by S. J. Rozan
In the picture in my mind, Lee smiled like ice. The past, I suddenly knew, was a very long time; but the future was even longer.
A waiter brought over another steamer of crabs. Well, then, Lydia, I thought, eat now, because the present is short. I lifted the lid and divided the spoils.
“I didn’t get Lee,” Mark said, pulling on a new cold beer the waiter had also provided. “I didn’t get Tony Siu for Franklin, or Siu or Big John Chou for Iron Fist Chang. But,” he said, “I didn’t get killed by Siu when I chased him, and I didn’t get fired, either. So I guess I came out ahead.”
“And I got a new nose,” said Bill. “So I know I did.”
We had been ferried out to the barge by sampan, and though we ate mightily and lingered over tangerines and tea at the end of the meal, there came a time when the tea was gone, the tangerines nothing but pits and peels, and the sampan had returned.
We didn’t speak much as we crossed the water back to Sha Tin. The day had grown very hot but stayed wonderfully clear. As the sampan rocked gently over larger boats’ wakes I could see the mausoleum far above us on the hilltop. Now we were one of the small dark boats on the water. I wondered if anyone was looking down to the sea from a funeral, and if the sight of other peoples’ daily lives going on made the funeral easier or harder.
At Sha Tin we parted; Mark was going back to work, and Bill and I had decided to spend our last day in Hong Kong out here in a park in the country, walking on the hiking trails above the sea. Mark and Bill shook hands, and, because they were men, had little they could say to each other beyond Bill’s “Thank you,” and Mark’s “Try to stay out of trouble.” They gave each other nods and smiles. Then Bill ambled away down the street, as though he had developed a sudden interest in shop windows.
That left me alone, facing Mark. His eyes briefly followed Bill; then he turned back to me.
“It’s too bad,” he said.
“No, it’s not,” I answered. “Still, I know what you mean.”
“Will it sound stupid if I say ‘keep in touch’?”
“I don’t know. Try it.”
“Keep in touch.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Then he kissed me and I kissed him, a kiss a lot like the one at the ferry pier on Cheung Chau.
Mark hailed a cab and headed back to town. I watched the cab weave through the crowded streets until I couldn’t see it anymore. Then I strolled down the block to join Bill, to see if he really had found something interesting in a shop window.
The rest of the quiet, hot day Bill and I spent walking under thick jungle greenery. We watched flocks of quacking ducks floating over mirror-surfaced ponds. Slowly, we climbed a long dusty trail to a rock outcropping from which we could see for miles over the hazy ocean. We paused at every water fountain to drink gallons of water and then sweated it out; we bought something to nibble on, steamed buns or pork satay or syrupy rice cakes, from every kiosk and vendor. We didn’t talk much, just sometimes a few words to point out things to each other, something one of us thought the other might have missed, might like.
As the afternoon went on we came down the hill again and found a puppet show in progress in a children’s area of the park. We sat on low benches and watched. The paper puppets, like puppets everywhere, were having a marvelous time bashing each other over the head with paper clubs. The audience, who seemed to know the story, booed and cheered and called out warnings and advice. The puppets ignored them, doing what they always did, and the audience loved it. When the show was over we put money in the puppets’ red bowl.
“What did your mother say?” Bill asked as we walked away.
“My mother?”
“Didn’t you say you were going to call her this morning?”
“Why did you think of that just now?”
“The little puppet,” he said. “The one who kept smacking all the others with the parasol.”
“That was the Dowager Empress.”
“I rest my case.”
I stopped at a water fountain. Wiping my mouth when I was done, I said, “She said she was glad you were all right.”
“Not possible.”
“Well, okay, it wasn’t that exactly. What she said was that you’re lucky your ignorance of Chinese ways didn’t get you killed.”
“My ignorance of Chinese ways, though admittedly extensive, had nothing to do with it,” he asserted.
“I tried to tell her you got hurt protecting a little Chinese boy, but her position was, a Chinese person doing that job wouldn’t have gotten hurt. So I pulled my trump card, which was that I couldn’t have accomplished what Grandfather Gao sent me here to do without you.”
“And was she impressed, won over, ready to ask my forgiveness for the way she’s treated me?”
“She got mad at me. She said that modesty was only becoming when it reflected the truth, not when it was an attempt to soften up one’s mother. She said the reason Grandfather Gao sent you here in the first place must have been that in his wisdom he was trying to show me how extensive your ignorance of Chinese ways really is. And that the distraction of traveling with someone as ignorant as you was what kept me from being quickly able to accomplish my task. And that—”
“I give up.”
“Very wise. I gave up long ago.”
The shadows grew long, though the afternoon light was still bright, not golden as I was used to at the end of the day. Bill said that was because we were surrounded by water. I didn’t understand that but I didn’t care. We headed to the train, sat and watched the New Territories fly by our window. I remembered why I love air-conditioning. Bill felt better enough that he could lean back against the seat, and I was glad for him. We took the train to the subway and the subway to the streets of Kowloon, where the cars and the jackhammers and the people were familiar now, almost comforting, as everyone crowded, rushed, charged, yelled into cell phones, and hurried as fast as they could to the next place.
Bill and I went back to our hotel, showered and changed and met an hour later in the purple dusk to walk along the promenade to a restaurant with a glass wall facing the Hong Kong Island skyline. We ate vegetable dumplings and Mongolian beef, stewed black mushrooms and aromatic rice. The neon across the water blurred slowly as a tattered fog began drifting in.
“Can I ask you something?” I said, pouring headily fragrant jasmine tea. “You’re a man.”
“Is that the question?”
“If it were I’m sure you’d have a smart-guy answer. But no. What I want to know is, do you understand old Mr. Wei? Do you understand this two-family thing?”
Bill gazed out the window. He was drinking red wine. Tiny pinpoints of light from a boat in the water sparkled on his glass as he put it down.
“Maybe I do.”
“Can you tell me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Is it about doing it because you can? Having it all?”
He was quiet a minute. Then he said, “I don’t think so. I think it’s about living where you don’t belong.” He looked into the night again. “Your grandfather never left China.”
“My father said he couldn’t leave the place where his family had always lived. If he left there’d be no one to tend his ancestor’s graves.”
“And Grandfather Gao left, but he seems to have taken China with him.”
I thought about that. “Well, he had uncles and great uncles who’d gone to the U.S. before him. He went right to work in the shop when he got there.” I thought about the shop that was now Grandfather Gao’s, the carved screens, the lion-footed table, the sweet incense. “And he’s—” I searched for the words, found none better than the ones Bill had used. “You’re right. He took China with him.”
Bill sipped his wine. “But old Mr. Wei seems to have been different. He went to New York and got married but he didn’t live in Chinatown. He moved his family to Westchester and laughed at the old ways. His family was going to be American, charge headfirst into the modern world, leave
the old ways behind. And so was he.”
“But he didn’t really meant it?”
“I think he did, while he was there. But he came back here over and over, for the business. And, wild and modern as this place is, it’s still China.”
“So here he was Chinese? And had a Chinese family, and lived the old ways?”
“I think so. I think that’s what was going on.”
A clearing in the fog beyond the window showed us the harbor water. Hong Kong had come about because of this harbor, deep and slow-moving water where huge ships could anchor, exchange cargo, move on. On the water’s calm surface the crowded chaos of the buildings on the opposite shoreline glittered and shone. The moon hung above them, bright and unquenchable.
“Swiftly running water,” I said. “‘Swiftly running water does not reflect the sky.’”
To the question in Bill’s eyes I said, “That was my fortune at the temple.”
He poured himself more wine, and me more tea, and said nothing else.
After dinner we went out to the promenade. The scents of salt water and diesel fuel reached through the fog as we walked. A boat plowed past us, its engine growling. It was near enough for us to see it clearly, its cabin lights and its numbers; all the other boats were blurred presences, lights and sounds without shape in the neon-crowned mist. I felt the fog, damp against my skin; the night was growing cool.
We leaned on the railing to look across the harbor. Bill lit a cigarette. Its smoke blended into the mist. There was no sound but the waves lapping the seawall and, occasionally, a deep horn from the distance: ships speaking, one to another. We looked out over the water for a long time.
I said to Bill, “Spend the night with me.”
He turned and so did I. Our eyes held each other. Then he leaned down and I reached up and we met to kiss, and this was the kiss I wanted, warm and deep, slow and long, changeable and constant as water.
We separated.
Bill, without words, looked over the harbor again, and shook his head.
The lights of a boat passed by in the fog. I was wordless too, a little differently. Bill turned to me, saw that, grinned, shook his head again.
Flabbergasted, nonplussed, astounded, I said, “You’re turning me down?”
He said, “It wouldn’t be a good idea.”
I heard the note of wonder in my own voice as I said, “I’ve been saying that for years. Now I stopped and you’re picking it up?”
“For one thing,” he said, turning back to the water, “I’m not in great shape. A guy with a broken nose and a screwed-up back—”
“We’d think of something.”
He grinned again. “I’m sure we would.” The grin faded. “That’s not really the point.”
“What is the point?”
He nodded at the harbor, the boats, the neon glowing through the fog. “All this,” he said. “It’ll be gone tomorrow.”
“That’s why,” I said. “That’s why tonight.”
“If we spend tonight together, that’ll be part of this.”
“Would that be bad?”
“The next night we see will be on the other side of the world. This won’t be real anymore. The only thing that’s real is where you are.” He turned from the harbor to me. “I want nights with you to be part of that, where it’s real, not part of this. I want that ahead of us, not behind us.”
I looked at him as long and steadily and silently as he looked at me. Then I turned to gaze out over the water. “I can’t promise that.”
“I know.”
We stood that way a long time, leaning on the railing as boats appeared and disappeared in the fog, water rose and fell against the stone, and, on the opposite shore, the neon colors shimmered in the mist.
Finally we turned away and started back to our hotel. The fog was thicker; the night was chilly. We had to pack tonight; we had to get ready. Tomorrow, we were going home.
READ ALL OF S. J. ROZAN’S ACCLAIMED BILL SMITH/LYDIA CHIN NOVELS
WINTER + NIGHT
REFLECTING THE SKY
STONE QUARRY
A BITTER FEAST
NO COLDER PLACE
MANDARIN PLAID
CHINA TRADE
CONCOURSE
AVAILABLE FROM ST. MARTIN’s / MINOTAUR PAPERBACKS
PRAISE FOR THE NOVELS OF AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR S. J. ROZAN
REFLECTING THE SKY
This is a beautifully written book with a sophisticated plot, rich in both action and atmosphere … Every twist of the plot rises from a foundation of truthful emotions and motives solidly rooted in the characters’ cultures. Every bit of humor and evocative description serves the action; there’s not a smidgen of clunky exposition as the Chin-Smith relationship continues to grow and foscinate.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“The plot, like all of Rozan’s literary structures, is strong and serviceable—all about greed and family loyalties and secrets from the post coming home to roost. But this time it’s another man-made artifact, the amazing city of Hong Kong, that steals virtually every scene. A tremendously satisfying book.”
—Chicago Tribune
“Shuttling between oracular Chinese apothegms and steadily mounting action, Rozan ladles out the complications with a generous hand, yet keeps everything clear. Even visitors to Hong Kong with no more experience than Lydia will find a lot more to treasure in the city than exotic backgrounds … Tough to top.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“The series is getting stronger and stronger. If you haven’t tried Rozan, what are you waiting for?”
—The Drood Review
“A reader would be hard-pressed to find a more likable or more disparate duo than the middle-aged, rawboned, moody and sarcastic Smith and the 20-something, small, agile and quick-witted Chin.”
—Los Angeles Times
STONE QUARRY
“Stone Quarry is S. J. Rozan at her best … The tension and intrigue never let up. She constantly has you looking over your shoulder into the dark.”
—Michael Connelly, author of Angels Flight and Void Moon
“For the reader, the best part of Stone Quarry is being transported to an unfamiliar part of New York, where the natural beauty of the scenery stands in contrast with some pretty ugly truths about the local citizenry … constantly entertaining and enriched by some wonderful prose.”
—Chicago Tribune
“The superlatives keep coming for the detective duo of Lydia Chin and Bill Smith, now clearly established as one of the best PI pairings in contemporary mystery fiction. Crime fiction fans of all kinds—from the coziest to the most hardboiled—sing the praises of this series; recommend it highly to any mystery readers who aren’t yet hooked. Those that are will be standing in line.”
—Booklist
“Shamus and Anthony-winner Rozan pushes the action and the plot at an invigorating pace and manages to explore the myriad ways in which violence can warp human relationships. Her sharp descriptions of upstate New York’s idyllic scenery and struggling formers form a striking background for her hard-edged hero and his barely concealed soft spot. This is a first-rate mystery that bolsters Rozan’s already solid reputation and should win her new fans.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Solid plotting, exceptional characters, and well-crafted prose.”
—Library Journal
“With the Bill Smith and Lydia Chin mysteries, S. J. Rozan has written the most consistently compelling series of traditional detective novels published in this decade. Stone Quarry combines the sure, controlled prose of Ross MacDonald with the fury of early Hammett. Now is the time to discover what Rozan’s loyal readership has known all along.”
—George Pelecanos, author of The Big Blowdown
“In a departure from her usual gritty urban settings, S. J. Rozan blends the elegiac beauty of upstate New York with a gripping tale of rural corruption. A solid addition to a solid series
.”—Margaret Moron, author of Home Fires “Rozan’s seamless writing ranges from glorious to no-frills, the action is backwoods tough and Stone Quarry consistently believable.”
—Book Page
A BITTER FEAST
“Smart, crisp writing … The rich sights, sounds and textures of daily life in Chinatown are a sumptuous feast for jaded palates.”
—Marilyn Stasio, The New York Times Book Review
“Superlative … a story that manages to satisfy all the senses.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Engaging, energetic Lydia. is good company.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer
“Rozan skillfully measures out the layers of double-dealing, keeping her plot just twisty enough to spin it out with consummate professionalism. If you still don’t know Lydia and Bill, you’ll never have a better chance to meet them.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
NO COLDER PLACE
“A mystery gem … taut and beautifully written.”
—Detroit Free Press
“Rozan is a pro at designing a good mystery.”
—San Jose Mercury News
“The protagonists’ relationship and Rozan’s solid plotting ably carry this admirable series.”
—Publishers Weekly “Best Books ’97”
“The unlikely match of energetic Lydia and world-weary Bill has helped establish this couple as an engaging, quixotic pair … This novel firmly establishes Rozan as a major figure in contemporary mystery fiction.”
—Booklist
“This [is] the sharpest, dearest, most purposefully focused of her four Smith/Chin mysteries.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A new and absorbing voice … This is a series to watch for.”
—Washington Post Book World
