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  Lim said in English, "Oh, shit!"

  The Terror inside the wall shrieked, "RAAAHHGGGG!!" It moved. It shuddered. The whole wall, about to drip blood at any tick of the clock, went WHOOMPH! and moved.

  AAAARRAGAH—Wah! RAAAHHGGGG! . . . Whoomph!

  Doomed. They were all doomed.

  Gathering up his broken mirror and his feet as the wall, moving, pulsating, working itself up went Whoomph! Whoomph! Whoomph!, the Assistant Feng Shui Man didn't even stop to say good-bye.

  "Are you out of your mind?" In Old Himalaya Street, Detective Inspector Auden, his mouth hanging open, said in a strangled gasp, "Are you crazy? You said it was a slight rise, you didn't say it was a ladder street, you didn't say it was a fucking mountain! You didn't say it was Sagarmatha Hill!"

  He got a reassuring pat on the shoulder. What he should have gotten was a wheelchair. Detective Inspector Spencer, smiling (it was obviously one of Auden's little jokes), said with a careless toss of his head, "I know you can do it."

  King Charles I once tried a little careless toss of his head too. Auden, looking around for an axe and a black mask, said in horror, "That's Sagarmatha Hill! You said P.C. Wang took a little turn—if he pounded up Sagarmatha Hill after the bloody Tibetan Tornado he didn't take a little turn, he probably dropped dead from fucking altitude sickness!" He looked down the end of the still wet road to where what had once been a natural hill had been turned by dint of over ninety years of hard work, excavations, town planning and redevelopment into what looked like a mountain. Auden said, "It's a ladder street! It's so fucking steep that they had to put stairs on it so a bloody human being could even get up the first twenty feet to take a breather!" He counted the stone landings. Auden said, 'There is a landing every eight steps!" Auden said, "Look, at the top"—at least he thought it was the top—"there's a bloody mist up there it's so high!" Auden said, "Let me get this straight: you want me to chase after someone all the way down Himalaya Street after he's swiped a handful of money from a customer working an autobank and—and if I don't catch him on the flat—you want me to chase after him up those stairs!" It was obviously a joke. Auden said, "Where's P.C. Wang now?"

  Spencer said, "Anyone could catch him on the flat. The real challenge is to catch him on the stairs." Spencer said, "He runs barefoot for God's sake!"

  "He runs barefoot so that when the paramedics come they won't have to waste time cutting his shoes off before they amputate both his legs!" Auden, his eyes narrowing, asked, "Where's P.C. Wang now?"

  "P.C. Wang was weedy."

  "P.C. Wang was the Police Weightlifting Champion for three years in a row!" Auden said, "Where is he, Bill?"

  Spencer said, "Mmmpzxzzp tripmphhgern."

  "What was that?"

  Spencer said, "The St. Paul de Chartres gerzuffgarn . . ."

  Auden said, "Oh."

  ". . . hospital, ghizzm ward."

  Auden said, "Uh huh."

  "Intensive care!" Spencer said, "Look, you can do it, Phil. You're fit. He's just a weedy little Tibetan who steals money from an autobank and runs away like a thief in the night up a little hill and then—"

  "Why can't you do it?"

  "It's a challenge I can't meet." Spencer said, "I haven't trained my body the way you have. When you go to the gym in your lunch hour, I read." Spencer said, "Chariots of Fire, Rocky—all that." Spencer said, "Don't you feel the need to strive, to fight, not to yield?" Obviously, from the look on his face, he didn't. Spencer said desperately, "The New Conservatism needs heroes'."

  Auden said, "Wang had a coronary, didn't he?"

  "A mild one." Spencer said quickly, "But he's all right. From what I could make out when I spoke to him, he's even happy. He said that at his time of life it was a good thing to test himself physically and realize that his best days were over. He said now he's found inner peace."

  "How old was he?"

  Spencer said, "Twenty-three." Spencer said, "You can do it, Phil. Are you going to let a Tibetan thief in the night lay you low?" Spencer said in his best Churchillian, "Phil, never surrender, never, never, never!" Spencer said, "You'll do it, right?"

  Auden said, "How long does he take to do the hundred yards down Himalaya Street, grab the money, catch his stride and then get up the hill?"

  "He's slow."

  "How slow?"

  Spencer said, 'Twelve and a half seconds."

  "WHAT?"

  "More or less."

  "I couldn't get to the bank from the other side of the street in twelve and a half seconds!" Auden said, "He's hit the bank six times in two days. He isn't slow, he's like fucking greased lightning! Even if he gave me twenty yards start I still couldn't—"

  "You could."

  "I couldn't!"

  "You could." Spencer said entreatingly, "Do it for P.C. Wang!"

  "P.C. Wang is happy! P.C. Wang has inner peace!"

  "P.C. Wang hasn't got any money! P.C. Wang isn't going to get any inner peace until he gets a decent stake from—" Spencer said suddenly, "Phil, if you could have seen him lying there in that public ward looking so pathetic and broken . . ."

  Auden said, 'Tough."

  ". . . all his youth and dreams gone in a single cruel twist of fate . . ."

  Auden said, "Huh."

  ". . . with nothing to look forward to but a lifetime of friendless penury and a pension so niggardly and . . ." Spencer said, "Beaten by an unwinnable challenge, defeated by odds so great that only a man of superhuman muscle development and . . ."

  Auden said, "Oh, no."

  Spencer said, ". . . viselike endurance and—"

  Auden said, "You've bet on me, haven't you?"

  ". . . a will to win . . ."

  "You've found a goddamned bookie and you've laid Wang's pension on me, haven't you?" He could hardly hear himself bawl for the violins and hearts and flowers, "Haven't you!"

  Spencer said, "Poor P.C. Wang was so—"

  "Haven't you!?"

  Spencer said, "Yes!" Spencer, admitting it, said, "Yes! I bet on you! They all said it couldn't be done, that the only way to catch the Tibetan Tornado on Sagarmatha Hill was to shoot him and then—"

  Auden said, "Whoever they are, they're right."

  "—but I told them that out there there was a man to whom no battle was too great, no call too distant, no cause too lost, no burden too great . . ."

  Auden said, "I don't even like P.C. Wang—"

  "—no fellow human too low, no cur too loathsome that he—"

  "Bill, I don't think I can do it."

  Spencer said, "You can do it." Spencer said, shrugging, "Anyway, it's only a small pension. Considering that Wang was going to have to try to support his wife and three children and his wife's grandmother on it, he's probably better off without it. The medical bills would have swallowed it all up anyway." He said, nodding, "You're right, you can't do it. P.C. Wang is better off just dying quietly in the hospital with no hope of recovery at all. It's kinder on his family. At least they'll have one little moment of importance at his funeral." Spencer said, "If 11 give them a little glow, all the pageantry, to warm them on their cold, friendless, ragged walk back from the cemetery to their doorway or cardboard crate in the street."

  Auden looked up at the hill. It was like looking up at the Eiffel Tower. At the top of the hill there was a haze of carbon monoxide where it met Wyang Street. Either that or it was a mist of cloud where it met the sky. There was a flash of lightning. Either that or it was a comet. Auden said, shrugging, "Maybe I could do it . . ." Auden said, "The guy at the gym did say if I hadn't been a cop I could have been a pro footballer or a—" Auden said, "I keep myself fit and clean, you know . . ."

  Spencer said, "I know."

  Auden said, "I read books too. It's just that you have to choose sometimes between the mind and the body and there are some of us—"

  Spencer said, "Lucky for the poor and downtrodden and sick like P.C. Wang—"

  Auden said, "This Tibetan character or whatever he is, he probably doe
sn't keep himself in shape anyway. If he has to grab money off people at autobanks he obviously can't afford to go to a good gym or—" Auden said, "I'll do it."

  Spencer said, "I knew you would."

  Auden, getting excited, said, "Did you see that movie Rocky? Did you see the way he went up those stairs in Philadelphia? Did you see—"

  Spencer said, "No, I missed that one."

  Auden said, "I'll do it! I'll do it for P.C. Wang and I'll do it for me and I'll do it for all the—"

  Spencer said, "I knew you would."

  Auden said, "It's a challenge!"

  Spencer said, "Right!" He patted him again on the shoulder.

  Auden glanced up at the hill. It was nothing. He felt his calf muscles flex. Auden said, "You're a good man, Bill. You have a real concern for the underdogs of this world. You're—" He asked out of interest, "What odds did you get on me, by the way?"

  He saw Spencer's face.

  Auden said with sudden alarm, "Bill? Bill? Bill, what odds did you get on me?"

  Auden said, "—Bill?"

  Fifty miles out to sea there was the remnants of a typhoon moving northeast toward Japan. In the whorls of boiling winds, high up, there were plateaus of pressure and currents spreading out toward Hong Kong. Like the arms of a monstrous beating rotor they were turning the upper atmosphere black and seething. As they diminished away from the center, coming closer toward the land, they became flashes in the sky, reflections of power, explosions of silent lightning in the sky like artillery, bringing, alternately, heat and then rain, light and grayness.

  In Hong Kong, the Observatory was not going to post a typhoon warning: the center and the swirling arms would stay out to sea, come no closer and, finally, destroy themselves somewhere above the South China Sea off Taiwan.

  In Hong Kong, high up, there were only the sudden sheets of lightning.

  In Hong Kong, before that lightning had come, all the sleepers had come through their night.

  In Hong Kong, at Yat's, everything—everything that had lived or roosted or perched in all the cages and compounds and enclosures, everything that had walked or crawled or flew or hidden, everything—with the coming of morning . . .

  Everything was dead.

  In the Detectives' Room, all the phones rang at once. Picking up the one nearest on his desk, O'Yee said, "Yes?"

  "Herk, herk, herk, herk!" It was a Heavy Breather.

  O'Yee, watching the wall as it settled down to make vague, evil grinding noises, said in a rasp, "What the hell do you want?" O'Yee said, "Oh, God . . ." It wasn't the phone. In the phone, there was only a steady dial tone.

  "Herk! . . . herk! . . . herk . . . !"

  It was in the room, in the wall, everywhere. O'Yee said, "Oh, shit . . . !" He looked at Lim at one of the other phones. At one of the other phones, Lim had a funny, stone-faced, glazed look. O'Yee said hopelessly, "Anything?"

  "Herk! Herk! HERK!"

  It was coming closer.

  "Sir—" As a man with only nine months' experience, Constable Lim, as it was clearly laid out in all the manuals, looked to his senior officer for guidance. He guided him. Standing there with the phone stuck against his ear like stone, with a wild look in his eyes, O'Yee said clearly and efficiently and encouragingly to the lower ranks, "OH SHIT—!"

  At the phone, in command, he ducked.

  In Old Himalaya Street the 8:00 A.M. rush hour had begun. The street was filling up, coming to life. Up and down its hundred-yard length, getting ready for the business of the day, there were shops, businesses, stalls, cars, buses, people on their way to work, coming and going from all over Hong Bay, and, behind his car in an alley, the odd medieval Knight readying himself in his courtyard for King Richard's Army and the Crusades against the Tibetans.

  Hee girdeth hisse loins.

  Hee preparedfth himselfe as forre the bayttle.

  Hisse loyalle Squire Spencer hee accompaniefth.

  Spencer said softly, admiringly, taking Auden's coat and folding it like a flag, carrying it in his hands to the back seat of the car and there placing it respectfully, neatly down,

  Reioyle England, be gladde and merie,

  Troth, ouercommeth thyne enemyes all,

  The Scot, the Frencheman, the Pope, the Tibetan, and

  Heresie, overcommed by Trothe, haue had a fall:

  Sticke to the Trothe, and euermore thou shall

  Through Christe, King Henry, the Boke and the Bowe

  All manner of enemies quite ouerthrowe.

  He taketh his master's .357 Magnume for too lighten him. He taketh the contentes of his pockets. He taketh: his key ringe, his noxious tobacco weed and hisse tinder and flame maker for to lighte them, hee taketh the scabbard for the .357 Magnume and hee taketh spare ammo. He sayeth, "Verily, My Lord, thy fleetness of foote is legend."

  Auden looked at his watch.

  Hisse Squire relieveth him also of his timepiece. Spencer said, "Stand up straight." He closeth the car door. Spencer, touching him lightly on the iron muscle in his shoulder, said softly, "You're doing a good thing, Phil." He said so no one else heard the battle cry, "A Wang! A Wang! Scourge of the Tibetans."

  He wasn't going to tell him the odds. Sometimes you just got through life the best you could. Sagarmatha Hill . . . Auden closed his eyes in silent prayer.

  Spencer said, "Andrew Marvell." He said, quoting the death of King Charles, "He nothing common did or mean, Upon that memorable scene. He—"

  He loseth hisse patience. Auden said, "All right, I'm here! I'm ready! For Christ's sake, just get on with it, will you!"

  It was 8:02 A.M.

  Sir Phillip, Auden Coeur de Lion . . .

  He touched at where, for the moment at least, that poor dumb bastard his heart was pumping away unconcerned and happy and . . . softlie . . . sigheth.

  Out of the walls there dripped a dank, dark liquid. It wasn't blood. It was condensation. It was near enough. In the room, Lim, with O'Yee at the window in the lightning as all the phones went on ringing and ringing, Lim, twisting his hands together in front of his shining brass belt buckle, said in a whisper, "Sir, do you think we should do something?"

  O'Yee said in a whisper, "Yes."

  "Like what, sir?"

  There was, now, from somewhere inside the wall, from somewhere Down There, a faint moaning sound. It was just the Prince of Darkness getting up out of his coffin for the day. There was a rusty hinge creaking sound as he opened his coffin.

  Lim said in a tiny voice, "Sir . . . ?"

  O'Yee said, "Right!"

  He felt better about that.

  O'Yee said, "Right!" Behind him, in the window, the lightning flashed in silent sheets of light. There was no thunder. O'Yee said, "Right!"

  O'Yee was a Eurasian, the product of a Chinese father, an Irish mother and a San Francisco upbringing. If he had thought about it for a full moon, the Prince of Darkness couldn't have found a better candidate.

  He was also a cop, an armed, trained defender of the citizenry, a person of good repute and honest and true demeanor who could be relied on in any emergency to take charge.

  He took charge.

  O'Yee said, "Right!"

  Lim, nodding, also a trained defender, but only trained for nine months and not so good at it yet, said, "Right!"

  That settled that.

  O'Yee, wondering what the hell he was saying it about, said again just to make sure it was absolutely clear, ". . . Right!"

  He steeleth himselfe in the face of the sheete lightning for the Hordes. Auden said, "I'm ready. Bring on the Tibetan Tornado."

  He giveth a weak grinne.

  He seeth Squire Spencer taketh out his Omega stopwatch and sayeth to himself, "Oh, shit."

  8:28 A.M.

  In Old Himalaya Street the rush hour had started.

  In Old Himalaya Street, the autobank machine on the wall of the Russo Harbin Hong Kong Trading Bank went click and opened its little smoked glass window for the day's business.

  It was 8:30 A.M. e
xactly.

  In the Detectives' Room, having got them right where it wanted them, the wall, dripping condensation, went, ". . . Creakkk . . ."

  2

  The crocodile was over five feet long from head to tail. After it had had the top of its head smashed in with what had probably been an iron bar, it had been half dragged over the railing of its compound and disemboweled. By it, there was a dead fallow deer that, before or after, must have tried to run. It had crashed into a mesh netting where there had been sheep, become caught on the wire, and had its throat cut. It hung with its head down on the path with both its eyes open, looking surprised. In the compound behind it, both the sheep were also dead. One of them had a broken leg: the first blow with the bar or whatever weapon had been used had missed the head. There was very little head left. After the blow that crippled it, it had been beaten to death in a frenzy. There was a sign in English and Chinese on the compound that read MR. AND MRS. SHEEP AND FAMILY. The family was a single lamb that had had its throat cut. Along the path that led away from the compound there were two dead rabbits and, crushed and twisted around the base of the trunk, a guinea fowl.

  In the bird section, all the cages had been broken open and whatever lived inside there beaten to a pulp where they roosted.

  It had happened at night, in the rain: whatever lived in all the cages had been asleep, safe, sheltering, bunched-up together.

  There was a Chinese ring-necked pheasant a little way up the wooden path, its wings spread out in an attitude of a stiff, silent glide. It had been gutted. As he turned it over with his hand, Detective Chief Inspector Harry Feiffer drew in his breath. Feiffer said softly, "God in Heaven—" He stood up from the bird and looked across to where Constables Yan and Lee were also with the dead animals. He saw Lee stand up and shake his head.

  Yat's Animal and Bird Life Park and Children's Zoo covered a little over three acres, set up in a series of meandering circular paths that took in all the cages and compounds arranged around them and then traveled off onto steps and little picnic areas.

  All the animals and birds had had names. Benny. On the sign wired to a cage past the pheasant there was a cartoon of a yellow-billed macaw leaning down from a tree reading a newspaper. The newspaper said in Chinese, MACAWS VOTED ZOO'S MOST POPULAR PET. It was dead. One of its clipped wings had been severed at the root and it lay dead and ugly and misshapen at the bottom of its cage in its own dung.