The Golden Mountain Murders (24 page)

He kicked at the sand, sending a spray of pebbles far out into the water. In the inlet a small boat ferried people to Granville Island and its overpriced tourist shops. The boat looked like a bathtub with a motor.

He turned back to the rock structure that he’d inadvertently smacked his hand against. It was a series of granite rocks that were balanced one upon the next, forming a rough image of a human. From the literature he’d read he knew that these were the works of aboriginals. He stepped back and examined the rocks. His blood stood out starkly against the colour of the stone in approximately the position of the sculpture’s nose – if it had a nose.

The sun glistened off the blood smear and he stepped away from it. Again, more inadvertent than intended. He shallowed his breathing and reminded himself of the need for patience. But his patience was running short. Loa Wei Fen’s ghost was screaming in his ear for revenge and Zhong Fong was there on the beach waiting for something.

“I found it.” Lily’s voice was tight, tense.

“Are you all right, Lily?” Fong asked.

“I’ve been better.”

“I’m sorry I had to ask you . . .”

She didn’t want to hear an apology. She wanted to hear that he was going to be all right. That the father of her daughter was going to return home safely. “Shut up, Fong and listen. I found the file on Loa Wei Fen’s death. And there’s something in it that might help us.”

“What?”

“The coroner completed the autopsy on the body then it was shipped back to Taiwan. There’s a notation in the file that the body was picked up from the airport over there by a group of people.”

“Who were they?”

“There’s no mention in the file, Fong. But Taiwan is paranoid when it comes to security so I’m sure there are video surveillance images available.” She paused, then added, “In Taiwan, which is not exactly our best friend these days, Fong.”

“Joan could help.” There was a very long pause. “You still there, Lily?”

After another very long pause Lily answered in her own hybrid version of English, “Now my ex me wants to talk to his new non-ex, neh?”

“Call her, Lily, she might know a way to get hold of the surveillance tape.”

Lily thought about that for a moment. Then she remembered the deep sadness in the peasant’s eyes when she told him that his wife had died and said, “Same number, Short Stuff?”

“Yes, Lily, it’s the same number.”

“Fong?”

“Yes?”

“It’s raining here.”

Although it was brilliant sunshine in Vancouver, Fong replied, “Here too.”

Joan had to ask a second time, “Who is this?”

“Fong’s Lily wife.”

Joan took a deep breath and tried to steady herself. “Is Fong hurt?”

“Not yet.”

“What does that mean?”

Lily was tempted to say, “Don’t talk like that, young lady” but knew it made her sound old. She switched to Shanghanese, “Fong needs information from the Taiwan security police.”

“Special Investigations has . . .”

“. . . a liaison officer, I know. But Fong needs this information now, not after days of negotiation.”

“So what can I do?”

“You’re from Hong Kong, dammit. It’s almost the same as Taiwan. Pick up the phone and call someone – now!”

Joan had to call four different sources, each of whom called two others. Then she waited. The ding from her computer momentarily set her heart fluttering. Then up scrolled a high angle shot, evidently from the open cargo bay of an airplane. The coffin with Loa Wei Fen’s remains was on a dolly of some sort. A very young woman and three clearly athletic men had their hands on the coffin. There was a fifth figure. An old serving man who pushed the dolly.

She waited for further images. None came. At midnight Shanghai time she emailed the image to Fong’s BlackBerry.

Fong sat with his back against the railing of the small ship that had attempted a northwest passage. He’d spent much of the day on the dry-docked vessel. It struck Fong as terribly ironic that the Golden Mountain only existed because Europeans were so anxious to find China and they had used boats like this to find the way. The cramped quarters of the boat didn’t bother Fong and he found the narrow access to the boat a kind of safety. From his position on the railing he could watch everyone who bought a ticket and came on board – and there were a limited number of tickets sold at one time which also helped him.

His BlackBerry sounded. He punched the Receive button, and up came the pixelated photo from the Taiwan airport.

Lily’s comment, “Only picture we have,” appeared then disappeared.

Fong scanned the picture carefully: a simple pinebox coffin on a hand trolley wheeled by an old serving man towards three fit young men and a young girl who waited by a black hearse.

Fong manipulated the scan so that each face filled the entire screen. He ignored the girl who seemed only eight or nine years old and examined the three men’s faces closely. But nothing jogged a memory. No face, even taking into consideration changes that could have taken place over nine years, matched the rogues’ gallery in his head.

He saved the image in a JPEG format then turned off the machine. The image dissolved irregularly with parts from one section disappearing to wherever it is that pixels disappear to before parts of other sections.

He put in a call to Matthew and within an hour was standing in the deserted warehouse with his “troops.”

Matthew had made copies of the BlackBerry image and gave them out.

“Oh, hey, the girl looks tough,” the Tong leader snarked.

Fong thought, this image is nine years old. She could be quite tough now. “Do we have any way of identifying the three men?”

The glasses-wearing Tong youth shook his head. “I could put the three images through time-lapse. Nine years isn’t all that much but the changes could be interesting. As well, I’ll do images with facial hair and glasses.”

“How long?”

“Seconds.” The dweeb plunked and scrolled and punched his computer, and out tumbled three images of each of the suspects. Everyone grabbed copies and stared at the faces.

“Now what?” asked Matthew.

“Robert gets his car.”

Fong helped Robert to his feet. The man was exhausted and clearly in pain.

“I thought it was bugged,” Robert said.

“It not only was, but it is bugged,” Fong said. “Now we lead them.”

“Into a trap?” asked the Tong leader.

“The art of war is very clear on how to do this.”

“I know. Just tell me where?”

Fong thought for a moment. He wanted as few Asians around as possible so that the guild assassin would stand out. “Up towards the Capilano swinging bridge. Have your people set up a roadblock on the way. The road is steep and only two lanes. There are parking lots along the side. Robert and I will lead them up; you cut them off.”

The Tong leader smiled.

Robert coughed blood onto the steering wheel. “We should take you to the hospital.”

“Timing’s not so good for that, Fong,” Robert said as he swung the rental car out into traffic. “Besides, if I check in I’ll never check out.” Fong was about to respond when Robert added, “Like a roach motel.”

“A what?”

“Never mind. So should I drive slowly or something?”

“No. The opposite. Drive aggressively. It will imply that we’re running.”

The yellow luminescence on the cell-phone screen began to move. And so did the guild assassin. And others.

Traffic jammed the way across the Second Narrows Bridge, but Robert kept his foot on the accelerator any time he could. His stomach felt like it was dropping through his body, through a pool of warm cancersoaked crap. He put a hand on his belly and pushed. The pain almost made him cry out.

Fong was watching the traffic that finally thinned as they left the bridge. Fong had given the Tong members lots of time to set up their fake roadblock and insisted that they set up a second.

Robert took the hard right-hand turn and headed up the mountain gorge. He was having trouble steering. His mind drifted. Fong seemed far away. The trees seemed beautiful.

It was the pale blue eyes that got the Tong leader. The itch he sensed behind them. The violent purity of the racial hatred. “You boys always dress like cops or is it Chinese Halloween already.”

The Tong leader went for his cell phone only to find the pale blue-eyed cop’s gun pressed hard against his right eye. “You can make a call at the station, if you’re real nice.”

The large force of cops behind the blue-eyed cop quickly disarmed and “uncellphoned” the Tong members.

“I should have gotten a call telling me that they’re set up,” said Fong.

“They called that they were already there.”

“Yeah but I asked them to confirm that both roadblocks were fully functioning.”

“And?”

“And I haven’t heard dick and I can’t get through to them.” A shiver of fear snaked down Fong’s spine as they swung around a huge bend in the road and headed farther up the gorge.

The assassin loped along with a simple elegant stride. His teeth were bad but his body was well toned. A ten-kilometre run was a nice way to prepare oneself. As he ran he sensed that he was not alone. He didn’t look but he was sure that Loa Wei Fen was running, step for step, beside him. Their every footfall in perfect synchronization. Two as one. He headed deeper into the forest and turned straight up the gorge. He checked his cell-phone’s screen – the yellow luminescence was indeed heading towards the Capilano swinging bridge. A fine place for a killing.

He returned the cell-phone, whose one and only call had released him from his waiting and set him on the kill, to an inner pocket.

“There was supposed to be a roadblock there,” Fong said as he turned and craned his head to see.

“What do we do, Fong?”

Fong looked out either side of the car. Traffic was thin but there was no way to turn around on the steep mountain road with the fall off several thousand feet on each side.

“Drive.”

Two more kilometres up the road and Fong knew that they were on their own. The second roadblock wasn’t in place either. Fong pointed to a scenic-view spot on the opposite side of the highway. “Turn around. Let’s head back.”

The moment Robert pulled into the lay by, two cop cars screeched to a halt, preventing him from turning around. Robert got out of the car only to find himself pushed back into the driver’s seat. “Nice to see you again, Mr. Cowens,” said Doug, tilting up his mirror sunglasses to reveal those pale blue eyes. “Sorry for the inconvenience, fellas, but there is construction on the road, as you may have noticed if you weren’t too busy and we’re insisting that people go to the head of the road before they turn and come back. Okay?”

Robert slowly turned the car and waited to find an opportunity to, once more, head up the gorge. Suddenly a hand smacked hard against his window. Robert turned. Doug’s face almost filled the entire windowpane and his lips were not hard to read, “Your taillight still needs fixing!”

* * *

As the car climbed it began to rain. Robert coughed and the blood from his mouth splayed on the windshield. “Fong . . .”

“Pull over, Robert.”

Robert pulled the car as far off the road as he dared then set the emergency brake. Fong hopped out of the car and came around to the driver’s side. “Does the seat recline?”

Robert pointed at a slider on the side of the seat. Fong tilted it backwards and Robert’s seat slowly reclined to an almost flat position. “Listen, Robert, are you listening?”

Robert nodded slowly.

“They want me not you. I was going to leave you at the reception centre. There’s no reason for you to be in danger.”

“Fong . . .”

Fong covered Robert with a blanket from the trunk then took out his cell phone. “Is there an emergency number here?”

“911.”

Fong turned towards the highway, wiped the raindrops off the cell phone and dialed. “There is an extremely sick man in a car on the side of Capilano Road not far from the reception centre.” He listened and said, “How long . . . fine. His name is Robert Cowens.”

When Fong looked back, he was surprised to see Robert’s head shaking from side to side. “What?”

“If they take me to a hospital I’ll never leave.” Then he said something peculiar. “If I die there I will never fly, Fong.” He breathed heavily, pain clearly etching its lines on his face. “Do you remember the kid in that song?”

“What song, Robert?”

“That Tom Waits song you hated. The one about the kid in the hospital and his friend sending him ‘down the rain pipe to New Orleans in the fall.’”

Fong remembered – he also remembered the image of the man jumping from the World Trade Center – and flying to his end.

“I need a friend, Fong.”

“I’m your friend, Robert.”

Robert closed his eyes. Fong thought about friendship for a moment. Then he thought about the peasant from Anhui and he reached over and pried off the bug – and shoved it in his pocket. As he did, he muttered, “Come and get me.”

Fong was running. Just as he had run nine years ago in the Pudong. He crashed through the brambles and tight vines at the side of the road and plunged into the dense underbrush beneath the cathedral tall Douglas Firs.

He ran and ran – ran for his life. If he could make it to the bridge the assassin’s advantage would be limited by the width and swing of the treacherous thing. He wasn’t thinking, at that moment, about getting the assassin to tell him who was the money behind all this. Now all he wanted was to live another day.

The assassin approached the parked car at the side of the road and looked into the eyes of the dying man in the driver’s seat. “Wrong one,” he thought as he circled the car for signs of Fong. He noted that the bug was gone from the side-view mirror. He pulled out his cell phone. The luminescent dot was in motion. “You want me – you got me,” he mumbled. Then he heard the wail of an ambulance siren coming up the mountain road and he stepped back into the brush – and returned to the chase with a seemingly effortless loping stride.

Fong was hearing things and he knew it. But he was hearing things! He dashed across the parking lot of the reception area and past the restaurant, then climbed a small hill and looked back. The drizzle had increased to a full-fledged rain. People were emerging from their cars with either umbrellas or their hoods pulled up on their anoraks. Both made it hard for Fong to see their faces – to compare them against the images in his head of the three guild assassins meeting Loa Wei Fen’s coffin. Then a sleek Mercedes pulled into the lot and out hopped three Chinese men in their early thirties. The rain didn’t seem to bother them.