No Accidental Death

by Garrett Hutson

  Jonesy bowed from the waist, deeper than he normally would with anyone else. “Thank you for agreeing to see me, Zhu Xian.”

  “I assume you have a proposition of mutual benefit.” Zhu Xian stared at him with intense, dark eyes, rarely blinking.

  Jonesy was one of the few foreigners—and probably the only American—that Zhu Xian ever spoke to. Zhu had said a couple of years ago that he only suffered Jonesy because “you have proven to be on the side of the workers.” High praise indeed given to a non-communist outsider.

  “There is a capitalist pig, an American, who has an unexplained fortune that I suspect is built on the backs of Chinese girls,” Jonesy began, careful with his word choices. “My usual sources of information can’t, or won’t, say how he’s done it.”

  “And you think that we might help you expose and destroy this American capitalist pig who exploits our people for personal gain.” Zhu Xian’s expression remained stony, but his eyes glowed.

  “Yes,” Jonesy said, and gave a quick summary of his suspicions.

  Zhu Xian listened in total stillness and silence. He did not move or make a sound for more than ten seconds after Jonesy finished. Jonesy struggled not to open his mouth again, forcing himself to be patient.

  “Mmmmm,” Zhu finally murmured. Then he spoke, his words carefully modulated. “Your intention of exposing and destroying a foreign capitalist pig who exploits the Chinese people is noble, Jones Arthur. However, our resources are devoted to fighting the Japanese invader. Our people can move in ways that the Nationalist army cannot. Why should we divert resources to your enterprise?”

  For days, Jonesy had heard rumors of mysterious commandos—thought to be communists—appearing behind enemy lines to set explosives, or ambush squads of Japanese marines moving toward the front. He had yet to find proof, perhaps because these were virtually suicide missions; but it sure seemed that this was what Zhu Xian meant.

  He thought fast. “Your operations against the Japanese invaders come at great cost, and at great loss to your organization. My request would carry far less risk to your people, but its success would give you propaganda to help expand your cause.”

  That was damned good, if he did say so himself. His breath came short and fast while he waited for a reaction, scrutinizing his face for any clue of Zhu’s thinking.

  “There is much merit in your proposal, Jones Arthur. I will raise this with my superiors, as a project for resources that are not directly involved with our fight against the Japanese invaders. We will be in touch.” With that, Zhu Xian turned and left the room.

  **

  “Home Sweet Home,” Doug quipped after tipping the bellboy and closing the door of their suite.

  “It’s a lovely view,” Lucy said, standing at the window looking down on East Foochow Road, bathed with the warm glow of dusk. “I feel bad leaving Kenny all alone, though.”

  He came up behind her, and put his hands on her shoulders. “I think we were on the verge of overstaying our welcome. Our friends would be too polite to tell us that.”

  “They would be, you’re right about that. The timing seems terrible, that’s all.”

  With the departure of 2,600 Anglophone westerners in the last three days, Doug had taken the chance that hotel rooms had opened up around the city, and was able to find them lodgings at the Metropole Hotel downtown, two blocks off the Bund.

  He’d had to register them as Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Bainbridge, in order to get a single suite. It was a minor annoyance, and it seemed to amuse Lucy when they checked in.

  “Kenny will be alright. He can keep himself busy. And besides, he still has Changying there, so he won’t be all alone.”

  “Hmmmm,” Lucy murmured, her lips forming a thin red line. “Do you suppose we should have stayed to chaperone?”

  Doug’s incredulous laugh made her eyebrow arch, and she twisted out of his grasp, folded her arms, and frowned at him. “He’s married, Doug—it’s not the same thing as this.” She motioned toward the king-sized bed in the center of the suite’s only bedroom, then refolded her arms to glare at him.

  “I knew what you meant,” Doug said, trying to be conciliatory. He stepped closer to her and put his hands back on her shoulders. “It’s just that, between Kenny and Abbie, I think you suspect the wrong one of coveting Miss Fa Changying’s charms.”

  Her eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “You noticed?” she said, almost a whisper.

  He hesitated, about to take credit for noticing it, but stopped short and shook his head. “Kenny told me. He’s suspected for a while. I told him he had nothing to worry about.”

  “And he doesn’t,” Lucy said, her words clipped. “Abbie would never do anything untoward, or sneak around behind her husband’s back. But she is feeling a little...adrift these days, with the changes since she left teaching and Margaret was born, and I think it helps to indulge a sort of fantasy of their amah.”

  Doug nodded. He hadn’t thought of it that way, but he could understand it. “I just hope they can work things out, and get back to the way they were. I love them both, and I’d hate to see them end up bitter and miserable.” Like my parents.

  Lucy released a long, slow exhale, and her shoulders visibly relaxed. “I think they will. Abbie needs some understanding, and I keep telling her to just ask Kenny for it. She will, when she’s ready.”

  I should mention that to Kenny.

  “Maybe you should take him out Friday night, and make sure he’s ok,” Lucy said. “Maybe see if Pete and George want a night out, too. They’ve got to be missing Julia and Betty. I’m sure they’d all appreciate your friendship right now more than ever.”

  “But what about you?”

  She waved a dismissive hand. “You can take me out to dinner, and then I’ll come back here and soak in that big bathtub with a book while you go entertain the fellows. I could use the peace and quiet as much as I know they could all use the opposite.”

  **

  Saturday, August 21

  The ballroom on the top floor of the Paramount wasn’t as packed as usual, though the tables were full, as were the seats at the bar. The dance floor was half empty, though. Men definitely seemed to outnumber women here, Doug had noticed almost immediately after they’d arrived around ten o’clock on Friday night. All of the foreign residents of Shanghai seemed to be doing exactly what they were—a men’s night out to drink and forget the absence of the women in their lives, safely ensconced in Hong Kong or Manila.

  It was almost an hour past midnight that Doug realized with a start that it was now Saturday morning—and therefore a full week since Nick Bonadio had been murdered.

  And he still hadn’t arrived at a solution to who had killed Nick.

  “Ho there, Doug!” Pete said, snapping his fingers and waving his hand in front of Doug. “You looked about a million miles away, there, pal.”

  Doug smiled sheepishly, feeling his cheeks flush even more than they already were from the stuffy heat. “Sorry, thinking about something at work.”

  “No!” Kenny said, slapping the table with the palm of one hand, and swinging his cocktail glass with the other, coming dangerously close to splashing the contents all over them. “We said no work talk.”

  “We did indeed,” Doug agreed. “Sorry, fellas.”

  They’d made that agreement early in the evening, after listening to Pete complain for fifteen minutes about how all of the executives at HSBC—the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation—had slipped off to the Hong Kong office for the duration of the fighting here; but he’d been ordered to stay and try to safeguard their local investments. Fred and Stuart were there to assist him, but it was still a lot of pressure, and he’d be the one to take the fall if they lost everything from a bombardment.

  After drinking a toast to Pete not taking the fall, they instituted the moratorium on work talk.

  But this also meant that while Pete had gotten to unload about the pressures the battle in the northern part of the city was putting on hi
m, Doug hadn’t gotten the same opportunity.

  “I think we need to get you one of those taxi dancers, liven you up a bit,” Pete said, and peered out toward the dance floor.

  “He’s got a girl already,” George said, his rich baritone slurring. “Lucy’s still here. Just not here.” He jabbed a finger onto the table. “We should be the ones hiring the dance hostess-es-es for ourselves.” He reached across the table to slap Doug on the arm, a touch too hard.

  “Good idea!” Pete said, and he and George took off toward the far side of the parquet dance floor, where a cluster of young Chinese dance hostesses waited for their next fare. The Paramount had only added taxi dancers earlier that year, having previously been too sophisticated for such things; but the opening of Ciro’s last year had eaten into business, and the Paramount wasn’t taking that lying down.

  Doug shook his head as he watched his friends pick out a girl and gregariously hand over a dollar. Kenny’s hand falling heavily on his shoulder startled him.

  “I’ll dance with you, Douggie,” he slurred, with a huge grin. “It’ll be a hoot!”

  He was only half-joking, judging by the way his eyes held Doug’s for several seconds, before he suddenly looked away quickly and took a drink of his cocktail.

  “I would, Kenny—but one of those big fellas over there might get the wrong idea and beat us up.” Doug nodded at a quartet of large-built, swarthy men in pinstriped silk suits, sitting at a table on the edge of the dance floor. They looked like the Hollywood image of Chicago gangsters.

  “Ha!” Kenny said, and then looked dead serious. “It would only be my second bar fight, you know.”

  Doug laughed. “You weren’t even a participant in the first one. Just a spectator. ”

  “That’s true,” he said, sounding regretful. Then his eyes lit up. “But you were! You jumped right in, and helped your boys from the ship.”

  Doug shook his head. “Not exactly. I was trying to get them out of the middle of it. I didn’t succeed.”

  “What ever happened to those I-tai sailors, the ones that started the fight?” Kenny asked. “You still think they might have killed your boy Nick?”

  “That’s work talk.” Doug slapped Kenny’s arm.

  “Oh, I only asked because of that poor boy that got killed,” Kenny said, looking stung.

  “I was only teasing you. Their ship left Shanghai on Wednesday; bound for safer ports, I’d imagine.”

  He’d had barely any time to devote to the investigation this week, with everything else happening, but on the daily report of naval ship arrivals and departures that crossed his desk Thursday morning, he had noticed the name of the ship Wallace had said Iannucci and his cohorts were assigned to.

  Kenny’s eyes widened. “But if they killed that poor boy, that Nick, then they got away with it! How could you ever catch them if they left town?”

  The drink had made his tone overly dramatic, and Doug had to laugh. “Don’t worry, buddy. If it turns out they did it, we can work with the Italian navy to have them tried for the crime.”

  **

  They climbed into the back of a motor cab shortly before the Paramount closed at four o’clock, four grown men packed into the back seat of a 1935 DeSoto. Pete gave the driver his address in English, but Doug told him in Shanghainese to take him to the Metropole after dropping off the others.

  A few moments later, after turning onto Bubbling Well Road, the gleaming white lights of Ciro’s marquee lit the night.

  “Hey, fellas! I got a great idea!” Pete said, too loudly for the small space. “We can change clothes, and come back to Ciro’s for a nightcap.”

  “I don’t think you have a spare dinner jacket in my size,” George quipped.

  Groups of well-heeled patrons in evening gowns and dinner jackets milled around the entrance to Ciro’s. Squished in between Kenny and Pete, Doug wasn’t able to get a good look, but one figure still jumped out of the crowd, looking just like his photographs in the newspapers.

  Du Yuesheng—Big-Eared Du—surrounded by a cluster of his henchmen, all except Du himself smoking cigarettes. It was said the crime boss enjoyed an occasional evening at Shanghai’s most upscale nightclub, but this was the first time Doug had seen him out.

  He wished he could turn his head, maybe catch a glimpse of someone famous out with the most notorious man in China. But by the time he was able to twist around enough to look out the rear windshield, Ciro’s was shrinking into the night.

  20

  Monday, August 23

  The telephone in Doug’s hotel suite awoke him before dawn. Lucy stirred, but he whispered to her to go back to sleep. As he shuffled toward the living room, his mind grasped the probability that the ship was calling, and something big had happened with the war.

  “Hello?”

  “Commander Bainbridge? This is Ensign Halverson. I’m sorry to wake you, sir.”

  Yep, it’s the ship. “It’s fine, ensign. What’s happening?”

  “The Japanese have started landing entire divisions of army soldiers at Wusong and Chuan-Shaku. Their cruisers are bombarding the Chinese fortresses. Admiral Yarnell has ordered us to Wusong immediately, to observe and ascertain any threat to American shipping. You should come right away, sir. Commander Rose is on his way to the ship now, and we’ll embark within the hour.”

  “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

  The little gold clock on the bedside table said it was only twenty minutes after four o’clock. Doug silently cursed the Japanese for having gotten such an early start. But he could hardly blame them for taking advantage of the darkness afforded by a cloudy night, which mostly obscured the gibbous moon.

  He dressed as silently as he could, waiting to the last minute to kiss Lucy on the forehead, and whisper to her that he’d been called to the ship.

  “To the ship? What time is it?” she asked sleepily.

  “It’s four-thirty. Go back to sleep. I love you.”

  “How long will you be gone?” she asked, propping herself up on her elbows.

  “I don’t know. We’re not going far, though—just to Wusong.” For now. “I’ll get a message to you as soon as I can, I promise.”

  “Doug, what’s happening?”

  He hesitated, but she’d read about it in the newspapers soon enough. “A full-scale Japanese invasion, north of the city. They’re going to try to cut off Shanghai from the outside world.”

  She sat up all the way now. “How close are you going to get to the fighting?”

  The fear in her voice caused an ache in his heart. “I don’t know. At least close enough to observe their ships, but I don’t know how close exactly.” He took a few extra seconds to sit on the edge of the bed next to her, and put his hand on top of hers. “Don’t worry, our ship won’t be in any danger. We’re easily identifiable as a neutral vessel, and both sides are taking great pains to avoid endangering neutrals.”

  So far. He left that unsaid.

  He leaned in to kiss her, holding the kiss for several seconds. “I’ve got to go, we’re departing soon. I’ll get word to you soon.” He put his naval cap on and hurried out the door.

  **

  The first golden edge of pre-dawn light was breaking over the eastern horizon behind them, but the clouds in the night sky glowed red from the flares and cannon fire the Japanese ships were raining down on the shore batteries. Doug stood on the port deck of the Valparaiso, Brodie helmet on his head; he peered through binoculars at the flurry of activity on the shore, which came into full view every few seconds with the blast of naval shells in the sky above.

  “We’ve dropped anchor, Bainbridge,” Commander Rose said from a few feet behind his left shoulder, near the base of the ladder from the bridge. “This is as close as we’ll get, unless we’re ordered to move.”

  Doug nodded, but didn’t respond. He’d heard the ship’s engines idle some time ago, and their drift had stopped entirely several minutes later.

  “Until daylight breaks and gives us a
better view of our surroundings, I’m keeping most of the crew below,” Rose continued. “I have only the minimum number necessary on deck to fulfill needed functions. So if you need assistance, my request is that you come to the bridge, and refrain from commandeering the nearest crew member.”

  Doug had never “commandeered” any of the Valparaiso’s crew, and he found the timing of Rose’s request to be odd. But he nodded without looking back at the commander. “Understood.”

  **

  Commander Rose ordered the anchor raised an hour after dawn.

  “We’re moving down to the Yangtze,” he told Doug, who still watched the Japanese ships and the Chinese defenses through his binoculars. “With our prime directive to protect American shipping, I’m going to have us take up position in front of the mouth of the Huang Po. You’ll be able to keep an eye on Wusong Fortress from there.”

  Doug nodded, but kept his eyes on the battle. “I’ll need to radio a report to HQ, but I’ll wait until we get situated in our new position.”

  “Of course,” Rose said. “You are autonomous, after all. Carry on.”

  **

  Shanghai

  The alley behind the warehouse was eerily quiet for this time of morning, which made Jonesy’s nerves tingle. He stood in the darkened doorway of the grimy brick building, as instructed, the bustle of the Old City barely audible behind him. From here, one might never guess the hubbub of the Chinese Bund was only a couple of blocks away.

  A lanky figure came down the alley, and Jonesy tensed. He wasn’t sure whom he was supposed to meet; the message from Zhu Xian hadn’t been specific. Naturally.

  But something about the gait of this figure raised Jonesy’s suspicion, and a second later his nerves were replaced with irritation. Jack Ramsey stacked several crates beneath one of the large windows high above the alley, and climbed high enough he could stretch on tip-toes to peer above the sill.

  “Damn it,” Jonesy muttered. Ramsey was going to ruin everything. He pressed himself against the door, a few inches deeper into the shadow of the doorway, and hoped Jack wouldn’t notice him.