Jake paused. Now what did this wispy old gent know about Jake or Jake’s plans? Well, maybe he had meant the journey through life. Jake was grateful to him, and thanked him, and for a moment reversed their hands, so that Jake’s lay on the old man’s. They nodded. Jake left.
The street was bright and noisy, and Jake blinked a bit, believing at first that there had been an accident or a brawl. Forty beggars thronged the ricksha. Jake cursed to himself, drew a deep breath, and waded in. They were deformed and mutilated. Some were children. All were in rags and most barefoot. They gave off a bad air, a stink of sickness, coming death, and the clamor was fierce.
Jake was suddenly wild with anger, and not sure why. He shoved at them, that mob of Oriental bodies, Oriental faces, Oriental smells, and his breath came shorter, and Kao shouted, and the driver shouted, and the beggars shouted back, the air rancid with menace, and Jake shoved harder and roared at them, fought through with his fists and his elbows, and laid a hand on the ricksha, and was about to step into it, when one of them jostled him hard from behind, and Jake turned furiously, ready to slug.
The beggar was a young man with blond hair and shining blue eyes, and was cursing Jake savagely in Chinese.
Jake went cold and could not move or speak, only stare. He was looking at himself. Sweat started on him, and the blood pounded in his head, but he could not move or speak. He could not look away. Chinese scum, okay. But blue eyes! Blond hair!
The beggar fell silent, and gleams of hate, gleams of greed, shot from his shining eyes. He drew closer and whined, and stabbed a hand at Jake, a claw.
Jake yelped like an animal and ripped himself away from it. He vaulted into the ricksha and prodded the driver. With the driver pedaling and hollering, and Jake slashing to one side and Kao to the other, they cut their way clear.
Jake was shaking. His stomach heaved. He had never trembled or been sick in combat and now he wanted to spew.
“Dogs defile them all,” Kao gasped. “They should be shot.”
“One of them—” But Jake could not say it. Say what? That it was wrong for white men to be beggars? That he had not until now thought of beggars as human? That he had not until now thought of Chinamen as human?
“All of them,” Kao snarled. “How can honest merchants prosper in a jungle like this?”
And then it was Jake’s next-to-last night in Peking, and Kao swept him off to a dark doorway in a dark alley, and a meal to remember, and there was no talk of beggars: roast honeyed duck and sliced leeks, black sauce and papery, savory pancakes to roll them in; and hot yellow wine; and the open fires and fat crackling, and Jake the only white man in the place and glad of it, eavesdropping on the talk of money and war.
“I once ate a whole duck,” Kao said. “In my youth.”
Later Kao said, “‘In youth beware lust; in maturity beware belligerence; in age beware greed.’”
And later Kao said, “Those gold pieces. What have you done with them?”
Jake patted his own chest and said, “I bought a little leather bag and strung it with braided wire.”
Kao said, “You have spoken to no one?”
And Jake said, “No one.”
“Good. Do not. From now on you have no name, even. Ta-tze. No one knows who you are or where you’re going.”
“What did you do with my dog tags?”
“They’re safe,” Kao said. “I’ll try to plant them on a dead foreigner.”
Jake nodded easily, but the words left him cold and empty. He did not believe in good luck or bad, but did not like that fate for his dog tags.
“You may want to dispose of that I.D. later,” Kao said.
Jake nodded again but felt no better.
Kao said, “Now. About the goods. Do not trade on the way. Do you understand? I am instructing you now. You cannot know the relative value of what you carry. What is insignificant to you may be of importance in Gurchen. Every last leaf of tea, every last nail. Trade nothing on the way. Lose nothing on the way. Sleep with your goods. Do your own loading and off-loading. The goods are your link and mine between here and there, between today and tomorrow. In Gurchen you will be met.” And then, “Self-control. Do not brawl. You are a trader now and you must bear a responsibility beyond your experience. You are not of the Navy now, with a battleship to come if things go wrong, and comrades to roister with. You will be alone and there is much at stake. You must remember always how much is at stake. The course of our lives.
“Do not trust Ch’ing either, by the way, not altogether. He is an honest man but you and you alone are responsible for those goods. Ch’ing does not know precisely what they are or what they are worth, or whither they are destined. Is that clear?”
“It is clear.”
“Ah, well. Enough advice from a nervous old man.”
They paid the bill and made a quiet farewell inside the front door; they would leave separately. “I’ll try to be there,” Kao said, “but it may be better not. There is no one in the world to connect you and me. Only Ch’ing. No outsider to connect the three of us. The goods are there now and your camels are sound. If I’m not there I’ll see you in a year or so.”
“A year or so,” Jake repeated. This ancient, far-flung, slow-moving world, where you made appointments for next year, and journeys of many months, and old men were respected.
“It’s in your hands,” Kao said.
“I’ll do right,” Jake said.
“You will,” Kao said. “I believe the gods brought us together.” He joined his hands and bowed, smiled sadly at Jake, and thrust a hand forward awkwardly, palm almost up; Jake grasped it, and pumped it, and clapped the old boy on the shoulder.
“I owe you a life,” he said. “I’ll do right.”
In his room the next night he surveyed his small passel of belongings, his worldly goods, and a prickle of excitement overtook him. This was Jake Dodds, these few items, this body and brain, and there was no telling where Jake Dodds would be this day twelvemonth. Hell, not even Jake Dodds. Ta-tze.
He leaned forward to study the map of Hsinkiang. He saw himself with horses and women and fur cloaks for winter.
At the knock he started up, hoping it was Mei-li, but in the same moment he knew that it was not her knock. He plucked the .45 from the small table and stepped softly to the door. “Who is it?”
“Dushok. I’m alone.”
At the sound of English Jake was stunned. But if Dushok was not alone then Jake was doomed anyway. He opened the door.
In a long black gown, almost invisible at night with the alleyway black around him, the old sergeant stood.
Jake said, “The landlord?”
“I told him Kao sent me.” Dushok stepped into the room, and Jake shut the door.
“Hah,” Jake said. “Security.”
“Put the weapon away,” Dushok ordered. “Or point it somewhere else.”
Jake hesitated, then set it on the small table. “How’d you find me?”
“Wei-hua. No woman can keep a secret.”
“Can a man?”
“Some men.”
Jake wondered.
“Maps,” Dushok noticed.
“Thought I might travel, once I get on my feet.”
“You ought to have a sizable stake by now.”
Jake met his eye for a few seconds, then quailed.
“They’d sure love to have you back,” Dushok said comfortably. “Even the locals are in an uproar.”
“The locals? What do they care?”
“Sucking up to the Americans as usual. Cash reward, too.”
“God damn,” Jake said sadly. “I was just trying to keep the brass in order. They deserved what they got, you know.”
Dushok nodded. “Maybe so.”
Jake said nothing.
“There’s a lot of scuttlebutt in both languages,” Dushok said. “There’s a lot of people know a lot of stuff about you. Way I figure it, you’re about even with the Corps. And there’s a good deal to be said for decking
a general every so often. But I was wrong. You’re not worth saving. You’re just another nickel-and-dime punk. You sure fooled me.”
“Don’t wave the flag. You’ve gone your own way more than once.”
“I don’t break my word,” Dushok said. “I’m a lifer, remember. Choosy about the company I keep.”
“Well, I was a lifer too, maybe,” Jake said.
“No more. You’re out, and good riddance.”
“You about to nail my ass to the wall?”
“Maybe. Maybe I don’t have to. Maybe China would do it for me. You’re a babe in arms out here. Milk on your chin. I see you in ten years down to a hundred pounds and up to four pipes a day, or pulling a wagon with a chain around your middle and your nuts in somebody’s ditty bag.”
Silence thickened between them; the street too was still.
“That’s if you even made it through the next month or so,” Dushok went on. “We’re all clearing out, you know. More shoving off for Guam, and the rest to Tsingtao pretty soon.”
After another silence Jake spoke: “Well, good luck. Not much more to say.”
“I suppose not.” But then Dushok said angrily, “For Crissake, I’m here for your own good! You’re a man without a country.”
“Thass a crock,” Jake said. “Or maybe I always was. I was a kid and then I was a Marine. I was an exile before I could even vote. I killed a man before I was even old enough to make a bank loan.”
“You’re a fool,” Dushok said. “Don’t blame it on the rest of the world. You had it made.”
“Made!” Jake said. “Thass a crock too! You kiss their ass all your life and if you don’t get a bullet in the belly or beat to death in the brig, they give you a pension and let you sit on a rocking chair in San Diego for the rest of your life. I got places to go. I got things to do. God’s sake, man! I never even lived alone!”
“You were a good professional,” Dushok said. “Now you’re nothing. Less than nothing.”
“God damn you,” Jake said hotly.
“You’re on the run,” Dushok pressed him. “But you can’t make it. They’ll crucify you. They talk here, word goes around, a poor country like this there’s always ten men to do any dirty job. And you trust Kao!”
“Leave him out of it,” Jake snarled.
Dushok said, “I don’t know what’s up, but I guarantee you one thing—there’s more to it than you know about. They’ve got your balls in a vise and you’re too dumb to shake loose.”
“Ah, go to hell,” Jake said. “Go on. Go home.”
“You moron,” Dushok said, suddenly waggling a .45. “Up against the bulkhead. I’m taking you in. For your own good.”
“You bastard,” Jake said. “You bastard.”
Dushok crowded him back to the wall and took the other .45 from the night table. “Grab your socks,” he said with a joyless grimace. “Move slow. Someday you’ll bless me for this.”
Jake hoisted his pack, half blinded by his own rage.
“Move out.” Dushok prodded him. “I got a hand on this pack and don’t fool around. Just move out, and turn left, and let’s us walk down the alley like real gents. There’s a jeep waiting, and the Shore Patrol.”
Jake stepped into the warm night. “Christ, I never get one break.”
“Just turn left.”
They padded down the dark alley, between the high walls. No place to run. S.P.’s with handcuffs, and billies. Jake cursed aloud. He cursed with bitter ferocity. They had him now, after all this they had him, because that god damn Mei-li could not keep her mouth shut and neither could that hag Wei-hua, they had him in chains, and someday I will beat the shit out of this little hunky fag emperor. “This is what you call not breaking your word,” he snarled. “This is what you call honor and all that shit,” and he cursed Dushok slowly and savagely.
He made so much noise cursing that he barely heard the slither, up on the roof tiles, but he heard the crunch of one body battering down on another, and the whack and thud when Dushok dropped. The landlord! Thank God for the landlord! “Don’t hurt him,” Jake whispered. “Don’t kill him!” He stooped quickly then, saying, “Wait one wait,” and slipped his .45 from Dushok’s inner pocket. He grinned at this sport, even as he heard voices far down the alley.
“Follow quickly,” the Chinese said. It was not his landlord. Jake did not care who it was; he paced swiftly after. Behind him the S.P.’s cursed, stumbling over Dushok. Jake ran. He skidded, threw a hand behind him and came to rest with his palm in a large patch of slime. “What have you found?” the Chinese asked.
“A mound of dogshit,” Jake said unhappily.
“Over this wall.”
Now Jake heard his landlord’s voice, behind him, arguing with the S.P.’s, outraged, shouting like a lunatic. This new fellow was on the wall and reaching down: “Give me the other hand.” Jake clasped, set, sprang. He scrabbled for the top of the wall, lay on his belly for a breath, and dropped hard on the other side, the pack slewing. “Through here.”
Jake panted, “Did you knife him?” They were racing through a courtyard, around a spirit wall. Their footsteps echoed off a dozen walls. They slipped like shadows into the street, a thoroughfare, rickshas, shops, knots of men, lanterns.
Jake wiped his hand on a rough wall, and inspected his new friend. “What are you? Who sent you?”
The man was young, and round of face, with eyes that sparkled like a funning child’s. “Why, I am a camel-puller,” he said, “and the gods sent me. In the person of Master Ch’ing, who has been urged to watch over you. I have drunk much hot wine with the landlord and kept a wide eye on you. That is a beautiful woman you have, and one day you will introduce me. Just in here, now. A safe restaurant, and a couch, and a pipe if you desire. Then go to the Field of Camels at dawn.”
“Did you knife him?”
A swift pass, and the blade gleamed. “You see: clean. The hilt, however, is of brass, and was in my fist when I bashed him. He will sleep.”
Jake was sweating, and now he quivered. Obstacle course with full field pack. Who else lurked on dark roofs. “I left a pair of leather boots.”
“Then they are gone. You will never go back, now.” Old Kao had said something like that.
They entered a moon-gate, and crossed a courtyard to a dim restaurant. Jake said, “I am called Ta-tze, and I thank you.”
“My own unworthy name is Chin Tan-te,” and the young man bowed. It sounded like “Jim Dandy” and that was good enough for Jake. Jim Dandy’s nose wrinkled: “A bowl of hot water, to wash those hands.”
“And the cloth shoes,” Jake grumbled.
“Wash the shoes too,” Jim said. “Such an omen! With all the elements, arts and precious things that might bless our meeting, you choose dog’s-donation.”
Jake washed, and cleaned off his shoes. This was a Mongolian restaurant. On a table in the center of the room stood a grill like a giant mushroom; within it a coal fire burned, and on its charred outer surface patties of beef and lamb lay plastered, cooking slowly. They were doused with spicy sauces and laid between halves of bun.
On his last night in Peking he was eating hamburgers.
The few other diners, evil and swarthy in the low light, checked him once and then ignored him. The proprietor saw to his wants and made no conversation.
Soon Jake was murderously sad, two-o’clock-in-the-morning sad. He ached for Mei-li but she did not appear.
He remembered much that night: how it was to be a boy, and how it was to be a gunnery sergeant. He raged at Mei-li, and burned for her. After eating he called for a pipe. A griping at the heart. A night of evil portent.
At first light he took up his pack and left, walking cautiously through empty streets that filled as he moved along. The Field of Camels was all noise and motion, and the sun was rising. The camels looked huge. He reported to Ch’ing, who told him to stand by, and introduced him to two camel-pullers. One of them was Chin Tan-te, who bowed gravely and made a solemn face, and then sniffed
fastidiously, with a wink.
By then Jake was wide awake. He was expected to help load, and that was new work, and warmed his heart, and soon they were shouting back and forth and prodding the surly camels, and the sun was up. His own sweat cheered him, and sight and smell of the animals, and the action and the racket.
He did not see Kao, and was disappointed.
Then he led his camels into place, and Ch’ing trotted up and down the line and called out, yipping like a Mongol, and they were on their way. Shoving off. Moving out. While children scampered and hollered at the roadside, Jacob Alvin Dodds plodded toward the Western Gate of Peking, the greatest of all cities. Old Ta-tze plodded toward the Western Gate and the camel in front of him broke wind copiously. Toward the Western Gate, toward Mongolia, toward the middle of Asia.
Toward his last sight of Master Kao, friend and partner.
Some hours later, when the sun was westering, when the caravan was well past the Six-Bullock Shortcut, when Peking had begun to cool after the midday doldrums, one of the black birds pecking at Kao dislodged the blindfold, and a young farmer, strong and cheerful, who had just become engaged and was driving some thirty white geese into Peking, hissed in horror at the burnt-out eye sockets.
II / MONGOLIA
10
“Dogs defile your great-grandmothers, all four of the chicken-defiling bags of dung!”
“What’s that for?” Jake asked. Master Ch’ing had a way of talking. Kao had said to trust him somewhat, but any one of these people might turn out light-fingered, or a cutthroat. Jake was sleeping with his pack for a pillow and the automatic to hand beneath it. He was trying to develop the habit, to remember to reach for it as his eyes opened. Mornings he woke light-hearted, blinking and yawning into the pearly dawn, and most days only saw the belt and holster when he had loaded, eaten and swung his pack aboard Bad Smell. The first few days he looked back often, riding tail-end to be the first to spot pursuit; but there was no pursuit, so he felt pretty perky on the whole.
The Chinese Bandit Page 8