White Devil - A Beatrix Rose Thriller: Hong Kong Stories Volume 1 (Beatrix Rose's Hong Kong Stories) (7 page)

Chau looked around him. Beatrix had said that she would be here, but there was no sign of her. She had explained that they could not be seen together, but that, if he needed her, she would be at hand. He wondered whether that had been something she had said to give him some confidence.

Was she here at all?

Perhaps she had second thoughts.

Perhaps she had left him to his fate.

The boat emptied and the fresh passengers started to climb the plank and go aboard. Chau paid for his ticket and embarked. As he climbed down the steps onto the deck, he saw two men, both tall and rangy, looking at him from near the front of the ferry. He took a place by the rail, gazing down into the green waters that lapped against the side of the boat.

The engines fired, the mooring lines were cast off and tossed back aboard, and the boat set off on its return trip.

Chau looked at the two men and saw another who he recognised, walking towards him.

Fang Chun Ying was a similar age to Donnie. He wore a similar outfit, the one that they all seemed to wear: tracksuit top, jeans, trainers.

“Chau,” Ying said. “This is a surprise.”

“Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Ying.”

“Of course. How are you?”

“I have been better.”

“Yes,” he said. “I have heard about your difficulties. Your relationship with Donnie?”

“Broken.”

“Why?”

“He asked me to do something I was not comfortable doing. I leave it at that, okay?”

Ying smiled at him, but it was not a smile of warmth or affection. His eyes did not smile. Chau knew that Ying was cold and implacable. He was more intelligent and calculating than Donnie, but no less dangerous. One did not ascend to
Dai Lo
without the capacity for unlimited violence. Donnie made no secret of his love of brutality. He revelled in it. Ying was more discreet. Chau did not feel reassured by that at all. Ying’s reputation was every bit as bad as Donnie’s and, Chau knew, it was fuelled by burning ambition. He had designs on senior positions within the Wo Shun Wo. Incense Master or Vanguard. Assistant Mountain Lord. They were stepping stones on the route to Dragon Head, the man elected to lead the entire organisation.

The ferry bumped and bounced as it crossed a choppy stretch of water. Chau started to feel a little nauseous.

“Now, Chau,” Ying said. “You said that you had a proposal for me. What is it?”

“Your offer. Is it still available?”

Ying smiled again, his thin lips stretching upwards just a little. “If you are as good as I have heard, then, yes, of course.”

“I’m better than you’ve heard.”

He laughed, a delicate sound that was incongruous from his mouth. “Your arrogance is well known, Chau.”

“Not arrogance, Mr. Ying. Confidence.”

He allowed that. “My organisation always has space for talented individuals. Your particular skill is, of course, of special interest. Business is brisk. We would see that you were kept busy. But what about Donnie?”

“If that was no longer a problem?”

“Then we could certainly discuss it.”

“Your terms would be the same as before?”

A small smile again. “I will be honest, Chau. Not as attractive as when we first spoke. You were in a stronger position to bargain then. Now, though, you have fewer options. Your difficulties are not to your advantage in a negotiation. I believe I am in the stronger position.”

Chau gripped the rail and watched as a corporate junk slid by them in the direction of the island. “So?”

“Half of the previous amount.”

“Two-thirds.”

Ying chuckled again. “No, Chau. Half is my offer. If it is unacceptable, you can go back to Donnie with my best wishes.”

Chau knew that he was caught. He couldn’t go back, and Ying knew it. There was no point in driving a hard bargain when it had no prospect of success. “I agree.”

“That is very good, Chau. I am pleased. And Donnie? What will he say?”

“He will not be happy.”

“No, I should think not.”

“He will kill me if he finds me.”

Ying shrugged. “Then this discussion is pointless, perhaps.”

“No,” Chau said. “There is a solution to that.”

Ying nodded, inviting him to go on.

“We could remove him as a problem.”

Ying’s eyebrow raised, just a little. Chau had his undivided attention now. “Are you serious, Chau? Donnie is
Dai Lo
.”

“You asked if I am as good as people say. We can treat him as demonstration.”

“You will kill him?”

“And make him disappear. If no one knows what has happened to him, where is the harm?”

“I do not think you have thought this through. You want me to approve his death?”

“Not approve it. The only thing you have to do is tell me where to find him. Somewhere he feels safe. I’ll take care of the rest.”

“That is a semantic difference, Chau.”

“You are not friendly with him.”

“No. But what you are proposing is drastic.”

Ying looked out over the harbour. Chau could see that he was considering his suggestion. He knew, too, that his answer would determine the path that his life would take from this point on. There were no other cards to play if Ying turned him down. And, if he decided against him, he knew that there was a very good chance that he wouldn’t have very much longer to live. If Donnie Qi found out that Ying had been talking to him, in circumstances where their conversation could only portend bad things for him, he would take grave offence. Ying would not be comfortable with risking Donnie’s ire. The best way to demonstrate that Ying was not interested in causing difficulties between the two societies would be to deliver Chau to Donnie.

Beatrix Rose was on the ferry somewhere, assuming that she had been true to her word, but, even so, she was just a woman. A peculiarly dangerous woman, perhaps, but a woman nonetheless. What would she be able to do against Ying’s goons?

Chau’s attention was drawn down to the rail. Ying was drumming his fingers against the metal. He was reluctant to prompt him for an answer that he expected to be bad. He knew, for sure, that he had just a few moments of liberty left. He did not want to wish them away.

Ying turned. “Let me think about it,” he said. “This is not a trivial thing.”

“Of course.”

“What will you do in Kowloon?”

Chau exhaled. He found he had been holding his breath. “I do not know.”

“I have a restaurant in Tsim Sha Shui. The Golden Lotus. Go there and tell them that Mr. Ying sent you. You will eat and drink well. Be on the last ferry back to the island. We will discuss it then.”

CHAU SPENT four hours wandering the streets of Kowloon. He started in Salisbury Road, turned onto Chatham Road South and then walked south on Nathan Road. He tarried in the food market, the crazed open-air bazaar where you could, it often seemed, buy absolutely anything you wanted. The place was full of life, with locals and tourists alike jostling for space. The banter of the sellers was loud and intense, and the stalls were a riot of colours. He stopped and bought a lychee from a stall that also sold oranges, pineapples and coconuts, and gazed at the dozens of chickens that had been beheaded and plucked and now hung from metal racks on S-shaped spikes next to beef and pork. He allowed the eddy of the crowd to jostle him along the street until he was deposited before a particularly popular attraction. A superannuated old man, as thin as a stick and with skin that looked as thin and crinkled as parchment, was sitting on a rattan mat next to a large wicker basket that was full of snakes. He reached into the basket, plucked out a snake and, with a small and wickedly sharp knife, made an incision at the back of the reptile’s head. He tore the skin of the snake away with a single movement, discarded it on a pile behind him, and dropped the snake—now a gruesome pink—into another basket, where it writhed with similarly denuded brethren, ready to be cooked and eaten.

Chau flinched. It was difficult not to see the display as a metaphor for his own life. He was one of the snakes, waiting in the basket to be plucked out and skinned.

He wandered to the restaurant that Ying had recommended, but he had no appetite. He wondered, too, how safe it would be. If Ying had already decided to decline his offer, going into a business that he owned did not strike him as a particularly sensible idea. He would be taken out to the kitchen. Perhaps Donnie Qi would be waiting for him there. There would be no ‘apology’ this time. No amputation of his fingers. They would take their cleavers and hack him to pieces. No, he did not feel hungry. Not at all. He passed the restaurant and kept walking.

Chau looked for Beatrix, but he couldn’t see her. She had explained that they could not meet until they were back at Chungking Mansions, but she had promised that she would be close at hand in case the meeting with Ying went badly. He was beginning to doubt that. Paranoia? Possibly. But why would a woman whom he had barely met want to involve herself in a scheme that would involve the murder of a triad leader? The more he walked, and the more he thought about it, the more he thought it likely that she had abandoned him. What was he thinking? He was putting all of his hope in this one woman, and the only experience he had with her had been to watch her attack the three triads who had set about him. It wasn’t just naïve, it was foolhardy. She was a lunatic, and he had played himself into a position where he had no one to depend upon but her.

He ambled back to the dock and joined the queue of people, waiting for the gates to open. He looked around, but he couldn’t see Ying. He couldn’t see Beatrix, either. As he stood there, shuffling impatiently from foot to foot, he realised how stupid and credulous he had been. He should have fled into the mainland. Donnie Qi might have found him, but his chances would have been better than they were in this insane scheme.

“Move!”

He turned around, fear all over his face. He didn’t recognise the man behind him.

“The gates are open,” the man said irritably. “Move!”

Chau turned back and saw that the man was right. He apologised and shuffled ahead, across the gangplank and onto the ferry that would take him back to the island. Back to Donnie Qi and Fang Chun Ying and the short, brutal fate that destiny had planned for him.

CHAU TOOK the same spot at the rail as before. The lights of the city played out across the rolling waters in long painterly strokes.

He looked around for any sign of Beatrix. There was none. As he swivelled, looking left and right, he saw Fang Chun Ying’s bodyguards approach him. They stopped ten feet away. Ying was nowhere to be seen. One of the men brushed through the crowd and took the space on the rail next to him. He had a cigarette in his mouth, the tip flaring red as he drew down upon it.

“There is a place,” he said. “A brothel. It is in Tsim Sha Shui. The Venice. Do you know it?”

“I think so.”

“Donnie Qi has a girl there. He visits her every week.”

“When?”

“Tonight.”

BEATRIX TOOK the Tsuen Wan line to Mong Kok station. It was eleven when she passed out of the station exit and emerged onto the Tsim Sha Shui street outside. The atmosphere was hectic, a shifting morass of revellers piling into and out of the station. The street was lit by an onslaught of flashing neon that advertised the businesses nearby: the vast bars of Ned Kelly’s Last Stand and Bottoms Up, as well as tens of competing dives and nightclubs. She passed through a throng of
gaai bin dong
vendors, their brightly covered handbarrows loaded with an array of aromatic wares: skewered beef, curried fish balls, roasted chestnuts, congee, noodles and tofu. The barrows were lit by paraffin lamps, their warm amber glow filling the street and illuminating the faces of the vendors as they proclaimed why their food was better than the food offered by their rivals.

Beatrix had intercepted Chau as he had disembarked from the ferry. She told him to meet her in a bar that she had suggested and then followed fifty feet behind him to ensure that he was not followed. He had informed her of the opportunity to dispose of Donnie Qi and, after a moment of tactical consideration, she had determined that this was likely the best chance that they would get.

She ignored the mad display and followed the directions that Chau had given her. The Venice was on Portland Street, a popular thoroughfare that ran north to south, parallel to the main drag of Nathan Road. It extended through the districts of Yau Ma Tei and Mong Kok. It was a place where high commerce and base human nature existed cheek by jowl. It was dominated by a large business and retailing skyscraper complex, but gathered around it were massage parlours, karaoke joints, hostess bars, cheap restaurants and the brothels of its infamous red-light district. Girls paraded in windows in cheap lingerie. Signs in the windows promised a good time in Cantonese, Mandarin, English, and a host of other languages. Neon signs suspended above the crowds advertised half-naked girls, pouting open-mouthed at the camera, and the promise of live flesh.

Beatrix walked north, passed restaurants with names like Supreme Beef and Brisket and Yokohama Japanese. She passed the Portland Street Rest Garden on her left, crossed over Pitt Street, passed a 7-Eleven, the Sun Shine Centre and Galaxy Wifi, until she saw the brothel she was looking for. She paused on the other side of the street. She surveilled it discreetly, looking at its reflection in the window of the karaoke bar opposite. A large neon sign was affixed to the wall, with VENICE SAUNA written in flashing green next to a representation of a Roman arch. Chau had explained that it was owned by Fang Chun Ying, an outpost amid Donnie Qi’s territory. Donnie tolerated it. He patronised it to make a point that he was magnanimous.

She saw that the front door was wide open, with a large man just visible in the neon-tinged gloom inside. Triad security. The building was three storeys tall, with two covered windows on each floor. The street in both directions was busy with idling passers-by, plenty of them drunk and looking for a good time. She saw a loose group of men, their hair cut short in regulation buzz cuts, crew from the
Nimitz
looking for a good time with the Filipina women who worked the clubs. She walked on, the men staggering along the road to her left. She continued for five minutes, turned when the road reached the end, and then came back.