The Lonely Sea: Collected Short Stories

MacHinery and the Cauliflowers

'I find you well, Mr MacHinery?' Ah Wong asked courteously. He pronounced the name as 'Mackinelli' and although ten years in the Far East had accustomed MacHinery to this heathenish mispronunciation of a legendary Scottish clan name that ranked in antiquity with anything the Almanac de Gotha had to offer, nevertheless his proud Celtic soul winced whenever he heard it. Still, he reflected charitably, it was hardly Ah Wong's fault. Some parts of the world were still emerging from the caves, so to speak. Primitive, barbaric — in fact, MacHinery conceded generously to himself, very like the MacHinerys of a few centuries ago when the more pressing business activities of cattle-thieving and hacking opposing clansmen to pieces had left them little time for the more cultural pursuits of life. But twenty intervening generations had had their civilizing effect…

MacHinery fingered a beer bottle scar received in a political debate in Glasgow many years previously, and smiled tolerantly.

'I'm weel enough, Mr Wong. Fair to middling, you ken.'

'You do not look it,' Ah Wong said slowly. 'You are pale but you perspire freely. You perspire but you shiver and shake. And your eyes are not the eyes of a well man.' He turned to a wall cabinet and poured amber liquid into a tumbler. 'A well-tried specific from your own homeland, Mr MacHinery.'

'Och, man, it was chust what I was needing.' MacHinery drank deeply, shuddered violently and coughed until the tears rolled down his cheeks. Ah Wong looked at him with suddenly narrowed eyes. Less than a month had elapsed since two sailors had inconsiderately dropped dead after drinking, in one of his emporiums, a bottle of what had purported to be proprietary Scotch and had it not been for the prompt midnight transfer of a couple of barrels of wood alcohol to the go-down of a cherished enemy and the sending to the authorities of a letter signed 'Pro Bono Publico', he might have been in trouble indeed. As it was, any adverse reaction to his Scotch now struck deep at Ah Wong's sensitive soul.

'You do not like my whisky, Mr MacHinery?' he asked slowly.

'Not like it?' MacHinery coughed. 'Hoots, mon, it's perfect, chust perfect.' MacHinery had, in fact, the misfortune to be allergic to any type of whisky but the part of the hard-drinking Clydeside engineer was no more difficult to sustain than the phoney accent that went with it. 'Chust a touch of fever, Mr Wong, that's all.' Experience had long shown him that no one cared whether the fever in question was chickenpox or the Black Plague.

'So.' Ah Wong relaxed a minute fraction, the most he ever permitted himself to relax. 'And you are the new chief engineer of the GRASSHOPPER, Mr MacHinery?'

'For ma sins,' MacHinery said bitterly. 'A filthier, rustier, auld bucket of bolts — '

'Beggars cannot be choosers, Mr MacHinery,' Ah Wong said coldly. He waved a piece of paper. 'And you are a beggar. According to this letter of introduction from my good friend Benabi, you'd been in the Djakarta gutters for weeks before he gave you this job. Even your chief engineer's ticket is a forgery — your real one was taken from you.'

'Aye, and a grosser miscarriage of justice — '

'Be quiet,' Ah Wong said contemptuously. 'The GRASSHOPPER'S cargo has been unloaded and cleared through customs?'

'Aye. Not thirty minutes ago.' MacHinery shivered again and stirred restlessly in his seat. Sweat poured down his face. Ah Wong affected not to notice.

'Good. You will have been given a private copy of the manifest.' He stretched out his hand. 'Let me see it.'

'Well noo, chust wait a minute,' MacHinery said cunningly. 'You ken who I am. The letter tells you. But I don't ken who YOU are. How do I know you ken one another? You and Benabi, I mean?'

'Fool,' Ah Wong said shortly. 'I, one of the biggest food importers in Malaya? Benabi, of Benabi's Tjitarum's truck farms, the biggest suppliers in Indonesia? Not know each other? Idiot!'

'There's nae call to be personal,' MacHinery said doggedly. 'I hae ma orders, Mr Wong. From Mr Benabi himself. You must match this, he says.' He drew a piece of rice paper from his wallet and showed Ah Wong a curious ink marking, smaller than a thumbnail.

'Of course,' Ah Wong smiled. He twisted a signet ring on his middle finger, pressed it on an ink pad and made an identical mark on the paper. 'The seal of the broken junk. We have the only two such signet rings in the world. Benabi and I — we are brothers.'

'You wouldna think it,' MacHinery said candidly. 'He's a tall, well built, good-looking cove, whereas you — '

'I spoke metaphorically,' Ah Wong said coldly. 'The manifest, Mr MacHinery.'

'Aye.' MacHinery rose, opened the Gladstone bag he'd left in the middle of the floor of Ah Wong's sumptuous apartment, fished out a manifest and handed it over.

'Why the bag?' Ah Wong asked in idle curiosity.

'Why the bag?' MacHinery echoed bitterly. 'The GRASSHOPPER'S two nights in Singapore and if you think I'm going to spend them aboard yon bloody flea-ridden, cockroach-infested hellhole, you — '

'Silence!' Ah Wong opened the manifest. 'Ah, yes. Sides of beef, one hundred. Of pork, two hundred. Bananas, onions, beans, peppers, eggplants, butter. Yes, yes, all seems there. Best Bandung cauliflowers, eighty crates. Lettuce, fifty. Yes, all in order.' He broke off, looked thoughtfully at MacHinery and said in Cantonese: 'I am going to kill you, my friend.'

'Whit was that?' MacHinery asked blankly.

'Nothing.' Ah Wong smiled. 'I thought you might be a linguist.' He picked up a telephone and spoke quickly in Cantonese, referring to the manifest from time to time and ticking off items with a pencil, then replaced the phone. He smiled again. 'Just ordering up some meat and vegetables from my go-down, Mr MacHinery. From your own cargo.'

'And the very cream of the crop, I'll be bound,' MacHinery said bitterly, 'Nae bloody flies on you Chinese.'

Ah Wong smiled yet again. The kind of smile, MacHinery thought grimly, that you might expect to see on the face of a spider when a particularly juicy fly landed on its web. Ah Wong, for his part, thought it unnecessary to inform MacHinery that he was of pure Armenian stock and had changed his name partly for business reasons in a Chinese-dominated field of commerce, but mainly because he regarded the honourable name of his ancestors as sullied beyond redemption by its frequent inclusion in Interpol files throughout the world.

'No need to be bitter, Mr MacHinery,' Ah Wong said pleasantly. 'I thought you might like to stay for dinner with me.'

'Dinner?' After a brief struggle, a conciliatory smile appeared on MacHinery's face. 'Well, noo, Mr Wong, that is kind of you. Very, very kind. I'll be honoured to accept.' MacHinery hadn't sat down again, and now he paced the room restlessly, the sheen of sweat bathing his entire face. He was shivering more violently than ever and one side of his face had begun to twitch.

'You are not well, I'm afraid,' Ah Wong said again.

'I'm fine.' A pause. 'Dammit, no, I'm no'. I'll hae to go oot for a minute to get some medicine. I–I know the cure for this.' He gulped. 'I feel sick, Mr Wong, awful sick. Where's your bathroom? Quick.'

'Through that door there.'

MacHinery left abruptly and closed the door behind him. He turned on both basin taps, pulled the lever that operated the toilet cistern and used the sound of running water to drown the slight clicking noise made as he lifted the Venetian blind that shut out the hot Malayan sun.

Parked on the opposite side of the street below was a dark van with blue-tinted side windows and a ventilator on top. The ventilator was motionless. MacHinery thrust out a hand, waved briefly, withdrew his hand, waited until he saw the ventilator revolve just once, then lowered the blind as cautiously as he had raised it. He turned off the taps and went back into Ah Wong's apartment.

'You feel better, Mr MacHinery?' It was no light task for Ah Wong to get concern into both voice and face but he made it after a struggle.

'I feel bloody awful,' MacHinery said candidly. He was shaking now like a broken bed-spring and his teeth were beginning to chatter. 'I must go oot, Ah Wong. I must. Ma medicine. I'll no be but minutes.'

'Any medicine you care to name, Mr MacHinery, I have it. Among other things, I'm the wholesale supplier to many chemists' shops.'

'You'll no' find the medicine I need in any bloody chemist's shop,' MacHinery said violently. 'A jiffy, Mr Wong. That's all I'll be.' He headed for the doorway, then stopped abruptly. There was a man standing there. By courtesy definition, MacHinery thought, he might be called a man. He looked more like the early prototype of the Neanderthal caveman, only bigger. Much bigger. He had shoulders like a bull, hands like two bunches of bananas and a brutalized moronic face that might have been carved from granite by a power-chisel.

'John,' Ah Wong introduced him. 'My secretary. I don't think he wants you to leave, Mr MacHinery.'

'Aye. Your secretary. No mistaking the intellectual type, is there?' MacHinery shuddered violently again and dropped his voice. 'One side, laddie.'

'Don't be foolish,' Ah Wong said sharply. 'He can break you in half. Come now, Mr MacHinery. Just sit down and take your coat off. Madness to wear it in this heat and sweating as you are.'

'I'm allergic to sunlight,' MacHinery said between clamped teeth. 'Never take it off. One side, you.'

'There's no sunlight in here,' Ah Wong said softly.

'I must get oot,' MacHinery shouted. 'I must. Damn you, Wong, you don't know what you're doing to me.' He made a bull rush for the doorway and tried to dive under John's outstretched arms. His head and shoulders smashed into a five-barred gate. At least, it felt like a five-barred gate. A couple of power shovels closed over MacHinery's upper arms, lifted him effortlessly off his feet and bore him back to the armchair in the centre of the room.

'You are extremely foolish,' Ah Wong said sadly. 'I want to be your friend, Mr MacHinery. And I want you to be mine. I think, Mr MacHinery, that you can offer me what a man in my position so very rarely acquires — an unswerving allegiance that neither money nor oaths could buy.'

MacHinery struggled futilely in the grip of giant hands. He said in a strangled voice: 'I'll kill you for this, Wong.'

'Kill me? Kill your doctor? Kill the one man who can give you the medicine you need?' Ah Wong smiled. 'You are singularly lacking in intelligence. Take his jacket off, John.'

John removed MacHinery's jacket. He did it by the simple process of ripping the white lining down the back middle seam and pulling off the two separate halves.

'Now the shirt sleeves,' Ah Wong murmured.

John twitched his fingers, the buttons burst from their moorings and the sleeves were pulled up beyond MacHinery's elbows. For a long moment all three men stared down at the inside of MacHinery's forearms. Both of them were covered by a mass of pale-purplish spots, none of them more than half an inch distant from its fellows. Ah Wong's face remained as immobile as ever. He bent over MacHinery's Gladstone bag, flung a shirt to one side and picked up a narrow rectangular box. He slid a catch, opened the wooden lid and extracted a hypodermic syringe, holding it by the plunger.

'So very conveniently to hand,' he said gently. 'Your medicine goes in this, doesn't it, MacHinery? And there's hardly a place left in your arms for you to use it, is there? A junky, Mr MacHinery. A dope addict. And now you're climbing the walls, as they say, because you're overdue your next shot. Isn't that it, Mr MacHinery?'

'I'll kill you for this, Ah Wong.' MacHinery's voice was weak, mechanical. He was jerking violently in his seat, 'So help me God, I'll kill you.' He arched himself stiffly in his armchair, his eyes showing white, his mouth strained opened. 'I'll kill you,' he croaked.

'Kill me?' Ah Wong asked quietly. 'Kill the goose that lays the golden eggs? Kill your doctor, as I said before? Kill the doctor who not only recognizes all the symptoms but can prescribe the medicine for it? Prescribe it and supply it. Supply it now. Heroin, is it not, Mr MacHinery?'

John's grip eased, MacHinery struggled to his feet and gripped Ah Wong by the arms. 'You have the stuff?' he whispered. 'God, you have the stuff? You have it here?'

'I have it here.' Ah Wong looked into the stricken eyes. 'My friend Benabi. He is even more brilliant than I had thought. Always the weak link in our organization was the courier from Djakarta to here. But not any more. You will have as much of the white powder, Mr MacHinery, as often as you like, whenever you like, for the remainder of your days.'

'You mean — you mean I'll never have to worry aboot it again? Never have to lie or beg or cheat or steal to get it? It will always be there?'

'While you remain in the employment of Benabi and myself, it will always be there.'

'I'm your man for life,' MacHinery said simply.

'I don't doubt it.' Ah Wong looked at him in distaste, shook off his hands, picked up the phone and spoke rapidly. He replaced the phone and said: 'One minute. No more.'

'My God!' MacHinery said stupidly. 'When I think of the number of times I've chased roond Singapore, near screaming ma head off for the stuff, wondering where I could lay ma hands on it, where the source of supply was, I could — '

'You're at the source now, Mr MacHinery. No need to wonder any more.'

'You — you supply the whole town?'

'Much of it.'

'But — but have you never worried aboot whit you're doing? Have you ever seen a man, a far gone junky, who canna get the stuff? Or a man trying to dry oot? Both going mad. Insane screaming mad. Have you never seen it?'

'Don't be so naive, Mr MacHinery. Of course I've seen it. The sensible ones stick to a pellet of opium. But the sophisticates — ' his lips curled — 'must have it straight. If I don't supply it, others will.' He smiled contemptuously. 'Now perhaps you'd like to inform the police?'

'I'll cut ma throat,' MacHinery whispered. 'I'll blow ma brains oot. But I'll never, never tell.'

'I know you won't,' Ah Wong said drily. 'Ah, here it comes,' A servant crossed to the table and dumped a crate of vegetables on top of it.

'Cauliflowers?' MacHinery said stupidly.

'Best Bandung,' Ah Wong agreed. He lifted one, gingerly slit the heart with a knife, extracted a twist of cellophane and poured a little white powder into MacHinery's trembling hand. Try it.'

MacHinery placed it on his tongue, tasted it, tasted it again, then whispered: 'Dear God. This is it. This is it. And — and this is the way it comes into Singapore?'

For years,' Ah Wong said calmly. 'An ordinary cauliflower, the heart carefully parted, the heroin inserted, shellac for preservative and to glue the stems together then carried in the crates. Three times the customs have searched the GRASSHOPPER from stem to stern — but who would ever think of cauliflowers?'

'Damn the cauliflowers,' MacHinery said hoarsely. His voice shook, his hands trembled more violently than ever. 'Mix it up for me, for God's sake!'

Ah Wong nodded, went to the bathroom and returned in a minute with a small vial of milky liquid. He nodded to the syringe lying on the table. 'Your medicine, Mr MacHinery.'

'For pity's sake fill the hypo for me,' MacHinery begged. 'My hands — '

'I can see them,' Ah Wong said. 'Unsteady, we might say.' He lifted the hypodermic, depressed the plunger and inserted the needle in the vial. 'Sufficient, I should say, Mr MacHinery?'

'Aye, aye, that'll do.' MacHinery grabbed the hypodermic by the plunger, hesitated, then blurted out: 'God alone knows I'm just a junky, but a man still has his pride. Even a junky. The — the bathroom. And I feel sick again.'

'You make ME sick,' Ah Wong said dispassionately. 'Go on.'

MacHinery hurried into the bathroom, pulled the cistern lever, opened the Venetian blind and thrust the hypodermic out of the window. Five men came swarming out of the van below. MacHinery withdrew his arm and, still holding the hypodermic gingerly by the plunger, laid it carefully on the windowsill. He waited twenty seconds then walked back into Ah Wong's apartment just as the outer door crashed open and the five men from the van, uniformed policemen with guns, burst into the room. MacHinery nodded towards John.

'Watch the big lad,' he advised. 'If he twitches an eyebrow, shoot five or six bullets into him. Not at his head — they'd bounce off.'

Ah Wong stood stock-still, his face inscrutable. After a moment or two he said softly: 'What is the meaning of this outrage?'

'Inspector Hanbro,' the leading policeman introduced himself. 'Warrant for your arrest, Mr Wong. Receiving, being in illegal possession of and distributing knowingly proscribed narcotics. I have to warn you — '

'What tomfoolery is this?' Ah Wong's face had gone very stiff, very watchful. 'What wild rubbish — narcotics, you said?'

'Narcotics, I said.' Hanbro turned towards MacHinery. 'This man will testify — '

'This man,' Ah Wong said incredulously. 'This derelict Scots engineer — '

'Curiously enough, he was an engineer once,' Hanbro said. 'Also Scots. Hardly derelict. Changed his profession years ago. Mr Wong, may I introduce Inspector Donald MacHinery of the Hong Kong Vice Squad? Seconded to Singapore for — ah — special duties. The faces of my own men are too well known in those parts.'

'You can take him away, Inspector Hanbro,' MacHinery said tiredly. 'I don't know how many wrecked lives and suicides lie at his door and it doesn't matter any more. We have enough on him to put him away for life.'

'I'm innocent of all charges,' Ah Wong said dully. 'As one of the biggest merchants and most influential citizens in — '

'Shut up,' MacHinery said shortly. 'You were right, Mr Wong. Your former courier, the previous chief engineer on the GRASSHOPPER, WAS your weak link. He got drunk one night in Djakarta and talked too much in the presence of a plain-clothes man. Just enough for a lead, no more. We knew he wouldn't talk — men who talk in your business invariably die before the night is out — so we let him be while I established myself on the waterfront as a drunken junky engineer. When the time was right the Djakarta cops picked him up and held him incommunicado and there I was waiting, the ideal substitute. Your pal Benabi wasn't even smart, far less brilliant.'

'You can't prove a thing. You can't — '

'We can prove everything. Ten years in Hong Kong and I talk Cantonese as well as you do. Better — you Armenians have difficulty with some vowel sounds. Yes, Armenian, Mr Wong — we know all about you. I heard you give the numbers to your go-down — they will correspond exactly to the numbers on the crate.'

'It's only your word — '

'The police had your line tapped, for good measure.'

'Tapping is inadmissible evidence — '

'And,' MacHinery went on remorselessly, 'every word of our conversation is preserved for posterity. The bottom half of that Gladstone bag of mine — a very efficient recorder, I can tell you. Further, the marks you made on that manifest will match the crate numbers removed from your go-down. Graphite tests will show that it was the pencil on that table that made the marks and fingerprint tests will show that you were the last to handle that pencil. That signet seal shared by yourself and Benabi — any court in the East will recognize the significance of that. That crate there, lying on your own floor, with dope in every cauliflower head — how are you going to explain that away? Good lord, man, there's even enough evidence in the bathroom to have you put away for life — a hypo full of heroin with your fingerprints all over the glass cylinder.'

'You're a junky yourself.' Ah Wong's voice was a dazed whisper. 'Narcotics addicts can't testify. I–I know all the symptoms. You — '

'Symptoms?' MacHinery smiled. 'I've already stopped shivering. No bother. And as soon as I remove the three jerseys under my shirt I'll stop sweating, too. Pale face makeup. Junky's eyes — didn't you know red peppers give exactly the same effect?'

'But your arms,' Ah Wong said desperately. 'Look at them. Riddled with punctures. How — '

'Sharpened knitting needle sterilized and dipped in aniline dye. Don't ever try it, Mr Wong. It's most damnably painful.'