by Anna Ferrara
“Understood, Alpha. I will do my best,” I said.
“Good. Good luck.”
I cringed when the line went dead. I contemplated going back up to Milla’s apartment to finish the job but decided she had been through enough for one day.
I cared about Milla; I realised that then. I cared enough to want to protect her from being seen in compromising situations by people who didn’t care about her. My office had seen enough of that as it was; I didn’t think they deserved to get to see more. I realised I rather be thought of as a woman with personal prejudices than manipulate a woman I loved any more than I had to.
I walked away. I had enough for one day too.
I went to my old apartment in Kowloon, wrapped a thick, fluffy towel around those darned glasses and chucked them into a kitchen cabinet. Then, I went right to bed without even changing out of my work clothes.
Chapter 14
3 Jul 1999, Saturday
To cover up my lack of interest in getting more out of Milla, I turned my attention—and glasses—towards her brother. ‘If Danny didn’t get found’? Investigating Angelo Milone became my priority. I couldn’t see into his apartment from where I was so I had no choice but to tail him the old school way.
The moment the sun came up, I took the train to the nearest car rental shop and got myself a four-doored Nissan Cefiro that was painted in dull gold.
I drove the Nissan to the street Angelo’s apartment building was on and parked it by the side of the road, under the shade of a tree, just a couple of metres away from the entrance. I pulled out the book I brought along for the occasion and remained in the car with it in hand, with the windows down, as if I was just waiting for a friend who was taking forever to get ready.
‘Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul’ was the book I was holding. I bought it on a whim a year or so ago when I was looking for something, anything, to get me through another weekend alone. It had been sitting right in the middle of the bookshelf of my old apartment when I reached out and grabbed a book—any book—so it got to come along for the ride. I didn’t actually read the book again though—although I did do my best to look as if I was doing so; my eyes were on Angelo’s building’s entrance and my mind was miles away in the metaphysical world of unanswered questions.
Why had Angelo Milone come to Hong Kong? To holiday with his sister? Why then weren’t they living together or hanging out much? Where did both of them get their apartments from anyhow? And if they weren’t here on holiday, why then were they here? Work? They didn’t even have jobs back home and tourists in Hong Kong weren’t allowed to work, yet here they were. Why?
A Caucasian man stepped out of Angelo’s building’s entrance and distracted me from my thoughts. He was tall, tanned and handsome, with fashionable shades on his face, a smart white shirt on his back, jeans and dress shoes that made him look as if he was going out to see and be seen. He stopped at the edge of the pavement and looked past my car, into the distance, so I got to get a good look at his face.
It was Angelo Milone. Angelo Milone was on the move! I pulled the book I was holding over my face at once and read every sentence on the page in front of me like I was thoroughly engrossed.
Angelo Milone didn’t even see me. He kept his eyes on the distance behind me and stretched his arm all the way out. A red and white taxi passed me and stopped in front of him shortly afterwards.
I read his lips right before he hopped into the taxi; he needed the cab driver to take him to a village in New Territories.
The moment the taxi got moving, I tossed my book onto the passenger seat and got my Nissan started. I memorised the number of its license plate and did my best to stay four or five cars behind while tailing him so I wouldn’t be noticed.
Angelo’s taxi went through the underwater Cross-Harbour Tunnel that led into Kowloon then further inland towards the less-developed New Territories. It entered a country park and I soon found myself driving through a mangrove forest full of bamboo groves, incense trees and sandpaper vines, where the bustle of the rest of the city could not be seen, heard or felt.
It was a totally different world, definitely as far off the beaten track a person in Hong Kong could get. We travelled past real plants and trees, fields of untamed grass, sandy paths, natural streams of water and even some birds—all of which were rare in the other parts of the city. We passed abandoned villages that had already been submerged by the surrounding greenery and passed rice paddies that looked like they belonged at the back of a postcard from Thailand. I even saw blue skies and giant fluffy clouds.
Angelo’s taxi stopped in front of a colossal ancient tree a good forty minutes after we first entered the park. I watched him alight while remaining a good distance away and stayed in the car until he disappeared into the forest behind the tree.
What in the world was Angelo Milone doing in a country park dressed like that?
Once he and the taxi were no longer in sight, I drove my car off the road and parked behind an especially tall patch of grass. Then, I grabbed my Nokia and phoned Alpha.
“We’re in the middle of nowhere,” I said, after I explained what I was doing and why. “The perfect place to hide a man. I might find C39 here, I’m not sure. It might be good to have reinforcements this time, in case I find him. Could you arrange it?” And forget about everything you saw last night?
“Roger that, Sandra. Keep your glasses and earphones on. It seems you’re as far from the entrance to the park as one can possibly get. You’re right, it could be dangerous. I’ll get reinforcements headed over to you right away. In the meantime, watch yourself. Good luck.”
Alpha didn’t even need me to tell him my location. He’s been tracking me this whole time? How creepy was that? “Thank you, Alpha. Over and out.”
I got out of the car with my earphones in my ears, my Discman in my pocket, and I discovered fresh air. The smell of it startled me at first—since all I ever smelled while in the city were car exhaust fumes, air fresheners, perfumes, sweat, other people’s cooking, damp items and trash—but once I got used to the scent (I thought it smelled like a real subtle cologne for men), I began to enjoy being in the thick of it. I could hear birds chirping in the distance and feel the wind in my face; collectively, those sensations left me feeling more calm than I had been since I started my job six years ago. I found myself wishing I could somehow ditch Alpha and my office just to let myself relax further.
I made my way through the trees on foot, in the direction Angelo had taken, and kept my ears peeled for unusual noises amidst the cacophony of crying cicadas. I kept my eyes between the blades of grass ahead of my feet too for I had heard snakes and pythons were rampant in such areas. There was a creak in the distance, then a thud. I made my way towards those sounds.
Five minutes later, once I had gotten through the row of trees behind the colossal tree, I found myself standing at the edge of what looked like a haunted ‘ghost village’. In front of me, ancient Chinese houses with sloped roofs, grey brickwork, heavy doors, wooden staircases and beams in various states of disrepair. Some had already lost their roofs, others were inhabited by twisting tree roots that had found a way in through open windows and holes in eroding walls. A few broken chairs and tables lay abandoned outside some houses; a worn playground and a basketball court sat in the middle of the village, next to a shrine which looked extremely new in contrast. A pyramid of fresh fruit, shiny new prayer cups and fresh sticks of incense sat in front of the shrine; they couldn’t have been more than three days old.
I learned about ‘ghost villages’ back in school: they were the remnants of Hong Kong’s rural past, abandoned when capitalism took over and villagers realised they could make more money working in the city than they ever would by farming. I had never actually visited a ‘ghost village’ till that day, though, and was surprised to see how spacious and peaceful such a place really was. I had been told those villagers were dirt poor but nobody mentioned their yards, the actual s
pace they had between their houses, the fresh air and unblocked forest views from many windows; a neighbourhood like that within the city would be way too expensive for the average worker in Hong Kong to be able to afford in their lifetime. A little bit ironic, don’t you think?
Leaves rustled behind me. I darted between a string of old houses, most of which had become nothing more than a pile of bricks with trees and vines growing out from their centres, and ducked behind a stack of grey bricks that had likely once been a wall.
“Watch your step,” a man said in Hong Kong-accented English, on my right. “Remember the green parts are slippery and there is broken glass everywhere.”
I peered through a rice-grain-sized hole between the layers of brick in front of me and saw four local men in black walking through the ghost village with—
—Milla!
Milla and the same four 81M men! Again?
None of them looked the least bit lost; in fact, they seemed to make their way towards the largest building within the village—an ancestral hall, I think, since it had carvings of auspicious Chinese motifs above its entrance—with their eyes mostly on the sky and other ruins. If the building were an ancestral hall, it would have been used for worship, celebrations and meetings in the past (learnt that in school too), but now that it was derelict—with crumbling walls, incomplete roofs, rotting or absent windows and doors—I didn’t understand why Milla, or anyone for that matter, would want to go in there.
Yet she did, along with the long-haired man who always translated for her, the one who looked like the most handsome of the Four Heavenly Kings. The other three gangster-like men remained outside; they leaned their backs against walls that were still intact and lit up cigarettes.
Why? What was going on in there? Was C39 in there? With Angelo? I looked around, figured I could continue through the row of houses I was hiding in, go behind another row of houses and end up at the very back of the ancestral hall without being seen, so I did just that.
I moved the way Benny taught me to: soundlessly. The three gangster-like men were none the wiser. In about five and a half minutes I was at the back of the ancestral hall, ignoring my concerns regarding snakes and climbing into a tall shrub that had grown right next to one of the hall’s boarded windows.
To get a peep inside, I broke off a piece of the wooden board over the window. It was damp and mostly rotted so it came away as easily as a pinch of cracker would. Unfortunately, a cobweb the size of my hand came away with it and landed at the top of my hand. It felt there yet barely there, like the hairs of an invisible female ghost, so I very nearly screamed. I stopped myself in time, shook my hand so violently my wrist felt on the verge of breaking off then turned to the hole I made and kept myself very still so that the frantic beating of my heart could run its course and quiet itself. Focus on the job! Just focus on the job!
Through the hole I created—just about the size of three grains of rice stacked one on top of the other—I could see a mass of black in the middle of the back hall, surrounded by what looked like hundreds of ancient ancestral tablets held up by wooden shelves that had been built into the walls. I expected to see C39 bound and gagged in the middle of it all but I didn’t. Instead, in front of the mass of black was an ancient Chinese desk that looked too polished and unscathed to have been part of the hall’s original furnishings. At the desk, on an ancient Chinese study chair with intricate carvings, was a bald, tanned man in a suit. From where I was, I could only see his back, not his face; what I could also see, however, were the faces of the people in front of him: two Caucasians who looked entirely out of place sitting on flimsy wooden stools, surrounded by a horde of standing, local, gangster-like men with tattoos all over their arms.
Under normal circumstances, I would have done a count of the number of men in the room for documentation purposes but in that instance, there just wasn’t time. The bald man behind the desk was talking.
“...since the package has been delivered, and received, I’m going to have to recall the men I lent you, my friends.” He sounded old, like a man would if he spent decades smoking red cigarettes, and spoke with the calm of a man who possessed immense power and knew it. Despite speaking English with the sort of intonation only Hong Kongers had, his confidence also suggested he used the language rather often. “Till you need another shipment of product again, that is. You can continue living at my apartment until you’re ready to leave of course, that is not a problem for me.”
Product? That could mean drugs, arms or... people.
“But you haven’t found Diaz,” Angelo said. He had the same American accent Milla had but not the same aura of confidence. He shifted on his stool constantly and looked like he was having trouble looking the bald man in the eye. “That was part of the deal.”
“The deal was that I find out where he is in Hong Kong, my friend. And I’ve done that. I searched the whole country. Your guy is not on the Island, not in Kowloon, not in the New Territories. No triad, government body or independent criminal kidnapped him, as far as I know. I couldn’t even find a single person who knows who he is, or cares. He is of no value in Hong Kong, that is very clear. If someone did take him, that someone must have been from another country. Maybe America? Maybe your enemies? If so, that is no longer my business.”
“He’s of no value to anyone in America either. Why don’t you reconsider hunting down the Carmen person—”
“How do you hunt down a person if you don’t know what she looks like, my friend? You tell me how and I’ll do it. Tell me.”
Angelo glanced at Milla for a brief moment then looked away with flushed cheeks and fidgety legs when she glanced back, utterly beautiful as always, but didn’t say a word. He looked lost and uneasy afterwards, as if straining to keep on a brave front in front of an Alpha male whom he knew very well could just bite off his head at any moment. “The tape?” Angelo said, with the awkwardness of an intern on his first day of work. His smart white shirt was now stained with wet patches under the arms and down the front. “There must have been a moment—”
“But there isn’t, my friend. My men checked the tape many times. She cannot be seen at all! A fat man holding up a newspaper blocked her face the whole time. What do you want me to do?”
A fat man holding up a newspaper blocked my face the whole time? Had there been a fat man with a newspaper on the ninth floor that day? I couldn’t remember. Might he be part of the reinforcement team Alpha put into place for the occasion? I couldn’t say.
“She might go after my sister next—”
The bald man laughed, loudly, as if just to get a point across. “My friend, you are staying in my house. For free. I had to scrap that car I lent you for that hit on your man and relieve four of my men from their regular activities just to make your sister feel welcome in Hong Kong. I have also given you a great discount on the product you ordered. Don’t you think I have shown enough commitment to this friendship as it is? Of course, if you get another purchase right now, we could always negotiate the services I could be offering you after today. Would you like that?”
The bald man must have smiled at Milla for she looked him in the eye and smiled back. She looked as she looked the day I first laid my eyes on her at King George Hospital: confident and unreadable. Angelo, on the other hand, was like an open book: insecurity personified. He didn’t smile; he didn’t even dare look the bald man in the eye. “The amount we ordered is sufficient for the moment,” he mumbled. “Thank you. We will contact you again when we need new stock, definitely.”
“Great! Business is done. For now.” The bald man stood up from his chair faster than I imagined a man of the age I presumed he was might have been able to do. He extended a hand to Angelo who stood up from his stool the moment he saw the bald man standing.
They shook hands while Milla remained seated on her stool. The bald guy never made any attempt to shake Milla’s hand, nor did she make any attempt to shake his or even stand.
�
�My men will give you a ride back to wherever you want to go, my friends. And I look forward to seeing you back in Hong Kong again soon. Send my regards to your father and your...”
I decided it was time for me to make my way back to the car. There were more men standing behind Milla and Angelo than there were people I ever considered friends in my life. If they all left the ancestral hall when Angelo and Milla did and spread out to smoke or, I don’t know, maybe relieve themselves, I knew there was a high chance I would be spotted. After all the stories my mother told me about them, I knew it was best if I never got close to getting spotted.
I scrambled out of my shrub before the bald man could finish his goodbye speech and skipped into the forest behind the ancestral hall instead of going back the way I came because I didn’t want to risk being seen by the three men out front. To get back to my car, I used the position of the sun and the landscape of trees in the horizon as my compass, just as Benny had taught me to. Thanks Benny!
I made it back to the car without a hitch, with my heart pounding in my ears and my office’s glasses sliding halfway down my nose. My arms looked like they had been coated in glaze that came packed with particles of dirt and vegetation for decoration.
“They didn’t take Danny,” I said, the moment I pushed my glasses further up on my face and pushed down the lock on my car’s door—just in case. My earphones were still in my ears, still plugged into the Discman in my pocket, so I knew Alpha would hear me. I was shaking a little so I threw my head back against the car seat and closed my eyes in an attempt to relax my body.
“Quiet,” Alpha said in response. “Someone’s behind you.”
My eyes shot open at once, just in time to see, from my rear view mirror, a man in black putting a gun to my head.
