The Driver

by Steve Bartholomew

  Genevieve finished with the customers and rang up something on the register. The two men left, nodding politely to Georg.

  She came around the counter and put her arms around his neck. “When did they let you out?”

  “Yesterday. I wanted to clean up before coming here. You wouldn’t want my bedbugs.”

  She kissed him slowly on the mouth. “I don’t mind bugs if they bring you along.”

  “If I stay here, the cops are likely to show up.”

  “The cops can go to Hell. Stay here. But I have a lot of work to catch up on. Can you amuse yourself until closing time?”

  “Sure. I’ll go watch the Chinese opera. But I wanted to ask if you had a chance to look for that name? The one who sold the knife to your husband?”

  She stepped back and gave him a worried look. “I did. It was easy to find, Mattias kept complete business journals. But I don’t understand why you want that.”

  “Call it a hunch.”

  “All right. Just a moment.” She went back behind the counter, opened a drawer, removed a slip of paper.

  “Here, I copied it. It’s called Long Ya, Importers. But I don’t think it’s really Chinese. I have heard of them. That’s just a company name. The address is on Dupont Street.”

  “Thanks.” He took the paper. He couldn’t make out the words, but he could read the numbers. “I think I shall visit Mr. Long Ya instead of the opera.” He kissed her quickly and headed out the door.

  17

  Hatchet Men

  Long Ya was a tiny shop in the middle of a block on the fringe of Chinatown. There was a sign in front in both Chinese and English. Georg studied the Chinese characters, bemused. He understood most of them. He opened the door and went in. A bell tinkled and a white man emerged from a curtain in back.

  “Mr. Long?”

  The fellow held a dirty rag, wiping grease or ink from his hands. The place had an old musty smell.

  “That’s what they call me. My business name. I deal in Chinese artworks, so I use a Chinese name. What can I do for you?”

  “Long Ya means dragon’s tooth.”

  “You’re right. How did you know that? You been to China?”

  “No, but I served on ships with a few Chinese fellows. They taught me to read. I can read Chinese better than English. That sign says Finest Goods. The scroll on that wall is a poem about mountains, but I can’t make out all of it.”

  “Say, that’s better than I can do. I worked in Canton for a few years, so I can pretty well speak the lingo. But I never could learn to read it.”

  Georg said, “I’m the opposite. I don’t speak a word, but I can read. I don’t do so well in English because the letters keep jumping around. But I never forget a face. Chinese writing is all faces. Every word has its own face. So dragon and tooth have their own faces, no matter how you pronounce them.”

  “Huh. Never thought of it that way. Interesting. So what can I do for you today, Mr. ̶”

  “Vintner. I’m looking for some information. I’m told that some time back you sold an ancient dagger to Mattias Sutliff.”

  Long straightened, going stiff. He backed off a step. “Now, what’s that to you?”

  “Don’t worry, I don’t care if it was stolen goods. I’m not a cop. It was used to murder Alexander Penworthy. I’m trying to figure out why.”

  Long licked his lips and glanced past Georg’s shoulder, as if to see if anyone else was listening.

  “I don’t know anything about that.”

  “If you don’t tell me, it’s likely to come out in court. I have a document and witness to prove you sold it to him.”

  Long had gone pale. After a moment he said, “Witness, eh? I don’t know who … “Oh, Hell, it don’t matter. You lock that door and put up the Closed sign. Then come on in back.”

  The back room was cluttered, half workshop and half museum. Merchandise filled it to the ceiling, lamps, vases, figurines, scrolls, rugs and things Georg couldn’t identify. A pungent scent of incense hung in the air. Long took a chair, motioning for Georg to sit on an ornate red couch.

  “Okay, I don’t know what this is about. Sure, I knew Penworthy and Sutliff both. Sometimes I used to buy stuff from Penworthy. I don’t know where he got them. He’d bring in things made out of silver or gold, little trinkets most often. Sometimes old coins or charms. They were easy to sell, I always made a good profit.

  “Then he had me meet Sutliff. He said Sutliff was a serious collector. Sutliff said he was looking for something unusual and rare. He said he wanted it for a present to give his wife. I knew he was lying, but I told him to come back in a few days while I thought it over.

  “Look, I’m just a business man. I sell things to people to make them happy. It’s funny you mentioned the name of my shop, Dragon’s Tooth. I told Sutliff that was the name of the dagger.”

  “The one owned by Genghis Khan?”

  At this Long snorted and gave a brief laugh. “Worth at least ten thousand to the right collector, I told him. I sold it to him for five hundred. Here, wait a minute.”

  Long got up and went to a nearby cabinet, pulling open the top drawer. His back was to Georg. When he returned he carried three identical packages in brown paper. He tossed one to Georg.

  “Go ahead, open that.”

  The paper was held by knotted string. Georg pulled it loose and unfolded the paper. Inside was a note full of Chinese characters, pasted on a wooden box.

  “This says something about a knife belongs to a king. King is khan. I think it means Genghis Khan. Knife kills woman. That’s most of what I can make out.”

  “Open the box.”

  Georg lifted the lid. Inside was a silver dagger with an ornate handle.

  “This looks like the one that killed Penworthy.”

  Long laughed again. “It’s exactly the same. I bought five of them from my supplier in Hong Kong. Pretty nice, ain’t it? So far I’ve been able to sell two of them. They make my customers happy. They can brag about them to their friends. I always say they were stolen. That way the buyers don’t advertise them, and don’t ask questions.”

  Georg picked up the knife, felt its balance. The blade was sharp. A good quality knife. Worth maybe ten or twenty dollars. He replaced it in the box and handed it back to Long.

  “Thank you, Mr. Long. I guess that answers my questions, though it may raise new ones. I’ll be going now.”

  “Not so fast. What do you intend doing with those answers? Who you mean to tell?”

  “Penworthy knew the knife was fake, didn’t he? He was in on the swindle. Or was he?”

  Again the laugh. “What do you think?”

  Georg got to his feet. “I don’t know who I’ll tell, but I’m guessing this has something to do with why Penworthy was killed. Someone thought they owed him a lot of money for that knife.”

  “I guess you’re right. But I can’t have you blabbing about this to the cops.”

  Then Long tore open another of his brown paper packages, withdrew a large revolver, and aimed it at Georg’s midsection.

  “What now?” the Driver asked. Long had tossed him a pair of old iron manacles and told him to shackle himself to the arm of the couch. Georg did that. He could not help looking at the wide mouth of Long’s pistol, probably a leftover from the Civil War. It was dark inside the muzzle. Georg thought he could make out tombstones and grave markers.

  Long pointed the gun at his own face and used the barrel to scratch his chin. “I’m real sorry about this, mister. I can’t take a chance on you blabbing about my business. Sutliff wasn’t s’posed to tell nobody where he got that dagger. I don’t know how you found out. I don’t it want known to the public.”

  Georg started to object, then shut his mouth, knowing it would do no good. Instead he said, “Did you have something to do with Alexander’s murder?”

  “Hah! That fool. I wouldn’t take the time. He was a lowlife. The plan was for Mattias Sutliff to sell Dragon’s Tooth to Penworthy Senior. That way he�
��d never guess it really came from his son. Then Alexander got somebody to steal it back. I think he meant to sell it back to his pa again. Or maybe to some other sucker. Mattias was to get a cut. The joke was, not even Alexander knew the knife is a fake. He gave Sutliff a thousand dollars to buy it from me, I sold it to him for five hundred. Sutliff kept the rest. The idea was, if there were questions it couldn’t be traced to Alexander. Except that Sutliff told me everything. He wasn’t good at keeping secrets. I guess I swindled the swindlers all right.

  “Only thing is, now the cops have that knife, so everybody knows about it. I still have three more of them, which I can’t sell as genuine antiques. It only works if the buyers all keep them secret.”

  Long suddenly looked at the gun in his hand, as if he’d forgotten it. He laid it carefully on a nearby table. “Well, I can’t have it be known I deal in fake antiques. It’s been a good business so far. I don’t know how you figured it out.”

  “So what now?” Georg asked again.

  Long gave him a brief grin. “Maybe you can read Chinese, but you don’t know Chinatown. There are ways to make a fellow disappear. It won’t cost me more than twenty or thirty dollars. Don’t worry, they prob’ly won’t kill you. But you might find yourself waking up as deckhand on a one-way trip to Kowloon.”

  “What makes you think I’m a sailor?”

  “Hah! I don’t know how long you been ashore now, but you still walk like a swabby. You get some rest, you’ll need it.”

  He got some rest, though it wasn’t easy on that old couch. Lying flat, his left arm was shackled to the armrest above his head. He did some thinking. He might have tried to jimmy the lock, except that Long had taken his pocket knife, as well as the few dollars he’d kept in his coat. He’d been made to turn his pockets out before Long was satisfied.

  He considered dragging the couch across the room to look for something to break the lock, but had to give up that idea. The couch had an iron frame. It must have weighed half a ton.

  Lying there, he tried to reconstruct in his mind exactly what was going on when Alexander was killed. Douvet must have hated him for his own reasons. Did he plan to kill Alexander, or was it an impulse? He might have seen his chance when that riot started. Genevieve probably saw him do it, and was covering for him.

  He gave it up. This would get him nowhere. Except maybe on a ship to Kowloon.

  Long came back around sunset. He handed Georg a cup of water and some bread. “Figured you might be hungry. Better eat this, it might be awhile before your next meal. A couple highbinders are on their way here.”

  Georg sniffed the water. He couldn’t detect anything strange so he drank it. He put the bread in his pocket. “I’ll save this for later, thanks.”

  The back of the shop had a sliding door that made it easier to get merchandise in and out. It creaked and slid open. Two young Chinese entered, both wearing black. They came over and stood staring down at Georg.

  Long gestured and said something in Chinese. Georg guessed it was that’s him, or something of the sort. One of the men nodded, replied, motioned to his own wrist.

  “Sure,” Long said. He took a key from somewhere, handed it over. The Chinese unlocked Georg’s shackle from the couch, careful not to get between him and his friend. He pointed at the handcuff and spoke in a soft voice, pointing at Georg.

  Long said, “He wants you to fasten the cuff to your other wrist.”

  Georg shrugged and complied. He had noticed the short-handled hatchets half concealed by the men’s jackets.

  “Now what?”

  “Now it’s just a short walk to the docks. You go ahead.”

  The man who had shackled him gave Georg a shove and pointed toward the door. Georg went ahead. After a moment the second man picked up a lantern and took up the lead.

  They proceeded down a narrow alley behind the shop, then turned a corner into an even narrower passage. The man in front stopped to light his lantern. Then he lifted a trap door that looked like it went to a coal scuttle. Instead it covered a short flight of steps. They went down into a low-ceilinged tunnel.

  Another shove and point. Georg moved forward. “You speak any English?”

  “You shut up,” the man said. “Did you eat your bread?”

  “No, did you want some?”

  “Better you eat it. Get some good sleep.”

  So the bread was drugged. They meant to deliver him to some foreign-registered ship either unconscious or helpless. If he didn’t eat the bread they might just knock him over the head. Or tie and gag him. He didn’t care for either option.

  This tunnel was long and dark. He had heard tales about all the tunnels underneath Little China, but this was the first time he had encountered one. He guessed it would emerge somewhere near China Dock, where ships from the Orient tied up.

  He would have to do something soon.

  He said in a conversational tone, “I have bad dreams about going to sea. Always the same dream. I am dying on the ice. Except, I had that dream the other night when I was in jail. I didn’t die. I got to the other ship and found rescue.”

  The hatchet man behind him said nothing. Georg wasn’t sure how much he’d understood. He said in the same tone, “Your mother is a whore.”

  “You shut up!” The response was quick. The man shoved him hard on the shoulder. Georg stumbled and went down, skidding on the rocky tunnel floor. That was what he wanted. He rolled. The man in front with the lantern danced out of his way, so for a moment Georg was lost in shadow.

  Both hands went to his boot and pulled out the rubber truncheon he had carried there since finding it back in jail. He got clumsily to his feet while the hatchet man was yelling at him in Cantonese. Then Georg spun and whacked the lantern held by the man in front.

  The lamp shattered, spilling flaming oil over the man holding it. The man screamed and staggered backwards. The other man was shouting in Cantonese. Georg spun in the other direction and hit him across the skull. He went down like a rock.

  The man on fire had turned to run, still screaming. Suddenly the tunnel was pitch dark. Georg found the body of the man he’d hit and felt his pockets until he found the key to his shackles. He unlocked them, then turned the man over and cuffed his hands behind his back.

  He thought the man was still breathing, but he couldn’t be sure. He had hit him hard. As an afterthought he took the bread from his pocket and stuffed it in the man’s mouth.

  “Have a good sleep.” For a moment he considered going back the way he had come, to find Long again, but decided he wasn’t worth the trouble.

  Georg was going to make sure that story about the fake antiques would make all the newspapers.

  18

  Genevieve

  He lost all sense of space or time in that dark tunnel. He kept one hand touching the wall, so as not to walk in a circle and bump into it. The other hand he held straight out in front. He dreaded the idea of stumbling, perhaps pitching forward into a hole, but that didn’t happen. Nor did he find the body of the man he’d set afire. Georg supposed he had somehow escaped the tunnel.

  There came a faint light in the darkness, so soft he doubted it was real. Then suddenly he was out.

  He found himself in another narrow alley way. He knew he was somewhere near the docks, from the sound of boats slapping against piers and the smell of the bay. He took a deep breath and started walking.

  The night was moonless and there were few lights in this part of town, but he found his way to Greek’s house. Somewhere a church bell tolled three times. He got to Greek’s door and pounded until Greek opened a spy hole. “Who the hell is there?”

  “Who in hell do you think?” Georg shivered, realizing he was bone cold. The door creaked open.

  “I’m not drunk,” he answered Greek’s first question. “Just tired and starving. Anything to eat in this hell hole?”

  Greek, with a lighted candle, led him to the kitchen. He wolfed down a ham sandwich while Greek sat and watched. Greek didn’t ask wh
ere he’d been, and Georg didn’t volunteer.

  When he’d finished the food Greek said, “Hold on before you head off to bed. I thought you might want to know you made the papers again.” He lit a lantern and left the candle while he went to fetch something. He returned a minute later with a newspaper.

  “The Evening Bulletin. Listen to this.” He began to read.

  This paper has received information that the mysterious case of the murder of Alexander Penworthy is about to see a trial. Thaddeus M. Penworthy, the victim’s father, is said to be outraged it has taken this long. The grieving father wants justice done. Poor Alexander was beloved by all who knew him. He was murdered in cold blood while aboard a streetcar and in the middle of a riot. His many friends and relatives are horrified that his killer has not yet been prosecuted.

  The Bulletin has learned that the Grand Jury is about to indict Mr. Georg Vintner, driver of the car on which Alexander was so viciously slain …

  Greek paused and looked up. “There’s more of this rubbish. Should I go on?”

  Georg wearily shook his head. “No need. Let them hang me if it makes them happy. Tomorrow I’ll turn myself in. Right now I’m getting some sleep.”

  Greek tossed his paper into the wood stove. “Somebody on the Grand Jury got paid well for that story. Maybe you can come up with a better one.”

  Next morning he slept late, till nearly eight o’clock. He awoke hungry again and let Greek cook him scrambled eggs and bacon.

  Greek said, “Right now I got five sailors bunking here, but they don’t always want breakfast. Usually they’re too hung over, or they didn’t get to bed till dawn. Now me, I believe in a good morning meal.” He watched Georg eat while drinking his own coffee.

  Georg said, “Last night someone tried to Shanghai me.” Briefly he told Greek the whole story. Greek poured them both more coffee.

  “I guess we never would have seen you again. You were lucky that time, they only sent two men after you. Had it been ten or twelve you might have been in trouble.”