Chapter 10

The boys were treated as the girls had been and shipped off to Betty's orphanage the next morning. The orphanage was getting so crowded that it was going to need enlarging again. Jason and Betty were already scheming how to make the Rabbits gang pay for it, since they were the root cause of the problem.

Jason figured that a midday raid on one of the Rabbits' gambling establishments would pay for most of what was needed. A second raid could be arranged if it turned out to be necessary. The raid would be scheduled for the daytime, since the gambling hall would be closed to normal business at that time, and customers would not be cluttering up the scenery.

The easiest way to "walk off" with the entire cash holdings of the gambling hall was to steal their safe. The problem was that the safe weighed several hundred pounds, and even The Ghost was not strong enough to pick that up by himself. He was going to need a wagon to carry off the safe, and he was going to need time to do the job. The Rabbits gang had three gambling halls that were candidates for picking, so the first job was to select a target. The best time to do that was probably when The Barbary Coast was roaring with business, that is, after midnight.

Jason selected his first target as the one nearest Betty's bordello, as it would be the easiest to return from. It was only two blocks away, so Jason dressed as a successful businessman and entered the establishment as a normal customer would. He dropped a few dollars at a faro table to establish his cover, then he walked out as if he was looking for the jakes. He staggered as if he'd had too much to drink, just in case he was stopped by an employee. Jason wanted to claim that he was befuddled and lost.

Jason looked in every room on the ground floor and found no sign of an office or the safe. Uh-oh, the safe had to be on an upper floor, and that would force a change in plans. There was no way that Jason could steal a large safe from an upper floor without attracting a lot of attention. He couldn't help laughing as he imagined himself trying to push the safe through a window and have it land in the back of a wagon. Even if that much was successful, undoubtedly, the safe would break through the wagon bed and wind up on the ground. This would frighten the horses, and they would try to run away, dragging a smashed wagon behind them. No ... he needed to find a different way to rob the safe!

This looked like the robbery would have to take place during business hours when the safe would be open. The Ghost would simply have to break into the room and overpower the guards and clerks before cleaning out the safe and leaving. Oh, well, the first idea was fun while it lasted.

Jason was able to identify the room containing the safe and get back downstairs before he was noticed. This was another example of the arrogance and sloppy security exhibited by the Sydney Ducks—they were so sure that the "rubes" were too afraid of them to be a real problem.

Jason noted that the gambling hall closed for the day (night?) at 5:00 AM, so he planned to show up at about 6:00 AM to relieve them of their daily take before it could be picked up and taken to headquarters. Jason returned to Betty's place for a short nap and a little food before returning to the gambling hall as The Ghost.

A couple of hours later, The Ghost showed up back at the gambling hall, but he was dressed in the nondescript clothes of a common working man. He would have been conspicuous in his normal working clothes, and that was the last thing someone with the sobriquet of The Ghost would want. Dressed like this, he couldn't be more invisible—he just melted into the crowd. His belt of tools was hidden under his shirt, but over his mail, all but the grapnel; that he had left home because of the odd bulge it would have made under his shirt. His staff was disguised to look like a cudgel, which it was common for a man to carry if he couldn't afford a gun and was not an expert with a knife.

He slouched around in the alley behind the gambling hall and waited for someone to open the rear door. He knew that it would be done eventually, The Ghost just needed to exercise a little patience. While he waited, he pretended to be sleeping off a drunken night.

A little after daylight, the rear door was opened and a load of trash was thrown out. The worker went back for another load without first closing the door. The Ghost took advantage of this oversight by slipping through the door before that person returned. He was hiding in a small room on the floor with the safe long before anyone returned to a place where The Ghost might have been seen.

It was unbelievable the transformation in appearance that The Ghost underwent as he turned his clothes inside out and put on his hood. No one would have connected him with the drunken laborer who had been sleeping in the alley only a few minutes ago. The only difference in his outfit from his normal working clothes, and very few people would have noticed it, was that The Ghost was wearing boots, rather than the soft shoes he normally wore. Whether or not it would make any difference remained to be seen.

The Ghost was hiding in the room exactly opposite the office that held the safe, so he was able to keep an eye on the movement of people in and out of the office. He was also able to catch glimpses into the room each time the door was opened. It appeared that, by this late in their working day, the clerks had received all of the money that they would be getting and were in the process of counting it.

From what The Ghost could see in these brief glimpses, there were three, possibly four, clerks in the room sitting at desks and counting. There was only one guard inside the room and none outside. The door to the room was kept closed except when someone was going in or out, but it did not appear to be locked at any time. It looked like the time had finally come for The Ghost to act.

The Ghost drew his staff and released both blades. He opened his door just enough to see out into the hallway. No one was there, so he opened the door enough to step out and cross the hall. He opened the door to the counting office and stepped inside in one fluid motion, closing the door behind him. He stepped to a place where he could see the entire room and examined it.

Shit! It was a good thing that he had changed plans. That damned safe was large enough for him to stand inside it; no way would he have been able to move it all by himself, even just to tip out of the window. The safe door was open and it was packed with money, both private assay gold bars and coins.

Purely for its ability to intimidate, The Ghost drew his Colt in his left hand while holding his staff with the extended blades in his right hand. The four clerks and one guard were all shocked by his appearance in their midst and pretty much frozen in their tracks. The Ghost said, "Good morning, Gentlemen. In case you have not figured it out, I am the one known as The Ghost, and this is a hold up. I don't want to kill any of you, but rest assured that I will if the need arises. Please put your hands flat on the desk in front of you so that you don't startle me into harming you."

This talk gave the guard the moment he needed to recover, and he raised his cudgel to strike The Ghost. His movement was so fast that the four clerks were not even sure that they saw his motion, but The Ghost drove a blade of the staff into the guard's chest and killed him on the spot. However, one of the clerks did see enough of the action to turn pale and vomit all over his desk.

"Gentlemen, I think that does prove that I am deadly serious! I am going to holster my pistol, but you should all realize that I can still kill all four of you with my blades if I want to. Now, let us get down to business. I want you to fill two leather bags each with 40 pounds of gold bars and coins. I can see that you have so much here that you will hardly notice that much is missing. In fact, I will not object if you wish to fill your own pockets with gold and blame it on me. NOW, GET TO IT!"