Reflecting the Sky (41 page)
Read Reflecting the Sky Online
Authors: S. J. Rozan
Franklin smiled. “Her face didn’t exactly light up, like Steven’s and Li-Ling’s. I didn’t know all this at that point—I just thought, well, they’re Harry’s parents, of course, they’re more excited than the family lawyer.”
“You said she thought two things,” Bill said. “What was the other?”
Franklin looked at Bill. “That a long-term relationship with a ranking triad member had to be good for something. One of the reasons Lee was ready to believe I was Steven and I was making the deal was because that was what she’d promised him: that if he found Harry she’d guarantee Steven would keep up the smuggling.”
“How was she going to deliver that?” he asked.
Franklin blinked. “Well, don’t you think he would have? She’d made a promise on his behalf, for one thing. It would have been a matter of honor for him to keep it, even if he hadn’t wanted it made. But also, if Lee had actually found Harry, Steven would have been grateful, and would have wanted to show that.”
Very Chinese and logical: Grandfather Gao would have approved. I wondered if he knew it was possible to proceed according to Chinese logic and be insane at the same time.
“When you went to Lee,” Bill said, seeming less amazed by these crazy people than I was, “Harry was still missing.”
“Yes. I didn’t know what had happened to him, but that detective—Quan?—said the cops were looking for him, because of the trade for you. If they were, I had to think he’d be better off if Lee wasn’t. I wasn’t sure I was doing you any favors,” he added apologetically, to Bill, “but a kid … I mean … anyway, I hope I didn’t make it any worse.”
Bill shook his head and drank his beer.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay. Every last one of you is nuts, it must be a Wei family thing. But listen: What were you planning to do once it was over and Lee expected Steven to keep smuggling and Steven had no idea what he was talking about? Because Steven really has no idea, does he?” I thought of Steven Wei’s relaxed and smiling face in the garden at Tiger Gate Academy, a face that was the sunny, daytime mirror of the pale, shadowed one I sat across from right now. Steven really believed the story Maria Quezon had handed him. Steven really knew nothing about his uncle’s involvement in his son’s kidnapping. Steven really had no clue.
Franklin said nothing, but Bill did. “That’s what the press conference was for. You’ve exposed the whole thing and laid it on yourself. Steven won’t have to know about Ang-Ran—the kidnapping or even the smuggling—and Lion Rock is useless now to L. L. Lee. If he saw you on TV, he’ll know he was had. Why didn’t you mention him or Strength and Harmony by name?”
“Tomorrow,” I said. “You said you’d give the authorities details tomorrow.”
Franklin smiled and swirled his whisky. “American melodrama,” he said. “I couldn’t resist it.”
“Franklin,” I said, “you may not have thought about this, but what you just did isn’t going to make L. L. Lee very happy.”
“I have that under control.”
“How?”
Franklin looked out the window at the clouded moon, and then back at me and Bill for a very long time. “Listen,” he finally said, “I’m exhausted. You must be too. You especially,” he said to Bill. “I really don’t want to talk anymore right now. Come over in the morning, I’ll give you the rest.”
“You need a bodyguard,” I said. “Bill and I are both trained and experienced at that. We—”
“No,” Franklin said.
“Franklin—”
“It’s the Peninsula,” he said. “Nobody’s going to come blasting down my door at the Peninsula.”
“We’re staying.”
“I’ll call security,” Franklin said. “I’ll have you thrown out.” He stood, a little shakily, it seemed to me, from all that Scotch. He plugged one of the phones back in and started to punch buttons.
“Franklin—” I tried again.
He paused, then put the phone to his ear.
“No,” I said. “No, you win.” If security came to throw us out they’d also make sure we couldn’t get within two blocks of the hotel in any direction. That wouldn’t help at all.
I stood. “Franklin, you’re crazy. This is Hong Kong. You can’t do things like this here.”
“Sorry,” Franklin told the phone. “My mistake.” He lowered the receiver and unplugged the phone again. “Hong Kong,” he said. He stared for a moment out the window at the two moons, the two neon skylines. Then he turned to me. “Hong Kong. Didn’t you just get here more or less the same day I did?”
“Yes, but—”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“I don’t think so.”
“You’re wrong. Now go.”
He crossed the thick carpet, opened the door, stood waiting for us to leave. Without a choice, we left.
We didn’t go far. My first thought was to stay in the hallway, planted like soldiers on either side of Franklin’s door, but hotel security wouldn’t have been happy with that either. What we did was to go back down to the lobby, where, on a maroon expanse of Oriental carpet among two-story columns with ornate tops, the Peninsula’s famous tearoom became, at this hour, the Peninsula’s famous lobby bar.
Not that a bar was what either Bill or I needed right then. I ordered tea and Bill ordered coffee and I called Mark Quan.
“
Wai?
” This was a hoarse and sleepy Mark, and I felt bad for waking him as I obviously had, but some things can’t be helped.
Wai?
” This was a hoarse and sleepy Mark, and I felt bad for waking him as I obviously had, but some things can’t be helped.
“It’s Lydia.”
“Lydia? What the hell’s wrong? I just got to sleep an hour ago. Are you—?”
“I’m sorry, Mark. But there’s a big problem.” I gave him a fast rundown of Franklin Wei’s press conference.
“This isn’t happening.”
I knew how he felt. “Bill and I were just up in his room, but he threw us out. He thinks he’s safe here. It’s true the desk won’t give out his room number and he’s probably smart enough not to open his door, but I don’t think that’s enough if he’s pissed off L. L. Lee.”
“No,” Mark said, completely awake now, his voice both urgent and unbelieving. “It’s not. He’s totally crazy. Everyone in that family is totally crazy. Okay. It’ll take me twenty minutes to get down there. I’ll call in a couple of cars to get the entrances watched. Maybe nothing will happen this fast. When I get there I’ll arrest him.”
“You’ll arrest him?”
“He confessed to a crime, didn’t he? At least he’ll be safe with us.”
“Can you get him kicked out of Hong Kong—shipped back to the U.S.?”
Mark sighed. “I doubt it. You and I know he’s lying about being the brains behind this, but the government isn’t going to think it’s funny. A lot of people are going to want to talk to him. How long ago was this thing televised?”
“Maybe half an hour.”
“Guaranteed there’s screaming and yelling all over headquarters right now. Give them another half hour, I’d be surprised if the cops I send are the only ones who show up.”
They weren’t, though they were first. Within three minutes a glance out the stately front doors showed me a patrol car firmly ensconced in the Peninsula’s curving driveway. The driver politely and completely refused the doorman’s, and then the night manager’s, requests to remove to somewhere where he wouldn’t make the guests nervous.
Leaving Bill in the bar where he could watch the grand staircase and the elevators, I strolled to the back and side entrances. They were covered too. Well, all right: No one was going to enter the Peninsula in the next half hour who was either known to the police or was particularly concerned about becoming known. That should buy enough time for Mark to get here, and then at least Franklin Wei would be safely in police custody. At that point, from what Mark said, Franklin’s troubles would be just beginning, but this was, after all, his own bright idea.
A pair of plainclothes detectives, badges on their hips, strode into the lobby about twenty minutes later. A little discussion with the desk clerks and then with the increasingly distressed-looking night manager, a little flashing of the badges, and they got what they wanted, which was obviously Franklin’s room number. They headed for the elevator in the reluctant company of the night manager. This was good if they were real cops, not good if they were Strength and Harmony ringers. Bill and I stood to follow them, though what use we’d be if these were the bad guys I wasn’t sure. But we didn’t have to find out. Before they got to the elevator or we got to them, Mark himself pushed through the Peninsula’s revolving door.
He saw the detectives crossing the lobby and called to them. They stopped and waited for him and the three of them had a brief discussion, which the night manager listened to with growing dismay on his face. They started for the elevator again. Bill and I joined them in time to hear the taller of the two detectives say, “I guess we should have known this one was yours, Quan. The guy’s crazy.”
Okay, so they were real cops. Mark gave him the Chinese chin-jut and introduced Bill and me to them. The elevator door opened and we all got in.
“Civilians?” the tall detective said significantly, but he got no answer from Mark. I just smiled, faced front, and watched the numbers light up. The cops were speaking Cantonese, so Bill had no idea what was going on, but on the other hand, they had no idea why his face looked the way it did, so I guessed they were even.
At the seventh floor we all followed the night manager down the hall to Franklin’s room. Mark knocked, identified himself, knocked again, waited. Franklin didn’t answer. One more knock; Mark told me and Bill to stay back. He and the other cops pulled out their guns. The night manager looked as though he wanted to run to the lifeboats. But this was his ship and he stayed on the bridge. He produced a key and unlocked Franklin’s door.
The cops swept in. In the carpeted hall I waited: for a shout, a shot, a loud fight, a quiet arrest. But there was nothing, because Franklin wasn’t there.
The three cops made a survey of every inch of the room and were out in half a minute. As we charged down the hall Mark yanked out his cell phone and started barking orders at the cops in the cars outside. No one even thought about the elevator except the night manager, who stopped there and then watched openmouthed as the rest of us swept by him to the stairs.
Bill couldn’t run; he was being left behind. He yelled Mark’s name. Mark turned. “Alone,” Bill shouted down the carpeted corridor. “Somewhere deserted and alone.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, and at first it seemed as though Mark, stopped still in the corridor, wasn’t either. Then Mark’s eyes widened. He nodded and took off.
When we hit the lobby the other detectives each headed to a side door. Mark took the front and I went with him.
The patrol car was gone from the front, sweeping the area as Mark had ordered. Mark stopped outside just briefly, then ran forward again. I chased after him.
We crossed the busy avenue in front of the Peninsula, Mark ordering me to go back inside and then, when that didn’t work, grabbing my arm to at least keep me from dashing across the street against traffic. When we finally got to the other side Mark sped across the plaza, zigzagging his way among the Cultural Center buildings. I followed, under shadowy bridges and beside high blank walls, until we burst onto the harborfront promenade where I had stood wordless next to Bill at my first sight of the Hong Kong skyline.
Without stopping Mark headed left, along the promenade, away from the ferry. Away from everything, I realized as I ran after him. Strolling families and fried-dough vendors became fewer, the tiled promenade narrower and emptier. A few hand-holding couples here, a pair of night fishermen there. The air was hot and thick. My breath began to burn in my chest. My tired legs pumped, feet slamming the tiles, but I was well behind Mark when I spotted Franklin Wei, far up ahead.
Franklin leaned on the railing gazing across the harbor at the glittering neon skyline. On the black water fishing boats and sampans cut white lines across the city’s shimmering reflection. Above the blazing neon, a thick dark cloud shrouded the Peak, cutting it off from the rest of Hong Kong.
“Franklin Wei!” Mark shouted as he ran.
Franklin didn’t turn, didn’t move. He just stood there, staring across the harbor. And when a figure stepped from the shadows much closer to him than Mark or I, raised his arm, and, in Tony Siu’s voice, called Franklin’s Chinese name—“Wei Fu-Ran!”—he didn’t move then, either.
Mark shouted a warning. Siu spun toward us. The gun in his hand glinted. Mark hit the tiles and so did I.
A bullet screamed over our heads. Mark fired back; his shot flew useless into the night. Siu turned back to his business, to Franklin. He fired. Franklin jerked forward into the railing. Another shot. Now Franklin half turned. I couldn’t see his eyes; I don’t know what he saw, what was reflected in them. He slumped slowly to the ground and didn’t move again.
Tony Siu, his work done, raced away along the waterfront. Mark jumped to his feet and sped after him. I heard another pair of shots, but neither figure stopped. Siu turned, charged down a walkway that would take him back to the crowded, frantic streets of Kowloon. He was far ahead, running as fast as Mark.
I stood and ran again too, hesitating when I reached the place where Franklin lay. But I couldn’t help Mark: I had no gun, I didn’t know the streets, didn’t know the shortcuts or the hiding places, the merchants or the landlords. I didn’t know anything, here, in Hong Kong.
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