Gangway!

    From her enormous shoulderbag Vangie took a small key. It unlocked the padlock on the key box. She lifted the lid and removed the three keys that reposed in the box. Each key was attached to a wooden tag bearing the name of a hotel and a room number.

    She closed the box and locked it, putting the three wood-tagged keys into her bag. "Okay, we can go now."

    Gabe walked back up the street with her. "The San Francisco Hotel Association," he said. "You're the San Francisco Hotel Association."

    "Well, you know lodgings are terribly expensive."

    "Uh-huh. And your parents live in San Francisco, and someone stole all your money, and you were stranded up the river, and you'd never ever picked anybody's pocket before, ever."

    Vangie shrugged evasively and went on up the street with a cheerful grin. Her body swung alertly and the huge pocketbook flew from her little shoulder.

    She was damned pretty. Gabe found himself thinking it might be fun to show her around New York. She'd probably fit right in back there, which was something he hadn't expected from any Westerner.

    She paused to look back at him. "You coming?"

    "Oh, yes," he said. "I'm coming."

    He caught up with her and this time they walked directly into the city. They passed a Melodeon on a corner. Someone had splashed a huge X of red paint across its lurid poster of cancan dancers, and hung on the door a wooden shingle with CLOSED painted on it in the same vivid red paint.

    The sign on the corner was wreathed in fog but there was a gas street lamp next to it and Gabe could make out the printing. It seemed very important to know that they were at the intersection of Sansome and Pacific Streets. Not that Gabe would ever find it again without a guide. But he liked to know the names of places where there might be opportunities. And Pacific Street looked like such a place. Jammed from sidewalk to sidewalk with moving bodies, most of them unsteady on their feet. And it wasn't even sunset yet.

    "Pacific Street," he murmured.

    "We call it the Barbary Coast."

    "Is that right. What's that mean?"

    "I don't know. But I heard a politician say it's the most vice-infested square mile of corruption in the world." She said it with a note of triumph which Gabe didn't miss; suddenly she turned and jabbed a pretty little finger into his chest. "Nobody's ever said that about New York. Hah!"

    "Only because New York's bigger than a square mile. We like to spread the joy around a little."

    "Oh you're so smart." She lifted her chin and swung away toward a side street.

    "Where you going?" He had an instant's panic.

    "You wait there," she said.

    "For what?"

    "Don't you want di

    "We both know my stomach's empty."

    "Well, we won't get much for fifty-five cents."

    "You mean I'm the only one you hit on that boat?"

    She frowned for a moment. "I guess you must have distracted me. But anyway, you wait right here. I'll be back."

    And she drifted away into the crowd.

    It wouldn't do, he thought. He wasn't going to have a wisp of a girl picking pockets to feed him. It might be standard behavior out here, but back East where men were men…

    Pacific Street ran down from where Gabe stood to a flight of slippery stone steps that gave onto a crude little pier. Both sides of the street were lined with casinos, grog shops, whorehouses and a variety of dives the nature of which was fairly easy to ascertain from a quick study of the people emerging from them. The opium dens were particularly easy to spot that way. Nearby he spotted a Melodeon with a huge poster, eight feet square, the better to illustrate the full proportions of the two very fat lady dancers whose forms were artistically painted above the words THE GALLOPING COW and THE DANCING HEIFER. The whole of it, like the other signs he'd seen, was X-ed out with a huge slash of red paint. Why were all the dance halls closed? It could hardly be for lack of potential business, he observed; the street was teeming with drunks just begging to be separated from their money.

    The smells were thick and multifarious, the noise close to earsplitting. It was hard to stand in one place without being whacked and jostled; Gabe faded back against the face of MME. HERZ'S CLOTHING EMPORIUM, which was possibly the most disreputable Cheap John shop he had ever seen.

    He remembered briefly the panic that had jabbed him when he'd thought, for an instant there, that Vangie was just going to turn away and leave him in the street. What a ridiculous way for a full grown man to behave. But still, it was the first time in his memory that he'd been in a city where he didn't know every alley and every doorway.

    City? Not really. I mean look at these buildings. Not a substantial-looking structure in the lot. Everything was woodframe; it had all been built in a hurry out of green lumber. Everything was splintered, warped, the paint weathered. A sulfur match and one good breeze and the whole thing would go up in smoke.

    Was that why she'd got so upset when he'd mentioned fire?

    His speculations were interrupted by the arrival of two burly guys who came meandering along, glanced at him, stopped to give him a second look, went past him, stopped to give him a third look, turned around, came back to him, and eyed him up and down.

    One of them licked a thick avaricious lip and said, "Howdy there."

    "Hi."

    "You lost, friend?"

    Right there he knew it was time to get alert. He pushed his shoulder away from the wall so he could stand up straight; he spread his feet a little and gave himself maneuvering room. "No. I'm just waiting for somebody."

    "That so," one of the burly guys said. "You're from the East, huh?"

    "Damn right I am."

    The two guys were starting to move around. One of them sort of turned left, and the other sort of turned right. Like the revolving wooden ducks he'd seen in shooting galleries. They kept shifting, and Gabe had to keep moving around too because otherwise one of them would have got behind him.

    "Just get to town, did you?"

    "Yeah."

    You learned in Hell's Kitchen not to let a stranger get around behind you. You learned that right away, by the age of five, because if you didn't there wasn't too much chance you'd see the age of six. But also there was the matter of being polite. You should face the person you're talking to.

    "Well what do you think of our fair city, friend?"

    "It's all right," he said without much enthusiasm as they figure-eighted around the sidewalk.

    "All kinds of interesting things to see in Frisco," one of the burly guys said.

    "All kinds," the other burly guy murmured. His teeth flashed in what he evidently thought was a friendly grin. Gabe had seen some of Twill's toughs grin like that.

    Maybe that was it. Twill's associate? Nobody had said anything about two associates. But that didn't mean anything. An associate could have an associate, couldn't he?

    "Look, are you guys looking for somebody in particular?"

    They both stopped figure-eighting around him long enough to look at each other and then look back at Gabe. "Huh?"

    "Sorry. My mistake maybe."

    The two guys were a little confused but they regained their footwork quick enough. One of them said, "Listen, there's lots of fascinatin' things to see in Frisco. What say you come on along with us; we'll show you the sights. How about it?"