I’m back, thinks Faulkner. I’m back where I met you, Lucy.
Back in 1947, Faulkner threw open the ornate red doors of the opium den. A couple of men, dressed in formless clothes, hammer and sickle pins on their lapels, squeezed past him and down the stairs, nodding politely. He surveyed the large, opulent room. The roof was hidden by red and gold drapes that gave the impression of a soft, billowy world. Chinese lanterns sent light flickering across the room, while curtains obscured half-hidden grottos. Smoke billowed and roiled from these little rooms. Faulkner took a step forward, but as if from nowhere Lucy stood before him, her doll’s face hard and cold.
“Yes?” It was almost as if she hadn’t spoken at all, simply projected the words to him.
“I’m looking for someone.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“His name’s Jackson. Victor Jackson.”
“Well unfortunately all our guests are indisposed.”
“I’ll find him.” Faulkner stepped forward, but was stopped. Again, it was almost as if she hadn’t moved, but now stood before him, her hand flat against his chest.
“Well, well,” he said, “you’re quite a number. What’s your name?”
“Jade,” she said.
“What’s your real name?”
“That’s a dangerous thing to just hand out.”
Faulkner looked around, and, without warning, pushed past her and took a big stride towards the nearest grotto.
Before he knew it he was on his back and a foot was on his chest; he looked up into her eyes.
From behind double doors on the far side of the room an old white man, Laurence, walked out. He had a thin face and wispy, almost colourless, hair and the manner of a doddery school-master, as if he was only half-aware of the world around him. “Everything all right?” he asked in a soft English accent.
“Yes, father,” said Lucy.
She looked down at Faulkner, her face still emotionless. “You’re quite a number yourself.”
In 1951, Faulkner cuts through the streets between street-vendors selling dim sums and fried octopi on sticks. The smell of spices mixes with that of things rotting in the street. Chinese women walk in twos beneath umbrellas with picture of dragons on them. A few people ride bicycles. It begins to rain—large, slow drops that threaten to become a deluge.
Through an alleyway, narrow enough to be missed by the casual passer-by, Faulkner comes to a ramshackle wooden staircase running along the back of a building. Four flights up stands a trench-coated policeman, smoking a cigarette. An open doorway spills yellow light onto him.
Faulkner takes the stairs two at a time, conscious of the man looking down.
“Whaddya want, buddy?” the cop says.
“Come to see the scene.”
“Not open to the public, mister.”
“Not the public. I live here.” Faulkner takes a pinch of dust from the bottle hidden in his coat, and blows it quickly at the man. It billows out unnaturally, red and radiant. The man takes a surprised breath and collapses.
“Sleep, my friend, and dream of a Shanghai Princess,” Faulkner says softly. For a moment he regrets employing the dust, which he wanted to use himself.
He tiptoes inside and peeks around. There’s blood on the couch, and his face tightens. There are two glasses on the coffee table, a book lying open next to them and cigarettes in an ash-tray. Cigarettes without filters.
So she knew the rat, thinks Faulkner. They were drinking, before he went to work. She didn’t put those cigarettes out on herself, he thinks. In any case, there’s one thing you know about a rat. A rat always leaves a trail.
Almost inaudible muttering comes from behind the front door. Faulkner ducks through the back door and in a couple of deft steps disappears up the rear stairwell, standing out of sight on the landing above as the muttering becomes words.
“Could have been a thrill-kill, but something tells me there was more to it,” says a man in a police officer’s uniform, jangling the keys in his hand.
The second man, tall and cadaverous like some kind of bony bird, looks at him sharply: “What makes you say that?”
“She was tied up, right? But the cigarette burns and the cuts. They’re not excited, they’re methodical. Don’t usually see those on thrill-kills. Nope, usually they let the beast out.”
“The beast?”
“When killers give in completely to their urges, they let it out—the beast.”
“Right. Well let’s find that boyfriend of hers, Faulkner. He’s number one suspect, so bring him in. And when you have him, let me work him over.”
Christ, thinks Faulkner. Now they are after him. But pieces are coming together: the murderer wasn’t a psycho; it was a professional job. So the cigarette burns meant he wanted something from her, but what? Information?
The two men freeze and, wild-eyed, glance towards the back door. In great strides they cross the floor and step onto the landing, looking down at the unconscious policeman lying there. The officer takes a sharp intake of breath. They look around suspiciously, their heads swivelling to and fro in sudden movements, their eyes moving against the pattern of their heads.
Standing above them, a ghostly figure, is Faulkner. The two men look out at the alleyway and the rain.
“It’s a cold night,” says the policeman
“And dark,” says the cadaverous man.
Faulkner knows that voice. It crackles around his mind like firecrackers sparkling on the pavement. It takes him back to ’47, back to the opium den. And dark, the man had said. It was getting darker by the minute.
That night in the Opium Den, Lucy’s foot was still on Faulkner’s chest. Laurence, his hair wispy and his stance frail, had emerged from some double-doors at the back of the room. Faulkner had known Laurence for fifteen years, but never known he had children. Laurence was a constant in Chinatown—like the street-vendors, his dens appeared in different locations, selling different wares, but were nevertheless always somewhere there. He was gentle and vague and clumsy. Faulkner had seen him walk into a door frame—bam!—as if he’d thought the entire thing was located one foot to the left. People trusted Laurence, but Faulkner knew better.
“Let him up, Lucy,” Laurence said.
“Yeah, let me up, doll,” said Faulkner.
“Sure.” Lucy turned and ever so gracefully, in her red and gold robe, picked up some half-emptied glasses of wine on a coffee table surrounded by cushions and made her way towards the double-doors.
“Now, what would you want with Victor Jackson?” said the man.
“Jesus Laurence, definitely don’t wanna tangle with your family—you got a son?” As Faulkner spoke he edged his way onto his heels and stood.
“Yeah.”
“Warn me when he arrives, will ya? There’s only so much lying on his back a man can take.”
“Oh, he’s a pussycat.”
“Must run in the family.”
“What do you want with Victor Jackson?” Laurence wandered around the room, his eyes roving around as if looking for something.
“Well, I wanna talk to him.”
“The privacy of our members is guaranteed here.”
“I bet he’d like me to respect his...privacy also. I mean, this isn’t the most...salubrious establishment for a policeman.”
From one of the curtained-off grottos a voice called out: “Faulkner, come on in.”
“Ahh...” said Faulkner and walked towards the voice.
Behind the curtain lay the cadaverous man, the same policeman who will be on the balcony in 1951, the same man who will say, “And dark.” Victor Jackson. An opium pipe in his mouth, his eyes glazed, his eyelids heavy and drooping. On the low table before him lay smoking equipment: scales, a small box, a glass oil-lamp about the size of a hand, a tiny spatula and needle, beside them a bowl of dream-dust. Close to Jackson was a battered copy of Hobbes’ Leviathan, a great sea creature on the front of it.
“Well, I know a crooked man and he built a croo
ked house,” said Faulkner. Jackson was one of the new cops on the streets, put there as tensions between the police and the people of Chinatown intensified. There was something calculated about him. He had the air of an intellectual who kept his thoughts to himself. Still, for the right price he let information slip or made “suggestions” to his superiors.
“What d’ya want?” said Jackson.
Faulkner picked up Hobbes’ book and fingered through it: “Always the reader I see.”
“Someone’s gotta think about things.”
“What’s it say?”
“Life’s short, nasty, it’s a war of all against all.”
“So he’s Australian?”
“He says we need a strong police, a strong army.”
“You’re a strange man, Jackson.”
“So whaddya want?”
“A favour, mister policeman.”
“The usual price.”
“Hey listen, given these circumstances you might give me a discount.”
“Don’t try it on, Faulkner.”
“Why are the police cracking down on me, on all of us PIs?”
“The world’s changing Faulkner. World War Two is over and now we’ve got a new enemy, the Communists.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“You’re associated with Shorty Cheng.”
“He’s no communist. He’s Chinese.”
“Don’t you read the damn papers Faulkner?”
“Hey, I’m busy!”
“The Maoists are set to take power and the Chinese here are...considered, well, unreliable. And their associates too.”
“I ain’t no commie—tell your boys to lay off.” Faulkner thought for a moment and added, slowly, “How is it that you betray the police so easily? Not really what Mr Hobbes would want.”
“Well, maybe they’re not where my first loyalty lies.”
Faulkner picked up the book and studied the cover for a moment. “What is this creature on the front of it?”
Jackson took a drag from the pipe in his hands, noticed with annoyance that nothing came out of it, looked at the mouthpiece to see if it was blocked and sighed. “The Leviathan: a sea monster.”
“Lives in the water, huh? That thing could eat you up if you’re not careful.”
On the search for Lucy’s killer, Faulkner crosses Swanston Street, where three-storey trams rattle behind each other. Emu-driven rickshaws try to cut past them, stop suddenly as others duck in front of them. Yet more sit banked up by the sidewalk. Despite the night enclosing all around, one quarter of the city is blocked by fifty thousand people, carrying red and black banners: “Say No To War”; “Stop Australian Imperialism”; “Hands Off China”. Beneath them read, in smaller letters, “Communist Party of Australia,” and the hammer and sickle is drawn next to that. Chants rise from the crowd, “Stop the war! Stop the war!” It has been six weeks since the Allies landed in South China and died like worms in waterlogged dirt. The papers are filled with photographs of Allied troops rotting on the beaches and now the anti-war movement is growing and the Communist Party along with it.
Faulkner needs to find Laurence, who has gone underground since the police busted his opium den. Laurence will have a little hole, hidden on the other side of Chinatown, where the alleyways are even narrower, where there aren’t even posters on the wall. But Faulkner doesn’t know where it is. To find him, he’ll have to go to Shorty Cheng’s shop. Shorty will know.
Faulkner moves through a labyrinth of streets until he comes to the opulent façade of a shop filled with paraphernalia. Along the walls of the shop are shelves packed with mortar and pestles, kites and tea-sets with intricately carved patterns. Smoke roils out of a golden incense bowl, ever so slowly before hovering in a soft haze.
At the back of the shop stands a small and squat Asian man, Shorty Cheng. Faulkner pulls open the door and steps inside.
“What do you want, Faulkner?” asks the man, his moustache ridiculously curled, a red hat on his head. He smokes a cigarette and gently taps it against an ashtray.
“I need to know where Laurence is, Shorty.” Faulkner peruses the shop, picking up a fierce looking dragon hand-puppet and pointing it at the man.
“What, Lucy never told you?”
“You know she kicked me out.”
Shorty takes a drag on his cigarette. Faulkner has known him since before the war. Even then Shorty was filled with crazed business schemes: a rickshaw company, lizard-skin coat venture.
Faulkner mouths the puppet at Shorty, and says in a gruff accent, “She would have taken him back you know, she always took him back.”
“I never knew what she saw in you,” said Shorty.
Faulkner puts down the puppet and picks up a copy of Mao’s little red book, turning it over in his hands. He opens it and begins to read. “‘A revolution is not a dinner party, or writing an essay, or painting a picture, or doing embroidery; it cannot be so refined, so leisurely and gentle, so temperate, kind, courteous, restrained and magnanimous...’ Since when have you been selling these?”
“There’s plenty of wisdom in Mao, you know. Listen to this.” Shorty reaches over and takes the book in his hand. “‘Who are our enemies? Who are our friends? This is a question of the first importance for the revolution.’ Who are your real friends Faulkner? Huh? You’ve never known, really, have you?”
“Christ, that shit could mean anything. Anyway, I wouldn’t trust Mao as far as I could throw him. He’s a dictator in waiting.”
“Well, it sells,” says Shorty and laughs. “Especially since they’re talking about the new anti-sedition bill—they’re threatening to round people up, send them to camps. People are coming in to read that shit hand over fist.”
“You sure found your calling Shorty. Where’s Laurence? I know you still supply him with the Dust.”
“This is just for old time’s sake, Faulkner. And because, despite everything, I’m your friend—don’t ask me why.” Shorty puts his cigarette in the ashtray and starts writing down an address. Faulkner picks up the ashtray and the filter-less cigarettes that slide around as he examines it.
“Beautiful piece of work this,” says Faulkner before putting it down, taking the address and saying, “I’ll be seeing you Shorty.”
As Faulkner leaves, Shorty yells out after him, “Remember Faulkner, unite with your real friends!” A moment later he turns and nods towards the darkened archway at the back of the shop. A thick-set man steps out and Shorty gestures after Faulkner with a quick turn of the head. In the background smoke curls from the incense bowl like eddies in a river, now fast, now slow, here overlapping on itself, there elongating, finally merging with the hovering haze.
Faulkner slips through Chinatown again. He tries to avoid a group of Asian men loitering around the crossroads, swinging clubs in their hands or standing cross-armed and menacing.
“Hey you,” one calls.
“Just leave me out of it,” says Faulkner. “It’s not my war.”
“It’s gonna be,” says another, but they let him pass.
Behind him, the short, thick-set man is stopped by the group. He shifts his weight from foot to foot, his movements jittery and quick. He whispers something to the gang and they let him pass also.
Faulkner continues on, down another alleyway, and the man follows him at a distance. Faulkner stops for a moment, mid-stride, as if listening. He knows you never see the tail first. No. You feel them: a presence, hovering at the edge of your mind. A shadow. It is a world of shadows.
He slips into an opening in the crumbling wall. The staircase is dank, once-cream paint peeling from the walls, damp rising from the stone stairs. Faulkner stops and lights a cigarette and his hat casts darkness across his face. He takes some time to think. He feels like a rat in a maze, with the cheese lying on a slab back at the morgue. But before he can follow the smell, he has to see Lucy’s father. He doesn’t want to do it but, hey, you do these things for the ones you love, right? Wrong, he thinks.
You do it for yourself.
Faulkner takes another deep drag on his cigarette and starts up the stairs again. He knocks on a door, waits as footsteps approach. The door opens and Laurence looks blankly at him and then runs his hands through his wispy colourless hair.
“Still chasing the dragon, huh?” says Faulkner.
“Goddamn Faulkner, I was having such nice dreams.”
“I remember those.”
Laurence shuffles ahead of Faulkner, his long red and gold robe gently shifting around him, into a run-down old apartment. A Chinese lantern glows in the corner, red curtains cut the room in half; on a coffee table stand a couple of bottles of red powder, a bowl with red smudges beside them. The room has exactly the same feel as the opium den, but underneath there’s a sense of decay. The curtains don’t quite cover the peeling paint on the walls. The lantern looks battered and worn.
“Nice place,” says Faulkner, ashing his cigarette into a glass.
“All I got left after the cops busted me.”
“I know.”
“How’s Lucy?”
Faulkner tries to think of the words, but nothing will come to him.
“She kick you out finally?” Laurence walks to the cabinet, pours himself a drink.
“Jesus, Laurence. Just let me speak will you?”
“Testy. Spit it out then.”
“She’s dead,” Faulkner says and he reaches into his coat, looking for something. “Murdered.”
Laurence looks at Faulkner as if he doesn’t understand, then nods his head and says, “At her apartment?” When Faulkner remains silent, Laurence nods again, slowly, like a horse searching the ground for grass. He turns back to the cabinet, takes another glass and fills it. “Looks like you could do with one of these.” He turns back and freezes.
Faulkner has a gun on him.
“Easy, tiger,” says Laurence.
“It had to be about you, didn’t it? I mean, no one sells dream-dust, gets caught, and stays out of jail. There’s got to be a reason, doesn’t there, Laurence? There are shadows behind all of us.”
“I guess you don’t want your drink then?”
The Library of Forgotten Books Page 4
