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

by Colin Falconer

  “Missus Lacey has had her breakfast, thank you Charlotte. A cup of black coffee and an aspirin is quite adequate this morning.”

  “Whole apartment smelly with smoke.”

  “He’s given up.”

  “Make no difference,” Charlotte said. “You don't go to work today?”

  “It's my day off.”

  Lacey returned her attention to the newspaper. Charlotte stood her ground. “Where is the yanqui?”

  “My rostered day off, not his.”

  “He stay here all night?”

  “Yes,” Lacey said. “All night.”

  “Can still smell cigarette,” Charlotte said.

  Lacey put down the paper. “Charlotte, do I ask what you do with your time?”

  Charlotte's face was sullen. “No, Missus Lacey.”

  “I am a single woman, with an independent income. What I do in my own time is my own affair. You are not my mother. If my moral standards do not meet with your approval, you are free to leave at any time. But please don't nag me.”

  “Not good for you, that one.”

  “Thank you, Charlotte.”

  “Will pray for you. '

  Charlotte went back inside and closed the balcony door behind her. Lacey smiled. Yesterday she had turned twenty seven, and she still had people disapproving of the company she kept. She knew she should be angry with her maid, but it made her feel like a teenager again. She could always fire her if the backchat got too bad but the problem was, she was a damned good cook.

  Shenzhen

  Vincent got out of bed, put on a burgundy silk dressing gown and went into the living room. He went to the bar, picked up a bottle of Hennessey VSOP and poured three fingers into two brandy balloons. He brought them back to the bedroom.

  Eddie was standing in front of the mirror, naked, shadow boxing.

  “Love me, baby?” Vincent said, in English. There was no word in Cantonese for 'love'.

  “Sure,” Eddie said. He had his hands held in front of his face, not in the classical stance of gong fu, but in the jeet kune do position made famous by Bruce Lee. He led with a straight right punch, parried his own blow in the mirror, and the rest was a blur of movement as he stepped back out of range, moved in with another attack, parried again. Vincent watched him, his face hungry. The bands of muscle on Eddie's back and buttocks rippled as he moved, the tattoos of serpents and dragons on his skin woken to snarling, writhing life.

  “Love me better than Ruby Wen?”

  “Sure, better than Ruby-ah. How can you ask me that?”

  “You lie so good,” Vincent said.

  He remembered what the Sun Yee On boys had called him when they beat him that one time: The Tiger's Peach. Eddie was the tiger, the one they feared. It didn't matter that Vincent was the brains, the Paper Fan, the planner, the organizer, the one that had made their syndicate so feared and respected. To them he was just a cut sleeve, a biter of pillows.

  “Must talk to you about this Ruby Wen.”

  Eddie's expression changed. The look of intense concentration disappeared. His muscles relaxed and his hands dropped to his sides. “Don't want to talk about Ruby now.”

  “Must talk about her.”

  Eddie looked sulky.

  “Ruby Wen stealing our money, Eddie.”

  Eddie offered no comment.

  “Last cash she send from Golden Mountain is nearly three hundred and twenty short.”

  “Some mistake, maybe.”

  “Mistake at baccarat maybe. Ruby is losing, Eddie. Big time losing.”

  Eddie looked like a petulant child who had been told he could not have a treat. In the corner were two large buckets filled with almonds. He knelt down, curled his fingers and stabbed down hard into each bucket in turn. It was an exercise he did often, to make his fingers strong and his hands hard. He could jab them into solid bone in a fight, he said, and they would not bend. He called it 'knife hands.’

  “Will talk to her,” Eddie said.

  “She is cheating you, Eddie-ah.”

  “Doan want to hear no more.”

  “Has no respect for you! Take away your face!”

  “No more!” He stabbed his fingers so viciously into the almonds that Vincent heard a sharp crack. Perhaps one of the shells, perhaps a bone in one of those knife hands. Eddie got up and started to dress.

  “Got to wash her Eddie! Got to chop her down!”

  The bedroom door slammed.

  Crazy for her, Vincent thought. Says he loves me but all the time he is crazy for her and there is nothing I can do.

  Chapter 66

  THE main ferry terminal from Hong Kong to Macao had the appearance of a modern airport. The twin towered complex at Sheung Wan contained a hotel, a shopping center and the harbor's control tower, and inside the terminal there were overhead television screens displaying boarding times and departure gates. The Boeing jetfoils make the one hour trip to Macao every hour, skimming across the water at a hundred kilometers per hour.

  The decks of the beetle-like ferries resembled aircraft cabins, with hostesses moving between the aisles with refreshments. As soon as the jetfoils left Hong Kong waters they also sold instant lottery tickets for those who could not wait to throw their money away in Macao.

  Ruby bought ten lottery tickets and won five hundred dollars. It was a good omen. She was certain now that her luck had changed.

  ***

  Macao was a sad and mean waterfront town, perhaps what Hong Kong looked like thirty years ago; a backwater of cramped, ancient streets, a piece of forgotten history dumped on the edge of an Asian swamp.

  Most of the triad initiation rites were performed here. The Portuguese police were just about asleep.

  The only good thing about the place was the casinos.

  It was a five minute taxi ride along the Avenue Amizade to the Lisboa casino, a truly disgusting building with a roof shaped like the spokes of a roulette wheel. In the daylight, it looked tawdry, an Arabian turban draped with light bulbs.

  The foyer was a mean affair, cordoned off with a screen to assist security checks. A windowless cloister, lit up like a cheap English seafront amusement arcade even in the middle of the day, surrounded the central gaming hall where amahs in black pajamas and plastic sandals gambled their wages on fan tan, playing percentages at a meagre three to one on, while old men in pullovers and jackets and frayed shirts played black jack and pai gau, pushing their chips around an electronically illuminated board. Losers turned away and hawked onto the carpet.

  No one smiled, no one stopped to talk.

  Ruby took the escalators to the second floor, headed for the high stakes baccarat rooms. At this time of the morning there was only one game in progress in the Treasure Island Room, nine or ten aficionados playing noisily and enthusiastically. Ruby felt a familiar tightening in her belly and quickening of her pulse. Today she was going to be a big winner, she could feel it.

  Tonight I will catch the ferry back to Hong Kong and I will not have to worry about money problems no more. Just need a little joss.

  Chapter 67

  THREE hours later Ruby wandered dazed along the empty arcades, revolted by the smell of body odor and tobacco smoke, the jangling of the slot machines, the flickering of the strip lights. She staggered against the wall. Two cleaners in chocolate brown uniforms stared at her, thinking she was drunk.

  She had just lost three hundred thousand dollars. She looked at her watch. One o'clock. She had started playing at around ten that morning. Was it only three hours ... ?

  She reached the foyer, leaned against a glass case containing a huge antique vase. She suddenly felt faint. She looked around for somewhere to sit, but there were no banquettes, no coffee shop.

  A taxi pulled into the forecourt. A tall, dark-haired young man, expensively dressed in a suit of raw silk and a tailored burgundy shirt, strode into the lobby. He stopped, halfway across and stared at her.

  “Ruby,” he said.

  She felt as if he had found her
naked. She grinned back, reaching for her character as easily as reaching for a towel. She affected her Suzie Wong voice. “Hello Joe. Buy me lady's drink?”

  ***

  THE GENTLE clink of crystal and silverware in the A Galera was a world away from the hubbub of the casino downstairs. Lucien Baptiste ordered chili crab, African chicken and a bottle of Madeira.

  “How did you do it, Ruby? Last I heard, you were in Mai Chai.”

  “Girl got friends.”

  “Very good friends. Did my father get you out?”

  “Your father is no good cocksucker.”

  “One of your other friends, then?”

  Ruby drank her wine and tapped the glass with a scarlet fingernail, loud enough for the sommelier to hear. He hurried over to take the Montrachet from the ice bucket and refill her glass.

  There was perspiration on her top lip, and her movements were quick and nervous. Like the pet finches the old Chinese men were so fond of, Lucien thought. Nervous about something.

  “So what you doing in Macau, okay?” she asked him.

  “Business.”

  Ruby nodded. “Nice clotheses, new watch. Doing okay, no shit. Working for daddy now, I bet.”

  A shrug.

  “How long you here, okay?”

  “A few days. Then I go to America.”

  Ruby bit her lip. Another quick gulp of wine.

  “What is wrong, Ruby?”

  “You lend me thirty thousand dollar, okay?”

  “US or Hong Kong?”

  “Hong Kong dollar just play money.”

  Lucien shook his head. “You never change.”

  Ruby looked for all the world like a sulky little girl when daddy wouldn’t buy her a pony. “Not for me this time, okay. For my mother in Guangzhou. Has terrible bad cancer, must come to Hong Kong for operation. No shit.”

  “You are a liar, Ruby. It is what I love about you.”

  “Not propaganda you, okay. Need this money for my mother.”

  He looked up. “Here is our chili crab.”

  The waiter placed the steaming dish on the table between them, two finger bowls at their elbows. “The food here is better than in Hong Kong. Don't you think?”

  Ruby ignored him. “Tell you true, Frenchy.”

  “The truth? From you? I don't think I could stand it.”

  “Think it is so funny if your Ruby gets chopped?”

  “How much did your cancerous mother lose at baccarat?”

  “Five hundred thousand Hong Kong.”

  Lucien shook his head, automatically halved the figure to allow for Ruby's propensity to exaggerate. It was still a lot of money. Poor Ruby.

  He cracked a claw.

  "Want to see me dead, heya?”

  He teased some of the juicy meat from the claw and considered. “How long since I last see you? Five months? Things have changed, Ruby. I change.”

  “You are number one when I first meet you. Now just a pile of dog business.”

  “That is not good salesmanship.”

  “Got to help me, okay?” She leaned forward, and he felt her tiny hand on his knee. As he cracked another claw it moved along his thigh. “Pliss. Make you very happy, no shit. Be your girlfriend always.”

  He sucked the meat from the claw. “You’re looking thin. You should eat something. This is great crab.”

  Ruby stood up, fumbling for her bag. Her hands were shaking. She must be in very big trouble this time, he thought. I have never seen her like this.

  “Wait,” he said. He dipped his fingers in the fingerbowl and wiped them clean on the napkin at his elbow. He reached inside his shirt and produced a business card. “Call me okay. Tomorrow.”

  Ruby looked at the card and then deliberately tore it into small pieces and dropped it in the chili crab. “Think you are my good friend,” she said. “Just cheat me up like everyone else.” She hoisted her bag on her shoulder and tottered out.

  ***

  Ruby arrived back in Hong Kong at four o'clock that afternoon. She was still inside the ferry terminal when her mobile phone rang. She took it out of her shoulder bag and flipped open the receiver. Fellow passengers pushed past her, heading towards the exits.

  “Eddie. You got to talk louder, can hardly hear you.”

  “Where is the money, Ruby-ah?”

  “What money, okay?” She searched the crowds at the ticketing booths, on the escalators, the restaurant. Was he in Shenzhen or somewhere in the terminal, watching her?

  “Ah Lam says you owe three hundred and twenty thousand Hong Kong from our business in Golden Mountain.”

  “Doan owe you, okay. Pay everything to White Dragon S&L, like you say.”

  “Ruby!”

  “Got to believe me this time!”

  “Ah Lam says you are losing money at baccarat again. You break your promise.”

  “That piece of dog meat! His most secret orifice saw several ten thousand jade stalks before yours, Eddie-ah! Maybe he is the one who is cheating you, okay.”

  There was a long silence. “Still there, Eddie?”

  “Do not make me weep all my tears at your funeral, little flower,” he said and hung up.

  ***

  Keelan and Lacey met in a restaurant in Amoy Street near the Hopewell Centre. It was cramped and steamy hot, with laminated tables and chairs, one window facing out onto the street. There were four Chinese at the next table, the three men quoting interest rates into a cellular phone, a woman reading that morning's Asian Wall Street Journal.

  Lacey ordered congee. Keelan hesitated over the English menu. The ancient waiter offered him sausages and fried eggs.

  “Yeah, okay,” Keelan said.

  “You'll regret it,” Lacey said.

  “Why?”

  “You'll see.”

  She poured two cups of the green Chinese tea and loosened her jacket. “How's the drug business?”

  “Good. At least I don't believe I'm going to be redundant in the next couple of years.”

  “Every cloud.”

  He leaned on the table, smiled. “How was your head after the other night.”

  “Sore.”

  “I wanted to say thank you.”

  Lacey feigned surprise. “Was I that drunk?”

  “I mean, for, you know, what you said. Listening. I get kind of morbid sometimes. But it was good to talk.”

  “I'm a good listener. It's why I get so many convictions.”

  “Well I guess it's better than having the truth beaten out of you.”

  “I can do that as well.”

  The waiter brought their breakfasts. Keelan stared his order; a fried egg, a sausage, a square slice of processed ham, all floating in a bowl of noodle soup. Christ.

  Lacey spooned the congee into her mouth. “Told you.”

  “I should have ordered muesli.”

  “Chicken congee is actually a nourishing and satisfying breakfast. Better for you than the rubbish you eat.”

  “Hey, don't dump on cold coffee and self-loathing till you've tried it.” He moved the sausage around the bowl, poked the egg with a fork. Rock hard. No, it was hopeless. If he was going to eat breakfast out, he would have to learn to like congee or go to McDonalds.

  “Still sucking on the noxious weed?”

  “I haven't smoked for months.”

  “Who are you trying to impress?”

  “You, Lace.” He reached out and touched her hand. “Can you put your spoon down a moment?” He looked awkward. “Look. Lace. Can we start again?”

  “You mean with me abusing you in my office?”

  “Well maybe fast forward a bit from there. Maybe just a few scenes on from the point where you decided I was an utter asshole.”

  “What makes you think I’ve changed my mind on that?” She looked at her watch. “Have to go to work. The bodies will be piling up in the streets if I'm not back in ten minutes.”

  “When can I see you again?”

  “Tomorrow's Sunday. Charlotte goes to Mass.”


  “Praise the Lord.”

  “Exactly. I'll be home all day to hear confessions.”

  “Will you hear my sins at nine o'clock?”

  “I can do better than that,” Lacey said. “I can be a part of them.”

  ***

  Hong Kong, a blaze of neon. Ruby watched the blinking red lights of an airliner disappear into the brilliance of Kowloon. The cigarette trembled in her fingers. She pressed her forehead against the cold glass.

  Got nowhere to run now, Ruby-ah! Go to Golden Mountain, Eddie will find you. Go to New York, Sydney, maybe Amsterdam, got no friends there, no cash, just some fake credit cards, how can I hide? One day Eddie will hear a whisper on the wind and he will chop me down. Got to pay Eddie back or doesn't matter where I run.

  The buzzer to her apartment jolted her from her thoughts. Her eight o'clock appointment. The man selling insurance.

  “Yes?”

  “John Keelan, Ruby. If you've got any number four up there, better flush it down the toilet fast and let me up. Okay?”

  ***

  It had been almost a month since he had seen her, in Maha Chai. It was as if it had never happened. She leaned against the door jamb in a cherry red cheongsam, slight and sexual, her baby doll face made severe by the short, backswept hair. He could smell her perfume, and it made him wary.

  “You've been crying,” he said.

  “Got very sad life now,” she said. She looked over his shoulder. “Not going to arrest me, okay?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Better come in.”

  “Thanks.” She closed the door behind him. He looked around. There were clothes scattered everywhere, a suitcase lay open on the dining table. “Going somewhere?”

  “Got nowhere to go. Want a drink?” He noticed her stagger slightly as she made her way to the bar in the corner of the room.

  “Mineral water?”

  “Don't have.”

  “Coke?”

  “Coke. Got plenty.”

  "The drink or the powder?”

  The joke fell flat or else she didn't understand it.