Gelignite (9 page)

There was something else against the wall, like an old blanket. It was someone dead. It slumped suddenly down from against the wall and one of the legs scrabbled against the pavement to run away. The scrabbling stopped. The old blanket fell full-length onto the pavement and lay looking up at the ink and blood coming down the wall.

There was the smell of something burning.

Then the smell stopped.

The dead blanket's head rolled to one side on the pavement. The eyes were open. They stared at the Chinese in the apron. The mouth fell open and the face continued to stare at the Chinese in the apron with its mouth about to form a single word.

The dead eyes continued to stare at the middle-aged Chinese in the apron. The mouth seemed to say, 'You—'

The middle-aged Chinese in the apron began screaming.

Mr Wong watched the ambulance taking the letter-writer's body away until it went around the corner of Wyang Street into Beach Road. It halted for a moment at the intersection, was lost in the stream of traffic, reappeared turning, and then was gone. No one on the scene had bothered to close the open eyes and he saw them staring upwards from under the rubber sheet, trying to make out where he was. Mr Wong swallowed. Someone had given him an American cigarette without a filter (and lit it for him; his lips were numb and unfeeling) and he drew on it not tasting the smoke. His fingers trembled. He took the cigarette out of his mouth. The end of it tasted like salt. There were two policemen keeping the crowd back outside the main door of the Post Office. They looked at him. He tried to stop his fingers trembling. There was a tall man with a Roman nose bending over a spot of blood with two detectives and pointing at something with some sort of metal instrument. The tall man had a cigarette in his mouth as well. It smelled pungent. Mr Wong glanced at his own cigarette. It wasn't American at all, but French. The tall man must have stuck it in his mouth and lit it for him. Mr Wong wondered how expensive French cigarettes must be in Hong Kong. He felt touched. He felt like crying. Someone called the tall man Doctor Macarthur.

Feiffer, Auden and Macarthur straightened up from the splash of blood on the pavement and wall. One of the police photographers took a photograph using a flash gun and waited to see if any more were required. Feiffer shook his head and the man went back to one of the police cars ejecting the flashbulb as he went. It made a popping sound.

Doctor Macarthur said, 'You'd better get that man to a hospital.' He looked at Wong.

'I'd like to talk to him first.' That was a tall man wearing a stained white suit. Mr Wong wondered who he was. The tall man wearing the white suit wasn't smoking. Neither was the other one—a younger man with a tight, aggressive face.

Doctor Macarthur nodded. There was a second ambulance waiting by the photographer's police car and Doctor Macarthur looked at it significantly.

The man in the stained white suit came over to Mr Wong. Mr Wong looked at one of the Chinese policemen in the crowd. The man in the stained white suit said to Mr Wong in perfect Cantonese, 'Mr Wong, my name is Feiffer. I'm a police officer. I'd like to ask you a few questions if you're up to it.' Mr Wong's French cigarette had gone out and the police officer lit it for him with a black lighter.

Mr Wong nodded. He said, 'Mr—?' It was funny how he couldn't taste the cigarette.

'Feiffer.'

'Yes.'

Feiffer said, 'The letter was addressed to you and you brought it around here to be read?'

Mr Wong said, 'I lost my glasses.' He said, 'I don't wear glasses. I can't read English.'

Feiffer nodded. He asked, 'Which political party do you belong to?'

Which one? How many were there? Were there any? Mr Wong said, 'I—' He asked, 'Party?' He said, 'I don't understand.' The second detective—the one with the hard face— came up and stood next to the first one.

The man in the stained white suit said, 'Who would want to kill you, Mr Wong?'

'Me?'

'Yes.'

Mr Wong said, 'No—' He said, 'No, it was—' He said, 'No one would want to kill
me
—' He thought, "It was meant for me!" He said, 'I thought it was meant for—' He thought, "How would anyone know I would have taken it to a letter—" He said loudly, 'It was meant for me!'

Feiffer said to the one with the hard face, 'We did get a letter?'

Auden nodded.

Feiffer said, 'Mr Wong, do you know anyone who has a knowledge of explosives? Anyone at all?'

Mr Wong said, 'Oh, no!!' It had been meant for him. He said, 'Oh, no!!' The cigarette dropped from his hand. His hand began trembling. He could not control his lips. He said, 'Oh, no! Oh no!!'

'Explosives!'

Mr Wong said, 'My brother! Only my brother! He works in Wharf Cove quarry!' He said, 'Oh no!!' He had a picture of the dead eyes trying to stare up through the rubber sheet. There was blood and tissue all over the wall and on the pavement. He said, 'Oh no!! OH NO!!'

The man in the white suit grabbed him. He took him by the shoulder or the arm. He held him somewhere. He grabbed him. Mr Wong knew he—the man in the white suit shouted (was he shouting?)—the man in the white suit's mouth was moving and there were loud words coming out (were they from him? Who had given him the cigarette? He—). The man in the white suit shouted, 'Explosives!' (Maybe it was his own voice.) Someone's voice said, 'Me! It was meant for me!' Someone's voice said, 'Not my brother! He wouldn't—it was meant for me!!' Mr Wong was aware of a loud hiccupping sound. It went up and up like an engine running out of control. There was quick breathing, getting louder. Someone said, 'Explosives!'

Mr Wong felt his shoulders lifting up and down. His shoulders were breathing. They were drowning. They were running out of breath. He couldn't see anything. His eyes were open but they couldn't see anything. He was under a rubber sheet. A sheet. A rubber sheet trying to force his eyes to look out through the rubber sheet and— He shouted, 'OH NO! OH NO! OH NO!!'

A voice said, 'That's it! No more!'

He was in an ambulance lying down and the man with the Roman nose was bending over him and talking softly to him about something. The man with the Roman nose had a black bag on a little table next to him. There were words on the bag. Mr Wong looked at him. Mr Wong said, 'I dropped your cigarette.' He felt like crying. He was very, very sorry about the waste. He said, 'I didn't mean to, but I dropped it.' He looked at the man's eyes.

The man nodded. He didn't seem to mind. The man with the Roman nose said, 'Here,' and gave him another cigarette, already lit.

Mr Wong was grateful. He started crying.

*

Outside, in the street, the last of the day shift of hammers, drillers, nail gunners and assorted noise-makers finished up and, until the evening shift came to take over, there was peace. Feiffer had the Wong letter in front of him on his desk, sealed in a clear plastic bag ready to go to Forensic. He touched it with the end of a pencil and the bag slid frictionlessly across the desk and stopped at the natural obstruction of a dog-eared and furry sheet of Government blotting paper. Ho was on the other end of Feiffer's telephone. Feiffer listened. Ho said, 'It was polar ammon gelignite, between two and three ounces activated by a switch trigger held back by a spring loaded wire catch.' He made a grunting noise as he considered something. He said, 'It wasn't a professional job.'

Feiffer said, 'It seemed to work well enough.'

'Professional in the—'

Feiffer said, 'Yes?'

Ho paused. 'In the, um, terrorist sense.' He said quickly in his special Special Branch voice, 'I'm not saying we've had any experience of letter bombs on a terrorist basis in Hong Kong.' (Feiffer said, 'No.') 'But if we had had then the bomb sent to Leung's ivory shop would come as rather a disappointment.' He added quickly, 'I mean, in the professional sense.'

Feiffer said, 'Hmm.'

There was a brief pause. Ho said, 'I gather you were a witness to the second one.'

'You make it sound uncomfortably like you think it's the latest in a long line.'

'Unless you've got any leads.' Ho asked, 'Have you got any?'

Feiffer asked, 'Have you any ideas about the explosives? Where they might have come from? I mean, are they military or—'

'Commercial. It's a commercial blend.' Ho said, The batch numbers were totally obliterated so it's no use trying the distributors, but I can say that it's a fairly new consignment. It's a new brand that's only been available here for the last two months or so—no more at any rate.' He said exploratorily, 'Does that tie in with your lead?'

'What lead?'

'The one you haven't mentioned.'

Feiffer said, 'I assume by your interest in my lead that there's nothing in this job for you?'

'There's nothing in it for us.'

'It's not political?'

'No.' Ho said, 'Do you want to hear a totally unconvincing theory? It's the Triad secret societies paying off old scores or, on the other hand, it's the Triad secret societies extorting money from small businesses.' He said evenly, 'You have to admit that selling hot chestnuts on a street corner is a small business.'

'They don't come much smaller.' Feiffer said, 'It is a totally unconvincing theory.'

Ho said, 'It's the Commander's.'

'It sounds like it.' Feiffer asked, 'Is he overseeing the case on the official level?'

'No. We are. Special Branch. That keeps it all nice and clandestine. The official story is that the letter-writer was killed by an exploding Tilley lantern—you know, paraffin under pressure—so the news clamp still holds.' He said, 'Hang on while I light a cigar.'

Feiffer said, 'And adjust your cloak.'

'And adjust my cloak.' Ho said, 'Hang on a moment.' There was a pause. (Feiffer heard someone say, 'No, I wouldn't mention that . . .' and then someone else, farther away say, 'I agree . . .') and then Ho was back on the line. Ho made a breath exhalation too close to the phone for it to be real and said, 'That's better—I gather one of your people tried to ring me just before the second bomb went off. Is that true?'

Feiffer glanced at Auden. Auden was listening to the conversation with awe-struck eyes (and, presumably, ears). Feiffer said, 'Where the hell were you anyway?'

Ho said, 'I also gather from my spies, eavesdroppers, informants and general busybodies that he wanted to ask me which Wong was about to be blown to pieces.' He said, 'You might ask him just what the hell would make him think I might know.' He added, 'And then you might run him around to an advanced Cantonese course at the Government Language School to fix it in his little English brain just how many Wongs there are in this part of the world.' He said irritably, 'You might say I'm a little bit annoyed about it, Harry.'

Feiffer glanced at Auden. He was listening. Feiffer said, 'You don't expect me to take that comment seriously, do you?'

'Certainly I do!'

'Then you ought to get someone to run you around to Dale Carnegie's and get it into your little Special Branch pointy ears that senior officers don't let other senior officers tell them how to treat their junior officers.' He said to fix the point, 'Chief Inspector.'

At the other end of the line, Ho paused. Feiffer heard him say something to whoever else it was in his room above the restaurant in Stamford Street. Ho said, 'It must have been pretty unpleasant seeing someone blown to bits against a brick wall.'

Feiffer said, 'It was.'

Ho asked, 'What's your lead?' He said, 'I hope it's a better one than the one you had to that poor bastard Tam in Soochow Street.' He asked, 'Is it to a quarry or something? Does that explain the sudden interest in explosives?'

Feiffer asked, 'Why
political
in his letters if it isn't?'

Ho did not reply.

Feiffer said, 'Why tell us at all?' He said, 'I've sent Bill Spencer around to the Central Post Office in Wyang Street to intercept anything funny that might turn up in the evening collections, but that one beats me.' He said cautiously, 'No one telegraphs their punches unless they intend to use it as a feint.' He said to Ho, 'That is, assuming they know what they're doing.'

'You mean in relation to the construction of the bombs?'

'Well?'

Ho said, 'Well, they're not that bad. Not professional, but certainly an inspired amateur.' He said, 'And they work, don't they?' He asked again, 'Tell me your lead. I could do with the glory of swiping your arrest.' He said mock-reverently, 'Chief Inspector.' He said, 'Cheer up, the Commander will be onto you in the next—I estimate twenty minutes.' He said, 'Chief Inspector Sahib—'

Feiffer hung up and glared at Auden. Auden looked away. The letter had come to rest against the blotting paper face down. The back of the page was blank.

Wong. Political
.

Feiffer turned the plastic bag over with his pencil. That was all it said.

Wong
.

Feiffer shook his head. He stared at the words.

Political
.

He said aloud to the page, 'Why?'

It made no sense at all.

Why
?

*

O'Yee was in a temper. He snarled into the black, evil, rotten, ill-mannered, lousy telephone in the interview room, 'Hullo!'

There was a pause. A voice said pleasantly, 'Hong Bay Antiquities and Ancient Treasures of Delight.' It faded away on a soft musical piano note. 'Mr Ting, sole proprietor and owner at your disposal, late of the Fine Art Saleroom of the illustrious enterprise of Burrard, Wu & Son. May I ask the name of the worthy gentleman who deigns to condescend to patronise my small but quality establishment?' There wasn't the faintest trace of irony. Mr Ting said respectfully, 'Sir?'

O'Yee felt as if a typhoon had suddenly been taken away from his spinnaker without even so much as a noticeable flutter. He said, 'Oh. Oh, yes.' He said, 'My name is O'Yee.'

'Mr O'Yee—!' It sounded like it had made Mr Ting's day. He asked, 'How, sir, may I assist you?' (O'Yee thought, "This is a bit more like it") Mr Ting enquired softly, 'Is there some small service I may have the honour of doing for your good self?'

O'Yee said, 'Oh.' He said, 'Mr Ting.'