Reflecting the Sky (34 page)
Read Reflecting the Sky Online
Authors: S. J. Rozan
Like, I thought, letting us use poor little Harry as bait to lure Tony Siu and Big John Chou to us. But that was probably against any remaining HKPD regulations Mark wasn’t breaking right now, so I didn’t mention it.
“They did say you’d also told them Harry was on Cheung Chau,” Mark went on. “That the amah had taken him there.”
“How did Steven react when you told them Wei Ang-Ran was responsible for the whole thing, and what it was about?”
“I didn’t.”
“You—why?” A noodle slithered off my chopsticks and fell back in the box.
“What would have been the point? I didn’t have time for the whole drama, denials, family loyalty, all that. I was there to find out if they knew anything that could help, and to see if the place was bugged. I let them think I had no idea what the connection between Smith and Harry was, or why Siu wanted Harry except maybe to extort a fortune from Steven because no one would pay that kind of money for Smith, who he already had.”
No one? I thought, but didn’t say it.
“I didn’t mention L. L. Lee, but I did mention that Siu and Chou were triad members, in case Steven needed persuading to talk to me.”
“Sounds reasonable.” And since it would just about break Steven’s heart to hear the truth about his uncle, the longer he waited, the better. “Tell me about the bug,” I said to Mark, lifting the noodle again.
“In a lamp on the desk. Probably good for the whole room. I ripped it out. The sweeper will find anything else. I told them not to say anything in the flat they wouldn’t want to read in the newspapers until he’s come and gone.”
I chewed and swallowed a mouthful of bitter greens. “If I say,
good work
, will it sound patronizing?”
good work
, will it sound patronizing?”
“No.” He grinned, the scar on his lip paling. “But it would be premature.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s more and it’s better. I found the connection.”
“Between what and what?”
“Harry Wei’s kidnapping and Iron Fist Chang.”
“Besides Wei Ang-Ran getting him to make the phone call?”
“Uh-huh. I think I can explain why the Wei’s place was bugged and who bugged it.”
“You can?”
“Why are PIs always surprised when cops do something smart?” he mused, scratching his head theatrically.
“Hey, how do you know? You said you don’t even have PIs in Hong Kong!”
“We have some, just not many,” he said, mock defensive. “And anyway, I’ve seen enough American movies to know this is how it works.”
“Mark!”
“All right,” he said. “Remember Natalie Zhu told you Maria Quezon had a boyfriend?”
“Yes, and?”
“And, Iron Fist Chang had a Filipina girlfriend.”
“What?” I stared in disbelief. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope. That’s how Iron Fist ended up at Lion Rock. See, stick with me instead of running all over town alone, you could learn things.”
I considered throwing my noodles at him, but managed to restrain myself.
Mark went on: “Wei Ang-Ran told us he was recommended to his older brother, and that was good enough for him, but he didn’t know who by. Well, it seems he was recommended by Harry’s amah. The Weis all know him. Knew him,” he amended. “That’s how they got into the flat. The doormen had standing instructions to let Iron Fist up anytime. Steven said he was a polite, respectful guy, not overendowed in the brains department but always anxious to be helpful.”
“Helpful.” I tried to think, absorbing these new facts. “So maybe he was helping.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“Maria tells him what Wei Ang-Ran wants her to do. She’s stuck—she doesn’t trust Ang-Ran that it’s all as innocent as he says, but if she refuses, she’s afraid he’ll just get her fired and even booted out of the country. That wouldn’t do either her or Harry any good.”
“And Iron Fist goes to his buddies, Siu and Chou, because they’re smart.” Mark picked it up. “He tells them the problem, and they get a brilliant idea: They’ll bug the Wei flat and find out what’s really going on.”
“That’s not such a brilliant idea. The Weis don’t know what’s really going on.”
“But if you’re Iron Fist Chang and Tony Siu tells you it’s a brilliant idea, maybe you fall for it. And if you’re Tony Siu, what you’re looking for is not a way to help out your buddy Iron Fist and his girlfriend, because you’re Tony Siu and you don’t give a damn about them. What you’re looking for is an angle of your own. So you go up and bug the flat, and you knock something over so you set about making the place look trashed, and in the middle of that the intercom buzzes and Iron Fist, not the sharpest knife in the drawer, answers it.”
“Iron Fist—oh, God. He’s the one who let me and Bill in?”
“Looks that way. What could he say to the doorman after he’d answered, except to tell him to send you up as though everything was normal? Then he and Siu probably beat it down the stairs.”
“They were there,” I breathed. “They were right there, just before we were. Oh, damn. Damn. Damn.”
Mark nodded. “Okay. So: You’re Tony Siu, looking for your angle. You head to wherever your listening post is and—”
“—and you find one,” I finished for him. “Freelance extortion. You’re working it—me second demand—when the boss calls and says go find me this kidnapped kid, I want to use him for something.” I drank some tea, trying to straighten all this out in my head. “I wonder how L. L. Lee would feel if he found out Siu was freelancing?”
“He might not care, as long as when he snapped his fingers Siu dropped his own project and jumped.”
I had to admit that could be true. But I decided it was okay to harbor a revenge fantasy anyway.
“All right,” I said, “okay, I’ll buy every word of it. But where does it get us? It still doesn’t tell us, for example, how Siu and Chou knew to come to Cheung Chau.”
“No, but something else does. The Weis’ phone wasn’t the only one that was bugged. There was a tap on Maria Quezon’s cell phone, too.”
I just stared. “Damn,” I breathed. “Oh, damn.”
Mark nodded. “The conversation between Smith and Maria. He had to get someone to translate the Tagalog, or maybe he speaks it, but he was right on top of things. I thought of that—that someone might have tapped that phone—when I was setting up the taps on yours and Smith’s. I called her carrier. They were surprised I didn’t know: A guy answering Siu’s description came to them a few days ago with HKPD ID, a court order, everything. I have someone on his way down there, but you know that stuff was forged.” He added, “I was going to tell you that when I got back to my desk, too.”
“Bill thought of that,” I said quietly. “He told Maria not to use the cell phone.”
Briefly, there was no sound in the cabin but the growl of the engine.
“There would have been another way, too, if Siu had thought of it,” Mark said. “Steven Wei told me.”
“Another way to do what?” I lifted my teacup. It felt heavy and took effort. I realized suddenly how bone-tired, how drained I was. Maybe this was how a teapot felt when there was nothing left inside but old used-up leaves. I couldn’t think what Mark meant. “To do what?” I asked again.
“To figure out Cheung Chau might be a good bet. It’s where Iron Fist Chang’s from.”
“Iron Fist? From Cheung Chau?”
“Don’t look so surprised. Everybody’s from someplace, and a lot of people are from the out-islands. But that might explain why Maria picked this one.”
“Or she and Iron Fist did together. He knew a good place there to hide.”
“He knew one, but he wouldn’t tell his buddies. They tried to get it out of him, and. then they killed him.”
I thought of Iron Fist, struggling and sinking in the harbor water, and I thought of Bill, on a boat with Tony Siu and Big John Chou.
“And now,” Mark said, maybe as much to break the silence as to actually say anything, “they’re expecting us to find it for them. This hiding place.”
I thought: In the dark. At night on an island in the middle of the ocean on the other side of the world from anywhere I know. An island I’ve never been to, with a huge graveyard and a town with narrow winding streets and homes on the hillsides and schools and academies because there’s room.
I looked up at Mark, my eyes wide. I felt as though buckets of icy water had just washed over me out of the sky.
“I know,” I said.
“You know what?”
“I know where they are.”
Mark stared as though he could see the buckets of water, too, and had no idea what to make of them. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m crazy.” My flash of inspiration was already beginning to seem dubious. I tried shoring it up with logic. “Where’s the best place in the world to hide a little boy?”
“If knew that I’d have looked there already.”
“With lots of other little boys. If Iron Fist’s from Cheung Chau that’s where he must have learned his kung fu. There are academies out there, you said so. You have to start young and study for years to get as good as Iron Fist was. Bill was even wondering where the kung fu schools were, when he found out who Iron Fist was. He—oh, my God!”
“What?”
At first I couldn’t answer, hearing in my head what I’d heard a few hours ago.
“What?”
Mark pushed.
Mark pushed.
“Bill told us.” That was a whisper; I made my voice stronger and went on. “He told us that’s where Harry is. I thought he was just rambling, that he didn’t know what he was saying, but he was telling us! He said, ‘I should have trained harder. As a stuntman.’”
Mark frowned. “He said that on the phone?”
“I thought he was just rambling,” I repeated. “Oh, God.” I sank back against the bench again. “I must be the stupidest person alive.”
“You think Maria told him?”
I nodded. “She told him. And he knows. And Iron Fist knew, and he didn’t tell Tony Siu either. They—”
“Lydia!”
Mark yelled my name. I looked at him.
“Don’t,” he said. “Don’t lose it now. I know you’re exhausted. I know you’re scared, and right now you’re pissed off at yourself. But I need you to keep it together. A lot of people need you to keep it together right now.”
Not true, I thought. No one needs me. Who needs an idiot like me? Running around like a headless chicken, never stopping to think—well, Lydia, your headless chickens are coming home to roost. That was pretty funny, and I laughed. Everyone always told you to slow down, Lydia, I lectured myself, and look, everyone was right. Well, not everyone. Bill never minded the running around, he even likes how you jump the gun, how fast you move. I’m sure he doesn’t like being out on a boat with Tony Siu, getting beat up, but he likes how fast you move.
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, another, another. All right. So I was stupid. I could still move.
When I opened my eyes again my breathing and my heart were under control. I didn’t feel like laughing anymore, and I wasn’t tired at all.
Mark, across the table, was watching me warily as he spoke into his cell phone. He raised his eyebrows in a question and I nodded in answer. His shoulders relaxed and he gave me a reassuring smile. I found my teacup and sipped my tea; I couldn’t quite manage the smile.
The conversation Mark was having involved the kung fu schools on Cheung Chau—there were eight—and how to identify the one we wanted. He hung up from that call and made another. I listened as he spoke to someone at the HKPD station in the town at the center of Cheung Chau. They arranged things. Through the window behind Mark, lights floated by, not boats but buildings speckling a dark mass of hills. Our launch turned, heading left in a wide arc. I could see more lights now, and more hills. Straight ahead, a kaleidoscopic glow resolved itself, as we approached, into a waterfront strung with multicolored lanterns and lined with open-air restaurants and cafés, curving right and left from a large ferry pier.
Mark’s phone rang as a change in the engine’s growl told me we had slowed, approaching our dock.
“Wai?”
He listened, nodded, thanked the person on the other end. Folding the phone and putting it away, he stood up. “I’ve got it.”
He listened, nodded, thanked the person on the other end. Folding the phone and putting it away, he stood up. “I’ve got it.”
“The school?”
“Tiger Gate Academy. In the northern hills. Iron Fist Chang still holds some records there, in each age and rank category.”
“Poor guy.”
“Yeah,” Mark said. “Come on, let’s go.”
So much for sympathy. I wondered suddenly whether Maria Quezon knew about Iron Fist yet, that he was dead. I decided she must not: She’d have been too scared to talk to someone like Bill, whom she didn’t know, if she knew people she cared about were getting killed. And who, I wondered, would tell her? And what would that be like?
The captain in the glassed-in booth cut the engine as the launch gently bumped a wooden dock, and the cop on deck threw the rope over a wooden post Mark jumped out of the launch onto the dock and then reached a hand back to help me. I took it, even though I didn’t think I needed it: I can jump too.
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