Gideon's Day

by John Creasey

  “Understand,” said Chang, “you were at Kingston and a good friend of yours was there, also, with you. Mazzioni.”

  “Maz? Why, he—”

  “He was with you, please remember, all the time.”

  The woman laughed.

  “His little sweetie pie won’t like that!”

  “His little sweetie pie,” mimicked Chang, “will not worry about it this time. Now, please understand. He arrived at two, he left at four, there is no mistake. Find one, find even two people to say that also.”

  “Okay, Chin,*” the woman said. “Bad trouble?”

  “It could be.”

  “What I do for my men,” said the woman named Mary.

  Chang rang off. He sat quite still again, until his left hand moved to the inside pocket of his beautifully cut coat. He took out a tiny lacquered snuff box, with a beautiful garden design, pressed, opened it, and took a tiny pinch of white snuff. He put this onto the back of his hand and sniffed it up each nostril; then he replaced the box slowly. He stood up, stretched for his hat, and went out of the office.

  A girl was in the little cloakroom on the landing, and the radiogram was playing swing. Shuffling footsteps told of people dancing. The ordinary, clean smell of tobacco smoke wafted toward him.

  “Has Estelle telephoned?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I will be back soon,” Chang said.

  “Okay.”

  He went downstairs, passing a coloured photograph of Estelle. She had long, rippling red hair and a big, white smile and quite beautiful legs. Chang only glanced in passing. Nodding to a flat-faced waiter, he turned into the spotless kitchen, where the Chinese staff looked at him without expression, and he behaved as if no one was there. He went out of the little back door, and slipped swiftly along a passage toward Middle Street.

  At Middle Street, he had a shock.

  A plain-clothes man was on the other side of the road; and there was only one reason why he should be there.

  Chang felt even more worried.

  He smiled across at the man, and turned into Middle Street, then made his way toward Shaftesbury Avenue. He was followed, and was worried chiefly because the police were so interested. He would have to be very, very careful.

  Had it been a mistake to run Foster down?

  If so, it had been Mazzioni’s mistake, too; that was the chief source of worry. Mazzioni had been at hand when Foster had telephoned. Foster had been scared, and had talked of squealing unless Chang promised help. In a quick flood of annoyance and alarm, Chang had made his mistake by telling Mazzioni what to do, and Mazzioni had acted too quickly, and too close to Soho.

  Chang thought belatedly of other things that had turned out to be mistakes, too: letting Estelle know that Foster was in his pay, for instance; and forgetting that she had been here, for a rehearsal, when he had given Mazzioni his orders.

  At Piccadilly Circus, Chang slipped the sergeant who was on his tail, but knew that there might be others on the lookout for him. He was conspicuous, like any Chinese. Piccadilly Circus always had its policemen, its plain-clothes men, its police spies, and if they had been told to watch for Chang it would be dangerous.

  Chang got into a taxi. He did not think that he was followed as he was taken to the restaurant entrance of the Occident Hotel. There was not likely to be a detective lurking at this side, but there was sure to be a hotel dick if not a policeman in the foyer.

  He went through a service door to service stairs and then up to Room 217. This was reserved in the name of Smith, and a Mr. Smith had come, signed the register, and left the hotel, sending the key to Chang. It would be a rendezvous for a week; then there would be another hotel, another room.

  When Ledbetter came, he also looked worried. He was a big, lusty man with iron-grey hair, quite distinguished in his way. He had a very good reputation, was an astute lawyer, and had made one mistake, a little matter of embezzlement. No one yet knew, except Chang and a clerk in Ledbetter’s office who was aware that Chang liked that kind of information.

  Chang looked very small beside him.

  “Well, what is it?” Ledbetter didn’t like Chinese, didn’t like anyone whose skin was yellow or brown or black. He was as massive as Gideon, well dressed, scowling, resentful. The furrows in his forehead added to the touch of distinction.

  “There is a very urgent matter,” Chang said. He found it easy to smile, especially at men whom one disliked. “A friend of mine, named Marco Mazzioni, has been arrested by the police. He is a very good friend, and it would be dangerous for many people if he were to be tried. It is believed that he was connected with the mail-van robbery this afternoon, but that is ridiculous – he was at Kingston, with Mary Clayton. You know Mary.”

  Ledbetter said: “Did he do the job?”

  “You have to see him,” said Chang, still smiling. “Just see him, and tell him that he need not worry. Mary will tell the truth and say that he was with her from two o’clock until four. You understand?”

  Ledbetter said: “I don’t like it, Chang. If the police can prove that he wasn’t—”

  “Then, Mary lied to you,” said Chang. “Do not be foolish, Mr. Ledbetter. This is an urgent matter. See your friends at Scotland Yard at once, please.” He smiled… .

  Ledbetter went out, obviously as worried as when he came in, much more resentful, but undoubtedly prepared to be obedient. Chang went to a telephone by the side of the bed. He looked very short. He hesitated for a moment, partly because he was thinking of Ledbetter. He knew that the solicitor regarded him as a yellow-skinned savage; he also knew that Ledbetter was in a very tight fix. Chang telephoned Mazzioni’s wife. A man with a deep voice answered, almost certainly a policeman; in fact, Chang felt quite sure.

  He spoke promptly and in a deep voice from which he kept all trace of accent.

  “Mrs. Mazzioni, please.”

  “Who wants her?”

  “A friend.”

  There was a moment’s pause; then the mutter of men’s voices; then Mazzioni’s wife came on the line. Chang knew her for a pretty, fluffy-haired blonde, with a jealous temperament.

  She sounded scared.

  “Who’s that?”

  “Of course, you know of the accident to your husband,” Chang said, still sounding ‘English’. “But it will be all right, my dear. You will find out that he was with Mary at Kingston all the afternoon; there is no need to worry at all. That is the perfect alibi, you see.”

  “The perfect—”

  “That is the police with you, I believe,” Chang said. “They will ask who called. Say I am a friend, to tell you of what happened to Maz. And one other thing, little one – when the police ask if you know where Maz was this afternoon, be angry. Do you understand?” He paused, but only for a moment. “Be very angry, say he was going to see that bitch Mary at Kingston.” Softly he repeated: “You understand?”

  “Sure,” said Mazzioni’s wife slowly. She was no fool, and she was cottoning on. “Sure, I know already.”

  Chang rang off, unhurriedly.

  He was still worried, all the same; he did not like having to work at speed, like this, and did not like having to do so much himself. But it began to look as if the real emergency was past. If only he could find Estelle.

  He left the hotel, and twenty minutes later, entered the cafe in Middle Street again. The plain-clothes man he had shaken off was back on duty. Chang smiled at him, politely, but didn’t get a smile back.

  In his office, Chang sat back, took another pinch of snuff, and glanced down at the figures in the book. It was silent again and he enjoyed the silence.

  The telephone bell rang.

  He lifted it, and a man said: “This is Murphy.”

  Suddenly, Chang was acutely anxious; for Murphy never got in touch with him direct unless there was urgent news. Was this about Birdy Merrick or Estelle? Had Estelle been found by the police? That was Chang’s fear, mat above all else.

  Murphy was also an anxious man, although
it took a great deal to get on his nerves. Most days, he told his cronies exactly what he thought of the police and how little they mattered to him; and most days he meant exactly that. The police had no terrors for him. He kept his nose clean, didn’t he? He had committed no crime of any kind in the past two years except that of a little street-corner betting, peddling some bad liquor, which was hardly a crime at all, and – inciting others to crime. No one named him as the instigator, so that did not count.

  Yet Murphy was edgy.

  It was worse, because there had been a long, long spell of freedom from fear. Everything had gone so smoothly that he had become dangerously complacent. He had given more orders himself than he should have done, instead of using messengers, and he had gone to see Birdy.

  He would not have told anyone in the world, but he was frightened.

  The sense of power, which his habit of domination gave him, had betrayed him. He should not have gone to Birdy’s house. Now the Snide was in the hands of the police, and the Snide had been seen to attack Birdy. It would be all right if the police just handled the Snide, but they might check on everyone who had been after Birdy that day.

  They were out in strength in the district.

  Murphy had that nasty, sickening kind of feeling that the police were out for a kill. It was Chang’s doing. The orders to get Birdy had come from Chang, even if they’d travelled through three other people before reaching him. Murphy did not propose to handle this with go-betweens; he wanted to talk to Chang. There was the search for the red-haired dancer, too, which had got nowhere, and was wasting men.

  So he telephoned the Chinese.

  Chang lifted the receiver, heard who it was, and then very slowly shook his head. Murphy just reported, and asked if he should keep up the search for B. and the skirt. Chang was preparing to answer “for the skirt, only,” when there was an interruption.

  It was entirely coincidence that at that moment the door burst open, but the sudden movement scared Chang, who actually jumped to his feet.

  The door banged back.

  Foster’s sister came into the room, with a scared-looking Chinese waiter behind her.

  16. Sanctuary?

  Chang looked up at Foster’s sister. His eyes were lacklustre. His mouth was set in long, thin lines.

  “Yes, proceed, please,” he said into the telephone.

  Now I must go.” He rang off. The woman had thrust her way past the waiter, outside, but Chang’s expression stopped her, as a physical blow might do. She stood there, the sudden fear evident in her eyes, in the way her mouth opened and her teeth glinted. Behind her, the waiter hovered, hands rolling and rolling beneath his small white apron. Had Gideon seen the way he gazed at Chang, with silent supplication as to the devil, he would have hardened very much against Chang. Then Chang spoke softly.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Addinson. Please come in. Wen Li, please close the door.” As the waiter obeyed and as Flo Addinson moved forward, Chang brought a smile from the depths of his self-discipline, then stood up and rounded the desk. “Please sit down,” he said. His voice was more singsong than usual, as if he were fighting against showing his feelings. He touched the back of the easy chair, and bowed. “Can I get you a drink?”

  “No,” she said. “No, thank you.” She moved so that she could sit down. Chang bowed again, and went back to his desk. Now the mask was on, but she had seen beneath it and she knew what was really there. When she had come in, she had been flushed, as with anger, actually with nervousness; now she was very pale. Her eyes were bright, a shimmery kind of black, suggesting that she had a severe headache. She fumbled in her handbag, and Chang promptly stood up again and offered her cigarettes.

  “Please smoke,” he said.

  She hesitated and then accepted a cigarette. He smiled as he flicked a lighter for her, but it was the smile of a robot. It was a genuine cigarette, too; there was no drug in it, yet the temptation to give her marijuana had been almost overwhelming.

  She still wore the good black suit.

  “Thank you.”

  “How can I help you, please?” murmured Chang.

  “I came to—to ask you if you know what happened to my brother,” she said.

  He was outwardly almost back to normal, suave, almost solemn, spreading his hands.

  “I was informed this morning of what had happened. Such a sad accident. I am very sorry.”

  “I’m not sure it was an accident,” Flo Addinson said.

  “Oh,” said Chang, and his lips parted. Now he was in such complete command of himself that he folded his arms loosely across his narrow chest, and sat back in the chair. It was no indication of his feelings. “I do not understand you. He was run down by a car, is that not so? The driver didn’t stop.”

  Chang spread his hands.

  “There are so many callous drivers—”

  “Mr. Chang,” the woman said steadily, “what association was there between my brother and you? Why did he see you so often? Why was he worried because of you?”

  She had alarmed him, she knew; he could not hide it, even though he said: “You are making mistakes, Mrs. Addinson, I cannot understand—”

  “I must know what Eric had to do with you. The police kept asking me, they’ve followed me all day. Why is it? Do you know?”

  Suavely, he insisted that he knew nothing, that he and her brother had just been acquaintances. But he questioned her tautly, trying to find out what she knew.

  He learned little and soon she seemed to tire.

  “You have had a big shock,” Chang murmured, when she rose to go. “Please allow me to send you home in my car, Mrs. Addinson. It is no trouble. Unless you would like to stay to have dinner here? As my guest. I shall be very happy.”

  “No!” She jumped up. “No, thank you, I’d rather walk. If you’re sure you can’t help—”.

  “If I could, Mrs. Addinson, I would, gladly.”

  Chang pressed a bell, and the ringing sound could be heard faintly. In a moment, the door opened and the waiter appeared, big, flat, Mongolian face concealing his fear now.

  “Show Mrs. Addinson downstairs,” Chang said.

  He rounded the desk. “My very deep condolences. I assure you, I was very fond of Mr. Foster.” He did not offer to shake hands, but bowed; and waited until the door closed on her.

  Then he moved to his desk, swift as a flash, picked up a telephone, and was answered almost at once.

  “The woman now downstairs,” Chang said swiftly, “you will follow her, and see if she is followed by the police. You understand?”

  A man said, “Yes, sir.”

  Chang rang off. He didn’t sit down, but went to the door and opened it. The music from the radiogram had started again, a fox trot that sounded rather sensuous and slow. The landing light fell on Chang’s black hair. He waited until the waiter came up the stairs, and the man with the flat Mongolian face could no longer hide his fear.

  No one should have reached Chang’s room without a warning preceding them; he had been panicked into forgetting to press a bell.

  His feet dragged on the last two steps.

  Chang waited until he was close to him, and then struck him across the face. The man swayed right and left under the impact of the savage blows, but didn’t try to evade them. Chang did not speak, but turned back to his office. The waiter stumbled toward the narrow stairs. The fox trot moaned on, and the shuffling sound of dancing feet came clearly. Outside, a car horn tooted.

  Outside, Flo Addinson walked toward Shaftesbury Avenue, was followed by a small man in a shabby suit, and by a plain-clothes man detailed to follow her.

  In his report to the Yard, this man said that Chang had had Mrs. Addinson followed almost to her door.

  “You stay and keep an eye on her,” he was ordered.

  A few miles away from Soho, in a line which cut through the throbbing, cosmopolitan heart of the West End, through the dead city, and into the shadowy ill-lit streets of the East End, Murphy sat at a table in the fron
t room of his house. For a man in his position, virtually boss of a powerful gang, he lived very humbly. The house was small, and the rooms tiny; only a twenty-inch television set, and bottles of every conceivable kind of drink standing on a cheap oak sideboard, suggested a man of means. That – and his wife. Murphy’s wife wore real diamonds when she wore rings or jewellery at all, and she aped a refinement which, in this part of London, made her quite the lady.

  She was watching the television, and the light reflected from the screen shimmered on the engagement ring.

  Murphy, a big, vague figure at the table, was looking at a small man who had only one arm; his left sleeve dangled empty by his side. The screen peered, a man talked.

  “That’s right,” Murphy said, “you tell ‘em all to call it off, leave Birdy alone, see? And don’t lose no time.”

  “Okay, but—”

  “Scram,” growled Murphy.

  “Red,” protested his wife, as if her mouth were full, “why don’t you shut up or go in the other room?”

  “You heard,” Murphy said to the one-armed man.

  “But, Red—”

  “Get out, I said.”

  Murphy got up from the table. The one-armed man hesitated, then went out. He closed the door softly. Murphy moved across to his wife’s chair, which was placed immediately in front of the big television. She had a box of chocolates open at her side, and Murphy took one. Paper rustled. She put her hand over his, and squeezed. He whispered: “It’s okay,” and began to caress her. They watched the big screen, and listened to the deep voice coming from the set.

  Meanwhile, the one-armed man sent the word round to call off the hunt.

  What he had wanted to say was that just before he had been called in to Murphy, he’d been given a message saying that Ali and Lefty had cornered Birdy. It was next door to impossible to draw the hunt off in time.

  Birdy did not find sanctuary in a ship, or in the docks, although he had run there believing that he could. A shadowy figure had appeared from behind some crates waiting for loading, and turned him away.