CHAPTER 1

A SHIP DOCKS AT SAN PEDRO

"OKAY, ROOKIE, PUT THE TOYS away. Cap wants to see us in hisoffice." I looked up at Sam Gallagher, my longtime friend and newpartner. What I saw was a tall young man, twenty-three years old—brownand brown, as we cops say. His hair was a bit long, to my wayof thinking, but then, maybe it was jealousy. My red mop had tobe kept short in order to keep it tame. I glanced down at the "toys"laying on the scarred wooden surface of my desk: a pair of fourteen-year-old,nickel-finished Colt 45 six-shooters. I sighed and got to myfeet. I knew most of the others thought my guns to be old-fashionedsince most of them now carried the 1890 Remington revolvers, butmy father gave the Colts to me when I joined the force this year, andthey worked just fine. I wrapped them in the cloth I'd been usingto oil them, put them away in the drawer, and went, with Sammy,to see what the captain wanted. I'd strap them on when it was timeto head out. I glanced at the big calendar page hanging on the walloutside Cap's office. It was Monday, November 19, 1900. The month,the year, and the century were almost over.

The muster room was crowded. Cap had called in everyone hecould reach. There were seventy of us on the force; I counted fifty-sevenheads, perched everywhere: in the chairs, around the walls,even on the sills of the windows that looked out on the city of LosAngeles. I wondered if I had missed something important.

"Boys, we got us a mess." Cap was trying to look at all of usat once. "A ship, the Adelaide, docked at the port two nights ago,unloaded its cargo and crew, same as always. Except this time acouple of bodies came off the boat, too. They are at the doc's officeright now. He said he thinks it may have been typhoid fever."

The room went still—the kind of still that falls over a roomwhen they hear something really awful. Murder wasn't unheard of inour teeming city, but this is the first time since I became a cop thatI'd heard of typhoid fever. Of course, I'd only been a cop for ninemonths, so what did I know?

"Most of you know what we have to do." The old-timers nodded,but most of the younger ones just looked as blank as I felt. "Whydon't you get going, and I'll fill the rookies in." This should havebeen funny, but no one was laughing as they filed out of the room.

The captain turned his chair so he could look out the window andthen sat down, heavily. At six feet even and about 180 pounds withhis guns on, sitting down heavily was not something Cap usually did.Somehow he managed it this time. The six of us "rookies" waited asquietly as we knew how.

In truth I was the only raw rookie having just gotten my star.The others had been on the force for up to two years. I figured it wasour lack of knowledge of what we were dealing with that lumpedus together. I looked at Sammy, who'd been on the force over a yearalready. Even though we were separated in age by almost two years,he and I have been friends forever, and we could read each other—thoughhe's a lot better at it that I am. He seemed to understand whatCap was talking about, although he waited as quietly as the rest of usto see what we were going to do about it, whatever "it" was.

When I became one of the first to pass the new entrancerequirements just being implemented, it was expected that theywould make us partners, so, naturally, they weren't going to, untilSammy talked them into it. I don't know what he told the captain,but it worked. Now Sammy looked worried. It must have beensomething he'd heard about that he'd never discussed with me,which was unusual. He saw me looking, shrugged, and started to saysomething, but Cap turned from the window at that moment.

"Listen up, you guys." The captain hadn't found whatever he waslooking for outside. "What we have to do is locate everyone who wason that ship, legally or illegally, and get them checked out. And we'vegot to do it fast. We're talking about a crew of from fifty to sixty men.And I understand that there were a few passengers aboard, also."

Several of the guys groaned. I wasn't feeling too happy myself.Los Angeles had blossomed to 102,000 souls—with eight to ten fancyhotels that were almost always full. Those sailors had a three-daystart and had probably visited every brothel and bar between hereand the docks. They could be anywhere by now, spread over thetwenty miles that separated the pueblo of Los Angeles from the portat San Pedro. And what about those passengers all the ships comingto California these days seemed to carry—men with no money,coming out here to find gold or silver or a new life, with or withouttheir families? Now I understood why the old-timers had looked sohopeless as they left to organize the search. The hours that ticked offthe days and nights of November in this year of our Lord 1900 werenot as troublesome as in the past, but they were still pretty rowdy,and a man could disappear for days, if he wanted to. I returned myattention to what Cap was saying.

"I have copies of the ship's crew manifest. Some of the sailors arelocal boys, so they ought to be easy to find. Sammy, you and Mikeget some help and go looking for them. The rest of you will join thehunt for the other crewmembers. You'll start at the flophouses andwork out from there, and you'll have to backtrack all the way downto the docks at San Pedro. Let's just hope most of 'em were too tiredor too moral to go looking for company, just got drunk and turnedin their first few days on dry land." Cap didn't sound too hopeful, buthe tried a smile. It didn't work. "Those of you who get all the wayto San Pedro may have to bed down along the trail on the way back.If there's someplace to stash the sailors overnight, fine. Otherwiseyou may have to chain them together, keep them from running off.Okay, beat it. Report in when you get back. I'll round up the rest ofthe force and get them working on this as soon as I can."

Sammy stopped at my desk, adjusting his hat, and watched mereload my weapons. One of the things that I thought would helpmake me a good cop was the speed with which I could break down,clean, reassemble, and reload my guns. In Los Angeles, a town thatwas only a hard two-day ride to the coast and was growing up arounda river, it was a good skill to have. There had been floods everywinter from 1888 to 1891, so I had practiced, a lot. No one ever hadto worry about my being out of the action just because the Coltsgot wet. I glanced at Sam as I strapped on my gun belt. Among thethings that made us friends was that he never made fun of me, notseriously, anyway, especially about those Colts. I had no idea that I'dever come face-to-face with a problem my guns couldn't help mesolve. That just shows how green I really was.

John M. Glass, who had been chief of police since 1889, hadmoved the force from city hall to its current location at West SeventhStreet and Grand Avenue. The department came of age under ChiefGlass. He had originated the first entry-level standards for recruitapplicants, standards that Sammy and I had met easily, and hehad conceived of, given birth to, and nursed a new level of policeprofessionalism. People used to call the new location "the temporarypolice department"—I could never tell if they were saying the policewere temporary or our new quarters were. After eleven years veryfew called it that anymore. Now it was Central Station Headquarters.We had more space, for ourselves and for our horses, but I...