Chasing the Dragon: a story of love, redemption and the Chinese triads (Opium Book 2)

by Colin Falconer

  “Be careful, Ruby,” he said.

  “Feel lucky tonight.”.

  Everyone feels lucky until they lose, he thought.

  ***

  In her briefcase she had one hundred thousand Hong Kong dollars, enough to play big and win big. The tables were set up for baccarat and blackjack. Ruby sat down at the blackjack table, opened the briefcase, shuffled a bundle of blue five hundred dollar notes across the baize to the croupier, and received in return a pile of colored chips.

  She licked her lips in anticipation. There was a cold buzz in her belly. Better than sex, she thought. Better than anything.

  Two pink, silky cards slid across the baize towards her. She slipped a scarlet fingernail beneath the edges and curled them slightly upwards so that she could see their value. Two queens. She pushed fifty thousand dollars of chips into the center of the baize and touched her lucky forehead for good joss.

  The god of gamblers was perched on her shoulder. She felt the power in her tonight. She knew she was going to win.

  ***

  Ruby was dimly aware of the press around her as other players crowded in to watch. She had won almost four and hundred and sixty thousand dollars, almost everything she owed to Peter Man. He was standing behind the croupier, watching. She was in another world, a rare place where rules and probabilities and luck did not exist; a place where she could tell the cards exactly what to do and they would obey. If she imagined an ace, she would draw an ace; if she imagined a seven, it would magically appear from the shoe.

  A voice was telling her to walk away, that she had pushed her joss to its limits now. Instead she nodded for another card.

  She caressed it, slid a nail under its edge and turned back the corner. The Queen of Hearts. She pushed a chip for ten thousand dollars onto the baize.

  The croupier slid another card towards her. Ruby willed it to be another ace, and was astonished to find a black seven under her thumb nail. She put another ten thousand into the middle.

  The croupier pushed the DRAW tile towards her and she shook her head. The bank would bust, she was sure of it. She would win with the devil's seventeen.

  The croupier completed shuffling the extra cards from the shoe and then turned over her own two cards. The Ace of Clubs and Jack of Spades. A totally unnecessary Blackjack.

  It was a sign her luck had left her. She was about to push herself away from the table, but somehow she couldn't do it. She was down twenty thousand dollars. She would play just one more hand and win it back.

  The croupier raised an eyebrow. Ruby hesitated, then sat back down again. A tongue-pink card slid towards her.

  Chapter 11

  Fatigue had made her light-headed. She had been playing for almost six hours without a break. Her original one hundred thousand dollar stake was almost gone and she was down to her last twenty thousand. The spectators had all drifted away. She heard people laughing at another table and fancied the laughter was directed at her.

  From winning four hundred and sixty thousand dollars, she was now eighty thousand down. That meant the tide would turn in her favor again soon. She could still walk away a winner, she just had to keep her nerve. Gambling was all about not panicking when things went a little bad.

  She looked at her first card. An ace, the ace of hearts. She pushed the rest of her stake across the baize. All she needed now was a picture card, just over a four to one chance, and she would have a blackjack, she would win, she would be on the road back.

  A waitress asked her if she would like a drink. She almost pushed her away. She reached for next card. Another Ace, the Ace of Diamonds.

  The DRAW tile returned to her. She nodded. The two of clubs, followed by the eight of diamonds.

  Twelve with one card to draw.

  She closed her eyes and willed it not to be a royal card. She touched her lucky forehead. She flicked the corner of the new card with her nail.

  The queen of hearts.

  The croupier turned over her cards. A ten and a six. She swept away Ruby's chips. It was over.

  Ruby went to the bar and returned to the poop with a glass of Peter Man's cheap cognac. She blinked, trying to focus on her watch in the darkness with eyes red-rimmed from strain. Almost three in the morning.

  Below her, the tables were littered with bottles, the ashtrays overflowing. The stink of cigarettes suddenly offended her. It was in the upholstery, her clothes, in her skin.

  She thought about the four hundred and sixty thousand dollars of chips as if it was a lost lover. What have I done? Stupid, stupid. She had lost one hundred thousand and she still owed Peter Man half a million.

  She sat down, hard. Someone sat beside her. It was Peter Man.

  “That was bad joss,” he said.

  “Need another one hundred thousand,” she said.

  He shook his head.

  “Have the money, heya. Can pay you back.”

  “Not this time, Ruby,” he said and walked away.

  She stood up and headed towards the companionway. She staggered slightly, but that must be the junk rolling in the swell. When she reached the deck she leaned over the side and vomited into the ocean.

  There was a silhouette crouching on the horizon: China.

  Does not matter, she thought. In a week you will be rich, will have three hundred and fifty thousand United States dollars. When you are rich can afford to lose a little bit now and then.

  Is okay, Ruby-ah. Everything is going to be okay.

  Chapter 12

  Kwun Tong housing estate

  A fire hose snaked across the landing, water dripped off the concrete and down the stairwell. Keelan followed McReadie and David Yip, one of McReadie's sergeants from the Narcotics Bureau, down the hall. A fireman came past them grinning. He said something in Cantonese to Yip.

  Yip laughed. McReadie just grunted.

  “What did he say?” Keelan asked him.

  “He said there's a barbecue on inside if we're hungry.”

  Keelan was mystified by this comment at first. He followed the two detectives into the apartment. The acrid smell of smoke and the putrid taint of charred flesh was suffocating and Keelan felt his stomach churn in protest. He put a hand over his mouth, thinking he was going to vomit.

  “Jesus Christ.”

  Two detectives from the Kwun Tong OCTB had just finished picking through the wreckage. One of them saw McReadie, peeled off his latex gloves and shook hands. There was a short and whispered conversation.

  An ambulance crew zipped up a green body bag. The medic saw McReadie and then pulled the zipper halfway down again. McReadie crouched down reluctantly. Keelan peered over his shoulder. There was not much left that was recognizable as human, the head was just a charred black skull, laced with raw pink tissue, the limbs frozen in the pugilistic attitude of the burned corpse. There was something shiny wrapped around the head and Keelan realised the man had been wearing spectacles and they had melted into his face.

  David Yip broke out the tiger balm and smeared a little under his nose. He offered some to McReadie and Keelan.

  Keelan looked around. The floors were bare and the concrete was slick with water from the firehoses. Keelan trod carefully, hoping to keep his socks dry. There was shattered glass, pieces of clothing, and charred and twisted metal everywhere.

  Under the stench of burned flesh Keelan detected the pervading taint of strong chemicals.

  The windows looked onto the block next door. Keelan saw a Chinese man in an undershirt nailing wood across the windows. All the glass in his apartment had been shattered by the blast.

  “He must have known,” Keelan said. “The smell.”

  David Yip shrugged. “When you live in one of these old places you get used to bad smells. Believe me, I know, I grew up in a dump just like this one. Besides, what's the guy going to do? He reports it to the cops, he gets a visit from his friendly neighborhood triads.”

  “They don't trust the cops round here?”

  “They have a saying: ‘Whe
n you die don't go to hell, while you're alive don't go to the police.’ ”

  “Confucius?”

  David Yip thought for a moment. “No, I think it was my mother.”

  The ambulance crew lifted the body bag onto a stretcher.

  McReadie stood up. “These guys were amateurs.”

  “How many of them were there?”

  “They took another three other bodies out just before we arrived. This one took longer to assemble. All the wee bits weren't in the same place.”

  “Nice job those guys have,” Keelan said, nodding towards the ambulance crew.

  “Yeah. Almost as good as ours.”

  ***

  “I wanted you to see this,” McReadie said to Keelan as they drove back to Victoria. “It gives you some idea of what we're up against. Most of the heroin that comes through here is refined in Burma, using triad cooks – cooks is what they call the drug chemists - sent from Hong Kong. But every now and then we stumble across some ambitious kids trying to start up their own little cottage industry right here in the middle of the city.”

  “This was an accident, right?”

  “I'd say so. Even an experienced chemist can make a mistake. These guys were probably just kids who thought they knew it all.”

  “How long had it been operating?”

  “Not long. The CID guys checked with the watchman on the block. Three weeks ago two guys came to see him, saw the advertisement for the vacant flat, wanted to rent it. They signed the documents, paid a month in advance, the next day he saw them and couple of their friends moving stuff into the flat. The names on the lease are probably aliases, but we're checking.”

  “How much base did they have?”

  “This is what troubles me, John. We found fifty keys of morphine base in there. That's one hell of a lot of base for amateurs. Someone lost some serious money today. We haven't heard the last of this.”

  Chapter 12

  Wanchai Police Station

  It was the first time Lacey had ever met Eddie Lau face to face. The last photograph they had on file had been taken after his arrest on an aggravated assault charge, and he was a much altered young man from the lank-haired street thug who sneered back at the camera in the Shatin police station in 1984.

  The gleaming black hair was now fashionably styled, short at the sides and long on top, with three thin razor strokes above the ears. He wore black leather Oxfords, grey pin-striped trousers, a white linen shirt, buttoned to the neck, and a light grey silk blazer.

  He was already sitting in Tyler's office when she got there. As she walked in, he got to his feet, smiled and held out his hand.

  “Edward Lau,” he said. “I am delighted and honored to meet you.”

  “Detective Inspector Sian Lacey.” She thought it would be petty to ignore the proffered hand and attempted a perfunctory handshake. Instead Edward placed his left hand on top of hers to make the greeting seem much warmer than it actually was.

  He indicated the shambling Englishman in the seat beside him. “This is my counsel, Charles Randolph.” Randolph wore a dark pin stripe suit and a tie that indicated membership of the old boys’ club of a prestigious English public school.

  She knew him only too well. An ex-pat lawyer with an apartment in Central and a cottage with flowers and English prints on the walls high in the hills of Lantau.

  “We are acquainted,” he said.

  For a moment Lacey wondered at the contrast between the three men in the room; on appearances, Eddie looked like a young and ambitious lawyer, Randolph like a soon-to-be-retired policeman, and Tyler, with his five o'clock shadow and shirtsleeves, looked like the criminal.

  She sat down.

  “Mister Lau arrived here half an hour ago with Mister Randolph,” Tyler said. “He heard that we were anxious to interview him and he has volunteered to help us with our enquiries.”

  “How very decent of him.”

  “That's right, Inspector. My client is willing to co-operate with you in any way that he can.”

  Tyler opened the file on the desk in front of him. “Mister Lau, where were you on the 3rd of April, at around one fifteen in the afternoon?”

  Randolph answered for him. “He was playing mah-jongg at a club in Temple Street in Yaumatei. There are seven corroborating witnesses.”

  “That's odd,” Lacey said. “There's a man called Li kam-chuen lying in the Adventist Hospital in Stubbs Road who saw him outside the Wanchai Mah-jongg Club in Hennessey Road at that time. The meeting is impressed on this gentleman's memory because your client was holding a rather large meat cleaver.”

  Eddie's smile did not slip. He gave Lacey a shrug as if to say: Aren't I a naughty little boy? For God’s sake, he was trying to flirt with her.

  “He's prepared to swear all this in a court of law?” Randolph asked.

  “If he lives.”

  “Ah,” Randolph said, and crossed his legs. For a moment she thought he was about to pat Eddie's knee, to re-assure him that everything was now under his control. “A ghost.”

  “Not quite.”

  “You have a warrant for my client's arrest on a count of attempted murder, which is a very serious charge. Do I take it then that if your witness dies you do not have any other evidence?”

  “He's not going to die,” Tyler growled.

  “Where did you get your medical training, Chief Inspector?” Randolph refocused his scorn on Lacey. “May I ask under what circumstances this unfortunate Mister Li chose to accuse my client?”

  “When he was in the intensive care unit of the Adventist Hospital, I was able to interview him for ...”

  “I see. At this point, had the doctors administered drugs to relieve the pain?”

  There was a heavy silence.

  “This unfortunate man babbled something while he was pumped full of narcotics and on this basis you run off to get a warrant?”

  Lacey looked at Tyler who nodded. “Lau hsu-shui, you are under arrest for the attempted murder of Li kam-chuen. I must warn you that anything you say ...”

  After Lacy finished reading him his rights, Randolph yawned and put his hands behind his head. “He knows all that. I have advised him only to speak to you in my presence.”

  Eddie took a mother of pearl cigarette case from his jacket pocket, put a filtered cigarette between his lips and lit it with a gold Dunhill lighter. He blew the smoke gently towards the ceiling. “It's all right,” he said to Randolph. “I am sure we can sort out this misunderstanding like decent people. Detective Lacey is just doing her job. It will be a pleasure to have her slap handcuffs on me.”

  Randolph picked up the ancient and tattered brown leather briefcase beside his chair. “Well, let's get this farce over with,” he said. “But you people really are making a very grave error.”

  Chapter 14

  Li lay in a private room with an armed policeman guarding the door. His left arm had been amputated just below the shoulder. Almost all of his upper torso was shrouded in bandages and his skin was yellow and drawn tight over his skull. He reminded Lacey of one of the mummified Egyptian relics he had seen as a schoolboy in the British Museum.

  As he and Lacey walked in the fisherman's eyes flickered open. Tyler took out his identity badge and held it in front of Li's face. Li gave a little whimper.

  “My name's Chief Detective Inspector Martin Tyler,” he said, “I'm in charge of the Serious Crimes Squad in Wanchai. This is Detective Inspector Sian Lacey. She has spoken with you before. You might not remember.”

  “You are double lucky, grandfather,” Lacey said, in Cantonese.

  Li scowled at her. “With what great cleverness do you deduce that?”

  “You are alive.”

  “Life is a gift to the rich and a burden to the poor.” There was a small paper cup beside the bed, containing a little water. He nodded towards it. Lacey held it for him and moistened his lips.

  “What did he say?” Tyler asked her.

  “We're still talking philosophy at thi
s stage, sir.” Tyler and Lacey sat down. “We have arrested the man who took off your arm.,” Lacey said.

  “The doctor?”

  “Crazy Eddie Lau.”

  The old man's Adam's apple bobbed in his throat like a cork in the water. “How did you know he did this?”

  “You told me when they brought you in here.”

  Li shook his head. “Not me.”

  “You named him. You said Eddie Lau attacked you with a meat cleaver.”

  “I've never heard of such a man.”

  “What's he saying?” Tyler asked her.

  Lacey stood up. “You were right. He's going to recant.”

  “The little shit.”

  She knew this would happen, they all knew it. It didn't make her any less angry. She bent down so that her face was just inches from the old man's. “He's going to kill you anyway. Why don't you stand up to him?”

  Li's voice was a dry whisper. “He’ll only kill me if I upset him.”

  “He took off your arm!”

  “I have another. But a man has only one life. Besides, there is my family to think about.”

  “We can put him in prison. We can punish him for doing this! Don't you want that?”

  “What does Crazy Eddie say?”

  “What the hell does it matter what he says?”

  “He said he did this?”

  “He says he was in a club in Yaumatei.”

  “Then that must be right. He has a better memory than me.”

  Lacey straightened up, looked at Tyler and shook her head.

  “Tell him he's the piss-drinking son of a leper and I spit in his mother's burial urn!” Tyler stamped out of the room. He turned to the policeman on duty at the door. “You can report back to headquarters. You're not needed here anymore.”

  He went to the nurse's station, slapped his identity wallet on the desk. “I'm here about Li kam-chuen. You can transfer that useless son of a leper to a public ward. We're not investing another cent in the bastard.”