It was time for King to get down to business and play his chip. “I know why you couldn’t find the money. I found a huge empty space under a long table at Master Wu’s studio. More than fourteen hundred cubic feet.”
There was a moment of silence as Chin digested this. “So?”
“At one point it was filled with cash. There were still a few fragments of paper currency from different countries there.” King held up the hundred dollar bill fragment that he took as proof.
Chin’s eyes filled with poison. “That’s my money.”
King nodded. “Which Noah Reid is spending like a drunken sailor on street kids, juvenile delinquents, and young addicts around the world. I’m guesstimating he’s given away more than a hundred and fifty million.”
Even though King couldn’t see through the dressings, it didn’t take a genius to figure out how Chin reacted to this news. He knew his father was a proud man and he would have to show him respect if he was to get his father’s cooperation. “I want to take it back but I need your help.”
King’s subtle kowtowing ploy worked. Chin responded, “In what way?”
“I need your advice on how to proceed. You know the players better than anyone else. You know the stakes better than anyone else.”
Chin blew out a gust of air. “The first thing you must realize is that this is more than money. Garret wouldn’t give up, not even when his daughter’s life was at stake. I sacrificed Duke… That is who we are, King. We are cut from the same cloth. It is about honor.”
“So where is Noah Reid’s vulnerable spot?”
Chin spoke slowly, measuring every word. “The essence is more important than the individual. You attack the soul and the body will die. Noah was shaped by Master Wu. Master Wu’s soul was shaped by the Shaolin. It is a holistic world of martial arts, Chinese understanding of the human body, and religion. That’s where Noah is vulnerable. Force alone is not enough… That was my error.”
King smiled. The pieces were coming together. “So are you coming back with me or do you plan to live in this cave for the rest of your life?”
Chapter 7
Miraculously, Noah suffered only minor scrapes and bruises from his escapade on the Hong Kong highway. While he should have been filing a police report for the roadside ambush, Noah knew he would be tied up with the police for hours and there was no way he was going to miss Abby and Olivia’s performance.
After scrambling back up the mountainside, Noah called a cab to take him back to his condo in Central, only to discover he was locked out due to investigators combing the building for clues to the mysterious death of the concierge.
Noah didn’t bother pleading with the police to let him into his apartment. He walked out of the lobby and went down the block to buy the first tux he ever owned. A quick trip to the Foundation office allowed him to sponge bathe, shave and change, transforming him from a dirty, haggard hunted man to handsome bon vivant.
And now, it was show time.
As Noah entered the Gateway Pacific Hotel, he could feel that this was Olivia’s kind of place. While she was no “urban princess,” she was a child of privilege and it was hard for her to completely remove the silver spoon from her mouth. With its contemporary elegance, art that drew its inspiration from New York’s Museum of Modern Art, the Gateway Pacific was definitely not the burgers and beer palaces Noah frequented.
He spotted Olivia by the marble fountain, and his eyes devoured the lithe blonde in her little black dress as he approached.
“Ms. Southam, it should be against the law for a girl to have your combination of beauty and brains,” whispered Noah into her ear.
“Well, Mr. Reid, that sounds like workplace sexual harassment.”
“Except we’re not at work.”
“You are always at work, Noah.”
“If you’re not getting paid, are you still considered to be doing work for what you do?”
Noah was referring to the fact that he didn’t take a salary from the Foundation—only his living expenses.
“You’re incorrigible,” chastised Olivia.
“No, I’m very corrigible. I ‘corrige’ all day long. And night, too.”
Olivia sighed. “I give up. How did your day go?”
If I could only tell you. Noah smiled at Olivia. “Just a quiet day at the ranch. A little car trouble but nothing a little jazz wouldn’t cure.”
He took her arm and the lovebirds ambled to the Birdland East Lounge, named after the legendary New York jazz club.
Olivia smiled. “So how did it go?”
“I thought you didn’t want to talk business.”
“If we don’t now, you’ll be thinking about it all night. Might as well be done with it.”
“Be done with it? That’s harsh. We’re offering free gyms and staffing for two years. How can it not go? Everyone wants in at 500k average per pop plus operation expenses. Almost a million bucks committed per project. We’ve got enough cash to build an armada of community centers and gyms. How’s it going with you?”
“I’m pretty well done.”
Noah did a double take. “You mean you’ve got all the money ‘processed’?”
“The Southam name means a lot. When I said it was from my father, no one questioned how I got it.”
“Your father did an amazing job. Everywhere I went, people spoke highly of him. And, even more amazingly, no one had the slightest inkling of anything that might not have been above board.”
“Of course not. That was his job with Chin.”
As Noah sank into the too-comfortable-for-words lounge chair, he quickly scanned the room. Appreciation glowed on his face as he looked up to Olivia, who was preparing to go onstage. “Every jazz musician should have the opportunity to play at a lounge like this.”
Olivia waxed enthusiastic. “This is New York in Hong Kong. The room designer patterned it after upscale New York clubs.”
“Yeah, granite table tops, intimate room, crystal bar glasses…”
Olivia interrupted, “Noah, look. That’s what makes the room special.” She pointed to the black grand piano on the stage. “That’s a seven-foot Hamburg Steinway.”
“Nice,” keened Noah.
Olivia could tell Noah hadn’t a clue about what a Hamburg Steinway piano was. “It’s a hand-crafted German piano.”
“Right.” Noah nodded as Olivia made her way to the small stage where Abby was waiting.
In her red clinging dress and makeup to accentuate her almond eyes, Abby looked every inch a diva. “Ladies and gentlemen, let’s give it up for Olivia Southam, my best friend and accompanist.”
Olivia acknowledged the audience with a nod, and then launched into a full swing rhythm of the Duke Ellington classic, “It Don’t Mean a Thing.” Abby began snapping her fingers in time to the beat. She began crooning, sounding just like a young Ella Fitzgerald.
It don't mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing
(Doo wah, doo wah, doo wah, doo wah)
(Doo wah, doo wah, doo wah, doo wah)
It don’t mean a thing, all you got to do is sing
Abby got off the stage and started walking the room. She pointed the microphone at Noah, who laughingly pushed it away as he declined to sing along. She walked back toward the stage. She sat beside Olivia at the grand piano and the two sang together with the comfortable ease of performance that comes only from being on the other person’s musical wavelength.
Whistles of approval and raucous clapping filled the normally staid room as Abby and Olivia took a bow.
Abby announced to the audience, “This girl has got to come back with me to New York.”
The applause and cheers grew louder.
The accolades were bittersweet, though. Olivia saw Noah at the front table dozing.
The silent frown on her face spoke volumes.
Noah and Olivia strolled awkwardly through the hotel lobby. Olivia had just told Noah “the news.” She was leaving for New York with Abby.
“I need you, Olivia. We need you, Olivia,” Noah pleaded.
“The Foundation’s important, but it’s not me, Noah. I’m not the corporate type. I’m not the bureaucratic type. Plowing through paperwork is hardly my idea of how to spend my life… You, your parents were missionaries. They believed in sacrificing themselves to do good for the world. But me? I’m far from a saint. I’m going to go with Abby to New York.”
“Then I’m going to join you. We’ll conquer the Big Apple together.”
“Noah?”
“Yeah?” Noah murmured. He had an ominous feeling about what the answer was going to be.
“I’m going to go by myself.”
“You can’t. After all we’ve been through. It’s you and me, it’s us…”
Olivia stiffened. “It won’t work.”
“And why not?”
“You’re not my type. Your life is being out there saving the world. I’m a self-centered spoiled rich bitch who just wants to play the piano.”
She stopped at the hotel entrance. “Goodbye, Noah.”
“Goodbye? Aren’t you coming with me?”
“I’m going back to the lounge and play a few more tunes with Abby. And then I’m going home to pack. I’ve already booked the flight with Abby tomorrow… I bought the ticket a few days ago but wasn’t sure whether I was going to use it… I wanted to see you first. And…”
Noah bit his lip, and then swallowed. He definitely did not see this coming. “Right.”
As Olivia walked back to the lounge with her back to him, Noah didn’t see the warm tears rolling down her cheeks. When she disappeared around the corner, Noah reached into his pocket. He pulled out a little box and opened it.
Inside was a custom-designed diamond engagement ring, perfectly set with one large flawless diamond and five smaller diamonds surrounding it.
Noah clenched his teeth, flagellating himself inwardly for not paying more attention to what she was really saying. Their private discussions were rarely about family, business or philanthropy. Her heroes were never Warren Buffet, Mother Teresa or Hillary Clinton. No, her idols were the late legendary jazz pianists Bill Evans and Oscar Peterson. They could take a simple song and turn it into magic. Olivia was too young to have ever seen them live, but she bought every DVD, downloaded every performance she could find. What kept her sane during law school was YouTube where, with her earbuds on, she could live in the world of 1950s to 2000 New York jazz while learning about the legal implications of corporate mergers, high level accounting and suing the pants off anyone who wanted to infringe on a client’s copyright.
When Abby told Noah she was leaving, Noah hadn’t been surprised. Abby had no family, no significant other, only a job she didn’t really want to be in. She had an artist’s temperament that drove her to show the world who she was and what she could do. For Olivia, he’d thought things were different. After all, there was… well, there was him.
But he now saw that he wasn’t enough. Olivia would never be happy unless she took a shot at becoming one of the world’s best-known female jazz pianists, mentioned in the same breath as Norah Jones and Diana Krall.
And New York? With her best friend leaving, that was perfect timing.
Noah closed the ring box, put it back in his pocket, and walked out the door. Time to move on. The only question was, “Where?”
Chapter 8
Master Wu was in his daily hours of Shaolin mindful meditation. Eyes closed, he sat in the lotus position in the middle of his studio. As always, he wore the traditional navy blue martial arts uniform of pure satin loose-fitting trousers and jacket with his Chinese surname, “Wu,” embroidered in a single small gold letter over his heart.
Despite his outward serenity, decades of mindful meditation had not erased his memory of his sins.
Master Wu never forgot his roots. Not his parents nor the village where he was born, and not his spiritual roots in Heaven, the isolated Shaolin monastery in the Huang Shan mountains where he learned Hung Gar Tiger and Crane martial arts and its deep Buddhist Spiritism. He had arrived as a naïve determined boy of twelve. While he loved the monastery and its people, he needed more than the ivory tower. He was a warrior. When he left Heaven twenty years later as a grandmaster, his mission was to train warriors grounded in spiritual principles.
Garret, Tommy and Chin were among his first enthusiastic thirty students. Alas, they succumbed not only to the attractions of the world and, led by Chin, they embraced any means necessary to achieve financial gain. Unknown to Master Wu, Chin borrowed money from the Chinese underworld, the ruthless Triads, to fund a rapid expansion.
Although successful at first, business soon soured, and payments were not made for months. A message was sent to Master Wu: the bodies of three other students were left on his doorstep.
Chin abandoned Master Wu to join the Triads. Despite the sifu’s entreaties, Garret and Tommy joined him.
Master Wu fasted and prayed for two days, hoping to end his turmoil for a peace that did not come. He had disgraced the proud Shaolin heritage, and he was responsible for the deaths of innocents.
On the third day, the bailiff arrived and seized the property, kicking Master Wu out.
The sifu stood outside the building, staring at the sky, wishing he had stayed with Sigong Zhang in Heaven. Or maybe he should take his own life.
Suddenly, there was a tug on his jacket. He looked around and discovered a little boy looking up at him.
It was Noah. Only the invitation of then four-year-old Noah to join his family’s household prevented Master Wu from committing suicide.
Wu made two decisions. The penniless monk first decided he would pay back every creditor and every debt his students incurred. It took him many years, but Master Wu was eventually able to pay off his debts.
The other decision was that he would concentrate his teaching efforts and go deep with a select few rather than spread himself thinly among the thousands the schools tried to reach. The most important of these young acolytes was Noah. Noah was not only the son he never had but, more important, he saw Noah as the key to his redemption.
That had yet to come. Redemption remained elusive. Yes, Noah had been able to rid the world of Chin, but the sifu still lacked peace.
Something was still missing—he had not received atonement from Heaven.
An incessant pounding on his front door distracted his ability to meditate on nothingness. Normally, he paid it no heed, but the pounding had been constant for more than half an hour. With as much irritation as a Shaolin monk would allow himself, he got up and hurried to the door.
He was fully ready to give a tongue-lashing to whoever he found there; however, irritation changed to surprise when he opened the door. There was a monk dressed similarly to Wu but with the Chinese character for ‘Shaolin’ embroidered in the place where Master Wu had his name. The man’s eyes were the dulled eyes of the blind. His face and body were bloody and beaten to a pulp.
The unknown man fell. Master Wu caught him and pulled him inside. He quickly laid the man on the floor and leaned over to speak to him. The man uttered words that chilled Master Wu to the bone. “Your sins can never be forgiven.”
Master Wu shuddered. Somehow, this person he had never met had pinpointed his most vulnerable spot. Normally extremely cautious, he let down his guard to pull the man’s face closer to him. Wu did not see two Namaqua dwarf adder snakes slither out of a fold in the man’s uniform. One of the six-inch serpents bit Master Wu’s leg. The other slithered away.
It caused the most intense pain and the normally stoic master cried out, “Ah! Ah!”
Master Wu’s focus degenerated quickly as disorientation settled in. The serpent’s venom hit his bloodstream, and paralysis set in. Movement was a struggle. The stricken grandmaster tried to say something, but the words stopped in his throat. The world spun around, then faded to black.
The monk lifted up Master Wu’s pant leg and saw the puncture marks and swelling caused by the serpent’s bite,
but no snake. Suddenly, the monk saw the snake on his own arm, ready to bite him. He grabbed the little viper, threw it to the floor, and brought his foot down hard on it, crushing its head. One of the reptile’s eyes popped out and its slithering body flailed for a few moments, then started twitching spasmodically. Then it finally gave itself up to death. The monk took a small bag from his jacket, took out a towel, wiped up the pools of crimson, and wrapped the snake’s carcass and pulverized remains of the animal’s head in the absorbent cloth.
Wanting no trace of his visit left behind, the monk frantically searched the foyer area for the other snake but couldn’t find it anywhere. He looked at his watch and noted the time.
Shaking his head, the monk scurried out the door—King was waiting. As he walked through the colorful side street in Hong Kong, he pulled out the contact lenses that gave his eyes their dull glazed appearance.
The blind could now see but it certainly was no miracle.
Chapter 9
From the Gateway Pacific to Master Wu’s studio was about a five-mile walk. Noah could have taken a cab but then he would have had to chat up the driver, which was something he was definitely not in the mood for. Not that Master Wu knew anything about women but, ever since his parents died, the bachelor monk was the one person Noah could count on to not judge him when he lashed out.
It was hard to imagine, but sexy stud Noah never had a serious girlfriend before Olivia. It got to the point where some of his law school classmates thought he should come out of the closet and tried to set him up with some hot guys, but the truth was he hadn’t dated because he’d never met anyone he felt had “zing.”
That was, until he met Olivia. He thought their relationship was amazing. Yes, there were exquisite times of intimacy but, more than that, Noah felt she was his soul mate. But now, Noah realized it had been a one-way street. When she adulated about musicians, he didn’t think that was a desire to be a professional, performing jazz pianist.
The Noah Reid Action Thriller Series: Books 1-3 (plus special bonuses) Page 27
