Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [81]
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” He shrugged, but Lai Tsin could tell by his shifty demeanor that he knew all right.
“How much did they give you?” he asked, taking some dollars from his pocket and displaying them carelessly.
The man hesitated and Lai Tsin slid a ten-dollar bill across the splintered wooden counter. “They paid me twenty,” the man said, reaching greedily for the money. Lai Tsin held another ten temptingly in front of him and said, “When you tell me all you know.”
He shrugged. “One man came in. He was young, black hair and eyes, small and wide like this.” He held his arms out from his shoulders like a gorilla and laughed. “He said he wanted a secret place to meet a gwailo woman, someone else’s wife.” He grinned, showing a row of brown-stained teeth. Lifting his shirt, he showed Lai Tsin the small hatchet strapped to his waist. “If she were a Chinese wife you know what would have happened to him,” he boasted, patting the gleaming blade.
“So?” Lai Tsin prompted.
“So I showed him a place in the ruins and he told me she would come at nine o’clock and I should bring her there and leave her. And that is exactly what I did. No more, no less.”
He held out his hand for the other ten dollars but Lai Tsin said, “First you show me the place.” The man’s eyes flickered dangerously, but he turned and picked up the lantern, and, grumbling, led the way out the back door and down the winding half-ruined passageways to the place. There was no need of a lantern now, the full moon was riding high in the night sky and in its light Lai Tsin could see it was empty. The man silently pocketed his extra ten dollars and disappeared the way he had come.
A broken chair lay overturned in the center of the room and Lai Tsin walked toward it and righted it. Something lay underneath and he picked it up. It was a blond wig and next to it was a Chinese “devil mask,” the kind used in processions and festivals, only this had been altered to make it even more hideous. The moonlight showed the puckered red scars, the twisted mouth, and the hollow eyes, which were mere paint, but he could easily see how in the semidarkness and with fear they would have looked real and terrifying.
He thought hard as he walked back down the alley. A man like Sammy, intent on stalking his prey, would not be too far away. He would stay close to her, where he could watch, waiting for his chance. And a gwailo in Chinatown should not be hard to locate. Threading his way through the labyrinth of alleys he emerged into a bigger street at the house of the Honorable Elder. He knocked on the door and waited. There was no reply, and picking up a handful of small stones he tossed them at the upstairs window. Immediately it was flung open and an irate voice exclaimed, “Who is that disturbing the sleep of the blessed?”
He stepped back and met the old man’s angry gaze. His bald head gleamed in the moonlight, and his moustache drooped into his long, pointed white beard. He said, “Honorable Grandfather, it is Ke Lai Tsin. I must speak with you.” He heard the old man muttering angrily, then his head disappeared and a few moments later the door was opened just wide enough for him to slide through.
The old man wrapped his blue kimono around himself to keep out the cold and said, “Has your business failed then, Ke Lai Tsin? Is it for this you wake me at such an hour?”
Lai Tsin shook his head. “No, Honorable Grandfather. My business goes well. It is a matter more difficult than mere business.”
The old man listened carefully as he explained, then he said, “It is wrong to involve yourself with the gwailos. Especially a concubine. Has it not been proven to you? Leave the girl to her own people and find yourself a nice Chinese woman. I myself