Lone Star 02 by Wesley Ellis Page A

knew that his height, his garb, and his Caucasian features allowed him to pass as a non-Oriental as long as he kept his eyes shaded. He did not want this man to report back to his superiors that Jessica Starbuck had been spotted snooping about. A man and a woman could pass as just another tourist couple, but a woman of Jessie’s beauty, accompanied by a half-Japanese, was another matter entirely! It was just his good luck that his encounter with Greta Kahr yesterday morning had ended as well as it did. Obviously she had just arrived—as had Jessie and Ki—and had not yet received a briefing on her enemies. Today she doubtless realized, as Ki now did, that she had made love with an arch-rival.
    â€œYou two go do your sightseeing somewhere else,” the guard warned gruffly. “This here’s private property.”
    The dog, a big, ugly brute, dull yellow in color, with a squashed-in face, drooled spittle from its loose black jowls as it shifted its attention back and forth between Jessie and Ki. All the while, a low, constant snarl vibrated from its throat, and the short fur along its spine stood stiff.
    â€œEasy, boy,” the guard muttered. As he bent to pat the dog, his corduroy jacket gaped open, revealing the worn wooden butt of a revolver shoved into his belt.
    â€œCome, dear,” Ki urged, before Jessie could say anything else. “We’d best be getting back to the hotel.”
    â€œYou just do that,” the guard guffawed, his eyes on Jessie’s bouncing bottom as Ki hurriedly pulled her along.
    Jessie waited until they were out of sight, as well as earshot, before digging in her heels. “I wish we could have gotten a glimpse of what it was those poor men were unloading,” she sighed. “That sort of information would have been very useful in building a case against Commissioner Smith.”
    â€œOh, we will find that out, all right,” Ki remarked. “I pulled you away like that because I did not want the guard to take special notice of us.”
    â€œWe do sort of stand out,” Jessie admitted. “You’re going back on your own, I take it?”
    â€œI would like to,” Ki said slowly. “But I am concerned about your safety.”
    â€œDon’t be,” Jessie reassured him. “I have my derringer with me, you know. What I’ll do is take a cable car back, and do some of that shopping I’m so looking forward to. I’ll meet you back at the hotel lobby. We’re to meet Moore there at two.”
    Ki nodded. Moore had suggested that his partner, a man named Shanks, take over the job of concentrating on getting evidence against the corrupt waterfront commissioner. Moore, after first offering to act as Jessie’s bodyguard, a gesture that Ki found immensely amusing, was going to build upon his tentative relationship with the Tong leader Chang to see if he could infiltrate the cartel.
    After seeing Jessie safely off the docks and onto a cable car, Ki returned to the cartel’s ship. The guard and his dog were nowhere to be seen, but there was still the billy-club-wielding foreman to get past.
    Ki slipped beneath the stiff, salt-encrusted ropes barricading the actual loading area from the esplanade, and sauntered up to the foreman, whose attention was focused on the coolies. As the foreman turned, Ki pressed his stiffened fingers against the man’s neck. The clipboard and club fell to the planking as the men slumped first to his knees, and then over on his side, out cold.
    Ki grabbed the man’s legs and pulled him flush alongside a stack of crates protected with a canvas tarp. He pulled the tarp lower to cover the unconscious body, and then stood back to survey his camouflage attempt. He doubted that the other guard would connect an extra bump in the lumpy canvas with the missing man. As for the coolies, they were all studiously avoiding Ki’s eyes and simply continuing on with their work, as if nothing