Oddments

by Bill Pronzini

  Quincannon was silent for a time, while he digested this new information. If anything, it deepened the piscine odor of things. At length he asked, "Whose idea was it to leave the job to the police? Yours or your father's?"

  The question discomfited Mock Quan. His eyes narrowed; he exhaled smoke in a thin jet. "I am not privileged to sit on the council of elders."

  "No, but your father is. And I'll wager you have his confidence as well as his ear, and that your powers of persuasion are considerable."

  "Such matters are of no concern to you."

  "They're of great concern to me. I was nearly shot, too, in Ross Alley. And I'm not as convinced as the police that Little Pete is behind the death of James Scarlett or the disappearance of Bing Ah Kee's remains."

  Mock Quan made an odd hissing sound with his lips, a Chinese expression of anger and contempt. There was less oil and more steel in his voice when he spoke again. "You would do well to bow to the superior intelligence of the police, Mr. Quincannon. Lest your blood stain a Chinatown alley after all."

  "I don't like warnings, Mock Quan."

  "A humble Chinese warn a distinguished Occidental detective? They were merely words of caution and prudence."

  Quincannon's smile was nothing more than a lip-stretch. He said, "I have no intention of leaving a single drop of my blood in Chinatown."

  "Then you would be wise not to venture here again after the cloak of night has fallen." His smile was as specious as Quincannon's. So was the invitation which followed: "Will you join me in a cup of excellent rose-petal tea before you leave?"

  "Another time, perhaps."

  "Perhaps. Ho hang la—Ihope you have a safe walk." "Health and long life to you, too."

  As he made his way out of the building, Quincannon felt a definite lift in spirits. The briny aroma had grown so strong that now he had a very good idea of its source, its species, and its cause.

  Your hat, Mock Quan, he thought with grim humor. In your blasted hat!

  Sabina said, "Mrs. Scarlett has taken to her bed with grief and the comfort of a bottle of crème de menthe. It made questioning her difficult, to say the least."

  "Were you able to find out anything?"

  "Little enough. Her husband, as far as she is aware, had no incriminating documents in his possession, nor does she know where he might have put such a document for safekeeping. And she has no recollection of his ever mentioning Fowler Alley in her presence."

  "I was afraid that would be the case."

  "Judging from your expression, your visit to Fowler Alley proved enlightening."

  "Not Fowler Alley; that piece of the puzzle is still elusive. My call at the Hip Sing Company."

  She raised an eyebrow. "You went there? I don't see a puncture wound anywhere. No bullets fired or hatchets or knives thrown your way?"

  "Bah. I've bearded fiercer lions in their dens than Mock Quan."

  "Who is Mock Quan?"

  "The son of Mock Don Yuen, new leader of the tong. A sly gent with delusions of grandeur and a hunger for power as great as Little Pete's. Unless I miss my guess, he is the murderer of James Scarlett and the near murderer of your devoted partner."

  Sabina's other eyebrow arched even higher. "What led you to that conclusion?"

  "His hat," Quincannon said.

  "His—Are you quite serious, John?"

  "Never more so. The gunman outside Blind Annie's Cellar wore a black slouch hat with a red what-do-you-call-it on top—"

  "A mow-yung,"Sabina said.

  He frowned. "How do you know that?"

  "And why shouldn't a woman know something you don't? A mow-yung is a symbol of high caste in Chinese society."

  "That much I do know," Quincannon growled. "Coolie food sellers don't wear 'em and neither do the boo how doy. That's what has been bothering me about the assassin from the first. He wasn't a highbinder but an upper-class Chinese masquerading as one."

  "How do you know itwas Mock Quan?"

  "I don't know it for sure. A hunch, a strong one. Mock Quan is ambitious, foolhardy, corrupt, and ruthless. He covets Little Pete's empire in Chinatown. He as much as said so."

  "Why would he risk killing Scarlett himself?"

  "If my hunch is correct, he's working at cross-purposes to those of his father and the Hip Sing elders. It's his plan to let Lieutenant Price and the flying squad finish off his enemies and then to take over Little Pete's position as crime boss—with or without the blessings of his father and the tong. He has allies in the Hip Sing, certainly, but none he trusted enough to do the job on Scarlett. He's the sort to have no qualms about committing cold-blooded murder."

  "For the dual purpose of stirring up the police and silencing Scarlett? Mock Quan is behind the body snatching, too, if you're right."

  "I'd bet five gold eagles on it," Quincannon agreed. "And another five he's at least partly responsible for the letter of Scarlett's found on the Kwong Dock highbinder who was killed by the police this morning."

  "That's fresh news," Sabina said. "Tell me."

  He told her.

  "I wonder how Mock Quan could have managed such flummery as that?"

  "I can think of one way."

  "Yes," she said slowly, "so can I. But proving it may be difficult. The case against Mock Quan, too."

  "I know it. But there has to be a way to expose him before the kettle boils over. His plan is mad, but madder ones have succeeded and will again." He began to pace the office. "If we only knew the significance of Fowler Alley . . . Did you manage to have a look around the Scarlett lodgings?"

  Sabina nodded. "Scarlett kept a desk there, but it contained nothing revealing. I did learn one small item of interest from Mrs. Scarlett before she fell asleep. It answers one question, while posing another."

  "Yes?"

  "She was followed when she came to see us yesterday. She intended to mention the fact but she was too upset about her husband."

  "Followed? Not by a Chinese?"

  "No, a Caucasian. A stranger to her."

  "What did he look like?"

  "She wasn't able to get a clear look at him. A man in a blue suit was all the description she could provide."

  Quincannon muttered, "Blue shadow, eh?"

  "Evidently. Another Caucasian on the Hip Sing payroll, one of Mock Quan's allies. And the explanation of how Mock Quan was able to follow you on your rounds of the opium resorts."

  "Mmm." Quincannon continued to pace for a time. Then, abruptly, he stopped and said, "Perhaps not such a small item of interest after all, my dear."

  "Have you thought of something?"

  "Been bitten by another hunch is more like it." He reached for his coat and derby.

  "Where are you off to?"

  "Scarlett's law offices. My search last night was hasty and it's possible I overlooked something of importance. Or rather, spent my time looking for the wrong thing."

  No one else had passed through the portal marked J. H. Scarlett, Attorney-at-Law since Quincannon's nocturnal visit. Or if anyone had, it'd been without any further disturbance of the premises.

  With a close curb on his impatience, he set about once more sifting through the lawyer's papers. He examined each document carefully, some more than once. The hunch that had bitten him had plenty of teeth: One name kept reappearing in similar context, and the more he saw it, the more furiously his nimble brain clicked and whirred. When he stood at last from the desk, his smile and the profane oath he uttered through it had a wolfish satisfaction.

  He was certain, now, that he knew most of what there was to know. The only piece of the game he didn't have, in fact, was the one that had eluded him since last night: Fowler Alley.

  A sharp, chill wind blew along the alley's close confines. Litter swirled; pigtailed men and work-stooped women hurried on their errands, not half so many as there had been earlier. Quincannon sensed an urgency in their movements, an almost palpable tension in the air. Word had spread of the flying squad's planned raids and the law-abiding were e
ager to be off the streets before dark.

  Quincannon walked slowly, hands buried in the pockets of his Chesterfield, his shoulders hunched and his head swiveling left and right. The buildings in the first block, with their grimy windows and indecipherable calligraphy, told him no more than they had earlier. He entered the second block, frustration mounting in him again.

  He was halfway along when he noticed a high-sided black wagon drawn up in front of some sort of business establishment. A small cluster of citizens stood watching something being loaded into the rear of the wagon. Quincannon moved closer. He was taller than most Chinese; he could see over the tops of the watchers' heads as he neared. One clear look at the object being loaded and he fetched up in a sudden standstill.

  Casket. Hearse.

  Undertaking parlor!

  He turned swiftly,ran back on that side of the alley until he came to an opening between the buildings. A tunnel-like walkway brought him into a deeply rutted dirt passage that paralleled Fowler Alley. He counted buildings to the rear of the one that housed the undertaker's. The door there was neither barred nor latched; he pushed it open with his left hand, drawing his Navy Colt with his right, and entered the gloomy corridor within.

  The sickish odor of formaldehyde dilated his nostrils, set him to breathing through his mouth as he eased along the hall. From the front of the building the singsong of Chinese dialect came to him, but back here there was no sound.

  The lantern-lit chamber into which he emerged was empty except for rows of coffins, most of them plain, a few of the lacquered teakwood favored by the high-born and the wealthy. A tapestried doorway opened to the right. Quincannon went there, pushed the covering aside.

  Here was the embalming room, the source of the formaldehyde odor. He crossed it, past a metal table, an herb cabinet, another cabinet in which needles, razors, and other tools of the mortician's trade gleamed, to where a row of three slender storage vaults were set into the wall. The first vault he opened was empty. The second contained the body of a very old Mandarin whose skin was so wrinkled he might have been mummified. Quincannon opened the third.

  The body in this vault was also an old man's, 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 thin drooping moustaches trimmed; a prayer book was still clutched between the gnarled hands.

  "Bing Ah Kee," Quincannon said under his breath, "or I'm not the master detective I believe I am."

  He closed the vault, retraced his steps to the doorway, pushed the tapestry aside. And came face-to-face with a youngish individual wearing a stained leather apron over his blouse and pantaloons. The man let out a startled bleat and an oath or epithet that threatened to escalate into a full-fledged cry of alarm. As he turned to flee, voice just starting to rise, Quincannon tapped him with the barrel of his Navy at the spot where queue met scalp. Flight and cry both ended instantly.

  Quincannon stepped over the fallen Chinese, hurried across the coffin room and into the rear corridor. Fortunately for him, he had the presence of mind to ease the outside door open and poke his head out for a look around, instead of rushing through. It saved him from having some tender and perhaps vital portion of his anatomy punctured by a bullet.

  As it was, the gunman lying in wait in a nearby doorway fired too hastily; the slug thwacked into the wall several inches from Quincannon's head, which he quickly jerked back inside. There were no more shots. He stood tensely, listening. Was that the slap of footfalls? He edged the door open again and poked his head out at a lower point than the first time.

  Footfalls, indeed. The assassin was on the run. Quincannon straightened and stepped outside, but before he could trigger a shot the black-outfitted figure vanished into the walkway to Fowler Alley.

  Mock Quan, of course, in his highbinder's guise. The fact that he'd made this attempt at homicide in broad daylight was an indication of just how desperate Quincannon's discovery had made him. So was the craven way he'd taken flight after his first shot missed its mark.

  That was the difference between despots such as Little Pete and would-be despots such as Mock Quan, Quincannon mused. Both were rapacious and reckless, but the true tyrant was too arrogant to give himself up to panic. The would-be tyrant was far easier to bring down because his arrogance was no more than a thin membrane over a shell of cowardice.

  When Quincannon arrived at the Hall of Justice he found Price, Gentry, and a dozen other men of the flying squad already preparing for the night's assault on Chinatown. The basement assembly room was strewn with coils of rope, firemen's axes, sledgehammers, artillery, and bulletproof vests similar to the coats of chain mail worn by the boo how doy.

  He drew the lieutenant aside and did some fast talking, the gist of which was that he had information which would render the raids unnecessary. Fifteen minutes later he was once again seated in the chief's office, holding court before the same three officers as on his previous visit. As he spoke, he noted that the expressions worn by the trio were more or less the same, too: Crowley's stern and disapproving, Price's intently thoughtful, Gentry's hostile.

  None of them commented until he finished and leaned back in his chair. Then each spoke in rapid succession. Crowley: "That's quite a tale, Quincannon."

  Gentry: "Hogwash, I say."

  Price: "Fact or fiction, we'll find out soon enough. I want my own look inside that undertaking parlor."

  "What good will that do?" Gentry argued. "Even if Mock Quan is behind all that's happened, old Bing's bones will be long gone by the time we get there."

  "I think not, Sergeant," Quincannon said. "Mock Quan likely has nowhere to move the body on short notice. And he won't destroy it for the same reason he didn't before—fear of the wrath of the gods and all of Chinatown. Even if he were able to remove the body, there are bound to be ties between him and the mortician. Put pressure on that party and his terror of tong reprisal will bring out the truth. I'll warrant the whole house of cards can be collapsed around Mock Quan in a few hours, and that he knows it as well as I do. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he has already left the city—on the run ever since his bullet missed my head."

  "Nor would I, if you're right," Price said. "And I'm beginning to believe you are."

  The chief leaned forward. "You really think Mock Quan is capable of plotting such a scheme, Will?"

  "I wouldn't have until now. He's sneaky and ruthless, yes, but not half so clever as Little Pete. Still…"

  "The plan wasn't his alone," Quincannon said. "He had help in its devising."

  "Help? Help from whom?"

  "A blue shadow."

  "What the devil are you talking about?"

  "James Scarlett said two things before he was killed. One was 'Fowler Alley'; the other was 'blue shadow.' And the truth is, he was as afraid of a blue shadow as he was of Mock Quan. His guilty knowledge wasn't only of the body snatching, but of the identity of Mock Quan's partner—the man who followed Scarlett's wife to my offices yesterday and who arranged for Mock Quan to follow me in Chinatown last night."

  "What partner?" Chief Crowley demanded. "What does blue shadow mean?"

  "It means a shadowy person in blue," Quincannon said. "Not a plain blue suit, as the partner wore yesterday, but a blue uniform—a policeman's uniform." He paused dramatically. "One of the policemen in this room is Mock Quan's accomplice."

  All three officers came to their feet as one. Gentry aimed a quivering forefinger as if it were the barrel of his sidearm. "Preposterous nonsense! How dare you accuse one of us—"

  "You, Sergeant. I'm accusing you."

  The smoky air fairly crackled. Price and Crowley were both staring at Gentry; the sergeant's eyes threw sparks at Quincannon. The cords in the short man's neck bulged. His color was a shade less purple than an eggplant's.

  "It's a dirty lie!" he shouted.

  "Cold, hard fact."

  Price said with contained fury, "Can you prove this allegation, Quincann
on?"

  "I can, to your satisfaction. After I left here last night, I went to James Scarlett's law offices. They had already been searched sometime earlier, likely soon after Mrs. Scarlett visited my offices. At first I believed the job was done by one of the highbinders, hunting any incriminating evidence Scarlett may have had in his possession. But that wasn't the case. The search hadn't the stamp of the tong man; it was much more professionally conducted, as a policeman goes about such a frisk. Gentry's work, gentlemen."

  "For the same reason?"

  "More probably to look for evidence of his conspiracy with Mock Quan. If there was any such evidence, Gentry made off with it. He also made off with a letter written on Scarlett's stationery and signed by the attorney—the same letter you found on the Kwong Dock highbinder who was killed last night. Killed by Gentry, wasn't he? And the letter found by Gentry afterward?"

  "Yes, by God. Right on both counts."

  "He tried to put a knife in me!" Gentry cried. "You saw him, Lieutenant—"

  "I saw nothing of the kind. I took your word for it."

  "A clever attempt to tighten the frame against Little Pete," Quincannon said. "As was Gentry's constant urging of you and Chief Crowley to crush Pete and the Kwong Dock."

  "Lies! Don't listen to him—"

  The other two officers ignored him. Price said, "Go on, Quincannon."

  "When Gentry searched Scarlett's offices he carried off any direct evidence he may have found, as I said. But he failed to notice indirect evidence just as damning. Scarlett's legal records indicate the sergeant was in the pay of the Hip Sing, just as Scarlett himself was, long before Gentry and Mock Quan cooked up their takeover scheme. He was mixed up in nearly all of the cases in which Scarlett successfully defended a Hip Sing member. In some, his testimony—false or distorted—resulted in acquittal. In others, it's plain that he suppressed evidence or suborned perjury or both."

  Gentry started toward Quincannon with murder in his eye. "If there are any such lies in Scarlett's records, you put them there, you damned flycop! You're the one trying to pull a frame—"