“Thanks.” She added, “If you gotta call me by name, call me Tony, all right?”
“Sure.” He looked at the yawning outhouse, said, “If you can do it, I can do it,” and plunged inside. She heard him rustling around in there, and a grumble or two emerged. “It’s dark in here. Don’t want to fall down the hole or drop a shoe or…” followed by “Stinks too. But not as bad as I thought it would.”
“Shush,” she whispered. “Just hurry!”
More shuffling and mumbling and eventually Mick tumbled out, disheveled and breathless, stuffing his good jacket into his knapsack.
Antonia looked at him admiringly. “You look like a real hoodlum, Mick.”
He glanced down at his worn trousers, nearly out at the knees. “Not sure that’s a good thing for Chinatown.”
“C’mon, the six o’clock bells are going to ring soon. We need to be where we can watch the front door.” She led him out of the alley and to the corner of Kearney and Pine. They stopped short of the pool of lamplight and pushed themselves against the side of the building. The evening church bells started, and Antonia said, “Watch.”
Sure enough, the door to the music store opened before the last echo died away. John Hee, with his wide-brimmed hat and a long, narrow sack slung over his back, started walking west. Mick sucked in his breath. “He’s headed toward Chinatown,” he whispered.
Antonia shook his sleeve. “Over there. Across the street.”
They watched a shadow detach from the gloom under a store awning. The shadow passed under a streetlamp and briefly became an unassuming man with a small beard and mustache, almost invisible in his dark coat and derby. “That’s him!” said Antonia. “The detective. Mr. Brown.”
They watched him walk in the same direction as John Hee, staying on the opposite side of the street, blending in with all the other men in their dark suits and coats.
Antonia tugged on Copper Mick’s sleeve again. “Come on!”
Shadows following shadows, the two joined the thin stream of pedestrians and blended into the approaching night.
Chapter Thirty
Following Mr. Hee proved simple.
He proceeded without evasion to Chinatown while de Bruijn lingered a modest distance behind, keeping an eye on the Chinese violin Hee conveniently had slung across his back. The stringed instrument, an erhu, was inside a long sack with its distinctive head and tuning pegs protruding from the top. As he slowed his pace to match Hee’s, the detective pondered what he’d uncovered about Hee and Donato earlier that day.
The warehouse had been the focus of his interest. When he had first learned of its existence, he had wondered if some kind of smuggling might be involved. Opium, of course, was his first thought. But there were other possibilities. Artifacts and items of historical, artistic, or economic significance, for instance. It was an easy scenario to build: a ship from the Orient would arrive, carrying certain illegally obtained goods. An intermediary would be necessary to bridge the Celestial and Occidental worlds—in other words, John Hee. The goods could be stored in the warehouse and eventually displayed and sold as “curiosities” at Donato’s store. Perhaps some were spirited straight to the homes and private museums of personal collectors, willing to pay dearly for them.
Nothing would be easier.
The more de Bruijn had considered it and inquired amongst those he knew in the shadowy world of antiquities collectors, the more he became convinced that his scenario had merit. Too, there was the matter of Donato’s elevated standard of living and affluence. His ascendance to the top of recognized musical talent could account for some of his prosperity, but not all. First, he bought the store. Then, the warehouse. And most recently, the house where he lived with his sister. And he did not skimp on his wardrobe, being a regular customer at the most exclusive tailors and haberdasheries in the city, nor his priceless collection of stringed instruments.
And he never ran a tab but paid in cash.
For everything.
There was also Mr. Donato’s personal life, which seemed chock-full of intrigues and liaisons with women primarily from the higher levels of society. His charm was legendary, which gave de Bruijn pause when he thought of Mrs. Stannert and Donato working in close proximity. Surely she wouldn’t inadvertently let slip that the violinist was considered a suspect in young Gallagher’s death. But as de Bruijn knew, even the most intimate of secrets fell victim to the heat of passion or the magnetism of charisma.
De Bruijn gave himself a mental shake and refocused on Hee, who was moving through the shifting pedestrian traffic on the opposite side of the street.
Chinatown lay just ahead. It was time to narrow the distance between himself and his target.
Once they stepped over the invisible border into Chinatown, the streets and lanes would become more crowded, more difficult to navigate, more shadowed, more dangerous. Although de Bruijn was no stranger to this neighborhood, it had been many years since his last foray. Even though police patrolled regularly and armed officers accompanying curious visitors touring the quarter, he had to stay on his guard.
He was alone.
De Bruijn crossed the street and entered foreign territory.
The lighting, the language, the scents, the buildings, the very air and ground—all shifted. The surge of pedestrians intensified, while the individuals parted around him as water around the bow of a ship. Groups huddled in the doorways and on the boardwalks, moved in and out of buildings. He passed laundries, pawnbrokers, gambling halls, clothing stores, apothecaries, and businesses with display windows crammed with miscellaneous wares, all packed as tightly as the streets.
Between buildings, narrow, dark alleys displayed the white ghosts of garments hung to dry on
