“I believe this mob of angry Hip Sing will kill you before you can take three steps,” Tom Lee said. “In just a few moments I must take the three of you outside and turn you over to them. You can try to tell them your story, but I don’t think they understand your language.”
I sat down heavily at the table. I looked to Augustus for strength but despair lined his face. I looked at Ping, but he looked even more forlorn. Truly, this was the end.
“Before you turn us over to that mob,” Augustus rasped. “I would like a drink.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to make do with rice wine,” Tom Lee cooed. “It’s all we have.”
“Anything that will give me courage,” Augustus pleaded.
Tom Lee barked at an attendant who barked at another attendant who barked at a third who scurried from the room and returned moments later with a large clay pot sealed at one end with red paper. Bowls were placed before Augustus, myself, and Ping and one of the Chinamen thrust his fist through the paper top of the jug and sloshed a colorless liquid into them. Its smell stung my eyes.
“How do you know that Ping won’t tell them what really happened?” Augustus asked.
“Emperor Xiaowen suspected that one of his wives was committing adultery,” Tom Lee said. “She was his favorite concubine and so he asked her if it was true. It was, she said. Having no choice, he sentenced her to death by crushing. She cried so piteously when she heard her fate that Emperor Xiaowen was moved, and said he would grant her one wish. She could wish for anything, even her own release, and secretly he hoped that this would be her wish. But do you know what she wished for? She wished to have her eyes put out before she was crushed so that the last thing she saw would be the Emperor. We Chinese value loyalty above all things. I am like a father to Ping, he will be a loyal boy.”
There was silence as I pondered this macabre story. It didn’t make any sense!
“Now,” Tom Lee said. “It is time.”
“May I have one of those cigars first?” Augustus asked, in a broken voice.
Tom Lee sighed.
“Anything else?” he said, motioning to one of his lackeys. “Would you like a massage, too?”
The lackey clipped the end of a cigar and handed it to Augustus, who took it and also another draught of the rice wine. As the lackey extended the jade lighter Augustus suddenly spat the rice wine in his face. The spirits passed through the flame and turned into an enormous fireball that ignited the lackey who, as is the way with all lackeys, ran around the room screaming.
The room erupted into confusion as the flaming lackey stumbled into the Five Thousand Year flags and their ancient silk ignited and blazed to the ceiling. The beams caught fire, and Tom Lee and his minions ran from the inferno as thick, black smoke rolled out the windows and up into the sky.
“Quickly, we have only minutes,” Augustus shouted over the roar of the flames. “Ping, take Zu Guo. Get her to safety!”
Ping grabbed the dazed young woman by the hand and ran into the hallway.
“Let’s hope this smoke has attracted the authorities,” Augustus cried. “Are you ready, William?”
“Always,” I said.
“Then let us go to meet our destiny,” Augustus said and we raced downstairs as the On Leong Tong House collapsed around us, ravenous fire consuming it plank by plank, room by room, treasure by treasure.
Bursting onto the street, I heard the shrill cry of a maniac and I saw Old Tom Lee grab a hatchet and run at us, screeching wildly. I had had enough. I put up my dukes, ready to give him a taste of the sweet science of American boxing, hoping I could knock him unconscious before he planted that hatchet in my brains.
Suddenly he crumpled in a heap and the enormous figure of John Young stepped from the crowd, nightstick in his hand. He touched Tom Lee with it again and the old man moaned.
“I’ve wanted to do that for absolute ages,” he smiled.
“Thank heavens you’re here,” I gasped. “The Tongs are trying to kill us!”
Behind him, more blue-coated officers streamed down the street, and two fire engines tried to beat each other to the blazing building.
“I think you two had better get out of here,” John Young said. “I don’t have much patience for white gentlemen who stir up Chinatown trouble and then come crying to John Young when things get out of hand.”
“But — ” I began.
“It’s alright, William,” Augustus said, pulling me away. “Thank you, Officer Young.”
He led me down the street.
“The police are in the pocket of the Tongs,” he explained. “There’s no use asking them to investigate. Come, we shall go to my friend, Commissioner Waldo, and tell him our tale. Zu Guo is too dangerous to be left in Chinese hands. She must be sent out of this country at once.”
We walked away just as the front of the On Leong Tong house collapsed in a waterfall of sparks and the driver of one fire engine threw a punch at the other and a small Chinatown riot erupted in our wake.
The New York City Police Department were taking no chances. We had warned them that the On Leong or the Hip Sing might attempt to abduct Zu Guo by force and now an army of armed blue-coated police officers lined the docks four deep. A half-dozen “paddy” wagons were parked nearby and three ambulance carts were on hand, while a dozen messenger boys stood ready to run for reinforcements. Hundreds of officers lined the dock, like actors waiting for the curtain to rise, but so far no one was in the audience.
“I will be rather relieved if no Chinamen actually show up,” First Deputy Police Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo said, sitting across from Augustus and I in our carriage and unwrapping a peppermint.
“Look,” Augustus said. “The show begins.”
At the end of the long avenue of policemen I saw another “paddy” wagon glide to a halt and four policemen get out, leading between them a slender figure with a bag over her head and enormous mittens over her hands. Even at this distance, I felt a pang in my heart the moment I saw her slender form.
“I’m glad to see you took my advice on the handling of that woman,” Augustus said.
“It wasn’t hard to find four men with little imagination and broken homes to escort this seductress back to China,” Waldo said around his peppermint. “It was a bit harder to get the department to pay for it, however.”
The four policemen guided Zu Guo down the avenue of officers and onto the dock while the mass of policemen scanned every alleyway with their eyes, ready for hundreds of screaming hatchet men to come pouring out at any moment. But no one appeared.
“It’s worth any expense to preserve peace among the Tongs,” Augustus said.
“Tongs. Tongs. Ting tongs,” Waldo mused. “Ting tong tongs. Such a funny little language, don’t you think?”
Suddenly there was a rustle down at one end of the avenue. A small figure dressed all in white was running down the dock. The great ranks of policemen tensed. As the figure drew nearer I could see that it was Ping.
“Zu Guo! Zu Guo!” he cried. The quartet of policemen stopped at the top of the gangplank and turned around. Zu Guo turned as well, and she shook her head so that the bag slipped off and her beauty was revealed in the morning light.
“Why, look at that,” Waldo marveled. “It’s that funny little boy. The one who was hiding her in that flophouse. He fought like a demon when we finally ran them to ground and took the woman away. Do you think he’s in love with her? Do the Chinese do that? Do they fall in love? Or is it all just bowing and smiling and eating bird nests? You have to come breakfast with me at my club after. We have these little toads in the hole that are absolutely marvelous.”
“Excuse me,” I said, and exited the carriage.
By now, every policeman was watching Ping as he stood in the middle of the dock, crying piteously.
“Zu Guo! Zu Guo!” he wailed.
Then he stopped and shouted something to her in Chinese.
“What the devil is he doing?” I wondered.
&nbs
p; His shouts were rhythmic and the words flowed like a song. If I didn’t know any better I would say it was poetry. Then he dropped to his knees on the rough, wooden planks, pulled a dagger out of his blouse and plunged it into one of his eyes.
It was as if the entire world held its breath. Not a body moved. Ping pulled the dagger out of his left eye and thrust it into his right. Blood and clear matter ran down his cheeks. He shouted again, “Zu Guo!” and the knife fell from his fingers.
Finally, a policeman broke from the ranks and walked swiftly to him, and I saw that it was John Young. He stood over Ping, wrapping his handkerchief gently around the boy’s ruined eyes like a blindfold. Then he lifted him into his arms, like a crying child whose tears were made of jelly.
The two of them vanished into the crowd and the spell was broken and the gangplank went up and the ship blasted its whistle and the policemen began to talk and laugh again. I pushed through their milling ranks and finally found John Young in the street, walking briskly away.
“Officer Young,” I shouted. “Tell me, what happened?”
“Ah, it’s my slumming gentleman,” he said, turning and seeing me. “Nothing happened, sir. Just an overwrought Chinese harming himself. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
“But is he all right?” I asked, stupidly. “Is there something I can do?”
“You are a marvel, sir,” he said. “Truly a marvel. You burn down one of the oldest buildings in Chinatown, deprive the poor devils of the only comfort they have in their miserable lives, you start a riot that leaves five dead, and cause a young lad stab out his eyes. And still you want to do more? I think you’ve done quite enough already, sir.” And with that, he was gone.
I walked back to the carriage, lost in thought. I climbed in and pulled the door shut behind me. Waldo was gone and Augustus was examining a telegram.
“Ping blinded himself,” I said.
“Mm. Listen to this. There’s a dairy in Connecticut and the owners claim all their milk is being sucked up by an invisible being. The Polish milkmaids claim it’s a Devil Cat. Driver!” he shouted. “Drive on!”
The carriage lurched into motion, the wooden dock rumbling beneath its wheels. To be honest, I was glad to have something else to occupy my thoughts, and although the Devil Cat would turn out to be one of the most dangerous cases of our careers I was glad for its distractions. It gave me a reason to forget about these strangers who made me feel like a foreigner in my own land. Adventure was one thing, but these Chinese took it too far. They left a man feeling quite in the wrong, when all he’d endeavored to do was what was right. I found myself more than happy to close the book on this case full of the inscrutable Chinese and their staring, unknowable eyes.
The Christmas Spirits
You can have your Paris, your London, your Vienna, your Rome; for this good Christian there is no city more sublime than New York at Christmastime. As I walked to the White Street Society clubhouse I sucked in great gulps of cold Yuletide air until my lungs froze solid with Christmas cheer. My feet were numbed with holiday spirit as they tramped the icy streets. My face and whiskers were chapped with all the joy of the season. Six carolers raced past me in the opposite direction, screaming, their exposed skin red and blistered with burns, their wet clothes steaming, flesh hanging from one of their faces in sheets. I smiled to myself a secret Christmas smile, for this meant that my good friend Augustus Mortimer was home.
“God rest you, merry gentleman!” I shouted in gay spirits, as I pounded on his front door. “Augustus? It is William! Come a’wassailing this December eve! Augustus?”
I felt something poking me in the midsection and directed my gaze downwards to behold the blade of a saber protruding from the mail slot and halfheartedly prodding me. It was sharpened to a murderous gleam, but as I was wrapped in many cloaks, and carpets, and coats, and shawls to protect myself against the Christmas chill, I felt only a gentle massaging about my tummy.
“Augustus!” I smiled, squatting down and peering through the mail slot. “Is stabbing any way to great a visitor on this fifth night of Advent?”
His eyes went wide.
“William!” he croaked, much as a shipwrecked sailor might say “Father Christmas” as that jolly figure lands his sleigh on their floating spar after many weeks at sea. “Thank god, it’s you! Help me!”
“Let me in and I shall help you all you wish,” I smiled. “For Christmas is a’coming, and I overflow with charity and benevolence!”
“You’re drunk,” he said.
“Only on the spirit of the season.”
There was much clanking, and clattering, and rattling, and rollicking from behind the stout oaken door of 55 White Street as Augustus unlatched the latches, unchained the chains, and unlocked the locks that separated his sanctum from a white world of seasonal cheer. The knob turned and his arm shot out and yanked me inside.
“Merry Christmas!” I boomed. “And where is Charles, this evergreen evening?”
“He has the night off, so he has abandoned me and fled to his Junior Ganymede Club,” Augustus said. “Are they gone? Did you see them? Are they lurking?”
His face was as white as paper, his lips trembled with agitation, and his eyes were full of fear. He was wearing a stained dressing gown, worn slippers, and his hair was a rat’s nest.
“Augustus, you must stop dashing pots of boiling water in the faces of your carolers,” I admonished, peeling off my many layers of warm clothing, snow falling from me in sheets. “They only come to give to you the gift of the love of Christ on his birthday.”
“The only gift they bring is squalid vice,” he muttered, shuffling away into the bowels of the dark and gloomy White Street Clubhouse still gripping his sword. I finished shedding my outer garments and followed him.
The library was, at least, somewhat cheerier than the front hall as a good fire was burning in the grate and there were many decanters of brandy and scotch scattered about. The gas was not lit, however, and so the only light came from the hearth, giving Augustus’s drawn face a grim and tragic aspect as he sank onto his sofa with a moan.
“Why are you cowering in your library, moaning and groaning like Mr. Dickens’s Scrooge, when you could be out with me, strolling the city and taking in the sights, and smells, and joys of this season of lights and wonders.”
He sprang from his position, gripping my collar, pulling my face to his with the strength of a demon.
“Do not!” he warned. “Do not whisper to me of Christmas.”
I laughed, and embraced him in a Yuletide hug, while he squirmed and cursed like a snake on hot coals.
“What is wrong with you Augustus?” I smiled. “Charles has told me of your seasonal eccentricities before, but I have never seen you quite like this. Why are you acting so?”
“Shouldn’t I?” he asked, tearing away from my loving grasp and pouring himself a large brandy. “Does not every vassal shake and tremble when his dread master returns from the hunt? That is what this time of year represents, when the city’s patron saint, the dread Saint Nicholas, hies hither in his monstrous carriage drawn by ferocious reindeer: the shitting, screaming Hell beasts of Lapland. The Dutch hiss his name as Sinterklaas and the thought of his obese form slithering into my home like a murderer in the night, stuffing my socks with foul and rotten oranges, saliva-coated nuts torn from the claws of rabid squirrels, and his own rancid piss fills me with terror, as it should you!”
“I don’t believe there is a tradition of Santa Claus urinating in children’s stockings,” I said.
“The man is a monster,” Augustus snapped. “Why else would he cram himself down our chimneys when we all have perfectly good front doors? Bound by no laws save his own, judging us as ‘naughty’ or ‘nice’ in some kind of secret tribunals, respecting no national boundaries, coming and going at will. Who knows what filthy diseases his nasty reindeer carry on their sharp and pointy hooves? Who knows what plagues lurk in his lice-ridden beard? And why this obsession wit
h children? Why?”
“He is a jolly figure, beloved by little ones everywhere,” I said.
“But you don’t know, do you?” he rasped. “You just don’t know.”
There came a timid rapping at the door. I almost missed it but Augustus sat up as if he had been struck by lightning, then collapsed cowering against the arm of his sofa.
“Oh, God! Protect us!” he gasped. “He has heard me. It’s the Dutch who founded this city, they pledged it to him for his favors and protection, and he will not tolerate anyone to speak out against his tyranny, his infamy, and the terrible liberties he takes with our chimneys. He has come to exact his revenge!”
“I am sure it is merely more carolers come to wish you good cheer,” I said, getting up to check.
“Take the pistol!” he begged, thrusting it into my hand.
To humor him, I took it with me and went and unlocked the front door. There, standing on the porch, was a mound of winter clothes in the shape of a woman. And the woman — ! A vision of such Teutonic beauty that she took my breath away. Her dress was so pure and white that it looked as if it were stitched of driven snow. Her bonnet was both practical and modest and it hid her delicate braids, coiled on the sides of her head like great piles of golden rope. Her face was round and plump and her lips rested upon its rolling crests like two sugarplums soaked in honey. Her nose was perfectly proportioned and located in the middle of her face, and her eyes were like two sparkling lumps of coal sunk deep into the mounded snowbank of her brow.
“Is dis de house of der Vite Street Society?” she asked in a charming German accent.
“It is! It is!” I cried. “I am one of its members! Who are you? Perhaps the ghost of Christmas beauty?”
“Nein,” she said. “I am not one of the unheimlich. First, allow me to bid you guten evening.” She gave a charming curtsey. “I am named Greta von Hitler und why are you holding un pistol?”
“Oh, pardon me!” I cried, stuffing it into my waistcoat. “What a charming name you have!
Dead Leprechauns & Devil Cats Page 7