“So,” he said again. “We have two witnesses now who swear, or affirm, or whatever it is, that the pair didn’t draw their guns until after you shot Pai.”
“Who’s the other witness besides the twelve-year-old?” Vicker said.
“Dye, of course,” Carmingler said.
“Shit,” Vicker said.
“So it would seem that you knew who the two gentlemen were before they even produced their guns. It would also seem that you had a very good reason for shooting Pai. I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me what it was.”
“It’s the reason I gave you,” Vicker said.
“Yes,” Carmingler said. “Well, I think that does it nicely. You’re through, Vicker. Don’t remove anything from the office. Any personal effects will be sent to you. So will your back pay and leave time, if you have any coming. And by the way, don’t try to stir this up in any fashion. Special Branch is still awfully anxious to talk to you and we’ve had a hell of a time smoothing things over.”
Vicker looked at me and then back at Carmingler. “This goes to the review board, fella.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Carmingler said. “Not if you think about it, it doesn’t. Those two Chinese gentlemen. The opposition, as we’re so fond of calling them. Unless they came in with drawn guns, you couldn’t possibly have known who they were. But they didn’t. That indicates that you knew who they were and that, I think you’ll agree, might lead us all down a rather rocky path. We don’t want that, Vicker, and you’re lucky that we don’t. Very lucky. So don’t press.”
Vicker frowned, first at Carmingler, then at me, and then back at Carmingler. It was a very sincere frown. His voice was level and low when he spoke. His brown eyes were steady. He lied beautifully. “I thought it was a setup when I shot Pai. I still do. What I think is in my report to you and I don’t care how many so-called eyewitnesses Special Branch dug up. Somebody had to be the goat. Someone picked me and then sent you out to give me the news. I don’t blame you, Carmingler. You’re just the chore boy.” He turned to look at me then. “But you’re something else, Dye. You’re really something. I owe you a lot. I really mean that. I owe you a hell of a lot and one of these days I’ll remember to pay it all off.” He rose then and headed for the door. He stopped when he was almost there and then his right arm flashed under his coat and a .38 revolver appeared in his hand, the twin of the Smith & Wesson that I had locked away in a suitcase. He was fast. Too fast for his age. He looked at the gun, smiled slightly, and then walked over and laid it carefully on the desk next to the sharpened pencils. “This belongs under office equipment, I believe,” he said, nodded at Carmingler, but not at me, and left.
Carmingler picked up a pencil and poked idly at the revolver. “Nasty things, aren’t they?” he said.
“I liked the part about the twelve-year-old boy,” I said.
“Yes.”
“There wasn’t any.”
“No?”
“No. It wasn’t even Star Chamber. Not even that. It was all laid on before you got here. It was locked in.”
“You disagree with the verdict?”
“The method maybe. Not the verdict.”
“The means,” Carmingler said. “You don’t like the means.” He picked up his pipe and got it going again. “You don’t really believe that we’d leave something like this to chance or whimsy?”
“Why not?” I said. “It would match everything else. Blend right in.”
Carmingler nodded and looked out the window. Another new building was going up. Hong Kong was booming. “There’re a couple of things I really like about old Vicker,” he said.
“What?”
“Well, first of all he lies better than you do.”
“Better than anybody.”
“Secondly, his reports.”
“What about them?”
“Very well written,” Carmingler said. “Damned fine reading, in fact. It’s a pity that there was hardly a word of truth in any of them.”
“Why press about the gun?” I said. “That wasn’t necessary.”
“Yours?”
“Yes?”
“I was told to.”
“You already knew.”
Carmingler nodded, picked up a pencil again, and used it to shove the short barrel of Vicker’s revolver back and forth. “You still don’t like these things much, do you?”
“No.”
“All because of your wife.” It wasn’t a question.
“That had a lot to do with it, but you knew that.”
“I had to ask.”
“Why?” I said.
“They thought you might have gotten over it, but you haven’t.”
“No.”
We sat there in the office for a while, neither of us saying anything. Then Carmingler shoved Vicker’s gun over to me with the pencil. “Here,” he said, “you can lock this one away with yours. I don’t think you’ll ever use one again.”
“No,” I said, “I probably won’t.”
Chapter 16
It must have been freezing inside Bridge House prison the day that Captain Toyofuku came for Gorman Smalldane and me. He really didn’t come for me, but Smalldane insisted that I be permitted out of the cell for the first time in three months, and Toyofuku simply nodded his agreement. He didn’t speak. It was the first decent thing that I had seen any of the Japanese do and I should have noted the date, but all I can remember is that it was sometime in March, 1942.
Escorted by two bundled-up guards, we were led to a small room on the second floor of Bridge House. It was warmer there and Toyofuku motioned us to a couple of chairs. He sat behind a table, stripped off his gloves, and produced a package of cigarettes, offering one to Smalldane.
“How about the kid?” Smalldane said, taking a cigarette. “He hasn’t had a smoke in three months.”
Toyofuku looked at me, shook his head sadly, and offered me a cigarette. I accepted it with a grateful sitting-down-type bow.
After we were all lighted up, Toyofuku gazed at Smalldane and said, “You’ve got a lot of big-shot friends in the States, don’t you?” His accent was pure California, which meant that it had about as much regional character as a bowl of cold oatmeal.
Smalldane picked it up. “I’ll make two guesses. The first is UCLA. The second is Southern Cal.”
“Berkeley,” Toyofuku said. “Class of thirty-eight. Your son’s too young to smoke.”
“That’s what I’ve told him.”
“Slap the shit out of him a couple of times and he’ll stop. It’s not the Japanese way, but it works.”
“I’ll remember that.”
Toyofuku nodded approvingly. “Now let’s not go through how I was caught in Japan when the war broke out and was forced into the army. I wasn’t. I joined in 1940. I should make major next month. I like it fine and with a few breaks we’ll keep a lot of what we’ve already taken. Not the Philippines necessarily, but maybe Indochina, Malaya, the East Indies, and some of the islands.”