City of Devils Read online

  They target the gambling dens immediately. The Anti-Gambling Squad, with the SMP riot van in tow, crashes the doors at the Silver Palace, José Bothelo’s long-running gambling dive. Nine Chinese croupiers are arrested, wheels confiscated and plenty of dope, but no Jack. Bothelo skips town for neutral Macao on a Portuguese-flagged tramp steamer early the next morning. They bust the Portuguese mob–run 37427 club, and this time they throw supply and sale of opium onto the charge sheet along with running illegal wheels. Next morning the Portuguese Consular Court doesn’t budge, dispensing only small-time fines all round, which indicates Tony Perpetuo has been greasing palms monthly to good effect for years. Lisbon loyalties stand strong; Powell’s China Weekly Review claims the Portuguese consul had a financial interest in both the 37427 and the Silver Palace. Still, Fat Tony’s joint is shuttered.

  The next night they change tack and raid the Burlington Hotel, where Bill Hawkins runs illegal roulette wheels in the fancy suites. The squad picks up fourteen Chinese croupiers, but no Jack. They bust an illegal poker game that Jack occasionally sat in on at the Stock Exchange Building on Kiukiang Road. Five card players go down for two months each—but no Jack. Later that week it’s a busy night again for the Red Maria: they bust a Chinese-only casino and dope den on a lane off Hwakee Avenue; a tip-off said Jack was holed up there. No Jack, but they arrest an old woman, who turns out to be Cabbage Moh’s mother. It’s just gangster score-settling. Cabbage Moh gets his ma bailed and moves her into the fortress of Fah Wah village, vowing he’ll chop any copper ever comes for her again.

  Titlebaum is swearing to the papers he’ll take down Jack Riley and restore the good name of Uncle Sam in Shanghai. While the SMP is crashing gambling joints, Titlebaum sweats what’s left of the Riley crew. He picks up Schmidt, Riley’s Mauser-toting Teutonic henchman, but the tough German says nichts. Sam bangs Mickey O’Brien in the U.S. court lockup and goes at him day and night for thirty-six hours, trying to get him to link Jack to the Farren’s raid. Mickey takes the blows, the not insubstantial Shanghai telephone book on the head, the squeezed scrotum, and laughs in Titlebaum’s face. Mickey O’Brien, righteous bucko mate, chief Friend of Riley, give Jack up?—squeeze the other one, marshal, it’s got bells on it. Why do you care anyway? Somebody did you a favour—Jack can’t call in your marker now, and Joe’s almost out of business. The telephone book comes down hard again.

  Day three of the hunt—Titlebaum goes outside his remit and kicks down doors at the Broadway Mansions to pull in the remnants of Elly Widler’s crew. They wave their Swiss passports and tell Sam he’ll get nothing this side of hell freezing over. Call the consul, he knows us all well. He raids the Burlington again, smashing the wheels, and interrogates Bill Hawkins. The old man tells him he’s never told a Shanghai copper anything in forty years and isn’t about to start. Hawkins decides it’s time to retire and head home—after four decades running casinos on the China Coast, it’s back to Manchester. Fellow old-timer Stuart Price says he doesn’t remember anything these days and is just an old man and a good citizen. Titlebaum busts the Venus Café, but Sam Levy tells him he’s not seen Jack since Al Israel’s funeral.

  The last few marines left in Shanghai awaiting rotation out say Riley is on the lam and you’ll never catch old Jack. Titlebaum causes a diplomatic row by crossing the border and strongarming into a bunch of Frenchtown boîtes and cathouses. He rousts every Blood Alley dive bar and gets nothing but lush-head AWOL marines who think Jack’s a kingpin and a stand-up fella. He rousts the Manila and busts Babe at the bar, but she’s permanently tight-lipped except for a few choice curses. He turns over the short-time flops at the back of the Great World and finds a bunch of Chekiang whores, some startled Chinese men, one embarrassed German with a swastika armband, his trousers round his ankles, and two Great World prostitutes all dolled up and déshabillé. Titlebaum thinks of busting Carlos Garcia at the Canidrome, but then thinks better of it; some people are just too powerful.

  Day four: Sam moves westward. Into Fah Wah village, with Crighton’s boys and the Riot Squad as backup and all armed to the teeth in case the triads fight back en masse. Cabbage Moh never opens his mouth, never even looks Titlebaum in the eye, spits Canto at him and Sam gets his drift—Cabbage would rather stab his own stinking brood to death than squeal. Rousting his ma didn’t go down well with the Shumchun boss. The triads are another ball game anyway, and Sam’s not got time to try to learn their crazy rules. He raids the Yu Yuen Road garrets, to number 76’s anger—he’s causing a scene, he’s trampling over Solitary Island protocol. The SMP squirms, but Judge Helmick tells him to carry on busting balls—this is about American prestige. Desperate now, Sam storms the ring-fenced Dennis Apartments on the Bubbling Well Road—Apartment 35A has been a high-end poker game, dope parlour, and bordello for connected Shanghailander taipans for years. Finally, a step too far. Helmick tells him to stop ruffling the feathers of the remaining 400. Concentrate on the Badlands.

  In that case: Farren’s. Sam left it till last, knowing it could be embarrassing because of his unpaid gambling debts from before. The boychiks spit in the dance floor’s sawdust when they hear Riley’s name but say nothing. Joe asks Sam if he’d like to settle his outstanding markers while he’s here. Albert Rosenbaum scribbles down the amount for him on a Farren’s napkin—multiple zeros and underlined. Sam exits sharpish.

  Sam knows Riley hasn’t left town. He’s here, he’s close, Sam can smell the Slots King; hear him laughing. But where’s Jack?

  39

  It’s ten days since the Farren’s raid. Blood Alley’s too hot. Jack signs over the Manhattan to Mickey, who keeps him in cash. The cash is stuffed in Jack’s leather baseball bag with that rabbit ball, his mitt, and those old Oklahoma State Pen magic dice for company. Sam Titlebaum just misses him at the 37427—Jack blows in and hangs with the Lisbon rufiões for a few days. Their coffee is good but they’re breaking in broads all day and boozing all night. He transfers over to the Burlington, but Bill Hawkins, who’s been dealing cards and spinning wheels in Shanghai since the turn of the century, is nervous. He’d been repeatedly busted, the gig was up, and he is getting out of town. Anyway, Crighton’s boys are watching the hotel day and night. Jack crashes in the Burlington’s attic for a couple of days and doesn’t like it much—bats, birdshit, and dry bread for supper, and then having to sneak out in a laundry wagon past the SMP prowl car on the street outside. So.… a Murphy bed at Broadway Mansions with the Russian card sharps; an upstairs flat over the Isis Cinema in Hongkew, courtesy of Sam Levy; a cot on the floor of the manager’s office at the old Fantasio Dance Hall … he keeps on moving, handing out ever larger parcels of cash to keep himself safe. Fah Wah’s secure and Titlebaum can’t get in there easily, but Cabbage and his triads can’t be trusted not to sell him out. Jack’s years of working virtually solo mean he’s on his own.

  He catches naps in the back rows of the Paris Cinema on the Avenue Joffre, a second-run house with German movies and a mostly Russian crowd who avoid eye contact. Jack understands not a word, but it’s warm and dry and dark, and he can stay out of sight. Schmidt slips in and pushes the cash-stuffed baseball bag across to Jack. He spends nights back with Babe at Leong’s place, the Moon Palace: Babe in a dope haze and Jack bored. John Crighton and the SMP raid it on a tip-off but Jack’s gone—just. Leong got advance warning, and they miss Jack by minutes; everyone in Shanghai is selling everyone else out in these final days. Still, Titlebaum is moving fast and getting closer. Mickey says Evelyn Oleaga will stash him.

  But there’s a catch—with Evil Evelyn there’s always a catch. Just ask that poor schmuck Paco back in Manila, or any of her subsequent lovers who’ve been left high, dry, and broke. Evelyn’s finally got her long-planned male brothel up and running. She brings in the lonely Shanghailander ladies and lets her stable of pretty-boy Latino gigolos take care of them … and then it’s light blackmailing with the negatives of their illicit funtime. Riley thinks it’s crazy, but he needs a hidey-hole bad. Evelyn
wants a cool twenty grand to keep him till the heat dies down. Jack knows he hasn’t got much choice, but he doesn’t know how fucking long that will be. She’ll bleed him dry, and Jack knows he can trust Evil Evelyn about as far as he can throw her, but he’s got Titlebaum, Crighton, the Kempeitai, and some seriously pissed-off boychiks all on his tail.

  Evelyn is still on board with her long-term plan too: the Axis-friendly casino on Edinburgh Road, the edge of the Badlands, with wheels from Jack’s former Macao contacts. All she needs is an additional twenty-five grand to get up and running, and Jack can manage the house, just like at Farren’s. Evelyn can square it with the Kempeitai to take Jack back into the fold. He’d be beyond Crighton and Titlebaum in the Badlands with Kempeitai protection and number 76 security to warn off the Settlement authorities. He’ll run the risk of boychik revenge, but it’s better than a crash cot in an attic. But that’s twenty-five grand on top of the twenty grand to stash him—Evelyn’s not cheap. Where to get the cash now?

  Jack finds himself in a room at the male bordello on the Avenue Joffre, its location and raison d’être so far unknown to the SMP and Garde Municipal. Thanks to the doc, he’s got a regular supply of bennies. Evelyn brings him corned beef hash from the Venus, hamburgers done Shanghai-style with a fried egg on top, and a few dollar bills collected from a few final admiring Friends to show solidarity for the old times. Jack sends word via Mickey to his lawyers to pay her the twenty-G stash money in telephone, gas, and tram company shares they’ve been holding for him. To kill time he chucks those well-worn Okie dice against the skirting board all day, a blanket on the floor to muffle the noise, and wins every time. He tosses the baseball and catches it in his mitt—again and again and again. Comings and goings all day, Evelyn in her trademark Shanghai madam’s garishly coloured kimonos, always with that shrill laugh, the whiff of chypre, against a backdrop of married-dame chatter, Tagalog gossip, and Spanish backtalk from her Argentine pretty boys, morning till night. The bedsteads need oiling.

  * * *

  The hunt continues in earnest. The radio says every cop has been issued a photograph of Riley, and traitors Moy and Chisholm demand Jack’s capture on XRGS. Moy says he’s an example of the rottenness of American society; Chisholm says the new order will weed out all the Jack Rileys from China. Titlebaum says they’re getting close. Crighton is liaising with the WASPs; their previous inaction will not be tolerated. The Badlands will not be safe territory for Jack Riley.

  Jack still hasn’t worked out a way to make money. Until he can, he’s on borrowed time. Mickey O’Brien sends notes but can’t visit—Crighton’s got plainclothes boys on Blood Alley scoping the Manhattan, a squad car outside each DD’s branch—Mickey’s movements are now extremely limited. Mickey sells the MG to a bachelor griffin with a need for speed. Jack tears up at the news; it’s the first time he’s had wet eyes since the nightly beatings in that godawful Tulsa orphanage. Jack loved that Brit roadster more than any Natasha, more than even Nazedha. Mickey sells his dog Blood Alley Babe to Garcia, who hasn’t forgotten that Jack nobbled his beloved Black Dolly. He tells Mickey Jack can forget any more favours from him. DD’s is on the auction block, but war-nervous investors won’t bite even at a bargain price. The gendarmes in Frenchtown are installing their own slots and busting the few Mickey managed to get up and running again. It’s the end of an era. Jack Riley brought slot machines to the China Coast, and for a decade everyone in Shanghai with change in their pockets—Chinese and foreigner; leatherneck and sailor; society lady looking for a taste of the sporting life and prostitute feeling lucky; even off-duty cops and missionaries praying one of their congregation didn’t catch them—has pulled those levers and made Jack ‘the Slots King’ Riley a wealthier man. The slots bankrolled his step upmarket with DD’s; they paid for his stake in Farren’s. The slots gave Jack sportscars, his own baseball team, lightning fast greyhounds, tailored suits, handmade shoes, comfortable apartments. The slots were an industry—every bar, boîte, nightclub, café, dance hall, and club took a cut. Hole-in-the-wall bars paid their rent on slots commissions; the Marines Club published its own newspaper funded by their slots proceeds. History now.

  Mickey cleans out the Ningpo trust account, with the last of the slots’ proceeds delivered to Jack by Schmidt on foot—even the dependable old Packard Jack and Mickey used for the slots run has been sold. As usual, stagflation renders the sum paltry. Evelyn is charging an arm and a leg to keep Jack stashed. She says the twenty grand is all used up and she needs more. Jack has little choice. Mickey gets what he can to her with the bundles larger and larger as the money becomes more and more worthless.

  Jack finally cashes in his final twenty-five thousand worth of stock in the Shanghai Power Company for Evil Evelyn’s Badland’s casino fund—fear not, friend Jack, she says with a smile, I’ll cut you in on the house once we’ve got the wheels spinning on the Edinburgh Road. We’ll go back to Manila yet, you and I. Twenty-five thousand doesn’t go far now, and the Portuguese want plenty to bring in the wheels from their Macanese suppliers. Number 76 demands a cut, as do the Kempeitai and the Chinese landlords. The Kempeitai want protection money, while Evelyn’s security crew of Hitler-loving thugs looks seriously untrustworthy at best. But it’s Jack’s last roll of the dice.

  Now Evelyn is saying maybe they’ll relocate to Frenchtown, hire Corsican muscle. The Sûreté are less rapacious than the Japs, and she’s in tight with the pro-Vichy clique. This is when Jack knows his twenty-five G is gone, set for Evil Evelyn’s retirement fund post-Jack, post-Shanghai. The casino is all bullshit. Jack sensed it was a pipe dream; any other time he wouldn’t have gone near Evelyn’s plan with a barge pole. But this wasn’t any other time, this was the most desperate time, and he realizes he grabbed at anything that seemed a way out. Now he knows Evelyn is not the way out; she’s just another money-draining dead end.

  And then suddenly it’s time to move. Some Brit broad didn’t take well to the blackmail scam and grassed on Evelyn to the Frenchtown flics. The gig’s up before it’s even really begun. By squeezing the most respectable in town—or their wives—Evelyn has stirred up a hornet’s nest even her powerful contacts can’t settle. The Filipinos and the Argentinian boys have been turfed out, the joint’s closing—oh, and by the way, Jack, we spent your stash money and the other cash, and the casino stake you fronted was spent on roulette wheels, now stuck in transit in Macao, expecting Jack to buy that bullshit story. He is past caring now. Move on; another throw of the dice.

  Jack’s been low before; he can rise again. Mickey grabs what cash he can and stuffs Jack’s trusty old baseball bag full of notes. He passes the bag to Babe under the counter at the Manhattan; she saunters out, past Crighton’s watchmen, just another China Coast dame smoking a Mei Li Bah on the working girl’s evening stroll. She gets the bag down to Jack at Evelyn’s with a change of clothes, and tells him she’s rigged up a stash pad for him over the creek in Hongkew.

  Time to go back to the start …

  * * *

  SHOPPING NEWS —‘BREVITIES’—

  MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 1941

  Honestly, could the Shanghai Municipal Police look any more toothless? We think not. Two weeks after the shootout at Farren’s on the Great Western Road and the SMP has failed to make one single, solitary, lonesome arrest. Two dead and hundreds terrified while the SMP seems to fear nothing but treading on the toes of No. 76 by venturing uninvited into the Badlands. At this time of heightened and prolonged Emergency for the Settlement shouldn’t we be able to rely on our own cops to at least keep us safe? Seems not, and Commissioner Bourne’s got nothing to say for himself while Gentleman Joe’s still opening the doors nightly.

  Coal prices across the Settlement have reached record highs and the Municipal Council is doing nothing to prevent rampant profiteering in times of shortage caused by the emergency situation. Could it be that too many of our esteemed Councilors are mighty matey and real chummy with the major distributors? Our sources report that their fir
es are burning bright while the rest of us consider bank loans to buy even a brick or two of anthracite from Hongay’s. No wonder, despite having to duck the bullets and leave your pearls at the roulette table, so many Shopping News devotees still choose to spend their evenings in the Badlands where the fires roar lovely at the Eventail, the Argentina, and even at Farren’s, despite a hole or two in the wall!!

  You may have spied our esteemed Municipal Council Chairman cruising the Settlement in a green bulletproof V-8 Caddie of 1928 vintage. He says the machine is Al Capone’s old limo from back in the day, and that a dashing taipan had it shipped over from Chi-Town special. Everyone’s favourite US marshal, Sam Titlebaum, says it looks a lot like the vehicle old ‘Scarface’ cruised Chicago in when Titlebaum was but a mob-busting beat cop in his younger days. Titlebaum says it’ll take a Thompson round or a ‘Red 9’ slug at close range with only chipped paintwork. Let’s hope it doesn’t get tested …

  Suffering through this long, long winter of our discontent? The Siccawei Observatory is predicting a damp and wet winter ahead. Best then to prepare for the coming rain with a new raincoat from Whiteaway, Laidlaw & Co. As they promise—‘We can’t stop the rain, but OUR RAINCOATS WILL KEEP YOU DRY’. They promise the largest assortment in the Far East with ladies macs starting at $8.95. Now’s the time, get a 20% discount with this week’s copy of your beloved Shopping News.