Black Dove (26 page)

“You mean good-bye,” Diana said.

They were both glancing back over their shoulders, so I did the same.

Woon was gone.

“Guess he got tired of waitin’ for us to escape,” I said.

“Didn’t wanna get asked any questions, that’s what.” Gustav cursed and kicked at a warped sidewalk plank. “Ain’t nothin’ to do now but go and collect Charlie.”

Our agreed-upon rendezvous point was less than two blocks away: Portsmouth Square, or simply “the Plaza” as most folks call it. A charming little park on the edge of Chinatown, it sports trees and flowers and strips of immaculately manicured grass—and, by night, street strumpets, footpads, and maculately manicured tramps.

“There,” Old Red said as we walked into the park.

He pointed at the Plaza’s southeast corner. A thin man in dark clothes was stretched out on a bench there, his hands resting on his stomach. My brother’s Boss of the Plains covered his face.

We started toward him.

“So,” Diana said, “what next?”

“We oughta consult with Charlie on that.” Gustav looked up, blinked at the sun a second, and frowned. “Whatever we do, we best get to it quick. It’s already mid-afternoon. Half a damn day we spent chasin’ our tails, and what do we got to show for it?”

“A beef-jerky scorpion and the face off a busted doll,” I offered helpfully.

Well, alright—not so helpfully.

“Oh, that face didn’t come off no doll,” Old Red said. “Didn’t you see? Back in the cathouse? When you . . . don’t stop walkin’.”

“What?” Diana said.

“
Don’t stop
,” Gustav hissed at her. “That ain’t Charlie.”

The bench—and the prone figure lying motionless upon it—was now no more than thirty paces away.

“Ain’t Charlie?” I said. “How many other Chinamen you see around here wearin’ Stetsons?”

“Look at his head, goddammit.”

I looked. I saw. I just about soiled myself.

The man’s head was pointed toward us, so even with my brother’s big hat over his face I could see the way his hair was pulled tight and tied off.

Into a queue.

Now that I’d noticed that, certain other things came to my attention, too. Certain other
people
. The black-clad ones scattered two-by-two along the benches lining the path ahead, for instance. The ones watching our approach the way a pack of wolves eyes a lost lamb.

“Uhhh, Brother,” I said, my voice low. “Why ain’t we runnin’?”

“Cuz I don’t recognize these fellers . . . and maybe they ain’t gonna recognize
us
if we don’t stop.”

“A good-lookin’ lady, a man-mountain, and a feller dressed like a drover who’s lost his lid—and they ain’t gonna know who we are?”

Old Red shrugged miserably. “I’m hopin’ we all look alike to them.”

Then we entered into the Valley of the Shadow of Death—hatchet men on benches to both sides of us.

“Smile, gentlemen, smile,” Diana whispered, linking her arms to ours. “We’re just three carefree friends out for an afternoon stroll.”

As we drew even with “Charlie,” I dared a little peep over at him. The queue was the only thing that would’ve given him away as a fraud, for not only was he as tall and slender as the real deal, I saw to my horror that he was actually wearing Chinatown Charlie’s clothes.

“Did you see—?” I said, a bogus smile pasted to my face.

“Yup,” Gustav grated through his own phony grin.

“That must mean—”

“Yup.”

“Why, those goddamn murderin’—”

“Stop,” someone said behind us.

“Now?” Diana asked.

“Not yet,” Old Red answered, not bothering with the smile anymore.

“
Stop
.”

“Now?” Diana asked again.

“Not yet,” Gustav said.

“
Stop
!”

Footsteps crunched on gravel—a lot of footsteps, from big feet.

“Now now now!” my brother hollered. Not that it mattered. We were all running already.

Still, it helped me feel better, him shouting like that. Like we had a plan . . . and a chance.

The feeling didn’t last long.

Or, Our Hopes of Escape Plummet—As Does One of Us

“Never look back,” some
folks will tell you. They’re speaking symbolical-like, of course, warning against fixating on things past, letting a preoccupation with what’s behind you keep you from seeing what’s ahead.

But if you’re running for your life—from a band of bloodthirsty highbinders, let’s say—I have very different advice.

Go ahead. Look back. Look good and hard. Because nothing sets the feet to flying faster than the sight of the Reaper on your heels.

Or, as was the case for us there in the Plaza, six scowling
boo how doy
.

“Whoaaaoaaaoaaa,” I said when I saw those highbinders dashing after us. Or maybe it was more of a “Wahhhhahhhh.” Or perhaps an “Eeeeeeeeeeah!” In any event, you won’t find it in any dictionary, unless you can find one written by terror-stricken monkeys.

A fence of wrought-iron bars runs around the Plaza, with only four gaps through which you can go in or out—one at each corner. The nearest one was less than forty feet away, and Old Red, Diana, and I should have been through it in five seconds flat, fast as we were fleeing. Unfortunately, somewhere around the four-second mark, three hatchet men swung in from Kearny Street to block our escape.

Assuming more highbinders were guarding the other corners, we had more than a dozen men after us.

This wasn’t a tong we were up against. It was the goddamn Army of the Potomac.

“Follow me!”

I swerved off the path, tearing through a very surprised-looking couple’s picnic spread in the process. My left foot came down in something soft and slippery—an apple pie by the feel of it—but I managed to stay upright and on the move.

I glanced back again to make sure Gustav and Diana had followed me. And they had—as had enough hatchet men to field a baseball team.

I led the whole herd up an incline toward the park’s southwest corner.

“Dammit, Brother . . . they’ll be on us ’fore we can shimmy over them bars,” Gustav puffed out as we scrambled up the slope to the fence along Clay street. “You just went and got us tra-
ahhhhhh
!”

The “
ahhhhhh
!” part was pretty much unavoidable. Most people’ll “
ahhhhhh
!” if someone grabs them by the collar and the seat of the pants and hurls them over a six-foot fence—which is exactly what I’d just done to my brother. I swung him up hay bale-style, and by the time he was halfway through his arc I was already turning to Diana.

“My apologies, miss,” I said as I laid hands on her in places that would’ve got me slapped just a few minutes before. “I know I should’ve sent you first, but I wasn’t entirely sure I could actually
do
this.”

“Look, Otto, I don’t th-
ahhhhhh
!”

I paused just long enough to make sure she didn’t land on her head (she didn’t—she landed on my brother) and then I leapt up, grabbed hold of the bars and hauled myself over.

Only “over” didn’t come as quick I’d hoped. As I swung my legs up above the bars, thinking I’d simply drop down to the sidewalk on the other side, I jerked to a sudden stop, and a crushing pressure enveloped my . . . now how do I put this delicately?

My delicates.

I cut loose with more monkey-words—“Ah-oof!” or “Ee-aff!” or something along those lines—then just dangled there, afraid to struggle too mightily lest I do permanent damage not just to myself but to my future
prospects of fatherhood. After a moment, a shredding/splitting sound ripped out from behind me, and I finally fell.

I hit the sidewalk, rolled over in pain . . . and saw my tattered trousers flying from the fence like a flag.

I thanked God I’d put on fresh underdrawers that morning. Then I asked Him why he was so pissed at me.

Hands appeared next to my snagged britches, and a hatchet man came sailing over them. He landed next to me as graceful as a cat, crouched, his legs apart.

Diana stepped up and did to him
with
one dainty foot what an iron bar had just done to me.

I still don’t know much Chinese, but I can tell you what a Chinaman says if you kick him in the delicates: “Eyii!” Then he clamps both hands to his freshly scrambled huevos and topples over sideways.

“Up up up!” Gustav barked, grabbing me by the arm. More
boo how doy
were clambering over the fence as he pulled me to my feet. By the time he and Diana had me hobbling away across Clay, it was raining highbinders back behind us.

Once we were on the other side of the street, we turned east—and saw another gaggle of black-clad Chinaman bearing down on us. We whipped around to the west and saw more of the same.

There was only one direction left to go—south, into one of the buildings facing the Plaza. Diana led the way, charging toward what looked like a ramshackle tenement.

We reached the doorway the same moment as a bent-backed old woman carrying a mesh bag filled with vegetables.

“Pardon, ma’am!” I said as we pushed our way past into the building.

Whether it was the hatchet men on our trail or the sight of a de-pants
fan kwei
that set her off, I’ll never know. What I do know, though: That old crone sure could scream.

Inside, it was as dark and dank as a cavern, or perhaps I should say as a sewer, since that’s what it smelled like. I have no idea what the residents called the place, but “The Cesspool Arms” or “Septic Manor” or simply “The Big Privy” would suit it to a T. Folks popped their heads out of their apartments to see what the fuss was about—then promptly slammed the
doors shut when they caught sight of us. Whoever we were, we were obviously trouble.

“This way!”

Diana ducked into the building’s narrow, shadowy stairwell.

“Shouldn’t we be lookin’ for the back door?” I asked even as Gustav and I hurried after her up the steps.

“This . . . could be . . . better,” the lady panted, the climb (and her heavy skirts) quickly slowing her.

“
Could
. . . be?” Old Red huffed.

“Save . . . your breath . . . for runnin’,” I told him.

We were up past the second landing when a low rumble arose all around us, and the stairwell started to shake. We weren’t the only ones pounding up those steps anymore—not by a long shot.

“Wherever . . . we’re goin’ . . . we’d best . . . get there,” I said between gasps.

When we hit the third floor, the stairwell narrowed even more, turning into a tubelike set of steps up one more flight.

“This is it! We made it!”

Diana went springing up the last stairs two at a time. There was a door at the top, and one-two-three we burst through into blinding white light.

We’d reached the roof.

I slammed the door shut and pressed my broad back up against it. There was no lock.

“
This
. . . is . . .
it
?” Old Red wheezed.

I understood his disappointment. Unless the next part of Diana’s plan was to sprout wings and fly off, I didn’t see how being on a rooftop worked in our favor. Quite the opposite, in fact: The highbinders could now keep their hatchets clean by simply
tossing
us to our deaths.

Diana began scurrying around the roof, eyes down.

“One of my Pinkerton friends once told me about a tong trick,” she said, disappearing behind the little shacklike structure that covered the top of the stairs. “The highbinders keep . . .
a-ha
!”

She returned cradling a thick-cut beam of wood about three feet long.

“For the door,” she said just as the sound of footsteps thumped up from the last stretch of stairwell behind me.

I grabbed the timber and jammed it in place, one end down on the roof, the other propped against the door. It made the perfect brace—and if there was any doubt, the door didn’t budge when someone tried the knob mere seconds later.

“That buys us a little time, but what—?” my brother began.

Diana held up one finger, then hurried back around the corner again. When she came back this time, she was dragging a longer but thinner cut of wood—a plank that, placed upright, would’ve been twice as tall as me.

“The
boo how doy
leave these on rooftops all over Chinatown,” Diana said. “Just in case.”

“Just in case
what?
” I asked. “They need to build themselves an emergency pigeon coop?”

“Oh, use your head for more than a damn hat rack, would you?” Old Red grumbled. Then he moved toward the lady with a mumbled, “Lemme help you with that.”

Seconds later, that plank was no longer a plank: It was a
bridge
stretching to the roof of one of the tenements next door. Once we’d crossed over, we could cross again to either the east or south, for all the buildings thereabouts were of a like height, and they were jammed up tight. No matter how many hatchet men might be after us, there was no way they could keep an eye on every rooftop and doorway we’d soon be able to reach just by walking the plank.

“Alrighty then!” I said. “Looks like we’re in business long as—”

A fist came through the door behind me.