The smell was quite bad and it was full of bins, boxes and garbage. Benjiro figured the two toughs could drop them here and they might not be noticed for a week.
When they got to the end, the man with the gun backed them against the wall, looked at Benjiro and asked, “Where’s the rest of the money you stole, loser?”
Mr. Tsai’s head snapped over to look at him. “What? You stole that counterfeit money?”
“Of course I didn’t! These guys are working with a child abduction ring and a counterfeiter from Hong Kong!”
Benjiro could see Mr. Tsai processing what he’d just said while the second tough said, “Don’t lie, scum. You stole a wad of money, along with a family heirloom money clip. We know exactly where that bill came from!”
“Why would I bring it directly into a bank, then, dumb-ass!” Benjiro retorted, more for Mr. Tsai’s benefit that anything. He was desperately trying to come up with a plan to get them both out of this alley.
Just then, against the wall opposite Benjiro and Mr. Tsai, behind the two toughs, a wall of boxes came tumbling down and a sleepy drunk yelled, “Son of a bitch, can’t a hard-working fellow catch a nap without a bunch of noise outside his bed!”
Both the toughs jumped around, flailing at cardboard as boxes fell toward them, and both of them shot twice in the direction of the new intrusion. Benjiro heard the shots ricochet off metal and bricks, and as he reached down to pick up a rusted metal bar at his feet, saw the drunk go down in a heap, bright red spilling from his torso.
Instincts ingrained deep in his brain of the Yin Shou Gun form of stick fighting he’d studied for twenty years as a youth, the same instincts that he’d used to fight Boris off with Steven some thirty-five years ago, kicked in. He flattened both assailants in seconds, breaking at least one wrist and giving both of them concussions and multiple broken ribs. When both men were lying on the ground, their guns kicked under metal bins, he turned to Mr. Tsai.
“Mr. Tsai, what is it!” The man who’d almost for sure saved his life, and possibly that of Steven and Konnor, if Benjiro had inadvertently led the toughs back to his friends, was lying face up, a large puddle of blood around his head, with his hand clamped to his neck.
“I think a ricochet hit me,” he whispered. “You have to get out.”
“No, wait, I’ll get help, it will be okay!” But as he went to stand, Mr. Tsai’s hand fell away from his neck and his eyes went wide. There was a hole in the side of his neck big enough to fit three fingers into. He was dead.
“Son of a bitch!”
Goodbye Forever, Taipei
Steven and Konnor only saw Benjiro from afar as they boarded the ship. He’d waved to them both, but hadn’t come over to discuss their day. He didn’t show up until late the next evening, after Konnor was fast asleep in his bunk and Steven took his first break since leaving port.
“Jeez, Benji, where’ve you been?” Steven asked him.
“I’ve been here. Although I almost didn’t make it…twice,” his friend answered.
“What happened? You look like hell. Is it bad news from Toma-san?” Steven asked.
“No, nothing like that. Bad news for me…and maybe for you,” he answered.
“The bill? You went to the bank…tell me, my friend, what is it?” Steven was starting to get nervous. His friend’s bad energy was creeping across the deck, crawling up his legs, giving him chills.
“That money and the clip it was in are really bad news, Steven,” Benjiro said, and continued, for more than an hour, telling his best friend the story of his afternoon, the two deaths he’d witnessed, and maybe caused, and his suspicions about the money clip Konnor had brought with him from his narrow escape.
When the story was told Benjiro looked a bit better. It was a load off his chest, but Steven felt flat. He was not a worrier by nature, but he was a planner. He always plotted, rehearsed, and dreamed. Some might call it anxiety, but it didn’t feel that way to him. But man, he had to admit that none of his mental practice runs of the summer vacation sailing trip with his son included having him snatched, being the focus of a Triad search for stolen property, or murder.
He began to think about putting Konnor on the first plane back to Manila when they reached Shanghai.
“I thought about it when I came back to the ship, Steven. I don’t know how anyone could trace anything to us. There’s just no possible way,” Benjiro said. “I think we can leave this behind us.”
“I hope you’re right. I have a couple of days to decide what to do. Should I put Konnor on a plane back to Manila or go ahead with our vacation?” Steve said.
Konnor would be more than a little bit disappointed to have the time with his dad end by flying home…by himself or with Benjiro to accompany him. His mother was going to be distressed by much of what happened no matter what. While he probably hadn’t forgotten it, Konnor didn’t seem debilitated by what happened in Hong Kong. They’d enjoyed the theme park, and of course Konnor didn’t know the details that his dad and Benjiro now knew.
Steven could feel himself be swayed to not cancel his own time in Shanghai. He was afraid if he did that he would forever lose the chance to learn anything more about his sister’s death. After so many years maybe it shouldn’t have made any difference, but he still wasn’t ready to give up.
“Sleep on it. Maybe you’ll think of something I haven’t, but whatever you decide, I’m following it through with you,” Benjiro said.
#
The next day found Konnor out, binoculars in hand, watching the sea and keeping an eye out for the east coast of China. The day was very clear and as it wore on he caught more glimpses of it. They would get to Hangzou Bay before nightfall but not early enough to dock. His dad said the port they were coming into was very busy, and they would be cued and then assisted into place early the next morning. It would be a great day of watching.
He was on his second roll of film. He’d finished the first one in the theme park, and he was many pages into the journal his mom had given him. He wrote in it every day and took pieces from it to put in letters back to his mom, which his dad mailed for him from each port.
It was the fifth port he’d seen on this trip, the fourth outside his home country, and by far the largest. What particularly caught his eight-year-old eye were all the cranes he could see. When he studied the cityscape with his binoculars they seemed to be everywhere. He asked Benjiro about them and he replied, “They’re tower cranes, Konnor. Shanghai is a city expanding fast, like Manila but even bigger.”
The next morning, as they were getting secured at the dock, Konnor watched the activity on-board and on the docks beyond. It was noisy and crowded, as usual, but today, with the heat of a Shanghai summer and an extremely calm day, the port smelled ripe. A bit like a combination of the cooking smell of the vinegary adobo his grandpa made, overripe fruit in a hot market stall, and the diapers he sometimes caught a whiff of at his mother’s job in the maternity ward.
He and Benjiro would wait for his dad to finish for the day before going to explore the city, and the three of them were going to spend one more night on board the ship before it left, this time without Steven. Then they had the better part of a week to explore.
Block Captain Station
After spending the morning wandering around Julia’s old apartment, Steven began to think there wasn’t much hope of finding connections from so many years ago. There were too many changes happening in Shanghai, and he didn’t recognize any of the small stores or vendors that used to surround his sister’s building. Then he remembered the block police.
He couldn’t be sure if the station had been relocated. He actually didn’t think he’d ever had any more contact than meeting Captain Cho with his sister a few times. The station was located in the center of the building across from his sister’s apartment building entrance. There were big windows, with bars, on either side of the entrance. They had a particularly good view of anyone coming and going from the front of her old place.
It was close to lunchtime when the three of them entered and there were a half dozen people in the station, half of them eating at a table near the back wall and the other half busy at desks. None of them seemed too excited to see them, but a woman behind a desk that might have been the greeting area said a few words to them in Chinese.
“I’m sorry, none of us speaks Chinese. Does anyone here speak English?” Steven said in response.
The woman’s face took on a slight grimace, but she replied, “I speak a bit of English. Go on.”
“Thank you. I’m looking for a Captain Cho. He worked here years ago and I was hoping to find him,” Steven asked.
“There’s no Captain Cho, there’s Captain Bin now,” the woman replied, going back to her two-fingered tapping of the keyboard in front of her.
He turned to the room, looked at the others, all seemingly busy with things of much greater interest than himself, except for one old policeman. He sat at the lunch table, his chair back turned to the wall and a cigarette between his fingers, thoughtfully looking over the dark haired, non-Chinese speaking group.
Steven cut through the smoke-filled air to extend his hand to the man. “Hello, I’m Steven.”
“Captain Bin,” came the reply. “I took over from Captain Cho ten years ago when he retired. It was the same day as my fortieth birthday. I got a pay raise, a new party rank and a new uniform, and Captain Cho got a cake and a Citizen watch.”
Steven reassessed the man’s age, realizing the two of them were likely within a year of each other. “I hope Captain Cho is doing well?”
“Why do you hope that, Steven?” Captain Bin asked.
“Because everyone should do well in their retirement,” Steven answered, continuing with, “and because I’d like to talk to him.”
“What do you want to talk to Captain Cho about? Certainly not police work? It’s been years since he’s done police work.” Captain Bin believed in eye contact, apparently. Even with the cloud of smoke coming from the bitter-smelling Chinese cigarettes he was filtering through his lungs, his eyes hadn’t once left Steven’s own.
“I’d like to talk with him about my sister,” answered Steven.
That brought one of Captain Bin’s eyebrows up.
“You see, my sister lived in the building across the street fifteen years ago, and I’d like to speak with Captain Cho about her. I met Captain Cho myself several times when I visited her.”
Captain Bin lit another cigarette from the stub of the one he was holding. “It’s not Captain Cho anymore. It’s Old Comrade Cho.” He let that sink in for a minute, then asked, “What is your sister’s name?”
“It’s Julia. She is…was a jazz singer,” Steven answered. He thought he was getting nowhere, but when he said she had been a ‘jazz singer’ he thought he saw a light come on in Captain Bin’s eyes.
The captain rubbed his chin and savored another lungful of the tobacco held between his fingers. “I remember a jazz singer. Hers was not a happy story.”
Steven glanced back over his shoulder to where Benjiro and Konnor had escaped the smoke-filled room to stand outside the barred window.
“He’s too young to be her son,” Captain Bin stated.
“Yes, you’re right; he’s my son. Julia would have been his aunt, but obviously he never met her. I’m simply showing him some of what his aunt, my sister, did. The places she sang and the people she knew and who knew her.” Steven knew it rang just a bit hollow, but he hoped Captain Bin would buy it.
“I’m sure he’s very keen on that plan,” Captain Bin replied.
“Let me check with Old Comrade Cho and see if he remembers.” Captain Bin got up and walked over to one of the desks, picked up a phone and punched in a few numbers. In a moment, he was speaking Chinese animatedly. Steven was heartened to hear his sister’s name come up more than once.
After a short phone conversation, Captain Bin had relayed, with some surprise, that Old Comrade Cho did remember Julia. “Cho’s meeting some family for dinner after a walk on the bund later this evening. If you were available to meet him at the northern end, by the monument in Huang Pu Park, he would speak to you before he eats.”
Steven thanked Captain Bin profusely and offered to buy him tea in the shop outside the station before he left.
“No, it’s fine, but before you meet Old Comrade Cho, I must tell you, do not upset him. He’s quite ill. It’s these sticks.” He waved the cigarette between two fingers of his right hand. “They make the best coffin nails.” And he smiled, inhaling deeply again.
The Bund
Steven had no trepidation about the upcoming meeting. He thought Captain Bin had truthfully been surprised when Old Comrade Cho agreed to meet him; however, he also was sure there was a glimmer of memory from Captain Bin when he mentioned his sister, the jazz singer. If he had been around, as he said he was, when Captain Cho retired, it was likely he’d been around when she was killed.
Anyway, he was meeting a retired block captain, not a party chairman. Who knows why this guy agreed to meet him, but he was really glad he did. And in an area that was interesting in its own right.
The bund waterfront was unique and full of history. His sister loved it for the architecture and international flavor. It represented culture and affluence, as well as turmoil. In the early twentieth century it was the meeting place for an eclectic conglomeration of foreign interests in China. The exotic place to see, be seen, to conduct international business dealings, and to relax in an extroverted and opulent way. This came largely to a halt in 1950 when the People’s Republic of China took control of the mainland. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, with the expansion of economic freedoms, the area began to rejuvenate and once again became a hub for shopping, business, and tourism. This is what drove Julia’s passion for its hotels, clubs, and the people that congregated in them.
Now, years after her death, Shanghai was booming with individuals who, although they lived in the largest communist country in the world, were the very definition of capitalist entrepreneurs. While the government was still, without a doubt, communist, the people were relishing the small taste of personal autonomy given to them. They practiced new marketing skills on every corner. Not a block away from the old Friendship stores, craftspeople hawked globes, vases, and stoppered bottles, every one decoratively painted from the interior. Some were painted more delicately and intricately than others, but most were beautiful, and some were exquisite.
Another skill that, while maybe not totally new, was being practiced and refined, was price negotiation…haggling. As Steven, Konnor, and Benjiro walked up and down Beijing and Nanjing Roads it looked like everything was for sale. Everything that wasn’t obviously for sale was negotiable. The true foreigners, the ones that didn’t have black hair and almond eyes, were the primary focus of attention, but a Pinoy doesn’t look Chinese, and the three of them were seen as potential buyers as well for everything from glassware, to jewelry, and scarves.
When Konnor saw what he thought were pretty scarves he told his dad, “You should get Mommy something pretty for when we get home.” That street vendor followed them, proclaiming one-word adjectives for her wares for half a block, until they crossed ten lanes of traffic to get to the more park-like atmosphere of the Huang Pu River.
Once they were in front of the river, Konnor was mesmerized by the view across it to the Pudong area. “Can we go up in the tower, Daddy?” he asked, pointing to the Pearl Tower, which commanded center stage on the other side.
“We can sure try, Sport. We’ve got a few days here so maybe we should take a ferry ride on the river and go across to see what’s available,” Steven answered. He’d seen the oriental-designed tower a few times with Julia, but he’d never been across the river. He figured it would make a significant memory for his son.
“Are you going to try to get a photograph from this side?” Benjiro asked.
“Yes, but I wish it wasn’t so cloudy,” Konnor answered.
“I suspect that’s m
ostly haze from the city, Sport, maybe the wind will kick up and clear it out on another day,” Steven said. “It’s still a pretty cool view, with all the building going on over there, too. How many big cranes can you count?”
He watched Konnor’s lips move as he counted cranes. Steven had lost track, or interest, at something like twenty-five. If he leaned back against the railing of the promenade and looked back into the city, there were even more on this side. “Yep, a lot of construction going on here,” he said.
In Manila Steven knew what that meant. Lots of government planners, city officials, politicians and contractors getting rich. There were lots of palms to grease and roadblocks to make disappear. With any luck, the outcome would also serve the citizens, although that didn’t often seem to be the primary concern. “And at what cost?” was always in the back of Steven’s mind.
Who knew? Steven didn’t have any direct experience with China’s methods, but from what he’d heard aboard ship and what he read, well, they might not be much different from the Philippines.
Without a breeze, the stagnant smell from the Huang Pu River hung in the air. Like any city, Shanghai had dozens of smells. The particular olfactory pocket Benjiro was picking up at that moment, even about the river, was Sichuan spicy mala tang. There was a cart just a few yards away and the red peppery smell was making his mouth water.
“Hey, guys, did we miss lunch?” he asked Steven and Konnor.
Konnor made a face and said, “I don’t know if I’m very hungry. It doesn’t smell really good here.”
“You might find that a bowl full of mala tang, clearing your sinuses from the inside out, would remedy that,” Benjiro answered, pointing to the cart.
Konnor and Steven looked in the direction he was pointing and Konnor’s nose went in the air like a baby blood hound’s. “Maybe,” was all he said as the three of them wandered in that direction.
One Fish, Two Fish, Big Fish, Little Fish: Silver Dawn (Smugglers In Paradise Book 2) Page 9
