The Bughouse Affair: A Carpenter and Quincannon Mystery (9 page)

“The extortionist? Why mention her name?”

“She has another trade now. Picking pockets. She’s the dip who has been menacing customers at the Chutes and on the Cocktail Route.”

“Ah. You crossed paths with her again.”

“Last night at the bazaar opposite the Palace.” Sabina’s voice was bitter. “I caught her robbing another mark, but she got away from me again. She’s as slippery as an eel.”

“What happened?”

Sabina provided terse explanations, making no excuse for Clara Wilds having now twice eluded her. She was even more determined to locate and nab the woman, now that she knew Wilds’s modus operandi had rendered her a murderess as well as a thief.

“Did she recognize you?” Quincannon asked.

“She may have. I’m not certain. In any case, the close call may keep her from plying her new trade for a time.”

“Gone to ground with Dodger Brown, mayhap.”

“There’s no mention in her dossier that the pair ever cohabited, merely that they were known consorts.”

“Do you have her last known address?”

“A rooming house on the edge of the Barbary Coast. The information is some months old, but perhaps someone there has knowledge of her current whereabouts. That’s where I’m bound now.”

Quincannon said, “I’d go with you, but I should keep myself available for a message from Bluefield. And I have an appointment with R. W. Jackson at one o’clock.”

“I’m perfectly capable of pursuing Clara Wilds on my own.”

“Of course you are—”

“I’ll telephone or send word by messenger if I learn anything you should know.”

When Sabina had gone, Quincannon spied the Wilds dossier on her desk and sat down to read it over. The information on the woman was scant. Born on a farm in the San Joaquin Valley twenty-eight years ago; orphaned at age ten and sent to live with an aunt in Carson City, Nevada, from whom she picked up some of her wicked habits—extortion primary among them. Expert at collecting damning information on individuals in positions of trust or power and then using her knowledge to extract cash or favors from them. Arrested and tried for attempted fraud in Nevada, but acquitted for lack of evidence. Moved to San Francisco four years ago and arrested twice here on similar charges, the second time last year—Sabina’s initial encounter with her, the agency having been hired by the victim—but again escaped conviction as a result of police and judicial incompetence.

Since then, there was no record of any criminal activity. To the unschooled eye, Wilds might have been inactive during this period. At the extortion game, possibly, but not in her other criminal pursuit. She may have been picking pockets for years, and managed to avoid being caught, or she may have learned the game more recently and spent the past year or so perfecting it. Not surprising in either case; criminals of both sexes sometimes adopted new and more lucrative or less risky specialties.

If Wilds was still keeping company with Dodger Brown, Quincannon reflected, it would make his and Sabina’s tasks much easier. Snaffle one, snaffle both. The difficulty lay in finding one or the other.

*   *   *

His first order of business was to write the letter of reference he’d promised Ezra Bluefield. When he left to keep his one o’clock appointment with R. W. Jackson, he would give the letter to the messenger service in the building next door. It would cost extra to have it delivered to the Barbary Coast, but that was a small price to pay for Bluefield’s continued assistance.

Next he finished his report on the Jackson investigation, a chore he disliked even though it allowed him to do a certain amount of justifiable boasting; he was a man of action, not a sedentary wordsmith. The client, R. W. Jackson, was an investment broker who ought to have known better than to fall victim to a stock swindle, but instead had been gullible enough to lose five thousand dollars to a pair of confidence men known in the underworld as Lonesome Jack Vereen and the Nevada Kid. Quincannon had tracked down the thimbleriggers, who were in Redwood City running another of their con games, the gold-brick swindle, and not only pinched them but recovered the full amount of R. W. Jackson’s loss. The five thousand dollars was being held in escrow for him, payable once he had in turn paid the agency’s fee. Which he would do today upon receipt of the final report.

Still no word from Bluefield by the time Quincannon finished. He was about to put on his coat when the door opened to admit a frog-faced youth wearing a cap with a sewn decal proclaiming his employers to be Citywide Messenger Service. Quincannon’s first thought was that old Ezra had taken to employing a legitimate service rather than sending a Coast runner as was his usual custom, but no such luck. Nor was the message from his partner. “For Mr. John Quincannon, Esquire,” the youth said—a term neither Sabina nor the deadfall owner would ever have used.

He accepted the envelope, signed for it, and tore it open. The messenger, looking hopeful, remained standing in place. “Well?” Quincannon said to him. “You’ve done your duty, lad. Off with you!”

The command, accompanied by a scowl and a step forward, sent the youth into a hurried exit. If Sabina had been there, she would have insisted that he be tipped the customary nickel. But Sabina wasn’t there and Quincannon didn’t believe in tipping. As a matter of fact, he felt that he’d done the lad a good turn by
not
giving him a nickel; at his young age, he would only have spent it profligately.

The envelope contained a sheet of bond paper that bore the letterhead and signature of Andrew Costain, Attorney-at-Law. The curt message, written in a rather shaky hand, read:

I should like to discuss a business matter with you. If you will call on me at my offices at your earliest convenience, I am sure you will find it to your financial advantage.

A business matter, eh? It must have something to do with the burglaries; Costain had never before sought his professional assistance. The lawyer’s name was one of the three left on Dodger Brown’s target list, and the man had struck him as a Nervous Nelly.

Quincannon glanced again at the paper. The number of lawyers he liked and trusted could have danced together on the bowl of his pipe. The phrase “financial advantage,” however, was too powerful a lure to be ignored.

“At your service, Mr. Costain,” he said aloud. “For the right price.”

11

SABINA

The boarding house the dossier had listed as Clara Wilds’s last known address was on Washington Street south of Broadway, on the fringe of the Barbary Coast. Upper-class women were seldom seen in this neighborhood, and none would dare to walk the squalid and dangerous streets within the one-square-mile of gambling hells, cheapjack saloons, brothels, and opium dens nearby. Sabina’s hack driver looked startled when she gave him the lodging house address. For a moment she thought he might try to dissuade her, but then he shrugged and urged his horse away along the cobbled streets.

The lodging house was a dilapidated wooden structure with cupolas at either end of its sagging roof, and a faded sign proclaiming
HOUSEKEEPING ROOMS
next to the front door. Trash clung to the foundation; its windows were speckled with dirt; a bundle of discarded newspapers lay on its front steps. The woman who answered Sabina’s ring owned a coarse middle-aged face and gray stringy hair, and wore a stained and ill-fitting housedress; most of her front teeth were missing, and the few that were left were chipped and discolored.

Her surprise at finding a well-dressed young woman on her doorstep was evident. “What do you want?” she demanded.

Sabina neither presented her card nor otherwise identified herself as a detective. Such would gain her nothing but scorn and suspicion. Women such as this landlady would find it difficult to believe that one of their sex was a professional detective, and would be close-mouthed as a result.

She said only, “I am looking for a woman named Clara Wilds.”

“Who?”

“Clara Wilds. She was one of your tenants eighteen months ago—”

“Eighteen months! How do you expect me to remember that far back? I can’t remember half the ‘ladies’ I got living here now.”

Sabina described Clara Wilds. The landlady started to shake her head, but then the light of remembrance came into her eyes. “Oh, her. A trollop and worse. She’s long gone, and good riddance.”

“When did she move out?”

“You mean when did I throw her out. Right after she got out of jail. The police come here and arrested her—just the kind of thing I don’t need. Gives my place a bad name. My roomers ain’t exactly the cream of society, but they’re not criminals, either.”

“Do you have any idea where she moved to?”

“No, and I don’t care. What do you want her for, anyway?”

“A personal matter. Do you know a friend of Clara Wilds’s named Dodger Brown?”

“Who?”

“Dodger Brown. A small man of about forty, with a fondness for wine. She was known to keep company with him.”

“Not in my place, she didn’t. I don’t allow no men in my house, not even in the parlor. I wouldn’t even let her uncle in if he come calling.”

“Uncle? I didn’t know Clara Wilds had an uncle.”

“Well, he don’t advertise the fact.”

Likely he was an uncle by marriage, Sabina thought, which was why the information had escaped mention in the dossier. “Where does he reside?”

“How should I know? All I know is where he has his business.”

“And where would that be?”

“The California Market. Sometimes when that trollop needed money she’d help Tony out in his fish stall.”

“How do you know that?”

“He told me, that’s how. Back when he knew she was lodging with me. I buy my fish and seafood from him.”

“Has he said anything about his niece since you evicted her?”

The landlady frowned in thought. “Once, last year. They had some kinda falling out. She must of stole from him, that’s the kind she is.”

“Did he tell you that was the reason for the falling out?”

“No. You want to know, maybe he’ll tell you. But I wouldn’t count on it if I was you.”

“What’s his last name?”

The woman shrugged. “Tony’s Fish Stand, that’s all I know.”

And with that, she shut the door in Sabina’s face.

*   *   *

The open-air California Market, known far and wide as San Francisco’s “entrepôt of foods,” ran for an entire block from Pine to California streets between Montgomery and Kearney. Founded in 1867, when an Irishman nicknamed The Oyster King began selling oysters harvested from the bay tidelands near Burlingame, it was now a vast bazaar of stalls dispensing meat, fresh fish and shellfish, produce, and flowers to hotels and restaurants as well as private individuals.

Sabina had been there a number of times before, to shop and once with Callie to have a meal at another of the market’s prominent features, Sam’s Grill. It was an enticing place, filled with a tantalizing mixture of aromas stirred and carried by a breeze from the bay. As always, the aisles were crowded with women carrying shopping baskets, men pushing handcarts loaded with a variety of goods to and from the vendors.

She stopped one of the men to ask where Tony’s Fish Stand was located. He informed her it was near Pine Street, midway within the marketplace. She made her way through the throng of shoppers, ignoring the entreaties of sellers hawking their wares. Poultry, lamb, beef, seafood. Pineapples, alligator pears, papayas from Hawaii, and great bunches of ripe bananas from Mexico. Locally grown fruits and vegetables. Freshly baked breads, cakes, pies. Freshly roasted coffee beans. And such appetizing cooked foods as grilled sausages, Indian kabobs, and fried calamari.

The aroma of cooking sausages reminded her that it was past lunchtime and she was hungry. And sausages, in her opinion, were one of man’s greatest concoctions. The thought of a grilled bratwurst on rye bread made her mouth water. Her appetite, always healthy, had returned with a vengeance once she’d come to terms with Stephen’s death. She never gained a pound, however, no matter how much she ate; her slender waist was the same as it had been on her wedding day. Sometimes she thought it unseemly to be so fond of food, but as John had said to her once, God would not have put so much of it on earth if it wasn’t meant to be eaten. How could she do less than her part in obeying His will?

Tony’s Fish Stand was a large and thriving enterprise, its ice bins displaying a wide array of fresh fish and seafood. The filets of smoked salmon looked particularly good; Sabina thought she would purchase a piece for her supper.

Three employees were serving customers and restocking bins. Sabina pushed up to the nearest of them. When she asked if he was Tony, he shook his head and called to a handsome, mustached man with graying black hair, “This lady wants you, Mr. Antonelli.”

Tony Antonelli’s eyes sparkled when he saw Sabina. But his examination was appreciative only, without either guile or leer. He filled a tiny paper cup and held it out to her. “Bay shrimp,
bella signora,
” he said. “Best anywhere in the Market.”

She smiled and took the cup. The shrimp were indeed fresh and succulent.

“You like to buy some for your supper?”

“I was thinking of a piece of smoked salmon. But yes, a quarter pound of the shrimp as well.”

“Come right up.”

He chose one of the best-looking fillets. As he began wrapping it and the shrimp, Sabina said, “Would you mind if I asked you a few questions, Mr. Antonelli?”

“Mr. Antonelli … pah. Tony the Fish Monger, that’s what everybody calls me. Questions about my fish?”

“No. Your niece, Clara Wilds.”

Tony’s cheerful demeanor disappeared. He frowned, and one of his mustaches twitched. “Why you want to know about her?”

“I’m very anxious to find her.”

“Why? What you want with her,
bella signora
like you?”

Sabina debated the wisdom of identifying herself, decided to take the chance, and presented him with her card.