The Night Mayor (8 page)

The officer belaboured the driver about the head with a pair of white gloves, and stepped down to the street. A turbanned, one-legged beggar raised his bowl to him, and he knocked it out of his hands. Small children scrambled for the scattered coins before they washed down the drains. The officer picked up the beggar by his neck. The missing leg dropped down and kicked, and the officer threw the con man away, chattering at him in some dialect. He drew one of his several revolvers and fired a shot in the air. The fake beggar ran off, turban unspooling from his head as he made pretty good time for someone unused to having two legs under him. I stayed back in the shadows. The patrol probably wasn’t looking for me – there were too many fugitives in Chinatown to concentrate on just one – but they’d be more than willing to take me in if they tripped over me.

The officer barked an order, and the soldiers jumped into action. They grabbed the blind fortune teller and flung him brutally against the wall of a josh-house. One soldier held up his head, and clawed at his face. He showed a handful of greasepaint and rubber to the officer, who strode over and asked a question. The fortune teller, half his moustache still attached, shook his head, and with a single shot the officer summarily executed him. The dead man fell backwards, his head cracking against the lap of a stone buddha.

I threw away the guava core, and it too was torn to pieces by the children. A small form whipped past me into the alley and tried to squeeze between my back and the wall I was leaning against. It was the fortune teller’s boy. I turned to push him away, and his hat slipped between us. Long black hair tumbled from the top of the boy’s head. He was a girl, with a lovely oval face. Anna May Wong. She looked up at me in silent supplication. I knew I should throw her to the patrol and make my own getaway, but she appealed to the chink in my armour. Widows, orphans, lost children, small dogs. They all get me into trouble. I never learn.

I took her in my arms and we kissed. She was very enthusiastic. I held her by her wrists to keep her delicate fingers out of my pockets. I lost track of what was going on outside the alley until the officer tapped her shoulder with his revolver and waved it in my face. She let my mouth go and pressed the length of her body against my side. The officer smiled unpleasantly, silver teeth shining. There was more decoration on his cap than on the average gypsy caravan, and he had a pair of samurai swords strung criss-cross on his back.

‘Papers, please?’

I made the pretence of patting my pockets and looking like a total cretin. ‘I’m so sorry, General Yen, I seem to have left them at my hotel. I’m sure you’ll understand.’

‘That is most unfortunate,’ he said in Oxford-accented English. ‘We hate to detain our most welcome guests, especially when they have…’ he looked Anna May up and down as if his mind could do with a good Chinese laundering ‘…other urgent business to attend to.’

The soldiers were getting impatient. Obviously, if they didn’t shoot someone every ten minutes they got on edge.

‘Hold on a minute,’ I said, ‘there’s one pocket I haven’t tried.’ I fished out my bankroll. ‘Ah yes, here are my papers.’ I peeled off five hundreds and gave them to the officer. ‘I hope they’re in order.’

‘Most certainly. An internationally accepted passport. Excellent. May I see your driver’s licence?’

I handed him another five bills.

‘Work permit?’

More money.

‘Birth certificate?’

Not much left now.

‘Draft notice?’

‘Here.’ I gave him the rest of it. ‘This is my Eagle Scout badge, and some baseball cards. That’s my lot.’

‘Excellent. That is all in order.’ He wadded the money up tight and shoved it into one of the pouches on his Sam Browne belt. ‘You may go on your way now, Mr…?’

‘Doe. John Doe.’

‘Mr Doe. The good wishes of Buddha go with you.’ He turned away and addressed his men in Chinese. Then, to me, ‘Have a pleasant evening.’

He climbed back into his car, and hit his driver again. The fat boy had unwound the scarves.

‘He told them to wait a minute and shoot us down,’ Anna May whispered into my ear, ‘like dogs.’

‘Oh, really,’ I told her. ‘Thank you, darling.’ I signalled to the least intelligent-seeming of the soldiers. ‘Excuse me, do you have a cigarette?’

He shook his head. I made smoking gestures, and walked over towards them. ‘Cigarettes?’ I said, puffing furiously at empty air and flicking an imaginary lighter. The dime dropped, and one of them grinned, tucked his riffle under his arm and reached into his uniform. I grabbed his wrist and broke it, spinning him round and holding him up. I heard the guns go off. Luckily, my shield was heavily built. The bullets didn’t go through him. I heaved him at the other two and they went down, firing wild into the air.

If they had had pistols, they’d have been able to get a better aim. The officer, in his car, was well out of range for an accurate shot with his cheap revolver. Still, he came a lot closer than I had expected. I dived behind a handcart and came up with my automatic in my hand. I wasn’t any better at this kind of messy shoot-out than they were, but I put a hole or two in the car’s windscreen, and put one of the soldiers out for the count. Then the sidewalk three yards to the left of me started exploding, and an earthquake line of stone chips advanced towards the cart. The noise of the machine gun was deafening.

I pushed myself back out of the line of fire as the wooden cart splintered into an abstract sculpture. Little darts stuck into my legs from the knee down. I fired in the general direction of the officer’s head, and missed. I saw him grinning ferally as he worked the gun with both hands, spent cartridges flying into the air. He was jitterbugging with the recoil, and the gun’s momentum kept his first sweep going for a couple of yards even after he realised he’d missed me. He swung the gun upwards on his mount and was obviously set to cut me in half with his next pass when the knife hilt appeared in his chest, lodged deep between two bandoliers. He staggered back, brushing at the black stains seeping from his wound, and fell off her car. His uniform would be ruined. The surviving soldier gaped and, in the sudden silence, I shot near his head. He ran off.

I looked back at the alley. The girl was there, waving sweetly. Her topcoat was open, and I saw the belt of knives – with one missing – strung from shoulder to waist. Why hadn’t I felt them when we were pressed together? Perhaps she only had them when she needed them. Anna May buttoned her coat and scampered away, swarming like a monkey over the wall at the back of the alley and vanishing into the night. By the time I got to the officer, the children had practically stripped him. His swords were gone, and his boots, hat, revolvers and belts. My money was gone too, of course. And the girl’s throwing knife.

Two urchins were struggling to detach the machine gun from its mount. One six-year-old Our Gang refugee stood solemnly by the car, too-long pants concertinaed around his feet, holding up the officer’s revolver in both hands, covering the fat driver. The machine gun came free, and the children staggered off under the weight, certain of a huge price on the black market. The junior gunman ran off after them.

The fat driver giggled, then burst into full laughter, the rolls under his robes quivering like jellies. His egg-shaped body shook with his mirth, and the Model T rocked from side to side. He slapped his enormous thighs and laughed some more. I left him there, and headed for the next block.

‘Mist’ Americano…’ The voice was feeble, cracked and fluttering. It came from the fortune teller.

I couldn’t see how he could be alive, but I went to him. His face was a mess, with a black bullethole and a tangle of rubber. His wrinkled nose had come off, and one smooth Caucasian cheek showed through his withered Chinese mask.

‘Mr Tunney,’ he gasped – mistaking me for someone else? – as he reached for me with a flailing hand. ‘Mr Tunney, don’t forget who you are. It’s important. Mr…’

He fell back onto the Buddha, dead again.

Tunney. The name meant something to me. It was as familiar almost as my own, but I couldn’t pin a face to it. I had a few nagging associations, a snatch of a song (‘Beautiful Dreamer’), a girl’s name (Lissa), and a big white room like a hospital ward.

The driver was still laughing. Chinatown was too hot even for me. I swore I’d never go back.

T
he bard was striding along the Boulevard, cloak wrapped tight against the rain, iron-tipped stick striking sparks from the sidewalk.

He had woken from his walking death a while before, in the middle of a quote from
Coriolanus
. It was his habit to patrol the streets of the City, declaiming the Gospel according to Shakespeare to passers-by, emoting his way through the great speeches in the hope of earning a few drinks. In his time, he had been a poet, a preacher, a cowhand, a scientist, an adventurer, a hobo. Now he was the Bard of the Boulevard. He was known in every bar and diner in town, and tolerated in most.

Like everyone in the City, he had been as one dead. His creator had fashioned him from clockwork and set him to go through the motions of living without giving him the actual breath of life. He had followed his script, fulfilled his stereotyped purpose, but never really acted of his own accord. He had been one of the supporting players of the City, a Harmless Eccentric.

‘He wants nothing of a God but eternity and a Heaven to throne in,’ he shouted at Gail Russell, frightening the girl off the street. Good job too, a young thing like her oughtn’t to be out late on a pestilential night like this.

It struck him like fire, and the scales were lifted from his eyes. Surrounded by enslaved automatons, he was a free man. For the first time, he felt – really
felt
– the rain in his face, the weight of his stick, the pull of his waterlogged cloak.

He stopped reciting, he stopped walking. He nearly stopped breathing. Given unexpected control of his lungs, he spluttered and drew breaths until his body took over. He bent double, hugging his thin chest inside his cloak, then drew himself up to his full height.

His heart beat, and his wet hands ached.

It came to him as a Revelation, descending upon his mind in all its complex glory, that there was a man in the City in need of his help, and that the man – his name didn’t matter – would free everyone as this awakening had freed him.

In an instant he had decided. He would find this man, help this man. The City would be free, whether it wanted to be or not.

With an added purpose in his step, he continued on his way, returning to
Coriolanus
with renewed vigour.

Above him, in the night, eyes twinkled.

T
helma Ritter, the woman behind the counter in Kelly’s, looked at me sideways when I paid for doughnuts and coffee with a wet hundred-dollar bill. But she still made change. On the jukebox, the Ink Spots were crooning ‘Don’t Get Around Much Any More.’ The song reminded me of my ex-wife, only the group were trying for wistful melancholy and my associations were screaming nightmare.

‘How d’you like your java?’ Thelma asked, a Brooklyn croak in her voice.

‘As it comes.’

She sloshed coffee into an uncracked cup and disinterred two doughnuts from their sugared resting place under glass. I sipped the black brew, my body tense, waiting for the tug at my arm. Flashing that kind of money in this kind of joint could lead to either of two things, a uniformed policeman or a chippie. The doughnuts were okay, and the coffee helped with the fog in my brain. I bought a pack of cigarettes – the brand an indistinguishable smear – and lit one up. Outside in the street, a few cars cruised. From my stool, I’d be able to see anyone coming into the diner. I prayed that Kelly’s wasn’t a popular cop hang-out.

For a few minutes, I was almost at peace. I sort of nodded into a half-sleep sitting up at the counter. The idea of a bed was appealing. I rolled it around my mind, imagining pillows rejected by princesses as too soft, a closetload of blankets, silk sheets, an acre or more of mattress… I snapped awake, and looked down at my fish-eye-lens reflection in the coffee. I was beat, but I couldn’t risk a motel or even a flophouse. Word was out on me. I shouldn’t be in Kelly’s. But it was warm here, and there was soothing music.

I had some puzzles to think out. Who really killed Truro Daine? What did this man Tunney – I knew Tunney was a man – have to do with the case? He must look like me. That kind of doppelganger effect was common in the City. And why was I having this trouble with people?

I had noticed it several times since I left the Monogram Building. I felt as if I were moving just a beat faster than everyone else. I could tell what people were going to do or say – trivial things like lighting a cigarette or commenting on the rain, important things like committing murder or founding a dynasty – and it disturbed me. I felt that I had seen this movie before.

Thelma, haggard and overly lipsticked, gave me a refill. I drank again, scalding my throat to shock me awake.

‘Mister…’

I supposed I was lucky. It was a chippie, not a cop. Natural, really. Statistics show that there are more women in the world than anything, except insects. I half turned on the stool. She was a blonde in a black dress, wearing a tiny hat with a visor of veil. The dress was tight in the right places, and shiny where it shouldn’t have been. She was going to ask me for money, I thought.

‘Mister. Do you have a dime for the jukebox?’

Knowing I’d regret it, I gave her a handful.

‘Thanks, mister.’ She had a high voice, almost squeaky like Mickey Mouse’s. ‘My name’s Glory. Gloria, that is. Gloria Grahame. Look at my monogram.’ She dangled a handkerchief from her glove; black, embroidered with white letters. ‘G.G. Like a horse. Gee-gee, get it?’ She laughed, an artificial, almost grating squeal. I liked her.

‘Richard.’

I held out a hand, and she pinched it with tiny, black-gloved fingers. The hamburger-flipper at the other end of the joint looked unhappily at us. He must get his heart dented every hour on the hour. Just like me. He adjusted his paper hat and turned back to his stove.