by Todd Merer
He had a backup chute as well. Later for that.
Richard recognized that—despite his age and infirmities—Duke was a formidable man. He also knew that Duke needed his help, which he was happy to provide, for he wanted to stay close to the man with the serious money. As a gesture of solidarity, Richard allowed Duke custody of the hat.
Duke was staring at the hat—the source of so many troubles and woes—when Katrina entered his den. She saw the hat, then turned to Duke, her face a question.
He shook his head. “Not yet, darling.”
“If not now, then when?”
“Soon, child. Soon . . .”
“I stopped being a child when she burned them alive. Every day I live with a stone in my heart. A stone I want to use to bash her head to pieces.”
Duke smiled.
CHAPTER 26
Manhattan. December 2006.
Ming seethed. The duplicity! It was beyond his ken that anyone would dare steal the hat after he’d paid for it. But his true fury derived from the revenge killings in Shanghai. Given the audacious murders—in his country—he knew he was up against a strong, resourceful foe. CIA, or some such. A pragmatist, he realized that for now, nothing could be done to regain the hat. Missy Soo was all for going to war, but Ming calmed her.
“China’s strength is derived from patience, girl.”
“But for how long, Grandfather?”
He smiled. “In my lifetime.”
CHAPTER 27
California. December 2006.
Although ensconced in her private world, Madame Soo had her ways of knowing what was going on. Only a few days after the Thanksgiving incident, she knew the particulars: what was, what wasn’t, what lay behind all. There was no trick to this faculty; she simply knew nothing ever changed. People stole and killed. Same as nations. After so many years, it almost seemed funny, watching all these people so blindly rush around. Yet in the end, none of it mattered.
She pictured Ming’s anger, how he would be scowling like one of the Japanese samurais he so despised. In fact, the entire scenario reminded her of her favorite Japanese film.
Rashomon.
In which the same story—either the seduction or the rape of a beautiful woman—radically changed when told by different eyewitnesses. Each of their stories was a mix of self-serving lies and half-truths.
Yet, despite her cloistered life, Madame Soo knew the real truth.
Her white granddaughter was still alive.
A tear coursed down her withered cheek.
PART FOUR:
OVERT ACTS IN FURTHERANCE OF THE CONSPIRACY
CHAPTER 28
The present.
Richard and Duke and I spoke on a deck facing the Sound. Chilly night. Misty. From afar, a ship’s horn bleated, but from the deck, the sea shone black beneath heavy fog that blocked overhead surveillance. No way our conversation could be memorialized, excluding the listening devices I was sure both Duke and Richard wore. I, too, wore one beneath my shirt, its mini-mike disguised as a button.
No surprise we whispered close together.
Duke smelled of illness and medicine. He leaned heavily on his blackthorn stick. The shaft was thick, its nobs wet black. Even a glancing blow would do serious damage. Old Duke was old-school weaponized.
Funny thing: it wasn’t cold enough to see Duke’s or my breath, but when Richard spoke, his breath hung whitely, as if he were some sort of spectral presence. His breath stank of weed, but that didn’t account for his pinpointed pupils, and it occurred to me that Richard was more of a hardcore stoner than I’d thought.
“Spit it out,” he said to me.
I related my conversation with Missy Soo at the Mission.
Although I privately believed Richard a traitor, I described my role as being under his aegis, as if I believed I was assisting our government. If it ever came to my being indicted, my defense would be that I was following orders.
Just like the Nuremberg defendants.
All of whom were executed or committed suicide.
Duke and Richard said nothing about my North Korean add-on, as if it were so implausible, it wasn’t worth discussing. Their sole interest was in how Missy Soo had replied.
“She wants proof you have Lucky. Says you’d know what the proof was.”
Duke said, “As if any of it matters. Whether in the next week or next year or ten years, it’s all over. An accidental incident becomes a major confrontation ending in nuclear holocaust. I couldn’t care less because I’ll be gone by then.”
A breeze came up and the fog lifted, and an anchored yacht became visible a quarter mile offshore: a customized 450-foot super-craft. I wondered whether it belonged to Duke.
“All right,” said Duke. “We delay until Lucky’s ours. Find an excuse for the delay. You’re going to deliver partial proof, Counselor. You will formally present it to Madame Soo. Tell her soon they’ll have Lucky himself.”
“Missy will ask when, where, and so on,” I said.
“Madame Soo will know,” said Duke.
CHAPTER 29
After our meeting, I replayed the theoretical surveillance tape of my discussion with Duke and Richard. Nothing overtly illegal on my part, but proof positive I was doing business with them. Not good. If the situation turned into a chess game with the feds—not Richard, the straight feds—I’d have to deploy my Stella defense: that I was pretend acting to save my client. It wouldn’t be easy.
I needed to reexamine the entire situation.
On my trusty yellow legal pad, I drew a vertical line. One side for each list. Plus and minus. I started with the minuses:
Minus: Missy Soo might easily kill me on a whim.
Minus: Duke’s way was killing his enemies.
Minus: Richard was a stone-cold killer.
Minus: Dolores. Killer accomplice.
My murderous (alleged) partners in crime. All of whom, with the possible exception of Dolores, wouldn’t deign to spit on my grave. I sighed. Mine was a lonely road.
Okay . . . now for the pluses:
Plus: Should Missy Soo get what she wanted, she and China would no longer pose any danger. A good incentive to keep our negotiations on track.
Plus: Duke’s Phuket hotel deal might be clean. If it were, I’d sell the place, give up drug lawyering, donate the money to a worthy charity like rebuilding Puerto Rico, keep a few bucks to buy a big-boned black Lab and a tricked-out F-150, and drive wherever my dog’s nose pointed.
Plus: Richard killed people who got in his way. So I’d not get in his way. He knew I was ignorant of the big picture, and professionals don’t kill unless necessary. Or so I told myself. With an asterisk denoting a footnote: If I sensed Richard was about to make a move on me? I’d kill him first.
I gave a little shudder at the fact I was ready, willing, and able to kill. When I’d represented killers, I’d always been careful to keep above their frays. But, inevitably, some of their ways had rubbed off on me . . . Amend that: not their ways, but Dolores’s ways. Good God in heaven, I was smitten with a mass murderess. I wanted to make Dolores happy. I wanted her to make me happy. I wanted Dolores, period.
Plus: Stella was my client, and I owed her. She was so obviously traumatized—PTSD, if you will—that I couldn’t abandon her.
It was a total no-brainer.
The pluses had it.
CHAPTER 30
I bided time while things played out. Both Richard and Missy Soo had been schooled in tradecraft before the dawning of the Age of Technology, and predictably, both returned to the old ways: messages were carried mouth-to-ear by messengers.
Not an hour passed without at least one messenger passing over North America, going to or from San Francisco and New York. It took several days for the important details of the exchange to be negotiated. Many minor issues remained, pending resolution.
Duke was pleased by the delay. “We’re not quite ready to give them Lucky. All you need to know is that it’s been agreed that the first exchan
ge—Lucky’s hat—will occur under rigid, multicontrolled circumstances in Madame Soo’s home. Pack your bag, boy, you’re about to travel.”
“As long as it benefits Stella,” I said.
Duke studied me. “Why aren’t you asking for your gold?”
“What gold is that?”
Duke laughed. “Johnny Straight Arrow here. Take the hat.”
The hat was now nestled inside a heavily wrapped, foot-square wooden cube. I had some trepidations about taking it—what if Richard had planted an incriminating kilo in the package?—but talked myself out of that worry with the rationale that Richard had bigger things in store for me.
I took a night flight, my third trip to the West Coast in a week. Boring. I set up in first-class seat 1-A, walling off the adjoining seat with my headrest wing and propped pillows. I adjusted the box beneath my feet, chugged a minivodka, swallowed a blue valium, and slept until the captain announced final descent into San Francisco.
A car was waiting for me at the airport. Its driver, holding a sign with my name, was an older Chinese man. He offered to hold the box, but I declined. I followed him to the parking lot, where a dark BMW idled. The driver held the rear door for me. I got in, and the driver got behind the wheel.
We drove in silence.
When we arrived at Madame Soo’s seaside manor, Missy Soo—wearing a skintight orange and purple tiger-striped jumpsuit—greeted me pleasantly.
“Like your colors,” I said. “Hermès meets the death of a pope.”
“You’re the only one who understands your humor.”
Wrong, I thought. Dolores does.
Missy led me through the house to a sitting room, where a table was laden with drinks. We sat. The box at my feet, I accepted a glass of sparkling water but only pretended to sip, well aware of the possibility of Missy Soo spiking me with some sort of truth-talking pill.
I sensed another presence in the next room; felt a not-unpleasant tingle of anticipation deep in my pits. I was about to take a giant step toward knowing my destiny. Thrill of victory or agony of defeat. Added to which, Missy’s dazzling presence—the devil wearing Prada spandex—further heightened the moment.
She excused herself but returned a few minutes later wearing a tight black dress, high-collared and slit-legged and buttoned-up one side in the Chinese style. Auspicious, all right. For the Chinese, black was neutral, slightly allaying my fears of a doomsday scenario.
“I’ve decided you’re not Sombra,” said Missy. “Richard is. I received a vulgar personal message befitting an arrogant boss like Sombra.”
She waited for me to reply. I didn’t.
“Are you jealous?” she said.
“No, I’m not even zealous.”
“I’ll have the package now.”
“I’m to deliver it directly to Madame Soo. After which I will deliver another personal message to her.”
Missy seemed unconcerned by my requests. “To be clear, I am in charge, but for now we’ll play your little game. Come along.”
Madame Soo’s chair was swiveled from the sea view to a TV, whose screen was bright with a blazing office building. A breaking news chyron described the scene: Chinese Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia, Bombed. Then the scene shifted to a newsroom. A newscaster spoke:
“There is a growing anger in Colombia, a backlash against the country’s environment being exploited. Threats of further violence have been received, and the Colombian armed forces are on alert.”
Dolores’s doing, I thought. No doubt.
“Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, threats and demonstrations are occurring in the six nations disputing China’s claim of sovereignty over islands in the South China Sea. The Chinese have said they will defend their islands. The United States is sending naval forces to the disputed area to demonstrate what they term ‘freedom of the seas’ . . .”
Missy lowered the volume and made a call. Listened, frowned, hung up. “For unknown reasons, the Bogotá embassy attack was conducted by narcotics traffickers. Which leads me to believe Sombra—Richard—was behind it.”
I shrugged. Whatever chaos Dolores was sowing in Bogotá, I couldn’t see it helping her overcome the Chinese mining deal. Were my meetings with them intended to find leverage for Dolores to save Anawanda?
Madame Soo turned the volume back up.
The scene had again shifted, from the newsroom to the street. Offscreen, the newscaster said, “The well-known antidrug activist Laura Astorquiza, popularly called Colombia’s La Pasionaria and rumored to be the blogger behind Radio Free Bogotá, has described China’s increasing investments in Colombia as corrupt enterprises that are disastrous to the country’s environment.”
On the screen a woman wearing a black ski mask was exhorting a crowd through a bullhorn. I recognized her voice:
Dolores, posing as her alter ego, Laura.
Missy turned off the TV. She nodded for me to proceed. I approached Madame Soo, bowed formally, offered the box, and said, “The person who sent it says it is your decision what to do with it.”
“Open it for her,” said Missy. “She’s about to drool.”
Madame Soo showed no sign of hearing the remark. She sat with her hands in her lap as I removed the outer wrapping and opened the wooden box. Then reached in it and took out Lucky’s hat. Madame Soo’s expression remained unchanged, but her hands shook as she took the hat and held it before her eyes, as if mesmerized.
I couldn’t blame her. The hat was something else.
Actually, it was more like a crown. Dull gold embedded with huge emeralds and rubies and topped by a diamond that could have given the Hope a run for its money.
I said, “I am to inform you that soon China will have Lucky himself as well.”
Madame Soo spoke softly, as if to herself. “I never stopped believing.”
Then she closed her eyes, as if shutting windows to her soul.
But Missy’s eyes remained wide open. “How soon?”
I shrugged. “As I said, I’m just the messenger.”
CHAPTER 31
When I returned to New York, Val drove me to Forlini’s for a late bite. Baxter Street was blocked by vans carrying inmates from the state criminal court back to Rikers, so Val let me out at the corner. Halfway to Forlini’s, something caught my eye. I stopped and stood behind a lamppost from where I surreptitiously peered into a Chinese fast-food restaurant.
There, two men sat at a table. The man with his back to me was a big old frazzled guy. The man facing me was Scar. They were deep in conversation, the old man doing most of the talking, Scar nodding agreement. By their demeanor, it was obvious that Scar respected the old man.
Made me wonder.
Scar worked for Uncle in a business where you respect only one boss. So who was this old guy?
I waited until they left. Scar trotted off into Columbus Park, in the direction of the Pagoda. The old man—gray-bearded, seeming even older than I’d first thought—shambled along old, original Chinatown, crossed the Bowery, and continued into newer Chinatown, a neighborhood of tenements where, one hundred years ago, Italian ladies had strung clotheslines and Jewish men had daily entered shuls whose Stars of David were still cut into lintels above the entrances to Chinese shops.
I caught a glimpse of the old man’s face as he turned a corner. A large patch covered one eye. The flesh below was horribly scarred.
I followed him to an illegal hotel that rented beds by the hour. When he entered, I stood aside, watching as he climbed steps—
“Hey, Mr. Bluestone, what you doing here?”
I turned and saw a man whose name I’d forgotten but whose face I recalled: a former client who’d been a snakehead, a transporter of illegal immigrants from China to the States.
I shrugged. “Thought I knew a person was all.”
“That man? Gweilo, he’s the great Ming Chan.”
“Not the man I thought, then. Thanks.”
I stopped in a shop and, over coffee and steamed pork buns, s
earched my device. I got a hit on Ming Chan immediately. Impressive. He was a living legend, a Nationalist soldier, then a Red general proclaimed a hero of the Revolution, married to Li-ang Soo, daughter of a venerable family—
Soo? As in Madame Soo . . . ?
Man, talk about who’s on first? Was Scar’s dalliance with Ming Chan a betrayal of Uncle? Was Uncle even aware of Scar’s meeting Ming Chan? Or was Uncle betraying Taiwan China? And since Ming Chan was too old to be a field agent, what the hell was he doing in the States? I ground my gears on that, and then it came to me: if Ming had married Madame Soo, then his granddaughter was Missy Soo.
I decided to go to the Pagoda and get Uncle to clarify.
It was dark and drizzly, and the steep, narrow alley called Mosco Street was deserted as I neared the intersection of Baxter Street . . . as Scar came round the far corner. There was some construction going on, and the partially blocked sidewalk was too narrow for two people, meaning one or the other had to step aside.
Only neither of us did.
I wanted to talk it out.
So did he: “Eat shit, gweilo.”
This from a guy who’d sucker-punched me. Got my blood up. Skillful as I am parrying verbal thrusts, deep down I’m still an uncontrollably nervy street kid. There were only two fight rules in old Brooklyn: “Just win, baby,” and “No mother insults.”
But rules were made to be broken, so I said, “After I’m done screwing your mother.”
Nah-nah-nah. Yeah, juvenile, but I wanted to push Scar’s button. Bad idea. I had no idea he was so quick. Gathering himself like a big cat, he sprang at me. Lifted me right off my feet and threw me atop a wooden barrier, which splintered apart and left me on my ass.
The blow put me down but not out.
I got back up and went at him.
Mistake. I ran into a left jab.
Followed by a leg sweep.
I was on my ass again, but this time in no hurry to get up. No way was I going to take this kid, who was half my age and obviously knew how to handle himself. There were a lot of guys like him in the East Flatbush of my youth, but they knew better than to fight a known crazy guy: a nutcase who kept on fighting until he was dead . . . thereby setting the killer up for a homicide arrest. I was one of the crazy guys.
