Free Port Hazard by Loren D. Estleman

silk petticoat rustled in through the space, wrapped around six feet of female.
    Movement rippled through the crowd, and caps and hats came off heads that had been breeding lice in darkness for weeks. That was impressive.
    â€œWhat’s the row, Hodge?” the woman said. “I could hear you punching holes in my bar all the way from Pacific.”
    â€œCly your daddles, Nan. It’s all plummy.” With his chin nailed to the bartop, the rest of Hodge’s hard-hatted head had to move up and down to get the words out.
    Nan Feeny—what I could see of her while dividing my concentration among Hodge, Billy, and the woman’s reflection in the mirror—had a handsome head on a long neck with a choker, topped by an elaborate pile of hair—startlingly white, against a face that was still too young to need as much paint as had been applied to it.
    â€œPlummy as a bag of nails,” she observed, and unslung a pepperbox pistol from the reticule she carried.
    â€œRed lady,” muttered the tinhorn seated at the table, laying the queen of diamonds on the king of clubs.

10
    â€œJust the one, and you’re lucky to have it. Them pegos wasn’t sleeping on the deck for the fresh air. Twenty-five cents a day.” Nan Feeny opened the door and stepped aside.
    â€œWe were told twelve.” I waited for my eyes to adjust. The room, one of several opening off a short hall behind the barroom, was a windowless den no larger than a ship’s berth, with two narrow bunks built one atop the other into the wall, which I thought was carrying the nautical theme too far.
    â€œTwelve apiece, and a penny tax.”
    â€œWho collects the tax?” Beecher took his turn looking at the accommodations. There wasn’t room for two men to stand inside.
    â€œLittle squint-eyed ponce stinks of lilacs, and you don’t want to turn him away without his copper. I was burned out once. That’s the price of pride in Barbary.”
    We’d settled our differences in the saloon. Beecher had checked his revolver and I’d given Hodge back his arm, and when she’d put up the pepperbox we’d straightened out the reason for our visit. Face to face, or almost—the proprietress had two inches on me in my high-heeled boots—she had bad skin, hence the paint, and strong bones that wouldn’t give up her age short of another decade. However, she was still two young for her white hair, which didn’t look like a wig. She wore it in a chignon that added several unnecessary inches to her height.
    I asked her how much for a week, which surprised her. Her natural eyebrows went up almost as high as the ones she’d brushed on.
    â€œCartwheel dollar. I don’t take paper. There’s more queer cole hereabouts than treasury. If it’s coniakers you’re after, I’d best quote you the rate for a year.” She had a granite brogue with no green pastures in it.
    I’d shown her the star and the telegram. “We’re not interested in counterfeiters, if that’s what you’re asking. Tell me if this means anything.” I handed her the double eagle.
    She studied the coin on both sides. I thought for a moment she was going to bite it, but teeth were scarcer than gold in that neighborhood. She gave it back, and it was my turn to be surprised. I thought I’d have to wrestle her for it. “I ain’t even seen one of them in lead. If you take Nan’s advice you’ll keep it in your kick. There’s tobbies’d settle you for spud and lurch your pork in the brine.”
    Any way I worked that out didn’t sound attractive.
    Beecher said, “This one was stamped right here in San Francisco.”
    Nan studied him before answering. I couldn’t tell where she stood on the subject of conversing with Negroes.
    â€œStrictly speaking you left Frisco behind when you crossed Pacific Street. There’s some as would say you passed right on