
A one-block, dead-end lane close to the Embarcadero, obviously named for a vanished icehouse. This seemed to be his time for dealing with icehouses present and past, Quincannon thought wryly, though there was no evidence of the one that had once operated here. Now the narrow street was lined with nondescript lodging houses, vacant lots, and on the Green Street corner, a saloon called Mulrooney’s Rest.
Quincannon ventured along the alley’s short length, looking at the dwelling places in passing. There was nothing to be gained by stopping at each one to examine mailboxes; even if Paddy Lasher was using his own name, which was problematic given his evident passion for privacy, it was highly doubtful that he would advertise the location of his lair.
In total there were six lodging houses, ranging in size from two-story structures containing several units to single-story structures of two and three rooms each. It wouldn’t take long to canvass them all, but in waterfront neighborhoods such as this, those tenants who were in residence at midday would be wary of strangers knocking on their doors and closemouthed as a result.
He returned to the corner and entered Mulrooney’s Rest. Saloons were often the best place to gather information, barmen being more inclined to view a stranger asking casual questions with a less jaundiced eye than the average citizen. This one was a typical workingman’s neighborhood tavern, its only distinctive feature a large oil painting suspended on the wall above the bar of a buxom, seminude woman reclining on a couch. The artist was either myopic or poorly versed in anatomical reconstruction; the nude’s bulging collarbone made it seem as if she had three breasts.
The dozen or so patrons, most of whom were drinking beer and partaking of the free lunch, gave Quincannon the usual once-over as he bellied up to the long plank anchored atop a row of barrels. The bartender, a thin, fox-faced fellow wearing bright pink sleeve garters, came over to ask, “What’ll it be?”
“Beer.” Which Quincannon had no intention of drinking.
The bartender drew a pint, set the chipped mug before him. Quincannon said conversationally as he paid his nickel, “I’m told an old acquaintance of mine lives in Icehouse Alley, but not in which house. Mayhap you can tell me, if he’s a customer of yours.”
“What’s his name?”
“He answers to more than one, for good reasons of his own. You’ll know him if you ever saw him. Large gent, thick black mustache, one brown eye and one blue.”
The description brought a bored headshake. “Can’t help you, mister,” the barman said, and moved away to answer a customer’s call for more beer.
“He can’t but I can,” a man on Quincannon’s left said. He sidled closer, a weathered old salt dressed in a seaman’s cap and pea jacket. “Couldn’t help overhearing. Different-colored eyes, I never seen the like. Nature sure plays funny tricks sometimes.”
“That she does. You know him, then.”
“No, but I seen him a few times.”
“The name he’s using?”
“Never heard it. Keeps to himself. I asked him once about those eyes and he told me to mind my own business.”
“You happen to know where he lives?”
“Right next door to where I room. My window looks straight across at his. Mostly he keeps his curtains drawn, but I seen him in there once when they wasn’t.”
“Which house is he in?”
“Last one at the end, next to the empty lot where the old icehouse used to set.”
Quincannon put another nickel on the bar, pushed it and his untouched beer over in front of the old salt. “My thanks.”
“And mine to you, laddy.” Then, his nose in his glass as Quincannon turned away, “One brown, one blue — I never seen the like.”
The designated lodging house at the end of Icehouse Alley was a single-story, unpainted frame dwelling that contained a pair of adjoining units. The one on the near side had to be Paddy Lasher’s, for its side window faced toward the two-story building next door.
Glances in both directions assured Quincannon that the alley was presently empty of foot and vehicle traffic. Without slowing his pace, he turned up a cracked cement walkway and climbed three steps to the door, his hand inside his coat and resting on the handle of his holstered Navy Colt. If Lasher was home, there would be no shilly-shallying; the pistol would come out immediately. He had enough circumstantial evidence against the mug to place him under citizen’s arrest, after which he would hie him off to the Secret Service office at the Mint. Mr. Boggs and his operatives would soon enough pry loose the names and whereabouts of Lasher’s partners in the coney game, possessing as they did less violent methods of persuasion than those at Quincannon’s disposal.
But there was no answer to his knuckle raps on the door. Instead of the Navy, then, he drew out his set of lock picks. When he was sure he remained alone and unobserved, he set to work with the picks. The door lock was no match for his expertise; he had the tumblers free in less than a minute. He opened the door just long enough to ease himself through.
Drawn curtains over the side window rendered the room semidark. Outside he had noted wires strung here from a nearby electric light pole; he located the wall switch, turned it. A fly-specked ceiling globe flickered on, steadied, and brought the interior into clear view.
There were two rooms, the one he was in and a smaller one that served as sleeping quarters. Lasher had lived here for some time, evidently, and none too tidily; the rooms were cluttered with furniture, strewn clothing, unwashed dishes.
Quincannon began a systematic search. What he discovered in the bedroom wardrobe and dresser was a disparate array of items that rightly belonged to many individuals other than Paddy Lasher. A brand-new set of surveyor’s tools. A brass sextant. Purses, billfolds, and handbags, some expensively made and all empty. A small store of valuable men’s and women’s rings and bracelets. A gold double hunter pocket watch with chain and engraved fob. A fashionable beaver fur stole. Now he knew how Lasher had supported himself before graduating to federal crime — as a thief and dispenser of stolen goods.
Also in the wardrobe was a new, well-tailored suit of the sort Samuel Funderburke had made for Dinger Jones. Quincannon searched the pockets, found them empty. None of the other hanging garments provided him with any connection to the coney racket. Nor did anything else he examined in both rooms, including the dusty floor under Lasher’s unmade bed.
Now what?
Quincannon perched on the edge of a mohair chair to consider. He could wait here for Lasher’s return, but that might take hours, if not considerably longer. There was no food in the apartment, and the meal residue on the unwashed plates was crusted solid; Lasher may well have spent one or more nights elsewhere and intend to do so again tonight. Besides, Quincannon hadn’t the patience for an extended vigil in this iniquitous den.
What he should do, then, was to take what he’d learned directly to Mr. Boggs and let the government agents pursue Lasher and Dinger Jones. He’d done an admirable job of uncovering their names and involvement in the coney game, hadn’t he? Of course he had, and Mr. Boggs would be properly appreciative. Still, he was reluctant to abandon his own investigation just yet, without some lead to the identity of the man running the operation and where the counterfeit bills were being manufactured.
Even so, it seemed that now, stymied as he was, he had little choice in the matter. He might as well go ahead and unburden himself to Mr. Boggs.
As he started to lift himself from the chair, his eye caught and held on the wardrobe, visible through the open doorway between the rooms. Specifically, the curved pediment once meant to be decorative, now as timeworn as the rest of the piece that it surmounted. He reentered the bedroom, pulled a ladderback chair over in front of the wardrobe, climbed up on it, and felt around behind the pediment.
His first exploration found nothing. But when he moved the chair to the left and tried on the other side, his fingers encountered metal — a metal box stuffed down onto the wardrobe’s recessed top. Ah! He had to move the chair again and stretch up and around to get a firm grip on the box, then lift it out of its nest of dust.
It was an old steel strongbox, heavy and locked. The lock was no match for his picks; he had it open in no time. Paddy Lasher’s private trove. A man’s valuable gold ring set with a fat ruby, likely another piece of robbery loot. A chamois pouch containing four gold double eagles and five eagles. A glass vial of white powdery substance which Quincannon judged to be morphine. Three hundred-dollar banknotes which he could tell by close eye-squint and feel were newly minted counterfeits. And last but by no means least, a small torn piece of butcher paper on which was scrawled in a childish hand: J 72 Folsom 2.
Some sort of code?
No, by godfrey. Abbreviations. J — an initial. 72 Folsom 2 — an address, 72 Folsom Street, unit number 2.
Quincannon relocked the box with his pick, replaced it behind the pediment. As he stepped down off the chair, his mouth quirked into one of his basilisk smiles. He wouldn’t have to abandon his investigation yet after all. Not if his guesses were correct and the address belonged to either Dinger Jones or, better yet, the head koniaker whose name might also begin with a J.