The Mystery of Yamashita's Map

Chapter Seven

Lisa was tidying up the books in the professor’s apartment. She tried to place them in alphabetical order on the shelves but quickly gave up. She had bought some carnations at the supermarket on the way home and was arranging them on the desk, making it seem a little less like a waiting room for the death chamber. Her uncle was with Fraser in the kitchen discussing plans for hiring a plane. She picked up a jacket from the floor and a card fell out of the pocket. She reached for it and noticed it was a cheap business card. There was a plane etched in blue ink on one side and ‘Joe Hutchins — Pilot’ written on the other with a phone number underneath it.

She took it in to her uncle. ‘Uncle? Who’s this Joe Hutchins? Is he a pilot?’

The professor looked at her blankly. ‘Joe Hutchins? Never heard that name before. Is he a friend of yours?’

‘No, I found this in one of your jackets. It fell out as I was picking it up. All it says is Joe Hutchins — Pilot. Then there’s a number.’

She handed the card to the professor, who studied it closely. After a while, his furrowed brown turned into smooth recognition.

‘The taxi driver gave it to me on the night I met you at the bar. My, it seems like weeks ago now. He told me if ever I was in trouble I was to call his cousin. Then he gave me this.’

‘We’re in trouble now, aren’t we?’ asked Fraser.

Lisa swiped the card from her uncle and ran over to the telephone. She dialled, waited, then spoke. ‘Joe? Joe Hutchins?’

There was silence in the room as Lisa listened. She twirled the phone cord in her fingers and nervously fidgeted with the things on the desk.

‘Well,’ she said after a while. ‘Do you know where he might have gone? What about a forwarding address, a telephone number? Anything?’

The professor and Fraser’s hearts sank. They knew that card had not delivered on its own meagre promises. Lisa put the phone down and joined them, looking despondent.

‘Well, it was worth a try,’ she said.

Fraser patted her shoulders. ‘Yeah, it’s always worth a try,’ he said, but the professor was silent. He had his finger up to his forehead and his eyes half closed. Without opening his eyes fully he crossed the room to the desk, opened the drawer and pulled out a stack of dollar bills of small denominations.

‘If ever I split a twenty or a fifty and I am given the change, if there are ones in there I put them in this drawer. Every now and then I take it to the market and buy a huge tub of ice cream, which I bring home and eat, all to myself.’

Lisa and Fraser were perplexed.

‘It’s a bit late for ice cream, professor,’ Fraser offered.

‘Not ice cream, Fraser, taxi cabs. The driver of my taxi was the cousin of Joe, right? Well, all we have to do is split up, take a handful of bills each, and take short, two dollar journeys in every cab we find.’

‘Hmm, there must be thousands of cabs in Hong Kong.’

‘Can you think of a better way?’ the professor asked.

‘Wait,’ Lisa interrupted. ‘How will we know we aren’t testing the same cab? I mean, I get in a cab, ask the driver if he is the cousin of Joe, he says no, I get out. Five minutes later Fraser gets in the same cab and asks the same thing, by which time I have forgotten what the back of his head looks like and I get in his cab again. We could be paying three cab drivers all the money and none of them will be Joe’s cousin — no matter how many times we ask them.’

‘Hmmm, yes, that’s a point,’ the professor acquiesced. His shoulders dropped and his hands, with the bills inside, fell to his sides.

‘What if we each take…’ Lisa looked around her. ‘Some flowers…’ She picked a handful from the vase that she had placed on the desk. ‘We put one on the parcel shelf at the back of the cab when we have checked it. It would be easy to see from the outside. If there’s a flower, it’s been checked. Who’s going to notice a flower on the parcel shelf other than someone who is looking for it?’

Fraser spoke. ‘But there still must be thousands of taxi cabs in Hong Kong.’

‘There are,’ the professor said. ‘But only maybe fifty or so in the area that I took. It would take a couple of hours at the most for all three of us to check them out. In fact we could start at the restaurant and work backwards. We know he works that area.’

So, it was set and the plan was in place. On the way to the restaurant they picked up more flowers, which made all three of them resemble mobile florists and, one by one, they hired cabs. Inside each one the conversation was the same.

‘Busy tonight?’

‘No, not really.’

‘Say, you wouldn’t know a Joe Hutchins would you?’

‘Joe Hutchins? No, don’t think so, he a friend of yours?’

‘Yeah, anyway, look I think here is far enough actually, I’ll walk the rest of the way.’

‘But it’s only been about a hundred yards.’

‘Yeah, that’s fine, I can walk the rest of the way.’

They would leave a flower on the parcel shelf of each cab they visited, pay their money and exit, leaving a trail of petals behind them.

As the night wore on it became harder and harder to find a cab that did not have a flower on the parcel shelf. The professor was right, it only took about two hours for there to be no cab driver they hadn’t asked. Every time they saw a taxi, one of the three would hail and find, to their disappointment, that there was a flower on the parcel shelf. By one o’clock in the morning, the professor had given up hope. He sat on the pavement, placed his bunch of carnations next to him and studied his face in the rain water that was by now collecting in the gutter.

A few miles down the road, Lisa was doing the same. She sat on the curb dandling her one last carnation between her fingers, sniffing its tender white petals and letting her hair fall about her face in the drizzle. Suddenly her face was lit up with a harsh white light and a spray of water covered her from head to foot.

‘You been stood up?’ a voice said and she looked up. It was a cab. She sighed. ‘Maybe.’

‘Well, he’s nuts. Do you wanna go somewhere?’

‘Away,’ she said, only half joking.

‘Get in the back,’ the voice said. Lisa stood up and as she stepped into the road noticed that there was no flower on the parcel shelf. She quickly got in and started the routine that had by now become second nature.

‘Busy night?’

The taxi driver sighed. ‘Don’t know really. I have been ill. I’ve only just come on. I hope it’s quiet. I prefer the quiet ones.’

‘Say, you wouldn’t know Joe Hutchins would you?’

Suddenly the car pulled over and the driver stared at Lisa through the rear view mirror.

‘Who wants to know?’

Lisa gulped. ‘Me.’

‘Look, I don’t want any trouble. Like I just said, I have been ill and I could do without shit tonight. I don’t care what he’s said to you or how he has promised to marry you, or whose daughter you are. As far as I am concerned Joey’s sex life is his own business and that’s that.’

Lisa felt her heart leap out of her chest. ‘So you know him then?’

The driver turned round to face her for the first time in the conversation. ‘Know him? Sure, he’s my cousin.’

‘Look,’ said Lisa. ‘Will you come with me to my uncle’s flat? We really need to speak to Joey.’

‘Look, I told you I don’t want any trouble.’

Lisa laughed. ‘There’s no trouble. We want to hire him and his plane. We’ll give you something for your help too.’

The cab driver looked Lisa over. His eyes rested on her breasts and made their way up to her slender neck and large brown eyes.

‘OK,’ he said finally. ‘Where to?’

By the time Lisa and the taxi driver had got to the apartment, Fraser and the professor were already there. As soon as they burst through the door Lisa started explaining excitedly what had happened. She told the professor how she had given up hope and had been sitting on the curb by the side of the road when he had just driven past, soaking her dress, but how that did not matter because they were here now and that Joe could not be far away.

The taxi driver remained silent until he caught sight of the professor.

‘Hey, you’re the guy who was running. I heard you want my cousin Joe. Yeah, he’s a damn good pilot.’

Fraser whispered underneath his breath. ‘He needs to be.’

They fixed the cab driver a drink and sat round the table.

‘So?’ Lisa asked, but the taxi driver’s face remained expressionless.

‘So what?’

‘So where’s Joe?’

‘Hong Kong,’ he said.

‘Yes, we guessed Hong Kong, where exactly?’

The cab driver shrugged his shoulders. ‘Don’t know, did you phone that number I gave you?’

‘Yes, but they said he moved out about three months ago.’

The driver sat back in his chair and rubbed his stomach. ‘Yep, that sounds like Joe. He could never keep in one place very long. It’s not so much he wants to move as other people want him to; they either drive him out or try to kill him.’

Lisa felt exasperated but was determined to see this thing through. ‘Well, do you know where we could find him?’

‘You could try the docks, he sometimes drinks down there. Oh, and the Club Hundred, he goes there a lot.’ He stared at Lisa. ‘You’d fit in down there.’

Lisa shifted nervously in her seat. ‘Right, and you say he’s a pilot?’

‘Yep.’

‘And he’ll be able to fly us?’

‘Nope.’

Lisa felt like giving up. ‘Why?’

‘Got no plane any more. Last time I heard it had been impounded by the police. This is grapevine stuff, you understand, it’s been a good while since I seen his face.’

‘But, if we got a plane, he could fly it?’

‘Oh yeah, you pay him, he’ll fly anywhere. That’s why he’s got no plane.’ The taxi driver laughed a raspy, smoky laugh which segued into a raspy, smoky cough. ‘Well, that sounds like just the sort of person we need,’ Lisa said. ‘The Club Hundred, you say?’

‘Yep.’

Lisa stood up. ‘Thank you Mr… er…’

‘Just call me Lee,’ the taxi driver said.

Lisa smiled. ‘Lee.’

‘Now you said there might be something for me, if I could… er… help you with your business?’ Lisa looked at him and her skin crawled. ‘Er, yes,’ she said, and looked round.

‘Here,’ Fraser said and offered Lee a handful of the one dollar bills, which he took with a scowl.

‘Thanks,’ he said with heavy sarcasm and left, slamming the door behind him.

The Club One Hundred was its usual precipitous self. The smoke hung low below the ceiling and the music bounced off the walls in a lugubrious display of rhythmic suggestion. Lisa, Fraser and the professor walked straight in after paying their cover charge and started to weave in and out of the other customers who all jostled to see the stage. They found a table in a corner and sat down.

Fraser said that he would order some drinks and ask about Joe at the bar, so he left the professor and Lisa alone at the table. Lisa tapped nervously to the rhythm of the music and noticed that a pair of eyes was staring at her. They were small and blue and piercing, easily noticeable through the smoke of the club. They belonged to a small man in a white coat who was standing over by the door. He could have only been five feet one and was as skinny as a rake but wore the most outlandishly wide white hat. With consternation, Lisa realised that the man was walking towards her. His gait bobbed to the beat of the music as his feet slid across the polished floor of the club. As he got nearer she could smell his cologne. It smelt of incense and roses, a little too sweet and cloying to be pleasant. He stood at the table, in front of her and the professor. ‘You want to trade?’ he said to the professor, who in turn looked blankly back. ‘You wanna trade? I got a whole room full of women here you can have, black ones, white ones, Japanese, Korean, European, you wanna European? Yeah, course you do.’ Lisa suddenly realised that he was making her uncle an offer for her. She put on her most indignant face and said, ‘I’m not for trade.’ But the man ignored her. ‘You want a couple for this one, eh? How about these two?’

He snapped his fingers and two scantily-clad women ran up and draped themselves over his shoulders.

‘They look good, yes? You can have them both for this one, she’s got something.’

‘Yes, I have,’ said Lisa. ‘A degree in chemistry.’

‘A brainy one. I like it. Maybe you want three?’

The professor leaned forward. ‘You know, I am thinking seriously about your offer, but perhaps another day.’

The man in white shrugged his shoulders. ‘Whatever you say, you know where I am if you need a little something.’

He clicked his tongue and winked as he turned to go. Fraser passed him on the way. ‘Who was that?’ he asked.

‘My future pimp,’ Lisa said.

Fraser looked puzzled. He set down the drinks. ‘I asked at the bar and they said they know Joe and he was in last night, got absolutely smashed by all accounts, so will probably be in today for the hair of the dog.’

‘How will we know him?’

‘The woman at the bar said she’d send him over. I said we wanted to offer him a job and she seemed to think he would go for that, if only to pay his bar tab here.’

Suddenly there was a deafening noise. The main show had started and a deep bass was coming crashing out of the speakers. The stage began to revolve, uneasily, and lights were flicked on. The professor and Fraser stared as a tall half-Asian, half-European girl with long black hair sauntered out to the middle of the stage and started to dance erotically by the pole.

‘I think perhaps we might go easy on him when we see him,’ she said, but got no response. ‘I thought perhaps I’d better try it with him first, he might respond better to a woman, he might not feel so… hello, is either of you two listening to me anymore?’

The professor and Fraser stared open mouthed at the girl on the stage, who could contort her small frame in ways that they hardly thought were possible. Every now and then the professor would blot his forehead with his tie and his eyes opened wide as they tried to gain every last piece of information they could about this beautiful thing. His face was contorted into an idiotic smile that seemed to make him seem about four years old again. She sighed to herself and took a sip of her drink. Then, noticing that the man in white was still watching her, she lowered her head and studied the enormously interesting marks that had been left by a thousand cocktail glasses in the varnish of the table.

After the show, the girl glided from the stage and mingled with the audience, displaying all the sexual allure of a cat. Her eyes darted around the club for someone but no matter how far they searched they always came up blank. She lazily brushed a hand over a businessman’s shoulder and made him sit bolt upright in his chair as if electricity had passed through him; she dangled a lock of hair in the face of a foreign sailor who seemed to smell in it a thousand lusty nights in port. She wiggled her hips at a group of young Japanese youths at the bar and they nudged each other and nodded in her direction but they were all just boys to her and they were sent spinning into the distance by her lackadaisical smile.

The air was thick with cigarette smoke and sweat and the floor was sticky with spilt booze. Lisa got up out of her seat and made to go to the bar before Fraser tugged at her arm.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

‘To get a drink.’

He pushed her back in her seat. ‘I think I’d better go, don’t you?’ he said, and stood up himself.

Lisa crossed her legs in a manner that suggested she was not happy. She liked to be taken care of as much as anyone but she was up to ordering a drink, even here.

Fraser’s gallant actions were welcome at certain times, in certain situations, but when they became de rigueur she felt awkward and uncomfortable, as if she were expected to reciprocate in some way.

The professor had been watching her and as she turned to face him he smiled.

‘You could do worse,’ he said, sensing the moment. Lisa wrinkled her nose and then looked across the bar at Fraser, shoving his way through the crowd in a manly way. She could do worse, she said to herself… but she could also do better.

Suddenly her thoughts were broken by a commotion at the bar. A man, small but muscular, was being manhandled by three men in black suits. The small man struggled for all he was worth. He looked quite comical pitting his might against the three hulking brutes who flanked him. He flailed his arms about and kicked in the air, all to very little avail, until Lisa noticed the barman lean over and whisper into his ear. The little man stopped and shrugged off his guards. He dusted himself down, straightened his white cap and ordered a drink from the bar.

To her horror, the small man strolled over to her table. She could see now he was in his thirties. His hair was jet black and hung down beneath his white cap, which had some sort of insignia on it. It was dark so she could not see but she assumed it was a military badge, even though it did not look like a uniform cap. He wore a pair of baggy white trousers and blue deck shoes, with a striped blue and white T-shirt that even in the half light of the club looked as though it been slept in for weeks and never washed.

The man stood for a moment, saying nothing. Lisa thought she could smell fish as he stood there but put it down to the smoky air of the club and the fact that she had been drinking strong liquor. He placed his glass down on the table.

‘You the one looking for me?’ he said.

Lisa had dealt with these situations before; she knew how to handle them.

‘Perhaps, depends on who you are.’

The man was cagey. He did it as if he had something to hide, perhaps lots of things. ‘Well, that would depend on who you are.’

Lisa smiled. ‘I’m no one special.’

The man looked her over. ‘Oh, I wouldn’t say that,’ he said. ‘You look pretty special from where I’m standing.’

Lisa felt herself blush and cursed herself for it. The man held out his hand. ‘Joe Hutchins. They said at the bar that you might want to see me.’

‘Lisa Okada,’ Lisa said. ‘And this is my uncle, Professor Okada.’

Joe lifted Lisa’s hand and kissed it gently. ‘Pleased to meet you, Lisa,’ he said, and looked deeply into her eyes. ‘Professor,’ he added, without looking.

There was a cough behind. Joe spun round and sent the tray of drinks that Fraser was holding flying into the air. Joe and Fraser squared up to each although it was obvious that this was a new experience for both of them. Lisa sighed, introduced Fraser and the two men warily relaxed.

‘So,’ Lisa added. ‘Sit here and I’ll tell you what my plan is. Fraser, go and get another round, would you?’

This time she relished being able to order him about. Fraser disconcertedly turned and headed towards the bar again.

‘We have a proposition,’ Lisa began. ‘It’s totally legal, it’s totally above board, there’s nothing to it. It’s just a flight, that’s all.’

Joe looked wary. He had been in these situations before and they never led to anywhere nice, although this pretty girl who looked as though she might be more at home in a classroom than a strip joint was an authentic touch. He tapped his arm absentmindedly. ‘Where to?’ he asked.

‘The Philippines.’

‘OK, so what’s the deal?’

‘Well, we’ll tell you that when you agree.’

‘Who says I will?’

‘Well, when you know what you will be paid.’

‘OK, what’s the money?’

Lisa stopped for a minute and looked around her. ‘A tenth of what we find,’ she said.

Joe laughed. ‘Right! A tenth of what?’

‘A tenth of everything we’re going to get.’

‘And what’s that?’

Lisa realised the paradox she had landed herself in. ‘Er… I can’t tell you unless you agree.’

Joe sat back in his seat and sipped his drink. ‘So, you want me to agree to something before I know what it is, for a tenth share of whatever it is I’m agreeing to.’

Lisa thought. ‘Yes,’ she said.

‘Well, have a good night,’ Joe said and stood up. ‘Wait…’ Lisa implored. ‘You can trust us.’

Joe smiled. ‘Look… Lisa? It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I have things here, things keeping me around. Women, deals, commitments, that sort of thing. I can’t just up sticks and leave when I want. Otherwise, believe me, I would have gone by now.’

Joe looked up and winked at an attractive blonde by the bar. Lisa noticed and felt a tinge of jealousy.

‘You see,’ Joe said, ‘There are things keeping me here, things I can’t let go of. Good luck though, finding a pilot. You’ll need it around here.’

He pushed the peak of his cap up high on his head with a finger and sauntered off, leaving Lisa feeling dejected and rejected. The professor patted her arm.

‘There’ll be others,’ he said. ‘There are others.’

At the bar, Joe walked up to the blonde. He ordered another drink and started small talk. ‘You didn’t think I’d be back, did you?’

The blonde looked at him. ‘You been here before then?’

‘Nice, it’s always good to be flattered.’

‘Sorry but there’s a lot of faces in this business.’

‘Yeah, I guess. Say, you haven’t seen a girl called Gem around?’

‘Gem? No, can’t say I remember. Like I said, I’m no good with faces.’

‘You sure you haven’t seen her? She worked in here.’

‘What do you want her for?’

‘Oh, you know, just want to talk.’

‘How much she steal?’

‘Five hundred.’

‘That’s small fry, you got off lightly.’

‘Well, I’d still like to talk.’

The blonde girl sucked air in through her teeth. ‘There’s a few like you about.’

As if the world had stopped moving for a second, as if it had spun off of its axis and fallen into space, as if the moon had crashed into the earth, as if the oceans had suddenly decided to rise up and challenge the land, Joe felt his head being knocked from his shoulders. The first thing he knew was the sound — it was the sound of someone very near to him being punched, then the pain in the side of his face told him that it was him. Suddenly his teeth moved independently of each other — each one desperately trying to cling on to his gums like thirty-two white and shiny sailors hanging onto a raft. The second thing he felt was his brain hit the side of his skull. It knocked all thoughts out of his ears; minor reminiscences, childhood memories, worries, bits of conversation half remembered and half-forgotten squirmed about on the carpet eager to get back to where they belonged.

When his eyes had stopped spinning like a roulette wheel Joe turned and saw the faces of the two thugs who had been following him for the past week.

‘Don’t you guys ever give up?’ he said rubbing his jaw and feeling about for his nose.

‘We need a talk,’ the smaller man said.

Joe thought quickly. ‘Well, I’d love to but, I am really busy with this lovely lady for a moment, perhaps we could…’

There was a bang and Joe saw that the girl had fallen from the stool and lay on the floor in agony, a bullet in her arm. Her tears were low and visceral like the dying voice of a beast as it waits to be put out of its misery.

‘You seem to be free now,’ the man said, holding the still smoking pistol.

Joe swallowed hard, then threw his whiskey squarely into the eyes of the man with the gun, who recoiled in pain, letting fly a volley of bullets into the club. There was a commotion as girls and punters ran and ducked for cover. Joe grabbed one of the bar stools and lifted it above his head before bringing it down smartly on the back of the other thug who merely stood stock still. Joe jumped up on the bar and ran its entire length being shot at all the time. As he ducked the bullets missed him and hit bottles and glasses and customers about him.

He jumped down to where Lisa sat and screamed, ‘You know that flight to the Philippines? Well, perhaps I would be interested after all. Do you wanna meet by the docks at twelve tomorrow night? You mind if I go now, I’m er, rather busy.’

Lisa nodded and jumped as a bullet flew near to her face and entered the wall behind her. Joe jumped over the table and ran along the outskirts of the dance floor. He spun around the pole in the middle of the stage and exited out of the back, making his way through the crowds of half-naked girls getting ready to dance.

By the time the hoods had followed him he was out of the door and away into the Hong Kong night.