SEX SLAVES OF THE DRAGON TONG
“You’ll find my Margot, won’t you?” Mr. Kachmar said. “Please?”
Detective Third Grade Brad Brannigan felt the weight of the portly man’s imploring gaze as Chief Hanrahan ushered him out of his office.
“Of course he will,” the chief told him. “He’s one of our best men.”
Brannigan smiled and nodded with a confidence as false as the chief’s words. He was baffled as to why he, the greenest detective in the San Francisco PD, had been called in on this of all cases.
When the door finally closed, sealing out Mr. Kachmar, the chief turned and exhaled through puffed cheeks.
“Lord preserve us from friends of the mayor with wayward daughters, aye, Brannigan?”
As Hanrahan dropped into the creaking chair behind his desk, Brannigan searched for a response.
“I appreciate the compliment, Chief, but we both know I’m not one of your best men.”
The chief smiled. “That we do, lad. That we do.”
“Then why—?”
“Because I’ll be knowing about Margot Kachmar and she’s a bit of a hellion. Twenty years old and not a thought in her head about anyone but herself. Probably found a fellow she sparked to and went off with him on a lark.
Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“But her father looked so worried.”
“I’d be worried too if I had a daughter like that. Kachmar has only himself to blame. Rich folks like him give their kids too long a leash. Make it tough for the rest of us. You should hear my own daughter.” He mimicked a young woman’s voice. “‘This isn’t the dark ages, Daddy. It’s nineteen thirty-eight.’” He huffed and returned to his normal tone. “I wouldn’t care if it was nineteen fifty-eight, you’ve got to be after watching your daughters every single minute. Watching ’em like a hawk.”
While trying his best to look interested in the chief’s domestic philosophy, Brannigan cut in as soon as he had a chance.
“Where was she last seen?”
“Washington and Grant.”
“Chinatown?”
“At least that’s what her girlfriend says.” Hanrahan winked. “Covering for her, I’ll bet. You give that one a bit of hard questioning and she’ll be coming around.”
“But Chinatown is…”
“Yes, Sorenson’s beat. But I can’t very well be asking him to look into it, can I.”
Of course he couldn’t. Sorenson was laid up in the hospital with some strange malady.
“And,” Chief Hanrahan added, “I can’t very well be pulling my best men off other cases and sending them to No-tickee-no-shirtee-ville to question a bunch of coolies about some young doxy who’ll show up on her own in a day or two. So you’re getting the nod, Detective Brannigan.”
Brad felt heat in his cheeks and knew they were reddening. For a fair-skinned redhead like him, a blush was always waiting in the wings, ready to prance onstage at an instant’s notice.
The chief’s meaning was clear: I don’t want to waste someone useful, so you take it.
Brad repressed a dismayed sigh. He knew this was because of the Jenkins case. Missing a vital clue had left him looking like an amateur. As a result the rest of the detectives at the station had had weeks of fun at his expense. But though the razzing was over, Chief Hanrahan still hadn’t assigned him to anything meaty. Brannigan wound up with the leftovers. If he didn’t get some arrests to his credit he’d never make second grade.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself, he thought. Your day will come. It just won’t be today.
Brannigan took the chief’s suggestion and called on Margot’s friend Katy Webber for a few answers. Katy lived in her parents’ home, a stone mansion in Pacific Heights.
Five minutes with her were all it took to convince him that she wasn’t covering for Margot. She was too upset.
“One moment she was with me,” she said through her tears, “and the next minute she wasn’t! I turned to look in a jewelry store window—that was why we went there, to look for some jade—and when I turned back to point out a necklace, she was gone!”
“And you didn’t see anyone suspicious hanging about? No one following you?”
“Not that I noticed. And Margot never mentioned seeing anyone. The streets were crowded with people and cars and…I don’t understand how she could have disappeared like that.”
Neither did Brannigan. “You must have seen something.”
“Well…”
“What?”
“It might be nothing, but I saw this black car pulling away and I thought…” She shook her head. “I thought I saw the back of a blond head through the rear window.”
“Margot’s head?”
Katy shrugged and looked miserable. “I don’t know. It was just a glimpse and then the car turned the corner.”
“Do you remember the license plate? The make? The model?”
Katy responded to each question with a shake of her head. “I don’t know cars. I did notice that it had four doors, but beyond that…”
Swell, Brannigan thought. A black sedan. San Francisco had thousands and thousands of them.
But Katy’s story convinced him that someone had kidnapped Margot Kachmar. In broad daylight to boot. He’d start where she was last seen, at Washington and Grant, and move out from there.
But he’d move on his own. This was his chance to get himself out of Dutch with the chief, so he’d keep it to himself for now. If Hanrahan got wind that this was a real kidnapping, he’d pull Brannigan and put someone else on it sure.
Someone in that area of Chinatown had to remember something. All he needed to do was ask the right person. And that meant his next step was good old-fashioned door-to-door detective work.
“Wah!” Yu Chaoyang cried. “Slow the car!”
Jiang Zhifu looked around, startled. He and Yu occupied the back of one of the black Packard sedans owned by Yan Yuap Tong. An underling Yu had brought from Singapore sat behind the wheel. All three wore identical black cotton outfits with high collars and frog-buttoned fronts, although Yu’s large girth required twice as much fabric as Jiang’s; each jacket was embroidered with a golden dragon over the left breast; each man wore his hair woven into a braid that dangled from beneath a traditional black skullcap.
“What is wrong?” Jiang said as the car slowed almost to a stop.
“Nothing is wrong, my tong brother. In fact, something is very right.” A chubby finger pointed toward the sidewalk. “Look and marvel.”
Jiang peered through the side window glass and saw a typical Chinatown scene: pushcarts laden with fruits and vegetables, fish live and dead, fluttering caged birds and roasted ducks; weaving among them was the usual throng of shoppers, a mix of locals and tourists.
Yu had come to America just last month on a mission for his father, head of the Yan Yuap Tong’s house in Singapore; Jiang had volunteered to guide him through the odd ways of this strange country.
Yu was proving to be a trial. Arrogant and headstrong, he did not give proper face to his tong brothers here in San Francisco. Some of that might be anticipated from the son of a tong chief from home, but Yu went beyond proper bounds. No one expected him to kowtow, but he should show more respect.
“I don’t understand,” Jiang said.
Yu turned to face him. He ran a long sinuous tongue over his lips, brushing his thin drooping mustache in the process. His smile narrowed further his puffy lids until they were mere slits through which his onyx eyes gleamed.
“Red hair! Red hair!”
Jiang looked again and saw a little girl, no more than ten years old, standing by a cart, looking at a cage full of sparrows. She wore a red dress with white trim; but her unruly hair was even redder: a bushy flame, flaring around her face like the corona of an eclipse.
“Look at her.” Yu’s voice became a serpent, slithering through the car. “What a price I can fetch for her!”
“But she’s a child.”
“Yes! Precisely! I have a buyer in Singapore who specializes in children, and a red-haired child…aieee! He will pay anything for her!”
Jiang’s stomach tightened. A child…
“Are you forgetting the conditions set by the Mandarin?”
“May maggots eat the eyes of your Mandarin!”
Jiang couldn’t help a quick look around. He thanked his ancestors that the windows were closed. Someone might have heard.
“Do not speak of him so! And do not even think of breaking your agreement with him!”
Yu leaned closer. “Where do your loyalties lie, Jiang? With your tong, or with this mysterious Mandarin you all kowtow to?”
“I am loyal to Yan Yuap, but I am also fond of my skin. And if you wish to keep yours, you will heed my warning. Those who oppose his will wind up dead or are never seen again.”
“Eh-yeh!” Yu waved a dismissive hand. “By tomorrow night I will be at sea with this barbarous country far behind me.”
“Yes. You will be gone, but I will still have to live here.”
Yu grinned, showing mottled teeth, stained from his opium pipe. “That is not my worry.”
“Do not be so sure. The Mandarin’s reach is long. He has never been known to break his word, and he has no mercy toward those who break theirs to him. I beg you not to do this.”
The grin turned into a sneer. “America has softened you, Jiang. You shake like a frightened old woman.”
Jiang looked away. This man was a fool. Yu had come to America for women—white women he could sell to the Singapore brothels. The lower level houses there and the streets around them were full of dolla-dolla girls shipped in from the farmlands. But the upper echelon salons that provided gambling as well as sex needed something special to bring in the high rollers. White women were one such draw. And blond white women were the ultimate lure.
Since nothing in San Francisco’s Chinese underworld happened without the Mandarin’s consent—or without his receiving a share of the proceeds—Yu had needed prior approval of his plan. How he had raged at the ignominy of such an arrangement, but he had been persuaded that he would have no success without it.
The Mandarin had set two conditions. First: take only one woman from San Francisco, all the rest from surrounding cities and towns. The second: no children. He did not care to weather a Lindbergh-style investigation.
Jiang said, “We took a girl here only yesterday, and now a child from these same streets. You will be breaking both conditions with this act.”
Yu smiled. “No, Jiang. We will be breaking them. We will watch and wait, and when the time is right, you will pluck this delicious little berry from her branch.”
Jiang agonized as Yu had the driver circle the block again and again. Yes, he was a member of the Yan Yuap Tong, but he was also a member of a more powerful and far-flung society. And the Mandarin was one of its leaders. Jiang was the Mandarin’s eyes within the Yan Yuap Tong, and as such he would have to report this. Not that he would mind the slightest seeing the worst happen to Yu, but he prayed to his ancestors that the Mandarin wouldn’t make him pay too for his part in the transgression.
“Wah!” Yu said. “She has turned the corner. There is no one about! Now! Now!”
Fumes filled the car as Jiang poured chloroform onto a rag. He jumped out, the soft slap of his slippers on the pavement the only sign of his presence; he clamped the rag over the child’s face and was dragging her back toward the car’s open door when a ball of light brown fur darted across the sidewalk toward them. Jiang heard a growl of fury, saw bared fangs, and then the thing was upon him, tearing at the flesh of his arm.
He cried out for help and received it in the report of a pistol. The dog yelped and tumbled backward to lie twitching on the sidewalk. The child’s wild struggles—she was a tough little one—slowed and ceased as the chloroform did its work. Jiang shoved her into the backseat between Yu and himself. The car lurched into motion. Jiang glanced back and saw a pool of blood forming around the head of the sandy-haired dog.
He looked at the now unconscious child and saw Yu caressing one of her pale, bare thighs.
“Ah, my little quail,” he cooed, “I would so like to use the trip home to teach you the thousand ways to please a man, but alas you must remain a virgin if I am to take full profit from you.”
Jiang closed his eyes and trembled inside. He had to tell the Mandarin of this. He prayed he’d survive the meeting.
“I’ve run into a blank wall,” Brannigan said.
“And so you’ve come to me for help.”
Looking at Detective Sergeant Hank Sorenson now, Brannigan wished he’d gone elsewhere.
He’d had a nodding acquaintance with Sorenson at the station, but the figure pressed between the sheets in the hospital bed before him was a caricature of the man Brannigan had known.
He tried not to stare at the sunken cheeks, the glassy, feverish eyes, the sallow, sweaty skin as pale as his hospital gown. The slow smile that stretched Sorenson’s lips and bared his teeth was ghastly.
“You mean to tell me you walked up to Chinatown residents and asked them what they saw?”
The whole afternoon had been a frustrating progression of singsong syllables, expressionless yellow faces with gleaming slanted eyes that told him nothing.
“I didn’t see that I had any other option.”
“You can’t treat chinks like regular people, Brad. You can’t ask them a direct question. They’re devious, crafty, always circling.”
Brannigan bristled at Sorenson’s attitude, like a teacher chiding a student for not knowing his lesson.
“Well, be that as it may, no one saw anything.”
Sorenson barked a phlegmy laugh. “Oh, they saw all right. They’re just not going to tell an outsider. Not if they know what’s good for them.”
“What’s that mean?”
“The Mandarin. You do not cross the Mandarin.”
Sorenson went on to explain about Chinatown’s lord of crime. Then he added, “If this Kachmar girl is a blond, you might be dealing with a white slave ring. The Yan Yuap Tong—also called the Dragon Tong because their symbol is a dragon—has been involved in that before. The tongsters probably have your missing girl’s photo on its way back to Singapore already, to get the bidding started.”
Brannigan had heard of Oriental rings that abducted white women for sex slaves, but he’d never expected that Margot Kachmar—
“Check Oakland and Marin and maybe San Jose,” Sorenson was saying. “See if they’ve had a blonde or two gone missing recently.”
“Why there?”
“Because police departments don’t communicate nearly enough. Someday they will, but with things as they are, spreading out the abductions lessens the chances of anyone spotting a pattern.”
Oakland…San Jose…that seemed like a lot of legwork with slim chance of turning up anything useful.
“Why don’t I go straight to the source? This Mandarin character…where do I find him?”
Sorenson began to shake with ague. His head fell back on the pillow. When the tremors eased…
“No one knows. He hides his identity even from his fellow Chinese. Just as well—you don’t want to find him. I came close and look what it got me.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I was homing in on the Mandarin’s identity, getting closer than anyone before me, and then, a week ago, something got into my house and bit me.”
“Something?”
“A giant millipede, bright red, at least eight inches long, crawled into my bed and bit me on the shoulder. I managed to smash it with a shoe as it raced away, but only got the back half. The front half broke off and escaped. Bug scientists over at the university say it only exists in Borneo.”
“But what’s that got to do—?”
“It was put in my house, you idiot!” Sorenson snapped, a faint tinge of color seeping into his cheeks. “By one of the Mandarin’s men. And look what it’s done to me!”
He pulled the hospital gown off his left shoulder to reveal a damp dressing. He ripped that off.
“It’s due for a change anyway. Have a look.”
Brannigan saw an ulcerated crater perhaps two inches across penetrating deep into the flesh of Sorenson’s shoulder. Its base was red and bloody. A quick look was more than enough for Brannigan, but as he was turning away he thought he saw something move within the bloody fluid. He looked again—
And jumped back.
Many little things were moving in the base of the ulcer.
“What—?”
Sorenson’s expression was bleak. Brannigan could see he was trying to keep up a brave face.
“Yeah. The bug didn’t poison me. I wish it had. Instead it laid a bunch of eggs in me, a thousand, maybe a million of them. And they keep hatching. I think they’re getting into my system, eating me alive from the inside.”
“Can’t the doctors stop it?”
He shook his head. “They’ve never seen anything like—”
He clasped a hand over his mouth as he broke off into a fit of coughing. The harsh barks seemed to be coming from somewhere around his ankles. With a final wet hack he stopped.
A look of horror twisted his features as he stared at his palm. It was filled with bloody phlegm, and Brannigan could swear he saw something wriggling within the glob, something with many, many legs.
“Oh, God!” Sorenson wailed, his composure finally broken. “Call the doctor! Get the nurse in here! Hurry!”
Brannigan turned and ran for the hallway. Behind him he heard the wrenching sound of a grown man sobbing.
Jiang could not keep his body from shaking as he knelt with his forehead pressed against the cold stone floor. The Mandarin stood over him, eerily silent. Jiang had told him what had transpired on the street. It had been hours ago, but he had come as soon as he could get away.
At last the master spoke, his voice soft, the tone sibilant.
“So…Yu Chaoyang has disobeyed me and endangered all we have worked for here. I half expected this from such a man. The Japanese are overrunning our China, slaughtering its people, and Yu thinks only of adding to his already swollen coffers.”
“Venerable, I tried to dissuade him but—”
“I am sure you did your best, Jiang Zhifu, but apparently it wasn’t enough.”
No-no-no! cried a terrified voice within Jiang. Let him not be angry!
But Jiang’s outer voice was wise enough to remain silent.
“However,” the master said, “I will allow you to redeem yourself.”
“Oh, Illustrious! This miserable offspring of a worm is endlessly grateful.”
“Rise.”
Jiang eased to his feet and stood facing the master, but looked at him only from the corner of his eye. The man known throughout Chinatown as the Mandarin—even Jiang did not know his true name—was tall, lean, high-shouldered, standing bamboo straight with his hands folded inside the sleeves of his flowing turquoise robe; his hair was thin and covered with a brimless cap beaded with coral. He had a high, domed forehead and thin lips, but his eyes—light green, their color intensified by the shade of his robe—were unlike any Jiang had ever seen.
“Where is the child now?”
“Yu has her in the tonghouse, but soon he will head for his ship and set sail. Shall I stop him? Shall I see to it that he suffers the same fate as that too-curious detective?”
The master shook his head. “No. Did the child see you?”
“No, Magnificent. I took her from behind and she was soon unconscious.”
“Then she cannot point a finger of blame at a Chinaman. Good. You will return to the tonghouse and light a red lamp in the room where the child is kept. I will send a few of my dacoits to see that she is returned to the streets. You must be present so that no suspicion falls on you. Then let Yu go to his ship and set sail with the rest of his cargo. He will never see home. He—Jiang, you are bleeding.”
“It is nothing, Eminent. The child’s dog bit me as I pulled her into the car. It is nothing.”
“The red-haired little girl had a dog, you say? What kind of dog?”
“A scruffy mongrel. May this unworthy snail ask why such an Esteemed One as you would ask?”
When the master did not answer, Jiang dared a glance at his face and saw the unimaginable: a look of uncertainty in those green eyes.
“Exalted…did this miserable slug say something wrong?”
“No, Jiang. I had a thought, that is all…about a certain little red-haired girl who must not be touched…ever.” He turned and stepped to the single high small window in the north wall of the tiny room. “It could not possibly be she, but if it is…and if she is harmed…all the ancestors of all the members of the Yan Yuap Tong will not save it from doom…a doom that could spread to us as well.”
Brannigan leaned against the center railing of the hospital’s front steps and sucked deep draughts of the foggy night air.
Sorenson…a tough, no-nonsense cop…reduced to a weeping child. It gave him a bad case of the willies. Who was this Mandarin? And more important, was he involved in Margot Kachmar’s disappearance?
Feeling steadier, Brannigan stepped down to the sidewalk and headed for his radio car. He needed to call in. A catchy song by Frances Day, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” echoed unwelcomed his head. From somewhere in the fog a newsboy called out the headlines of the evening edition. As he passed a silver Rolls Royce its rear door opened and an accented voice spoke from the dark interior.
“Please step inside. Someone wishes to speak to you.”
Someone? That could very well be the Mandarin. Well, Brannigan damn well wanted to speak to him too, but on his terms, not in the back of a mysterious limousine.
He backed away. “Have him meet me down at the station,” he said. “We’ll have a nice long chat there.”
Brannigan jumped at the sound of another voice close behind him, almost in his ear.
“He would speak to you now. Into the car, please.”
Brannigan reached for his pistol but his shoulder holster was empty. He whirled and found himself face-to-face with a gaunt Chinaman dressed in a black business suit, a white shirt, and a black tie. A black fedora finished off the look. His expression was bland, his tone matter-of-fact, but his features had a sinister, almost cruel cast.
He held up Brannigan’s .38 between them but did not point it at him. He gestured to the car with his free hand.
“Please.”
Brannigan’s first instinct was to run, but he figured all he’d gain by that was a slug in the back. Probably better than a millipede in his bed, but he decided on the car option. Maybe he’d find an opening along the way to make a break.
With his bladder clenching, he ducked inside. The door slammed behind him, drenching him in darkness. He could sense but not see whoever was seated across from him. As the car began moving—the thin chink was also the driver, it seemed—Brannigan leaned forward, straining to see his host.
“Are you…?” His mouth was dry so he wet his lips. “Are you the Mandarin?”
A soft laugh. “Oh, no. I would not serve that one.”
“Then why do you want to speak to me?”
“It is not I, Detective Brannigan. It is another. Hush now and save your words for him.”
The glare from a passing streetlight illuminated the interior for a second, leaving Brannigan in a state of shock. The other occupant was a turbaned giant who looked as if he’d just stepped out of Arabian Nights.
The car turned west on California, taking them away from Chinatown. A few minutes later they stopped at a side entrance to the Fairmont Hotel, perched atop Nob Hill like a granite crown. The driver and the giant escorted Brannigan to an elevator in an empty service hallway. Inside the car, the driver inserted a key into the control panel and up they went.
After a swift, stomach-sinking ride, the elevator doors opened into a huge suite, richly furnished and decorated with palm trees and ornate marble columns reaching to its high, glass-paned ceiling.
An older man rose from a sofa. He was completely bald with pale gray eyes. He wore black tuxedo pants and a white dress shirt ornamented with a huge diamond stickpin. Brannigan spotted a black dress jacket and tie draped over a nearby chair. A long thick cigar smoldered in his left hand; he extended the right as he strode forward.
“Detective Brannigan, I presume. Thank you for coming.”
Brannigan, flabbergasted, shook the man’s hand. This wasn’t at all what he’d expected.
“I didn’t have much choice.”
He eyed his two escorts as they took up positions behind his host. The driver had removed his hat, revealing a bald dome; glossy black hair fringed the sides and back of his scalp.
“Oh, I hope they didn’t threaten you.”
Brannigan was about to crack wise when he realized that they hadn’t threatened him at all. If anything they’d been overly polite.
He studied the bald man. Something familiar about him…
“I’ve seen you before.”
The man shrugged. “Despite my best efforts, my face now and again winds up in the papers.”
“Who are you?”
“Let’s just say I’m someone who prefers to move in and out of large cities without advertising his presence. Otherwise my time would be consumed by a parade of local politicians with their hands out, and I’d never get any work done.”
“What do you want with me?”
“You were in Chinatown today asking about a missing girl, Margot Kachmar.”
The statement startled Brannigan at first, but then he glanced at the Oriental driver and realized he shouldn’t be surprised.
“That’s police business.”
“And now it’s my business.” A sudden, steely tone put a knife edge on the words. “My daughter was abducted from that same area this afternoon.”
“She was? Did you tell the police?”
“That’s what I’m doing now.”
“I mean an official report and—never mind. Are you sure she was abducted?”
The bald man hooked a finger through the air and Brannigan followed him to the far side of a huge couch. Along the way he glanced out the tall windows and saw Russian Hill and San Francisco Bay stretching out below. This had to be the penthouse suite.
The man pointed to a sandy-furred mutt lying on a big red pillow. A thick bandage encircled its head.
“That’s her dog. She goes nowhere without him. He was shot—luckily the bullet glanced off his skull instead of piercing it—and that can only mean that he was defending her. He almost died, but he’s a tough one, just like his little owner.”
Two in two days from the same neighborhood…this was not the pattern Sorenson had described.
“How old is your daughter, and is she blond?”
“She’s a ten-year-old redhead—her hair’s the same shade as yours.”
Cripes. A kid. “Well, I’m sorry about what happened to her, but I don’t think she’s connected to the Kachmar girl. I—”
“What if I told you they were both dragged into a black Packard sedan? Most likely the same one?”
Katy Webber had described a black sedan. Maybe there was a connection after all.
The bald man said, “I have men out canvassing the neighborhoods right now, looking for that car.”
“That’s police business. You can’t—”
“I can and I am. Don’t worry—they’ll be very discreet. But I’ll make you a deal, detective: You share with me, I’ll share with you. If I locate Miss Kachmar, I’ll notify you. If you find my daughter alive and well I will see to it that you never have to worry about money for the rest of your life.”
Brannigan felt a flush of anger. “I don’t need to be bribed to do my job.”
“It’s not a bribe—it will be gratitude. Anything of mine you want you can have. I’ve made fortunes and lost them, gone from living in mansions to being penniless on the street and back to mansions. I’m good at making money. I can always replace my fortune. But I can’t replace that little girl.” The man seemed to lose his voice and Brannigan saw his throat work. When he recovered he added, “She means everything to me.”
The nods from the turbaned giant and the driver said they felt the same. Brannigan was touched. He couldn’t help it. And from the looks on all three faces he knew that if they were the first to discover the child’s abductor, the mugg would never see trial.
He couldn’t condone or allow the vigilantism he sensed brewing here. And for that reason he couldn’t tell them what Sorenson had said about the Dragon Tong. He’d keep that to himself.
“I promise you that if I find her, you’ll be the first to know.”
The bald man put his hand out to the Chinese driver who placed Brannigan’s pistol in it, then he fixed the detective with his pale gaze. “That is all I ask. Can my associates offer you a lift?”
“No thanks.” He’d seen enough of the old man’s chums for one evening. “I’ll grab a cab.”
He took the elevator down to the lobby level, but before going outside, he stopped at the front desk.
“Who’s staying in the penthouse suite?” he asked the clerk. He flipped open his wallet, showing his shield. “And don’t give me any malarkey about hotel policy.”
The man hesitated, then shrugged. After consulting the guest register he shook his head.
“Sorry. It’s unoccupied.”
“Baloney! I was just up there.”
Another shake of the head. “No occupant is listed. All I can tell you is this: The penthouse suite is on reserve—permanent reserve—but it doesn’t say for whom.”
Frustrated, Brannigan stormed from the hotel. He had more important things to do than argue with some hotel flunky.
Ten minutes later Brannigan was standing in the shadows across the street from the headquarters of the Dragon Tong. Its slanted cupola glistened with moisture from the fog. A few of the upper windows were lit, a pair of green-and-yellow paper lanterns hung outside the front entrance, but otherwise the angular building squatted dark and silent on its lot.
What now? Sorenson had told him how to find it, but now that he was here he couldn’t simply walk in. Much as he hated to admit it, he was going to have to call Hanrahan for backup.
As he turned to go back to his radio car he noticed movement along the right flank of the tonghouse. Three monkeylike shadows were scaling the wall. He hurried across the street and crept closer to investigate. He found a rope hanging along the wall, disappearing into a third-story window lit by a red paper lantern.
Apparently someone else was interested in the tonghouse. He knew the three he’d seen shimmying up this rope were too small and agile to have been the bald guy and company.
He looked at the rope, tempted. This was one hell of a pickle. Go up or get help?
The decision was taken out of his hands when the rope snaked up the wall and out of reach. He cursed as he watched it disappear into the window.
But then he noticed a narrow door just to his right. He tried the handle—unlocked—and pushed it open. The slow creaks from the old hinges sounded like a cat being tortured. He cringed as he slipped into some sort of kitchen. He pulled his pistol and waited to see if anyone came to investigate.
When no one came, he slipped through the darkness, listening. The tong-house seemed quiet. Most of the tongsters were probably home at this hour. But what of the hatchetmen the tongs reputedly used as guards and enforcers? Did they go home too? Brannigan hoped so, but doubted it.
He stepped through a curtain into a small chamber lit by a single oil lamp, its walls bare except for a black lacquered door ornamented with gold dragons uncoiling from the corners. The door pulled outward and Brannigan found himself in an exotic, windowless room, empty except for a golden Buddha seated in a corner; a lamp and joss sticks smoked before it, their vapors wafting toward the high ceiling.
Something about the walls…he stepped closer and gasped as he ran his fingers over what he’d assumed to be wallpaper. But these peacock plumes weren’t painted, they were the genuine article. And all four walls were lined with them.
Dazzled by its beauty, Brannigan stepped back to the center of the room and turned in a slow circle. No window, no door other than the one he’d come through. The room appeared to be a dead end.
But then he noticed the way the smoke from the joss sticks wavered on its path toward the ceiling. Air was flowing in from somewhere. He moved along the wall, inspecting the plumes until he found one with a wavering fringe. And another just below it. Air was filtering through a narrow crevice. He pushed at the wall on either side until he felt something give. He pushed harder and a section swung inward.
Ahead of Brannigan lay a long, dark, downsloping corridor, ending in a rectangle of wan, flickering light. The only sound was his own breathing.
He hesitated, then took a breath and started forward. He’d come this far…in for a dime, in for a dollar.
Pistol at the ready, he crept down the passage as silently as his heavy regulation shoes would allow, pausing every few steps to listen. Nothing. All quiet.
When he reached the end he stopped. All he could see ahead was bare floor and wall, lit by a lamp in some unseen corner. Still hearing nothing, he risked a peek inside—
—and ducked back as he caught a flash of movement to his left. A black-handled hatchet whispered past the end of his nose and buried itself in the wall just inches to the right of his head.
And then a black-pajama-clad tongster with a high-cheeked, pockmarked face lunged at him with a raised dagger. His brutal features were contorted with rage as he shouted rapid-fire gibberish.
The report from Brannigan’s pistol was deafening as it smashed a bullet through the chink’s chest and sent him tumbling backward. Another black-clad tongster, a raw-boned, beady-eyed bugger, replaced him immediately, howling the same cry as he swung a hatchet at Brannigan’s throat. He too fell with a bullet in his chest.
But then the doorway was filled with two more and then three, and more surging behind them. With only four rounds left in his revolver, Brannigan knew he had no chance of stopping this Mongol horde. He began backpedaling as the hatchetmen leaped over their fallen comrades and charged.
Brannigan fired as he retreated, making good use of his remaining rounds, slowing the black-clad gang’s advance, but a small, primitive part of him began screeching in panic as it became aware that he was not going to leave the tonghouse alive. Not unless he reached the door to the joss room in time to shut it and hold it closed against the swarm of hatchetmen.
After firing his last shot he turned and ran full tilt for the door. His foot caught on the sill as he rushed through and he tumbled to the floor. The horror of knowing that he was about to be hacked to death shot strength into his legs but he slipped as he started to rise and knew he was done for.
As he rolled, tensing for the first ax strike, preparing a last stand with his bare hands, he was startled by the sound of gunfire, followed immediately by shouts and screams of pain. He looked up and saw the old man’s turbaned Indian wielding a huge scimitar that lopped off heads and arms with slashing swipes, while the driver hacked away with a cutlass. The old man himself stood in the thick of it, firing a round-handled, long-barreled Mauser at any of the hatchetmen who slipped past his front line.
Brannigan pawed fresh shells from his jacket pocket and began to reload. But the melee was over before he finished. He sat up and looked around. More than joss-stick smoke hung in the air; blood had spattered the feathered walls and pooled on the floor. The old man and the Indian were unscathed; the driver was bleeding from a gash on his right arm but didn’t seem to notice.
“What…how…?”
The old man looked at him. “I sensed you weren’t telling us everything you knew, so we followed you. Good thing too, I’d say.”
Brannigan nodded as he struggled to his feet. He felt shaky, unsteady.
“Thank you. I owe you my—”
“Is she here?” the old man said. “Have you seen her?”
“I have her right here, Oliver,” said a sibilant, accented voice.
Brannigan turned and raised his pistol as a motley group filed into the small room: a green-eyed, turquoise-robed Chinaman entered, followed by a trio of gangly, brutal-looking, dark-skinned lugs dressed in loincloths and nothing else; one carried a red-haired girl in his arms; two black-pajamaed tongsters brought up the rear, one thin, one fat, the latter with his hands tied behind his back and looking as if he’d wound up on the wrong end of a billy club.
The lead Chinaman spoke again. “I feared you might have been drawn into this.”
“So it’s you, Doctor,” the old man said. At least Brannigan knew part of his name now: Oliver. “Striking at me through my child? I knew you were ruthless but—”
“Do not insult me, Oliver. I would gladly cut out your heart, but I would not break it.”
The doctor—doctor of what? Brannigan wondered—removed a bony, long-fingered hand from within a sleeve and gestured to the loinclothed crew. The one carrying the little girl stepped forward and handed her over to Oliver. She looked drugged but as the old man took her in his arms, her eyes fluttered open. Brannigan saw her smile.
The word was a whisper. “Daddy.”
Tears rimmed Oliver’s eyes as he looked down at her, then back to the doctor. “I don’t understand.”
“This was not my doing.” Without looking he flicked a finger toward the fat, bound tongster. “This doomed one broke an agreement.”
“I thought I left you back in Hong Kong. When was it…?”
“Three years ago. I understand you recently closed your factory there.”
He nodded. “The political climate in the Far East has accomplished what you could not. I’m gathering my chicks closer to the nest, you might say. A storm is brewing and I want to be properly positioned when it strikes.”
The doctor’s smile was acid. “To profiteer, as usual.”
Oliver shrugged. “Nothing wrong with doing well while doing good.”
Who were these two? Brannigan wondered. They stood, each with his own personal army, like ancient mythical enemies facing each other across a bottomless divide.
“And what of you, Doctor?” Oliver continued. “With your homeland being invaded, why are you here?”
“You heard what the Japanese dogs did in Nanking?”
“Yes. Ghastly. I’m sorry.”
“Then you can understand why I am here. To raise money from the underworld for weapons to repel the insects.”
Oliver’s faint smile looked bitter. “And all along you thought the enemy was people like me.”
“You still are. My goal remains unchanged: To drive all foreigners from Chinese soil. I will admit, however, that I singled out the white western world as the threat, never realizing that a yellow-skinned neighbor would prove a far more vicious foe.”
Something the doctor had said rang through Brannigan’s brain: To raise money from the underworld…that could only mean—
He pointed his pistol at the green-robed chink. “You’re the Mandarin! You’re—”
The green eyes glanced his way and the pure malevolence in them clogged the words in Brannigan’s throat. Before he could clear it, Oliver pointed to the bound chink and spoke.
“I’ll take him from here. My associates and I have a score to settle.”
“No, he is mine. He broke his word to me. I have experts in the Thousand Cuts. He will die long after he wishes to, I promise.”
Brannigan couldn’t believe his ears. These two acted like laws unto themselves. It was like listening to two sovereign nation-states argue over extradition of a prisoner.
“Hey, wait just a minute, you two.” He stepped closer to the Mandarin. “Neither of you is going to do anything.” The green eyes turned on him again. “I’m arresting you and your tongster buddy here for—”
Something smashed against the back of Brannigan’s skull, dropping him to his knees. He tried to regain his feet but the edges of his vision went blurry and he toppled forward into darkness.
Jiang Zhifu poised his fist over the fallen detective’s neck and looked to the master for permission to finish the worm. The master nodded. But as Jiang raised his hand for the death blow a shot rang out and a bullet plowed into the feathered wall beside him.
“That will be enough,” said the man called Oliver.
The master motioned Jiang back toward Yu and he obeyed, albeit reluctantly. He was confused. Who was this white devil to give orders in the master’s presence, and have the master acquiesce? Although this Oliver and the master seemed to be old enemies, the master treated him as an equal.
Something became clear to Jiang. It must have been because of this man that the master had sent Jiang to the Fairmont Hotel where he’d been instructed to ask a certain question of the kitchen staff. When Jiang returned with word that yes, meals were indeed being delivered to the penthouse suite, the master had changed his plans.
Jiang looked at the little red-haired girl in Oliver’s arms. Yu had brought all this to pass by abducting her. The master had hinted that consequences most dire and relentless would befall anyone even remotely connected with harming that child.
Jiang had doubted that, but looking around the joss room now, he believed. So many of his tong brothers
dead, shot or hacked to pieces. He and Yu were the only two members of Yan Yuap left alive in the house. Jiang would have to leave and return at dawn with the rest of the members, feigning shock at the carnage here.
“As I was saying, Oliver, before we were interrupted, this worthless one is mine to deal with, but if you wish I can have some expert seamstresses stitch his skin back together and make you a gift of it.”
“Thanks for the offer,” he said but did not look grateful. “I think I’ll pass on that.”
“Then I shall nail it to the wall of this tonghouse as a warning.”
Jiang jumped as a slurred voice said, “The only thing you’ll be doing is looking the wrong way through the bars of a jail cell.”
Aiii! The detective was conscious again. He must have a skull as thick as the walls of the Imperial Palace!
The master spoke without a trace of fear. “You have at most six shots, Detective. My dacoits will be upon you before you can shoot all of them.”
The detective leveled his pistol at the master’s heart.
“Yeah, but the first one will go into you.”
Yu started to move forward, crying, “Yes! Arrest me! Please!”
But Jiang yanked him back and struck him across the throat—not a killing blow, just enough to silence him.
The master only smiled. “You may arrest me if you wish, Detective, but that will doom the ten women this bloated slug collected for export.”
The detective’s eyes widened. “Ten? Good Christ, where are they?”
“In a ship in the harbor, moored at Pier Twelve. A ship wired to explode at midnight.”
“You’re lying!”
“He doesn’t lie, Brannigan,” said Oliver. “Over our years of conflict I’ve learned that the doctor is capable of just about anything, but he never lies.”
“If you look at your watch,” the master said, “you will see that you have time to bring me to your precinct house or rush to the harbor and save the women. But not both.”
Jiang could see the detective’s resolve wavering.
The master continued in a silky, almost seductive voice. “May I suggest the former course? Think what bringing in the mysterious and notorious Mandarin will do for your career. It will guarantee you the promotion you most surely desire.”
The detective looked to Oliver. “Will you hold him here until—?”
The older man cut him off with a quick shake of his head. “This is your show, kid.” He looked down at the child stirring in his arms. “I have what I came for. You choose.”
He backed toward the door.
“Damn you all!”
Then he turned and ran.
Jiang knew that if the young detective broke all speed records, he might reach the docks in time. Fortunately for him, he would meet little resistance aboard ship; most of the crew had deserted once word leaked out that Yu had displeased the Mandarin.
When the detective was gone, Oliver smiled. “Dear Doctor, you never fail to find interesting ways to test people. I’m glad he chose what he did, otherwise I’d have had to send my associates to the waterfront. As it is, I’ve got someone here who needs some attending to, and I have a call to make.”
He turned to go, then turned back.
“Oh, and those weapons your people need…if you have trouble buying through the usual channels, call me. I’m sure we can work something out.”
And then the master shocked Jiang by doing the unthinkable. He inclined his head toward this man named Oliver.
There’s still a chance, Brannigan thought as he jumped behind the wheel of his radio car. He’d call the station and send a squad of cars to the docks while he returned to the tonghouse and collared the Mandarin.
But when he snatched the microphone from its holder he noticed the frayed end of its coiled wire dangling in the air.
“Damn!”
He tossed the useless piece of garbage against the passenger door. No options left. He started the car, threw it into gear, and floored the gas pedal. He didn’t think he could make it, but he was going to try.
Traffic was light and with his siren howling he reached the docks in five minutes. He found Pier Twelve and raced up the gangplank of a rustbucket freighter, his pistol held before him.
He reached the deck and, with only that wash of light from the city behind him for illumination, looked around. The tub looked deserted. Two of the three cargo hatches lay open. He ran to the third and rapped on it with the gun butt.
“Hello! Anyone in there?”
The muffled chorus of female voices from below was a sweet symphony. He found the fasteners, released them, and pulled off the cover.
“Detective Brad Brannigan,” he said into the square of darkness below him, and the words had never sounded so good on his tongue. “Let’s get you gals out of there.”
As the captives shouted, cried, and sobbed with relief, Brannigan grabbed the rope ladder coiled by the hatch and tossed it over the edge.
“Squeeze the minutes, girls! We haven’t got much time.”
As the first climbed into view, a rather plain blonde, he grabbed her arm and hauled her onto the deck.
“Run! Get down the gangplank and keep going!”
He did this with each of the girls—amazingly, all blondes.
“I thought there were ten of you,” he said as he helped the ninth over the rim.
“Margot hurt her ankle when they grabbed her. She can’t climb up.”
Hell and damn. Margot Kachmar, the one who started all this for him. He wished he could see his watch. How much time did he have left, if any?
Didn’t matter. He hadn’t finished the job.
He directed number nine to the gangway, then leaned over the rim and called into the darkness below.
“Margot? Are you near the ladder?”
“Yes, but—”
“No buts. Put your good foot on a rung and hold on tight.”
“O-okay.” He felt the ropes tighten. “I’m on. Now what?”
“I bring you up.”
Brannigan sat on the deck, braced his feet against the hatch rim, and began hauling on the rope ladder. The coarse coils burned his palms and his back protested, but he kept at it, pulling rung after ropy rung up and over the edge until he saw a pair of hands grip the rim.
“Keep coming!” he shouted, maintaining tension on the rope.
When her face was visible and she had both elbows over the rim, he grabbed her and hauled her onto the deck.
“Oh, thank you!” she sobbed as she looked at the city. “I’d given up hope of ever seeing home again!”
“Don’t thank me yet.” He lifted her into his arms and carried her toward the gangway. “C’mon, kiddo. Your daddy’s waiting for you.”
His haste gave him a bad moment on the gangway as he slipped halfway down and nearly fell off. He was just stepping onto the dock with his burden safe and unharmed when a bright flash lit up the night.
“Hold it!” a man’s voice said. “One more!”
The purple afterimage of the flash blotted out whoever was talking.
“What?”
A second flash and then another voice saying, “Joe Stenson from the Chronicle. Your name’s Brannigan, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“That’s with a double ‘n’?”
“Get out of here!” Brannigan shouted as he began carrying Margot away from the ship. “The ship’s going to blow at midnight!”
“Blow?”
“As in explode!”
“But it’s already after midnight,” Stenson said.
Brannigan slowed for a few steps. Had he been duped? Then he remembered what Oliver had said about the Mandarin always keeping his word and resumed his frantic pace.
“Just get away from the ship!”
“If you say so.”
Stenson was pacing him to his left. A photographer ambled on his right.
“How come you two are down here?” Brannigan asked.
“Got a tip. Guy didn’t give his name, just told me to get down to Pier Twelve if I wanted to catch a hero cop in action, and am I ever glad I listened. The girls told me what happened to them, and that picture of you carrying this little lady down the gangplank—hoo boy, if that’s not front-page stuff, I’ll quit and open a flower shop.”
Ahead Brannigan could see the rest of the girls waiting near the street, cheering when they saw he had Margot. He set her down on the curb and they all gathered around, hugging her, hugging him, while the photographer flashed away.
“What was that about the ship exploding at midnight?” Stenson said. “Were you—?”
And then the pavement shook and the night lit up like day as huge explosions ripped through the old freighter, rupturing her hull and shooting hundred-foot columns of flame up from the hatches.
Stenson turned to his photographer. “Are you getting this, Louie?”
“I’m getting it, Joe. Am I ever getting it!”
The adrenaline began seeping away then, leaving Brannigan fagged. He’d missed collaring the Mandarin, but looking at these ten girls, all alive and well because of him, he couldn’t help but feel on top of the world.
But who in the world had called the Chronicle?
He sensed motion behind him and turned to see a silver Rolls Royce gliding by. A little red-haired girl smiled and waved from the rear window before the car was swallowed by the fog.