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

by Colin Falconer

  “What about the bar?”

  “Just the staff. Everyone else run away.”

  “Did the Deli staff see anything?” Lacey asked, hope triumphing over experience.

  “All looking the other way. Or else they are in the kitchen.”

  The girl lay sprawled on her stomach, her arms by her sides. Her glasses lay on the cold tile beside her. Her lids were half open, in the curious manner of the dead, as if she was merely half-asleep. A dark, malevolent pool had congealed around the head wound.

  “Oh, Lord,” Lacey murmured. She had lost count of the dead bodies she had seen. If it was a triad killing, she could remain dispassionate, tell herself it was just a job. But when it was an innocent person it just tore her up.

  This girl was barely out of her teens. She was wearing jeans and had on a day pack with a union jack sewn into the canvas. Lacey unzipped the bag; a Lonely Planet guidebook, a plastic bottle of drinking water, a chocolate bar, a tourist map of Hong Kong. No identification. She imagined that would be in a money belt. They would not find that until they had rolled the body, after the police photographers had recorded the scene.

  Lacey could guess what they would find; she was obviously a backpacker, apparently British. A student, in all likelihood, staying at a dormitory hotel somewhere, Chungking Mansions perhaps. In Hong Kong less than a week, heading for Malaysia or Indonesia or Thailand or Australia, and in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  She unzipped the side pocket in the daypack. She found two postcards, with addresses in Bournemouth and Oxford. One was addressed to a girl called Sandra. The other started Dear Mum and Dad. Lacey swallowed down a burning in her throat and copied the address in her notebook.

  So far, the triads had only murdered their own. But this was not just another gang murder; the Police Commissioner would put on his dress uniform and stand in front of the news cameras on the steps of Police HQ and call this an outrage, a crime that must end with justice served. The headlines would start to grow increasingly hysterical now until there were arrests and this war was settled.

  She took a notebook from her pocket and began to sketch the scene. Behind her, a policeman talked urgently into the hand mike of his radio car. She heard the wailing of an ambulance siren. Some press photographers were jostling the policemen assigned to keep them at bay in the foyer at the foot of the escalators.

  “Keep those bastards back,” she said to Sergeant Yao.

  The New York Grill took up a wide frontage between a jewelry store and an upmarket boutique selling French fashion. Three young Chinese waiters, their baseball caps trendily reversed, lounged at one of the fake marble tables. The manager, a young man in an Italian suit and white buttoned shirt stood behind them. Two uniformed police stood guard by the door.

  Lacey went inside. The video screen had not been turned off. A group of shirtless black rappers were posturing on a stage, their images appearing ghostly in the daylight. Two of the staff members were nodding in rhythm even though the sound had been muted.

  She took out her ID. “Detective Inspector Sian Lacey. Serious Crimes Squad. Are you the manager?”

  The man in the suit nodded. “Kam Chun-kwan,” he said. His eyes were lidded and sullen.

  “Did you see the shooting?” she asked him. She used Cantonese.

  “I was in the kitchen,” he said “I saw nothing.”

  Lacey looked at the three staff. So did Kam. They all shook their heads, as they were supposed to do. One of them was holding a coaster, turning it over and over in his hands. He looked more nervous than the others.

  “What's your name?” Lacey said to him.

  “Ma,” the boy said. “Stevie Ma.”

  She switched to English. “Where were you when this happened, Stevie?”

  He looked at Kam, then back at Lacey. “Making milk shakes,” he said.

  “You must have seen everything.”

  Stevie shook his head. “I was looking the other way. I had to make five malts.”

  “This is not good for business,” Kam said.

  “Well, naturally, that is our major concern,” Lacey said. “There is a young English girl dead outside, but all we are worried about is the New York Deli making money.”

  She heard shouting from the doorway. A press photographer had somehow found a way through the cordon and was standing over the dead girl's body, taking close-ups. He bent down and parted the girl's hair, so that he could get a better shot of the head wound.

  Lacey reacted faster than the uniformed policeman who had shouted the warning. She hit the photographer running, wrenching the camera from his grasp with her right hand and with the other twisting his arm behind him, pushing him away from the scene. He had had not seen her coming, and he cursed at the top of his voice when he saw his expensive camera bouncing on the tiles.

  Lacey twisted his arm between his shoulder blades and pushed him against the chrome rail overlooking the foyer. Then she grabbed a handful of hair.

  “You fucking ghoul,” she hissed in his ear.

  Sergeant Yao ran across, looking bewildered. “Want I arrest him?” he said.

  Lacey heard cameras whirring in the plaza below: click-click-click. She knew she had made a dreadful mistake. She pushed the photographer towards the sergeant. “Just get him out of here,” she said.

  “You fucking pay for my camera!” he screamed at her

  “Get him out of here!”

  “I will sue!”

  Sergeant Yao frog-marched him down the escalator, where his colleagues were fighting each other to film it all. Lacey turned around and found Tyler looking at her. He took her by the arm and guided her out of public view. “What the hell's going on?”

  “Sorry. I lost it for a moment.”

  “You don't ever lose it in this job.” He looked down at the press pack, they all looked as if they had just won Pultizers. “Get ready to be famous,” he said. He looked at the body of the girl face down on the tiles. “Jesus. The rocket's going up on this one.”

  The girl's sightless eyes stared back at them, demanding explanation.

  Chapter 35

  The death of a young British student called Barbara Warhurst was front page on next morning's South China Morning Post. Lacey's brush with the photographer was given prominence, grainy images of her shoving a Post photographer over the chrome and glass railing of the mezzanine floor featured on page three. As Lacey arrived at her office the next morning - haggard and irritable after less than four hours sleep - she was greeted with ironic cheers.

  “Way to go, killer,” one of her fellow inspectors grinned as she walked past his office.

  Someone had tacked a handwritten sign on her office door: NO CAMERAS BEYOND THIS POINT. Underneath was a picture torn from the South China Morning Post. Someone had scrawled a caption in biro:

  “I TOLD YOU NO PHOTOGRAPHS UNTIL I PUT ON MY MAKE-UP”

  Lacey ripped it down and went inside. There were flowers sitting on the desk, chrysanthemums and jonquils, with a card attached. Lacey tore open the envelope.

  “Don't let the bastards grind you down. John.”

  Tyler shambled in with a pile of newspapers, saw the flowers and raised an eyebrow. “Flowers? After I read the papers this morning I thought you were tough.”

  “It's from the photographer. He enjoyed it so much he wants me to do it to him again, this time with cuffs.”

  “Yeah, some guys are like that.” He threw the newspaper on her desk. “Andy Warhol said everyone would be famous for fifteen minutes. Here’s your quarter hour.”

  “I'm sorry.”

  “Don't apologize to me, Lace. You can do your groveling to the Deputy Commissioner. Cheer up. They'll probably just put you back on traffic duty in Shatin for five years, nothing too bad.”

  She slumped into her chair.

  “So what have we got, Lace?”

  “I've checked with records. The manager of the New York Grill has one conviction, for assault. The Triad Bureau believe he’s an office bea
rer with the Sun Yee On.”

  “What about the staff?”

  “They were all in the kitchen or making milk shakes.”

  “Used to be choppers and noodles. Now it's pistols and milk shakes. It's like a Schwarzenegger movie for Christ's sake.”

  “Ballistics say the bullets were 7.62 caliber, probably from a Chinese-made type 54.”

  “How many casings did you find?”

  “Three. One bullet lodged in a wall a hundred meters away. One recovered from the dead woman.”

  “That leaves one more. You've checked all the hospitals?”

  “Every hospital, every clinic, every registered doctor on the island, Kowloon and the Territories. Nothing. I've got a squad of uniforms combing the plaza again in case we missed it.”

  “We have to get a conviction on this one quick. It's time we put some pressure on the boys.” He looked at his watch. “Eight o'clock too early to go to a bar?”

  Lacey smiled. “Not for me.”

  ***

  Tyler drove through Wanchai, past bars with names like Hotlips and Miami Vice. They stopped half way along Lockhart Road. “The Harbor Club,” Lacey said, reading the unlit neon sign. Rain poured from an awning and splashed into the street. Nightclubs had the romance of a hangover in the grey light of mornings, and all the allure of remorse. The black painted door was locked.

  “I'm sure it looks better at night,” Tyler said.

  “I wouldn't know.”

  There was a black 450 SEL parked in the alley next door. A truck had backed in, and two young men were unloading crates of liquor. Another truck pulled up behind it, blocking the exit. It was painted midnight blue, and three young Chinese in police overalls jumped out.

  “Let's make someone's day,” Tyler said.

  ***

  They went down the alley. Lacey felt a shock of cold water from the leaking awning find its way between her raincoat and her skin. She followed Tyler past the astonished delivery boys and through the open back door.

  There was a young Chinese behind the bar, counting the money in the cash register as he talked into the telephone, the hand-piece tucked into his right shoulder. He wore a black leather jacket and a yellow silk shirt with a black silk tie. He recognized Tyler immediately and his face twisted into a sneer. He slammed down the phone.

  “Hello Daniel,” Tyler said. “This is Detective Inspector Lacey. Lace, this is Daniel Chen.”

  Lacey looked around, her reflection bounced back at her from every wall. She smelled stale sweat and spilled liquor.

  “What do you want?” Chen said.

  Tyler reached into his jacket pocket and produced a brown manila envelope. He handed it to him. “Sorry Daniel,” he said.

  Chen tore open the envelope and read the non-compliance order. “What is this?”

  “This establishment does not comply with Hong Kong fire regulations, as set out in the code. It gives us authority to confiscate all stock on the premises. Further, you are hereby required to cease trading until all modifications have been carried out.”

  He tossed the envelope back across the bar. “How much?”

  Tyler shook his head. “This is not a shakedown, Daniel. This is for real.”

  “This is bullshit!”

  “This is strict enforcement of the law,” Lacey said. The three policemen had followed them in. She nodded to their sergeant. They went into the back room and started carrying out cases of whisky.

  A middle-aged Cantonese woman came out of the office behind the bar. This would be the mama-san, Lacey thought, she kept a check on the girls at night and stood guard over the cash register. “What are these pieces of dog's business doing here?” she said to Chen in Cantonese.

  “Putting the skids under you, grandmother,” Lacey said. The woman's face set like concrete.

  “What is this about?” Chen said.

  “It's about to drive you out of business, Daniel. We don't want to do this but recent events have forced our hand.”

  “Certain people will be very unhappy about this Chief Inspector.”

  “They had better be. That's the whole point.”

  “We will file an official complaint at the very highest level!”

  Tyler gave him his best smile. “I think you'll find the highest levels are out of their office for the next few days.”

  Daniel Chen pushed past the mama-san and went into the back office. Lacey heard him whispering urgently into a telephone.

  “I wonder who the certain seriously unhappy people might be?” Tyler said.

  “Do you think you'll get a phone call from Gordon Wu?”

  “Now why would one of Hong Kong's most notable citizens want to talk to a humble chief inspector like me?” He watched the police sergeant come out of the store room with a carton of VSOP. “Going to be a great Christmas party this year,” he said and winked at the mama-san.

  Chen finished his phone call. “Cannot do this,” he said.

  “Actually, I can. It's the law.”

  “You make lot of trouble for yourself.”

  Tyler flushed, the tiny capillaries in his cheeks suddenly livid against his skin. “I want you to give a message to Gordon Wu.”

  “Do not know anyone of this name.”

  “Tell him that a British tourist was shot in Queens Plaza yesterday.”

  “Not know anything about this.”

  “It's not personal, Daniel.” He waited until the three uniformed police had finished loading the truck. Tyler signaled the sergeant. “Now you can start ripping out the air conditioners,” he said.

  ***

  Ruby's office was on the first floor of a nondescript seven-story building in a lane off Queens Road West. Eddie parked the Porsche on the curb behind Ruby's red BMW. He got out. A leaky air conditioner dripped warm water into the alley from above.

  He went inside the building and ran up the stairs, which were badly lit and smelled of mold. A brown-painted door had a hand-written sign: Ruby Tour.

  He kicked it open.

  The office had been divided with cheap free-standing partitioning and travel posters had been tacked on the walls. A young Chinese girl sat behind a metal reception desk reading Sister's Pictorial. She had a plastic hair clip and a bad skin problem.

  When she saw Eddie, her jaw fell open. He walked right past her and kicked over the partitioning behind her desk. She screamed.

  Ruby was talking into the telephone and staring at her computer screen. When she saw Eddie, she dropped the phone. “Eddie-ah. What is wrong?”

  He picked up the computer monitor and threw it across the room. “What happen to my seven hundred thousand?”

  The receptionist stood quaking among the wreck of the partitioning. “Get out.!” Ruby shouted at her.

  She fled.

  Ruby looked at Eddie. “I will pay you back, heya. Doan get so mad, okay?”

  “You promise me, Ruby-ah! You promise me no more horses, no more Macao, no more blackjack! How you lose seven hundred thousand so fast?”

  Just simple, Ruby thought. She reached for her cigarettes. Eddie snatched the Dunhills out of her hand and crushed them in his fist. “How will you pay back seven hundred thousand, Ruby-ah?”

  “Find a way.”

  The slap took her by surprise. There was a flash of white light and then she was lying on her back on the carpet. She heard ringing in her ears and the salty taste of her own blood in her mouth.

  “You got chicken porridge for brains, Ruby-ah! Seven hundred thousand!”

  He kicked her in the stomach. Ruby screamed and rolled away from him, frightened now. Eddie never hit her, never. She tried to stand up, but the room was spinning, and she fell over again.

  He was standing over her, his fist raised. She screamed and covered her face with her hands. She waited for the blow, but it never came. Suddenly he was kneeling beside her, crying. “Ruby-ah,” he moaned.

  “Just a stupid little flower,” she whispered. “So sorry.”

  “How can you l
ose so much?” He reached out, wiped the blood of her lip with his thumb, licked it away. “You make me hurt you, Ruby-ah.”

  “Love you too much, Eddie-ah,” she whispered, in English. “Just a stupid little sister. So sorry.” He put his arms around her. She got her blood on his silk shirt. “Peter Man tell you?”

  “Of course Peter Man! Peter Man is my ghost inside the Sun Yee On.”

  Ruby curled into him, like a wounded child. Peter Man! Peter Man was the rotting turd of a leper. “Doan be mad at me, Eddie-ah. Never do this again. Never make you angry with me again ever.”

  He rocked her on his knee like a child, among the wreckage of her office. She stroked his head while he cried, and blood dribbled down her chin.

  Chapter 36

  The phone rang on Keelan's desk. It was McReadie. “Might have something for you,” he said. “Meet me in Delaney's in half an hour.”

  ***

  McReadie was waiting in a booth in the far corner. “You know Ruby, of course,” he said, when he sat down.

  She was checking her look in a compact mirror. Like the last time they had met, she was dressed down; black boots and a black Ferragamo leather jacket complete with silver chains. The fat lip was new, though. Keelan wondered who had given it to her.

  “Hello Ruby,” Keelan said.

  Ruby raised an eyebrow. “Kee-Lan,” she said. “Still think I look like short time girl?”

  Yep, Keelan thought. “I apologize for our misunderstanding that evening.” Her drink was warm. “Want another coke?”

  Ruby made a face. “Rather drink duck urine.” She returned her attention to her compact mirror.

  McReadie swallowed half of his Scotch. “This is just an informal meeting, John. Ruby is a little nervous about being seen with us.”

  “I understand.”

  “You understand shit,” Ruby said.

  “As you know, Ruby has been of help to us in the past,” McReadie said. “Now she thinks she might be able to help you with the American end of things.”