Aftershock & Others (38 page)

An older man rose from a sofa. He was completely bald with pale gray eyes. He wore black tuxedo pants and a white dress shirt ornamented with a huge diamond stickpin. Brannigan spotted a black dress jacket and tie draped over a nearby chair. A long thick cigar smoldered in his left hand; he extended the right as he strode forward.

“Detective Brannigan, I presume. Thank you for coming.”

Brannigan, flabbergasted, shook the man’s hand. This wasn’t at all what he’d expected.

“I didn’t have much choice.”

He eyed his two escorts as they took up positions behind his host. The driver had removed his hat, revealing a bald dome; glossy black hair fringed the sides and back of his scalp.

“Oh, I hope they didn’t threaten you.”

Brannigan was about to crack wise when he realized that they hadn’t threatened him at all. If anything they’d been overly polite.

He studied the bald man. Something familiar about him…

“I’ve seen you before.”

The man shrugged. “Despite my best efforts, my face now and again winds up in the papers.”

“Who are you?”

“Let’s just say I’m someone who prefers to move in and out of large cities without advertising his presence. Otherwise my time would be consumed by a parade of local politicians with their hands out, and I’d never get any work done.”

“What do you want with me?”

“You were in Chinatown today asking about a missing girl, Margot Kachmar.”

The statement startled Brannigan at first, but then he glanced at the Oriental driver and realized he shouldn’t be surprised.

“That’s police business.”

“And now it’s
my
business.” A sudden, steely tone put a knife edge on the words. “My daughter was abducted from that same area this afternoon.”

“She was? Did you tell the police?”

“That’s what I’m doing now.”

“I mean an official report and—never mind. Are you sure she was abducted?”

The bald man hooked a finger through the air and Brannigan followed him to the far side of a huge couch. Along the way he glanced out the tall windows and saw Russian Hill and San Francisco Bay stretching out below. This had to be the penthouse suite.

The man pointed to a sandy-furred mutt lying on a big red pillow. A thick bandage encircled its head.

“That’s her dog. She goes nowhere without him. He was shot—luckily the bullet glanced off his skull instead of piercing it—and that can only mean that he was defending her. He almost died, but he’s a tough one, just like his little owner.”

Two in two days from the same neighborhood…this was not the pattern Sorenson had described.

“How old is your daughter, and is she blond?”

“She’s a ten-year-old redhead—her hair’s the same shade as yours.”

Cripes. A kid. “Well, I’m sorry about what happened to her, but I don’t think she’s connected to the Kachmar girl. I—”

“What if I told you they were both dragged into a black Packard sedan? Most likely the same one?”

Katy Webber had described a black sedan. Maybe there was a connection after all.

The bald man said, “I have men out canvassing the neighborhoods right now, looking for that car.”

“That’s police business. You can’t—”

“I can and I am. Don’t worry—they’ll be very discreet. But I’ll make you a deal, detective: You share with me, I’ll share with you. If I locate Miss Kachmar, I’ll notify you. If you find my daughter alive and well I will see to it that you never have to worry about money for the rest of your life.”

Brannigan felt a flush of anger. “I don’t need to be bribed to do my job.”

“It’s not a bribe—it will be gratitude. Anything of mine you want you can have. I’ve made fortunes and lost them, gone from living in mansions to being penniless on the street and back to mansions. I’m good at making money. I can always replace my fortune. But I can’t replace that little girl.” The man seemed to lose his voice and Brannigan saw his throat work. When he recovered he added, “She means everything to me.”

The nods from the turbaned giant and the driver said they felt the same. Brannigan was touched. He couldn’t help it. And from the looks on all three faces he knew that if they were the first to discover the child’s abductor, the mugg would never see trial.

He couldn’t condone or allow the vigilantism he sensed brewing here. And for that reason he couldn’t tell them what Sorenson had said about the Dragon Tong. He’d keep that to himself.

“I promise you that if I find her, you’ll be the first to know.”

The bald man put his hand out to the Chinese driver who placed Brannigan’s pistol in it, then he fixed the detective with his pale gaze. “That is all I ask. Can my associates offer you a lift?”

“No thanks.” He’d seen enough of the old man’s chums for one evening. “I’ll grab a cab.”

He took the elevator down to the lobby level, but before going outside, he stopped at the front desk.

“Who’s staying in the penthouse suite?” he asked the clerk. He flipped open his wallet, showing his shield. “And don’t give me any malarkey about hotel policy.”

The man hesitated, then shrugged. After consulting the guest register he shook his head.

“Sorry. It’s unoccupied.”

“Baloney! I was just up there.”

Another shake of the head. “No occupant is listed. All I can tell you is this: The penthouse suite is on reserve—permanent reserve—but it doesn’t say for whom.”

Frustrated, Brannigan stormed from the hotel. He had more important things to do than argue with some hotel flunky.

Ten minutes later Brannigan
was standing in the shadows across the street from the headquarters of the Dragon Tong. Its slanted cupola glistened with moisture from the fog. A few of the upper windows were lit, a pair of green-and-yellow paper lanterns hung outside the front entrance, but otherwise the angular building squatted dark and silent on its lot.

What now? Sorenson had told him how to find it, but now that he was here he couldn’t simply walk in. Much as he hated to admit it, he was going to have to call Hanrahan for backup.

As he turned to go back to his radio car he noticed movement along the right flank of the tonghouse. Three monkeylike shadows were scaling the wall. He hurried across the street and crept closer to investigate. He found a rope hanging along the wall, disappearing into a third-story window lit by a red paper lantern.

Apparently someone else was interested in the tonghouse. He knew the three he’d seen shimmying up this rope were too small and agile to have been the bald guy and company.

He looked at the rope, tempted. This was one hell of a pickle. Go up or get help?

The decision was taken out of his hands when the rope snaked up the wall and out of reach. He cursed as he watched it disappear into the window.

But then he noticed a narrow door just to his right. He tried the handle—unlocked—and pushed it open. The slow creaks from the old hinges sounded like a cat being tortured. He cringed as he slipped into some sort of kitchen. He pulled his pistol and waited to see if anyone came to investigate.

When no one came, he slipped through the darkness, listening. The tong-house seemed quiet. Most of the tongsters were probably home at this hour. But what of the hatchetmen the tongs reputedly used as guards and enforcers? Did they go home too? Brannigan hoped so, but doubted it.

He stepped through a curtain into a small chamber lit by a single oil lamp, its walls bare except for a black lacquered door ornamented with gold dragons uncoiling from the corners. The door pulled outward and Brannigan found himself in an exotic, windowless room, empty except for a golden Buddha seated in a corner; a lamp and joss sticks smoked before it, their vapors wafting toward the high ceiling.

Something about the walls…he stepped closer and gasped as he ran his fingers over what he’d assumed to be wallpaper. But these peacock plumes weren’t painted, they were the genuine article. And all four walls were lined with them.

Dazzled by its beauty, Brannigan stepped back to the center of the room and turned in a slow circle. No window, no door other than the one he’d come through. The room appeared to be a dead end.

But then he noticed the way the smoke from the joss sticks wavered on its path toward the ceiling. Air was flowing in from somewhere. He moved along the wall, inspecting the plumes until he found one with a wavering fringe. And another just below it. Air was filtering through a narrow crevice. He pushed at the wall on either side until he felt something give. He pushed harder and a section swung inward.

Ahead of Brannigan lay a long, dark, downsloping corridor, ending in a rectangle of wan, flickering light. The only sound was his own breathing.

He hesitated, then took a breath and started forward. He’d come this far…in for a dime, in for a dollar.

Pistol at the ready, he crept down the passage as silently as his heavy regulation shoes would allow, pausing every few steps to listen. Nothing. All quiet.

When he reached the end he stopped. All he could see ahead was bare floor and wall, lit by a lamp in some unseen corner. Still hearing nothing, he risked a peek inside—

—and ducked back as he caught a flash of movement to his left. A black-handled hatchet whispered past the end of his nose and buried itself in the wall just inches to the right of his head.

And then a black-pajama-clad tongster with a high-cheeked, pockmarked face lunged at him with a raised dagger. His brutal features were contorted with rage as he shouted rapid-fire gibberish.

The report from Brannigan’s pistol was deafening as it smashed a bullet through the chink’s chest and sent him tumbling backward. Another black-clad tongster, a raw-boned, beady-eyed bugger, replaced him immediately, howling the same cry as he swung a hatchet at Brannigan’s throat. He too fell with a bullet in his chest.

But then the doorway was filled with two more and then three, and more surging behind them. With only four rounds left in his revolver, Brannigan knew he had no chance of stopping this Mongol horde. He began backpedaling as the hatchetmen leaped over their fallen comrades and charged.

Brannigan fired as he retreated, making good use of his remaining rounds, slowing the black-clad gang’s advance, but a small, primitive part of him began screeching in panic as it became aware that he was not going to leave the tonghouse alive. Not unless he reached the door to the joss room in time to shut it and hold it closed against the swarm of hatchetmen.

After firing his last shot he turned and ran full tilt for the door. His foot caught on the sill as he rushed through and he tumbled to the floor. The horror of knowing that he was about to be hacked to death shot strength into his legs but he slipped as he started to rise and knew he was done for.

As he rolled, tensing for the first ax strike, preparing a last stand with his bare hands, he was startled by the sound of gunfire, followed immediately by shouts and screams of pain. He looked up and saw the old man’s turbaned Indian wielding a huge scimitar that lopped off heads and arms with slashing swipes, while the driver hacked away with a cutlass. The old man himself stood in the thick of it, firing a round-handled, long-barreled Mauser at any of the hatchetmen who slipped past his front line.

Brannigan pawed fresh shells from his jacket pocket and began to reload. But the melee was over before he finished. He sat up and looked around. More than joss-stick smoke hung in the air; blood had spattered the feathered walls and pooled on the floor. The old man and the Indian were unscathed; the driver was bleeding from a gash on his right arm but didn’t seem to notice.

“What…how…?”

The old man looked at him. “I sensed you weren’t telling us everything you knew, so we followed you. Good thing too, I’d say.”

Brannigan nodded as he struggled to his feet. He felt shaky, unsteady.

“Thank you. I owe you my—”

“Is she here?” the old man said. “Have you seen her?”

“I have her right here, Oliver,” said a sibilant, accented voice.

Brannigan turned and raised his pistol as a motley group filed into the small room: a green-eyed, turquoise-robed Chinaman entered, followed by a trio of gangly, brutal-looking, dark-skinned lugs dressed in loincloths and nothing else; one carried a red-haired girl in his arms; two black-pajamaed tongsters brought up the rear, one thin, one fat, the latter with his hands tied behind his back and looking as if he’d wound up on the wrong end of a billy club.

The lead Chinaman spoke again. “I feared you might have been drawn into this.”

“So it’s you, Doctor,” the old man said. At least Brannigan knew part of his name now: Oliver. “Striking at me through my child? I knew you were ruthless but—”

“Do not insult me, Oliver. I would gladly cut out your heart, but I would not break it.”

The doctor—doctor of what? Brannigan wondered—removed a bony, long-fingered hand from within a sleeve and gestured to the loinclothed crew. The one carrying the little girl stepped forward and handed her over to Oliver. She looked drugged but as the old man took her in his arms, her eyes fluttered open. Brannigan saw her smile.

The word was a whisper. “Daddy.”

Tears rimmed Oliver’s eyes as he looked down at her, then back to the doctor. “I don’t understand.”