The Apaches of New York

by Alfred Henry Lewis

When a Chinaman is bent on killing, he hires an assassin. This is not cowardice, but convenience. The assassin never lives in the town where the killing is to occur. He is always imported. This is to make detection difficult. The Four Brothers and the On Leon Tong brought in their hatchet-men from Chicago, from Boston, from Pittsburg, from Philadelphia.

Some impression of the extent of this conscription might be gathered from the following: When last New Year the On Leon Tong gave a public dinner at the Port Arthur, thirty hatchet-men were on the roof and eighty in the street. This was to head off any attempt the Four Brothers might make to blow that banquet up. I received the above from an esteemed friend of mine, who was a guest at the dinner, but left when told what profuse arrangements had been made to insure his skin.

Tchin Len and little Bow Kum kept up the fires of their love at Seventeen Mott. They took their daily chop suey and sharkfin, not to mention their bird's-nest soup, across the way at Twenty-two with their friends, Sam Lee and Yong Dok.

It was a showery, August afternoon. Tchin Len had been all day at his store, and little Bow Kum was sitting alone in their room. Dismal as was the day outside, the room showed pleasant and bright. There were needlework screens, hangings of brocade and silk, vases of porcelain, statuettes in jade. The room was rich—a scene of color and Chinese luxury.

Little Bow Kum was the room's best ornament—with her jade bracelets, brocade jacket, silken trousers, golden girdle, and sandaled feet as small as the feet of a child of six. It would be twenty minutes before the Chinese dinner hour, when she was to join Tchin Len across the street, and she drew out pen and ink and paper that she might practice the white devils' way of writing; and all with the thought of some day sending a letter of love and gratitude to the mission matron with the Highland name.

So engrossed was little Bow Kum that she observed nothing of the soft opening of the door, or the dark savage face which peered through. The murderer crept upon her as noiselessly as a shadow. There was a hawk-'like swoop. About the slender throat closed a grip of steel. The fingers were long, slim, strong. She could not cry out. The dull glimmer of a Chinese knife—it was later picked up in the hall, a-drip with blood—flashed before her frightened eyes. She made a convulsive clutch, and the blade was drawn horribly through her baby fingers.

Over across, not one hundred feet away, sat Tchin Len and his two friends in the eating room of Twenty-two. It was a special day, and they would have chicken and rice. This made them impatient for the advent of little Bow Kum. She was already ten minutes behind the hour. His friends rallied Tchin Len about little Bow Kum, and evolved a Chinese joke to the effect that he was a slave to her beauty and had made a foot-rest of his heart for her little feet. Twenty minutes went by, and his friends had grown too hungry to jest.

Tchin Len went over to Seventeen, to bring little Bow Kum. As he pushed open the door, he saw the little silken brocaded form, like a child asleep, lying on the floor. Tchin Len did not understand; he thought little Bow Kum was playing with him.

Poor little Bow Kum.

The lean fingers had torn the slender throat. Her baby hand was cut half in two, where the knife had been snatched away. The long blade had been driven many times through and through the little body. A final slash, hari-kari fashion and all across, had been the awful climax.