No shit, the man thought. Brilliant, punk. But he grunted noncommittally.
“Yep,” Chaingang finally said after they had eased down through the dark barrow pit, pronounced “barr pitt” by the people who lived there. “But this is potentially good property. You can still buy it right.” He mumbled some nonsense about land.
They drove slowly through a field that appeared to be maybe eighty acres or so planted in beans. And Chaingang stopped in a small access path that ran adjacent to a tractor turn row. He got out and the springs of the car groaned in relief. For the first time the boy got some idea of the bigness of the driver of the car.
“Let's go over and look over there. That's the part that I'm considering buying.” He intuitively knew that the kid had just felt a quick stab of uncertainty when Chaingang had gotten out of the car, and smoothing those feelings over now as he talked reassuringly of land and profits and business deals, popping the trunk and taking a blanket and some other things with him, and they began walking.
“All right,” the kid said as they walked through a crowded stand of willows and they saw the river for the first time.
“Man, it's hot,” Chaingang said to the kid as he pulled his huge shirt off.
“Right,” said the kid as he shook his head in agreement. Chaingang threw the old army blanket down on the bank under the willows. “We gonna stay here awhile?” the kid asked somewhat rhetorically as the huge man lowered his bulk onto the blanket and patted it for the kid to sit.
“Might as well be comfortable, right?"
The kid was relaxed now that he knew what the score was. He'd been down this road before. Big dude was all right. He'd get a ride and a blowjob and a big meal out of it, just like always. He sat very close to the big man.
“Man it's hot, ain't it?” the huge man said as he laid a gentle paw on the kid's Levi'd leg beside him. The boy seemed to move imperceptibly closer as he whispered, “Yeah. Really hot,” very softly.
“Slide outta those jeans. Let's see what all those fags have been sucking on,” Chaingang said to him, and the boy shrugged slightly and obediently began unbuttoning the fly of the bleached and faded Levi's. He wore cotton shorts and the big man said, “Take those off too.” As the boy was complying he felt something encircle one wrist and then another and his hands were suddenly behind him and there was a click as the steel bit into his wrists and it all happened as fast as he realized it had occurred, all in a quick, smooth, metallic SNNNIIIKKKKK that pinned his hands together behind him first one and then the other and he went, “Hey!” Still not scared just surprised, and the big man leaned over right by the boy's ear and whispered, “Now no big deal. Don't worry. I just get off this way, dig? I like to have a guy—you know, vulnerable.” Big smile. “For MY protection. I mean I could be doing something and you hit me in the head and take my car. I don't know you from Adam.” And then he was putting his weight on the boy and doing something to one of the legs and more steel no this time a kind of nylon rope was being snuggled up around his knee, then again at his right ankle and the big man getting up with a great effort and waddling over PULLING THE BOY BY THE ROPE as he walked, pulling him effortlessly, the boy protesting but even as he did so feeling his leg pinned up against the trunk of a willow. The kid feeling the first fear now for real. Leg right by the tree, and the man pulling out a huge knife.
“Hey, now, mister, please—"
“Oh, no sweat, babe. Really. I'm just cutting rope here.” And Chaingang bent over with a smile still plastered to his scarred face and sliced the rope near where he'd made it fast and brought the cut end over and started to tie it around the other ankle and the boy was going to kick the hand away but Chaingang had the ankle before he could make a move and then he ran the other end over to another tree, not tying it as tightly.
“There,” Chaingang said, repositioning the blanket and dropping beside the kid's body with a groan. “That's better, eh?” The kid was now nude, on his face in the hot sandy dirt, hands handcuffed behind him, legs spread. Nobody within howitzer distance. A passing barge maybe.
“OH,” the kid cried out.
Chaingang had eased the handle of the knife into the boy's rectum. Just playing.
“Sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you.” Very tender. And with that Chaingang took his own pants off and entered the boy from the rear. In that position the kid looked just like a girl from the back, he thought, and he began doing it to the boy, who only grunted under the enormous pressure.
“You like it, don't you?” he said to the boy.
“Yeah,” the kid said unconvincingly just as Chaingang quickly orgasmed. The kid saw a blur of movement and Chaingang was off him and up and moving away from him. The kid wondered if the crazy man were going to leave him trussed up like this. Damn. He had to get loose somehow.
“Yes,” Chaingang said with an immense, dimpled grin spreading across his doughlike face. He pulled a well-worn .22 Colt Woodsman, blued metal with checkered wooden grips, from the kid's belongings. He would bury everything else. “Yes,” he repeated, “I think we'll just hang on to this.” He looked at the kid on the ground. “As a souvenir.” And he racked a long rifle round into the chamber and tried it for balance.
It felt good and he aimed to the left of the kid's head about an inch but he missed, shooting the boy in the back of the left ear. There was screaming and lots of blood, and he barked out a laughing cough and muttered, “Calm down. I'll get the hang of this with a little practice.” And he shot the boy again, this time on purpose. “See? No problem.” He squeezed the trigger again. The trigger pull was crisp but it was okay. He could live with it.
HONG KONG (1977)
“They know where she is,” Eichord said to the smaller man beside him at the rail of the ferry.
“Yeah.” Jimmie Lee nodded. “I ‘magine so. You have to understand the way these people think. This ain't Chinatown, Jack. This is a"—he searched for the right word—"whole world with a set of laws and rules and traditions you can't begin to realize."
“Try me."
“You're not just an outsider here, coining in to investigate a murder in Chinatown. With all the aura that goes with any policeman in the States. All the force and backing and cultural influences. But here"—he shook his head at the hopelessness of it—"they see you as nothing. Or me. Any cop from the Occidental world. Our ways have no meaning to these people, so our laws don't either."
“Yeah, well, there's law and then there's right and wrong. This woman is a killer—and she's murdered again and again."
“Thing is, Jack, it's a society that takes care of its own. And she is"—again Eichord felt him trying for a way to put the disparate values into currency a Westerner could spend—"connected to something that is bigger than anything you've ever come up against. No puny Mafia or organized religion or even philosophy can touch this thing the Chan woman was. She is"—and he said a Chinese name—"which means Shadow Clan. But that is not what it means at all."
“Yeah?"
“You don't give a shit, right?"
“Right. I don't shiv a git. I ain't goin’ back without her."
“Right."
“Not after coming this far. Not after having my chain yanked by those asshole lawyers. Not after fightin’ ‘em even to ARREST much less fucking go after a twenty-year-old prosecution. And then get all THAT rammed through and then track her this far and then lose her murderous old butt because she's, uh—"