Tea with the Black Dragon (v1.4)

by R. A. MacAvoy

  Rasmussen edged by. Eight feet from the small door he stopped. The muted smack of a twenty-two cartridge cut the silence. Another. Rasmussen was methodically piercing the shadows with bullets.

  One shell buried itself in the wall behind the bar. One cracked tile. One glanced off metal and sang down the stairway.

  And then five bullets in quick succession slammed through the flimsy panels of the little door. The smell of powder cut into the air. Rasmussen inserted a new clip. The door was jerked open.

  Standing just outside, Rasmussen shot diagonally into the corridor, first left, then right. Long dared not move.

  Then the gunman stepped off the floor, giving his weight hesitantly to a beam.

  A shot into the wall behind Long sent a shower of ‘ powder around his head. Rasmussen raised the barrel of the gun above his head and brought it down on the other side of the narrow passage. He fired and turned again.

  Long moved toward him. His face was only inches above the insulation, fine as angel hair.

  This methodical attack was original and deadly. Long had depended on fear of discovery to make his opponent stingy with his fire. But the spit of this rifle was hardly louder than the pre-recorded violence emitted from the TVs along the street. It would be lost in the rain. If this continued, he would inevitably be hit.

  But there was a weakness in Rasmussen’s strategy; he had to divide his time between the left and right passage. During those moments Long crawled toward Rasmussen.

  The air sparked by his left ear. The noise of the shot was deafening. Then Rasmussen turned and he was free to move. The rifle swung back and Long froze again. Twice more and he would be able to touch Rasmussen. The bullet hit Long in the right shoulder and smashed his collarbone. Passing through flesh it buried itself in the wooden frame post beside him. White teeth flashed in dumb shock.

  He felt his right hand slide from its grip on wood. It caught against splinters as it fell, and came to rest finally in the bed of insulation. The arm was useless; it had been taken from him and replaced with a focus of astounding pain.

  Instinct alone kept Long quiet. He shifted his weight to the left and brought his right leg forward. He had no choice but to attack now, before Rasmussen had time to turn and fire again: little hope, but no choice. Long lifted himself from the beam and stood swaying. Measuring the distance, he crouched to spring.

  But Rasmussen stood motionless, his rifle pointed at the ceiling. His head was tilted, listening.

  Long heard the noise too. It came from outside the passage—from the bathroom. He identified the sound with no trouble.

  Rasmussen turned, nearly losing his footing. He bulled his way through the narrow door. Long recognized this as his moment.

  He recognized it, and yet he did not attack. He tapped his bottled anger, commanding it to flare up, heat his nerves, impel him with the certainty of violence—the single-souled violence of a wounded beast which fuels ferocity with pain. -

  There was no response from within. Merely the recognition. And the pain.

  It might have been the ignominy of his condition— wet, ill from lack of sleep, dressed like a sidewalk tramp and barefoot—which blocked his response. It might have been the blood which even now filtered through the gauzy fiberglass and spread a sad pink stain through the plaster of the child’s empty bedroom below. It might have been that civilization had penetrated too deeply into him.

  It might have been that he was old. Long slunk out from the passage behind Rasmussen and faded down the staircase. He heard three shots, and a high-pitched yowl cut off. He heard Rasmussen’s cry of frustration and rage. He opened the trench door quietly and stooped for his shoes, clenching his teeth around a groan.

  He had known it was the cat.

  The rain had slowed. A few stars burnt through the cloud. Mayland Long wove into the scrub wood across from Rasmussen’s house. He put his back to a tree and waited for Rasmussen to come out.

  For nothing had been changed by this little pas de deux. Long still had to find Martha Macnamara. Rasmussen must lead him to her. With his quarry escaped, the man would have to move.

  Liz was still safe, since Rasmussen didn’t know Long had found her. She would remain safe until the banks opened tomorrow. Martha must be alive. He could say no more.

  Chill seeped out of the earth and air. It invaded his anatomy. Blood and water mixed beneath the tree where he sat.

  Why had he failed himself? He felt he had reacted in a manner alien to his own nature, and he was very familiar with his nature; it had been with him a long time. He ought to have taken Rasmussen as soon as the man’s back was turned. Had he killed the man it would have been unfortunate, but understandable. That was proper behavior, with logic and the fire of the beast in harmony. Instead he had run away.

  Tentatively, he sorted his feelings. Was he ready to confront Rasmussen again, if need be?

  Where was his anger?

  He was rewarded for his probing with cold, deadly pain. His vision swam with meaningless stars. His ears filled with a pounding, like surf. Mayland Long passed out under the weeping trees.

  Martha had not noticed the box before. It lay hidden amid a pile of trash the small man had accumulated during the day: candy wrappers, soda cans, broken cigarettes. He pulled it out now, brushing the ash from the black plastic grill on the top of it.

  She stared grimly at the cassette recorder. She knew what it was for and she had guessed events would come to this.

  A magazine jacket covered with print caught her desperate eye. “Dr. Dobb’s” she chirped. “I know someone else who reads that.”

  His eyes held only boredom and contempt. His fingers fiddled with the machine. He drew the microphone out of its compartment and plugged it in the back of the box.

  “Now, lady. It’s time for you to talk to your daughter.”

  She regarded him with birdlike intensity, her blue eyes unblinking. His own face flushed, heavy and sullen.

  “Just tell her you’re all right. Tell her to do what we say.” He pressed the record and play buttons.

  The whirr of the moving tape was the only sound in the room. Martha Macnamara’s small mouth was pursed. With her round face and tangled braids she was the image of rebellion.

  He stopped the tape. Smacked her backhanded across the face. Rewound and started again.

  “Talk,” he grunted. She stared at nothing, across the room.

  The man hit Martha three more times. The last time he hit her, he used his fist. “Talk!” he bellowed. His voice cracked. The tape reached its end and the machine snapped off.

  Martha Macnamara abruptly began talking. “You spend a lot of money on your clothes,” she observed, through cracked lips. “But you don’t know how to put them together. With white trousers you should not wear a bright red shirt. Except in Italy, maybe…”

  His finger jabbed the rewind. He stood looking down at his captive, grinding his teeth. He kicked her. Kicked her again, just below the wire-bound hands.

  “Ow, owww, owww!” shrieked Martha Macnamara. “Yow Owww!” She cried out once for every kick, loudly and with great animation. He pressed record once more, and the tape filled with wordless howls and yelps.

  The small man turned away, purple faced. He leaned against the wall, slicking back his hair, and stood in unconscious parody of Michelangelo’s David. He did not see Martha stagger to her feet, pluck up the recorder by the mike cord, swing it around her head, and send it crashing against the back of his neck.

  He tottered and fell, but as the machine was made of light plastic, he did not lose consciousness. As Martha bent over him, scrabbling through his pockets for the keys and dikes, his arms shot up and grabbed her by the throat.

  “I’ll kill you, you bitch!” he roared. The woman’s head snapped back and forth as he shook her and squeezed. Her face was mottled, under the bruises.

  The green door suddenly opened and the small man looked up into small eyes set in a huge head, a head gold and spiky as an Aztec p
latter.

  “Jesus Christ, Threve, what’d you do that for?” gritted Floyd Rasmussen.

  Chapter 10

  Mayland Long woke under a cold clear sky. With an agony of effort he pulled himself to his feet. A cautious walk down the sidewalk in front of Rasmussen’s house told him the man had made his escape, for the lights were all out and the french door closed once again. Around the square where Long had removed the glass the injured wood gleamed white.

  He didn’t curse himself for his body’s latest failing; he merely proceeded down the street toward his car, each step premeditated, slowly…

  Long felt about as sick as a man can be, still standing. Wet cold ate into his lungs; his breath steamed. He cradled his right arm in front of him. A dull pounding in his ears had haunted him through dreams into miserable wakefulness. Its dull thunder confused him, though he knew it was his own heartbeat.

  Worse than the cold, worse than the confusion, almost worse than the lancing pain in his shoulder was the thirst. If he could find water, he could bear the cold and the pain.

  Oily puddles in the road tempted him. Had they been deeper he might have bent to drink from them. If he were able to bend. The car. Was there water anywhere in it? Perhaps in the washer reservoir.

  But no. That water would be mixed with antifreeze. Thoughtfully he regarded the dark houses he passed. Water in the garden faucets? In the green plastic hoses coiled in the grass? His steps slowed—stopped.

  He didn’t dare. If he were caught, found by some insomniac householder, staggering blood-soaked and frozen among the dahlias, or if there were a dog… He could go without water. For a little while.

  The Citroen gleamed under starlight. He found his keys, but his hand was not steady and he had difficulty unlocking the door. He pulled it open and sank into the tan leather seat. Wherever he touched it, the leather darkened: brown with water, russet with blood.

  In the comfort of the car he rested, until faintness rose up from his chest to his throat and threatened to drown him. Words echoed in his head. Tinny, removed, without meaning… “In order to become what you are not, it is necessary to go by a way in which you are not.”

  Whose words? Who had said that? Long’s distracted mind pursued the question. Donne? No. Not like Donne. They were from a poem of Eliot’s. Or… were they the Formosan’s? The old man in the rain. Rain again… Whatever, they made no sense. Didn’t help at all. Never had. Words.

  What would help? He needed… rest. There were so many miseries, crowding him close. Pain, thirst, cold, worry, loss. It hurt to think. It hurt to breathe.

  Failure.

  Suddenly it occurred to Mayland Long that he didn’t know what to do next. He couldn’t remember. Staring into the darkness, broken only by the pale arc of the steering wheel before him, he shuddered.

  It was rest he needed, he told himself. He would regain both memory and strength if he could rest. Where to look for it?

  Long could not recall his childhood, nor any time he was under the care of others. He had not been ill in many years. He conjured up a vision of his sitting room like an animal yearning for its den, yet there was nothing within those book-lined walls that had the power to comfort him now. Nothing called to him but sleep.

  Blankness soared toward him on owl’s wings.

  His eyes opened and his head jerked up. He remembered his commitments. Both to Martha Macnamara and to Elizabeth, he had made promises. Because he was born in China, he had a great respect for promises. Because he had always kept them. Long believed most strongly in his own promises, and knew that a promise he did not fulfill would fulfill itself upon him. Live or dead, no creature might escape the unfolding of its own actions.

  He turned on the engine.

  And the heat.

  Elizabeth’s bedroom was green. The bedside lamp gave off a gauzy light, like filtered sunlight falling on the forest floor. The lamp, the table beneath it, the dresser, the standing cheval mirror—all were of golden oak. The bedroom was just the way she wanted it. It was one of the few things in her life that were just the way she wanted.

  She sought solace in that room, beneath the rumpled covers of the great waterbed. As she had assured Mr. Long, the bed was quite warm. Within her was the additional golden warmth of Scotch. She hugged her down pillow.

  Her mind revolved endlessly on one question. How had she gotten involved in this horror? The question had become a ritual exercise, for she already knew the answer: it was a union of philosophy and greed.

  What made transfer of property sometimes morally justifiable and sometimes theft? Mutuality was a good criterion. When one took and gave nothing, that was theft. But the bank might take one’s car away, when one was down on one’s luck and needed the car most. That was lawful behavior on the banks part, but was it morally justifiable? And if transfer of property could be justified, was it the idea of transfer, or of property itself which sat at the root of the problem?

  Pragmatism was a sword that cut through such knots; an action was to be judged by its consequences alone. Liz had been introduced to the philosophy as a penniless freshman in college and had lived by it. There was nothing wrong in a deed which hurt no one and did the doer much good.

  Liz’s sophisticated robbery was of that kind. No one was hurt but the federal insurance agency, and Liz’s own situation was marvelously improved. Of course, if everyone followed her lead, the bank would break and individuals would be hurt, but everyone was not robbing the bank. Only Liz Macnamara was robbing the bank and now that she was a bit older and no longer penniless, that suited her quite well.

  The problem was that Floyd Rasmussen was not a philosopher, but a crook. He was a man of quick changes. He loved his cat and all Disney movies. He also shot things for fun: deer, quail, even wildcats. Floyd turned on and off like a faucet which was levered by his own self-interest. She had liked Floyd in the beginning, though never quite enough to go to bed with him, as he had wanted. Now she wanted to see him dead.

  And Threve? Thinking about Threve, Liz clutched her pillow spasmodically, hiding her face in white cotton. Threve was the devil himself. Without Threve, Rasmussen would be no threat to her, but Rasmussen himself was afraid of Threve.

  Why? He wasn’t much to look at. He was much shorter than Liz, and he dressed like a gigolo, raising eyebrows in the expensive places where he liked to spend his time. Being in Threve’s company had been purgatory for Liz, but she had not dared avoid him, for fear of his temper. The three of them had been locked together in bonds of mutual guilt, in which camaraderie soured into distrust.

  She had spent much of her life in the company of people she didn’t like and wasn’t able to avoid. Her mother’s friends, for example.

  She remembered her early years with glass clarity. Her father had disappeared when she was six. For years she carried the notion—picked up God knows where, certainly not from her mother—that he’d been taken bodily into heaven. Mother had let her believe this; it was only when she discovered, overhearing a phone conversation, that he had cleaned out the savings before he left that she realized the truth.

  Then came mother’s odd jobs, playing Mendelssohn and Wagner for weddings. Cole Porter at the occasional bar mitzvah. Night and Day, Lohingrin, Miss Otis Regrets… Liz couldn’t listen to any of them without a shudder. In no sort of music could she find pleasure.

  Mother had to work nights, too, playing bass at the jazz cafe, and came home in the early morning, her clothes smelling of smoke and beer. Sometimes, when the babysitter didn’t show, she had to go with her mother, and curl up on the table in the pantry off the kitchen, where the Chinese dishwasher would babble interminably in Cantonese, in which every syllable sounded like a threat to the child.

  She held none of this against her mother. Mother had had no choice. She had worked like a dog, with help from no one.

  The terrible, hurting love Liz felt for her mother welled up in her until she could hardly breath. That was why she couldn’t be near Martha Macnamara: why sh
e’d fled the length of the country to go to college and stayed away ever since. Mother was a noble cause continually being lost. Liz gasped and the bed rippled under her like a warm, maternal bosom.

  Their years of life together had been marked by the constant parade of stray people through their apartment: fruitarians, musicologists, women with shaved heads and men with politics. These were all friends Mother picked up along the way, indiscriminately—or chosen according to standards known to no one else in the world but Mother. There was the fat woman who had told Liz to call her Bagheera, who slept on the zabutons in the dining room for a week every summer. There was big, smelly piper named Hamish who insisted on making his instrument imitate a squealing pig, thinking to amuse the little girl. Once, half by accident, she had referred to him as Anus, causing her mother to drop a plate of tomato slices on the kitchen floor. The memory nudged Liz into smiling.