Territory (24 page)

“You understand it, at least. Do the best you can. I have been summoned to meet with the—you might say ‘mayor’—of the Chinese in Tombstone, and I wish to introduce you.”

“And why is that?”

“Because if I am summoned for the purpose I suspect, I will need your aid.”

“Well, I certainly feel all prepared now. You could at least tell me as much as you know.”

“Oh, that would require lifetimes.”

“Don’t make me duck your wily heathen head in that water butt.”

“Could you?” Lung said.

“If we have time, I’ll try.”

“Alas, we do not. How lucky for you!” Then Lung relented. “I know very little. I have heard rumors of a crime, but as is the way of rumors, they cannot all be true. I hope we will learn more soon.”

Jesse digested that, and decided to suspend judgment.

“Your manners are good, at least. It would be appropriate to show respect as if to the governor—”

“I have limited respect for the governor.”

“Behave as if the territory were governed by someone you respect. And whatever I say you are, you must be, for the next hour.”

“A deaf-mute? A lunatic? A gypsy fiddler?”

Lung sighed. “This is serious.”

Jesse could see from Lung’s face that it was. “I’ll behave.”

“Thank you. Here we are.”

They’d arrived at the edge of Hoptown, and at a sprawling single-story adobe house with a deep porch all around. At the windows, a few stray knife edges of light showed between heavy curtains. A Chinese man sat beside the front door in a straight-backed wooden chair. He rose as they reached the porch.

“I am expected,” Lung said in Chinese.

“He is not,” said the guard, looking at Jesse.

“His presence is required, even so. Perhaps I should go home, and return at some better hour.”

To Jesse, Lung sounded perfectly polite, but the guard’s jaw muscles sprang into relief. “You may pass.”

Instead of opening the door or announcing them, the man sat down. Lung used the knocker. The door was opened by a Chinese maidservant in a plain dark blue silk coat, who bowed low to Lung.

Outside the house, they were in the Arizona Territory. Inside they were in China. This wasn’t like Lung’s house, a convenient hodgepodge of cultures. Here the furniture, the ornaments, even the scent of the air, were imported.

The maid pointed smiling at the hat in Jesse’s hand, then to the top of a filigreed walnut side table. He laid the hat down between two yellow-glazed porcelain vases each large enough to hide a small child. The mirror above the table was framed in walnut carved with phoenixes.

The maid led them past a lacquer screen to a red-painted double door. She nodded at Lung and Jesse and pushed the doors open.

Jesse stared into a narrow room lit with so many lamps that the heat of them greeted him in the doorway. A glossy carpet lay before him, blood-colored and brimming with dragons. At its other end was a tall heavily carved rosewood chair, the only furniture in the room. In the chair sat a Chinese woman.

Jesse knew enough of Chinese standards to know that she was beautiful. Her wide face was pale and smooth-skinned under her powder, and her black hair, drawn into an elaborate knot, shone like still water. Her white hands were folded in her lap and ornamented with gold nail guards. Her coat was gold silk embroidered with butterflies, with a wide border of blue, and the heavy blue silk skirt under it pooled on the floor.

Awe stunned his brain as he followed Lung down the carpet and bowed to her. Then he realized the nail guards hid the true length of her nails, and the skirt kept her feet out of sight. She appeared to be a noblewoman, congenitally idle and helpless. But appearances might be deceiving.

She raised her exquisitely arched brows. In Chinese, she said to Lung, “Doctor, a dog has followed you in.” Immediately she turned to Jesse, smiled, and said in English, “I not know you, honored sir. Pardon humble woman, please.”

If he replied in Chinese, he would shame her: she would know her first sentence had been understood. If he answered in English, he would be lying by omission, assuring her of privacy where she had none. Either way, he’d be rude. Of course, she’d been rude first. He shot a glance at Lung. Lung stared blankly at the wall over the Chinese woman’s head.

He bowed again, even lower; then straightened and said gravely, “Esteemed lady, how should you know me? I am a humble traveler lately arrived in this city. Necessity brings me to you uninvited, but not unwelcome, I hope.” He’d spoken in Chinese.

As he watched her face turn crimson, he thanked whatever part of his memory had allowed him to get all three sentences out without a hitch. He hoped he wouldn’t have to do it again.

Lung stepped forward quickly. “Madam, this is my colleague, Jesse Fox. His skill is the equal of mine, and his knowledge of the world outside ours is greater. His assistance will be of benefit to you in this matter.”

Lung’s speech had given her time to cool off. She looked calmly down her little nose at him. “You know, then, why I asked you to come?”

Lung inclined his head. The posture suggested that of course he knew, but that to say so would be showing off. Lung had always been good at that sort of thing.

Jesse thought he could feel the force of the woman’s will in the room, like pressure in a column of water. Her dark eyes were fierce in her still face. “Dr. Fox, I am known here as China Mary.” She said the name in English. “I prefer that to the barbarian custom of calling a woman by the name of her husband.”

“And your own name, madam?” he asked in English.

“I keep it for my private life, of which this is not part.”

Jesse suspected that putting him in his place had also improved her temper. “Dr. Chow knows why we’re here, but he hasn’t had time to tell me. If you’d do me the kindness …”

He was careful not to look at Lung. It would be undignified to gloat.

“This afternoon one of our people was traveling with a message from the town of Charleston. As he followed the river, he saw what he thought was a bundle of clothing at the foot of a tree. When he approached, he saw it was a girl. A Chinese girl,” China Mary added sharply. “She was dead—her throat had been cut.”

And Lung thought he ought to be involved in this?

“The barbarians will not look further into such a crime. But we must know if there is danger yet to come.”

“Where is the girl now?” Lung asked.

“At the—” Jesse didn’t recognize the word she used. “Her friends wish her to be prepared for the funeral soon.”

“We will go immediately.” Lung bowed, and Jesse did the same.

When they turned to go, Jesse saw the two Chinese men in dark clothes who stood one on each side of the doorway. They were so silent, he’d never realized they were there. Now they opened the doors, and Jesse followed Lung into the hall. The maidservant smiled and bowed, led them to the front door and handed Jesse his hat, and they passed back out into the night, and the West. Lung pulled the silk cap off and stuffed it back in his pocket.

“Lung, you’re the doctor,” Jesse said as he caught up with him. “Do I really have to be there when you examine the body?”

“It will do you no harm.”

“You’ll be sorry if I throw up.”

“No, I will be sorry if you faint.” Lung stopped in the fitful light of a torch and gripped Jesse’s shoulder. “Jesse, I need your help in this. Even untrained and unwilling, you have strengths I will not set aside.”

“You think this is …”

Lung stepped back and folded his arms.

“That … the thing we talked about.”

“You are trying to make me hit you.”

“You do, and see how much help you get.”

Lung sighed. “Yes, I think this is something … ‘scientific.’ I am nearly sure of it. Knowing that, will you assist me?”

“I’ve got no notion what to do or how to do it, but yes. But I meant it about the throwing up.”

“I will see that you have a basin.” By the torchlight Jesse saw Lung’s face relax.

As they started off again, Jesse asked, “Why’s China Mary so concerned, or are you usually the Hoptown coroner?”

“We are always wary. But there is talk against us in the town—because of your severed arm, I am sorry to say.”

“What?”

Lung shrugged. “The firecrackers.”

“Good God. Anyone can buy firecrackers.”

“These matters are rarely reasonable. A dead girl could be the first of many attacks. The community must be prepared.”

The building they approached had been a miner’s cabin, or possibly had been built to pass as one, with board-and-batten walls and a tin roof. At the front door, a black paper banner lifted gently in the night breeze; its gold lettering caught the light of the kerosene lamp beside the entrance.

Before they reached it, Lung turned right and led Jesse to a side door. He could hardly see it in the dark between the buildings. Lung knocked, and the door opened.

A small, well-dressed Chinese man let them into a hallway.

“The girl?” said Lung.

The little man replied very quickly and bowed a great deal. Jesse missed most of what he said, but his expression and even his bowing was solemn. The undertaker, Jesse realized.

The little man turned and called what might have been a name. A Chinese woman in a cheap western gown and wrap rose from a chair down the hall and hurried up to them. Her nose and her downcast eyes were red.

“Answer all of this wise doctor’s questions,” the undertaker ordered. The woman cast a frightened glance up at Lung. She was younger than Jesse had first thought.

“Do not be afraid,” Lung said. “You are very brave to be here, and I am grateful. You were a friend of the dead girl’s?”

“Cha Ye, yes. We were at the house of Mrs. Cray. Some of the houses will not have Chinese girls, but Mrs. Cray says that if a man likes it, it is her business to have it. If a Chinese man comes to Mrs. Cray’s with money, he is welcome.”

So the girls were prostitutes. And Mrs. Cray might be open-mindedness personified, but that hadn’t kept Cha Ye safe.

“When did you last see Cha Ye?”

“Yesterday, after dinner. A man came to the parlor, and though we were all beautiful and smiled at him, he liked her best.”

“A Chinese man?”

“Oh, no, a big-nose.” She must have seen Jesse’s eyebrows go up; she blushed and hid behind her hands. “A white.”

Lung shot Jesse a grin and went on. “Had you seen him before? Do you know his name?”

The girl shook her head. “Mrs. Cray called him ‘sir’ and ‘the gentleman.’ She calls them by their names when she knows them.”

“What was his appearance?”

The girl frowned. “Like a white.”

Lung took a deep breath and let it out. “Was he old or young? Tall or short? Fat or thin?”

“Not so old. Tall, maybe, for a big-nose. Dirt-colored hair, and a little dirt-colored moustache.” She curled her lip. “Not so good a moustache, so I think maybe he is not very manly. Ugly white eyes.”

“Light-colored eyes.”

She nodded.

“Did he show interest in any other girl?”

“Only in Cha Ye and me.”

If a Chinese prostitute disappeared, only the Chinese would ask after her. A white whore’s disappearance would be looked into.

“Did you see the man leave?”

“Yes. He was very loud after, downstairs, saying he had made Cha Ye happy, and she would need to rest. While he talked, he was laughing always. It made him sound stupid.”

Lung looked at Jesse and shrugged. “What then?”

“He paid double, so Mrs. Cray was happy. He drank two whiskeys.” She
frowned. “I made him drink, but Mrs. Cray said the money was for Cha Ye, because he was her customer. Cha Ye would have shared with me.” Her eyes filled with tears.

“When did you know that Cha Ye was not in the house?”

“Today, at midday. I went to wake her. She was not there.”

“But her window was open,” Jesse said, in Chinese.

The girl stared at him, her mouth open. “Yes, it was.”

“Were things in the room broken, or upset, or out of order?”

The girl shook her head.

“Did you smell anything strange?”

When the girl shook her head she gave him a look she probably reserved for people who talked to themselves on the street.

“Thank you,” Lung said. “You have helped your friend’s ghost to rest.”

“She will not haunt me?”

“You will not be troubled.”

The girl bowed low, awkward with her western skirts. Then she scurried past and out the door.

“We can find her again if we have more questions,” Lung said.

“Should I talk to the madam?”

“Do you think she knows more than the girl does?”

Jesse thought back over the story. “Less, probably.”

“Then you will have to stay and face the unpleasantness.” Lung opened the door and went in, and Jesse followed.

Smoke hung under the ceiling like a layer of cloud, and plumed upward from a thicket of joss sticks on a bench in the corner. Under the sweet burnt smell of the incense Jesse could still catch the slaughterhouse odor it covered. A fly blundered through the air before him, drugged by smoke.

The girl lay on a wooden table in the middle of the room. She wore a pink silk wrapper that closed up the front with ribbons. The silk was stained red-brown all down the front. Above it the girl’s face was gray-white, and the wound under her chin was blue-black and white-lipped.

Her eyes were open. Lung closed them. Then he pressed the skin of her throat, so the wound opened slightly.

Jesse didn’t need the basin, after all; he made it out the door in time. Afterward he stood leaning against the wall, breathing, thinking how good it was to be able to do that.

Lung looked up when he came back in the room, and asked a question with his eyebrows.

“All over,” Jesse assured him.

“Bullet wounds don’t trouble you.”

“Of course they do. Just not as much as
that.”
He jerked his head at the body on the table. “What do you know so far?”

“Either her murderer was right-handed, or left-handed and made the cut from behind.”

“How can you tell?” If he could deal with it on the level of details, it would be easier.