‘Quite,’ Sister Sung said, ‘The only thing is, she discharged herself without telling us and one of our wheelchairs is missing.’
‘Alice pinched a wheelchair?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t exactly put it that way,’ Sister Sung said with the full weight of her Christian understanding. ‘Let us say that she was given a wheelchair in which to rest and she may have decided that she could rest better at home. I wonder if you could ask her to bring it back? They’re in rather short supply.’
‘I will,’ Feiffer said.
‘Give my regards to Nicola.’
‘I will,’ Feiffer said. He thought it best not to add anything.
Sister Sung waited for him to add something. He resisted the temptation. She said, ‘Thank you, Inspector, and goodnight. I’ll pray for you.’
‘Thanks,’ Feiffer said and his own phone rang again.
Feiffer’s voice felt like an old tennis shoe that had lost its bounce. He said, ‘This is the Lone Ranger, who’s that?’
‘I’m going to get you anyway!’
‘Oh, Christ, not you again!’ He hung up and the phone immediately rang again.
When Auden and Spencer arrived in Camphorwood Lane the first thing they saw was a gaggle of middle-aged gangsters on the sidewalk holding on to their ears. They thought it was a funny sight. Then they saw Cho dead on the road and they did not think that was funny at all. A fusillade of gunshots echoed inside the old building across the road and on the road there was a Government Medical Examiner with a Roman nose taking cover half a dozen yards from the detached arm of a dead Japanese assassin. Auden drew his Colt Python and took cover behind the shotgun-riddled second car of the gangsters. A second eruption of gunshots came from inside the building and he began running down the street past the crouching middle-aged gangsters towards a telephone. The only shop still open was Edgar Tan and Company and he kicked the half-open glass door off its hinges and reached for the telephone on the counter. He glanced across and couldn’t see Spencer. He began dialling the number of Yellowthread Street.
Feiffer picked up the ringing telephone. He said, ‘Yes?’
‘Riot Squad,’ a voice said. ‘Who is this?’
‘This is Detective Chief Inspector Feiffer,’ Feiffer said. He thought, ‘People keep ringing me up.’
‘Riot Squad,’ the voice said again. Maybe he liked the sound of it. ‘This is Constable Yan of the Riot Squad’—he did like the sound of it—‘I have a message from Superintendent Algy.’
‘O.K.,’ Feiffer said, ‘then let’s have it.’
Constable Yan took a deep breath at the other end of the phone. Feiffer thought he was thinking of a way to get ‘Riot Squad’ into his conversation again. Constable Yan said, ‘The Riot Squad have taken up positions at the water tap near the Hong Bay resettlement area—’
‘I already know that.’
‘—and this is to inform you that at present elements of the—’
‘Riot Squad,’ Feiffer said helpfully.
‘Yes. Elements of the Riot Squad are at present dealing with a disturbance in that area.’ He paused. ‘That’s the message.’
‘Sir,’ Feiffer prompted.
‘Pardon?’
‘Sir. You say, “Sir”, to an Inspector, even if he is only a member of the ordinary, non-Riot Squad variety. Don’t they teach you that at Fanling?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Constable Yan snapped. ‘Sorry, sir. Yes, sir, they do teach that.’
Feiffer thought, ‘I sound like Captain Queeg.’ He said, ‘I used to be a member of the Squad myself at one time.’
‘Really, sir?’ Yan was impressed.
‘I’ll send some men down right away,’ Feiffer said. ‘Pass that on to Superintendent Algy, would you?’
‘No—!’ constable Yan said. He sounded shocked at the suggestion. ‘We don’t need any assistance—’ (‘So much for the “Sir”,’ Feiffer thought) ‘We have the matter entirely under control.’
‘Then why tell me about it?’
That fazed him. Constable Yan couldn’t think of a reason in the world why a permanent member of the Riot Squad would want to tell a member of the ordinary, foot-slogging variety of unchosen policeman anything. He said, ‘I really couldn’t say.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll tell Superintendent Algy that,’ Feiffer said and hung up as the telephone on O’Yee’s desk rang again and O’Yee handed it over wordlessly.
‘I’m just around the corner—’ Lop’s voice said.
‘Oh, Jesus Christ!’
‘—and I’m coming to get you!’
‘You’re driving me bloody mad!’
The telephone on Feiffer’s desk rang. Feiffer took O’Yee by the scruff of the neck and propelled him to it. ‘You!’ Feiffer said to O’Yee.
‘Am I?’ Lop asked.
‘Are you what?’
‘Driving you mad?’
‘Yes!’
‘Good,’ Lop said. ‘Then I’m temporarily satisfied. Goodnight.’ And he hung up.
O’Yee said, ‘Inspector O’—’ then listened.
‘If I ever get my hands on that Cat Street bar-owning bastard Lop I’m going to murder him!’ Feiffer said to O’Yee.
O’Yee wasn’t listening. He held the receiver away from his ear and said, ‘Cho’s dead. They’re in Camphorwood Lane with guns.’ He said, ‘People have been killed.’
Through the instrument, five feet away, Feiffer could actually hear the shots.
The Mongolian was still in the building. He was on the fourth floor. The gangsters were still in the building. They were on the ground, first, second and third floors. Coming up. The Mongolian craned his head over the rickety wooden balustrade on the fourth floor and saw the gangsters form a knot at the beginning of the corridor on the third floor. They had a hurried conference and then went to kick all the doors down.
He heard the doors go smash! smash! smash! one after another then there were three simultaneous bursts of gunfire and then nothing. He saw the gangsters go back to the start of the corridor (saw their shadows reflected on the wall in the light of the single naked bulb on each floor). The gangsters had another conference then went back down the corridor. They must have found another door. It went smash! as they kicked it in. There was no gunfire. It must have been a closet or a toilet. The closet or toilet door went smash! again as one of the gangsters kicked it a second time for good measure.
The Mongolian started laughing: harsh, rasping cackles. The gangsters made a series of surprised noises to each other and looked up at the fourth floor. The Mongolian ducked his head back and went into the third room on the fourth floor and left the door ajar a quarter of an inch. Then he opened the far window in the mattress-crowded room, turned the light off, and stood to one side of the door.
He waited.
Auden saw Spencer. Spencer was against the wall of the building, moving towards the door with his gun out. Auden yelled, ‘Spencer!’
Spencer looked over.
Auden yelled, ‘Get back here!’
Spencer hesitated. He glanced towards the open door to the building and then down to his cocked service revolver. He glanced back along the street to the pellet-holed cars and then he looked again at Auden.
‘Get back here!’ Auden yelled. He had cover in the doorway of Edgar Tan and Company. He yelled, ‘Bloody well get back here!’
Spencer ducked his head and started to run across the road. He glanced at Cho’s body as he went past. Cho was dead. He glanced at Doctor Macarthur’s body as he went past. Doctor Macarthur was alive. Spencer said, ‘Come on, Doctor!’
‘Like hell I will!’
Spencer stopped. He reached down and took Macarthur by the arm. He said encouragingly, ‘I’ll look after you—come on now—’
‘Like hell you will!’ Macarthur said and didn’t move.
From inside the building across the road there was a burst of gunfire as one of the gangsters sprayed the stairway to the
fourth floor with automatic fire. He had an old Thompson sub-machine gun. The bullets went chop! chop! chop! into the rotting staircase and tore strips of splintered wood off it.
‘Get into cover!’ Spencer said. ‘They’ll kill you here!’
‘Like hell they will!’ Macarthur said and got to his feet. He ran across the road into cover.
‘Hell!’ Spencer said, and ran after him.
The doctor made it to the doorway of Edgar Tan’s. Auden said, ‘Doctor—’ but the doctor did not stop. He continued directly into the store and threw himself down alongside what was left of Edgar Tan. The floor of the room was like a postmortem table after a post-mortem. He felt at home.
‘What did you think you were doing?’ Auden demanded. He pulled Spencer into the doorway and waved irritably at him to holster his cocked revolver.
Spencer said—
‘You’re a cop, not a bloody member of the bloody KGB!’ He said, ‘Are you out of your bloody mind?’
Spencer said—
There was another heavy, slow burst from the Thompson.
‘What the hell did you think you were doing?’
Spencer said—
Auden looked quickly down the road.
Auden said, ‘We’re not going in there until reinforcements arrive. What the blazes did you think you were playing at?’
Spencer did not reply.
Auden said, ‘What we’re going to do is go down and find out from Mr Boon and his friends just what the hell’s happening in there. No private heroics, all right?’
Spencer said—
‘Down the road,’ Auden said, and push-started Spencer in the right direction.
‘I just thought—’ Spencer said.
Auden said, ‘Shut up, stupid!’
The gangsters—there were six of them including Crushed Toes, The Club (With Nails) and the four who had come from the cars at the eastern end of the street—stopped in front of the first door on the fourth floor.
The Mongolian heard them. They were two doors away. He cackled quietly to himself.
‘O.K.,’ The Club (With Nails) said. The man with the Thompson took aim at the centre of the door. The others moved aside to give him room. The man with the Thompson was called The Chopper Man.
Auden reached the quivering, laid-side-by-side figures of Mr Boon and his two friends. He grabbed the first of them, who happened to be Low Fat, under the arms and dragged him to his feet. Low Fat’s legs were jelly. Auden propped him up against the side of the car.
‘How many?’ Auden said. He held up Low Fat with his outstretched arm.
‘Aye?’ Low Fat said. His ears were poor. All those gunshots.
‘Your people,’ Auden said. He said again, ‘How many?’
‘Aye?’ Low Fat said. ‘Not my people.’
‘Whose people?’ He indicated Hernando Haw with a jerking movement of his head. He said to Spencer, ‘Pick him up!’
Spencer picked him up. He went into position alongside Low Fat on the car like the second in a row of encoffined murderers in Madame Tussaud’s waxworks.
Auden said, ‘How many?’ and hit Low Fat.
Auden said to Hernando Haw, ‘How many?’
Hernando Haw looked at the hit Low Fat.
Auden said to Spencer, ‘Hit him.’
‘Six!’ Hernando Haw said. ‘Six!’
‘Not our people,’ Mr Boon said from the sidewalk. Auden went over to pick him up. Low Fat fell down.
‘Not our people,’ Hernando Haw said.
Auden said to Spencer, ‘Hit him!’
Spencer hesitated. He said, ‘I couldn’t do that, Phil—’
‘Who killed the cop?’ Auden said to Mr Boon. He dragged Mr Boon to his feet. He said, ‘Which one of you bastards killed the cop?’
Spencer said, ‘I just can’t bring myself to hit someone who’s—’
‘The Mongolian,’ Mr Boon said. He was afraid of being hit, ‘The Mongolian killed him. We’re on the side of law and order—’
‘You’re innocent?’
‘We are,’ Mr Boon said. ‘There isn’t a reason in the world why you should hit any of us—’
‘Right,’ Auden said. He hit Mr Boon.
The Chopper Man kicked the door down and chopped the room to pieces with the Thompson gun. The room fell to bits and spewed out smoke and dust. A flurry of empty cartridge-cases flew out from the ejection port of the big gun, tinkled on to the floor, and rolled away over the edge of the corridor, a fortune in brass gone down three flights of nothingness to the ground floor, and scattered to the four winds and the rats.
The smoke cleared and the six gangsters glanced in.
‘Empty,’ Crushed Toes pronounced. He jerked his thumb in the direction of the next room, ‘Next.’
The Chopper Man fitted another magazine of rimless .45 calibre cartridges into his chopper. He hauled back on the cocking lever.
Auden pulled his Colt Python on the three gang bosses and snapped, ‘Don’t move.’
Low Fat was still doubled up in pain on the sidewalk and he didn’t move. Mr Boon was doubled up in pain against the side of the car and he didn’t move. Hernando Haw looked down into the yawning cavern of the Colt’s .357 magnum barrel and he didn’t move. Spencer released his hold on him. Hernando Haw had a clearer picture of the entire gun. He moved. He doubled up in pain against the car and didn’t move.
Spencer looked interrogatively at Auden. The gun wasn’t pointing at him so he didn’t notice it. He said to Auden, ‘I didn’t even touch him—’ He asked, ‘Did I?’
Auden cocked the hammer of his Colt and thought of the squat magnum round lying directly after the regulation .38.
He said to Spencer, ‘Shut up.’
There was a tiny hole in the wall of the Mongolian’s hiding place. He could see into the second room. It was in darkness. He heard the gangsters stop outside the second room and he chuckled.
‘O.K.,’ Crushed Toes said to The Chopper Man outside the second room.
The door smashed open and the room lit up. The bullets went chop! chop! chop! choppety-chop! chop! chop! chop! into the walls of the room. The Chopper Man was lit up in his own muzzle flashes. He looked like a madman working a blast furnace. The Mongolian moved his stomach up and down with mirth. He did a little dance with his eye still to the wall. He said, ‘Eeee-eee-ee!’ to himself and juggled his belly up and down in merriment. The flashes stopped. The ejected brass cases went tinkle, tinkle, on to the floor outside the room and a shadow peered into the darkened room and said, ‘Empty.’
The shadow went away. The Mongolian hammered his fists silently on the wall and did a little dance. He went over to his old position to one side of the door and rubbed his fingers against his palms in anticipation.
A voice outside said, ‘Next,’ and the Mongolian moved towards the door.
The Chopper Man inserted a fresh magazine into his chopper and drew back the cocking handle. The gangsters stood poised outside the door to the third room.
The Mongolian moved forward to the door and laid his hand gently on the knob.
Crushed Toes stood to one side of the third door and drew a breath. There was only one more floor to go after this. He nodded his head to The Chopper Man and said, ‘O.K.’ and the Mongolian came out of the room like an express train.
The Mongolian shrieked, ‘Aaahhh!’ and hammered one of the gangsters in the throat with his fist. The gangster went into the wooden railing and smashed it. It shattered into kindling and sailed off into the abyss of the stairwell drop down four floors. The gangster went after it. The Chopper Man said, ‘Ut—!’ and the Mongolian hammered him in the groin and sent him flying into the kicked-down door of the second room. The Club (With Nails) raised his club. The Mongolian wrenched it off him and threw it after The Chopper Man. The Chopper Man’s chopper lay where The Chopper Man had dropped it: at the Mongolian’s feet. One of the eastern-end parked car gangsters drew his pistol. The Mongolian reached down and drew the chopper. The eastern-end parked c
ar gangster aimed his pistol. The Mongolian pressed the trigger of the chopper and turned him into a blur. The bolt went click on an empty magazine. The Mongolian threw the gun at Crushed Toes. It missed. Crushed Toes had his own gun out. It was a broom-handled Mauser automatic. He couldn’t get the hammer back. The Mongolian hit him and knocked him against the remaining two gangsters. Crushed Toes got the hammer back in midflight and levelled it at the Mongolian, but the Mongolian stepped back inside the third room and slammed the door, and when the gangsters had put themselves together sufficiently to smash down the door he had gone out the open window to the fire escape, which way, up or down, they did not know.
The four remaining gangsters picked up themselves, their weapons, The Chopper Man and The Chopper Man’s chopper, and huddled in mid-battle for a conference.
Feiffer saw Cho’s body in the middle of the roadway. A stream of blood had coursed from it while Cho had been in the quick process of dying, but now that he was dead it had stopped. The Japanese, too, was dead. Just inside the doorway to Edgar Tan and Company, Edgar Tan was dead. Feiffer said to Mr Boon, and Mr Haw, and Low Fat, ‘You three are under arrest just for a start.’
He and O’Yee had picked up Constable Sun from patrol on their way to Camphorwood Lane, so it was Feiffer, O’Yee, and two constables, Mr Boon and his friends faced, not to mention Auden and Spencer, and most certainly not to mention Auden’? big gun.
Mr Boon said, ‘Our lawyers will—’
‘Shut up!’ Feiffer said. He said to Auden, ‘You hit them didn’t you?’
‘Yes!’ Mr Boon said, ‘he hit us!’
‘Good,’ Feiffer said. He ordered the two constables to put them into the paddy wagon they had come in. He said to Auden, ‘Well?’ He looked over at the temporarily silent building. ‘They’re in that building over there. Right?’
‘Right.’
‘How many?’
‘Six.’
‘Plus the Mongolian.’
Auden nodded. ‘Plus the Mongolian. I think the Mongolian’s done most of the killing.’
‘Cho?’
‘I think so. Either him or Sen. One of Boon’s little helpers. They call him Shotgun Sen. That was what killed Cho.’
‘Where’s Sen now?’
Yellowthread Street Page 10