by Del Howison
Ryan’s father looks up into the angel’s eyes. “I tortured you,” he says, his voice cracking.
Shame washes over Ryan as he realizes that his father is crying.
“You released me,” said the angel. “Our jealousy of man blinded us. Tasting man’s blood made us forget who we were. Man’s blood bound us to the evil we had become. In denying me that blood, you have allowed me to be reborn.”
Ryan remembers standing in the twins’ room, watching as they died one at a time.
“We can end this, you and I,” says that musical voice. “We can find my brethren and help them regain their natures.”
Ryan remembers the blood on the front of his mother’s shirt. He remembers her fangs. He remembers the creature calling her “excrement.”
“Mankind will be free of us, and perhaps we can regain heaven,” the angel sang.
“Yes,” says Ryan’s father. That one word cuts through Ryan like a butcher knife. He picks up the machete.
“Yes,” his father repeats. “Let’s end this.”
“Let’s end this,” repeats Ryan. His father and the angel look at him as if they’d forgotten he was there. He sees understanding in both their eyes the instant before he swings the machete.
“No!” his father screams.
But the blade swings true and the angel’s head hits the trailer floor with a satisfying thunk. The body takes longer to fall. When it does, all the white feathers are covered in red blood. The same color blood as the twins’ and his mother’s.
Ryan’s father jumps to his feet and pushes Ryan away. “What have you done?” he screams. His hands are balled into tight fists; his face is red, the veins in his neck are pulsing. “You murdered an angel.”
“He wasn’t an angel,” yells Ryan, his anger raging to the surface. “He was the monster that killed the twins and made Mom into that thing.”
“He was an angel!”
“You were enthralled,” says Ryan.
“You saw him. He changed. He wanted to help us.”
“The blood of Christ is for us, not him. He doesn’t get forgiveness. He doesn’t get to go to heaven.”
Ryan’s father lunges for him. Ryan doesn’t think. He reacts. And it’s not until his father’s eyes widen in surprise that he realizes he defended himself with the machete.
“Ryan …”
“You were going to let him go.”
“Ryan, I love you….”
“He killed them and you were going to let him go.” Ryan pulls the machete from his father’s stomach. A torrent of blood comes with it.
“I’m going to find them all and make them pay.” He raises the machete. “I’m not afraid anymore.”
Ryan brings the machete down and another head hits the floor with a satisfying thunk.
PART OF THE GAME
F. PAUL WILSON
“YOU HAVE BEEN brought to attention of a most illustrious one,” Jiang Zhifu said.
The Chinaman wore long black cotton pajamas with a high collar and onyx-buttoned front. He’d woven his hair into a braid that snaked out from beneath a traditional black skullcap. His eyes were as shiny and black as his onyx buttons and, typical of his kind, gave nothing away.
Detective Sergeant Hank Sorenson smiled. “I guess the Mandarin heard about my little show at Wang’s pai gow parlor last night.”
Jiang’s mug remained typically inscrutable. “I not mention such a one.”
“Didn’t have to. Tell him I want to meet him.”
Jiang blinked. Got him! Direct speech always set these Chinks back on their heels.
Hank let his cup of tea cool on the small table between them. He’d pretend to take a sip or two but not a drop would pass his lips. He doubted anyone down here would make a move against a bull, but you could never be sure where the Mandarin was concerned.
He tried to get a bead on this coolie. A call in the night from someone saying he was Jiang Zhifu, a “representative”—these coolies made him laugh—of an important man in Chinatown. He didn’t have to say who. Hank knew. The Chink said they must meet to discuss important matters of mutual interest. At the Jade Moon. Ten A.M.
Hank knew the place—next to a Plum Street joss house—and he’d arrived early. First thing he’d done was check out the alley behind the place. All clear. Inside he’d chosen a corner table near the rear door and seated himself with his back to the wall.
The Jade Moon wasn’t exactly high end as Chinkytown restaurants went: dirty floors, smudged tumblers, chipped lacquer on the doors and trim, ratty-looking paper lanterns dangling from the exposed beams.
Not the kind of place he’d expect to meet a minion of the mysterious and powerful and ever-elusive Mandarin.
The Mandarin didn’t run Chinatown’s rackets. He had a better deal: He skimmed them. Never got his hands dirty except with the money that was pressed into them. Dope, prostitution, gambling … the Mandarin took a cut of everything.
How he’d pulled that off was a bigger mystery than his identity. Hank had dealt with the tongs down here—tough mugs one and all. Not the sort you’d figure to hand over part of their earnings without a fight. But they did.
Well, maybe there’d been a dust up and they lost. But if that was what had happened, it must have been fought out of sight, because he hadn’t heard a word about it.
Hank had been running the no-tickee-no-shirtee beat for SFPD since 1935 and had yet to find anyone who’d ever seen the Mandarin. And they weren’t just saying they’d never seen them—they meant it. If three years down here had taught him anything, it was that you never ask a Chink a direct question. You couldn’t treat them like regular people. You had to approach everything on an angle. They were devious, crafty, always dodging and weaving, always ducking the question and avoiding an answer.
He’d developed a nose for their lies, but had never caught a whiff of deceit when he’d asked about the Mandarin. Even when he’d played rough with a character or two, they didn’t know who he was, where he was, or what he looked like.
It had taken Hank a while to reach the astonishing conclusion that they didn’t want to know. And that had taken him aback. Chinks were gossipmongers—yak-yak-yak in their singsong voices, trading rumors and tidbits like a bunch of old biddies. For them to avoid talking about someone meant they were afraid.
Even the little people were afraid. That said something for the Mandarin’s reach.
Hank had to admit he was impressed, but hardly afraid. He wasn’t a Chink.
Jiang had arrived exactly at ten, kowtowing before seating himself.
“Even if I knew of such a one,” the Chinaman said, “I am sure he not meet with you. He send emissary, just as my master send me.”
Hank smiled. These Chinks …
“Okay, if that’s the way we’re going to play it, you tell your master that I want a piece of his pie.”
Jiang frowned. “Pie?”
“His cream. His skim. His payoff from all the opium and dolla-dolla girls and gambling down here.”
“Ah so.” Jiang nodded. “My master realize that such arrangement is part of everyday business, but one such as he not sully hands with such. He suggest you contact various sources of activities that interest you and make own arrangements with those establishments.”
Hank leaned forward and put on his best snarl.
“Listen, you yellow-faced lug, I don’t have time to go around bracing every penny-ante operation down here. I know your boss gets a cut from all of them, so I want a cut from him! Clear?”
“I’m afraid that quite impossible.”
“Nothing is impossible!” He leaned back. “But I’m a reasonable man. I don’t want it all. I don’t even want half of it all. I’ll settle for an even split of his gambling take.”
Jiang smiled. “This a jest, yes?”
“I’m serious. Dead serious. He can keep everything from the dope and the heifer dens. I want half of the Mandarin’s gambling take.”
Hank knew that was where the money was in Chinatown
. Opium was big down here, but gambling … these coolies gambled on anything and everything. They had their games, sure—parlors for fan-tan, mah-jongg, pai gow, sic bo, pak kop piu, and others—but they didn’t stop there. Numbers had a huge take. He’d seen slips collected day and night on street corners all over the quarter. Write down three numbers, hand them in with your money, and pray the last three Dow Jones numbers matched yours at the end of trading.
They’d bet on just about any damn thing, even the weather.
They didn’t bother to hide their games either. They’d post the hours of operation on their doors, and some even had touts standing outside urging people inside. Gambling was in their blood, and gambling was where the money was, so gambling was where Hank wanted to be.
No, make that would be.
Jiang shook his head and began to rise. “So sorry, Detective Sorenson, but—”
Hank sprang from his chair and grabbed the front of Jiang’s black top.
“Listen, Chink-boy! This is not negotiable! One way or another I’m going to be part of the game down here. Get that? A big part. Or else there’ll be no game. I’ll bring in squad after squad and we’ll collar every numbers coolie and shut down every lousy parlor in the quarter—mah-jongg, sic bo, you name it, it’s history. And then what will your boss’s take be? What’s a hundred percent of nothing, huh?”
He jerked Jiang closer and backhanded him across the face, then shoved him against the wall.
“Tell him he either gets smart or he gets nothing!”
Hank might have said more, but the look of murderous rage in Jiang’s eyes stalled the words in his throat.
“Dog!” the Chink whispered through clenched teeth. “You have made this one lose face before these people!”
Hank looked around the suddenly silent restaurant. Diners and waiters alike stood frozen, gawking at him. But Hank Sorenson wasn’t about to be cowed by a bunch of coolies.
He jabbed a finger at Jiang. “Who do you think you are, calling me a—?”
Jiang made a slashing motion with his hand. “I am servant of one who would not wipe his sandals on your back. You make this one lose face, and that mean you make him lose face. Woe to you, Detective Sorenson.”
Without warning, he let out a yelp and slammed the edge of his hand onto the table, then turned and walked away.
He was halfway to the door when the table fell apart.
Hank stood in shock, staring down at the pile of splintered wood. What the—?
Never mind that now. He gathered his wits and looked around. He wanted out of here, but didn’t want to walk past all those staring eyes. They might see how he was shaking inside.
That table … If Jiang could do that to wood, what could he do to a neck?
Fending off that unsettling thought, he left by the back door. He took a deep breath of putrid back-alley air as he stepped outside. The late-morning sun hadn’t risen high enough yet to break up the shadows here.
Well, he’d delivered his message. And the fact that Jiang had struck the table instead of him only reinforced what he already knew: no worry about bull busting down here. No Chink would dare lay a hand on a buzzer-carrying member of the SFPD. They knew what would happen in their neighborhoods if anyone ever did something like that.
He sighed as he walked toward the street. At least during his time in the restaurant he’d been thinking of something other than Luann. But now she came back to him. Her face, her form, her voice … oh, that voice.
Luann, Luann, Luann …
* * *
“I should have killed the dog for his insult to you, Venerable,” Jiang said as he knelt before the Mandarin and pressed his forehead against the stone floor.
Instead of his usual Cantonese, Jiang spoke in Mandarin—fittingly, the language the Mandarin preferred.
“No,” the master said in his soft, sibilant voice. “You did well not to harm him. We must find a more indirect path to deal with such a one. Sit, Jiang.”
“Thank you, Illustrious.”
Jiang raised his head from the floor but remained kneeling, daring only a furtive peek at his master. Many times he had seen the one known throughout Chinatown as the Mandarin—not even Jiang knew his true name—but that did not lessen the wonder of his appearance.
A high-shouldered man standing tall and straight with his hands folded inside the sleeves of his embroidered emerald robe; a black skullcap covered the thin hair that fringed his high, domed forehead. Jiang marveled as ever at his light green eyes that seemed almost to glow.
He did not know if his master was a true mandarin, or merely called such because of the dialect he preferred. He did know the master spoke many languages. He’d heard him speak English, French, German, and even a low form of Hindi to the dacoits in his employ.
For all the wealth flowing through his coffers, the master lived frugally. Jiang had gathered that he was part of a larger organization, perhaps even its leader. He suspected that most of the money went back to the homeland for weapons to resist the invading Japanese curs who had ravaged Nanjing.
“So this miserable offspring of a maggot demands half the gambling tribute. Wishes to be—how did he put it?—‘part of the game?’ ”
“Yes, Magnificent.”
The master closed his eyes. “Part of the game … part of the game…. By all means, we must grant his wish.”
Jiang spent the ensuing moments of silence in a whirlpool of confusion. The master … giving in to the cockroach’s demands? Unthinkable! And yet he’d said—
An upward glance showed the master’s eyes open again and a hint of a smile curving his thin lips.
“Yes, that is it. We shall make him part of the game.”
Jiang had seen that smile before. He knew what usually followed. It made him three-times glad that he was not Detective Sorenson.
* * *
Hank held up his double-breasted tuxedo and inspected it, paying special attention to the wide satin lapels. No spots. Good. He could get a few more wears before sending it for cleaning.
As always, he was struck by the incongruity of a tux in his shabby two-room apartment. Well, it should look out of place. It had cost him a month’s rent.
All for Luann.
That babe was costing him a fortune. Trouble was, he didn’t have a fortune. But then, the Chinatown games would fix that.
He shook his head. That kind of scheme would have been unthinkable back in the days when he was a fresh bull. And if not for Luann, it would still be unthinkable.
But a woman can change everything. A woman can turn you inside out and upside down.
Luann was one of those women.
He remembered the first time he’d seen her at the Serendipity Club. Like getting gut-punched. She wasn’t just a choice piece of calico; she had the kind of looks that could put your conscience on hold. Then she’d stepped up to the mike and … a voice like an angel. When Hank heard her sing “I’ve Got You Under My Skin,” that was it. He was gone. He’d heard Doris Lessing sing it a hundred times on the radio, but Luann … Luann made him feel like she was singing to him.
Hank had stayed on through the last show. When she finished he followed her—a flash of his buzzer got him past the geezer guarding the backstage door—and asked her out. A cop wasn’t the usual stage-door Johnny and so she’d said okay.
Hank had gone all out to impress Luann, and they’d been on the town half a dozen times so far. She’d tapped him out without letting him get to first base. He knew he wasn’t the only guy she dated—he’d spied her out with a couple of rich cake eaters—but Hank wasn’t the sharing kind. Trouble was, to get an exclusive on her was going to take moolah. Lots of it.
And he was going to get lots of it. A steady stream …
He yawned. What with playing the bon vivant by night and the soft heel by day, he wasn’t getting much sleep.
He dropped onto the bed, rolled onto his back, and closed his eyes. Luann didn’t go on for another couple of hours, so a catnap w
ould be just the ticket. He was slipping into that mellow, drowsy state just before dropping off to sleep when he felt a sharp pain in his left shoulder, like he’d been stabbed with an ice pick.
As he bolted out of bed, Hank felt something wriggling against his undershirt. He reached back and felt little legs—lots of little legs. Fighting a sick revulsion, Hank grabbed it and pulled. It writhed and twisted in his hand but held fast to his skin. Hank clenched his teeth and yanked.
As the thing came free, pain like he’d never known or imagined exploded in his shoulder, driving him to his knees. He dropped the wriggling thing and slapped a hand over the live coal embedded in his shoulder. Through tear-blurred vision he saw a scarlet millipede at least eight inches long scurrying away across the floor.
“What the—?”
He reached for something—anything—to use against it. He grabbed a shoe and smashed it down on the thing. The heel caught the back half of its body and Hank felt it squish with a crunch. The front half spasmed, reared up, then tore free and darted under the door and out into the hallway before he could get a second shot.
Hell with it! His shoulder was killing him.
He brought his hand away and found blood on his palm. Not much, but enough to shake him. He struggled to his feet and stepped into his tiny bathroom. The bright bulb over the speckled mirror picked up the beads of sweat on his brow.
He was shaking. What was that thing? He’d never seen anything like it. And how had it got in his room, in his bed, for Christ sake?
He half-turned and angled his shoulder toward the mirror. The size of the bite surprised him—only a couple of punctures within a small smear of blood. From the ferocity of the pain, he’d expected something like a .38 entry wound.
The burning started to subside. Thank God. He balled up some toilet tissue and dabbed at the wound. Looky there. Stopped bleeding already.
He went back to the front room and looked at the squashed remains of the thing. Damn. It looked like something you’d find in a jungle. Like the Amazon.
How’d it wind up in San Francisco?
Probably crawled off a boat.
