The Clown Prince of Kowloon

by James Dudley

  Lars looked back at him with confusion. “But won’t there be plenty of Chinese beers when we get to Hong Kong?”

  Tommy laughed. “Yuengling isn’t Chinese; it’s Pennsylvania Dutch, which means that it’s actually German. It’s also the best beer in the world.”

  They were about halfway through their drinks when the door swung open and a man in a dark suit walked in. There was a strong deliberation in his step, and he had the type of serious expression that instantly sucked the fun out of any room. He had G-man written all of him.

  “Can I help you?” Tommy asked. “Are you looking for anyone?”

  “I was actually looking for you, Mr. Malloy. I’d like to have a little conversation.”

  Tommy shrugged. “Alright then, grab a drink and make yourself at home.”

  The man opened up his wallet to reveal a very official looking ID card and badge. “I believe you misunderstood me, Mr. Malloy. I’d like to have a word in private.”

  Tony and Lars exchanged glances as they got up to leave, making the same type of mischievous grins as schoolchildren witnessing their friend get called to the principal’s office.

  “Don’t worry, Tommy, if you go to jail, we have Jerry Lewis standing by to replace you,” Tony said on the way out.

  “Forgive the lack of introduction,” the man said when they were alone. “You don’t need to know my real name, but you can call me Mr. Jones.”

  Tommy fidgeted uncomfortably in his seat. “So, Mr. Jones, is this about my taxes? Because I trusted my accountant, he told me he took care of everything. If something went wrong, I’m sure we can straighten it out.”

  Mr. Jones cracked a smile. “No, I’m not with the IRS.”

  “What are you then, FBI?” Tommy asked.

  “Guess again.”

  “CIA?”

  Mr. Jones paused for a moment, his silence providing the answer. “My employer has been keeping tabs on you since Paris.”

  Now it was starting to make sense. Three years ago, Tommy had the opportunity to perform a run of shows at a hot new comedy club that Louis Poutine had opened up. During one of those shows, a company man just like Mr. Jones interrupted the performance and instigated a brawl. Shortly afterwards, that man revealed to Tommy that he had to create a disturbance to escape from KGB assassins who were trailing him, and asked Tommy’s assistance in helping him escape from the premises. Not knowing what else to do, Tommy went along with it.

  When said assassins caught up to the man later that night, Tommy found himself framed for the murder, and thrust into the middle of a deadly plot of espionage that he was very fortunate to escape from. He had kept very quiet about these events, but now it appeared that that their effects were still reverberating.

  “We have a favor to ask of you. It’s nothing too crazy, but it will help us out a great deal.”

  “I’m listening.”

  Mr. Jones looked around the room, making sure that Tony and Lars had in fact left. “I’m sure you’re aware of Hong Kong’s unique geopolitical position. It’s a small British colony in the shadow of communist China. You may also be aware that China is one of the most difficult countries to read and gain information from. Without getting into too much detail, we are currently looking to contract out some smuggling work between Hong Kong and the mainland. We’ve been working on identifying the best smugglers in the Hong Kong underworld and which ones would be most amenable to the task. Now, we thought it was best for the initial approach if we could objectively evaluate how these smugglers perform when they don’t realize that they’re working for us. And that is where you come in.”

  “So you want me to be an arms dealer?” Tommy asked. “I can try, but that isn’t exactly my area of expertise.”

  “No, it’s not like that. We’re going to give you a list of smugglers and a bag of film reels. All we want you do is approach the people on the list and offer to sell them bootleg films to be smuggled into China. Then all you have to do after that is write evaluations of how they performed. We’ll give you some more details on how to do it, but for now, just think of yourself as a restaurant critic, but for smugglers.”

  Tommy was far from anxious to get involved in international espionage once again, but this mission seemed easy enough. “Sure, why not?”

  Mr. Jones reached out to shake his hand. “Thank you, Mr. Malloy. You are a true patriot.”

  As Tommy stood up to leave, his trip to Hong Kong had taken on a completely new dimension. Simply being an actor and comedian was no longer good enough. It was now time to put spying back in his repertoire.

  Chapter 3

  Tommy could feel the steady vibrations of the propeller-driven engines as he leaned against the cabin wall of the C-47 cargo plane. He was sitting in the middle of a line of men, facing inwards towards another line of men on the opposite side. Some smoked cigarettes, some tried to sleep, and others simply stared ahead, but all down the line, nobody was talking. Through the small windows, Tommy could just barely see the black clouds of exploding flak from German anti-aircraft fire, and the plane began to shake as the clouds grew steadily closer.

  The plane shook and sputtered as it grew closer to the drop zone, and finally, the men stood up in unison when the red light by the open door lit up. As they had done many times in training, the men hooked in their lines and checked each other to make sure their main parachutes, reserve chutes, equipment packs, and leg bags for the rifles were all in place. Next, Tommy reached into his shirt pocket to ensure that his two good luck charms were still there; one was a small silver medal of Saint Thomas, blessed by the Archbishop of Philadelphia that his grandmother had given him before he left home. The other was a 1932 Topps baseball card of Chuck Klein, the former star outfielder for the Phillies who had been his boyhood idol. Just as he confirmed their presence, the red light changed to green and the jumpmaster gave the order to go. Tommy leaped from the plane to warzone on the ground, feeling the sensation of falling…

  He awoke with a start and slowly gained his bearings. He was, in fact, on a plane, but this time it was a chartered Pan Am jet rather than a World War II transport. It was a rare experience for Tommy to be able to fall asleep on a plane, unless it was a flight as long as this one. While it was nice that he was finally able to pull it off, the fact that the setting brought back such fresh war memories made it a mixed blessing. He had long since pushed the horrors of war to the deepest recesses of his mind, but they had ways of coming back in his dreams. It was a somber element of seriousness in the life of man who told jokes for a living.

  Tommy knew that the chances of him falling back to sleep during the remaining time of the flight were extremely low, so he instead lit up a cigarette and began to look through the pile of books and folders on his lap. First, he opened up his notebook of standup material and jotted down, “What’s the deal with airline food?” before thinking better of it and scribbling it out. His books of discarded jokes were usually much longer than the ones he ended up keeping.

  Next, he read the next couple chapters of Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy, which he had been slowly but steadily making his way through. Tommy had recently made his first foray into the political realm by hosting a Philadelphia fundraiser for the Massachusetts Senator, fellow Irishman, and likely presidential candidate. As such, he felt somewhat obligated to read his book. It was a Pulitzer Prize winner after all.

  When he reached his limit of educational reading, he flipped through his copy of the Hong Kong Harry script, stopping to review the upcoming scene where Harry first meets the historical pirate queen Ching Shih, as portrayed by Donna Chang. He went over each of his lines in his head, picturing all the various ways he could deliver them and play off the other actors. Most of his fans would never realize just how much preparation and planning went into his brand of humor that appeared to be natural and effortless.

  When Tommy was done with his mental rehearsals, he glanced through a folder containing his itinerary and travel arrangements. Soon after l
anding, the top-billed stars were scheduled for a promotional junket with the local press. It was a portion of the job that he had initially regarded as a nuisance until he figured out that it was simply one more type of performance to master. Looking far from his best after sleeping through most of the flight, Tommy retrieved his garment bag and then walked back to the plane’s lavatory to prepare for the day’s events. When he arrived there, Donna was just stepping out, having had the same idea. She was dressed in a red and yellow cheongsam, and her hair was done up with chopsticks.

  “I haven’t worn one of these in years,” she said. “But, you know, when in Rome…or shall I say, when in Hong Kong.”

  Tommy laughed. “That was good, definitely use that one again.” He glanced once more at her attire and then remembered something. “Natalie wanted me to pick one of those up for her while we’re here, but I’m just not sure if a blonde Polish girl from Florida could pull that look off.”

  Donna smiled at him. “I actually think she could, you just need to find the right color scheme, maybe a light blue to complement her eyes. Don’t worry, I’ll help you pick out the right one, you definitely want to start out your marriage on the right foot.”

  “Thank you, I really appreciate that.” As if the biggest role of his career wasn’t stressful enough for Tommy, he also had to satisfy his requests from both the CIA and his fiancée during this trip, and he wasn’t sure which one he feared more. Of course, the part of the story he left out was that Natalie wasn’t actually Polish but Russian, a former KGB officer who had been tasked to apprehend him during his misadventures in Paris before eventually succumbing to his charms.

  Donna held the door to the lavatory open and motioned with her arm. “It’s all yours.”

  Tommy slipped inside the cramped and confining room and hung his bag on the door. He then took his time shaving and brushing his teeth before donning his attire for the day, a tan linen suit with a matching Panama hat. When he returned to his seat, the scheduled landing time was already fast approaching, and he eagerly anticipated the view. No matter how many flights he took, seeing a new city from the air for the first time as a plane circled in for a landing never ceased to thrill him.

  When the clouds outside the window cleared, Tommy could see massive green mountains taking form directly below them. They grew ever closer through the small window, and just when it seemed like they might be getting too close, the plane banked hard into a forty-five degree turn. Tommy gripped the arm rest and closed his eyes until the plane straightened out again, and when he looked out the window once more, he couldn’t believe what he saw.

  The busy streets and tightly packed tenements of Kowloon town were sprawled out all around him. The plane barely cleared the rooftops of buildings that were close enough to look inside the window. Next, the plane descended until it touched down on the runway at Kai Tak, a thin peninsula surrounded by water on all sides. The plane skidded to a halt with very little room to spare, and the passengers spontaneously began to applaud the pilot. Kai Tak was widely known in aviation circles as one of the world’s most difficult landings, and now they could all see why.

  The cast and crew walked down a staircase onto the tarmac, where Tommy followed along as he, Tony, Donna, and Lars were ushered towards a media dais where members of the local press awaited them. As soon as they sat down, they were greeted with flashing bulbs and reporters shouting over each other to ask the first question. Finally, the scrum of reporters evolved into something resembling an orderly line.

  “This one’s for Mr. Malloy,” the first reporter said. “What are your first impressions of Hong Kong?”

  Tommy paused for a moment to gather his thoughts, and then leaned forward towards the microphone. “Well if the approach to the airport was any indication, I can already tell it’s going to be fast paced, colorful, and maybe just a little bit dangerous. You should have seen my reaction when we were skimming over the buildings. I was crouching down for cover, but I still tried to steal some glances out the window. In other words, I was a Peking duck.”

  He exhaled as the reporters broke out in laughter. The adventure was only beginning.

  *****

  After a long day of interviews, production meetings, and setting up equipment, Tommy finally arrived at the Repulse Bay Hotel, where he would be staying for the duration of the trip. He walked up the covered stairs leading to the colonial style veranda, and paused for a moment to take in the view around him. It was a short walk from the hotel to the white, sandy beach, where a ring of green mountains enclosed a peaceful bay of greenish-blue water. Growing up in Philadelphia, Tommy’s idea of an exotic vacation was a weekend trip to the Jersey shore. He never ceased to be amazed by the places his career was taking him.

  Tommy walked through the palm tree-lined lobby and past the famous Bamboo Bar to the front desk. The concierge, a young man in a neatly pressed uniform, smiled when he approached, as if he had been expecting him.

  “Good evening, Sir. How may I help you?”

  “I have a reservation for Thomas Malloy.”

  The concierge nodded and then methodically flipped through his papers. Back home he would have used a fake name for the reservation, but here it hardly seemed necessary. In a hotel that had once hosted the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Noel Coward, and Marlon Brando, a celebrity of Tommy’s stature visiting wasn’t going to cause much of a stir. After a brief search, he found what he was looking for.

  “Here you go, Mr. Malloy, Room 231.” He handed over the room key and then picked up an unmarked manila envelope. “Also, this message was left for you.”

  Tommy thanked the concierge and then trudged up the stairs and through the hallway to his room. Once there, he threw down his bags, poured himself a whiskey from the minibar, and sat down to read the contents of the envelope. As expected, it was from the CIA, and it contained detailed instructions about which smugglers to meet with, where to find them, and the proper protocols for communication. When he was finished reading, he looked under his bed, as the letter instructed him to do. Sure enough, there was a black duffel bag filled to the brim with illegally obtained film reels. He took a long swig from his drink and wondered what exactly he was getting himself into.

  Chapter 4

  Singapore

  As soon as the workday let out at the shipyard, the Stinking Squid started filling up with its usual crowd of exhausted dock workers. The popular dive bar was dimly-lit, and the humidity of the tropical climate added to the body heat of the tightly-packed crowd combined to form a thick, muggy haze. A rancid mixture of sweat and spilled beer was baked into the rotting wooden floor, giving the place a uniquely foul stench that its patrons often referred to as “character.”

  Sitting alone in the corner booth, Major Richard Boothwyn sipped on his Tiger beer as he silently took in the scene. He breathed slowly and heavily as beads of sweat ran down his brow, inducing him to wipe his face with the sleeves of his oil-stained coveralls. As an officer of MI6, Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, he was now several months into his Southeast Asian posting, and had just about resigned himself to the fact that he would never quite acclimate to the climate. The stifling heat and suffocating humidity were a far cry from the pleasant country summers he had once enjoyed in his native Wales. Whoever said that only mad dogs and Englishmen could stand the hot sun had surely not included their Welsh, Scottish, and Irish neighbors in the equation.

  Most of Richard’s time since arriving in the region had been occupied by the Malayan Emergency, one of the numerous far-flung conflicts that had sprung up as Britain’s colonial empire disintegrated. He had spent several months in the jungle, gathering intelligence to assist the British army’s elite Special Air Service and their Malayan allies hunt down the communist rebel forces. He was a former SAS man himself, having served during the regiment’s earliest days in World War II in North Africa, and there was no other unit in the world he would rather have at his back.

  In recent weeks, new complications had
arisen in the course of this mission. For the third time in as many weeks, a shipment of weapons intended for Britain’s allies in the Malayan armed forces had gone missing, completely unaccounted for. Richard’s search for the presumably stolen arms had brought him to the port of Singapore, where he had been posing as a shipyard worker in an effort to observe and gather information.

  Like most major port cities, Singapore was rife with news, rumors, and hearsay from around the world, some of which was occasionally true. Between working on the docks and drinking in bars like this, Richard was able to overhear quite a lot of shipyard scuttlebutt. While most of it was irrelevant to his mission, the first potentially useful piece of news he received came through back alley whispers that Chinese intelligence officer Peng Zhao had been spotted in Singapore.

  For months, Richard and Peng had been locked in a deadly cat-and-mouse game in the Malayan jungle, with Richard aiding the government forces and Peng advising the rebels. Only a week ago, an SAS squad had raided a rebel camp where Peng was believed to be, but although the raid netted useful intelligence, the wily spy had slipped through their fingers. The trail picked up again in Singapore, and got a lot warmer when Richard’s fellow dockyard workers passed along rumors of a suspicious man attempting to pitch a contraband cargo to various merchant captains. If that type of deal were to go down, the Stinking Squid was the type of place where it would happen.

  Halfway through Richard’s third Tiger beer of the night, his luck began to break. Peng walked through the door as nonchalantly as possible, briefly scanned the room, and then walked over to the bar to order. He was wearing a loose fitting suit with no tie, a look that was both too casual for the banking district and too formal for the shipyard. He quickly paid for his beer, looking as if he did not wish to linger there any longer than he had to.