Quincannon

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The cable car clattered downhill on Sutter Street, toward where the lamps lining Market shone a blurred yellow through the rain-damp night. One of the lighted buildings below was the Reception Saloon; but Quincannon, riding outside in spite of the weather, paid no attention to its beckoning glow. Once he would have marked the nearness of the Reception with keen anticipation, but for almost a year now he had done his public drinking in Hoolihan’s Irish Pub, south of Market, where the liquor was cheaper and the patrons more interested in their drinks than in their drinking companions.

When the car slowed for its Market Street terminus, Quincannon dropped off. It was a chill night, with a sharp wind that slashed in from the Bay, and he drew up the collar of his greatcoat. But he scarcely felt the cold. The whiskey he had taken in his rooms on Leavenworth still warmed him like a banked fire.

He walked swiftly through the light rain, down Market in the direction of the Ferry Building — a big man, dark-haired under his derby hat, with a heavy gray-shot beard and an unsmiling countenance that gave him, falsely, the look of a freebooter. It was a weeknight, just before nine o’clock, and traffic was sparse: a few pedestrians hurrying from one saloon to another, a pair of lighted trolleys passing nearby, a lone hack looking for a fare, two or three carriages with their side-curtains drawn. From somewhere on the Bay, a foghorn gave its lonesome cry. A poor night for ships, a worse one for men like himself, out on business and mostly sober.

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