Chapter IX (1)

    Like most agencies, Borden's Oleomargarine was born of treason. In 1940, Borden, Olson and Mardine, the three top account men of Riley & Reeves, mutinied and set up their own agency, taking R&R's best clients with them. The fact that Riley & Reeves had done the same thing to Ansel, Bates & Crown in 1922 in no way mitigated their outraged charges of piracy, sabotage and unfair practice.
    By the fifties, Borden's Oleomargarine owned five floors on the top of a Madison Avenue tower in which all the elevator operators were red-headed women. It handled thirty million dollars worth of billing a year at fifteen percent off the top, and as representative of six of the most powerful American industries (among other clients) was a monolith of agencies. It had offices in Chicago, St. Louis, New Orleans, Hollywood and San Francisco. It employed over five hundred people, among whom were the bright young bandits who would eventually mutiny in their own turn.
    Success did not prevent Avery Borden from having a drink with Jake Lennox and Gabby Valentine in the saloon across the street from the Venice Theater, or from worrying about his train back to Westport where he owned one hundred acres and a twenty-room house. Our business may be cut-throat, but it's democratic. We have the highest percentage of inter-denominational ulcers anywhere.
    "I've got a train to catch," Avery Borden said, "But leave us bleed the lizard again." He caught the bartender's eye. "The same all around and extra special for the lady, please. Extra special."
    "Yes sir, Mr. Borden," the bartender said. "I know just how Miss V. likes it."
    Lennox glanced at Gabby. "They know you here?"
    "I get around," Gabby smiled. "Now, Mr. Borden...."
    "Call me Avery," Borden cooed. "Call me Avery and I'll miss my train." Mr. Agency was turning all his powerful charm on Gabby. He was a remarkably young fifty, tall and slender, and looked so much like Roy Audibon that Lennox glared at him.
    "Please don't," Gabby said in alarm. "I get train fever. My heart's beginning to thump now."
    "Show me."
    "You can feel my pulse."
    "With your permission, Jake?"
    "I could shoot you both and no jury would convict."
    "I'm pleading the unwritten law too." Borden took Gabby's wrist and held it delicately.
    "What law is that?" she asked.
    "Open season on chicks like you."
    "You see?" Gabby said to Lennox. "I'm fatal. Have I got him hypnotized?"
    "He's under your thrall all right. Thrall?"
    "Thpell," Borden said.
    "We want a favor from you," Gabby said, "Will you help us?"
    "Anything short of missing my train."
    "What did Jordan do when he was here with you Saturday evening?"
    "He drank."
    Lennox nodded gloomily. "She knows that, Avery. We're looking for something else."
    "Checking up on him?" Borden asked Gabby.
    "For the parole board."
    "He raped the cashier, murdered the boss, kidnapped their child and sold it to Procter & Gamble," Borden said promptly. "Obviously not the man for you. But I'm noble."
    "I can see the blood royal in your eyes. Did Jordan talk to anybody except you?"
    "Are you kids serious?"
    Gabby nodded and melted Borden with her dark, candid gaze.
    "We're looking for a man named Knott," Lennox explained. "I met him somewhere Saturday night and he's been giving me a hard time with threatening letters. I've got to find him and square it off."
    "Did Jordan talk to anybody except you?" Gabby repeated.
    "No, Miss V. He didn't," the bartender put in. "It wasn't crowded that night. I remember."
    "Thank you. You're very kind. Does anybody named Knott ever come in here?"
    "Not that I know of, Miss V."
    "Do you know any characters named Knott?" Lennox asked Borden.
    Borden was confused. "I thought you knew him."
    "I don't. I'm trying to trace him."
    "Try the phone book."
    "I already. There's twelve Knotts on The Rock alone. None of the names look familiar. God knows how many more there are outside."
    "Maybe this Knott don't have a phone, Miss V.," the bartender suggested. "Lots of people don't."
    "Thank you," Gabby smiled. "Can I buy you a drink?"
    "Oh no, Miss V." The bartender looked at her fondly.
    Lennox glared at him and then asked Borden: "Did I mention the name after I got plastered?"
    "Man, you started plastered. No, you didn't mention the name."
    "What happened Saturday? Take it from the top."
    "Well.... We left rehearsal around five. Came over here. Cut up the show. Had a few drinks to celebrate. Cut up the business. Had a few more. Cut up Christmas...."
    "I deny that."
    "Who's remembering this?"
    "I'm a wholesome American boy. I never said a word against Santa Claus."
    "Cut up Christmas," Borden continued firmly. "Had a few more to celebrate.... And then I caught my train."
    "Didn't I ask you to have dinner with me? I've got a fuzzy recollection of that foolish, headstrong invitation. Did I mention where?"
    "Have a heart, Jake. I was celebrating myself."
    "Please help us, Avery," Gabby pleaded.
    Borden looked at her affectionately. "What do you do, love? Come and work for me."
    "First show me you're worth an office pinch."
    "I will now display my giant intellect." Borden considered earnestly. "Let's see.... We were in the cab."
    "What cab?"
    "To the station. I gave you a lift."
    "Wait a minute. Hold the phone. To the library?"
    "That was your story."
    "I think I remember. I wanted to check Americana scores for a production number. John Brown's ever-lovin' Body or something. Did I say where I was going to eat?"
    "Some ungodly place like Chinatown."
    "At The Yellow Sea?"
    "It rings a bell."
    "So...." Lennox nodded slowly. "First the library and then The Yellow Sea. Elementary, my dear Watson. No you don't, Avery. I'll take the check, please."
    "I'll take my reward," Borden said, reaching for Gabby.
    "And I'll pay it," Gabby said. "This time I'll give you the lift to the station."
    After they dropped Borden at Grand Central, Gabby turned to Lennox.
    "Am I helping?" she asked.
    "I couldn't be doing it without you."
    "Are you still afraid of what you're going to find out?"
    "Yes, but it doesn't make any difference any more. I'm so damned mad at Grabinett and myself that—Were you ever at a corrida?"
    "What's that?"
    "A bullfight."
    "Good Heavens! No!"
    "I used to wonder how the bull felt. Now I know."
    They entered the library from the 42nd Street side, and as they passed through the turnstile the guard nodded fondly to Gabby who smiled back.
    "What the hell.... Do they know you here too?" Lennox asked in surprise.
    "I told you. I get around. He's a nice man but a terrible reactionary."
    "Looks like the hedonistic type to me."
    "No, he's too eclectic."
    "Sweetheart, sometimes you talk just like a pamphlet."
    "I know. Isn't it awful? My father used to make me study the dictionary. But I practice slang whenever I remember."
    They turned right through a short corridor lined with illuminated display cases and went into the music room. It was nearly closing time for this department. The bookboys were slamming volumes back into the shelves. There were half a dozen readers at the tables. One librarian minded the desk.
    "Put him under your thpell," Lennox whispered.
    Gabby at once walked up to the librarian and gazed candidly into his eyes. "Please.... Do you have any music about John Brown's ever-lovin' Body?"
    "I beg your—" The librarian was startled, then he recovered. "I'll look, Miss. Please sign the register."
    Gabby signed the desk register, then followed the librarian to the file cabinets, moving with her lazy, square-shouldered carriage. Lennox turned the pages of the desk register back to December 24th. He went through the signatures and addresses one by one. He found his own, third from the end, written in his heavy Gothic hand. There was no Knott. There was no name vaguely resembling Knott. To the best of his knowledge there was no handwriting resembling the hysterical scrawl in the letters.
    He motioned to Gabby who returned to the desk.
    "Nothing here," Lennox murmured. "Leave us take a powder."
    "Oh, that wouldn't be kind. Let's wait a moment."
    The librarian came scurrying up with a list of references which he presented to Gabby gallantly. She thanked him, folded the list and handed it to Lennox.
    "What for?" he asked as they left.
    "You wanted a production number, didn't you? Here it is."
    "That was last week. I'm off the show now. Remember?"
    "You'll be on it again," Gabby said confidently.
    "Who taught you to say the right thing at the right time?"
    "Nobody. I just tell the truth and shame the devil—Don't you dare touch me. Ouch! Oh quick! There's a taxi."
    The Yellow Sea was packed with the early dinner crowd. The waiters ran and shouted. The managers darted from table to table, scribbling orders. The swinging doors of the kitchen banged open and shut giving flashing glimpses of a giant smoky room from which came the crackle of hot oil and excited chefs.
    "This is impossible," Lennox grunted. "I'll never get a chance to ask anything in this mad-house."
    "Will it always be crowded?"
    "No. They'll clear out in an hour or so."
    "Then let's have dinner first. I want to show off. I know how to use chop-sticks."
    Lennox looked at her. "Taught to you by an eclectic Chinaman?"
    "No, by a Hawaiian. He was very nice, but terribly hasty."
    "Gabrielle, I swear you're a great woman. We'll have to wait for a table. Let's go to the bar."
    The Yellow Sea had expanded twice in its rise to prosperity. In the forties it had added a tourist-type dining room to the original teakwood and silk-screen restaurant which now catered exclusively to the Chinese locals. In the fifties it added a chrome and neon bar. Lennox and Gabby went up a flight of stairs, down another, and entered the bar where they were unexpectedly greeted by a stranger.
    "Ah!" he cried. He spoke with the explosive Chinatown diction. "Missa Hu-li Lennox. Dissa g'eat pleasuh an' honauh." He came forward, shook Jake's hand, and said: "Lon' time no see. Yes? Ha-ha."
    He was short, very stout, and either an old young man or a young old man, as is so often the confusing appearance of the Chinese. His round, boyish face was perpetually wreathed in a sunny smile to which a wall-eye lent a distracting quality. You never could be sure whether he was beaming at you or at some faraway recollection.
    "You 'membuh me, Missa Lennox? Stanley Fu, the Sh'off?"
    "The Shoff?"
    "No. Ha-ha. Sh'off. S.H.O.Ah.F.F. Sh'off."
    "Shroff?"
    "Yes. Yes. Whiskey?" The Shroff led them to the bar, snapped his fingers at the bartender, then rapidly undid his immaculate tie and collar and opened his shirt. He displayed a livid bruise on his shoulder. "Las' Satuhday night," he beamed. "Me'y Kissmus p'esent f'om Hu-li."
    Lennox stared at the stout gentleman in amazement. "Hu-li?" he repeated. "Who he?"
    "You," the Shroff beamed.
    "Did he do that to you Saturday night?" Gabby asked.
    "Oh yes. Yes. Ha-ha."
    "Shame on you, Jordan," Gabby said reproachfully.
    "I swear I don't remember. I—Gabby, this, apparently, is my good friend, Mr. Stanley Fu, the Shroff. Mr. Fu, this, positively, is Miss Gabrielle Valentine."
    "G'eat pleasuh an' honnuh," the Shroff beamed. He shook hands with Gabby, then redid his shirt.
    "What's a Shroff, please?" Gabby asked. "Is it something I should know?"
    "Oh no. No, Issa Chinese p'ofesshun. Bankuh. Yes? Money changuh."
    "How do you mean?"
    "Oh yes. Silvuh into dolluh. 'Me'ican dolluh into Chinese dolluh. Papuh dolluh into silvuh." The Shroff transferred his attention to Lennox. "You put it all down. Inna liddy ole book when I te'l you Satuhday."
    "In this?" Lennox took out his gimmick book.
    "Yes. Yes."
    "I don't remember," Lennox said. "To tell the truth, Mr. Fu, I hardly remember Saturday night at all. That's why I'm here. It's a wonderful break meeting you again. Can you help me remember?"
    "Oh-ho?" The Shroff made a drinking gesture. "Yes?"
    "Yes."
    "Please tell us what happened Saturday night," Gabby said. "I'm worried about your bruise."
    The Shroff beamed at her. "Oh yes. Happen like this. My f'iend, Hu-li, come. Stan' next to me heah." The Shroff made the drinking gesture three times. "Mahtini." He made the gesture three times again and pointed to himself. "Scotch an' soda."
    "Shame on you both," Gabby said.
    The Shroff patted her arm fondly.
    "Wait a minute," Lennox said. "Some of it's coming back. Wasn't there a calendar up over the bar? Last year's with a fencing girl on it?"
    "Yes. Yes." The Shroff nodded quickly. "We talk about pictuh of liddy young lady with fff...." He looked helplessly at Lennox.
    "Foil?"
    "Yes. You te'l me you ah 'Me'ican fencuh." The Shroff pointed a finger and waggled it. "I te'l you I am Chinese fencuh." The Shroff suddenly crouched and lifted both arms as though poising a baseball bat. "We go togethuh an' fence."
    "We did?"
    "Yes. Like Chinese." The Shroff executed a lightning swipe with both hands, then chopped at his shoulder with the side of his palm. "You give me this. Ha-ha. You 'membuh?"
    Lennox shook his head. "Did I talk to anybody else at the bar before we left? A man named Knott?"
    "No. No othuh man."
    "Did you see anybody write in this notebook when I wasn't looking? Did I leave it around on the bar?"
    "Ah? Excuse me?"
    "We're trying to find someone who wrote something bad in that book, Mr. Fu," Gabby explained. "It happened last Saturday."
    "So?" The Shroff's eyes became shrewd. "Man named Knott, yes? That why you ask?"
    "Exactly."
    "You ah only one who use book, Missa Lennox. I know."
    "Well, that's that," Lennox muttered.
    "Could it have happened where you fenced?" Gabby asked.
    "Oh no. No. Owuh 'Sociashun foh Chinese people only. I show you if you like." Suddenly the Shroff beamed again. "Owuh 'Sociashun ve'y happy to see Hu-li again."
    "Why do you call me Hu-li?"
    "Ah? Because how you fence. Ha-ha. Ve'y quick. Ve'y clevuh. Hu-li in Chinese issa liddy ole animal.... Issa fox."
    "Fox!" Lennox exclaimed. "So that's where the Quaker's name came from."
    "Excuse me?"
    "Nothing, Mr. Fu. Just the pieces crashing into place with a dull sickening thud. Show us where we fenced, please."
    The Shroff led them down Mott Street, around a corner, up an alley and into a crumbling brick building from which an incredible uproar came. It sounded as though a giant were methodically beating an iron water tank to pieces. They mounted the stairs to a wooden door on which Chinese characters were painted and the Shroff ushered them into a large room.
    "Dissowuh 'Sociashun," he shouted. "Foh Chinese people only. No Knott heah Satuhday night."
    "What plays?" Lennox roared. "What's going on?"
    "We p'epauh foh Chinese New Yeah next month."
    Three saturnine Chinese in black overcoats and pearl grey hats were seated in a corner, calmly hammering a drum, a brass gong and a wooden duck. In the center of the room, an athletic young Chinese in jeans and leather jacket wielded a bamboo staff in the fantastic attitudes of the medieval Chinese warrior. Three small boys with broomsticks were following his instructions.
    At the far end of the room was the giant head of a Chinese dragon to which a long accordion-pleated tail was attached. A young man in a sweat suit was doing calisthenics before the head. Then he got inside and the head came to life, jerking and swaying to the deafening percussion. The head spoke. Two boys ducked under the tail, and the entire dragon began moving across the floor.
    Gabby had a small pad and pencil out of her purse and was sketching quickly, moistening her finger to smear the lines into broad patches of shadow. The Shroff opened a closet and took out two bamboo staves, two quilted masks and two quilted cotton aprons. He offered a brass-bound staff to Lennox.
    "Yes?" he beamed.
    "No thanks, Mr. Fu. I don't feel like a fox tonight. You're sure there was nobody named Knott here last Saturday?"
    "Oh yes." The Shroff examined Jake's face for a moment. "Ve'y impohtant to find thissa Knott, eh?"
    "Very. Where did I go from here, Mr. Fu? Do you know?"
    "Oh yes. You ve'y intox'ated. I took you. I take you now."
    The Shroff returned the fencing equipment to the closet, waited politely for Gabby to finish her sketching, and then conducted them downstairs. He led them to Chatham Square where three cabs were parked behind a hack sign.
    "I take you to taxi," he beamed. "You ve'y intox'ated."
    "My God! I can't remember that. Where the hell did I go? Hey fellas!" Lennox called. "Any of you parked here last Saturday night?"
    The hack drivers poked their heads out.
    "Off and on, Mac," said one.
    "Hi, doll," said another.
    "Oh, hello," Gabby smiled.
    "Is he hedonistic or hasty?" Lennox demanded.
    "Behave yourself, Jordan. I told you I get around. Did any of you gentlemen pick up my friend last Saturday night? He was drunk and disorderly."
    "No Ma'am."
    "Could it have been another hack?" Lennox asked.
    "Could of been a dozen others, Mac."
    "Happen to know a hack-driver named Knott who uses this stand?"
    "Nope."
    "Then this looks like the dead-end," Lennox grunted.
    "Missa Lennox," the Shroff said. "I heah you te'l taxi man wheah to go."
    "You did! Can you remember?"
    The Shroff beamed in faraway recollection.
    "Oh please remember, Mr. Fu," Gabby said. "It's terribly important."
    The Shroff patted her arm, still immersed in memory. Finally he said: "Wassa ve'y funny place. Like a fiah."
    "A fire?"
    "Yes. Like ... Hudson fiah."
    "Hudson fire?" Gabby repeated, gazing at the Shroff perplexedly.
    "Hold it!" Lennox said. "Could it have been the Hudson School of Firearms?"
    "Yes. Yes."
    "What's that?" Gabby asked.
    "A shooting range over near the river. Oliver Stacy told me about it last week. I must have gone there Saturday night. Let's go."
    Lennox opened the door of the lead cab. Gabby ripped a page out of her sketch book and handed it to the Shroff. It was his portrait.
    "Thank you very much, Mr. Fu," she said. "You've been so helpful."
    The Shroff gazed at his portrait with admiration and then at Gabby with more. "I go with you," he offered suddenly. "Be ve'y happy to help you and Missa Lennox find Missa Knott. Yes?"
    "I do like you, Mr. Fu," Gabby said. "You're not inscrutable at all. Please come. We can use all the help we can get."
    The Shroff entered the cab with them and they drove across town to the waterfront where a sign on a doorway between a chandler's store and a window filled with broken microscopes read: Hudson School of Firearms, Dn. 2 Flights.
    As the three of them trotted down the steps into the sub-cellar, they could hear the bark of guns. They came into a broad low-ceilinged vault. There was a glass cigar counter and a cash register on the right. The cigar counter was filled with revolvers and boxes of ammunition. Behind it was a high display case with heavy glass doors. Inside were more guns and six silver trophies.