Part 50 (1/2)

”Did I kill her too?”

”I don't think so, no.”

”Pok's always with one,” McKenna said sorrowfully. ”His oysters aren't so big now, huh? b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l. He liked to talk big, like he wasn't a wog. He didn't know his place, what with his beautiful women, his high living. He's not living so high now. b.l.o.o.d.y right he's not.”

So it wasn't just that Pok was Chinese, Jake thought. There was some personal connection. ”You showed him,” he said. ”You had the last laugh.”

”Laugh,” McKenna said. His voice was eerie, skittish, swinging through the emotions. ”He laughed at me. He looked down on me. But he got me the information, didn't he?”

”He sure did,” Jake said, knowing that he was close now. ”What information?”

”Oh, you know,” McKenna said, ”confirmation of the rumor that there was troublebig trouble, huh, Jake?at Southasia Bancorp.”

”Where'd you hear that one, McKenna? That was top secret. No one was supposed to know but the directors of InterAsia.”

”Don't I know,” McKenna said happily. ”I”

But the front door was swinging open and McKenna, his head whipping around, had returned with frightening swiftness to his hysterical state. The muzzle of the Magnum swung in a blurred arc and he screamed, ”They're coming! They're coming!”

Jake saw Bliss in the brilliant illumination of her car's headlights, coming through the half-open front door, and he leapt at McKenna. The first shot went high as Jake crashed into his outstretched arm.

McKenna grunted and rolled, freeing one hand. He lifted a ham fist, slammed it down on the back of Jake's head. The blow made Jake's head swim but he had no time to stop it and the successive ones that landed in the same spot. His main concern was the Magnum. With that caliber size, one shot was all it would take to put him down permanently.

But McKenna was not letting go, He had the strength of madness about him and it was impossible to wrest the weapon from him. Then Jake knew why. He had been gripping it before Jake even arrived. He saw it as something magical, his only protection from the abos.

Jake used his foot, pressing down on McKenna's wrist to keep the Magnum at bay. At the same time he used a liver kite, a purely percussion blow, an atemi. The big man grunted and jerked his knee up. It smashed into the back of Jake's head, making him see stars. He wavered and McKenna, with superhuman strength, pulled his wrist free. Pointed the Magnum into Jake's face. ”Bye-bye, baby,” he said thickly. And Bliss kicked him hard in the side of his head. He began to gag and Jake, recovering, used his elbow in a series of atemi that would have put any normal man out. Not McKenna. He came on, flailing with the gun and his balled-up free hand so that Jake had no choice. The Magnum was very close and impossible to control. Used the jut-hara, the killing blow, the heel of the hand striking the fifth and sixth ribs at such an angle that the shards of bone pierced the heart.

McKenna screamed, his eyes bugged and he arched upward like a speared fish. The corpse, already dead, juddered reflexively.

Jake, still groggy, lurched to his feet, took Bliss by the hand and went out on the patio. The waves far below crashed and hissed against the black crags, the last of the rain beat softly against them, the night wind sought to cleanse them.

He tried to catch his breath, couldn't and stood, bent over, while Bliss held his thundering head. After a long time, he heard her whispering, ”Jake, Jake, Jake.”

”Stupid of you to come here,” he said. ”Just plain stupid.” ”I could say the same for you,” she told him, close beside him. ”I begged my father not to tell you anything until you got to the junk. I knew you'd do something like this. Oh, Buddha, I was so frightened for you!” She shouted this into the night, then fell against him, sobbing. ”Where were you?” she whispered. ”Why didn't you call? I was so worried.”

Jake put his arms around her at last. He wanted to tell her everything: what he had found out in j.a.pan and why, finally, he had gone. But he could not. He felt as if he were in a dream where one cannot find one's voice. Why did he remain mute?

Instead he kissed her, thinking of them as a movie poster, he the all-powerful hero embracing the softly vulnerable leading lady. It gave him a measure of solace and briefly he wondered why.

He felt her heart beating hard against him, her warmth seeping into him and he realized just how much he missed her, and how worried about her he had been. He had wanted to call her many different times, when he was in j.a.pan. Each time he had stopped short. Why? It wasn't for lack of caring. Perhaps, then, he cared too much. The situation had been dire enough in Tokyo and then in Kyoto without his being distracted by his emotions. During that compressed time it had been far better to keep her at arm's length.

But he realized now how cruel he had been to her. ”I'm sorry, Bliss,” he said. ”It was a bad time for Mikio. There was death all around and I didn't want to share that with you.” He kissed her neck. ”And I know you. You would have picked it up the minute I said h.e.l.lo.”

”It's all right, Jake,” she whispered. ”As long as you're back, safe.”

She kissed him. ”I found out about the woman with the opal,” she went on quickly. ”She was Big Oysters Pok's mistress. She was also a Communist spy.”

”Then I was right,” Jake said. ”She was tailing me to keep me away from the boat. So I couldn't interfere with the dantai's work.”

”But”

But he put a hand over her mouth, made a silent ssh-ing sound with his lips. Their faces were very close and he saw the puzzlement in her eyes.

Car, he mouthed silently to her, then, in her ear, whispered, ”Go to your car and move it from out front. Don't forget to turn off the lights. Then come right back here.”

”But, Jake”

”Hurry, now!” he said urgently, and watched her disappear into the shadows wreathing the side of the house. She made no noise and in a moment he was straining to discern where she had gone.

When she returned, she seemed almost to materialize out of those same inky shadows. She came toward him in a scuttling half crouch.

”Did you see anything?” Jake whispered.

She nodded. ”Car coming. I could see its headlights.”

”Right,” he said. ”Let's find out who's visiting Great Pool of Piddle at this time of the night.”

It meant going back in there. The stench was already overpowering and Jake knew they would have to be quick, so he set them up just inside the front door. They waited uncomfortably. Even breathing through their mouths didn't help enough.

In time they heard the throaty rumble of exhaust. The rain had ceased completely by then and it had grown very still. They could hear the crunch of the gravel and the noise of someone walking up the steps.

There was a knock on the door and Bliss opened it while Jake lunged forward, pulling the figure on the doorstep over the threshold inside. Bliss kicked the door shut and turned on the light.

The Chinese looked at them from his one good eye. The other, milky white and unseeing, glowered like an angry winter's sun.

”I don't want to see him,” Sawyer told Sei An. ”Under no circ.u.mstances”

”But I'm already in,” Sir John Bluestone said, opening the door into Sawyer's office.

”I'm terribly sorry, tai pan,” an apologetic Sei An said, peeking in around the tall gwai loh. ”He took me by surprise.”

”That's all right, Sei An,” Sawyer said.

”I've sent for Security.”

Sawyer saw the wide smirk on Bluestone's face and knew that he couldn't live with that. ”No, no, Sei An. You tell them everything's all right.” Ignoring the loss of face it caused him.

Sei An looked at her tai pan, saw his predicament and, not wanting to lose him more face, nodded wordlessly, pulling the door shut behind her.

”Sit down, tai pan,” Sawyer said with a forced smile. ”To what do I owe this honor?”

It was late in the day. The sun hung in the sky like a swollen bruise, was.h.i.+ng the city in dusty, russet light. Victoria Harbor was filled with vessels of every description from old, seemingly decrepit junks, their faded orange sails spread wide, to sleek, modern cruisers, their diesel exhausts bubbling; from stained cargo vessels registered in lands halfway around the world, to crisp naval-gray aircraft carriers in for R & R.

”The view from these windows,” Bluestone said, ignoring Sawyer, ”is quite extraordinary. It makes one feel as if one owns all of Hong Kong.” He turned with a grin on his face and, without asking, wentover to the granite-topped sideboard and poured two drinks into wide-mouthed cut-crystal gla.s.ses. He put one on the desktop in front of Andrew Sawyer and sipped at his own. ”Ummm, single malt. Excellent.”

Sawyer did not touch the gla.s.s of Scotch. He kept his hands folded together, the fingers laced, in order to conceal their trembling. He did not know whether it was in rage or in fear.

”Not thirsty, tai pan?” Bluestone gave another wide grin. He was wearing an impeccably cut tropical-weight chalk-stripe suit, pure white Turnbull and a.s.ser s.h.i.+rt with a regimental tie, gold nugget cuff links and tie tack, polished oxblood wingtip shoes.

”Is this a social visit?” Sawyer said finally, exasperated.