Hot Poppies (28 page)

“We'll see,” I said. “Tolya?”

“Artyom?”

“Get me that gun.”

26

The gun was delivered to my room along with a bottle of eighteen-year-old Scotch ten minutes after Tolya went to bed. He had wrapped the Gluck neatly in a hand towel, then placed it in a leather bag. Gucci, I think. A room-service waiter brought it on a tray. I felt better.

In the morning I left a note for Tolya and one for Lily. The gun in my pocket, I got a cab and gave the driver the address that Tolya had obtained for me.

The house itself, when we got there, was on the top of Hong Kong Island. The Peak, they call it. Thick morning mist swirled around the mossy green mountain and, from the road, I could barely see the front gate. The driver, an accommodating young guy, agreed to park behind a stand of trees, the cab hidden from the house by the foliage and the fog. I went up the rest of the way to the house on foot.

Beyond a low stone wall was the compound, an elegant sprawl that consisted of two houses and a swimming pool, a detached garage and a tennis court. Slowly, I made my way around the perimeter, glad for the enveloping fog. It was early Sunday morning and I wondered if everyone in the house was away or only asleep. The gardens were gauzy green and gray, and when I got a better look, I saw that the tiles in the pool were green, too. Chinese green. Celadon, they call it. It looked like old porcelain. There was a pool house and a gazebo. It had Dawn's mark on it. It was all very expensive, and even the security was subtle. It took me ten minutes to find the spy cameras; they were tucked into artificial birds' nests cunningly placed in ornamental trees.

“You know how much land costs on an island like this?” I could hear Tolya saying. But Tolya was down the mountain, across the harbor, asleep in bed. Me, I was up here, like a burglar on the prowl in this thick green fog.

Was Dawn in there, asleep, refusing to answer my calls? If she had vanished, I would find her and she could lead me to Pete Leung. But I had tried everything, every number in Tolya's book, every contact.

It was only instinct that made me lurk there at the edges of the house instead of ringing the bell. Somehow I thought the house might give up some kind of secret. But there was only the silence and the beautiful gardens and the cameras whirring in those silly little trees.

“She's one of us,” the Russian hooker had said. “A whore.” She was lying, Tolya said of the hooker. All I knew was Dawn was a junkie and they always lied, but I'd known that since the night in New York. And when she had pushed her leather skirt up over her hips, I had gone for her like a dog in heat.

The ancient bronze bell-pull at the low wrought-iron gate tinkled faintly, but it was enough.

The front door flew open, and a maid in slippers and a pink bathrobe appeared. Arms piled with clothes, she flapped furiously towards the gate, knocking into bushes, shouldering them away imperiously. “No one home,” she shouted. “No one. Everyone vacation. Go away.”

I turned as if to go. The maid retreated. I waited two, three, four minutes. Nothing moved. I was getting ready to leave when I thought about the clothes. What was the maid doing with all those fancy clothes in her arms?

Making my way slowly towards the garage—it was a hunch, but what else did I have?—I saw a black Jaguar parked outside. The maid appeared and so did an elderly man in a chauffeur's cap with a suitcase under his arm. He stowed it in the trunk of the car. The maid gave him the heap of clothes and he put them in the trunk, too. I waited. Clouds moved lower across the peak; it started to rain.

The branch of a cherry tree poked me in the eye. Sweat ran down my back, rain dripped on my head; like a rat in a puddle, dripping, I waited. Something crackled again. I got hold of the gun.

“Private property,” a man screamed. I turned around. In one hand, the old chauffeur had a long rake. In the other hand, he had a gun and, as I turned, he pointed it at me. My gun was already in my hand. Somehow, it misfired. I never knew how.

The old man dropped his weapons like a couple of hot potatoes and scuttled back to the house. He yelled plenty, but he could run, so I figured he wasn't hurt bad. At least I hadn't killed him, but I was deep in shit. Deep shit Hong-Kong style, and it smelled nasty.

It didn't take much to figure Hong Kong wasn't the kind of town where you could trespass on the rich and shoot up their servants without anyone noticing. I ran like fuck for my taxi, wondering if the driver had waited. Wait for me, I thought. Goddamn it, wait!

He was there. I jumped in and, as I shut the door, I saw the black Jaguar slide out of the gates of the house. In the driver's seat was the elderly chauffeur. He looked healthy enough. I had missed, thank Christ.

“Can you follow him without him seeing us?”

“Sure,” said my cabbie. “Sure.”

“Then go. Go!”

The old man drove the Jaguar for about half an hour doing fifty. We followed. At a palatial house somewhere off a coastal road, he picked up two women. We followed the Jag inland for maybe another twenty minutes, keeping a distance. The streets got poorer, the apartment houses were festooned with laundry, the shops run down.

In the middle of nowhere—it could have been Queens—the black car drew up in front of a low building with a tiled roof. Two women got out. As the Jag pulled away and the women walked into the building, I saw that one of them was small but with the elegant posture of a dancer. The other woman was Dawn Tae.

My driver was antsy. I gave him some money and a piece of paper. He copied down the sign on the front of the building and the name of the street. He hitched up his jeans and offered me a cigarette, then got into his cab.

“What is this place?” I said.

“It's an orphanage,” he said.

Dawn was in the playground. The rain had let up. The sun was out. A dozen kids of five or six ran around, shouted, climbed up a jungle gym, rolled on the ground, jumped rope, kicked a soccer ball and tried to sock each other. Little girls pulled at Dawn's arms, kissing her. She kissed them back and laughed. It was a performance; it was as if she knew I was watching. She looked up at me.

“Hello, Artie. I'm glad you came.” It was the same thing she had said that night in Riverdale and again in Ricky's apartment. She said it like a mantra. Dawn's allure was that she made you think you were the only guy on earth that could satisfy her, or save her, or both. There was also her appetite for raw sex.

“You look well.”

“I feel better.” She introduced me to Alice Wing.

The woman with the dancer's posture held out her hand. It was small, soft and perfectly dry, the most expensive hand I had ever touched.

Alice Wing wore a green jacket and black jeans, but the pearls she had tucked discreetly under the collar of her polo shirt were as big as cherries.

“Alice takes care of me. And the kids,” Dawn said. “I needed help, Alice got it for me. I've been staying at her house for a while. But you probably know that.”

Alice put her arm around Dawn. “She's like my own.”

“Who are these kids?”

“Local orphans,” said Alice Wing. “A few from over the border, the lucky ones. The physical plant here may look a bit run down, but the staff is terrifically good. Well trained. Caring. Hong Kong has very good policies, very good facilities, like this one. I don't usually come out here on Sunday, but I wanted to check on one of the babies. Would you like to see the rest?”

“Sure.”

“Dawn will show you.”

I followed Dawn into the building where she showed me a school room and the dormitories. Road Runner grinned loonily from posters on the wall. The children Dawn passed chattered at her; she spoke to all of them. She knew their names. She had learned Chinese at school and in her parents' restaurant, a willing student. “It will come in handy,” she used to say, “when I'm a big tycoon.”

The masonry walls sweated in the heat, but in the nursery four nurses sat patiently in a circle, feeding the babies they held on their laps. In a large blue crib were three more infants. Two crawled and yelled, but it was the third child Dawn picked up.

“Ducks and geese, we call the babies. The geese are the fatties, the ducks are the skinny ones. I'm not sure why—ducks aren't really skinny, are they?” She bounced the child in her arms. “We'll make her fat too. We'll make her well. We will, you know.”

“So how's Pete?”

“I don't see him much.” Her tone changed. The smile disappeared. Dawn's face disengaged and became a mask.

“Where is he?”

“Away. Business as usual.”

“Can we talk?”

“Now?”

“Why not now?”

“I wasn't expecting you yet. I have some things to do. I'll call you tonight. I promise.”

“Yet?”

Dawn babbled on cheerfully. “It was a slip of the tongue, darling.”

“Then aren't you going to ask where I'm staying?”

“So where are you staying, Artie?” It was a charade, of course. She knew exactly where I was staying. I had left her messages and she had obviously received them, but I said, “I'm at the Regent. Call me. OK?”

“I'm glad you found me.” Dawn walked me to the front door. “I'm glad you couldn't resist. And Artie, darling?”

“What?”

“I'm thrilled you're here. But do me a favor. Don't go around taking pot shots at my chauffeur any more.” She kissed my cheek. “If you do, I might have to turn you in.”

She lifted her gorgeous face to look me in the eye and I had the feeling Dawn was what I was looking for. Volatile, impetuous, she was always high on something, dope, men, even this thing here with the orphans, and her fix, whichever it was, required money. Lots of money. In that split second when she looked in my eyes, I had the crazy idea it was Dawn Tae who was the Debt Collector.

27

“I am Ringo Chen,” a polished British voice said. I was in the hotel coffee shop when a thinner, younger version of Jerry Chen appeared, unbuttoned his natty navy blue blazer and held out his hand. “Inspector Ringo Chen. May I sit down?”

“Look up my goody-two-shoes cousin, Ringo,” Jerry Chen had said. “He's your kind of cop.”

Seeing Ringo, I wondered if he knew about the shot I'd taken at Dawn's chauffeur. But he only shook my hand, and said, “Sonny Lippert asked me to get in touch. How can I help you?”

A waiter appeared and I ordered coffee and toast and a mango. “So how's Cousin Jerry?”

“Jeremy has taken some leave. Also leave of his senses.” He tittered at his joke. “Before either, however, he told me about his case. He wanted my help. I avoided him, at least until Sonny Lippert called me in on it.” He was clearly anxious to put some distance between himself and his scumbag of a relative.

“Coffee?”

“I'll get some tea.” At the same time, Tolya and Lily arrived, Lily in a new shirt and pants, her hair washed.

She kissed me. “I behaved like a fool yesterday.” She turned to Ringo. “Are you from Hong Kong?”

“Yes, I am. But I went to London as a teenager. I lived with some relations in a place called Milton Keynes. Horrible place. The Chinese love it. You can have a big modern house. We don't like old houses, most of us.”

“And you became a cop over there?” Lily was curious.

“In our family, there had always been policemen. Jeremy was the hero. He became a heroic New York cop. To tell you the truth, I never liked him. His recent activities confirm my feelings.” The tea came and Ringo splashed some milk into it. “I never cared for London myself.”

“In what way?” Lily leaned forward, listening.

“When I was first a policeman in London, ‘Boy,' they'd say, ‘go and make the tea.' They called me Chink and Chow, they slashed my tires—I'm talking about London. I hated it. I hated the corruption. I could understand the corruption in third world countries, but in London it wasn't necessary. It was accepted, and I hated it. Egg the pudding, gild the lily, that's what they all thought.”

“Perfidious Albion, my father always said.”

Ringo put his cup down. “Was your father a policeman too?”

“In a way,” I said, thinking about my pop, poor bastard, a star of the KGB in his youth, him and his pal Gennadi. When they kicked him out I was only twelve. “In a way, he was. They're all dead.”

“What's on for today?” Lily asked Tolya.

“I'm sorry,” Ringo said to me. “I've been making chit-chat. How can I help you?”

“We have an appointment at some agency, don't we, Tolya?” Lily said, and showed Ringo Chen her picture of the baby.

“I don't think you should go into Central,” Ringo said.

“Why not?”

“There was a deadline on emigration permits yesterday. Sometimes it gets sticky.”

She tossed her napkin onto the table and looked at Tolya.

“Don't worry,” he said. “It will be OK.”

Ringo got up and walked towards the men's room; I followed.

“I can't help your friend over her baby, I'm afraid. It's way off my turf. She'd be better off going back to America.”

“If I could find Pete Leung, I could help her,” I said.

He turned his head sharply. “What's Leung got to do with it?”

“He helped her with the adoption.”

“You're joking.” He said it half to himself.

“Why should I be?”

“Let's just say Peter Leung's reputation is not as a warm and fuzzy chap. Still, your friend is obviously very well connected. The Leungs have a lot of power here. Very rich. Very social. Perhaps he's simply preoccupied.” Ringo was unconvincing. “Look, I'll do what I can. But things are tough, we're tight on manpower.”