Blown Circuit (36 page)

“Friend of yours?” the woman asked.

“I never saw him before in my life.”

“He seemed to know you.”

“Yeah, I got that.”

The woman seemed to think about it. “We’ll worry about that later,” she said. “For now, you stick with me.”

The way she said it, like they were already old friends, Michael couldn’t help but cast his mind back on how the evening had begun.

3

CHUNGKING MANSIONS: TWO HOURS EARLIER

T
HE
REASONS
FOR
Michael’s trip to Hong Kong were complicated, but they boiled down to this. His father had disappeared unexpectedly while on a business trip to China just over six months earlier. The official investigation into his father’s disappearance had been short but sweet, netting nothing but a one-line explanation and a death certificate. Per the official report, his dad’s speeding vehicle had plunged into a river gorge, and though the body was never recovered, it was determined that no one could have survived the fall. That was it. It was all Michael and his family got. When it became evident that no remains would be found, they had held the funeral just over a month later. To say it had been a difficult time for Michael would be to miss the point entirely. It had been devastating.

The news had come one night while Michael was cloistered in his garage apartment in Seattle’s old Belltown neighborhood. He had just gotten off his shift at Starbucks, the original store down by Pike Place Market, and was now at work on a proprietary piece of computer code. Michael had been floundering, just treading water for awhile now. He had no idea what he wanted to do with his life and it showed. His apartment, like his plan for the future, was a mess. He had done a double major in computer science and history at college, but instead of going to work for the Facebooks of this world he had decided to try life on his own terms for awhile. His own terms meant a variety of jobs and locales. No commitment, but no real progress either. With the code he was working on, he hoped to break free from the cycle of twenty-something malaise he found himself in. He knew it himself. If he could just commit to something, anything, things would work out for him. With this little piece of code, Michael thought he might just get on track. It could be something big. Maybe not Google big, but big nevertheless. If he could just get the application up and running, he had planned to present to venture capitalists in the coming weeks. Instead he had found himself picking out caskets.

Michael was fairly certain his father would have rather burned, but the lack of remains made the choice of cremation problematic. Both his younger sister and mother wanted a symbol, a coffin to lay to rest, even if it was empty. So as the eldest son, Michael had dutifully obliged. He picked out a coffin, he picked out a headstone, he even picked out the flowers, all while his mother sat lost in her La-Z-Boy, staring at the rain. The funeral had come and gone and Michael decided that the quickest way to get back to normal would be to act as though everything was normal. He rang up customers, he frothed cappuccino, he even presented to the venture capitalists, but as much as he wanted it to be, his heart wasn’t in it. They passed on the project. And that’s when Michael got the call.

It wasn’t a call really, it was a text, but its meaning was clear. His father’s death hadn’t been an accident. There was foul play involved. The message had come from a guy named Ted Fairfield, an old family friend and business associate of his dad’s. The text didn’t say much else other than the fact that Ted would contact him again. Six months later and here he was, half a world away in the back room of a broken down Indian restaurant about to come face to face with the person who would change his life.

“Come here.”

Ted Fairfield rose from the table. As always, Ted’s smile was as wide as an airplane hangar, his thinning gray hair tied back into a sparse ponytail. Ted opened his arms and Michael reciprocated with a hug. Ted had not only been a business associate of his father’s but was also his dad’s closet confidant. He was in his late fifties and lean and fit, his enormous toothy grin belying the fine lines on his face. Ted had always been there for Michael. When the news of his father’s death had come, it had been Ted who had brought it. Ted had been a pallbearer. Ted had spoken at the funeral. And Ted, of course, had arranged for tonight’s dinner. Seeing him now, in this strange place, caused Michael to feel a warmth he wouldn’t have thought possible under the circumstances, the warmth of family. Ted released Michael from his bear hug grasp, allowing a second man to speak.

“You’re late, Sport.”

The man was in his mid-forties, and though Michael hadn’t actually met him before, he knew this had to be his father’s business associate, Larry Wu—or as just about everybody knew him—Shanghai Larry. Larry worked for a multinational company that manufactured in the region and had also been a colleague of his dad’s.

“Take a load off,” Larry purred, rising from his seat unsteadily to shake Michael’s hand. “You’re your father’s son all right. Your father’s son all over.”

Larry released Michael’s hand, giving Michael the opportunity to drop his pack and cast his glance down the length of the rickety table. Larry was without a doubt the most formally dressed of the bunch that sat there, and judging from appearances, the least able to hold his liquor. In fact, Michael thought, if one of these things was not like the other, it was definitely Larry with his thousand dollar pin-striped suit and perfectly clipped salt-and-pepper hair.

As Ted made introductions around the table, it didn’t take long to realize that the rest of the group screamed of a wholly different aesthetic. They were younger, of course, but that was far from all of it. They seemed somehow connected. As though they belonged to some kind of secret club Michael could never join. There was a lanky Scotsman sporting dreadlocks and a pork pie hat who went by the name of Crust; a bubbly tanned Australian girl by the name of Song; a shorter guy with some serious facial hair and a French accent whose name Michael didn’t quite catch; and last of all, a low-key brunette who was introduced as Kate. It was Kate who sparked Michael’s interest.

About five-ten with a clear complexion and an aquiline nose, she was somewhere in her mid-twenties, her wide almond eyes lending her an air of sophistication that Michael couldn’t quite put his finger on. When she spoke, her accent was to Michael’s ear completely neutral, suggesting a solid Midwestern lineage, but something about the way she held herself told Michael that though her accent might be American, she wasn’t. She wore a rough cut white linen blouse, a long skirt, and a copper bracelet which seemed to be, as near as Michael could make out, yoga hiker chic. It was the kind of ensemble that would be just at home at work as it would be at play, but Michael knew he was applying Seattle standards to what was undoubtedly a very different kind of woman. Fortunately, Larry interrupted before he could gawk any longer.

“So, Michael. Fresh out of Chek Lap Kok, I hear?” Chek Lap Kok was Hong Kong’s ultramodern airport and, given its ease of use, a preferred gateway to the East.

Michael checked his watch. “Ninety minutes and counting.”

“Well you couldn’t have picked a better place to land.” Larry pushed a big plate of curry Michael’s way and signaled the waiter for another bottle of beer. “When Teddy said I should come out and say hi, I didn’t know he’d have a whole table of fresh faces for me to meet.” He looked around the table, eyes glazed over. “Now where in the world were we?”

“Malaysia,” Kate said.

“Ahh, yes. Malaysia.”

“I wouldn’t be caught with a lone spliff in that God forsaken country,” Crust said. “Those buggers will hang you for humming along with Bob Marley.” Crust must have read the incredulity on Michael’s face because he went on. “But the good news is, your gruel, the months of imprisonment during your trial, even the length of rope they use to string you up, none of it will cost you a penny.” Crust took a swig of his beer. “If, however, you were to step out of this fine city of Hong Kong, into China proper, you’d be looking at a whole new cricket match. You do the crime, they throw you in prison, and not only do you have to work twenty-one hour days vulcanizing rubber to pay your way, your family gets the bill for the bullet after the firing squad.”

Crust lowered his voice to a whisper. “I’ve heard from a reliable source, and not some gap year tourist by the way, but someone in government, that some of these executioners are such bad shots that the poor families end up paying twice. Two bullets. Sometimes even three. Best case scenario, you get busted, they imprison you in a munitions factory and your family gets a trade discount on the shells.”

Larry laughed drunkenly but Crust went on, “I kid you not, the court hears daily requests for imprisonment in armament factories, hence Crust’s number one rule for round the world travel: something goes down....”

To Michael’s surprise, a chorus sounded around the table: “Don’t stick around.”

As tall bottles of beer were toasted in the air, Michael reflected that this was it—the Circuit—the round-the-world backpacking trail upon which travelers of all ages and stripes met up time and time again. There were a thousand variations to it, but a typical broad strokes tour on the Circuit might mean working up the required traveling funds in London, catching a cheap flight to Kenya, maybe hopping a safari before lounging on the island of Lamu, then jumping to India for a stint in Goa, followed by a sabbatical in Thailand, or a brush with Bali. Circuit goers were ever working their way eastward for a little urban entertainment, which is where Hong Kong entered the equation. From there they might double back into South Asia, or head out across Siberia before refueling for funds in a suitably affluent Western land. It was a big world, and there were a million ways around it, but a good backpacker could always count on running into his cronies in the local hot spots, the ones only the other backpackers knew about. Michael had first heard about the Circuit years before, but he’d delayed actually getting on it until he at least had college behind him. Or he had a reason. Now he had both.

The Frenchman must have been about done with Crust’s sermonizing because he put his arm around him and said, “This man has been traveling for too long, no?”

Michael wasn’t sure if the question was rhetorical, but the Frenchman quickly followed it up with another query; one that was bound to come up sooner or later.

“So, tell me, Michael, where are you backpacking on our lonely little planet?”

Michael had already sensed that travel itineraries were more than a simple A to B with this crowd. What he was about to find out though, was how much more. He coughed to clear his throat, reflecting back on the Chinese geography he had picked up from his guide book. “I was thinking,” he said, “I’d kick around Hong Kong a bit, then ease my way north up the Pearl River Delta to Guangzhou, before heading a ways west to Guilin and Yangshuo, then maybe onto Kunming.”

The table lapsed into silence. Finally, Kate asked, “Why Yangshuo?”

“My father spent some time there years ago. He always used to talk about it.”

“That’s,” Crust said with little enthusiasm, “interesting.”

Kate sprung to Michael’s defense. “Lay off, Crust.”

“What? I’m talking about the route, not his dad.”

“So am I,” Kate said. “The Hong Kong—Yangshuo Express. It’s a great route. A classic. We’ve all done it.”

“Like I said, it’s interesting.”

“You said interesting like it was day-old bread.”

“Okay, you got me. It’s just that Yangshuo, so early in the game, I don’t know if Michael here is ready for its simple pleasures.”

Kate slid a palm over Crust’s mouth. “It’s a great route, Michael. A good first leg in China and Crust is just jealous. He’ll be getting his ass bit off by malarial bugs, drinking from tire treads in Tibet when he could be joining you.”

Crust rose to his own defense. “Not true.”

Kate didn’t back down. “Tell me you wouldn’t prefer to kick back with a banana pancake contemplating your next rub down instead of bribing some corrupt PSB official to sign your permit so you can set up your frozen teepee on the leeward side of Mount Kailash.”

“Kailash is in the Himalaya.”

“Hmm, banana pancake,” Kate weighed out the options like the scales of justice, “frozen balls.” She looked Michael in the eye. “It’s a good route. You’re going to have a great time.”

It was at that moment that Shanghai Larry, whom Michael was convinced had been slumbering in the corner, came to life.

“Great time. Fantastic time. Tickly-Boo like a pussy tourist in Patpong.” Looks were exchanged around the table, but Larry went on. “But it doesn’t really matter, does it, Michael? Because he hasn’t told you what he’s really doing here.” Larry pulled his shoulders up from a full body slouch as he stretched his arms high, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “Sport, here, has come to find his father.”

He followed his grand pronouncement with a belch before rising from the table. “Piss anyone?” A moment later Larry’s knees buckled out from under him and Michael knew in earnest that the evening had begun.

4

KOWLOON 0100 HKT

T
WO
MURDERS
AND
forty minutes later and they were lost in the neon crowds of Nathan Road. Michael had removed his bloody t-shirt and pulled on a clean white one from his backpack. He was running on adrenalin and he knew as much. You couldn’t be shot at, roll through the trash, and watch a man die without taking some of that with you. And right now, Michael felt as though he had taken it all. In truth, Michael was acquainted with violence. At his father’s behest he had trained in the Shito Ryo style of karate since he was a kid, earning his junior black belt at the age of sixteen and going on to get his first real belt and second Dan in college. Oddly, in the age of ultimate fighting, karate had a bit of an old lady image to it, but it was a martial art and martial meant war. It was meant to prepare you for battle.

That was the theory anyhow. In practice, real violence, the kind where your opponent wasn’t bound by a set of tournament rules, was a whole lot more visceral than any martial art. Michael knew this first hand, even though he often wished he didn’t. And so, even though he felt a strong desire to slow down and clear his head, now wasn’t the time and he knew as much. The police were no doubt already scouring the city. Given the quick escalation of the evening’s events, what mattered in the near term was that they get away.