The Pulp Fiction Megapack

by Robert Leslie Bellem

  Deming nodded. He produced two pieces of jade from his pocket. Each piece was five and a half inches long. There were jagged edges on one side of each. Nick took them from Deming, and fitted them together. The jagged edges fell into place, the two pieces became as one, forming a little icon, or image, representing a man squatted upon a low pedestal.

  Across the front of the pedestal was engraved the same inscription as on the dead man’s ring!

  Deming was saying, “That’s a figure of Confucius, carved in nephritic jade. The workmanship is consummate; the piece is perhaps two thousand years old. It is absolutely impossible to estimate its value in dollars. I wouldn’t sell it for a million.”

  McGuire took the cigar out of his mouth to say, “The Chink had both pieces in his pocket. That’s all he was after.”

  There was a thoughtful expression in Nick’s eyes as he handed the image back to Deming. “Looks to me,” he said, “like you’ll need more than protection—you’ll need life insurance. This image comes from a shrine of Kung Fu-tsu, which is the Chinese equivalent of Confucius. The shrines of Kung Fu-tsu are under the special protection of the Kung Tong, and the dead Chinaman there is a member of it.” He shook his head. “No thanks, Mr. Deming. I can’t take the assignment. When those boys have it in for you, it’s just too bad.”

  McGuire said sneeringly, “Just yella, huh?” Nick glared, was about to say something nasty, when Deming interrupted hastily. “Look here, Ronson. From what I’ve heard of you, you’re not the man to turn down a job because it’s dangerous. That’s why I called you in. I want to keep this jade, and I also want to stay alive. I’ll pay you five thousand dollars to fix it so I don’t have to worry about this Kung Tong any more—and I don’t care how you do it!” Nick considered for a moment. Then he said, “They may want indemnity—for him.” He nodded toward the body.

  “I’ll pay it—whatever they ask. And the fee to you for arranging it.”

  “All right,” Nick agreed. “You keep to the house—don’t go out till I see what’s what. I’ll send a couple of my men over to take care of you in case these boys start something prematurely.”

  Deming said, “You want a check?”

  Nick nodded. “In advance. I don’t guarantee results, and I’d hate to have to sue your estate for it.”

  Deming made a wry face, but he sat down and wrote the check.

  Nick took it, grinned at McGuire, and went out.

  In the street he hailed a cab, and said, “Corner of Race and Marley.”

  * * * *

  When he got out of the cab he walked down a half block, and stood for a moment, looking up at the bleak brownstone facade of the house on Marley Street.

  He made sure that his .32 Special slid easy in the holster beneath his armpit, walked up the five steps of the stoop, and rang the bell.

  Almost before he had his finger off the button, the door was opened by a short, skinny Chinaman, who, when he saw Nick, bobbed his head and said squeakily, “Hello, Misteh Lonson. Come lite in. Charley Mee waits for you.”

  Nick said nothing, but his eye went to the gold band on the middle finger of the Chinaman’s right hand. It was the same kind of ring that the dead Chinaman in Deming’s living room had worn.

  Nick stepped into the dark hall-way, and the servant closed the door. Then he turned and led the way toward the rear, saying, “Please to follow me, Misteh Lonson.”

  Nick thought he detected a subtle gleam in the skinny Chinaman’s eye, but he had long ago learned the futility of trying to read any sort of meaning into the expression of a Chinaman’s face. He went along behind him till they reached a massive oak door at the end of the corridor.

  The servant rapped in a peculiar way—twice, then once, then three times very swiftly.

  Almost at once there was a click, and the heavy door started to swing open.

  The room within was only dimly lighted by a single low lamp that stood near the door.

  In the middle of the room was a long table. There were chairs around this table, but none was occupied except the one at the head, facing the door. In this chair sat a very fat, motionless Chinaman.

  Nick stepped into the room, and the door closed mechanically, leaving the skinny servant on the outside. Nick noted that the fat man was manipulating a row of buttons on the table. These, doubtless, controlled the door—also, perhaps, various other gadgets in the room.

  Nick walked up to the end of the table opposite the fat man and said. “Hello, Charlie. How did you know I was coming?”

  The fat man spoke impassively. His countenance, which was almost entirely in shade, hardly seemed to move, except for his lips. His English was as good as Nick’s, with the exception of a slight lisp. “This poor offspring of a snail,” he said, “is overwhelmed with humiliation that he cannot rise to fittingly greet the eminent Mister Ronson. But the disabilities of old age weigh heavily upon me. I—”

  “Can it, Charlie,” Nick interrupted him, unceremoniously. “I know you’re a fraud, so why waste all the words on me. How did you know I was coming?”

  Charlie Mee did not move. His voice took on an edge of sharpness. “You are the same old Nick Ronson—always getting to the point. What difference does it make how I knew? You are here. You have something to say?”

  Nick nodded. He put both hands on the table, leaned forward. “I have, Charlie. And this is it. You’re the head of the Kung Tong. I know it, because I learned it once when I did you a service. I was well paid for that service, and we are quits. I ask nothing for that. But I have come now to offer you something.”

  Charlie Mee said nothing, did not move. He waited in silence, the epitome of the patient Oriental.

  Nick went on after a moment. “Today, one of your brotherhood broke into the home of Gregory Deming, the jade collector. He stabbed Deming’s secretary to death, and attempted to steal a jade figure of Kung Fu-tsu, Deming surprised him, and when this member of your Tong attempted to attack, Deming shot him in the head.”

  Still the fat man maintained silence. Only his eyes were now glittering dangerously.

  Nick continued. “Deming was justified in shooting your Tong member. But he’s afraid the Tong maybe out for blood—so he’s engaged me to keep his skin whole. I have taken his money, therefore it follows that I must fight his enemies. I should be very sorry if you felt that you had to avenge this member of yours who killed Deming’s secretary.”

  Nick stopped. He had made his position clear.

  For a long time Charlie Mee gazed at him impassively down the length of the bare table. Nick wondered what devious thoughts were going through that Oriental mind.

  Finally Charlie Mee stirred and spoke. “The laws of the Tong forbid me to speak freely to one of an alien race, Mister Ronson. But I am sorry that you have taken this man Deming’s money. For it is written that Deming must die—and you must fail in your task. Let me give you a warning—return this money and wash your hands of it. There is safety for you in that course. Otherwise, much as I regret to say it, death waits for you, as well as for him.”

  “You don’t understand,” said Nick. “Deming is willing to pay a cash indemnity to satisfy the Tong. You can practically name your own price.”

  Charlie Mee answered him, speaking very slowly. “There is no indemnity, Mister Ronson, that will satisfy the Kung Tong. Deming’s life is forfeit. We will purchase the jade image from his estate.”

  Nick took his hands off the table and stood up straight. His hands hung loosely at his sides, and he nudged the armpit holster a trifle forward with his left arm. “Then it must be a war between us, Charlie. You know I never back out of a job.”

  The fat man nodded. “I know that, Mister Ronson, and that is why I took precautions when I learned that Deming had sent for you. I knew that you would come here first, for you are a straightforward man, a worthy opponent. But you are beaten. Deming is beaten. It is regrettable that you, whom I truly admire, must go down to destruction with your client.”

  Nick s
miled crookedly. “All right, Charlie, we understand each other fine—you love me, and I love you—like brothers. In fact we love each other so much we’re gonna have a little private war.”

  The fat Chinaman nodded. “Reluctantly, I agree with you. It is war!” He leaned forward a little, his eyes staring opaquely along the table.

  “When,” Nick asked, “does this war start—when I leave your house?”

  Charlie Mee’s fat lips twisted into a smile. “I am so sorry, Mister Ronson. The war must begin—now! Even though you are a guest in this poor house of mine, I cannot afford to allow you to leave it alive. You are the only white man who knows of this house. Now that you are an enemy, you must die!”

  Nick scowled. His hand flashed to his armpit holster, but stopped when Charlie Mee rapped out an imperative, “Wait!”

  The fat man raised a forefinger on which the elongated fingernail gleamed to a clawlike point and indicated a section of the wall at Nick’s right. “I told you,” he went on, “that I had taken precautions.”

  Nick, standing rigid, his hand within an inch of the gun butt, flicked his eyes to the right, and started.

  There was a panel in the wall which must have opened soundlessly. Framed in the opening, knelt a raw-boned, high-cheeked hatchet-man. He was dressed in black, with a black skull cap. Beady eyes were sighted along the barrel of a Browning rapid-firer which was trained unswervingly on Nick’s middle! A yellow hand fingered the lever tautly.

  Nick swung his eyes back to the fat man. He still kept his right hand taut, and spoke through thin lips. “It won’t do, Charlie. Your playmate will get me, all right, but I’ll crease you, too, for sure. You know I can do it; right through the heart.”

  Charlie Mee smiled. “Indeed, you are renowned for your skill with a gun. But I have anticipated that, too. These buttons on the table are not the only ones. My feet—”

  Even as he spoke, his feet moved, and a sheet of steel shot up from what had looked like a groove in the table. The steel snapped up to a height of about four feet, effectively screening the fat man from Nick’s view.

  At the same time, from behind the barrier, Charlie Mee uttered a short string of commands in Cantonese.

  Nick rolled away from the table, his hand snaking out the gun at the same moment that the Browning in the hands of the hatchetman began to spit flame and to chatter wickedly in the semi-gloom.

  Nick heard the wicked spat of the slugs tearing into the floor just beyond the spot where he had been. If the raw-boned Chinaman had been more adept at handling the quick-firer, he could have raked the room and torn Nick to pieces. As it was, though, he kept his finger on the trip, and exhausted the entire drum before he could shift; it takes a lot of practice to swing a Browning, even in a short arc, before the drum is empty.

  The hatchet-man didn’t realize his ammunition was out, and finally got the Browning around so that it bore on Nick. But it no longer spouted lead. He looked down at it with an expression of puzzlement.

  The quiet in the room after the smashing chatter of the gun was oppressive.

  Nick was on his knees on the floor. The hatchet-man raised his head in sudden panic as understanding came to him that he was without ammunition. He dropped the rapid-firer, and his hand darted to his sleeve, came out with a glittering, curved knife. But Nick was on his feet, grinning and yelling, “Oh Boy!”

  He darted quickly across the room, and brought the barrel of his gun down on the Chinaman’s skull. Yellow skin cracked, and the hatchet-man dumped forward on the floor, face down on the Browning, the knife still clutched in convulsive fingers.

  Nick swung around, stepped toward the far end of the long table where Charlie Mee had been. Charlie Mee was no longer there!

  He had evidently slipped out through another panel when the shooting started.

  Nick came back to the open panel. The hatchet-man lay across the opening, and the panel, which had started to close, had stopped its motion when it hit him.

  Nick stepped through and found himself in a long, dark corridor. The walls were of some sort of metal, lined with asbestos. Sound proof. Which accounted for the absence of police after the shooting.

  The dim light from the room behind left the far part of the corridor in blackness. Nick went along slowly, gun at his hip, left hand feeling the wall.

  Suddenly, up ahead, a door in the left side of the corridor opened; a shaft of weak light illumined a form that leaped into the corridor; the door was closed.

  Nick knew that he was outlined by the light behind him for the benefit of whoever had come into the narrow corridor. Instinctively he crouched, just as a gleaming knife flashed through the air above him. The knife caromed against the partly closed panel behind and clattered on the floor.

  Its tinkling clatter was only an echo, though, of Nick’s heavy gun roaring in the darkness. He shot three times toward the one who had thrown the knife, and then lay flat on the floor for a moment. At first there was no sound from up ahead, then a slight shuffling noise, and a groan.

  Nick ran forward; getting out his flashlight. The man he had shot lay half reclining against the wall. He was small, yellow, with deep sunken eyes—another hatchetman. Three distinct bubbles of blood spurted from his chest. Nick’s shooting had been perfect.

  Nick threw the light in the Chinaman’s face, and even as he did so, the man’s eyes glazed and there was a death rattle in his throat.

  Nick’s back was to the door that the hatchet-man had come out of, and he hastened to rectify that by hurrying away down the corridor. He glanced back at intervals, expecting the panel to open again, but it didn’t. At last he reached the end of the corridor, and felt a door knob; turned, and found the door locked. He wasted no time, putting a bullet right smash into the lock between the jamb and the door. He tried the knob again, and the door swung free. Nick stepped out into the night and found himself in a back yard.

  There was a litter of garbage cans around, and he started to make his way through them. He heard a window creaking open in the house above him. If he were spotted now, he could be picked off with ease. He looked about for cover. His hand rested on one of the garbage cans, and he saw that it was empty. Just as the window came up, he vaulted into the can and ducked his head.

  From his retreat he heard Charlie Mee say in Cantonese, “Do not shoot; it is not desirable to attract attention to ourselves at this time. Go down into the yard and search. He has not had time to escape from there.”

  A moment later a voice from down in the yard near the door called out, also in Cantonese, “He has come through here, master; the lock is shot away!”

  Charlie Mee ordered, “Search the yard carefully, then. Look in all the trash cans. Do not let him escape!”

  Feet scurried in the yard. Nick held his gun steady, barrel pointing up toward the sky. He could see a single star above him, and a slowly moving cloud that was moving up to obscure the star.

  Suddenly a gaunt yellow face hid the star and the cloud from his view. The face started to shout, and Nick fired. The face disintegrated, and Nick jumped straight up, put a foot on the edge of the can, and vaulted over.

  A chorus of shrill yells came from various parts of the yard. Flashlight beams flitted about. Nick stepped over the body of the Chinaman who lay alongside the garbage can, and darted across the yard.

  From the window above, Charlie Mee shouted in shrill sing-song dialect, “Shoot! Shoot now! He must not escape!”

  Nick swung his gun up and took a pot-shot at the sound of Charlie’s voice, and knew that he had not hit him, for wood splintered the framework of the window up there.

  Lead winged past him, a slug tore at his sleeve. But the Chinese are notoriously poor shots, and he reached the fence unwounded. A dark shape hurtled at him, and Nick straight-armed that shape with the hand that held the gun. The shape uttered a pained yelp, and collapsed.

  Nick hoisted himself up on a garbage can alongside the fence and jumped. Shouts rose to a tumultuous crescendo behind him; a gun bar
ked from the window above, and just at that moment Nick’s foot caught on a proj ecting nail as he was clearing the fence. His arms went out wildly into the air, and he hurtled over into the next yard. He landed heavily on concrete, the breath knocked out of him for the second.

  He heard one of the Chinese in the next yard call out, “He is killed, master. Your aim was true!”

  Charlie Mee replied from above in his unhurried voice, “Come up, then, quickly. Leave his body. We must abandon this house before the police come.”

  Nick got up and felt about for his gun which he had dropped when he fell, picked it up, and sped away through the yard, down an alley.

  He saw the back of a policeman who was just turning the corner on the run from Race into Marley, and he walked away rapidly in the opposite direction.

  At the corner of Claremont Avenue he hailed a cab and gave the address of Deming’s home. Just as the cab got under way, a police radio car tore down Claremont and rounded into Race, with siren shrieking.

  The driver called back through the open sliding window, “Must be another shooting. The way these cops ride, you’d think there wasn’t nobody on the streets but them!”

  Nick didn’t answer; he was busy loading his gun.

  * * * *

  A little surprise was waiting for him in front of Deming’s house. There was a police radio car at the curb, a headquarters’ car, and an ambulance. A small crowd was being held back from in front of the entrance by a couple of bluecoats.

  One of the cops stopped Nick as he shoved his way to the front row of the crowd.

  “What’s happened?” Nick demanded of the cop.

  The uniformed man didn’t vouchsafe him any response, but pushed him back into the crowd. Nick lunged, shoved the cop out of the way, and sprang up the steps of the house.

  The policeman roared, “Hey, you!” and leaped after him.

  Nick gained the entrance, and bumped into a giant of a man in plain clothes who was just coming out.

  Nick gripped the man’s sleeve, panted, “H’ya, Glennon? Tell this flatfoot I’m okay, will you? He wouldn’t listen to me!”