Sci fi, p.8
SCI FI, page 8
part #6 of Yellowthread Street Series
She squeezed Feiffer’s hand until it hurt. The elderly woman named after a film star long dead said with tears coursing down her cheeks, “He could have burned it, couldn’t he? He could have burned it and it would have cost him nothing.” She said desperately to the unfairness of it all, “Isn’t there anybody—anybody who can understand?”
*
The barman at The Lucky Dime had the information that Hot Time Alice Ping wasn’t in. Hot Time Alice Ping, he told O’Yee over the phone (it took surprisingly few threats to get it out of him) was at Wan Chai Station for the third time that day bailing out her whores.
The barman asked, “Premiere tickets? You’re asking me if I’ve got any movie premiere tickets?” The barman said, “If I had any movie premiere tickets with the people who run this place I wouldn’t have any hands.” The barman said, “Listen.” There was a cracking noise at the other end of the phone. The barman said, “That was me cracking my knuckles. Knuckles I happen to have because I still happen to have hands. If I had movie premiere tickets I hadn’t told the people who run this place about the only noise I might be able to make is a sort of bandaged stump sound.”
“All right, so you haven’t got any tickets.”
The barman said, “Right first time. You’ve got it. This is Two Handed Ling telling you he hasn’t got any tickets.
You hear Two Handed Ling telling you that with his voice because Two Handed Ling still has a head connected to his body with which to tell you he hasn’t—”
“Forget I asked!”
“I will.” The barman said, “Two Handed Still Headed Ling has a future in which to forget that, in the past”
*
On the third floor of the carpark, Spencer took Auden gently across to the street side to show him the traffic lights.
There was a building in the way and they couldn’t be seen.
Spencer said, “That’s odd. I could see them from the roof.” Mustering enthusiasm, he said to Auden cheeringly, “Listen, I’ve got an idea. Let’s consider the whole thing again another way right from the beginning ...”
*
It was 2 p.m. and Constables Lee and Sun were getting bored with the million dollars and beginning to find themselves straying away for the exercise.
The Spaceman was watching them.
He looked at the time.
9
In the Detectives’ Room, Feiffer took back the photograph from O’Yee and said, “It was taken about a week ago from the foyer of the hotel.” He saw O’Yee’s surprised look, “That’s part of the Hong Bay branch of the Bank of America in the background. It’s opposite the hotel, I paced out the approximate distance judging by the size of the face in the photo and it was taken from either just outside or just inside the hotel foyer. And the reason I happen to know it was taken last week is that being poor but honest I only happen to have two suits and the one in the picture is at the cleaners.” You could just make out the window of the bank and a series of cards and advertisements stuck on it. Feiffer said, “The exchange rates on the window are last Thursday’s.” O’Yee had a copy of the register of the hotel guests on his desk. “Do you recognise any of the names?”
“I recognise the names of half a dozen people who make science fiction movies.” O’Yee glanced down the list for the third time, “Yamamoto, Onuki, Ishimaru, Fernandez, Wing, Mukherjee—most of these people seem to be either Japanese or Philippino or Chinese-American.” He turned the page over and looked down a list of the names of the hotel employees, “If there’s anyone working there of even minor importance I don’t know him. Have you sent the list to the Anti-Triad Bureau?”
“They’re ringing me when they’ve run it through their files.” Feiffer said, “The obvious thing is to search the hotel, but since there are over five hundred rooms—”
“We could probably get in some help—some special Constables or—”
“To look for what? A firefighting outfit that can be folded up into a small briefcase? The way this character seems to be able to appear and disappear at will it’s hardly likely he’ll have left it around for anyone to find. As for the gun, if he can conceal it in his hand it’s about the size of a small revolver. I walked through a few of the hotel corridors and in the course of four floors I didn’t see one other human being. All the potential witnesses are out in the streets dressed up as space monsters.” Feiffer put the photograph in his Out tray to be taken around to the Fingerprint Section, “Unless he’s got an accomplice, The Spaceman took this photograph himself, which means he was here at least a week before the Congress started.” He said before O’Yee could ask, “And before you ask, the photograph is Polaroid, so I’m spared the dubious pleasure of going around the two thousand or so camera shops in the Colony asking who developed it.” He lit a cigarette, looking tired, and said bitterly, “I seem to be spared quite a lot on this one: all I’ve got to do is hang around until he decides to incinerate someone else.”
“Or gets what he’s after.”
“Which is?”
O’Yee shrugged. “The million dollars?”
“Then why not just go in and get it?”
“Maybe because of the insurance aspect.”
“The insurance aspect is a figment of Lam’s over-active imagination. If The Spaceman wanted to burn the hotel down he certainly could have done it without going around blowing up flying saucers and street sweepers and film producers in a fin-de-siècle Palm Court.” Feiffer said irritably, “It’s only in Big Job movies the bad guys enter banks dressed as nuns carrying anti-tank guns. In the real world, people who want to rob banks or hotels just stroll in with handkerchiefs over their faces and Saturday Night Specials in their hands and yell “Stick ‘em up.” Even bloody psychos don’t dress up because they’re too busy being bloody psychos. And they don’t go in for ray guns—they go in for knives and axes.” His phone rang and he picked it up quickly and said, “Yes?”
It was Chief Inspector Roberts from the Companies Squad. Roberts said, “Harry, We’ve just heard back from the Singapore police and all this stuff about the owners of the Empress of India hotel not wanting to make a profit is a load of horseshit. For a start, the company’s registered in Hong Kong and any profits they might make here wouldn’t count one iota against their Singapore tax liability.” Roberts asked curiously, “Who told you all that anyway?”
“A man who gets messages on his cigarettes.”
“Then his cigarettes have got something a bit stronger than tobacco in them. The people who own the hotel want a loss about as much as I want leprosy. According to the Singapore Companies Squad they’ve just spent a small fortune modernising the place. Lam’s under a lot of pressure all right, but it’s pressure to make money. Some of the other enterprises the consortium have invested in in Singapore aren’t doing too well and the last thing they want is to see the Hong Kong money flow drop. As for them wanting the place burned to the ground for the insurance, forget it.” Roberts paused for a moment, “The Singapore cops said they didn’t want to make too much of what I’m about to tell you because it isn’t their job to start crisis-of-confidence rumours, but if Lam has lost his marbles then the entire Singapore consortium is in deep trouble unless they can replace him pretty quick smart. Evidently he’s a real winner because he’s got the common touch or something—”
Feiffer said, “Yeah. His main asset is that he can’t read French menus either.”
“Whatever.” Roberts said, “The million dollars may be fully insured all right, but the hotel isn’t. If your Spaceman is in the arson-for-profit trade, then the hotel owners aren’t his employers. They’d get back about one cent in the dollar.” Roberts said quickly, “And before you therefore leap to the obvious line that The Spaceman is some sort of saboteur from other hotels in the Colony jealous at the Empress of India’s full rooms, let me tell you that there isn’t an empty two to four star room in the entire place. All the other major hotels have had a couple of hundred enquiries each from guests staying at the Empress who don’t care for the notion of being the next on the waste-disposal list, but not one of the hotels has been able to accommodate a single one of them.” Roberts said, “All this is a free service from your otherwise totally idle Companies Squad. The nice thing about Sci Fi Congresses is that nobody bothers going to work during them so the embezzlers and con men are all out at the movies.” He asked breezily, “Anything else I can do for you?”
“Is there any truth in Lam’s idea that there’s someone else waiting in the wings to take over if he fails?”
“Possibly, but I don’t know who. I suppose it’d only be sensible if Lam is showing signs of going bananas.”
Feiffer asked, “What about the Foochow Insurance Company? Teddy Wong’s outfit. The ones who insured the million dollars?”
“AH I know is that they’re a small, one man firm and that if Wong took a straight do-or-die risk on a cool million then he probably laid most of it off over three or four bigger companies. We did a survey on some of the small insurance firms a few years back, but I don’t recall that the Foochow was in business then. Wong’s only been in insurance briefly. Before that he used to be—” Roberts hesitated and said, “Um ...”
Feiffer waited.
“He made his pile and went into insurance. Whether or not Foochow is solid I’m not sure.” He said, “Hang on a minute.” (He said to someone in the background, “Oh, yeah? Thanks, Alan.”) He came back on the line, “Alan Cheung here says he thinks Tax may be still after him. He doubts whether any of the big Hong Kong insurance companies would deal with him.” Roberts asked, “Is that of any real interest to anyone except him?”
“Not unless he happens to have been in the arson business before he went into insurance.”
“No.” Roberts said, “As a matter of fact, he was with—” He said suddenly, “I remember the name: it was The Orient Dragon, in Nathan Road. It went bust when the owners decided to put their dollars on short term profitable loan American dollars and the Americans decided to put the dollar on temporary long-term inflationary worthlessness.” Roberts said, “He ran the place all right too, from what I heard. A Canadian friend of mine stayed there for a bit and said it was all up-to-date, comfortable, and about as common as bloody dirt, just like the Empress of India is now.” Roberts said philosophically, “Do you think it could be the influence of Socialism, Harry, all this creeping erosion of—”
Feiffer said, “It was a hotel?”
“The Orient Dragon? Sure. I just said so.”
“And Teddy Wong was—” Feiffer looked down at the photograph and then over to O’Yee.
Roberts said, “Teddy Wong was the manager.”
O’Yee had come over from his desk. He took the little photograph from Feiffer’s tray and turned it in its glassine envelope to catch the light.
There were two faint pencil lines drawn in over the face in the picture, intersecting like—
Roberts said, “Listen, Harry, if you want a hand over there—”
—like a target seen through the lens of the telescopic sights of a high powered rifle.
O’Yee turned the photograph over.
Detective Chief Inspector Harry Feiffer, Yellowthread Street Station, Hong Bay.
426.
O’Yee heard Constable Yan coming down the corridor from the charge room whistling to himself and he wrenched open the door of the Detectives’ Room and shouted at him to take the photograph over to the Triad Bureau Central office as fast as the crowds in the streets outside would let him go.
*
By the smashed pylon in the left hand bays of the second floor, Spencer picked up a few shards of broken neon tube and held them out in his hand for Auden to identify.
Spencer said, “They’re white, aren’t they?”
Auden nodded.
“So you’re not colour blind.” Spencer said, “Look, the first six victims of the mugger on the second floor saw his Volkswagen as yellow, right? They saw it in their rear view mirrors as it drove past. Right?”
Auden scowled at him and, against his better judgement, nodded.
“Then the next victim on the third floor—in the right hand parking bays-said it was blue.” There was a blue Renault 6 parked a few bays away from the pylon and Spencer pointed at it and said, “Blue. Right? Do you see that as blue?”
“Of course I see it as bloody blue!”
Spencer reached out to pat him on the shoulder to pacify him. Auden moved away. “Then the next victim—the last—said it was yellow again.”
Auden made a sort of an about-to-spring Bengal tiger noise.
Spencer said, “And then you—seeing it going away on the TV screen, on the third floor: the same vehicle in the same attack, number eight—”
Auden said, “I know which bloody one it was! I may not be able to bloody see straight, but I can bloody count!”
“You said it was white.”
“It was bloody white! That bloody television in the ticket booth is in colour! If it was in bloody black and white I might not have seen it as white, but it isn’t! It’s in colour! And the back of that bloody Kraut wagon was white!” Spencer said, nodding, “Right.”
“What the hell do you mean, “Right”?” Auden took a step forward, “Listen, Spencer, if this is another one of your bloody Sherlock Holmes tricks—”
Spencer said, “Sherlock Holmes didn’t have to deal with machines! He worked things out for himself!”
“He could bloody well afford to! He didn’t have bloody German kombi vans running all around the place changing their spots like bloody leopards!”
Spencer said helpfully, “Actually, the point of that expression is that leopards don’t change their—”
Auden said warningly, “Don’t try to be funny! I’m warning you, just don’t try to be—”
“I’m not.” Spencer picked up yet another piece of smashed neon tube (Auden said, “It’s bloody white. All right?”) and said mildly, “Listen, Phil, machines are only there to help you see reality more clearly.” (Auden gave him a quizzical look) “There’s no question that they actually change reality.” Spencer said, “Esse est percipi—”
Auden said, “What the hell does that mean?”
“That means that leopards don’t change their spots.” Spencer was thinking hard, “Maybe it means that all those other people saw the van as yellow for the reason that it was yellow and the seventh victim, he saw it as blue because—”
Auden looked interested.
Spencer said, “—because it was blue.”
Auden said, “WHAT—?!”
“And you, you saw it as white because—”
“Because, as well as being bloody yellow and bloody blue it was also bloody white! Right?”
Spencer said, “Right!”
“Are you out of your goddamned mind?”
Spencer gave him his Holmes look. “All right, how many sides does a basically rectangular Volkswagen kombi van have?”
Auden said, “Four.” He said, “Are you telling me that—” He looked at the smashed neon tube on the ground and then at the shards in Spencer’s hand, “Are you telling me that because the van was stopped one way on the third floor and another on the second it changed from— It had two colours on the third floor, not one! Blue and bloody yellow!”
Spencer smiled, “One in the left hand side bays and one in the right. Just as if it was pointing in different directions each time for a quick escape and different sides of it were seen by different people.”
Auden said, “And, and— By God, Bill, when I saw it on the TV screen I only saw the back of it!”
Spencer nodded sagely, “Right.”
“It’s yellow on one side and blue on the other and—and the back of it is white!” Auden said, impressed beyond words, “By God, Bill, that’s bloody brilliant! You’ve solved it! I’ll never say a word against bloody Sherlock Holmes again so long as I live!” Auden said in a lather of admiration, “By God, I’ll buy you a bloody Deerstalker hat for your birthday! And a calabash pipe!” He asked respectfully, carefully, ready to follow The Great Detective’s merest syllable, “O.K., now we know it’s still in the carpark somewhere so you can tell me where it is and you just rest now and leave it to me and I’ll—”
Spencer glanced down at the shards and shrugged, “Well, actually, Phil, to be honest, that part of it -I mean, where it is—” Spencer said, “I haven’t actually worked that bit out yet—”
Auden said, “WHAT—?!”
*
On the other end of the phone, Mr Chang, the Deputy Chief Fire Safety Officer for Hong Bay, said in English, “No, sir, I’m afraid Mr Bell isn’t here at the moment. Can I do anything?”
“This is Detective Chief Inspector Feiffer from Yellow- thread Street. (Chang said, “Oh, yes, I saw you at the hotel.”) I’ve had information that the outfit the so-called Spaceman is wearing might be some sort of lightweight firefighting outfit.”
There was a pause and then Mr Chang said, “No, sir. There’s a drawing of it on the front page of the newspaper in front of me. You wouldn’t wear a glass bubble helmet if you were—”
“It isn’t a glass bubble helmet. The sweeper who survived this morning couldn’t do much better than to say The Spaceman didn’t look like the ones he’d seen on the movies. I’ve now spoken to a more reliable witness who says the helmet was soft. She claims to have seen outfits like it before.”
There was a moment’s silence, then Chang said, “I suppose it would figure if The Spaceman knew the carpets and curtains in the hotel were made of nylon. If anyone was stupid enough to throw water on them while he still had the gun going without protection the explosion might well burn his head off along with everyone else’s.”
