Year of the Dragon

by Robert Daley

  Back behind his desk, he resumed his letter to his wife: If tonight ends badly, he wrote, the police department will want to throw me a spectacular funeral. You don’t have to let them do it. That is up to you. You can cry for me a little. Don’t cry too much. Most people have only a few good years, or none. We had much, much more, and I never wanted to be married to anyone else the whole time. Love.

  And he signed his name. The sealed envelope he tucked into his desk blotter, with Eleanor’s name showing. He wondered if some cop would hand it to her, and when.

  Looking and feeling extremely sobered, he started to leave the office. He had reached the door, had actually grasped the knob, before he realized he could not say good-bye to Eleanor only by letter. He could not bear to leave her without hearing her voice one last time, and so he stepped back to the desk and phoned home.

  “I have nothing special to say,” he told her. He kept his words casual. She must suspect nothing. “I’m going out to meet someone. I don’t expect any trouble.”

  “What about dinner?” asked Eleanor.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I get back to the office.”

  “Okay.”

  “Talk to you later.”

  “Okay.” She sounded as if this was the most casual conversation of their twenty-three years together, and he wanted to hold on to her voice as if it were a lifeline, the world’s flimsiest. Instead he hung up the phone and strode out through the muster room and down the front stoop toward Kelly, who waited in an unmarked car at the curb.

  As he slid into the passenger seat, Kelly said, “Your transmitter works, Captain. I heard you talking to your wife.” It was almost an apology.

  Powers gave him a brittle smile. “All right, let’s go.”

  Kelly said hesitantly, “Shouldn’t we have a few more people with us?”

  “No,” said Powers. “Like I told my wife, nothing is going to happen.”

  “How can you be sure?” asked Kelly.

  Kelly had been a cop longer than Powers. He had the splayed feet, the paunch, the red nose, the tired manner to prove it. He probably had the wisdom to prove it too. You should listen to him, Powers told himself.

  “Drive, Kelly,” he said.

  KOY GOT out of the taxicab on a lighted street and walked in. He could have kept the taxi with him, motor running. He could have come in his limousine and left it parked outside. He could have brought men with him. He had decided otherwise. He had convinced himself that Powers only wanted money. Powers was a blackmailer, neither more nor less. He was not afraid of Powers and needed no help to take care of him.

  Yesterday, seeing the Chinese cop in uniform on his doorstep, this man who had been tailing him for weeks, had shocked Koy. But behind it he had seen Powers, then as now an unthreatening figure, though tenacious, and obviously the tail had produced no results; if it had results would show. Results meant hard evidence, and in the realm of evidence, as all cops knew, hard did not mean hard at all. Evidence was a volatile substance. It bubbled and frothed. It called attention to itself. Evidence, if left alone, bubbled over or exploded - it could not be left alone.

  No, Koy saw nothing to worry about in that Chinese patrolman. So he told himself.

  The television woman earlier today had produced a second shock - proof that the plan in Hong Kong had misfired. He did not know how or, now, care. Fact was fact, and this particular fact could neither be changed nor linked to him. He had felt disappointment to see her still breathing, and in a matter of seconds had got over it. So he told himself.

  But the moment he saw her he knew that Powers must have escaped also and was still after him, and the man’s tenacity was puzzling because it was unreasonable. Powers seemed to have a fixation on him, and this could not be explained. Except as a prologue to attempted blackmail. He had been expecting the call from Powers for several hours, and then it had come. The only surprise was to hear the new phone ring - the new, unlisted number. How had Powers found out about that? But he was not afraid of Powers. So he told himself.

  There had been, also, today’s arrests to consider. They meant - what? He was certain the Rotterdam’s narcotics had not been intercepted. If it had he would know about it. It was the Italians’ responsibility now anyway - no concern of his.

  So many shocks inside a period of about twenty-four hours - they were like tremors in an earthquake zone. Tremors in such places were not significant, he told himself, for the terrain was prone to them. The quake itself might start at any moment, or never. Earthquakes were unreliable, and could not be factored in. One could only ignore the possibility. Philosophically speaking, man was condemned by his nature to overlook earthquakes entirely.

  No, Koy saw Powers as a business crisis only, neither more nor less. There had been others in his past of different types, each one recognized and surmounted. Business crises were inevitable, given a career as high-powered and exhilarating as his own. If you do not wish to risk spilling the wine, he had been taught as a child, do not fill the cup to the brim. He had not at the time understood the meaning of this proverb. But from the age of perhaps twenty-one, his cup had always been filled all the way up.

  Attaché case in hand, he moved through a neighborhood as desolate and foreboding as any in New York. Tenements in rows, some of them boarded up. Smashed street lights. A burnt-out car. Addicts or winos skulking in the doorways. He did not expect to be accosted, and was not. He knew what every cop knew. Predators could smell fear - it was what set them off. They could also smell the absence of fear which identified their prey as something else, either a fellow predator or a cop - who was only a predator under another name; in any case not prey at all, but something best left alone. In the absence of visible fear they became afraid in their turn, and drew back into the darkness.

  Powers had promised to come alone, and Koy believed him. Otherwise Koy would walk out, there would be no meeting, and no shakedown would take place. And what else could Powers want? Powers could have, as Koy saw it, only two possible purposes. The first was that he wished to scold Koy, to threaten him, to heap abuse. Obviously Powers had tried and failed to put a case together against him, and perhaps his instinct now was to act out his own frustration and rage in person. But the expenditure of energy would be great, and the results zero. Answer number one was not the answer. It did not fit what he knew of Powers, who must be, at the least, an escape artist to rival Houdini, and therefore no fool.

  The second answer, blackmail, was the obvious one. It was impossible for Koy to conceive of a cop Powers’ age who still took evil personally. He had not been such a man himself and had never known one. Evil – crime - flowed forward like the clouds, or tides. One could stand in its way forever without affecting it in the slightest. It just kept coming. Most cops at the start of their careers tried to stop it, or at least slow it down, but instead began passing through various stages of disillusionment. In Koy’s experience they all reached the same place at the end - the place he imagined Powers had reached now. They saw people who were so rich as to seem aloof from evil altogether - it simply never touched them, and they wished to join such people on the high ground. Searching for a way to do this without becoming disgusted with themselves completely, many fixed on a method that ran like a dirt road through the brains of all cops, a road every cop seemed to think he had discovered for the first time. Koy was convinced that, five minutes from now, or an hour, or whenever Powers turned up, he would offer to drop his case - a broken case anyway - in exchange for payment of a certain sum of money. And if this sum was reasonable, Koy would pay it. It was part of the cost of doing business. It was perfectly normal. It happened all the time. It was nothing to be alarmed at. So he told himself.

  If Powers wanted too much, then perhaps Koy would simply shoot him and leave him there.

  He had come to the dark street that ran behind the waterfront warehouses. Widely spaced traffic lights. One or two parked cars. An occasional taxi that flashed by. It was not easy for him to find the warehouse h
e was looking for - he had only been there once. He peered into alleys until he found the one with the piled doors.

  Someone had cleaned it up, or cleaned it out. The bedsprings, the disused furniture were gone. The doors were stacked neatly against the wall in a pile higher than his head. He shined his flashlight on them. Crossing them had been difficult the last time. The doors had rolled around on their doorknobs. It was like crossing an undulating sea. Now their doorknobs had been removed; the sea they represented was forever calm. He walked past them to the end of the alley, from time to time pausing to listen. The only risk was to come upon some derelict unexpectedly and get hit on the head before he could react. But there was no sound.

  At the end of the alley the steel entrance door had been nailed shut with a single plank. He yanked the plank off, and the door sagged out so violently it almost knocked him down. He went inside, following his flashlight. Its beam led him forward like a dog on a leash. At the top of the stairs he shined the light all around, remembering the place only vaguely, for it occupied a spot of no significance in his life. His beam picked out light bulbs dangling from long wires, which posited the existence of switches, and he began to probe for them. Instead he found a fuse box half hidden behind a trestle table piled with empty crates. After studying it a moment he threw the lever and a single dim bulb came on out in the middle of the loft. He dragged the table under it and arranged the crates to serve as chairs. He set his attaché case upon the table and, after sitting down, practiced flipping open the single catch with an almost imperceptible flick of his forefinger. The case had a spring inside; once the catch was released its lid sprang up. Koy briefly studied its contents: the tools of his trade. His trade required that he dominate other men. To do this, he had learned long ago, it was best to appeal to one or both of mankind’s two most primitive emotions: greed and fear. He closed the case. His tools were out of sight and he was ready to meet Powers. His hands were motionless on the table. He was a tall Chinese wearing dark glasses and a tan silk suit. He took the glasses off and laid them beside the briefcase. As unmoving as stone, he waited.

  OUTSIDE, Kelly’s car came to a stop at the curb. From the doorway across the street, Luang ran toward them, yanked open the back door and jumped in.

  “He came on foot about twenty minutes ago, Captain. He’s in there now.”

  According to Luang, who peered across at the condemned warehouse, there was no one with him, and no backup car circling either.

  Powers turned to Kelly. “You’ll be monitoring my transmissions. You’ll know what’s happening.”

  He took out his service revolver and flipped the cylinder open, counting bullets.

  “I’d like to know why we’re here, Captain,” said Kelly. But Powers did not answer. “Do you expect him to make damaging admissions? Or what?”

  Or offer me a bribe, maybe, Powers thought. He had by now thought up several alternative endings more pleasing to him than his own death. Six bullets - he counted their flat brass heads. It was like counting blond children: yes, they were all there. Or take a shot at me, he thought, so I can kill him. But the case, one way or another, still ended tonight. Is that why I’m going up there, he thought, to murder Koy? Do I hate him that much? Closing the cylinder, he rammed the gun back where it came from.

  A hundred years ago confrontations between sheriff and outlaw took place in the middle of Main Street in broad daylight. They drew simultaneously. The game was the same today as it had always been, except that the rules had been changed to favor the outlaw, who was now allowed to fire first. The sheriff was obliged to wait for him to do it.

  But Koy was as trained in the use of firearms as he was, and if he fired first would not miss.

  Powers lifted his briefcase off the floor. From the glovebox he withdrew a flashlight.

  Kelly said, “We should have apprehended him at his residence or place of business.”

  The stilted police phrasing warmed Powers even now. He was one with Kelly, with all cops. Cops partook of a community nourishment that made them different from other men.

  “We should have backup,” said Kelly. “We should all go in there together.”

  “I don’t like this very much, Captain,” said Luang.

  Powers, already on edge, snapped, “Nobody asked you what you like.” Immediately he wanted to apologize, but did not do so. Instead he stared at the building, at the dark alley beside it. “Turn the tape recorder on,” he ordered Kelly.

  The machine lay on the seat between them. Kelly placed earphones on his head. The spools started turning. They held forty-five minutes of tape, more than enough. The confrontation, one way or another, would be over well before that. Powers recited his name, rank and tax number, and the microphone fixed to his chest sent this information into the machine. He added the date and hour, the address. He identified Police Officer Luang and Detective Kelly as witnesses, and concluded: “I am going into the building now to arrest the suspect, Mr. Koy, according to the warrant I have with me.”

  But it was not the strong warrant he had once hoped for. It did not satisfy Powers and would not impress Duncan or the PC either - unless he could force it to perform a job it had never been designed for, and this he meant to do if he could. He had set the scene properly. He believed he had a good chance. The risk, though enormous, was worth taking.

  The tape recorder was still running, the visible link between this minute and whatever was about to happen. Powers, having got out of the car, leaned back in the window. “If I call,” he said to Kelly, “come in. If you hear shots fired, come in. Otherwise stay here and wait for me. Is that clear?”

  He walked into the alley. He too was surprised by the neatly piled doors. He wondered who had stacked them up, and why. He wondered if he would ever walk back past them, and he wondered what his true motives were. But his thoughts were so dark and disorderly that he could not read them, or perhaps he was afraid to. He detected in himself only righteousness, hatred and lust. The lust was for justice, but it was lust nonetheless, as if justice were a woman he intended to rape. You are not God, he told himself. Nor are righteousness and goodness the same. Righteousness was another of life’s seductive perversions, and perhaps the most truly wicked, because it posed as something it was not. Almost any crime could be committed in its name.

  Having come to the entrance door, he shined his flashlight in on the broken stairs and began to climb them. No one followed him in, not God, if there was a God, nor even another cop. He was like a swimmer heading out too far. If the unforeseen occurred it would all be over before help could reach his side.

  He came out into the loft proper. The dim hanging light bulb was still another surprise. He snapped his flashlight off, thrust it down into the leg pocket of his trousers, and strode toward the trestle table. Koy watched him approach, but only his eyes moved. The rest of him was motionless. It was almost symbolic. The American rushed towards his destiny. The Chinese waited for it.

  “Good evening, Captain. Won’t you have a seat?”

  Placing his briefcase opposite Koy’s, Powers sat down and the two men scrutinized each other. Powers was searching for some sign of weakness, a clue as to how to proceed. But Koy’s face showed nothing.

  Out of nervousness Powers began glancing around. “Know this place, do you?” he asked. “Been here before, have you? I guess you never expected to see me here tonight? I guess you never expected to see me anywhere.”

  Koy said, “Get on with it, please. What do you want with me here?”

  Powers said, “I thought you ought to return to the scene of the crime. As children we all learned that the murderer was supposed to return to the scene of his crime. Not entirely true in real life, I found. So I decided to make it come true this time.”

  “You are beating air with air, Captain.”

  Somewhere over the middle of the table their wills were locked in an intense and furious embrace. They were struggling like wrestlers, and Powers realized it.

  Opening hi
s briefcase, he withdrew a pile of papers, after which he set the briefcase aside. “I have some things I’d like you to look at,” he said. He squared the corners with his cupped hands. “Those two thugs you sent after me in Hong Kong.”

  “I, Captain?”

  Powers put his half-glasses on and read from the top sheet. “Their names were Chin Hung Po and Lum Su Ma. Both police constables. They’re in custody. Here are copies of the indictments.” He waved them. “The prisoners have been doing a little talking. They will probably do more as the trial date nears. We expect they will name their employer, and then a warrant for his extradition will be prepared. Do you know who their employer might be, Mr. Koy?”

  The expression on Koy’s face did not change. “The gentlemen you name are unknown to me. The name on any warrant of extradition, if such a warrant ever comes to exist, would be unknown to me also.”

  Powers offered him the indictments. “Take a look at these in any case.”

  “No,” said Koy.

  Powers thrust them back into his briefcase. The pile on the table would continue to diminish. When he reached the bottom he would have no more cards to play.

  He picked up the next papers in the pile. “I have other things here. These are warrants for a couple of youth-gang thugs who work for you, Nikki Han and Go Low. Some of my men yanked them out of a car this afternoon and then guns were found in the car. The gun charge against them is solid. The warrants speak also of murder. Mr. Han will go for life unless he speaks. Do you think he’ll speak, Mr. Koy?”

  Koy said nothing.

  Powers said, “Mr. Low is more likely, I suppose. He’s only eighteen. At that age a ten-to-fifteen-year sentence seems a long time. I expect he’ll speak, don’t you?”

  “Let him speak. Let them both speak. Neither has anything to say.”

  “You were present here on the night the Hsu brothers were executed, Koy.” Powers was finding it increasingly difficult to control his emotion. “You left a few minutes before the execution itself. We have found witnesses who can identify your car. We have the statement of one of the participants in the execution.” Yes, Powers thought, Quong, who is dead.