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Mr Wong nodded. There was a letter-writer he knew vaguely in Wyang Street just outside the Post Office who wasn't such a bad sort. And there was always the indisputable fact that letter-writers would probably read letters (as opposed to writing them) for a discount. He said decisively to the postman, 'I'll take it to a letter-writer.'

The postman nodded. That was the ticket. Mr Wong smiled and went to close up his chestnut stall. The postman thought he would be all right for a few hot chestnuts from now on. He hoisted his bag and went on his way. The story that had gone around was that Leung's shop had been blasted by a gas explosion from a leaking pipe in the basement.

The postman smiled. No one had told him he was in the bomb-delivering business.

*

The voice at the other end of the line said, 'Hong Bay Fine Arts Company—'

O'Yee drew a line through their entry in the phone book. 'Good afternoon.'

'Good afternoon, sir.'

O'Yee drew a breath. This was the third. He was getting tired of cultured voices. He said in English, 'I wonder if you can help me?'

The voice at the other end of the line caught its breath. The catch in the breath said, "Here's a live one." The voice said hopefully in English, 'Are you an American gentleman, sir?' The voice was already calculating the exchange rate.

O'Yee said, 'Yes.'

'Ah,' the voice said, 'How may I be permitted to assist you?'

'Stuffed birds.'

There was a brief pause. 'Quite,' the voice said. It said, 'Ha, ha.' (It was some sort of American joke.) The voice said, 'Yes—ha, ha.'

'Do you have any?'

'Any what?'

'Any stuffed birds?'

'No, sir—' The voice said, 'Ha, ha.'

'Ha, ha,' O'Yee said, 'Goodbye.'

He hung up.

The next listing was for the Hong Bay Fine Arts
Shop
. Maybe it was the same gang. O'Yee dialled the number. Another cultured voice (how many Cantonese elocution schools were there?) said, 'Hong Bay Fine Arts
Shop
.'

'Any connection with the Hong Bay Fine Arts
Company
?'

'Oh, no, sir—!'

'Any stuffed birds?'

'Oh, no, sir—!'

He hung up.

*

Spencer was reading a roneoed brochure put out by the Home Office in London entitled
The Layman's Guide to Letter Bombs
. He turned the page from the ounce to injury ratios to the section on how to dismantle the things. He didn't much like the sound of it. There was an X-ray photo of a percussion activated example and he turned the picture around to study it from another angle.

Constable Sun came in and tossed a single letter on his desk. It was addressed to Feiffer. Spencer said, 'He's out on a job.'

Sun nodded. He went out the door and back down the corridor to his front desk.

Spencer turned the X-ray picture another way to get a better look at the trigger mechanism. He thought since the boss was out he had better see if the letter was important. He put it to one side of his desk, turned the picture to yet another angle, and opened the top drawer of his desk to get a letter opener.

*

The single sheet of paper in the brown envelope said,
Wong. Political
. There was nothing else.

*

A cultured voice said, 'Hong Bay Treasures and—'

'Stuffed birds!'

'What?'

'STUFFED BIRDS!'

'NO!'

'GOOD!'

'IT'S A PLEASURE!'

'THANK YOU!'

'GO TO HELL!'

He hung up.

*

'Do you mean
dead
birds?
Dead
ones?'

'Yes, I mean dead ones!'

A cultured voice said, 'Yech!'

The line went, like the birds, dead.

*

Auden wrenched open the telephone book. He found the listings for
Wong
. There were thousands of them. He asked Spencer, 'First name?'

'It's not here!'

'What do you mean, it's not there?'

Spencer shoved the paper around with the end of a pencil. 'It just says
Wong
!'

Auden came over and glanced at it. He looked up at Spencer. Spencer said, 'I don't know!' He looked at the clock. The seconds were ticking away.

'Which one?' Auden looked back at the telephone book desperately. 'Which one?' He demanded from the clock, 'Which one?' He shouted at Spencer, '
Which bloody Wong
?'

*

O'Yee thought, "This is a hell of a life." He marked off the next entry in the directory and began dialling the number. He waited for the next cultured, fruity male voice to say, "Good morning, may I help you?" and then inform him that never, never, never would they handle anything as uncultured, unfruity, unsuave and generally totally disgusting as a stuffed bird.

The voice at the other end of the line was a female one. Her tone was like the chimes of a faraway temple bell on a cool evening.

She informed him that never, never, never would they handle anything as uncultured, unfruity, unsuave and generally totally disgusting as a stuffed bird.

But she did it in an extremely nice way.

*

Auden said, 'I'll ring Humphrey Ho!' He dialled the number and got a recorded female voice. The recorded voice said, "The subscriber to this number is out. Please check that you have dialled the number you require. You have in all probability dialled the wrong number.' The voice said, 'Should you dial again and find you have this number correctly, you may then leave a message after the tone.' The voice said, 'Please dial your number within sixty seconds.'

Auden hesitated. He dialled again. He expected, this time, Ho would answer.

The recorded female voice said, 'You may now leave your message.'

Auden hung up. He pushed the letter around on Spencer's desk with his pen to keep his fingerprints off it. The letter said:

Wong. Political
.

And not one lousy, goddamned stinking syllable more!

*

Nicola Feiffer was on the phone to Emily O'Yee. She said miserably, 'No.'

'Not even a slow-moving tortoise?'

'Not even a non-ambulatory gnat!' She said, 'It's the lease.' She asked Emily, 'Isn't yours the same?'

'Probably.' Emily O'Yee thought of the three forces of doom, desolation and domestic destruction that masqueraded as her children. She said, 'The question of having a pet hasn't ever come up.' She said, 'There must be something clever you can get to keep you company that doesn't contravene the lease.'

'Hmm,' Nicola said. She said, 'Yes, there must be.'

Emily O'Yee said cheerfully, 'Let's think about it.'

*

Feiffer crossed over Stamford Road past the diamond merchants' area into Hanford Road. On the corner of Market Lane there was a fish restaurant called the Hong Bay Heavenly Cookhouse. He glanced up to the second floor where Ho had his office. The curtains were pulled. He went on towards the Jasmine Steps to cut into Wyang Street, thinking about Leung.

He thought, "Surely it isn't possible that Leung's widow sent the bomb herself?" He thought, "That's not normally the way wives kill their husbands." He thought, "And you don't just buy a copy of Teach Yourself Bomb-Making and whip up a letter bomb." He thought, " No." He wondered what to do next. He thought, "She must have known Tam was a leper. She must have known that Hei Ling Chau used to be a leprosarium." He thought, "No. It wasn't her." He asked himself, "Then who?" He wondered if Ho had come up with anything on the political side. He thought, "Surely to Christ it wasn't just some maniac with a few ounces of gelignite who decided to try it out on the first person he thought of?"

He reached the entrance to the Jasmine Steps and thought, "No, no one's that crazy."

He thought, "Yes, they are."

*

O'Yee's eyes hurt. He put on his reading glasses and drew a line in black ink through the Hong Bay Antique Joys

Emporium. He looked at the next entry. It was for the Hong Bay Celestial Treasures Company.

He sighed and dialled their number.

*

The letter-writer was an Indian from Johore Bahru in Malaysia named Ramaswamy. He was in his mid-forties like Mr Wong and, like Mr Wong, his name meant the equivalent of Smith. Mr Wong said, 'Mr Ramaswamy.'

Mr Ramaswamy said, 'Mr Wong.' He said, 'Ahaaa.' (It sounded like a horse whinny.) He adjusted his pens and pencils on his rickety wooden table outside the main entrance to the Post Office and said again, 'Ahaaa.'

Mr Wong said, 'I've got a letter.'

Mr Ramaswamy said, 'Ahaaaa, you mean that you want a letter.'

'No, I've got a letter.'

Mr Ramaswamy was not a man to be easily dissuaded from the habits or conversation of a lifetime. He asked, 'Who is it to go to?'

Mr Wong said, 'It's to go to me.' Obviously, this man Ramaswamy was an idiot.

Mr Ramaswamy said, 'That's a bit odd, isn't it?' Clearly, this man Wong was a bit simple. He thought, "You can't expect much from a Chinese."

Mr Wong thought, "You can't expect wonders from an Indian." He thought, "They're all thick." He said, 'It isn't odd. The letter is addressed to me.'

Mr Ramaswamy said, 'You don't get a discount for dictating letters to yourself.' He said nervously, 'Ahaa.' He hoped the man wouldn't turn violent. He said, 'My rates, like the Ganges, are constant.'

Mr Wong said, 'I thought the Ganges flooded and then went dry?'

If there was one thing Mr Ramaswamy didn't like it was a funny Chinese. He said, 'The Ganges may, but I do not' He thought, "Take that!"

Mr Wong said, 'I received a letter that I can't read without my glasses. I want someone who has glasses to read it to me.'

'Oh—!' Mr Ramaswamy said. He said, 'Ahaaa—oh!'

Mr Wong said, 'I can't find my glasses, you see.' No need to admit you couldn't read Arabic to anything as low as an Indian. He said, 'Hmm.'

'Ah,' Mr Ramaswamy said. He thought, "Here it comes again: the old Chinese face-saving trick." He thought, "Illiterate Chink." He said, smiling, 'Oh—ah ...'

Mr Wong said, 'It's in English.'

Mr Ramaswamy said, 'The price is the same.'

'The same as what?'

Mr Ramaswamy said, 'The price for reading letters is the same as the price for writing them.' He said, 'Foreign languages extra.'

Mr Wong said, 'English isn't a foreign language!' He said, 'Almost everyone speaks it!'

Mr Ramaswamy asked, 'Do you?' He shook his head, 'Foreign languages extra.' He said, 'Chinese too.'

'Chinese isn't a foreign language!'

'It is to me.' Mr Ramaswamy said, 'My native tongue is an extremely obscure Punjabi dialect.'

Mr Wong said, 'Who the hell speaks an extremely obscure Punjabi dialect outside the Punjab?'

Mr Ramaswamy said, 'Hardly anyone.' He smiled. He asked pleasantly, 'Have you got the letter?'

Mr Wong looked at him. God, he hated Indians! He asked, 'How much?' He kept the letter out of sight in his pocket.

Mr Ramaswamy sighed. God, he hated Chinks! He said, 'Same price.'

'The same as what?'

'The same price as writing them.'

Mr Wong decided to get furious. He demanded furiously, 'How much is that?'

Mr Ramaswamy said, 'It depends on the length.' He asked, 'How long is it?'

'I haven't opened it yet!'

'Why not?'

'Because I can't read it!'

Mr Ramaswamy smiled an evil smile. He said, 'I thought you said you'd lost your glasses?'

Mr Wong smiled back an equally evil smile (it was so evil it verged on the positively diabolical). He said, 'That's why I can't read it.'

Mr Ramaswamy said innocently, 'Then how did you know it's for you?'

'I know it's for me because the postman told me it was for me!'

'Oh,' Mr Ramaswamy said, 'Oh.' He said, 'He must have been wearing
his
glasses. Aye?'

Mr Wong said, 'My postman doesn't happen to
need
glasses!'

'Ahaaaa!' Mr Ramaswamy whinnied. Really, these low-life Chinks were no competition for a good brain trained in the philosophical air of the sub-continent. He said, 'His customers do.'

'I lost my glasses!'

Mr Ramaswamy said, 'Perhaps you could get the postman to look for them for you.'

Mr Wong wrenched the letter from his pocket and thrust it at Mr Ramaswamy. Mr Ramaswamy went to take it. Mr Wong thrust it away again. Mr Wong said, 'I want an estimate!'

Didn't they all? Mr Ramaswamy said, 'Estimates twenty cents.'

Mr Wong said, 'Estimates are free!'

Mr Ramaswamy said, 'Fifteen cents.' 'Nothing!'

Mr Ramaswamy said, 'Since I'm in a good mood and you've lost your glasses and you're obviously getting on in years, I'll make it ten cents.'

'Two cents!'

Mr Ramaswamy said, 'Ahaaaa!' That was a funny one.

Mr Wong said, 'Five cents and that's my best offer!'

Mr Ramaswamy said, I'll take it.'

He took the letter and slit open the flap with his imitation Gurkha paperknife.

*

Feiffer saw the flash. There was a brilliant white glare radiating out from a tiny pin point in front of the Post Office and a sudden single note of high static as the air around the pin-hole was wrenched violently aside. Then there was a sound like a very loud pistol shot or a huge chain snapping and then the concussion roared down the street and blew people walking along the pavement to their knees.

There was a puff of grey smoke, then a heavy black cloud of smoke, then a rushing noise as the air raced back in to fill the vacuum. Something came floating down from around the Post Office like shotgun wads and there was something black and liquid against the wall of the building, flowing back down to the street. A woman began screaming, then another and another, and then there was the shattering wailing of a child suddenly filling its lungs with air, going red in the face with the strain of holding the full lungs tight, then letting go in an ear-splitting single-note shriek.

Feiffer reached the Post Office. There was paper fluttering down and ink spread out on the pavement and flowing down the walls. Parts of it weren't ink. They were thicker than ink. There was a middle-aged Chinese in an apron standing by a splintered wooden table looking up at the ink on the wall. The Chinese looked like a stall owner or a chestnut seller. He seemed familiar. The ink and blood dribbled down the wall. It looked as though there was some sort of terrible carnivorous plant inside the pores of the bricks that had been terribly and deeply wounded pouring blood out through the cavities in the mortar.