Bix tried to move. The pain was most severe.
“You tried to move,” Dr. Asutra said with the injured air of a practitioner whose advice has been willfully disregarded.
“I know,” Bix sobbed. “The pain was most severe.”
“Precisely.” Dr. Asutra felt vindicated. “Don’t do it again. Just go to sleep.”
Penny escorted him to the door. “I guess I’d better stay here and take care of him,” the tender-hearted girl said.
“Not at all. He needs no care. Just sleep. As a matter of fact, I suspect that your presence here might well aggravate his condition. The noticeable swelling of that noticeable protuberance will subside, but if you are present, it may recur and this would indeed be painful to him. The kindest thing you can do now is leave him alone.”
“Then I’ll go,” Penny decided.
“Can I give you a lift?” Dr. Kim Asutra offered smoothly.
“Which way are you going?”
“Downtown. Chinatown. And you, my dear?”
“I’m not sure. You see, I have this problem.”
“What problem is that?”
“Well, I’m locked out of my apartment and I have no place to go and all I’ve got to wear is this mink jacket which is not merely short, but at times really too short — like when I bend over.” Penny bent over to demonstrate what she meant.
“I see.” Dr. Kim Asutra saw. “As lovely as carved jade,” he added.
“Thank you. But I really can’t go on walking around with my bare tushy hanging out. And I feel so ridiculous in these riding boots.”
“Your tush brings much delight to these tired old eyes,” Kim Asutra told her gallantly. “Indeed, as a dedicated chiropractor, I must say that your entire skeletal structure, with its truly enchanting covering, makes my fingers itch with the urge to manipulate your delicate bones.” He bowed. “However, to be more practical, allow me to suggest that if you would accompany me to my unworthy abode, it would be my pleasure to present you with some clothes better suited to the covering of your delightful—umm—tushy.”
“Only if it’s understood that it’s a loan,” Penny insisted.
“I am mortified that you will not accept such poor trappings as a gift, but I bow to your wishes.”
“Just let me say good-bye to Bix,” Penny told him.
“Of course. I will wait outside for you. In my unworthy car.”
“I’m sure your car isn’t unworthy at all,” Penny protested .
“That’s what you think. It’s a real lemon! If I ever get my hands on that honorable used car salesman who sold me this honorable rattle trap, I’ll tear his honorable head right off his honorable neck.”
“I thought Orientals were supposed to be tranquil,” Penny said. “You know, like flowers. Tranquil like jonquils.”
“So sorry. But this jonquil doesn’t like being pruned. This automotive lemon makes me bitter. However, no matter. I shall wait for you in its confines while you say good night to Mr. Bittervetch.” He bowed his way out the front door.
“I’m leaving now, Bix,” Penny announced from the bedroom door. “Thanks for everything you’ve done for me. I mean, setting fire to the brothel and rescuing me and all. Any time I can return the favor, let me know. I’m in the book.”
“Then I’ll tear up the book,” Bittervetch said bitterly. “The only favor you can do for me is to please not do me any more favors.”
“Gosh, Bix, don’t blame me. It’s not my fault things turned out the way they did. It’s just the way the pretzel crumbles.”
“Ouch! Leave. Please. Just leave.”
“I don’t know why you can’t be more philosophical about it, Bix. We just got our wires crossed. That’s all.”
“And how!” Bix managed a shudder of reminiscence without moving a muscle. “I’ve been fried, tied and pried apart and enough is enough. I should have realized when I met you in that Harlem brothel that you were one of them. A white Mau Mau, that’s what you are: a Caucasian Muslim dedicated to destroying the white man.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way about me, Bix, but still I wish you’d remember one thing when things are looking blackest to you.”
“What’s that?”
“ ‘We Shall Overcome’ ,” Penny crooned.
“Go to hell!”
Those parting words echoed in Penny’s shell-like ear as she closed the door behind her and walked over to Dr. Dim Asutra’s car. He moved agilely to hold the door open for her. When they were both inside, he wrestled with the ignition and cursed to himself in Chinese when the car refused to start.
It was while he was so occupied that Penny glanced casually out the window and saw something that filled her heart with fear. A giant Chinese with a long pigtail was gunning a motorcyle straight toward the car with the throttle wide open. At first Penny thought he had lost control because neither or his hands was on the handlebars of the motorcycle. Then she saw that one of his hands was clutching a filled laundry-sack hanging over one shoulder. His other hand was waving in wild circles over his head. In this hand was clutched a wicked-looking hatchet.
As the scream began to tear from Penny’s throat, the hatchet was flung. With deadly precision, blade first, it flew straight toward Penny’s head! Behind it the motorcycle veered at the last minute and avoided the parked car. In its wake, a Chinese war cry sounded, the smoke from the ’cycle’s exhaust spelling it out in the sort of Oriental hieroglyphics seen on laundry tickets, the kind of markings which invariably result in the customer’s getting somebody else’s hand-washed shirts in place of his last six pair of BVDs.
Then the horrible instant split into shattering windshield glass. The blade was about to separate Penny’s sculpted head from her swanlike neck. The instant of terror hung in time while the unfortunate darling’s eyes bulged like twin portions of Egg Foo Wung.
Was this the end for Penny? She’d been born a virgin. Was she now to die a virgin? Was she only to be laid in the grave? Oh, woe! Alas! Alack! Was this succulent piece, this Penny Candie to be laid in the grave in pieces? Even in death, was this piece to know no peace, but only pieces? Oh, cruel fate! And yet —
Pax vobiscum, Penny Candie! Pax vobiscum, while the pitiful piece is still in one piece. Pax vobiscum to her in this frozen instant before she goes to pieces. Aye, pax vobiscum to this virgin victim of a slice of life!
CHAPTER TEN
THE END of the terrible instant was averted, the cruel cut avoided, Penny’s life saved when the hurtling hatchet was deflected by a quick karate blow from the hand of the fast-thinking Kim Asutra. The blade whizzed past Penny’s ear, splitting a stray hair as it went, and embedded itself in the upholstery of the rear seat of the car. Penny dived to the floor and lay there trembling. Kim Asutra was leaning out the side window now, a .45 in his hand, but he didn’t fire it. The motorcyclist was out of range and showed no signs of reversing his flight.
“What was that?” the terrified girl asked when she was able to bring herself to speak.
“ ’Cycle Tong,” was the succinct answer.
“I don’t understand. Why did they want to kill me?”
“Not you. Me. Hatchet man not very good at job. Chop stinks.”
“But why did he want to kill you?”
“I’m a marked man. I’ve known it for some time now. Ever since the day my shirts came back from the laundry with a red star where the laundry mark should have been.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“I shall explain. But if you don’t mind, let us talk while we drive. That Tong cookie might decide to return.”
Kim fiddled with the ignition, and this time the car started. He pulled away from the curb fast and headed downtown.