Brokenclaw

by John Gardner

  ‘Who’re we talking about?’

  ‘Who d’you think? Lee. Brokenclaw Lee.’

  For the second time that morning her stomach turned over. After all, they had spent ten hours during the previous day trying to formulate some kind of strategy against Lee.

  ‘You owe Brokenclaw a great deal of money. Okay, Dad, you came to me, laying down the law, telling me I should obey you like an old Chinese father. What were you thinking? What did you want of me?’

  He looked away, whispering that he was sorry. Eventually, ‘I’m a doomed man, Wanda. I’ve lost everything this time. The store . . .’

  ‘Your life? Will he have you killed?’

  He gave an unamused laugh. ‘Oh, no. No, that’s not Brokenclaw’s way, though I might as well be a dead man.’

  ‘What will he do, then?’

  ‘Take my soul. Bind me to him. Make me serve him in any capacity he decides. You remember old San-San Ho?’

  ‘The nice old man who used to run the fruit and vegetable store on Stockton?’

  ‘You haven’t seen him lately, have you?’

  ‘I don’t go . . .’

  ‘Into the Chinatown. No, of course you don’t. San-San Ho lost everything to Lee. And what did Lee do? He made old San-San into a drug courier. The old man died in agony half a year ago, sitting on an airplane bringing him back to San Francisco; died because one of the twenty little rubber sacks of heroin lodged in his intestines split open.’

  Wanda showed no sign of grief. She knew well enough what could happen to people who carried drugs into the United States in this fashion. ‘So, my father, what did you expect of me? How did you think I could help you?’

  Her father looked away and gave a small shake of the head. ‘No!’ Like a spoiled child refusing to give up some precious secret.

  ‘Who knows, I might still be able to help you.’

  ‘Never . . . No. No, Wanda, I don’t know what devil got into me. What I was going to command of you is obscene. Obnoxious.’

  But Wanda Man Song Hing had already guessed at the disgusting truth. ‘You were going to pimp for Brokenclaw, weren’t you? You were going to offer him your daughter in lieu of payment.’

  ‘How could I even . . . ?’

  ‘You were desperate.’ She was very calm now. ‘Desperate times for any man call for desperate measures. Even loathsome measures like giving your own daughter for Brokenclaw Lee to defile.’

  ‘Don’t go on, Wanda. It was a madness . . .’

  But the germ of an idea was already formulating in her mind. ‘When were you going to do this terrible thing?’

  He would not meet her eyes. ‘Tonight,’ he whispered. ‘Lee wishes to see me tonight at The Broken Dragon – where I’ve spent too much time, where I’ve lost my soul. Midnight.’

  It would be utterly degrading, she thought, but this might be the way to Brokenclaw. ‘Have you any other things to do today, Father?’

  ‘No. Well, I have to look my best if I am to see him and deliver myself up to him. That’s all.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘I want you to stay here. Not to go out. Just stay here. Don’t answer the telephone. Just rest here.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I might truly be able to help you.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Maybe by doing what you were going to suggest.’

  ‘Golly, Wanda, I don’t know how to advise you. Gee, I can’t send you out on that kind of assignment.’

  ‘Ed, it’s me, Wanda. You’re not talking to some unsuspecting hicksville dummy, so quit the “Golly Wanda” stuff with me. I know what I’m doing.’

  ‘But the guy’s got one hell of a reputation. I mean, you’ve seen the reports . . .’

  ‘I’m willing to risk all that. Yes, I know he’s supposed to be insatiable as far as women are concerned. I’m ready and quite able to deal with it.’

  Wanda had left her apartment and called Ed Rushia from a payphone. He picked her up in a battered old Chevy half an hour later and they drove out on to 101, crossing the Golden Gate Bridge and parking at one of the picnic and photographic areas which gave them a panoramic view of the bay and the city.

  ‘I’m not at all sure that, even if I went along with it, I can sanction any undercover operation like this,’ Rushia said quietly. ‘I don’t like it, Wanda. Not at all.’

  ‘Then what if I take full responsibility? What if I just disappear? For heaven’s sake, Ed, we’ve spent hours trying to figure out a way to get a penetration into Lee’s entourage. If I can do it and come back with some decent information . . .’

  ‘I can’t order this and I can’t sanction it, either.’ Rushia clamped his jaw firmly closed. ‘Sure, we need someone in there, but you. It’s asking too much. You do realise what you’d have to do?’

  She sighed. ‘Yes, I’ll have to sleep with him, possibly suffer indignities. I’m going in with my eyes open. It might become very unpleasant and risky, but I accept that. I’ll be doing it for my country.’

  Rushia grunted, and the pair remained silent for the best part of two minutes. At last he shifted in the driving seat, turning to look at her. ‘Doesn’t matter what I say, does it? You’re going, whatever. Right?’

  ‘Unless you drag me back to base and put me under arrest, yes. Yes, I’m going, whatever.’

  ‘How would it be if I sent you on a ten-day furlough? I do have that authority.’

  ‘That would be fine, Ed.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll write you up when I get back to base. Apart from that we didn’t have this conversation. You just asked me for ten days’ compassionate, right?’

  Wanda nodded. ‘Right,’ she said.

  The Broken Dragon had two entrances, one at the rear leading on to the dark little courtyard where FBI Agent Malloney would eventually meet his brutal end, the other straight off the crowded street. This was the main entrance, but there were no signs or gaudy advertising telling the world what lay behind the ordinary door.

  In spite of The Broken Dragon’s existence being public knowledge among those who sought to gamble or use the other, more personal, services afforded by the place, it had only been raided twice in the past five years. The team working on Trojan Horse considered that this fact was proof of some kind of police protection, but nobody had ever been able to prove any such thing.

  The other possibility was that the police and other agencies felt it better to allow the place to operate freely. There was never any serious trouble directly emanating from The Broken Dragon, so it could be argued that people would find somewhere to gamble and pick up hookers anyway so it might just as well be at a well-run establishment. But, again, if this was the case, it pointed to a certain lack of enthusiasm with regard to putting Brokenclaw Lee away for a very long time, for it was known that of all his supposed illegal ventures in San Francisco The Broken Dragon was one of his favourite haunts.

  At a little before midnight, Wanda and Tony Man Song Hing were deposited from a taxi on to the sidewalk in front of the unprepossessing door that was the entrance to The Broken Dragon. Wanda had dressed for the occasion in a tight, elaborately embroidered silk cheongsam, which showed off her figure to its greatest advantage, but she had been careful to choose one with a side slit that ended modestly below the knee.

  Her father was dressed in a powder-blue double-breasted suit, a cream silk shirt with a Sulka tie, cream with diagonal blue stripes. On his feet he wore expensive snakeskin shoes and his fingers were decked with his most ostentatious rings; a gold identity chain was around his right wrist and a large gold Rolex was on the left. He looked the picture of a high roller, prepared to gamble several thousand dollars away at the Dragon’s tables, not a man who was about to plead for his soul with the most powerful gangster in town.

  Wanda did not spot any overt surveillance on them, but she was a hundred per cent certain that Lee had people who watched the place both front and rear. The many discussions with the other Naval security people of Trojan Horse had disclosed evidence
that the club was well protected, and they had been advised by both the local FBI and other security agencies that it was hopeless putting in their own surveillance which would be spotted and, eventually, dismantled – a polite word for destroyed.

  Once inside the street door, Wanda found herself in a dimly lit vestibule which seemed to have been built of heavy grey stone. In the wall facing them a narrow archway led down stone steps to a thick ornate oak door studded with steel bands.

  Her father touched a small button on the door and a grille slid open disclosing the face of a young Chinese.

  ‘We saw it was you, Tony. Come on in. Nice to see you keep good time.’

  It was obvious that the upstairs vestibule and the area in front of the door were monitored by concealed cameras.

  ‘I’m always a good timekeeper, Luk See,’ Tony said with a smile, as the door was opened to allow them inside. ‘This is my daughter, Wanda. Just so you know and don’t get any funny ideas about her.’

  Wanda thought she detected a note of serious and sinister warning in her father’s voice. This was certainly not the man who had wept and pleaded with her only this morning: now that he was on familiar ground, Tony Man Song Hing appeared to have found a new confidence.

  ‘Very happy to see you here, Ms Man Song Hing.’ The young Chinese was impeccably dressed in a black sharkskin suit, and Wanda felt that he was busily appraising her body, as were the two other men who obviously guarded the entrance with him. But all three of them faded as the sight that greeted her within The Broken Dragon all but took her breath away.

  The interior was huge and opulent, with deep pile carpet under foot and a decor that was both rich and restrained. A black and gold screen separated the entrance lobby from the main rooms which were reached by descending a wide staircase. They were hardly inside before the man her father had referred to as Luk See beckoned to a haughty young girl in a long black cheongsam who came up the steps towards them.

  ‘Mr and Ms Man Song Hing. There is a table reserved for them.’

  The girl nodded, hardly looking at either Wanda or Tony. She merely gestured them to follow her down the stairs leading first to a large bar and dining room, the walls of which were covered in lacquered bamboo and hung with Chinese works of art, illuminated by concealed spotlights.

  The tables were placed well clear of each other, all gleaming with white cloths and ivory chopsticks. Waiters moved around silently and the conversation appeared to be conducted almost in whispers, for about three-quarters of the tables were occupied.

  A waiter appeared at the table, placing glasses in front of them. ‘Champagne, compliments of the management.’ He spoke without showing a flicker of interest, banging down an ice bucket containing a bottle buried up to its neck. He opened the bottle and poured for them – a little in Wanda’s glass for her to taste. She shook her head. ‘I’m sure it will be fine.’ Long ago she had learned that this ritual should only be left to experts and much of the wine tasting that went on in restaurants was laughed at by the waiters.

  ‘You will not be kept waiting long.’ For the first time, the waiter gave a little smile and the hint of a bow as he left them.

  ‘The man at the door . . . ?’ Wanda began to ask.

  ‘Lee’s chief bouncer. You’ll only see him when the big man is actually here. His name is Lee’s joke, of course.’

  ‘Luk See?’ Wanda gave a small smile. Her stomach was churning with anxiety, while her eyes restlessly tried to take everything in. The light above them radiated from a golden, carved dropped ceiling; at the far end of the room, a pair of great arched doors were watched over by two burly men in dinner jackets, and the only time noise intruded into the restaurant was when these men opened one of the doors to usher someone in or out. For the few seconds that the door was open, the click of Fan-tan counters and the murmur of an excited gaming house was heard.

  She also noticed that there were doors leading to the kitchens to the right of the long bar which took up almost the entire wall to their left, though at the near side of the bar she could see another door with yet one more bouncer in front of it. As she took her second sip of champagne, she saw this door open and the man on guard lean back to speak to someone. He nodded, then things happened very quickly.

  Luk See came over to the table, gave them a mock bow and, almost with reverence, said, ‘The owner requests the pleasure of your company upstairs please. Now.’

  Her father rose – a little nervously, Wanda thought – and gestured that she should accompany him. Shepherded by Luk See, they crossed to the door on the near side of the bar. Its guard opened it for them and, still with Luk See behind them, they went up a brilliantly lit, heavily carpeted staircase.

  There was another door at the top, and Luk See pushed past them to knock. A voice softly called for them to enter and they were almost brusquely pushed through the door into the presence of Brokenclaw Lee himself.

  The first thing that caught Wanda off guard was the emptiness of the room. After the opulence of the public rooms, it came as a shock to find that what she took to be Lee’s office was merely a bare room, its only decoration being an American Indian mask hanging directly above the long deal table that served as a desk. The second most striking thing was Brokenclaw Lee himself – huge, powerful, his handsome face and dancing, charming eyes, seemed to be inviting her to a pleasant evening’s entertainment, and when he rose she admitted to being overawed at his height and bearing.

  ‘This is a great pleasure.’ The voice was unaccented and beautifully modulated. ‘Tony, have you brought your wife with you?’

  ‘My daughter, sir.’ Wanda understood well enough why her father addressed this man in terms of respect.

  Brokenclaw nodded and smiled. ‘I am sorry I cannot offer you any chairs, but this is where I conduct business when I am here, and I find it simpler to deal with business if I sit and the persons to whom I speak remain standing. Allow me to introduce these members of my staff.’ He gestured towards two other men whom Wanda had hardly noticed when they entered. ‘They are known as Wan Lo and Big Leu.’ He gave Wanda his most charming smile. ‘I realise that Big Leu looks a little small compared to myself, but among normal men he is considered large.’

  Big Leu must have been around six foot one and very stocky, with broad shoulders, long arms and hands which Wanda immediately thought of as boxer’s hands. His sidekick, Wan Lo, was short, thin and wiry – a very tense man with eyes constantly moving and his body taut as though always ready for violence.

  ‘Now, Tony, since I have introduced my people, perhaps you will introduce your daughter.’

  Her father hesitated, so Wanda herself stepped forward. ‘My name is Wanda Man Song Hing,’ she said, summoning all the deference she could command. Then quite without knowing why, she added, ‘It is an honour to meet you.’

  He smiled down at her and offered a huge hand which took hers and held it in not so much a handshake as a caress.

  Then quite suddenly, he stopped smiling. Still looking at Wanda, and keeping his voice down he asked, ‘Tony, have you brought my money? You were to bring it tonight.’

  ‘No, sir.’ Wanda could hear the surge of terror behind the words from her father. Then he repeated, ‘No, sir. But I have brought something more precious than any money.’

  ‘Oh. Pray what?’

  ‘My daughter, sir. I have brought you my daughter, Wanda.’

  ‘Really? And what has Wanda to say about this?’

  His voice was always calm, soothing, making her think of the purring of a cat. ‘I am a good Chinese girl, sir,’ she again heard herself say. ‘I obey my father in all things.’

  ‘And you come here of your own free will?’

  ‘I do. But I must tell you that others have claim on my time.’

  ‘What kind of claim?’ Reasonable, relaxed.

  ‘I am an officer in the United States Navy.’

  ‘That’s even more interesting. So, when do you return to your duties, which would, of course,
take you from the orbit of your father’s commands and influence?’

  ‘I have a ten-day furlough, sir. After that, I am free for one day a week and one entire weekend in every four.’ She kept her eyes raised towards Lee’s proud features.

  ‘Well,’ he smiled down at her. ‘I think we can arrange matters so that your naval duties will not interfere with your status as a gift to me.’ He let go of her hand and stepped to one side, standing directly in front of her father. ‘You appear to have done very well in bringing me your daughter, Tony Man Song Hing. For the moment, I shall suspend judgment on the question of your financial debt. Be here again at midnight in exactly ten days and I shall give you my complete verdict then. After I have sampled what your daughter has to offer.’

  There was not the slightest sign of a threat in his voice, just the gentle, reasonable words of a seemingly gentle and reasonable man.

  Wanda had hardly realised that her father had left when she heard Lee speak again. ‘You two, make things ready. We leave now. This minute.’

  She felt the hands of Big Leu clasp her upper arms and lead her to yet another door at the far end of the room. Then something was slipped over her head, softly pressing against her eyes and cutting off sight.

  ‘Would not try moving mask, missy,’ Leu whispered in her ear. ‘If your hand goes even near mask, I fear life will become total pain.’

  He steered her down some stairs, and a minute later she felt the cool night air on her face. A hand covered the back of her head, forcing her down as Leu gave her instructions. She was being assisted into a car. There was the smell of well-polished leather and the seat seemed to enfold her.

  A few seconds later, she knew that Lee had joined her in the car. He wore a musky cologne which she had detected in his office. She could not deny a tiny electric thrill as she felt his hand touch her thigh.

  As the car began to move, he whispered apologies for the mask. ‘I have to take very careful precautions. I’m sure you, as a member of the United States Navy, will understand.’