The Body Snatchers Affair

22

The day had turned overcast, the temperature several degrees colder, when Quincannon turned afoot into Fowler Alley. A sharp wind gusted along its nearly empty expanse, swirling refuse and grit from the pitted roadway. All of Chinatown had a desolate aspect today, like a place where most of the inhabitants have fled to avoid a plague. Very few Chinese were abroad; there seemed to be almost as many uniformed policemen walking the streets singly and in pairs, keeping the peace.

Quincannon made his way slowly along the first block, hands buried in the pockets of his Chesterfield, his shoulders hunched and his roving gaze studying the buildings with their grimy windows and indecipherable calligraphy. All seemed too small and closely packed to be the one he sought. He entered the second block. Halfway along he spied the one he should have noticed on his previous visit, one that was larger than the rest with an alleyway along one side that appeared wide enough to accommodate a carriage.

He crossed the cobbled street, stepped into the deserted alley. As he moved deeper into its gloomy expanse, he saw that it was a cul-de-sac that widened at its end, where an intersecting passage ran along the rear of the building. He hurried to the corner, poked his head around. Ah, yes! Parked in the shadows some twenty yards distant was a high-sided black wagon, unhitched and unattended, waiting.

Quincannon made his way to the rig along heavily rutted ground. One quick look up close was enough to confirm its purpose and that this was the place he’d come looking for.

The wagon was the Chinese version of a hearse, the building an undertaking parlor.

Just beyond the rig’s backside, a closed door was set into the wall — the parlor’s rear entrance. A tight little smile split Quincannon’s beard when he found the door neither barred nor latched. He eased it open with his left hand, sliding the Navy Colt from its holster with his right. The pale glow from a pair of hanging lanterns showed him a storage area and a corridor that led from it toward the front, both empty. From somewhere in that direction the singsong voices of two or three Chinese came to him, but back here there was only silence.

His eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom; he had no difficulty making his way across the room, the warped floorboards creaking from his weight but not loudly enough for the sounds to carry. He stepped into the corridor, tiptoeing. Halfway along, the sickish odor of formaldehyde dilated his nostrils, forcing him to breathe through his mouth.

The chamber into which he emerged, likewise lantern lit and empty, contained several coffins, most of them unadorned pine boxes designed for the lowborn, a few of the lacquered teakwood variety favored by the highborn and wealthy. A tapestry-covered doorway opened to the right. He moved ahead to the doorway, brushed the fabric aside.

Here was the embalming room, the source of the formaldehyde odor. He traversed the room past a metal table, an herb cabinet, a second cabinet in which needles, razors, and other tools of the mortician’s trade gleamed behind glass. The doorway at the far side was covered by a regular wooden door instead of a tapestry; when he opened it and stepped through, he found himself in a small enclosure so ice-chilled that his expelled breath showed vaporously. The little room contained nothing more than three slender storage vaults.

Sabina had been right, by Godfrey. He was sure of it even before he began opening the vaults.

The first was empty. The second was occupied by the husk of a very old Mandarin whose skin was so wrinkled he might have been mummified. The third was the right one.

The embalmed body here was also that of an old man, but one who had lived a much more pampered life. It was dressed in an intricately embroidered robe of gold silk; the cheeks had been powdered, the long queue neatly braided, and the thin drooping mustache trimmed. A parchment-paged prayerbook was still clutched between gnarled hands.

“Bing Ah Kee,” Quincannon said under his breath, “or I’ll eat my hat and Mock Quan’s for dessert.”

He slid the vault closed, retraced his steps to the doorway, swept the door open. And came face-to-face with a youngish Chinese wearing a stained leather apron over his blouse and pantaloons.

The youth let out a startled bleat, followed by an exclamation or epithet that threatened to escalate into a full-fledged cry of alarm. As he turned to flee, his voice just starting to rise, Quincannon fetched him a sharp rap with the barrel of the Navy at the spot where pigtail met scalp. Flight and cry both ended immediately.

Quincannon hopped over the fallen man, abandoning stealth in his run across the coffin room into the rear corridor, then across the storage area to the rear door. Behind him he could hear raised voices and the sounds of pursuit. He flung the door open, ducked into the alleyway. Squeezed past the hearse and raced to the side passage.

He was two steps into that narrow way when the bullet came within inches of puncturing a vital portion of his anatomy.

The crack of the pistol and its muzzle flash gave him a glimpse of the shooter’s location — close to the funeral parlor wall, just inside the passage from Fowler Alley — as he hurled himself sideways and down to the foul-smelling earth. He fetched up as a second bullet pierced the air above him, snap-fired an answering shot with his Navy. He’d had no time to aim, but his slug must have likewise come close to hitting its target — close enough to put an abrupt end to the ambush. The black-clad figure wheeled backward from the wall, disappeared around the corner into Fowler Alley.

Quincannon scrambled to his feet and launched into a stumbling pursuit. He emerged in time to see his quarry running diagonally across the narrow street some twenty rods distant, passing so close in front of an oncoming wagon that the horse reared in fright. The animal’s flashing hooves narrowly missed him as it buck-jumped forward. The assassin staggered, nearly fell before he regained his balance. In that moment Quincannon, on the run and closing the gap, had a clear look at the man’s face.

Mock Quan, in his highbinder’s guise.

Recognition stoked Quincannon’s wrath. Twice now that damned young hoodlum had tried to ventilate him, and by all the saints he was not going to have a third opportunity!

Mock Quan was no longer the coolly devious plotter; panic had him in its grip now. The fact that he’d made this assassination attempt in broad daylight — he must have been inside the parlor, gone back out the front way when the commotion started — was an indication of just how desperate he’d become. What scant few pedestrians there were scattered as he dashed up onto the sidewalk, his weapon, as was Quincannon’s, still in hand. Startled voices rose, a woman shrieked as if imitating a fire siren.

The chase had covered nearly half a block when Mock Quan barged into a sidewalk fruit and vegetable cart, toppling it and sending oranges, apples, cabbages, and assorted other comestibles rolling and thumping into the street. Though the collision staggered him again, he managed to stay on his feet. He cast a look over his shoulder, saw that his pursuer’s long-legged stride had halved the distance between them, and lurched sideways through a storefront doorway whose wind-whipped pennant identified it as a restaurant.

When Quincannon reached the eatery and flung himself inside, he immediately spied Mock Quan halfway across a long open dining area, just swinging around to face toward him. Mock Quan fired a wild shot, the lead pellet chipping wood from the wallboard two feet from the door as Quincannon dodged aside and dropped into a crouch. The handful of frightened patrons also threw themselves out of harm’s way, upsetting tables, filling the air with bowls of food and flying chopsticks. Quincannon held his fire; an answering shot would have been foolishly risky. Mock Quan didn’t fire again, either. Instead he spun and raced away into a narrow passage at the rear.

Quincannon zigzagged after him through wreckage and cowering diners. The passage led into a steamy kitchen peopled by more frightened Chinese, at the far end of which was a door through which the fugitive was just shouldering. The door debouched into another alley — an alley open at one end, closed at the other. Quincannon’s mouth twisted into a feral grin when he saw that his quarry had turned in the wrong direction.

Mock Quan’s step faltered when he realized he had boxed himself in. He cast a brief look over his shoulder. If he had halted, with the intention of triggering another round, Quincannon would have had no qualms about firing back in self-defense. As it was, the damned young scoundrel kept on running to the end of the alley, where a door was set into a two-story, pagoda-style building that formed the end of the cul-de-sac. As furious as Quincannon was, he had never yet shot a criminal from behind and never would, not even to wound. He charged ahead, drawing to within a dozen paces as Mock Quan yanked the door open and plunged through.

Quincannon followed, stepped cautiously into a tiny vestibule. Footfalls thudded on an ill-lighted staircase, then there was a metallic banging noise from above. He pounded up to a second-floor landing, where to his right he came upon another set of stairs that evidently led up from Fowler Alley. To his left was a doorway with a wrought-iron gate that had been shoved wide open — the banging sound he’d heard from below. Beyond the gate was a small, shadow-ridden anteroom, a perfect place for another ambush.

But Mock Quan wasn’t there; despite the blood-beat of exertion in his ears, Quincannon could make out the sounds of movement somewhere in a larger room that opened to his left, from which a reddish glow emanated. The bead curtain that separated the two spaces was still swaying and faintly clacking.

The noises stopped as he sidestepped to the curtain, carefully peered through. What he was looking at then was a temple, lit by several hanging red and gold lanterns. The pungent odor of incense came from a recessed side altar of red-painted wood with some sort of statue framed inside it. Lining one long sidewall were small altars, statues, teak tables, and other pieces of furniture, nearly all of them in red and gold. At the far end stood a pair of large carved altars, one that took up the entire wall, the other, fronted by a red prayer bench, set apart in the middle of the floor.

There was no sign of Mock Quan. Trapped and hiding somewhere, no doubt preparing to make his final stand. Under one of the altars, all of which were draped in embroidered cloths? No. Arranged atop the cloths were bowls of fruit and flowers, joss urns, other items Quincannon couldn’t identify, but he could see that none had been disturbed.

With his free hand he grasped several of the bead strands to keep them still as he eased through into the temple. Again to his left he spied a short ell that contained a red-painted platform supporting a drum and a heavy iron temple bell. This was where Mock Quan had gone. Quincannon sensed it even before the Chinese showed himself, coming up and out from behind the temple bell in such a violent hurry that he upset an ornamental altar standard, like a spear or pikestaff, and sent it clattering to the floor.

Mock Quan emitted a hissing noise loud enough to override the echoes created by the toppled standard, the pistol in his hand swinging up. Instinctively Quincannon ducked sideways, crouching again with his Navy on a bead. But Mock Quan failed to fire, though not for lack of intent. His weapon was either empty or it had jammed.

He stood stock-still for two or three seconds, his finger futilely jerking at the trigger, the gun wobbling in his grasp. Quincannon could have put two or three rounds into him during those moments, but a felon captured alive was always preferable to a felon delivered dead, even one as scurrilous as Mock Quan. Besides which, the young scoundrel may have been willing to desecrate a temple with gunfire, but John Frederick Quincannon wasn’t.

“Drop it and lift your hands, Mock Quan,” he said. “You’re done to a turn and you know it.”

The Chinese didn’t obey. He was still in the grip of his frenzy. He let out another shriek, hurled the weapon at Quincannon, and then charged him head down like a bull at a red cape.

Quincannon dodged the flying pistol, dodged the blind rush, and fetched the young rogue a solid blow on the temple with the Navy’s barrel. Obligingly Mock Quan went down and out in a heap, the slouch hat coming off to reveal his disgraced red mow-yung.

Quincannon stood looking down at him. He was no longer angry now that the chase and Mock Quan’s vicious lust for power in Chinatown had both ended in a satisfactory fashion; just weary and contemplative. The difference between despots such as Little Pete and would-be despots such as Mock Quan, he mused, was that while both were rapacious and reckless, the true tyrant was too arrogant to give himself up to either desperation or panic. The would-be tyrant was far easier to bring down because his arrogance was no more than a thin membrane over the shell of cowardice.

It was Mock Quan, not Little Pete, who had proved to be the craven son of a turtle.