The Mystery of Yamashita's Map

by James McKenzie

  ‘The Philippines.’

  ‘OK, so what’s the deal?’

  ‘Well, we’ll tell you that when you agree.’

  ‘Who says I will?’

  ‘Well, when you know what you will be paid.’

  ‘OK, what’s the money?’

  Lisa stopped for a minute and looked around her. ‘A tenth of what we find,’ she said.

  Joe laughed. ‘Right! A tenth of what?’

  ‘A tenth of everything we’re going to get.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  Lisa realised the paradox she had landed herself in. ‘Er . . . I can’t tell you unless you agree.’

  Joe sat back in his seat and sipped his drink. ‘So, you want me to agree to something before I know what it is, for a tenth share of whatever it is I’m agreeing to.’

  Lisa thought. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘Well, have a good night,’ Joe said and stood up. ‘Wait . . .’ Lisa implored. ‘You can trust us.’

  Joe smiled. ‘Look . . . Lisa? It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I have things here, things keeping me around. Women, deals, commitments, that sort of thing. I can’t just up sticks and leave when I want. Otherwise, believe me, I would have gone by now.’

  Joe looked up and winked at an attractive blonde by the bar. Lisa noticed and felt a tinge of jealousy.

  ‘You see,’ Joe said, ‘There are things keeping me here, things I can’t let go of. Good luck though, finding a pilot. You’ll need it around here.’

  He pushed the peak of his cap up high on his head with a finger and sauntered off, leaving Lisa feeling dejected and rejected. The professor patted her arm.

  ‘There’ll be others,’ he said. ‘There are others.’

  At the bar, Joe walked up to the blonde. He ordered another drink and started small talk. ‘You didn’t think I’d be back, did you?’

  The blonde looked at him. ‘You been here before then?’

  ‘Nice, it’s always good to be flattered.’

  ‘Sorry but there’s a lot of faces in this business.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess. Say, you haven’t seen a girl called Gem around?’

  ‘Gem? No, can’t say I remember. Like I said, I’m no good with faces.’

  ‘You sure you haven’t seen her? She worked in here.’

  ‘What do you want her for?’

  ‘Oh, you know, just want to talk.’

  ‘How much she steal?’

  ‘Five hundred.’

  ‘That’s small fry, you got off lightly.’

  ‘Well, I’d still like to talk.’

  The blonde girl sucked air in through her teeth. ‘There’s a few like you about.’

  As if the world had stopped moving for a second, as if it had spun off of its axis and fallen into space, as if the moon had crashed into the earth, as if the oceans had suddenly decided to rise up and challenge the land, Joe felt his head being knocked from his shoulders. The first thing he knew was the sound – it was the sound of someone very near to him being punched, then the pain in the side of his face told him that it was him. Suddenly his teeth moved independently of each other – each one desperately trying to cling on to his gums like thirty-two white and shiny sailors hanging onto a raft. The second thing he felt was his brain hit the side of his skull. It knocked all thoughts out of his ears; minor reminiscences, childhood memories, worries, bits of conversation half remembered and half-forgotten squirmed about on the carpet eager to get back to where they belonged.

  When his eyes had stopped spinning like a roulette wheel Joe turned and saw the faces of the two thugs who had been following him for the past week.

  ‘Don’t you guys ever give up?’ he said rubbing his jaw and feeling about for his nose.

  ‘We need a talk,’ the smaller man said.

  Joe thought quickly. ‘Well, I’d love to but, I am really busy with this lovely lady for a moment, perhaps we could . . .’

  There was a bang and Joe saw that the girl had fallen from the stool and lay on the floor in agony, a bullet in her arm. Her tears were low and visceral like the dying voice of a beast as it waits to be put out of its misery.

  ‘You seem to be free now,’ the man said, holding the still smoking pistol.

  Joe swallowed hard, then threw his whiskey squarely into the eyes of the man with the gun, who recoiled in pain, letting fly a volley of bullets into the club. There was a commotion as girls and punters ran and ducked for cover. Joe grabbed one of the bar stools and lifted it above his head before bringing it down smartly on the back of the other thug who merely stood stock still. Joe jumped up on the bar and ran its entire length being shot at all the time. As he ducked the bullets missed him and hit bottles and glasses and customers about him.

  He jumped down to where Lisa sat and screamed, ‘You know that flight to the Philippines? Well, perhaps I would be interested after all. Do you wanna meet by the docks at twelve tomorrow night? You mind if I go now, I’m er, rather busy.’

  Lisa nodded and jumped as a bullet flew near to her face and entered the wall behind her. Joe jumped over the table and ran along the outskirts of the dance floor. He spun around the pole in the middle of the stage and exited out of the back, making his way through the crowds of half-naked girls getting ready to dance.

  By the time the hoods had followed him he was out of the door and away into the Hong Kong night.

  Chapter Eight

  The street vendors and food sellers had packed up now and the only sound that could be heard was the lapping of the waves on the sides of the boats that gently bobbed up and down in the water. Lisa wandered along the dock. She had persuaded Fraser and her uncle not to come – not because she had something to hide or that she didn’t want their company but because she wanted to do this on her own. She wanted to contribute to this whole plan without having to answer to either of the two men. She casually picked up a stone from the ground and tossed it into the harbour. It made no sound.

  Around her, occasionally, people chatted and walked. The docks were a strange place for a girl to be on her own at night but she knew them well and was not afraid, even when drunkards would push their way up to her and breathe nasty boozy propositions in her face. She just leaned back, waved them on and did not look back.

  It was amazing how quiet the city seemed at this time of night. Of course, all of the noise was underground now, in clubs, in bars, in massage joints, in the many places where she was never allowed to go when she was growing up. She had not really wanted to but, somehow, the places we are kept from are always the places we want to go most of all. She thought about Joe. Was he in one of those places? Was that why she was here on her own when really she should be with someone else? Even a man would probably not have come on his own, or perhaps that was it, perhaps only a woman could come on her own to the dock and not expect to be attacked by a knife or gun.

  She realised she barely remembered what Joe looked like. She remembered his hat and strange way of tapping his arm with his fingers but that was about it. She tried to visualise him but always failed. She wondered whether he would turn up. She wondered what type of life he must have, what type of man he must be, what type of lover he would make; rough and quick or slow and considerate. No, she corrected herself, this is a business deal and it must stay that way. She looked around and saw nothing. Only a cat moved between the barrels of fish heads, sniffing at the ground eager to find a meal or a bed for the night. Somehow the cat again reminded her of Joe. The light skimmed across Hong Kong bay, making the water look like an expanse of glimmering ink. The moon was high but crescent, giving everywhere a half light that was comforting and yet eerie at the same time. She heard a noise behind her and turned quickly. Joe stood, smiling. One of his eyes was clearly bruised and there was a faint trickle of blood oozing out of his mouth. ‘Ah, you made it then?’ he said with a smile. Lisa was shocked. ‘What happened to you?’ she asked. ‘Well, let’s say I ran into a spot of trouble today.’ ‘The same lot as last night?’

&
nbsp; Joe laughed. ‘If it had been I would be talking to you from the bottom of the harbour. No, this was a new one, a boyfriend.’ He rubbed his cheek. ‘Never mess with the girl of a soldier. Jesus, those guys can hit.’ Lisa tugged at the bottom of her skirt and licked at the cloth. She raised it to Joe’s mouth and dabbed it, taking some of the blood away. ‘You’ll kill yourself before you take us to the Philippines.’ Joe backed off. ‘Ah, yes, I was meaning to talk to you about that.’

  For a moment Lisa was taken aback. She had assumed that the deal was settled between them, that Joe was signed up to fly her, Fraser and her uncle to the Philippines. She could not bear to see her hopes dashed at this stage.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked with half-closed eyes, waiting for the worst.

  ‘Well,’ Joe looked sheepish. ‘Well, I am, as they say, grounded at the moment. My wings are currently sitting in a field at the pleasure of the Hong Kong police.’

  Lisa dabbed his face a little more. ‘I know,’ she said.

  ‘You know?’

  ‘Yes, your cousin Lee told me.’

  ‘How the hell did you meet him?’

  ‘In a cab.’

  Joe shrugged. ‘Yeah, well, I suppose you would. Well, it does complicate things.’

  ‘Not really. We just rent you another plane.’

  Joe whistled through his teeth, grabbed Lisa by the shoulders and pushed her away. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘You might have guessed that I’m not exactly law-abiding. I mean, I’m not going to get awarded the fair play award or anything. The mayor is not likely to offer me the contract of chief of police, but I know when I am in trouble and I smell trouble on you, honey. I think you reek of it.’

  Lisa’s eyes fell.

  ‘I mean, you got money to rent a plane, but you got no money to rent a pilot. What is this?’

  Lisa started. ‘Well, I need someone who can look after themselves, who wouldn’t be in a position to ask too many questions, who would do the job properly.’

  ‘In other words you need someone desperate.’

  ‘Yes, yes, perhaps. We need someone who is desperate enough to take on this job.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I can’t tell you yet, not until you’re in.’

  ‘I’m not in until I know what it is.’

  ‘I can’t. Please, Joe, I can’t tell you.’

  He turned to go. ‘Then there’s no deal.’

  Lisa stood and watched him walk along the dock. His shoulders were hunched in the half moonlight and his hat was perched comically on his head. She couldn’t go through all this with someone else and besides in the little time she had known him she had come to like him, even though he was dirty and abrupt and maddeningly stubborn.

  ‘OK!’ she shouted after him. ‘OK, I’ll tell you what the plan is. I’ll tell you everything.’

  Joe stopped, turned and inched his way back towards Lisa.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’m listening.’

  Lisa began. She told him about the girl and about her death, how they had traced the map to Amichi, how they had talked to Anderson and what had happened to Anderson in the basement of the university. She told him about Yamashita’s gold and the legend of the aswang and about her uncle’s visions and about all the strange things that had happened to him. Then she told him about how they had found his cousin and about how they had looked in virtually every cab in Hong Kong to find him, then how they had sat in the club until he had come in the night before.

  When she had finished Joe sat, staring into the water. His face was a blank slate; his eyes stared straight ahead of him seeming to see something move in the water. In his head he was revisiting the cramped darkness of his dreams. While Lisa had been telling him about Yamashita’s gold, about the tunnels where it was buried, about the aswang and the strange visions of her uncle, Joe recalled his own dreams and the visions that they produced in his mind. He realised that they were calling to him; they were trying to tell him something, to make him go somewhere.

  He shook his head. It wasn’t possible that he was having the same dreams as her uncle. It wasn’t possible that whoever was beckoning to him was also beckoning someone else. Joe could not believe it, he would not let himself believe it, it could not be happening. He took off his hat and ran his fingers through his hair. This cannot be happening, he told himself again, this is not real.

  ‘Have you spoken to your uncle about his dreams?’ Joe asked.

  Lisa was taken by surprise. ‘Well, only in passing. He very rarely wants to speak about them. They scare him, I think.’

  Joe gulped. He knew them too and he knew how frightening they could be. ‘Where is your uncle?’ he asked.

  ‘Back at his apartment, with Fraser. Ever since it was broken into I don’t like to leave him alone there.’

  ‘Can we go to him? I need to speak with him.’

  ‘Why, what’s wrong? You look as white as a sheet.’

  ‘I just need to speak to him.’

  The night was folding around them like a blanket and the water lapped at the edges of the island. In the harbour something moved. Its eyes darted this way and that and its sinuous body changed shape again. In the dim light of the crescent moon the aswang strained each muscle of its form until it became something else, something more human, and it began to follow the two figures, the man in the cap and the pretty young woman, along the dockside. Each turn they made it turned too, each step they took it made too, but its feet made no sound on the damp concrete of the Hong Kong night.

  Joe and Lisa walked to the professor’s apartment oblivious to the half shadow half man that followed them.

  The light was on in the apartment and Lisa found the professor and Fraser playing cards in the bedroom. Fraser sat with a look of absolute horror on his face and the professor sat with a pile of what Lisa assumed was Fraser’s money in front of him and a smile on his face. Both of them jumped up as Joe entered the room.

  The professor crossed immediately and shook Joe by the hand.

  ‘I am so glad we caught up with you, Joe,’ he said and shook his hand a little more.

  Fraser was less enthusiastic and stood by the window with his hands in his pockets.

  Joe said, ‘Professor, I need to talk to you about something, something that I think we might have in common.’

  ‘Sit,’ the professor said. ‘Sit down.’

  ‘Well, but I feel a little foolish talking to you about it in front of er . . . strangers.’

  He nodded at Fraser and the professor answered, ‘Of course, of course. Fraser, will you go and make us some tea? Do you drink tea, Joe?’

  ‘Only when there is no whiskey.’

  ‘Well, I may have a little scotch left over from . . .’

  ‘Tea will be fine, thanks. Lisa, would you help him?’

  Lisa screwed her nose up. Now she was being ordered around by Joe as well as Fraser and her uncle, but she desperately wanted this trip to go ahead and she was not going to spoil it due to a little thing like an ego. She groaned slightly and stormed out of the bedroom. Joe shut the door and sat down on the bed.

  ‘I have heard you have dreams, professor.’

  The professor laughed. ‘We all dream, Joe.’

  ‘But I have heard you have specific dreams, special ones, particular ones.’

  The professor looked concerned. ‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘There have been certain dreams lately that have, how shall we say, disturbed me.’

  ‘Describe them to me.’

  ‘Well, I am in a tunnel of some sort, yes, a tunnel. It’s black but I know it’s a tunnel because when I reach up I can feel the roof and its arched and cold and damp like earth. There is a musty smell and the smell of bad air. I know there is death there. I know there has been suffering and great pain but, no matter how badly I want to leave something pulls me along. I feel my feet moving even though I don’t want them to. It’s like something pulling me onwards, something that I cannot control.’

  ‘What then, professor, what ha
ppens then?’

  ‘Well, I see faces, faces of dead men, skulls some of them and they look at me as if to ask where I have been, why didn’t I come earlier. Oh, it’s so horrible there – the air is so thick it chokes me, I want to die, to expire, but I never do. No matter how much I want to I never lose consciousness. It’s like something is keeping me awake to do whatever it wants me to do.’