The Empty Bed

by Nina Sadowsky

  Jake knows he has to send a report with the latest information to Catherine, but a kind of defiant obstinacy has kept his fingers from the keys. They are supposed to be helping people. That’s what he signed on for. And he guesses that they are. But not for the first time, Jake questions Catherine’s methods as well as his involvement in her operations. Was it necessary to drug and kidnap Dakota Harris? Why is he paired with Stevie Nichols? Has Catherine told them all she knows about the Lombards? And if not, why is she shielding information from them? How did this become his reality? Waiting on Triad soldiers while marooned in an apartment that looks like it belongs to a fence!

  A fierce nostalgia grips Jake. A hunger for the time before his life was a map of love, loss, and heartache, his own as well as other people’s.

  Stevie interrupts his reverie by slapping a magazine shut and getting to her feet. “I’m going to go out to get us some food. You okay staying with the princess?”

  “Of course.”

  “You all right, dude? You look like a wreck.”

  “Thanks.”

  Stevie puts a hand on his arm to get him to cease his relentless pacing. “It’s not like I give an actual shit about how you’re feeling, but we’ve got a job to do here and I can’t afford to have you knocked off your game.”

  “Your solicitude is touching.”

  “You can ‘big word’ me all you like, but I’m serious.”

  “Do you ever question what we do, Stevie?”

  “What?”

  “Or Catherine’s methods?”

  “Look, if you’re having some kind of crisis of conscience, stick a pin in it until this case is over and then do it on your own time. And to answer your question, no. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for Catherine. I owe her my life and she has my complete loyalty.”

  “I feel like I joined up with her because I had no other choice—”

  “That’s just looking at it wrong. It was my only and my best choice. I bet that’s true for you too.”

  “Aren’t we all just a fucked-up bag of tricks?”

  His question is rhetorical but Stevie answers. “Yeah, so? Tell me who isn’t fucked up. And you think that scared woman in the next room cares about the respective sacks of shit you and I are toting around? She just wants to be safe. As long as we can do that for people? I’m good.”

  Jake nods. He has to admit Stevie is growing on him, with her direct manner and proud spirit. “Fair enough. What kind of food are you getting?”

  She gives him an impish smile. “Chinese. What else? Might as well enjoy it while we can.”

  RUSTLE

  Peter Lombard,

  Tai Po District, Hong Kong Island

  Although he was brought in blindfolded and he’s been locked in a dingy, windowless bedroom since his arrival, Peter has been able to determine precisely the kind of establishment into which he’s been deposited. His clues have all been aural: the constant chime of the front doorbell, the rustles and titters of girls assembling, the bumps and thrusts and moans leaking through the thin walls.

  He’d heard about the hookers in Hong Kong from colleagues. When he announced this trip, tips had been shared: Prostitution is legal in Hong Kong—for single women acting as sole proprietors; but for real fun, go to a brothel. There you’ll also find gambling and any kind of excess your heart desires.

  Peter had brushed most of this talk off, reminding his boisterous friends that this was an anniversary trip with his wife. He’d endured some teasing about his Boy Scout ethics, but it was good-natured all in all, and he put up with enough of the banter to be one of the boys. Now he’s desperately trying to recall any other tidbits he’d gleaned that might help him out of this mess: The girls are in rotation—Hong Kong to Beijing to Shanghai and back again; the brothels are Triad controlled; the attitude within them “anything goes,” which has allowed for some pretty dark shit to go down.

  Peter wonders why he’s still alive.

  One thing about being a captive: It gives you time to think. In his mind, Peter has turned over the steps that led them to take this trip to Hong Kong a thousand times. His original thought had been Paris; that much was true. Why did he shift direction to Hong Kong?

  He remembers talking about the planned trip to the City of Lights at a dinner party Forrest and Miranda Holcomb hosted. He’d watched Eva from across the room, noting that she seemed out of sorts, and also that she was knocking back glasses of white wine with alarming frequency. A romantic week in Paris seemed just the thing to get them back on track.

  But then Hong Kong had come up, and all at once it had seemed like the ideal choice. A little more exotic, as well as a more personal destination, given Eva’s history with the island. Once the seeds of the trip had been planted, the roots flourished, the tender shoot rose upward, and the leaves unfurled. Peter requested an extra few days off given the distance they were traveling. He dug into research in order to pick the perfect luxury hotel and the finest restaurants. He’d planned and booked and schemed with a sense of anticipatory thrill, bursting with a sense of pride over having created an experience for them he was sure Eva would treasure.

  And look how that all worked out. For the hundredth time in an hour, Peter struggles to understand how he got here. A week ago, he was in London, a normal guy with a normal set of problems. He plucks nervously at the sour-smelling, floral-patterned sheets smoothed over the bed that fills most of the cramped room. He thinks about the possible sources of that sour smell and stands.

  A commotion erupts. He hears banging. Shouting in Cantonese. Doors slamming. A girl’s shriek. What the hell is happening now?

  Heavy footsteps stomp down the hallway in his direction. Peter tenses. Glances around the room for any possible weapon and comes up empty.

  The door to his room flies open. That kid with the hipster beard who works for Forrest stands there, legs firmly planted, hands on his hips. He has a baseball cap with the Cardinals insignia jammed on his head, mirrored shades obscuring his eyes.

  “Come with me,” the kid orders.

  Peter meekly follows him out of the dingy bedroom and into a poorly lit corridor. He takes furtive glances at the rooms he’d passed blindfolded on the way in. Girls circulate, mostly Chinese, a few blond Slavic-looking women. Cigar smoke billows pungently from one open door. A glimpse inside reveals gambling tables. Half-naked girls bring drinks and proffer lighters. Yet another room reveals rows of mounded silk pillows on which patrons recline, smoking opium. Peter’s eyes meet those of a gaunt man exhaling a roiling cloud of smoke: Black, fathomless pools set in yellowing whites stare at him blankly. Peter averts his gaze.

  As they near the front door, a pair of bulky bouncers blocks their way. Peter gives the kid a panicked look. Now what?

  To his shock, the kid shouts something in Cantonese, anger bristling from him like a porcupine’s spines. The bouncers let them pass.

  Peter follows the kid out into the street. A rush of gratitude hits him as he greedily breathes the moist night air. He turns furtively to see the building in which he’d been held. A squat five-story structure painted a brilliant robin’s egg blue, with wrought iron bars on all the windows.

  “Thank you,” he says to Forrest’s emissary.

  “Hurry up,” urges the kid, guiding him down the street and around the corner.

  “What the hell did you say to them?” Peter wonders.

  “Damned if I know,” the kid replies as he stops in front of a pair of idling Tesla sedans. He rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet. “She wrote it out for me phonetically.” The kid gestures to a petite Chinese woman standing in front of the cars. The ends of her black hair are dyed platinum. She’s clad in thigh-high boots and a red and black minidress laden with silver buckles. She’s flanked by two Chinese men armed with Glock pistols.

  Peter instinctively backs away.


  The woman growls something in Cantonese that sounds like a bark. The men beside her lower their weapons.

  “Peter Lombard. Good to meet you finally.” The woman’s voice is mellifluous, lightly accented, her English perfect. She extends a delicate hand for him to shake. “I’m your wife’s old friend Yuan Dai.

  “We must keep moving,” Yuan continues. “I sent your friend inside on the pretext he was on orders to move you from the Triad that controls that brothel. Supplied him with just the right things to say to get you out of there. But there’s no guarantee we won’t be followed.”

  She gestures Peter and the kid toward one of the waiting Teslas. “You go now. And try to stay out of trouble. In fact, I suggest you all get the hell out of Hong Kong as soon as possible.”

  Yuan Dai. Peter remembers that name. He’d messaged her through Eva’s Facebook. Her advice to get the hell out of Hong Kong seems eminently sound. He’d like nothing more once he finds his wife.

  At least I’m out of captivity. Peter climbs in the backseat of the waiting sedan, despite the question screaming silently in his mind: Is this frying pan to fire?

  The kid climbs in after him and slams the car door shut. The driver pulls away and the Tesla silently accelerates from zero to over a hundred kilometers an hour in mere seconds.

  “Holy crap!” The expletive bursts from Peter as he grips his seat.

  “Yes, his driving takes some getting used to,” the bearded kid replies, stripping off his sunglasses and baseball cap.

  “What just happened back there?” Peter asks. “How did you get me out?”

  “I apparently said I had orders to move you to another address on the authority of a high-ranking member of the Triad that controls that brothel.”

  “And they bought that?”

  “Maybe not,” the kid says after a worried glance out the back window. “Henry. Black BMW. I think we’re being followed.”

  “I know we are,” the driver replies grimly as he cuts a hard right, wheels squealing.

  Henry slams around the corner. Blasts through a stop sign. Peter closes his eyes in terror. Opens them again when Henry lays on the horn. Immediately wishes he hadn’t.

  Henry screeches through a crowded intersection just as the yellow light turns solidly red. Horns blare in protest, but they narrowly make it through. Their pursuer is blocked by the instant crush of traffic.

  “Nice!” The kid pounds his fists on his thighs with excitement.

  Peter thinks he might throw up.

  They twist and turn at a reckless speed, finally slamming to a halt inside the maintenance bay of an auto repair shop. “We change cars here,” Henry commands.

  Peter climbs out of the Tesla and discovers his legs are rubbery. He’s grateful when the kid grips his arms and escorts him to a Porsche Cayenne.

  “Have you found Eva?” Peter asks, afraid to hear the answer.

  “Yes. We’re taking you to her now.”

  A riptide of relief surges over him. “She’s okay?”

  “Scared, a little banged up, but fine.”

  Peter offers up a silent prayer of thanks. Allows himself to be bundled into the backseat of the Porsche. Begins to rehearse what he will say when he is reunited with his wife.

  RESPECT

  Jake Burrows, aka John Bernake,

  Hong Kong Island

  Jake is pumped. That was fucking awesome. He feels drunk on the danger of their escape, by his ability to bluff, by the success of their mission. Plus, he has a whole new respect for Henry’s skills. He’s definitely taking a defensive-driving class when he gets back to the States. Settling more comfortably into the cushy leather seats of the Cayenne, he shoots a glance at Peter Lombard. He’s pale and shaky.

  “You all right?” he asks.

  “I’ll live.”

  Lombard leans his head back against his seat and closes his eyes. His lips move, but Jake can’t make out his words.

  As Henry pilots the Porsche, Jake takes a glance out the back window. They seem to be away free and clear.

  Yuan had learned Peter was being held in a brothel controlled by a Triad at war with her own (rather than one of the three with which her gang has a mutually cooperative ecosystem). Since a favor could not be asked, a bluff was constructed, one intended to shield Yuan and her gang from exposure of their involvement by sending in Jake.

  Catherine will respect that play. Jake does too. And looking at Peter Lombard’s bloodied features, Jake feels a swell of unexpected pride for his part in releasing this man from his captors.

  He remembers how Catherine saved him just as he was going to step off a ledge to his own certain death and realizes just how far he’s come. And that he wants to go farther. For one thing, he misjudged Stevie. She’s brighter than he gave her credit for, more emotionally intelligent too. She handled Eva Lombard like a champ. Their skills are actually kind of complementary.

  Maybe Catherine knows what she’s doing, after all.

  The corner of Jake’s mouth curls in a hint of a smile. Maybe she does.

  REUNION

  Eva Lombard,

  Kowloon

  She’d picked at the food the scrawny dark-haired girl with the New York accent brought in. She knows she needs to eat, but her stomach is as jumpy as the rest of her.

  When she hears the scrape of a key in the lock, Eva is on her feet instantly. Her “protector” (this ridiculously skinny girl Eva’s sure is younger than she) steps in front of her.

  The door opens and in walks Peter, accompanied by Henry and the man introduced to her as John.

  “Oh my god, Pete!” Eva exclaims, elbowing past the girl. “What happened to you?” His face is battered and broken; he moves stiffly. “Where have you been?”

  “Where have you been?” he chokes out. “I’ve been worried out of my skull.”

  “Mostly here,” Eva responds, gesturing to the apartment.

  He opens his arms to her, but she hesitates. She stares at him, her husband, a man she thought she knew better than anyone, who she now fears is a stranger. A liar. A danger? His arms falter. A wounded look deflates his face.

  Eva takes his hand, leads him into a bathroom, and closes the door behind them. She needs to be alone with him, to look in his eyes.

  She notices a tremor in his legs. Hastily, she pulls the toilet seat down and gestures that Pete should sit. He sinks down quickly. She turns the faucet, letting cold water flow onto a washcloth. She wrings it out and dabs gently at Peter’s face, clearing away crusted blood.

  Where to begin?

  A million uncertainties are jumbled together in Eva’s fevered mind. Who did this to him? Was it the same man who attacked me? Why? What trouble are we in? Are we even “we” anymore? She’s choked into silence by the mass of it all, so concentrates on tending to the myriad bumps and bruises on Peter’s face.

  He winces and she pulls the cloth away. “Are you okay?”

  “No,” he snaps. “I’m not. How could I be? I put you in danger. I promise you, Ev, I had no idea.”

  “No idea about what? What’s this all about?’

  “I don’t understand entirely. But I think I was used as a mule to get something into the country.”

  Eva releases an involuntary yelp of laughter. “Peter. Listen to yourself.”

  “I’m not joking. My bag came back to the hotel trashed, the lining cut open. Do you know how much stuff just slips past X-ray machines? And if my suitcase had been flagged it would have been my ass in a sling. What if they picked it up at the airport once the bag got through security and safely to Hong Kong? Got what they needed out of the bag once it was in the country?”

  “They who?”

  “That I don’t know.”

  “Even if you’re right, why come after us? If they got whatever was in the bag?”

  “I
don’t know that either. But, Ev? I never should have doubted you about being followed. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything.”

  Eva stares at her husband. His story could be plausible. It’s certainly preferable to the notion that he wanted her killed. Despite his swollen eye and broken mouth, he looks more like the man she married than the stranger she feels like she’s been living with for the last nine months.

  A hard knot of sickening dread settles inside Eva’s belly. This connects back to Forrest Holcomb, one way or another. It must, if she’s right and the man in the photographs she took at the Sly Fox works for him.

  Peter worships Forrest. And even if she can convince Pete that his mentor and idol is involved, how the hell can they pit themselves against one of the richest and most powerful men in the world?

  Particularly since they don’t have a clue about what is really going on.

  A REPORT

  Stephanie Regaldo, aka Stevie Nichols,

  Hong Kong Island

  REPORT

  Well, boss, we done good. The happy couple is safe and united. But I don’t think that’s the end of the story. Peter Lombard reports that all this fuss is about something hidden in his suitcase. This is his deduction, mind you, based on the fact that his luggage got lost on the way to Hong Kong and the lining was slashed when he got it back. This much we do know: Eva Lombard took several photographs of a pair of men in London. One of the men began stalking her after that encounter. He attacked both her and her husband in Hong Kong.

  The second man in the photograph has been identified by Peter Lombard as working for his boss, Forrest Holcomb. I’ve attached copies of Eva’s photographs to this email. Please advise. And, boss, I know you may not appreciate this sentiment in the way in which it’s intended, but I’m having a blast.