Lone Star 02 (28 page)

Startled, Ki paused before sending his blades toward the bodyguards. The two Tong henchmen were well-trained and devoted men. They drew their pistols and fired not at Ki, who was only threatening them, but at Su-ling, who was aiming at their master, Chang. Their two shots punched the slight Chinese woman backwards, so that the one shot she managed to fire went wild. A moment later, the two Tong henchmen were themselves falling backward, Ki's steel blades lodged in their throats.

Jessie, meanwhile, had launched herself at Greta Kahr. The Prussian slashed wildly at her attacker with her rapier, but Jessie ducked beneath the slicing arc of the deadly sword, to drive her shoulder into Kahr's belly. The rapier went flying as the Prussian sat down hard upon the floor, the wind knocked out of her. Jessie tried to pin her, but Kahr managed to free herself of Jessie's grasp. The Prussian crawled on her hands and knees to snatch up one of the fallen Tong bodyguards' pistols. She was just bringing it to bear on Jessie when the room once again exploded with gunfire.

Kahr looked horror-stricken as she dropped her gun. She blotted wildly at the fast-spreading crimson stain marring the front of her green velvet gown, as if it were a glass of wine she'd carelessly spilled upon herself. She rose up on her knees, as if in supplication, and then toppled over. She was a corpse before her head hit the carpet.

“That was for Shanks,” Moore said. He turned his smoking .44 toward Chang. “Hold very still,” he warned the Tong leader.

Ki stared down at the lifeless, staring eyes of Su-ling. Blood seeped from the two bullet holes in her chest. He knelt down beside her body, and gently kissed her forehead. “I salute you,” he whispered tenderly. “Your death was a good one. Without honor there is nothing.”

The samurai was just descending the stairs when Chang made his move. His left hand flashed up to hurl a tiny blade, much like Ki's own
shuriken
weapons, at Moore. The little knife caught the detective in the right shoulder.

Moore clutched at the knife hilt protruding from his upper arm. His Colt fell from his trembling fingers. “Stop him!” he cried as Chang bolted for the door.

Ki was upon the man in a flash. He spun Chang around, at the same time delivering a
shuto-uchi,
or “knife-hand strike,” to the Tong's leader's neck. It would have killed any normal man, but Chang was not a normal man.

He shrugged off Ki's blow, and raised his taloned weapon in order to rake it down across Ki's face. Ki managed to lock his own left hand about Chang's extended right wrist.

“I
took what
you
wanted, Japanese,” Chang mocked as the two men struggled together, testing each other's strength. “I had her, and spoiled her—”

“And now I shall avenge her,” Ki said quietly, but his almond eyes burned. He began to squeeze Chang's wrist.

The veins cording the Tong leader's bald head began to bulge and throb, and sweat began to stream down his lizard-skinned face. He stared up at his steel claw, but‘he could not move it. Ki kept applying his awful pressure around Chang's wrist.

“L-let go!” Chang at first demanded, and then began to plead. The first clicking sounds of his wrist bones being crushed were heard by the now silent, awestruck witnesses. “My wrist! Let go-o-o!” Chang wailed. His steel claw now hung from the end of his outstretched arm like a dead leaf on a withered branch. Chang's wrist bones had been squeezed into shards by Ki's steely fingers.

Ki released the Tong leader, stepped back, and drove his fist full force into the man's solar plexus. Blood spurted from Chang's mouth as he fell forward, to twitch facedown upon the carpet for several seconds, before settling into death.

“You—you tore his heart open with that punch of yours...” Foxy Muscat whispered fearfully from her place on the couch. She and Mrs. Fitzroy were huddled there together beneath Jessie's watchful scrutiny.

Ki slowly stared up at Su-ling's body on the landing. “It is fitting,” he said softly. “Chang has torn mine...”

Chapter 15

Jordan Moore waited for Jessie in the lobby of the Palace Hotel. His stitched-up right shoulder ached slightly, and the sling the doctor was forcing him to wear to cradle the injured limb was a nuisance, but his arm would be as good as new in a couple of weeks.

The detective managed awkwardly to extract a cigar from the sling-shrouded breast pocket of his gray herringbone suit, and struck a match on the heel of his boot. He'd blown no more than one smoke ring before a waiter appeared to proffer a clean copper ashtray to replace the one Moore had “dirtied” with his spent match.

Moore thanked the man, and at the same time shifted in his armchair, trying to ease the pressure of the Colt .44 wedged into his waistband. Wearing his gun this way was a worse nuisance than wearing the sling, but at least he'd be able to paw it out with his left hand, should the need arise. He was a clumsy shot with his left, but a clumsy shot was better than nothing. Since Chang's death, the Steel Claw Tong had dissolved into ten feuding clans bent on waging war with each other over the disputed Chinatown territory. Most likely, they'd end up killing each other off, but until that happened, Moore wanted to make sure he could handle the situation if some opium-crazed Tong fellow should decide to avenge his master's death...

He glanced at the front page of the newspaper spread out on the table before him. It was filled with stories about the “opium and sex murder” of Waterfront Commissioner Smith. Between himself and Arthur Lewis, they'd been able to pull enough strings to keep Jessie's name out of the stories. The dead bodies of Greta Kahr, Chang, and Smith were certainly not going to implicate her, and both Foxy Muscat and Mrs. Fitzroy were more than willing to go along with whatever was required of them, in exchange for train tickets out of San Francisco. Their bordello had been closed down. The scandal had put the house off limits to the wealthy clientele who had frequented the bordello and enjoyed its pleasures. Of course, another house would soon be open. After all, this
was
San Francisco...

Moore flipped through the paper until he reached the business section. Taking up a quarter-page was the sweetest news of all, as far as he was concerned. It was a large advertisement, offering for sale the waterfront warehouse of the Prussian cartel. Jessie had told him that with Greta Kahr's death, the loss of their clipper, and the scandal brought on by the exposure of their links with the Tong and opium trafficking, the cartel had lost all of their legitimate business connections. They'd declared their local offices bankrupt. The Prussians were finished in San Francisco.

Moore stood up as Jessie crossed the lobby and approached his table. The detective couldn't help noticing how every man in the lobby followed her with his eyes, but Moore had long ago given up any thoughts of jealousy. It made no sense for a man to think he could ever own Jessica Starbuck.

“You look beautiful,” Moore grinned as Jessie kissed his cheek. “Do we have time for a drink?”

“Later. I want to go down to the waterfront. You've got to see the cartel's warehouse!” she chattered excitedly.

“But why?”

Jessie tapped the newspaper lying on the table. “That ad the Cartel placed is old news, Jordan. We've already bought up their waterfront holdings!”

“I'd think the last thing the Starbuck business needs is another shipping dock,” Moore replied, now genuinely puzzled.

“You'll understand when you see it,” she laughed, tugging him along out of the sitting area of the lobby, to the area where they could flag a carriage.

Moore considered himself a tough interrogator, but he was no match for Jessie. She successfully resisted all his questions until their hack was wheeling its way along the Embarcadero.

“Oh,
we
don't need the property,” Jessie finally began as their carriage came to a halt. “Actually, buying it was Ki's idea.”

They exited the carriage to stare at the ramshackle dock building. “Great!” Jessie exclaimed. “We were just in time!”

Moore watched as the cartel's pennant was lowered from the building's flagpole, and as the Starbuck flag was hoisted up. The Circle Star emblem looked lovely, fluttering in the breeze against the clear blue sky. The detective looked around. “Jessie!” he suddenly blurted. “All the workers are Chinese!”

“Yes!” she laughed. “That's Ki's idea. He suggested that we sublease the building to Chinese workers. They'll handle the loading and unloading of our ships, and we'll pay them a percentage of the profits, until they've saved enough to buy the building outright. Then they can go into business for themselves.”

“Ki thought up all of this?” Moore asked slowly. “For the Chinese? Unusual behavior for a samurai...”

“Oh, well,” Jessie assured him. “He's a very special man. Ki says that this way, Chinese Americans can begin to establish themselves outside of Chinatown and, at the same time, maintain their dignity.” Jessie paused. “His exact words were, ‘their sense of honor... ”'

 

 

It was hidden deep in the darkest place of Chinatown. It was hidden in a subbasement, and reachable only by a rickety, steep, twisting set of wooden stairs.

One had to pass through several locked and barred doors to get to it. No white man had ever been down there. Indeed, there were many Chinese who had no inkling of its existence.

No Tong headquarters was so securely hidden; no opium den enjoyed such security. But if one were allowed to descend the rickety steps and pass through the doors, one would find oneself in another world.

It was a world of dim candles and sweet smoke wafting through the air, a world where men quietly sat in trancelike states of awareness. The smoke here, however, rose not from opium pipes, but from sticks of burning incense, and the men were not drugged. Far from it, for this was a Buddhist prayer hall.

Today it was crowded, for all of the monks who belonged to the sect were anxious to catch a glimpse of the stranger who had been brought here to pray for his loved one's departed soul. For a white man to be in this Chinese place was astounding, for a Japanese to be here was incredible, but for a half-white, half-Japanese—

Well, all of the shaven-headed, burlap-robed monks knew that the samurai named Ki was indeed an astounding and incredible man. Word of his exploits on their community's behalf had spread all across Chinatown. It was illogical, but nonetheless true—even Zen masters had a hard time accepting it:

A Japanese had proven himself the champion of the Chinese. He was their samurai.

Ki sat cross-legged on the polished wooden floor. He'd refused the offer of an interview with the hall's master, just as he'd refused to light the ceremonial incense. He was not sure why he had come to this place. He was not a religious man, but a warrior. He meditated not for enlightenment, but the more forthrightly to meet the enemy ...

He was not sure why he came here. Temples were bad for warriors. Too many
kami,
too many ghosts could surround one. So many ... One blade could never cut them all ...

Su-ling,
Ki thought.
See what I have left for you. Many of your people will prosper. They will be your children
...

He wondered what to tell her next. He wondered
how
to say it. All the while, he dreaded the time when he would have to say farewell to her hovering spirit.

It was then that one of those ghosts out of his past found him.

It was his old teacher, the master samurai Hirata.
What is this? the kami
scolded gruffly.
Weeping? That will never do! Do not mourn, but see to your blades! A samurai's blades can never be too sharp to cut through this world!

Smiling, Ki rose to leave the prayer hall.
One's
karma
is one's
karma, he mused.
One learns to live with it, and live it out.
There were many adventures left for Jessica Starbuck and himself to enjoy. Ki was ready and willing to confront them all!

Ki walked out of the prayer hall. As he left, there was not one monk who did not touch the floor with his forehead in homage to
their
samurai.

Look for
LONE STAR ON THE TREACHERY TRAIL
and
LONE STAR AND THE BORDER BANDITS
two more novels in the hot new
LONE STAR series from Jove
available now!