Frogmouth

by William Marshall

  It was 8:28 A.M. An hour ago he hadn't been able to get a screwdriver. An hour ago, he hadn't heard the wall scream. As O'Yee began talking quickly on the phone to Hurley, Lim paused. He looked at the wall one last time. He touched hard at the butt of his gun in his holster.

  He went to get a metal detector.

  They were coming. At 8:29 A.M. as the Russo Harbin Hong Kong Trading Bank got ready to open its doors and its autobank for the day's business, the thieves with feet like dinner plates were coming.

  Somewhere someone was pushing the first .177 air pellet into his air gun and breaking the barrel down to cock it.

  In the gunsmoke drifting range of Auden's mind, all the shooting stopped and there was silence.

  8:30 A.M.

  There was a click from his time lock. There was a shiver from his feet. In one of the synapses of his brain there was a single spark. It was the spark that told him he was a .577-500 Number 2 Express bullet. It was all the information he needed from the synapses.

  He was ready.

  He quivered.

  He had decided.

  He knew.

  "We were strolling along . . . On moonlight bay . . ."

  Wrong synaptic spark.

  Auden, all bone and muscle, cutting out his brain and turning solely to the only friend he had, his central nervous system, said in a low snarl, "Grrrr . . ."

  Down on his haunches in Annapura Lane, Spencer, staring hard across to the glass doors of the bank, watched as Ivan and Sergei, Natasha and Igor and all the rest of them went about their business setting up the day's transactions.

  He watched, his eyes glued to their every movement.

  Spencer said softly, "Hmm . . ."

  He watched, and waited, and wondered.

  8:30 A.M. exactly.

  He saw the smoked glass window on the keyboard of the autobank against the wall of the bank open for the first customer of the day.

  He watched as the first customer of the day, a tall Northern Chinese carrying a briefcase, came down the street unsuspectingly to use it.

  In the Detectives' Room, O'Yee shouted down the line to Hurley, "What do you mean you don't know where it goes? You're writing a history of the Hong Kong Police—this is Hong Kong Police gas pipe! Where the hell does it go?"

  It went north. He heard Lim coming in. He heard Lim banging something metal on the edge of the Charge Room desk as he dragged it. O'Yee, slamming down the phone on Hurley, demanded, "Yes? Yes? Have you got it?"

  He had it. God only knew where, but he had it in his hand. It was in a long cardboard box marked TREASURE FOR PLEASURE— DETECT YOUR WAY TO UNTOLD RICHES. O'Yee shouted, "Right! Good!"

  From the wall there was only a soft whistling sound.

  All thumbs, O'Yee, wrenching the box from Lim's hands, got it up on his desk to tear it open and assemble the thing.

  He heard—

  He thought he heard—

  The whistling stopped. The wall said softly, ". . . twenty . . . twenty-eight."

  He had the box open. It was 8:31. It had no batteries. O'Yee shouted, "Get batteries!"

  Good old Lim. You could always rely on him.

  At top speed, running out of the room again without a word of complaint, Lim went to get batteries.

  At the door to the killing chamber, Hoosier said in a gasp, "My God!" He had wanted to stay in his office after Feiffer had gone. He could not. At the door to the killing chamber, Hoosier, rooted to the spot, said, "Feiffer—Chief Inspector? Are you here?"

  Everything was smashed. On the little narrow-gauge tram track they used to push the cages down along the line of side-mounted forty-four-gallon oil drums converted to gas chambers there were cages, boxes, bits and pieces of mechanism. The shooting trough at the far end of the room by the furnaces had been twisted: the bars had been bent and smashed down with a sledgehammer. The hammer had been used on the killing drums themselves. Three of the row of five lay on their sides with their hinged metal doors hanging off their hinges—they had been hit over and over and mangled like aluminum beer cans. He saw the line of poison gas cylinders behind the drums. They were on their sides. He sniffed. They were intact. He could not see Feiffer anywhere. He saw the open steel door of the furnace. It was scarred, marked as if someone, again and again, had beaten it with something hard and then, failing to break it, had turned to the masonry around it. There was dust from masonry everywhere: it was like a carpet. The walls had been holed. They had been smashed to their bricks and rendering. Hoosier called urgently, "Feiffer!" There was a trolley for one of the gas cylinders upside down in the center of the shooting trough where the drain was. There were cages in the killing trough and cardboard boxes for the transport of smaller animals. The transport dolly was bent and broken with one of its wheels hanging off. Hoosier said, "Feiffer! Are you there?" He heard a noise, a click, then a humming and then another click. Hoosier, going forward into the room, watching the poison gas cylinders in case they rolled or fractured, called, "Feiffer—!"

  It was hot. In the room, the air-conditioning unit had been smashed. It had been a plastic box on the wall. Its sides had been stoved in. Its fan unit lay near the open furnace with the beaten-in wire and cardboard cages. He heard the hum. It was coming from Idris's office to one side of the furnace. Hoosier, his shoes crunching on masonry and wooden laths from the wall as he walked, went toward the office.

  He saw Feiffer in there by a Xerox machine. The machine was the only thing left standing in the office. Hoosier, looking at the turned-over desks and filing cabinets and, again, the smashed-in walls, demanded, "What the hell's happened?" He sniffed. He could not smell gas. He saw the open arms locker on the wall behind the overturned and splintered desk. He counted the rifles and humane killers. Hoosier said with his civil servant's mind, "There's a pistol missing, a Webley .455 Mark Six revolver." The humming was the Xerox machine. Feiffer had turned it on. Hoosier shouted, "Did you hear me?" Hoosier, looking around, still sniffing, demanded, "What the hell happened?"

  "You tell me."

  "I haven't been here for a week. We haven't had to kill anything for—" There was a faint smell. Hoosier said in terror, "Gas!"

  "It's the machine." It was on, humming, a faint smell of ammonia and warm treated paper about it. Feiffer said tightly, "It was still on when I got here. It was printing. All the paper had run through and it was still printing." Feiffer, looking up from the machine, asked with a strange look on his face, "Is there a way Idris could have gotten in and out of the compound without anyone seeing him?"

  "There's a back gate."

  "And, like executioners all over the world, the prison prefers him to come and go unnoticed through it. Am I right?"

  He was going to say— Hoosier said tightly, "Yes."

  "When was the last time there was a killing in this place?"

  "The last time was the frogmouth—"

  He had smelled the carbolic on the floor the moment he had come in. The smell of ammonia from the Xerox machine overlaid it. Feiffer said savagely, "Then why the hell do the furnaces have dust in them? Why the hell are the poison gas cylinders all jammed tight and rusted? Why the hell—" Feiffer shouted in the ruined, wrecked room, "Why the hell didn't anyone ever come in here and check? Where the hell's your unbreachable Civil Service order and conveyor belt system?" Feiffer said, "The trough was the only thing that looked clean! The only thing that's been going on in here for months is the shooting of dogs and cats! Nothing's been gassed in your goddamned bird-gassing chambers for weeks, maybe months!" He had put paper in the loading cartridge of the Xerox machine. It began to print. Feiffer, yanking the first copy out and shoving it toward Hoosier, ordered the man, "Here! You know so much about what goes on in here! You have all the morality of it all worked out to your own satisfaction! You know what sort of kind, thoughtful, gentle, merciful man Idris is—read this!" He had killed too. In the course of the last five years he had killed four times. He knew what killing cost. He knew what people thought about you. Feiffer
, his face contorted, yelled, yanking more of the papers out of the storage bin and throwing them in a cascade into Hoosier's face, "There are plenty of copies! Read this!"

  NORTH POINT WOMAN IN DEATH FALL

  Wrote Last Letter To Husband

  It was a tiny clipping from a newspaper, from something minor, unimportant: judging by the little line box it had been printed in, something hidden away on page 18 or 20.

  Police are treating as suicide the death last night of Mrs. Mata Idris, 51, who fell from the balcony of her eighth floor apartment in the New China Housing Estate block in Pottinger Street, North Point.

  A police spokesman at North Point Station said that Mrs. Idris had been under a doctor's care for some time and had been treated for depression for several months prior to her death.

  The spokesman said that the police were not seeking any other person in connection with the death and that no suspicious circumstances were involved.

  The spokesman confirmed that police had taken possession of a letter left in the apartment block by Mrs. Idris for her husband, but declined to reveal its contents.

  The clipping had been pasted onto a sheet of foolscap paper and placed in the machine to print.

  It had printed. During all the destruction and the blows from the sledgehammer it had printed. It had gone on printing until the entire ream of 500 sheets of paper in its loading cartridge had been exhausted.

  With the new paper in the cartridge it went on printing now.

  It was merely a few lines of an unimportant story centered on a thirteen-by-eight-inch sheet of blank foolscap Xerox paper.

  In the office, Feiffer, for some reason unable to control himself, yelled, "Read it! Read it!" He had seen him. He had seen him standing there at the edge of the lagoon. He had seen his pain. He had seen him.

  The machine, humming, was printing, printing. It was printing the story over and over again.

  He had seen him. He had seen the small, old man with pale eyes who loved animals and killed them, who thought of wishing chairs and who, like Hoosier—not like Hoosier at all—wished, and who, all his days in this awful place was alone. Feiffer shrieked, "Read it!"

  It had happened at the New China Housing Estate in Pottinger Street: it had happened outside his department too. It had happened in North Point, two streets away from Hong Bay, his precinct, his files, his papers, his Civil Service mentality—but it had happened.

  It had happened to someone. Like the killing in the killing chamber, even though no one saw it or wanted to see it, or pretended they had nothing to do with it, it happened.

  There was no smell of poison gas in the room. There had not been the smell of poison gas in there for a very long time. In the room there was only the warm, electric smell of the Xerox machine and the carbolic from the cages.

  It printed. Not knowing what it printed, not knowing what it meant, obediently—a machine—it went on printing, clicking, over and over.

  NORTH POINT WOMAN IN DEATH FALL

  Wrote Last Letter To Husband

  Over and over . . .

  Over, and over.

  In the awful, still, ruined room, over and over, until the pages spilled out of the collection trough, over and over, the machine, humming, printed the little, unimportant story in the color it had been set to: a bright—on the white foolscap page—full tonally adjusted bright Civil Service red.

  It printed.

  It clicked.

  Somewhere, somewhere else inside a red cupola, it hummed.

  8:33 A.M.

  In the Detectives' Room, to no one but itself, the wall said in a whisper, weakening, in distress, "Twenty-eight . . . Twenty-Eight!"

  13

  Choofa, choofa, choofa, choofa . . .

  Auden opened one eye. He saw the Tibetan at the far end of the street, coming. He was coming choofa, choofa, choofa—he was a train. He was gathering speed, pacing himself, flexing his hand for the mail pickup at the autobank.

  Choofa-choofa—he was speeding up, his legs starting to get traction on the pavement, his shoulders moving, tightening. At the autobank the tall Northern Chinese with his briefcase was counting his money . . . One hundred, two hundred, three hundred . . . Choofa-choofa . . . choof. Choof. Choof. Auden opened his other eye. There was a crowd forming around him. They were looking down the street and then to the Northern Chinese and then to Auden.

  Five hundred . . . six hundred . . .

  Choof, choof, choof! Choof!

  Auden said, "Back!"

  The crowd got back. They were a crowd of toothless unemployed Chinese in shorts and singlets. They had feet like meat dishes.

  He was a .577-500. Auden said again, "Back!"

  "Seven hundred . . ."

  Choofachoofachoofa—choofa!

  He had always wanted to be a sniper. He was a sniper's bullet. He closed his eyes again and then opened one a fraction and got a warm, tunnel womb vision. Auden said, "Click." He cocked the hammer. Choofa, choofa, choofa . . . He began to . . . squeeze his trigger . . .

  The crowd, moving, seeing the Tibetan come, seeing the Northern Chinese reach one thousand with his banknotes, said in a hiss, "Weee . . . !"

  He was moving. His legs began to piston, his arms began to stiffen. Choofa, choofa, choofa! He was gathering speed, getting traction. The Tibetan, pushing, pistoning, his eyes set on the Northern Chinese, his feet disappearing into blurs, was coming. Auden yelled to the crowd in Cantonese, "Back! Stand clear!"

  The crowd cheered. They were running on the spot. The Northern Chinese with the briefcase and the money looked up.

  CHOOFCHOOFCHOOFCHOOF! The Tibetan's whistle at full speed shrieked, "Tooo-wee!"

  "Back!"

  The crowd yelled, "Waaeee!"

  "Toooweee!" ChoofchoofCHOOF—roar!

  Auden yelled— He was ready to yell, as he fired, "Boom!"

  The tall Northern Chinese yelled as he saw a blur coming at him with its arm outstretched and a wild look in its eyes, "Aaii-ya!"

  Auden, firing, yelled, "BOO—"

  Looking across, pointing to him, waving his hand as it became in an instant filled with the Northern Chinese's money, the Tibetan yelled, "Ready! Set! Go!"

  "—OOM!" He tripped, he fell, he crashed into the crowd as, as one man, it began to run. Auden, scrabbling, getting up, his bullet all bent and off target, all his powder wet, shrieked, "That wasn't fair!"

  CHOOFACHOOFACHOOFACHOOFA—the train was going, speeding away, becoming an express, the mail arm with the money retracting for streamlining, a single sharp contrail of steam and breath coming out from behind it as it went for the record. The pavement was a railway line, nonstop, express. The road was the station. Barefooted people were running after the train shouting and waving their arms trying to catch it. He wasn't a bullet, he was a goddamned war bride standing there with tears in his eyes as the train roared away into the night without him on it. Nobody in the whole goddamned world was on his side. Auden, hopping up and down and about to punch the garbage skip, yelled in Cantonese, "No one's on my side anywhere!"

  Someone was. It was the Tibetan. The Tibetan, turning at full speed, waving the money, catching his eye for a moment as—so help him his feet rose six inches above the pavement—yelled, "You! Cop!" The Tibetan, calling to him, beseeching him, needing him, yelled, "Run! Please! For God's sake, RUN!"

  He couldn't see anything. In the street the crowd had gone toward the hill after the Tibetan like a wave of attacking Korean suicide troops. At the end of Annapura Lane they missed running him down by inches.

  Spencer, jumping up and down, trying to see over them, still spinning in the wake of their acceleration, tried to see Auden. Auden was at the garbage skip, hopping up and down. He stopped hopping. He was half hopping, trying to get his legs into order. Spencer, running toward him, looking up at the flat roofs along the street behind cars, back to the garbage skip where the sniper might be, yelled out, "Phil! I can't see anyone! Can you see the shooter?" He looked across to the Russo Harbin Hong Ko
ng Trading Bank. The glass doors were dark at that angle. He saw a blur inside moving past the doors and then disappear. He heard a disappearing dot somewhere through the seething, running crowd, yell, "Where the hell are you?" and Spencer, thinking it was Auden, yelled back, "I'm here! The profit motive is—" It was the Tibetan. Spencer yelled, "Phil! Phil, he's got an accomplice!"

  "All right!"

  Addressing the garbage skip, Auden, on the boil, reaching vapor point, snarled, "All right!" For two days people had been trying to kill him. He had watched his health. For two days people had been trying to— He had tried to be a bullet. It hadn't worked. People hadn't let it work. All right then—all right then— He was moving, all the nerves and muscles and sinews in his legs and lungs were coiling, filling with air. Sometimes a man had to do what a man had to do. Bullets didn't count. Men counted. Men who were bullets were men who weren't men. All right then. He had been found out. Fuck Wang—Wang didn't count. The Tibetan and the crowd were fifty yards away. Fifty yards didn't count. Auden shrieked to the heavens at the top of his voice, "All right then! I'm here! My name is Phillip John Auden and I'm ready!" He saw the tall Northern Chinese at the autobank looking at him with his mouth open. Maybe he didn't speak English. Auden, shouting in Cantonese for him, cried bootless to the heavens, "I'm here! I'm ready! I'm me! This time, I am prepared to die!"

  The tall Northern Chinese, cringing, said, "Oh, my God!"

  He did speak English. Good. Auden, his legs beginning to work, his legs turning to blurs, Auden, able to leap buildings in a single bound, yelled from the bottom, the depths of his soul, "For England! For the Empire! For me!" He heard the Tibetan seventy-five, eighty yards away, being pursued by the black storm of running bums, yell, "Run!" and he, at last, for the final time—for the great, ultimate act of his life—girding his loins, coiling his essence, exploding like a .577-500 Number 2 Express and a .17 caliber Remington both at once—he ran.