by Dawson, Mark
More fool him.
Liang had introduced him to Donnie Qi. He was the Dai Lo, a medium ranking underboss of the Wo Shun Wo triad. Donnie presided over his part of the Kowloon underworld from the back rooms of the Jade Lotus karaoke bar, a seedy dive on Yau Ma Tei. Chau had been invited to visit him in the club. It was accommodated within a large basement beneath a supermarket, with peeling posters in the lobby advertising the neighbouring twenty-four-hour saunas, massage parlours and clip joints. A rickety shoebox lift descended to the club, where television screens were fixed to the walls and microphones littered the tables. His audience with the Dai Lo was quick and satisfactory, with the job put to him in simple terms. An ‘unfortunate incident’ had taken place in a property that Donnie owned, and the resultant mess needed to be cleaned up. He would pay him 2,000 US dollars, ten times what he would normally have charged for a day’s work. Did he want the business?
Chau had said yes.
He had driven his van to the property. It certainly was unfortunate. The bodies had been removed, but the evidence of what had happened there was still plain to see. Chau knew, figuratively, that death could be grisly. He liked the American TV shows that specialised in this sort of thing, but he had never been called out to deal with something as repellant as this before. There was blood on the furniture and on the walls, there was a splash on the ceiling and dried, crusted blood in the grooves between the floorboards. He knew, from experience, that the nickel-sized stain on the carpet would not be the worst of it, and that there was likely a two-foot stain on the floorboards beneath.
He had been right.
Chau had spent an entire day on the cleanup and Donnie Qi had been pleased with his work.
Pleased enough that more work had followed.
It went well for the first year. There was a steady stream of business: blood to be scrubbed and scoured from the back room of the Jade Lotus where Donnie Qi’s discipline was meted out, the occasional amputated body part to be disposed of at the city dump.
There had been seven bodies to make disappear during that time, too. Those were the longest days. He had invested in equipment more suited to the task: non-porous one-time-use suits and gloves; filtered respirators; chemical-spill boots. He bought biohazard waste containers, including 55-gallon heavy duty bags and sealed plastic containers. He bought a supply of luminol to disclose hidden bloodstains. He bought hospital grade disinfectants, industrial strength deodorisers, heavy duty sprayers, long scrubbing brushes and a wet vacuum. He had even bought a fogger, to thicken cleaning chemicals so that they could get all the way into tight or restricted spaces, like air ducts, for odour removal.
His first “full” cleanup had come in the second month, after he had earned their trust. A man who had been in the life had decided that he would prefer the company of his nubile young wife. He did not listen to the warnings that leaving was impossible and so both he and the girl had been murdered as an example to others who might also question the bonds that tied them. Chau had arrived when the bodies were still warm. He had been deputed two maa jais to help and, at his direction, they had dismembered the bodies so that they could be dropped into bin liners and incinerated. They used disinfectant to scrub every drop of blood from all surfaces: counters, ceilings, walls, light fixtures, glass trinkets, family pictures, artwork and appliances. They scraped brain matter from the walls and collected bone fragments that they found embedded in the drywall. They ripped out and discarded blood-soaked carpeting and removed sodden upholstery, window treatments and rugs. They had cleaned the apartment until it was spotless. Chau heard later that Donnie Qi had moved one of his mistresses into the place the day after he had finished.
He learned much. Each type of cleanup was different to the last, with individual problems that needed to be addressed. There were always bodily fluids to deal with, each tiny drop carrying the possibility of a blood-borne pathogen like HIV or hepatitis. It all needed to be treated with proper care and respect. Where the victim was shot in the head, there would be a lot of blood; if someone was shot in the chest, though, there would be much less because the lungs would suck it in. He discovered that it took blood around two hours to coagulate into a jelly-like goo that could be scraped up with a trowel or, if there was enough of it, a shovel. He found that brain matter dried to a substance with a cement-like consistency and, when his putty knives couldn’t remove it, a steam injection machine was needed to melt it.
Chau developed a rapport with Donnie and was pleased to be invited to share a drink with him at the club. Chau was too wise to think that this could be a social call, and had expected that he was going to be offered a bump in pay to keep him exclusive (there had been interest in his services from rival bosses). He had been wrong. Over a very pleasant meal, Donnie had suggested that he was having a problem with a mistress, Lì húa, who was too savvy and cautious to be drawn into a position where she could be disposed of.
Donnie Qi had described his dilemma and then, with cunning gleaming in his eyes, he had suggested that perhaps that was something Chau could assist him with? “Lì húa does not know you,” he had said. “She has not seen you before. She will not suspect.”
Chau had been offered $25,000. He knew the offer was not one that he could very easily decline, and he had considered it. He had watched Lì húa one afternoon, following her from her apartment to the Pacific Place mall. She was beautiful, tall and striking. He thought about how it could be done, and decided that it would be a simple enough thing. Donnie Qi was right. She did not know him. She would not see him coming. He tried to rationalise it, too, how she must have known the possible consequences of becoming embroiled with a man like that. It was her fault, he tried to persuade himself. If it wasn’t him, it would be someone else. He would do it quickly and mercifully, rather than the unpleasant death that might visit her if Donnie was forced to put one of the other Wo Shun Wo on the job.
Chau tried to persuade himself that it was better for everyone concerned that he accept the commission, but, in the end, his morals—rendered more flexible over the course of the last few months—were still not supple enough to allow him to say yes.
And so he had said no.
And no one said no to Donnie Qi.
#
HE OPENED the door to the office and went inside. There was enough moonlight coming through the window to find his way across the small room to the desk. He unplugged his laptop and put it into its bag. Then he knelt down beneath the desk and pried up the loose floorboard. There was a hollow space between the floorboards of the office and the ceiling below, and he reached down into it until his fingers brushed against the cellophane-wrapped bundle that he had hidden there. He clasped it and brought it out. The banknotes wrapped in the plastic sheath were worth $27,725. He put the bundle in the laptop case, replaced the loose floorboard and stood.
He looked around the little office and allowed his thoughts to settle on the first time that he had seen it. He had moved the business here after he had secured his biggest commercial client, and he remembered how excited it had made him feel. It seemed a long way off, now. A different time. He doubted whether he would ever be able to come back here again.
He knew that there was no way he could stay in Hong Kong.
He had already decided that he would have to leave.
He would make sure that Beatrix Rose had recovered—he owed her that much, at least—and then he would leave. He would take a junk to the mainland, and then he would head deep into China. He had relatives in Fushun. He would be able to hide out with them. He was not naïve enough to think that Donnie Qi would forget him, nor that his reach would not extend into China, but he would invest some of his funds in plastic surgery and a new identity. He had the capital to do it. He could start again.
He froze.
Was that a noise?
He listened at the door, closed his eyes and concentrated everything on listening as intently as he could, until he decided that his mind was playing tricks. He picked up
the case, descended the iron stairs, and hurried through the darkened warehouse to the back door. He paused there, scanning out into the alleyway beyond. The taillights of his car glowed back at him and he chided himself for leaving them on. He tightened his grip around the handle of the pistol and jogged to the open door. He tossed the bag into the back, threw the car into first, turned out onto the road, and, without another backward glance, sped away.
CHAPTER FIVE
BEATRIX AWOKE.
What was that?
She lay still for a moment. She had not woken naturally. She was groggy, but awareness was returning quickly. She blinked her eyes, then reached up to rub the sleep away. She was in the bedroom. The surgical stand loomed above her. It was closer than she remembered. Had it been moved?
There.
Again.
A noise.
She heard the sound of a door open and close. She looked around the bedroom for a weapon and saw the chopsticks, picked one up and clasped it in her fist. It was far from ideal, but, if she needed to defend herself, it would serve.
She opened the bedroom door a crack and looked through.
She saw Chau.
He was at the breakfast bar, laden down with a pair of heavy bags of groceries.
He was wearing another lurid Hawaiian shirt, ice-white jeans and brightly polished sports shoes. His back was to her. Her first instinct was to leave. She felt stronger. Chau hadn’t seen or heard her. She could disable him without much effort, choke him out or knock him senseless. She could kill him if she wanted to be confident that the loose end he represented was tied off. She had already compromised herself beyond a level where she could ever possibly be comfortable. To have been laid up here, unconscious and defenceless, for God knows how many days? That was anathema to her. She had an opportunity now to minimise the damage. She could take a taxi to her hotel, collect her go-bag, head to the airport and leave the city.
She weighed it up for a long moment, feeling the strength in her arms, her fingers opening and closing, but then she closed her eyes and discounted it.
There was much too much uncertainty for her to be comfortable with what had happened to her. But one thing was incontrovertible: he had saved her life.
She opened the door and cleared her throat. He dropped the bags in sudden shock, turned around and gave her a rueful smile.
“You surprised me.”
She checked the room. Just him.
“You are awake.”
She nodded, still cautious.
“How do you feel?”
“All right.”
He indicated her side. “The wound?”
She touched it, prodded it a little. “Sore, but better.”
“And your back?”
She had forgotten about that. She flexed her shoulder, then reached around and probed with her fingers. It was sore, too, and she felt the rough bumps of additional stitching. “Just a scratch.”
He shook his head. “You are not fine. My friend, the doctor, he said you had serious internal bleeding. Very serious. And you lost a lot of blood.”
“You transfused me.”
“He did. Four bags.”
She looked down at the shopping bags and the food that had spilled out. Chau followed her gaze and knelt to pick up a piece of meat wrapped in grease paper.
“Want some breakfast?”
#
CHAU HAD bought dim sum. He had dumplings, or gao. They were filled with vegetables, shrimp, tofu and meat, and wrapped in a translucent rice flour skin. He had steamed buns, together with meatballs, pastries and small rolls. There was a pot of congee, the mild-flavoured porridge that had been cooked until the rice had started to break down. She said she would take a bowl, and he doled out a serving and offered her aduki beans, peanuts and tofu as toppings. She ate quickly, realising that she was even hungrier than she thought. She cleared the plate and took two of the steamed buns, identified by Chau as bao.
Chau asked if she was finished and, when she said that she was, he took her plate and stood it in the sink. He boiled a kettle of water.
“Yum cha,” he said, indicating the kettle. “Tea drinking time. I have oolong, jasmine, chrysanthemum. You like?”
“Jasmine,” she said. “Thank you.”
She watched as he set to work. He was fastidious about it. He poured the boiling water into two gaiwan, lidded bowls for the infusion of tea leaves, and then let it stand for three minutes to cool a little. Then he took a handful of jasmine pearls and dropped them into the gaiwan, steeped the brew for another minute and then handed one to her.
He put both hands around the vessel. “You drink like this,” he said. He used the lid to block the jasmine pearls and sipped the liquid with long, noisy slurps.
She looked at his performance sceptically.
“You must drink it like that,” he explained, without embarrassment. “The air bubbles when you slurp, they enhance flavour.”
She gave a gentle shake of her head and sipped the tea a little more decorously.
“How long have I been out?”
“A week. My friend says it was better that you sleep.”
“You drugged me.”
“He did.” He shrugged. “I am sorry. But he said it was best.”
She waved it off. “What did he do to me?”
“It was small wound, but it was deep. It damaged your chest wall. Blood was gathering and needed to be removed. He drained it with tube.”
A thoracostomy. Beatrix knew that she had been lucky. The knife had penetrated the musculature that protected the vital upper abdominal organs beneath. A thoracostomy was the opening of a hole to drain the blood from the pleural cavity. She would have died without it, but it wasn’t a difficult procedure and it was relatively discreet. Once the blood was drained, the major risk to her recovery would have been infection. And provided that the thoracostomy tube was sterile, there was a low risk of that.
“He did all that here?”
Chau pointed to the sofa. “There. How do you feel?”
“I’m fine.”
She reached for a pastry and felt a jolt of pain from her side.
“It hurts?”
There was no point in pretending otherwise. “A little.”
“My friend says you must rest.”
“He does?”
“He says another week.”
She laughed grimly. “Impossible.”
“A week, and then therapy.”
“I can’t afford that.”
“He says you are lucky to be alive. The knife missed your vital organs. But you lost a lot of blood.”
“I can’t stay here,” she insisted.
She tried to stand, but, as she did, she was buffeted by a deep debilitating wave of lethargy. Not again. She had no strength in her legs and, unable to resist, she dropped back down again.
“Please, Beatrix Rose. You must rest.”
“I can’t. I have things to do.”
“Nothing that cannot wait.”
“I have to—”
“Stay here today,” he insisted. “Rest. One more day, please. We will see how you feel tomorrow, yes?”
She leaned back against the wall. She could have made it out of the flat. She thought that she could have summoned the strength for that. But she didn’t know where she was. Hong Kong suddenly seemed very big and very confusing. She could barely remember where to find her hotel. Chau’s suggestion became more attractive.
“One day.”
CHAPTER SIX
SHE SLEPT again. The dreams returned, but they were not as vibrant and real as she remembered from before. Lucas was in them. He was standing on a beach. The sand was a bright white. And the sea, washing ashore in gentle waves, was an unnaturally vivid blue. He was trying to say something, his lips moving, but she couldn’t hear the words. She recognised the beach. It was in the Maldives. They had visited the islands on their honeymoon. She looked down and saw two rows of footprints in the sand. When she looked back up,
Lucas was standing ankle deep in the water. She tried to take a step to him, but she couldn’t move. The tide continued to roll in, the waves coming faster and deeper, the water reaching up to his waist, then his chest, then his neck. She reached for him as the water rose again, filling his mouth and then rising above his head, submerging him.
When the waves rolled back again, he was gone.
She looked to the beach.
There was only one set of prints.
#
WHEN SHE awoke again, the bare window was dark save for the reflected glare of neon from a sign somewhere outside. She sat up and remembered, more quickly this time, where she was and what had happened to her. She reached down to the wound in her torso and pressed against it. It was still sore, but she thought that the edge had gone.
She rose, bracing herself against the wall. There was definitely more strength in her legs. She felt grimy and unclean. She hadn’t showered for… She tried to think, but she had lost track of the days. A week? It had been a while, however long it was.
She walked carefully to the door and went into the main room beyond. Chau was sitting in a seat with his back to her, watching an old Bruce Lee movie on a television that Beatrix had not noticed before. He hadn’t heard her. She stood in the doorway for a moment, quietly looking around the room and reasserting everything in her mind. Her eyes settled on the TV and she watched, absently, for ten seconds. She recognised the film. Enter the Dragon.
“Good evening, Chau.”
She saw him jump a little, his hand flapping up to his heart.
“I didn’t hear you,” he exclaimed.
“Sorry.”
“How are you feeling?”
“Better.”
“You look better.”
“How long this time?”
“Two more days.”
“Two? We said one.”
“You did not stir, and I did not want to wake you.”
“No more drugs?”
“No,” he assured her. “All natural. I think it is what you needed.”
