The Bughouse Affair: A Carpenter and Quincannon Mystery (18 page)

“Ah…”

“It happens that I have urgent business with a lad named Dodger Brown. However, he seems to have dropped from sight.”

“Dodger Brown?”

“The same. Wine dump habitue, gambler, and burglar by trade. You’ve had recent dealings with him, I understand.”

“Recent dealings? No, you’re mistaken.”

“Now, now, Luther. Remember what I said about prison cells? Cold, unpleasant—and very, very small.”

Duff fidgeted and perspired. “What … ah … what business do you have with Dodger Brown?”

“Mine and none of yours. All you need do is tell me where I can find him.”

“Ah…”

“You must have some idea of where he’s holed up.” Quincannon let the smile slip away, his voice harden. “It wouldn’t be in your best interest to tax my patience.”

“Oh … ah … I wouldn’t, I won’t,” Duff said. The tip of his tongue flicked over thin lips. “An idea, perhaps. A possibility. You won’t say where you heard?”

“No one need know of our little talk but us.”

“Well … ah … he has a cousin, a fisherman known as Salty Jim.”

“Does he now.” This was news to Quincannon; there was nothing in the Dodger’s dossier about a living relative.

Duff said, “Dodger Brown bunks with him from time to time on his boat. So … ah … so I’ve heard on the earie.”

“Where does this Salty Jim keep his boat?”

“Across the bay … the Oakland City Wharf. He … ah … he’s involved in the oyster trade.”

“The name of his craft?”

“Something with ‘oyster’ in it. That’s all I can tell you.”

“Is it? Cudgel that cunning brain of yours, Luther, and see if you can recall the exact name.”

Duff cudgeled. To no avail. At length he shook his head so miserably that it seemed his memory really had failed him.

“Good enough,” Quincannon said. “Now we’ll move along to other matters. Did you sell the Dodger a revolver recently?”

“Revolver?”

“Specifically, a brand-new Forehand and Wadsworth thirty-eight-caliber.”

“No. No, absolutely not.”

“That had better be the truth.”

“It is! I swear I sold him no weapon of any kind.”

“When did you last see him?”

“I … ah … don’t remember…”

“Luther.”

“… Yesterday. Yesterday morning.”

“And you paid him cash for whatever goods he brought. What were they, and how much?”

“I don’t, ah, know what you mean. He came to see me, yes, but it was only to discuss selling certain property…”

Quincannon drew his Navy Colt, laid the weapon on the countertop between them. “You were saying?”

“Awk.”

“No, that wasn’t it. You were about to identify the items and how much you paid Dodger Brown for them. In fact, in the spirit of cooperation and good fellowship between us, you were about to show me these items. And don’t tell me you don’t still have them all. I know how you operate.”

The troll swallowed in a way that was remarkably similar to a cow swallowing its cud. He twitched, looked at the pistol, nibbled at his lower lip like a rat nibbling cheese.

Quincannon picked up the Navy and held it loosely in his hand, the barrel aimed in the general direction of Duff’s right eye. “My time is valuable, Luther,” he said. “And yours is fast running out.”

The troll turned abruptly and stepped through the drapery. Quincannon vaulted the counter, followed him into an incredibly cluttered office lighted by an oil lamp. A farrago of items covered the surface of a battered rolltop desk; boxes and wrappings littered the floor; piles of curios teetered precariously on a pair of claw-foot tables. In one corner was a large and fairly new Mosler safe. Duff glanced back, noted Quincannon’s expression, and reluctantly proceeded to open the safe. He tried to shield the interior with his body, but Quincannon loomed up behind to peer over the troll’s shoulder as his hands sifted through the contents.

“If I find out you’ve withheld so much as a collar stay,” Quincannon warned him, “I’ll pay you a return visit that won’t be half so pleasant as this one.”

Duff shuddered again and brought forth a chamois pouch, which he handed over with even greater reluctance. Quincannon holstered the Navy, shook the contents of the pouch into his palm. One sapphire brooch, two pairs of sapphire earrings, and a large gold-nugget watch fob.

“This is only a small portion of the Dodger’s recent acquisitions. Where’s the rest?”

“I swear this is all he brought me yesterday!”

“Then he’s planning to return with the rest. When? Today?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.”

“The truth now.”

“That is the truth, I swear it.”

“How much did you give him for these baubles?”

“Two hundred dollars. He … ah … seemed to think they were worth more, but he took the cash. He seemed in a hurry.”

“Yes? Frightened, was he?”

“No. Eager, excited about something. All in a lather.”

“Did he give you an idea of what had raised his blood pressure?”

“No. None.”

“Or happen to mention Clara Wilds?”

“Who? I don’t…”

“Luther.”

“No. No, we only discussed business.”

“But he is still consorting with her, isn’t he?”

“I have no idea. He’s never brought her here, never spoken of her to me. Someone else … ah…”

“Fences her ill-gotten gains. Yes, I know.”

Quincannon was satisfied that Duff hadn’t withheld anything important to his investigation. He returned the items of jewelry to the pouch and tucked the pouch into his coat pocket.

“Here, now!” the troll cried. “You can’t … that’s my property!”

“No, it isn’t. Not yours and not Dodger Brown’s. These sparklers belong to Judge Adam Winthrop and his wife, two of the Dodger’s recent victims. Don’t worry, I’ll make certain they’re returned to their rightful owners safe and sound, with your compliments.”

Duff looked as if he were about to burst into tears.

“Gahh,” he said.

21

QUINCANNON

A trolley car delivered Quincannon to the Ferry Building at the foot of Market Street. Ferries for the East Bay left every twenty to thirty minutes, and he arrived just in time to catch one of the Southern Pacific boats. A chilly half hour later, he disembarked with the other passengers and made his way up the Estuary to the Oakland City Wharf.

The place was an amalgam of the colorful and the squalid. Arctic whalers, Chinese junks, Greek fishing boats, Yankee sailing ships, disreputable freighters, scows, sloops, shrimpers, oyster boats, houseboats; long rows of warehouses crowded here and there by shacks fashioned from bits and pieces of wreckage or from dismantled ships; long barren sandpits.

He approached three men in turn to ask the whereabouts of an oysterman named Salty Jim, owner of a boat with “oyster” in the name. The first two either didn’t know or wouldn’t say, but the third, a crusty old sailor with a Tam-o’-Shanter pulled down over his ears, who sat propped against an iron cleat with a half-mended fishnet across his lap, knew Salty Jim well enough. And clearly didn’t like him.

“Salty Jim O’Bannon,” he said, “ain’t no oysterman.”

“No? What is he?”

The oldster screwed up his face and spat off the wharf side. “A damn pirate, that’s what.”

Involved in the oyster trade, indeed, Quincannon thought sardonically. He’d had a run-in with oyster pirates once and did not relish a repeat performance. They were a scurvy lot, the dregs of the coastal waters—worse by far than Chinese shrimp raiders or Greek salmon poachers. At the first flood tide in June, an entire fleet of them would head down the bay to Asparagus Island to set up raiding parties on the beds. And much of the harvest would be stolen despite the efforts of the Fish Patrol and privately hired agencies such as Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services. The only thing that kept the pirates from taking complete control of the bay waters was their own vicious behavior. Regular consumption of alcohol and opium combined with general cussedness had led to many a cutting or shooting scrape and many a corpse in the sandpits.

“How come you’re lookin’ for the likes of Salty Jim O’Bannon?” the old sailor asked. “Not fixin’ to join up with him, are you?”

“No chance of that. It’s not him I’m after.”

“Who, then?”

“A cousin of his, Dodger Brown. Know the lad?”

“Can’t say I do. Don’t want to know him, if he’s as black-hearted a cuss as Salty Jim.”

“He may be, at that.”

“What’s his dodge? Not another pirate, is he?”

“Housebreaker.”

“And what’re you? You’ve got the look and questions of a nabber.”

“Policeman?” Quincannon was mildly offended. “Manhunter on the scent is more like it. Where does Salty Jim O’Bannon keep his boat? Hereabouts?”

“Hell. He wouldn’t dare.” The oldster spat again for emphasis. “He anchors off Davis Wharf. Don’t tie up for fear of one of his pirate pals slippin’ on board at night and murderin’ him in his sleep.”

“What’s her name?”

“
Oyster Catcher
. Now ain’t that a laugh.”

“He lives aboard, does he?”

“He does. Might find him there now—I ain’t seen nor heard of him puttin’ out into the bay yet today. If you’re fixin’ to go out and see him, I hope you’re carryin’ a weapon and ain’t shy about usin’ it. Salty Jim ain’t exactly sociable to strangers.”

Meaningfully Quincannon patted the holster where his Navy Colt rested. The old sailor’s rheumy eyes brightened at the gesture. “Why, then, I hope you find that son of a bitch, mate. I purely hope you do.”

He provided directions to Davis Wharf. When Quincannon arrived there, he saw that sloops and schooners were anchored in the bay nearby, so many that he wasted no time in trying to pick out the
Oyster Catcher
. A ragged youth who was fishing with a hand line off the wharf side made the identification for him. The youth also agreed to rent out his own patched skiff beached in the tidal mud fifty rods distant. The boy seemed impressed that Quincannon was intent on visiting Salty Jim, the oyster pirate, but not for the same reason as the old sailor; the shine of hero worship was in his eyes.

Quincannon repressed the urge to shake some sense into the lad. You couldn’t hope to make everyone walk the straight and narrow. Besides, a new generation of crooks meant continued prosperity for Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional Detective Services, well into his and Sabina’s dotage.

He stowed his grip in the skiff, rowed out to the
Oyster Catcher.
She was a good-size sloop with a small cabin amidships, her mainsail furled, her hull in need of paint, but otherwise in reasonably good repair. No one was on deck, but from inside the cabin he could hear the discordant strumming of a banjo—an instrument for which he held an active dislike. He shipped his oars until he was able to draw in next to a disreputable rowboat tied to a portside Jacob’s ladder. He tied the skiff’s painter to another rung, drew his Navy, and climbed quickly on board.

The cabin’s occupant heard or felt his presence; the banjo twanged and went silent, and a moment later the cabin door burst open and a bear of a man, naked to the waist, stepped out with a belaying pin clenched in one hand.

Quincannon snapped, “Stand fast!” and brought the pistol to bear. The scruff pulled up short, blinking and glowering. He was thirtyish, sported a patchy beard and hair that hung in matted ropes. The cold bay wind blew smells of “four-bit micky” and body odor off him in such a ripe wave that Quincannon’s nostrils pinched in self-defense.

“Who in foggy hell’re you?”

“My name is of no matter to you. Drop your weapon.”

“Huh?”

“The belaying pin. Drop it, O’Bannon.”

“Like hell I will.”

“There’ll be hell to pay if you don’t.”

Salty Jim gaped at him, rubbing at his scraggly beard with his free hand, his mouth open at least two inches—a fair approximation of a drooling idiot. “What’s the idee comin’ on my boat? You ain’t the goddamn fish patrol.”

“It’s your cousin I want, not you.”

“Cousin?”

“Dodger Brown.”

“Huh? What you want with him?”

“That’s none of your concern,” Quincannon said. “If he’s here, call him out. If he’s not, tell me where I can find him.”

“I ain’t gonna tell you nothin’.”

“You will, or you’ll find a lead pellet nestling in your hide.”

The oyster pirate’s mean little eyes narrowed to slits. He took a step forward and said with drunken belligerence, “By gar, nobody’s gonna shoot me on my own boat.”

“I’m warning you, O’Bannon. Drop your weapon and hold hard, or—”

Salty Jim was too witless and too much taken with drink to be either scared or intimidated. He growled deeply in his throat, hoisted the belaying pin aloft, and mounted a lumbering charge.

Quincannon had no desire to commit mayhem if it could be avoided. He took two swift steps forward, jabbed the Navy’s muzzle hard and straight into the rough bird’s sternum.

Salty Jim said an explosive, “Uff!” and rounded at the middle like an archer’s bow. The blow took the force out of his downsweeping arm; the belaying pin caromed more or less harmlessly off the meaty part of Quincannon’s shoulder. Another jab with the Colt, followed by a quick reverse flip of the weapon, and then with the butt end he fetched O’Bannon a solid thump on the crown of his empty cranium. There was another satisfying “Uff!” after which Salty Jim stretched out on the scaly deck for a nap. Rather amazingly he even commenced to make snoring noises.

The brief skirmish brought no one else out of the cabin. Nor were there any sounds from within to indicate another’s presence on board. Quincannon holstered the Navy, prodded the pirate with the toe of his boot; the nap and the snores continued unabated. A frisk of O’Bannon’s apparently never-washed trousers and shirt netted him nothing except a sack of Bull Durham, some papers to go with the tobacco, and a greasy French postcard of no artistic merit whatsoever.

Quincannon picked up the belaying pin, tossed it overboard. After a moment’s hesitation he sent the French postcard sailing after it. A frayed belt that held up the pirate’s filthy trousers served to tie his hands behind his back. Quincannon then stepped over the unconscious man and entered the cabin.