Dinger Jones had returned to his lair.
Jones wore a plain sack coat, striped trousers, and scuffed half boots, all of which he immediately began to remove. Down to a pair of baggy long johns, he helped himself to a swig from a pint of whiskey perched on the table next to the lantern. Then he opened the steamer trunk, rummaged around inside, and produced what appeared to be the coat and trousers of his new S. Funderburke-tailored suit.
Quincannon ducked under the window, cat-footed around to the front with his coat swept back to reveal the Navy Colt holstered on his hip. He pulled the door open and stepped inside, saying, “Hello, Dinger.”
Jones, in the process of putting on the trousers, was standing on one leg like a skinny-shanked heron and so startled that he almost toppled over. He managed to remain upright by hopping on the one foot to maintain his balance. His mouth hung slackly open in a blend of surprise, bewilderment, and fear.
“Who the hell’re you?”
“Flynn’s my name.”
“Flynn. Flynn. Christ, you’re the bird come around the Red Rooster askin’ Mollie about me.”
“That’s right.”
“How’d you find me? Mollie don’t know about this place.”
“Paddy does.”
“Paddy? Paddy who?”
Quincannon moved forward a few paces, into the glow from the lantern so Jones would be sure to see the Navy. “Don’t be dense, Dinger. We both know who Paddy is.”
Dinger saw the pistol, all right. He pulled his gaze away from it, licked his lips before saying, “He don’t go around tellin’ birds where to find me. Why’d he tell you?”
“Why do you think?”
“I never seen you before, never heard of you. Paddy never said nothing about nobody named Flynn. What you want with me?”
“Not with you, with the man in charge.”
“Huh? Man in charge of what?”
“Taking the Treasury Department for a ride.”
“I dunno what you’re talkin’ about.”
“I told you not to be dense,” Quincannon said. “The blackleg who makes the queer you and Paddy have been passing.”
Dinger pulled on his other pant leg, began buttoning the trousers before speaking again. “Paddy never told you about that,” he said.
“Never mind how I found out. I want in on the game.”
“Yeah? Why you think you’d get let in?”
“I have a way of passing those counterfeit hundreds in large quantities. Large, quick profits instead of small, slow ones.”
“What way?”
“I’ll tell that to the man in charge,” Quincannon said. “Suppose you introduce me to him.”
“Hah. Go talk to Paddy, you think you know so damn much.”
“Paddy’s not available right now.”
Dinger was dim-witted, but not completely devoid of animal savvy. A light had begun to dawn in his small brain; Quincannon could tell by the tightening of jaw and narrowing of gaze.
“That’s right, he ain’t. Over in Oakland today. So how could he tell you where to find me?”
“I saw him before he left the city.”
“Like hell you did.” Dinger’s eyes widened with sudden understanding. “You ain’t one of us,” he said, “you’re a goddamn copper!”
Quincannon didn’t deny it. Sudden panic seized the scruff; he lunged forward, one shoulder lowered, in a misguided attempt to bowl Quincannon over and flee.
Nimbly, Quincannon sidestepped the blind rush, thrust out a leg that tripped Jones and sent him staggering sideways. Dinger lost his balance, fell atop the table; it collapsed under him in a splintering crash, dislodging the lighted lantern in the process. The glass shattered, spilling oil from the font, which the flaming wick immediately ignited.
Dinger was struggling to disengage himself from the table’s remains. Quincannon fetched him a skull clout with the drawn Navy, scotching the effort to rise; a second blow stunned him into immobility.
The burning lamp oil was just starting to spread across the warped floorboards. Quincannon pulled the blanket off the cot, used it to halt the spread of the flames and then to smother them. When he was certain the fire was completely extinguished, he tossed the blanket aside and returned to where Dinger lay twitching now and groaning.
He dragged the mug off the table wreckage, rolled him over onto his back, pulled his arms down at his sides. Then he straddled him at the waist, leaning forward so that his knees pinned the arms to the floor. Dinger’s eyelids fluttered, opened halfway with returning awareness. He started to struggle again, spewing fumes of cheap whiskey. Whereupon Quincannon employed a trick he had used before to good advantage. With his left hand he took a firm grip on one of Jones’s ears and then inserted the Navy’s muzzle into the opposite ear, being none too gentle about it.
Dinger squawked like a frightened parrot, his eyes bulging wide again. His struggles ceased when Quincannon applied wiggling pressure with the tip of the gun barrel.
“In my twenty years as a detective I’ve killed fourteen men,” he lied, “including two who withheld vital information from me. I won’t lose any sleep tonight if you’re number fifteen.”
A strangled noise came from Dinger’s throat. His eyes were so distended they might have been on stalks.
“Now then,” Quincannon said. “The name of the man running the coney operation.”
“Ung... ung...”
“No man in the world is named Ung. Long Nick Darrow, is it?”
“Who?”
“No, I thought not. His right name, Dinger. You have five seconds before I pull this trigger.”
It took only two for Jones to say, “Paddy.”
“Paddy? Paddy’s the boss?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that straight goods?”
“Straight, yeah, I swear.”
So then the little snitch Owney had either misheard the conversation in the noisy confines of the Red Rooster, or Lasher had been referring to himself when he said “the boss’ll cut your tongue out.” Quincannon had been on the trail of the ringleader all along.
“Then who is making the queer?” he demanded.
“Appleby.”
“And who is Appleby?”
“Half... half brother.”
“Paddy’s half brother?”
“Yeah. Otto Appleby.”
“Printer and engraver, is he?”
“Yeah.”
“Located where?”
“Ung...”
“Don’t start that again.” Quincannon screwed the Navy’s muzzle another quarter inch deeper, eliciting a bleat of protest. Dinger’s voice, when it came again, had an odd scratchy sound, as if his vocal chords had acquired a coat of rust.
“Jesus, my ear...”
“Where is Appleby’s press located?”
“His shop. Twenty-fourth and... Church.”
Noe Valley. A respectable, mostly residential neighborhood — the perfect blind for a small-scale coney operation. “And that is where the queer is being manufactured?”
“Yeah.”
“How? Using what method?”
“Plates. New ones made from old.”
“Old plates. Is that what you found in your mother’s trunk?”
“How did you—”
“Never mind that. Answer the question.”
“Yeah. In the trunk.”
So that was it, Quincannon thought. He’d been wrong after all about Long Nick Darrow’s counterfeit plates being destroyed in the warehouse fire. Somehow they’d survived and found their way into the possession of Dinger Jones’s aunt in Seattle, where they’d remained for a decade. Just how didn’t matter at the moment.
He said, “You found them, gave them to Lasher, and he worked out the counterfeiting scheme with his brother. Is that the way it was?”