by Jack Conner
The night grew lighter as he rattled along, the truck finding the narrow country roads and following them to one small town, then another. His arm ached. He could only steer with one arm, and he found driving taxing, especially in this decrepit model, whose wheel fought him with every pull. Toward dawn Lynch ran low on gas, and he stopped at one of the small communities to refill. Petrol was rationed nation-wide and he could only hope they had some available. If not, he would have to steal something else. Fortunately, they had what he needed, and as the gas attendant pumped Lynch listened to a radio crackle in the background. Some harried reporter spoke of a bloody assault by the Third Reich in the mountains last night. The attack had been unanticipated and without apparent motive save to inflict casualties, and the Germans had retreated without achieving any apparent end.
As Lynch was paying, he noticed a car roll into town behind him. The car cruised slowly, as if its occupants looked for something. Lynch told the attendant to keep the change and hit the road.
The sun grew warm overhead. In the next town, he stole another car, as the troopers would be looking for the truck. By this time police would be looking for it, as well, if anyone had survived from the farm house. That no police had been cruising the streets so far gave Lynch a cold feeling in his gut, but he told himself it didn’t mean anything. Country police were lazy. The car he stole this time was small, smelled of cabbage, and was of Swiss manufacture. Its owner, like many country owners, had conveniently left the key on the dash.
He watched his rear-view mirror, looking for police or the other car, the one that might contain Major Berndt and his troopers. He saw nothing.
He hit Gaston mid-morning, and it comforted him to be surrounded by the hustle and bustle of a city, even with its bread lines, blackouts, bombed-out buildings and general atmosphere of fear. He saw lights, activity, the theatre district, the great statue of King Regis IV, who had secured independence from England, the rearing baroque monstrosity of Henry’s Needle, ticking its way toward doomsday.
Lynch needed rest, food and fresh clothes. He could curl up in a gutter somewhere with some fish and chips off a vendor, but that would not solve the problem of clothing, and he could not be prowling the shops of the city.
He parked several blocks from Madam Wan’s, not wanting to draw the police to the den should they discover the stolen car (one among many, a veritable straw in a pile of straws here in the Blight, but still). Strolling to the former warehouse, he relished the taste of soot on his tongue, the sounds of car horns in his ears. A boy hawked a newspaper, but Lynch was too exhausted to read it.
He entered the den through the back alley, wanting to meet with Madam Wan before availing himself of the den’s other services (if he should be so inclined). Two Chinese bouncers with inscrutable expressions and long, drooping mustaches blocked off the rear door like a couple of yaks.
Lynch bowed, but they did not return the gesture, or so much as blink as far as he could tell.
“My I see the Madam? She’s expecting me.”
The larger bouncer ducked inside, spoke rapid-fire Chinese, and returned to hold the door open for Lynch. Grateful, Lynch stepped through into Madam Wan’s business offices. The smell of incense and hot wax engulfed him. Colorful Chinese partitions and hangings brightened the drab back rooms, and Eastern music drifted through the walls, coming from the den, where Madam Wan always kept her dreamers entertained. The madam herself, to Lynch’s surprise, sprawled naked and face down on a bed while a young woman fastened heated glass bulbs to her back.
“They draw out bad spirits,” said the young woman, when Lynch raised his eyebrows.
“There are certainly enough of those around,” he allowed.
“Sit, sit,” said Madam Wan, gesturing vaguely.
A servant brought forth a wooden chair, and Lynch deposited himself in it with a sigh. “You’re looking well,” he told her.
“Huh.” She regarded him once, then put her face down again. “You look hell.” Her voice was slightly muffled.
“Actually, considering, I look quite good. I should look far less . . . breathing.” He shook out a cigarette and lit it. One of the servant girls, wearing a brightly colored robe, waved the smoke away with an ornate fan so that it would not disturb her mistress. The young woman filled out her robe rather well, and Lynch smiled at her appreciatively. She almost -- almost -- raised an eyebrow, he could see the twitch, but otherwise she ignored him.
“What happen?” grunted Madam Wan. “You been gone fo’eveh.”
“Well, I found our killer, traced him back to a vast and powerful network of Nazi spies and saboteurs, and am currently trying to foil their plan to assassinate the Queen and take over the country.”
“Huh. Kill Queen no goo’.”
“Indeed. I don’t think goo’ is high on their itinerary.” He blew smoke into the fan, which the servant girl whipped faster, frowning at him.
“Tell me wha’ happen.”
“I shall, Madam, but first I require a few things. Food would be a start. And I need some clothes -- fine clothes, nice enough for me to be admitted into the Palace.”
“Will cos’ you.”
He sighed. “I have enough.”
“Goo’! You owe me money.” She said this emphatically.
He resisted another sigh. “We shall see if I have that much.”
He ate some sort of Chinese stew while he talked. It contained noodles, pork-filled dumplings, seaweed and translucent fungus among other, less recognizable oddments. Normally he suspected it would taste abominable but at the moment it was the best thing he could ever remember eating. He ate it all, asked for seconds, and was eating his third bowl and drinking a glass of tea when servants arrived with the clothing. He dressed behind one of the colorful partitions -- depicting a rural Chinese scene involving a bridge and a waterfall -- as he finished relating the tale to Madam Wan. He didn’t care if she knew the particulars. His object was not to keep the Society’s plan secret. Besides, she had originally hired him to find and stop the killer -- hired him, implying she would cancel his debt if he performed as required. Of course, he had not technically ended the killings, but at least he had found their source. Franklin and the others had died to feed the vampiric habits of Lars Gunnerson and the rest of the Society supermen. Hopefully that information would be enough to cancel his debt.
Lynch began to feel drowsy about the time the tailor finished making adjustments to his new pants and jacket.
“I feel . . . unaccountably . . . bushed,” he said. “I had been . . . fading . . . before . . . but now . . .” The world spun.
Madam Wan flattered him by raising her face to look at him. “You too’ long enough.” She swore in Chinese. “Neveh seen man eat so much horse tranquilizeh an’ not fall down.”
Lynch raised his eyebrows. “Horse . . . ”
He fell down. The world went dark before his cheek struck the floor.
***
Jackboots strode up and down, clipping on the cement floor, the first sound Lynch had consciously heard in some time, and it took him a while to make sense of it. Smacking his mouth -- dry -- he pulled himself into a sitting position. The air stank of something . . . some animal odor, powerful and musky. Straw heaped around him. He was in a cage, not large enough to stand in, but of thick, solid steel, about a meter and a half square. He peered through the bars into a grimy chamber, likely some backroom of the opium den.
A trooper paced up and down before him, the dust-covered bulb of the room throwing dirty light on the silver trim gracing his uniform. As he paced up and down, his legs stiff, his boots clicking, he looked very much like the ideal of a German soldier -- tall, broad-shouldered and classically handsome, blond and blue-eyed. A perfect Nazi. And likely endowed with the benefits of Strain Seven. Lynch would have to remember that. As his mind cleared, the ridiculousness of his situation struck him: a lone cripple, riddled with vices, trying to stop a cult of perfect supermen. It would have been laughable if it weren’t
so horribly hopeless.
His snort drew the trooper’s attention. The young man’s clear blue eyes swung to regard Lynch with the power of Arctic ice.
“Ah! The beast awakens.”
Lynch’s belly rumbled, which surprised him. “How long have I been out?”
“All day, beast.” The lad leaned closer, his face mere centimeters from the bars. Lynch coiled himself to reach out and slash him. He struck, and pain jarred his arm. Howling, he fell back. His hook had been covered in a rubber bulb and strapped to his wrist with great swaths of black tape.
The lad laughed, drew back. “You don’t look so tough. Last night, when I was jumping out of the zeppelin after you, I imagined you as much more frightening. The hook, the eye patch -- a creature of myth. An ogre, maybe. A shame, almost, to see you like this. Perhaps I should let you out? Hah, the look on your face! Oh, I shouldn’t tease you.”
Lynch sat up again. “Get me something to eat, would you? And some water. Or beer, why not.”
The trooper clicked his tongue. “I think enough resources have been wasted on you. But I will inform Herr Berndt that you are awake.” He moved to the door, cracked it, and called out, “The beast wakes!” Half-smiling, he turned back. “Now maybe someone else will take over and I can have some fun.”
“Ah. You’ve landed in an opium den and whorehouse, and here you are stuck with the prisoner. Let me out and you won’t have anyone to guard, and you can have all the fun you want. Go on, I won’t stop you. But don’t expect me to feel sorry for you.”
Major Berndt stormed in, the top button of his tunic undone, his face reddened, his hair tussled. “So he lives and breathes. Eh! Good.”
“Shall I give you a moment alone with him?” the lad said hopefully.
The Major crooked a grin. “’fraid not, boy. I have someone waiting for me.”
“I can tell by the bulge in your pants that it must be another of your men,” Lynch said, working at the tape on his arm. He grimaced as it pulled loose a patch of hair. The tape was secured quite well.
The Major’s eyes narrowed. They appeared bloodshot. “Get your digs in while you can, James. Herr Gunnerson himself wants to kill you.”
“Yes, apparently killing his sister annoyed him. How sentimental. Well, I look forward to seeing the chap again. I especially look forward to seeing the sights on the way.” He would escape during the transport.
The Major smiled. “He’s coming here. You’re deemed too dangerous for transport. Fitting, the cage you’re in.”
Damn. “I was meaning to ask about that -- awfully convenient. I don’t remember you bringing it with you out of the zeppelin. Must have been up your ass. I bet a lot could fit up there. This lad’s cock, for example. Likely many others. All at once, I’d bet. You must have had loads of practice.”
Berndt’s face reddened further, and the muscles around his mouth drew tight. “You will not goad me into opening that cage, you . . .” He shook himself. “As I was saying, that cage belonged to a tiger -- until yesterday. I believe his manhood went into some wealthy chink’s soup. A lucrative trade, I’m told.”
“It surprises me that Madam Wan would traffic in such things.” Actually, it didn’t, but he needed something to say as he worked on the tape.
“The tiger died right where you’re sitting. Probably emasculated there, too. Are those bloodstains? Right where you’re sitting?” He laughed at Lynch’s discomfort. “I’m hoping it might give Herr Gunnerson some ideas.”
“Let’s hope. Then you can use my johnny as your own personal dildo. I can tell you right now -- ”
“Enough!” Berndt trembled in rage, and his hands were shaking fists at his sides. “I will not be talked to like this.” He jerked a knife out of a strap on his thigh. It gleamed sharply in the light.
The young trooper cleared his throat. “Major.”
Berndt swallowed. “Yes. Forgive me. That’s just what he wants.” He spat and replaced the knife.
“I can’t believe you’re too afraid to open a door,” Lynch said. “What are you, Nazis or pussies? Hm. You know, I never noticed -- the words sort of rhyme.“
To his irritation, Berndt laughed. “You really are a pathetic creature, you know.”
“Is that what you tell all the men you’re attracted to?”
Berndt purpled, wheeled about and stormed from the room, slamming the door behind him.
“I don’t think he likes me,” Lynch said.
The trooper looked longingly at the door.
.
***
Lynch continued to work at the tape. He yelped several times as the tape ripped hairs loose. The trooper warned him to leave it be, but without much conviction, and he didn’t dare open the cage to force the issue. Instead, he paced up and down, up and down, staring wistfully at the door, ear cocked to the exotic strains of harp and lute tinkling through the walls. Somewhere a young woman laughed.
“We could play a game of cards,” Lynch suggested, speaking around the tape he had gripped in his mouth. “Maybe a word game. I really would hate for my last moments on earth to be boring.”
The trooper looked at him, shook his head. He paced up and down, up and down, but slower with every revolution, obviously growing tired. Unlike Lynch, he would have had little or no sleep, and he had been going since the drop last night. He fortified himself with glass of tea after tea. The tea steamed in the cold room.
“I can’t stand this crap,” the lad said, raising the cup to his lips. “How can you English-wannabes tolerate it? I prefer coffee like they drink in America.”
“See, now you’ve just insulted me. I love a good cup of tea. That cup, for example. I can tell from the aroma that it’s a good crop. Plucked in autumn -- no, summer. Late summer, yes. From Hunan Province. Oh, and it’s loaded with horse tranquilizer. Probably the same stuff they used on me and the unfortunate tiger.”
The lad’s eyes were already drooping. He sagged for a moment and the door burst open. A harried-looking Chinese man rushed in, caught the trooper before he could collapse, and eased him down in a corner. Lynch recognized the Chinese as the young man that had shown him to Franklin’s body two days ago.
“Why, it’s good to see you,” Lynch said. “Would you like some tea? Oh, that’s right. You drugged it. Perhaps next time.”
“Shut up, shut up, you drive me crazy,” the young man said. As he hunkered next to the cage and brought out some pins, needles and cranks, he said, “Don’t you remember me? I’m Guo.”
“Yes, Guo, I remember you. Ni hau?”
Guo gritted his teeth as he picked the lock, and by the way he worked Lynch doubted the lock held many challenges. Tigers were not known for their lock-picking prowess. The cage swung open with a squeal, and Guo held it open for Lynch butler-like.
“Why, most gracious of you,” Lynch said, climbing outside. “I was growing moderately concerned. I was about to implement my plan of chewing through the bars. You saved me years of dentistry. Shi shi.”
“We must act quickly. Come!”
He showed Lynch out of the room and down a short hall. The music was louder here. Lynch heard laughter, the lilt of a young woman, and he smelled the rich, heady fragrance of opium. He was so close . . . perhaps he had time for one puff . . .
He pushed on.
“Why are you helping me?” Lynch spoke in a whisper.
“You helped me, remember. Master Zhang berated me for taking a long time to bring you to the body, but you took the blame. That really saved me, I can tell you.”
“I don’t know if the two savings are parallel in scope, but I’m not telling you to stop.”
They reached an intersection of corridors, paused as they looked both ways, and scampered across.
“You don’t know Master Zhang. Being late was the camel’s straw, I can tell you. He was the one that cut the thorn from the tiger. I was there. And he did it while staring straight at me!” He took a breath. “Nevertheless. It is Madam Wan that sends me.”
“Madam Wan?”
“That surprises you?” said Madam Wan herself, appearing in the doorway to her office suite. She was dressed in her formal robes again, and her face looked harder than usual. Something not quite so hard appeared, briefly, in her eyes when they settled on Lynch, then was gone. “You still owe me money.”
Lynch sighed as he was ushered through the door. “I will pay you back, I promise. Still . . . why are you doing this?”
Guo and Madam Wan hurried him through the suite, past curling stalks of incense, past the great bronze gong, toward the door that led out into the alley, the same door through which he had entered that morning.
“I no kill Queen!” Madam Wan said. “I no traitor!”
“You’re planning to flee the country . . . ”
“’at’s ‘cause I have sense.” They reached the door and she held it open for him. The alley beckoned. It was night. Somewhere he heard the honk of a car.
He stopped on the threshold, stared into her eyes. Half of her face was illuminated by her office lights, half lay in shadow. “What’s the story, Madam?”
She cocked her fists on her hips. “Bad man came yesterday. Man all in purple. Red glasses. Said he researched you. Led him -- to me. I say, never heard of this Lynch boy. Wrong place. I no sell opium hea’.”
“He didn’t buy that very believable story?”
“No!” She looked indignant. Then afraid. “He say he kill me an’ all my people if I no help him. When I saw you agai’, I keep you hea’. I call him. If I don’t -- ” She drew a line across her throat. “So -- I do. He has people hea’ loo’king fo’ you. They come.”
Lynch raised his eyebrows. “But by helping me escape . . . ”
Madam Wan stuck out her hand, and Guo deposited a sheaf of papers into it. A huge smile split her face, and her eyes shone. Lynch recognized the papers.
“You got your visa.”
“We go -- America!” She made flying motions, then laughed. “He no find us thea’.”
“Where will I get my opium? Wait. Did you just get that today?” When she nodded slowly, he said, “So . . . if you hadn’t gotten that . . . ”