“When did I fail, Charley? Ask yourself that—when did I fail?”
10
Captain Hutchins stood at the window of the small office above the warehouse. It was late afternoon and a dismal, rainy day. Now, for a few minutes, the rain had ceased and the waterfront lay wet and silent The sea in the harbor was a dull gray and the hulls of the vessels had turned black. Here and there a few anchor lights had appeared. There were two windows in the office, and the one at which Hutchins stood, hands clasped behind his back, looked out over the edge of the dock and the bay. The other window looked across the street and up the length of the dock to where the shore curved away into distance. The office held little furniture. A roll-top desk, a swivel chair, a bank of pigeonholes on the wall, each stuffed with invoices or receipts, a black leather settee and two captain’s chairs, very worn.
From the window there was noboby in sight but a tall man who stood looking out over the water, yet several times he turned and glanced back at the warehouse. Hutchins frowned. In a city practically ruled by hoodlums such a fact was not to be overlooked. Behind him, Jean was outlining his plan for the trip north. The man at the dock edge turned again and for the first time Hutchins got a brief glimpse of his face. “Jean, do you know Freel? The fellow who hangs out with Yankee Sullivan?”
“I know him.”
“What would he be doing on the dock at this hour?” LaBarge got up and walked toward the window. Freel, one of the Sydney Ducks, was known to him as a thoroughly vicious character, figuring in a number of knifings and assaults. He stepped closer to the window and noticed a flicker of movement farther up the waterfront. After a moment he saw that two men stood in the shadows near a darkened warehouse about a block away. “He’s not wasting his time looking at sunsets. He’s got something else on his mind.” “They’ve left us alone so far.”
Jean walked back to the center of the room and drew his pistol, checking the loads. “If they start trouble, Cap, I’m taking it to them. We’ve been lucky so far, but if they start it—“ “That’s quite an order, son.”
“Coyotes run yellow in the pack. I’ve hunted them before.” He turned to his lists. Spare sails, heavy cable, lines. He had never done this for a ship of his own, and it was a wonderful feeling. Item by item he went down the list. The heavy gear was his own idea. Kohl had questioned the usefulness of the heavy blocks and wire rope, but Jean had been adamant. What lay before them they could guess, but there was always the unexpected, and they might need to make repairs somewhere in those strange channels to the north. He wanted to be prepared for any emergency. And if a man had enough blocks and tackle he could move the world.
The men on the dock came briefly to mind. Ben Turk and Larsen would be staying in the warehouse, and neither was a man to back up from trouble. “It’s late, Jean, and that work will keep.”
“Are they still out there?”
“Yes.”
The door opened and Larsen came in, followed by Ben Turk. Larsen was a rawboned Swede with thick blond hair that fell over his brow and curled over his collar at the back of his neck. His shoulders and arms were massive and blue anchors were tattooed at the base of thumb and forefinger of each hand. Ben Turk was a man of slight build, a compact and swarthy man with a black, handle-bar mustache. He was lean, alert, and dangerous. He had served on whaling ships and had made three voyages to the sealing grounds of the Pribi-lofs. He had trapped in Canada and Oregon.
“Where’s Noble?”
“He’s strutting it around Bartlett Freel, trying to egg him into a fight.”
“Get him in here.”
Briefly, he gave them their instructions. One was to keep awake at all times. Hutchins’ carriage came and Jean walked to the door with him. Hutchins hesitated with a foot on the step. “Sure you won’t come with me?” “Later.” LaBarge glanced at Freel who was looking unconcernedly across the bay. “I’ll walk up.” He deliberately spoke loud enough for Freel to hear. If Freel wanted him he wanted him to know exactly where he could be found, but if Freel followed Hutchins, LaBarge could be right behind. There was nothing reckless about Jean LaBarge. He avoided trouble when he could, never sought out a fight until the proper moment for it. He considered the situation tactically. The men up the street, and there seemed to be two of them, were at least sixty yards away. Freel was close. There are times when trouble cannot be avoided, and he knew that if they wanted him, they could get him. The thing to do was to choose his own ground, and he was ready now. The way to be left alone was to let them know what the alternative was.
He knew that Larsen, Turk and Noble would relish a fight. None of them had any love for Freel and his crowd, who frequently shanghaied and robbed seafaring men, but Jean did not want help. This was a situation he wanted to handle himself. He wanted it understood that he did not need help, even when it was ready to hand.
“You fellows sit tight,” he told them when he was back inside. “Watch if you want to, but don’t interfere. And stay inside.” “There’s at least three of them out there.” Turk looked at him curiously. “That Freel is bad with a knife.”
LaBarge dropped his hand to the latch. Suddenly he felt very good. He felt better than he had for a long time. There was too much fear in San Francisco, too many people were afraid of the hoodlums, of their beatings, their murders, of their looting. “Just stay out of it, boys. This one’s my show.” He pulled the door shut after him, and stood on the dock.
The edge of the wharf was perhaps fifteen steps from the door of Hutchins & Company. And Bartlett Freel was standing over there under a dock light. A light rain was falling, a fine mistlike rain. The hour was not late but due to the clouds it was already dark. There was a faint light showing from the front window of the warehouse, and besides the light under which Freel stood, there was another light on the street corner a dozen yards away, and there was a light up the dock, perhaps a hundred yards off.
Obviously they would not attack near the warehouse where help waited, but would follow him up the street into the darkness. They would have no reason to doubt their success and little reason to expect retaliation, and certainly there was nothing to fear from the law or the corrupt political machine behind it. Since the Vigilante movement the town had shown little disposition to fight back. Without too much reason Jean decided the attack had been instigated by Baron Zinnovy. Freel moved to the dictates of Yankee Sullivan who was a henchman and friend of Denny O’Brien, and O’Brien was a man who would arrange beatings, murders, disappearances for a price. Neither LaBarge nor Hutchins had had trouble with the hoodlums, neither had antagonized any of them, and neither had any local enemies. The attack that he could see shaping up came immediately following his trouble with Baron Zinnovy. True, there had been only a few words passed between them, but Jean’s hunch was that Zinnovy had other motives. Suppose Zinnovy, for reasons of his own, did not want wheat shipped to Alaska?
Or did not want Jean LaBarge taking it there.
As Jean LaBarge moved away from the building Freel turned. Up the street the two men started to move; Jean heard a foot scrape up there in the darkness. The reading of Greek history might seem a dull occupation, but there is an axiom to be found there that suggests the military principle of “divide and conquer.” It was a good thought … Jean started for the corner and when Freel moved to follow Jean turned quickly and faced him, his hand gripping his left lapel. “Looking for me, Freel? The name is LaBarge. Jean LaBarge.”
Freel hesitated. Why didn’t those fools huriy? “And if I am?”
“Who sent you, Freel?”
Harriett Freel was a lean, savage man, surly even among those who knew him best, but more intelligent than most of his kind. He had a flaring temper and he both envied and resented LaBarge. “You won’t know,” Freel said, “you’ll never know.
You been comin’ it mighty big, and now—“
There was a time for words, but the other two men were coming swiftly now. LaBarge’s left hand gripped his lapel lightly and when he struck he struck from that position and he stepped in with the punch. He felt Freel’s nose crumple under the blow but before the man could even stagger, Jean hit him hard with his right fist.