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Auden said to Feiffer, 'A crane chaser is the man who gives the signals to the crane driver from the ground.'

Feiffer looked up from his forms and then at the open window. He asked Auden irritably, 'Who opened that window?'

'I did.' Auden said, 'He's the man who gives the signals from the ground.'

'Who is?'

'The crane chaser.

'What crane chaser?'

Auden said, 'Any crane chaser!' He looked at Spencer, but Spencer was smiling amiably into the telephone and saying 'Yes ... hmmm ... yes, Frank ...' and O'Yee, looking more serious, was nodding at his phone and saying very efficiently, 'Hmm . . . yes . . . hmmm,' and scribbling something down in his personal notebook. Auden said, 'I used to watch them when I was a kid.'

Feiffer's forms were well and truly fouled up. 'Who?'

'Crane chasers! !' Auden said hopelessly, 'Ah, forget it!'

Feiffer said, 'And close that bloody window, will you?'

*

The postman came up the stairs of the Yellowthread Street Police Station. He nodded to Ah Pin, the aged cleaner near the front desk, and then to Constable Sun behind the desk. He said to Pin, who had never had a letter in his life, 'Nothing today,' and Ah Pin smiled and went on sweeping dust with his broom. The postman said, to Constable Sun, 'How are things with the law?'

'Not so bad. How's everything with you?'

The postman paused. He wiped his brow. He deposited his packet of letters held together with a rubber band onto Sun's desk. He wiped his brow again. '
Ngai sai gai
—slaving through the world.' He sighed.

'Hmm,' Constable Sun said. That seemed to be the end of that conversation. He said pleasantly to the postman, 'See you tomorrow.' He waited for the postman to go.

The postman didn't.

Constable Sun glanced at the postman. The postman watched Constable Sun.

Constable Sun said, 'Is there anything else?'

'Hmm,' the postman said. He winked at the letters on Constable Sun's desk. He said, 'Hmm-hmmm. Hmm.'

The postman left.

In his ivory shop, a hundred and fifty yards from the Police Station, Mr Leung sat at his desk to open his mail. There were six letters in all. He glanced at the envelopes: one was definitely a circular from the Hong Bay Chamber of Commerce (he put that to one side, by a nineteenth century glass inkwell filled with black ink), three more were bills from his suppliers (he sighed and opened them with a silver paperknife and spiked them on the cast iron spike by his elbow), one was a statement from his bank, and the last was a long manilla envelope that felt slightly heavy, addressed in a hand that he did not recognise.

He thought he would open that after he had read the bad news from the bank. He put it to one side with the Chamber of Commerce envelope and slit open the bank letter.

*

Spencer said very softly into the phone, 'Yes ... goodbye .. . yes.' He listened for a moment, 'Goodbye, Frank... yes.' He smiled. 'Yes, goodbye.' He hung up.

Auden said, 'Who was that?'

'Frank.'

'Frank who?'

'No one.' Spencer said absently to Auden, 'What was that you were talking about, Phil? Crane drivers?'

'Crane
chasers
—'

'Oh, yes ...'

Feiffer asked Spencer, 'Who was that on the phone?' His own phone rang and he said, 'Feiffer.'

Spencer said quietly, 'Frank.'

Auden said, 'I used to watch them, you know, when I was a kid. They used to be on the docks—that was where you saw them mainly, working with the cranes that unloaded the—'

O'Yee hung up his phone. He said, 'Ah-hah!' He said again, 'Ah-HAH!' He called over to Feiffer with an odd gleam in his eye, 'I'm going out for a while, OK?'

Feiffer said to his wife, 'Hang on a second.'

'I'm going out for a while, all right?'

'Who was that?'

'Who?'

'On the phone.' Feiffer said to Spencer, 'And you, who were you talking to?'

'Frank,' Spencer said.

O'Yee said, 'Kan.'

Spencer said, 'It was personal.'

O'Yee said, 'Confidential.'

Auden looked at Feiffer. Feiffer said to his wife at the other end of the line, 'Hang on a second.'

Auden said to Spencer, '—unloaded the ships. They used to—'

O'Yee said, 'I'm going out. OK? I'll be back soon.'

Spencer said, 'I wouldn't mind a break myself a little later—'

Feiffer said, 'What do you mean: "personal", "confidential"?'

Auden said,'—you'd see them—'

'It was a personal matter.'

O'Yee said, 'Confidential.'

Feiffer said to his wife—He said to O'Yee, 'Go on then.' His wife said at her end of the line, 'So I was thinking I might get a pet of some sort to keep me company for the next few weeks—until it's due.' She said, 'I thought perhaps a cat.'

'It's against the terms of the lease.'

'Is it'

'Yes.'

'What about a dog?'

'The same.' Feiffer said to Auden, 'Haven't you got anything to do?'

Auden said to Spencer, 'Crane chasers—' Spencer's phone rang. Spencer said without asking who it was, 'Frank—' and smiled and settled back to enjoy the call.

'How about a rabbit or something?'

'A what?' Feiffer asked Auden, 'Well?'

'Well, how about a tortoise?'

'You can't housetrain a tortoise.' He said to Auden, 'Go and collect the mail or something. Don't just stand around doing nothing.' Feiffer said to his wife, 'They stink. And they hibernate in winter and get insects.'

Nicola Feiffer said, 'I'd like something.'

'Why?'

There was a silence at the end of the line. Nicola Feiffer glanced at the slim carriage clock. She glanced at the television programme that said television programmes didn't start for ages. She glanced at the four walls. She looked at her sludge. She counted the hours in two more weeks of pregnancy. She—She shouted down the line, '
What do you mean, "why
?"!'

*

Mr Leung put his bank statement to one side and took up his old fashioned nib pen. He made a series of cautious calculations and sighed. He shook his head. There was a briar pipe in a little ivory pipe holder and he took it up and considered its empty bowl.

He put it in his mouth, took it out again, considered the bank statement and the calculations from another angle, moved his nib pen to the centre of his desk, put down his pipe again and took up the last envelope to slit it open.

It seemed a little stiff and he had trouble starting the flap with the point of his knife.

*

Feiffer began opening the single letter Auden brought in from the front desk with one hand. It was addressed to Feiffer care of the Detectives Room and bore a Hong Bay postmark. He said sympathetically to Nicola, 'I know how you feel of course—'

'You damnwell
don't
know how I feel!'

He got his little finger under the flap and ripped open the letter.

Nicola Feiffer demanded at the other end of the line, 'Well, do you? How could you?'

*

Mr Leung's paper knife slipped on the glue-dried flap and nicked him on the finger. That was all this particular Monday morning needed. He put the letter to one side and ripped open one of the circulars. It was for something he didn't need. He ripped open the second. It was a duplicate of the first. He threw the third into a wastepaper basket unopened.

He went back to the first envelope and tried the paper knife on it for the second time.

*

The letter to Feiffer said:

Leung. Political. 

There was no signature.

*

There seemed to be some sort of very thin wire sticking out from the seam join of the envelope. It protruded about an eighth of an inch. Mr Leung glanced at it and wondered what it was connected to. 

Mr Leung opened the letter.

*

Feiffer said irritably to the single sheet of notepaper, 'Another bloody nut—!'

*

The explosion tore everything apart. Mr Leung had the sensation of something lifting him upwards and back on a giant gust of red hot air, like a typhoon, and then there was a stinging sensation in his stomach and a chaos of papers being blown around the room. The papers went on blowing around the room for a long time, then they all fell back to the earth and were still.

Mr Leung felt that he was watching the room from somewhere higher. It was strange. He saw the papers lying on the floor, charred, some of them burning, and his desk overturned and shattered as if someone had hit it with a mallet and he thought, "It must have been one of those pneumatic hammers." He saw two objects covered in cloth lying by the desk, one on top of the other and he thought, "I don't know what they are. They weren't in my shop." There was something soft, like mud, oozing down his pelvis. He looked down to see what it was.

He saw what it was and then looked back to the two cloth covered objects by the desk. He realised what they were and looked back to his chest. The spike was embedded in his chest, pinning him to the rear wall. There seemed to be a gap somewhere on the wall between his pelvis and the floor.

The black stuff seemed to go on oozing and oozing. He knew the two objects by the desk were his legs. He thought, "I'm taking this much too calmly." He thought, "This can't be real."

It was. He thought, "I wonder what's going to happen tomorrow." He thought, "I don't know what it is I'm waiting for to come to an end, but it seems to be going on for such a long time." He felt a little sad. He thought, " I wonder why that is." He thought, "There's an odd smell in here." He thought, "It must be the explosive." He thought—

His body stopped oozing its life and he died.

*

Auden said, They've dropped the load on the crane!' Dust still continued to fall down from the ceiling of the Detectives' Room. He wrenched open a window and looked out at the crane. The load was intact.

Spencer said, 'What the hell was it?'

All the phones in the Station began ringing simultaneously.

As the crowd began to gather outside what was left: of Mr Leung's ivory shop in Yellowthread Street, Detective Senior Inspector Christopher Kwan O'Yee was savouring the delights of the good life two miles away at the Hong Bay Millionaires' Club. O'Yee was enjoying it. He sat back in his heavy black lacquered carved wooden chair and said to Conway Kan, one of the selfsame millionaires, 'Thank you very much.'

Conway Kan sat back in his heavy black lacquered chair (the carving just a little richer and the lacquer just a little heavier) and nodded. He was a very urbane fellow. He said urbanely, 'I'm just delighted you could make the time to see me.' He nodded in the direction of a series of paintings on the wall depicting the Imperial Court during the Fifty Thousand Hong Kong Dollars A Picture Dynasty and said, 'The pictures are always worth a visit even if the members of the Club aren't.'

O'Yee smiled. He thought, "I'll bring my kids and have them eat ice cream on the antiques." He said, 'I've never been here before.'

'No?' Conway Kan looked surprised. He was a very urbane fellow. He made a surprised motion with his head, 'I suppose the members aren't really very social.' He said, 'As one gets older one appreciates solitude.' He looked like the eternal Chinese, anywhere between fifty and seventy years old, portly, prosperous and balding, a pleasant-faced version of Mao Tse Tung without the warts. He touched absently at the lapel of his English lightweight suit and said, 'Is your family well? Your wife, Emily, and your children, Patrick, Penelope and Mary?' Conway Kan added, 'Shall I have tea brought?'

O'Yee shook his head. 'How did you—'

Conway Kan smiled. It was the sort of smile that meant you were either going to get a tip on the stockmarket that would make you a multi-millionaire overnight or the sort of smile that meant you had disappointed someone and consequently you might as well go out and slit your wrists because, oh boy, no one in the civilised world was ever going to have anything to do with you ever again because the word was out. Conway Kan said, 'Mr Ho was kind enough to advise me that you were a man one could discuss things with. Naturally, I enquired about your family.'

'Mr Ho?'

'I believe his first name is Humphrey. Is he in—Special Branch?'

'So I hear.' Ho was one of those famous Hong Bay characters one heard about but never actually met. O'Yee said, 'I've never actually met him.'

'He knows your senior officer, Mr Feiffer, and, of course, Mr Feiffer knows you.' Conway Kan flicked an invisible speck (gold dust) from the bridge of his nose, 'One proceeds discreetly when seeking men of discretion.'

O'Yee said, 'I have no intention of doing anything illegal.' He waited for Conway Kan to be offended.

Conway Kan was not offended. He smiled again. 'Precisely why you were recommended to me.' He said, 'Being a Eurasian has its advantages. For you.'

O'Yee waited.

'You combine the patience of your Chinese father with the efficiency of the Western influences in your life.' Conway Kan said, 'Your father is very highly respected in the community.'

'My father lives in San Francisco.'

Conway Kan said, 'So do many of my friends and business acquaintances.' He said again, 'Your father is considered a man of merit.' He looked, briefly, like an octopus spreading its tentacles from one side of the known world to the other. He said, 'You will have to accept my word that my, um'—he paused—'my small success in the material world was gained honestly.' He asked, 'Do you accept that?'

Tentatively, O'Yee nodded. He thought, "I've heard about this man. All he has to say is 'Hmm,' and you spend the rest of your life with the same credit rating as the Rockefellers and two Swiss banks combined." He said, 'You're relatively speaking, a very anonymous man.'

Conway Kan smiled again. That pleased him. One did not advertise wealth, especially when the Spring kidnapping season was on. He said, 'One tries neither to advertise good works nor wealth.' He added quickly, 'If one possesses it.'

O'Yee thought, "Wealth or good works?" He thought, "What am I getting into?"

Conway Kan said, 'I am unmarried, Mr O'Yee.' (Briefly, O'Yee looked worried.) He said, 'The family affection I hold is for my parents who are, sadly, no longer in person on this earth.' He said, 'As well as treasuring their memory I have an irrational affection for certain material objects that, to me, have their associations attached to them;' He went on quickly in case his meaning was not crystal clear, 'My father was a poor man. I refer therefore to objects which may appear to be of little monetary worth.' He glanced at the pictures on the wall representing the days of a fixed Empire and China's place at the centre of the world, 'It is, of course, very important to me that I appear to be completely in control of my faculties.' He asked pleasantly, 'You take my drift, of course?'