Merchant Street turned out to be a narrow little avenue flanked by heavy, square buildings built of stone that had been brought to the islands in the holds of New England windjammers. (Quincannon knew this from the pamphlet Sabina had inflicted on him before their departure.) The Honolulu Police Station was one of them. A sign identified the imposing structure as such; otherwise he would have passed it by without recognition, for there were no uniformed officers in sight. He continued northward beneath the arcades of countinghouses and the Inter-Island Steamship Company building. Few others were abroad here, the packed-earth street mostly deserted.
Nuuanu Street ran along the head of Merchant Street. It, too, was narrow, flanked on the north side by the shabby buildings and temples of Chinatown. Quincannon turned mauka again, the correct direction to Fenner’s residence according to the building numbers. There was more activity here, though not nearly as much as there would be at night when sailors off ships in the harbor prowled for liquor, games of chance, and soiled doves. Nuuanu was called Fid Street by the locals (this fact courtesy of the Pinkertons), a reference to the seafarer’s term for grog; its reputation among sailors as a “Port of Hell” was evidently justified. Bagnios and gambling halls proliferated in the area, as did saloons bearing such names as Royal Union, Ship and Whale, South Seas Taps. By night they would be lantern-lit and boisterous with music, laughter, bawdy talk; by day they had the same tawdry, semi-deserted appearance as their counterparts in the Barbary Coast.
Quincannon passed them all by. If Vereen and Nagle gravitated here, it would be after dark. And a stranger asking questions about them was sure to be met with silence, hostility, or both.
In the next block, adjacent to a saloon whimsically called the Trader’s Rest, he came to a two-story clapboard building that housed a sailors’ outfitter downstairs and Fenner’s office and living quarters upstairs. He climbed a somewhat rickety outside staircase. Evidently Fenner did not believe in advertising his profession; there was no shingle at the foot of the staircase or on the door at the upper landing.
Two sets of knuckle raps brought no response. Quincannon tried the door latch, expecting it to be locked, but it wasn’t. He opened it, stepped into a deserted office that contained a sluggish ceiling fan, a swarm of flies, a jumble of inexpensive furnishings, and a room at the far end separated by a beaded curtain. He called Fenner’s name, received no answer to that, either. The only interior sounds were the dull buzzing drone of the flies.
The room’s centerpiece was a rattan desk, atop which sat a two-quart tin bucket and a coconut-shell mug. He stepped over to look into the bucket. One-third filled with beer, not stale but fresh; foam and bubbles appeared when he nudged the bucket. So Fenner had been here recently, and it seemed likely that he would be back, else the door would not have been left unlocked. Gone to answer a beer-induced call of nature, mayhap. There would be no indoor plumbing here.
Quincannon resisted an impulse to prowl the premises, sat instead on a wooden chair. He had been marinating in sweat for three or four minutes when the door opened and a large fat man in a rumpled tropical suit entered. The fat man showed no surprise to find that he had a visitor. His only reaction was to say, “Ah,” in a raspy voice.
Quincannon rose to his feet. “George Fenner?”
“None other. And you are?”
“Quincannon, John Quincannon. I hope you don’t mind my taking the liberty of coming in to wait.”
“Not if you’re here on business.”
“I am. You were recommended to me by the Pinkerton office in San Francisco.” He presented Fenner with Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services’ business card. “As you see, we are in the same profession.”
Raisin-like eyes nestled in fat pouches studied the card, then lifted to take Quincannon’s measure. What conclusion Fenner came to, if any, remained hidden. He gestured for Quincannon to be seated again, crossed to the desk with the card held between sausage-size thumb and forefinger. He neither waddled nor moved ponderously, but rather with a kind of fluid ease reminiscent of a jungle cat. The chair behind the desk groaned in protest as he settled into it. He must have weighed close to two hundred and fifty pounds and measured an inch or two over six feet. His shoulders were wide, his ovoid head completely hairless except for a thin brown ruff above disproportionately tiny ears. An imposing specimen, even sitting down.
The presence of the bucket of beer and coconut-shell mug had made Quincannon dubious about Fenner’s competency. But the man was not drunk, nor even close to it, and the way he moved and the gleam of intelligence in the dark little eyes indicated the presence of a hard shell beneath the coating of lard, a shrewd brain inside the hairless skull.
At length Fenner said, “Well, then. What can I do for you, Mr. Quincannon?”
“I am on the trail of a slippery pair of confidence men who swindled a client of mine. They arrived here from San Francisco one week ago on the Matson steamer Roderick Dhu.”
“And you’ve come all the way to Hawaii in pursuit. Your client must be a wealthy man.”
“He is. And I am a tenacious detective.”
“The best kind. Only just arrived in Honolulu and in need of help in locating them, is that right?”
“It is.”
“You haven’t been to the police?”
“No. You can guess why, I’ll wager.”
“I can. A smart decision in any event. They have their hands full now — the coming annexation, the flood of troops bound for Cuba or remaining to protect Pearl Harbor.” Neither of which prospect met with Fenner’s approval, judging by the slight lip curl that accompanied the words. “I take it a large amount of money is involved?”
“Not so much cash money,” Quincannon said, “as other valuable items that might well be in their possession. I would rather not say what the items are nor how much they’re worth.”
“Once you locate the men and recover the valuables, if you do, what then?”
“Turn them over to the police, of course.” He didn’t add that he meant only the two grifters; if he did recover the bonds and stock certificates, he would sequester them until they could be safely returned to R. W. Anderson.
Fenner dipped his chins; that statement did meet with his approval. Once a copper, always a copper, Quincannon thought, not necessarily a bad thing if he was in fact competent.
“Why did they choose to come to Hawaii?” the fat man asked. “A long way to travel to spend ill-gotten loot.”
“I suspect it was a new and potentially lucrative swindle that brought them.”
“But you have no idea what it might be?”
“Not yet.”
“What are their names?”
“I’ll tell you that, and provide other pertinent information, if we reach an agreement.”
The sluggish fan was doing little to alleviate the stifling heat in the room. Trickles of sweat made the remains of Quincannon’s left ear itch. Fenner mopped his red face and glistening dome with a bandanna-size handkerchief, then reached for the beer bucket. His jowls quivered slightly when he peered inside.
“Just enough left for two mugs,” he said. “Join me?”
“No, thanks.”