Читать книгу The C.J. Henderson MEGAPACK ® - C.J. Henderson - Страница 11
ОглавлениеNINE DRAGONS
A JACK HAGEE STORY
The Outliner had struck again. New York City’s police were still baffled over their newest serial murderer, a seemingly actual random killer who drew chalk outlines around the bodies of his victims. Why he did it was apparently as big a mystery to everyone on the force as it was to Chet Green, the New York Post reporter who’d made the city’s latest freak his pet follow-up story.
So far, the red-ink rag informed us, the Outliner’s score was holding at eight. The first had been an unceremoniously white-chalk-surrounded knifing on 116th up in Harlem. The next two had gone down in Brooklyn, one in Flatbush, the other in the Heights. With the fourth he switched from white to blue chalk, and came off the back streets to leave his prey in the dairy aisle of a Queens Key Food Mart. Pulling that one off during business hours stunned a lot of people. The fifth he left on the observation deck of the Staten Island Ferry, sketched around in pink chalk, budding out at all the appendages in crude but recognizable roses. The sixth became his first female victim. No rape, just the familiar slash across the throat and a five-color rainbow made up of four lines of chalk and one of blood.
The latest was his masterpiece, though. In an Empire State Building men’s room, he left two known homosexuals locked in anal intercourse nailed to the wall with railroad spikes. Again, no one had a clue as to how he’d pulled it off. Police estimates insisted he would’ve needed a minimum of forty-five minutes, even with the dearly departed’s cooperation. The suspicions of cooperation came from the fact the purple chalk surrounding the couple was underneath the blood which had flowed from their individual stigmata, along with the suggestion of the jockey’s penetrating genitalia, a detail impossible for the Outliner to have arranged if his subjects had already been dead.
The Post had run the photos available to it, the chalk outline, the scab-like pool of crusting blood, the smear-covered body bags being wheeled out of the room, et cetera…all part of the people’s sacred right to information.
Weary of the people and their sacred rights, I folded my newspaper, shoved it behind the counter I was leaning against, and turned to look out the window. Reading newspapers was how I’d wasted the better part of the previous seven days, and it was wearing a little thin. I’d spent the time in a small-aisled, packed-to-the-rafters grocery store on Mott Street, one of the busiest in Chinatown. It was a guard duty job, and I was not, what you might call, enjoying myself. Not by a long shot. I’d been foxed neatly by an old dog who must’ve seen me coming six miles off. He was a Chinese who called himself Lo Chun. When he’d padded into my office I’d figured some easy coin was ahead. Of course, in my time I’ve figured the government was my friend and that my wife would love me forever. Sometimes it’s depressing to see how little my intuitive boundaries have stretched over the years.
It was February outside the window—the worst part of the year in New York City. By that time of winter, everything is cold; everything hurts. Every inch of stone in the buildings and sidewalks and streets is frozen through, solidly bitter to the touch, or even to be near. Manhattan snowscapes may look pretty in the movie theater or on TV, but walking just a few blocks in the reality of its biting canyon winds can take the romance out of the scene quick—as can just looking out the window.
New York in winter is ugly—monstrously so. The snow reduces to slush on contact, immediately shot through with the gray and black of the city’s soot and grime. Grease from the town’s million and one restaurant cooking vents combines with the salty, cold blasts of wind that screech in off the ocean to turn the dark ichor into a freezing, slippery mess that does nothing for the soul save hinder and depress. The vision of it grows especially bleak once the fine folk who live here finish decorating the heaping piles of cinder-rough slop with chicken bones, styrofoam cups, used tissues, diapers and condoms, pizza crusts, urine, bottles, cans, and every other scrap and tatter they don’t feel like bothering with any longer.
Looking out the window got me through another five minutes, but it wasn’t enough. I was bored. Straight through. Bored down to my ass and still upset with myself for being jerk enough to take such a boring job in the first place. Laughing at me, my memory replayed the meeting Lo and I had the day he came to see me about guarding his store.
“Mr. Jack Hagee, sir…?”
He asked everything as politely as he had my name. A fellow detective, Peter Wei, had given the old guy my address. To make a long story short, the street gangs were getting out of hand in Chinatown. The mayor’s office had released the story that they were all trying to raise cash to finance the making of Black Dreamer, a new synthetic opium that was flooding the city, funneled through the major oriental neighborhoods. To gather capital, they were planning to hit each other’s territories on the Chinese New Year, demanding as much revenue from each other’s pigeons as possible. As Lo told it:
“I no care about pay gang. You keep shop, you pay Tong. Always been. Always be. No one get rid of Wah Ching. Not for thousand year. That okay. But now, big trouble. Now, all gang fight. All kids go crazy. Want each other dead, take each other space. Now, gangs no can keep store safe. Store all my family have. I not lose it. No care about pay gang who rule when New Year come. Fine okay. No problem. But won’t pay loser and make winner mad.”
I ventured the mayor’s explanation about the drugs, but Lo wasn’t hearing it. He insisted the whole thing came down to territory and that it would all be over after New Year’s.
“Pay you thousand dollar. You stay all New Year’s. Keep bastard kids away from store. I pay good, you protect store. Make deal?”
I tried to tell him he was offering too much money, a lot more than double my daily fee, but he wasn’t hearing it. Peter Wei had said I was the best, and that was what he wanted. We argued back and forth for a while, and then I figured ‘what the hell,’ if the old man wanted beat out of his cash so bad, I was as available as the next guy. Shaking his hand, I told him:
“Okay, pal, I’m yours for New Year’s.”
“All New Years. Whole time. You no leave store. I pay good. You protect store all New Years.”
“Yeah; you got it. The whole thing. I won’t budge. When you want me there?”
“Tomorrow. New Year’s start tomorrow. Finish next Tuesday.”
I looked at him for a second as if I’d missed a beat, and then I remembered. The Chinese New Year is a ten-day celebration. Peter had told me that before. And I was willing to bet the old man knew I knew. For the first time since he’d walked into my office, I looked him over carefully. That was when I realized he was older than he looked, when I stared into his happy dark eyes and saw them waiting for me to catch on, saw them smile when I did.
“So,” he asked, “now you want to say something about deal?”
I bit at my lower lip, running things past in my mind. I had no jobs on the docket, but a thousand bucks for ten days of risking my life against who knew how many bands of highly efficient young murderers was not the best deal I’d ever made. There was plenty of dough in my bank account, but on the other hand, a lot of money there had come from Chinatown, and Chinatown referrals. Not that I’d miss them much. I’d reached the comfort zone where dirt jobs weren’t nearly as attractive as they’d been when I hadn’t known where my next burger was coming from.
The worst part, though, was that I’d known the difference between European and Chinese New Years before Lo had come through my door. A guy with scruples would’ve refused point blank to take so much money for one day’s work. The old man had maneuvered me into the position where it was up to me to call myself a cheat or a coward.
I asked him for his address instead.
And that was what brought me to closing time on day eight, looking out the window wishing I had something better to do than read the paper I was reaching for for the fiftieth time that day. So far I’d had no trouble, but the news was getting so boring I was beginning to wish for some.
I’d read the story of the court battle over “Tan Fran” twice. A white girl with a great tan, she’s gotten a job in a law office because everyone there had assumed she was Puerto Rican, and they needed someone good looking and Puerto Rican or Black or something to prove what good left-wing liberals they were now that it appeared a Democrat could end up as President on top of the one we had for governor.
At her first promotion, they found out she was white, and thus useless since they already had a few women around to prove they weren’t sexist. The result: she was fired. So she sued them. And on it’s dragged for two months.
I’d read the tale of the guy who spotted his ex-wife in a department store six times. I liked that one. Seeing her just drove the poor bug-fuck nuts; he killed her by breaking her head open with a bottle of ammonia, which he then emptied into the crack he’d made. Then he just sat back and smiled and watched her scream as her brains boiled up out of her skull.
He didn’t run away or resist arrest. He just smiled and watched, even after she was long dead, even after the cops cuffed him and took him away. Once they got him in the squad car, though, he suddenly came to life and slammed his head through one of the passenger windows, purposely tearing his throat open on the jagged edge left. Nice family entertainment, the Post.
I was rereading the latest exploit of the Outliner when I suddenly found myself rolling the newspaper back up, tight and solid. Looking around the store, I saw what my subconscious radar had spotted. Two youths, heavily bundled against the cold, had entered the store, looking at items their body language said they had no interest in whatsoever. Finally they walked over to Lo and began a high-powered sales pitch in Chinese. I walked over, too. One of them greeted me.
“Back off, qua’lo.”
“Why, boys? What’s the problem?”
“No problem white shit whore-licking maggot sucker. Go buy a vegetable. Get a big eggplant and take it home to sit on while you dream of my dick.”
The second youth gave the first a nudge and a whisper, probably a hint that most likely I wasn’t some daffy Good Samaritan.
“What’re you? Cop? You got some reason to fuck with us, shit bastard?”
“Yeah.” I slapped the talker across the face with the rolled up newspaper. “I do.” Another slap in the opposite direction. Hard. Cracking. “I work here.” Two more, one on each ear, sharp and stinging. “I’m the trash man, you see.” A reverse sent the hard end into his left eye. “I gather up all the useless crap and put it out in the street.”
A blunt end shove to the gut sent the talker flying, bouncing him off the counter behind him. A dozen or so cans fell on him, slowing his responses and adding to the confusion. Grabbing him by the hair, I jerked him to his feet, ignoring his screams and the blood running from his nose.
The other hadn’t moved yet. He was clearly the bag man, the negotiator. Without his strong arm, he was terrified. I tossed the first out the door, making sure his back would hit badly and hard against the Ford parked at the curb. It crunched. So did he. Good, I thought. I don’t like Fords much better than I do punks. Turning to his partner, I asked:
“And what do you want?”
“Nothing. No, no…nothing.”
He was scared. No one had thought collection was going to be much of a problem. If someone refused, the gang would just come back later and take care of things. But fighting back—defying their goof shit little band of thugs—his eyes told me that such a thing had never crossed any of their minds. Not even for amusement.
“What do you mean, nothing?” I asked the question with angry suspicion. “You came into a store for nothing? I think you must be with that real tough guy out in the street.”
“No! No I’m not. I’m not!”
“Then what are you here for?”
The sweat was beginning to break out on his forehead. He was carrying the money they’d already collected. He was a runner, not a fighter, but I was between him and the door. If he lost the money he had, he’d be in for even more trouble than the talker outside.
“I mean no trouble. I, I—I came in for…,”—his eyes darted in every direction, finally hitting on an idea—“…for some candy. Yes! Candy!”
“Well, then…, buy some candy.”
As the runner dug into his pocket, I told Lo, “Sell him a crate of candy.” As the punk’s eyes came back to me, I said, “A big crate. Something expensive.”
Lo disappeared into one of the back aisles and then returned with a large cardboard box on a hand truck. Total cost: four hundred and fifty four dollars. I asked, “This is what you came in for, right? Candy?”
The runner kept his eyes on the newspaper still in my hands and nodded vigorously. I opened the door for him after he paid for the box, watching him struggle his purchase out behind him. Just as he began to pass through the doorway, I slid the paper under his chin to catch his attention.
“Now; you collect up your future cellmate out there and you go tell the rest of your crew that this store is off limits until after the New Year. You tell them this…Mr. Lo will happily pay his respectful fees when you kiddies have sorted out your boundary problems, but not before. Go shake down someone else. Anyone else. But not this store; not until after the New Year.”
He nodded vigorously, keeping his eyes away from mine. I pulled the newspaper away from his throat and let him pass. As soon as the door shut, he abandoned his crate, running over to the tough guy still pulling himself up off the sidewalk. They stared at the store for a long time. I lit a cigarette and waved. Finally they walked off down the street, leaving the candy behind.
The box sat in the snow, abandoned like the Japanese gun emplacements along the beaches of Okinawa the day after the Marines landed. It sat in view as a marker, commemorating the winning of a battle before the war had actually started. With a shrug, I went out and fetched it back inside. Then I helped Lo pull the steel shutters down over the window and door.
Satisfied we’d secured our bunker as well as we could, we went upstairs to the second floor where the old man and his family lived. I took my by-then familiar place at the table and started in with everyone else on Mrs. Lo’s spread. As usual, it was terrific. The food sat in colorful bowls on a large lazy susan; celery and crab meat, bamboo shoots and peppers, freshly roasted cashews, pork ribs and chicken wings crusty with barbecue sauce, two different kinds of steamed fish, bean sprouts and hamburger heavily doused with black pepper, and a bowl of large, batter-dipped shrimp flash-fried so evenly you could eat them shell and all without even noticing the crunch.
The food wasn’t the best part of dinner, though—it was eating with Lo’s family. It’d been a long time since I’d eaten a meal with other people at the table. My own childhood hadn’t had a family that met at the same time every day to eat together. My own childhood hadn’t bothered with a family much, period.
Lo and his wife had five children, as well as a few brothers and a sister who gathered every night to eat and discuss their businesses and jobs and school. The first few nights I made the mistake of filling up on whatever I saw in front of me, forgetting the dessert to come. I remembered that night, though, and left some room for the peaches, apple cakes, coconut rolls, and oranges which followed.
Keeping the pounds off wasn’t easy under Mrs. Lo’s watchful eye. She’d figured out what kind of eater I was the first night and made sure plenty of what I liked was on the table every night after that. She didn’t speak more than a handful of English, but so far we’d had no trouble communicating. I’d been made to feel like an adopted son, and what loving mother can’t communicate with her little boy?
Lo told the assembly what’d happened in the store earlier, the end of the story meeting with everyone’s approval. The general consensus was that more of them would be back the next day, but I’d known that when I’d started in on the tough guy. Lo’d known it before he’d come to hire me. But we were in it now, with no turning back. Figuring I might need some extra beauty sleep, I excused myself from the table and headed downstairs to my cot.
I thought about the family as I lay in the cold aroma of sawdust and dried fish, trying to figure them out. They were proper people, loving people, happy people—the kind I don’t spend much time with usually. They all had their own chair around the table, and their own place in the living room for watching TV. They even changed clothes for bed, wearing pajamas, or nightgowns, one of the smaller girls even sporting a little tasseled cap. As I scratched at my underwear, the same I’d worn all day, I had to admit a lot of their lifestyle was very appealing.
In their home, which was in effect their own little world, they had so far managed to keep the rotting decay of progress out of their lives. True, they dressed in Western clothing, owned stereo systems, televisions, a computer, and a garbage compactor. The girls wore makeup and the boys had Walkmans. The travel pictures we went through one night showed me they’d seen a lot of America—a lot more than most of the people born here.
And yet, somehow they’d managed to work and live here for years, in the heart of one of the country’s dirtiest, nastiest, most corrupt and violent cities and not be overly affected by it. They had a set pattern to their lives, and the backbone to hold them erect against any kind of outside interference. Every day as we worked and ate and lived together, the time seemed to go faster. Actually, I had to admit the eight days we’d spent together had practically flown by.
Closing my eyes, I scrambled toward the back of my mind, searching for sleep. Day eight was going to be day nine before I knew it.
* * * *
The morning Post was its usual treasure trove of laughs. “BACKYARD BODIES SURFACE THROUGH AIDS CONFESSION” was the field day they picked to go after to catch the commuter crowd, reporting on the activities of a pair of lesbian dominatrixes and their male slave. One of the women had posed for a number of bondage magazines. The dutiful reporter on the story only had room to list PUNISHED!, HOT n’ HELPLESS and WHIPMASTER. The other had made a splash for a while in a variety of HOM, Inc. videos.
The gist of things was that slave would go out to bars, pick up girls, bring them home, and then turn them over to his mistresses. They would then ‘punish’ him for ‘seeing’ other women, getting around to the women he brought home a little later. His punishment would be to get his plugs and rings lovingly replaced, along with a short whipping and perhaps a few maternal kicks and punches, just to let him know what a good puppy he really was. His date would be beaten, slashed, burned, urinated on, and in other ways abused for as long as she could be kept alive and enjoyable. Then the slave would bury the new victim in the wooded hillside behind the house and go shopping for his ladies fair once again.
The whole thing broke up when the neighborhood dogs nosed up one of the shallower graves for a late-night snack. That brought some human bits and pieces to the back porches of a few of the neighbors. It also brought the slave forward to confess, something he’d wanted to do ever since he’d discovered the three of them had AIDS. “God’s punishment for their evil ways,” as he’d put it. The story then let the public know how many graves’d been uncovered so far, and what’d been found in them.
They had a string of other fun tidbits as well; the man who cut off three of his toes in the lawnmower, more on the ex-Miss America who’d been embezzling from her company, updates on the attack-dog situation, as well as the search for the hit-and-run driver who’d tagged out a cop and his baby daughter, the continuing crackdown on Black Dreamer, and the never-ending indicting of city officials.
True, there wasn’t much on the national or international front, but what the heck? It was just the kind of quality reporting one expected from the newspaper established by Alexander Hamilton in 1801.
Quality reporting or not, though, the paper hadn’t managed to capture my complete attention. I’d been keeping my eyes open, watching the door, who came through it, and when they left, as well as the front window, who went by it, and how often. Which is why I was ready when the friendly foursome came into the store.
They arrived quietly, without any rude fanfare, but everyone in the place knew what was coming down. The majority of Lo’s customers vanished in less than a minute. Some remained long enough to check out, hurrying away with their plastic-bagged purchases. Most of the others simply abandoned their baskets in the aisles and fled.
Two of the quartet were big, each bigger than the previous day’s tough guy. Then came a medium-sized one with a joke of a mustache and a look in his eye that dared me to find the punchline. The last one was a runt, but one with “shooter” written all over him. It was obvious that at least one of the others was armed as well. I sized up Mustache as their leader and moved on him; positioning myself between them and the back of the store, I kept two stacks of heavily crated canned fish nearby in case I needed the cover, then pulled my .38 and said:
“Far enough, boys. Give out with your message and slap pavement.”
“What’s the gun for? Need something to suck on, faggot?”
“History lesson, kids. Bernie Goetz only got six months for gunning down his punks with an unregistered weapon. My gun’s got a license. So do I. I’m on the job. I’m protecting my employer’s property and life. They’ll slap my wrist.
“You children are only someone else’s voice. So, just give me your message and get back to kindergarten.”
“You know, you talk real big for a dead man—but, you’ve got guts. Not much gray fuel in the upstairs—no; brains are your short suit all right—but guts…yeah, that you’ve got.”
“Thanks for the anatomy lesson. Get to the point.”
Mustache pulled a joint from his pocket and lit it. It burned slowly, leaving thick, purple-grey billows of smoke, indicating it was laced with coke, or crack, or hash, or Black Dreamer, or something else even newer than Dreamer that I’d never heard of. Stabbing it at me, he said:
“The point, Caucasian, is that the Time Lords have secured this territory. The war is over. The old man isn’t your concern anymore. His store is ours. You should be on the last train back to white pig happy land.”
“Do tell.” Mustache and one of the giants took a step forward. I warned them off. “Step it easy and backwards. If you’re in charge now, the word’ll be streeted soon enough. So, go back and tell the king of the Time Lords you did your duty and let’s all get out of this the easy way.”
The midget and Mustache looked at each other, judging the percentages open to them. For a moment I thought they were going to rush me, but then good sense broke them off in the direction of reason. Mustache pointed the others toward the door with his reeking baton, laughing as he told me:
“Okay, ghost; why not? We got nothing to prove here. Too cold to bother with you now, anyway. But tomorrow, collections go back to normal. We’ll be back—all of us. And you—we will not want to see. So, put away your little gun, Caucasian, and book passage back uptown to the mainland. You’ll be a lot happier that way.”
As the four left I slid my .38 back into my shoulder holster. The wind howled coldly as they passed through the door, its bark cut off sharply as wood and glass slid back into place. Lo looked at me with a question on his face. I tried to pull enough confidence into mine to answer him. Finally, he asked:
“You think it all over?”
“Don’t know—could be. It’d be nice to get out of this without getting my clothes dirty.”
Tossing me a crystal pear, the kind that are all water and sugar, but with no substance to them at all, he said, “I don’t think things so easy. Gang boys all too young to be so reasoning. Too easy you believe their words and forget their pride. They be back tomorrow, all right.
“Tomorrow be big trouble.”
I shrugged and kept on chewing, not really having an answer. Feeling a little up-against-it-all, I went to the back of the store to where Lo’s tiny office was to use the phone. I wanted to call my main information broker, Hubert, so I could get my mind onto something else. He answered in his usual manner.
“Hey, hey, Dick Tracy. W-where’d you park the squad car?”
“Can it, mutant.”
“Oh, in one of yer surly moods, eh? Oh well, what’s on yer mind?”
“I’m still stuck in that Chinatown gig and I’m getting a little bored. Thought I’d give you a ring and see what was doin’.”
“Not much. I have that videotape we need for T-Thursday. Outside of that, t-though, I was thinkin’ of skippin’ town ’til then. Why? What’s up?”
“Ahhh, nothin’. Not really.”
Hu went quiet for a second and then asked, “You okay, Jack? You need a little backup or somethin’?”
“Nah,” I told him. “I’m just bored. This job’s a piece of cake. If I can’t handle this one, I’d better get out of the business.”
“Well,” he answered, slowly, “Okay. Guess I’d better get movin’, then. Maurice should have the car downstairs waitin’ for me. I’ve got t-to hustle out to the airport. Little job to oversee down southwise. Yes, sir—it’s B-Bermuda fer me fer the next couple days.”
“Don’t get sunburned, ya little weasel.”
“Yeah,” he laughed. “I’ll try real hard not to. Don’t you freeze yer balls off up here in the Ice Age.”
We laughed at each other for another minute. Hu made sure to remind me not to take any wooden nickels, and then it was quiet again. I hung up the phone and went back to finishing my pear. For pieces of fruit with no weight to them whatsoever, those pears sure lay heavy in your stomach. At least that one did.
* * * *
The whole week had been a continuing racket of mortars, bottle rockets, and pin wheels. Nothing, though, in the first nine days of that Chinatown New Year’s could have prepared anyone for the tenth. Tiny, bright colored bombs went off constantly in every street and alley. Rattling strings of explosions peppered the din—two, three hundred at a shot. The air hung dark with burning gunpowder, new plumes rising from every corner to further choke those in the frozen streets. Explosives dropped out of windows and off of roofs; missiles flew upward, lit the sky, and then dropped back to earth.
The perfect time for a mob of punks to stalk the neighborhood and empty machine guns at each other and the rest of society if ever I saw one.
Lo and I opened the store at the regular time, not wanting to encourage the gang to perhaps torch the whole building just to get at us. Most every other place around was closed for the holiday, which sent Lo’s business through the roof. While we worked, the old man told me the story behind the ten day tradition.
When the farmers in China celebrated the coming of a new year, since they couldn’t really do any work in at that time of year anyway, they just got in the habit of partying longer and longer. The traditional length is actually fifteen days, which was easy to pull off two thousand years ago; just shut the country down for two weeks and let everyone get shitfaced. Not possible in our enlightened age, of course. Thank heaven for the legion of bloodless, leeching old ladies who run this nation. Without them to protect us from ourselves, God only knows what kind of fun we might have.
Anyway, normally the biggest night of the festival is New Year’s Eve, just as it is for us. This year, though, the mayor’s office planned events throughout the city to show how in touch he is with the minorities. Unfortunately, the boob’s people got everything backwards, not realizing the ten days of Chinese New Year’s worked like the twelve days of Christmas, with the biggest day of the holiday first. And, of course, they got all of their media coverage lined up before anyone could straighten them out. So, doing the only thing the fearless leader of a city hall can do, he had the police street the news that people who celebrated on the tenth day instead of the first could expect no tickets for illegal fireworks, or broken arms, but that those trying to celebrate before then could expect major hassles. He even arranged for the side streets to be blocked off—no traffic to interfere with the festivities.
Which explained why on what should have been a business-as-usual day the streets were raining explosives, and most of the stores were closed, their owners trapped between their fear of the gangs and the mayor’s indifferent stupidity. Welcome to New York.
Lo’s business, of course, was the best it’d been in ten years. That brought half the family in to help. At lunchtime, Mrs. Lo and the youngest granddaughter brought down two trays of large bowls filled with noodles and pork, as well as fishballs, fried rice, shrimp toast, and tea with cakes, cookies, some mixed pastries and a large platter of orange slices—just to keep us all from starving before dinner, you see. While everyone else was eating, Lo’s youngest came over to me.
“Mr. Hagee, sir?”
“Yeah, Git’jing; what’s up?”
“Will things be bad today?”
“They could be,” I admitted. Telling the truth to their offspring seemed to be a routine matter with the Los. Besides, this was one of those kids to whom you just couldn’t lie. At least, I couldn’t.
“What makes you ask?”
“So far you have been very lucky. But we can’t ask you to use up all your luck for us. So I have brought you this.”
She handed me a chain with what looked like an ivory dragon on the end of it. Closer inspection showed it was actually one large dragon with eight smaller ones crawling all about it. I wasn’t sure if they were supposed to be playing or fighting.
“Thank you,” I told her. “Is this supposed to bring good luck?”
“Nine dragons in the home always means good fortune. Every home needs nine dragons in it somewhere to bring good luck. They don’t need to be the same, or in the same place, or anything like that. You just have to have nine of them in your home somewhere for the luck.”
“But I’m not in my home,” I joked with her.
Quite seriously, she told me, “You do not have a home.”
“Sure I do,” I replied. “I live in Brooklyn, in Bensonhurst.”
“No. You may eat and sleep there,” she let me know, “but it is not your home. Your home is still within you—you have not yet begun to bring it out. That is why you can carry your dragons with you—because you have only a place to stay, not a real home.”
That said, she smiled politely and then ran back to her grandmother when the old woman started to collect up the dishes. I wanted to argue with her, but didn’t see the point. She was right. I lived in a barren apartment that I kept clean by keeping it empty. Half the time I slept on the couch in my office instead of going home. If it wasn’t for Elba, the girl from downstairs who takes care of my dog, the poor mutt would’ve probably starved to death by now.
The thing that made me wonder was how Git’jing could tell all that just by looking at me. After all, everyone hates being obvious. Figuring it wasn’t worth the questioning, however, I slid the chain over my neck and hung my dragons inside my shirt. I feel luckier already, I told myself. Besides, the way things looked I was willing to take any advantage I could get my hands on.
The morning paper had given an update on the situation in Chinatown, one so wrong I wondered how it could’ve been printed, even in the Post. Not that the other New York rags were ever any more accurate; the Post might be the most flamboyant of the main quartet of papers keeping the city ‘informed,’ but it has no monopoly on inaccurate reporting—not by a long shot.
Luckily, for all the news that mattered to me that day, I had other resources. In Chinatown, as in all real neighborhoods, not fancified motel parks for the rich like Sutton Place or Park Avenue, the vocal grapevine is as strong today as it was in the first grove of trees that ever knew human congregation. Sadly, it was not carrying good news.
Despite the message the Time Lords’d delivered the day before, the word on the street was that they were bluffing. They were still in dispute with the Angry Ghosts and Mother’s Blood Flowing over three prime real estate areas, one of which was Lo’s block of Mott St. They had given the same message to a number of stores looking to see what the popular reaction was. Most everyone else locked their doors to see who got picked to be made an example of; you can guess who got picked.
I thought about calling in help, but decided against it. When the gang showed, another gang waiting for them wasn’t going to slow them down. They’d picked Lo and me to teach a lesson to, so we were the ones who were going to get it. Face demanded it, which meant there was little hope of stopping it merely with force.
Actually, I couldn’t imagine how much muscle it would take to back down the Time Lords. I’d been able to send the first two packing because they hadn’t expected me. The next bunch had only been sent to deliver a message. But this time…this time was for all the marbles and they would move forward no matter what.
As we waited, Lo told me:
“No worry. I know this first day talk to you. What else to do? Take chance they no burn store, kill me, wife, children? Hope not to be a dead man? Crawl on floor, beg for mercy from animals who kill just for chance to laugh? No thank you bullshit very much not. Standing better way to die than kneeling.
“What you think?”
“I think you’ve got a point,” I told him.
“Good,” he answered, slapping me on the back. “Damn good. You get ready. Trouble come soon; be sure. I go sell rice.”
Lo sold rice for another four hours before our troubles finally came home to roost. There was no mistaking what was happening. You could feel the attention focusing on the store before our playmates were even in sight. Lo could feel it; so could his wife. She came downstairs to chase all the kids back to safety while I was still putting on my coat. I hit the sidewalk just as the evening’s entertainment came into view.
There were at least two dozen of them; hard muscled, impressed with themselves, young—the oldest couldn’t have been more than twenty. Some were carrying ball bats, some had bricks. God only knew what was hidden from sight. I could see all my old pals from the previous two days intermingled with the fresh troops. Their leader was a new face, however.
At best he was seventeen. The way he walked, the power in his step, the way he ignored the blasting chill killing its way through the streets showed he held his position by being the toughest animal in the pack. His eyes were what betrayed him. They were plainly etched with privilege. He was a child used to snapping his fingers for whatever he wanted—money, women, drugs, police protection, transportation, invisibility—whatever. It had all come too easily to him until now he was more than sure he was in charge, more than aware that his word was law—he was certain. If he believed in any gods at all, it was only so he could rest assured they’d appointed him master of all he surveyed.
Looking into the master’s eyes, even from a distance, I knew he was the reason for all of Chinatown’s current troubles. It was his needs, his desire and greed that were tearing the neighborhood apart, setting the gangs at each other’s throats, killing a total of twelve so far in the last three months.
Expectedly, there wasn’t a cop in sight. No one knows the grapevine like they do. I could count on them not showing up until things were long over, one way or another, using the mayor’s stupidity as their excuse. Hard to blame them, really. Pulling out a pad and scribbling with a Bic are a hell of a lot easier than taking on a drug confident wild ball gorilla-rough teenaged killer. Or two. Or who knew how many.
A hand signal, fingers over the left shoulder, stopped the gang’s advance. The leader took three more steps toward me and then planted himself between me and his boys, playing the scene for all the drama he could remember from the last WWF match he’d seen. I leaned against the stone of the next building, lighting a cigarette, waiting for him to start it. Things were beginning to fall into place for me. All of Chinatown’d known trouble was coming for New Year’s. The residents and the police’d all prepared to the best of their abilities to stay out of the gangs’ ways, hoping a lot of winnowing might befall the ranks. Lo had decided on protection instead of prayer.
The gangs had knocked the crap out of each other, and now the top three were ready to divide up the remaining plums—and the Time Lords were the ones making the first move. Maybe they were the strongest gang after all—they’d made all the moves I’d seen. Word had it they weren’t, though, and I was betting the word was right. Their strategy was wrong; it lacked finesse. It was blunt, broken bottle, dull-eyed slugger stuff. The kind of planning that always springs into the minds of children.
I’ve never liked that aspect of childhood. It’s necessary, I suppose, but there’s something about the way people think until they finally go mad and reach adulthood that is almost tragic. The smug condescension of youthful righteousness is almost unbearable to watch. Whether it is unbearably funny or painful depends on the child putting on the exhibition, but no matter how much sympathy one has for them, the end result is that they make an ass out of themselves and there’s no way to warn them off from it. Adults know this because they can remember the things they once believed from which no one could warn them away.
Because, no matter what one might think to the contrary, there are certain things which make the world run, and that make human beings tick. Those who play by these rules are called grownups. And those who think the rules can, even for a millisecond, ever be broken, are called children.
Children.
“So,” cried the leader, “how’s the night watchman of the North Pole?”
Christ, how I hate children.
Letting my lungful out, I answered through the smoke.
“Tired of playin’ jacks with you and your boys, Sonny. Take ’em on out of here. Get smart, juvenile. I’m more trouble than you ever saw in one place in your short, possibly soon-to-end life.”
Sonny cracked his innocent prankster’s look just slightly, his eyes narrowing as he forced himself to consciously take my measure.
Rechecking his footing on the ice, I caught another secret hand sign directing two of his troops forward on either side of him. One of the giant’s I’d seen the day before. The other, bigger one, was new to me.
“You were told to go home, Kojak.”
“European powers were told to stay out of this hemisphere. Nobody listens.”
Conversation stopped with a snap of the fingers—the shorter giant’s cue to attack. He was a rusher, sweeping forward at me like a runaway train. I took another drag, waiting for the right moment. When his foot touched the walk I sidestepped out of his way quick, letting him ram his fingers into the bricks I’d been leaning against.
The second giant was already moving. Him I took more seriously. He came in calmer, with a sharper idea of what he was doing. Waiting for him to swing, I stepped inside his arc, throwing him off balance just by being so close. He stumbled for a second. I bounced the back of my fist off his nose and then pivoted, catching his ear with my elbow. He staggered off, but by then his partner was up.
He was more cautious this time, but I couldn’t afford to congratulate him. Before he could overcome his hesitation over doing his fingers any further damage, I reached out to the point of being off balance, something he never expected. Grabbing his left hand, I jerked him to me, crushing his fingers together while I dragged him across the ice. He howled. I let him.
He swung at me blindly, swatting to stop the pain. I dodged him with a chuckle and spun him around, letting him fly into his partner, bouncing his head off the other giant’s back. They sat on the ground together, shaking their heads, wondering what had happened.
Crossing to the street, I stepped on the first giant’s hand, drawing screams so loud you could hear them blocks away despite the fireworks. Stopping ankle deep in the growing slush, I asked:
“Got any more acts you want to audition before you go home?”
Sonny’s waving hand brought forward a quartet, two with baseball bats, two with knives. The first to try his luck was a knifer. He stabbed, danced back, stabbed again. I stayed out of reach. This bunch was better—not in each other’s way. The blade came at me again, but only as a feign. He was setting me up for the batters. Noting that in time saved me from getting my head splattered. They’d moved forward together, not swinging, but stabbing as well, limiting their range but keeping their distance. Almost worked.
I ducked the first blade again and then grabbed out, catching the punk’s wrist. Twisting, I got him to lose the knife; then I got him jumping. As long as he was hopping around in pain, no one else could close in on me. He tried to swat me away, but was in too much agony to connect.
Reaching down then, I came up under him, getting a good enough hold to hoist him over my head. The others back off as I knew they would, thinking I was going to throw him into them. Very dramatic, but hardly ever workable. I threw him over the curbed cars into the sidelined giants. The others got the idea. I had forced them to flinch needlessly—bad loss of face. Then I showed them I was going to take them out one by one and stack them like firewood.
The batters came forward again, rising to my challenge. This time they were swinging. I tried to time my catch but I was off. One caught me in the side. Hard. I slid on the snow and rammed into a parked car. The second batter stepped up, the cheers of his fellows making him reckless. Swinging down, he went for my skull—took out the Toyota’s windshield instead. I kicked sideways burying my foot to the cuff in his side. Bones cracked. His. Good, I thought.
The first batter came back again, stabbing. I sidestepped twice then faked a slip. He struck again, too quickly. With better timing I grabbed out and took his bat from him, sliding it out of his gloved hands with a twist. He turned to run, but I put everything I had into a spinning return hit and broke his ankle, sending him rolling through the street, screaming for mercy.
The second blade carrier debated facing me on his own for a second, then stepped away, melting back into the ranks with his head hung. Smarter than he looked. The gang stood their ground, silver breath mixing with the burning gunpowder and smoke wreathing through the air. The night continued to hammer noisily around us, the constant explosions becoming our silence. I’d lost my cigarette in the slush. Lighting another one, working at keeping my bare hands from shaking too badly, I questioned the boy in charge.
“Had enough, Sonny?”
His eyes bored through me, heating buildings on the other side of the street. Spitting into the slop at our feet, he growled:
“Full of tricks, aren’t you, ghost man?”
“Oh, cut the crap.” I exhaled smoke at the gang. If he was an adult, I was dead. He’d have someone gun me down and that would be it. I was gambling I’d figured him right, though. If I acted like I wanted everything to end then, I was sure he’d misinterpret and go for me himself. Which was, of course, the only way out I’d seen since the gang’d first arrived.
“I’m tired, and you’re scared,” I told him. “You can’t afford to lose any more face, and you don’t know what to do about it. My advice is ‘give up.’ Take this band of rejects to whatever flop you throw yourselves into at night and get out of this the easy way. No one’s been hurt too bad yet—especially me.”
Without hesitation he began to shrug off his coat. “So you haven’t been hurt too bad yet; eh, ghost? Well, let’s see if we can’t change that.”
He’d taken the bait. Now, if I could just live through another fight with the toughest beast in the pack, I might be able to get through the night. Winded and trying not to show it, I shrugged off his attitude, sucking as much nicotine down as I could before I had to start moving again. Sonny stared at the baseball bat in my hand and then picked the fallen one out of the frozen mess it lay in, wiping it off on his sleeve. He pointed at a large construction dumpster and walked away toward it. I followed. So did the gang.
“Emperor of the mountain,: he sneered. “Winner decides what happens.”
“Yeah; doesn’t he always?” He looked at me; smiling. I pulled down a last lungful and said, “Okay, Sonny. Let’s get to it.”
The dumpster was filled with the guttings of an apartment building in the icy throes of winter gentrification. Ten feet wide, thirty-five feet long, six feet deep, it was filled with old wiring, rotting pipes, broken plasterboard and bricks, and nail studded splinters of wood. One corner was a stacking of old-fashioned windows. The top layer was one of garbage, some in bags, most tossed in loose or torn free from its wrappings by hungry cats and desperate humans. A wonderful little arena.
Sonny was already coming across the field by the time I got to the top. Bracing myself, I swung up to take the first hit, barely able to shift positions to take the second. He slammed at me unmercifully, swinging at me from the left to the right to the left, on and on, waiting for me to fall into a rhythm so he could break the pattern and paste me. I matched him, blocking hit after hit, feeling the numbness starting to climb my arms.
Knowing I couldn’t keep taking such punishment, I waited for a weaker strike and then pushed, putting our bats off to the side and our faces up against each other’s. Letting my weapon go, I caught his bat arm with both hands and threw him off balance, unfortunately only into some soft garbage bags. He started to get up but I threw myself on him, forcing him back down into the trash. He thrashed about, trying to stand, but I kept the pressure up, pushing him down as deep as I could into the bulging plastic sacks. His raking fingers tore several open. Our bouncing around freed more.
Snow started to mix with the frozen grease and decaying pus from the bags, making it impossible for us to hang onto each other. Sonny slipped away from me, clawing his way across the arena, gasping for air. I tried to grab his ankle but sunk to my knee in the trash, suddenly finding my leg trapped in the bricks and debris below.
“Now,” came Sonny’s rasping voice, “I’m going to kill you.”
I jerked at my leg, tearing pants, skin, and muscle, but freeing it. Sonny came forward, swinging one of the bats at me so violently he almost threw himself from the dumpster when he missed. I dragged myself out of his path just barely in time, grabbing up a couple of broken bricks as I stood. He came at me again. I lobbed the first at him—missed—only denting a parked car’s door. Weighing the second in my hand for a moment, I let it fly; he hit it away with the bat. It fell to the street, almost clobbering one of his followers.
“No more jokes, ghost man? No more tough talk?”
My breath was scorching my throat. Blood was sluicing from my leg, the pain filling my eyes with tears. My side still hurt from the first batter’s swing in the last inning.
“Naw,” I admitted. “No more jokes.”
“Well then—if you can’t amusing me anymore, faggot, you know what that means, don’t you? It’s dying time!”
He stepped across the trash gingerly, watching his footing, coming with a smile to dash my brains out. Too tired to dodge or resist his attack, too close to the end of my resources, I pulled out my .38 and gut shot him, sending him thudding into the street below.
Instantly five of the Time Lords started to clamber up the sides of the dumpster. Two in the background began pulling out guns. Conserving ammo, I grabbed up one of the stacked windows and flung it at the first three heads coming over the side. One ducked; one got a broken chin; the other lost an eye. I pitched two more windows into the crowd, catching one of the marksmen, sending another backpedalling for cover. A knifer came over the wall, tearing through my coat and nicking my side before I could get hold of him. I slammed him across the jaw with all I had left, sending him falling into another behind him. That one’s screams told me he’d fallen onto something sharp and nasty. Too damn bad.
As more guns came loose I readied my .38 again. My head was empty of thoughts except for how many of the enemy I could take with me and which ones I wanted the most. I’d hoped to bring things down to just their leader and myself—to take him out and then bluff the others into leaving. Hadn’t worked. A hail of automatic weapon’s fire gouged at the metal of the dumpster, sending thick sparks and ricochets off into the surrounding fireworks. A couple of slugs went by me. I took aim at the main shooter and was just about to fire when I suddenly spotted dozens of figures moving through the gloom at both ends of the street. A bull horn sounded, orders barking at us in Cantonese. The Time Lords lost interest in me immediately, looking to the left and right, sizing up what was happening. A Chinese youth in a good suit with a sharp-edged haircut came up to the dumpster. Offering me his hand, he called:
“Come on down, Mr. Hagee. Join the party.”
The newcomers were armed to the teeth, not looking for anything except cooperation. After a second it dawned on me what was going on. Shoving my .38 back into its holster, I answered:
“Ah, I’m going to have a little trouble getting down from here, and—um, well…as gracious as it is for someone of your importance to offer his hand, I wouldn’t want to ruin your suit. Sir.”
The newcomer smiled an expansive, dangerous smile and turned to Sonny. Roughly nudging the still howling gang leader with his foot, the smiler told him:
“You see—respect. This warrior knows how, and when, and to whom to show respect. Too bad you never learned that, William.”
Turning back to me, he answered, “Don’t let it trouble you. What are clothes? An artificial shell. A dozen suits are not worth what you have done. Take my hand.”
I did more than just take his hand; I slid out of the dumpster like a mouthful of spit going down a bathroom wall. Smiler caught me and held me up on my feet. Whispering, he asked:
“You’re not going to die on me, are you?” When I assured him I wasn’t, he said, “Good. You hang tough for two minutes—let me gather up the face to be gained here and you’ll come out happy.”
I nodded. He turned to the crowd. His speech was simple. I knew he was the head of either the Angry Ghosts or Mother’s Blood Flowing. Both gangs had known the Time Lords would move first. They had waited for the best moment to stage their takeover and then moved in in unison. Probably planned for days.
His offer was straightforward—the Time Lords were too wild, too undisciplined, too much of a troublemaking organization. They caused more discord than harmony, and thus had to be disbanded. When someone countered that you can’t disband a gang that had a leader, Smiler answered:
“Why, you are right. Debbie, my sweet queen. If you could oblige us.”
A dazzling oriental girl, possibly Korean, in an expensive-looking gray fur coat came forward and pressed a sawed-off shotgun over the hole in Sonny’s stomach where my bullet had entered. Pulling both triggers, she splattered the asphalt with meat and bone. Sliding home two more shells, she retriggered and splattered the street some more.
While she worked at her repavement operation, Smiler told me, “This way no one will bother to look for any stray slugs from some unnamed private detective’s gun, eh?”
I nodded again, with as much strength as I could. My job’d been to protect the store. I’d done that. In the end, since it matched their own interests, the Time Lords’ rivals had come in and finished what I started. After Sonny was put out of his misery, none of his followers had anything more to say. The rules had been followed; honor had been satisfied. They split ranks and joined one or the other of the two gangs surrounding us like the last kids to be picked for a stickball game.
Smiler walked me over to the Los’ store. I’d played down to him because he was the king of the moment. There was no honor to be had in provoking him into getting rid of me like he had Sonny, and little sense. He’d come in at the last minute and pulled my bacon out of the fire because he wanted to show he was friends with the toughest man on the street. He could have just as easily waited until I was dead to make his move. I’ve made worse friends in my time. Check out my ex-wife if you think I’m lying.
“Okay, pal,” he suggested, “why don’t you go inside and get put back together before you croak or something?”
While he helped me over the curb, he quietly shoved a wad of bills into my pocket. When I looked at him, he whispered again, “Look, gangbuster, don’t get all proud on me. I’ve been waiting for someone to do what you did for a long time. Now, I know who really shot Billy Wong, and you know who had him finished off. I could kill you, and one of Billy’s relatives might go to the cops with that to get me, and on and on it could go. Who needs it? Revenge is as ugly as greed. I like you, Big Hagee. You understand the basics. Billy…he was crazy. Kept trying to throw balance out the window.
“He had to go.”
The Los managed to break through the mass of gang members surrounding us then. As I fell into their arms, Smiler said, loudly enough for plenty of people to hear:
“Everybody—know this. The Lo family, and their property, is under my protection. This noble warrior, Chinese or not, has shown us what must be done with those who upset the old ways. He is under my protection as well for he is a great and honorable figure, and too much a man to be my friend for things as small as money or his life. For this, I owe him favor—for this, everyone in Chinatown owes him favor.”
Taking in a harsh breath, Smiler’s face suddenly grew dark as he added, “So all who hear me and know how far my words travel, remember only of this night that the fireworks were wonderful, and that you all watched the skies from your windows and saw nothing of the streets.”
The few onlookers took their cue and disappeared. Most of the gang members followed them. A cleanup crew restuffed the dumpster, finding room for Sonny somewhere in the middle. By the time the Los helped me hobble back up to their apartment, the streets were empty save for the black snow and the never-ending explosions. My leg and side were messy, but not nearly as seriously hurt as they appeared. The girls burned my clothes in a barrel on the roof while the boys scrubbed me down and treated my wounds.
Smiler had paid me five thousand dollars for eliminating the Time Lords. Less than I would have charged if he’d asked, but more than anyone else was offering once it’d already happened. I wasn’t quite sure at the time I’d ever get the chance to call in the marker he claimed I was holding on him, but I figured it didn’t hurt to keep it in mind. I’ve never been one to pass by money in the street just because some people think it’s undignified to stoop in public.
Mr. Lo made a big show out of paying me while I held court from his easy chair, answering the continual barrage of questions about the fight. I laughed most of it off, only playing up the dangerous parts for the youngest children.
I also added a corny bit about grabbing the dragons around my neck and praying to the gods for help. I didn’t really care who else bought it; Git’jing’s face lit up at the mention, and that was all that mattered.
After that, Mrs. Lo chased us all to the dinner table where the food was so deep you’d have though the rest of the neighborhood’d been invited to join us. The family chattered about the fight, and the whole of my New Years’ visit, and the excitement of it all. For a while, at least.
Before dessert, however, the conversation was that of shop and school and business and dating and homework and babies and all the other talk that fills a happy home. Something that, come the morning, I’d be leaving behind.
Grabbing for the last piece of lobster, I pretend rage at the baby who snatched it out from under me, just to see that innocent laughter one last time. I thought, what the hell…even if you can’t go home again, at least sometimes they’ll let you visit. Besides, I had my dragons now. Who knew what would happen next?
Outside the snow continued to fall, dodging its way around the explosions.
