spilled out into the foyer as several of the stagehands came charging at them. The first went down with a slug between the eyes. He fell and exploded—just like the goon who had attacked him in his apartment.
“Sweet Jesus!” shouted one man.
“Get out! Everybody out!” yelled Murphy, discharging another round, downing another explosive-filled attacker. He made a mad rush for the outer doors. Shadows and other horrors poured out after them, closing in.
Then the main theatre doors crashed open.
Three men, armed with Thompson submachine guns stood in the doorway, framed against the light flung from the street lights outside.
“That you, Murphy?” one of them shouted. “What the hell’s going on?” It was ‘Muscles’.
“Get outta here!” Turning, Murphy fired a few more shots and ran to join them.
There followed a yammering of submachine gunfire as the hoodlums riddled the foyer with bullets. There were screams and shouts as dark things swelled and vanished, bubbled forth and retreated, ebbed and flooded. More of those strange, explosive-filled ‘men’ joined the carnage. The air was filled with the smell of gunpowder.
Murphy’s mind darkened, unwilling or unable to take in any more of the unfolding madness. He was vaguely aware of a pair of strong arms dragging him clear of the theatre.
* * * * * * *
Maxwell wasn’t buying any of it. He stood, his back to Murphy, gazing out the window onto the rain-washed street below.
“But it’s true, boss,” said ‘Muscles’, “there were some weird things going on. I saw it.”
“Listen to what your man’s telling you,” added Murphy. “That goddamned Chinaman’s—”
Maxwell spun round to face them. “What? The Devil?” He strode over to his desk. “And that somehow he’s turned ‘Two-Bellies’ and Huey Labada into freakin’ glove puppets? Come on, what kind of idiot would believe that?” He pointed directly at Murphy. “Nobody makes an idiot outta me. Nobody! You got that?”
“Sure, I’ve got that.” Murphy nodded. He was still trying to come to terms with the horrors of the show he had seen the other evening. Now, in the relative sanity of Maxwell’s office, with the grey light of morning shining in through the window, he tried to tell himself that some of it had been but stage trickery. Some of it—that was the problem. If only he could convince himself that all of it had been nothing more than elaborate theatricals effects.
“But what about the men that exploded, boss?” It was ‘Muscles’’who raised the question.
Maxwell shook his head. “I don’t know. That could be anything. Maybe they weren’t real to begin with. Maybe you just thought they were real. Dummies or something.” It was clear he didn’t have a good answer for this.
“And ‘Two-Bellies’?” asked Murphy. “Okay, maybe that thing I saw wasn’t him, but surely you agree it’s highly coincidental his name being used? And Labada, I remember now. He was one of those that helped spring ‘Two-Bellies’ out of Bridewell, wasn’t he?”
“So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that maybe he and ‘Two-Bellies’ were pals. Maybe they went to one of these shows together. And, even if you don’t think that spooky Chinaman has supernatural powers, I’d say it still suggests that something happened to them there, at one of his shows. It’s just too coincidental for their names to be used and for one to appear as a mobster, the other a jailbird.”
“This is getting nuts. But maybe you’re right.” Maxwell frowned. “Well, let’s not get the cops involved. That’s the last thing we need right now.” He looked Murphy dead in the eye. “What do you suggest? I mean, you’ve seen this man. You claim to know what he’s capable of.”
“Well, that’s just it. I’m trying to forget just what he’s capable of. Madness and magic, what more can I say? If the Devil does exist, I’d say he’s living somewhere in Chinatown, Chicago.”
“Right, I’ve had enough of this.” Maxwell reached into a drawer and withdrew an automatic. He looked to his henchman. “Devil or not, he’s made a big mistake in muscling in on my patch. Get the boys together. Tell ’em that we’re going to sort out a little business in Chinatown. Tell ’em to come armed. And get Larry ‘the Lips’ on the phone. He’ll know where this slant lives.” He clicked home a magazine. “It’s time I paid this Chung-Fu a visit and put him straight about who runs this freakin’ town.”
* * * * * * *
Four cars filled with hoodlums rendezvoused on one of the wide streets opposite the Dow-Tung Restaurant. A typical pork and noodles joint, it was frequented by all manner of unsavoury types: immigrants, railroad workers, dockhands, and bums. This was where Larry ‘the Lips’ had said Chung-Fu held out.
“You ready for this, Murphy?” asked Maxwell, looking out of the car window at the sleazy establishment across the road.
“I don’t know.” It was an honest enough answer. He had seen things the other night that had dragged his sanity to the verge of breaking point, stretched it like toffee. And who knew what fresh terrors awaited them now? Just how effective would bullets prove against the terrible magic of Chung-Fu?
“Let’s do this.” Maxwell got out of the car.
More car doors opened, and a dozen men in long coats, their weapons concealed beneath, stepped out and followed him.
Murphy walked along behind them.
Pushing aside an old Chinese man who was smoking something suspicious from a long clay pipe, Maxwell went up to the front door of the restaurant and kicked it open. He then fired a shot in the air. “I’m looking for Chung-Fu,” he shouted.
There was immediate silence. Confused, wrinkled faces turned to look.
“I know some of you speak English, so I’ll ask once more. Where’s Chung-Fu?”
No one answered.
Maxwell shot a man nearby. “I’ll keep shooting till someone tells me.”
The crowd inside grew hostile, but their hostility turned to fear when they saw Maxwell’s heavies gathered in the doorway, their Tommy guns and double-barrelled shotguns out. Murphy peered from within their ranks.
Maxwell pointed his gun at another man. His heavy-handedness got results.
“I tell, I tell!” The man raised his arms.
“Where?”
“Chung-Fu, he leaving for China. He being taken to shipyard. He decide he live here no more. He take man with two bellies with him, some others and he go.”
“Two bellies?” Maxwell snarled. “Two-Bellies?!”
“Little man in crate.”
“Never mind a crate, I’ll put him in a box six feet under if he’s joined forces with the Chinaman.” Maxwell aimed the gun. “Which dock?”
“I
