Frogmouth Read Free Page B

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