LITMIR.BIZ

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      “This is getting nuts. But maybe you’re right.” Maxwell frowned. “Well, let’s not get the cops involved. That’s the last thing we need right now.” He looked Murphy dead in the eye. “What do you suggest? I mean, you’ve seen this man. You claim to know what he’s capable of.”

      “Well, that’s just it. I’m trying to forget just what he’s capable of. Madness and magic, what more can I say? If the Devil does exist, I’d say he’s living somewhere in Chinatown, Chicago.”

      “Right, I’ve had enough of this.” Maxwell reached into a drawer and withdrew an automatic. He looked to his henchman. “Devil or not, he’s made a big mistake in muscling in on my patch. Get the boys together. Tell ’em that we’re going to sort out a little business in Chinatown. Tell ’em to come armed. And get Larry ‘the Lips’ on the phone. He’ll know where this slant lives.” He clicked home a magazine. “It’s time I paid this Chung-Fu a visit and put him straight about who runs this freakin’ town.”

      * * * * * * *

      Four cars filled with hoodlums rendezvoused on one of the wide streets opposite the Dow-Tung Restaurant. A typical pork and noodles joint, it was frequented by all manner of unsavoury types: immigrants, railroad workers, dockhands, and bums. This was where Larry ‘the Lips’ had said Chung-Fu held out.

      “You ready for this, Murphy?” asked Maxwell, looking out of the car window at the sleazy establishment across the road.

      “I don’t know.” It was an honest enough answer. He had seen things the other night that had dragged his sanity to the verge of breaking point, stretched it like toffee. And who knew what fresh terrors awaited them now? Just how effective would bullets prove against the terrible magic of Chung-Fu?

      “Let’s do this.” Maxwell got out of the car.

      More car doors opened, and a dozen men in long coats, their weapons concealed beneath, stepped out and followed him.

      Murphy walked along behind them.

      Pushing aside an old Chinese man who was smoking something suspicious from a long clay pipe, Maxwell went up to the front door of the restaurant and kicked it open. He then fired a shot in the air. “I’m looking for Chung-Fu,” he shouted.

      There was immediate silence. Confused, wrinkled faces turned to look.

      “I know some of you speak English, so I’ll ask once more. Where’s Chung-Fu?”

      No one answered.

      Maxwell shot a man nearby. “I’ll keep shooting till someone tells me.”

      The crowd inside grew hostile, but their hostility turned to fear when they saw Maxwell’s heavies gathered in the doorway, their Tommy guns and double-barrelled shotguns out. Murphy peered from within their ranks.

      Maxwell pointed his gun at another man. His heavy-handedness got results.

      “I tell, I tell!” The man raised his arms.

      “Where?”

      “Chung-Fu, he leaving for China. He being taken to shipyard. He decide he live here no more. He take man with two bellies with him, some others and he go.”

      “Two bellies?” Maxwell snarled. “Two-Bellies?!”

      “Little man in crate.”

      “Never mind a crate, I’ll put him in a box six feet under if he’s joined forces with the Chinaman.” Maxwell aimed the gun. “Which dock?”

      “I think he say Six.”

      “Are you going to go after him?” asked Murphy.

      “You bet I’m going to go after him. I hate leaving loose ends. Nobody crosses Teddy Maxwell and gets away with it.” The mob boss returned his gun to its holster and turned to his men. “Some of you remain here in case this son-of-a-bitch is lying. You see Chung-Fu, you shoot him like the rat he is.” He looked at Murphy. “Right. You and me are going to the dock. There’s a shipment bound for China that ain’t gonna get there.”

      * * * * * * *

      “Why do you think he’s getting out?” asked Murphy as the car, driven by one of Maxwell’s men, sped for the St. Lawrence docks. Evening was fast approaching and it was getting dark and foggy.

      “Don’t know. Don’t care. Maybe your visit the other night got him rattled. Maybe he thinks he’s going to get busted. I’ll teach him. What say you, ‘Muscles’?”

      “You got it, boss,” came the laconic reply from the back seat.

      “And what’s this about ‘Two-Bellies’ being in a crate?” asked Murphy.

      “Maybe he can’t afford a second-class ticket.” Maxwell grinned.

      Their surroundings became increasingly derelict and threatening. This was a foreboding, heavily built-up area that attracted some of the worst of human society. All manner of lawlessness took place here. Especially when, like now, the sun was going down.

      Murphy felt uneasy. Had done so ever since Maxwell had declared his intentions of pursuing Chung-Fu. Inwardly, he couldn’t help but think that it was the wrong decision, that nothing good would come of it, that it would only pile evil upon evil. Better to let him go and take his weirdness back to the Orient. He was now convinced that there was something unnatural about the other, something that went well beyond the normal and the understandable. What he had witnessed he could no longer, despite his best attempts, assign to the realm of trickery and illusion.

      “Right, ‘Weasel’. Look out for dock Six, should be getting near. I remember a few years back sending some loser to the bottom with concrete shoes on near here.” Maxwell laughed.

      The driver slowed down. In the fog it was hard to make out anything. The dockyard was silent. The great hulks of berthed ships and container vessels formed murky shadows.

      ‘Weasel’ noted a sign. “Dock Six.” He turned the car around and drove slowly in the direction shown.

      Before them loomed a massive Trans-Atlantic steamer. A few dockhands moved around, loading crates and boxes of provisions and necessities. Apart from that there was little other real activity.

      “They’re loading her up. Looks like she’s getting ready to depart in the morning,” said ‘Weasel’.

      “Yeah. In which case we’ve got to get to Chung-Fu now. Pull over.” The car came to a stop. “Right, leave the talking to me.” Maxwell got out.

      Murphy, ‘Weasel’, and ‘Muscles’ got out.

      Purposefully, the mob boss strode towards one of the workmen. “Any passengers boarded yet? A strange-looking Chinaman? Might have had a few others with him, including a big fat guy with a scar down the left side of his face.”

      “There were a couple of Chinese guys came just over an hour ago. Queer-looking folk. Didn’t say much. Told ’em they’d have to wait till the foreman got here in the morning afore we could load ’em aboard. They weren’t too happy, so we sent ’em down to Loading Bay Thirteen. Why are you asking? You a cop?”

      “Yeah, I’m a cop,” Maxwell lied glibly. “They’re shipping opium and guns out of the country. We gotta confiscate that contraband. Bay Thirteen, you say?”

      “Yeah. Just along there a bit.”

      “Thanks.”

      Maxwell, Murphy, ‘Weasel’, and ‘Muscles’ headed off in the direction given. It was strangely eerie in the deserted, evening docks. Everything was shadowy, gloomy, filled with a haunting apprehension.

      The loading bays were huge, warehouse-type structures.

      A cold chill crept into Murphy; a damp feeling that seemed to leak into his soul, filling him with fear. He found himself breathing heavily, mist forming before his face, fogging his vision further.

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