Mr. Moto Omnibus

by John P. Marquand

  “Gates,” she said, “I want you to know I’m not angry. I couldn’t be angry with anyone like you, but I never want to see you again.”

  “Well,” Calvin said, “that’s plain enough.” He turned on his heel and the station platform was unsteady beneath his feet, and he did not turn to look back. He did not care even to stop for his baggage. He was through.

  “Here,” Hamby called to him. “Where are you going, Gates?”

  He was able to answer carelessly.

  “Just to the end of the platform,” he said, “I’m just going to stretch my legs.”

  He was going to stretch his legs a good long way, but he strolled along carelessly because Hamby was watching him. He felt better with every step he took.

  “Well,” he said to himself, “that’s that.”

  He surrendered his ticket at the gate and walked quickly through the station. He was through with it, just as he had said.

  13

  HE REALIZED with a sense of shock how angry he had been only when he reached the sunlit square outside the station. The anger and the indignation which he felt had been like a touch of sun which had burned away his wits, leaving him standing pale and abstracted, like the survivor of some great disaster. Although she had sent him away, he knew that he should not have gone, but now everything they had both said seemed irreparable.

  Then a single definite thought came into his mind. There had been another disaster which had brought him to that place. He must go ahead by himself to that other railroad station and take that other train. He had crossed the ocean to see a man named Dr. Gilbreth at a place called Ghuru Nor. Voices came to him through his thoughts, and brought his mind back to the present. Hands were twitching at his sleeves, and he saw that he stood before the station in the middle of a crowd of perspiring Chinese.

  “Rickshaw,” they were shouting at him, “rickshaw, marster?”

  It was that insistent clamor that made him realize that he had no idea of where to go; but there was one person in the crowd who seemed to understand his desire. A large Chinese in a visor cap kicked his way through the ring of rickshaw coolies and touched Calvin’s arm. His face was as round and benign as a harvest moon. He was wearing a shabby chauffeur’s uniform.

  “Taxicab,” he said in a liquid, bell-like voice. “Nice taxicab. This way, marster.”

  “Yes,” said Calvin.

  “Quick all time,” came the answer. “This way, marster.”

  Later Calvin remembered that he never said where he wished to go. Smilingly the driver pointed to a closed black automobile of an antiquated type.

  “Nice car, marster,” the Chinese said, “nice clean. Get in, marster,” and he opened the door with one hand and supported Calvin’s arm with the other.

  Calvin’s foot was on the running board, when a hand against his back sent him inside sprawling and the door of the car slammed shut. Something hard was prodded into Calvin’s back.

  “Get up on the sit,” a voice said.

  Still on his hands and knees, Calvin glanced sideways. The voice had told him already that a Japanese was speaking and there he was, a small man like the rest of his race, with a square jaw and a blunt nose. His dark eyes were narrow and ugly. He was jabbing a small blunt pistol repeatedly at Calvin’s side, and he spoke slowly and distinctly.

  “Get up on the sit. You come with me,” he said.

  Then Calvin understood what had happened; it was the cigarette case again, and they thought he had the case. He got up from his hands and knees and sat down and turned his head to look at his captor. There he was in shoddy European clothes like a million of his countrymen, and he evidently knew his business. He held the pistol close to Calvin’s side.

  “What are you going to do?” Calvin asked. It was a foolish question. The Japanese pushed his ribs with the pistol and spoke carefully with a pause between each word.

  “You sit still,” he said, “and shut up your damn mouth.”

  Calvin Gates leaned back and folded his hands across his knee with no further desire for conversation. Yet even in that stunned moment of his surprise he remembered thinking that the words with which he had been addressed were the first words of rudeness or insolence that he had heard from anyone of the Japanese or Chinese race. It was not a pleasant omen. It meant that he was as good as finished and no longer worth consideration. It would have been different if they had not thought that the cigarette case was in his pocket, and then he thought of something else. The same thing might happen to Miss Dillaway when they found it was not there. No matter what the provocation had been, he should not have left her. He moved uneasily and the pistol prodded back into his ribs.

  His resentment and his pride disappeared when the pistol prodded into his ribs, but it was too late. Given the opportunity, his own strength was greater than that of the square-jawed man beside him; and the desire to use his strength almost overcame any prudence until the pressure on his side reminded him that he might as well have been tied hand and foot. He could see the thick neck of the Chinese chauffeur in the seat in front, and the car was already moving. It moved along a broad street past a pink stucco wall with yellow tiles on top. He had a glimpse of a moat with white marble bridges arching over it, and next they were threading their way through broad thoroughfares with blank gray walls and red doorways, past rickshaws whose occupants carried sunshades above their heads, past Chinese who stood on the corners cooling themselves with brightly colored fans, past old men carrying bird cages, past carts being drawn by sweating men. The ride was not a long one. The car finally swerved out of one of those broad streets into a narrow alley so suddenly that he was thrown against the man beside him. The Japanese struck him hard on the side of his face and jabbed the pistol into his ribs again.

  “You sit still,” he said.

  Calvin spoke for the second time.

  “I won’t forget that,” he answered, and the Japanese struck him again.

  “You shut your mouth,” he said.

  They were in a narrow, unpaved alley with high, blank walls on either side of it, and the car had stopped in front of a broad red gate. They waited only for the driver to blow his horn before the gate swung open, allowing them to drive into a broad courtyard where they stopped again. The Chinese driver, still bland and smiling, opened the car door.

  “Get out. You follow him,” his captor said.

  They were in a large dusty enclosure bounded by high walls with long narrow buildings erected against them, the roofs of which shimmered from the heat of the sun. The courtyard was paved with gray mud brick, and had been swept scrupulously clean. The cleanliness was what he remembered best, and the fresh red paint on the doors and the latticed windows. Calvin knew that he was in the outer courtyard of a large establishment which might have been a native hostelry or perhaps a palace, and the walls shut him in as securely as the entrance to a prison, away from any sort of help and away from any possibility of escape. He felt the pistol in the small of his back, as he followed the Chinese driver. The sound of their feet as they clattered on the gray stone tiles made him wonder if he would ever walk back that way alive and the chances of doing so seemed slight. A weight in his right-hand jacket pocket reminded him that he was still armed. Apparently no one had given the possibility of his carrying a weapon serious attention. Even so it did not help with a pistol leveled at his back.

  He followed obediently to one of the buildings by the wall, halting while the driver opened a door and stood aside. A further prod of the pistol on his back was his order to walk ahead.

  Whatever was going to happen to him would happen soon, and the thought caused him no great fear. His only desire was not to die unless the man behind him died with him. He knew it was not a proper thought for such a time, but it stopped him from being afraid.

  He stepped over a high threshold into a room which seemed dark after the glare outside, until his eyes became accustomed to the light. Then he saw that it was a large, long room, one side of which was a bare wall
, and that light came through four windows which faced the courtyard, a soft light that filtered through rice paper, which was pasted over the windows in place of glass. It showed the bare beams of the building above him supported by a line of smooth red columns, and the beams were carved and colored in blues and reds and gold. At one end of the room was what he took for a platform covered with matting, with a small teakwood table upon it. The only other furnishing was a long bench against the wall. His guard walked in directly behind him and the driver closed the door leaving them alone. In the silence which followed Calvin could hear a pattering of feet and voices in the courtyard.

  “Stand up,” the Japanese said. “Stand still.” And he pointed his pistol at Calvin’s head. Calvin leaned against one of the pillars and shrugged his shoulders. The man in front of him grinned at him.

  “Funny aren’t you?” Calvin said. There was no response, but the pistol was still pointed at his head.

  He realized that it was meant to be amusing, and that he was not to be shot just yet. They were obviously waiting for someone and they did not have to wait long. It could not have been more than a minute before the door opened again, making a rectangle of bright sunlight, and a man in clean white linen stepped over the high threshold and slammed the door shut.

  Though it was still hard for him to distinguish the features of one Asiatic from another, he was certain that the newcomer was also Japanese in spite of his being larger than most of his race. He was a broad-shouldered, muscular man of middle age, and the first Japanese that Calvin had seen who looked entirely at home in European clothes. His figure might have been that of a European in the white suit, but in spite of the civilian clothes he was, like Captain Hamby, a military man, with the soldier’s posture and the soldier’s brisk, decisive step. When the light struck the side of one of his high cheeks Calvin saw two scars. He had seen the same on the cheeks of Prussian officers, the scars from a German students’ duel. They were deep enough to have affected the muscles in one corner of the mouth, so that one corner drooped down slightly while the other tilted up.

  The man in white gave a sharp order and Calvin’s guard drew back, still holding his pistol ready. He halted in front of Calvin and stood with his hands clasped behind his back and spoke in a sharp, businesslike voice in English that was slurred by a German accent.

  “You’re an American named Calvin Gates,” he said.

  It occurred to Calvin that there was no reason to be polite.

  “And I take you for a Japanese educated in Germany,” he answered. “You know my name, but I don’t know yours.”

  The mouth of the man turned upward one corner, but the other corner remained immobile.

  “Quite right,” he said. “You are speaking to Major Ahara of the Japanese army.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Calvin Gates, “but it doesn’t mean a thing to me.”

  The corner of the Major’s mouth twisted upward for a second time.

  “I have never liked Americans,” he said. “I hope very soon we go to war with America. It will be so after we finish our business here.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Calvin Gates.

  The Major looked at him with frank distaste.

  “I dislike Americans very much,” he said, “so I do not care to talk. I am informed you have a cigarette case with you.”

  “What of it?” said Calvin Gates.

  The Major unclasped his hands from behind his back.

  “You will give it to me at once,” he said.

  Calvin Gates still leaned against the red pillar. The guard was listening, interested. He had lowered his pistol, but he still held it in his hand.

  “And then what?” Calvin said.

  The Major’s lips twitched.

  “You and I both know then what, Mr. Gates,” he answered.

  “Very well,” said Calvin Gates. “There’s no use lying to you.” And he put his right hand into his pocket. The Major took a step forward, holding out his hand.

  “That is sensible of you,” he said, “and if you answer questions freely you’ll have an easier time. You will be made to talk at any rate.”

  “That’s considerate of you, Major,” Calvin said.

  His hand had tightened over the pistol. It was out of his pocket and he fired at just the same instant. The single shot made a roaring sound. The guard had staggered backward against the wall. The Major was standing in front of him, and Calvin took a step backward.

  “That wasn’t so bright of you,” Major,” he said. “You Japanese are always so damn sure. Don’t you ever search people when you catch them?”

  The Major raised a hand to his head. He was no longer an army officer with a brisk military manner; his voice was quiet and subdued.

  “Will you please to kill me now,” he said. “The information was you were not armed. I wish you would kill me please before the rest come.”

  “Sensitive, aren’t you?” said Calvin Gates. “Don’t worry, you’ll go when I go.”

  He paused a moment, listening. He could hear voices and footsteps in the courtyard and the sound of a motor horn, but no one came near the door. The man he had shot had sunk down to the bench, groaning softly and holding his hand against his side, but no one came near the door. Calvin grinned at the Major.

  “It looks as though they thought that shot was meant for me,” he said.

  The Major’s face twitched and he repeated his plea again.

  “I wish you would kill me, please,” he said.

  Calvin Gates moved toward him.

  “Proud, aren’t you?” he said, and he shifted the pistol from his right hand to his left. “Kill yourself if you want to. I’d rather do it this way,” and he struck the Major on the jaw. He saw the eyes glaze and the mouth fall open, and he struck again.

  The Major was sinking to his knees and Calvin watched him. He had struck him twice with all his force, and the Major would be no trouble for a while.

  Calvin Gates stood still and his face assumed an expression almost of stupid surprise as the consciousness of what he had done came over him. What amazed him most was that it had been so easy, and he had the same sort of astonishment that comes to an amateur at a gambling table after a series of successive winnings. In less than half a minute, for the first time in his life, he had fired upon a human being as coolly as though he were practicing a snap shot in a shooting gallery. Instead of hitting an abstract mark he had hit a human being and had inflicted what was probably a fatal wound. A moment later he had beaten a second individual into temporary insensibility, and it all had occurred almost as fast as thought.

  He had never realized his own capacity until just then, and it had an ironic significance. Standing there in that strange place, the conviction came upon him that he was doing exactly what he had always wanted, for he had always longed to be in danger. For once in his life he had achieved what he wanted, and now that he had achieved it he was not greatly elated, for he suddenly understood that his whole life had been built for such a situation and that he was only useful in such surroundings.

  Now that he was faced with the reality, it was not much to be proud of, for the thing which he had done was out of keeping with his sense of fitness and humanity. Yet now that he had done it, there was no time for drawing back. He would have to go on very quickly, if he were to avail himself even of the slender chance of getting out of that courtyard and into the street alive.

  Even while he was thinking, another part of him began to act. He found himself stepping toward the doorway with an even, unhurried step. At the same time he was thinking that he could do all this more easily again if he came out alive; he would be better equipped to kill and less appalled at facing the prospect. He would be like Captain Hamby, given time; it was the only thing he was good for, to be like Captain Hamby.

  He understood very clearly that he must open the door and walk out into the court. The casualness of his appearance might provoke a moment of uncertainty which might allow him time to reac
h the gate. If anyone attempted to stop him, he must shoot again without compunction, and he felt no great compunction; he was getting more like Hamby all the time.

  The courtyard had been empty when he had crossed it, but now he could hear voices which were raised in some sort of altercation. Whatever might be happening outside, it was too late for him to stop. Putting his pistol back in his jacket pocket, but still holding his hand over it, Calvin opened the door and stepped out into the brilliant sunshine.

  The instant that he was in the courtyard, however, the pistol was out again and ready in his hand, while the scene outside flashed accurately across his mind, at first with only the significance that comes to a marksman. Across the court standing by the door of another of those buildings built against the wall was a knot of Japanese. They had not even noticed his appearance, for all their attention was focused upon the center of the courtyard. The antiquated black car which had brought him still stood there empty, and beside it was a smaller, tan-colored vehicle with a driver in a khaki uniform at the wheel. Midway between that brown automobile and where he stood, three Japanese stood arguing excitedly. All these details flashed before him instantaneously, just as he stepped over the high Chinese threshold. The three in the center of the courtyard saw him at the same instant, and their voices stopped.

  “Run,” his mind was saying; “get over to the gate.”

  Then one of the three was walking toward him holding up his hand.

  “Please,” he was calling. “One moment, Mr. Gates.” And Calvin recognized the voice, and the black-and-white golf suit and the golden smile. It was Mr. Moto, walking toward him blandly.