The Man with the Baltic Stare

the right bulwark to look for the go, no-go signals. If any of them are missing-any of them-back off.”

“How many altogether?” My memory is normally good, but humidity does funny things with the circuits.

Luis looked up at the sky and counted silently. “Three.” He nodded to himself. “Three. The first and second are in the right bulwark, where you will find that two of the cannons face the front.”

I reached for my pen. “Can I write any of this down? Cannons to the left of them, cannons to the right of them. Maybe a diagram would help.”

“No notes. Just listen. The cannon on the extreme right has the symbol of a crown stamped into the top of the barrel, fairly near the touchhole. I’m supposed to tell you not to touch that hole. I wasn’t told why; I just pass it on. The next cannon over, to the left, has no crown on the barrel. Perhaps it did not get a royal blessing. Purchased in bulk, maybe. Instead of a crown, it has a diamond filled with a cross. Are you following?”

“Got it.”

“Any questions about the cannons?”

“No. Should there be?”

“Trying to cover all the bases, that’s all. If there’s something about a cannon that you aren’t sure of, speak up.”

“Listen, Koreans invented cannons. I know them like the back of my hand.”

“Really? I thought that the Chinese invented them.”

“That,” I said, “happens all the time. We invent something, and the Chinese take credit for it.”

Luis nodded thoughtfully. “Further up, toward the muzzle, you will find the letter M stamped into the barrel. At the bottom of each of the letter’s two main vertical strokes are little feet or platforms.” He drew me a quick sketch on his palm, then spit in his hand and rubbed it off. “If the operation is proceeding, both feet on that M will be filled with a sort of putty. It won’t fall out. The stamp itself is pretty deep. Even if you can’t see the putty, you’ll be able to tell it’s there by running your finger over the letter. People do that all the time, God knows why, so no one will pay attention to you. Anyway, the old ladies don’t use the right bulwark, feng shui problems possibly, so I doubt anyone will be standing around.”

“Next.”

“A half meter or so to the left of the cannon with the M is a round porthole through the stone wall. You can look out through it-that’s what every other tourist has done for the last century. Then another half meter to the left is a triangular storage shed set into the corner of the bulwark. It has a blue metal door, locked with a padlock. I don’t know what’s in there, and I don’t know why they lock it. There are three steps leading up to the door. Each step consists of five or six stones, irregularly shaped, and set in old mortar. On the middle step, on the right side as you face it, is a loose stone. If it’s missing or out of place, you go home and forget we had this conversation.”

“What if the groundskeeper knocks that stone out of place when he steps on it? Or some small boy decides to throw it at his sister?”

“Won’t happen.”

“Inegavelmente!”

“Your Portuguese still sounds like Russian.” He shook his head. “To get to the heart of the matter. If the first two signals are positive, you move out of the right bulwark and go to cannon number nine-that’s in the center of the front wall. Well, off center, actually. It has a number stamped on the top of the barrel-twenty- five-one-nine. On the left side, on the gun carriage itself, the number sixteen-three-eighteen is stamped along the top bar. Next to the ‘eighteen’ will be a leaf, a shiny one.”

This, I thought to myself, is definitely fate.

“Only it won’t really be a leaf, though it’s pretty convincing. Palm it. Then stroll along the wall, looking at the rest of the cannons, with dreams of history in your eyes.”

“Why don’t I simply get the leaf and be done with it?”

“This is Macau, Inspector. If we were in Hong Kong, we’d do it differently, dress up in suits and carry briefcases. Here we work with old cannons. Don’t worry; we’re almost done; let me go over a few background notes. Two people will be setting the first two signs. Neither knows about the other. They’ll set the signals an hour apart, and then only when they receive a go-ahead from someone I have never met. The two that set the signals are completely undetectable, believe me.”

“Old ladies with swords, practically invisible.”

Luis tugged at his collar; the tree had decided to move its shade elsewhere, and we were now sitting squarely in the sun. “The first signal is to indicate whether things are proceeding. The second is to alert you if you’ve been followed into the fort.”

“I can’t figure out by myself if I’m being followed on a deserted street up a hill early in the morning?”

“I’m sure you’re quite good, Inspector, but you have to admit, there might be people who are better. Let’s not take a chance, shall we?”

“And the pseudoleaf? Where does that get us?”

“Ah, sweet mystery of life. It will have a number on it-two digits. If they are both even, you go to the bench directly behind cannon number seven. Not the stone bench, the one with wooden slats.”

“Some operational significance?”

“It’s more comfortable.”

“What if both numbers are odd?”

“Then you go down the hill, slowly so as not to twist an ankle, and come back to this pleasant little square. You’ll get further instructions.”

“And if it’s one even, one odd?”

“Then it’s not our leaf. Jump over the wall if you have to and get out of there in a hurry.”

A two-man team prowled up to the fountain. One of them reached in and fished out a few coins. Luis snorted. “They want to make sure I didn’t throw money in that I’m not supposed to have.” He stood up and gave me a slight bow. “A pleasure talking with you, senhor,” he said in a loud voice. “Please give my regards to each of your adorable wives.” As he went by the fountain, he threw in a fistful of coins.

4

The hill was gentle at first but became very steep very quickly. The sidewalk was barely wide enough for one person. The street had room for only a single car, and it was one-way going down, so at least no one in an automobile could follow me up. Everything was close and damp with humidity. The air was cool and smelled of rotting leaves; the light was still soft, the morning light that came from the sea. By the time I made it to the top, I was out of breath and sweating. Charming of the Portuguese military to pick a place so hard to reach, I thought, and fumbled with the bottle of water I had bought in the old city so far below. The troops must have cursed every morning they panted up this hill. Any enemy commander storming the place would have decided to break for lunch halfway there.

The fort itself would have been brutally hot, on an open hilltop perilously close to the southern sun, but for the shade of a few trees. From the looks of them, they were a century or more old, and had grown to enormous girth with limbs to match. If Lulu were to come back as a tree, I thought, she would be one of these. Clashing tapes of Chinese music occupied competing squads of old women standing, as Luis had said, on one leg and flipping fans open with the cracks of gunshots. Nineteen cannons sat silent along the front, prepared to blast away at the looming monster of the hotel, if only some Portuguese gunnery officer long in his grave would rise again to give the order.

On cannon number seventeen (counting from the left, including the five in the left bulwark) the feet on the M are filled. One green light. I stop and gaze out the porthole in