Merkabah Rider: Have Glyphs Will Travel (57 page)

“Professor,” said the Rider. “Mister
Rice. Thank you very much for your time and effort. I’ve got to ask you to
please return home.”

“Home?” Spates and Rice echoed.

“Yes,” said Faustus, wheeling on
them and fixing them with an intense stare as he put his hand to the sapphire
stickpin poking out between his lapels. “Home. You’ll pack up your things, buy
yourselves tickets on the next stage to Denison, and catch the train back East.
Put this entire matter out of your minds.”

Spates and Rice looked at the
ridiculous old man in confusion, then rose without a word. Spates went to the
dresser, excused himself to Belden, and began to unpack the drawer.

Rice reached for the papers.

Faustus slapped his hand down on
them.

“Not those, Mister Rice, if you
please.”

“Of course,” Rice said distractedly,
and went to the walnut wardrobe in the corner and pulled out a suitcase,
setting it on the bed and opening it.

“What’d you do to them?” Belden
asked in surprise.

“We’ve no time to argue,” said
Faustus, cramming the letters into his coat pocket, “and no time for amateurs.”

“Let’s go,” said the Rider, exiting
the room.

Faustus followed.

Belden took a last swig and went
into the hallway.

“Adios, boys,” he said, closing the
door behind him.

They descended the stairs.

“Hey Faustus, you’ve never done
anything like that to me have you?” Belden asked.

“Certainly not,” Faustus said
quickly. “You’d remember if I did.”

Belden opened his mouth to pursue
the matter, but Faustus had turned to the Rider.

“That’s the scroll in the case
Kabede gave you presume?”

“That’s right.”

Something ran through his mind
briefly, something from the Midrash of Esther.
Ten measures of witchcraft were given to the world; nine measures went
to Egypt.

“We’ll burn it,” Faustus said. “Scatter
the ashes. Eat them.” Then he stopped and gripped the Rider’s arm. “Is there
anything else you’re withholding from me? Anything at all? No matter how
insignificant you may think it is?”

The Rider shook his head. Of what
real interest was his own impending death? None, to the matter at hand.

“Then let’s be about our business,”
he said.

They went outside. The Rider was
surprised at the time that had passed, and felt a wash of guilt for leaving
Kabede standing out on the boardwalk. He hated these towns and their skewed,
meshuggeneh
laws.

That guilty feeling was quickly
dispersed when they saw one of the Chinese highbinders they had seen outside
the Chinese grocery standing where they had last seen Kabede.

“Shit,” said Faustus plainly,
glowering at the Chinaman, who smiled upon seeing him, though not with his
eyes.

“What’s this?” Belden asked. “Where’s
Kabede?”

“I think this gentleman knows,” said
Faustus, walking over. To the highbinder, he said, “
Ni hao ma
, my friend?”

“Mrs. Ah Lum, ask for you,” the
Chinaman replied.

“Is our friend with Mrs. Ah Lum?”
Faustus asked.

The highbinder smiled in answer, to
which Belden replied by grabbing hold of the front of his shirt with both
hands.

“Listen here, John boy—” he began.

The Rider saw the highbinder reach
under his shirt for the hatchet dangling there, and he pulled Belden back.

A few passersby turned their heads
at the brief scuffle, and across the street, a deputy marshal took an interest
in them.

“Please,” Faustus urged. “We don’t
need that kind of attention.” To the highbinder, he smiled and nodded,
grinning. “Alright, my friend. Alright.
Hei
hei.
Let’s go.”

He guided the Chinaman down the
street and said over his shoulder, “They wouldn’t hurt him. Not if they want to
speak to me.”

The Rider and Belden followed
Faustus and the highbinder back to the Chinese quarter, where he ushered them
all into the Can Can Chop House, an eatery.

The interior was low and
smoke-filled, the hot, hissing kitchen in the back giving off a constant aroma
of fried food.

Seated at one of the tables was
Kabede, contentedly enjoying a bowl of noodles.

When the highbinder walked them past
the incurious diners to their friend, Kabede was finishing up.

“I didn’t put up a fight,” he said,
patting his face with a napkin. “I assumed they would come for you anyway.”

“At least you got a free meal,”
Belden remarked.

“You are finished?” their escort
asked Kabede.

He nodded.

“Please to come in back,” he said,
smiling still.

They passed the kitchen and went
down a short corridor, through a beaded curtain. A room in back was set aside
for gambling, both poker and mahjong. In attendance were six or seven men of
nearly every creed and color, so Kabede turned no heads here.

In fact, he was nothing compared to
the main attraction of the room. Seated in a corner, playing stud with a stout,
scruffy bearded young miner in a turned up hat and a long haired Spaniard with
a bushy goatee down almost to the middle of his chest, was the most remarkable
looking man they’d ever seen.

He was dressed neatly in an
embroidered silk shirt and planter’s hat, and his long hair and drooping
mustache were oil black with flecks of gray. Every inch of his exposed skin was
apparently stained a deep, metallic blue.

“Somebody lose a bet?” Belden
whispered.

Faustus hissed him quiet at the blue
man’s silvery eyes fitted up at the sound of his voice.

“Careful, Dick,” he said. “That’s
Moon Fugate.”

The Rider had heard the name
somewhere, mentioned in the same breath as Clay Allison, Rhett Deeds, and John
Wesley Hardin. A brutal killer. He had heard once that the man was blue, but he
had taken it for a turn of phrase.

Belden smirked.

“Moon?”

The Rider pushed him along.

They were directed to an office in
the back where at last they found China Mary (or Missus Ah Lum, as the
highbinder introduced her) seated at an ornate desk of oriental design, smoking
from a long cigarette holder.

“Hello, Yīshēng Hung Jeuk,”
said the woman, in a high, somewhat grating voice.

Faustus took off his hat.

“Hello again, Mary,” he said. “May I
ask humbly why you’ve taken such steps to get me here?”

“I saw your wagon. Why you no stop
and say hello?”

“I had an appointment to keep.” He
turned to the others. “May I introduce my associates? Mister Rider, Mister
Belden.”

“I know that one,” she said, waving
her hand. “He work for Lepsy. He who I want talk about.”

“Belden?” Faustus asked, looking to
Belden.

“Not him. Lepsy. Lepsy
mógu—
a demon. You kill demons. Yes?”

“What are you talking about, Mary?”

“Bing Kong Tong come to my husband…”

“Tong?” the Rider asked.

“A sort of union,” Faustus
explained. “An arm of the Six Companies. The one that doesn’t mind all the
prostitution and opium.”

China Mary had stopped speaking at
the interruption and was glaring at them all.

“Sorry,” the Rider said.

“Bing Kong Tong come to my husband,
say Lepsy hire coolies in Dudleyville. Ship gold, silver, much work. When
coolies come for pay, Lepsy no pay. Lepsy burn them.”

“Burn them?” Faustus repeated.

“Fire! Burn!”

“I know, I understand.”

“Tong go to marshal. Tell them.
Marshal get pussy…”

“Posse,” said Faustus and Belden.

“Get posse. Go to Lepsy. Lepsy burn
them too.”

“What do you mean he burned them?”
the Rider asked. “How? You mean burn them down? Shoot them?”

“No, no, no, no shoot,” China Mary
said, waving her hands. “
Hie hie
! I
show you.”

She stood up and walked past them,
waving aside the highbinder and stepping out into the gambling den.

“What does
Yee-shang Hoong Gerk
mean?” Belden asked, murdering the
pronunciation.

Faustus frowned.

“It’s what they call me here in
Hoptown. It means Doctor Peacock.”

Belden was about to say something
snide when a loud bang made them all jump.

Moon Fugate was rising from the
chair, a tiny pistol glittering and bleeding smoke in his blue hand. He didn’t
look at anyone as he pulled the dollars in the middle of the table towards him.

The Spaniard and the miner watched
the entire operation with wide eyes, but neither made a move.

Fugate stuffed the cashinto his
pocket and picked up his coat off his chair. He strode out the front door,
whistling a familiar tune. The gaping diners who had rushed to the doorway
parted before him and closed behind.

The Spaniard tipped forward then and
fell face down on the table.

China Mary inhaled with a sharp hiss
and threw up her hands. She chattered angrily to the highbinder, who rushed to
the eatery door to push the rubberneckers back to their meals, and pointed at a
faro dealer at another table, who nodded and went over to fuss over the dead
Spaniard.

Without another word, she pulled
open an exterior door and marched out into the back lot, muttering something in
mixed English and Cantonese, like ‘goddamn
gwailo
.’

They followed her out back to a
wagon where a coffin sat under a piece of white canvas.

“Tong send hatchet man,” she said,
gesturing to the coffin.

They all looked at each other.

Belden pursed his lips.

“Right right. No corpses either.”

He went forward and pulled off the
canvas, slid his fingers under the lid, and pushed it off. He backed away,
wrinkling his nose at the hard smell that spilled out, and the other inched
forward.

Inside was the body of a Chinese
man, though he was only recognizable as such by the cut of his
cheongsam
shirt, which had blackened and
fused to his crisp, dried out skin. The teeth in the man’s mouth had melted and
run together like melted marshmallows in his pain-twisted mouth. Whatever fire
had burned him had to have been furnace hot.

“I heard of Indians burning men to
death,” Belden remarked. “But never with a fire hot enough to melt a man’s
teeth.”

He pushed the coffin lid closed.

“What do you want us to do, Mary?”
Faustus asked. “We’re not hatchet men.”

“Lepsy hire coolies now. White men,
niggers too,” she said, pointing to Belden. “You work for Lepsy. He pay you?”

“Not so’s you’d notice,” Belden said
uncomfortably.

“When work done, workers come for
money, same thing happen. Tong say Lepsy do this lots of times. Before
Dudleyville. Our hatchet men, no go. Sheriff Behan,” and she paused to spit in
the dirt, “asshole! He say Lepsy tell him we after his mine. He say we threaten
him. Hah! He burn tong hatchet man. Behan listen? Huh.” She spat again. “Asshole!”

“Where does he ship the gold and
silver to?” Kabede asked.

“Nobody know. West. Tong try follow
wagons, no come back never. Get killed on road, probably. Something else,” she
said, lowering her voice. “My man go with hatchet man. He say no silver come
from hole. No silver in barrels.”

They looked at Belden.

“Well they’re goddamned heavy
enough,” Belden said.

“He say
Hundun
in hole!”

“
Hundun
?”
Faustus repeated.

“What’s that?” Belden asked.

Faustus shrugged.

“It means different things…soup,
formless, dumpling…”

“Dumpling?”

“Like a blobby, shapeless kind of
food.”

She threw up her hands.

“I don’t know. He crazy.” She
pointed to a corner of the yard.

There, crouched in a rubbish pile,
they were surprised to see a filthy man sitting there, watching them. He was
youngish, and naked but for a loincloth. He was completely filthy, covered in
ashes, his own excrement caked about his legs.

There was a look in his eye,
quivering among the obvious madness, a terror that the Rider knew all too well.

“Dick,” he said, taking out his
Solomonic spectacles and slipping them over his nose, “let’s go take a look at
your job.”

It was early evening when they
reached Toughnut and Fifth, where Russ House stood. Through the windows, they
could see the proprietress setting down plates for the dinner crowd. A whistle
blew somewhere, and lines of dirty miners working the big Contention and Tough
Nut mines emerged blinking from the darkness as their replacements disappeared
in their wake.