Black Dove (14 page)

“Which makes me go, ‘Huh?’ ” I said.

“She’s deducifyin’ that the killer used the doll to clobber the doc,” Old Red explained.

“Which would account for Chan’s shirttails,” Diana added. “When you inspected the body, you said they’d come untucked.” She stretched her arms up over her head. “Because Chan was
dragged
to his bed.”

“And the spectacles?” Gustav said, looking the lady square in the eye.

Her lips curled just enough to suggest a smile without actually putting one on. “Knocked from Chan’s face when he was hit in the back of the head. If they broke, the killer would have to hide them, too. So no one would suspect violence had been done to the doctor.”

“Now just hold on a second, you two,” I cut in. “You’re sayin’ Doc Chan was murdered
with a china doll
?”

Diana shook her head. “No. He was knocked unconscious with the doll. He was killed by the gas.”

“Well, congratulations, Miss Corvus,” Old Red said, a hint of actual admiration shining through his sarcasm. “You now know just about everything I do. Which ain’t much when you stack it up against . . .”

His voice trailed off. His eyes went glassy.

“Gustav?
Gustav
?” Diana turned to me. “Is he alright?”

“Oh, yeah. This happens all the time. We just have to remember to water him every so often and eventually he’ll—”

Old Red flapped a hand at us angrily. “
Shhhhhh
.”

So Diana and I just stood there, letting him cogitate, I assumed.

But it wasn’t a sudden thought that had struck my brother dumb. It was a sound. After a couple seconds of what I thought was absolute silence, I finally heard it, too.

Footsteps. Downstairs.

We weren’t alone any longer.

Or, We Find Our Backs Against the Wall—and Each Other

Gustav. Diana, and I
stampeded tippy-toe style into the kitchenette. From there, there was only one other place to go—which is how the three of us came to be jammed into a John that had already been a tight squeeze when I had but a scorpion in a trash can to share it with.

I wouldn’t have minded the close quarters so much if the seating arrangements had worked out more in my favor. I was standing, my back pressed against the door, while Old Red ended up on the commode—with Diana on his lap. It was black as night in there with the door closed, yet I still fancied I could see a faint, blush-pink glow coming from the general direction of my brother s face.

“Do you think Mahoney and Woon came back?” Diana said.

I leaned toward the sound of her quiet voice till I was so close I could feel her breath on my cheek.

“If they did,” I whispered, “I just pray it ain’t cuz one of ’em has to take a leak.”

Gustav shushed me.

“I’m just sayin’, all they’d need to see is . . .
shit
.”

“What?” Diana said.

“I left Old Green out on the counter.”

My brother shushed me again—with a punch. I assume he was aiming
for my arm, but what with the lack of light and me bent over as I was, he caught me right atop the shoulder instead, his knucldes rapping against big, hard bone.

“Ow,” we said in chorus.

Diana shushed
us
this time.

“Betrayed by a goddamn cabbage,” Old Red grumbled.

And then we were all shushed once again—and it took hold now, for the shushing was being done by the creak of a floorboard.

It was followed by another, then another, and another, and so on, growing closer each time. I tried to listen the way Holmes and my brother look, using not just my senses but my common sense (whatever I may have of it).

There was no rumble of footsteps atop each other, just a slow, steady step . . . step . . . step. So it was one man, alone. He w7as treading light, too, not clomping around like he owned the place. Which meant it wasn’t Mahoney or Woon or some other copper. The man sounded altogether too small and sneaky for that. Whoever he was, he didn’t belong there any more than we did, I figured.

And I soon knew I’d figured right, for our fellow prowler finally spoke.

“Hok gup,” croaked a gruff, phlegmy voice.

A gruff, phlegmy,
familiar
voice.

It was the bearded, gravel-throated geezer we’d seen Dr. Chan squabbling with the day before. He had more to say, too, but it was Greek (or, to be more accurate, Chinese) to me. The only words I recognized were “hok gup.”

“Black bird
something something
black bird
something”
that’s all I could make of it.

The voice grew louder, the footsteps closer, until the floorboards right outside the W C were squealing. There was no lock on the door, so I did the only thing I could to keep the old man out—snake my hands behind my back and clamp down on the knob with all my might.

I didn’t have hold of the thing two seconds before I felt it give a jiggle.

“Hok
gup yak yak”
the old goat said. “
Yak yak yak yak
?”

He tried the door again.

It’s probably not much to be proud of, but it’s something: Set a young cowpoke against an arthritic old Chinaman in a grip-off, and the drover’ll win every time. The knob didn’t budge.

“
Yak yak yak
hok gup
yak?
”

Naturally, we didn’t answer. And after a long silence, the old man apparently concluded there was no one there
to
answer. He moved away as slow and silent as a snail.

“Miss,” Old Red whispered hoarsely, “you need to stand up now.”

“Why?” Diana asked.

“Umm . . . uhhh . . . my legs is fallin’ asleep.”

“Well, there’s not enough room for me to stand. Can’t you wait another . . .
oh
!”

With a sudden rustling of skirts, Diana was on her feet—and on
me
, too, for there wasn’t room for her to stand without pressing her body against mine.

“Sorry, miss,” my brother mumbled miserably.

At first, I was almost grateful to Gustav for letting his limbs go all a-tingle on him. But as I stood there with the lady squeezing me tight as long Johns two sizes too small, I realized that Old Red’s legs hadn’t fallen asleep at all. A different part of my brother had finally started waking up. And this I knew because I was experiencing the same awakening myself no matter how hard I struggled against it.

Most folks imagine hell to be a vast, cavernous place home to a million screaming souls. But I tell you this: It can be as small as a water closet barely big enough for three.

I began to pray for the old man to pick up his pace and clear out—which he did just as I’d resorted to biting my tongue, pinching my ear-lobes, and thinking of my dear departed
Mutter
.

“He’s on the stairs,” Gustav said.

The sound of footsteps grew ever fainter outside.

“He’s leavin5. He’s leavin’. He’s . . .
gone
.”

“Thank you, Jesus,” I sighed, and I opened the door and made my escape.

Diana stepped out after me.

“Well,” she said, “that was—”

“No time for gibber-jabber,” Old Red said, slipping past her. “We gotta follow that feller. This might be our only chance to find out who the hell he is.”

Of course, it was also our chance to put that WC (and what had happened inside it) behind us. And we took it.

The three of us crept to the top of the stairs, waiting there only a moment before we heard a grunt from down below—the old man hoisting his stiff bones over the windowsill. Gustav gave him a few seconds to get a little further up the alleyway, then led the charge downstairs and out the window.

Our quarry turned out to be surprisingly spry: The old man moved at a teeter-tottering gallop, and by the time we were all outside on his trail, he was already a good fifty feet ahead of us.

“So, Brother,” I said as we followed him around the corner onto Stockton Street, “whadaya Holmes off the old buzzard?”

“Not much,” Old Red answered without looking at me. Like just about every other street in Chinatown, Stockton is lined with shops and restaurants. Take our eyes off the old man for three seconds, and he could slip through any one of a dozen doors.

“He’s poor but tries not to show it—them’s nice, silky duds he’s wearin’, but it’s the same outfit he had on yesterday. Stitchin’s frayed and the buttons is mismatched, I noticed at the time. He ain’t no laborin’ man, though. Hands is in too good a shape for that. Gnarled up a bit, but from age, not work. Folks seem to know him, too. Don’t respect him, though. Lookee how the fellers up ahead clear outta his way . . . snickerin’ all the while? He ain’t no big fish, but he ain’t exactly small fry, neither.”

Diana gazed at Gustav looking equal parts tickled and awestruck. “That’s ‘not much’?”

My brother just grunted and shrugged.

“Well, who is that man, anyway?” Diana asked. “You say you saw him yesterday?”

“Last time we saw Doc Chan alive, he was walkin’ off with that feller,” I said, and I told her what there was to tell as we followed the old fart’s zigzagging trek across Chinatown.

He was cutting his way to the northeast, turning off onto a new street at almost every corner. Any other Chinaman we might’ve lost in the swirling sidewalk herds along Washington and Dupont, but the old fogey’s snow-white hair, stump-shouldered stoop, and swift, swaying gait we could pick out from half a block back.

And half a block back we stayed, for if we could recognize the coot,
he
could surely recognize
us
. We didn’t exactly blend into the crowd. In fact, we were about as inconspicuous as a Fourth of July parade. Fortunately, the old-timer never looked back . . . or at least if he did, we didn’t notice.

As the old man’s waddling march took us closer to Chinatown’s northeast corner—and the Barbary Coast just beyond it—the streets grew ever seedier. And the same could be said of the folks
on
those streets.

Icy-eyed men loitered before slablike iron doors and steps down into black basement pits, every one seeming to watch us with a mixture of cold curiosity and downright frigid contempt. Before, Ld thought Dr. Chan’s shop was on a seamy street, but what I was seeing now had more seam to it than a rag quilt.

Then the old man turned down a narrow, filth-strewn street but one block long, and things got
really
bad.

Up until then, I hadn’t seen more than a dozen women in all of Chinatown. But once we hit that little lane, I nearly doubled my tally before my first blink. There were women leaning in dilapidated doorways, peering out through cracked windows, watching us stone-faced from rickety-looking second-story balconies that appeared to be little more than old crates propped up with two-by-fours.

And these gals weren’t just taking the air. They were advertising.

Drawing some trade, too. There was a steady stream of both Chinamen and wobbly-walking whites moving in and out of what I’ll call the
establishments
lining the block. (A phrase like “bawdy house” seems altogether too jolly for such tawdry little vice-dens as these.) Adding to the general air of gloom and doom was a Salvation Army band bleating out a dirge-ish version of “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” while the ranking officer harassed each and every passerby with the question, “Have you seen Jesus?”

I gave the obvious answer as we hustled past: “Not around here, I ain’t.”

The street emptied out onto a bigger, busier thoroughfare running at a slant—Columbus, most likely. Which put us a stone’s throw from the corner of the Coast called “The Devil’s Acre.” You’d have plenty of reason to throw stones there, too, for you could hardly take two steps without someone trying to rob you, kidnap you, or just kill you for a giggle. It was the kind of place even the police wouldn’t go without a rifle squad and a priest at the ready.

“He ain’t leavin’ Chinatown, is he?” I said.

Old Red shook his head. “Can’t be. A Chinaman wouldn’t last five minutes up thataway.”

Diana nodded at one of the last buildings on the north side of the block. “Perhaps he’s going there.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” Gustav said.

Compared to its brethren thereabouts, the building—a cozy-looking two-story house—was remarkably free of grime, with large (though shade-drawn) windows; bright, neatly painted trim; and a fresh-swept stoop sporting a pair of oversized flowerpots.

It also sported a pair of big lugs out front—slouching Chinamen with black hats, loose tunics, and the indolent air of men conserving their strength for the seemingly inevitable moment when they’d be ordered to break every bone in your body. It was obvious who they were because they
wanted it
obvious.

The newspapers would’ve labeled them “highbinders” or “hatchet men.” In less colorful language, they were hired guns for the tongs. Or, to be even plainer still, killers.

The old man breezed right between them without so much as a nod in their direction, scuttling up the steps they were guarding and disappearing through the door beyond.