Dead in Hong Kong (Nick Teffinger Thriller) (7 page)

“Positive.”

“A tattoo of what?”

“I have no idea,” Prarie said. “All I remember is that it was prominent and colorful.”

Emmanuelle slapped her on the back.

“Way to go, girlfriend. Come on, I owe you a drink for that.”

THEY HUNTED until their legs screamed and then hovered at the bar until they were able to grab chairs. They fought off men for a half hour and then Prarie said, “Oh my God!”

Emmanuelle followed the woman’s eyes.

She f
ollowed them to a tall man
, a
tall muscular man
w
ith long straight bla
ck hair and a
rock star face.

Totally GQ.

Built for sex.

“Is that him?”

Prarie studied the man harder.

“I’m not positive,” she said, “but I think so.”

The man ordered a beer and disappeared into the crowd.

“Okay,” Emmanuelle said, “you get out of here so he doesn’t see you. Take a cab back to the hotel. I’ll meet you there.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to find out who he is.”

PRARIE TOOK A CAB HALFWAY BACK, then got a bad feeling and returned to the club. She walked around for an hour and couldn’t find Emmanuelle or the rock star.

There wasn’t a sign of either of them.

She was just about to leave when an attractive man in a crisp white shirt grabbed her hand and led her to a roped-off area with four or five men and an equal number of women.

Pretty people.

Big jewelry.

White smiles.

One of the women kissed her on the cheek, handed her a drink and said, “Well aren’t you the sexy one?”

Day Four—August 6

Thursday Evening

______________

THURSDAY EVENING the shadows got long but the air stayed tropical.
Teffinger
jogged for two sweaty miles, showered, slipped into his best clothes and took the Metro to Fan Rae’s apartment, which was on the near west side in a nice but not over-the-top area He bypassed the elevators, walked up five flights of stairs and knocked on 506.

Then
he
held his breath.

Fan Rae opened the door.

Gone was her professional daytime look. She now had a short white dress, cleavage, high heels, makeup, lots of golden skin and a tiny tattoo of a flower on her shoulder. Her hair hung long and loose and freshly washed. She dangled a wineglass in her left hand, half empty.

Teffinger
had never wanted a woman so much in his life.

Well, that wasn’t true
—he
had
, b
ut right now they didn’t count.

“I didn’t know if you’d come,” she said.

“How could I not?”

Her apartment was small, but clean, bright and contemporary, with lots of windows, a balcony and great views. “Come on, I’ll show you Hong Kong,” she said. “Do you want to see the high-class Hong Kong or the raw and edgy one?”

He didn’t hesitate.

“Raw and edgy.”

“Good. That’s the one I know better.”

She linked her arm through his.

Then they headed into the night.

THE NEXT COUPLE OF HOURS were a blur. They ate ramen at a noisy, rough-and-ready place where Fan Rae knew everyone by name and the food showed up two minutes after they ordered. Then they headed for the bars in the high energy, sin laden Lan Kwai Foog district.

Kiss.

Joe Bananas.

Club ’97.

They all carried Bud Light
b
ut
Teffinger
drank
the
local stuff.

They got drunk and grabby.

Fan Rae liked to be touched.

She liked it a lot.

The insane heat of the day finally dissipated and
Teffinger
said, “You know what I could go for?”

She kissed him.

“No, what?”

“Some quiet time, down by the water, someplace dark where the waves break.”

“I know a place.”

THEY TOOK A GREEN TAXI and ended up on a dark, deserted beach, walking in warm water with bare feet in squishy sand. The lights of Kowloon shimmied to the north and threw a warm patina onto the bellies of low-lying clouds.

The temperature was perfect—about 70.

Fan Rae was perfect.

Everything was perfect.

“Tell me a secret,” Fan Rae said. “Tell me something no one else knows about you.”

Teffinger was half tempted to play along b
ut slapped her ass and said, “No.”

She slapped his ass back.

“Come on,” she said. “If you do, I will.”

“I don’t have any secrets,” he said.

“Yes you do, everyone does.”

“I’ll tell you what I’ve been thinking about all evening,” he said. “How about that?”

She laughed and raised her dress up just long enough to flash a white thong.

“That’s not a secret,
Teffinger
. Come on, be a sport.”

“What’s my reward, if I play?”

“Whatever you want.”

“Whatever I want?”

“Yes, whatever you want.”

“Well now you have me interested,” he said. “What are my limitations?”

“Only your imagination,” she said. “Your imagination and your endurance.”

He paused.

“Okay, but I want some payment upfront.”

She stood before him.

“Fair enough, what do you want me to do?”

Teffinger
led her up to the dry sand, took his shirt off and laid it on the ground. “Take your dress off and lay down on your back,” he said.

She did it.

“Wait, take your bra off too.”

She leaned up, took the bra off and then plopped back down.

“Raise your arms above your head,” he said.

She did it and wiggled her hips.

“It looks like you have me all vulnerable,” she said. “But no more, not until you tell me a secret. You can play with my stomach while you talk if you want, but nothing else.”

He tweaked her nipples lightly.

“I can’t play with these?”

“No, only my stomach.”

He ran an index finger in a circle around her bellybutton.

“Like that?”

“Yes, that’s fine. Now talk.”

THEN HE DID SOMETHING he didn’t think he would do in a million years. He told her about Monday night—how d’Asia had shown up on his front steps asking for his help, and how he gave her a promise. He told her how another woman with a blond wig attacked d’Asia in
Teffinger
’s own bedroom in the middle of the night, and how d’Asia got lucky enough to wrestle the knife away, and ended up killing the woman in self-defense. He told her how d’Asia ran off into the night, to go back to Hong Kong and meet things head on.

He told her how he should have filed a police report.

“But I didn’t because I live outside Denver in a city called Lakewood,” he said. “If I filed a report with them, they would have chalked it up to self-defense, which it was, and closed the case. That would leave me with no way to fulfill my promise to d’Asia.”

So he put the body in his truck and dumped it in Denver
n
ext to some railroad tracks.

He got jurisdiction over the case.

“Then I came to Hong Kong, pretending the woman had been killed in my jurisdiction and that I was trying to find out who she was, as a step towards finding out who her killer was,” he said. “All that was a lie. Well, not all of it. I am actually trying to find out who she is, but not to find her killer—to get a lead on who she’s connected to because that’s who’s out to kill d’Asia.”

He exhaled, n
ot knowing what else to say
, w
aiting for a reaction.

Fan Rae sat up.

“Wow.”

“I had no plans to tell you the truth,” he said, “until just now. I couldn’t let you sleep with me thinking I’m someone I’m not.”

She stood up and put her bra on
, t
hen her dress.

“That was wrong,” she said.

“I know.”

They walked in silence.

THEN FAN RAE STOPPED, held
Teffinger
’s hand and said, “Are you in love with this woman? This d’Asia?”

He grunted.

“I came to Hong Kong for two reasons,” he said. “One, to help he
r, because I promised I would; a
nd two, to get her into my life. Then I met you and now I’m confused.”

She squeezed his hand.

“I’m going to do something stupid,” she said. “I’m going to help you find her.”

“Why?”

“Partly so you can fulfill your promise,” she said.“But mostly so you can make a choice.”

Teffinger
tiled his head.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I don’t want to end up with you by default. If I end up with you, I want it to be because you could have had someone else, but affirmatively chose me. I don’t want any doubts and I don’t want any ghosts.”

She took off her dress and dropped it to the sand.

Then her bra.

Then her thong.

Teffinger
had never seen a more beautiful woman.

That was the truth.

“That doesn’t mean I’ve fully made up my mind about you,” she said.

“I understand.”

WHAT HAPPENED NEXT wasn’t so much sex as it was love.

Tender.

Slow.

Private.

Fan Rae hardly uttered a sound.

Her movements were reserved and calculated
, b
ut when she trembled, it was like nothing
Teffinger
had ever experienced before.

It was like her soul moving into his.

Day Five—August 7

Friday Morning

______________

KONG GOT UP EARLY FRIDAY MORNING and checked the sky. What he saw, he didn’t like. There were thick black clouds. That, in and of itself, wasn’t the problem. The problem was that they were swirling, meaning it wouldn’t be a good day to be in a light plane, much less a parachute. He pictured the chute collapsing and trailing above him uselessly as he plunged to earth.

He dived off the boat and swam out of the marina.

The seas were high
, on the verge of
frothy.

They were d
angerous
e
ven for him.

He turned around and came back. As soon as he dried off, the phone rang and Jack Poon’s voice came though. “Are you still in?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Be at the airport at ten, Gate-7. The pilot’s a man named Chung Fu Zhang. He’s a small man with a gold tooth, about forty. He’ll fill you in on all the details. Remember to be convincing. I’m in this to win.”

“Understood.”

“I’m serious,” Poon said. “Scare the living shit out of her.”

“I will.”

“Have you looked at the sky?”

Yes.

He had.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Poon said. “That’s really going to increase the intensity. With any luck, that plane will be rocking like a leaf in a hurricane.”

Kong grunted.

“Yeah, we can only hope.”

KONG GOT TO THE AIRPORT a half hour early and paced as he waited for the pilot. The sky didn’t improve. If anything, it got worse.

Poon.

How did he get so twisted?

One thing was sure, it didn’t happen overnight.

If Kong understood what was going on—and he was pretty sure he did—Poon had a yearly bet going with six or seven or eight other people. The bet was to see which one of them could scare a person the most and capture that terror on film. The winner got a million Hong Kong dollars, which wasn’t a lot, but was enough to make things more interesting than just the bragging rights.

P
oon’s plan this year was simple, b
rilliantly simple
, s
ickly simple.

Poon would hire the 22-year-old bombshell who was unconscious on his bed—Fion. He’d hire her for the day and pay her in advance, a good deal of money, and tell her to just stay at home until he called with instructions and told her what he wanted her to do.