A battery of pans and woks hangs ready for the new day’s work, the air fat with stale oil and soy. Cleavers racked on the wall. The image of the thugs waving those things at Laura is still fresh in Danny’s mind—and a wave of nausea rises as he thinks of them hacking away at his aunt’s fingers. He swallows hard.
“What you looking for?” Sing Sing says, flicking on the lights. Again that direct, abrasive tone. But it feels like there’s something softer underneath, Danny thinks.
“Our business,” Zamora says. “Are you in with these triad boys?”
“Things are far more complicated than that,” she says, taking off her sunglasses. In the fluorescent light Danny sees a fat bruise blooming under her right eye. On her clear skin, the thing looks especially ugly, out of place.
“You OK?” he asks, pointing at it. “Must be hurting like anything.”
“My own fault,” she snaps. “Not fast enough. Now get a move on. The triads have eyes everywhere. The chef will be here soon and he’s very angry about his fish.” She returns Danny’s gaze, looking directly into his eyes, and smiles again—briefly. Hard to fake a smile like that, he thinks. The micro-muscles around the eyes doing a lot of the work. Then it’s gone—as if wiped away—and she turns to push through into the restaurant proper. “Let’s go.”
They follow her into the cavernous interior of the Bat.
The noise and confusion of last night is replaced now by brooding shadows, pooling around the stacked chairs and tables. The curling dragons leer from out of the gloom, their faces transformed, ominous.
Danny heads for the raised platform. “Come on, Major. Let’s search around our table first.”
“I can keep watch for you,” Sing Sing says, going to stand by the small window. “But be quick. Haven’t got all day.”
“You check under it, Danny,” Zamora says. “I’ll look around.”
Danny gets down on hands and knees. Here and there you can see damp patches that haven’t dried yet. Despite the darkness under the table it’s obvious there’s nothing on the floor. Swept and wiped after last night’s confusion, the wooden boards are clean and bare. One tiny fish, bright crimson, lies forgotten, tucked next to a table leg, drowned in the air. Danny shoves it with his fingertip. It doesn’t move—just lies there looking surprised, mouth open, eyes glassy. Nothing else to be seen.
Disheartened, he scrambles back from under the table.
“Nothing?” Zamora asks.
Danny shakes his head and goes over to where Sing Sing stands by the little window, head silhouetted against the morning.
“What did my aunt do after you met her last night?”
“Not much. Usual kind of thing. Talked about you! Very interesting . . .” Again that knowing hint of a smile, slightly superior.
“Nothing else?”
Sing Sing wraps her arms round herself and shakes her head. There’s something lonely about that action, he thinks. Closed in. It reminds him of the way he himself stands in goal at Ballstone when the game is raging down the other end of the pitch. Something protective, keeping yourself to yourself. Because you’ve been hurt and don’t want to be hurt again?
Possibly. But no—it’s something more immediate. Not a memory. There’s something about the way Sing Sing is shielding her rucksack, as if guarding something valuable inside.
The girl laughs abruptly. “What are you staring at?”
“Nothing. I—” Danny shifts to one side, moving closer to the rucksack. Sure enough Sing Sing turns very slightly to hide it again.
“Are you trying to hypnotize me?!”
“I’m just thinking about a little red notebook of Laura’s,” he says. And yes, there it is. A tiny flicker of recognition on her face, registering the hit. “I just wondered if you could hand it over now!”
Sing Sing smiles. “Ve-ry impressive!”
She reaches into the rucksack and pulls out the elastic-bound notebook. It glows red in the narrow shaft of light from the window. “Not bad, Mr. Woo.”
“Why didn’t you tell us straight away?”
“You didn’t ask. And I wanted to see how clever you are!”
That softens his irritation. Her spiky exterior is working as a coping strategy, he realizes. Give her the benefit of the doubt.
He looks down at the notebook and starts to riffle the pages, hiding his embarrassment at the compliment. Zamora has seen the exchange and hustles over to peer at the book.
Together they scan Laura’s jumpy handwriting to find the last few entries.
Under yesterday’s date they see: 12:30. No sign Tan. “Sick leave.” No reply phone.
Another: Meet Chow Golden Bat 7:30 p.m. Well St.
The last, underlined and in capitals: B DRAG—W. M.?
“B DRAG must be Black Dragon,” Zamora says. “But what about W. M.? Who’s that?”
“Don’t know,” Danny says. “White Man? Like White Suit?” He looks at Sing Sing. “Do you know who W. M. could be?”
“Sorry.”
A car rumbles past outside, belting out Chinese pop. It’s closely followed by the waspy buzz of a scooter. The engine slows and idles outside for a second or two, before dragging away down the street. Sing Sing turns to peer out of the window.
“We gotta go. Triad boy, I think.” She spins and goes flying back across the restaurant, her feet whispering on the floor. “See you around!”
“But—” Danny begins.
“Good luck,” she shouts, weaving around the tables. Her slim form perfectly in balance, a spring and poise in each step.
“Come on, Danny,” Zamora says. “Follow her!”
But by the time they are through the kitchens the back door is already banged shut.
And as they run out into the service lane, Sing Sing has vanished. Just a vague sound of footsteps echoing off the walls. Hard to tell whether they come from left or right—or, by a trick of the ears, from somewhere overhead.
Zamora puffs out his cheeks. “Best make ourselves scarce. Something must have spooked old Sing Sing, no? Mister Kwan should be here soon.”
“We shouldn’t have let her go.”
Danny strains to listen for the retreating footsteps. They’ve gone now. There’s frustration at the way Sing Sing has toyed with them—She must have known we were after the notebook all along, he thinks. But there’s another feeling mixed with it: disappointment that they’ve lost her again.
There’s no sign of the scooter when they peer out into the street.
But Kwan is already waiting, further down, tucked deep in the early morning shadows at a safe distance. He flashes his headlights once, then leans out to beckon them over.
“Come on, come on,” he says as they reach the battered car. “Get in quick. I don’t want people to see me round here. Triad lookout just went past.” His owlish face looks really nervous this time, as if his glasses will steam up.
Danny and Zamora nip into the backseat, and Kwan’s pulling away hard before they’ve even got the door shut, up the street, past the Golden Bat. The driver glances in his rearview mirror, mashing the gears.
“Just in time,” he says as they turn right at a crossroads and merge into a traffic jam. “We all in trouble if we seen there. Believe me.”
12
HOW TO FIND A DRAGON’S LAIR
But Kwan seems to relax a bit as they put distance between themselves and the restaurant.
“So sorry to hear about Miss White. I’ll do whatever I can to help.”
“We need to check somewhere out, Mr. Kwan,” Zamora says. “What was the name of those Mansions, Danny?”
“Wuchung.”
“Do you know where that is?”
Kwan recoils, as if catching a nasty smell at the back of the throat. “That’s bad place. Not nice. Old apartment block. Cheap hostels, drugs, bedbugs, bad people. You don’t want go there . . . Even cops go in threes. Armed.”
“Just like where I grew up,” Zamora says grimly. “Sounds great.”
“W
e’re going there, Mr. Kwan. We have to.”
Kwan sucks his teeth. “OK. I take you. But I drop you short, and you don’t tell anyone I take you there. Not anyone. OK?”
“OK,” Danny says. “But can you tell us where you took my aunt yesterday?”
The traffic has ground to a halt again and Kwan turns round. “All over place. Happy Valley, the racecourse, Mong Kok. The Peak. She was looking for someone all afternoon. We went to lots of places and I waited. She got bit angry. Really annoyed about something. Not me. Then she ask me to go to Golden Bat. I drop her there seven forty-five. Go home. Wife was very cross.” He sighs. They’re moving again. There’s a scooter whining close behind their exhaust, and Kwan throws it a quick look in the mirror.
Danny takes a chance. “Do you know anything about something called the Black Dragon?”
A flicker of recognition in the driver’s eyes. “Maybe I read about them in the paper. Triad guys.” He pulls a face. “Low life.”
“And what about something called the Forty-Nine?”
This time Kwan’s face is as blank as a sheet of paper. “No idea. Forty-nine what?”
“We think they’re involved with the kidnapping,” Danny says.
“What do police say?”
“They’re looking into it,” Zamora says heavily.
They thump across a junction and into a canyon of a street, the buildings crowding overhead.
Danny sits back and flicks the pages of Laura’s notebook. The last five or six seem to contain notes for the investigation, but it’s hard to decipher her scrawl. He can just make out the odd word or two. CARGO, PIRACY? WANSHAN ISLANDS. Tucked between pages is a folded newspaper clipping, and he opens it up to reveal a photo of Chow, standing impassively on the harbor front. Same stony expression on his face. The headline says: “Businessman Defies the New Dragon.”
Danny shows it to Zamora.
“But look what’s below in the subheading,” the major says.
“Former gang boss says he has turned new leaf in fight for law and order in Hong Kong—” Danny reads aloud.
“They all say that,” Kwan snorts. “But they’re all on the make.” He brings the taxi to a swerving stop by the pavement. “Mansions just down there.”
He points at the ugly mass of a building across the road. Its first two stories are covered in garish advertising for everything from currency exchange to massage to karaoke. Above that it rises some twenty or more floors, gray and heavy, sprouting air-conditioning units like carbuncles, the roof bristling with aerials and weeds. It does not look at all savory—or inviting. A constant stream of people is being swallowed or spat out of its gaping mouth.
“Looks like a fortress,” Danny says uncertainly.
“You should have seen old Hong Kong, sir. Kowloon Walled City. Much worse.” Nostalgia softens Kwan’s face. “A gweilo like you wouldn’t have gone in there.”
“Gweilo?”
“Pale ghost. Foreigner.”
Danny feels deflated at that. He glances in the rearview mirror. It’s true, he realizes. Here in Hong Kong he looks decidedly Caucasian against the people thronging the streets all around. But at Ballstone he always felt conscious of Mum’s Chinese genes shining through in his black hair, the shallow curve of his eyes. Before the fire, safe in the cosmopolitan bubble of the Mysterium, he never thought much about nationality or race. It always seemed incidental to what people did. What they said. Since then, though, that need for “fit” has been nagging away steadily.
He sighs, feels in his pocket for money for the fare and pulls out the Post-it note instead. He leans forward to show it to Kwan.
“Can you read this for us?”
The taxi driver squints at the characters.
“Terrible writing. It says Sai Wan Pier, Cheung Chau Island.”
“M goi.” Danny says experimentally, rolling the Cantonese around his mouth. Thank you. It feels like he’s tasting a food he hasn’t tried for years and years. Kwan nods in answer.
“Don’t mention it.”
“Could you take us there later?”
“I can take you to the ferry,” the driver says, patting the steering wheel, “but the roads on the island are too small for cars like mine. You take care in Mansions. Keep in busy areas. Call me if you need. I gotta get home to Mrs. Kwan. Baai baai.”
Danny and Zamora jostle through the tourists and touts on the pavement outside the building. Above them the building rises like a rock face. Young men tug their sleeves, shouting out amazing deals to be had inside—or whisper more shady offers on the floors above.
“You want to get happy, gentlemen?”
“Best curry outside Mumbai.”
“You want fortune read? Guaranteed good fortune?” Above the doors a sign reads: WUCHUNG MANSIONS. LUXURY ACCOMMODATION SINCE 1952.
“In a hurry,” Zamora mutters. “Excuse us . . .”
But Danny stops dead in the flow of people, pointing up at the sign.
“W. M., Major. Wuchung Mansions. It’s got to be this place. After all, we know Ponytail has been here. And Black Dragon must be linked to it somehow.”
13
HOW TO HYPNOTIZE A HOODLUM
The ground floor is a sprawling labyrinth of tiny shops and restaurants. The bleating of electronic gadgets merges with the rattle of slot machines, the aroma of curry sauce muddled with the stink of laundry bleach.
Danny and Zamora wander deeper into its heart, blinking in the gloom, feeling like visitors from another planet.
People scuttle in the shadows. There are voices raised everywhere talking in a babble of Cantonese, Hindi, Thai, English, Japanese. Again the exotic surroundings bewitch Danny’s senses—and yet, behind that, there’s a familiar note to the sounds and smells. The basic greetings and sing-song politenesses of Cantonese coming vaguely back to him from his infancy. He himself may not look that Chinese, but he can imagine Mum gliding through a place like this. In her element. She would have done it with the same grace that guided her along the highwire every night. The still point in the storm, oblivious to the punked-up antics of the Khaos Klowns as they filled the arena below with flame and smoke and the snarl of chainsaws.
In the glancing view of strangers who turn to look at them now he sees here a nose, there a cheek, there the same slim shoulders—and recognizes Mum piece by piece. The emotion rises, a tight knot of grief that wants to do its thing—but he knows he has to keep his head clear now.
Zamora tugs his arm.
“There it is, Danny: Heart and Sole.”
“Let me try something. You keep watch.”
Danny walks into the kiosk, trying to look confident—his heartbeat quickstepping all the same—and raps on the counter.
A man with a hangdog face looks up from the workbench, eyeing Danny with idle curiosity.
“Jou sahn. A friend of mine left shoes. He told me to pick them up.”
The man raises his eyebrows. “Receipt?”
“He lost it. But he’s got a long ponytail. Broken nose. About your height.”
The man frowns.
“You’re a friend of Tony’s!?”
“Yes,” Danny says firmly. “Tony. He said be quick. Chop chop.”
The man frowns again, then turns to rummage through a stack of re-soled shoes. He finds the ones he’s looking for and plops a pair of garish snakeskin slip-on shoes on the counter. There’s a ticket attached to them.
The man looks at Danny and narrows his eyes now, as if not sure whether he’s doing the right thing. He holds up his right hand. “Five dollars. Five.”
He keeps one hand on the shoes, hesitating.
“You can call him if you need,” Danny says, dropping a ten-dollar bill onto the counter. “But he said to hurry. Keep the change.”
The man picks it up, considers, then slips the shoes quickly into a bag and waves him away like a bad smell.
Back outside, Danny pulls the shoes from the bag and scans the receipt stub. But where there might have been a fu
ll name and address there’s just one indecipherable character scrawled in pen along with the fee. Dejectedly he goes to join Zamora.
“We’re close. But we’ve only got half a name. And we can’t search the whole building. That would take days.”
“Let’s watch from across the street,” Zamora says. “Maybe something’ll turn up.”
They drift back into the rush of the morning, their spirits sinking.
But sometimes it only takes a second for your luck to change. A quick shift in the shape of the world and there’s an opportunity to be seized. If you’re paying attention—if you don’t hesitate—you can seize it.
As Danny and Zamora push back out onto the pavement, Ponytail almost slips by them in the crowd. There’s a bandage around his forehead and he’s moving with a slight limp, but there’s no mistaking the lean face, the hair.
Before he has time to think, Danny is pushing quickly toward the man. Zamora’s close behind, straining to see what Danny has seen—and when he does he bellows out, “You! We want a word, Mister Hair!”
Ponytail looks up, turns, and darts away through the muddle of hawkers and shoppers on the pavement. He has a good head start, and for a moment Danny thinks they will lose him in the chaos. But then Ponytail trips over a suitcase and goes sprawling across the ground.
Danny’s blocked by a group of confused backpackers, but the major moves surprisingly fast and is quickly alongside the prostrate figure. For all the world it looks as if he’s helping the man up.
“There you go, amigo. Easy now.”
But as Danny joins them, he’s shocked see the little pistol snug in Zamora’s grip. He’s showing just enough for Ponytail to see, urging him to his feet, using his body to shield the gun from view.
“Get up slowly and then down this passageway,” Zamora hisses, shoving the man toward a narrow passage cut between the Mansions and the building next door. “Not a peep, comprende?”
The man nods and allows himself to be guided down the alleyway. It’s dark in there, choked with rubbish and the stench of urine. The buildings rise up like the sides of a well, a mess of pipes and hanging wires silhouetted against a slice of sky above.
The Black Dragon Page 7
