Dirty Harry 08 - Hatchet Men (3 page)

He got to the corner of Grant and Washington streets without incident, but he spent several minutes making sure he wasn’t tailed before entering the Chinatown Wax Museum on the corner. He marched right up to the admissions counter and pasted a smile on his face with ease. He leaned over until he caught the counter girl’s attention.

“Oh, Jay!” she said quietly, with surprise. “I didn’t expect to see you until Angela got off her shift.”

“I got out early,” he said with a calmness he didn’t feel. “She still inside?”

“Leading the last tour,” said the girl, nodding. “Uh-huh.”

“That’s ok,” he said, looking at the entrance to the exhibits. “You don’t mind if I . . . ?” He made a walking motion with his fingers up in front of his face.

The admissions girl looked around. “Well, almost nobody’s here and the manager left early, so I don’t see why not. If anybody asks, I’ll say I put it on your tab.”

Jay gave her the “thumb’s up” signal. “Thanks, Nora,” he said. “You’re an angel.”

“Humph.” Nora, the admissions girl, sighed in mock disapproval. “I bet you say that to all the tour guides.”

“Only you,” he answered over his shoulder, already moving toward the entrance. “Only you.” She laughed and waved at the ticket taker to let him by. Neither she nor the other employee saw his lighthearted face turn suddenly serious and haggard. Jay moved quickly by the initial wax depictions of Chinese railroad crews in the American West, a motionless recreation of a nineteenth-century Chinese laundry, and the original fortune-cookie machine to the popular hall of infamy—the place where the really good stuff was on display.

Here were all the wax versions of the most insidious moments in Chinese history. Jay went past scenes of ancient Oriental torture chambers, following a distant, lilting voice coming from the end of the hall. He passed a bound wax man getting eaten by rats. He passed another hanging by his long, pig-tailed hair. He passed a third having spikes driven into his feet like needles into a pincushion. A masterpiece of macabre design was the scene of the transplanted Chinese-Americans digging up their graveyards to send the rotting corpses back to China for reburial after a decade in U.S. soil.

He reached the tail end of the night’s final tour group just as his girlfriend was finishing up a talk about the wax version of Empress Tzu Hsi.

“She was a very cruel lady,” Angela was saying, motioning to the impressively dressed, evil-looking wax woman behind her. “She poisoned her own nephew when he got in her way. She brutally murdered her son’s favorite mistress when she talked of marriage and even beheaded a eunuch for laughing in her presence. She didn’t like anyone to have fun when she was around.”

The tour group laughed and even Jay couldn’t help smiling. Angela was a very sweet-looking, wide-eyed girl whose seeming innocence masked an outgoing nature which made her a favorite tour guide. Jay admired the way she handled the group of tourists, making her talk seem as if it wasn’t rehearsed. She wore what looked like a stewardess’s outfit consisting of blue high-heel pumps, a slightly slit dark blue skirt, a silky beige shirt and a matching jacket. Her hair was long and black, kept off her face by one barrette which parted her lustrous mane on the side.

She moved on to the final exhibit. It pictured a small, nasty-looking man, contorting in an old-fashioned barber chair as three Oriental gunmen blasted his body with pistols. Jay was uncomfortable just looking at it. It reminded him too much of his own plight.

“As I have said before,” Angela said, turning from the tableau, “Chinatown was not always the way you see it now. At the turn of the century, Grant Avenue was called Dupont Street by the state government and ‘the wickedest thoroughfare in the States’ by everyone else. Before the great earthquake of 1906, the street was crammed full of opium dens, gambling parlors, black markets and houses of shame. Men were bushwhacked to serve on Chinese freighters and women were kidnapped to be sold into slavery.”

At that moment, she caught sight of Jay. She interrupted her dramatic spiel for a second to smile and wave at him. He smiled wanly and nodded back, wilting slightly under the curious stares of some tourists.

“The meanest man on that street of evil,” Angela continued ominously, “was known as ‘Little Pete,’ the most vicious Tong torpedo in all of San Francisco. He was just one of the Chinese enforcers who made sure everybody stayed in line and that the Tong bosses got their piece of the action, but he became famous. Not for what he did so much as how he did it. You see, Little Pete was the first of the ‘hatchet men.’ When the order came for someone to die, Little Pete did it with an ax. He left his blade mark on more than a dozen brains in his time. He got so powerful and became so feared that they called him the ‘Al Capone of Chinatown.’ He was so unpredictable and dangerous that the Tong families had him killed in 1897. Ten years later the famous San Francisco Earthquake wiped all the sin out.

“While the quake and subsequent fire destroyed many beautiful things in the City by the Bay, it signaled a new life for Chinatown. It wiped the slate clean for the Tongs—who had started as a protection society to shield the Chinese from the bigoted Mafia hoodlums but grew into warring factions. In 1900 the great Tong feuds flared and the streets were lined in blood. The disasters of 1906 wiped that blood away and allowed our ancestors to build anew.

“Today, the seven-block long, three-block wide section of the city that you are standing amid is one of the safest communities in America.” Angela leaned in, and put her hand next to her mouth conspiratorally. “Actually, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but our crime rate is lower than the rest of San Francisco.” The crowd tittered in reply.

“And it will stay that way,” Angela summed up, “because never again do we wish to see the vice and injustice that flourished at the turn of the century. Never again will innocent women be cruelly abducted to a fate worse than death. Never again will ‘hatchet men’ roam the streets, paid killers looking for their next innocent victim. Never again.” And here she paused, her closed lips holding on to her last word so the crowd knew there was still a capper left to come.

Angela held the silence for several beats, then delivered the droll, ironic twist. “At least never again,” she said, “in Chinatown.”

The tour group laughed in recognition and took a second to applaud her before they moved out of the hall and out the lobby exits. Angela spent some more time shaking hands and answering questions before the last of the sightseers wandered out into the brightly lit night. Then the girl trotted over to Jay, put her hands on his shoulders, and planted a kiss on his mouth. He placed his palms on either side of her waist and kissed back.

She pulled away first, turning her head to look at a grinning Nora. “Let’s close up early tonight,” Angela suggested lightly. “What do you say?”

Nora perked up considerably at the suggestion. She wanted to get out and see the Jackie Chan movie before the theater closed a little after midnight. “Sounds great to me,” she cried, turning toward the ticket taker. “What do you say, Larry?”

The ticket taker pulled at his lower lip. “Gee, I don’t know . . . ,” he worried.

“Come on, Larry,” Angela said soothingly, pulling away from Jay. “I’ll close up and take full responsibility.”

“Yeah, Larry,” said Nora teasingly. “And if you change real quick, I’ll let you take me to the movies tonight.”

The Oriental ticket taker looked at the admissions girl with slight surprise, and then a sheepish grin broke out on his lips. “You’ve got a deal,” he said, already loosening his tie. He stopped himself just as he began to turn toward the employee’s changing room. “You sure you can handle it all?” he asked Angela.

“It’s nothing I haven’t done before,” she answered. “Get going or you’ll miss the opening.”

The two coworkers smiled at each other before Larry took off toward the lavatory. Angela walked over to the desk where Nora was tallying up the night’s take. “I’ll take care of it if you’d like,” Angela offered.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Nora, her practiced fingers counting the cash and rubber-banding the unused tickets together. “I don’t have to change. I’ll just throw this stuff in the safe and throw a coat over my uniform.”

“Ok,” said Angela as Jay came up behind her. “See you tomorrow. And have a good time.”

Nora nodded, preoccupied with her counting, as Jay took Angela’s arm, led her back toward the exhibits and whispered in her ear. “Is there anyplace we can talk? Alone?”

Angela looked up at him with pleasant surprise, then gingerly pulled her arm from his grasp. “Let me lock up and then we can go to the employees’ room. All right?”

“Fine,” he said, as she pulled a small ring of keys out of a pouch on her belt. He watched as she put the
CLOSED
sign on the front window and waited for Nora and Larry to reconnoiter. The pair went out and Angela locked the door after them. The last Jay saw of them was when they looked back to wave while walking hurriedly toward the theater. He waved lightly back, trying to maintain his flaccid expression.

As soon as they were out of sight, Jay moved forward to pull Angela back. “Come on,” he said with forced casualness. “Let’s move away from the doors.”

Angela misread his anxiousness. “Whoa, there,” she said with a bright laugh, putting her hands on his chest. “Take it easy, tiger. I still have to check the exhibits for any stragglers. All right?”

“Sure,” Jay said, glancing hurriedly at the front doors. All he saw was dimly lit darkness beyond the wax museum’s lights. There were no curious faces there, Japanese or otherwise.

He followed her as she reentered the main hall of the museum. As soon as they both got around the corner, he took her into his arms and kissed her passionately. She reacted with surprise at first, then responded with warm affection. But it was she who pulled away finally.

“Whew!” she said with another laugh. “To what do I owe this unusual display?”

Jay swallowed, slightly embarrassed. She was right. He rarely allowed the emotion he felt to show. It was not the Oriental way. And certainly not the way of a lookout man at a gambling den. “I . . .” he stuttered, “I just wanted . . . to, uh, to say . . .”

As pleased as she was by their kiss, Angela began to get worried over her boyfriend’s sudden character change. Until then, he was like many young Chinese. Slightly smug, a bit possessive, assured, and occasionally distantly moody.

“That’s all right,” she said to make things easier. “You don’t have to say anything.” She felt a love she had never felt before broil across her entire body. He felt something real toward her. At that moment, she would have done anything for him.

“We’ve got to talk,” he said soberly.

“All right,” she replied. “Let’s talk as I check the hall.”

The two began walking. Jay remained silent for a while, looking down at the floor as Angela divided her time between checking the dimly lit exhibits and her boyfriend’s face. By his subtly, but rapidly, changing expressions, it seemed as if he was wrestling with his conscience or trying to come to a monumental decision.

“Angela,” he finally said. “You’ve got to come away with me.” He said it without taking his eyes from the floor.

Angela looked away and up at the ceiling, all her self-assurance leaving her like a dove taken flight. For a second she felt as giddy as a schoolgirl being asked for her first dance. But then the reality of their situation and place returned to her. “Jay,” she said, as softly as possible. “I don’t understand. Come away with you? What do you mean?”

“Just that,” he said flatly, looking at her. “You must leave with me tonight and never come back to Chinatown.”

“Leave Chinatown?” she echoed haltingly. “But why? Where would we go?”

“I’ve got some money,” Jay assured her, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a wad of bills. “We could go anywhere. L.A. No. wait, even better. Seattle. Or maybe Canada.”

“Jay, what are you talking about? Where did you get that money?”

“I won it. Tonight. At my . . . my uncle’s place.”

“Jay! You told me you had stopped gambling!”

“Christ, Angela,” he sputtered. “I have. I swear. Tonight was the last time.”

They stood facing each other in the very center of the dim exhibit hall, with the motionless wax bodies of history’s unfortunates all around them. Their increasingly harried conversation was halted by a third voice reaching their ears.

“Tell her why,” said the voice.

Jay was frozen in place. Angela gasped in surprise, her head looking in every possible direction.

“Tell her why,” the voice repeated, “tonight was the last time.”

As the words, spoken in accented English, echoed throughout the hall, Angela saw a shadow detach itself from one of the exhibits. Then Jay grabbed her hand and ran madly for the exit. Another shadow appeared in front of that. Jay immediately turned toward the lobby. Another human shape stood between the brightly illuminated foyer and the dim museum interior. They were boxed in, with the Chinese laundrymen and Empress Tzu Hsi on either side, staring with waxen pity.

Jay stumbled back, then wrapped his arms protectively around the girl.

‘Go on,” said the shadow next to the exhibit. “Tell her.” The hall was filled with silence for a moment. “If you don’t, I will.” Jay still refused to say anything. A frightened Angela looked from his face to the shadowy figure over her shoulder. “All right,” said that figure. “Tonight was his last night at his uncle’s because the gambling parlor is no more. They are all dead.”

Angela gasped again. “Is this true?” she whispered pleadingly up into Jay’s face.

“They ought to know,” Jay said angrily, holding her closer. “They killed them.”

Angela looked in each direction as the shadows began to approach slowly. She was building up to a scream until she saw their weapons emerge before them in the little pools of museum light. The blue steel of their automatic weapons seemed to glow in the eerie illumination. Their bodies and facial features took shape immediately after. They were Japanese—the same three Japanese who had tried to kill Jay before.