The man with the scar had just finished a phone call. ‘We got the orders,’ he growled.
‘’Bout fuckin’ time,’ said the dwarf, sitting opposite sharpening a knife on a whetstone. ‘The bastard did for Shao Ta. Gonna lose his eye. I wanna slice the kid up this time.’
‘The boss wants it done properly, not botched.’
The little man jumped up off his stool. They were in a room just down from the cell, above the dojo. ‘Wha’ ye fuckin’ mean, Da Sor? Ye don’t think I can do the job?’
The man with the scar stared at his brother. ‘Killing? Killing is easy. The boss wants it done differently from the others. He wants the kid’s eyes gouged out, after we strangle him.’
‘How ye gonna do it?’
The man with the scar held up two hammerhead thumbs. ‘What do you think these are for?’
The little man sat down again. It didn’t pay to question Da Sor too much. ‘How’s the hand?’
The man touched the webbing between his thumb and index finger. ‘Better. The bitch had sharp teeth. I can still do the job, though.’
‘I want to slash his face. You said I could slash the next one’s face.’
‘You can do it?’
The dwarf fingered the edge of his knife. ‘Nice straight cuts? Easy. When we gonna do him?’
‘The boss said right away, and we’re to dump the body in front of the offices of the Anti-Japanese Boycott Committee.’
‘How we gonna do that?’
‘Not to worry, the boss wants him thrown from the car onto the road. Afterwards, he said to get out and go back home to Anhui.’
‘We’re done? When we gonna get paid?’
‘Already here.’ The man with the scar produced a heavy pouch of silver dollars from the bag at his feet. ‘Gave me the money last night when I met him.’
‘Why didn’t you say? We coulda scarpered already.’
The man’s knife came out of its sheath before the dwarf could move. ‘We finish the job, is that clear?’
‘All right, don’t get pissed off. It was only an idea.’
The man with the scar stared across the table, the knife still glinting in the light. ‘Yeah, well, we do what he says, when he says, and then we scarper, understood?’
‘I got it. I got it.’ The dwarf began sharpening his knife against the whetstone again. ‘What’s he like?’
‘What’s who like?’
‘The boss.’
‘You met him the day we snatched the colonel’s kid.’
‘Didn’t say anything to me. Just sat there, silent.’
‘Silent is best. When he talks, you listen.’
‘What did he tell ye?’
The man with the scar spent an age thinking before finally saying, ‘You don’t wanna know. He’s clever. Too clever by half. I wouldn’t cross him.’
‘You mean like the monk did?’
‘Yeah, he was stupid. Running like that. Only a matter of time before the cops found him.’
‘You did him proper, though, didn’t you?’
‘Sliced him up like the good butcher I am. Hiding me in the mob was the boss’s idea. Did the cutting in front of everybody and nobody knew it was planned.’
The dwarf remained silent, thinking. ‘Da Sor?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What’s to stop him from doing the same to us?’
‘You mean getting someone to knock us off after the job?’
The dwarf nodded.
The man with the scar tapped the side of his head. ‘I thought of that. It’s why I wanted the money last night. I’ve arranged a safe house for us near the railway station.’
‘In Chapei?’
‘And two days from now, once everything’s quietened down a bit, we’ve got tickets to Peking.’
‘Not home?’
‘Nah, not yet.
‘Never been to Peking before.’
The man with the scar stood up, the knife in his hand. ‘It’s time you went. And it’s time to do the kid.’