“You can't drink in your own house?”
She shrugged. “She'll go to bed soon. Besides, good help is hard to find. So I humor her.”
“Sure you do. Even down to the fish on Friday.”
“God, I hadn't realized that! I'm supposed to be a detective.”
The curry was very good. Keelan could see why Lacey wanted to humor her. “Are you religious?” Keelan asked her.
“God, no. Church of England.”
“Has Charlotte tried to convert you?”
“She's no evangelist. Manila is crowded so I think she hopes Heaven will be roomy. The fewer souls saved, the better.” She lowered her voice. “Her room's like the Sistine Chapel. There's holy pictures everywhere. And candles. Forget Chunking Mansions, I'm the biggest fire risk in Hong Kong.”
Their talk drifted inevitably to work, to policing in Hong Kong, to narcotics.
“How long have you been with the DEA?” she asked him.
“Nearly seven years. I did Vice and Homicide in San Diego before they recruited me. It was a good grounding. The two kind of go together.”
“And this is your first overseas posting?”
“I'm a home bird. I was doing some undercover work in San Francisco before this.”
“So why Hong Kong?”
“I told my boss I needed to do some shopping. New video, computer, that sort of thing.”
“And your family's still in San Francisco?”
So it was back to that again, he thought. She's like a dog with a bone. I guess she has a right to know where she stands. God all I want is some friendly conversation. She still thinks I'm tomcatting. He stared out of the window for a while and she was about to repeat her question when he said: “I don't really want to talk about that if you don't mind.”
“You're having dinner in my apartment. We're establishing a tentative friendship, at your instigation. I think we've moved past the point of keeping a professional distance, which is what I was trying to do in the first place, if you remember.”
He hesitated. “They ...” He drifted again, and his gaze seemed to turn inward. “They were killed.”
Lacey had not seen that coming. Why didn't Mac tell her? There was a sudden chill in the room.
“Oh my God, I'm sorry. What happened. Was it a car accident?”
He toyed with the gold band on his finger.
“Yeah. Look, I find this hard to talk about. No one ever knows what to say to me, and I can't stand pity. So that's why I always try and skirt around it. I was hoping Mac would have already told you discreetly on the side, but maybe he thought it was betraying a confidence. So it is what it is, Lace. I'm not looking to cheat on a wife back home in the States, I'm not even close to being ready for a girlfriend. I just wanted a quiet drink and some pleasant conversation because when I'm not out drinking with Mac I'm going out of my mind in that little box they gave me to live in. There you have it, Inspector. That's my full and frank confession.”
There was a long silence.
“I'll see how Charlotte's doing,” she said and went to the kitchen.
***
When she came back into the room Keelan was standing at the window, his hands deep in his pockets. He looked contrite. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I handled that badly. I didn't mean to snap at you like that. I guess I'm still angry about it. I was out every day putting my life on the line but that was okay because I knew the risks. I never thought anything would happen to them. It doesn't seem fair.”
“It's okay. How do you have your coffee?”
“I didn't think I was getting coffee.”
“One coffee and then I'll have to ask you to leave. Charlotte doesn't like me bringing strange men home.”
“Short black, very strong.”
She went back into the kitchen. She came out a few minutes later with the coffees. She came to stand beside him at the window. They watched the lights of a tanker moving slowly through the darkness of the Lantau Channel.
“Who shaves you?”
“I do, why?”
“Get glasses or go to a barber.”
“You shoot straight from the hip, don't you? Next thing you're going to be dumping on me about my clothes sense.”
“Funny you should mention it.”
“Guess I've let my act slip lately.”
“The look is great for undercover work. You look like a seedy, small time drug operator.”
“Thanks.”
“You're welcome.”
He had his coffee cup in his left hand. He reached out with his right, and stroked the little finger of her left hand. Now why did he do that? She did not draw away.
“Miss Lacey?”
They turned around. It was Charlotte. She was wearing a long dressing gown, buttoned from neck to knee. She was holding a Bible.
“Yes, Charlotte?”
“I go to bed now.”
“Very well.”
She hovered another few seconds, before disappearing along the passage. Keelan finished his coffee and said that he'd better go.
Chapter 31
Ruby stepped off the Cathay Pacific flight from LA at nine o'clock that morning and took a taxi straight to a funeral parlor in Wanchai. Eddie had phoned her in San Francisco to tell her what had happened to Won Ton. She didn't give a damn about that fat eater of turtle dung but it was a triad funeral and she had to be there to show her loyalty to her tai lo.
So like Eddie to have his own funeral parlor. Even when he lost one of his soldiers, he made a profit.
***
Vincent was wearing Porsche wrap-around sunglasses, even in the gloom of the funeral home. He still bore the scars of the beating the three Sun Yee On blue lanterns had given him. Behind his sunglasses the bruises were fading from purple to custard yellow. The stitches on his forehead and cheek were livid against his pale skin.
Won Ton's horses from Wanchai stood around the lobby in their sharp black suits and western style haircuts.
Vincent handed her an armband. “Come to cry for Ah Chau?” he said. He could barely talk. His jaw was still wired. Ruby took the proffered armband and an envelope of lucky money. “Have cried a river of tears,” she said.
“Should put the armband where everyone can see it,” Vincent said to her. “Your pussy maybe.”
“Where's Eddie-ah?”
Vincent nodded towards the office.
“Heard the boys who beat you were still at school,” she whispered. “Not even toilet trained heya!” She pushed past him into the viewing room.
The room was thick with incense. Won Ton lay in an open casket, illuminated by two spotlights on the wall above. A paper banner suspended on the wall read: “May your next life be long and brave, like a lion!” in huge red characters. A framed photograph of him stood on an easel to one side, surrounded by wreaths. On a table in front of the casket there was a meal to sustain him on his journey to the afterlife; mangoes and ham shui kok and pieces of cut watermelon and sui lung bau.
His body was covered with scraps of paper covered with Chinese characters; they were letters from his Wo Sing Wo brothers, promising to avenge his death. These letters would go with him to his grave.
The embalmer had done a good job, Ruby decided. Won Ton looked almost human, something he had failed to do in life. The family would not see the patchwork of stitches underneath the suit. From what Ruby had heard, it was only his shirt keeping all the bits together. They had stitched his right hand to one of the sleeves.
“You forgot his sunglasses,” Ruby said in a stage whisper to Vincent.
Eddie came out of the office and sat down in a pew at the front. Ruby bowed three times to the body, then sat down next to him. Vincent sat in the row behind.
Eddie had his hands in his lap, and stared straight ahead. He consulted the diamond studded Rolex on his wrist. “Open the doors at eleven o'clock,” he said to Vincent.
Vincent knew he was dismissed. The door clicked shut behind him, the echo reverberating around the marble
-tiled room.
“The Ox did this.”
“Because of what you did to his blue lanterns.”
“Two of the men in the mah-jongg parlor recognize the leader. A Sun Yee On Red Pole.” Eddie tapped his foot tapped impatiently. “See this photograph of Ah Chung?” he said at last, pointing to Won Ton’s framed photograph beside the casket. “His family still live in Swatow. Got this photograph from a friend in the police department. They have to cut the numbers off the bottom.”
“What are you going to do, heya?”
“Ah Chung is chopped in my own mah jongg parlour. I lose face now, big face. I must pay back this insult, and revenge Ah Chung.” He got up and stood over the casket. “Look at this.” Ruby obediently got up and stood beside him. His hand went around her shoulders. “Look,” he repeated.
“What I look at, okay?”
“What a dead person looks like. You want to be a dead person, Ruby-ah?” He bunched a knot of her hair into his fist and yanked her head back. “Peter Man come to see me yesterday.”
“Peter Man is the gristle of a dead dog.”
“This gristle says you owe him money. Must pay this gristle seven hundred thousand dollars.”
“Six.”
“Six hundred thousand is last week, fucking your mother! This week it is seven.” His face was close to hers. “How can you lose so much so fast? I warn you before!”
“It is the last time, I promise!”
He forced her head down, made her look into the casket. “Have good look, Ruby-ah! What do you see? I will tell you what you see! You see dead! Nothing after this, no ancestor take you to happy life, no children to clean your bones! Just dead, just your pretty bones moldering in the ground!”
“Eddie ...”
“If not for Eddie, this Peter Man will wash you, heya!”
“It is the last time,” Ruby pleaded. “Doan gamble no more, Eddie, I promise!”
“You make promises like a pig shits!” He yanked her head back even further and she almost cried out.
“You help me?”
“Of course I help you. Doan I always help you, Ruby-ah?” He let go of her hair and pulled her towards him. “You love me, Ruby?”
“Love you too much, baby.”
“Can never love me too much. What will you do if there is no Eddie to look after you, to be your big brother?” He hiked her short leather skirt over her hips.
"Careful of my stocking,” Ruby whispered. They were cashmere and had cost her eleven hundred Hong Kong dollars.
He put his hands on the casket on either side of her. She put her arms around his neck and checked the time. Three minutes to the hour. “Open the doors at eleven o'clock,” he had told Vincent.
She imagined Vincent and all the horses filing in, followed by the professional mourners, finding them bent over the casket. It was enough. She came quickly, as he knew she would. He pulled out again, grinning. She did not remember the last time he had reached the clouds and rain with her.
She pulled up her underwear, breathing in the taint of embalming fluid.
“Sex and death,” Eddie whispered. “Only two thing that ever matter.”
He's crazy, she thought. Crazy as me.
“This morning I transfer seven hundred to your account, Ruby-ah. Now you can pay Peter Man.”
“Will pay you back. Promise.”
He zipped himself up and took his place in the pew. He looked at his watch. “Eleven o'clock,” he said.
Ruby hitched up her silk underwear and smoothed down her skirt. A moment later the doors opened and Vincent led in the mourners. The look on his face; he knew what they had done, Vincent never missed anything. One day, he might try to kill her. But that was another gamble she was willing to take, and she thought the odds were good that he wouldn't.
Chapter 32
Lan Kwai Fong
The upmarket district of Central around Wellington and D’Aguilar was the heart of Hong Kong’s ‘chuppie’ district, a bright cluster of French bistros and gay bars with names like 1997 and the 97 Club. Following in this same dark vein, Vincent had opened a small restaurant-diner there called the Tiananmen Deli, all chrome and black marble. It served cheeseburgers and malted milkshakes during the day and at nights and on weekends transformed into a supper club. Slender young men in great clothes came to shimmer and sway under laser lights, while in-house monitors screened Abba and Pet Shop Boys music videos.
This afternoon Eddie lounged in a black vinyl banquette near the back, smoking a filtered cigarette and idly stirring a chocolate milk shake with a straw. Vincent sat beside him, eating Haagen Vaz ice cream with a spoon. He didn’t like ice cream all that much; but ice cream was hideously expensive and Haagen Vaz the most expensive of all.
Eddie ran an index finger along Vincent's cheek. “When scar heals you will be beautiful again, Ah Lam.”
Vincent jerked his head away.
“What is the matter?”
“Should have been me washed those sons of lepers, not Won Ton.”
“Not your job. You are not soldier.”
“They took my face.”
“They have gone to the west. You have big face again now.”
Vincent looked sulky. There was something else on his mind, Eddie wouldn’t like it, but somebody had to tell him.
Finally: “Seven hundred thousand gone from our accounts to Ruby Wen,” he said.
“That is my business.”
“You pay her gambling debt now?”
Eddie stubbed out his cigarette. “I told you, Ruby Wen is my business.”
Vincent finished his ice cream. He took a calculator from his pocket, punched in some figures and pushed it across the table to Eddie. “This is how much she cost us just in six month.”
Eddie cracked the calculator’s plastic covering with his fist, then slammed it face down on the marble table top. “Why you not listening? Ruby Wen is my business!”
The staff behind the soda fountain looked up, scared. He will not hurt me, Vincent thought. Anyone else, he might perhaps open to the light. But not me. And, fucking his mother, not Ruby Wen either.
“You are like a blind man, Eddie-ah. You hear Ruby Wen rattle her cup and you just drop money in, like she is a beggar.”
“Seven hundred thousand. Lose more than this down the seat in my car.”
“What about two hundred kilo of white powder?”
“Fucking your mother!”
“Was the only other one who knows! Just you and Li kam-chuen and her! Not even I know the rendezvous that night!”
“Ruby Wen will never cheat Eddie Lau. Not even if they burn her with hot irons!”
“Li kam-chuen is an old man and not brave. Won Ton say that even when he dies, he still screaming that he does not steal our powder. I believe the old man.”
Eddie picked up his glass and threw it across the bar, chocolate flavored milk and shards of glass spraying down the chrome bar. “Fucking your mother!” he screamed. “Not your business!”
He stormed out. His Porsche was parked in the lane outside. Vincent heard the squeal of tires and the angry growl of the twin exhaust as he drove off.
Vincent called over his manager. “Clean up this mess,” he said.
Clean up this mess. What he always did for Eddie Lau. So much trouble from this Ruby Wen! He would like to stuff the seven hundred thousand dollars down her throat and make her choke on it.
Happy Valley
Ruby Wen had on her red leather Claude Montana suit with the power shoulders. Dressed to win. The trainers were parading their horses before the start of the three o'clock race; standing at the rail, Ruby Wen saw Sir Gordon Wu, one of the colony's wealthiest men, chatting to his jockey. To her he was Ah Kung, ‘Grandfather’, Eddie's tai lo. She hoped he might invite her up to his private box, but when he saw her he pointedly looked the other way.
Eater of turtle dung. She would have to watch the race from the Jockey Club bar instead.
“Ruby Wen!”
&nbs
p; She turned around. A man was waving at her, some rich Chinese in a double-breasted woolen suit and Gucci shoes. He had a brown cherubic face and the toothy smile of a bank clerk.
Louis Huu! She supposed she had better be polite; the powder she had stolen had come originally from his father, Big Boss Huu, as they called him down in Bangkok.
Louis beamed at her. “You look very beautiful, Ruby-ah. Wearing lucky red.” He reached out and rubbed the jacket with his fingers. “Perhaps now you will change my joss. I lose the last three races.”
You want to cry about it, she thought, I give you tissue. You want to know how much I lost last week?
“You got a number in this race?”
“Number two, Lucky Gem.”
“I have number seven, Golden King. Perhaps I will break your luck.” He turned and looked up at the stands. “Which box are you in?”
“You want me to take afternoon tea with you?” she said, avoiding the question.
“Why not? I am guest of Timothy Wong. You know Timothy Wong? He is a very big guy in Hong Kong. I will introduce you.”
Ruby had heard of Timothy Wong. He was a 489, head of the Sun Yee On triad. Well, this should be interesting, she thought. That will teach Eddie not to take me to the races.
He led her through the barriers and checkpoints to the members elevator, and they rode to the top tier of the stands. Timothy Wong's box was like all the others; noisy with laughter and the squeals of the women, reeking of rich food and perfume and cigarette smoke. Sandwiches and cakes were laid out on a buffet table, along with great pots of Indian tea served western style, with cream and sugar.
A white-jacketed waiter brought them tea in cups of bone china. Ruby checked the television mounted on the wall. Over the last two weeks the seven hundred thousand dollars Eddie had given her to pay off Peter Man was dwindling rapidly. May all his family's property be ruined! She had lost two hundred and fifty thousand at Happy Valley and Shatin, another three hundred and fifty playing baccarat in Macao. But just one big win and she could clear the debt and still make a profit. Her last hundred thousand was on Lucky Gem.
Chasing the Dragon: a story of love, redemption and the Chinese triads (Opium Book 2) Page 13
