Dream Town

Chapter 22

It was ten o’clock and the chilly rain was persisting when Archer walked through the West Gate on Hill Street and entered Chinatown.

A dull crack of lightning speared toward the earth nearby and was followed by a hollow sound of thunder. The new year seemed to be looking for trouble as it stumbled out of the starting gate.

As Willie Dash had alluded to, the current Chinatown had sprouted up after the original Chinatown had been bulldozed to make way for Union Station. Filmmakers and set designers had helped create the look of the new Chinatown, and thus Archer passed by a veneer of architecture that one might have seen in Hollywood pictures about China. To him, it deprived the place of any real, granular identity.

He passed dragons on walls, Chinese characters graffitied all over, and locked roll-up gates in front of shops because thefts and burglaries happened here just like everywhere else. The streets were mostly empty, a few bikes splashed down the street; he saw a car turning left, its brake lights burning the rain the color of fire. He saw only Chinese people, who gave his white face wondering looks before hurrying onward in the rain.

The Jade Lion was a four-story brick building that sat robustly on a corner lot at an intersection that was neither major nor insignificant. The eponymous lion in the form of a greenish marble statue stood guard outside the bar’s garishly red-lighted exterior. It looked angry and patient all at the same time, as though just waiting for a passerby to make a mistake before pouncing.

A white man in a gray suit was standing in profile under the bar’s narrow covered entrance smoking a cigarette, so Archer couldn’t get a good look at him. But he noted the Chinese man standing next to him was wearing colorful garb, including a close-fitted, fur-lined cap. On the man’s belt was an empty knife holder made of what looked to be bronze. Archer wondered where the knife was.

As Archer headed up the sidewalk, the man in the suit turned and quickly went back inside.

The Chinese man stepped forward to block Archer’s path. He was heavyset with no neck and a long, stringy mustache that bracketed his mouth.

“Yes?”

“I’m here for a drink.”

“Name?”

“Why? Is that required to get a whiskey and soda in this place?”

“Name?”

“John Smith,” replied Archer.

“Many men who come here have that name.”

“I bet.” He took out the book of matches. “I have this. I’d like to return it to a friend. They might be inside.”

The man glanced down at the matches and his expression changed to one of interest. “Who is your friend?”

“I’d like to keep that to myself.”

“You police?”

“No.”

“You do not carry a gun, do you, mister?”

“I do not,” said Archer.

The man searched him expertly, from his chest to his hips, then moved aside and held the door open for him.

Archer said, “If I didn’t have the matches and the name, and I had a gun, would you have let me in?”

The man smiled without showing his teeth. “Enjoy your time here, Mr. Smith.”

Archer pulled out the photo of Lamb and showed it to him. “You ever seen her here?”

“My memory is no good. I will forget you when you step inside the door.”

Archer said, “Is that for when the police come looking and you deny having seen me?”

The man let the door go, turned back to the street, and watched the rain fall.

Archer moved through the door and his nostrils immediately ran into the aroma of heavy incense, and his ears bumped into a sea of intriguing noises coming from every direction. He entered a small foyer and looked around. There were multiple beaded doorways leading down other corridors. He had an inkling the Jade Lion would resemble a rabbit’s warren inside a maze, encased in a labyrinth, all outlined in indecipherable Chinese.

Archer had worked cases in Chinatown before. He had found that the people here didn’t relinquish their secrets easily and usually not at all. It wasn’t that they were naturally unfriendlier than anyone else; they had just been burned a few times too many by people who looked just like Archer. And when people didn’t treat you like you were human, there was no possibility of trust or engagement. But still, he was a PI working a case, so he had to try.

From another beaded doorway appeared a woman. She was in her early twenties with black hair cut close to her small, oval, and painted face. She wore a tight-fitting yellow dress with red embroidery across its front in the shape of a dragon. She had on red heels and no stockings. “Drink, mister?”

He looked around. “Yeah, is there a bar? Or did I read the sign outside wrong?”

She pointed at the beaded doorway to his left.

“That way, honey.”

“They have good drinks here?”

“That way, honey.”

Archer took out the photo and showed it to the woman. Indicating Lamb he said, “You ever seen her here before?”

“That way, honey.”

Archer put the photo away and smiled down into her petite face framed with large dark eyes topped by fake lashes so long it looked like someone had glued spiders to the lids.

He pointed to the beaded doorway. “Let me get this straight: that way, honey?”

She smiled and walked through another set of beads, swishing her full hips just so as she did. She had a tattoo on her muscular left calf. It was a long-bladed knife with drops of blood on it.

Well, that was charming, he thought, as he pushed through his own set of beads in search of the bar.

And Eleanor Lamb, alive or dead.