Read Online The Loner: Crossfire by J.A. Johnstone - Free Book Online Page B

those places ranged from high-toned and luxurious to downright squalid, and sometimes you could find examples of both in the same block along Clay, Kearny, Pacific, and Grant Streets. The boundaries of the rather nebulous area people called the Barbary Coast drifted here and there with time and according to the vigilance of the local law enforcement agencies, but the core of its existence remained the same, the twin titans of Lust and Greed. They made up the foundation upon which the Barbary Coast was built.
    That was where Conrad was headed. A damp chill hung in the air along the bay, and tendrils of fog crept up from the water and curled through the streets.
    The only time Conrad had visited the Barbary Coast was when he was a much younger man, still in college. He and some of his wealthy classmates from back east were in San Francisco on a lark, and naturally they wanted to see the lurid denizens of the notorious area and sow some wild oats.
    In those days, Conrad had been as arrogant and obnoxious as his companions, so he had gone along willingly on the expedition. They had caroused and whored all night, and they had been extremely lucky they hadn’t wound up shanghaied, bleeding and robbed in some alley, or wasting away from some pustulent disease. He had heard it said that God looks after drunkards and fools, and he and his friends had fit into both categories.
    Now, of course, things were totally different.
    Time and tragedy had humbled him, stripped away most of the arrogance and pretense. But he remembered how to get to the Barbary Coast, and a short time after slipping out of the Palace Hotel, he entered a saloon called the Bella Grande, which didn’t live up to its name at all. Conrad kept his eyes down and moved in a somewhat furtive manner, but in reality he was keenly studying everything around him.
    He made his way across the crowded, smoky room to the bar and slid a dime onto the hardwood. “A schooner of beer,” he told the man in the dirty apron who came to take his order.
    The bartender tapped the bar next to the dime. “I’ll need another of those, and a nickel besides.”
    “Two bits for a schooner of beer?” Conrad protested. “What is this place, the damn Palace?”
    “It’s the goin’ rate, friend,” the bartender said. “You must’ve been at sea a long time if you didn’t know that.”
    Conrad shrugged, picked up the dime, and pawed around in a handful of coins he pulled from his pocket. The ivory Golden Gate token was among them. The bartender couldn’t help but see it, but he didn’t react in any way as far as Conrad could tell. The man scooped up the twentyfive-cent coin Conrad dropped on the bar and drew the beer from a big keg. He used a paddle to cut off the head and slid the big glass in front of Conrad.
    “Seen Floyd around tonight?” Conrad asked.
    “Floyd who?”
    “Hambrick. Floyd Hambrick.”
    The bartender frowned and shook his head. “Don’t believe I know the gent.”
    “Sure you do. He said he always drinks here.”
    “Maybe he does, but I don’t know him by name, mister. What’s he look like?”
    Conrad didn’t have Hambrick’s description. Turnbuckle’s source inside the police department hadn’t been able to come up with anything except the name. Conrad just shook his head disgustedly. “Ah, never mind. I’ll just have a look around.”
    “You do that.”
    Conrad picked up his beer and moved off into the crowd. He circulated for a few minutes, then set the schooner on an empty table and slipped out a side door. He wanted to keep a clear head, so he couldn’t be guzzling down suds every place he went. One of the saloon’s customers would snatch up the schooner and polish off the beer, probably by the time Conrad reached the street.
    Over the next hour, the scene in the Bella Grande was repeated with minor variations in half a dozen other saloons. If anybody knew Floyd Hambrick, they weren’t admitting it. Nor did anyone react when Conrad flashed