The Chinese Assassin (9 page)

The telephone began to
ring
behind a closed door as he concealed a random
fistful
of buttons
under
a small saucepan
lid.
But he ignored the
ringing, waiting patiently
while the last notes were pushed onto the four chalked squares at either
end
of the table. When all movement
had ceased and
a hush of
expectancy
had
fallen
over
the
crowd, he
lifted
the lid
and
spread the heap of

buttons deftly across
the
table
with a short
curved stick, forming
two
crescent moons. Working with a swift and practised
dexterity
he
slid
the buttons rapidly back into
the sunken saucepan in groups of
four until
only two
solitary buttons were left on
the
brown
limo.
A squat
Chinese
youth
standing
at his side
quickly
paid
off
those men who had backed
Number
Two on
the chalked
squares, then slipped smoothly into the
driving
seat
and
scooped up a new handful of buttons as the hollow-chested croupier rose
and
moved without hurrying towards the door behind which
the
telephone
was still ringing.

The
door opened
onto an even
dingier
room that
was both a
kitchen
and a makeshift office.
The croupier pushed the door open far
enough
to
pass
through, but not wide enough for
those
around the gambling tables to catch a
glimpse
of
the
tall, slender
Chinese
woman sitting impassively beside
the
empty table on which
the
telephone
was ringing.
He
walked
across
and
picked up the receiver without looking at her.

‘He’s
just left
Scholefield’s flat
and been
collected by one of
the
unmarked Soviet trade
mission
cars from Highgate,’
said
the voice of the
Chinese
cameraman in a thick Cantonese
accents

The croupier
glanced
back at
the door as
if to
m
ake
sure he
had
cl
osed it.
‘Good.
Dismantle
your equipment.
And
get the film back here quick!’

He replaced the telephone but kept his
hand
on it
and
looked enquiringly at the impassive face of the seated woman. A tap with a faulty washer dripped loudly into a cracked,
stained sink in
one corner
and
the rattle of
the
buttons on the table top came
faintly through the
dosed door as he
waited.

‘Tell the embassy.’ She spoke
authoritatively
without
looking
up at him.

He picked up the telephone again
and dialled
the number of the
Chinese
embassy in Portland
Place.
When a voice answered he
said
quietly: ‘ft is confirmed. We have film.’

There
was
a pause at the other
end
of
the line. Then: ‘Very wel
l.
Continue to gather photographic
evidence.’

When
he’d
hung
up he turned to
find
the squat youth who’d taken over
the
fan tan table
looking
at him
anxiously
from the
open doorway.
The gambling room
behind him was
empty,
the
makeshift table suddenly
deserted under the
n
aked light
bulbs.

‘The American
was
at the top of the steps,’ he said in a sibilant whisper.

The
eyes
of the
silent
woman
seated
at
the
table
blazed
suddenly. She
gestured
furiously through the doorway. ‘Get those frightened rabbits back
and restart the fan
tan. He’s
not
police, tell them.’

The youth turned
and
shouted at
the
old man with
the
broom
and pointed angrily
towards the steps
leading
up to
street
level. Then he went out and
closed
the
door
behind him.

The croupier
sat
down opposite the woman.
‘What does
Peking want us to do now?’ He
looked respectfully
into her broad Han face. Her
features
were strong
and regular and
she wore her
hair
piled elaborately on
top
of
her
bead, held in place with tortoiseshell combs. She
was wearing
an expensive leather trouser suit
tailored
in Hong Kong and a lot of thin gold bracelets
and rings
decorated
her hands.

‘Follow the
contingency
plan! They want
the
“impostor”
returned
to
Peking
alive.’ She
belaboured the
word
‘impostor’
with
heavy sarcasm,
then paused. ‘And of course
they
want Scholefield
too.’

The croupier grinned a
sudden gleeful grin and rose and
walked slowly over/to the
draining board.
He picked up a half empty bottle of m
ah
ogany-coloured
Chinese
brandy. He rinsed a dirty glass
and
poured a measure. ‘The Russians
could
have invented him. But couldn’t they
just
as well have
been
keeping quiet about a
survivor
for the
last
five
years waiting
for the
right
moment to produce him—’ He tossed back the contents of the glass in one
gulp
and
smacked
his lips.
‘—like
a rabbit out of a hat?’

The woman watched him
with
only
faintly
concealed distaste. ‘The Party leadership says there were no survivors.’ The hollow tone of her voice
was both
contemptuous and disbelieving. ‘We
shall
see tomorrow.’

The croupier
began grinning
inanely again, but the
expression
dissolved abruptly at the sound of a tap on the door. A
moment
later the old floor-sweeper poked his grizzled head into the
room.
He held the door wide to show
the
same crowd of faces now gathered
around
the table again. They had taken up precisely the
same
places as
before, like
a tableau
reformed behind a theatre
curtain. All were staring
obediently towards the squat youth, trying
hard to ignore the crisp,
incongruous
sound of leather- soled shoes descending
the
stone
basement
steps. The buttons had
been
spread again on
the
table top but nobody
had
placed
any
bets. The gamblers kept their eyes dutifully averted but were obviously following the slow, deliberate footsteps
with
all their other senses as they came
nearer
along the bare concrete floor of the corridor outside.

The next moment a tall Caucasian man wearing a pale
suit, a
straw fedora
and dark glasses appeared in the
doorway. His lips parted in a broad confident
grin
as he raised his
right hand and
mimed a
silent knock
on the
open
door. The eyes of all the
illegal
gamblers
swivelled as
one man
to see if
approval
was
to be
given
to the
stranger.

The woman stared at the tall man
for a moment
then
motioned the ho
l
low-chested croupier
quickly from
the room. As he
hurried out a babble of solid sound
rose from the
men
round
the
table again
as
they
began placing bets once
more.

When she had
closed the door
behind
him, the newcomer offered his
hand formally and greeted
her
in fluent Mandarin
that bore only the
faintest
trace of his
native American accent. ‘Very
glad to see you again,
Tan Sui-ling.
It
’s
been too
long.’

‘You
are
very welcome, Mr.
K
etterman.’
She spoke formally, moving another rickety chair up to
the
table that
was
covered
with
a frayed
and
faded oil cloth. She set
out the
brandy
bottle and two
clean
glasses, and Ketterman
removed his
hat
as they
sat
down opposite each
other.

‘Your information was
correct,
Mr. Ketterman.
Scholefield
was contacted an hour ago.’

He raised his shoulders and both hands in a silent ‘What else did you expect?’ gesture.
He removed his
sun glasses and gave
her another crin
kl
e-eyed smile. His steel grey hair
was
clipped
short
and
his lean alert face and spare frame hinted
at
hours
spent on summer
tennis courts and winter ski
slopes far from the
unhealthy S
o
ho gambling cellar.
‘We don’t
make a habit
of
passing
you
“bum” information, Sui-ling,
you
should know that.
Remember Seventy-one.’ He
smiled broadly again as
he
injected
the
crude Americanism deliberately into his easy
flow of
Chinese, and picked
up
the bottle. He filled
the
glass nearest
her, but left the
other empty and replaced the bottle gently
on
the
table top as if
afraid it
might explode. ‘I told you, about
Marshall Lin
in this very
room,
right?
And
this little
dilly
came
from those
same Israelis in Moscow
too.’

She
nodded
her head gravely in
formal
tha
n
ks for his
courtesy
in
fling
her glass, but
left it untouched.
Before
sitting
down
she had
removed her jacket
and
her long, slender
arms
were bare to
the shoulders. Although
her breasts appeared boyishly fiat beneath the
sleeveless
white blouse, he
spent several seconds openly searching the weave of
the thin cotton for signs of a brassiere underneath. He grinned broadly
again
when she folded her
arms
deliberately
in
front of her. But the level gaze
she
turned on him
was unusually self-possessed for a Chinese woman, betraying
no hint of
embarrassment.