Chapter 9

Hong Kong turned out to be something best described as chaos on wheels! I had never seen so many people crammed into such a small space. New York City could not compete with the madness of the crowds! We went ashore in a group with a lot of other ship passengers. We went into a shopping area of handcarts jammed together along both sides of a street. Some of the craft items were very beautiful and some were the usual junk attuned to the taste of foreign tourists.

We stopped at a cart to look at an especially beautiful scarf that had a dragon motif. Naturally, we got separated from our guide at that point. We were haggling with the artisan who could speak very good English, and I was having a ball. This was some of the most fun that I’d had since boarding the ship, so I was in no hurry to move on. Finally, I reached a price that the vendor refused to move from, so I paid him with some of the British pounds I had.

Uh-oh, that was a terrible mistake! We were spotted by a pickpocket as having more money than the usual tourist, and we were immediately surrounded by four men who did a good job of blocking the road. I was so wrapped up in the thought of where to wear the scarf that I had just bought that I did not pay enough attention to what was going on.

Suddenly, I was jerked back to the present by a near shout from Josh, “Helen, look out!” That was when it registered that a man was reaching for my purse. God, I would have kicked myself for my stupidity at that moment if there had been room! We were packed so closely by the pressure of the crowd that there was little that I could do but hang on to my purse for dear life.

That was when Josh saved me from losing my purse and saved the thief’s life. I was just about to butt the thief in the nose with my head, and that can be a killing blow when done correctly, when Josh stomped on the thief’s foot hard enough to break one or more bones. He screamed bloody murder from the pain of Josh’s boot landing on his soft shoe.

I snatched my purse back to where it was safe, and we bulled our way through the crowd. Fortunately, I still held my new scarf in my other hand. We never did see what happened back at the vendor’s cart, and I always wondered if the vendor was part of the deal. Oh, well, we got away safely and with my money and the scarf, so I was satisfied. That night, back on the ship, I thanked Josh for saving me.

That was the only day we spent in Hong Kong, and I was just as happy to get away. We didn’t stop in India, and I was just as glad. We were now headed for the Suez Canal, and I could hardly wait to get to Europe. I had discussed the way I felt, and I found that he agreed with me that life aboard a cruise ship was a real pain from the boredom. On top of everything else, the draw poker table never did open up.

We both were ready to jump ship at the first likely port. That turned out to be Alexandria, Egypt. At least, there it was possible to find people who spoke understandable English. We did some fast talking and managed to get the unused portion of our ticket refunded. Actually, I think that was because the people who ran the ship were glad to get rid of us. Anyway, we spent a wonderful day visiting the pyramids and the Sphinx. We rode camels and generally had a great time. Ajax even seemed to enjoy the chance to get outside and roam around a bit. With him along, we never drew thieves.

There were no casinos in Alexandria, so we headed for Monte Carlo. Dammit, we had to take another boat trip, but that was only two days, so we didn’t have too much to complain about. We skipped the Holy Land, Greece, and Italy simply because of boredom and my urgency to reach a poker table. The casino at Monte Carlo was something of a disappointment in that it did not look like what I had seen in the James Bond movies, but it did have poker tables, so I relaxed.

We spent a week there, and I managed to win $120,000. My God, those people only thought they knew how to play poker! We now had so much gold that it was difficult to transport safely. The problem was that $150,000 in gold weighed over 568 troy pounds or close to 600 regular pounds. Anyway, we wound up depositing the money in the Monte Carlo main bank and arranged to have the value transferred to New York City. We kept out $1,000 as a stake when we headed to Baden-Baden, Germany.

Dammit, the casino was closed when we got there with no prospect of opening soon. Well, to hell with the whole thing! We headed for Paris and spent a week there, but got bored and headed for London. After two days in London, we gave up and went to Liverpool to catch a ship headed for the USA. We landed in New York City eight days later and vowed never again to get onto anything larger than a rowboat.

We arranged to have our money shifted to a bank in Dallas that had a good reputation in New York, so we figured that it was safe enough. Practically as soon as that was done, we hopped aboard a train to head for Texas. We had to change trains several times, but we always rode in a first class car, so it was not too bad. Ajax was the one who was inconvenienced because he had to ride in the baggage car.

Well, I’ll be damned! While riding through Missouri on the train, there was a holdup. We had stopped at some out of the way water tank when the car was invaded by two gunmen. One of them pulled his revolver and said in a loud voice, “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THIS IS A ROBBERY! PLEASE GIVE ALL OF YOUR MONEY AND JEWELRY TO MY FRIEND AS HE WALKS UP THE AISLE! COOPERATE AND NOBODY WILL GET HURT!”

Josh and I had changed back into our working clothes because we were much more comfortable dressed that way, and we were wearing our revolvers. I guess that it was just as well that Ajax was in the baggage car. Undoubtedly, he would have attacked the bandits if he had been with us.

Josh and I whispered together, and he agreed to take the man walking the aisle while I took on the man at the other end of the car with the drawn pistol. We waited a few minutes for the man in the aisle to work his was toward us. There was about 20 feet of separation between the two men when Josh shot at the man in the aisle. The man in the aisle was arguing with a woman about a cameo that she claimed was a portrait of her grandmother, and she didn’t want to lose it.

He pulled his Bowie knife to cut the cameo from the woman’s dress when Josh fired. He nailed the man in the right side under his arm as he reached to cut away the cameo. The bullet must have penetrated the robber’s heart because he dropped immediately.

The sound of the shot caused the other robber to jerk around to face us instead of the man he was supposed to be guarding. At that point, I snapped off my shot and hit the man in the chest. He reflexively jerked the trigger and the gun fired, but the bullet went into the passenger car’s ceiling. He fell over a seat back and was held suspended with his arms and head down. When he didn’t move, I figured that he was dead.

Josh and I got up to the applause of the rest of the passengers. We headed to the next car behind ours to see if there were any robbers there. Two shots rang out as Josh reached for the door knob. Thank God, both missed, which is testament to the fact that most people don’t practice enough with their weapons. Of course, in this case, I was very happy for that.

Both of us ducked as the door flew open from the push that Josh had given it. We had enough room on the small platform to duck out of sight, but that was not necessarily going to do us much good. The wood on the car was not thick enough to stop a .44 bullet, so we could still be wounded if the galoots in the car could figure out where we were.

Josh was not wearing his usual hat, so he did not have that to give him away as he peeked around the door jam to try to see where the bad guys could be. Dammit, they had ducked down, too, so the seats were in the way of us seeing them. It looked like all we could do would be to try to dash into the car and get behind seats before the robbers could get a shot at us. Well, we were the foolish and stubborn type, so here we went.

Josh jumped from his position diagonally across the door way to the opposite side of the car and rolled between the seats. Fortunately, there was no one occupying those seats, so he was able to make his move successfully. There wasn’t even a shot from the bad guys. How lucky could he get?

Hell, if it worked for him, maybe it would work for me. I tried the same maneuver to the opposite side of the car, but this time I drew a shot. Fortunately, that shot was no more accurate than the first two had been. Sure, I was missed, but I looked at my pants’ leg to see a neat little hole where it drooped from my leg. Oh, well, I always have said that it was better to be lucky than to be smart.

Now that we were both in the car, it was time to look for the bad guys. There were no obstructions on the floor to keep us from looking under the seats all the way from one end of the car to the other. The problem was that the legs of the passengers did get in the way of a clear look or a clear shot.

We tried to look, but we couldn’t see enough to make any difference—there were just too many legs in the way. Even with my tits sticking out more than most women had to put up with, I was still pretty thin, so I might be able to slip under the seats and work my way toward the bandits. Hell, if I was lucky, they would panic and try to get out the far door. If they did, Josh could take a shot at them.

We agreed to give my idea a try, so I lay down on the floor and scooted under the seat. Yep, I made it, but with nothing to spare. Oh, damn, what was I going to do when I came to a pair of legs in the way? I didn’t know at first, but I was going to give the hare-brained scheme a try.

I slid under four seats without encountering anybody, but I finally came to a pair of legs belonging to a woman. She had the way effectively blocked, so I tapped her on the ankle in the hope of getting her attention without attracting notice from either of the robbers. Oh, damn, she was wearing a high-top shoe that did a good job of keeping her from feeling my finger tapping her foot. In exasperation, I resorted to banging on her with my gun barrel. That she felt.

The woman jumped, but she didn’t say anything. She did move for me to get my head out from under the seat, and I said in a quiet voice, little more than a whisper, “Ma’am, I am trying to get to the robbers so that I can shoot them. Please let me by.” The woman didn’t say anything, but she did move enough for me to slide past her legs.