But before it connected, the sergeant, over reaching himself, tripped and sprawled headlong into the gutter. That gave Slade an instant’s respite. When the noncom regained his feet, the mill began in earnest. It was touch and go for a moment, reckless, wrathful slugging; and then Slade blasted home with one that popped like a boiler explosion.
The sergeant was frozen before he hit the ground. Slade settled back on his heels and drew a long breath; but that was cut short in mid gasp. A brazen gleam from the darkness caught his eye. He made a dive for his pocket as he recognized the little Buddha lying in the dust. His own was still in place; it was the sergeant’s that had rolled from cover.
Slade stooped to pick it up. The hidden springs of the trick pedestal had responded to the impact against the corner of the saloon! The Buddha’s body contained a slip of paper. He struck a match.
“Sin Ban Fong is waiting,” he read, which was damn little to learn for his trouble!
He stuffed the paper and the halves of the image into his pocket, regarded the prostrate sergeant, then used his victim’s shirt and belt to improvise gag and bonds. That done, Slade stepped into the saloon, slid ten pesos across the bar, and struck a, bargain with the proprietor.
“Keep him on ice until morning,” Slade concluded. “If he’s here when I come back, it’s five more for you; if he’s gone, you’ll get some of what he got. And when the taxi gets here, tell him it’s the wrong number. Sabe, hombre?”
He did; and Slade dashed back toward the Nomura-ro.
The next play was to put the empty Buddha on Shigashi San’s cabinet, and wait for someone to call for the one the sergeant had left.
“Sin Ban Fong,” he muttered as he slipped in through the back door. Then, with a bleak grin, “I hope the _____ enjoys waiting!”
Shigashi San, hearing him enter the further room of her suite, appeared from her bedroom. Her smile was cryptic.
He wondered if she suspected. She might not even know that the Buddha swapping had taken place in her room. The smile became alluring…it began to seem not such a bad idea after all to have the exalted blossom shed a few more petals.
All of which he worked into the discussion of his estates in Mindanao. But as Shigashi San luxuriously settled back into her heap of silken quilts, and reached for the bow of her obi, Slade put the empty bronze Buddha back on the lacquered cabinet.
And then the oiran’s draperies parted and her arms closed about him.
But that embrace was checked by the faint whine of a sliding panel. Slade was on his feet at a bound. Shigashi San, outraged at the invasion of her privacy, shed half a dozen hairpins as she snatched for the edges of her robe.
Chow Kit was in the doorway! Sallow, evilly smiling Chow Kit behind the muzzle of an automatic that yawned like a siege gun. He also had come by the back door; and at his heels were half a dozen Chinese and Gugus; murderous riff-raff, armed and leering and spitting betel juice on the mats as they waited for action. And two at the further edge of the cluster between them supported a woman in apricot silk. She was bound, and a gag masked half her face, but Slade recognized Agata Moreno.
All in an instant. “Sin Ban Fong, my dear sir,” murmured Chow Kit, “is waiting with the patience known only to a ship. A Chinese junk whose concealed engines have fooled the revenue cutters. You and Señorita Agata will both take a long ride down the China Sea, where the sharks are hungry—don’t make any false moves, please, or Shigashi San joins the party.”
“Why wait for a junk ride?” snarled Slade, fighting for time, “Do it now—”
Chow Kit chuckled and explained, “Disposing of corpses on land is awkward and betraying, whereas the sharks are discreet.”
Then he added, “One of my men works for the cab company which the sergeant called. The bartender was wise enough to ignore your warning. He phoned to inquire about his prisoner. The news reached me. And in the meanwhile, Agata’s collection of American sweethearts had aroused my suspicions—so, we all go for a cruise in the Sin Ban Fong.
“With things turning out as they did, I really do not need the message the sergeant left here for me. I liberated him. He’s getting the ammunition now.”
Though Chow Kit was safe behind a pistol and Slade was empty-handed, the Chinaman’s eyes did not shift as he purred a phrase in Tagalog, ordering his retainers to bind the American. Steady pistol, and unwavering eyes—
But Chow Kit’s watchfulness worked against him. In watching the desperate American, he overlooked Shigashi San, and the saki jug she had stealthily plucked from a shelf.
A flash of white. A spattering of porcelain shards. The blast of Chow Kit’s widely fired pistol. Slade’s flying tackle carried him clear of the oiran’s bed as the Chinaman’s weapon clattered into a corner. Flinging Chow Kit aside, Slade scooped up the six-fold screen and hurled it athwart the headlong charge of the Chinaman’s armed retainers.
Wadding a silken quilt about his left arm, he parried a sweeping bolo slash, and hammered home with a blasting fist that knocked a Gugu smashing into an alcove. He shifted as the attack swerved to envelop him, seized a lacquered washbasin and crashed it about the ears of the flank guard. He ducked a hurled bolo, flung out the folds of the silken quilt to parry another, side stepped and snatched the first weapon by the hilt.
Slade now armed; but his breath was coming in jerking gasps, and the odds were heavy. Chow Kit, once more on his feet, was urging his shaken retainers to the attack. He had recovered his pistol and hovered on the fringe of the battle, watching Slade’s blade dance in and out, steel striking fire from steel. The Chinaman feared to risk another shot; but as Slade’s desperate charge swept the pack a yard to the rear, the weapon rose into line.
Shigashi San’s voice shrilled high above the cursing confusion. Slade caught the warning, and his brain blazed red. The heavy bolo zipped point on, a streak of steel that ended at the Chinaman’s chest as the automatic spurted flame. Slade won the exchange. Hot lead seared his ribs, but the bolo split Chow Kit’s chest like a chicken for the grille.
Slade was empty-handed. Another saki jug, hurled from the sidelines by Shigashi San, bowled the foremost enemy end for end; and then the charge broke. They saw Chow Kit crumpled up on the matting, a red, twitching huddle. They scrambled madly for the door. No chief, no fight. Slade’s reckless wrath had succeeded where caution would have been overwhelmed.
He bounded from his corner. As he snatched Chow Kit’s weapon, he heard a pounding of feet, and a polyglot chatter that was submerged by a voice like a typhoon. An unpleasantly familiar voice—Captain Rupert Dwyer!
Slade’s salvaged pistol jerked into line as the granite faced renegade burst into the room.
“Drop it, you rat!” Slade commanded.
Dwyer’s hands rose. He recognized death when it stared him in the eye. But Slade’s weapon dropped the next instant: behind Dwyer was a squad of military police, and the Provost Marshal.
“What the hell?” boomed Dwyer, eyeing the gory wreckage.
Then a cross-fire of questions, and Slade identified himself.
“And cut that girl loose—over there in the corner. That mestiza, with the gag in her mouth—”
Dwyer followed Slade’s gesture.
“Mestiza, my eye! That’s my sister!”
And Agata, when she was liberated, explained, “Dad was a colonel. And years ago, we were in the Islands, so it was easy—”
“But why that bailarina gag at Chow Kit’s?” demanded Slade.
“When the old colonel died in the States, she came over to see me. And landed just in time to find me in a rotten jam,” interposed Captain Dwyer. “Ammunition being lost by the case. And me responsible. You know what that would mean. I had to clear it up. We suspected Chow Kit. And Agata, damned little idiot, insisted on getting a job as a bailarina to do a bit of spying—”
“Agata?” echoed Slade. “But what’s her real name?”
“Named after my stepmother: Agata Moreno Dwyer.”
That simplified it.
“Anyway,” resumed Dwyer, “I went out to Chow Kit’s place to check up on Agata’s hazardous game, and when I saw you two—”
“Rupert, you idiot!” interposed Agata, “you didn’t see a thing! As if I couldn’t take care of myself!”
“Listen, Dwyer,” intervened Slade, “honest to God, I didn’t mean a thing—and anyway, it was in the line of duty, getting evidence.”
Dwyer snorted, and Agata’s Spanish eyes glowed in fond reminiscence. Slade changed the subject to ammunition.
“Chow Kit was so busy with you, there in Agata’s shack,” resumed Dwyer, “that he overlooked me. And when I recovered from that crack on the bean, she was gone, and I checked up.
“That card of admission you took from my wallet was one the sergeant had dropped. That gave me a hunch as to his connections. I’d suspected him for some time anyway. And in trailing Agata, we tangled up with him, all beaten up, and hell bent for the warehouse.
“He explained plenty when I bluffed him about no honest enlisted man being able to hang out at the Nomura-ro. So don’t bother trying to open the other bronze Buddha. That crook had arranged to have a tunnel dug to open into the warehouse, so he could load the whole works on a barge, in spite of the doubled sentries we’d posted about the place. That was the big raid—the earlier thefts were just petty larceny in comparison.”
And then Slade remembered that Shigashi San’s saki jug had given his chance to hang on until the M.P.’s arrived.
“Sorry about that plantation,” he said, “but I’ll buy up your contract.”
“Death has canceled it,” she answered, gesturing toward Chow Kit’s body.
Slade dug out his wallet and handed the oiran the contents.
“Anyway, here’s a ticket home.”
Shigashi San had not missed the glow in Agata’s dark eyes, and the glances she and Slade had exchanged. She accepted the present, then, utterly ignoring Slade, she turned to Agata to bow and say: “Oiran maido arigato!—Thank you, madam, for your constant favors.”
Shigashi San, now a free woman, used Japanese courtesy as a harpoon; but only Slade caught the point.
“What did she say?” wondered Agata, sensing her mockery.
“She said,” Slade falsified, “that you’re a damn lucky girl to get a chance to carry on where we left off, in that nipa shack.”
MURDER SALVAGE
Yvonne yawned, and that made her white arms stretch like lovely snakes; the blue robe rounded out over small, firm curves. The stretch made her slimmer at the waist, and her legs straightened in a long, silky reach.
“Don’t be tiresome,” she said. “The car is mine, and I’m keeping it. I didn’t tell Walt to dip into the till to buy it for me, and you can’t prove that—”
“Look here!” Honest John Carmody hitched the spindle-legged chair a little closer. His face was a bit redder, and the more he saw of Yvonne’s peep show, the redder his face became. “I know damn well we can’t prove a thing. If you had the actual cash stuffed in your sock—”
She lifted a fold of the robe, and exposed the picot edge of a honey-colored stocking. “I haven’t. It’d make too big a bulge.”
That display made Honest John stutter. “I ain’t browbeating you. I’m asking you, turn that bus over, it’s worth a thousand bucks as it stands, secondhand. The bonding company’s on Walt Crawford’s tail. If he begs, borrows, maybe he can make good, and without selling his house.”
“My dear man, I didn’t ask him to clean the till.”
Honest John growled, piled out of the chair, and stood there like an oversized cub bear in a shiny blue suit. He caught the glamor girl’s shoulder, and jerked her to her feet.
“I thought you weren’t browbeating me,” she snapped. “If that fool’s house is sold, that’s his business.”
Honest John made another quick move, and then Yvonne did yeep. He had the blue chiffon in his hand, and she stood there, peeled down to a bra and a bit of something about her hips.
“You fluff-witted dime’s-worth of white meat,” he boomed and shook the blue robe, “this and every other stitch in the house is what Walt Crawford bought you. You’re still way ahead, even if you give him back that car. Damn it, he’s got a wife.”
“He never acted like it. Now, let’s not wrangle,” she purred and came closer. “I’ve been out of work for months, and what’ll happen to me?”
She knew he was just another dick, a plug-ugly with half-soled shoes; but she threw her weight to make that bra stand out a little fuller, a little more alluring. She wanted him to go for her like every chump did. And she was succeeding. For a second, he did not know what to do or say. He dropped the blue robe.
She’d snuggle up and be sweet. Just sweet enough to follow up with a good laugh. Her big blue eyes, her drooping lashes told him that she was reading his face, and getting a kick out of her advertising campaign. “What’ll happen to me, John?” she cooed.
“This.”
He slapped her a hefty one. She landed smack on one of her best features. “I’ve seen some tramps that had a white streak in ’em,” he growled over his shoulder and slammed the door. “You ain’t one of ’em.”
* * * *
Honest John spent the next couple days in routine business: looking around hot spots for other chumps, hanging around race tracks for the same purpose. He was spotting tellers, cashiers, salesmen, assistant vice-presidents, all the white collar lads his bonding company covered. If they gutted the till, his company had to cough up and then try to recover as much loot as possible.
Throwing a man in the jug didn’t bring the dough back. The company would rather have the chump on the hoof, paying off, which he couldn’t do in jail. Sometimes, you can stop a fellow before he’s too far gone and make him snap out of it.
Honest John passed Yvonne’s apartment several times, but he did not go in. Appealing to her sense of decency wouldn’t work, she had none. And she was too smart to be scared. Or was she?
Then, driving up the Ocean Shore road from Half Moon Bay, Honest John met Yvonne, though at first, he didn’t know who the woman was. It’s dark and lonesome between roadhouses; artichoke patches and little farmhouses dot the heavy black earth.
When he tramped on the brake, not far from where the new highway branches from the snaky old Montara Mountain roller-coaster, he said, “Aw, hell, I’m seeing things, I still got that floor show on the brain. Or maybe it’s fog.”
But it was a woman his headlights had picked out. She was lying on her face, and her blond hair gleamed. Her hands were all muddy from clawing the black soft earth. But a lot of her was white and round and hard to miss; you had to slow down for that sharp turn.
When he stumbled through the knee-high reeds in the ditch she had crawled out of, he saw that she’d been peeled right down. Not even stockings. He squatted and got a look at the face. It was Yvonne Latour.
As nearly as he could tell, two slugs had drilled her back, and a third, her head, behind one ear. Small slugs that did not tear her up. Then he looked into the ditch and saw a new, flimsy gray blanket; it had blood on it. His headlights didn’t reach down, but a match made it all clear.
He was surprised that he could be sorry for Yvonne. Dumped into the ditch as dead, some lingering life had made her crawl toward the road. He made a move to get the blanket and thought better of that. He took off his coat, and laid it over the huddled corpse. She was cold, cold as the ocean mist, but he could not let her lie there utterly uncovered. Then he stamped away, snorting, “Dizzy—had it coming. Hah. Hope that fool of a Crawford didn’t do this. Wouldn’t blame him, though. She had it coming.”
As he hightaile
d back to the nearest roadhouse to phone the sheriff’s office, he began to understand a few details. Stripping Yvonne had been to prevent identification; hauling the corpse to San Mateo County would also help, though even in San Francisco, Yvonne was just another of a swarm of tramps playing the field when not taking turns at floor shows or hustling drinks. Finally, lying in the ditch in that lonely stretch, her weight would have carried her slowly into the mud.
All he reported was the actual discovery. He wanted to keep the inside track by letting the killer believe that there was no identification; also, he wanted to keep immediate suspicion from Walt Crawford. If the chump was guilty, turn him in. If he wasn’t, let him have what little chance there was at getting a fresh start. He was really a nice guy.
* * * *
Two hours later, Honest John was in San Francisco, where an unidentified corpse in San Mateo County would not get more than half an inch in the classified advertising. The drive took forty minutes; the rest of the time had been devoted to making his statement and saying to the sheriff, “Hell, even if she’d been dressed, I wouldn’t know her.”
He had a thin ribbon of spring steel and a few assorted keys which were routine in his job; also, his stumpy fingers had a surprisingly slick touch. It did not take him long to get into Yvonne’s apartment.
The feminine fragrance of the bedroom did not thrill his nostrils; he shivered a little, thinking of that dark ditch. Yvonne’s silver fox coat was not in the house. There was nothing else he could check. There were half a dozen handbags, but none had a driver’s license or keys. Honest John cursed bitterly and said half aloud, “She’s deader’n hell, probably got no folks except some she don’t keep track of. The public administrator’ll take that sweet little convertible; the chump hasn’t a chance at it now.”
The E. Hoffmann Price Spice Adventure MEGAPACK ™ Page 16