CHAPTER THREE
Memories trickled through my brain, guiding me. I walked as if by remote control from the bordello, across 20th Avenue, to a warren of ramshackle shops arranged along the mouth of a narrow street, the entrance to Denver’s—make that St. Charles’s—Chinatown, aka Hop Alley. Dim lights flickered behind curtained windows. Chinese men watched from gloomy doorways. The younger ones were dressed like American big-city toughs, while the older ones wore baggy smocks over pajama-like trousers. Braided pigtails dangled from the back of their shaved heads.
Two women in voluminous Victorian clothing—faces hidden beneath veiled hats—climbed the steps to a loading dock. A Chinese woman opened a door for them and out wafted the flowery, musky fragrance of opium smoke. All three women disappeared inside and the door shut behind them.
As I continued down the alley, I noted the differences between my abilities in this world and my abilities at home. For one, my night vision wasn’t as sharp. Previously, my eyes were as keen as a wolf’s. Now, the details weren’t as clear, the images not as distinct. But still better than a mortal’s.
Speaking of which, could I still transmutate into a wolf? Did shape-shifters exist in this new reality?
I halted suddenly, then turned to face a wooden door recessed into the brick wall of a three-story building. My destination. I noticed nothing remarkable about the door besides the absence of a doorknob or handle. The paint was mostly gone, exposing weathered and marred wood. Rusted hinges held it in place.
I pulled at the chain of my pocket watch and snapped it open. Ten on the dot. I dropped the watch back into my vest pocket and knocked. Seconds later the door swung toward me, and a feeble yellow light spilled out. A wizened Chinese woman emerged to hold the door open. She held a mop and wore a soiled apron over a loose blouse, its sleeves rolled past her elbows. She beckoned with a fussy manner and motioned that I step carefully across the wet entrance and into a hall. I didn’t remove my hat. Frontier protocol allowed a man carrying a gun and on business to keep his lid on, and this was not a social call.
A heavy, dank smell hit my nose. Cool. Ripe with decayed flesh. Grimacing, I glanced to my left and right. I didn’t see a dead body but the odor reminded me of a morgue.
At the end of the hall, a Chinese man grinned as if amused by my sensitive nose. He added a dismissive smirk: the Dragon sent for you, prissy fuck?
The man—a guard—wore no shirt, only striped military trousers tucked into suede leggings, fitted over laced boots. He was dark, unusually tall, and the tattoo at the center of his muscular chest—a Chinese dragon inside a ring of flames—was framed by leather suspenders clipped to a wide leather belt. A white sash under the belt further accentuated his lean waist and sculpted, V-shaped torso.
I expected him to carry a sword, something exotic and curved like a scimitar, instead, a massive Walker revolver hung in a cross-draw holster attached to his belt.
The old woman nudged me forward and closed the door. When its latch clicked, the walls seemed to shrink in and gave the impression I was no longer on the western plains but deep in an Asian mountain fortress. I continued down the hall toward the guard. Splashes of weak light fanned from the amber wall sconces, providing more shadow than illumination. Burning gas hissed within the sconces.
Three steps from the guard I halted for him to search and disarm me. But the guard only grunted and nodded to the stairs rising behind him.
I was allowed to proceed without surrendering my weapons? Maybe that corpse smell came from a failed assassin, as a warning.
The staircase banister and railings were one long sinuous carving of Chinese imagery: maidens in repose, rabbits, fish, tigers, dragons. As we climbed the steps, the guard trailing, I noticed the air lost its rotted meat odor and became cooler, more pleasant. Something mechanical rumbled above the ceiling.
At the landing, a second guard opened another door. A wave of refreshing air burst out and the rumbling became louder.
I paused at the threshold.
A gas lamp chandelier lit the room. A slender man in a simple olive-green suit sat behind an enormous, black-lacquered desk. A young, red-haired woman was seated close beside him.
Wispy hair crowned his bald, bony head. Beady eyes swam within the lenses of wire-rimmed spectacles. His features crowded the bottom of his small face, which in turn made his forehead seem too big—almost grotesque.
His face I recognized from an etching that I’d never seen, yet the image was crisp in my mind. His identity came to me in one gush of memory, the details so fresh it was as if I’d just finished reading a California broadsheet warning about the Yellow Peril incarnate, the most feared of the Chinese crime bosses outside of the Orient.
Wu Fei. The Dragon.
My kundalini noir coiled like a serpent, wary, defensive.
Anywhere else, this skinny old man would be wearing an accountant’s eyeshade and fussing with an abacus. Yet here, one snap of his thin fingers and the gutters would run with blood.
A tall bell jar sat in the middle of his desk. A white opaque mist fogged the inside of the jar. A brass trivet sat beside the jar, next to a brass lever with a large emerald knob that protruded from a slot in the desk.
Behind the gangster hung a crimson silk tapestry bearing a golden image of a Chinese dragon identical to the guard’s tattoo. Cool, moist air and plumes of white vapor blasted from metal vents in the ceiling, above which was the source of the rumbling.
Wu Fei raised one arm and motioned benevolently. “Come in, Mister Gomez.” His voice came out in a strained raspy tenor, spoken loud enough to be heard over the noise. “Enjoy refreshment of my newly acquired swamp cooler. Steam makes cold. Truly amazing.”
All right, he knew my name. What else did he know? That I was a vampire?
I touched the brim of my hat in salutation. Coming closer, I saw the reason for his gravelly voice. A necklace of scar tissue circled Wu Fei’s throat: the mark of a man who had been hanged—and lived.
The woman at his right looked Irish. Freckles. Fair complexion. The breeze from the vents tugged at coppery strands spilling from under her black skullcap, which was decorated with elaborate golden filigree. Her fingers were splayed on the desk, showing off manicured and lacquered nails and jeweled gold rings. She wore an azure silk tunic with a Mandarin collar. Chinese characters and symbols of the western zodiac embroidered in gold bullion decorated the collar and the black trim of the tunic. These clothes and the tattoos around her wrists confirmed her presence here. She was a psychic messenger—a telepath.
Her piercing gaze gave the disconcerting impression that she could read my mind. That double-downed on the odds stacking against me.
More of Coyote’s planted memories bubbled into my consciousness. Apparently in this world, clairvoyants existed and they were used to transmit and receive messages. In other words, human psychic radios.
And another thought. This gangster must be growing money if he could afford to keep one of her kind on his payroll.
She spoke to Wu Fei. In Chinese.
He tipped his head and considered her words. He looked back up—eyes widening as if privy to a new secret—and gave me a crocodile’s smile. What had she told him? My kundalini noir twisted and bared its fangs.
Wu Fei pointed to a wooden chair in front of his desk.
Droplets from the vents sprayed across my face. I sat and pondered how to survive intact should this appointment unravel into a double-cross.
Armed guards watched. The gangster and his Irish witch might have pistols. The chair might have a grenade under the seat cushion. Poisoned darts might be aimed at me.
This is crazy. Do I really have to do this? Why was I here?
I reflected on the medal on my watch chain. The Battle for Shark Island. A line of scars on my belly began to ache, reminding me of where I’d been hit with rifle bullets.
I was a veteran of a war that I’d never been in, carried wounds that I’d never received, and earned a living settling scores for strangers. I was a gunslinger with a past that was phantom even to me. Now I sat in front of the most dangerous man between the Mississippi and Yangtze Rivers. Why had Coyote sent me? What did the Dragon want?
Was this about a job? Wu Fei had the wealth to buy politicians and cops by the ward. By a simple command, he could send a band of cutthroats to slaughter an orphanage.
Perhaps Wu Fei owed a favor to an enemy of mine, and the debt would be settled by the delivery of my carcass. Fear prickled my skin and despite the chilled air, sweat formed inside my hatband. My eyes flicked to the bell jar.
Wu Fei read my curiosity. He grasped the knob on top of the bell jar and lifted.
He revealed the head of a man inside the jar. The man was still alive and pumping choppy breaths through the nostrils of his long, tapered nose. A wooden dowel secured with a leather strap was cinched tight across his mouth, drawing his lips back, exposing teeth glistening with saliva and blood. Sweat poured down his Slavic features. His dark eyes stared through me to a place far from his misery.
His neck was corded with strain and I could see his naked shoulders through the hole in the desk. He must be trussed within and subjected to some fiendish, quiet torture. Razors? An acid bath? Scorpions? Leeches with barbed mouths crawling up his ass?
Whatever tormented him, I was sure the telepath knew because her face blanched with disgust and terror.
Wu Fei set the bell jar on the trivet. The vapor inside of the bell jar condensed into clear trails that dribbled to the rim of the glass.
I didn’t know what the wretch had done to deserve this attention but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him. “Is this necessary?”
“Of course it is necessary,” Wu Fei answered. He spoke in the stilted cadence of a coolie railroad worker. The dangerous bastard could be pretending he wasn’t far from his roots as a simple peasant. But there was no pretense in the sadistic cunning of those bespectacled eyes. “This is a lesson for all concerned. To him. To his associates. To my constituents. And most importantly, to you, Mister Gomez.”
I rubbed an elbow across the waistline of my coat and felt the comforting swell of my Colt Navy. I pulled my legs close until my boots bumped against the chair so my hideout revolver and boot dagger would be within quick reach.
Wu Fei replaced the bell jar over the man’s head. When it sealed against the desk, the fog returned and within a few of the man’s breaths, the inside of the glass was again white.
Wu Fei pointed to the brass lever jutting from a slot beside the bell jar. The telepath gulped. With trembling fingers, she reached for the lever. Grasping it, she gave a firm pull. Gears meshed inside the desk. She pushed the lever, leaning into it, and a metallic snap shot from the desk. Instantly, blood sprayed the inside of the jar, coating it red. She sat back against her chair, looking green and nauseated.
He nodded to the guards. One of them barked a command.
Two barefoot Chinese girls—slender as reeds—and hopefully too young to be prostitutes, but this was St. Charles, appeared from behind a silken screen at the far right. Abbreviated robes barely covered their thighs. One draped a silk cozy over the bell jar, as if by disguising it we would overlook the macabre contents. The other brought a tray with a porcelain teapot and three matching cups. She set the tray on the desk and filled the cups. A leaf of steam lifted from each serving of tea. Then both girls bowed and shuffled backwards to disappear behind the screen.
Wu Fei took a cup from the tray and with avuncular deference, handed it to his telepath. He picked up a second cup for himself and I raised mine. We gave each other a silent toast, but as we brought the cups to our lips, I paused and fixed a suspicious gaze at my tea. If I had a tail, it would’ve been twitching like a cat’s.
“Drink, Mister Gomez,” the telepath said. “Please enjoy our hospitality.” I could hear the milk and cream of the upper Midwest in her voice.
Wu Fei studied me, and it was apparent that he took pleasure in my discomfort. I made a slurping sound but didn’t drink. With my sleeve, I wiped my lips. I smiled at him, then at her. My hand edged to the Colt Navy. The instant I felt woozy, both would die.
Setting his cup aside, Wu Fei asked, “You have much experience with Chinese?”
I replied, “I served on a Cantonese gun boat during the fight for Baja.” I paused, surprised by what I’d just said.
“Ba-Ha?”
“California,” I answered, again without thinking. “The flotilla was from San Diego. They were good sailors at sea and damn fine infantry on land.”
Wu Fei nodded, pleased by the accolades I had given his countrymen.
I put my cup on the edge of his desk and slowly reached into an inside coat pocket. I could feel the gaze of the guards. I fished out a small memo pad and withdrew an onionskin telegram—my invitation here—that was folded between the pages. Another surprise for me since how did I know about the telegram? “Wu Fei, with all due respect, you’re a man with a considerable reputation.”
He nodded again, even more pleased.
I showed him the telegram.
Wu Fei only glanced at it. He tapped the woman’s arm. She opened a drawer on her side of the desk, pulled out a manila envelope, and handed it to her boss. He undid the string closure. Shaking the envelope over his other hand, he caught the tintype that slipped out. The metallic rectangle was the size of a playing card. He offered it to me. I tucked the telegram back into the memo pad and accepted the tintype.
On closer inspection, it was a tintype of another tintype, the era’s way to make photocopies. The subject was an attractive young woman with high cheekbones, almond eyes, and shiny dark hair gathered into long braids. Chinese but she could’ve been an Apache or Navajo.
I moved to return the tintype.
Wu Fei said, “Keep. You need to find girl.”
I turned my attention back to her face. “Who is she?”
“My daughter. Ling Zhu Han.”
This admission took me aback … quite a bit, actually. I never figured the Dragon to be a family man.
“How do you know she is missing?”
Wu Fei explained in his tortured English that she was en route to St. Charles when she disappeared in Tucson six weeks ago, and he hadn’t heard from her since.
Tucson? “Any ideas? Suspects?” Someone must have a death wish if they had kidnapped Wu Fei’s kin.
“That why I hire you, Mister Gomez.”
I withdrew a pencil in a silver extender from inside my coat. As I asked for more details I jotted notes in the memo pad. Age? Eighteen. Married? No. Home? La Jolla, a village north of San Diego.
“Occupation?”
“I believe scholar. She is bright girl.”
“Scholar of what?”
“When you find, ask her.”
Since Ling was living in California and Wu Fei was here, I guessed they were estranged. My questions and Wu Fei’s answers volleyed back and forth. Mother? Dead. Sisters, brothers? Perhaps.
Friends? You find. Traveling companions? Again, you find. No reason to ask about enemies since Wu Fei had more than a stray mongrel had fleas. Motives? Ransom?
“That your job to learn, Mister Gomez.”
The gangster offered more information, enough for me to make plans for Tucson. Wu Fei’s voice never faltered when he talked about the disappearance of his daughter.
She could’ve run away or her body could be rotting in a hole. Either way, for a grieving father, he acted too composed, too self-assured, too aware.
“Another thing, Mister Gomez.” He reached into a desk drawer and handed me a silver ring banded with turquoise. “She wore an identical ring on a right finger. It will help in identifying her.”
He said that as in, identifying her corpse. I examined the ring and gave it back.
I pulled at the fabric of Wu Fei’s story and picked at the weave of its tattered truth. I read the telepath’s face for clues but her expression remained an opaque, placid mask. Wu Fei whispered into her ear. She said, “You have doubts, Mister Gomez?”
Plenty. But what brought me here was my reputation as a pistolero. If I walked away, I might as well shave off my mustache, pawn my guns, and pay the rent cleaning spittoons.
Closing the memo pad, I said, “I appreciate that you’ve asked me for help but understand that looking for your daughter would be more than a favor. Before I accept, we have to come to terms on compensation.”
Wu Fei snapped his fingers. One of the guards brought a strongbox and rested it on the floor beside the desk. He opened the lid and lifted a heavy canvas satchel. The frayed and weather-beaten bag looked like it had been dragged behind an overland steam-ferry. The guard placed the satchel on the desk, careful not to disturb the bell jar.
Wu Fei draped one gnarled hand on the satchel. “Five thousand dollar in gold American eagle and Aztlan sol.” He pointed a mangled finger at the tintype. “Bring her to me and I deliver another ten. That fifteen thousand dollars, Mister Gomez. Much money. Very good compensation.”
A total of fifteen thousand dollars? A governor’s salary. More than much money, a fortune.
I took the satchel and opened the flap. Thick coins in fifty-dollar denominations lay in neat glittering rolls. I had never held this much gold in my life, here or back in the other world. It weighed like … trouble and danger.
The red-headed psychic stared at me. Her eyes were as green and sharp as the edges of chiseled emeralds. She whispered to Wu Fei.
Smiling, he turned to me. “Miss O’Laughlin wishes you luck and success. I not paying for luck. I only pay for success.” Wu Fei patted the silk cloth over the bell jar. “You pay for failure.”
The gangster blurted something in Chinese and I caught gou za zhong, their equivalent of gringo.
A guard tapped my arm. I became aware that I was no longer welcome and felt like a trespassing foreigner. The rumbling behind the vents made the silence among us stifling. I fastened the satchel flap and lifted the bag to sling it over one shoulder. Its heft surprised me. The two guards opened the doors and without further ceremony, I gave a parting glance to the bell jar, left the room, and continued to the bottom of the stairs.
The old Chinese woman and the tattooed guard crouched beside a wooden crate that blocked my path. She wrapped a severed arm—lacerated and mottled with rot—in waxed paper and fit the bundle into excelsior, filling the crate.
No mystery about the morgue smell now.
The guard fit a lid over the crate and secured it with nails. The dragon in the flaming ring design had been branded on the lid. A line of Chinese characters, also scorched into the wood, followed one edge. Return to Sender, perhaps?
The old woman made an angry chattering sound, and the guard dragged the crate out of my way. I proceeded down the hall to the exterior door. It opened eerily as I approached and shut after I had passed. I walked into the hot, sticky night and through the alley back to Market Street. My kundalini noir relaxed and I breathed deep, appreciating that I wasn’t dead. But the serenity didn’t last. The reek of horseshit, garbage, burning coal and tobacco, and the sidewalks teeming with crowds looking for cheap thrills reminded me that I was back on the gritty streets of the city.
At the corner of 20th, four drunken cowboys argued with a prostitute, who was dressed in an open robe thrown over lingerie. They wanted a group rate, ten bits; she wanted to charge them individually. “It’s the same amount of work, one at a time or all at once, you cheap bastards. You wanna sport, it’ll cost you each a buck.”
Anxiety over this assignment upset my guts like a bad meal. I read my watch. 11:10. Had I spent an hour with the gangster?
Who was stupid enough to kidnap a child of Wu Fei? What was to gain? And the gangster? He didn’t act like a father desperate to find his daughter. The Dragon was a powerful man, why wouldn’t he use his army of thugs instead of hiring me? So many vexing questions and when I groped my memory for answers, all I gathered were cobwebs.
And worse, I was walking onto the lawless boulevards of St. Charles with a bag of gold coins hanging on my shoulder.
My kundalini trilled an alarm.
Someone watched. Someone waited.