Reflecting the Sky (30 page)
Read Reflecting the Sky Online
Authors: S. J. Rozan
“Nothing less than a threat to his family would have kept my nephew from discharging his new responsibilities in the business,” Wei Ang-Ran explained. “From the day of my brother’s death I worried about this, that my nephew would discover the treasures within the expected furniture shipment. He is determined to acquaint himself with all aspects of the business, to not fail in his new responsibilities. Even yesterday evening, not long before you arrived”—turning to me—“he offered to come to the warehouse to help, as I told you. I told him his place was at home with his wife.”
But by that time, Wei Ang-Ran said, things were already disastrous.
Earlier he had enlisted Maria Quezon in his plan. At first she had been surprised and suspicious, he said, but later had given in and agreed. He had not told her anything about his reasons, only that he wanted her to take Harry to Ocean Park for a day or two. Ocean Park, Mark threw in for me, was a huge amusement complex around the other side of Hong Kong Island. There, Maria and Harry would stay in a hotel, swim at the beach, go on rides, and generally enjoy themselves, all courtesy of Wei Ang-Ran. The only catch was that Maria must not mention any of this to the Weis, and when they came back, must claim to have been kidnapped along with Harry by kidnappers who for some unknown reason gave up and ran away. The large sum of cash Wei Ang-Ran had promised Maria when the whole thing was over, along with a barely whispered but clear understanding about the flimsy nature of Filipina work visas, was expected to overcome any queasiness on her part about the plan.
“At first,” said Wei Ang-Ran, “everything seemed to go smoothly. The shipment came in, the unloading was going well. Because you were coming,” with a nod to me, “I had the idea to ask for my brother’s jade as ransom. That way it would not be necessary for my nephew to involve his bank, which might have raised questions.” He smiled sadly. “I was pleased to have thought of that.”
“Why send your nephew to the temple?” Mark asked.
“Only to keep him busy. Di-Fen must take action; he is a man of plans. I was not sure where that would lead, but to be practical, also to keep his mind from Lion Rock, I supplied steps for him to take. I had … other things planned. Had things not gone so wrong, my nephew would have received further instructions to be carried out.
“But in any case, by tomorrow morning all was to be complete. The shipment of treasures will have been removed from the warehouse. Di-Fen will be welcome there once more. Maria was to have brought the child home, clearly unharmed, even happy from his days at Ocean Park. His tales of rides, bathing beaches, sweets, Maria would explain as their captors’ method of keeping the child happy, easily controllable. Many kidnappings happen in Hong Kong; most end well once the ransom is paid. The kidnapping of Hao-Han was intended to end better even than others, because in the end there would have been no ransom paid. My nephew would have thought no more about it. Everything would be well.”
Except for a glance over his shoulder every time he goes out of the house, a clutch in his stomach every time Harry, and soon the new baby, are out of his sight. A tingle he’ll never lose, even if he forgets the reason for it, every time the phone rings for the rest of his life. Except for those, I thought, everything would be well.
“But,” Mark said, “something went wrong?”
Wei Ang-Ran nodded again. “My nephew called to tell me there had been a second ransom call, demanding a great deal of money. I called Maria Quezon on her cell phone; she did not answer. They are not at Ocean Park in the room I had reserved for them, under the name we agreed on.” He looked up at us, me and Mark. “You can see what happened. Maria Quezon is taking this opportunity to extort from my nephew a great deal of money for herself.”
If she were, I asked him silently, could you blame her? If Steven got wind of her involvement in your loony scheme, she’d be tossed out of Hong Kong before you could say
amah,
and that would be if he didn’t just have her arrested. The least she could do would be to go ahead and get herself a nest egg.
amah,
and that would be if he didn’t just have her arrested. The least she could do would be to go ahead and get herself a nest egg.
Only I didn’t think she had. And as crazy as this old man’s desperate scheme might be, the deep furrows in his brow and the trembling of his hands as he lifted his teacup made his fear and regret so excrutiatingly obvious that it was all I could do to watch the shadows of the mountain spine of Hong Kong Island creep across the harbor water, covering the sparkling wavelets inch by inch, and not blurt out to Wei Ang-Ran what we knew that he didn’t.
Which was, of course, that Maria Quezon, appalled by Wei Ang-Ran’s scheme, had taken Harry and run to safety on Cheung Chau Island, where Bill was with her right now.
I looked at Mark and spoke in English. “I don’t think so,” I said.
He returned my look, then stood, courteously asking Wei Ang-Ran to excuse us. Equally politely, as though he had a choice in the matter, the old man did. Mark held the glass door for me and we stepped into the hall.
“She’s not behind that second demand,” I said as soon as the door shut. “If she were, she would never have called Bill and asked to meet with him. She would have stayed lying low until the money was paid.”
Mark nodded. “I was thinking the same. What he’s saying fits in with what she said: that the boy isn’t safe, and won’t be if he’s returned to his parents. She doesn’t know what this is about. She must think it’s the real thing, that the old man’s desperate enough for money to kidnap his own nephew’s kid. So she can’t let Harry go back to where he could get a second shot at him. She must figure if she told Steven he’d never believe her. He might even toss her out for defaming the old man, and then who’d protect Harry?”
“Supposedly Steven thinks of her like family.”
“Yeah, but Wei Ang-Ran is family. In a pinch, whose story do you think would win out, his dead father’s brother’s, or the Filipina amah’s?”
“Poor Maria,” I said. So the amah did love the boy like her own son.
I was, at least, glad to hear that.
I glanced back into the conference room, watched the shadows of the mountains on the water, the shadows of unhappiness on the old man’s face. “This explains why neither ransom caller could produce evidence that they were holding Harry,” I said.
“Because neither is.”
“Right.”
“So the second caller is some opportunist who found out Harry was gone and decided he’d work the situation?”
“I think so.”
“Who?”
I said slowly, “Franklin.”
“Franklin Wei?”
“Sure. So he didn’t do the kidnapping like I thought. But the rest still fits. He gets here and Harry’s gone. He’s an impulsive guy, we know that. He calls in a two-million-American-dollar ransom demand, offers to lend Steven a million which totally diverts suspicion from him, and figures to end up with his own million back plus another one before the real kidnappers return the kid.”
“And if the kid’s returned first?”
“Then everybody can see the second demand’s bogus, but what’s Franklin lost? It was worth a shot.”
A cop on an errand hurried past us. He and Mark exchanged quick Cantonese greetings, and then everything was still again.
The thought struck me that this was exactly the kind of conversation I was used to having with Bill, when we were working out the possibilities of a case. But Bill was out on Cheung Chau with the amah, and I was here in police headquarters, talking things over, working out the possibilities, in a quiet hallway with Mark.
Mark’s eyes met mine. I wasn’t sure what I was feeling, and I don’t know what he felt, either, but what he said was, “I want to ask the guy a few more questions,” and he held the conference room door for me once again.
I went in and sat down, telling myself that working on a case was just working on a case, no matter who you worked with. Mark lifted the teakettle and poured us all more tea.
Saying nothing to Wei Ang-Ran about our discussion in the hall, Mark switched back to Cantonese and asked, “Your nephew’s flat had been searched before Chin Ling Wan-Ju—” that was me “—got there. Why?” He still spoke in that mild, inquiring tone, as though none of this were very important, but he did need to fill in all the blanks, just part of the job, you understand.
“I don’t know.” Wei Ang-Ran blinked. “Maria Quezon must have arranged that.”
That didn’t make any sense to me, and it must not have to Mark either, but he didn’t follow it up. Instead he asked, “I suppose you didn’t make the ransom call yourself?”
“Of course not. Anyone in that household would have recognized my voice immediately.”
“Who did?”
This time the silence lasted almost longer than I could stand it. I fixed my eyes on the harbor again, where the dusk-softened colors made following the movements of the chugging, sailing, streaming boats harder. I got the feeling, though, that, seen or not, the harbor traffic never stopped. Far off on the horizon, to the east where the night had long since come, a large military ship had set its lights twinkling. Mark sat patiently waiting for the answer to his question, and I sat, trying to be patient, too.
And when it came, it was worth the wait.
“Iron Fist Chang,” the old man said.
Kung Fu is an interesting martial discipline. If practiced assiduously from a young age it can develop the lung capacity and muscular strength that will permit a stocky cop in his thirties to outrun a fit, athletic private eye still in her twenties. It also can convey a level of mental control that makes it possible for a practitioner to respond with nothing but slightly raised eyebrows to news that can make a student of Tae Kwon Do choke on her tea.
Kung Fu Man shot me another look—as though, trying to swallow and not make a mess, I needed it—and said patiently, “Wei Ang-Ran Sinsaang, an hour ago we sat here discussing the death of Iron Fist Chang. You assured me you knew nothing about his death, nothing about the man himself beyond the fact that when he wasn’t working for you he worked in films as a stuntman.”
“What I said was true,” Wei Ang-Ran maintained, though he didn’t even try for a tone of aggrieved innocence. “I know nothing about him. My brother hired him, on a recommendation, as I told you earlier. I know nothing, either, about his death.”
“But you had a relationship with him that may have had something to do with his death. Surely you must have thought of that when I questioned you.”
“I did. But you must see that anything I might have said would have revealed my part in this terrible situation?”
Mark let a tiny, exasperated sigh escape. It was my chance; I sneaked a question in.
“Sinsaang?
Who recommended Iron Fist Chang to your brother?”
“Sinsaang?
Who recommended Iron Fist Chang to your brother?”
Wei Ang-Ran turned to me as though I had a perfect right to be asking questions here, and Mark, though he frowned, didn’t contradict that. “I don’t know. It would not have occurred to me to ask. If my brother trusted the recommendation, I needed to know nothing more.”
“And why did you choose him to make the phone call?”
Once again Mark, looking wary, stayed silent.
“I needed someone trustworthy. There was no possibility of involving any of the other young men. Two of them, as I suppose you know, are members of Strength and Harmony. They are there to look after the shipments.”
Mark and I both nodded.
“Some of the others may also be members, or they may not. But Iron Fist Chang came through my brother, recommended by someone my brother trusted.”
A good reason to involve the poor guy in kidnapping and extortion, I thought: Still, I knew what he meant.
Again casually, as though he were only trying to clear up some personal confusion, Mark asked, “But
Sinsaang
, if Lee Lao-Li was involved in your plan, your diversion—after all, the smuggled treasures are his—why not use a member of Strength and Harmony?”
Sinsaang
, if Lee Lao-Li was involved in your plan, your diversion—after all, the smuggled treasures are his—why not use a member of Strength and Harmony?”
Wei Ang-Ran stared in horror. “Lee involved? No, no! I would never have done that. It would have been far too dangerous. Oh, no, Lee knows nothing about this!”
Which was exactly what Mark had wanted to know.
“But Iron Fist Chang knew about your plan all along?” he asked.
“No, of course not. Yesterday morning, I explained the call I wanted him to make. I offered him a good deal of money. I assured him the child was in no real danger. I said … I said I felt my nephew was too lax in his attention to his family, that he took them too much for granted. Before the new child came, I told Chang, I wanted to make sure my nephew understood what treasures he had.” He slowly shook his head. “My nephew. Nothing could have been further from the truth.”
“And then you sent Chang to the temple, to make sure Steven did as he was told?” I asked.
The old man’s sad nod was more eloquent than speech.
It didn’t answer all my questions, though. I had a lot more, and it seemed as though Mark was going to give me a chance to ask them. What Franklin’s role was, and Natalie Zhu’s; what Wei Ang-Ran made of the fact that the jade we’d delivered wasn’t his brother’s. I wish, still, that I’d gotten to them, although I don’t know that anything would have changed if I had.
But I didn’t. As I was framing the next one, my cell phone proved that its battery charge was still intact, by ringing.
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