Black Dove Read Online Free Page B

tunics, and baggy trousers.
    And it wasn’t just white folks who were scarce. There were hardly any women or kids, either. When we did happen to pass females venturing out of doors, many of the men ogled them openly, even hungrily—particularly if they were pretty and wrapped in vivid silks, as some were.
    Gustav and I won our fair share of stares, too, for I was leading us as deep into Chinatown as I could, and it was unlikely the residents thereabouts had many visits from Stetson-bedecked cowpokes like my brother. Heads turned as we went striding past, and shopkeepers lingered in their doorways to gape at us. The few how-do nods I attempted went unacknowledged, though, and only one man bothered speaking to us: When Ifinally settled on a spot that seemed sufficiently seedy for our deducifying “practice,” a surly looking cabbage peddler pushed his cart away muttering something that sounded like “fink why.” Whatever it meant, I assumed it wasn’t “Make yourselves right at home.”
    “Alright—here we are,” I said, throwing my arms open wide. “Pick your man and let the Sherlockery commence.”
    Old Red pointed at the cabbage man as he plodded away. “I could tell you what
he
does for a livin’ easy enough.”
    “I suppose so. But what else could you come up with? Betcha ol’ Holmes could tell us his age, weight, height, religion, hat size, favorite color, and the last time he trimmed his toe-nails. What do
you
see? Is he married? Does he have children? Does he smoke cigars? Gamble? Pick his nose in bed? What did he have for breakfast? Who irons his underwear?
Is
his underwear ironed? Hell, does he even
wear
underwear? Tell me something.
Anything
.”
    “Now just hold on!” Gustav snapped. “I ain’t picked that feller for sure. I still got me a minute to choose, don’t I?”
    “More like thirty seconds, now,” I started to say.
    I stopped myself, though. I was starting to feel a mite guilty about how sky-high I’d stacked the deck. Yes, I’d meant to befuddle my brother. How could he possibly make head, tail, or anything in between from what he’d see in Chinatown? But I wasn’t out to make him feel like a fool. I just wanted to give him a little giddyup—and point him toward Diana Corvus.
    “Take
two
minutes,” I said.
    “That’s mighty goddamned generous of you.”
    Old Red stalked away a few paces, moving his gaze slowly from one end of the block to the other.
    The street was paved with cobblestones, as in the rest of the city, but the sidewalks were mere wooden planks—and rotting ones, at that. And that wasn’t all that was rotten, for there was garbage and grime everywhere.
    The businesses along the block weren’t nearly as gawdy-exotic as the fruit stands, butcher shops, restaurants, and stationers lining Dupont and the other big thoroughfares. Here the stores were dingy and dank-looking, and the main stock-in-trade seemed to be shadows and dust.
    Most of the men in sight seemed worn out and gray, as well—not to mention utterly unreadable. A smile or a frown or a raised middle finger I know how to interpret. But all we were getting were long, blank-faced looks, neither friendly nor hostile.
    Only one fellow out of the bunch could I draw a bead on at all: the cabbage man. There’s nothing particularly mysterious about disgust. The peddler quickly disappeared, though, wheeling his cart around the nearest corner.
    Old Red’s most promising subject was gone, and he knew it.
    I could see my brother’s growing frustration in his clenched fists, the tense, pinched set of his shoulders, the herky-jerky way he swung his stare from one doorway to the next in search of a man he could study. A man he could
know
.
    “God damn,” he spat.
    Time was running out. His minutes had turned into seconds.
    Then he snapped to his full height and said it again: “God
damn
!”
    But the words sounded different this time. Not just louder. Brighter. Almost gleeful.
    “That feller. There.”
    Old