Black Dove (17 page)

Which brings us back to where you stepped in, dear reader—and where a gaggle of hatchet men stepped in, too.

The first two came in via the door Madam Fong had gone gliding out through. They were black clad, broad shouldered, and cold eyed, but I wasn’t ready to assume the worst just yet. When the worst finally comes—and it frequently does for me and my brother—there’s no need for assumptions. It makes itself damned plain.

“Well, hello there,” I said to the highbinders.

“,” they replied. Which is to say, they said nothing. They just closed the door and took up positions before it, blocking the exit off with such definitive finality it may as well have not been there at all.

One of the tong men was taller than the other—was, in fact, taller than any Chinaman I’d ever laid eyes on. He was older than the other, too, with the dark features and deeply lined face of an Indian chief. Though the highbinders didn’t say a word, it was somehow obvious that, of the two, the big man was the boss.

“Don’t mind my brother there,” I said to him, jerking a thumb down at Gustav. “He’s just lookin’ for loose change.”

“,” the Chief said.

“,” his friend added.

“Hok Gup on her way, then?”

“.”

“.”

“Or are one of
you
the Black Dove?”

“.”

“.”

“No offense, but if that’s the case, we’re gonna have to pass on our freebie—neither one of us rides sidesaddle, if you catch my meanin’.”

“.”

“.”

“That was a joke.”

“.”

“.”

“.”

“.”

“Alright, look. If y’all are tryin’ to put the fear on us . . . well, it’s workin’. Why don’t you say something? Introduce yourselves. I’m Paddy. This here’s Seamus.”

Shit
. . . I’m
Seamus
, I remembered a second too late. Not that it made any difference.

“,” the highbinders said.

“Brother,” Old Red growled.

I nodded. “I do believe you’re right.”

Gustav’s tone had said it all:
Time to go
.

I got up off the couch.

“You know, if this is that new trail you promised, I don’t think I care to follow it.”

“Me, neither,” Gustav said.

He was on his feet now, too, though he remained bent over in a crouch, scuttling sidewrays like an arthritic crab.

We were both headed for the other door.

The hatchet men headed for
us
.

Now
I was ready to assume the worst. And just in time, too: The door we were dashing toward opened before we could reach it, and our two pals from the front stoop stepped into the room.

Old Red and I started backing the other way, but there wasn’t much of anywhere to back
to
. We ended up behind a loveseat and the liquor cart—and up against a wall.

“Four on two, huh?” I said. “Alright. That makes one for my brother and three for me. Hell, that’s almost fair.”

The Chief reached behind his back, and at his signal his compadres did likewise. Somehow, I had the feeling they were
not
about to present their calling cards . . . though, in a way, I suppose that’s exactly what they did.

One of the highbinders from out front drew a knife. The other produced a slung shot—a metal ball hung from a two-foot-long whip. And the Chief and his chum both came up with short-handled hatchets, which they proceeded to raise up like tomahawks as they drew within a few feet of us.

“Well,” I whispered hoarsely, “that tilts things a tad, don’t it?”

“Toes,” Gustav said, and he snatched one of the decanters off the liquor cart and hurled it baseball-style at the Chief.

The big Chinaman ducked.

The others charged.

The one with the knife reached me first, jumping around the loveseat with his blade back, ready to stab. I caught him off guard by hopping up close instead of flinching back or freezing, and before he could make a jab at me, I took my brother’s advice—by stomping my heel down on the highbinder’s foot as hard as I could.

Like his pals, he was wearing slipper-shoes that looked as soft-topped as moccasins, and my heavy, hard-soled brogans came down atop his toes with a satisfying
crunch
. The man dropped his knife and raised up a howl I ended quick with a roundhouse punch to the nose.

Would-be assassin number one slumped to the floor.

I turned to take on two through four.

Of course, the rest of the gang hadn’t just been lounging around waiting their turn. There was a crackling sound, and a dark shape whipped past just inches from my face. White shards rained down from atop my head.

It took me a couple startled seconds to realize it wasn’t my skull that had just been splintered—it was my lid. The fellow with the slung shot had made a fling at me over the loveseat, but instead of smashing my head down into my boots, he’d merely snapped off the brim of my boater.

What
does
the good Lord have against my hats?

The highbinder’s swipe had left him off balance, the heavy black ball at the end of his melon-cracker hanging down behind the back of the seat. Before he could straighten up, I grabbed the leather strap of his slung shot with my left hand and jerked it—and him—forward. As he lurched toward me, I grabbed the back of his head with my right hand and shoved it downward while my left knee came swinging up.

Kneecap met face. Teeth left mouth. Would-be assassin number two sank out of sight.

It was time to deal with three and four—the hatchet men.

The only reason they hadn’t already split my head like a rail was Old
Red. He might not have had himself a gun, yet he’d found plenty of useable ammunition nevertheless, whipping gewgaws and baubles wildly across the room like a cyclone ripping through a pawn shop. Glasses, plates, lamps, vases, spittoons, doodads, thingamajigs, and whatchamacallits—all went flying at the highbinders. The Chief and the other hatchet man were doing a decent job bobbing and weaving, but whenever either of them actually took a step toward us, Gustav drove the man back with a hailstorm of knickknacks.

I joined in, sending a cast-iron match holder shaped like a priest diddling a nun arcing through the air at the Chief. It moved slow, though, and he dodged aside easily. I looked around for something lighter to pitch at him, but my brother had already snatched up everything within easy reach.

And then I remembered it: the perfect projectile.

I spun around and reached up toward the little altar Old Red had been so interested in a few minutes before. Its statue centerpiece—the fierce, bearded man—was porcelain. Light but solid.

The china Chinaman glowered at me hatefully as I snatched him down. He seemed to be a warrior of some kind—he was wearing armor, and his hands were gripping what looked like a sword tied to the end of a fishing pole—so I hoped he’d understand. All’s fair in love, war, and brawls in brothels.

I turned and chucked that statue at the Chief as hard as I could.

It was a good throw: The figurine caught the highbinder square in the back just as he pirouetted out of the path of a cigar box thrown by my brother.

The Chief
oof
ed and crumpled.

The statue hit the floor beside him and shattered in a spray of white shards.

“See there!” Gustav said.

“See where?”

“There!”

My brother pointed at the jagged pieces of porcelain scattered across the carpet.

“Yeah? What am I supposed to—?” I shook my head like a man trying
to buck off a bad dream he can’t quite wake from. “Look, shouldn’t we be
runnin away
or something?”

“Runnin’ where?”

The knife man had crawled off to the door Madam Fong and her gals had left through. He sat slumped against it, face in his hands, blood pouring through his fingers. The slung-shot man stood beside him, panting heavily through split lips. He glared at me murderously, obviously anxious for another round of David and Goliath.

As for the Chief, he was soon back on his feet, and with a grunt and a wave of his big, pawlike hand he sent his fellow hatchet man to block off the other exit. Then he shook a pointed finger at me and snarled out something I can only assume meant, “The big handsome one’s
mine
.”

He raised his axe again and stepped toward me, moving slow.

“
Yak yak yak
fan kwei
yak yak,”
the Chief said. And he smiled.

Before, he just wanted to kill us. Now it looked like he meant to
enjoy
it.

My brother and I snatched up the only “weapons” left in grabbing range: a fistful of obscene stereopticon slides for Old Red, an embroidered pillow for me.

As the Chief moved in on us, his friends stayed back, spectators now—and, to judge by the eager grins on their faces, ones who were expecting a mighty good show. Even the man whose mouth I’d mangled was wearing a smile. I swear, if the Chief had given those fellows time to run out for popcorn, they would’ve.

“You got any last words, Brother?” I said. “Cuz I reckon you got about five seconds to say ’em.”

“Hush.”

I shook my head. “Typical. Well,
I
ain’t afraid to speak from the heart. Gustav, I want you to know that—”

“
Shut up
.”

The Chief was less than ten feet away—and to my surprise, he stayed there, freezing midstep, his eyes darting this way and that.

Then I finally heard it, too. Music, growing louder—impossibly loud. And with it, the sound of . . . marching?

The door to the outer hallway flew open, and a man playing a tuba
came stomping in. On his heels were half a dozen more musicians, all of them blasting “Bringing in the Sheaves” loud enough to topple the walls of Jericho.

Some folks in need of rescuing get the cavalry. We got the Salvation Army.

The band’s new conductor was the last one to squeeze into the room. “Gentlemen!” she shouted at us over the deafening din. “Have you seen Jesus?”

“Close enough, Miss Corvus!” I hollered back. “Close enough!”

Or, A Fallen Woman Gets a Rise Out of Old Red

The concert didn’t last
long.

The wrecked, debris-strewn parlor; the cowboy holding up a fistful of stereopticon slides like a shield; the tall, relieved-looking fellow wearing a boater with no brim; the bruised, bloodied, and extremely confused Chinamen standing around
holding hatchets
—even over the top of a trombone, such sights are hard to miss.

Within seconds, “Bringing in the Sheaves” gave way to “Dropping of the Jaws” and, after that, an impromptu rendition of “Running for Your Life.” My brother and I mixed in with the herd and bolted for the door.

“I don’t think I’ve . . . ever been so happy to . . . hear a hymn,” I panted once we were safely outside. The musicians kept up their stampede right on out of Chinatown, but Diana, Gustav, and I stopped to catch our breath across the street from Madam Pong’s.

We kept a wary watch on the cathouse, but no highbinders followed us out. Apparently, even the most fearsome tong has to think twice before hacking up an entire brass band in broad daylight.

“Thank you for arrangin’ the serenade,” I said to Diana.

“Yeah . . . thanks,” Gustav muttered. He tilted his head and squinted at the lady as if he half-suspected she was some kind of mirage. “How’d you know we were in a fix in the first place?”

“I would say ‘woman’s intuition,’ but I don’t believe in it,” Diana said. “It was really just a hunch. I saw a woman come out of the alley behind the house and talk to the guards out front. She was Chinese, quite beautiful, well dressed, and she seemed to be in charge.”

“That’d be Madam Fong, the proprietress,” I said. “Must’ve slipped out a back door when she was supposedly fetchin’ Hok Gup for us.”

“ ‘Fetching Hok Gup’?” Diana asked.

I told her what we’d learned inside—that Hok Gup, the Black Dove, was a girl. My report was interrupted only once, by a pair of staggering sailors who got the giggles when they saw what was left of my battered hat still atop my head. As they were so amused by it, I gave it to them.

“Alright, alright—back to you,” Old Red prompted the lady once I was done. “What else did you see from out here?”

“Well, the men went in through the front door, leaving it unguarded, while the woman—Madam Fong—headed around the corner, back into the alley. It struck me as . . . ominous. You two had been gone quite a while by then. So I decided to check on you.”

“By havin’ a parade?” I asked.

“Why not? I wouldn’t be much help on my own. Causing a scene seemed like the best way to disrupt whatever might be going on inside. Fortunately, Captain Crider and his men were more than happy to help . . . once I’d explained that we’re actually secret investigators for the Christian Anti-Vice League.”

“And ‘Captain Crider’ believed you?” I marveled. “Even after all that guyin’ I gave him?”

“I explained that you were simply establishing your bona fides as a crass, un-Christian lout.” Diana smiled. “And doing it quite well, I might add.”

I gave the lady a bow. “Why, thank you, miss. The role is a specialty of mine. Sarah Bernhardt has Juliet, and me—I’ve got ‘crass, un-Christian lout.’ ”