Christopher, Paul Rembrandt's G

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.It was neatly packed with expensive-looking foul-weather gear.Gill Ocean Racer in bright blues and red and yellow.Expensive.The previous owner had been careful and meticulous.The people who came after had been pigs.But that was over now.There would be balance.Fu Sheng brought the half-naked man stumbling down the short companionway into the salon.The other soldier brought the girl.The girl dropped down onto the settee and curled up, sniveling through the blood bubbling out of her torn mouth and the crushed remains of her nose.Fu Sheng pushed the man in the boxer shorts onto the bench in the breakfast nook.Khan sat down across from him.The man looked frightened now, something scurrying behind the small blue eyes.“You know who I am, don’t you?” Khan said.“You’re Khan, the pirate bokap.”“And you’re the Surfer Dude Bandit.”“Is that what they call me?” The man gave a sour little smile.“You robbed convenience stores.”“Yeah, I did that.”“And then you came here.”“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”“You think you’re a funny man.”“Sometimes.”“But not now,” said Khan.“This is not a joke.”“No, I guess not.”Khan reached into the pocket of his combat blouse and took out a small, gleaming wafer of metal.He placed it on the Formica surface of the table between them.It was a gold bar, approximately one inch by two inches, the corners gently rounded.There was a circular, sixteen-petaled imperial chrysanthemum stamp at one end and below it the numbers 777.“You recognize this?”“No,” said the man in the boxer shorts.“You’re lying.” Khan looked up at Fu Sheng, who stood beside the table.“Nia tangan,” he said.Fu Sheng reached down, grabbing the half-naked man’s arm.He pulled a short length of surgical tubing from the pocket of his combat blouse and wrapped it tightly around the wrist.“What are you doing?”“It’s to stop the bleeding,” said Khan.“What bleeding?”In a single smooth motion Fu Sheng swept the long bolo knife out of its sheath and brought the razor-sharp blade down onto the man’s hand, cutting through the fingers at the first joint.The little stubs of flesh bounced with the blade and dropped down onto the deck of the salon.White-faced,the man in the boxers stared down at the blood and the remains of his hand.Fu Sheng re-sheathed the bolo and pulled the surgical tubing even tighter.The bleeding from the stubs of the fingers slowed.The blond-haired man looked as though he was going to faint.On the settee the naked woman stared at the ruined hand and the chunks of flesh on the deck and vomited.“It’s a one-ounce gold bar from the Nippon Ginko Bank.Japanese.World War Two vintage.Do you recognize it?”“Yes,” answered the man, teeth clenched.“You sold it to a Malay bullion dealer on Labuan named Wei Yang.” Labuan was a freeport island a few kilometers off the coast of Brunei.“Yes.”“Where did you get it?”“A guy I met… in a brothel.Chinese.”“What was his name?”“I didn’t ask.”“Where did he get it?”“He took it from a boat.”“What boat?”“A smuggler.Tried to take him.This guy took them instead.”“He killed them?”“Yes.Killed all of them.”“How many?”“Five.”“What kind of boat?”“Looked like an old pearling lugger.Could have been an old trawler.Hundred tons maybe.Some American turned it into a live-aboard years ago.The smuggler killed him, took it.Fast, big engines.Not enough guns, though.” The man with the ruined hand made a deep moaning sound.His face was the color of ash.Shock.He’d pass out in a few minutes.“Did the boat have a name?”“Pedang Emas.”Gold Sword.“Out of what port?”“He didn’t say.”“Zamboanga?”“Maybe.Maybe it’s a gypsy.No port.”“Why did he tell you all this?”“He wanted to sell me the gold bar.He was drunk.Full of himself.Boasting.”“Where did this happen and when?”“Two months ago.Kampong Sugut.”A village off the coast in Kudat Province.The east coast on the Sulu Sea.Three nights’ journey in the Black Dragon.The Gold Sword had probably made the lucrative run from Zamboanga carrying anything from drugs to weapons from the Chinese mainland.“Did the Chinaman question the smuggler about the gold bar?”“I don’t know.”Khan looked up and nodded at Fu Sheng.He unsheathed the bolo and raised it.The man with the mutilated hand winced and jerked away.“Did he ask about the gold bar?” Khan repeated.“Yes.”“What did the smuggler say?”“Some story.Stupid story.”“What story?”“A man on a raft.”“What about him?”“He was wearing a uniform.What was left of one.”“What kind of uniform?”“He said Japanese.”“Japanese?”“World War Two.”“And the gold?”“He offered it to the smuggler if he would take him aboard their boat.He said he had more.The smuggler tortured him.He died before he could tell him where it was from.”“A crazy story.”“Yeah, crazy.”“Kampong Sugut.”“I told you already.”Khan thought about the currents and the winds, imagining the raft and its occupant.He reached out and picked up the little gold wafer, rubbing the soft metal between his thumb and forefinger.“The little girl,” said Khan.“What?”“The little girl who was on this boat.”“What about her?”“You raped her, left her and her mother for dead.”“Yeah, so?”“What was her name?”“What are you talking about?”“Do you even know her name? You rape a child and you have no idea who she was?”“Screw you.”“Dia leher,” said Khan to Fu Sheng.He grabbed the man and forced his head back, exposing the throat.Khan curled his hand into a fist and punched the man as hard as he could, crushing the small bones and muscles in the larynx and rupturing the thyroid cartilage or Adam’s apple.The man’s throat immediately swelled and closed directly above the trachea, effectively stopping his breathing.His face began to turn blue and he started to struggle as he began suffocating.The girl looked on, horrified.“What’s happening?” she screamed.“What are you doing?”Khan punched the man a second time, breaking his nose and teeth and sending blood flooding down his sinus passages and his throat, drowning him now as well as suffocating him.“Bring him on deck,” he said to Fu Sheng in Malay.Khan slid out of the narrow booth and went out into the fresh air again, breathing in the heavy, ripe scent of the river and the jungle.Behind him Fu Sheng dragged the choking, dying man, whose eyes were bulging with terror now, his lungs desperately trying to suck in oxygen through his ruined throat.“Throw him over the side,” said Khan.He reached into the left pocket of his uniform blouse and took out a thin, hand-rolled kerak cigarette, lighting it with a kitchen match.He watched as Fu Sheng pushed the dying man over the side and into the muddy water.The man went under and then rose up again, arms splashing the surface of the water.The man’s face was very dark now and his long hair was plastered wetly across his features.He jerked hard as the first of the huge crocodiles struck him invisibly from below.He made a strangled, screaming noise as the second reptile tore into his midsection, ripping away his legs and groin.The first croc surged upward out on the water, waggling the man’s torso in the air, his intestines squirting out around the immense, gleaming teeth.The man was still alive, head thrown back, his hands flapping weakly as the crocodile twisted away and brought its jaws together, crushing the man’s ribs and chest, then carrying him below the surface.“The story about the Japanese sailor again,” said Fu Sheng.“You believe it?” Khan asked.“It is the third time we have heard it now.”“There have been rumors of it for years [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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