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

by Colin Falconer

  “Okay,” she said, “then let it die.”

  Chapter 24

  The Ng Mai Cheung was an unremarkable chiu chao restaurant off Granville Road in the heart of Kowloon. The only thing noteworthy about it was the red Lamborghini Countach parked at the kerb outside. When he saw it McReadie knew the man he was looking for was inside.

  He was recognized the moment he walked in. A waiter hurried over and ushered him through a curtained doorway and up a narrow flight of stairs. There were half a dozen mah-jong games in progress. The din they made sounded like fireworks going off.

  The parlor was reserved for the private use of friends and associates of The Ox, thousands of dollars passing across the tables on every game. The room was spartanly furnished, but the tables and chairs were antique rosewood, and the mah-jongg tiles they used were hand carved from ivory. The players were mainly Sun Yee On middle and upper management, in designer suits and western haircuts. They had glasses of cognac at their elbows, white-jacketed waiters hovered, waiting to refill their glasses.

  Despite the air conditioning, the air was acrid with cigarette smoke.

  The Ox looked up when he saw him and rose to his feet without a word to the other players. He led McReadie to the anteroom at the back. He told a waiter to fetch a bottle of Courvoisier and sat down. He waved McReadie to the other chair.

  There was a desk, a rickety wooden affair, and a calendar with a photograph of Anita Mui tacked to the wall above it. There was a metal safe on the floor, and beside it an altar to Kuan Yin, with two sticks of incense burning beside it in a little brass urn.

  “Well?” he said.

  “Two hundred kilos,” McReadie said. “That's a lot to lose.”

  The Ox said nothing.

  A waiter hurried in with the bottle of Courvoisier. He set two brandy balloons on the desk, poured two fingers in each and shuffled out, closing the door.

  “What sort of outlay was that? One and a half, two million Hong Kong dollars?”

  The Ox swirled the liqueur in his glass. The peasant eyes were like flint. If this king chat had something to say, let him say it. He was not going to incriminate himself.

  “What did you think? That the marine police stumbled on the trawler by accident?”

  “Do not understand.”

  McReadie switched to Cantonese. “There is a ghost in your Company, you eater of turtle shit.”

  “Who?”

  “Who knew about the shipment?”

  The Ox reached into a drawer of the desk and took out a brown manila envelope. It was an inch thick. He slid it across the desk.

  McReadie reached for it and The Ox clamped his fingers around his wrist. “You are sure?”

  “The whisper came from Eddie Lau.” He pulled his hand free, picked up the envelope and slipped it inside his jacket pocket. He drained his glass and left.

  ***

  McReadie and Keelan were in the officer's mess, the 699 bar on the twentieth floor of the Arsenal Street headquarters. The big Scot was explaining to him how the Chinese syndicates operated in Hong Kong. “Look, when some pompous dick from the Commissioner's office says there aren't any triads operating in Hong Kong, he's technically correct. Originally they were political, but that was a long time ago. Imagine us pulling out of Ireland, the IRA will say to themselves, well we've got all these guns and drug connections let’s forget about politics and make some money. That's the triads.

  “Once an initiation ceremony could take up to three days, but now they've thrown out all the palaver, today some kid just swears a blood oath to his sponsor and hands over his initiation fee. Simple as that. The tattooed forty-nine boy you see on the street, all they want is some designer clothes and a fast car. It's tribal. If you're from Canton you'll stick with your own people, like the 14K. If you're a chiu chao from Swatow you'll more likely gravitate to the Sun Yee On.

  “Say you and I want to do a heroin deal. It won't matter to me that you're from the Wo Sing Wo and I'm 14K. It’s just about money.”

  “So what’s the difference between triads and ordinary criminals?” Keelan asked him.

  “If you're a criminal, being a member of triad is like being a mason. It oils the wheels. One of my neighbors is a prominent Chinese businessman, his daughter's fashion boutique in Kowloon was being stood over by a bunch of young thugs. He didn't talk to me about it, wouldn't think of ringing the police. He knew someone who knew the head of the Sun Yee On and he called him up to fix the problem. This particular gentleman is unencumbered by legal process.”

  “Are our triads in the States linked to the triads here in Hong Kong?”

  “All the lodges have their headquarters here. But it's hard to say how much power they have overseas.”

  “So if I'm a Hong Kong triad and I emigrate to San Francisco, how do I set up my own gang?”

  “If you wanted to deal drugs, say, you ask your 489 here in Hong Kong for permission to start your own chapter. When you get there you go to work. You might send dues every now and then to Hong Kong, some of them do, but the 489 in Hong Kong has no real control over you. Thing is, if you step on someone's patch over there, you've got no protection either.”

  “So how do they organize their drug trade?”

  “Top level summits, same as the mafia. The big guys from the Sun Yee On and the Wah Ching and the 14K all get together in a big hotel here or in the States and they work out all the details between them. The Hong Kong end guarantees the product and the transportation, the boys at the American end do the wholesaling. Twenty kilos to the Italians, twenty kilos to the Spanish gangs, that sort of thing. Very little goes into Chinatown. They don’t shit in their own nest.

  “The great thing about narcotics, from their point of view, is it's a game everyone can play. Even the youth gangs dabble in it. You go off to Hong Kong, buy a couple pounds of number four, hide it in your suitcase and if you get through Customs you have dope worth a million dollars on the streets.”

  “Interesting. Back home, I dealt mainly with the Italians.”

  “Look, our job is to stop the trade in illegal narcotics, which is like trying to stuff an octopus into a string bag. But drugs are only part of the story. These guys can make as much money smuggling illegals now as they can smuggling drugs. You can get two hundred thousand Hong Kong dollars for each illegal you ship to New York or Sydney, and the smuggling routes are mostly the same. And you can move hundreds in a shipment now. Get them out of China, forge their passports and immigration documents - and the triads are very good at forgery, check out the Rolexes and Gucci handbags on the street in Kowloon - and then put them on a plane to the States or Australia or Europe. If you're caught, you only get three years for smuggling illegals. You get twenty years for heroin. Illegals is the business of the future.

  “But what you’re saying is, the two hundred keys of number four your boys intercepted last night is not going to drive up the street prices in New York.”

  McReadie smiled with Keelan. “No, but it will look good on my record. And it will have spoiled someone's day here in Hong Kong. But that's about all. Here, have another drink.”

  ***

  They were still there drinking half an hour later when Lacey arrived. She felt a stab of irritation. Look at them, like two old boys in the school clubhouse.

  McReadie waved her over. Keelan smiled at her a little sheepishly.

  She threw her bag on the bar. “More male bonding?”

  Keelan ignored that. “Can I get you a drink?” he said.

  “Just soda water, please.”

  “You don't want a proper drink?”

  “Imagine you were in my position, Lieutenant Keelan. Would you want a reputation as a barfly?”

  McReadie grinned. “She thinks being the only ex-pat female detective in the Wanchai Serious Crimes Squad makes her an endangered species.” He shrugged. “She could be right.”

  Keelan gave her a tight smile. “All this and sexual harassment too?”

  “Something like
that.” She looked at her watch. “Besides, it's two minutes to twelve. That's a little early for me.”

  “We're having a little celebration,” Keelan said.

  “You've given up smoking?”

  “Monday night Mac and his boys picked up two hundred kilos of number four on a trawler off Aberdeen.”

  “I heard. Congratulations.”

  “Just a wee miracle I engineered. Actually John here came up to talk about your Hennessey Road chopping. Offered to buy me lunch.”

  “And here you are started on the appetizers. Or is it main course?”

  McReadie threw back his Scotch and passed his glass across the counter for another. “Well, the Americans are buying.”

  Lacey looked Keelan up and down. He had on a sports shirt under his jacket, and grey trousers. It looked like he had put them on with a shovel. Didn’t he have an amah or an iron? He had shaved, but not well. His attention wandered to the window and the harbor front of Wanchai, then he turned back as if suddenly remembering where he was.

  The waiter brought two more Scotches.

  “Your usual drink?” Lacey asked him.

  “Not really. I prefer Wild Turkey.”

  “Does that taste as good as it sounds?”

  “Look, Inspector Lacey. I regret my behavior the first time we met. I was rude to you and that was unforgiveable. I apologize.”

  Lacey sipped her soda water and shrugged, wary of him.

  “What's the score on Eddie Lau?” Keelan said.

  “Love forty. He walked in here one afternoon with his silk and we arrested him. Shortly afterwards a man called Yip presented himself at the police station and confessed to the assault and Mister Lau was released. Do you still want to talk to him?”

  “Would do any good?”

  “Not really.”

  “Mac's boys are putting him under surveillance, see where he leads us. What about this Mister Li?”

  “Mister Li is still sedated. You searched his boat and his apartment?”

  “Nothing,” McReadie said.

  Keelan stared into his Scotch. “So tell me about Eddy Lau.”

  “Last year he donated quite a large sum of money to a children's hospital. People say he can be quite charming. He made a passable attempt at it during our interview.”

  “As far as the taxation department is concerned,” McReadie interrupted, “he owns five restaurants, three in Kowloon and two in Shatin. He also has an interest in a textiles factory in Mongkok. Unofficially he holds the rank of Red Pole in the 14K triad. A Red Pole is like ... an enforcer, I suppose.”

  “Drugs?”

  “No thanks, I'll stick to Scotch,” McReadie said, and pushed his empty glass across the counter.

  Keelan looked at Lacey. “No, I have paperwork,” she said. “And to answer your question, Eddie Lau is clean on drugs. He was arrested just once in 1984 for an aggravated assault in Shatin. Since then we have nothing on him. Not drugs, or extortion, or computer and video piracy. But we know he's made a lot of money from all of them.” She hitched her bag on her shoulder. “Good luck, Lieutenant.” She handed him her card. “If you should need any more help, don't hesitate to give me a call.”

  He took the card and put it in his pocket. His attention had wandered again, she could tell he was already thinking of something else. McReadie was telling him about a heroin factory they had found two years ago in Shatin that he thought Eddie Lau had financed, but Keelan did not seem to be listening.

  She left the mess and walked back to the lift.

  Chapter 25

  A number of narrow lanes rose towards the Mid-levels from Central, many of them bearing the names of colonial functionaries from another era; Caine, Staunton, Elgin, Lyndhurst, Graham. The best known name among western tourists was probably Ladder Street.

  It had been chiseled out of the sheer rock in the last century, two hundred feet of rough-hewn stone steps writhing down the side of the Peak, so that sweating sedan bearers could heft Chinese compradores and British administrators and taipans to their homes on Caine Road. American and European tourists now puffed up the same steep stairs carrying nothing heavier than Nikon cameras as they went hunting for the exotic in the Man Mo temple and in the antique shops clustered around Hollywood Road. It was a classic tourist trap; most of the two-hundred-year-old antique chests and snuff bottles had been made a few weeks before in sweat shops in the Territories.

  Vincent Tse sat in the fusty gloom of his antique shop, behind the Buddha statues and rosewood chests and carved screens, calculating that month's profits on an abacus, entering the results on a computer keyboard. It was gloomy in the back of the shop, the only light was the green glow of the computer screen.

  Vincent was finding it hard to concentrate. Ruby Wen! She had somehow manipulated them into a conflict with the Sun Yee On. Eddie believed everything she said. They had no proof the Ox had taken their powder. Gang wars were not good business. Business was about profit, not choppers and fighting chains.

  He ran his finger down the figures in the ledger. They were purportedly the March accounts for the antique shop. In fact, when multiplied exactly by a factor of one thousand, they were the monthly transactions of illegal earnings for Eddie Lau's syndicate.

  Business had been good. Now, because of Ruby Wen, it was all at risk.

  ***

  There was a commotion in the front of the shop and Vincent peered around the doorway to see what the problem was. He saw three young Chinese in designer jeans and wrap-around sunglasses. One of them had on a black short-sleeved Lacoste sports shirt revealing a serpent tattoo snaking down his left arm, a blood-red poppy flower on the back of his right hand. He pushed aside the young sales girl, picked up a snuff bottle - ceramic, and a genuine antique, nineteenth century - and dropped it on the floor where it smashed into three pieces.

  Sun Yee On toughs. They had to be.

  There was no back way out of the shop. He ran for the door.

  One of the youths saw him, and casually pushed him as he tried to rush past, knocking him into a stack of Korean chests. Vincent lost his balance and fell.

  The salesgirl screamed.

  The youths crowded around and started to kick him. They were all wearing sneakers, but their kicks were expertly placed. He writhed on the floor. He felt an elastic snap in his chest as his ribs broke.

  He tried to get on his hands and knees and crawl to the front door. They kept kicking him, laughing among themselves. A big joke. He was vaguely aware of the shocked faces outside in the street, the owner of the antique store next door, two grey-haired Western tourists in Jetabout caps.

  Vincent struggled to his feet, doubled over from the pain in his ribs, hardly able to breathe. One of the toughs span around kung-fu style and kicked him in the face.

  He fell.

  He tried to scramble up again, tumbled forward down the front steps of his shop. His head struck the hard pavement, and for a moment he blacked out. He did not remember much after that, which was fortunate.

  Later, after the police arrived, a middle-aged couple on a three-night stopover from Sydney, Australia, described how, blinded by his own blood, he had crawled around in circles while the Chinese boys lounged in the doorway, laughing.

  Then they had kicked him unconscious again.

  ***

  McReadie leaned on the bar in the 699 Club and ordered another Scotch. He poured a little dry ginger ale into his glass and drank half of it. He knew that by now he should be on the minibus out to his apartment in Stanley but he didn't want to leave. This felt like home now, listening to the familiar shop-talk of the other detectives. As the '97 deadline approached, he already felt a keen sense of loss. There would be no place here for him in the new Hong Kong. What was he going to do? He had been in the colony for twenty six years. His homeland was a foreign country now.

  The young cops coming up wore button-down collars and shined their shoes and knew more about punching information into computers than punching information out of
suspects. He felt like a dinosaur.

  Someone sat down on the stool beside him. He looked up hopefully, it was Lacey.

  “Lace,” he said, and she signaled to Tony, the barman, to bring her a beer. “Busy?”

  Lacey nodded. “You heard?”

  McReadie shook his head. “Been out all afternoon, shaking down sampans in Aberdeen harbor.”

  “Three young men walked into an antique shop in Ladder Street this afternoon and beat the owner unconscious.”

  “Are we talking about Vincent Tse?”

  “We are.”

  “Do they know who did it?”

  “None of the Chinese saw anything, of course. But two Australian tourists witnessed the whole thing. One of the assailants had a tattoo of a snake on his left arm and a crimson flower on the back of his right hand.”

  “Faces?”

  Lacey shook her head.

  “They didn't say the magic words, did they?”

  “They all look alike to us. Their exact words. Still, we have the tattoo lead. That's something.”

  “Any guesses?”

  “I'm sure the people responsible will soon show up.”

  “Yes, but I've always found it a wee bit hard to interview suspects in the morgue.”

  “That's why I hope we find them before Eddie Lau.” Lacey put down her beer and picked up her bag. “Thanks for the drink.”

  “Why, Lace?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why do you hope we find them first?”

  “Because that's our job. We're the law, not the triads.”

  McReadie shrugged. “Perhaps their way's better. If they did it, they pay. Whack. No dirt bag defense lawyer to wheedle them out of it. '

  “Dirtbag?” Lacey said, her face twisted between a smile and a frown. “Where did you get that expression?”

  “Keelan.”

  “Keelan,” she said, deadpan. “Does Keelan also agree with you about letting guns rule the street?”