“Paddy’s idea. Talked Appleby into it.”
“And Paddy’s in Oakland today, passing more queer.”
“Yeah.”
Something in Dinger’s swift response told Quincannon it wasn’t quite the truth. “Is he in Oakland?”
“Yeah. Yeah.”
“But not passing queer. Doing what over there?”
“I... I don’t...”
Quincannon rotated the Navy’s muzzle again. “Doing what?”
“Setting... setting up a deal.”
“What kind of deal? And don’t tell me you don’t know.”
“With a bird from KC for a bundle.”
“A bundle of counterfeit hundreds?”
“Yeah.”
No doubt part of a plan to expand distribution of the queer to other cities.
“The bird’s name?”
“I don’t know.”
“Five seconds, Dinger. One, two, three—”
“I swear I don’t! Paddy wouldn’t say his name.”
“All right. Everything you’ve told me had better be the truth.”
Jones swore again that it was. The fear in his eyes and the sweat on his brow confirmed it.
Quincannon removed the Navy, lifted himself onto his feet. He ordered Dinger to roll over onto his belly and clasp his hands behind him. When the scruff obeyed, Quincannon went to where various pieces of finished harness and strips of leather hung on the back wall. He took several of the strips back to where his prisoner lay, straddled him again. Dinger hadn’t moved, nor did he now; he was as tame as a frightened puppy. Holstering the Navy, Quincannon tied the mug’s hands and then his ankles, securing another strip of leather between the two restraints that drew the legs up into a position rendering him even more immobile.
“Don’t bother trying to get loose,” he said. “The more you wiggle, the tighter the bonds become.”
“You... you just gonna leave me here like this?”
“For the time being.”
“Listen, Flynn—”
“Quincannon’s the name.”
“None of this was my idea, see? All I done was pass a few bills. The game’s Paddy’s, him and Appleby. They’re the birds you want.”
“And they’re two more I’ll get. Birds of a feather.”
“Huh?”
Quincannon showed him a wolfish grin, picked up his derby from where it had fallen onto the floor, donned it, and took his leave. Outside, to make doubly sure the prisoner would stay put, he snapped the heavy padlock shut through its hasp. Then he hurried around to the rear fence, climbed over and down into the carriageway.
As hot on the trail as he was now, he was more determined than ever to see matters through to the finish on his own. A citizen’s arrest of Otto Appleby — and Paddy Lasher, should Lasher have returned from Oakland — and confiscation of the new counterfeit plates, and he would have ended the game as neatly as he had similar ones during his days with the Secret Service. Yaffling Lasher would make the coup perfect, but if such weren’t feasible, Mr. Boggs’s operatives could take him into custody easily enough.
He didn’t miss his time with the Service, but the thrill of the chase to thwart those who sought to defraud the government and the general populace with bogus currency remained strong in his memory. He was in for a tongue-lashing from his former chief, to be sure, but it would be tempered by the success of his actions. And worth it for that reason and his personal satisfaction. Further proof, as if any were needed, that he was the best detective west of the Mississippi, if not in the entire nation.
So thinking, he hurried to the Embarcadero where he hailed a cab to take him to Noe Valley.
25
Quincannon
The building on the corner of Twenty-fourth and Church Streets was a low rectangle of pocked, weathered red brick. Electric light showed behind a plate-glass window next to the front entrance on Twenty-fourth; painted on the glass were the words JOB PRINTING, with no mention of the proprietor’s name. A glance through the window showed no one visible either in front or behind a bisecting counter. From somewhere toward the rear of the building Quincannon heard a steady percussive sound — part metallic thud and part hiss-and-hum. Unmistakably the sound of a printing press in operation.
Adjacent to the building on that side was an awning maker’s establishment, an alleyway separating the two businesses. He strolled to the corner and turned it to reconnoiter the Church Street side. A dispenser of paints and varnishes was the print shop’s neighbor there, but there was no passageway between the two shops.
Quincannon went back around to Twenty-fourth, crossed the moderately busy street. He stood leaning against a lamppost, pretending to pack his pipe while he debated.
Walk in through the front door as if he were a customer? No. He had no guarantee that Otto Appleby was alone in the shop, and even if that were the case, he would have to put Appleby under the gun in order to gain access to the printing plant at the rear. Someone might enter unexpectedly, or a passerby spy him and his weapon through the window and run for the police. A stealthy approach from the rear was a safer option, one that gave him the element of surprise if he were able to achieve admittance that way.
He recrossed the street. When the sidewalks on both sides were free of pedestrian traffic, he stepped into the alley and followed it to where it emerged into a courtyard just large enough to accommodate a delivery wagon. He listened at a stout rear door recessed into the brick, again heard the thud-and-hiss muted by the thickness of the wall. Inside, he judged, the noise would be loud enough so that whoever was operating the printing press would be unable to hear much of anything else. Pounding on the door to gain the printer’s attention was not an option.
His expectation was that it would be securely locked, necessitating the use once more of his trusty set of picks. It might even be barred within, in which case he would have no choice but to enter through the front. But when he pressed down on the latch, the bolt released with a minimum amount of pressure. A dark smile bent the corners of his mouth. Appleby’s carelessness made his task that much easier.
Quincannon eased the door open and it swung inward. Any sound it made was lost in the pounding beat of the press. He widened the opening enough for daylight to penetrate the darkened space inside. Storage room. Cartons of paper, tins of ink, and other material of the job-printing trade were stacked along the walls, the middle of the room free of obstacles between the outer door and a closed inner one.
When he shut himself inside, he was enveloped by thick darkness broken only by a thin rind of light showing beneath the inner door. The distance across to it was a dozen or so paces; he took them carefully, heel to toe, the light strip guiding him. As soon as his extended hands touched the door, he unholstered the Navy.
This latch gave as easily to a downward tug as the outer one had. Quincannon inched the door free of its jamb. The machinery noise, then, was almost deafening. When he laid an eye to the opening, he was looking into a large, open room lit by electric ceiling bulbs. No wonder the new batch of bogus hundred-dollar certificates were of such high quality: the printing press was not one of the old-fashioned single-plate, hand-roller types, but rather a small steam-powered Milligan that would perform the printing, inking, and wiping simultaneously through the continuous movement of four plates around a square frame. Along with its accessories — bundles of paper, tins of ink, a long workbench laden with tools and chemicals — the press took up most of the far half of the room.
The man operating it was middle-aged, squat and sallow-faced, wearing a green eyeshade and a leather apron. Quincannon opened the door a little wider, until the entire room was within the range of his vision. The pressman was its only occupant.