The Loner: Crossfire

Nash shrugged. “There’s not much else to tell. His wife’s a bit of a social climber. He’s managed to get them invited to some parties where a cheap sharper like him has no business being. That’s another reason I think he indulges in a little blackmail. Sometimes instead of money he demands at least an illusion of respectability for himself and his wife.”

That was an interesting angle. “You don’t know if Lannigan’s going to be attending one of those society parties any time soon, do you?”

“Not my department,” Nash replied with a shake of his head. He smiled. “But I know how we can find out. Come on.”

They stood, and Nash led him out of the big editorial room and into a corridor lined with smaller offices.

“Where are we going?” Conrad asked.

“To see Francis Carlyle. I’m sure you remember her.”

As a matter of fact, he did. Francis Carlyle wrote a popular column for the Chronicle about the doings of San Francisco’s high society. Not many women were involved in journalism, but Mrs. Carlyle, a widow, held an important and respected position among the city’s elite. Conrad had met her on several occasions when he’d accompanied his mother to San Francisco, before Vivian Browning’s vicious murder at the hands of an outlaw gang ... a murder which had later been avenged by Frank Morgan.

Conrad didn’t like to think about those days. Some of those same outlaws had kidnapped and tortured him, mutilating one of his ears before Frank was able to rescue him. He kept his hair long enough to hide that deformity.

If he had found himself in such a situation now, he would have figured out a way to kill those varmints himself, rather than relying on Frank to save him. He had changed a great deal since then.

But not enough to keep Francis Carlyle from recognizing him when Nash ushered him into her office after knocking on the door and being told to enter. Mrs. Carlyle, a still-attractive woman in her late forties with a husky voice and dark, curly hair only lightly touched with gray, stood up behind her desk. “Well, for heaven’s sake. If it’s not Conrad Browning himself.” She came around the desk and extended a hand. “Conrad, my dear boy, how are you?”

Conrad took her hand and bent to brush his lips across the back of it in the courtly European manner. He recalled that while Mrs. Carlyle was quick to use her column to cut through what she regarded as pretense and hypocrisy, she enjoyed being played up to. He held her hand in both of his as he straightened. “I’m fine, Mrs. Carlyle. You haven’t changed a bit, as beautiful as ever.”

She smiled, obviously pleased, then grew solemn. “My deepest condolences on your loss.”

Conrad nodded. “Thank you.”

“I was very happy when I heard you were alive after all. That blasted Claudius Turnbuckle was tight-lipped about it for a long time.”

“At my request,” Conrad said.

“Yes, well, I’m accustomed to people talking to me. I maintain a position of absolute trustworthiness.”

Mrs. Carlyle could be trusted, all right ... trusted to gossip—which, of course, was exactly why Conrad was in her office. He understood why Jessup Nash had taken him there.

“Sit down and tell me what brings you to San Francisco,” Mrs. Carlyle went on. She waved a hand at Nash. “Thank you for bringing Conrad to see me, Jessup. You can go now.”

Nash looked pained, but didn’t argue. “Stop by my desk on your way out,” he told Conrad, who nodded in agreement.

After Nash left, Conrad settled on the opposite side of the desk. “I’m relying on your absolute discretion here, Mrs. Carlyle.”

“My goodness, call me Francis. It’s not like you’re a callow youth anymore. You’re a grown man.” The blatant interest in the woman’s gaze made it clear how aware of that fact she was.

Conrad smiled. “All right, Francis. I want to ask you about a man named Dex Lannigan.”

A look of surprise and distaste appeared on Mrs. Carlyle’s face. “Dex Lannigan?” she repeated. “Why are you interested in a cheap hoodlum like that?”

“From what I hear, he’s not all that cheap. He owns a very successful business.”

“A saloon. And a saloon in the Barbary Coast, at that.”

“And he’s become a member of San Francisco society.”

Mrs. Carlyle shook her head. “More of a pretender than a member. But for reasons I can’t fathom, he’s been issued invitations to a number of soirees the likes of him and that crass woman he’s married to never should have attended. I think she must be the one behind it. She has that desperate hunger for approval you find in women who come from a less than sterling background.”

As Conrad recalled, Francis Carlyle’s background wasn’t all that sterling itself. Her father had been a railroad conductor. But she had married a man who was a stockholder and an important executive with the Southern Pacific, and that had been her entry into society.

Conrad didn’t say anything about that. “Do you know if Lannigan is going to be attending any of those parties in the near future?”

“Why do you ask? Don’t tell me you want to meet the man!”

“It might be mutually beneficial for the two of us to have a conversation.”

It might be easier to do while they were on neutral ground, Conrad thought, rather than him trying to approach Lannigan at the Golden Gate. If Lannigan wanted to keep his wife’s position in society secure, he wouldn’t cause a scene at a party.

“You intrigue me.” Mrs. Carlyle’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Something’s going on here, and I want to know what it is.”

“I’m sorry. I can’t tell you any more ... right now.” Conrad’s words held the promise of future information, as they had with Jessup Nash.

“Quid pro quo,” Mrs. Carlyle snapped. “I know you studied Latin. You’re familiar with the concept.”

“Of course. But my hands are tied at the moment. However, I can tell you this much. If my conversation with Lannigan goes as I hope, I can promise you there will be a story, and a good one.”

“And that story will be mine?”

Conrad shrugged and inclined his head, indicating agreement without actually saying as much.

Suddenly, Mrs. Carlyle laughed. “You’re trying to trick me, young man. It won’t work. I’m on to all the tricks young men use to make poor women like myself believe they’ve promised something when they really haven’t.” She picked up a copy of the newspaper lying on the desk and tossed it closer to Conrad. “I won’t haggle with you, especially since what you want to know is already in print. And you’d already know it if you had bothered to read my column this morning,” she added caustically.

Conrad picked up the paper, which was that morning’s edition folded back to Mrs. Carlyle’s column. He had scanned those pages that very morning while eating breakfast, but hadn’t noticed what seemed so obvious to him now.

One of the notes in the column was about a party to be held in four days at the Nob Hill mansion of Mr. and Mrs. Madison Kimball. Among a long list of guests expected to attend were Mr. and Mrs. Dexter Lannigan. The name had meant nothing to Conrad when he read it in the paper that morning, but he should have noticed the D.L. initials, he told himself.

It hadn’t occurred to him the man possibly responsible for trying to have him killed would be attending a high society ball.

He looked up at her. “Do you think you can arrange for me to be invited to that party?”

“I don’t think it’ll be any trouble at all,” Mrs. Carlyle said. “If Roberta Kimball knew you were in town, you would have already gotten an invitation, even if she had to deliver it personally. I’ll mention that I’ve seen you, and you should hear from her before the day’s over. Where are you staying?”

“At the Palace.”

“Of course you are. I’ll tell Roberta.”

“Thank you.” Conrad put the newspaper back on Mrs. Carlyle’s desk.

“Oh, a simple thank you isn’t going to be enough. Not by a long shot.”