The Last Mandarin (32 page)

“These are friends,” Burnham said.

“Friends.” Kanamori's eye was wistful.

Burnham tucked the pistol away and slapped slush off his jacket. Feng let the pedicab coast to a swampy stop and asked, “Sir, is there news of my lady?”

“I know where she is,” Burnham said. “We are in plenty of trouble, and my brain is like one of those thousand-year-old eggs.”

“The famous Kanamori.” Hai squinted. “You look more like a plucked chicken than a butcher. So,” he said to Burnham, “you have found your man and lost your woman and there is no time to squander. What now?”

Burnham saw no way to lighten the blow, so looked Kanamori in the eye and said, “We take him to Sung Yun and swap him.”

“Sung Yun!” Sea Hammer flung up his hands. “Explain.”

“The wily Chinese. He has bamboozled the whole American army, and they have bamboozled me, and all to find our plucked chicken here.”

“Patriotic fervor?”

“Loot. In that bunker.”

“Goods?” Hai brightened.

“Plenty goods.”

“Then you cannot hand him to Sung Yun.”

“I would hand
you
to Sung Yun for that woman.”

Sea Hammer scowled.

“What does that mean, that look of an angry boar?”

Sea Hammer lost some fat. Fleetingly Burnham saw the cold gaze, the cruel intent visage, of the old guerrilla. “You traveled half the world for this one,” Sea Hammer said. The words boiled out angrily. “You took the prince's gold peice. You oiled the string and strung your bow and sharpened the arrow and trimmed the feathers. Now you will swap him for a musky fox, and in three months you will wake up one sunny morn and she will be just another stale vixen.”

“Not true, defile you! Can you not see a difference?”

“A difference! Each one is new and different. You smacked your lips and scratched your crotch over every peasant girl in Heilungkiang, and your eyes gave each the face of a princess—but the prick is blind, man, the prick is blind!”

“You fat bastard! Have you never loved? This is not a night's work for the long bone! It is the sun and the moon!”

“That is true,” Feng said. “It is the sun and the moon!”

“Ah, the ricksha man!” Sea Hammer said. “Another authority.”

Kanamori startled them: “It is the sun and the moon.”

“Naturally,” Sea Hammer said. “You save your own skin. Why go back and be hanged?”

“It is the sun and the moon,” Kanamori repeated, “and Wang also will kill me, after slow torture.”

“Wang! Which Wang?”

“Sung Yun,” Burnham told him. “His name was Wang Hsi-lin, and he was a great collaborator down Nanking way. I thought I heard the Wu accent but did not trust my ears.”

“Worse and worse! You sell a villain to a villain and call it justice. Do you not understand, man? This touches your warrior's honor! What are the sun and the moon to a man of no bones? What is long life with shameful regrets? What is love to a coward?”

“Coward! And who but a coward would leave a woman in villain's hands?”

“Hsüü,” Sea Hammer crooned. “You have another hard bone, you fool—namely, the head. Who speaks of leaving her? You grow old. Where is the archer I knew? Listen, you poor sad fornicator: you will take them both out.”

And leave you with the goods, Burnham thought, almost laughing. The man was breathtaking. Once a Sea Hammer always a Sea Hammer. The graveyard snapped into focus: bunkers and tombs, the muddy slush, the low mortared wall, streaked and mottled. “If we fail I will have your gizzard.”

Sea Hammer mocked him. The tiny brown eyes sparkled, embedded in the fat face like shiny currants in steamed dough. “What a squad we are! One lovelorn foreigner, one fat restaurateur, one ricksha man and one loony monkey.”

“Huuu,” Kanamori said, and pointed, but they were already on the move when the black sedan nosed through the west gate. Instinct prevailed: soldier's for Burnham and Kanamori; guerrilla's for Hai; assassin's and car hater's for Feng. They scattered and dove for cover.

Later, after Burnham had been shot and gone pleasantly woozy, he grew muddled, and for the rest of his life the precise order of events during the next few minutes escaped him. He drew his pistol behind a tomb and mindlessly, out of inertia, frustration and heartache, was preparing to squeeze off a round at the windshield when he heard Feng shout, “My lady! My lady!” He heard Ming's voice at about the same time—“Burnham!”—and heard doors slam. Slush trickled into his left sleeve. Without looking he knew that Hai was cutting a circle.

Burnham eased around the corner of the tomb, chin in the mud—take your peek at ground level, they'll be watching for you up above. He saw the black sedan. He did not see Hao-lan. Nor could he see Ming, but he assumed that the sedan was cover.

The first shots were fired by no human agency but by Yen's lemon, which came barking in, popping and backfiring like a whole platoon. The Packard swerved toward Burnham in a slithering rush as if terrified by the oversize sedan. It plowed into a patch of mud. Wheels spun, tires whined and possibly some buried babies were ground to hash. Yen hopped out brandishing a pistol, and all of a sudden everybody was firing at everybody else. With half China out for midmorning target practice, Hao-lan chose her moment: she slipped out of the sedan and dashed toward Yen's car in a low skimming crouch, until she bogged down.

And Burnham found himself
smiling
. By God, there she is!

He could not have said who was shooting at what. Ming and Liao were careless about cover in their excitement, and he saw them both. They could have been firing at him or Yen or the scuttling Hao-lan, or even Kanamori—but where
was
Kanamori? Yen could have been blasting away at Hao-lan or Ming or Liao or all three. There seemed to be considerable shooting on general principles.

Burnham took temporary leave of his senses. He regretted this later—he would always regret it when he remembered Sea Hammer—but he applauded it too. It was fitting. He had lost his heart; why not his head? Waving the pistol like some demented pirate, he charged toward Hao-lan.

As soon as Yen swerved away from the sedan he knew that he was losing traction, and he quickly realized that he was only digging himself deeper—into his grave perhaps. He hopped out of the car and came up shooting—or almost: the woman was in his line of fire. Hsü, to die for a whore! He held fire, adjusted his aim, recalled disappointing hours at the pistol range, and scored a near miss on Liao. He had no idea why anyone was firing, or at whom. Perhaps it was simply more useful than not firing, or more bracing to the temperament. Perplexed, he paused and glanced about. He saw a fat man surge up out of the ground some yards away. He saw Ming peer in all eight directions, hopping about like a marionette. He fired at Ming—it seemed reasonable—and missed. The woman was lurching and flailing on the soft slippery ground.

Burnham, too, was skating through the slush like a runner in a dream, but he saw only Hao-lan. He was aware of the skirmish, but it lacked importance and even reality. He seemed to be running in slow motion. Possibly he was committing a cosmic blunder, but that too seemed irrelevant, and also unlikely. It was the most Oriental moment of his life. The upshot of all this was ordained. The universe and its two powers, three principles and manifold events were truly in the hands of the gods, and man was but a derisory and powerless speck.

It was also his purest moment. He had no name, age or nationality; for those few seconds Hao-lan was his whole existence.

Hai had dived for a bunker, vaulted heavily into what he thought was a slit trench, and landed hard on concrete, paining both feet severely. By some magic, his pistol had leaped into his hand. This pleased him. Three years had passed, and while the warrior may pretend to long for peace and rest, there lingers always the heady memory of real life—that is, life at risk. The paradox had long troubled Hai. Presumably life was to be lived in normal ways: namely, in filling the belly, pursuing jolly sport with agreeable females, playing cards, cursing the government and gossiping. But all that was life lived unawares. Life fizzed and sparkled and the blood hummed like hot wine only when rivers rose, arrows thrummed and war horses whickered, when danger flushed the spleen, when mind, heart and hand were one, and death's cold breath raised the hackles.

So when he saw Hao-lan break for freedom he glowed with the first true happiness he had known for years. He was young and slim and deadly again, and death's cold breath cut shrewdly and roused him from a long sleep. To risk death for a whore, and another man's whore at that! Now there is style, by the gods!

He was scouting for a suitable target when he saw Burnham gallop forth.

He shouted, “Down, you fool!” but it was useless, and before he knew it he had leaped from his trench and was sprinting toward the sedan, firing as he ran, knowing that at this distance it was luck and not skill that aimed the weapon, but knowing too that any diversion favored the moving targets—Burnham, the whore and himself. His feet still hurt. He frowned fiercely. He flew, exulting, and heard himself cry “Haaa!” like the warriors of old, and felt his heart thunder.

Then the mud sucked at his cloth shoes and the thunder of his heart dulled to a painful hammering. The cry died in his throat as he labored for breath. He plunged on, but the world had slowed, and death's cold breath no longer animated him but rendered him sluggish. O gods! I am an old man and fat! Panting, he veered toward Yen's car. He saw the nasty young fellow in sunglasses firing at him. Hai Lang-t'ou returned the fire, but his vision was clouded and his hand unsteady.

Yen ceased fire and quickly checked the fat man, who had altered course. He recognized Sea Hammer, and tried to cover him by firing wildly in the direction of Ming and the sedan. The woman was half in and half out of his line of fire now. He was cursing her under his breath when he heard Sea Hammer grunt.

Hai was hit, and knew it: a hammerblow high in the gut. His mass, and the remains of his exhilaration, carried him some steps farther. The woman was nearing the car. He had hoped for a close look at her, to see what nature of woman could reclaim a weasel like the foreigner from flowered and willow-lined lanes. Curse the foreigner! I am dying and it is his fault! And curse his whore too!

He touched cold metal, clutched at the car's frame and dropped his pistol. He slipped down, scrabbled at the mud, knew that he had fallen beneath the car, heard a great rushing wind, saw the world spin and darken, and had just time to savor the last spark of hot pride.

Yen watched the fat man fall beside him, and turned quickly back to the fight. The uniformed policeman, he saw, was ranging on him, and it seemed to Yen that he saw the bullet leave the muzzle and fly toward him. He felt a flash of fire and slumped sideways into the slush. He did not beleive that he was dead, but he was suddenly quite tired. He had earned a rest. He slept. Even in his sleep he heard gunfire.

Hao-lan too saw Hai fall. She was sobbing, slipping, fighting her way toward Yen's car. Each shot refreshed her terror. She saw Yen fall. Burnham was somewhere; she had seen him. Her legs betrayed her, frozen and enfeebled by fear. Exhausted, she ran blindly. It seemed an hour since she had bolted; it was perhaps ten seconds. She hurdled Yen and lurched against the car, wailing Burnham's name. Hai had slumped beneath the car. Hao-lan stopped wailing, stooped swiftly, groped for a trailing wrist and felt for a pulse. None. Her vision blurred by tears, she wrenched open the door and tumbled into the driver's seat. The steering wheel was on the wrong side. She slammed the door, saw a key and turned it. She trod the accelerator: nothing. She saw Burnham hit and saw him fall, and her heart died within her. Then she saw him struggle to his feet. She jabbed at a button: the siren shrieked.

Ming drew down again on the struggling Burnham, drew down carefully and with deep satisfaction, but at the wail of the siren jumped a foot so that his shot went wild. Liao too was startled. They leaped back behind the sedan and crouched.

The bullet had torn into Burnham's forearm like a spear and spun him half around. He dropped his pistol, fell, groped for the weapon with his left hand and hauled himself erect to see Ming and the cop hoping to finish him off. He hit the deck rolling as the siren wailed. Ming and the cop scurried out of sight. Burnham shouted Hao-lan's name. He heard a motor catch and chug.

Feng and Kanamori crouched behind a bunker. Feng's knife was out and he was praying. A few yards off stood his pedicab with the two bags. All was at sevens and eights, the heavens had fallen, and Feng did not know what to do. He crouched beside Kanamori. All this was Kanamori's fault. His tenth Japanese, perhaps. If worse came to worst …

Hao-lan shifted gears; the car bucked backward. She shifted again; the wheels spun. Snow in Devonshire, and the Honourable's Humber; she remembered, and rocked Yen's Packard. At the third swing forward the rear wheels found traction and the car pounced ahead. Grinding in first gear, she set her course for Burnham, who was up and firing. She skidded and slithered toward him, and swung the car at the last moment to put the rear end between them and the enemy. Burnham tugged the door open and flung himself on the seat beside her. “Go!” They roared forward. “Hai is dead!” she cried. She cut behind a bunker and almost ran down Feng and Kanamori. Burnham shouted “Stop!” and she kicked at the brake pedal. “In, in, in!” Burnham shouted. Kanamori tugged at a rear door. “Oh Christ, locked!” Burnham said. “I can't! My arm!” Hao-lan dived for the rear door and loosed the lock. Kanamori scrambled aboard, wild-eyed. “Feng!” Burnham cried. “God damn it, Feng!”

Feng came racing. He tossed the two bags into the back seat and cried, “Go now, my gentleman! Hurry!”

“Inside!” Burnham roared.

“Here, the money.” Feng held forth Burnham's fifty dollars.