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

by Colin Falconer

  Keelan sighed. Why wasn't he surprised about that? “She made me look like a goose.”

  “If you’ll forgive the mixed metaphor - every dog has his day. '

  “This dog is going to take a lump out of her butt.”

  “And a very nice butt it is too.” McReadie looked at his watch. “Look at that, day is nearly done. What are you doing this evening?”

  “Planning a quiet night.”

  “Back to that old sackcloth and ashes?”

  “Something like that.”

  “It's Lace's birthday. A few of us are celebrating at Delaney's. Interested?”

  Keelan hesitated. “I don't think so.”

  McReadie put on his jacket and they walked to the lifts. “Lassie's still carrying a torch for you, John. God knows why. What happened between the two of you? I thought you had a good thing going.” When Keelan didn't answer, McReadie said: “Have you made up your mind yet about the priesthood?”

  “The priesthood?”

  “Might as well, the way you're living.”

  The elevator doors opened. “Life goes on, John, until further notice. It's been three years. You can't cry forever.”

  “No statute of limitations on grief.”

  “You weren't drink driving, you didn't fall asleep smoking a cigarette and incinerate the house. It's not your fault. You were just doing your job, for Christ's sake!”

  “I'll try and get to Delaney’s later. Have to go back to the office and tidy up a few things first. I'll see how I go.”

  “We'll be there till morning.” They got out of the lift on the ground floor, and McReadie clapped him on the shoulder. “Maybe see you, later.”

  “Sure,” Keelan said. “Maybe.” And he walked away.

  ***

  It was a Friday night and Delaney's was starting to fill. When he walked in, he saw a small group of detectives gathered around the far end of the bar; Lacey, McReadie, Tyler, Kwok, a couple of others he didn't know. McReadie saw him first and shouted a welcome. “Thought you weren't coming.” He called to the barman to bring another Carlsberg.

  “Well, I am a liaison officer so I thought I should liaise.”

  Keelan looked over at Lacey. She waved hello, then returned to her conversation with Tyler Keelan felt a knot tighten in his stomach.

  Her chestnut hair had been cut shorter, she was wearing a little more make-up than usual. McReadie had told him she had been going out with a young barrister, one of Mac's neighbors from Stanley.

  “Can't stay long,” he said to McReadie.

  “Me neither,” McReadie said. He looked at his watch: six o'clock. “Told the wife I'd be home by four.”

  “PM or AM, Mac?”

  “I didn’t specify. That way I can’t be wrong, can I?”

  Chapter 64

  KEELAN finished his Carlsberg. McReadie, all set for an early night, signaled the barman for another for himself. “What about you?” McReadie said.

  “No, I'd better be going, Mac.”

  “Already?” a voice said. He looked around. It was Lacey.

  “Just stopped by to wish you Happy Birthday.” He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a small gift-wrapped box.

  Lacey looked surprised. “Thank you.”

  “It's nothing. Couple of month's salary, that's all.”

  She opened it. It was a small jade elephant.

  “It's supposed to be lucky, or so they told me in the shop. Everyone needs as much luck as they can get.”

  “It's beautiful. Thank you.”

  There was a beat. “How have you been? Good week?”

  “Interesting. We were all sent off for a special briefing at the training school, how to arrest a man holding a hand grenade.”

  “Does that happen a lot in Wanchai?”

  “Apparently, the triads have been buying them from the PLA in China.”

  “God help us all.”

  “They brought in an ex-SAS major from Hereford to tell us what to do if we are ever threatened with a gang member holding a grenade in the street.”

  “Run?”

  “No, you say: ‘You are under arrest. Drop the grenade and crawl away.’ ”

  “Are you serious?”

  “It takes two to four and a half seconds after the fly-off lever is released for the fuse to burn down. Enough time for the arresting officer and the perpetrator to get under cover.”

  “Well good luck with that. I have my own strategy for such a situation.”

  “What's that?”

  “Stay as far away as possible with my fingers in my ears and liaise.”

  She looks a little tipsy, Keelan thought. Not screwed down as tight. She ran her fingers through her hair. “Like my hair?”

  “It looks great.”

  “Doesn't make me look like a riot cop?”

  “If you had a steel helmet and a shield you'd look fantastic.”

  “ I think that says more about your sexual preferences than my hair style.”

  McReadie grinned. “Remember your uncle’s here. Never mind, you two talk dirty for a moment. Need to have a word with one of your colleagues, Lace.” He left them alone at the bar.

  Lacey put the gift box in her shoulder bag and passed him her empty glass. “Brandy and soda. Or does a girl have to buy her own drinks on her birthday?”

  “Brandy and soda coming up,” Keelan said, and waved the empty glass in the air and tried to attract the barman's attention.

  “You know, I never did figure you out,” Lacey said.

  Her eyes were shining just a little too brightly. Here it comes, he thought. “There's not much to figure.”

  “You really hurt me, Keelan.”

  “I didn't mean to.”

  “What sort of a fucking answer is that?”

  The barman returned with another Carlsberg and the brandy and soda. He handed it to her while he rehearsed his lines. “I'm sorry. A guy's meant to perform, right?”

  “Perform,” she said, her voice flat. “You make it sound like a rock concert.”

  “Well certainly not hard rock, anyway.”

  “I understand stage fright. What hurt was how you dropped me afterwards. Like it was my fault.”

  “I never thought it was your fault.”

  “I made a fool of myself over you.”

  “If anyone looked foolish, I did. A guy's meant to perform any time, any place. If I hurt you, I'm really sorry. I just thought it was ... for the best.”

  “I don't make a habit of one night stands, John.”

  “I didn't think it might still bother you.”

  “In a minute I'm going to kick you in the balls. I'm trained to do that, you know.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “Is this some sort of ego trip? I admit it, Keelan, I fell for your offhand charm. Now you have thirty seconds to say something halfway decent or sensible. I feel a nerve twitching in my knee.”

  “I lied to you.”

  “You are married.”

  “Anna and Caroline ... I told you about my wife and my daughter ...”

  “You said it was a car accident.”

  He shook his head. “Mac never told you?”

  “You know he didn't.”

  Keelan took a deep breath. He hated telling this story. People never knew what to say and they always treated him differently afterwards, as if tragedy was contagious. They were unstintingly solicitous but kept him at a safe distance. “If you have to know ... someone put a contract out. On me. The guy came to my house. Only he didn't just whack me.”

  He fumbled for his cigarettes in his pocket, remembered he had given up.

  “How old was your daughter?”

  “Eleven months.” He stopped, choking. No this was humiliating. Get a grip for God's sake. He cleared his throat. “Imagine killing a baby with a handgun. What sort of man does something like that? I've been through it in my head a thousand times. I can't get accept it or understand it. You'd think ... you'd think a cop would unders
tand, wouldn't you? It's almost three years and the tunnel's still just as long and just as black. I don't think there is any light at the end. It just keeps going, and getting darker and darker.”

  She brushed his cheek with the back of his hand.

  “That night with you, all I could think about was them. How could I be happy, how could I start over when it was my fault they died? That’s why I didn't want to see you anymore. Happiness, love, that's for other people now.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “I don't know how to make anyone understand. No one can understand, I guess. Not really. The pain's so bad you don't feel it all at once. It has to drip feed, a bit at a time, day after day. There just seems to be an endless well of it. You wake up in the morning and everything's okay and then you sit up and suddenly you remember again. You put all your photographs away and try not to look at them. You move house. You move countries. You try not to think. Just anything to get away from this terrible fucking pain in your chest. I just want to hold them again, Lace. I want to spoon into her on a Sunday morning. I want to smell my little daughter's hair after her bath. I just can't get past it. I'm still alive, but the ... animal ... who did this, he didn't miss. He drilled me damned good. I’m a dead man walking, Lace. So I'm sorry. I really like you and I thought and if I was with you I could start to be happy again but then we went to bed and I couldn't do it because ... '

  He finished his beer and stared over the heads of the crowd, the old one thousand yard stare. Lacey squeezed his fingers. He did not respond.

  “It's a nightmare,” he whispered. “I just keep thinking I’ll wake up.”

  “I'm sorry. I'm really sorry.”

  “Hey, don't be. It's your birthday and I just dropped a bucket of shit on your head. Can't keep my stupid mouth shut, that's my problem.”

  “John ...”

  “I'd better get going. Real life and soul of the party.”

  “Don't.” He tried to pull away from her but she held his wrist. “Don't go.”

  “I'm sure this is not what you planned for your birthday. But any time you want to feel really depressed, give me a call.”

  “How are you getting home?”

  “Cab, I guess.”

  She looked over her shoulder. Tyler and the other detectives were watching her. Tomorrow this would be all round the office. “Don't be alone tonight,” she whispered.

  “Inspector Lacey, I really don't think that's a good idea.”

  “You don't have to do anything. I can just be a friend, if that's what you want. We can talk, or we can just sit on the balcony and look at the lights. I have Carlsberg in my refrigerator. But just don't be on your own tonight.”

  “Why?”

  “Just because.”

  “It's going to ruin your reputation around the office.”

  “I can take it.”

  So they left together and found a taxi on Lockhart Road.

  ***

  When they got to the apartment, Charlotte, Lacey's Filipina maid, was already in bed. She appeared in the doorway of her bedroom in a pink chenille dressing gown. Lacey froze her with a look. “Thank you, Charlotte. That will be all,” she said.

  The bedroom door closed.

  Keelan whistled softly under his breath. “Very impressive.”

  “Dutch courage,” Lacey whispered. She tripped on the way across the living room. “I'll get us a drink.”

  Keelan went out onto the balcony. The lights of the Aberdeen fishing fleet winked like fireflies out on the dark horizon.

  Lacey brought two San Migs from the refrigerator and handed one to Keelan. “Mud in your eye.”

  “How's that again?”

  “It's an expression from the old country. Mac always says it.” She leaned back against the rail. Her body was in shadow but her face was backlit by the soft yellow light spilling from the living room. “What's wrong? Have I put on weight?”

  “I was thinking what a beautiful woman you are.”

  “Don't start something you can't finish,” she said. “Sorry, I didn't mean that ... like that.”

  Keelan only laughed. “Another one of Mac's sayings?”

  “He's been matchmaking you and me ever since you got to Hong Kong.”

  “If that's what he was doing, he's not very good at it. He could have picked someone ...”

  “Younger?”

  “I was going to say better looking.”

  She laughed. “Oh, that as well.”

  “You must get a lot of offers.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because you're very ...”

  She waited.

  “Sexy.”

  “Me?”

  “Long legs. Blue eyes. Plays hard to get. Irresistible.”

  “I don't play hard to get, I really am. I have to be. When you're in the police, being a single and unattached female without a dead body to stand over can be unbelievably traditional.”

  “I don't want to sound ungrateful. I didn't want to be on my own tonight either. It's Anna's birthday.”

  “Ah.”

  “Co-incidence.”

  “I feel like humming the theme from the Twilight Zone. Christ, how macabre.”

  Keelan rubbed his hand over his face. “I feel like the Grim Reaper. You sure you want me to stay?”

  “Do you want to talk, John? If you’d rather discuss politics or existentialism we can, but your dead family is the elephant in the room.”

  “Not many people want to talk about it. They don't know what to say.”

  “Neither do I. But I can listen. Why don't you start with Anna?”

  “Anna? Anna was a lot like you.”

  “Now you're weirding me out.”

  “She didn't look like you. She was dark-haired, not as tall. But she was like you in a lot of other ways. She was what you might call ballsy and she had a smart mouth.”

  “Am I supposed to be flattered?”

  “You'd rather I liked mousy, dumb women?”

  “You have my permission to continue. But I'm not allowing you any more latitude.” She crossed her arms. “So tell me about her. Where did you meet?”

  “A football game at Candlestick park. She was with her boyfriend, I was sitting right behind. He got up at half time to get some popcorn. By the time he came back I had her name and phone number, everything.”

  “How did you manage that?”

  “I noticed they were pretty cool with each other. I figured they weren't in love or anything like that. Plus being a cop I thought if he tried to punch me I could slap the cuffs on him and really impress her.”

  “You take cuffs to a football game?”

  “Doesn't everyone?”

  “What did you say to her?”

  “I asked her who was winning. She said: ‘Have you been asleep or something?’ I said: ‘No, I was looking at you. I think you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life and I couldn't concentrate on anything else.’ ”

  Lacey raised her eyebrows. “That is the cheesiest pick-up line I've ever heard in my life. Don't tell me she fell for that?”

  “Why, what would you have done?”

  “I would have thrown my coke over you and called security.”

  “So, she wasn't as smart as you, after all.” He finished his beer and balanced the empty bottle on the rail. “I never ever looked at another woman from that day on. Sometimes I figure there must be something wrong with me. I guess being a monogamous heterosexual is just about the weirdest thing you can be in the nineties, right?”

  “Pretty much,” she said and picked up the empty bottle and went in to fetch two more San Migs.

  ***

  It was getting late. Lacey shivered and brought her knees up to her chest and pulled the sleeves of her jumper down over her hands. “So how did it go down?” she said.

  “It was what they call a Title III investigation. I'd been working undercover for over two years, but we couldn't get these people to deal with us. They were too car
eful. But finally we had enough to go to a judge and get authorization for a phone tap. After two months we had two hundred hours of this guy talking into his phone. I mean, this guy had a lot of mileage on his mouth. And so we took him down.

  “Trouble was, his father was ... an identity ... around Little Italy. A mafiosi, one of the city's big bosses. I started getting calls, I was asked to lose certain items of evidence in return for a very substantial sum of money. I guess at this stage I should have been concerned. But I was an arrogant son of a bitch, and I thought, well, if they come for me, it will be on the street. I can handle that. Instead they sent this guy to my home. My home.

  “After the shooting I spent three months in hospital, lost twenty kilos in weight. As soon as they discharged me I sold the house, never stepped foot inside it again. My new place I had armed police outside twenty four hours a day.

  “There was no need, they got what they wanted. The trial was suspended, as I was the DA's principal witness, and proceedings were held over until I was well enough to appear in court. By that time someone else had taken the bait. The originals of the phone taps had been destroyed and all that was left were cassette copies. Their lawyer had the judge rule the tapes inadmissible, saying they breached his client's rights under the Fourth Amendment. And the guy just walked free. He laughed in our faces and walked out.

  “And you know what his father said to me as he walked out of the court room? ‘No hard feelings'. No hard feelings. I should have shot the motherfucker right there and then.”

  “What was his name?” Lacey asked.

  “Bertolli. His name was John Bertolli.”

  Chapter 65

  THE sun glittered on the ex-pat swimming pools on the hill below, on the distant, misted peaks of Lantau and the blue of the South China Sea. Lacey sat on the balcony with a cup of instant coffee and reviewed her hangover and her memories of the previous evening with a secret glow of pleasure. So much for Icy Lacey; so much for The Perfumed Dragon.

  Charlotte was making a lot of noise in the kitchen. Lacey ignored her and opened the South China Morning Post on her lap. Finally Charlotte came out onto the balcony.

  “What would Missus Lacey like for breakfast?”