Gilly said, “Where do we go from here, Fannon?”
“Let’s get something to eat. We might as well, as long as we have the time.”
Gilly laughed. “You got guts, Fannon. Here you are, wanted for murder, and here’s me, wanted for murder an’ plenty more, an’ you wanna go in a public restaurant an’ eat!”
“X” shrugged. “What of it? We have to eat. Come on, I’ll show you how to get away with it.”
He led the gunman a block west to where the subway job was under way. There were dozens of men at work here. Some of them were having their lunch in a coffee pot on the corner, and it was here that “X” led his companion.
“This is one place nobody’ll look for us,” he told Gilly. “Anyway, we’ll take the chance.”
Sitting next to a couple of laborers, they partook of a hearty lunch, and left.
Gilly looked at “X” with new respect. “I like a guy with guts,” he said. “Just play square, an’ we’ll get along fine.”
They took a cab down to Pell Street, and “X” wound his way through the tortuous streets, as if he had been born there.
“Jeez,” Gilly wondered. “How come you remember these streets after being in the can for five years?”
“I used to come down here pretty often,” the Agent told him. He stopped before a narrow, old brick building sandwiched in between a restaurant and a Chinese theatre. Unhesitatingly, he entered the dark hallway, started to climb the narrow, winding staircase. Gilly came close after him. “Say, Fannon,” he wheezed, “what’s this joint? What’d that sign say over the doorway?”
“I don’t know,” the Agent told, him. He could have told him if he had wanted to. The sign read, “Ming Tong.”
The Ming Tong was the most powerful tong in America, numbering members all over the country. This was its headquarters.
At the head of the staircase, a tall, raw-boned Chinaman stood with his arms folded in front of him, hands in the voluminous sleeves of his jacket. He stood there impassively, blocking the stairs.
“X” knew that he had an automatic in each of the hands that were hidden.
He stopped when he was about three steps below the Chinaman, and Gilly brought up short behind him. Suddenly he felt Gilly’s gun poking into his back.
“Look, Fannon,” the gunman muttered, “I don’t like this. If it’s a trap for me, I’m gonna hand it to you right in the liver!”
“X” said irritably over his shoulder, “Don’t be a sap, Gilly. This guy is a guard for my friend. My friend is a big man in Chinatown.”
Gilly muttered something, but ceased his protests. He still kept his gun out, however.
“X” looked up at the big Chinaman and said, “Brother, I come in peace, seeking speech with Lo Mong Yung.” He said this in fluent Cantonese, the sing-song syllables falling from his lips naturally, as if it were his native tongue.
The Chinaman started perceptibly at the sound of his native tongue spoken so fluently, stared down trying to discern the features of the caller in the uncertain light that filtered in from outside.
Gilly exclaimed, “Jeez, Fannon, you sure can sling that lingo! Where—” He stopped as the Chinaman burst into speech, answering “X” in Cantonese.
“O stranger, who comes here calling my brother, I know not your face. There is only one white man in the world who has earned the right to be called brother by the men of the Ming Tong, and you are not he. What is your business?”
“X” said quietly, “Look not in my face, O Brother, search my heart and my speech. You say that there is only one white man who may be called your brother. I am that man!”
The Chinaman was skeptical. “O stranger, your words are false. What business have you with Lo Mong Yung, the venerable father of our tong?”
“X” was about to answer, when from an inner room further down on the floor, came the thin voice of an old man. His tone was low, just loud enough to be heard in the hall, but it carried a weight of authority that many a king might have envied. He said, “My old ears know that voice, Sung! Let him come!”
The big Chinaman stepped aside with alacrity, said, “Pass, stranger.”
He allowed “X” to pass, but put out an arm to bar the way for Gilly. The gunman snarled, raised his gun.
“X” said quickly, “Let him come, Brother. He is a friend.”
From within came the same thin voice of authority, “Let both pass, Sung!”
The big Chinaman glowered at Gilly, called back in Cantonese, “This second one, master, waves a gun, and snarls like a wild animal of the forest.”
“Let both pass, Sung, but come behind them.”
Sung stood aside, still glowering. “X” went down the hall toward an open door. He stepped inside a brightly lighted room, with Gilly close behind him, and with Sung right in back of Gilly.
Anyone who might have expected to find an orientally furnished room in these surroundings would have received a surprise. “X” knew this room, but Gilly, just behind him, whistled in amazement.
They were now in a completely equipped office. A row of filing cases stood along one wall. Near the door a stenographer was working industriously at a noiseless typewriter. She was a young Chinese girl, and it spoke well for her training that she did not even look up as the visitors entered, but continued with her work.
In the center of the room, at a large, glass-covered desk, sat a Chinaman who might have been ninety years old but for the keen restlessness of his eyes. His face was lined and creased with a thousand wrinkles, and the skin on the shrunken hands that rested on the glass top of the desk resembled yellow parchment. He said nothing, but watched the two visitors sharply.
“X” said, still in the flowing Cantonese that he had used in the hall, “Greetings, Father of the Ming Tong, from a lowly son and brother of the Ming Men!”
Lo Mong Yung remained silent for a long time, inspecting him critically, casting not a single glance at Gilly. Finally he said, “The voice I hear is one I know; yet the face of him who speaks is strange to me. I am an old man, and my eyes are prone to deceive me. But my ears are sharp, and recognize the voice of one who is a brother of the Ming Tong. You are—”
“X” held up his hand. “Let no names be spoken here. Your ears have told you the truth. But this one who is with me knows me by the name of Fannon, and it is the face of Fannon which you behold.”
The old man nodded. “I hear and I believe. Yet one thing more. Step close to me, brother of the Ming Tong, and whisper that word which is known only to the Ming Men. Thus shall I be sure that you are he whose voice I hear.”
“X” came forward slowly, bent low, and whispered close to the old man’s ear. Lo Mong Yung’s eyes lighted, and he nodded his head in satisfaction. “You are a master artist, my son. If you can thus confuse your friends, surely you will succeed in confusing your enemies. Now speak your needs. The tong is yours to command, for it is long in your debt.”
Gilly stirred restlessly. “Say,” he exclaimed suspiciously, “what the hell is all this chinky palaver about? Are you pullin’ anything? If you are—”
“Take your time, Gilly,” the Secret Agent growled. “I’m trying to talk him in to lending me a kit.”
“If he don’t want to, you tell me, an’ I’ll shoot the roof off this place. That’s the way to treat Chinks!”
“It’s all right. He’s almost sold.” As “X” turned back to Lo Mong Yung, he noted a humorous light in the old man’s eyes.