by James Palmer
As soon as I arrived I searched for the hotel where Durant had stayed. It wasn’t easy, but Durant had described it well enough, and the sign was printed in English. The manager was an impeccably dressed Chinaman who spoke good English, and I gave him a description of Durant and asked of his whereabouts.
“Oh yes,” said the Chinaman. “I remember him. He checked out almost three weeks ago.”
I thanked him and requested a room. In fact, I requested the same room that Durant had occupied. If the Chinaman thought this was a strange request he made no indication, and happily handed me the key.
As I climbed the stairs to my room my body suddenly realized how tired it was. I made a quick inspection of the room, which was small yet adequate, and then fell upon the bed without undressing. I would rest the night and then take up my investigation of Durant’s strange tale tomorrow. Before closing my eyes I removed my .38 revolver from my coat pocket and hid it under my pillow.
I do not know how long I slept, but when I awoke it was night. A noise had aroused me from my fitful sleep. Grabbing my pistol from under my pillow I rose and looked around.
The room was dark, but a full moon cast its glow through the room’s one window, limning everything in a pale light. It was then I found the source of the noise. It was my window opening slowly.
My heart racing, I leveled my pistol at the window and waited for my nocturnal visitor to enter.
My intruder finished carefully raising the window, then began to climb inside. The bed on which I sat was enveloped in shadow, and I was confident my intruder had not yet seen me.
“Is there something I can help you with?” I asked, my gun held at the ready.
The intruder made a tiny gasping sound and froze, then turned quickly and tried to dive out the window. I was up in a flash, reaching out with my left hand and grabbing the prowler’s shirt tail and dragging him back inside. He was surprisingly light, and when I flung him back against the wall beside the window, I discovered why. There, wreathed in moonlight from the open window, was a woman’s face scowling back at me.
“Who are you?” I shouted, holding the gun where she could see.
“Please. Let me go. I am sorry.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I-I thought you were someone else.”
“That gives you no excuse to go climbing into hotel windows in the dead of night,” I said. Then suddenly, a thought dawned on me. “You thought I was Charles Durant, didn’t you?”
The girl looked surprised. “Yes. How did you know?”
“I am a friend of his. He wrote to me of his troubles, asking for help. I requested this room in hopes of finding some clue to his current whereabouts. Do you know where he is?”
The girl shook her head. “No. I wish I did. He was supposed to meet me three weeks ago. Something terrible has happened to him.”
With that she put her face in her hands and erupted in a fury of wracking sobs.
I put the pistol away in my pocket and guided her to the bed. Sitting down beside her, I reached into my other pocket and produced a handkerchief, which she took and began dabbing her eyes.
“I-I’m sorry,” she cried.
I turned on the bedside lamp in order to get a better look at her. She flinched, as if unaccustomed to the light. She was Asian, with close-cropped hair, wearing matching embroidered silk pants and shirt of a type I had seen up and down the streets of Victoria City all day. She turned and looked at me, her dark eyes rimmed with tears. “Who are you?”
“My name is Rick Casey. What’s yours?”
“Soo Yin.”
“Where’s Durant?”
She looked away from me, down at her hands which were busy wringing my handkerchief into knots. “Since he failed to meet me at the appointed time, it means that he is dead.”
My heart sank as if tied to a boulder, my whole body going numb. “What do you mean?” I managed finally.
“My master killed him.”
I sat there in silence for a long moment, letting all of this sink in. Finally, my numbness was replaced by anger.
“Who is your master.”
Soo Yin looked back at me, shaking her head. “No. You must go away. Forget you ever heard from your friend.”
“I can’t do that,” I replied, gripping her arm. “Tell me what I want to know. Who is this master of yours?”
Soo Yin began rocking back in forth, and I could tell that she was torn by some inner struggle.
“Do it for Durant,” I said. “If he meant anything to you at all, and I believe he did or you wouldn’t be here, give me your master’s name!”
“Lao Fang!” she shouted, tearing her arm from my grasp. “My master’s name is Lao Fang.”
“Take me to him.”
“No! I have done too much already. You and I are both dead. Dead like your friend!”
With that she jumped to her feet and, before I could catch her, bounded out the window, down the fire escape and was gone into the night.
*
Suffice it to say I got little sleep the rest of the night. I sprang from my bed when the first rays of the sun shown through my still open window, and I hurriedly changed clothes, ditching my traveling clothes in favor of more ragged attire so as to blend in. Then I went off to begin my investigations.
After purchasing a breakfast of congee and crullers from a street vendor, I was ready to track down this mysterious Lao Fang and find out what happened to my friend.
Remembering Durant’s directions to the insidious opium district, I decide to begin my search there. Hiring a sedan chair to take me down to the waterfront, I sipped my congee down to the dregs as they hauled me to one of the places mentioned in Durant’s letter, a seedy locale appropriately named The Lotus Petal.
I stopped my drivers a few blocks from the place and paid my fare, then walked up the street toward it. From the outside it looked like any other storefront in the part of the world, but for the obviously impaired sailors and others of all nations and creeds staggering in and out of the place.
Securing a position across the street, I watched the opium den keenly. I wanted to get a good sense of the place before going in. After a few minutes a young, bald Chinaman emerged, wearing the same embroidered silk clothing that Soo Yin had worn. I surmised that this was probably the uniform of an employee of this particular establishment. Feeling relatively confident, and making sure my pistol was still hidden away inside a pocket of my trousers, I staggered into the street and up to the front door of The Lotus Petal.
A large black man guarded the door, shirtless and wearing red, billowing silken pants and black boots, a glittering dagger stuffed into the sash he wore around his waist. He eyed me suspiciously, probably because I was a foreigner.
“Please, sir,” I said. “Bid me enter.”
“It’ll cost you,” said the black in a great, booming voice.
“I-I have money,” I said, and made a show of producing a roll of cash from my trouser pocket.
I handed him a few American bills, which he took and inspected as if they might be diseased. He nodded to someone I couldn’t see, then opened the door wide enough for me to enter, but no more. As quickly as I gained entry, the door slammed closed and I was shrouded in near darkness.
It took a few moments for my eyes to adjust to the gloom. A Chinaman sat across from me smoking a long pipe. The large black stood next to him, his great arms crossed against his barrel chest.
Before I could say anything else, another Chinaman appeared out of nowhere and led me to a low couch. All around me sat or lay the dregs of humanity, poor rotten souls whose only remaining wish in life was to sleep the opium sleep. Here was a broad-shouldered man, lying with his face against the wall, shaking. There was a rail-thin Chinaman sitting cross-legged and sucking on a tall, ornate hookah, his eyes glazed over.
The Chinaman led me to a low couch near the rear of the establishment and prepared a pipe for me. He lit it, then sauntered off, disappearing through a d
oorway in the back wall obscured beaded curtain.
I pretended to smoke, taking on the glazed look of those poor lost souls about me, while surreptitiously keeping an eye on the black up front, and the mysterious curtain to the rear. I wondered idly when, if ever, Soo Yin’s mysterious and accursed master would put in an appearance.
As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait long. After about twenty minutes, just as the opium smoke that filled the place was starting to get to me, I heard a gong from somewhere far off. I thought I had imaged it at first, thinking the lotus haze was playing tricks on me. But the black must have heard it too, for he made a fast beeline for the rear of the shop and disappeared through the curtain.
Not ten minutes later he returned and went over to one of the other men lying upon a carpet in a drug-induced stupor.
The black muttered something in his deep voice, kicking the man in the shoulder with his boot. The man moaned and continued to lie there. Obviously impatient, the black reached down and hauled the man to his feet.
This man was a brute, but the black moved him effortlessly and, draping one of the man’s arms over his shoulder, walked him to the rear of the shop. I put my head down, so I wouldn’t be seen taking such an interest, but I heard the black say to him as they walked by, “Come. The Master waits.”
Thinking that this might be my only chance, and having no interest in getting a contact high from all the opium smoke and suffering the same fate as the miserable wretches around me, I put down my pipe and stood. The Chinaman who minded the door was still sitting cross legged with his pipe, giggling at intervals, lost in drugged dreams of his own.
Touching the pistol in my pocket, I crept toward the rear of the lotus den and made my way carefully through the beaded curtain.
A narrow stone hallway lit by torches hung in iron sconces greeted me. Through the gloom I could just make out the black and his charge rounding a bend. I waited a few beats until their footsteps had faded, then continued my pursuit. The hallway was bare of any ornamentation save for a few dusty old chests piled here and there. I paused at the bend in the corridor peaked ahead to make sure the two men were far enough ahead of me. Seeing the way clear, I continued.
Soon I noticed that the floor of the corridor began sloping down, the rock and other materials that made up the walls, ceiling and floor becoming rougher and more primitive. When the slope leveled off, the corridor resembled a cave rather than a hallway, the walls nothing more than rough hewn grey rock.
I was so busy in my inspections of the corridor I was in that I failed to look far enough ahead of me, and I was almost on top of my prey before I realized it. They had stopped before bare stone wall. Staggering backward as quickly and as quietly as possible, I melted into the shadows cast by an overhanging rock and watched as the black reached up and tugged on a torch sputtering in its sconce. Something deep within the wall clanked, and the wall opened, revealing a narrow staircase that spiraled down into darkness.
Here they paused, and the black lowered the drunken brute’s arm from his shoulder and stood looking into his eyes.
“Are you listening?” He said. “I am Mustafa. You must walk from here. I cannot carry you down these stairs. Do you understand?”
The man, who seemed to be coming around, nodded. “W-where are we going?”
Mustafa smiled a broad smile. “You go to see the Master. He will make you a king among men and release you from the ties that bind you. We must go.”
Taking the torch from the wall, Mustafa lead the man to the top of the stairwell, as a parent would lead a child. Slowly, carefully, they descended the stairs. I waited until torchlight had completely disappeared before making my descent.
Had I only known what I would find, I would have fled from that hellish stair, back up the tunnel to the Lotus Petal, and right out the door of that horrid place, then still further until I was hundreds of miles from Victoria City, Kowloon, and Hong Kong. But I was a man of honor, and I had made a silent promise to my friend that I would help him or, seeing he was beyond help, avenge him as best I could.
The stair was enveloped in an absolute darkness I had never experienced. I almost stumbled and fell a few times, but by keeping one hand against the damp wall, and remembering the general width of the stair, I was able to remain upright. I couldn’t imagine the two brutes I pursued having a much easier time of it, even with a light to guide them.
Finally, mercifully, we reached the bottom. The stairwell exited into a brightly lit chamber that was decadent in the extreme. The floor was completely covered in the most ornate and beautiful rugs I had ever seen. A giant gong hung from a platform in one corner. This, I deduced, was the same gong that Mustafa and myself had heard up on street level. The far wall was obscured by a large paper screen. Before it sat a low table with pillows piled around it. And sitting atop the table was a lump of gold worked into the shape of a frog!
I gasped. This must be the idol that had been stolen from Durant. His wild story was true, and I vowed then and there to do whatever it took to learn the fate of my friend and bring any wrongdoers to justice.
Mustafa brought the man to the low table and bade him kneel on one of the pillows, then stood behind him, his arms crossed. Soon a silhouette appeared behind the paper screen. It appeared to be garbed in flowing robes, and it too kneeled on some pillow.
“Welcome to the inner sanctum of Lao Fang,” the shadow said. “I have brought you here for a purpose. You are strong, and I can use many strong men in my organization.”
“I didn’t come here for a job,” the man replied, obviously regaining his wits.
Lao Fang chuckled. “I am not talking about a job. I am talking about a whole new way of being. You are a slave to the lotus, a broken thing. I wish to make you whole again.”
“What do you want in return?”
“Lifelong servitude,” said Lao Fang.
“And what if I refuse?”
“If that is your choice, I will have Mustafa slit your throat.”
With that the black was on him in a flash, kneeling behind him with his dagger at his throat.
“I find your terms acceptable,” said the man, who I could see now had an olive complexion. He was probably a Greek or Italian sailor.
“Excellent. Mustafa, the elixir.”
Sheathing his dagger, Mustafa reached around the brute and picked up a glass vial from somewhere on the table. It must have been near the idol, for I hadn’t noticed it before they took their positions before the screen.
“Here,” said Mustafa, uncapping the bottle and handing it to the man. “Drink this and live.”
The man took the bottle carefully, gave it a sniff, then downed it in one gulp. At first, it appeared to have no effect, until suddenly he threw the bottle down and doubled over, clutching his stomach while coughing and hacking violently. Mustafa looked to the screen, but the figure behind it held up a restraining hand.
“Wait. The opium’s hold on him is strong. Give him time.”
After a few minutes of this the man’s coughing subsided and he quickly stood and looked around. His entire countenance had changed. His eyes, once bloodshot, were now bright and clear. His face had seemed aged, and now he looked years younger.
“How do you feel?” asked Lao Fang.
“Wonderful!” the man cried.
“You will no longer lust for opium, nor suffer from withdrawal,” said Lao Fang.
“How did you do this?”
The figure behind the screen held up his hands. “Yogul did this. The golden idol on the table before you.”
As if in a trance, the man threw himself on the ground before the little statue and began thanking it effusively.
“What can I do to repay this kindness?” he asked when he had finished.
“By serving me all the rest of your days,” said Lao Fang. “You have a new master now.”
“Y-yes. Of course. Whatever you wish, Master.”
“Good. I feel I have chosen wisely. Do not disappoint
me, for my hand remains at your throat at all times.”
“Yes, Master.”
“I must test your resolve,” the Master continued. “Go to this address and kill the man who resides there.”
As if on queue, Mustafa handed the man a slip of paper.
“Can you do this for me?”
The man opened the slip of paper, read it, then looked at the screen. “Y-yes. Master. I am eternally in your debt.”
“Mustafa, take Mr. Gomez and prepare him for his task. Give him a change of clothes, and all the food and drink he desires.”
Mustafa bowed formally and escorted Mr. Gomez out through a door set in the far wall and hidden behind a hanging tapestry.
What had I stumbled upon here? This went far beyond some strange, forgotten idol made of gold. I had unwittingly followed a pair of lunatics into hell!
Wait, I told myself. I still had the advantage. No one had yet seen me, and I had foreknowledge of some murder about to be committed. But against whom?
The shadow behind the screen was gone, so I entered the so-called inner sanctum alone and undetected.
I dared not go back up the tunnel, for someone coming down would see me, or catch me emerging through the curtain in the rear of the Lotus Petal. My only hope lie in the way Mustafa and Lao Fang’s new servant just exited. But first, I had to look behind the screen.
Moving it carefully aside I found a rough opening in the wall of the chamber. A pile of pillows marked where Lao Fang had sat, but he was nowhere to be seen. I jutted my head carefully through the hole and looked around. Naked rock lay straight ahead just a few feet away, and what seemed to be a tunnel went from left to right. I could see nothing. A cool breeze hit me in the face from my left.
I backed out of the opening and put the screen back just as I had found it. Then I headed for the hidden door.
Where the first tunnel had been dark and rough hewn, this tunnel was well lit and level. It looked like a utility corridor. Electric light bulbs illuminated the narrow hallway at regular intervals. Seeing no one ahead, I exited the inner sanctum and started walking.
I had no inkling what I was doing. What if I happened upon someone in the narrow tunnel? I didn’t know where I was. How would I escape undetected? All these thoughts and more flitted through my brain. I patted the gun in my pocket and continued.
