Dragonfire

Seventeen

It was at least fifteen seconds before I could make myself move again. Then I set my teeth and knelt beside the body, not looking at his face anymore. His expression was the stuff of nightmares: yellowish eyes open and bulging like a frog’s; effeminate mouth twisted into a rictus, shiny with blood, so that it looked as though he was grinning.

He was wearing the brown leather jacket Kam Fong had told me about; I bunched it up away from his waist. There was no sign of the .357 Magnum or of any other weapon. If he always went armed, then whoever had killed him must have taken his puppy. Why?

Why any of this?

I laid the .38 on the floor, got out my handkerchief, and went through the jacket pockets. Pack of cigarettes, half of which were hand-rolled marijuana joints, some matches, and nothing else. Nothing in his Levi’s except half a roll of Velamints, a ring of keys, and a wallet. I used the handkerchief to slide the wallet out. Close to a hundred dollars in cash, a driver’s license, a couple of cards embossed with Chinese characters that were probably organizational membership cards, and a tattered, palm-sized address book. The book told me nothing; all the entries were in Chinese.

I put the wallet back into his pocket, caught up the .38, and shoved to my feet. The temple had become oppressive — too quiet, too red, heavy with a sense of desecration. And the incense, the faint underlying odor of death, was making me gag. Get out of here, I thought; you can’t think in here. And you don’t want to be around if anybody else shows up.

There was a walk-space between the two main altars; I detoured through it, thinking of Anna Chu, but the floor back there was empty. Out in the front alcove, I eased open the gate and stood listening. The stairwell and the rest of the building were hushed. I went down slowly, holding the gun pointed downward along my thigh. I did not put it away until I got to the street door at the bottom.

The sidewalk in front was deserted. I turned left, into the eddies of fog; the wet, brackish odor of it chased away the lingering vestiges of the incense. When I got to Washington I found a quiet-looking neighborhood tavern and went in and sat at the bar, away from the knot of other customers. I needed time to think, to make some sense out of Jimmy Quon’s murder, before I could decide on my next move.

Who had killed him? Somebody else in Hui Sip, another boo how doy? Revenge motive, maybe? Not likely. Convenient coincidence? I did not like that much. All right. It had to be tied into the shooting, and that meant one obvious candidate: the man who had hired Quon in the first place, Carl Emerson.

But why? A falling-out of some kind? That was possible, but why would it have happened in the Tien Hou Temple? It was an unlikely place for a rendezvous. Then why would Emerson go there? Why would Quon go there? Quon might have gone to see Anna Chu, if she did know something about Polly Soon’s death and if she had talked to Eberhardt and if Emerson was afraid she’d talk to somebody else... no, that didn’t add up. Polly Soon had been dead more than three weeks, the bribe to Eberhardt had taken place two weeks ago; if Emerson had been worried about a witness, he could have used Quon to find out about Anna Chu the same way both Eberhardt and I had, through Ming Toy, long before this. And maybe Emerson had found out about her, maybe Eberhardt himself had given him her name, and he’d bribed her, too.

Possible. But then I was right back to zero. Why had Quon gone to the temple tonight? Why was Emerson there? Yes, and where was Anna Chu?

Maybe there isn’t any Anna Chu, I thought.

The possibility came bubbling up out of my subconscious, and right behind it a whole bunch of other possibilities. I sat still, letting them take shape.

Suppose Ming Toy had lied to me earlier. Suppose she was the witness after all — she lived on the same floor as Polly Soon, she could have been home that night — and suppose Emerson had got to her and paid her off to keep her mouth shut. She’d be afraid of him, and even more afraid of Quon. She’d do anything Mau Yee told her to do. Like lying to me. Like giving me a phony name and sending me up to the temple.

A set up.

Sure, it made sense that way. I go to the Pink Dragon and ask for Ming Toy; somebody there, the bartender or the waitress who’d given me the sloe-eyed look, is a friend of the China Doll’s and has been alerted to contact her if a big guy with one arm in a sling comes around asking for her. Quon’s doing, probably; he’d want to know right away if I started sniffing around Ming Toy. So the friend gets in touch with her, and she gets in touch with Quon, and he tells her to send me to the Tien Hou. He knows I’m on my guard and he wants to throw me off it. What better place for an ambush than a temple, a house of worship?

Only something had screwed up the plan. What? Where did Emerson come into it?

Well, suppose he was with Quon when the call came from the China Doll. Or showed up just afterward, before Quon left for the temple. Okay, but why would he go along? He wouldn’t want to be present at the ambush; that wasn’t his style. He wanted me dead, yes, but—

Wait now, I thought. Does he want me dead?

If he wasn’t aware that I’d talked to Tedescu and Bexley, he might not suspect that I was on to him. All he’d know was that I was on to Jimmy Quon. Quon would have told him that much; but Quon couldn’t have told him I’d been asking questions about Emerson because he hadn’t known it. I had not used Emerson’s name when I confronted Lee Chuck, and it was only after the setup had been arranged tonight that I’d asked Ming Toy about Emerson.

The only people who knew about his connection with the death of Polly Soon, as far as Emerson was concerned, were Eberhardt and Quon and Ming Toy. He’d bought Ming Toy’s silence, and there was nothing he could do about Eberhardt. But Quon was another matter. In his eyes, Quon might have seemed much more dangerous to him than I was, particularly after the abortive attempt on my life last night. Suppose Emerson hadn’t sanctioned that; suppose he’d been upset about it when Quon told him what had happened, because he was afraid that kind of open warfare would blow the whole thing wide open. If I got Mau Yee before he got me, and Quon survived and talked, Emerson was in the soup.

But if Quon was out of the picture, it would eliminate one major threat and neutralize the one I presented. The way Emerson would see it, I’d have nowhere to go; maybe I’d back off and maybe I’d keep looking, but with Quon dead it wouldn’t matter either way. Ming Toy was in his pocket, and he’d just have to hope Eberhardt died without coming out of his coma. There were no other links, no other way for me to tie on to him.

It was panic reasoning, but Emerson had to be panicked by this time. Trying to burn his bridges was something he might have opted for. If that was it, then it was clear enough what had gone down tonight. He’d followed Mau Yee to the temple, made some excuse for showing up, and then used the altar standard to crush Quon’s skull when his back was turned. By the time I got there, he was long gone.

Gone where? Would he go after Ming Toy, try to burn that bridge too? He might think the money he’d given her was enough to ensure her silence, he might not; it all depended on how panicked he was, how homicidal. He could be out looking for her. Or he could have gone home to Burlingame. Or, hell, he could be anywhere by now.

So what was my move? I could go looking for Ming Toy myself, but even if I could find her, it would be an exercise in futility if Emerson had decided to leave her alone. No, it was Emerson I had to find, not the China Doll. Two choices, then. One was Burlingame, but I did not want to drive all the way down there, not yet. There was a chance he was still in Chinatown, and if he was, I knew one place he might have gone — to establish an alibi, if for no other reason, in order to keep the Hui Sip from looking his way when they learned Jimmy Quon was dead.

Lee Chuck’s gambling parlor.

Ross Alley was deserted, choked with fog, when I came into it off Jackson Street. My shoes made hollow, muffled clicks on the damp pavement; there were no other sounds except for the whisper of cars drifting up the hill behind me, the tinny beat of music from the pair of bars down the way. A neon sign over one of the bars, half hidden, gave the mist a reddish tint, as if it had been stained with blood. Blobs of pale light marked the windows of the second-floor bundle shops, and there were night-lights burning in a couple of the small stores — one of them Lee Chuck’s herb shop.

I stepped into the alcove there, peered through the door glass; there was nothing to see. And nothing to see in the second-floor windows along the alley: no sign of a lookout. I leaned over finally and banged on the adjacent door, the one that hung crooked in its frame. Then I got the .38 out and flattened back against the shop door, away from the crooked one. And waited.

Pretty soon the peephole opened; I could hear it and I could see the faint outspill of light just before the guy in there filled the hole with his eye. But he could not see me where I was standing. The light reappeared as he pulled his head back; then the lid came back over the hole and shut it off. The door stayed closed.

I reached out and whacked it again, using the gun this time. The doorman repeated his peephole ritual, and when he still didn’t see anything it annoyed him. I heard him mutter something softly in Chinese.

Come on, I thought. Open the goddamn door.

He opened it. The lock scraped, the door edged inward; he poked his head out. I moved over, wedged my shoulder against the door, and crowded into him, through the opening and inside. He made a startled grunting noise, staggered, and caught himself with one hand on the wall. I went right up against him and jammed the gun in his stomach.

“Make a move,” I said, “make a sound, I’ll put a bullet in you.”

He was young, brawny, with a wispy beard and not much chin. He didn’t show me any fear, but he didn’t move or speak, either. The door was still open; I backed off from him a couple of steps and pushed it shut with my foot. We were in a small foyer, maybe ten feet square, lighted by a low-wattage bulb screwed into a wall socket. Under the light was a chair and a tiny table with some Chinese magazines on it. A flight of steep stairs stood opposite; I couldn’t see all the way to the top, but I could hear voices from up there, the steady clicking of coins and tiles and poker chips.

“Upstairs,” I said to the doorman. “Move.”

He stayed where he was, watching me through eyes narrowed down to slits.

I thumbed the hammer back on the .38. That made up his mind for him; he shoved away from the wall and went over to the stairs. I lowered the hammer, put the gun with my hand around it into my coat pocket, and then moved up behind him and jabbed the muzzle into the small of his back. We went up crowded together like a couple of old friends.

At the top there was a landing with a blank wall at the end of it; the parlor was on the left, beyond a wide doorway. I prodded the doorman inside. Big room, blue with smoke; floored in linoleum, filled with imitation leather furniture, old-fashioned smoking stands, and maybe a dozen gaming tables. The tables were all covered in white felt and each of them had a silver-shaded lamp hanging low over it. Half were fan-tan layouts with nothing on them but mounds of little brass coins that had square holes in the middle, presided over by housemen with ivory-handled rakes. There were two four-seat Mah-Jongg tables cluttered with dice and green-and-white tiles; the rest were six-sided poker tables. Maybe forty people occupied the room, all men and all but two of them Chinese.

Neither of the Caucasians was Carl Emerson.

Most of the gamblers were grouped around the fan-tan layouts, probably because fan-tan was a simple game and required no particular skill; the houseman used his rake to pull coins two at a time off the pile, and the betting was on whether one or two would remain at the end. The two white guys were playing poker. Both of them gave me cursory glances and then looked back at their cards. The Chinese were more curious; some of them stopped talking and their gazes lingered on me, wary and speculative.

But I did not pay any attention to them. I was looking at the rear of the room, where a glass-fronted cubicle spanned the entire wall. That was the bank, and through the glass I could see Lee Chuck sitting on a high stool behind a counting desk, like an Oriental despot surveying his domain.

He was bent forward in an attitude of concentration, horn-rimmed glasses pushed down on the tip of his nose, writing something in an oversized ledger; he hadn’t seen me yet. I nudged the doorman with my shoulder to get him moving again, and we went along the side wall past a couple of the fan-tan layouts, toward the cubicle. We were halfway there when Chuck raised his head. I saw him stiffen, but that was his only reaction; he kept on sitting on his stool, staring out as we approached.

There was a door on the near side of the cubicle, open and guarded by another young, heavyset Chinese, this one in a business suit. He was probably armed; not all of the bulges under the suit jacket were muscles. He was watching us, too, with the same wary speculation as the players.

In an undertone I said to the doorman, “We’re going inside. Tell the guard Lee Chuck is expecting me. In English.”

He didn’t give any indication that he’d heard me. I was pretty tensed up by this time; I did not want to have to use the gun, and I wouldn’t use it unless it became a matter of self-preservation, but if the doorman or the guard made trouble, somebody was going to get hurt just the same. I was in a mood to break the place up if that was what it took to get to Chuck.

But there was no trouble. When we reached the cubicle the doorman said what I’d told him to say, and the guard looked me up and down and then glanced in at Chuck for confirmation. Maybe Chuck sensed the potential for violence, or maybe the house was having a big night and he didn’t want to disrupt the gaming, or maybe he was just curious; in any case, all he did was nod. The guard stepped aside, and the doorman and I went in through the open doorway.

Lee Chuck got off his stool as I elbowed the door shut. The glass wall was fairly thick; the babble of voices in the parlor receded. The doorman said something in Chinese that sounded like an apology. Chuck didn’t look at him; behind the horn-rims his eyes poked at my face like rough stones.

I said, “I’ve got a gun in my pocket. I can show it to you if you want.”

“No. I believe you.”

“Good. Just so you understand I’m not playing games.”

“What is it you wish here?”

“I’m looking for Carl Emerson,” I said.

“Emerson, sir?”

“No more bullshit, Chuck; I’m tired of bullshit. I want Emerson and I’m going to get him. If I have to walk on you to do it, I will.”

He let a small silence build. The doorman had gone over to a big black-and-gold safe and was leaning against it, looking sullen. On a table behind the desk, a Persian cat lay sprawled on its side; it seemed to be watching me too.

Chuck said finally, “Why do you want this man Emerson?”

“You know why I want him. But there’s another reason, too. When I tell you what it is I think you’ll agree to help me find him.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. He murdered Jimmy Quon tonight. At the Tien Hou Temple.”

Chuck blinked, just once, the first time he had ever blinked in my presence; it was about as much indication of startlement as anyone would ever get out of him. He didn’t say anything.

I glanced out through the glass. The heavyset guard was half-turned so that he could watch what was going on in here; some of the gamblers were still rubbernecking. It made me uneasy, being on display like this. The longer I stayed around here, the more chance there was of things stirring up into a skirmish.

“What we’re going to do,” I said to Chuck, “we’re going to walk out of here and go downstairs to the herb shop. There’s more privacy down there.”

“And if I do not agree?”

“You’ll agree. I’ve got a gun, remember?”

“You would not shoot me in front of so many witnesses.”

“No? I’m liable to do just about anything right now. Try me and see.”

We matched stares for maybe thirty seconds. It was a will thing: he was trying to gauge whether or not his was stronger and he could make me back down. He must have decided that wasn’t likely because he shrugged and said, “As you wish. Perhaps it is best that we do talk.”

“When we go out, tell the kid at the door you’re leaving for a few minutes. Use English so I know that’s what you’re saying. Make it casual; we’re just a couple of guys going off to discuss business.”

He dipped his head, came over to the door without hurry. I made a motion to the doorman, and the three of us went out into the parlor. Chuck repeated my words to the guard, who said something in Chinese; Chuck answered him in English, saying, “Yes, everything is fine.” The guard seemed satisfied. Two-thirds of the men in the room followed us with their eyes as we filed out to the stairs, but none of them moved from their chairs. On the way down, I heard their conversation pick up and the renewed clatter of coins and tiles and chips. That was a good sign, but I stopped the three of us in the foyer for half a minute, just to make sure. Nobody appeared on the stairs.

Outside, Chuck unlocked the door to the herb shop and we went in. He led the way through the bead curtains at the rear, into a combination office and storage room. It contained a teak desk, and he sat down behind it and immediately rattled off half a dozen sentences in Chinese. The doorman moved over to a crate of some kind and sat on it and looked at the wall.

“I told him deafness is a virtue,” Chuck said to me. “We can speak freely now.”

“I’ve been speaking freely. It’s your turn.”

He made a steeple out of his hands and postured them against his lower lip. “Is it true that Jimmy Quon is dead?”

“It’s true. I found him myself, a little more than an hour ago.”

“At the temple of Tien Hou?”

“That’s right. With his head bashed in.”

“I do not like that,” Chuck said. “A place of worship... such a crime is a sacrilege.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“How do you know Carl Emerson is responsible?”

“He hired Quon to kill Lieutenant Eberhardt; you already know that. What he’s doing is burning his bridges. You understand what that means?”

“I am familiar with the expression.”

“All right. Does Emerson know you know he hired Quon?”

“No.”

“Where did you hear it? From Quon?”

“Yes.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“Not specifically.”

“Then as far as Emerson is concerned, Quon and one other person besides Eberhardt were the only ones who could link him to the shooting. He bought off the other person, but Quon was a different story.”

“Who is this other person?”

“You don’t need to know that. It’s not important. The point is, Quon was making trouble because I pushed him into it. I suppose you know he tried to ambush me last night at my flat?”

“No, I did not know that.”

“Well, he did. And Emerson didn’t like it; he doesn’t know I’m on to him, and he was afraid I’d get Quon before Quon got me — afraid his name would come out into the open. Quon set up another ambush tonight; that was what he was doing at the temple. And what I was doing there, but I didn’t know that until afterward. Emerson found out about it and went there and murdered Quon. You see?”

“Yes,” he said. “I see.”

I moved over to the desk, rested a hip against it. “Was Mau Yee anything to you? A close friend?”

“No. An acquaintance.”

“But he was Chinese and he was a member of Hui Sip. You wouldn’t want to see his killer get off free, would you? A Caucasian?”

“Perhaps not.”

“Unless Emerson is a friend of yours. Is he?”

“No.”

“So you tell me where I can find him and I’ll take it from there. That way, we’re both satisfied. Hui Sip, too.”

“Do you intend to kill Mr. Emerson?”

“I don’t know what I intend to do with him. I’ll figure that out when the time comes.”

“Perhaps you will decide to turn him over to the authorities.”

“That’s a possibility.”

“If that were to happen, would you give them my name?”

“No. Not as long as you’re cooperative.”

“I would not like to be harassed by the police,” he said.

“I’m not interested in you, Chuck. Now that Jimmy Quon is dead, the only person I’m interested in is Emerson.”

I watched him think. At length he said, “Will you believe me if I tell you I do not know where you can find Mr. Emerson?”

“If it’s the truth.”

“It is. I do not know where he is. He lives in Burlingame; perhaps you should go to his home.”

“I know where he lives. But there’s a chance he might still be here in Chinatown. He didn’t come around to the parlor tonight?”

“No. He did not.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“Several days ago.”

“Upstairs?”

“Yes.”

“How often did he come here to gamble?”

“Once or twice a month.” Chuck’s mouth crooked sardonically. “He seldom lost. Mr. Emerson is quite a good poker player.”

“Are you the one who introduced him to Jimmy Quon?”

“Not directly so. Jimmy worked for me on occasion. Mr. Emerson is generous with gratuities when he wins; they struck up an acquaintanceship.”

“When did Quon tell you Emerson had hired him? Before the shooting or afterward?”

“Afterward. Jimmy was afflicted with a loose tongue.”

“If you’d known about it beforehand, what would you have done?”

A small shrug. “Would you have me say I would have attempted to prevent it?”

“No,” I said. The anger was plain in my voice; I wanted him to hear it. “You wouldn’t have done anything. It wasn’t any of your business, was it?”

“My business is herbs,” he said. “And games of chance. I do not concern myself with the folly of others.”

“Very practical. You’re a sweetheart, you are.”

“You may think of me what you wish. What you do about it is another matter.”

“The same thing goes from my point of view,” I said. “That’s another reason why we’re having this talk. Where do I stand with you and Hui Sip, now that Mau Yee is dead?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Do you fear tong vengeance?”

“Not fear it, no. But I’d like to know what to expect. If Hui Sip considers me an enemy, then I’ll have to make it reciprocal. I’ll have to go after them — and you — the same way I’m going after Emerson.”

Chuck smiled faintly; it did not come anywhere near his eyes. “That would be most foolish. You could not hope to succeed.”

“Maybe not, but I’d have to try. And I could probably make things pretty uncomfortable for you before it was over. Neither one of us wants that to happen. So how do I stand?”

“I cannot speak for Hui Sip. I can only speak as one of its elders.”

“And?”

“I have no particular quarrel with you. Your difficulties here were with Jimmy Quon — a personal matter. I do not concern myself with personal matters any more than I concern myself with human folly.”

“You think the other elders will feel the same way?”

“Possibly.”

“You might want to talk to them about it,” I said. “Just to keep the peace.”

“I will consider it.”

“You do that.” I backed off from the desk. “This has been an interesting little chat. Wouldn’t you say so, Chuck?”

“Most interesting.”

I kept on backing until I reached the bead curtains. When I got there he said, “One final word before you leave. It is my wish that we shall never again have the pleasure of such a stimulating conversation. In view of that wish, my humble opinion is that you would be wise to avoid Chinatown in the future. Were I you, I would not even come here to eat in any of our excellent restaurants.”

“I hear you,” I said. “You leave me alone, I leave you alone. The next time I want Chinese food, I’ll go somewhere out on the avenues.”

“Then I wish you well in your search for Mr. Emerson. Good night, sir. And good-bye.”

I backed through the curtains, across the shop to the entrance. Chuck and the doorman stayed where they were. When I opened the door my hand was shaking a little; I thought that it was a good thing I’d had it in my pocket the whole time, around the gun where Chuck couldn’t see it.

Sometimes, like with the poker players upstairs, you can run a dangerous bluff and get away with it.