The Sting of the Silver Manticore Read online

  THE STING OF THE SILVER MANTICORE

  From the Silver Manticore’s private annals

  As told to P.J. LOZITO

  A Pro Se Press Publication

  Cover Art by David Russell

  Book Design, Layout, and Additional Graphics by Sean E. Ali

  E-book Production Design by Russ Anderson

  Edited by Don Thomas

  This book is a work of fiction. All of the characters in this publication are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead is purely coincidental. No part or whole of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the permission in writing of the publisher.

  Pro Se Productions, LLC

  133 1/2 Broad Street

  Batesville, AR, 72501

  870-834-4022

  [email protected]

  http://www.proseproductions.com

  The Sting of the Silver Manticore

  Copyright © 2012 P.J. Lozito

  All rights reserved.

  This is dedicated to Philip Jose Farmer and the whole Wold Newton gang but especially my mother and my father for all their help and support.

  “Some things which appear different are in fact the same.”

  --Alchemist and Taoist writer Ko Hung

  PART ONE

  HE HUNTS THE MOST

  DANGEROUS PREY IMAGINABLE

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE SILVER MANTICORE STRIKES!

  Near midnight, a figure in black approached a disreputable North Beach tavern. CASA DEL GATO, neon above the entrance flashed, served society’s worst elements. A number of such riff-raff had already collected there this evening. These gatherings discouraged most honest people from venturing out around the area after dark. This one was taking his chances on the foggiest night of 1942. He seemed unperturbed by night or fog, however.

  The dive in question was as rough as any Barbary Coast saloon from the late 1800s. It had a reputation rivaling the old Golden Gate Casino for sheer mayhem. Local police knew about the place; in fact, they were planning a raid. At least, that was what one law enforcement official known to dine with The San Francisco Examiner‘s publisher had claimed. And that would be the end of Casa Del Gato. Until then, it was where strong arms, burglars, torpedoes, gun molls and the occasional fence or two congregated.

  Down by the wharves, ships creaked carefully through the mist. Shouting broke the unearthly quiet; the walker’s slight one hundred-fifty pound frame wheeled. But the commotion was only man and wife hurling invective at each other. True love! Grim laughter erupted lowly from the lone pedestrian. Marriage was not for him, he knew. His calling took precedence.

  A ring on his left index finger suddenly lit. That was the signal. It was duly acknowledged via the jewel’s crystal set. Black gloves were pulled on. Head down, hat tugged low, collar turned up, the man quickened his pace. He entered the squalid bar, the witching hour fast approaching. There was work to do. That is, if Emilio Luciferro’s papers were reliable.

  Inside, the reek of stale beer and cheap cigars permeated the atmosphere. Revelers were too busy having fun, glad to be out of the damp, to take much notice of the latest arrival. Slithering in, the dark figure picked his way along a wall. He stepped to the pitted bar’s only free spot. The thing had absorbed enough alcohol over time to easily become a pyre. That was a distinct possibility.

  Casa Del Gato wasn’t the sort of establishment where the bartender wore a uniform. In truth, that worthy seemed to have forgotten his tie this night. Trappist monks’ brew was not likely a featured item. Men’s hats stayed on while drinking, even if there was female companionship. And most of them appeared to be unescorted-- a low class joint.

  Wiping a chipped mug with what may have once been a white rag, the bald bartender merely succeeded in redistributing grime more evenly. He casually glanced at his newest customer. Tobacco-stained teeth had, long ago, chomped out whatever life a thimble-sized stogie jammed into the corner of his mouth ever held.

  “What’ll you have?” came out by rote, mustache buckling.

  Head down, the newcomer beckoned his host closer, wiggling a crooked finger silently. Huh, the bartender thought, here we go again; another Square John wants something besides booze. Well, if he has the scratch, we can cure his itch. Bird is sure dressed like he wanted to kick a gong around on the sly, the barkeep observed.

  Leaning forward, the proprietor automatically presented a cauliflower ear to his shy patron. This afforded a better view of a certain blonde dish at the end of the bar. Distracted, the barkeep was, thus, quite surprised when a gloved hand clamped tightly around his throat.

  Instinctively, the bartender swung a fistful of mug straight at his attacker’s face. A second hand flashed, parrying this mug expertly. It dropped earthward. Glass shattered, signaling a beef. Everyone turned toward the confrontation, seeing the barkeep yanked into the air and dropped to the dirty floor in a heap. That does it; he thought in fury, I’m roastin’ this nut. There were a few guffaws. Perhaps sight of a man treated like a sack of laundry was not uncommon here. Someone muttered “About time…”

  From his new vantage point on the floor, the victim saw the object of his rage was no more than five feet seven. I’m gonna enjoy this, the bartender thought to himself. Back turned, the attacker seemed to tug something around his own face. He secured it tightly and faced the bartender. Dappled snakeskin draped him, surgeon-style. The bartender couldn’t quite choke out speech. He managed a sputtering sound, pointing. Previously uninterested customers now zeroed in on the ruckus. A voice from the back sputtered: “Silver, Silver Manticore!”

  That brought a jolt: the emissary from Hell was paying Casa Del Gato a visit. The joint suddenly erupted into a stampede as most of the patrons scattered without a backward glance. The bartender scrambled to join them. Undisturbed, a dance record from the time of the Peabody played on the jukebox in the background.

  Now the veiled man held a different captive: the usual criminal type. This hood often boasted he wasn’t afraid of anyone or anything. Grunting a short involuntary gasp, he grimaced, caught tight in a vise-like osae.

  “What’s Hanoi Tsin up to?” demanded the mystery man applying the aikido hold. “Talk! I know he’s planning something.” His other hand dragged the victim by his shirt, up against the bar.

  “Man-a-core, I ain’t never heard a no Hanoi Tsin ‘fore tonight,” sobbed the victim, forehead rimmed with sweat.

  “Is that why you pronounce his name perfectly but not mine…Marco?”

  “H-how’d you know my ---?”

  That frightened man was flung away roughly as the false face spun on another adversary already upon him. The masquerader smacked the second man, hard, in the face with a queer-looking gun quickly drawn. His attacker tumbled backward, pawing a nose already purpling.

  “So, the local Whyos want to play,” it was a challenge, not a question. The interloper had spotted this one in the mirror set above the back bar. Other men in the saloon drew backward a step, all eyes now on the invader. This crowd was choked full of booze and tobacco, not on their game. Intimidating them was easier than it looked.

  A third hood took the invitation, brandishing his pool cue Louisville Slugger-style. While perfect for knocking a little ball around a felt-covered table, it didn’t make the best of bludgeons. He began his swing. Several things happened, almost at once. As the stick described an arc towards his head, the man in the cloth curled his right hand into a tightly packed fist and drove it into the pool c
ue’s weakest spot, just mid-way.

  Crack!

  The top half of the makeshift weapon clattered to the filthy floor. The wielder gaped. He’d never seen anybody manage that before. Heads, not fists, usually crack the damn things.

  The man in black cocked his odd-looking pistol. This winched a cloudy glass bullet, formerly hanging amidst a row beneath, to its business end. Pulling the trigger snapped it towards his opponent’s chest. The bullet shattered on impact, green smoke billowing. Man three was enveloped in fumes, coughing his way into unconsciousness.

  “Sleep tight, Sticks Watson,” was barely uttered before foeman number four, a mere stripling, sprang. His objective ducked, and straightening up, lifted. The youth flew over the bar, landing with a groan of pain, breaking glass.

  The man incognito produced a big .45. This convinced the remainder of his opponents to run. Men more fleet of foot bunched together in the back, leaving a trail of hats, scarves, small weapons and their own upset liquors and drafts. Swell targets for when Bako made his move. What the hell was keeping him? B-girls abandoned watered-down versions of drinks, purses, gloves and wraps heading for the rear exit. The masked man ignored them, leveling his .45 between the eyes of one straggler he ensnared in a leg trip.

  “Why’s the Cabal of Seven on a recruiting binge?” he demanded.

  “The Fi-San’ll kill me if I spill,” the hood answered, scooting away.

  “I’ll kill you if you don’t,” insisted the other. He added: “Jack Phelan.”

  Phelan went pale. “They’re lookin’ to a hire a Chink named Ling Chan,” breathed the hood. “Ow!”

  A clubbed automatic raised a lump on the tough’s skull, “Need I tell you that word is offensive?”

  “What, ‘Chink’?”

  There was another smack.

  “Ow! Okeh, okeh, whatever you say! He’s a half-breed gunman.”

  “What do they want him for?”

  “He’s the best. That’s all I know.”

  The intruder contemptuously pushed his latest victim aside. Noting the women were gone, he raised both guns. Covering the room with mismatched weapons, he fired. Good aim was not needed for the gas dispenser, but lead winged shoulders and took out knees expertly. He wanted these bums alive.

  “Someone here knows what Hanoi Tsin is up to,” he called in a brief respite from triggering, “who?”

  Yelps of pain mixed with sharp oaths from his victims were the only answers he received. Slowly, the man hidden under silvery cloth waded into the knots of bleeding, cursing men, unaffected by the noxious fumes. A strong watch chain discreetly anchored the gun to the disguise. Firing it had snapped on a hidden air supply through this arrangement. The scent of mimosa pervaded the air. Merry music continued to play.

  Then the lights went out. Bako. A bone-chilling laugh echoed through the darkness.

  CHAPTER TWO

  BAKO

  Behind Casa Del Gato, the man currently calling himself Gani Bako climbed back into a black Hudson. He wore the uniform of a chauffeur. Parked in the garbage-strewn alley behind the seedy tavern, he waited in smoked-glass goggles. Even these could not hide his firmly chiseled features, high cheekbones and narrow jaw.

  Gloved hands, slender and graceful, returned wire cutters into a toolbox. Man and machine were cloaked in the chilling night’s shadows. He was most thankful for the Arvin car heater at his feet.

  Panicked women had just dashed out of the speakeasy, he noted. Ears straining to identify the sounds from within, Bako heard the jukebox nonchalantly play the next record. Jazz wafted in from the bar. “Swing,” this type was called. Why was a style of music named after a child’s playground toy?

  Truly, the world went quite mad, Bako thought. Never did he think the war-like elements of his government would actually attack Pearl Harbor. Bako remembered his short time on Hawaii fondly, where his new life was made possible.

  But perhaps this dangerous way of living, which attracted Bako, was too risky. Capture by the police would mean immediate internment or worse. Might it not be time to suggest that Mr. Evan White drive? A genuine Negro cabbie would make a very fine chauffeur, he reasoned.

  Still, Bako felt the need to watch his uchi deshi. His benefactor could land in just as heated water as he himself. Bako was surprised at how routine this nocturnal task had become. But this was no time for memories.

  At any second gunshots would echo out from the saloon. There, now, shouts, too. But he couldn’t make out the words through the sound of scuffling and breaking glass.

  Another moment and miscreants would appear at the rear exit. Bako saw the first of them. Some regrouped, huddling together with plans to go back in and counter-attack. He caught a furtive “…just one guy…”

  That was Bako’s cue. Up went his window. Down went the button operating the auto’s spotlight. Occidental men, and Chinese, but no Japanese like himself, staggered as if struck by a physical blow. The better part of valor was clearly indicated. Trapped like rats, men squeezed through the smallest openings scattering.

  No, no Japanese, Bako saw. America’s President Roosevelt had signed Executive Order 9066 sending over one hundred thousand of them to the camps in an effort to protect against espionage and sabotage. All Japanese- Americans were classified 4C: enemy aliens. Yes, some Black Dragon had been rounded up that way. But most Nisei were law-abiding patriots, loyal to Uncle Sam. And I am the one they would seek, Bako considered sadly. Often did he have to pretend not to hear a muttered variation on “… stinkin’ Jap” in the streets. Documents of Bako’s held he was Filipino.

  Green mist spat out of the car’s hidden gas nozzles, causing fleeing men to gag and collapse. Automatically Bako thought, I am so very sorry. These men were guilty, at most, of listening to uncouth jitterbug music. Some were criminals, though. Petty ones, not the “big game” we hunt, Bako had to admit. A handful swarmed around the car like water splashing over a rock, blinded and disoriented, willy-nilly, down the alley.

  Bako, behind the high-powered beam, watched carefully as a second wave started in earnest. More men and a couple of ladies poured out of the tavern. Perhaps not ladies, strictly speaking –- gun molls.

  The group spilled into the alley, followed by a long-coated figure, confidently striding out, a gun in each hand. The underworld knew him as the Silver Manticore. The police had warrants out for him. Few, if any, suspected that the shiny cloth concealed a tiny “gaspirator,” not merely his features.

  Men still littering the alley were dealt knockout blows from the Silver Manticore’s armaments. Pistol-whipping, Bako had learned this was called. A garbage can and its attendant vermin went flying as a body upset it. Bako noted Silver Manticore’s black hat still perched on his head, kept secure by an almost invisible string. Just like that down-on-his-luck silent picture comedian’s hat. Buddy Keaton? He had taught us much about tumbling and misdirection, Bako allowed.

  Bako observed his chief turn and empty his pistols, first the .45, through the door he just exited. A loud, theatrical laugh followed. He further noted the action of the second weapon, the gas-dispensing gun, carefully. This revealed Bako’s own doctoring, of which he was justly proud. Empty, both guns disappeared within his chief’s long coat. There a flat, leather briefcase was strapped and served as holster to the pair. This could be undone easily and innocently held in the hand.

  The scent of both cordite and the sleep fumes the car had expelled crept in as the Silver Manticore flung open a backseat door. In the distance, the banshee shriek of sirens wailed. They respond so very much faster than before, Bako thought, starting the engine.

  “How did it go, sir?” he asked in a high voice, his boss hopping in.

  “There’s always some wise egg needs convincing,” was the muffled reply. “Why?”

  “I ask only because violence is a last resort.”

  “Nobody in there’s innocent. I want them to fear me.”

  “In that case, one must go straight forward and crush the enemy. That i
s, if they did not give you what you sought.”

  “Oh, I didn’t leave empty-handed,” Silver Manticore answered, pondering this Ling Chan. The word will go out to all the agents as soon as Burberry could relay it.

  Bako piloted the machine down the alley, out onto the street, wondering how an egg could be wise. This was some jargon that eluded his grasp, Bako knew, gunning the motor. The aerodynamic, low to the ground Hudson handled well at any speed.

  As he drove, Bako activated a wire recording of the Silver Manticore’s same weird, shrill laugh as before. It came from a hidden loudspeaker, and used vocal trickery learned at Rache Curan. If needed, the realistic sound of gunshots or ersatz police sirens could be selected, good for spooking opponents. The same works also housed a public address system.

  “Cut that ‘sir’ malarkey when we’re alone,” ordered Silver Manticore, getting comfortable in the back. The sounds of a fresh magazine of ammo being slammed into the pistol reached Bako’s ears.

  “I find ‘The Silver Manticore’ too long,” protested Bako, cheerfully. “And I dare not call you by your other name when we do night work.”

  “Well, think of something else,” was the reply between refreshing gulps of Chinese pu-erth tea taken from a Thermos. Manticore lifted the snakeskin with his free hand.

  They approached the men who exited Casa Del Gato moments before, becoming suddenly surefooted as the sleek black car bore down. A hardy soul produced a handgun somehow missed inside. One less for our arsenal, the Manticore sighed.

  The gunman took aim at the rapidly shrinking vehicle. One, two rounds bounced harmlessly off the car as it glided by silently. A third shot went wild. That was the gas taking effect. Bako knew .32 caliber hardware wasn’t a match for the Pegasus’ bulletproofing. That triggerman may as well have been using a peashooter. And then, the Pegasus, for that was her name, rolled out onto the hilly streets. The almost-new Golden Gate Bridge loomed watchfully.