The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril

by Paul Malmont

  “Someday,” his brother said, “we will ride with him into Beijing, and China will be saved.”

  Mei nodded. He knew Xueling was wise for his age. Xueling could grasp the vastness of China’s history and dilemmas at times when he could not. But then he also knew that there were things he saw that Xueling did not. He knew for example that devious Mi-Ying profited from the dealings he recommended to Zuolin. Mei also knew that Mi-Ying hated them all. He knew this because he recognized his grandmother’s cruelty in Mi-Ying’s eyes. Xueling would not know hatred like this. Xueling was as oblivious to this side of human nature as the dead pigs had been to their fate.

  The two boys turned to watch the sun break through the great cloud rising in the east. The Emperor of the Northern Lands was returning home to his sons.

  Episode Fourteen

  “OPIUM? SO that’s what that smell I smelled was?” Lester asked.

  “Yes,” Mr. Lee nodded. “Fook yuen. Opium. There is a notorious opium den underneath the theater for many years. Men descend through the door at the back of the alley.” He sat back and contemplated Mr. and Mrs. Dent. “You should not have gone into the theater. It is a very bad place. You are very lucky you were not hurt.”

  Mr. Yee’s restaurant wasn’t the fanciest restaurant in Chinatown but it wasn’t one of Chinatown’s many cheap noodle houses either. There were always fresh red cotton cloths for every table and the savory green tea was served in painted porcelain pots, not tin. The aromas of fresh garlic, scallions, and vinegar filled the air. Every now and then a rich smoky blast of sizzling peppers would issue forth from the kitchen, causing guests to clear their throats. Dozens of framed pictures of China’s landscapes and history, and of Chinese immigrants in America from the railroad age on, hung on the walls. Candles burned at the foot of a small Buddha statue in a shuttered box at the back of the restaurant.

  An old man sat at a table near the front window, having dinner with a much younger man. Neither of them spoke to, or even seemed to acknowledge the existence of, his companion. Next to them, on a table near the door, sat a fresh metal pail. A flyer was pasted to the pail. Every now and then a person would open the door, drop some change or a bill into the bucket, and then leave. On the other side of the window, Chinatown had neatly made the transition from late afternoon to night. The women had taken their shopping home and the men were out running the errands that men do after dinner.

  Monk stared Norma down over the last few pot stickers on the plate. The boys’ mother had died in labor giving birth to the second child. Norma had nicknamed the children Ham and Monk after two of Lester’s most popular characters, Doc’s comic relief companions. The names seemed to suit them. In the books Brigadier General Theodore Marley Brooks, or Ham, was a fussy and supercilious lawyer who carried a sword sheathed in a dandy’s cane. Gorilla-shaped Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Blodgett “Monk” Mayfair was his opposite in every way except his brilliance; his field was chemistry. The elder boy, Ham, who was eight, was fastidious and somber and unusually erudite for a child. Monk, who was four, was strong and messy and thought nothing was funnier than tweaking the sensibilities of his older brother, to his father’s amusement. In return, they had dubbed Lester and Norma Mr. and Mrs. Doc.

  Although Monk had probably eaten three times his weight in pot stickers during his short life, he wanted nothing more than one of the savory, steamed wrapper-around-pork-rolls which lay on a bed of cabbage between him and Norma. He made moon eyes at it and then her, and back and forth, trying to get some indication from her that it would be safe to attack the pot sticker. What complicated matters was that he had already managed to cadge one from her, but it had slipped from his hands and landed with a slightly greasy plop on the tiled floor. The look he gave her now was intended to make her aware that he understood the responsibility of being entrusted with the next pot sticker, and that its fate would be entirely different.

  Meanwhile Ham, also sitting at the table, studying the Doc Savage magazines Norma had brought him, would periodically look up with disdain at his brother’s scheming. Norma took great delight in stretching out the suspense for both boys.

  “The boo how doy. The highbinders. The hatchet men. They don’t really exist in Chinatown anymore,” Mr. Yee explained to Lester. “There has been a truce between the Hip Sing and the On Leong for almost ten years, and the smaller tongs such as the Sam Yip and others have really died away.

  “Look over there.” He indicated the two men at the front of the restaurant. “My uncle is a Hip Sing man. Does he look like a fearsome gangster to you? I am a Hip Sing man. Am I not your brother? Why, right this moment my uncle and his friend, a diplomat from the consul general’s office here in New York, are discussing the upcoming Unity Parade in which we Chinese here in this land will show our solidarity with our families fighting the Japanese back in China. The consul general himself, a great man, will be the grand marshal,” he added proudly, “and he will take the money we have raised back with him to our people who are in desperate need. It was not until mere months ago that the remaining warlords and the Communists set aside their difference with the old Imperialists and began to fight the Japanese invasion. And that only happened because Chiang Kai-shek was kidnapped by the last warlords and forced into an alliance at the threat of his life. Meanwhile, Japan advances every day and the Chinese people go hungry.”

  Norma looked toward the two men, who were still stoically eating. Any discussion appeared to be taking place on a purely metaphysical plane.

  “Unlike in China, the old feuds have died out here. The face of Chinatown today is one of unity. Being peaceful and prosperous together in the Chinatowns across the Golden Mountain is the only way we have to convince your government to lift the Exclusion Act and bring our refugee families here.”

  “What’s a Confucian hat?” Monk asked.

  “Exclusion Act,” his brother snorted. “It means no Chinese in America. Unless you’re born here. It’s the law.”

  “Father wasn’t born here,” Monk said defiantly.

  “Through the graces of my uncle who already lived here, I entered,” their father told them. He gazed toward the front of the restaurant for a moment, recalling his journey. “I sailed across the Pacific Ocean and then I had to make my way all across Canada, which is almost as big as the whole America, and much colder. And I was just a little older than your brother when I did it. By myself.”

  “They can’t make us go back to China, can they?” Monk asked, plainly worried.

  “Of course not!” said Norma. “I would never let them take you. Because you’re my dumplings and I love you. And your father makes the best pot stickers in the world and I love them too!”

  “Which do you love better? Pot stickers or dumplings?” Monk was laughing. Ham looked up from his magazine, invested in the answer as well. Norma laughed at Monk and the great pot sticker–dumpling debate was joined.

  While Norma and the dumplings teased each other, Lester turned to Yee. “You ever hear of a fella by the name of Ah Hoon?”

  “Ah Hoon?” Mr. Yee began to laugh in a most good-natured manner. “Ah Hoon!”

  The old man at the table by the front caught Yee’s eye with a gesture so subtle that Norma nearly missed it. “Excuse me,” he said, rising, wiping away a tear. He went toward the table.

  “Who’s Ah Hoon?” she asked Lester. She had never heard him speak that name before.

  “It’s just something I’m working over.” She knew that Lester was superstitious about letting anyone read anything of his until he was done with it. He felt that the act of its being read would trigger something in his mind that said that the work was done; it had been read; it was over. Apparently the story of Ah Hoon fell into that category because “something I’m working over” was his stock response to questions about his writing.

  Monk was kicking at the pot sticker under the table. He made contact and it skittered slickly across the tiled floor.

  “Go get that!” Ham was imperious, as
suming his father’s mantle of control.

  “You get it,” Monk said with defiance.

  “That’s all right,” Lester said. “I’ll get it.”

  He stood up. Monk looked enviously at his height and said, “I bet if you had a son he’d be taller than you.”

  Lester smiled and tousled the boy’s hair. “You’re probably right.” He walked toward the pot sticker.

  “Are you ever going to have some boys?” Monk asked Norma.

  She felt her lips purse for a moment. Both boys looked at her, earnest and eager for a response. She looked at Lester as he sauntered across the restaurant and felt something break in her chest. His whole life revolved around creating stories for boys, and he would never have his own to share them with. She realized a truth about the rest of her life. She smiled at the boys, to reassure them. “No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

  They looked disappointed.

  The front door slammed open. The sound startled her, and she reflexively choked back the tears which she had been verging upon. As she turned her head to look, she saw Lester in mid-bend toward the pot sticker, and Mr. Yee speaking with the old man at the front table.

  “Hey!”

  It was the fat cop they had seen harassing the fishmonger earlier in the day. His face was overly pink and oily, as if he had been drinking. He swaggered through the door, his silvery, greedy eyes swiveling around. She saw Ham grow tense and wary, and Monk quickly slid off his chair and slid up to her side, under her protective arm.

  “I heard there was some street fighting outside earlier and one of them punks was from here. Come on, Yee. Give it up. You speakee English better’n any other Chink down here.”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Yee said politely. “A man fell down outside. That is all.”

  The old man at the table continued to eat, oblivious, while the younger man glared at the cop. Yee placed a hand innocently upon his shoulder as if to reassure him. From the creases which appeared in the man’s jacket, Norma could see that he was actually applying pressure. She realized that he was keeping the man seated, and she wondered what exactly the young man was capable of. “There was no fighting here.”

  The cop had already lost interest in Yee and was casting his gaze around the room. His eyes lighted upon the pail of money. “That’s some collection you’re raising there, Yee. Church building?”

  “It’s the fund for the defense of Beijing,” Yee replied.

  He reached his hand into the pail and it came out with a fistful of bills. “Think of me as the auxiliary defense league.”

  The young man at the table brushed Yee’s hand aside as if it were a stray branch and leapt to his feet with a shout. Yee barked at him.

  The cop broke into a big grin. “Your friend sure looks like he could be the kind to start a rumble in the street.” He reached in and pocketed another handful. “Anybody want to change their story here?” He reached in again. The rustling of the paper bills made the change scratch unpleasantly on the bottom of the pail. “I didn’t think so.”

  “That money is for widows and orphans.” For the first time the cop seemed to notice the presence of white people and he seemed to be especially surprised that the woman had just snapped at him.

  “Lady, this is between me and the Chinee,” he snapped at her. But his voice wavered.

  Lester took a step toward him. Norma tried to stand too, but Monk held her fast. She pulled the little boy closer. She could feel his heart pounding against her side.

  “Like she said, the money is for widows and orphans. And you ain’t either. I want your name and badge number.”

  The cop took a step closer. “You’re so tough, why don’t you tell me your name.”

  “My name,” Lester said, “is Kenneth Robeson. I want you to put that money back before I report you to your superiors and the mayor’s office and the papers.”

  “Okay, Robeson, let some of that steam out of your collar.” The cop was nervous. He hadn’t expected to be challenged, and certainly not by a white man who loomed over him. “Look, I’m putting it back.” He twisted back to dump the money in the pail.

  “All of it,” Lester commanded.

  “Sure,” said the cop. Then he suddenly charged at Lester, drawing his truncheon from a ring around his belt.

  Norma gasped. Lester didn’t move a muscle. The cop raised his arm and was opening his mouth to say something or yell something when his whole attitude changed in an heartbeat. His eyes opened wide in fear and he seemed to lose control of his legs, which flew out from under him. His arms flailed around; his club knocked into his mouth. Off balance and moving fast, he crashed to the floor, his head banging, then bouncing, off the tiles.

  Norma looked down. Mashed onto the sole of the cop’s shoe at the tail end of a long and greasy skid mark was a slick residue of cabbage and pork and dough, the sad fate of the lost pot sticker. There was a sudden quiet in the restaurant. Even the cooks in the kitchen stopped cooking and came to the door. Lester bent down over the moaning cop. “Can you hear me?”

  The cop shook his head from side to side.

  “Okay. I have your badge number now. I want you to stay out of this restaurant forever, do you hear me? Leave the Yees alone. Or so help me I will be hanging your badge over my mantle by spring. Hear me?”

  The cop nodded.

  “And I want you to act more decently to the Chinese folk on your beat. Treat ’em nice.”

  “Les…Kenneth,” said Norma. “It’s enough.”

  “Okay.” He turned to the cop. “Do you want me to call an ambulance?”

  The cop shook his head. He crawled to his hands and knees and staggered to his feet. He had his hand over his head. He fumbled toward the door.

  “Remember what I said. You won’t come back here, right?”

  The cop nodded.

  Norma watched as Lester remained motionless as the cop staggered into the night. Lester slid the tip of his shoe across the slick floor streak of squashed pot sticker.

  “Boys, when it comes to pot stickers or dumplings,” he said, with a wink to Monk and Ham, “I gotta tell ya, I’m coming down on the side of the pot stickers.”

  Episode Fifteen

  IT WAS summer in the Year of the Monkey. The solstice had passed a few weeks before and the days were long and hot. The men fighting and dying were hidden by the dust of the battle.

  Blood streamed down the blade of Mei’s pudau and onto the wooden hilt. It was warm and his fingers stuck to it. He had lost sight of Xueling and Zuolin soon after the charge. Now he fought on only to reach the river. The river was life.

  Troops loyal to Beijing had ambushed Zhang Zuolin’s army as they prepared to cross the river. It was a preemptive strike, intended to keep the warlord from bringing the war to the gates of the Forbidden City itself. The surprise attack was a desperate attempt to catch Zhang’s army while they were still spread in a line, unable to create formations quickly.

  Fortunately, Mei’s own division was only several miles west on a parallel course, preparing to ford the river at a different point. Messengers reached him within an hour of the ambush.

  Though it was not his first battle, he was already coming to be known as the Dragon of Terror and Peril, but Mei’s heart had pounded fearfully in his chest as they crested the hill above the fray. Down the hill in the small valley soldiers swarmed like ants and he could not see if his adopted father had survived the attack, if men he knew had fallen. He felt as if he would scream for the battle that was lost. At last the signal had been given and they had raced out of the trees to the attackers’ unprotected rear flank.

  The surprise worked. Mei and his men had plunged into the mass of confused and terrified soldiers like a shark cutting into a school of fish. The entire rear of the Beijing army collapsed in an instant from a unified organism of destruction into individual cells of fear. The traitorous ambushers were trapped between pincer claws. Mei’s brother, Xueling, had led his cavalry toward the river after
the charge in order to seal off retreat. That position would now be fortified. That was where safety lay.

  Mei felt as if his body had never performed as strongly before and never would again. His horse had been cut out from under him at the height of the charge, its front legs sheared away at the joints. He had miraculously landed on his feet in the midst of his enemies. Slashing and blocking as he had practiced so many times, he made men fall before him. The straps of his armor bit like razors into his back. He knew he had to reach the river and Xueling. His blade was dulling from impact. It bit deeply into the side of a man, grating on rib, and fastening deeply into the spine. He threw his foot against the man’s body to dislodge him from the weapon.

  Something hit him with the force of a mountain falling. The chest of a runaway horse. He curled into a ball as he fell and the hooves fell harmlessly about him before the horse galloped off. He could die here now, he knew. A sword could fall, a spear could pierce; he had played his part. Men had fallen at his hand.

  He heard the sound of his death rushing toward him. It was as horns calling above the din. Slowly he brought himself to his knees. He could hear water now and smell the moss. All around the battlefield men stood. Zuolin’s men, Xueling’s men, the men of the Northern Lands, his men. A cheer was rising. Hands grabbed him and helped him up. A face he recollected was speaking to him. He knew the man, he realized, one of his own soldiers. He was speaking with great excitement. Mei waited patiently for his words to make sense and suddenly they did.

  “Beijing is taken!” the man shouted. He was a peasant, such as Mei himself had been once. This man’s lowly life could have been his. Instead, while this man would return to his village and his rice paddy tomorrow, Mei would ride with his adopted father and his adopted brother into the great city of Beijing. “The enemy runs! We are victorious! China is united!”

  Mei looked back. His own path toward the river was visible as a line of corpses fallen as bamboo is knocked aside by a bear moving through a forest. He had reached the river.