Slice

HONG KONG (1977)

“They know where she is,” Eichord said to the smaller man beside him at the rail of the ferry.

“Yeah.” Jimmie Lee nodded. “I ‘magine so. You have to understand the way these people think. This ain't Chinatown, Jack. This is a"—he searched for the right word—"whole world with a set of laws and rules and traditions you can't begin to realize."

“Try me."

“You're not just an outsider here, coining in to investigate a murder in Chinatown. With all the aura that goes with any policeman in the States. All the force and backing and cultural influences. But here"—he shook his head at the hopelessness of it—"they see you as nothing. Or me. Any cop from the Occidental world. Our ways have no meaning to these people, so our laws don't either."

“Yeah, well, there's law and then there's right and wrong. This woman is a killer—and she's murdered again and again."

“Thing is, Jack, it's a society that takes care of its own. And she is"—again Eichord felt him trying for a way to put the disparate values into currency a Westerner could spend—"connected to something that is bigger than anything you've ever come up against. No puny Mafia or organized religion or even philosophy can touch this thing the Chan woman was. She is"—and he said a Chinese name—"which means Shadow Clan. But that is not what it means at all."

“Yeah?"

“You don't give a shit, right?"

“Right. I don't shiv a git. I ain't goin’ back without her."

“Right."

“Not after coming this far. Not after having my chain yanked by those asshole lawyers. Not after fightin’ ‘em even to ARREST much less fucking go after a twenty-year-old prosecution. And then get all THAT rammed through and then track her this far and then lose her murderous old butt because she's, uh—"

“Shadow Clan,” he supplied in a quiet voice.

“Frankly, Scarlett, I don't care if the bitch is Knights of Columbus. We're going to take her down."

Jimmie Lee stood looking down at the water beneath them. “You just don't understand. To you everything is cut and dried. Right and wrong."

“Yep. In this case that's what it is."

“Law and order. Rules and regs. Bad guys and good guys. Black hats and white hats."

“I know if a woman is killing little kids and a husband she deserves to fall no matter how connected she is."

“By rights...” He paused. “By rights I shouldn't have pursued this once I found out she was in the thing.” He looked at Eichord. “That's what makes it all so impossible for an outsider. Even ME, as Western as I am, as far removed from this culture as you can get, James Lee, the all-American chink, I'm connected to her. If you want to look at this thing theoretically."

“How so?"

“Literally, in that my father was her brother. My brother too."

“Huh?” Eichord was shaking his head.

“All the clans are interconnected. By the secret societies—the triads they call ‘em now. The brotherhood."

“The triads are CRIME societies. Your family isn't part of that.” Lee said nothing. “Right?"

“The triads back home are one thing. The triads here go back thousands of years. Before they were the triads the brotherhood was a sort of caste system of warriors. My father was a descendant of that. My older brother chose to emulate that life-style. I was never a part of that. I wasn't raised here, as you know. I never even knew my father, and my family now regard me an outsider—a stranger. I'm not part of their world.” He tried to explain about what his father had been, about the codes and systems that had been a part of the old ways.

“Are you telling me your father was a warrior like a ninja—if I'm saying the word right?"

“No. But you're on the right track. The ninja were like our early mercenaries,” he began, “but there is a vast difference between the Japanese and Chinese cultures.” He told Eichord about the codes and castes of feudal Japan, and their concept of Shugendo. How men of honor formed an elite, professional warrior class. Fearless, militaristic, practicing old martial arts and sciences of violence, purity, and austerity. Building lives on a dying caste system. He told him about the code of Bushido. The way of the warrior. The ninjitsu. The ancient ways. He compared the Shadow clan to the feudal Kunoichi, with their secret death vows. He linked that world to the children of the samurai who still practice the ways of the warrior class in Japan. And to the Japanese Yakuza.

“We have the brotherhood in China. What you've learned about the triads, the crime societies in America, and here"—he pointed—"is only the cutting edge of an ancient system.” He tried to explain to Jack how all the things he had told him about were Johnny-come-lately descendants of what had evolved from China centuries before. “What you know about the Bamboo Gang, or the Dragons or whatever—the Hui Dao Meng—these are only one element within a brotherhood that embraces every imaginable religious belief, cultural aspect and code. Some are bad. Some are good. But they are interlocked by history and"—he searched for some way to say it—"attitude, you know?"

“And your brother is part of this?"

“Yes."

“Can your brother find her for us?"

“Of course.” Lee said. “If he will."

“Then let's give it a shot."

“That's what we're doing. He'll talk to me. But he is very orthodox in his beliefs. I think I know what he will say.” Lee stared ahead as they approached the Kowloon peninsula.

When the ferry reached the other side, Lee's brother met them. There was a cold exchange of greetings. They did not embrace. The entire conversation was in Chinese and it became very heated. The whole time he was in his presence Lee's brother never acknowledged that Eichord was there except when Jimmie had first introduced them and Jack heard his name; the brother glanced at him and perhaps gave a slight nod of his head. To Eichord, who would never forget this man, he would never be Lee's brother. He would think of him only as The Man in Kowloon.

Lee and Eichord left, eventually, with the woman's whereabouts. Lee had, he said, blackmailed his brother. “I told him about the crib deaths. That by sheltering her they were protecting the worst kind of human filth—a child killer. That's what did it. He says anything there was between us is gone. We are no longer brothers. I've forced him to compromise his honor. And so forth."

“I'm sorry, man.” But he wasn't at all. Not yet. That would come later.

“Well"—he said, tilting his head—"if that's the way he wants it, that's all right. He never really thought of me as a brother anyway. I was the American cop to him.” Lee looked at Eichord. He wants us to come before the brotherhood as payment for obtaining the information. I'll have to go. You don't."

“What do you mean, come before the brotherhood?"

“He wants us to see what giving this information has cost him. He's going to...” And Lee started to choke up.

Eichord didn't understand what the hell was going on but tried to console his friend. “I don't understand. What do you mean, Jimmie? What HAS it cost him? Why does the brotherhood have to find out?"

“They know.” He wiped at his eyes in anger as much as sadness. “They already know. He told them what I wanted. He said,” he tried to say something but started crying again. He stopped himself, “He wanted me to learn the cost of my actions by coming to him for this information. He wanted me to know what price he would pay."

“What do you mean?"

“He is going to vow his silence tonight."

“Yeah?"

“The crazy son of a bitch,” Jimmie said, his eyes filling with tears, “he's going to cut off his own tongue.” Some kind of a joke.

“Come on, man.” Eichord wanted to laugh in his face.

“No. He could not live with himself if he didn't. It is his way of preserving his honor. He'll do it."

Eichord could say nothing. He simply stared at Lee in disbelief while the man told him about the implacable, ritualistic, unswerving code by which his brother lived. His self-discipline, dedication, loyalty to the clan.

“He has no choice. It's either that or suicide."

“But shit, man, that's nuts."

“Not to him. Self-mutilation is part of the Shadow Clan culture. It is quite common in secret societies like you'll find throughout Asia and Europe. Even in America you have the penitents."

“Nobody cuts their tongue off, pard."

“You've just led a sheltered life, buddy. In the old country,” he said, gesturing vaguely, “they used to cut their fucking BALLS off."

“Eh?"

“Didn't you ever hear of the castrati? The castrators? The Skoptsi of old Russia? Shit, Jack, they believed if you wanted to worship you had to bear the Seal of God. The lesser seal was when you took a knife or razor and sliced your testicles open and ate your goddamn nuts."

“JESUS."

“The greater seal was when you reached down there and took the ole pole itself.” He wiped at his face. “Now that took some balls,” he said, without humor.

“None of this is happening."

“It's happening, all right. Welcome to fucking China, baby."

Eichord and Lee found the woman and made the arrest easily. She was just an old woman. She didn't look like a murderer. So often they don't. The thing he'd always remember about her was when she was interrogated. She admitted the husband had been greased for the insurance money: $75,000 was a fortune back in 1957. But why the baby girl and then, in the later marriage, her own baby boy? She told Eichord, through Lee in part, that she'd grown tired of trying to find baby-sitters. It made as much sense as anything else about the case.

That night, with Mrs. Chan safely under lock and key, Jack Eichord went with James Lee. It was one of the rare occasions when outsiders would be permitted to witness such a ritual. It was admission by invitation only. It was a scene that Eichord would dream about a hundred bloody times, no matter how hard he tried not to. His dream of the Man in Kowloon.