The Adventures Of Indiana Jones (25 page)

She stuck the vial down the front of her dress for safekeeping.

But no way was she going to stop looking for that diamond. She trudged off once more through the piles of ice.

Kao Kan woke up. He found his gun on the floor, turned slowly, saw Indy. Still a bit unsteady, he raised the gun, to fire across the room.

Indy saw him in time, though. He backed up to the side of the stage, pulled the release rope hanging there. And then, madly, with dream-slowness and a sense of disjointed dream-logic, balloons began floating down from the ceiling. Hundreds of colored balloons. Kao Kan lost sight of his target behind the curtain of this stately barrage.

They obscured everything in their steady, deliberate drift. Indy moved laterally, toward the place Willie had recently occupied. No Willie there, though. Only two more thugs.

One karate-chopped him, but he put the goon down with a jab to the solar plexus. He threw the other one into an angry waiter, and slumped against the balcony wall.

The poison was eating him up. He felt ashen pale, trembly. His stomach was cramping and he wanted to pass out. No, no. He had to find Willie. He had to get the vial.

He threw a glass of cold water on his face. It helped a little.

This was beginning to turn into a real situation, now. He saw four more gang members run in.

Kao Kan, meanwhile, was in a fury. He wanted his brother’s murderer dead, but his arm was still shaking too much to get off a clear shot. Fortunately, he noticed that one of his gang cohorts was carrying a machine gun. Maniacally he raced over to the stairs, took the weapon from the man, and walked into the confusion, shouting, “Where is he? I’ll kill him.”

People who saw the gun started to scatter. The balloons were thinning out, now, too; in a few moments, Kao Kan and Indy saw each other. As Kao began to shoot, Indy dove over the ledge of the balcony, near the huge hanging gong.

Bullets tore into the balcony. Indy huddled behind the great bronze shield. People were screaming, hitting the floor, heading for cover.

When the first burst was over, Indy leaped over to the statue of the lounging warrior, pulled the golden broadsword from its hand, and with two quick slashes cut the cords that suspended the giant gong from the ceiling; it dropped to the floor with a resounding
chung.

He jumped down behind it as bullets entered its bronze face. Then, sheltering himself on its back side, he slowly wheeled it across the floor, toward where Willie was still scurrying furiously

Machine-gun bullets kept clanging against the surface of Indy’s enormous shield. As it rolled, it gained momentum; he had to run to stay hidden. It made a monster noise, this lumbering gong, deflecting the gunfire.

Willie heard the awesome sound and looked up to see the mammoth disk bearing down on her.
So this is it,
she thought.
Crushed by a renegade gong during a cabaret riot.

Indy grabbed her arm at the last second, though, pulling her behind the shield with him. Bullets ricocheted as Lao’s men jockeyed for better firing positions among the overturned tables.

Willie hollered. Indy looked ahead. Directly before them stood an entire panel of floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows. She shouted, “I don’t want—”

But there was no time to debate. The rolling gong crashed through the towering panes; a moment later, Indy grabbed Willie around the waist and dove with her through the opening.

It was free-fall for ten feet, followed by a tumble down a sloping tiled roof; and then over the edge.

Their entwined bodies plummeted two more stories, ripping through a second-floor awning, smashing through a bamboo balcony, finally thudding to rest into the backseat of a convertible Duesenberg parked directly in front of the building.

Willie sat up in a hurry, completely amazed to be alive, to find herself staring into the equally astonished face of a twelve-year-old Chinese boy wearing a New York Yankees baseball cap, staring back at her from the front seat.

“Wow! Holy smoke! Crash landing!” said Short Round.

“Step on it, Short Round!” said Indy, rising more slowly.

“Okey doke, Indy,” said the kid. “Hold on to your potatoes!”

With a great grin, Short Round swiveled around, turned his baseball cap bill-backwards, and stepped on the gas.

Tires squealing, they tore off into the Shanghai night.

S
HORT ROUND
was just having an average day.

He’d gotten up early that morning—around noon—and gone to work. Work was on the premises of the Liu Street opium den.

Short Round didn’t really have all that much to do there in the afternoons. Only a few customers at such a daylight hour, plus a few more sleeping it off from the night before. Short Round brought them tea; or walked them out to rickshaws; or guarded their clothing in the next room, for pennies—except that occasionally he helped himself to more than pennies from the goods he was guarding: occasionally he helped himself to articles of interest.

Among other things, Short Round was a thief.

Not a thief in the strictest sense, of course. He liked to think of himself more along the lines of Robin Hood, the hero in the movie he’d seen seven or eight times at the Tai-Phung Theater. It was simply that one of the poor people he gave to was himself.

At least, such was his thought that morning, during the Liu Street den’s long afternoon lull. The sweet smoke hung in thin layers above two stupefied patrons who slumped on the bare wooden cots, one an old Chinese man, one a young Belgian. Short Round was sitting on their belongings in the adjoining room, wondering about breakfast, when it occurred to him there might be something to eat in the Belgian man’s bag. He was just rifling through it when the bag’s owner walked in. The man did not seem pleased.

Nor did he seem dopey. In fact, he seemed rather irate. Short Round knew enough about these encounters to know that explanations were not usually fruitful, so he left by the window . . . with the Belgian’s passport stuck (quite by accident) to his fingers.

The Belgian chased after him.

Short Round loved a good chase. Made him feel wanted. He ran down the rear alley, the indignant client on his tail. Over a fence, up two more winding back streets; the man stayed with him. Up a fire escape along the side of an ancient wood building—all the way up, to the roof. The Belgian was right behind.

Short Round took off across the roofs. Sloping, tiled, gabled—this was the most fun yet; he slid, scooted, swung around chimneys like a monkey in the trees. Rooftops were Short Round’s specialty.

His pursuer lost distance, but not sight. Short Round came to the edge of the last roof: sheer drop, four stories. The Belgian closed the gap. Short Round scurried up the slope, over the peak, down the other side. Same drop-off.

Except a few feet below, coming out the top window of the building, was a clothesline, stringing across the alley to the window of the building on the other side.

Just like Robin Hood! Wow! Holy smoke! Short Round hopped down to the clothesline, dangled there a second, then brachiated along a string of flapping silk pajamas to the window across the way while his pursuer swore in Flemish from the roof ledge behind him.

Short Round dove in the window, turned, gave the fuming man a million-dollar smile in payment for his passport, and called out to him. “Very funny! Very funny big joke.”

The man was not amused. People had no sense of humor anymore. Short Round apologized for the disturbance to the incredulous family he’d just barged in on. Then with propriety that seemed incongruous, considering his flying entrance, he bowed, and left by the front door.

Out on the street, shadows were growing long. Fish vendors were packing up, their wares beginning to smell; night people hadn’t yet begun to stir. This was Short Round’s favorite time. It was the hour of the doves.

Every day around now, hundreds of doves would accumulate in the courtyard of the monastery near the Gung Ho Bar. They made the most wondrous aggregate cooing, like the murmurings of a thousand satisfied Persian cats. It was a sound Short Round associated with being rocked by his mother, though he couldn’t remember why. He hadn’t had any family for many years.

Except Dr. Jones, of course. Dr. Jones was his family now.

Short Round suspected Indy was actually a reincarnation of the lower god Chao-pao, He-Who-Discovers-Treasures. But Short Round himself claimed Chao-pao as an ancestor, so he and Indy were closely related in any case.

He walked out of the Place of Doves, over to the Gung Ho Bar. This was where he and Indy had first met. He entered the bar. In the back booth, sipping a cup of ginseng tea, Indy was now seated, waiting. Short Round ran up to him with a big grin, took the seat opposite.

“Indy, I get passport for Wu Han!” he whispered excitedly. He handed over the Belgian’s passport.

Indy looked it over, raised his eyebrows. “Shorty, where’d you get this? I thought I told you not to steal anymore.”

“No steal,” the boy protested. “Man give me. He not need anymore.”

Short Round looked so ingenuous, so hurt, Indy almost believed him. In any case, he pocketed the documents for Wu Han.

Short Round beamed. That was one of the reasons he loved Indy. He and Indy, they were birds of a feather: they both had a knack for transferring the ownership of lost items, finding new homes for valuables that had resided in one place too long.

Indy was going to find a new home for Short Round, for example. He was going to take Short Round to America.

Indy squinted at him now. “Okay, kid, you sure I can count on you for the plane tickets?” He gave the boy money to purchase their tickets.

“Easy like pie, Indy. I just get my Uncle Wong’s car; then I talk to ticket man; then I wait for you at club.”

“Right out front.” Indy nodded. “An hour before dawn. You got a watch?”

“Sure okay.”

“Well, you make sure to tell your uncle thanks for the use of his car again.”

“Oh, he don’t mind. We leave for America soon?”

“Yeah, pretty soon. Delhi, first. Now get going; I’ve got to meet a man about a box.”

Short Round left the bar; Indy stayed. Short Round ran six blocks to the house of a German diplomat he knew superficially—knew not at all, actually, except he’d shined the man’s shoes at one of the classier brothels the week before, and there had overheard the honorable consul tell the madame that he was leaving town for a fortnight to visit relatives in Alsace.

When Short Round got to the house, he walked around back. He crawled into the garage through the small cat-door that was cut in the bottom panel of the side entrance. Inside the garage, he spent about ten minutes playing with the young cat, dragging a little woolen mouse on a string back and forth in front of it, until it pounced. When the excited kitten finally retreated, with its prize, to a hidden corner under the stairs, Short Round opened the garage doors wide. Then he hot-wired the car.

It was a cream-colored 1934 Duesenberg Auburn convertible, an easy ride to wire. Easy or not, he’d already taken this one for a spin with Indy several times this week. Now he hunkered down under the dash, crossing leads until the connection sparked and the engine roared into life. It made Short Round feel like the boy in the fairy tale who lived in the belly of a dragon: he closed his eyes, listened to the pistons rumbling, smelled the smoke of the electrical short-circuit, felt the dark enclosure wrap over him in the shape of a fire-hardened dragon-stomach . . .

Scaring himself, he squirmed up to the seat, put the car in reverse, backed out of the garage, let the car idle, closed the garage doors again, turned down the circular drive, and headed for the open road.

He could barely see above the steering wheel or reach the pedals, but barely was all he needed. The city streets became residential, then quickly rural, in the fading afternoon light. This was Short Round’s second favorite time of day: when the sun burned orange as a red coal, just before the earth gobbled it up again for the night.

By early evening he was standing in a small British airport office, negotiating for three tickets with a small British airport official named Weber.

“I hardly think I could make room for someone of
your
stature,” the officious Briton began.

Short Round gave him most of Indiana’s money. “Not for me. For Dr. Jones, the famous professor. This very important government case. I his assistant.”

Weber still looked skeptical, but took the money. “Well, I’ll see what I can do.”

“You do good, Dr. Jones put you in his book. Maybe you get a medal.” He winked.

Weber seemed taken aback by this strange little manipulator. “I’ll do what I can, but I’m not certain I can get three seats on the same plane with such short notice.”

Short Round winked again, and slipped Weber the last of Indy’s wad of bills as a bribe. He also let Weber see the dagger half-hidden in his belt. Weber felt distinctly disconcerted accepting a payoff from a twelve-year old gangster; nonetheless, he took the money.

“Yes, I’m sure the accommodations can be arranged.” He smiled. He wondered when the London Office was going to transfer him back to civilization.

Short Round bowed to Weber most graciously, then shook the man’s hand, then saluted smartly, his fingertips to the visor of his baseball cap. Then he ran back to the Duesenberg and drove back to town.

He left the car parked in the warehouse of a friend who owed him a favor. Night was just opening its eyes. Short Round thought of the daytime as a sleeping rascal who awoke, each night, with a great hunger. Short Round’s third favorite time was all night.

He ambled down to the docks. A boy had to be careful here—boys were much in demand, for forced sea duty, or other disreputable occupations—but it was a good place for a wily boy to get a free supper. And, like the night, Short Round was getting hungry.

He scavenged a small, flat plank from the garbage behind one of the bars, and took it down to where the oily water lapped right up against the quais. He squatted there in the shadows, his feet submerged, waiting. After five minutes passed quietly—during which time he prayed to Naga, the Dragon-King, who inhabited and guarded this sea—he suddenly slapped the board against the surface of the water, hard, several times.