Sci fi, p.9
SCI FI, page 9
part #6 of Yellowthread Street Series
“I want to know where someone would get something like that in Hong Kong and what they’re made of and who makes them.”
“They’re made of asbestos and flame-proof Plexiglas for the faceplate.” Chang said, “Not the sort of thing you go into a shop and buy. They’re imported on permit. Some factories have got them. And of course the Airport.” He asked, “Did the suit have any sort of marking on it?”
“No.”
“Then it wouldn’t have been from a factory or the Airport. It’s a bye-law here that fixed premises suits have to be marked clearly and indelibly so they can be taken in and checked once a year by the Government Testing Laboratories.” Chang said informatively, “You know, to make sure they haven’t perished or someone’s cut a section from the leg to put over his pot-plate in the canteen or something.”
“What about the Army then or the—”
“No. All the military have standard British forces issue suits. They’re extremely heavy duty for fires in ammunition stores or burning aircraft and tanks. Out in the open you couldn’t even move in one of them. And they’re kept by the Emergency Services people at the various depots under strong security. And they’re checked, I know for a fact, at least once a day.” He said before Feiffer could ask, “And as for ours—for the Fire Brigade’s—you’d have more chance of stealing the Crown Jewels from the Tower of London.”
“Are yours the right sort?”
“You haven’t told me exactly what sort you—”
Feiffer said, “You just told me: lightweight, unmarked, with a soft helmet and a Plexiglas faceplate.”
“They’re the right sort.” Chang said reasonably, “But we haven’t lost any.”
“You don’t have any in other stations?”
“No. They’re all kept here. We’re the Hong Kong Central Depot.” Chang said, “As a matter of fact, I was just on my way out when you rang and I’m taking this call from the Stores Issue Room itself. I can see the shelves with the suits packed up on them.” He read off, “Shelves one to twenty five, twenty five to fifty, fifty to seventy two ... three ... four ...” He said, “Yes, they’re all here.”
“All seventy four of them?”
“Yes.”
Feiffer said again, “Seventy four?”
“Seventy five with Mr Bell’s suit. Mr Bell’s one isn’t kept here.”
“No?” Feiffer asked, “Why is that?”
“Mr Bell is the Chief Fire Safety Officer, Mr Feiffer. He attends fires independently of Brigade. Obviously if firefighting suits were needed Brigade might not have brought one for him.” He said definitely, “In fact, they wouldn’t have. We only issue them on a one-for-one basis.”
“Where does Mr Bell keep his suit if it’s not in Stores?”
“In his car.” Chang said helpfully, “They fold up. You could keep it in an ordinary briefcase if you wanted to.” There was a silence at the other end of the line and Mr Chang said, “Mr Feiffer, are you still there?”
“Does Mr Bell keep his in a briefcase?”
“Yes. It’s usual Brigade practice.”
“Where is he now? Is he out on a job?”
“Officially, I don’t know that either. Mr Bell does pretty much what he likes.” Mr Chang made a sort of tentative chuckling sound, “But just between you and me, he sort of vaguely suggested that after he’d had another look around the Empress of India hotel he might well, accidentally find himself out of touch for a few hours. He said there was a movie on at the Roxy he wanted to see.”
There was another silence, longer, and then Feiffer said very quietly, “Really? What movie was that?”
Chang said, “The Towering Inferno. Mr Bell said he’d missed it the first time around.” Again, there was that silence.
Mr Chang said in vague alarm, “Mr Feiffer, have I said something wrong or something? It’s perfectly all right. Mr Bell often takes time off when there’s something else he wants to do. It’s just one of the senior officers’ perks. It’s perfectly all right.” Mr Chang said anxiously, “Honestly, Mr Feiffer, he always makes up the time he loses.”
*
At the money, Constable Lee watched the fourteenth scantily-clad destined-to-be-clutched-in-the-monster’s-arms girl parade the length of the foyer in search of admiration, and said to Sun with a sigh, “I’m getting sick of this.” He looked at one of the girls pause to adjust what little there was to adjust on a diaphanous get-up the size of a baby’s nightdress, turned his thoughts to the million dollars, found even that failed to excite him and said with another sigh, “I must be getting old.”
Constable Sun nodded. Diaphanous ladies, mounds of greenbacks and Spacemen notwithstanding, he had taken to occupying himself by counting the number of eyelets the laces went through in his shoes. Constable Sun said, “I even wish I was at home listening to my wife or shouting at the kids.” There was a flash of brown thigh from one of the nymphs, “That reminds me: I promised my wife to stop off at the markets and buy a couple of nice fish for her brother’s big birthday meal.” He saw someone in uniform pass behind the million dollar watchers and called out in English as the man cleared them and made for the service stairs down to the basement, “How are you, Mr Bell?” He saw Bell pause and try to place him, “Constable Sun, sir, from Yellowthread Street.”
Bell nodded.
Constable Lee said smiling, “Lee, sir.” He gave a little half salute as Bell smiled at him.
Sun said, “Hard working guy, that, for a European.”
He went back to counting the eyelets in his shoes as Bell went downstairs towards the hotel basement.
It was three o’clock in the afternoon.
Bored beyond words, Constable Sun yawned mightily and thought of nice fish for his wife’s brother’s birthday celebration.
10
On the phone Deputy Superintendent Ashwood made a snorting noise. Ashwood said easily, “I once got a birthday card signed Raquel Walsh, but that wasn’t genuine either.” He had one of those Australian accents that put the end of a sentence into the higher nasal registers and turned it into a question, “The Triads don’t sign target pictures with their numbers or anything else.” He paused for a moment. “And they certainly don’t kill cops.”
Feiffer said irritably, “I didn’t say it was from the Triads, what I said was that I thought someone wanted me to think it was from the Triads.”
“Then you’ve answered your own question.” Ashwood said, “The number 426, as you probably know, is the code for a Hung Kwan—a Triad fighting leader. Apart from anything else, he isn’t the one who’d be concerned with targeting: he’d be more likely to supply the knives or choppers for a 49—an ordinary member—to do the targeting.” Ashwood said on only too familiar ground, “When the Triads decide to knock someone off they don’t stand around taking pictures, they just do it.”
“You don’t know anything about Triad involvement in the Empress of India hotel?”
“Why do you ask that?”
“Because that’s where I found the photograph.”
Ashwood said too quickly, “No.”
“That’s funny, because I was under the impression the Anti-Triad Bureau had the place under surveillance.”
“Who the hell told you that?”
Feiffer said sweetly, “No one, as a matter of fact, but it wasn’t a bad guess, was it?” He demanded, “Where’s the authorisation from my Station so you people can go working on our patch? I don’t seem to have one.”
“It doesn’t concern your Station. It had nothing to do with local matters.” Ashwood said with a sneaking admiration, “Is that how you do your best frames? Ask the punters trick questions?”
“No, normally we just beat a confession out of them.” Ashwood snorted. His tone became brisk. “Listen, Harry, you know as well as I do that the Triads are big business now. All the street corner local Station Tong War type stuff is just old meat cleavers as far as they’re concerned. They’re organised like the Mafia these days—corporately.”
“And they’re buying into the hotel business?”
Ashwood said, “Better stick to beatings-up if that’s your best second trick question. As far as we know, the Empress of India is owned by a group in Singapore who are in more need of accountants than Triads. No, what we were doing watching the Empress concerned another matter entirely.”
“Like what?”
Ashwood paused for a moment, “Like, the Yakuza.”
“The Japanese Mafia?”
“If you want to call them that, yes. They came in a few days before this science fiction congress nonsense got started, made a contact at the hotel and then -I must admit, not without a little prod from us—left again.” He said dismissively, “It was purely a Bureau matter. For all I know, they might have been over here on your manor for nothing more dastardly than autograph-collecting. In any event, they’ve gone now.”
“Who did they see at the hotel?”
“Just a businessman.”
Feiffer said, “Named?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“I want to know because three people have been murdered in and around that hotel! And that is a local Station matter!”
“Yeah, O.K., O.K.” Ashwood said, “I know. I saw George Bell earlier this morning and he mentioned that—”
“You know Bell?” Feiffer said abruptly, “That’s right, you’re an Australian too, aren’t you?”
“Yep, Ashwood the loud-mouthed Ocker. That’s me all right.”
“No need to get touchy.”
“Touchy? Me?” Ashwood said without a great deal of humour in his voice, “Listen, when I start doing “touchy” you’ll know about it. Yes, I know George.” He paused for a moment, “As a matter of fact we were in Viet Nam together, in Da Nang province and in— I was in Intelligence and he was Infantry.” There was a pause, “He was a Warrant Officer. He won the Military Medal. A very brave bugger and no doubt about that. He saved the lives of his entire patrol up in Phuoc Tuy and—”
Feiffer said quietly, “Jack, I wish I didn’t have to ask this, but has George Bell ever been investigated here in Hong Kong by the ICAC?”
“The anti-corruption crew? Sure. So have I. Haven’t you? Hasn’t everybody?”
Feiffer said, “And?”
Ashwood was beginning to do “touchy.” He was right. Feiffer knew about it. Ashwood said, “And? And he was proved to be as clean as a bloody whistle! He was proved to be as clean as a bloody whistle because like a lot of hard-working honest sods those bastards get their hooks into at the urging of some dirty, second-rate rat fink little informer, he was found to be stone-cold, bloody motherless broke!” Ashwood demanded, “What the hell are you asking me questions about George Bell for? Bloody George Bell was the bravest man I ever knew and one of those dumb
buggers on his patrol he rescued in bloody Nam was me—the stupid dumbo so-called bloody Intelligence officer wandering around with a sheaf of maps and a stupid expression on his face while bloody Charlie Cong was—” Feiffer said, “Who was the businessman the Yakuza met at the hotel?”
Ashwood said with real vehemence, “We’ve really been at our little Boy’s Book of Interrogation Methods lately, haven’t we? What am I supposed to do—feel so furious about your innuendoes about my old mate Bell that I give away the secret plans to the bloody secret Zulu War muzzle loading musket without even thinking in one bloody tearful burst?” Ashwood said, “The door to my office is open at the moment and I’ve got this mirage in front of my eyes that on the bloody door it says bloody Superintendent!” He paused to let the message sink in, “What the hell does it say on your door?”
Feiffer said evenly, “At the moment it says “mud.”
“Ashwood drew a breath. “The Yakuza representatives went to the Empress of India hotel to see a man called—”
“Teddy Wong?”
“—Teddy Wong. Why the hell did you ask me if you already knew? And before we play any more little tricks I’ll tell you straight out that we’re not sure what they saw him for. All right? Wong worked in Tokyo for a while as a hotel manager and then he was manager of a place called the Orient Dragon here in Hong Kong, in Nathan Road, and that’s it. At the moment he’s in insurance.” He paused for a moment, “And that’s all I know. We’re in touch with the Japanese Organised Crimes Squad because if the Yakuza are involved it’s something pretty big, but that’s all I know!” Ashwood said warningly, “You might try to remember that we’re both on the same side.” He said with a snort, “I’ve enjoyed being thumb screwed. It relaxes me enormously, just like a good massage—but now I’ve got work to do.”
“I’m sorry about asking about Bell, Jack.”
“Yeah.” Ashwood said very seriously, “Listen, Harry, I know that man. I was in a war with him and he saved my life.” There was a silence as he thought about something. “We were hit by an ambush set-up upcountry and George—” He stopped and said emotionally, “In my bloody opinion he should have got the bloody VC! He wiped out the entire ambush party while we—the rest of us—were falling about in the bloody paddy fields on our arses composing our last letters home to Mummy and wondering whether now mightn’t be the time to start believing in God!” Ashwood said in a still-awed voice, “He took that goddamned thing, Harry, and he killed the lot of them with it before you could say bloody Jack Robinson! He just picked it up and blew every last one of them away like—” He made a swallowing noise, “What it did to those bloody Viet Cong you just wouldn’t believe.” He said very seriously indeed, “George Bell was and is the bravest man I ever knew.”
“What was “it”?”
“What do you mean?”
“What he picked up. You said he—”
Ashwood said, “Oh, the weapon.” He asked in an irritated tone of voice, “Do the bloody gory details really matter?”
“Maybe, yes. Isn’t that why you told me the story in the first place? So I’d ask?”
There was a pause. He had said too much. Ashwood said suddenly defensively, “So what? It was in a war—and it was all a long time ago— Right again, aren’t you? Yes, it was a bloody flame-thrower! So what? It was issued to him! The bloody Australian Army issued it to him because he—” Ashwood said hopelessly, “Damn it all, Harry, it isn’t the same as bloody well going out and making one, is it?”
There was a silence.
Ashwood said desperately, “Is it?”
*
In the carpark ticket office, Auden said to Klaus, “It’s a false wall. It’s obvious. The mugger drives his van out from behind a false wall, does the job, then, in the confusion, drives back again behind the false wall and disappears.” Klaus flicked the switch on his console to display a picture of the left side bays on the second floor, noted there were a few empty spaces there and punched out electronic directions onto the entrance throughway panel in readiness for the next customer. Klaus said without enthusiasm, “I suppose that’s a possibility all right.”
“We’ve worked out why different people see the van as a different colour. It’s because each side of it is a different colour and, depending on where they’re seeing it from—” Auden said, “It’s a false wall.”
“What is?”
“Where he’s hiding with his multi-coloured van. He’s hiding behind a false wall somewhere and after he’s mugged his victim he disappears behind it and—doesn’t that seem logical to you?”
“Sure. If you say so.”
“Well, doesn’t it?”
Klaus said, “Yes! Sure!” He flicked another button, more out of embarrassment than efficiency, “It seems a lot of trouble to go to, but I suppose, yeah, sure, that’s logical.” He grinned at Auden nervously, “Um, where is this false wall? On the third floor?”
Spencer shook his head, “Phil saw the back of the VW going down from the third floor towards the second.”
“The second then?”
Auden said, “Ah.” He looked at Spencer, “Come on, Bill, explain it to him the way you explained it to me.” He nudged Klaus on the arm, “Listen to this ...”
Spencer said cautiously, thinking about it, “Well, I’m not sure it’s really right ...”
“Well then Klaus can tell you!” Auden said proudly, “Go on, this is good. Listen to this.” He watched as Spencer took out his notebook and consulted it. Auden said encouragingly, “The first six victims were done on the second floor, right?”
Klaus said, “Right. I think so.”
“They were. The left hand side of the second floor. And every time they saw the VW as yellow—right?” Spencer said, “Right. And the seventh victim was mugged on the right hand side of the third floor—and he saw the van as blue.” He paused for a flash of comprehension and got none, “Which means, that if the VW was painted different colours then the first six victims must have seen it when it was pointing one way, and the next, the seventh, when it was pointing another.” A nagging doubt crept into his mind, “Right?” He looked down at his open notebook to make sure he had got it right.
Klaus said dubiously, “Unless of course it was another Volkswagen.”
Auden snapped, “Of course it wasn’t another Volkswagen! How many bloody false walls and multi-coloured Volkswagens do you think there are in this place?”
Klaus looked meek, “As a matter of fact ... I didn’t think ... there were ... any?”
Auden said to Spencer, “Go on! Go on!”
“Then the eighth victim on the third floor-in the left hand bays—he said the van was yellow again.” Spencer stopped and scratched his head thoughtfully. Spencer said cautiously, “Um, Phil, I think that on the third floor the van should have been ... um, blue ...”
Auden said, “Rubbish! You’re doing fine!”
Klaus looked confused.
Spencer said gamely, “And then, when Mr Auden here saw the same van as white—the back of it—that must have meant since he saw it going away—that on the second floor when it was yellow it must have been pointing—” Spencer said, shaking his head, “No, it doesn’t mean that at all ...” Auden said impatiently, “It’s a hiding place, see? Don’t worry about all the logic, we can get that right later. Tell him that it proves that it’s a hiding place!”
