The Case Officer (37 page)

“Son of a bitch,” muttered
MacMurphy to himself, “what the hell is she doing now?” He ran back up the
street and reached the café in time to see Kitty frantically beating on the
glass door of the lone phone booth in the rear of the café, trying desperately
to get the woman inside to cut her conversation short. Several customers
sitting at tables were watching with great amusement, as was the patron behind
the counter.

Mac couldn’t go after her in the
café. Too many witnesses. The only thing he could do was beat it back to
Kitty’s apartment and hope to get there before Kitty’s warning reached Lim. If
he was late, the element of surprise would be lost. He knew Lim was a very
tough customer, and he wanted that edge badly.

He took off at a dead run back
down the street.

H
e reached the entrance of number
22 and hit the buzzer hard to open the door. The door popped open, and he saw
the staircase directly in front of him. He raced up the stairs taking them
three at a time. He was puffing and sweating profusely now. His false mustache
started to come loose and his glasses were sliding down his nose.  He jerked
them off and jammed them into his pocket.

His knees ached by the time he
hit the landing of the second floor, and his breath was coming in great gulps.
He remembered how he hated to run the stadium stairs back in Oklahoma when he
was a college wrestler, but wished he were in better shape for it now.

Chapter One Hundred-Five

T
he woman in the phone booth
finally gave up trying to carry on a conversation while that crazy black woman
was screaming at her from outside the booth. How could she with this insane
person banging on the booth with both fists and screaming, alternately in bad
English and worse French?

Furious at the interruption, she
slammed the phone into the receiver. But she continued to resist Kitty’s
efforts to force her way into the booth by pushing back on the door and
shouting her own stream of invectives. She was too angry to give in. Kitty
finally backed off, threw her hands into the air in desperation, and broke into
tears.

The tears did it. The woman let
her in the booth.

Chapter One Hundred-Six

M
ac ran up the final flight of
stairs and as he hit the landing on the fourth floor he heard a phone ringing.
He redoubled his efforts and reached the door of Kitty’s apartment in seconds.

The phone stopped ringing.

MacMurphy aimed at a point just
below the doorknob and put all of his weight behind one mighty kick. The heel
of his boot hit the door and the jamb splintered. The door flew open into the
room with MacMurphy right behind it.

Lim stood directly across the
room, eyes wide, with the phone to his ear.

The adrenaline coursed through
Mac’s system and more than made up for his shaky knees. He was no more than
three steps from Lim. He had planned to continue the attack toward Lim, but
something held him back. 

It was the four-inch stiletto Lim
held loosely in his other hand.

Lim calmly replaced the phone on
the receiver and squared himself toward Mac. His muscles rippled under his
light tee-shirt, indicating a readiness that was not otherwise apparent. “What
you want?” he said calmly.

“Put it down, maggot.”

“
Eyeah
, why would I do
stupid thing like that,” said Lim with a sneer.

“Yeah, I guess you’d better keep
it. You’re going to need an equalizer.”

Lim laughed. “You really think
Lim need this, MacMurphy? Ha-ha, that is big joke for sure. You gotta be
kidding, asshole.” He tossed the knife on the couch beside him and laughed
again. He bent into a karate crouch, arms out in front of him at the ready.

“You surprise me.” MacMurphy,
though he hadn’t quite regained his breath, was dead calm. Adrenaline blazed
through his body. He stood in the doorway with his thumbs looped casually into the
pockets of his jeans, taking quick note of the stiletto, of Lim’s stance, of all
relevant facets of the apartment.

“Why I surprise you, you stink
shit asshole piece of puke?” Lim beamed with confidence.

MacMurphy slowly withdrew his
thumbs from his pockets; the brass knuckles dangled loosely from the right one.
He spoke softly.

“Because I don’t take you
lightly, Lim. I know your reputation. Third degree black belt and all that
shit. So I brought an equalizer of my own.” He slipped his fist into the rings
of the knuckles and held his hand out in front of him so that Lim could get a
good look.

Lim leaned ever so slightly to
his right, closer to the knife he had tossed aside. “You shoulda brought gun.
That thing not gonna do you no good.”

“I didn’t want things to get that
uneven. This’ll do just fine.” His voice was low, hypnotic, compelling.

Lim dove for the knife on the
couch, but MacMurphy anticipated the move and immediately leaped to intercept
Lim. He reached Lim as Lim’s outstretched fingers touched the handle of the
knife. MacMurphy’s right fist crashed into Lim’s skull just behind the left
ear.

The momentum of his whole body
was behind the blow, and the weight of the brass knuckles led the way. The
sound of the brass striking bone made a dull thud, and blood from the scalp
wound quickly matted Lim’s black hair and smeared MacMurphy’s hand. Lim hit the
couch hard.

Lim forgot the knife and brought
his hands up in front of him to defend against additional blows. He rolled to
one side and brought his knee up into MacMurphy’s crotch, knocking him off balance
and forcing a belch of air from MacMurphy’s already-depleted lungs.

Now the two men faced each other
in the center of the room. Mac’s body separated Lim from the knife which lay
useless on the couch. Lim struggled to focus his eyes and regain full consciousness.
He shook his head and backed off. Blood blended with sweat and tie-dyed the
shoulder of his light tee-shirt a sopping pink.

MacMurphy wanted to press the
attack, but Lim’s kick had momentarily left him incapacitated, gasping to fill
his lungs, trying to recuperate fully. Both fighters glared as they moved, each
trying desperately to mask the extent of the damage inflicted.

Lim crouched lower and circled.
He knew he had almost been put out by one blow from the clumsy
gwai-lo,
and this forced him to become more cautious, but his head was clearing, and he
knew he could still win if he was careful and stayed away from that
brass-knuckled fist of MacMurphy’s. He looked for an opportunity to slip in
close.

MacMurphy also wanted to get in
close enough to pound Lim again, but he respected the reach of those powerful
kicks and would not get over-eager.

Lim moved in a flash. He stepped
forward and spun an arching reverse kick at the side of MacMurphy’s head. Mac
anticipated the move, but it came so fast he could not counter it fully. He
dropped his right shoulder and brought his left arm up to block Lim’s leg, but
the force of the blow drove through the block and smashed into the side of
MacMurphy’s head, sending him careening across the room.

Mac rolled with the blow and
turned to face Lim just in time to see the beginning of another spinning kick
being directed at his head.

But Lim was reaching too far in
this attack, and Mac was prepared. His left hand went out to meet the leg at
shoulder level before it had reached the peak of its power. He slapped into the
ankle and grasped with all of his might, turning the leg outward and down as he
moved inside the kick. With the same motion, he turned from the knees, then
hips, then shoulders, and his right arm sped around and down at the end of the
fulcrum like a tennis player delivering a 150mph serve.

The outer edge of his brass-lined
hand chopped into Lim’s shin midway between the ankle and knee. There was a
sickening “crack” as brass met bone, and Lim gasped in pain as he spun out and
away.

Lim was hurt badly but not
finished. He stepped gingerly on the leg, but it supported him. He circled
while Mac prepared himself to counter the next attack.

He didn’t have to wait long.

Lim came straight in and
delivered two lightning punches to Mac’s solar plexus. Mac tensed his stomach
to receive the blows, but they drove the air from his lungs anyway and forced
him back. He struggled to defend himself as Lim reflexively swung his damaged
right leg toward the side of Mac’s head.

Mac was frozen in place, still
gasping for breath and off balance. But Lim couldn’t get the fractured leg high
enough, and the kick landed low. The instep of Lim’s foot slammed into Mac’s
triceps just above the elbow. Although the kick missed its target, and its
force was weakened by the fracture, it was still powerful enough to smash the
triceps muscle and tear the ligaments, causing the contused arm to drop limply
to Mac’s side.

Lim screamed in pain as his kick
landed, but when he saw the damage to Mac’s arm, he immediately pushed the pain
aside and moved in for the kill.

He attacked Mac’s defenseless
left side and brought a brutal karate chop down on Mac’s collarbone. Mac felt
the bone snap and his shoulder go numb, but no pain. His right hand was already
arching down toward Lim’s neck. Lim ducked into the blow, forcing it to land
wide, but the brass-covered hand smashed into his back on the trapezoid with
enough force to contuse the muscle and drive Lim down to his knees.

Lim screamed again as his
crippled leg buckled beneath him, and he rolled out and away and up to his feet
a safe ten feet away from MacMurphy.

MacMurphy did not press the
attack. His left arm hung useless, and the whole left side of his body
throbbed. He could feel the tightness of the swelling on the side of his face,
and his left eye was partially closed. It was difficult to move or breathe, and
only adrenaline and sheer will kept him on his feet.

Now he wished he had overridden
his ego and had brought a gun.

Mac squared himself against Lim
and pulled strength from deep within to face this challenge. He pushed out the
pain and focused, focused, focused....

Lim could barely stand, and his
head was cocked to one side by spasms in his trapezoid and shoulder muscles.
Blood still gushed freely from the scalp wound behind his ear, further soaking
his shirt and spattering the room and his opponent with each quick movement.
Both men were breathing heavily. Both knew only one would walk away.

Lim moved forward, and Mac
circled right, protecting his injured left side and ready to strike with a
brass-encrusted fist. Lim thought he had the advantage. He wouldn’t try any
more kicks, but as long as he stayed on his feet he could pummel his adversary
with karate punches to his unprotected side.

MacMurphy was not as well
schooled in the martial arts – he was more of a street fighter who could
wrestle and punch. All Lim had to do to win was stay away from Mac’s right hand
and set and punch, set and punch. Lim was ready to punish him—now!

He stepped in tight, feinted low
and to the right, and threw a blistering backhand chop that sliced up toward
MacMurphy’s throat. The left-handed chop was halfway to its target when Lim
released a more devastating follow-through right-handed thrust, concentrating
all of his remaining power on the leading two knuckles of his fist. The blow
came from low at the waist and twisted up straight toward Mac’s left rib
cage.   

Then the unexpected happened.

MacMurphy ducked under the slice
that whistled past his ear and turned the right side of his body into his
attacker, causing the blow to graze across his stomach instead of crunching
into his ribs. In the same motion, he swung his right leg out in a wide arch
and back behind Lim’s left knee, sweeping the good leg out from under him and
bringing him crashing to the floor.

Keeping the momentum of his kick,
Mac slammed into Lim’s prostrate form with both knees, driving the wind from
his lungs and snapping ribs and sternum. He brought the outer edge of the brass
knuckles on his right hand down across the bridge of Lim’s nose in a vicious
karate chop, smashing bone and cartilage and spattering blood up into Mac’s
face and over his shirt.

He was in a rage and could not
stop for fear Lim would hit him again. He continued to rain blows on Lim’s face
and head, smashing lips and scattering teeth and blood. Finally, he couldn’t
raise his arm to strike anymore.  He slid off the body, the face caved in by
the brass knuckles, to the floor, gasping for air...

Chapter One Hundred-Seven

Macau
– Mid-September

M
acMurphy watched the speck on the
horizon grow into a full-sized hydrofoil. The sleek craft arched around the
breakwater and throttled back, splashing down from its pontoons onto its hull
as it entered Macau harbor.

He walked slowly toward the ferry
terminal and watched the boat maneuver into its docking position. He felt run
down and tired, and he couldn’t shake the butterflies from his stomach – that
horrible feeling of trepidation. He did not like the feeling at all.