Almost enough for a small war; and plenty for Hennessey Road on a Wednesday afternoon.
But first Eddie had some personal business to attend to.
San Francisco
John Keelan started the day with a miniature from the bar fridge. He turned on the CNN news, staring at it blankly, his mind elsewhere. There was a featured report on the activities of triad gangs in Shenzhen, who were using the special economic zones to smuggle luxury imported goods into China, realizing vast profits. The reporter noted with heavy irony how China's flirtation with capitalism was taking corruption out of the hands of the cadres and putting it back into the hands of free enterprise, where it belonged.
“Where it belongs,” Keelan muttered bitterly.
He reached for the remote control and flicked it off. Christ Almighty.
He'd had enough.
Chapter 79
Hong Kong
Ruby took a taxi straight from the airport to Staunton Road. All she had with her was a Gucci bag and a copy of the T'ung Shu, the ancient necromancer's manual that brought the bearer good luck simply by its possession. She darted across Shelley Street almost under the wheels of a goods van, felt its slipstream on her clothes, and she knew that this too meant good luck, for the bad luck dragon that had followed her to the Golden Mountain must surely have been crushed under the van’s wheels.
She turned down an alleyway next to a shop selling funeral decorations. There was a kiosk belonging to a cobbler and a key cutter, and next door a crumbling three-story house with a wooden balcony and elaborate dragons carved around the doors. The gambling house was on the second floor.
She climbed two flights to a landing. A boy in a white singlet, his arms covered with snarling blue dragons, was sitting on an orange crate outside. He recognized her straight away and threw open the bolted steel door.
The room was thick with cigarette smoke. There were no windows, the only light came from a light bulb hanging on a frayed piece of flex. Strips of green cloth had been nailed to wooden planks as gaming boards.
A game of fan tan was in progress. A girl in a grubby satin cheongsam stood behind the table, a white painted wooden box in front of her. Diagonal lines divided the box into four sections.
A dozen men crowded around; hawkers in soiled white undershirts and long khaki shorts, a businessman in a sharkskin suit with an expensive Rolex wristwatch. They did not even look up at her.
There was a mound of green buttons piled in the center of the table and denominations of one-hundred, two-hundred and five-hundred dollar bills had been thrown onto the numbered sections on the table. Ruby placed a piece of raw ginger beside her lucky number, two, and slapped down four five-hundred-dollar notes. Her mouth went dry. She could hear her blood banging in her head.
The croupier scooped up a pile of the buttons with a stainless steel dish and began to expertly divide the buttons into lines of four with a flat wooden stick.
***
Ruby played until she was exhausted and beyond. Finally a man in a dark suit appeared at her elbow and told her to go home. She staggered outside and found a taxi on Hollywood Road.
It was nearly four o'clock in the afternoon when she got back to her apartment. She walked into the bedroom and took handfuls of banknotes from her purse and scattered them on the bed. Over one hundred and twenty thousand Hong Kong dollars.
She could hardly keep her eyes open. Have to sleep, heya! But first a shower. Wash off the grime from the airplane and the taxi, the smell of tobacco smoke and fear-sweat from the fan-tan parlour. She stripped off her clothes and climbed into the shower.
She made the water as hot as she could stand. Her skin turned pink. She leaned against the cold tiles, letting the water massage her back and her scalp.
Now she was back in Hong Kong she had the good luck again.
She turned off the shower and toweled her body dry and then her hair. She picked up her hairbrush brush and cleared the condensation off the mirror with a towel.
She screamed.
***
Eddie Lau had on a pearl grey tailored jacket over a white linen shirt, buttoned to the neck, no tie. His charcoal pin stripe trousers had a leather Pierre Cardin belt with a gold buckle. His hair was perfect. Rayban sunglasses hid his eyes.
“I scare you, Ruby-ah?”
“How long you been here, heya?”
He did not answer her. His eyes wandered over her body. “You put on a couple of pounds in America. Too much hamburger.”
She put her hands on the vanity and bent forwards. “You miss me?”
“Why do you steal all my money?” He ran his hand down her back, over her bottom, between her legs.
“If Ruby steal your money, why she come back to you?”
“Because she got nowhere else to run.” He turned her around and slapped her, not hard.
“Hit me, okay, never mind. Pull my hair.”
“Do not want to hurt you. Can never hurt you, little flower.”
“I love you, Eddie-ah.”
“What I do with you? Such a bad girl. Father always says you are a bad girl.”
“Make it up to you, okay?”
“I buy you nice apartment, nice car. I pay your debt for you, you take the money and you gamble again. Then I pay one million to save your life in Bangkok. Everything I do for you, what respect I get for this? You steal another three hundred.” He sighed, like a teacher with a recalcitrant pupil.
“Do not hurt me, okay. Get lucky now. Everything different now, you see.”
“Ruby-ah,” he whispered. “You got more lies than a cloud got rain.”
“So sorry, okay. I am just a mountain of turtle dung. But I still love you too much.”
“Cannot help you no more, little flower. Sorry for you, but cannot help you no more.”
“Do not mean that. Always love your Ruby-ah.”
Eddie looked over his shoulder, admiring his own reflection in the glass. She fell onto her knees and unzipped his trousers. He was hard for her. Another lucky sign. She took him in her mouth.
“Little sister,” he groaned.
You are such a big piece of turtle snot, she thought. Think you're such a big guy. Underneath you still love me too much. Make you do anything I want once I got you between my legs.
Eddie picked her up under the arms, turned her around and pushed her against the wall mirror. She guided him inside her, arched her back, flattening her breasts against the cold glass. Ruby Wen won again, she thought. On the very last bet.
Like always.
Chapter 80
LITTLE Italy, San Francisco
Keelan was recognized immediately he walked into Mama Fulvia's. Two men in dark suits sitting at the window stood up and blocked his path. Bertolli, sitting at his favorite table near the back, looked surprised.
“It's okay, boys. I know this guy. Hey, John, come and sit down.”
Bertolli had a napkin tucked into his collar and was demolishing a plate of potato gnocchi. “Vito, you remember this guy? John Keelan? John, this is Vito Trappatoni. Good friend of mine.”
The other man held out his hand. Keelan ignored it. “This is private,” he said to Bertolli.
Bertolli worked the inside of his cheek with a tongue, thinking about this. Trappatoni looked like he wanted to reach across the table and put Keelan's face into the wall. But finally Bertolli shrugged and said okay. “We'll talk later,” he said to his consigliore.
Trappatoni left.
“I'll give you some leeway here,” Bertolli said. “Don't abuse it.”
“Don't tell me what to do, you little punk.”
Bertolli sipped some red wine. “See? This is what I mean, John. You got a lousy temper. If you were a reasonable man, you could have had a nice life. But that temper of yours! Want some vino tinto? Help you mellow out a little.”
“No thanks.”
Everyone was watching; Mama Fulvia, the waiters, Trappatoni, the two goons by the door.
“I'm getting tired of th
is, John. What is it you want?”
“Just this.” The Smith and Wesson seemed to come from nowhere, suddenly the barrel was between Bertolli's eyes. Chairs clattered to the floor, everyone was on their feet except Bertolli. The goons had their guns halfway out of their shoulder holsters but Bertolli put up his hand to stop them. Nobody moved.
Then a woman screamed and that was a signal for several of the patrons to make a break for the door. Everyone else just sat there, staring, eyes like soup plates.
Keelan pulled back the hammer on the revolver.
“Aren't you forgetting something, John? You're a cop.”
“They transferred me to garbage disposal.”
“Not loaded, right?” His Adam's apple bobbed in his throat.
“A full chamber of thirty eight hollow points. Enough to spread your head all over Broadway.”
“Okay, then.” He raised his hands above the table. “Do it.”
Despite himself, Keelan had to admire his balls.
“Let's get it over with, John.”
Keelan's finger froze on the trigger.
Bertolli shook his head. “Hey, I ain't got all day. If we're going to do this thing, let's get it done.”
Keelan thought about Anna and little Caroline. He deserves this, he deserves to die. Yet he just couldn't do it, not like this. It was the difference between him and whoever came to his house that night in Berkeley.
He lowered the gun.
“I knew you didn't have the balls for it.”
Keelan dashed the wine in his face and then hit him across the bridge of the nose with the barrel of the revolver. Immediately the two goons at the door went for their weapons. But Keelan was standing behind Bertolli, the gun at his head, his other arm around his throat.
They froze.
Bertolli held a linen napkin held to his face. Hard to tell what was blood and what was red wine. “Leave it!” he honked at Trappatoni, at the men at the door. “What the fuck!”
Trappatoni nodded to the muscle, and they lowered their guns.
Keelan let Bertolli go and moved away, but kept the Smith and Wesson pointed at his head. “See ya later, Frank.”
“You're finished, Keelan. I'll have your ass!”
“Pity about that nice Roman nose.” Keelan swung the gun around and Trappatoni and the two minders backed away from the door. He walked out into the sunshine. To hell with it. He didn't want the DEA job any more anyway.
Mid-levels, Hong Kong
Ruby did not how long she had been asleep. When she woke, the curtains were open and it was dark outside. A bedside lamp threw a dull yellow light over the room. She lay on her back with her arms above her head; she tried to sit up, but she couldn't move. Her wrists had been tied to the frame of the bed with her Hermès scarf.
Eddie stood over her, his face thrown in shadow by the lamp. “You lie to me, Ruby-ah.” Dew neh loh moh! He was holding a knife. “Vincent says you lose my money at fan tan and pai gau.”
He held the knife blade inches from her face. As he turned it, the blue steel caught the light from the lamp and it hurt her eyes. "Eddie, no!”
“I give you money to pay Peter Man. When you are in jail in Thailand I pay thirty one million baht! One million American! For you! And how do you repay me, fucking your mother! You steal my money to gamble. I tell you not to gamble so big, but you do not listen to me.”
“Eddie, pliss.”
He held his fist in front of her face and slowly opened the fingers. There was a single bone dice in his palm.
“Lose big face because of you. Now I must teach you a lesson. You want to gamble, we gamble. Maybe biggest gamble of your whole fucking life.” He sat astride her legs, so that she could not move. “What is your lucky number, Ruby-ah?”
“Eddie. Do anything for you. Love you too much, no shit.”
“Think I'm stupid, fucking your mother?” he shouted, his face twisted with rage. He held the knife against her throat. “Tell me your lucky number!”
“Two.”
“Two, okay. Now I will tell you about this game. We will play some dice. You get your lucky number two, I help you this last time. You get number four, the death number, I put a gag in your mouth, open your bone to the light. Okay?”
“No, Eddie ...”
“What is the matter, Little Flower? You like to gamble, neh? Make life interesting for you, make you feel alive? That what you want, Ruby-ah? Like to feel blood pump in your veins?”
“Stop now, Eddie.”
“Cannot stop now. Game is much too interesting.”
The knife was hurting her. He touched it to her skin and she felt warm blood running down her neck. Her limbs started to shake, uncontrollably.
He kept his eyes on her, but with his other hand he rolled the dice across her belly. She twisted her head, tried to see.
He shook his head and frowned. “I think is a six, but then you wriggle and make it a four. What can do we do, Ruby-ah? Have to make fair, so I will take the first number. Good casino never cheat its best customer, okay?”
Ruby was too frightened to speak.
He rolled again. She kept her eyes shut tight, held her breath. She felt the dice tickle her belly. “This time a three.”
He rolled again.
“Four,” he said.
She jerked her head up. The dice lay on her stomach. A six.
Eddie was smiling. “Not paying attention, Ruby-ah. Got to look, got to watch me. Otherwise not a very fun game, okay.”
He grabbed her hair, forced her to watch as he rolled the dice a fourth time, it nestled between the two hard bands of her stomach muscles.
A four.
Ruby tried to jerk herself free, pulled as hard as she could at the scarf around her wrists, kicked wildly with her legs.
“No, Eddie ...!”
He raised the knife.
Chapter 81
RUBY could not take her eyes from the knife.
This stinking life. Never meant for it to happen this way. Just wanted to have fun life, some nice car, make some babies, be a good girl. Not my fault that I never have any good luck.
The knife arced down and she screamed. It slashed through the silk scarf and embedded itself into the soft pillow.
“You are right, Ruby-ah. Can never hurt my little flower. Promise our father I will take good care of you. Even though you are a thieving, scaly whore.”
The only sound in the room was a soft, bubbling moan that came from deep in Ruby's chest.
“Cannot help you again, Ruby-ah. You understand?”
She nodded her head.
Eddie stood up. Ruby leaped from the bed, rushed into the bathroom, and vomited. Afterwards, she lay down on the cold tiles, exhausted, gasping for her breath.
When she looked up, Eddie was standing over her. “Goodbye Little Flower,” he said. “Try to stay out of trouble, heya.”
Chapter 82
Wanchai
THE four young Chinese who entered the jewelry store on Hennessey Road just after ten o'clock that morning could have been mistaken for business executives on a shopping spree. They strolled along the counters, their hands in their pockets, sometimes stopping in front of a display case to examine a necklace or ring or wristwatch. The turbaned Sikh guard at the doorway ignored them.
Without warning, one of the four men produced an object from his jacket pocket and screamed a warning in Cantonese. The guard wheeled around, bringing up his shotgun, then froze when he saw that one of the men was holding a hand grenade.
The other three produced Black Star pistols from inside their jackets. One of them ran towards the guard, the pistol aimed at his face, screaming at him to drop the shotgun. The Sikh, eyes still on the grenade, obeyed. The half dozen tourists who were unlucky enough to be in the store at that moment were already frozen in horror.
The two other Chinese ran through the store, pushing customers and salespeople onto the floor, then began smashing the glass display cases with the butts of their pistols. On
e of them produced a large mail sack that had been carefully folded and stuffed into the back of his trousers underneath his jacket. His partner threw in fistfuls of gold and jewelry.
People stopped in the street and pointed. Car horns blared in the street as drivers stopped for a better view.
At that moment two uniformed policemen turned the corner of Hennessey and Marsh and saw what was happening. They ran across the street, pulling their .38 Smith and Wesson revolvers from the leather holsters on their hips. They approached the store slowly, backs against the window of the jeans shop next door, their weapons held in a two-handed grip. The first patrolman saw the man holding the grenade and hesitated. His partner spoke urgently into his hand held radio, asking for urgent back up.
The four Chinese had what they came for. One of them had cut his wrist on the broken glass of a display case and was bleeding heavily. Another picked up the guard's shotgun and followed him toward the door.
The two policemen had lost whatever advantage they had. They moved quickly to block the exit, firing their weapons as they ran.
The Chinese with the shotgun brought the weapon up to his hip and fired both barrels at the window. The whole glass frontage exploded. One of the constables was sprayed with shotgun pellets and shards of glass and went down. In the space of the next three seconds seven more shots were fired. The other patrolman, stunned and disoriented, retreated to the cover of a parked car.
He looked down at his shirt and was surprised to see dark red patches blossoming there. He lifted his shirt and realized he had been shot. He was astonished that there was no pain.
Within seconds he was unconscious.
Chasing the Dragon: a story of love, redemption and the Chinese triads (Opium Book 2) Page 32
