Exploits (6 page)

Harvey said “Amen!” and jacked up the pace as the Temple of Kun Iam faded into the distance behind us.

3. The Insidious Oriental Dentist

Once we hit the mainland, Harvey and I parted company. He wanted to get right back into the rickshaw-racing business, but I decided to head off to Peking, which was the capital city of China and figured to have not only the most sinners in need of saving but the most opportunities to raise funds for my tabernacle.

Well, let me tell you something: it ain't no short hop from Macau to Peking. It took me six months to get there, during which time I picked up a smattering of the language, fell in love fourteen or fifteen times, and only got a personal tour of one calaboose. That was in a little town called Poshan, where the apple of my eye turned out to be the fruit of the local warlord's loins, but even that worked out for the good, because I lost a quick ten pounds on the prison grub and was more handsome than ever by the time I got the jailkeeper interested in a little game of chance involving the number twenty-one, and won my freedom.

By the time I finally got within hailing distance of Peking I wasn't looking my very best, not having changed clothes for the better part of half a year, and despite taking a plunge into any river I passed by I wasn't on the verge of turning into any nosegay neither, so I started scouting around the countryside for some of the Christian missions I'd heard had been built in these parts. It didn't take too long to find one, where I stopped in for a meal and a little discussion of the Good Book—I'm kind of weak on the Sermon on the Mount, but I'll match my knowledge of the why and how of all the begattings with the best of ’em—and on the way out I borrowed a new set of missionary clothes that I found drying on a clothesline, since I knew these fellers wouldn't begrudge them to a fellow Christian, and besides, I figured an act of inadvertent charity would put them in real tight with the Lord, Who appreciates such things if not done to excess.

I was still some fifty miles out of Peking when I managed to land a ride in the back of a truck that was hauling bales of hay into the city. It was getting on toward winter, and I didn't have no overcoat, so I just kind of burrowed into the hay and decided to catch a quick thirty or forty winks.

I was awakened by a tall, thin Englishman jabbing me with his cane.

“You!” he said. “Get out of there, and be quick about it!”

I sat up, rubbed my eyes, and saw that he was pointing a revolver at my middle, which got my attention right fast.

“What were you doing in there?” he demanded, and as I climbed out I saw that he had the driver out of the cab, too.

“Mostly, I was being woke up by an Englishman with a gun,” I said. “If this is a holdup, brother, I got to inform you that I'm a man of the cloth who's taken a temporary vow of poverty. I ain't got nothing to my name but the clothes on my back and my copy of the Good Book.”

He turned to the driver and jabbered something in Chinese so quick that I couldn't follow what he was saying. The driver, who looked scared to death, nodded his head and grunted.

“All right,” said the Englishman. “You can go.”

“Go
where
?” I said. “I don't even know where I am.”

The driver said something else, and this time it was the Englishman who nodded and grunted, and a minute later the driver hopped back into the cab and took off.

“
Now
how am I gonna get into the city?” I said.

“I'll drive you,” said the Englishman. “Where are you going?”

“Peking.”

“I mean, where in Peking?”

“I ain't figured that out yet,” I said. “Just getting here was effort enough.”

He peered at me intently. “You've never been here before?”

“As God is my witness.”

He kept on staring at me. “And you're really a man of the cloth?”

I held up two fingers and pressed them together. “Me and God are just like
that
,” I assured him.

“Excellent!” He walked me over to his jeep, which we both got into. “What's your name?” he asked, as we headed off toward Peking.

“The Honorable Right Reverend Doctor Lucifer Jones, at your service. Baptisms and funerals done cheap.”

“How would you like the opportunity to help me defeat Satan Incarnate, Reverend Jones?” he asked.

“Satan Incarnate?” I repeated.

He nodded his head vigorously.

“He lives in Peking, does he?” I said.

“Peking is his headquarters, but he has residences all over the world.”

“How many residences?”

He shrugged. “Fifteen, twenty, who can say?”

Which made the odds fifteen or twenty to one that he wouldn't be at home today, and I got to thinking that maybe I could appropriate a few Satanic artifacts for the local pawn shop.

“Sure,” I said. “Standing up to Satan is one of the very best things I do, me being a man of God and all.”

“Excellent!” said the Englishman. “It's been a long, lonely battle. But with you on our side, we just might win.” He paused for a minute. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Sir Mortimer Edgerton-Smythe.”

“Please to meet you,” I said. “Who else is on our side?”

“There's just you and me,” he said.

“And how many are in the opposition?”

“Who can say? Surely thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands. Perhaps millions. Have you ever heard of Doctor Aristotle Ho?”

“Can't say that I have.”

“He is the fiend who heads this secret organization,” said Sir Mortimer, his eyes blazing with hatred. “His father was a Grecian ambassador, his mother the daughter of a Chinese warlord. Nothing is known of his childhood. We
do
know that he spent three years practicing dentistry in Hangchou before he began his nefarious career by taking over the leadership of the local tong. From there he spread out, assimilating one criminal organization after another, until today he is the most powerful villain on the continent. His tentacles are everywhere, Reverend Jones. They reach not only into Peking, but to the capitals of Europe itself. He dreams of worldwide conquest, and he is more than halfway to his goal, and yet so careful has he been, so circumspect, that almost no one has ever heard of him.”

“You've met this Doctor Aristotle Ho?” I asked.

“Twice,” said Sir Mortimer. “The first time was in England, where I prevented him from stealing the Crown jewels. The second time was in Chunking, where I barely escaped with my life.”

“I assume you're working for the British government?”

“That's correct.”

“Why don't you guys just march in an army or two and blow him away?” I asked.

“We're operating in a foreign land, Reverend Jones,” he said. “We can't just send our troops in and destroy him. Our only hope is to prove that he is guilty of breaking international law, and then arrest him.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” I asked.

“The dragon is the key to it.”

“Dragon?”

“Doctor Ho keeps an enormous dragon on his estate,” began Sir Mortimer.

“There ain't no such things,” I said. “They're just imaginary beasts, like dinosaurs and unicorns and honest redheads named Bernice.”

“That's what I thought, too, until I saw it with my own eyes,” said Sir Mortimer. “But it exists, and it's the way we shall bring him down.”

“You plan to feed him to this here dragon?” I asked curiously.

He shook his head. “No,” he said. “Britain is a nation of laws. I intend to use the law to put an end to his villainy.”

“How is a dragon gonna help you do that?” I asked. “I thought they didn't do much except eat knights and virgins and things like that.”

“This dragon eats just about anything that moves,” answered Sir Mortimer. “The truck in which you were riding belongs to Doctor Ho; it was carrying hay and grain to fatten the cattle he feeds to the dragon. That's why I inspected it; I wanted to see if he was smuggling anything else into his fortress.”

“You still ain't told me how the dragon is gonna cause Doctor Ho's downfall,” I said.

“I'm coming to that,” said Sir Mortimer. “Every year Doctor Ho ships the dragon to a different city for the Chinese New Year festival: Honk Kong, Shanghai, once even San Francisco. The dragon remains for a week, and is then shipped back. Last year he shipped it to Rio de Janeiro.”

“So?”

“Reverend Jones,” he said triumphantly, “
there are only seventeen Chinese in Rio de Janeiro—and eleven of them don't even celebrate the New Year!
The man is obviously smuggling something, and if we can just find out what it is, we can put him behind bars for life!”

“When's the next Chinese New Year coming up?” I asked.

“Soon! The dragon is due to be shipped out tomorrow.”

“Exactly what do you think he's smuggling, Sir Mortimer?” I asked.

“That remains to be discovered.”

“And just how do we plan to discover it?”

“Tonight, after dark, we'll sneak into the dragon's enclosure and examine both the beast and its cage. If there's any contraband there, from drugs to jewels, we'll find it—and that will be the undoing of the insidious Aristotle Ho!”

The only reason I didn't hop out of the car right then and there was because I didn't believe in dragons. I figured Sir Mortimer was like so many other Englishmen I'd met, who had a passion for foreign lands but never remembered to properly protect his head from the vertical rays of the sun, and was now just a bit on the dotty side.

So you can imagine my surprise when we drove out to this huge estate after dark, and the first thing I heard was a roar that was like unto a volcano erupting.

“Good!” whispered Sir Mortimer. “We're in time! They haven't shipped him off yet!”

I opened the door. “Well, Sir Mortimer,” I said, “it sure has been nice knowing you, and if you ever need spiritual comforting, why, you just be sure to look me up.”

I started walking back in the general direction of Peking, but he ran around the car and grabbed me.

“Just where do you think you're going?” he demanded.

“Where's the dragon?” I asked.

“Right over there,” he said, pointing to the left.

“Good,” I said, heading off to the right. “I'm going
this
way.”

“I need your help, damn it!”

“You need a short list of funeral prayers for crazy Englishmen,” I said. “Little yellow guys who want to take over the world don't bother me none, but I ain't going into no corral with no dragon.”

“I thought you were sworn to combat evil wherever you found it.”

“I didn't swear to go hunting it up when it's peacefully minding its own business in its pasture.”

“My people have posted a million-pound reward to the man who brings Doctor Ho to justice,” he said desperately. “I'll split it down the middle with you!”

Which put a whole new light on things.

“Well, my tabernacle
does
need a new alter,” I admitted, “along with walls and floors and pews and a steeple and a ceiling. You got yourself a deal, Sir Mortimer.”

“Good! Let's get busy.”

He led me over to a huge paddock with a high fence around it.

“He's inside, in the barn,” whispered Sir Mortimer.

“How do you know?” I asked, kind of nervous-like.

“If he was outside, he'd have heard us by now, and would be roaring and spouting flames that would illuminate the whole area.”

“Just how big is this here dragon?” I asked.

“Perhaps half a city block.”

I was about to ask if that was a long New York block or a short Macau block when it suddenly occurred to me that it didn't really make an awful lot of difference, given the current situation.

Sir Mortimer led me around the paddock to a broad driveway that led to an oversized barn.

“You're
sure
this is the only way to get the goods on Artistotle Ho?” I asked as he reached out for the door.

“Just don't make any sudden movements,” he said.

“Uh ... I don't wanna sound like I lack confidence in this here operation, Sir Mortimer—but have you ever searched a dragon before?”

“As a matter of fact, I've searched this dragon four previous times,” answered Sir Mortimer. “Each of the past four years, just before he's shipped out, I've gone over him with a fine-toothed comb. I've checked his harness for jewels, I've gone over every inch of his cage, I've even gone through his stool in case Doctor Ho is trying to ship some contraband
inside
him.”

“And you ain't never found nothing?”

“Never,” he admitted.

“Then why bother doing it all over again tonight?” I asked.

“Because I'm convinced that the answer lies with the dragon.” He frowned resolutely. “I'll just have to be more thorough this time.”

The building shook with another roar.

“If you've done this before, you don't really need
me
,” I suggested.

“Oh, I've always had help,” he said.

“Yeah?”

He nodded. “Poor chaps.”

He opened the door and pulled me inside before I had a chance to ask what happened to them. Given the sight that met my eyes, that was probably all for the best.

There was just one stall in the barn. It was made of steel bars, and it was maybe 200 feet long and 100 feet wide, and while it was filled with straw and food troughs and water drums, what it was mostly filled with was a dragon. He was green on top, bright yellow on the bottom, and scaley all over. The second I looked at him I decided he was big enough to eat a couple of dinosaurs for lunch and still be ready to polish off the Eiffel Tower or some similar tidbit for dinner. He had the longest, ugliest face I ever did see, with big red eyes the size of basketballs, and a nose that kept snorting smoke.

“Good evening, Cuddles,” said Sir Mortimer gently.

"Cuddles?"
I repeated.

“It's my pet name for him,” said Sir Mortimer. “It makes him seem less formidable.”

Cuddles roared again, and a flame a dozen feet long shot out of his mouth and barely missed us.

“They really shouldn't keep him on straw bedding,” noted Sir Mortimer. “He's likely to set the place on fire.” He paused. “Hmm ... I suppose if we don't find the contraband, I could always report Doctor Ho to the local branch of the S.P.C.A.”