The Vulcan Disaster

There is, however, one all-purpose rule of thumb in any kind of warfare, be it cold or hot, overt or covert, and it goes like this: keep your ass down.

So as my cab putt-putted through the dense morning traffic on its way to 68–72 Nathan Road, I hauled out Wilhelmina and busted her down and checked her out. She was full of goop where some fool had dropped her and then not cleaned her, and I promised to give her a real Number One scrub-down and oiling, first chance I got. Meanwhile, I scraped her down with the old pocket knife — it would have been a waste of Hugo’s delicate blade to use him — and, by the time I was ready to tuck the old girl away in her holster, she was at least in serviceable condition. She’d shoot. She’d shoot better clean; but now I knew exactly how far I could trust her, and I felt a lot better about that.

This didn’t sit well with the driver at all. The first time he looked back and saw me oiling a 9mm Luger, smiling and whistling, he came unstuck a little. We almost hit a cop, but we finally rounded the corner and shot down Nathan Road, past the Fortuna Hotel, into Tsim Sha Tsui.

I’d cracked that front door once before; I could do it in my sleep. In spite of all the to-and-fro traffic on old Meyer’s floor, I decided just to walk up and let myself in as though I were one of the family. I walked confidently up to the door; I fumbled in my pocket as a secretary from an adjoining office walked past; and, when she’d gone, I shoved that credit card home again, forced the bolt upward, and stepped into the room.

Sometimes you’re not sensitive to vibes, sometimes you are. That day I know I was. The minute I stepped inside I could feel something wrong. Don’t ask me what it was. There was just a tension in that room you could cut with a knife.

There was a noise in the rear, out the window.

I ran to the window and looked out, Wilhelmina held at the ready in my hand.

Down in the alley the big Israeli — Zvy — was racing around the corner. I heard the Jag’s motor fire up, race; Shimon would be driving this time. Why the hell hadn’t I spotted him in the street?

There was a noise down by my feet.

I looked down. There was a man there. His hands were pressed to his throat, but they wouldn’t do much good. As I watched, a gout of blood spurted forth from the gaping wound where somebody had taken a razor-sharp knife to his throat.

He couldn’t talk. The vocal cords had been cut.

He was dying, horribly, in a pool of dark blood. I noticed that his belt and fly were undone — and bloody. His killers had left their mark: a star in deep, red welts.

I knew him.

I bent over him, trying to listen, trying to catch that last desperate message he wanted to give me. My head was reeling. My heart was beating fast. My hand squeezed Wilhelmina’s scored grip as if my object were to tear the dark gun in half.

He couldn’t talk. His hands trembled in panic. He knew he was dying. The panic grew. One hand held his throat, hard. The other traced a single letter in the air, boldly, as if it meant to continue.

Then it fell.

I leaned back and slowly sat down on the stained rug, not really looking at anything. My eye kept lighting on little things. A spot of blood on my pants, from last night. The dead man’s gun, across the room on the floor. His sightless eyes. The gore at his throat. The gore at his crotch... I looked away.

Finally my eyes came back into focus again, and I got up wearily. My ribs ached, and I felt like an old man, beaten and defeated. I leaned against the filing cabinet, trying to get it all together; but I hadn’t got anything together at all when I tried to talk to the dead man. My voice came out a quavery old man’s croak.

“Fred,” I said, “this is going to cost somebody something. I promise you, so help me God I do. Somebody is not only going to get it, and painfully, but he’s going to have to beg me not to do it. And when he’s done with begging, I’m going to give it to him anyway. Just you watch, buddy.”

Fred, Goddamit...

Fred, why did you have to get in on this one? Why didn’t you just send some tyro to do it, the way Basil Morse would? Why did you always have to tackle the tough ones yourself, you crazy bastard? Why couldn’t you be cautious, like your boss? Why couldn’t you be yellow...

After a while I went to work. The filing cabinet, however, had been rifled — and the things that were missing were precisely the things Will had asked me to look for. I did a bit of useless cursing about that, and then I settled down to looking over whatever might remain. I didn’t know for sure what I’d be looking for, besides the obvious.

After a while I closed the file cabinet and went over and sat down and looked out the window.

A “G.” That was all I knew. Beyond that, and the fact that “G” was the other file letter Will had asked me to look up in Meyer’s files, I knew nothing at all of the one last despairing message Fredericks had tried to give me.