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checked the bag, confirmed his reservations on the 11:45 P.M. flight to Tokyo and then took another cab to the House of Eagles on Mm Street. He had to hand it to old George Wan. The place was no more than ten minutes from the airport. The House of Eagles was a flashy third-class night club which, were it not for the sign in both Chinese and English, could have been in Miami or North Beach or on Sunset Boulevard. The decor was early joint, imitation leather, fake silk drapes, candles in used wine bottles. Three of the five girls were Caucasians and the bartender looked like an ex-sailor from Brooklyn. The place was almost empty. As Burns sat down at the bar one of the Oriental girls walked up to him and ran her hand across his neck.
    ‘Are you from Hong Kong?’ she asked.
    ‘Nope.’
    ‘Ah, American. Aw chung-yee may gock yun. That means 1 love Americans”.’
    ‘Not tonight, I got plans.’
    ‘Plans can be changed.’
    ‘Maybe tomorrow I’ll come back.’
    The girl’s smile vanished and so did she. Burns ordered a glass of plain soda water and asked where the bathroom was.
    The restroom was filthy. Soiled paper towels littered the sink and floor, and the entire room seemed coated with grime. Burns entered one of the two booths and locked the door. He opened the attaché case and took out the surgical gloves and put them on. He loosened his belt, lowered his pants, and tied the cord around his hips using a simple bow-knot, then pulled his pants back up and buckled them. The knot was directly under the zipper. He took the other pill and put it in his suit pocket and put the cotton swabbing in one of his pants pockets. Then he took out the pistol and checked it once more before reaching around to his back and slipping it in his belt.
    He buttoned his coat and flushed the toilet and went back to the bar.
    The glass of soda was waiting for him. He slipped the pill into his mouth and washed it down with soda water. The rush was almost instantaneous. His body seemed to vibrate with electrical charges. Life surged back into his feet, his hands, his fingertips. New strength flooded his worn-out body, adrenalin pumped through his brain. His eyes began to clear. The sounds in the room amplified, were crisper, more distinct. With the rush came an anticipation so keen that he began to fantasize as he mentally ticked off the steps he was about to follow.
    He looked at his watch. It was 9:20, time to go. When he got up to leave he was aware for the first time that he had an erection.
    The house on Bowring Street sat back from the road among hundreds of dwarf azaleas, an old Chinese one storey mansion, weathered and ancient, its tiled pagoda roof scarred by the years, its azaleas, perfectly shaped, blooming in small step terraces down to the kerb.
    The house was deceiving, for it was shaped like a U and only the south wing faced Bowring. A wall circled the entire block. It was nine feet high and had a single opening, a mahogany door nine inches thick with brass hinges embedded in the wood. The door had no latch. It could be opened only from the inside with a special key. The top of the wall was littered with broken glass.
    Behind it was a garden almost three hundred years old, a garden that was weeded and trimmed and pruned every day and was so immaculately manicured that it was rare to find even a single blossom on the ground. A small stream curved through it with benches at intervals where lovers for the evening could sit and talk or perhaps just touch each other. Each of the interior rooms of the house had a frosted-glass panel that opened onto the garden.
    In the front of the house, over the door, a lamp hung from an ornate brass serpent that seemed to curl from the wall. There were no other lights. The windows of the house had been blacked out for years.
    The place was as still as a painted landscape.
    Halford stood in front of the house for several minutes after the taxi left. He smoked a cigarette and walked to the corner and