‘I promise. Not foolish. Do not wish for trouble, particularly as my father is owner of this store.’
‘Good girl! Just keep that pair of Chinese cabbages off my back.’
In spite of the trembling hands and the flicker of fear in her eyes, the girl gave a little giggle. ‘Those cabbages my brothers,’ she said, and the giggle stayed with him as he closed the door behind him.
There was nobody in the alleyway which led to another dark and narrow passage at the end of which he could see, like a light at the end of a tunnel, the bustle, noise and glare of the main street.
Hugging the right-hand side of the passageway, Bond moved softly towards the street, pausing at the top, flattening his body into the shadow and giving himself a small view of the front of the store through which he had gone. The girls were still outside, but there was no sign of Porpoise. Instinctively he looked back down the passageway, fearing that the tail had gone through the store after him and was now behind him. But nothing moved or stirred in the darkness.
As he turned to look again at what he could see of the store front, Porpoise came into sight. It seemed possible that the man had entered the store and discovered his quarry gone to earth, for he stood looking about him, his face showing perplexity, eyes darting all over the place. Finally he gave a deep sigh, shrugged his shoulders, turned and joined the crowd, hurrying back in the direction from whence he had come.
Bond started after him, for he was now anxious to know two things. Why was he being followed? Who had put this surveillance on him? He spotted Porpoise quite quickly on the other side of the street though the man appeared to be in a hurry and moved through the crowd with long strides, twisting his body this way and that to avoid too much jostling and bumping.
Remaining on his side, Bond followed, well behind for a couple of blocks, then pushed on faster as he saw Porpoise take a sudden right at an intersection. Perhaps he was heading towards Nob Hill, Bond thought; possibly setting up a stakeout of the Fairmont. If so, he should be easy meat and 007 would have the answers to his questions quite quickly. It was remarkable how easily people talked when you applied enough muscle to certain key points of the anatomy.
He crossed the road and was around the intersection just in time to see Porpoise diving into another side street, once more to the right.
Bond had no idea whether Porpoise had spotted him or not, but he was now committed. One way or another there had to be a showdown. He rounded the corner to find himself in a deserted narrow street. He was less than a block away from the noise and glare of the main thoroughfare, but suddenly this was a different world, silent, still and poorly lit. He slowed, walking carefully, keeping away from the wall and its many doorways in which Porpoise could quite easily be hidden.
Garbage was piled against some of the buildings, the rear exits of fast food joints, restaurants, clubs and stores, while extra light filtered on to the street from the rear windows of these places.
Still no sign of Porpoise. No sign of anybody, except for one sudden explosion of a girl pushing her customer out of a door and immediately propositioning Bond, who fended her off with the snarl he was beginning to perfect. It was no good being polite to these people of the streets, no good giving them a pleasant ‘Not tonight, dear, thank you.’ They understood four-letter expletives much better – the kind Woody Allen had described as ‘Go forth, be fruitful, and multiply.’
The street narrowed then turned abruptly widening into a kind of courtyard. There was Porpoise standing and looking about him as though lost. Now, Bond thought, now I can take him and find out what the hell’s going on. He took a step forward out of the shadow, then shrank back against the wall for two figures had appeared ahead of Porpoise, advancing from a wide double doorway above which an old weathered wooden sign hung, scrawled with Chinese characters.
The two were dressed in dark clothes, running suits most likely. Each wore a visored baseball cap and held baseball bats swinging easily in their hands. Bond automatically reached for his gun before he realised that he was unarmed. He had come on holiday and was quite unprepared for any kind of confrontation that called for more than the use of fists. There was no way he could take on this pair steadily approaching Porpoise, bats at the ready.
Porpoise threw one quick look over his shoulder, then called out to the men to stop, reaching for his weapon as he did so.
Bond saw one hand come up with a pistol, the other held some kind of wallet in front of his body as though it was a magic charm to stop evil. But the men kept coming.
He felt impotent, pushing his back against the wall, hoping the shadows would conceal him.
Then, as the pair of thugs came nearer, so others appeared silently from a doorway to Bond’s right, moving swiftly with no sound, bearing down on Porpoise’s back.
Bond wanted to cry out a warning, but his throat felt dry and constricted as he watched the inevitable which seemed to take place in horrific slow motion.
He saw Porpoise adopt a firing stance with legs apart and his pistol held in a two-handed grip, arms rigid in front of his body. In his mind, Bond imagined the finger already squeezing on the trigger, but before he could get off a shot, one of the men at his rear came within striking distance, raised his bat and swung with sickening force to the side of Porpoise’s head.
There was no human sound, only the horrific thud and crack as the bat connected and the target’s head smashed to one side, followed by the clatter as the pistol flew from his hands.
The first blow was like a signal for all four men to move in, though the initial crack to the head could well have killed. The solid baseball bats rose and fell as Porpoise dropped first to his knees and then to the ground.
Even when he was down, the quartet of clubs went on rising and falling, a macabre series of drumbeat thuds, thumping and cracking in unison until all that was left was a body with a terrible bloody sponge where the head had once been.
There was nothing he could do. No way to give an alarm or prevent this brutal overkill. So Bond backed away, still clinging close to the wall. Then he moved fast, avoiding the boxes and garbage as he hurtled back the way he had come.
He stopped running once he had reached the main street and walked at speed, weaving in and out of the people who still, at this late hour, filled the sidewalks. He felt guilt wash over him for a second and cursed his lack of any weapon or means to save the man. Then, as he began the long, thigh-aching toil back up Nob Hill, he realised that the guilt was really only a reflection of frustration at not having had the opportunity to question Porpoise. Why had be been followed? he asked himself again. Who wanted him under surveillance? Come to that, was the death of Porpoise just one of those unhappy timings – being in the wrong place at the wrong time – or was there some more sinister, premeditated reason?
The questions were to haunt him all that night as he lay in his safe and luxurious room high in the Fairmont. Bond dropped in and out of sleep, sweating and plagued by nightmares of a severed head being kicked around a schoolyard by a laughing gang of Chinese children.
At dawn he woke suddenly from one bout of deep sleep. Sitting bolt upright, he captured the image of the girl in the store from his most recent dream. The girl had first giggled and then thrown her head back, cackling, which showed her to have the razor-sharp teeth of a shark.
He called room service and ordered breakfast – just a lot of coffee and toast – there was little chance here of getting his beloved precisely boiled egg or the De Bry coffee, Tiptree strawberry jam or Cooper’s Vintage Oxford marmalade which made up his breakfast ritual back home.