Black Dove (31 page)

It was plain enough to me what the extra weight on Gustav had been the past day. And I wouldn’t have minded (much) hearing my brother admit it over a beer later, just him and me. But not here, not now, not like this.

The truth hadn’t hit me all of a sudden. It had just kept creeping up and creeping up and creeping up behind me until I could feel it there without even turning to look: Gustav was in love with Diana Corvus.

It was why he’d felt so betrayed when she’d disappeared on us a month before. Why he was so oversensitive about her motives in tracking us down again now. Why his already short fuse had been snipped down clean to the nub.

Old Red Amlingmeyer had finally opened his heart to a woman. And what could a beautiful, brilliant, witty, wonderful lady like Diana do but slam it shut again?

I mean, I’d have a hard enough time wooing her myself, and I’m . . . well,
me
. A crotchety, skirt-shy runt like my brother wouldn’t stand a chance.

“Back when we was on the Pacific Express, I told you I was through keepin’ secrets from you,” Gustav said to me. “Remember?”

His eyes were on me in that unblinking way that blocks out everyone else,
evetything else
—whittles the universe down to just the two of you.

All I could do was nod.

“Well, I meant that, Brother. So what I’m about to speak of . . . I wasn’t holdin’ it back from you. It’s just . . . the subject didn’t come up.”

“Until today,” Diana cut in. Her voice was soft, though, almost remorseful, like she already regretted what she’d pushed Gustav to.

“That’s right. It come up today—come up and got me riled up. Got me
stupid
.” Old Red snorted and glanced into the shadows nearby, at the pimp and his pathetic little harem. “ ‘Grit in the instrument.’ ‘A crack in the lens.’ ”

For once, he wasn’t quoting Holmes directly. These were words from John Watson
about
Holmes.

Or, to be more specific, about Holmes’s attitude on a certain
subject—one Gustav himself had never discussed with me at any length beyond a grunt and a glower. And as I placed both those quotes (“A Scandal in Bohemia,” page one), I felt my gut curl up tight as a diamond hitch knot.

“Grit in a sensitive instrument,” “a crack in one of his own high-power lenses”—according to Watson, that’s how Sherlock Holmes viewed love.

“Brother . . . ,” I said, trying one last time to save his heart from a hiding.

“Just let me finish it quick,” Old Red said. He locked eyes on the lady. “I’m gonna be plainspoken here, miss.”

Don’t laugh, Diana
, I silently prayed.
Be kind. Don’t laugh
.

“Me and my brother,” Gustav began, “we ain’t whorin’ men.”

I stopped my praying, I was so stunned. As professions of devotion go, “We ain’t whorin’ men” leaves a lot to be desired.

“But there was a time,” Old Red went on, “back before Otto come out on the trail with me, when I did as every other drover does. Even got to be a real regular at a seedy little place down to San Marcos, Texas. Started goin’ there cuz it was cheap, kept goin’ back cuz . . . well . . . I had me a favorite. And, with time, she come to be more than that. She was . . .”

He choked off into silence, and it took a hacking cough to get himself going again.

“She was my
only
. My only ever. And it wasn’t what you might think. I ain’t one of them men gets crazy ideas about a gal just cuz she . . . you know. She and me—we talked. A lot. Bet you can’t believe that, can you, Brother? Me and a woman talkin’, jokin’ . . .
dreamin
’ together?”

“I believe it,” I said, the words catching in my throat, coming out as whispers.

Gustav nodded, then sucked in a quick breath. The rest of the story he spewed out fast, like it was acid he had to spit out before it burned a hole clean through him.

“Well, one day, somebody up and did to her as is done to so many of them gals, sooner or later. Did it to her mean, crazylike. Did it to her til she was dead. A customer, folks said. Some sick son of a bitch just passin’ through. By the time I heard of it, she’d already been plowed under. And
of course there was no talk of a posse, of
justice
for the likes of her. Other than me and the other chippies, nobody gave a shit except maybe her bastard pimps, and they was just put out about the lost income. Ever since, I ain’t had no use for macks or madams nor any of it.”

He paused again, his eyes a-glistening in the dim light.

“So this business with the Black Dove, I reckon it just . . . grits me up a little.”

I put a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” I said. And I swear to you, at that moment at least, there was not the smallest part of me, not the most minute jot of selfishness or small-mindedness, that begrudged my brother keeping this to himself all those years.

“I’m sorry, too,” Diana said, and to her credit, she truly looked it. “If I’d known—”

If you’d known
? I thought, actually angry with the lady for the first time since I’d met her.
What is it you were
expecting
him to say?

“You asked your question, you got your answer,” Gustav said, his
eyes
suddenly cold and hard as ice. He gave me a little nod, and I took my hand away. “Now it’s my turn.”

“Yes, it is,” Diana said. “What is it you want to ask?”

“Same thing I hoped to ask of Mahoney: Who do you really work for?”

There was no pause for thought or drama. Just a flat answer that landed at our feet with a thud.

“Colonel C. Kermit Crowe.”

The Southern Pacific’s head detective in Ogden, Utah. The man who’d once hired
us
.

“Oh, Miss Corvus,” I moaned. “You mean you still work for the S.P.?”

“No, Otto—please, believe me,” Diana said, her voice taking on an edge of desperation I’d never heard from her before. “It’s like I told you yesterday: Colonel Crowe was fired by the railroad, as was I. Since then, the colonel’s started his
own
detective agency in Ogden, and I’m working for him again,” She looked over at Gustav. “He’s looking to hire other operatives, as well, and, of course, I recommended you. Raved about you.”

The lady’s gaze lingered on my brother in a way my pride didn’t like. It was entirely unclear whether her “you” referred to one Amlingmeyer or two.

“But given how things ended with the railroad, your role in the Pacific Express disaster . . .” Diana shrugged. “The colonel needs a lot of persuading.”

“So he sent you to spy on us,” Old Red said. “Test us a little, maybe.”

“No—I sent myself,” Diana insisted. “I was hoping Otto’s letter from
Harper’s
might provide new ammunition I could use on the colonel. After all, an operative writing for
Harper’s Weekly
—it would have been quite the promotional coup for a new detective agency.”

“ ‘Would have been,’ ” I said glumly.

“Yes. That was quite a disappointment—for both of us,” Diana said. “But then you told me about Dr. Chan’s troubles, and I thought
that
might be the opportunity I was looking for. If I could go back to the colonel and tell him you’d stood up to a tong lord like Little Pete to protect a friend . . . well, he couldn’t help but be impressed.”

“Only things got a mite more complicated than that, didn’t they?” Gustav said.

“Yes. A
lot
more complicated.”

The lady looked down, her lips pressed into a tight, thin line. For just a moment, she looked as buffaloed as Old Red trying to work up the nerve to talk to
her
.

“I hate to say it, but Chan’s death doesn’t change the situation as far as the colonel’s concerned,” she said. “If anything, it makes this an even better opportunity to prove yourselves to him.”

“You mean all this could still land us jobs detectivin’?” I asked her.

She watched Old Red warily as she nodded.

“That ain’t what we got into this for,” he snipped. “It ain’t no ‘opportunity.’ ”

“I know, I know, of course,” she said, holding up her hands. “But wouldn’t it be better if
something
good could come of all this?”

“The only good I’m thinkin’ of is catchin’ a killer and maybe savin’ a young gal’s life,” my brother said.

But then his expression brightened a smidge, and his gaze drifted off to the shadows ahead of us.

“Still . . . whatever comes about
after
we get the job done, that don’t do no dishonor to the Doc, does it?”

Neither Diana nor I answered. He obviously wasn’t asking us. He was asking himself.

He didn’t let himself debate on it long.

“Anyway, what are we standin’ around here for?” Old Red rumbled. It was yet another rhetorical question, and yet again I didn’t give voice to the obvious answer.

Cuz the longer we stand around here, the longer we’re likely to stay alive
.

Such gloomy truth would only slow us down, and we had to move quick.

Chinatown was six blocks of hell away.

Or, The Worst the Coast Has to Offer Brings Out the Best in Me

Between Davis Street and
Montgomery, Diana was propositioned, insulted, or otherwise disrespected a dozen times. I would’ve felt bad for her if my own tally hadn’t topped
two
dozen. Those skin-tight short-pants I was in may as well have been a bull’s-eye on my back, and every drunk and bawd felt compelled to comment on them.

The final straw came when a passing seaman slapped me on the ass. I returned the favor—though with a pointed toe rather than an open palm. After Old Red got the two of us pulled apart, Diana found a way to keep me out of the sights of every passing sot: The first time we encountered a candidate of ample enough proportions, she offered the man twenty dollars for his checked trousers. He happily accepted, and the trade was made.

While I was changing in an alley, a pair of lurking footpads tried to mug me, and I had to flee with my new trousers down around my knees.

Welcome to the Barbary Coast.

“Can’t even hitch up your drawers in peace in this hellhole,” I groused as we set off toward Chinatown again.

“Well, remember—the Coast’s entire economy revolves around getting a man’s pants
off
,” Diana pointed out.

I forced out a feeble chuckle—the lady’s blue streak could still throw
me—and changed the subject with the question I’d been too busy dodging abuse to ask up till then.

“So what exactly are we gonna
do
when we get back to Chinatown?”

“I been tryin’ to cogitate on that,” Gustav grumbled. At the time, we were passing a concert saloon in which the house band was either falling down the stairs or being trampled by buffalo, to judge by the din. “Mr. Holmes himself couldn’t put two and two together amidst all this commotion.”

“Which is another way of sayin’ you don’t know,” I said.

“No, I don’t know, but I’m a-workin’ on it. What have
you
been doin’ besides makin’ eyes at sailors?”

He glanced over at Diana, and his glower shifted, its sour edge softening. The lady wasn’t giving my brother the jitters anymore, but for some reason I didn’t feel as pleased for him as I once might’ve thought.

“I don’t guess the colonel would be much impressed with what we done so far,” he said. “We been at it all day and we still ain’t even laid eyes on that poor gal.”

“Hmmm,” Diana said.

“Hmmm?” Old Red said back, making it a question.

“Well . . . I’m just noticing how you keep thinking of Hok Gup as ‘that poor gal.’ A helpless victim. But there is the possibility that she went along with Fat Choy willingly. She might have even helped—”

Gustav shook his head gruffly. “Nope, uh-uh. She was happy when Chan bought her away from Madam Fong, remember? Ah Gum told us that. And the doc, he may have hit him some hard times, but he wasn’t no opium-eatin’ crook. He was a good man. After all Hok Gup had been through, she’d wanna stick with him over some no-account like Fat Choy.”

“We
think
Chan was a good man,” Diana replied. “But we only knew him a few days. Can you really see into a man’s heart in so short a time?”

“A few days?” I said. “Hell, you can know a feller your whole life and still be surprised by what he’s got locked up inside him.”

The words came out sharper than I’d intended somehow. They had enough sting to make Old Red wince.

“Or so I’ve been told,” I added lamely.

“Look . . . ,” my brother began. But then something ahead caught his eye, and soon enough it had mine and Diana’s, too.

A half-block up, four hoodlums were circling a tall, lanky man like a bunch of low-flying buzzards. They were taunting him, tormenting him with swats and kicks that teetered on the brink of an outright beating. Yet their victim never even tried to block their blows. He seemed afraid he’d just make matters worse, and as we drew closer we saw why.

It was Chinatown Charlie.

“We caught a Chink! We caught a Chink!” one of the hoodlums crowed. He had a spare cap in his hand—snatched off Charlie’s head, most likely—and he swiped at the Chinaman with it like it was a whip.