by S. J. Rozan
I didn’t know what he understood, or for that matter what I did. I opened my mouth to make an answer, but the phone rang.
It froze us all. Natalie Zhu thawed first. In two steps she reached it, grabbed it up, and demanded, “Wai!”—“Speak!” in Cantonese.
The caller evidently did, and then Natalie Zhu began again, still in Cantonese. Relief sounded in her voice, but it didn’t last long. “This is Zhu Nai-Qian. Where are you?” Pause. “They are not with you?” Another pause. “No, we have not. Here, you had better speak to Wei Di-Fen.” She lowered the phone, said, “It’s Li-Ling,” and handed the receiver to Steven Wei, who was already on his feet.
“Are you all right?” Steven Wei spoke quickly and low to his wife—also in Chinese—listened, spoke again. He turned to me and Bill when he hung up.
“They went out early,” he said, switching back to English. “Li-Ling wanted to buy some sweets, to have with tea when you came.” His look was accusatory, as though that made this our fault. “Maria and Harry went with her, and Maria took Harry to play in the park. He was too excited to stay up here, just waiting.”
I had gathered most of this from Steven Wei’s side of the Cantonese conversation, but I let him continue to tell it.
“Li-Ling went to the park to meet them, but they weren’t there. She waited, then walked around to the church. Harry … he likes to climb on the rocks there. Then she went back to the park. Then she went back to the bakery, in case they’d gone to meet her. That’s where she called from.” He looked at each of us in turn, as though one of us could make something of what he’d said, find an answer in it. No one spoke.
“I told her to come home,” he said.
Now there was silence for a time. Natalie Zhu returned to her straight-backed chair. Steven Wei paced, sat, stood, sat again.
Questions ran around in my mind, things I wanted to know; and I could see Bill had questions, too, because I know him well enough to see what he’s thinking, sometimes, from the look in his eyes, the way he moves. But I kept my questions to myself, for now, and so did he.
As much to keep moving as to have another look around, I put the cushions back on the couch. If the cops weren’t coming there was no point in leaving the place looking like a monsoon had hit it. I stood the furniture up, put the hibiscus blossoms back in their vase, and went and got more water for them. Two silver-framed photographs lay on the floor, as I came back from the kitchen with the flowers I saw Steven Wei bending over, picking them up, rubbing his thumb along the frame of one. Putting the vase down, I went over to look.
The smaller photo, with the soft-toned contrast and stiff formality of a studio portrait, showed a middle-aged man in a suit and a tie standing behind a seated woman with a toddler on her lap. The clothes dated the picture to about thirty years ago, and the faces of the child and the standing man were both Steven Wei’s face.
The other picture was also a family grouping. Steven Wei, arms around his knees, was seated on a picnic blanket on a hilltop next to a pretty woman who wore a scarf to keep her hair from blowing in the breeze. The ocean sparkled in the distance. A little boy wearing a white kung fu gi and a big grin had thrown a kick and was holding the pose, probably hoping the photographer would get on with it before he fell over. Two old men also sat on the blanket, the one from the formal portrait and another, thinner but otherwise almost identical in looks. And the lawyer, Natalie Zhu, who sat a little ways apart. This picture was not more than a year or two old, and the little boy’s face, like those in the other picture, was also Steven Wei’s.
Bill had drifted over from the window to look over Steven’s shoulder, too. I glanced at him; then Steven seemed to notice both of us. He straightened, set the photos on the sideboard, and walked stiffly back to his chair.
I was still watching Bill. He stood at the window and smoked, looking as though he were doing nothing in particular. Then, pressing out his cigarette, he said, “Can I ask you something?”
Steven Wei looked around and found the question addressed to no one else. “Yes?”
“Why did you go out this morning? You knew we were coming. Your wife went out shopping, and the amah took Harry out to play, but where did you go?”
Bill’s tone was mild and conversational, but if I’d been Steven Wei, my own guilt at not having been here would have made me defensive and furious at the question. Steven Wei flushed crimson. “My uncle asked me yesterday to come to the warehouse early today, with Natalie,” he said crisply. “To go over some bills of lading and other papers. There is a large shipment coming in from China tomorrow, and one going out to New York in a few days.”
“Antique furniture, am I right?” Bill asked.
“Some antique, some new,” Wei said, obviously not caring whether Bill had it right or not.
“And the paperwork couldn’t wait, until this afternoon, say?”
Steven Wei had clearly been asking himself the same question since he’d seen his torn-apart living room. “The paperwork my father used to take care of will have to be done by someone else now. These are Lion Rock’s first shipments since my father passed on. Uncle Ang-Ran apologized about the timing, but the ship for New York sails in two days whether the paperwork is right or not. He is not an expert at the regulations involved, and he doesn’t speak English well.”
“And you are an expert? You’re an accountant—is this sort of thing your specialty?”
Steven Wei looked at Bill like you’d look at a gnat you’d been swatting at but hadn’t managed to get rid of. “I’ll learn. I’ve left my previous position to take over Father’s duties. I’ve inherited most of his share of the firm.”
Bill nodded, then asked, “Did you get done this morning what you went to do?”
After a long look, Steven Wei replied, “Not entirely. But Uncle Ang-Ran thought he could complete it and did not want us to be late to meet you.”
I thought it might be time to step in here. “Your uncle?” I asked Steven Wei. “Your father’s partner?”
“Wei Ang-Ran,” he told me; and I could tell from his voice that he was struggling to even be civil. Under the circumstances, I couldn’t blame him. “Father’s younger brother.”
“And what about your brother?” Bill asked.
The room resounded with a horrified silence. I wondered if you could be deported from Hong Kong for gaucheness.
“You mean my father’s other son?” Steven Wei finally asked.
Bill, the broad-shouldered, slouching image of American laissez-faire, nodded. “I imagine it’s a touchy subject,” he said, vastly understating the glaringly obvious, “but I was just wondering. Is he taking over the New York end of the business?”
I kept my mouth shut, letting him play out the hand. Natalie Zhu, sharp-eyed, seemed to be doing the same.
Steven Wei slumped back in his chair, the fire gone out again. “I’ve never met him,” he said. “He’s two years older than I. A doctor, from what I understand. My father seems to have left him a small share of the business also.” He glanced at Natalie Zhu, who, her mouth pursed in distaste, nodded but said nothing. “I understand he plans to come to Hong Kong for Father’s funeral. I was hoping to talk to him then. To buy him out. My uncle is childless, and so, I understand, is this—is my brother.” He clearly found the word difficult to say. “I had always planned that Harry would inherit Lion Rock Enterprises.”
The room fell silent again; no one, it seemed, was willing to talk much about Harry’s future, right now.
And in the silence the phone rang again.
This time it wasn’t the ivory-colored telephone on the laquered desk. The rings, insistent and shrill, came from Steven Wei’s pocket. He whipped out his cell phone, fumbled it open, and said, “Wai! Wai!” He listened, his face reddening. He started to speak, stopped abruptly, listened briefly again, then shouted, “Wai!” into the phone once more. He lowered it, staring at it as though it had done something unprecedented and traitorous.
He looked up at th
e rest of us. “They hung up,” he said.
“Who was it? What did they say?” Natalie Zhu demanded.
Steven Wei paused a moment. “He said Harry and Maria were being … well taken care of. And if I did what I was told they’d be home soon.”
“A man?” I asked.
“What did he tell you to do?” Natalie Zhu said, with a sharp glance at me.
Steven Wei looked at me, too, and for a moment didn’t speak. Then he said, “At noon, at Wong Tai Sin. To be at the fortune-tellers’ stalls. Alone.”
“With the ransom?”
He shook his head. “He said I would receive instructions there.”
Natalie Zhu frowned. Steven Wei said to no one in particular, “Why don’t they just want the money now? Why prolong this?”
Nobody else answered, so I did. “It’s standard. A dry run, to be sure you’ll follow instructions. Alone, no cops, on time, everything. If you do it right, next time will be the real thing. This might indicate that they’re pros, that they’ve done this sort of thing before.”
Steven Wei just stared at me. So did Natalie Zhu.
With a quick look at Bill, I told them, “We’re investigators. Private cops, you might say. We’ve dealt with things like this before.”
Steven Wei and Natalie Zhu looked at each other. “Things like this?” Steven Wei repeated. “Kidnapping?”
“Dealing with this sort of thing is the kind of work we do.”
The strict truth was, it was the kind of work Bill had done. I’d never handled a real kidnapping before. But we were partners now, so I was entitled to claim his experience. And it wasn’t like I didn’t have experience of my own to bring to this partnership. Like for example, I was the one who spoke Chinese.
Steven Wei, in Chinese, said something low and fast to Natalie Zhu.
She answered in English: “That’s a good question.” She turned to me. “Steven finds it an interesting coincidence, as I do, that you should happen to be here just now, if this is true. Why did Gao Mian-Liang send investigators?”
That wasn’t exactly what Steven had said, but it was close enough. “I’m not sure what you mean,” I said, though I was.
“She means,” Bill said from his post by the window, “that we could have engineered this whole thing.”
“I did not mean to suggest—”
“Sure you did, and I would, too, in your shoes,” he said. “Gao Mian-Liang sends us to drop this jade thing off with Harry, and we see a chance to make a few bucks on the side. We pay the amah to take Harry to the movies, pay some hotel bellboy to phone in a ransom demand, and let on that we’re experts in this kind of thing. But you don’t want us involved, so you tell us to get lost. Which is what you’re about to do, right?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You pay the ransom, we collect it, and then there’s another phone call saying something went wrong. So Harry has to be rescued, and we do that heroically, and the grateful family lays another large sum on us. We split it with the bellboy and the amah, go home rich, and everyone’s happy. That’s what they’re thinking. If I were you,” he turned to Steven Wei, “that’s what I’d be thinking.”
That was what Steven Wei was thinking, because that was more or less what he’d said in Chinese to Natalie Zhu. Being Chinese, and therefore congenitally reluctant to give direct offense, he started to deny it; but his words sounded just a bit pro forma, though he didn’t get past, “I don’t … There is not …”
“Mr. Wei,” I said, “if that’s what you’re thinking, I can understand it. In fact I can see why you might hope it was true, because in that case there’d be no real danger. But it isn’t. We don’t know where Harry is. But,” I said, trying to choose my words carefully, “we’d like to do anything we can to help get him back.”
Maybe Steven Wei was about to answer, or maybe not, but the door flew open. We all turned to see the pretty woman from the photo on the desk, her expensive perm disheveled, her carefully made-up face flushed, standing in the doorway, looking at all of us. She was sweating heavily, possibly because the day’s heat was hard enough to handle even if you weren’t, as she was, obviously pregnant.
Steven Wei jumped up and went to her. “Li-Ling!”
“Is Hao-Han back?” Li-Ling Wei spoke in Chinese. Her eyes swept the room, looking for something she clearly did not find.
“No.” Steven and Li-ling Wei stopped before each other. He took her hands in his. “A phone call came.”
Steven Wei, in Chinese, told his wife about Wong Tai Sin, noon, the fortune-tellers.
Li-Ling Wei listened, her eyes widening. When Steven was through Li-Ling looked quickly at Natalie Zhu, who did not speak. Her eyes went back to her husband. Gripping his arm, as though for support, she looked at me and Bill. Clearly trying to compose herself, she spoke in English. “You’re the Americans. With Harry’s jade.”
“Lydia Chin,” I answered her. “This is my partner, Bill Smith. I’m very sorry about this situation, Mrs. Wei.”
“Yes,” she said, and then, “Thank you,” as an afterthought. She looked around her, at the room I’d attempted to straighten, at the people in it. She seemed to have run out of words.
Natalie Zhu took up the slack. Looking pointedly at her watch, she said, “Steven will need to leave soon for Wong Tai Sin. Li-Ling, you will stay here with me.” She turned to me. “Thank you for your offer of help. We will call you if we need you.”
That was the “get lost” Bill had mentioned. I was of two minds about that, but Bill had made his up already. He offered Steven Wei his hand, said, “Anything we can do,” nodded to Natalie Zhu and Li-Ling Wei, and walked through the room to the door.
“You’ll let us know?” I asked. “As soon as something happens?”
Steven Wei just looked at me, then nodded. Natalie Zhu said, “We will call you. Thank you.”
I felt her eyes on me until the door closed behind us.
As we stood waiting for the elevator among the prints of the harbor, I said to Bill, “I guess this is the dam flooding the village on a clear day.”
“Or,” he said, “it could be the storm cloud passing without rain.”
“I’m not sure I understand that, but before the elevator comes, tell me this: Are you sure leaving there was the right thing to do?”
“Positive. And for the same reasons you do.”
“Which are—?”
“Well, we couldn’t have stayed anyway if they wanted us out, and insisting would only have made them distrust us more than they’re already inclined to. I don’t know what our role in this is supposed to be, but there’s no point in alienating anyone without a good reason. And besides—”
“Besides,” I said, “if we don’t leave now we won’t get to Wong Tai Sin before he does.”
“Right.” Bill and I exchanged a look, the elevator came, and we headed back to the tall stone-lined lobby, and Robinson Road.
Like most residential areas, Robinson Road wasn’t a great place to catch a cab. It took us three blocks of rapid downhill striding to find a small business district, and another half-block sprint to seize a cab someone else had just gotten out of. The back of my linen blouse was already damp when we climbed in. The air-conditioner in the cab was going full blast; it wasn’t the freshest air in the world, but it was cool.
“Wong Tai Sin,” I told the driver.
“What place in Wong Tai Sin?” he asked me in Cantonese as he pulled away from the curb.
Steven Wei had been ordered to the fortune-tellers’ stalls; that could only mean one thing. “The temple,” I said.
I settled back against the cab seat and said to Bill, “That little boy. He’s only seven. Do you suppose he’s scared?”
“Yes,” Bill said, and that was all he said.
Out the window, I could catch a glimpse of the harbor every now and then as our cab made sharp turns to switchback down the hill. Well, if we were going to do anything for Harry, it could only be by doing our job.
“Thanks for that
nonsense with the ashtray,” I said. “That was to keep them from thinking about your answer to the English-or-Chinese question and whether it really went for both of us, right?”
“Right. And thanks for rearranging the furniture so I could watch them while they were watching you.”
“You’re welcome. Learn anything?”
“Well, you know these Chinese: inscrutable. How about you, when they were speaking Chinese? That’s the kind of Chinese you speak, right?”
“Luckily, yes, in Hong Kong they speak Cantonese. On the mainland they speak Mandarin, and I’d be as ignorant as you.”
“Never. So—?”
“Nothing, really. Everything they said in Chinese was pretty much what they translated for us. The bit about us being a little suspicious included a reference to Grandfather Gao that was edited out of the English version.”
“What about him?”
“About the Three Brothers tong. Some of the New York tongs are associated with Hong Kong triads. Kidnapping is apparently a triad industry here, so they were wondering if there was a connection.”
“Is there?”
I turned to stare at him. “Between Grandfather Gao and this? Of course not.”
“You sure?”
“Of course I’m sure! First of all, Three Brothers is sort of well known for refusing to connect with any of the triads. The Weis might not know that, but I do. Second and more important, old Mr. Wei was Grandfather Gao’s oldest friend. There’s no way Grandfather Gao would do anything to hurt him, even after he was dead. But …”
“But what?”
“I want to call him as soon as we can. We have to tell him what happened, for one thing. And I need to ask him if this is his storm cloud, or his flood, or whatever, or if this is a total surprise to him and he really just sent us here for our health.”
“Maybe you’re here for the water crisis, and I’m here for your health.”
I scowled at this thought. “A bodyguard?”
“Don’t get mad at me, I’m just following orders.”
“Those weren’t your orders.”
