Autumn Bridge (22 page)

Siu-fong’s own story was one of rejection and abuse by both English and Chinese, and sale into white slavery. It was theoretically possible for her to redeem her contract, but the amount was vast, and her debt to Wu Chun Hing grew continually. Freedom was an impossible dream.

And just like that, Makoto now had the poor to go with his Robin Hood.

He could thank his former classmate, Victor Burton, for the idea of Chinese impersonation. Burton couldn’t tell the difference. With a prop or two — say, a Chinese meat cleaver and a shouted imprecation in mock Chinese — who could? Only a real Chinese, and he wasn’t planning to rob any of them. The police would look for the culprit in Chinatown. No one would even think of suspecting the sheltered young man who lived among the victimized wealthy of Nob Hill.

It was fun while it lasted. He stuffed random articles of clothing into a single travel bag, his thoughts elsewhere.

“I hope you will behave yourself in Canada,” his mother said.

“I will have to,” Makoto said. “What else is there to do at a Canadian iron mine?”

“Trouble can always be found,” she said, “and it can always find you, if you are not careful. So be careful.”

“I’m always careful.”

“Write me often. In Japanese.”

“I would have to write in
kana,
” Makoto said. Kana was simple and phonetic. He had never quite mastered the two thousand pictographic kanji characters required for true basic literacy.

“You have your dictionary, don’t you? A good opportunity to practice kanji.”

Makoto looked at his mother and marveled as he always did at her youthful appearance, the delicacy of her features, the emotional fragility implied by her soft, almost hesitant voice. All illusions. She looked like she could be his younger sister, but she was twice his age. The daintiness of her physique belied her power. As for emotions, Makoto could not remember having seen her display fear or discouragement even once in his life. Now that he had so many questions about himself, he had begun to wonder about her as well. He knew very few details about her, even fewer than he knew about his father, and he knew very little about him.

“How old were you when you came to California?”

“Twenty. I’ve told you often.” She looked questioningly at him.

“Were you afraid?”

She smiled as she neatly refolded a shirt he had tossed into his suitcase. “I didn’t have time to be afraid. You were born almost as soon as we stepped ashore.”

“Do you ever regret leaving Japan?”

“So many questions.”

“Well, I’m leaving home. It’s not so strange it makes me think about you leaving your home, is it? Of course, you left of your own free will, and never went back. I’m being forced to go, but I’ll get to come home eventually.”

“There’s a famous saying,” his mother said. “‘Regret is the elixir of poets.’ I was never very poetic.”

“Makoto-san, Mrs. Stark.” Jiro bowed from the doorway. “Are you ready? I am to accompany you to Canada.”

“Great,” Makoto said. “I even have a nursemaid.”

“Go carefully,” his mother said, “and return safely.”

“Don’t worry. The year will pass in no time, and I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Take care of him, Jiro.”

“Yes, Mrs. Stark.”

But Jiro did not get the chance. Remembering his recent lessons in a grip that cannot be felt, Makoto extended the principle to being guarded at a railway station. Jiro came running breathlessly back into the house an hour after he’d left with Makoto.

“Mr. Stark! Makoto has disappeared!”

They searched the railway station, questioned everyone they could, and discovered nothing. Except for the time he had been with Jiro, no one had seen anyone fitting Makoto’s description, though a young man of Japanese extraction, dressed like the wealthy collegian that he was, was bound to attract considerable attention. Stark expanded the search to other parts of the city, but he knew it was already too late.

Canada was not appealing. Makoto had a better destination in mind. Mexico seemed most likely, since he had mentioned it in their last conversation.

Jiro sat on his knees on the floor, his head bowed in shame. He had been slouched there, disconsolate, ever since he had lost Makoto at the station. Though he was dressed in modern Western clothing, his posture was entirely that of a samurai who had not fulfilled his duty. Twenty years in America and his fundamental nature was unchanged. Stark knew that if he did not handle him carefully, the man was very likely to commit suicide over what he considered his shameful failure.

“Jiro,” Stark said, his voice harsh. “Why are you relaxing so leisurely? Go to the telegraph office and send a telegram to Mendoza. When you return, be ready to travel. I will count on you to catch up with Makoto. And stay with him this time.”

“Yes, sir,” Jiro said. The tongue-lashing energized him. Stark saw that if he felt himself sufficiently punished, and sufficiently useful still, he would live. “What should the telegram say?”

“My God, man, what do you think? Tell him Makoto is probably on his way there.”

“Yes, Mr. Stark, right away.” Jiro bowed and turned to go.

“Wait,” Shoji said. He came into the room with a note in his hand. “From Wu Chun Hing. Urgent.”

Stark knew what the note would say without reading it. The girl. He had forgotten about her. Makoto had not.

The small bedroom on the bordello floor of the Jade Lotus was drenched in the blood of six bodies. Four of the men had been shot, three in the center of the torso, and one in the face. The powder burns said it was at close range. The fifth man had been gutted with a knife, probably his own, still lodged in his chest beneath the sternum. Before it burst open his heart, the knife had spilled his guts onto the floor. An angry kill. Stark looked over at the girl. The gut-spiller was probably the one who’d killed Siu-fong. She was pretty, not much older than her mid-teens, with Eurasian features. Her throat was slit deep across the line of the collarbone.

Stark said, “Makoto didn’t kill her. This one did.”

Wu nodded. “He came to free her, in his words. She was, ah, inadvertently injured.”

“Where is he?”

“Wherever he is,” Wu said, “he is doomed. There is no good alternative now.” He glanced at the half dozen coppers poking around in the room. “That deputy was eating in the restaurant. He heard the gunshots. He was here an instant after Makoto got away.”

“Is he wounded?”

“I don’t think so. He came the closest” — Wu pointed at the corpse with the powder-burned face — “and his knife is there, bloodless. I am sorry, Mr. Stark. I had thought the problem solved. Who could have anticipated such a foolish act on his part, to risk everything for a prostitute.”

Stark told himself he could have, and should have. He’d done much the same thing himself when he was Makoto’s age. El Paso instead of San Francisco. Different place, same result. Because of him, she’d died, too, and in a worse way than this one. The son is not always like the father, Makoto had said. Sometimes, in some unfortunate ways, he was.

The one copper in a suit instead of in a uniform, the deputy Wu mentioned, came over and tipped his hat. “Mr. Stark,” he said.

Stark had met with him on several occasions concerning thefts from the wharf. A jovial, rotund Irishman who seemed more like a friendly barkeep than a keeper of the peace. Deputy Mulligan. Ulysses Mulligan.

“Deputy Mulligan.”

“What a mess,” Mulligan said.

“Yes, but a fortunate mess for you,” Stark said. “I understand you were the first officer on the scene.”

“That’s right, Mr. Stark.” Mulligan looked at Stark questioningly as he spoke. “I was having a wee bit of a snack downstairs. Noodles with that red pork floating in it.”

“Thank your appetite, Deputy Mulligan. You’re a hero. You’ve caught the Chinatown Bandit and ended his reign of terror.”

The deputy looked down at the dead men, from one to the other, then he looked back at Stark.

“Is one of them the Bandit, sir?”

“The one you shot in the face as he came at you with a Chinese meat cleaver.”

Mulligan frowned and looked at the corpses again.

“Was it a gang, then? Shot the whole gang?”

“No, he was a daring and probably insane lone villain.” Stark took the .38 revolver from his hip, flipped it around, and gave it to Mulligan handle first. “Armed with a gun and meat cleaver, as all the witnesses have described. These other poor fellows and the girl, innocent bystanders.”

Mulligan took the gun and looked at it.

“All the chambers are loaded.”

“I doubt they will be by the time the gun reaches the department and is entered into evidence,” Stark said. “I expect you will be promoted to assistant chief for this. I’m sure Chief Winslow will say something about it to me when I have dinner with him tomorrow night.”

“I don’t understand, sir,” Mulligan said.

“Is it necessary that you do, Assistant Chief Mulligan?”

A broad smile slowly spread across Mulligan’s face until his eyes twinkled merrily.

“No, Mr. Stark, I don’t guess that it is. My wife will be very happy with the raise that comes with the promotion.”

“Let me be the first to congratulate you.”

Stark and Mulligan shook hands.

“Ah, but if he was the Chinatown Bandit, then where are his ill-gotten gains?”

Stark looked at Wu.

Wu said, “Buried secretly who knows where?”

Stark shook his head.

“Since the Bandit has been apprehended, the victims would be extremely vexed if their jewels were not recovered. You removed them temporarily from the scene to protect them, and now you are very pleased to turn them over to Mr. Mulligan.”

Wu frowned unhappily.

“I am.”

“Grateful businessmen will of course be happy to pay you a reward for your part in this. Say, one thousand dollars.”

“Truly grateful businessmen would be somewhat more generous, I think, considering the losses I have suffered by being a helpful citizen. Say, two thousand dollars.”

“Seems only fair,” Stark said. That was solved. Only one problem remained. Where was Makoto? He wouldn’t go to Mexico now. Where would he go?