Chapter Thirty.

Old Chan Chi Kham's shop was squeezed in between an unlicensed Dentist's parlour on the one side, and a Mah-jong-cum-opium den on the other. The interior was lit by an incongruous candelabra made up from a few twists of a silver-coloured metal studded with bare, globe-shaped domestic light bulbs that made no attempt to resemble the candle bulbs that one would normally expect such a light fitting to exhibit. The light that they threw was dim and yellow; and powered by electricity illegally siphoned from the Hong Kong grid through the maze of overhead wiring.

Shadow Serpent nodded at the old Chinese shopkeeper, chose a shadowed corner, and ordered a beer and a bowl of Dim Sum...bite-sized dough envelopes packed with minced shrimps or vegetables or various meats, then steamed or deep-fried, and eaten with a touch of soya, and saucers of chicken and other meats in various sauces; and began to wait. One of the tables was occupied by four coolies who were noisily sucking noodles and soup into their mouths. They glanced at Shadow Serpent briefly, and then carried on with their meal.

As Shadow Serpent consumed his bowl of food, the old Chinese proprietor shuffled over.

You want more Dim Sum?'

He asked. His black eyes were just slits in his high-boned, wrinkled face. Shadow Serpent looked up.

'No thanks. Just another beer.'

'No more beer.'

'Fuck you and all of your mongrel line…'

Shadow Serpent hissed in perfect gutter Cantonese.

'… Am I a fool from the Golden Mountain? No, I'm a guest in your shit-hole restaurant. Get me another beer or I'll slit your secret sack, grind the contents to mincemeat, and feed them to the nearest mangy dog!'

The old man said nothing. Sullenly he went behind the ramshackle bar and pulled out another bottle of Tiger beer; opened it, brought it back and thumped it down on the table in front of Shadow Serpent. The other diners gaped at the sinister Eurasian, whose response was to hawk loudly, spit on the grimy floorboards, and lock his cold, piercing blue eyes on the coolie nearest him. The man shivered and looked away. Uneasily the others went back to concentrating on their bowls; uncomfortable to be in the presence of this bun tòhng faan who could swear so colloquially in their native tongue. Who was he? He carried the smell of death with him. He wasn't a recognisable member of Kowloon City's controlling Triads… at least; none of them had ever seen him before.

Their fearful uncertainty was broken by the appearance of another man. They certainly knew him. Sunset Cloud Tung entered and walked across the room to the stranger's table. Everyone froze He bowed slightly, sat, and began to talk quietly to the stranger. The fear in old Chan Chi Kham's eyes was almost palpable. He had dishonoured an associate of the 14K Brotherhood Red Rod by his arrogant attitude. How long before he got a visit, and lost an index finger in retribution for his insulting behaviour?

The two men rose, and walked to the counter. Sunset Cloud Tung paid the bill, and the two men left the shop without another word or backward glance. As their sound of their footsteps receded along the passageway, the clientele of old Chan Chi Kham's shop breathed again.

Sunset Cloud Tung led the way through the network of staircases and passageways, cracks, and alleys that formed the inner warren of The City of Darkness. In here, the labyrinth was so complex that outsiders would not dare enter for fear of becoming lost. This area was so tightly packed that garbage blocked off parts of buildings and many occupied dwellings literally never saw the light of day. These rat-runs were packed with unlicensed Dentists, Doctors, Surgeons, Restaurants, Brothels; illegal manufacturing sweat-shops, opium dens, secret factories, and unlicensed clinics, all overseen by Sunset Cloud Tung's Brotherhood. Business was good, and the 14K "Loh-pan"... the Triad Leader had ordered that the enforcer of the Korean Yu Leu Yong Brotherhood was to be afforded complete freedom and assistance to complete his assignment on their territory.

On the corner of Almshouse Back Street, Sunset Cloud Tung paused, and pointed to the mouth of another narrow, unlit passageway thrown into murky relief by the rays of a distant dangling light bulb half-way up the narrow, winding alleyway they had the nerve to call a street.

'Your prey is in the third dwelling on the left past the standpipe... the house of Lam Tseng Yuen, the noodle maker. Do what is necessary and we will tidy up after you.'

Shadow Serpent nodded and began walking down the squalid alley. At the standpipe, he turned and glanced back. Sunset Cloud Tung had disappeared. The alley was deserted. He turned again, and scrutinised the remaining length of the dim, rubbish-strewn tunnel of shadows. Nothing; except a figure in the distance under one of the yellowy light bulbs. A female figure, leaning against the frontage of what appeared to be a sleazy brothel, if the daubed characters on the flimsy sign dangling from the wall were anything to go by. Shadow Serpent gave a wry grin. Another ten-dollar, short-time yum-yum girl. It was unwise to go with them. Not many of the girls in the squalid brothels of the Walled City were clean or careful. She would be just another Triad-controlled whore with that sad, hard, young-old aspect to her face.

He reached the door of the third dwelling on the left, past the standpipe, and, drawing the shotgun, tapped on the flaking and mildewed plywood panel with its stock, and waited. There was a shuffling rustle behind the door, which creaked and grated open a few inches. He jammed the barrels of the weapon into the opening and forced the door open, to be confronted by an old man with stony eyes behind thick-lensed, wire-framed spectacles, wearing a tattered grimy undershirt and ragged trousers. The old man stared at the shotgun as though it was a sea devil that had just emerged from the alley sewer, and then let out a stream of querulous Cantonese. Shadow Serpent pushed him back, and hissed,

'Shut up old man. Where's the fucking seaman?'

The old man forced a smile, showing his gums and a few twisted teeth. His fingers were twitching nervously. He suppressed a shudder, and hawked and spat to scare away the evil spit god that lurked in all men's throats.

'Honoured Lord, this is a pleasure...'

Shadow Serpent let out a deep audible hiss of exasperation.

'Don't fuck me about you old fool. Where is he?'

Forcing another smile, the old man said in Cantonese;

'The one you seek is in the room at the top of the stairs.'

Shadow Serpent pushed past him and surveyed the stairs. They were rickety and rubbish-strewn; the wall plaster was cracked and mildewed. The stairs would creak regardless of how careful he was as he ascended them. The bannister wobbled precariously as he stepped onto the bottom step. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that the old noodle-maker had shuffled away into the room off the grimy space that served as front hallway to the building.

The naked light bulb flickered, casting moving shadows across the creaking stair treads. It was impossible to climb these stairs silently. At the top was another shabby door. Shadow Serpent paused and broke the shotgun. He pulled a piece of cloth from his pocket and cleaned the brass bases of the cartridges. A misfire due to crap on the firing caps was the mark of an amateur... and he prided himself on being a professional. Snapping the barrels closed and latched, he prepared to move on up the staircase... the next tread gave an anguished creak... the bastard must be able to hear him approaching... then, it began to rain. It began pelting down, drumming on the corrugated iron roof and drowning out any creaking of the squalid staircase. Shadow Serpent moved swiftly. At the top of the stairs he reached for the rusty doorknob... turned it, and pushed. The door swung open on squeaking hinges, and he saw his prey.

The room was a pigsty. Paper was peeling off the walls; the window was boarded up and glassless. The only light came from a dim, bare light bulb hanging from a mildewed flex. The drumming of rain on the roof was augmented by a soft whimpering and the slap of flesh against flesh. The Korean was on his knees, thrusting with his skinny buttocks, and bent over the shivering naked body of a young Chinese girl, who was tied face down and spread-eagled on the soiled mattress of an old, rusty iron bedstead.

Shadow Serpent levelled the shotgun and snapped,

'Stop that! Stand up and turn around!'

The man made no move to obey the order, not even when Shadow Serpent repeated it more loudly. Eyes shut, with his head thrown back; he continued to convulsively squeeze his engorged penis in and out of the tight little bud of the Chinese girl's anus, with his knees bent and trembling. Shadow Serpent was across the room in two or three strides. He grabbed the man and punched him hard on the side of the head. He might as well have not bothered. The man didn't even break his rhythm. He took absolutely no notice of the impersonal black eyes of the shotgun barrels that really couldn't have cared less which part of his sweating carcass they were about to open up.

Shadow Serpent cursed under his breath, jammed the shotgun back into its holster and drew his French Modèle 1935 pistol, which he had picked up in the First Indochina War and had carried ever since. He yanked back the slide to chamber a round; pointed the pistol at the back of the man's head, and almost casually pulled the trigger; blowing the man's brains out across the back wall of the room. The man keeled over, toppled off the girl, and crashed to the floor, his shattered head spurting a smoke-plume of steaming blood; his still-erect penis slowly slumping over to one side like a tree bending in the grip of a typhoon wind. Shadow Serpent pushed the body to one side as he untied the shivering girl. Her skin was cold, and she smelt strongly of semen. There was no telling how many times this bastard had jigged her, or for what length of time. She looked as though she was only about fifteen. Her face was badly bruised and her lips were split and bleeding. Shadow Serpent swore viciously and kicked the twitching corpse.

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A grubby bedspread lay crumpled in a corner. He pulled it over the senseless girl and scanned the grim room. The man's clothing was thrown over a battered, stained chair in the corner. Methodically, Shadow Serpent went through the pockets. In an inside pouch stitched to the frayed waistband of the trousers, he discovered a little velvet pouch tied with a silk cord. He tipped the contents out onto the bed. The Diamonds and Rubies smiled up at him in the thin light; but it was the pigeon egg sized Garnet that held him spellbound. The stone lay on the soiled bedspread, reflecting and refracting the flickering light from its perfectly-cut facets. Deep in its heart, there glowed a tiny pinprick of a perfect, blood-red spark that seemed to pulse in time with his heartbeat. He scooped the stones back into the pouch and put it into his inside pocket. Chambering another round in his pistol, he shoved it into his jacket pocket and came back down the stairs. The old noodle-maker poked his head around the door of the hallway. Shadow Serpent paused.

'Go and look after the yum-yum girl. Someone will be along later to see to the stiff.'

The old man looked hurt.

'She is no yum-yum girl, Master... she is my number-four daughter. The Korean paid ten dollars for her company.'

Shadow Serpent stared at him. He was hard-pressed not to smack the old bastard in the mouth.

'Yáuh móuh gáau cho, sihk sí gáu?'... 'Are you out of your mind, you shit-eating dog?'

The Old man cowered away as Shadow Serpent shoved past him, steeped into the alley and slammed the street door hard enough to shower rotting plaster from the walls.

Angrily, he turned and retraced his steps. He didn't bother to check if the alley was deserted; such was his indignation at the old noodle-maker's lack of care and respect for his daughter. At the end of the alley, he paused. Almshouse Back Street was deserted. The rain hissed off the walls of the narrow, winding alleyway, and threw reflected shadows off the pools and streams of filthy water collecting among the piles of rubbish as it gurgled into the open drain that ran down the centre of the alleyway.

He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets and started along the alleyway, trying to remember the way out of this jumble of contorted alleys and dripping pipes. As he turned out onto Lo Yan Street, he saw her standing under a shophouse awning. She was wearing a gaudy cheongsam slit high on her long, shapely legs. She looked to be in her mid-to-late twenties; but it was difficult to tell in this dim half-light.

The old noodle-maker had really pissed him off. Perhaps an "up against the wall" with a ten-dollar, short-time yum-yum girl would calm him down. He approached her, and she stepped out into the light of a swinging overhead bulb. As the light fell upon her, he noticed that she didn't look like most of the girls who loitered in the dim alleyways. She had white teeth, dark hair, dark sloe eyes, and lovely golden skin. She smiled enticingly.

'You want jig-jig?'

Shadow Serpent looked at her.

'What's your name?... And how much?'

'I am Lily Fu. You want suckee-fuckee? Twenty dollars, long time.'

Shadow Serpent nodded.

She took him by the hand and led him off along Lo Yan Street, then turned right into a narrow ally that ran behind the Tin Hau Temple compound toward Tin Hau Temple Street. She pulled him into a darkened doorway and slipped her hand down to stroke his crotch through the tightening fabric of his linen trousers. As he began to stir and stiffen, she took her teasing hand away, and held her other hand out for payment. Shadow Serpent paused his fondling of her pert buttocks, took his eyes off her face for a moment as he reached for his wallet. It was the last thing he ever did.

The slender, eight-inch stiletto blade that suddenly appeared in her teasing hand stabbed horizontally through the left side of his neck almost faster than the eye could follow; severing both carotid arteries and his spinal cord. His eyes widened in surprise, then went blank. Shadow Serpent was dead before his carcass hit the floor of the stinking alley.

The girl, who went under the false name of Sophie Thị Chung, smiled coldly, bent down to the lifeless corpse, and systematically searched it. The shotgun and the pistol were thrown over the wall of the Tin Hau Temple compound. His wallet contained two- thousand Hong Kong Dollars. These, and the little velvet pouch containing the gems were carefully slipped into the buttoned bodice of her cheongsam. Pulling the stiletto out of his neck, being careful to avoid the spurting blood; she wiped the blade on the corpse's immaculately-tailored linen jacket and slipped it back into its sheath attached to her thigh, and concealed under the slit of her cheongsam. Then turning, she walked back out into Lo Yan Street, the tip-tapping of her high heels echoing hollowly down the narrow, paved alleyway. At the end of the street she turned right, and walked the hundred yards north into Tung Tau Tsuen Road to where a sleek black Chrysler Crown Imperial limousine with Hong Kong Island licence plates was waiting at the kerb with its engine idling in neutral.

As the girl approached the car, the driver, who was dressed in an immaculately-cut, dark suit, got out of the front seat and deferentially opened the rear door for her, bowing slightly as she settled into the plush leather rear seat. He then walked back around to the driver's door; climbed in, slipped the vehicle into gear; and the limousine sped away towards Downtown Kowloon. In the rear compartment, the girl pressed the switch that raised the dark, opaque-tinted divider window and slipped out of her soaking cheongsam. Drying herself with a big fluffy towel, she then dressed herself in a silk blouse and chic two-piece suit which had been neatly folded on the rear seat. She then touched up her make-up and lowered the dividing window.

'Jimmy; is the boat waiting?'

The driver replied, without taking his eyes off the road.

Yes Madam. They are waiting at the Star Ferry pier for you.'

She nodded.

'Good. I must see my father immediately.'

The driver nodded.

'Yes Madam. There is another car waiting for you at the Chater Road pier on the other side of the harbour.'

The black Chrysler limousine purred down Salisbury Road and stopped in front of the Star Ferry Terminal. The clock in the low tower over the entrance read nine pm. Two tough-looking Chinese dressed in similar dark suits to the driver approached and opened the rear door for the girl to alight. As she stepped out of the limousine, both men bowed, and escorted her down the covered pier to where a Chris Craft Custom Runabout motor launch... a sleek, nineteen-feet of varnished red, and blonde mahogany with a white-pleated leather upholstered dashboard and red leather seats, waited, with its six-cylinder engine quietly burbling away. Deferentially, they helped her down into the launch's aft seats, pushed off from the pier and headed out across Victoria Harbour towards the glittering necklace of lights, three-quarters of a mile away on the waterfront of Hong Kong Island.

Ten minutes later, the launch came alongside and tied up to the pier to the west of the elegant renaissance-style Hong Kong Club building. A black Packard Super Eight Limousine was waiting in front of the imposing facade of the Central pier. As the two men helped the girl out of the boat onto the pier and approached the waiting limousine, the driver opened the rear door for the girl and bowed. As she settled herself on the spacious dark blue Bedford cloth upholstery of the deep rear seat, her two escorts slid into the front seat beside the driver, who pressed the engine self-starter, engaged gear, and swept out into Queen's Road Central, with its tyres whimpering on the asphalt; past the monolithic Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, said to be "the tallest building between Cairo and San Francisco;" and headed out of Victoria City in the direction of Magazine Gap and its junction with Peak Road that led up to Victoria Peak.

As the limousine wound its way up the sinuous Peak Road towards its destination, the girl switched on the car interior light and tipped the contents of the little velvet pouch into her lap, appreciatively studying the gems. The big, pigeon-egg-sized Garnet was beautiful. The tiny blood-red spark in its heart twinkled seductively. Yes, she could see why her father coveted this gem, and why so much time and expense had been invested in tracking it all the way from Europe. She allowed herself a tiny self-contented smile as she replaced the gems in the little pouch.

The limousine turned onto Lugard Road and drove in through the imposing gates of the large white mansion on The Peak... the best locality in Hong Kong; the exclusive residential area formerly reserved for non-Chinese. The driver proceeded up the sweeping drive and stopped outside the Colonial pillared entrance. A servant ran to open the rear door; the girl alighted and entered the building followed by her two escorts. Another servant obeisantly conducted her to the drawing room, opened the door and bowed deeply; backing away as she entered.

She walked across the vast expanse of finest English Wilton carpet to the figure that stood nonchalantly by the massive marble fireplace. Standing before him, the girl bowed, with her hands clasped in front of her and her eyes lowered. The man closed his hands over her's and she raised her eyes to him. He smiled, and spoke.

'Well, my Daughter; your commission was successful?'

She rose from her bow.

'Yes, my Father. The Shanghai "bun tòhng faan" is now rat-fodder, and I have secured your desire.'

She held out the little velvet pouch and gently, and respectfully dropped it into his outstretched palm.

David Wai Cheung; Overlord of the Nine Dragons... the collective body of the most influential Hong Kong Triads; feared and revered throughout the Colony and The New Territories as "Justice" Cheung for his personal brand of summary arbitration... a nine- millimetre bullet in the back of the head, imposed on Triad members for transgressions; tipped the contents of the pouch into his hand, studied the gems and smiled

'You have indeed done well, my Daughter. I never doubted your acuity; but how did you succeed in besting this Shanghai Pig? His reputation was daunting.'

Claudia Cheung smiled demurely at her father.

His reputation was obviously overstated, my Father. It was not difficult to distract, and then dispatch him.'

Justice Cheung raised an eyebrow.

So, what distraction did you employ, my daughter?'

She smiled again.

'I masqueraded as a Yum-yum girl within the Walled City. All men are the same when they begin thinking with their genitals. I lured him down an alley behind the Tin Hau Temple, and whilst he was reaching for his money, I ventilated his neck with my stiletto.'

Justice Cheung's face became solemn.

'You didn't...'

Claudia Cheung put her hand to her mouth to hide a tiny giggle.'

'Of course not, my Father. My honour is secure.'

Justice Cheung nodded.

'Of course it is. It is unthinkable that you would permit it to be otherwise. Forgive me, my Daughter for even imagining it.'

He replaced the Garnet in the pouch and tipped the remaining gems into her hand.

'For you. Get your favourite jeweller in Kowloon to make you something pretty with them.'

Claudia Cheung slipped the stones into her jacket pocket and bowed deeply.

'Thank you, my Father. I am honoured by your generosity.'

Then stepping backwards to the door, she bowed again with her hands clasped in front of her, turned, and left the room.