Free Black Dove by Steve Hockensmith

see lots of ladies.”
    “You know them gals ain’t ladies.”
    “They’re women. They’re here.” Diana looked at me again, a low-burning fire in her eyes that I realized now was always there, just waiting for someone or something to stoke it up white-hot. “If you don’t think a ‘lady’ has the strength to even pass through a place like this, how is it
they
have the strength to survive it?”
    Old Red had been riding alone in a seat on the other side of ours, saying nothing and seemingly seeing nothing, just hanging on for dear life. I’d almost forgotten he was there at all until he swiveled around to speak to us.
    “They
don’t
always survive it.”
    And he quickly turned away again.
    Whatever reply the lady might have made was cut off by the sound of catcalls from the sidewalk. A throng of jeering men—plainly a gang of the young street toughs the local papers had dubbed “hoodlums” for no reason anyone could adequately explain—had encircled a lone Chinaman. They’d already upended the basket of washing he’d been carrying, andnow they were pushing him this way and that, sending him flying from man to man like the pigskin in a football game.
    On the Chinaman’s face was a look of hopeless terror. No one would come to his aid, he knew, and his only hope was that the “hoods” would tire of abusing him before his brains were beat out.
    He and his tormentors slid past us like the scene from a diorama—a hellish vision close and real, yet untouchable, too.
    “Well,” my brother muttered glumly, “we must be gettin’ close now.”
    And indeed we were. Less than a minute later, we were back in Chinatown—and once the streetcar went cling-clanging away, we were almost the only whites in sight.
    What few of us were around, the Anti-Coolie League’s sandwich man was trying to scare away, for he was once again out ranting about “the heathen Chinee.” When he spotted me across the street, he grinned and waved a pamphlet over his head like a little flag.
    “Hey, friend! You read this yet?”
    I smiled and nodded.
    “
Gehen Sie sich bumsen
!” I called to him cheerfully.
    Diana gave a little mock gasp. “Otto—such language!”
    I blushed so fiercely it felt like someone had wrapped a hot towel around my face. “Don’t tell me you
sprechen
the
Deutsch
.”
    “No. But I’m fluent in obscenity.”
    Old Red turned and gave the lady the most level gaze he’d yet directed her way.
    “Would you like me to demonstrate?” she said to him.
    “Naw . . . that ain’t necessary,” my brother mumbled, spinning away quick.
    Diana narrowed her eyes ever so slightly, and I couldn’t quite decide if she was looking upon Old Red with wry fondness or noting with satisfaction the effect she could have on him.
    “This way,” Gustav said, hustling north up throng-choked Dupont toward the relatively deserted side street that was home to Chan’s shop.
    Only when we got there this day, Chan’s street wasn’t deserted at all. A milling, murmuring crowd was clustered in a clump about halfway down the block.
    “Awww, hell,” Old Red groaned.
    “Is that—?” Diana began.
    I didn’t hear the rest. I was already sprinting ahead, making a beeline for something I hadn’t once
seen
in Chinatown till just then: a policeman. I pushed through the mob to get up close.
    “Hey! What’s goin’ on here?”
    The copper gave me a long, sleepy-eyed sizing up before deigning to reply.
    “Some Chink killed himself, that’s all,” he said in a voice that sounded like a yawn. “The quack who ran this place.”
    And he jerked his blue-helmeted head at the shop behind him—Dr. Chan’s pharmacy.

8

CHAN
    Or, We Nose Around for Answers and Don’t Like What We Sniff Out
    I took a step toward the door.
    The policeman sidestepped to block me.
    “Where do you think you’re going?”
    “Inside,” I said.
    I started to move around him.
    The copper moved, too.
    “No, you’re not.”
    “Yeah, I am.”
    I tried to