King: Chandragupta Maurya

By Michael Sandusky

The Red Leopard of the Maurya has been following Michelangelo Barrier’s friend Rajmund Singh for over two millennia. Now, as the two men near the end of their ten-year odyssey with only the Himalayas to cross into India, the secret society makes its long-awaited move to bring Chandragupta Maurya back as King of India during British independence in 1948. The two best friends have survived jungle plane crashes and a Japanese prison camp. However, can a woman who looks like Vale, believed killed in a plane crash, stop Mike’s return home or Raj’ finding his destiny on that mountain peak?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664168848

Michael Sandusky

Michael Sandusky is the quintessential story-telling romantic. His fifty years of writing novels, short stories, poetry, self-help books and newspaper columns have been read and enjoyed the world over. He loves deep-sea fishing, traveling to exotic locales, cooking and public speaking relating thrilling, funny and poignant stories about his adventures, narrow escapes and interpersonal relationships. He still believes that the best stories cannot be made up, but come from actual human experience. He can be reached at [e-mail]

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Copyright © 2021 by Michael Sandusky.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-6641-6885-5

               eBook          978-1-6641-6884-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 04/16/2021

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Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1   Kangting

Chapter 2   The Fourth Patient

Chapter 3   Stir-craziness

Chapter 4   The Cross

Chapter 5   Chinese Purgatories

Chapter 6   Mei Li

Chapter 7   A Puzzle

Chapter 8   Walnuts and Molasses

Chapter 9   The Proposition

Chapter 10   Friday

Chapter 11   The Revelation

Chapter 12   Gone

Chapter 13   The List

Chapter 14   Negotiations

Chapter 15   May 15th

Chapter 16   The Bridge

Chapter 17   New Friends

Chapter 18   Stuck in China

Chapter 19   Cheto

Chapter 20   Jerry Comes Clean

Chapter 21   I can’t believe my ears

Chapter 22   The Black Hand and the Tiger

Chapter 23   The Palace

Chapter 24   More Ghosts

Chapter 25   Mei Li gets hurt

Chapter 26   Ghosts and Inmates of Hell

Chapter 27   Jerry’s Dream

Chapter 28   Mei Li’s Destiny

Chapter 29   Too many Coincidences

Chapter 30   Farewell, my friend.

Chapter 31   Not Enough Brandy

Chapter 32   Raj’s Journey

Chapter 33   A Startling Disappointment

Chapter 34   The cold overcomes Raj

Chapter 35   The Rescue

Chapter 36   Many Questions

Chapter 37   Maurya

Chapter 38   Fit for a King

Chapter 39   Deja Vu

Chapter 40   Difficulty in Remembering

Chapter 41   A Secret Society

Chapter 42   How India has changed

Chapter 43   Getting Rid of the Body

Chapter 44   King

Chapter 45   Ice

Chapter 46   Leaderless

Chapter 47   Hopelessness

Chapter 48   Knowledge comes from Silence

Chapter 49   We are Mocked

Chapter 50   Troublemakers

Chapter 51   Civilization at last

Chapter 52   Neville

Chapter 53   Under Arrest

Chapter 54   Good Samaritans

Chapter 55   Rescued.

Chapter 56   On the way to Calcutta

Chapter 57   The Appearance of the King

Chapter 58   Pain

Chapter 59   Confessions

Chapter 60   More than a Surprise Visit

Chapter 61   Full Circle

For my

granddaughters Julia and Gracie.

There may come a day when you find that home is more hours and miles away

than you thought possible. That sweet place of rest and security is always

there, though, along with open and welcoming arms. The journey may take

time, extra effort along with mental and emotional challenges. Take heart.

At the end…you will find the realization of your sweetest memories.

Introduction

I f my destiny is good food, sleep and women…I believe there is more to life than that.

You will come across that statement by our friend Raj later on in this volume. If you are an older reader, you will agree with this Sikh companion of Michelangelo Barrier, whether or not you believe or are familiar with his religion. Don’t we all in our later years? I certainly do and I don’t believe that I am so different from others when we reflect on our lives in those nighttime hours or over coffee in the mornings.

There’s no use in considering our mistakes, faults and failures. They are history. Most likely, they were youthful errors. If you still consider yourself young even though you are now reading books, then congratulations! You will be able to handle the cold in this volume better than your older counterparts will.

You still can’t do anything about what has happened in the past.

After a while, we settle back, let the past go, and then consider our lives…now.

Does my life count?

What am I doing with my existent that makes it meaningful on this earth?

Our friend Raj has experienced all emotions that most of us have in commonality. Two volumes ago in Lost he considered himself a failure. Thanks to a friend Michelangelo Barrier, he has traveled halfway around the world and still in the next volume, Shanghai his mindset was unchanged.

Nearly ten years have now passed and still he is not home, but if he can make a statement as you have previously read, then perhaps he is on the real road of recovery.

Ten years can seem like a lifetime. What were you doing ten years ago? Think about it. Consider the events that you rejoiced in, or endured or maybe even forgot at this point in your life. Ten years ago, I was a single writer. The Mike Barrier series was just a penciled possibility in the notes on my desk among other unfinished novels, short stories and a newspaper column. Eventually his three volumes made their way to the publisher. Moreover, thanks to you, my readers, he was well received. I feel good about that for you see, when you read of Mike Barrier you read of me. You will know me well when you read Mike Barrier.

As a result, I couldn’t let well enough alone for apparently; Mike had a great uncle after whom he was most deftly named – Michelangelo Barrier. Along came the other two volumes in this trilogy – Lost and Shanghai.

This volume, however, took twice as long to write than each of all five of the others. Well, I met this woman…uh-huh who turned out to be an incredible encouragement to my writing. I know what you’re thinking. If that’s the case, why did this volume take so long? Well, we made several trips to Cabo San Lucas Mexico for fishing, Mexican food and margaritas. She is quite the fishing companion having caught along with me, huge marlin, roosterfish, yellow-fin tuna and mahi-mahi Dorado, most of which are now mounted on our walls.

Oh, you caught that along with me did you? Yes, she caught me – Mike...Michelangelo.

Terry and I were married on Christmas Eve 2020.

So far, she is accepting of the fact that I write in the late hours of the night and often rise at 3:30 or 4:30 to put onto the manuscript those thoughts rambling through my mind while in bed.

Yes, a lot can happen in ten years. We all suffered through this pandemic, presidential election, murder hornets and then the weather in Texas, here, was the coldest in history. We lost a number of plants and trees. Terry is anxious to replant them.

In spite of the last ten years of our existence, it’s doubtful that any of us survived two plane crashes and a prison camp as that of our friends in this volume so don’t be too hard on Raj.

I need to thank not just Terry, but you my readers who also encourage my writing. Thanks to my literary agent Peter Miller of Globallionmgt.com for his efforts on all my works with publishers and movie producers. I need to thank Vale Elkins yet, who was the character that I added in the last volume to help benefit a wish with Make-a-Wish North Texas. I’m wondering yet if she really died in the last volume. I need to call her. Mei Li is introduced in this volume. Is she Vale or maybe even her daughter?

Then there is Michelangelo Barrier, Rajmund Singh and who could forget Jerry? You will still laugh about him, even when he lets the inmates out of hell accidentally. Thanks to you three who helped me make it through the last year.

This is the end of this particular trilogy. I am already 150 pages into the next work. However, I can’t help but wonder if Mike or Michelangelo Barrier isn’t like the hundreds of posies that we planted in the fall. You see, they lay in all their glory underneath seven inches of snow and hard freezes down to zero at times. This lasted for seven days with no covering except that of the snow.

Today these hardy, enduring flowers are just as radiant as when we planted them. I’m wondering if anything could kill them?

Chapter One

Kangting

R ajmund Naowarat Gobind Singh had miraculously survived two harrowing plane crashes in five years. All he had wanted to do was make his way home to India from New York City. The handsome trimmed-beard Sikh wearing the neatly folded dastar stood a head taller than most American men and like them all had seen the excesses of all his earthly means come and go. At one time he was driving a black Duesenberg convertible sedan as a valet for a wealthy British gentleman whose name was Mr. Reginald Sheffield. The jazz age had left them all and ventured into a thing called an economic depression in the 1930’s. Eventually Rajmund found himself on the doorstep of Michelangelo Barrier.

Theirs was a friendship that had begun on a lonely road between Princeton and Atlantic City New Jersey in 1923. Fortunately, Mike, as he liked to be called, eventually became an attorney and litigated cases for those who had lost their life savings. Rajmund, or Raj as he liked to be called, had no savings to lose, but felt obligated to return the family jewel, to which he had been entrusted to find his way and make his fortune outside of India. The jewel was a large cut emerald, the size of a silver dollar, of considerable worth. There was a story behind it of which he had never told a single person, including his best friend, Mike. In fact, Mike had never even seen it as it was always hidden, wrapped away in Raj’s dastar.

The depression was difficult for nearly everyone, but for Raj, who had no job and no income and in fact was living under Mike’s roof as a charity case, it was a matter of self- esteem. Like his job, home and income, his self-esteem was non-existent. He needed to return to his native India as a failure. It was his responsibility to return the jewel so that it could be given to someone more worthy than himself.

Even if one hitchhikes, traveling is difficult without funds.

Mike and Raj boarded the shiny new Pan Am Clipper floating in the harbor in Oakland California in November of 1936. That’s when the first plane crash occurred. Well, actually it was in December, but it crashed somewhere in the ocean off the Philippines. The poor man and his friend eventually made it to Shanghai where they found themselves embroiled in a China-Japanese war. Raj found employment as a police officer for the International community, but as the war made its inroads into that vast city, he eventually became a helper with the Red Cross. That, however, was not enough to satisfy the Japanese army for he was captured and sent to a prison camp where once again he ran into his old friend. Mike.

Raj was one of the last prisoners to come into the fenced interment camp. Although he was healthier than Mike and the others, he was emotionally empty. Now, not only was his self-esteem lacking, but also his family jewel was gone.

The gem had been stolen while in the Philippines. It had popped up again in Shanghai at a pawnshop. Mike was able to purchase it, but then in what some would call bad luck, it was also stolen from the Princeton-trained attorney. He got a good look at the thief, though, before he was knocked unconscious.

The man was an albino Sikh with a red tattoo of a leopard on his forehead.

It may not have been enough to give one nightmares, but it was truly unforgettable.

Raj and Mike escaped the prison camp on a heisted Japanese bomber that eventually ran out of fuel and crashed in the inner part of China. This time both Raj and Mike were not so lucky for they both sustained injuries that held them to hospital beds for over two months. If you would ask them…well, if you would ask me, Mike, I would tell you that if you’re going to crash, it doesn’t hurt so much if you do it on water.

I thought that the plane went down in a jungle, said Jerry. Now, Jerry was one of the three survivors of the crash of the Mitsubishi G4M bomber, which a former friend had stolen at the airfield next to the prison camp. By former, I don’t mean to imply that they were on the outs with each other. It’s just that the former friend was dead. Jerry became involved with all of us, whether we liked it or not. He was an antique collector. Ok, he was a junk collector with an old Mack truck that had made it from Shanghai to Nanking and then almost to the prison camp. He was an entrepreneur. I was an attorney and Raj was a Sikh valet.

However, right now we are all recovering patients in this hospital that has a mountain view from our wide windows. We have a full view of the horizon with the hospital situated on the edge of the city. There is a river and a bridge in the distance.

We did go down in a jungle…. I replied

Well, I don’t see many trees, just those big mountains there. It looks like there are grasslands from here to the foothills of those mountains.

They said that we were transferred to this hospital in Kangting, said Raj.

Kangting? Are the people who live here tingalings?

You are the only tingaling Jerry, I said, smiling. Now I could talk to him in that way, as we had known each other for about five years.

I’m not a tingaling, counselor. I just see things that other people don’t.

You said it, not me.

He scowled and lay back down in his bed. The three of us had suffered broken bones all of which had been cast in the jungle at a missionary clinic. Most of the plaster had come off by now, but we were still hampered enough to just barely walk around on crutches. We were itching, not only under our casts, but also to get out from those walls and make our way to India. I wanted to get Raj home, even though he was without the family jewel. However, even without crutches it would take either a trick or a miracle in 1944 since there was a scarcity of nearly everything.

Nearly everything is what we needed to make it over the mountains of Tibet, through Nepal and into India. It would help if we had a telephone in this hospital. All right, we do have a telephone, but it only serves the inhabitants of this city.

There’s probably only eight other telephones in this place, cracked Jerry.

Even though he was trying to be funny (it usually wasn’t an effort), he was probably correct.

And they are probably empty collard green tin cans connected by a string. This time he was funny, but it was not funny to try to find some mode of transportation to go anywhere of any distance. We couldn’t walk it without looking like that trio of Revolutionary War drum and fifers.

Jerry was the first of us three to be able to walk without any assistance. As a result, he was able to exit the building and stroll about the city. Our nurse had instructed him to take a wet cloth for which to breathe better. A low cloud of dirty brown smoke and haze lay stationary over the plains reaching to the mountains in front of us.

They are burning the fields. It is like this every year at this time. After the winter wheat and oats have been harvested, the fields are burned to enrich the soil with ash fertilizer. It’s also a precaution against tigers and leopards. They hide in the tall grasses.

Tigers and leopards? I said. I thought they were in the jungles?

Precisely.

Precisely what?

That’s why they are in the jungles. There are no hiding places for them here. If you go out, take a wet cloth to cover your nose and mouth. You may have difficulty breathing until the burning ceases and the north winds blow the smoke away.

It was hazy when he left the hospital that day. There were few freestanding structures on this particular street, but down at the end were shuttered stalls of fruit and clothing merchants. Behind them and stretching for at least half of a mile were shanty-strewn ghettos. Although he had no money, he had the ability to talk with some of the population.

(Where can I find a telegraph?) Now, while Jerry had spoken in Mandarin, the words seemed to be unfamiliar to the hearer. (You don’t understand what I’m saying?)

The man just looked at him as though he was mentally retarded. We had often shared the same consensus, but I can assure you that Jerry was of sound mind…most of the time.

He entered a shop selling pharmaceuticals. It smelled no different from the local herb seller down on the corner. The ginger, spice, and cumin can clutch at your nose until you sneeze your nose as long as Pinocchio’s at times. Even though the proprietor spoke the dialect, he was unaware of a telegraph office.

Jerry left the building and started for a large temple that loomed several streets down in the ghetto. The smoke-blackened shacks surrounded the building that was composed of huge gray granite blocks taken from the steep mountains surrounding the city. There were two watchtowers, one on each end of the structure. The smell of incense wafted through the doors.

‘This doesn’t look like a telegraph office, but maybe they can help.’

A priest wearing a long brown robe with a crimson rope belt at his waist approached him.

(Do you speak Mandarin?)

(Yes, as well as Tibetan.)

(Is there a telegraph office around here?)

The priest laughed. (No, there are no poles to hold the wires and the snows would break them anyway.)

(Maybe you could help me? Where the hell are we?)

The priest raised his eyebrows. (Some think as we do, that this is hell.)

(Alright…how can I get to heaven, on this earth?)

(Perhaps it is up there on the top of that mountain. Maybe even on the other side of it. However, it is not behind us. There is war in that direction.)

(Yeah, tell me about it.)

(Well the Japanese are fighting the Chinese and….)

(No, never mind. How can I communicate with the outside world?)

Once more the priest laughed. (The outside world knows little about us. We have been part of Tibet for years and then the Hui family and Ma Bufang drove the Tibetans out. We are now part of the Republic of China. That is why we are being taught the Three Principles of the People.)

(The three what?)

(Nationalism, Democracy and livelihood.)

(Oh, of course!)

Jerry bowed and walked out of the building. The crisp fall air pushed and whirled papers and other litter down the street. He put his arms across his chest to keep warm and slowly made his way back to the hospital.

Well I learned nothing out there on the street, except that the air is getting colder and there is no telegraph office.

You went outside? asked Raj.

Yeah. It seems like we are in either Tibet or China. Take your pick.

Well, I didn’t feel like taking my pick. I lay back down on my pillow and adjusted the cover. There seemed to be a cold draft at the window. I was tired of sleeping on my back, but I was forced to, because of four cracked ribs. I closed my eyes and then drifted off to sleep. That is, I think I slept. I thought of Vale a lot. I could still visualize her face, but was not around when they buried her back in that jungle. I mean that I was either sedated or unconscious.

I was told that she and Homer the pilot and Wu-San the Korean comfort girl had been killed and buried back at a missionary outpost close to where the plane had gone down. We three men were there for a few weeks before we were sedated and transported to this city. I remember the last few hours were by ox-cart. I remember the creak of the wheels and the bumpy and deeply rutted road.

It had been eight years since we left home. The flight was supposed to take three days from Oakland to Hong Kong.

The second day Jerry again made his way out into the open. I envied him. He could speak the language and he could walk. The morning was crisp as he made his way into the inner part of the city. He doubted that he would get lost since the mountains always lay in the distance and the hospital was on the edge of the city against those mountains.

‘This must be laundry day,’ he thought. ‘I guess that’s why so many Chinese own laundries. Or is this the Tibetan section?’ Row upon row of dismal houses was draped with lines of multi-colored laundry. Sometimes the laundry clung to brick walls or even low rooflines. Most clothing was frozen almost solid. Jerry pulled his white hospital coat tighter around his body to prevent the chill from the wind. It was more than some people were wearing. They were wrapped in little more than rags and often with bare feet when they scurried from darkened doorways down blackened alleys.

Most homes had lanterns while a few spread the light of an electric bulb.

‘Hmm, bicycles.’ He eased through the doorway of a small shack selling bicycles and parts. It gave the appearance of a bicycle junkyard in a small living room.

(Do you sell bicycles?) The man looked up from his chain repair, smiled and waved his arm around as though the questioner was blind. ("I guess you do. Heh-heh.) Jerry walked just a few steps in each direction as he examined the jumbled contents of the man’s home. (We might bicycle into India, somehow,) he mused. (Has anyone ever bicycled over those mountains?")

(Any of these bicycles could make it over those mountains.)

(Well that gives me hope.)

(But those people setting out to do so have been crazy. They have also been misinformed.)

‘Always wait for a spoken answer,’ he chided himself.

(How do you get over those mountains?)

The man looked up once more. He had a tough, square little head with eyes, yellow and black that were really too small for his skull. His nose was thin but strong enough to hold up an even thinner mustache that drooped long strands of hair easily six inches long.

(You don’t.) He went back to his task.

It looks like you can’t get there from here.

What do you mean by that? asked Raj.

I asked this old man in a bicycle shop how to get over those mountains. He said, ‘You don’t.’

Well, maybe we can go around them. I mused.

I don’t even know where we’re at! exclaimed Jerry.

See if you can find some sort of map the next time you go out, I responded.

The next day brought a cold, cutting sooty rain. It was a good day for coffee. How I would have loved a cup of Maxwell House, however these folks had never heard of that brand and to make matters worse there was no such thing as coffee in this part of the world.

The closest drink around was something called chicory. It tasted like wood chips. I know the taste of wood chips and bar soap in my mouth. I had eaten tree pieces as a boy on a dare. I lost. My mother kept me in tune with the bar soap. Somehow, it was supposed to handle and clean the words coming out of my mouth. I don’t think that it helped, as she seemed to have to repeat the routine. Whenever I drank this chicory stuff, I felt like a deer stripping a tree of its bark.

Even Jerry, with his knowledge of Mandarin had a difficult time in translating. Apparently, the drink was part of a dandelion, but only those with blue flowers. The roots were baked and then ground. At times, I felt that it had a chocolate taste. I would hold the cup of steaming liquid in my hand; close my eyes and dream of a Hershey’s bar. The first time that it was served to us, I’m surprised that our hair didn’t frizz right out of our skulls. The taste was indeed different, but the effect was similar. Our eyeballs got big and we were up all night. One time it had a bitter, but spicy taste. We learned then that it had not been roasted enough. It will peel the varnish off a table if that is the case. It makes you wonder how it can be roasted anyway if it is like acid. Of course, you wonder the same thing about why glue doesn’t stick to the inside of a tube.

Chapter Two

The Fourth Patient

B y the first snowfall in October, both Raj and I were walking with the use of primitive crutches. By that, I mean the type like Tiny Tim used. We walked, that is we limped; through the entire 10 room facility and only fell down three times and knocked over two spittoons. They were brass so the noise would have shocked any librarian. On a particularly cold day, I visited the head nurse. Her office was a small room just a little larger than a small New Jersey dining room. It had a Chinese calendar for 1944 - the year of the Monkey. Next to it on the drab-colored pink wall was what I took to be a Tibetan calendar. Jerry was with me. He was the only one that walked correctly so he added a state of normalcy until he started talking.

(We were wondering if you could tell us how we got here and who brought us and what was the date? Any information would help us.)

The woman thought for a few seconds, furrowed her brow, fidgeted with the tie at the back of her pony-tailed silver-flecked hair and then bent down and opened the bottom drawer of her metal desk. She rose up carrying some small scroll-like parchments. They read like a Chinese newspaper with the figures going from top to bottom in straight lines. She looked for our names first.

She’s asking if your name is Wang Ho?

Wang Ho? Do I look like a Chinaman?

The two talked back and forth in a civil dialogue until the woman began talking with force and volume as if the crotch in her pants was too tight.

She says that these are our names when we were brought in.

You mean my name is Wang Ho? That’s what the orderly was saying. Now I understand! Well, what’s Raj’s name?

His name is Bop Jong.

"Ha-Ha! He’s going to like that! What’s your name?"

(Tell us who brought us here.)

Wait. What’s your name?

Be quiet Mike, she’s going to explain who brought us here.

‘Uh-huh. He’s stalling. His name must be a Doozy.’

(You arrived by ox-cart on June 13th of this year. The names given to us were Wang Ho, Bop Jong, Fat So and….)

‘Oh jeeze why did she have to mention my name?’ thought Jerry.

Wait! What did you say?

She can’t understand you, Mike. Let her finish.

(…and Mei Li.)

(Mei Li?)

(Yes a woman of about twenty years of age.)

What’s she saying?

She says there was a woman with us of about twenty years old.

(All four of you had suffered serious injuries. Wang Ho…you…had four broken or cracked ribs, a broken right leg, a broken left hand, an open wound on the top of your head. Bop Jong had a broken right cheekbone, deep laceration to the right side of his head, both legs broken, dislocated right shoulder and broken right wrist. You, Fat So….)

‘Oh Lord, there she goes again.’

(…had a dislocated left ankle, a dislocated left knee, a dislocated left shoulder, a puncture in your stomach that went all the way through to your back, but, thanks to Buddha, missing your vital organs. Your head was severely bruised from front to back. We were afraid that your brain had been injured as later on you spoke incoherently, as a crazy man would. We have seen many who have lost their minds here, but you were one of the most severe. Even as a male child your parents would have tossed you into the river seeing such lunacy.) She raised her hand to her head and whirled her fingers about in a circular motion.

‘Oh, man, hand signals too!’

What’s she saying?

She’s telling the injuries to all of us.

Why did she wave her hand like that?

The two of you were incoherent, but I was able to convince them later on that you were both sane, just knocked out or something.

Oh.

(…Mei Li was the only one of you that was not sedated. She was unconscious. She had an abdominal wound and bruised face. Actually, all of her head was bruised and swollen. Her left wrist was dislocated as well as her left shoulder. She had two broken ribs on her left side.)

(Can you tell us any more about Mei Li? Where is she? What room is she in?)

(Mei Li was an oriental. She was the only oriental. The three of you were either English or Indian. Her hair was golden like the sunshine. During her stay here, it grew out, indicating that she had dyed her hair from black to golden.)

(So where is she? What room?)

(She is not here. She disappeared from her room about two moons ago. It is possible that she just walked out.)

Hmm.

"Hmm, what?"

She was a blonde and she disappeared from her room about two months ago.

A blonde? Here in China? The only blondes I ever saw were in the International community in Shanghai.

Her hair had been black. She was oriental.

(Do you know who brought us in?)

(A man whose name was Bakjeer Singh. An albino. Unforgettable. I know of only one other albino in Kangting.)

(When do you think that we will be released?)

(I think that you should be able to walk out within the month, providing that you, Fat So, don’t lose your mind again. Frankly, it concerns us when you leave the building. If you have an episode out there, you might be brought back here or you might be killed. Many times those who are thought to be crazy are killed.)

(Where would we go? Especially in winter?)

(We will arrange a place for you.)

(How does this get paid for? Do you do it for free?)

(Oh no. We are not a Christian city. Your medical care and future expenses have all been paid for.)

(Well, tell him thank you. The albino?)

(Yes. He paid with American money. I think that you would call it 20 dollars. It was a gold coin.)

You two had gold coins? asked Raj.

Yes, Vale gave each of us a gold coin and a 20 dollar bill.

So…they got spent a long the way somewhere?

We used them for bribes and emergency things in camp.

The guards didn’t take those things away from you? I was searched pretty well.

We had them hidden where the sun doesn’t shine, laughed Jerry.

Yeah, that was a moving experience. I cracked. I think the chicory was getting to me.

Anyway this man paid for us and a girl. Kind of like the Good Samaritan in that Bible story.

A girl?

Yeah, her name was Mei Li. A blonde, but she disappeared a couple of months ago. By the way, Raj, your name is Bop Jong.

"Huh?"

‘Oh man, I shouldn’t have brought that up. Now they will want to know my name. Stupid, stupid, stupid!’

That was your name when you were brought in by that albino.

Albino! Raj only beat me by a second in sitting straight up in bed to exclaim the same word.

What about an albino? What did she say? Raj’ expression was one of deep concern. I hadn’t seen that look in quite a while.

Jeeze. What’s with you? Jerry was obviously taken back by the sudden burst of animated movement and verbiage. The man that brought us in was an albino.

Did she say anything else about him? What he looked like…. Raj could just barely get the words out of his mouth.

He was white.

Nationality, markings, anything that he said?

No…she said that she only knew of one other albino here in Kangting. It wasn’t important I guess. He paid with a 20 dollar gold piece was all.

Raj and I looked at each other when Jerry slipped into the commode. Raj had refused to tell me anything about the emerald. Whatever was so sacrosanct about it was a mystery to everyone except him, I guess. I had never divulged the fact that I had found it after it had been stolen in the Philippines, only to have it stolen again by an albino with a red leopard tattooed on his forehead.

What’s with the albino, Raj? Why did that startle you so?

I’m just surprised that there are such people in this part of the world. That’s all. He lay back down and pulled his cover up against his chin. Almost immediately, he turned his back to me.

I felt lost in an Erle Stanley Gardner mystery. Here I was a lawyer and I needed Perry Mason to help me out on this. Who was Mei Li? Why did she disappear from the hospital? Why is Raj so secretive about that emerald? What does an albino have to do with any of this? What does the red leopard mean? Where did that 20-dollar gold piece come from? While we’re at it here - where can I get a good cup of coffee?

Chapter Three

Stir-craziness

M ike, do you still have that 20 dollar gold piece that Vale gave us?

I was settled back into my bed in our room with a steaming cup of chicory on the tray next to me. It was easily clearing my sinuses on this cold day.

No, I used it to bribe the guard back at the camp, remember?

Raj…oh never mind. You never got one did you?

No, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Our hospital and housing costs have been paid for. A 20 dollar gold piece.

Raj was now awake and sitting up straight.

All of our gold was used up, Jerry, unless there is someone else here in the city or someplace else with a gold coin.

I wanted to meet our benefactor. Not just to thank him for rescuing us, but to know more about the plane crash and maybe something about himself.

As winter settled in, I began to appreciate the New Jersey cold. This was a different kind of cold. It was wet and seemed to saturate one’s body all the way to the bone. The fields leading up to the mountains were always covered with snow. Jerry learned that the fields had been sewn and harvested of winter wheat and oats.

On the day of our removal from the hospital, we were all in good health and walking without assistance. I decided to pay another