Gelignite (13 page)

Feiffer said, 'It isn't a bomb. It's a letter.' He turned the thing over with the end of his pencil and looked at the split seam along the back, 'Our little friend is still in the business of sending warnings to the cops and this is one of them.' He glanced at the postmark on the other side. It was the standard Hong Bay symbol posted anywhere in the district. He said, There isn't a letter in it in the usual sense.' He said to Auden, 'Which is odd, since both times before he's given us the name of the person he was going to kill.' He asked Spencer, 'Who was last night's addressed to?'

'Dien in the Street of Undertakers.'

'Well, there isn't any letter in here saying Dien.' He asked aloud,'Why not?'

O'Yee said, 'I have to go.' He started for the door with his telephone directory. He asked, 'Has anyone spoken to Dien?'

Auden said, 'Dien is an inoffensive old man who runs a funeral business. He's about eighty years old and looks like he might be his own best customer any moment. He doesn't claim to have any enemies and he can't imagine why anyone would want to kill him.' He said, 'I got the impression when I interviewed him last night that at his age he couldn't have cared less if someone did. He's all set up for the next world, not this one.'

Feiffer asked, 'What do you mean?'

'Cemeteries and all that. He owns one.'

'Oh.' Feiffer said to O'Yee, 'Any other ideas?'

O'Yee shook his head. He said quietly to Feiffer, 'Only that you're lucky to be alive.' He said, 'I have to go.' He took his telephone directory and was gone.

There was a pause. Feiffer looked at the letter. Spencer said, 'Harry—'

'Yeah?'

'Look, um, I—'

Feiffer said, 'That's OK.'

Spencer said, 'I'm really sorry. I just didn't think. After I'd done the first one I—'

Feiffer nodded. He said imperturbably to the room in general, 'It is a fact that most criminal acts are motivated by an outside physical motive: money, sex, or whatever—or that they are the work of a raving lunatic motivated by an unknown non-physical motive—by some psychological quirk.' He said, 'OK. Let us assume then, for starters, that our man is relatively normal. Further, let us assume that he is using the letters he sends us for their basic accepted use—that is, communication. Let us further assume that, since he has previously been letting us know that a letter bomb has been delivered in the same post that he assumes we may have a fair chance of stopping its being delivered.' He said to Spencer, 'As indeed, last night, you did stop it. Therefore, it follows that whether or not the bombs go off is a matter of absolutely no interest to him.' He said, 'Except in Dien's case where the police were not told. And in the case of the one I receive—the one he sends to me personally—which is specifically designed
not
to go off. He needs the cops to know he's sending bombs. He sends us one to prove it.' He said, 'He wants something and he's not worried whether the police know about it or not. In fact, he wants them to know.' He asked Spencer and Auden and the room, 'So, why? Just what is it that he's got in mind that it needs at least four letter bombs, three of them live, to convince us of?' He asked Spencer, 'Surely not just that he can make the damn things?'

Auden said, 'If that's all he's trying to do, then you can tell him he's bloody convinced
me
.' He said, 'If Dien is the only one he was aiming at then he must have the wrong man.'

Spencer asked, 'Is Dien rich?'

Auden nodded, 'I should have thought so.' He said, 'He doesn't look it, but he's probably a founder member of the Bank of Switzerland and the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank combined.' He said, 'You know how much people spend on funerals in this part of the world.' He said, 'But if it's some sort of extortion why blow up the man with all the money?'

Spencer said, 'As a warning.'

'To whom?' Auden said, 'So far there hasn't been a word about bombs in the papers at all. So why bother if the cops have got the thing clamped down so hard no one ever hears about it?' He said, 'It doesn't follow.' He said, 'He must know we're not giving out information to the newspapers because so far he's disintegrated two people and there hasn't been a word about it.' He asked Feiffer, 'What did the papers claim the second one was?'

'A gas-lamp explosion.' Feiffer said, 'I think you can assume that whatever he wants doesn't necessarily rely on publicity.' He said, 'It's essentially a private affair between him, us, and whoever the ultimate victim is.' He said, 'It's a faint possibility that the lack of publicity forms part of his plans.'

Auden said, 'How do you come up with that?'

'
Political
.' Feiffer said, 'That's Special Branch straight off.'

'He might not have known that.'

'Maybe hot. But he would have known that anything faintly resembling political crimes doesn't stay on the local level very long.' He said, 'I wonder if that's why I got a bomb?' He said, 'Maybe he wants it to stay with us and still have the political tab attached to it.' He asked Spencer, 'Why?'

Spencer said, 'The ordinary police have to give out information to the newspapers.'

Auden said, 'But Special Branch can have a D Notice served on them and stop them reporting.' He asked Feiffer, 'Has a D Notice been served?'

'Yes.' Feiffer said, 'But why no publicity? Why would it hurt him?'

There was no reply.

Feiffer said, 'And he must know we'd take measures to see that no more bombs went through the Post Office.' He said to Auden, 'X Ray security is being installed all over the island during the next six hours.' He said, 'But he doesn't care. So if it's all intended for the benefit of the final victim how does he propose to make sure the final victim knows about it? Who's going to tell him?'

Spencer said, 'Maybe the bomb is just for a straight killing.'

'Which one?'

The final one?'

Auden said, 'Or maybe the first or second. Maybe it's a cover-up for Leung or Wong.'

'If he was after Wong or Leung why tell us and put it in jeopardy? As events proved, Wong wasn't even killed. And there must be a lot of easier ways to make sure you bump someone off than using letter bombs—if he's trying to kill anyone at all.' He said, 'No, he's after something else.' He returned to his original question and asked Auden, 'But how would the final victim get to know he had to either (let's say) pay up or be killed?' He asked, 'Who are people like Wong or Dien about to tell?' He said, 'No one. Not many people anyway.' He thought for a moment and said, 'No, let's discount Wong: he was one of the people we were warned about.' He asked, 'Who is
Dien
going to tell?'

Auden said, 'Looking at him, the pall-bearers at his funeral.' He said, 'No one.'

Feiffer said, 'Fingerprints picked up a set of partials on one of the devices that went off and you can bet your life they'll get a complete set from Spencer's bomb, so our man doesn't even care about that' He said suddenly, 'He really is the coolest bastard I've ever heard of.' He said, 'He behaves as if he's really going to get away with it—!' He glanced down at the trigger device on his desk with the envelope split open at the seam and undoubtedly covered from end to end with unmatchable fingerprints. He said with sudden vehemence, 'Fuck him! What the hell does he want?'

*

Emily O'Yee raised herself from the whale-like torpor of her warm bed and groped for the telephone. Her fingers closed around it. She took it back with her under the blankets, fell happily back to sleep for a moment, remembered she had a connection with the outside world claiming her, and said blearily in the general direction of the mouthpiece, 'Hmm-umph?'

A voice said, 'I'm sorry to bother, but, um ...'

'Nicola?'

'Yes.'

Emily O'Yee said, 'Is everything all right? It hasn't started or anything?'

'No, no.'

'Oh.'

Nicola Feiffer said, 'It's terribly early, isn't it?' She sounded very guilty.

Emily O'Yee looked at the bedside clock. It was a little after six. She listened for her children. There was nothing. She couldn't believe it. What were they planning? They were planning something. She said, 'I was just listening for the children. I can't hear a sound.' She asked, 'Is Ferdie the Foetus giving you a hard time?'

Nicola said, 'Harry's at work and I can't sleep.' She said, 'I hope I haven't woken Christopher as well.'

'Christopher's at work.' Emily O'Yee said pleasantly, 'I was just going to get up anyway.'

There was a silence. Nicola Feiffer said, 'I feel so bloody neurotic I could throw myself out the bloody window!' She asked, 'Did you get like this with your kids?'

The first one, yes.' ,

'I'm not going to have any more after the first!'

Emily O'Yee dragged herself out of bed. She caught a glimpse of herself in the wall mirror and thought she looked like something that had been dragged from the Pearl River along with the monthly crop of drowned refugees. She said optimistically, 'I'm sure Harry will come round to agreeing to some sort of pet in the apartment.' She said helpfully, 'An ant farm.' She said, 'Surely they couldn't have thought of that in the lease?' She asked, 'Could they?'

*

There was a Coca-Cola ring top can jammed in between the railings of the pedestrian walkover above the traffic. Constable Sun glanced at it. The Coca-Cola ring top can jammer was nowhere in sight. Constable Sun walked on. There was a tiny silver rod sticking out of the top of the can and Constable Sun thought, "Someone's ray gun from the last invasion of Mars by Flash Gordon and his junior spacemen." He wondered if they still put on the Flash Gordon serials at the old Empire Cinema in Jade Road. He thought, "No, they changed the name to the Eastern Light." He thought, "It's got all snotty now." For some reason, he thought, "I wish they'd had radio controlled model aeroplanes when I was a boy." He thought, "What the hell made me think of that?" He thought, "My nephew." He wondered whether it was the boy's birthday. It wasn't. He thought, "That's a weird thing to think of."

He looked back at the Coca-Cola can and the silver rod, like an aerial He walked back to the can and bent down to look at it. He thought, "It looks just like the bit my nephew has sticking out of the control unit of one of his model planes." He thought, "If it's been thrown away I might get it for him." He glanced down and saw a second can with an aerial jammed into another section of the railing and he thought, "This is really odd." He bent down to pull the can from its lodging. It was pushed in tight. There was something else in the can, connected to the aerial (He thought, "It definitely is an aerial all right."), and he put both hands on the can and yanked at it. The pedestrian bridge was deserted. He freed the can and stood up. It felt really heavy. He thought, "The junior spacemen must be getting really desperate for raw materials," as, in the corridor of a building overlooking the bridge, someone watching from a window pressed a button on a small radio set. From somewhere inside the can there was a sharp
click
!

Constable Sun thought, "What was that?"

On the flyover Constable Lee got out of his car and looked up to the bridge. He indicated his watch significantly and jerked his head for Sun to come down.

Sun held up the Cola-Cola can that had just clicked and shrugged.

*

Ho's voice on the telephone sounded tired and crusty. He said irritably, 'Yeah?'

'Have you been able to run down the batch number of the explosives?'

Ho said, 'No, Harry, I haven't been able to run down the batch number of the explosives because whoever sent the bomb to Dien was thoughtless enough to use a piece of gelignite that didn't happen to have the batch number on it!' He said, 'I've been up again all night at the bloody docks and I didn't get any joy from there either!' He said, 'I'm sorry if I sound pissed off. If I wasn't so pissed off I wouldn't!' He asked, 'What about Fingerprints?'

'Nothing.'

'No prints?'

'No match.'

'Beautiful!' Humphrey Ho said, 'He's a clever little bastard this one, isn't he?' He said, 'He's too bloody intelligent for a terrorist.' He said, 'I hear you've been favoured with an epistle of your very own.'

'It was a dud.'

'I gathered that from the fact that I didn't have to dial direct to Heaven to speak to you.' He said, 'I've had one of my people run down this fellow Dien for you.'

'I thought you were the only Special Branch man around this area.'

There was a pause. Ho said, 'In any event, Dien is as pure as the driven snow. If he's a political then it must be for the Old Widows and Orphans Party. So far as I can see he's just waiting around to get his coffin off with him in it to somewhere with some good feng shui.' He said, 'He owns a cemetery, you know.'

'Yes, I know.'

Ho said, 'The old one by Soochow Street, the one that's closed down.' Ho said, 'I gather he's got one of the last places left.'

Feiffer said, 'So has Tam.'

Ho said, 'Huh.' He said, 'If that's the best motive you can come up with you're in a bad way.' He said maliciously, 'I can just see you in Court with a leper straining on one handcuff and a geriatric funeral director on the other.' He said, 'Still you never know, with a few good beatings in the cells...'

Feiffer said, 'Goodbye, Humphrey.' He said, 'If you have that recurrent urge of yours to make some clichéd comment about building empires I'll hang on for a moment.'

There was a pause. Ho said, 'Thanks.' He sounded very tired. He said, 'Maybe some other time.'

*

The person standing at the window in the corridor a hundred and fifty feet away pressed a second button on his radio set and the railing at the other end of the bridge disintegrated in an enormous blast that threw Constable Sun, his can, two hundred pounds of rubble and twisted metal and a swathe of flying shrapnel thirty feet below onto the flyover.

The sound of the explosion came as a heavy WHAM! and knocked Constable Lee off his feet against the car and then dropped him to his knees.

He saw Sun lying on the roadway.

He saw—

He tried to get up.

He—

Everything was wrong. He saw someone coming. He saw a car stop and someone coming.