Music of Death Blues – Chapter 1

1930 Dallas, TX

 

A loud screeching of tires echoed down the alley behind White Laundry as I held the back door open for Dai. Prince Razor, our Pomeranian and Scottish terrier mix, shot outside, his ears on high alert.

“What in the world?”

I’d barely gotten the words out when another screech rolled toward us, accompanied by the loud pop of a backfire, as the vehicle responsible for the original noise sped off.

Since the Wus’ laundry business was nestled in a quiet business section of downtown Dallas, the ruckus was unusual, to say the least.

No other noises intruded in the ensuing silence—or so I thought. Then I realized that both Prince and Dai were still facing the direction the noises had come from, their heads tilted as if listening to something only they could hear.

Daiyu Wu, or Dai for short, is the only child of the immigrant Wu family. I serve as her companion and confidant, though in truth, we are more like siblings, her family having taken me in, at Dai’s insistence, when I was seven years old. Before I forget to mention it, Dai is blind—though assuming this makes her less than whole would be an error you could come to regret.

“Jacques, someone needs our help,” she said.

As if she’d given a command, Prince took off. Though we had no immediate neighbors, our building’s lot had a tall fence to provide our mostly Chinese employees privacy when coming and going, so the moment he made the corner, the canine was no longer in sight.

 “Why don’t you wait inside, and I’ll go see?” I hastily suggested, though I was sure it would get me nowhere.

“Nonsense, Jacques! Give me your arm already and let’s go.” She extended her arm in my direction, her diminutive form almost quivering with anticipation.

I did as I was told, though I was of two minds about the odd distraction. On the one hand, I was glad she’d found something to be excited about. On the other, I worried that there was nothing to this and she would be disappointed. After of our unexpected involvement in three cases related to murder—Laura Cooper’s, Señora Fuentes Garcia, and Mr. Murphy—and Dai unraveling the mysteries and exposing the killers, what had once passed for ‘exciting’ no longer held as much allure as before.

With her gloved hand tucked securely at my elbow, I navigated us into the alley and turned right. I spotted Prince some distance away, impatiently waiting for us. The mutt glanced in our direction and gave a soft bark. He’d found something. We picked up the pace.

Most of the business buildings in the area were set side by side, with the occasional exception of a narrow passage between the buildings connecting the street to the back alley. We found what we were looking for at one of these.

An elderly woman was on the ground on all fours, as if looking for something. Her navy blue dress was torn at the shoulder and stained in several places. Her veiled hat sat at an odd angle, barely keeping its place thanks to multiple hatpins. Her skin was the color of a double chocolate shake, and she had scrapes on her elbows, knees, and hands as if she’d been thrown from an automobile. She left drops of blood on the concrete as she continued to search fruitlessly for something around her.

“Ma’am, are you all right?” It seemed like a dumb question, as she obviously wasn’t, but what else could I have said?

She instantly stopped at the sound of my voice and looked up, squinting her eyes at me as if struggling to see. “Come back for another round, have you? Cowards!“

“Jacques, I smell blood,” Dai said. “I think, for all concerned, we’d best get her indoors and out of sight.”

I agreed with her. It was a good thing it was Sunday, and most businesses were closed due to the blue laws. Otherwise, we would have had a crowd of gawking curiosity-seekers filling the place. “Ma’am, let us help you. Our shop is only a little ways from here.”

I stepped toward her, but she held up her hand in a stopping gesture.

“You stay right there, whoever you are.” Her voice held daggers in it. “I’m not going anywhere wi’choo!”

Prince gave a delighted bark and rushed past the woman toward the street. He came back holding something gingerly in his mouth. He set it on top of her hand, then sat back, tongue lolling to the side after a job well done.

“Oh!” The woman jerked at the contact but then seemed to realize what Prince had given her: a pair of spectacles. She eagerly grabbed for them and put them on. The thick lenses made her brown eyes look overly large in her face. The earpieces were slightly bent and one lens was cracked, but she seemed elated to have them.

Then she looked at us, and her expression turned hostile. “Oh!“

“Jacques, we really need to head indoors,” Dai repeated. “I hear sirens in the distance.”

Her hearing being better than mine, I didn’t question it. While there was nothing illegal about us being there, the fact that Dai was Chinese, and that someone had been hurt, could make things difficult for the family. Considering the current unfriendly feelings toward those of Dai’s nationality, discretion would be the better part of valor.

The woman seemed even less pleased than I was at the mention of sirens. She struggled to stand and was having a hard time of it. She started teetering to one side and I jumped forward to steady her, but she recoiled from me as if I’d bit her. Since one of her shoes was missing from her feet, this unbalanced her, so I reached out to steady her again.

“Jacques, we need to go now.”

Left with little choice, I swept the older woman off her feet into my arms. A searching glance didn’t reveal any personal effects. “Prince, find her shoe, please.”

The woman was thin and wiry, weighing almost nothing, which was worrying. I expected her to struggle or argue, but she did neither, instead looking over my shoulder back to where we’d found her. It appeared we weren’t the only ones who didn’t want to get involved with the police.

Dai felt me beside her, grabbed my jacket sleeve, and hurried off with me. We’d just turned the corner into the alley when Prince barked, then moments later, rushed past us, a black-colored prize clutched in his teeth.

I was a little winded by the time we made it behind the safety of the high fence at White Laundry, but I didn’t dare slow down. “Dai, steps.”

She let go of my sleeve, well acquainted with the shop’s docking area and back entrance. Despite her blindness, she rushed ahead of me and opened the door for us. The second we were all inside, she closed the door and locked it.

Now that we were out of sight, our rescue wriggled in my arms. “Put me down!”

“Sorry, ma’am, not yet.” I hoofed it up the stairs into the employee breakroom. “Should we use the changing room, Dai?” I asked.

“No. We’ll need water to clean her injuries,” she said.

Decision made, I settled our guest into the nearest chair at the breakroom table. Once I set her down, I backed off, and Prince moved in to take my place. Our resident lady-killer sat on his back legs, lifting his front paws encouragingly, the shoe still in his mouth. Now that she was seated, she looked around jerkily, trying to take in everything at once, and Prince gave a soft whine to catch her attention.

“Oh! Is that for me?” she asked. As so many had done before her, she became putty in Prince’s paws.

He dropped the shoe beside her unshod foot, then sat again, eager for female adulation. Our guest did not disappoint. “You are the cutest thing, aien’choo?”

His curled tail wagged like mad as she scratched him beneath the chin. I swear he had to be picking up tips from the rich-boy popinjay who’d nosed his way into our lives—as if we needed two of them.

“I’ll fetch some gauze and iodine,” Dai said. “Jacques, would you wet a kitchen towel to clean her wounds with?”

“We may need the sewing kit as well,” I added.

As with our home, Dai was intimately acquainted with every inch of White Laundry and navigated it as well as someone with sight. The required items were in the small changing room where the ladies could freshen up when needed. Leaving our guest under Prince’s watchful eye, I grabbed a fresh kitchen towel from under the sink in the breakroom and brought it over after moistening it.

“Ma’am, if I may?” I asked.

“I don’t think so, no,” she said, shaking her head. “I can do it myself, thank you very much.”

She didn’t seem inclined to take the towel from my hand, so I set it on the table within easy reach. That seemed agreeable to her, as she then took it and started dabbing at her scrapes. Although we’d come to her aid, she kept throwing glances in my direction as I stood quietly on the other side of the table from her, as if to continually make sure I wasn’t up to something. What she might have imagined I was doing, I hadn’t the faintest idea.

Despite her pinched expression as she cleaned her wounds, our guest made no noise, though I was sure the scrapes were painful. A few started bleeding again.

Dai returned presently, put the items she’d collected on the table, and sat in the chair closest to our guest. “Have introductions been made yet?” Dai asked.

Our guest made a soft tsking noise.

“Not yet,” I said. “I thought it best to wait for you.”

Dai nodded, reached inside her clutch purse, and withdrew a social card, which she then placed on the table. “My name is Daiyu Wu, and this is Jacques Haskin. Our canine companion is Prince Razor. While the circumstances aren’t ideal, it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

A slight frown marred the older woman’s face at the information and she looked at the social card on the table, though she made no move to touch it. Then she looked up and stared at Dai, taking her in fully for the first time. Her eyes widened, the expression almost comical due to the amplification of her eyes by the thick-lensed glasses.

Dai couldn’t have looked more adorable in her rose-colored puff-sleeve day dress, matching gloves, clutch, dainty hat, and dark teashade glasses. Rosa and Lien no longer drowned her clothes with lace and bows, which had made Dai look like a doll—as in a child’s toy rather than the current vernacular meaning of ‘an attractive young woman.’ Dai had loathed being dressed that way, and had only put up with it because it made others happy. The change to a more adult-looking style was one of the few positive things that resulted from our having met the popinjay Truman Pierce. His appearance on the scene as a prospective gentleman caller had opened Lien’s eyes to previously unexplored possibilities regarding her daughter’s future.

I thought Dai looked lovely in whatever she wore. Her heart-shaped face, straight shoulder-length black hair, almond-shaped eyes, and yellowed porcelain-colored skin made her highly unusual. I will admit I am somewhat biased, however. She’s always looked like an angel to me, especially when her silver-white sightless eyes weren’t hidden behind her dark teashade glasses. Sadly, most people didn’t find them as glorious a sight as I did.

“You’re a Yellow Peril!” Her previous ordeal apparently forgotten, our guest jumped to her feet and pointed at Dai with an accusing finger.

Rather than be insulted, Dai reared back and laughed. Our guest looked as confused by this reaction as I was.

“There’s no need to be rude, ma’am,” I found myself saying. “We’re just trying to help.”

This earned me an even more baffled look from the older woman.

My words seemed to tickle Dai’s fancy as she laughed even harder than before. I suddenly wondered if there might be something wrong with her. Not only was it unusual for her to laugh out loud or this heartily, but I could find nothing about the situation that would warrant such a reaction. “Dai?”

My companion held up her hand, asking for a moment as she tried to regain control. Prince seemed unperturbed, sitting on his haunches, his tongue lolling as he stared at us, full of doggie amusement at the stupid human antics.

“I apologize,” Dai said breathlessly. “It just caught me off guard.”

I  thought back over what had been said, but I still couldn’t make heads or tails of what she was talking about. And from the ever-deepening look of confusion on the older woman’s face, she couldn’t either.

“One question,” Dai said, “just to make certain of my conclusions before I explain. You are ‘colored,’ are you not?”

There was a moment of startled silence.

“What’s wrong wit’choo? Of course I am!”

Dai nodded. “That being the case, madam, surely you don’t believe everything you read in stories and the papers. Those of your race know better than anyone the bad habit of the press to overlook facts if they impede sensationalism. I may be blind, but I am not brain-addled. Are you?”

My companion removed her teashade glasses, exposing her silver-white eyes.

The woman fell back into her chair as if all the strength had left her legs. “You’re blind?”

In a close approximation of our guest’s voice, Dai said, “What’s wrong wit’choo? Of course I am!”