Bride of the Rat God

by Barbara Hambly

  “What Mr. Shang does with his spare time, in his own room, is neither my concern nor yours,” Norah said firmly. “What I want to know is, Who is responsible for this order and what caused them to decide that Mr. Shang was a menace to us instead of a help?”

  “Ma’am,” said the lieutenant, tipping his hat to the back of his head, “I was told to pick up this Shang person.” He pronounced the “a” as in bang, not khan. “And that’s all I know. You can go downtown and take it up with Captain Steckel if you got a question. Right now we got a fugitive from justice on our hands, and we’re going to have to search the house and grounds for him.”

  “You’re quite welcome to search the grounds,” replied Norah coolly. “But since I’m a stranger in this country, I don’t know whether I’m legally required to let you enter this house without a warrant. If you’ll be so kind as to wait one minute, I shall find out.” And she closed, and locked, the door in his face.

  “Alec...”

  He wasn’t in the kitchen where she’d left him. With the filming of She-Devil under way again, she’d taken to rising early enough to dress, brush the dogs, and have breakfast with Alec before he left for the studio an hour before Christine and she herself would follow. He clattered downstairs as she went into the hall to look for him, crossing directly to his camera and the film magazines that were heaped in a corner of the living room beside the dark and dilapidated Christmas tree. Before he turned to speak to her, he flipped open the camera and put something inside, then shut and latched it again.

  “I hope that’s everything,” he said in an undervoice, straightening up to kiss Norah quickly. “I heard. They can’t give Christine grief about all the booze in this place because she can argue it was gifts, but I cleared all those little powders out of her vanity drawers, just in case.”

  “Can they search?”

  “They need a warrant to search either the house or the grounds, but there’s no point in not letting them in. Filming’s only going on until four this afternoon because of the party at Brown’s place tonight; I can go down to city hall afterward and try to find out who’s behind this, though I may need a couple hundred from Chris to do it with.”

  “On New Year’s Eve there won’t be much point,” Norah said. “My guess is it’s our friends up the road.”

  Alec nodded. “Since Da Shu Ken convinced them they’ve got the most to lose if Shang stays here, you may be right.” He wrapped the camera thickly in oilcloth against the rain and tucked it under his arm. “Any chance you can talk Chris out of going to the party... What am I saying?”

  Norah laughed at his expression of comic resignation. “Bite your tongue, sir. On the other hand... Would you mind if she and I spent the night at your place in Venice? This whole thing’s making me very uneasy.”

  “Good thought. If Shang was right about the Rat-God, at least we’ll be surrounded by water down there.” He put his hand on her waist, and reached up—just slightly—to kiss her lips. “Thank God we managed to talk Christine out of going to the Navy-Washington game in Pasadena tomorrow. Better go let Lieutenant Murphy in before he gets sore, but make him realize you’re doing him a favor. I’ll load this stuff in the car. See you in Babylon.”

  The search was cursory. Chang Ming, as Norah had anticipated, promptly recognized in both officer and men long-lost but deeply beloved friends and ran to fetch assorted bits of rope and spit-covered rags in the hope they could be tempted to play. Buttercreme retreated at once to the cupboard under the stairs. None of the police took the slightest notice of Alec as he carried his equipment out to his Ford, cranked it to unwilling life, and sputtered away.

  “You realize now that a warrant’s been sworn, if Shang returns and you don’t call us, you’ll be obstructing justice.” Murphy handed her a card with a telephone number scribbled in pencil on the back. “I’m leaving one of my men here in the cottage today in case he comes back.”

  Norah smiled dazzlingly. “How very kind of you,” she said. “We were a little worried—Miss Flamande and I—for we’re spending the night with friends and the house is so isolated. But with a policeman here to guard it we shall feel quite safe. And I’ll certainly telephone if I should see Mr. Shang and your officer should not. Good morning.” And she closed the door behind him just as Dominga came up the walk.

  Christine squawked with indignant protest (“I mean, honestly, darling, what do we pay our taxes for?”) at the news of Shang’s persecution and was all for calling in sick to the studio and proceeding immediately to Chinatown to warn Hsu Kwan—“immediately” meaning as soon as she put on her makeup. But if the police had come for the Shining Crane, thought Norah, it was a good bet they’d arrested, or at least driven into hiding, the younger wizard as well. As soon as Christine and two of her miniature guardians departed for the studio, she proceeded to Chinatown by cab to locate Shang’s apothecary shop.

  But though Chinatown itself was not many blocks in extent, nowhere in its tangled alleys could she locate either the shop itself or any familiar landmark. And though Chang Ming showed no signs of disquiet beyond his usual acute curiosity about new surroundings, Norah found herself deeply uneasy among the ancient walls and gaudy balconies.

  The streets were too crowded, packed with hurrying men and women, unfamiliar voices speaking a language she did not know. Far too many doorways moved with curtains and strange damp-warm breezes from within. Fu Manchu and the mysteries of the Orient aside, Norah could not put from her mind the drawing she had seen, the image of the thing that stalked them, the bestial face with its fanged snout and eyes that were at once wise and mindless. She was conscious of a deep unwillingness to return to the bungalow on Ivarene and a still deeper sense that going to Mr. Brown’s party that night would not be a good idea at all.

  “Nonsense, darling,” Christine protested that evening, craning her head to refresh her lipstick in the rearview mirror while speeding along Wilshire Boulevard full crack. “I’m not going to go out into the gardens with anybody, and you’ll stay with me the whole time and everything will be fine. You’ll see.”

  She dug in her handbag for a cigarette; Norah took it from her with a hasty “I’ll get that,” and Christine returned her vagrant attention to the road.

  “I do hope this party’s more fun than the last one,” she went on. “I mean, murder and mayhem aside, either of my mothers-in-law could have thrown a better bash than that Christmas affair.”

  Whatever else could be said about it, Norah thought later that evening, Frank Brown’s New Year’s Eve party was certainly everything she had ever heard Hollywood parties were.

  An ocean of booze, thanks to the good Captain Oleson; dancers from the studio chorus line performing maneuvers up and down the monumental stairs (“Not a pretty boy in the lot, dammit!”); Flindy McColl being chased squeaking around the bedrooms by Hans Schweibler while everyone sniffed cocaine in the corners. Mrs. Violet removed Emily—discreetly enshrouded in a red velvet dress Christine claimed came directly from Sears Roebuck via catalogue—early in the proceedings. Charlie Sandringham sipped mineral water and also left early: “It’s rather embarrassing to be the only person in the room not in flagrant violation of the United States Constitution.”

  Norah, in a subdued dress of rose and caramel charmeuse, watched Christine weaving like a darkly glittering damselfly among crowds of tipsy admirers and felt profoundly out of place. Unlike the occasion of the Christmas party, she had not been invited, nor had Alec, and she spent a good deal of her time avoiding Mr. Vidal. Ambrose Conklin, in a Savile Row suit with a small sprig of holly in his buttonhole, brought her what tasted like actual champagne and chatted for a time with her about cinema music. He asked about the necklace Christine was wearing, an Edwardian dog-collar affair of diamonds and pearls to cover the fading bruises—all her shots in She-Devil included similar pieces now—and spoke of how it became her; Norah was rather touched at the way his gentle gray eyes followed her sister-in-law from group to group.

  In time
, Frank Brown allowed himself to be disentangled from a herd of would-be Pickfords and Gishes for a conference in the library. He listened soberly to Norah’s account of the hunt for the two Chinese wizards, chewing a cigar and turning his pencil over and over in his hand as he had a week earlier. “Mr. Shang’s been using his connections in Chinatown to see if he can learn who really murdered Keith Pelletier,” Norah explained, a tale that made considerably more sense than the truth. “I went up to the Sabsung Institute this evening while Christine was getting dressed, and the gates were closed and locked. I’m virtually certain the police are after Hsu Kwan as well as his grandfather, if they haven’t arrested them already; you must help us get them out of jail if they have.”

  “I see what you mean.” Brown’s river-ice eyes fixed her for some moments with their odd, unnerving stare. “Of course, if there is a mysterious cult behind it in Chinatown, the police may have found out something about it that you girls don’t know.”

  “I’m sure they have,” Norah said coolly. “But that doesn’t mean they have to keep Mr. Shang and his grandson behind bars.”

  “Of course not.” Brown put a paternal arm around each of the girls and steered them toward the door. “I won’t be able to do a thing tomorrow, of course—the whole town’ll be closed—and I’m having another meeting with Jesperson and my lawyers Thursday. But if I can, I’ll get in touch with Steckel and find out what’s going on. You keep an eye on Chris until then.”

  He paused and removed his cigar to give Christine a moist and clumsy kiss. “By the way,” he added as he opened the door, “I owe you thanks—big thanks—for locating Charlie. He’s putting in a hell of a performance. I don’t think he’s been drunk once this week. With any luck we’ll get the newspapers off our backs once and for all, and to hell with Jesperson and his rumors. Midnight Cavalier’s doing solid box office, and since we fed the papers those stories about Chris, everybody’s asking about She-Devil.”

  Outside, several minor actresses and the most statuesque of the dancers were loitering. Brown’s appearance seemed to galvanize them, and they immediately surrounded him, gazing at him with the dazzled worship that women outside Hollywood generally reserved for actors.

  Watching Brown speak to them, flattering this one, noticing that one, exuding the peculiar charm that so far had eluded her analysis, Norah had a sudden thought and stepped very quietly back into the study.

  The big desk was cleared of papers, its battered surface incongruous among the stiffly posed gods, crocodiles, and hieroglyphs. Its topmost drawer was locked, but the key was simply tucked beneath the blotter. Norah cast a nervous glance at the wide black back in the pillared doorway, one heavy arm around Christine’s slim waist, then turned the key.

  What she expected to find was a paper with the telephone number of the Chinatown section of the LAPD on it and the names of Shang Ko and his grandson. She did so almost at once; a quick comparison with the card in her purse confirmed her suspicion. “Apothecary” was written after Shang Hsu Kwan’s name, and beneath that, among the doodlings a man made while on the telephone, “$2,000.”

  She didn’t, however, expect to find the other object that was in the drawer. So shocked was she at the implications of it, and so terrified, that she almost shut and locked the drawer at once.

  But from the doorway she heard Christine’s giggle and Flindy’s husky drawl. Looking up, she saw them and two other girls, a blonde and a brunette, laughing and making themselves charming for the head of the studio, and something went through Norah like a heated spike of rage. Very softly she opened the drawer again, withdrew the thing she had found, and slipped it into the gold-mesh handbag Christine had lent her for the evening. Then she locked the drawer again and left by the long window onto the terrace. Brown was far too preoccupied even to remember whether she’d remained in the room or passed him in the doorway. She deposited the key inconspicuously between the paws of one of the crouching sphinxes, where it would eventually be discovered.

  From the terrace she descended to the lawn and crossed it—not without a certain queasiness—to the tennis court where the cars were parked. She stowed her handbag carefully under the seat of the Nash. Having left her coat—actually Christine’s chinchilla—up in the house, she was shivering in earnest by the time she climbed back up to another French door and slipped through. This one led into what was clearly a billiards room. She murmured “Excuse me” but doubted that the couple on the table even heard.

  Christine was the center of a little group before the bar, which was situated between more columns and was carved and painted with what appeared to be scenes from the Book of the Dead, a pink gin in hand, laughing loudly over one of Ken Vidal’s jokes. Flindy, her feathers awry and the marabou straps of her gown slipping down over plump white shoulders, sagged frankly in the arms of Roberto Calderone, and Mikos Hraldy was holding forth to a costumed dancer on either elbow. “You see, he awake to discover that overnight he is turn into cockroach...”

  “Eeww!” exclaimed one, and Flindy cracked her gum and said, “Sweetie, I’d hate to tell ya how many times I went to bed with a man and woke up with a cockroach beside me!”

  “Let’s go,” Norah said quietly, touching Christine on the arm.

  “Go? Darling, it isn’t even eleven o’clock yet!”

  “That doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”

  Christine pulled her arm away and took a long pull at her gin. Her eyes were bright with drugs. “For heaven’s sake, darling, is a little drinking getting to you? You’d better watch out when midnight comes!”

  “They can drink themselves insensible for all I care; we’ve got to get out of here.”

  “Oh, don’t be such a stick! Just because Alec isn’t here to play cuddle and coo with, you don’t want me to enjoy myself either, that’s it!”

  “No, it isn’t.” Norah removed the glass from Christine’s hand. “We can collect our coats and simply walk out through any French door, and I think we’d better do that as soon as possible.”

  “But why?’

  Norah leaned closer, keeping her voice as low as she could. “Because I just found the Rat-God’s necklace in Frank Brown’s desk drawer. Now, let’s go.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  LAKE OVER WIND

  The pillar which held up the house is unsafe...

  It is better to leave.

  The withered willow produces leaves,

  an old man finds a young wife...

  “FRANK.” CHRISTINE’S SMALL fists balled tight in terror and rage. “My God, it’s Frank.”

  “I’d give him the benefit of the doubt, myself.” Alec perched on a corner of the worktable that took up most of the living room of the cottage by the canals, turning over in his hands the tangle of smoke-blackened bronze and carbonized pearls that had been the Moon of Rats. The heat of the burning car had shattered all three of the opals. Two of them had discolored completely to a dirty gray, but the third still stared like a demented, malicious eye in the prosaic glare of the overhead lamp. The shadow within had darkened and twisted, seeming to fill the cracked whiteness like a hole in a skull. “Frank isn’t a drinker, and he doesn’t dope. My guess is he’s just playing percentages.”

  Norah looked up from stroking Buttercreme’s head. “How so?”

  “Well, I don’t think Frank deliberately set out to give Chris the necklace and pledge either her or Keith to the Rat-God in the first place,” said Alec. Outside, fog lay thick on the banana trees and hid the canal beyond. Within, the overhead lamp threw sharp, rather dingy shadows on the ranks of light stands, reflectors, tripods, and boxes of equipment along the wall. Midnight had passed sometime during the drive down from Beverly Hills, but a blaze of light in the western sky showed where every amusement pier from Venice to Santa Monica roared full-blast. Alec, in Levi’s and a USC sweatshirt, had been awake when they phoned, sharing a postparty cup of coffee with Charlie Sandringham. After the actor had departed, he’d made a fresh pot for the girls and, Norah saw throu
gh the half-open bedroom door, had put clean sheets on the bed. Not bad, she thought, for a man who’d been at the studio twelve hours a day for the past week.

  “I don’t think he knew anything about the Rat-God at all until just a few nights ago, probably right after Precious Peony’s attempt to put Shang out of the way fell through. What I think happened,” Alec went on, “is that Da Shu Ken showed up in one of Frank’s dreams.”

  “I didn’t think Frank had dreams,” Christine marveled, and lit a cigarette.

  “Well, I’m guessing it took the Rat-God a couple of tries. That’s why it was the thirtieth before Frank bribed the boys on the Chinatown beat to come down on Shang. Think about it. Somebody shows up in one of Frank’s dreams—we’ll probably never know what form he took. He says, ‘Get those two Chinks arrested and by next week Aaron Jesperson’s a corpse.’ The first time that happens Frank says, ‘What the hell did I have for dinner?’ Maybe the second time, too. But eventually the Rat-God says, ‘You want proof? Look. Here’s the necklace.’ And Frank wakes up and sees the necklace on the bedspread.”

  Alec pulled his feet up so that he was sitting cross-legged on the table amid the spare magazines of film and the remains of the Los Angeles Times.

  “So what does Frank do? He’s just lost one of his major stars and has a half million and more riding on a man he suspects is a murderer and knows is—or was—a drunk. He thinks, What the hell? Can’t hurt. They’re only Chinamen, anyway. The Rat-God may not even have mentioned that getting Shang in the pokey would mean Christine dies.”

  “And even if he did,” said Norah softly, “even if Mr. Brown guessed what it might mean... would he care?”

  Christine turned to stare at her, the fear in her eyes turning to something else.

  “Mr. Brown has this dream,” said Norah, ticking the chronology off on her fingertips with her thumb. “He bribes the police to arrest Shang and his grandson. Christine dies. Jesperson dies. Mr. Brown takes over Enterprise Pictures.” Her thumb curled around the closed fingers of her fist. “How long is it going to be before Mr. Brown puts two and two together and gives the necklace to Flindy or Emily or some other eager little dancer when he needs another favor from the Rat-God?”