The Case of the Chinese Boxes

by Marele Day

  All eyes turned towards it, including mine. I almost gasped.

  Beneath the cloth was a box, not unlike the cabinets at the gallery but infinitely more dazzling. Inlaid into silver were dragons. Their eyes were pearls, and each individual scale of their bodies was a flake of pure gold, thousands of them. It must have been worth an emperor’s ransom.

  ‘I see you like my treasure,’ said the man in the black hat. ‘Now you are going to reveal to me the treasure inside.’ His smooth tones turned back to menace. ‘Tell me how the key opens the box!’

  Another slap across the face.

  ‘I don’t know!’ I shouted, ‘I don’t know!’

  He snapped his fingers again and once more the lackey started jiggling Alice’s hand.

  ‘If you know where the key is,’ said the woman, ‘please tell them.’

  I looked at her and I looked at Alice. At Alice’s eyes begging, pleading, please tell them. The lackey was watching me, still jiggling Alice’s hand. I looked around the room, at the man in the black hat, at the others. They were all watching me. Waiting, waiting.

  I had one chance and I had to make that chance work.

  ‘St Marys Cathedral. The confessional on the eastern wide, in the Bible, Exodus,’ I whispered.

  It wasn’t hard to fake my sense of defeat.

  The man in the black hat raised the walking-stick and brought it down across my temple. That did it. I passed out again.

  When I came to this time my head felt like it was in a vice and I could smell haystacks. I opened my eyes. I was lying on seagrass matting, in a room the size of a cupboard. A knife blade of light came from under the door. I edged my way over to it, raised my arms as best I could and very slowly tried the door handle. The door was locked. This came as no great surprise.

  I heard voices outside and quickly resumed my unconscious position. The voices faded away.

  I became aware of other voices. From below. I lifted the edge of the seagrass matting. There were floorboards underneath, some of which had cracks between them. I put my eye to a crack and looked down. Immediately below was the box with the gold dragons, covered again with the red cloth. But things had changed.

  In front of the altar was my interrogator, dressed in a red robe. As well as the cloth-covered box, there was a red tub full of rice on the altar, a red club, a sword, a bloodstained robe, and what looked like a rosary.

  Everyone looked to a part of the room I couldn’t see, then an official-looking gentleman on the left of the altar started speaking, an intonation. The Incense Master. Something else happened out of range then the Incense Master went to the altar and lit five incense sticks. He started intoning again.

  Fascinating as all this was I had a more pressing need—to get the hell out of here. My hands and feet were bound with plastic strips in a variety of knots a sailor would be proud of. They were the sort of plastic strips that make up banana chairs. I wondered whether the guard was still on the other side of the door and how often he looked in. Using the zipper of my jacket I tried to saw through the bindings. This was not easy. I couldn’t hold the zipper out rigid and saw at the same time. I moved my hands up to my mouth and started to gnaw at the plastic like a mouse. It was wound round my hands six or seven times.

  Five minutes had passed and I’d scarcely made a dent in it. It was going to be a long process. I hoped the initiation ceremony was also.

  I looked below again. Now two men were kneeling before the altar holding incense sticks. My interrogator touched their backs with the sword and asked them a question. They gave a reply. I went back to gnawing at the plastic. I heard a chicken clucking and a final squawk. I looked down again to see the chicken lying on the altar. Its head was on the floor. They dripped its blood into a bowl then pricked the middle fingers of the two candidates and added human blood to the bowl. They took this communion offering and drank.

  I chewed and gnawed and bit and nibbled. Eventually I got through the first loop. I had some mad hope that the whole thing might unravel but it didn’t.

  There was a soft exchange of voices outside then I heard a thud against the door. I heard someone fiddling with the lock. I moved over to the door ready to butt it back into the face of the first person who tried to walk in. The door opened a fraction, nowhere near enough to have any impact if I butted it.

  Then I saw the shoes. The door opened wide and in stepped James Ho.

  ‘Bastard!’ I hissed at him.

  He clapped his hand over my mouth and took out a knife.

  A Swiss Army penknife.

  And started cutting through the binding.

  ‘Shame to do it really,’ he whispered, ‘you look so attractive tied up.’

  He put the forefinger of one hand to his lips and with the other pointed to the room below.

  ‘They are going to kill you,’ he whispered, ‘key or no key.’

  Surprise, surprise, I thought, rubbing my wrists.

  He dragged the guard in, a dead weight who offered no resistance. ‘Put his clothes on then we’ll tie him up.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’re less likely to be conspicuous.’

  ‘You don’t think a tall red-headed woman walking round in clothes that are too small for her is going to be conspicuous?’ I whispered. ‘Besides, I don’t aim for them to see me. I’m going to find Alice then I’m out of here.’

  ‘Maybe Alice doesn’t want to go.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Back to Mrs Chen.’

  ‘Well she certainly won’t be wanting to stay here. Do you know where Alice is?’

  ‘Yes, in a room downstairs. After the ceremony the custom is to have a meal, a big dinner party. Considering the present circumstances I don’t think they’ll be doing that. Probably just have a cup of tea to while away the minutes till their men get back and tell the boss that the key wasn’t where you said it was.’

  ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘I look, I listen.’

  ‘Pity you didn’t perform some actions as well. Might have saved the present state of my head.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like me interfering in your business.’

  ‘Hasn’t stopped you before,’ I muttered.

  ‘During the ceremony the place is bristling with guards. But afterwards,’ he said, gesturing elegantly, ‘there’s nothing for uninitiated eyes to see. You can’t see anything; you’re unconscious and tied up in a room. What fear do these men have of a mere woman?’

  ‘I’m not mere.’

  He was right about nearly everything. The place no longer bristled with guards, in fact the whole floor was now deserted. As we got to the window at the end of the hall I heard my interrogator make a short speech, followed by the clink of teacups. Toasting the new Triad members. There were stairs this end of the hall. Ho moved his head in the direction of the stairs. The room where Alice was being held was down there.

  We dallied at the top of the staircase, trying to ascertain what might be happening down below. It was just as well, because in those few moments we heard voices. Ho pointed two fingers down the stairs then made tea-drinking movements with his hand. Very nice. Two guards downstairs were drinking tea.

  But it told me more than that.

  If we were going to make a move now was as good a time as any. We might get tea thrown in our faces but if it was cool enough to drink, it wasn’t going to do much more damage to my already aching face.

  I lay down on the floor and inched my way into a viewing position. One of the guards looked like he ate gorilla steaks for breakfast. The other one looked more manageable. They were bearing no visible weapons.

  ‘Don’t like yours much,’ I said to James out of the side of my mouth.

  ‘Piece of piss,’ he said without even looking. It didn’t suit him—‘Piece of piss’—but something rubs off if you stay in a country long enough.

  I made a slight head movement indicating ‘ready’.

  Now!

  Ho took three steps. One to s
pring up on the banister, one down it, and the third step was on the gorilla-eater’s face. I was about two seconds behind on the other banister, similarly landing a boot in my opponent’s face. One teacup, then the other, barely made a sound as they hit the carpet.

  I clamped the guard’s jaw shut so he couldn’t call out. I slammed my knee up into his groin. Then I saw Ho’s hand come round the guard’s neck. He pressed with his thumbs on points either side of the neck near the jugular. In less than five seconds my guard had joined his mate on the floor.

  I swallowed hard and involuntarily put my hand up to my own neck. It was feeling very tender. Meanwhile Ho was busy at work with a piece of wire in the keyhole of the door. He straightened up. We looked at each other and the corners of his mouth slid into the faintest of smiles. He opened the door and we went in.

  I’d expected to find Alice in there, but not the woman. She was holding Alice and crying silently. Somehow she too had become a prisoner. She seemed to recognise Ho but she didn’t speak. We could hear the men outside. There wasn’t much time before the others would be back from St Marys bearing bad tidings.

  We ushered the woman and child out and silently closed the door behind us. The guards looked quite peaceful lying on the carpet but it wouldn’t be long before they were up on their feet and roaring like bulls. We crept along the corridor and out the back door.

  We came out into a yard surrounded by a brick wall with a tiled trim. The lawn was threadbare. If they were trying to make this look like the Sze Yap temple in Glebe they’d have to do much better.

  I went over the wall first. Next Alice was hoisted over and then the woman. She wasn’t really dressed for it but she did it elegantly.

  We were barely over the wall when a car came spurting into the otherwise quiet Cabramatta back street. Suddenly the area was filled with noise.

  The car screeched to a halt almost on top of us and two men leapt out, screaming like demons. They tried to grab Alice but before a hand was laid on her I kicked it away. I stuck my elbow into the face of one guy and swung around to deal with the other. But Ho was already dealing with him. The street bristled with activity as the men from the tea party came running towards us. My interrogator with his walking-stick was not one of them.

  ‘Into the car,’ I said to Alice and the woman. ‘And lock the doors!’ I yelled, as one of the guys dived for the car. I pushed him aside and leapt into the driver’s seat and started the engine. ‘Get in!’ I yelled to Ho. ‘You’re not going to be able to deal with them all single-handedly.’ Though I thought he probably could. ‘Watch out!’ I yelled as the guy on the ground made a grab for Ho’s feet.

  Ho slid into the car and slammed the door. On the guy’s hand. I felt the bumps as the car went over something lumpy. I had a pretty good idea of what it was and I didn’t want to look back. I took the corner on two wheels. We were four blocks away before the smell of burning rubber and flesh subsided.

  But, as Collier would say, we were in no way home and hosed. Ho wanted to go back to the snooker room—‘to pick up the boxes,’ he said, as if it would be as easy as picking up laundry. Now was as good a time as ever. They would be out searching the streets for us. The last place they’d expect us to go was back to the snooker room. But my instincts were to get as far away from Cabramatta as possible. I didn’t even have time to slow down to let Ho out. By the time we drove across the railway we were being tailed.

  A red Torana and none too subtle about it either. He was belting through the traffic like his bum was on fire. And very soon, if he caught up, mine would be too. I turned off the Hume Highway and headed into Bankstown where there were lots more streets to hide in.

  When we got into the main drag of Bankstown I saw a familiar sign.

  ‘OK,’ I said to Ho, ‘this is where you get to play the Karate Kid. The rest of us are getting out and slipping into something a little less conspicuous.’

  The woman’s body tightened. She looked at Ho. He said something that seemed to satisfy her. She got out of the car holding Alice’s undamaged hand.

  ‘In here,’ I said, indicating the door of the rent-a-car office. ‘Quickly.’

  Ho drove off down the street. I ushered Alice and the woman to the back of the office, where they couldn’t be seen from outside. I watched the window. The red Torana flashed by. It didn’t double back.

  ‘We’d like to hire a car for twenty-four hours,’ I said, as calmly as I could to the perfectly groomed girl in the red and white uniform.

  She looked at me quizzically, then at Alice and the woman, trying to sum up the situation.

  ‘A fast one,’ I said, nudging things along.

  She got out the forms. The preliminaries went smoothly till we got to the bit about the driver’s licence. I felt in my pockets. There was nothing. Not even one of my calling cards. The Triad guys had cleaned me out.

  ‘Got a driver’s licence?’ I asked the woman.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Look,’ I said to the red and white girl, ‘I know this is somewhat irregular but it is an emergency. Will you call your Kings Cross branch and speak to Sharon?’

  ‘It’s nearly closing time, madam.’

  ‘I know, but I think Sharon will still be there.’

  She smiled politely. After all, I was a customer.

  She pursed her lips and dialled the number. ‘Sharon please.’

  It must have been Sharon who answered the phone because the girl started speaking right away. ‘This is Monica from the Bankstown branch. We have a customer here,’ she consulted the form I’d fill in. ‘Claudia Valentine. Says she has some sort of regular arrangement with you.’

  I smiled to myself. I used Sharon’s cars a lot. My Daimler was often too easily identifiable. All but one car had been returned in the same condition I’d rented it. I was a good customer and Sharon knew that.

  The girl’s expression changed slightly. I don’t know what Sharon was telling her but it was enough to get me a car.

  It was a dark green Rover Vitesse, built for speed. The woman got into the back seat with Alice. I supposed she was used to being chauffeur-driven.

  ‘You will drive us to the Airport Hilton hotel,’ she said. She was used to giving orders to chauffeurs as well. ‘You will arrange for Charles to come there. Alone, without his mother.’

  Now I knew who she was. I turned around and looked at her steadily. There was a slight movement of the eyelids and she said, ‘James will explain everything.’

  ‘And if he doesn’t make it back?’

  ‘He will.’

  As we headed back towards the highway I saw a police car pulled up at the side of the road. They were booking the driver of the red Torana. He looked extremely irate. I couldn’t help smiling.

  We drove to the airport in silence. Night surrounded us now, punctuated by the glow of streetlights. There were few cars about and none of them were following us.

  You couldn’t miss the Airport Hilton even if you tried. It stuck out like a boulder in the desert, out of place here, as if it should have been in the city with its tall brothers and sisters, not in the flat land that surrounded the airport.

  The foyer was like any hotel foyer in the city: mirrors, lavishness and employees who looked like this was only a fill-in job till they made it big in the movies. There were more of them about now than there had been during my previous visit in the middle of the night.

  Once inside the hotel the woman took the lead and she knew exactly what she was doing. There was something about her that reminded me of Mrs Chen, the same detachment, the same air of self-assurance. I wondered where you bought it.

  The guy at reception handed her a square of plastic with 707 on it and a key dangling down.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  I’d waited outside room 707 what now seemed like an eternity ago. It was a suite in apricot colours, wardrobe doors with mirrors on the outside, a fake marble-top table with bandy gilt legs.

  Alice looked around at everythin
g, her eyes opening wide but her mouth remaining shut. I didn’t know if she was a naturally quiet child or whether she was in shock. I smiled at her. I’m sorry, Alice, sorry for all of this. She looked at me but her expression didn’t change.

  ‘Please ring Charles,’ the woman said simply.

  I went to the phone and the woman went to the fridge. I hoped she was going to make us a couple of stiff Scotches.

  I rang the Chen residence and spoke to Charles. I was brief and to the point. ‘Airport Hilton, room 707. Come along and make sure you’re not followed. And Charles, there’s no need to concern your mother in this matter.’ I hung up. There was nothing to do but wait.

  The woman wasn’t making Scotches, she was making an ice pack for Alice’s hand. She took Alice into the bedroom and talked softly to her. Still Alice’s expression didn’t change.

  I felt suddenly very tired. But if I lay down now I might never get up again.

  I went into the bathroom, grey-blue tiles with gold taps. There was only one toothbrush, and an electric shaver. I didn’t think it belonged to the woman. I wondered how many other rooms around the town James Ho had shavers in.

  There were lots of mirrors in the bathroom. The one above the handbasin had gilt round its edges. The face staring back at me from that mirror wasn’t looking good. It was starting to show some maroon-coloured patches. I could vaguely discern in those patches the shape of my interrogator’s hand.

  I ran the cold tap and sluiced water on my face, patting it gingerly with the apricot-coloured towel.

  I came back out again. ‘Would you like a drink?’ I called.

  The woman said no, but asked if I could get an orange juice for Alice.

  I’d just finished pouring the juice when there was a soft knock on the door. I went and opened it a fraction. Satisfied, I opened the door fully and in walked Charles Chen.

  The woman appeared from the bedroom, standing demurely with her hands behind her back. He looked at her as if she was a vision from another world. I don’t think it was simply the halo effect the lamp was creating around her.

  ‘Tai May!’