Black Dove (23 page)

“But it’s not
just
about knowing ‘the real truth’ about Chan, is it?” Diana asked. “Not anymore.”

Old Red moved his head sideways, gazing out over his left shoulder, as if he meant to look back but stopped himself just in time.

“That’s right,” he said, looking ahead again. “The last thing the Doc did on earth was take that gal outta that whorehouse.” He clenched his
fists—and picked up his pace. “If she goes back in, it’ll be over
my
dead body, too.”

“Madam Fong and her boys would probably prefer it that way, don’t you think?” I said.

If Gustav grunted or growled or gave any kind of response at all, I didn’t catch it. He was weaving his way through the usual sidewalk swarm at an almost frantic pace, and the closer he rode Charlie, the faster the Chinaman went. It was hard to keep up—and impossible to keep up a conversation. Which seemed to be the point, at least in part.

Old Red was trying to win a race to the Black Dove, true, but it almost seemed like he was running
from
something, too.

Whatever it was, I got the feeling it was gaining on him.

Or, We Learn How Charlie Lost His Ticket Out of Chinatown

Over the next now,
we descended into five more opium holes. Each was a slight step up from the last, until the final one seemed almost like something fit for human beings rather than just roaches or voles or the spirits of the damned.

Two things remained consistent, though (beyond the smell of charred peanuts and the cadaver-eyed stares of the opium denizens): Nowhere did we find Fat Choy or any word of his whereabouts, and everywhere we were a step behind the Kwong Ducks. Only half a step at one place, for we spotted Big Queue and his chum leaving just as we got set to go inside. We saved our skins by ducking into a butcher’s shop where what looked like a bobcat was in the process of losing his.

Yet in the end, our tour of Chinatown’s “hop joints” produced nothing beyond throbbing headaches for the lot of us.

“Well, thank you for the sightseein’ tour, Charlie, but that ain’t what you’re gettin’ paid for,” Gustav grumbled as we stumbled from the last of the opium dens. “You’d best have a stronger card up your sleeve.”

“Don’t worry—there’s lots more up here,” Charlie said, giving one of his sleeves a tug. “But first we need to see what the word on the street is.”

“The word on the street,” as it turned out, wasn’t just an expression. Charlie whisked us up and down more alleys and side streets until we were
facing a brick wall near the corner of Dupont and Clay. The wall was plastered from the ground to a height of nine or ten feet with broadsheets chock full of Chinese writing. Here were words aplenty—for those who knew how to read them.

We’d passed other such bulletin boards in our various scamperings around Chinatown, but this was by far the busiest. A steady stream of men shuffled past, pausing here and there before what I assumed to be the freshest and most gossip-worthy postings.

Charlie stopped us a discrete distance away.

“Wait here,” he said, and he hustled across the street and elbowed his way into the crowd.

Several of his fellow Chinamen slinked off silently,
eyes
down, upon noticing him in their midst. But one old graybeard had the opposite reaction: He stepped up to Charlie, waved a finger in his face and tore into a rant—which our guide studiously ignored as he perused the newer posters.

“Nothing,” Charlie said when he rejoined us a moment later.

“What woulda been
something
?” Old Red asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “What’s on all them broadsides over there, anyway?”

“A few are newspapers, but they’re mostly announcements.”

“Like, ‘For sale—one slave girl, slightly used’?”

Gustav glared at me.

“That’s just a for instance,” I said.

“And not a funny one,” my brother growled.

“Actually, I’ve seen some that come pretty close to that.” Charlie pointed at a large red handbill, then another, then another. “But that’s what I was really looking for.
Chun hung
. Proclamations from the tongs.”

“Proclaiming what, exactly?” Diana asked.

“Pretty much the same thing every time. Something like, ‘The House of Far-Reaching Virtue’—that’s the Kwong Ducks—‘offers $300 for the killing of So-and-So for . . .’ And then they’ll put in some kind of justification. As if it matters.”

“So around here the
outlaws
post the bounties?” I said. “Sweet Jesus. And I thought Texas was wild.”

“You didn’t see no bounty out for Fat Choy, did you?” Old Red asked Charlie.

“Or
us
?” I added.

Charlie shook his head. “No. Not yet.”

“You know,” I said, “you coulda just stopped at ‘no’ and left me feelin’ a hell of a lot better.”

Charlie offered me a halfhearted shrug. “Sorry.”

“The authorities allow the tongs to openly post death warrants?” Diana asked.

“Which authorities are you talking about?” Charlie replied, drizzling so much acid over the word “authorities” I could practically hear it sizzling.

“How about the police?” Diana said. “The Chinatown Squad.”

Charlie scoffed. “The police don’t have much ‘authority’ around here. And even if they did, Mahoney wouldn’t do anything about the
chun hung
. He’d love it if we
all hacked
each other to death.”

“Well, what about the Six Companies, then?” Diana persisted. “Chun Ti Chu’s supposed to be a powerful man. Why doesn’t he put his foot down?”

“Chun Ti Chu
is
powerful . . . but no more so than Little Pete.” Charlie curled the fingers of each hand into hooks, then locked them together tight. “The Six Companies and the tongs, they’re like yin and yang.”

“Who and what?” I said.

“Opposing forces in perfect balance—always at odds yet equal and inseparable.” Charlie’s mouth slid sideways into a smirk. “Kind of like you and your brother.”

Now it was my turn to scoff. “Opposite, I’d buy. But equal? Not the way I get treated.”

“
Anyway
,” Gustav said, “that geezer that was givin’ you an earful . . . what had him so riled up?”

Charlie sighed. “Me.”

“What about you?” Diana asked.

“Everything about me. But mainly this.” Charlie swept off his cap and ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. “I’m
juk sing
and
ki di
to boot—I was born here, not in China, and I don’t wear a queue.”

“Folks ’round here care that much about your haircut?” I said.

“Yeah, they do, actually. The queue’s not just ‘a haircut.’ Back in China, you have to wear one. It’s the law. Not having one . . . it’s like spitting in the emperor’s face.”

“Is that what you’re doing?” Diana asked.

“Not really. He’s not
my
emperor. I wouldn’t go out of my way to spit in his face or kiss his fat . . .” Charlie eyed Diana uncomfortably.
. . 
. ring.

“Cuz you think of yourself as an American,” I said.

“Because I
am
an American, no matter what some people say.” Charlie nodded at the men across the street. Only one was looking our way: the crotchety old-timer. Everyone else seemed to be taking special care to keep their backs to us.

“You know what they call themselves? ‘Sojourners.’ Meaning they’re just visitors here. Temporary. They come over, scrounge up as much money as they can, then go back to Kwangtung or wherever, take a pretty wife, and lord it over everybody in the village—the bigshot Gold Mountain man.”

Charlie snorted.

“Not for me.
This
is my home. And not just Chinatown—San Francisco. From the time I was six years old, I was a houseboy in Pacific Heights. A ‘faithful.’ Fourteen years with the same household. I was practically a member of the family. They were even going to send me to college.”

“That explains it,” I said. “I been thinkin’ you talk the lingo pretty danged good for a Chinaman.”

“And I’ve been thinking you speak English pretty poorly for a white man.”

“Excuse me?”

Charlie smiled, indicating that this was just a little joke he liked to spring on the tourists every now and again. No hard feelings, ha ha.

Yet there
was
a hardness to it. An edge—and a sharp one.

“What happened to your patrons?” Diana asked.

“The Panic. They had all their money tied up in silver.” Charlie shook his head but couldn’t quite shake the look of bitterness from his face. “They may as well have invested in mud.”

“So that’s how you come to be ‘Chinatown Charlie,’ Frisco’s foremost opium den tour guide,” I said.

Charlie nodded, suddenly too glum for more sparring with me.

“Whatever chance I had to get out of here, move up . . . it’s gone. The way the Anti-Coolie League’s been whipping people into a lather about ‘the heathen Chinee’ lately, there’s no way I can get on with another family. The society crowd’s only hiring Irish or Mexicans these days. So since the one real skill I’ve got’s pleasing
fan kwei
. . .” He threw out his long arms and slapped a broad, minstrely grin across his face. “Here I am!”

“But there’s more to it than that, ain’t there?” Gustav said. “You said earlier you got Little Pete peeved at you. How’d you manage that?”

Charlie seemed to shrink in on himself, his grin shriveling, arms wrapping around his sides.

“He asked me to do something for him, and I said no.” He managed a slight, tight-shouldered shrug. “A person like me’s not supposed to say no to a person like him.”

“What exactly did you said no
to
?” Diana asked.

“If I was the kind of person who’d talk about that, I wouldn’t have been allowed to live as long as I have.”

“Suffice it to say, Little Pete wasn’t askin’ if you could pick up his laundry or loan him five bucks till payday,” I said.

Charlie nodded. “Yeah. That suffices.”

“Well, how about Doc Chan, then?” Old Red said. “Seems like Little Pete was mad at him, too. Word ever get around as to the why of
that
?”

Charlie stared at my brother as if he’d just accused Little Bo Peep of killing Chan.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. And anyway, Little Pete leads the Som Yop tong. Fat Choy’s a Kwong Duck, and he’s the one who killed Chan . . . right?”

“I grant you it looks thataway.” Old Red slid a hand into one of his coat pockets. “But just take a gander at this.”

Out came the scorpion we’d found in Chan’s flat. Or most of it, anyway. Both the pincers had broken off, as had a couple legs. The brittle little critter was coming apart.

Charlie leaned in close to peer at it—and he wasn’t the only one. The
Chinamen thereabouts had been anxious to ignore us before, but a cowboy showing off a scorpion on a street corner’s a mite hard to overlook, even when you’re trying.

But though we got curious stares aplenty from passersby, I saw nothing in those gaping faces that looked like recognition or fear. Just curiosity and disgust aimed at the scorpion and us in equal measure.

Charlie whispered what I assumed was Chinese for “Jeez Louise,” followed by “a scorpion” in English.

“That’s right,” Gustav said. “Whadaya make of it?”

Charlie grimaced as he stepped back again. “Ewww.”

There was a long pause, during which one could actually watch the hope slide off Old Red’s face like trickles of rain down a window pane.

“That’s it?” he finally said. “ ‘Ewww’?”

Charlie shrugged. “Ewww . . .
yuck
?”

“I think my brother was hopin’ you’d recognize that thing,” I explained.

“Oh.” Charlie bent forward to give the scorpion another once-over. “Well, I’ll be. I
do
recognize it!”

“Yeah?” Old Red said.

“Sure.” Charlie straightened up. “Her name’s Fanny. She’s a dancer over at the Bella Union. Didn’t recognize her without her tights on.”

My brother stuffed the scorpion back in his pocket. “
Two
wiseasses I gotta put up with now . . . .”

“So that means absolutely nothing to you?” Diana said to Charlie. “Even as a symbol?”

“Sorry. No. Where’d you get it, anyway?”

“Oh, that don’t . . . hel-lo.” Gustav pointed across the street, his expression brightening a bit, going all the way from suicidal to merely woebegone. “Looks like another of them ‘fun chunks’ is goin’ up.”

“
Chun hung
,” Charlie corrected. He swiveled around to peer at the Chinese workman who was pasting up a fresh poster on the news-wall. “And they’re always on
red
paper.”

The new handbill was white. But it caused quite the stir all the same, with nattering, gesticulating men pushing in all around. Some even dared glances our way.

“I’d better check it out,” Charlie said, and he hustled across the street again. The crowrd around the poster parted for him, giving him a little leeway on both sides, as if the Chinamen thought being a
juk sing
or
ki di
might be contagious.

Charlie spent all of ten seconds reading the flyer then whirled around and hurried back to rejoin us.