Trouble in Chinatown
Mac clawed his way up the stairs above Bombay Alley like a man returning from his own funeral. Each step punched him in the ribs. By the time he reached the landing, he was sweating, blood, bourbon, and regret. He stumbled into the office, caught the desk with both hands, and dropped into the chair. The damn thing wobbled like it wanted to throw him back down the stairs. He snapped on the lamp, flooding the room with a jaundiced glow.
His fingers were swollen—fat, ugly things that looked more like butchered sausages than parts of a human hand. One knuckle had split open at the joint, a neat little reminder of the night’s festivities. He tried to curl them into a fist, made it halfway, and quit. His head throbbed along with his testicles, which felt like a bowling ball between his legs. His left cheek pulsed with every beat of his heart. He didn’t bother looking in the mirror. He already knew he looked like hell’s understudy.
Bogey made it look easy—take a beating, give one back, light a cigarette, toss a wisecrack, pull a gun, and stroll off like the world was his personal soundstage. Mac wasn’t Bogey. He was just a busted-up Marine with too many miles on the odometer.
He grunted as he dragged the bourbon bottle from the drawer. He drank because he liked it, and because it liked him back. In every pit the Corps ever dropped him—Guadalcanal, the Solomons, Nicaragua, places where the heat felt like punishment—bourbon and cigars were always there. Women weren’t. But bourbon and cigars? They were a matched set, like Bogart and Bacall, Gable and Lombard. One didn’t taste right without the other. Whatever else life stole from him, it wouldn’t steal those.
Chinatown might kill him, though. Guadalcanal hadn’t killed him. The Japs hadn’t killed him. But Chinatown was a different kind of battlefield—slick, crooked, crawling with snakes that smiled when they struck.
He reached down and rubbed Seadog’s head. The Lab leaned into his hand, steady as a best friend can be.
“It’ll take more than they got to put us under,” Mac muttered.
He took a long pull of bourbon, let the burn settle, and closed his eyes. Seadog let out a soft grunt and curled up beside him, the only honest soul in a city built on lies.
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