Exploits (20 page)

“Think of the publicity, Doctor Jones!” he said. “Not only will we rid the world of this vermin, but we'll push Inspector Willie Wong off the front page!”

“I ain't got nothing against Willie Wong,” I protested. “And now that I come to think of it, I ain't got nothing against Doctor Aristotle Ho, neither.”

“Do you have anything against rewards?”

“I got a lot against risking life and limb for ’em,” I said.

“That won't be necessary,” said Mr. Mako. “You just follow him when I'm unavailable. Take notes of where he goes and who he meets, and keep out of sight. I'll take over from there.”

“You're
sure
that's all I gotta do?” I said.

“Absolutely,” said Mr. Mako. “I'm willing to share the reward with you, but I want the glory of capturing him myself. I'll show the world you don't need twenty-eight sons and a handful of trite aphorisms to be Asia's finest detective!”

Well, he seemed pretty sincere to me, so I finally agreed, provided that when it was all over he'd also tell the world that he was just in disguise as a Geisha girl and he and I didn't have no degenerate relationship going on behind the scenes, and then he went to sleep on the couch and left the bed for me, but about two in the morning I finally decided that I had to get something to eat even if it meant eating at the Momonjiya or the Taiko, so I climbed into my clothes and tiptoed out into the hall so as not to wake the sleeping Mr. Mako, and then I climbed down the stairs and headed out the door of the hotel into the street, figuring I'd just walk up and down the row of restaurants until I came to one with some civilized food in the window, and then suddenly I saw a familiar-looking figure walking ahead of me, and I realized that it was Doctor Aristotle Ho.

I hid in the shadows until he got a little farther away from me, and then fell into step behind him and followed him for about a mile, and suddenly we were in the Ginza, and every building was either a casino or a bar or a drug den or a whorehouse, and while it made me feel right at home, I didn't dare relax or partake in none of the entertainments with the Insidious Oriental Dentist just ahead of me. Finally he turned into a small tavern, and I stopped about fifty feet away and decided to wait til he came out rather than go in after him.

Suddenly I heard some gunshots coming from the tavern, and then there was a scream, and then a whole bunch of little yellow fellers raced out, and a crowd started gathering around the place, and then Doctor Ho walked out, calm as you please, with a smoking pistol in his hand. He tucked it into the belt of his brocaded robe, looked contemptuously at the crowd, all of whom backed away, and then turned to his right and started walking away.

One little old gray-haired Japanese feller stepped out of the crowd and started following him, and I walked over and grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Hey, neighbor,” I said, “you don't want to get involved. That's the notorious Doctor Aristotle Ho.”

He yelled something in Japanese at me, and I hung on to his arm.

“He shoots people for a livelihood,” I explained. “Leave this to the authorities and maybe you won't get your damnfool head blown off.”

Well, by now Doctor Ho had heard the commotion, and he turned and recognized me, and pulled out his pistol and fired twice, just as I pulled the old Japanese guy to the ground. When I looked up again, he was gone.

“Fool!” muttered the old guy. “I had him within my grasp!”

He started pulling off his mustache and wig, and suddenly I was looking at Mr. Mako.

“Why the hell didn't you tell me it was you?” I demanded.

“He would have overheard.”

“What are you doing here in the first place?” I said. “I left you sleeping back at the hotel.”

“I heard you leave,” said Mr. Mako, “and since I couldn't be sure that Doctor Ho hadn't seen through my Geisha disguise, I thought I'd better come along to protect you.”

“Don't you ever go anywhere as just plain Mr. Mako?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I am much too famous. Only my ability as a master of disguise allows me the freedom of movement.”

A couple of bystanders had been watching him as he plucked off his mustache and wig and got rid of his cane, and one of them walked up.

“May I have your autograph?” he said.

“You see?” said Mr. Mako to me. “It happens everywhere I go.”

“I've followed all your cases from Honolulu to Tokyo, Inspector Wong,” continued the man. “What brings you to our fair city?”

Mr. Mako started cursing a blue streak, and didn't stop until the autograph seeker had run off in fear of his life.

“Come on, Mr. Mako,” I said when he had finally run out of breath. “It's just been one of those days. I'll buy you a beer.”

“Saki,” he said.

“What's that?” I asked. “A Japanese brand?”

He just glared at me and walked into the nearest bar, and he didn't start loosening up until he'd had his fourth or fifth saki, which is this Oriental beer with no head on it that they serve in tiny little glasses.

“I was so close,” he murmured. “So close!”

“Well, the thing to remember, Mr. Mako,” I said, “is that Doctor Ho was just as close to you, and he was the one with the gun. Besides,” I added, “he was all alone, and you said you wanted his whole gang.”

“His
whole
gang encompasses entire armies and governments,” said Mr. Mako. “What I meant was that I wanted his Japanese operatives.”

“What's he doing here anyway?” I asked. “I thought he operated on the mainland.”

Mr. Mako shrugged. “That is something else we have to discover, but I suspect that it involves our pearl industry.”

“You grow a lot of pearls in Japan, do you?” I asked.

“You make it sound like you think they grow on trees, Doctor Jones,” he said, amused.

“Nonsense,” I said. “Everyone knows you dig for ’em in mines.”

He just stared at me for a minute and then continued. “Recently we heard through the underworld grapevine that a criminal mastermind was planning to steal our entire supply of pearls. Doctor Ho's presence here would seem to confirm it.”

“Where do you keep all your pearls, Mr. Mako?” I asked.

“In a building—a fortress, really—called the Pearl Exchange, on the edge of Shiba Park, right next to the ancient Buddhist Temple. It is there that Doctor Ho will strike.”

“Well, then, it's just as well he got away tonight, ain't it?” I said.

“You are quite right, Doctor Jones,” he said. “In my enthusiasm I moved too soon. I owe you an apology.”

“Happily accepted,” I said. “Now why don't we get on back to the hotel and grab forty or fifty winks?”

“You go ahead,” he said. “I am wide awake now, and perhaps it would be best for me to do some reconnoitering.”

I didn't put up no objections, especially since he had left his Geisha duds back in the hotel, and I figured it wouldn't enhance neither of our reputations to be seen going into my room together, so I left him there and returned to the Nikkatsu Hotel and was sound asleep and snoring to beat the band a couple of minutes later.

The room was still empty when I got up at noon, so I shaved and dressed and went out hunting for a little breakfast that didn't have no monkey brains or ox organs or dead fish in it, but I found that I couldn't read the menus, which were all printed in Japanese, so after walking into and out of three or four restaurants I finally sat myself down and pointed to a pot of tea, and settled for drinking my breakfast with a bit of milk and sugar.

It was only as I was pouring my second cup that I realized that the place suddenly seemed a lot less crowded than it had, and as I looked up I saw all the customers and waiters and cashiers running for the door, and I figured the place must have caught fire or something, and I jumped to my feet to join them when a heavy hand landed on my shoulder and shoved me back down, and then the proud owner of the hand sat down and I found myself staring across the table at Doctor Aristotle Ho.

“We meet again, Doctor Jones,” he said.

“Look,” I said, “I'm right sorry that your temple collapsed and it put your plans of worldwide conquest on hold, but it wasn't my fault.”

“Why do you continue to torment me, Doctor Jones?” he said. “No sooner do you leave Sir Mortimer's company in India than I find you in Tokyo, working in concert with Mr. Mako. What have you got against me?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“Be careful what you wish for, Doctor Jones,” he said. “It may come true sooner than you think.”

“The only reason I was with Mr. Mako was because I thunk he was a Geisha girl.” He just stared coldly at me and didn't make no reply. “I guess that requires some further explanation, right?”

“I am in no mood for your drolleries, Doctor Jones,” said Doctor Ho. “I have come here to ask you to deliver a message for me.”

“A message?”

“I want you to tell Mr. Mako that if he persists in trying to thwart me, he will not survive the week.”

“You'd make him a lot madder if you told him you were an admirer of Inspector Willie Wong's,” I said helpfully.

“Just deliver the message.”

“Right,” I said.

“As for yourself,” he continued, “this is the third time our paths have crossed.”

“Well, it's the fourth time, actually,” I said. “There was your farm in China, and then the secret sex ceremony in India, and then last night, and now this afternoon.”

“Silence!” he snapped. “Do not contradict me when I am about to deliver an ultimatum.”

“Okay,” I said. “We just won't count last night, since it was an accident anyway.”

"Shut up!"
he screamed.

“Whatever you say.”

He took a deep breath and continued. “That was the first time I have lost my temper in fifty-three years. You have a strange effect on me, Doctor Jones.”

“You probably just ain't used to dealing with Christian gentlemen that was brung up to respect the Ten Commandments and the Bill of Rights and such,” I said sympathetically.

"Be quiet!"
he snapped, and then started blinking his eyes right fast. “I quite forgot what I was going to say.”

“Beats me,” I said. “So if you'll excuse me, I think I'll just be moseying back to my hotel now and—”

“Sit down and be still!” he said, still fighting to control his temper. “I have remembered what I had to say to you.” He leaned across the table and stared into my eyes. “The next time our paths cross will be the last time.”

“Well, I sure am relieved to hear that, Doctor Ho,” I said. “I was afraid we were going to keep bumping into each other every few months for the rest of our lives. You planning on taking an extended trip somewhere?”

“You don't understand what I am saying to you,” he said with a frown.

“Sure I do,” I said. “You figure we're only gonna meet once more, and then I said that—”

“Can you possibly be this stupid, or is it all an act?” he interrupted.

“I resent that!”

“Never mind,” he said wearily. “Just see to it that Mr. Mako receives my message.”

“Happy to, Doctor Ho,” I told him.

He got up and walked out of the restaurant, and suddenly all the customers and crew came back in, and the manager tore up my bill and just asked me to leave real quick, which I thought was a right gentlemanly thing of him to do simply because I'd attracted a local celebrity to his establishment, and I walked back to the hotel to deliver Doctor Ho's message to Mr. Mako, but the room was still empty.

I was about to go out in search of a friendly little game of chance, or maybe a Geisha who didn't change genders every time I turned around, when I saw a piece of paper lying on the table next to the phone, so I picked it up and read it:
Doctor Jones:

Pearl Exchange, 5:00 PM. The net is closing!

Mr. Mako

This put me in a bit of a quandary, since I knew Mr. Mako didn't want no help apprehending Doctor Ho, but on the other hand I thought the very least I should do as a law-abiding Christian gentleman was deliver Doctor Ho's message to him, so he could reconsider his plans if he was of a mind to protect life and limb and other vital organs.

I mulled on it for a couple of minutes, and finally went down to the front desk and asked where the Pearl Exchange was, but the directions were so complicated that I finally gave up and hired a rickshaw to take me there. It was maybe 4:30 when I arrived, which meant I had half an hour to find Mr. Mako before he went up against Doctor Ho.

The Pearl Exchange was a huge building which looked like it had withstood a lot of charges and sieges over the centuries before someone got the bright idea of stashing all of Japan's pearls there. There were bars on all the windows, and soldiers standing guard all around the place, and a bunch of English and American and Chinese and Arab merchants kept coming and going, and since I knew Mr. Mako was a master of disguise I scrutinized each and every one of them, trying to spot him, but within ten or fifteen minutes they had all left the building, and suddenly there wasn't no one left inside but me and an old Indian gentleman in a wheelchair and a uniformed Japanese feller standing guard on one of the balconies.

I checked my watch and saw that the doors were due to close in another few minutes, and then I finally realized that I was watching the Master of Disguise in action, and that the old Indian in the wheelchair was really Mr. Mako. I was about to walk up and congratulate him on his get-up, but I didn't want to give him away to Doctor Ho, who was probably lurking in the shadows somewhere, so I just stood back and admired him for a minute or two.

Then I saw a flash of motion out of the corner of my eye, and I looked up and saw that the uniformed guard was walking along the balcony to where he could get a clearer view of Mr. Mako, and that as he did so he unsnapped the leather cover on his holster and wrapped his fingers around the handle of his pistol.

I raced up the stairs just as he pulled his pistol out and was taking aim, and hit him with a tackle that under other circumstances would have got me a contract to play for the Chicago Bears.

“No!” I hollered. “You can't shoot him! That's Mr. Mako!”