Reflecting the Sky (15 page)

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Authors: S. J. Rozan

BOOK: Reflecting the Sky
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I sighed. Across the street, the three men were ensconced at a table in the back of the noodle shop, drinking beers and exchanging remarks with the tee-shirted chef. Well, we certainly couldn’t eat there.
But this was Hong Kong. And night was falling. According to everything I’d heard and read, we might have another option.
I peered up and down the street, and sure enough, two blocks on, where this street ended at another one, I spotted what I’d hoped to see.
“Well,” I said to Bill, “as usual, your needs come first” I headed up the block.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Bill said, striding to catch up with me. “Whose bright idea was it to come to Hong Kong in July in the first place?”
“Grandfather Gao’s.”
“You notice he’s not here.”
“Yes,” I said, turning to look at him. “I noticed that.”
The street where Iron Fist’s dining establishment sat ended at a curved and even narrower one, and if Bill thought Iron Fist’s place smelled good, he must have been in heaven on Hong Ping Street.
During the day this area was probably a lot like the one around the Lion Rock warehouse. The buildings were the same squared-off red brick or sooty concrete, with big steel-and-glass windows where there was manufacturing, small windows or none at all where the space was used for warehouses. But now, at night, something entirely different had taken over.
The guidebooks, and my mother, had told me about this: the night markets of Hong Kong.
Where I grew up, in New York’s Chinatown, they practically roll up the sidewalks at night. At least, they roll up the action on them. The restaurants stay open, but the fishmongers, the vegetable merchants, the jewelers and tee-shirt men and toy sellers all pack up their tables, their boxes, and their awnings. The ones prosperous enough to actually have storefronts pull down their steel shutters, and they all disappear into the night.
When I was a kid I used to wonder where they all went. Standing here on Hong Ping Street, I’d have believed it if you’d told me they all come here.
Red-and-blue-striped plastic fabric thrown up on aluminum poles made impromptu rain shelters crowding both sides of the street. Under them, hawkers shouted the virtues of wares mounded on folding tables. Strings of bulbs glowing with power stolen from utility poles brought out the garish colors of fake Calvin Klein tee shirts and knock-off Swatches. Women’s bright flowered dresses swayed from cables overhead while windup toys spitting sparks from their eyes chased each other across tabletops, tripping over cheap eyeglasses, rubber sandals, and painted teapots. From above displays of portable CD players speakers blared dueling Canto-pop and American rap into the crowd.
That was the scene along Hong Ping Street. A bit more to the point, however, was what was happening right here at the intersection.
With the market stretching away in both directions, a series of temporary fabric roofs had staked their claims to small sections of asphalt, each holding half a dozen tables set around a huge bubbling wok. The crowd of shoppers was so thick, even on this soggy night, that it was difficult to make our way to seats at one of these improvised restaurants. Bill drew some stares as we sat down at a table, especially from the four men already there, but staring isn’t rude in Chinese culture, and this was a good spot to eat in and watch the door to Iron Fist’s restaurant from. When the men came out I expected they’d head back to the street we’d all been on when they’d suddenly detoured for dinner. Bill and I, if we hurried, would be able to make it back there after them in time to see them reach the corner and make their next decision.
The young woman at the wok, her hair plastered to her forehead and neck by sweat, called over to us for our order. Bill finally got to light a cigarette as I took a quick look at the bowls in front of her, each holding mounds of chopped vegetables, fish, or meat, and shouted back. She dumped this and that into the wok, stirred as the wok sizzled, then added rice and kept stirring. With a flat paddle she scooped the mixture into two big bowls, squirted some sauce on them, and left the wok just long enough to bring them over. I asked how much, she told me, and I paid her.
In the U.S. you couldn’t have made a phone call for what this dinner cost.
“What are we eating?” Bill asked, squashing his cigarette out. The men at our table watched intently as he picked up his chopsticks. “Smells great.”
It did. “Fried rice with scallions, tofu, cabbage, and peas.” I tasted mine. The saltiness of soy sauce blended with a dark, mushroomy taste. “I don’t know what’s in the sauce.”
I reached into the center of the table for the communal teapot, the same stainless-steel pot as on countless restaurant tables back home. I poured steaming tea into a cup, swirled it around, and dumped it onto the street; then I did the same for another cup, and poured tea for me and Bill. My mother still cleans cups this way, the traditional way, in Chinatown restaurants; legally mandated high-temperature automatic dishwashers mean nothing to her.
The men across from us dug their own chopsticks into their own fried rice, resuming their meal but not taking their eyes off Bill.
“Well, find out,” Bill said, swallowing. “So you can cook this for me when we get home.”
“Oh, right.”
“Maybe your mother will,” he mused. “This is Cantonese food, right? I’ll just tell her how much I’ve always loved Cantonese cooking, and she’ll invite me home and ply me with plates of this stuff … .”
“Of course she will.” I patted his hand. “I didn’t know jet lag made people delirious.”
“No, it’s a good strategy,” he said. “I don’t know why I never thought of this before. I’ll convert. If I get to be Chinese, she can’t keep hating me, can she?”
“You underestimate her. If you got to be a Buddhist priest she’d stop going to the temple.”
Bill’s successful chopstick wielding did nothing to satisfy the men at our table, who kept watching him, waiting for the inevitable
gweilo
mistake. Seeming not to notice them, he ate expertly, lifting his bowl the Chinese way, managing the rice, the chopped scallions, the squishy tofu as though he’d been eating like this all his life.
It seemed to me his mood had improved. After such good fried rice, so had mine. I asked him, “When you lived in Asia when you were a kid, did you eat local food, or American food?”
He drank some tea, putting his cup carefully down. “We lived on Army bases. My father was never big on local cuisine, so mostly we ate some version of American food wherever we were. Asia, Europe, wherever. I used to sneak off base and eat local stuff with the local juvenile deliquents. It was always better.”
“The local juvenile delinquents were your buddies?”
“Sure. They were better company than the other Army brats.”
“Wherever you were?”
“Wherever.”
I had a lot of other questions about Bill’s childhood, and here, under the glow of bare lightbulbs in the Hong Kong mist, surrounded by a night world that, as solid and raucous as it was, would be gone by morning, seemed like a good place to ask them.
But they’d have to wait.
“Look,” I said, nudging Bill. “Iron Fist and his friends.”
The group from the warehouse was exiting the restaurant. They stood, cigarettes glowing in the steamy damp, and chatted in the street. Iron Fist turned to look at the market. He spoke to the others, who turned also. After some brief discussion, they headed in our direction, the big one looking at his watch again.
A nighttime shopping expedition.
Damn.
Surrounded by tables, chairs, and diners as we were, Bill and I had no place to go. Any attempt to get up and manuever out of here would surely get us seen right away. Our best hope was to sit right here, heads down, focusing on our chopsticks and fried rice, and hope they wouldn’t notice us and would just keep walking.
Right, Lydia. And your mother will cook for Bill when you get home.
Only Tony had ever seen us before, of course. If his attention had been grabbed by a blinking-eyed remote control robot or a Taiwanese pop singers pinup calendar, he might have passed us right by. But it wasn’t. What stopped him was the sight of a six foot two broad-shouldered American having dinner at a night market fried-rice stall.
And then the double take as he realized this was an American he knew.
Tony put out his arm to stop his pals. He spoke low to them. Iron Fist and the other one stared at us.
The other men at our table, seeing the fists begin to curl on this group of young toughs, shifted uneasily in their seats. One of them made his excuses and slipped away. Two women who had been about to sit at the table next to ours changed their minds and walked on, with one quick look back. The young woman at the wok glanced up sharply, her mouth a thin angry line as she took in the standing trio and their focus: us.
“So,” Tony smiled, addressing Bill but speaking in Cantonese, “now you come to spy on the market.”
“He doesn’t speak Chinese,” I said to Tony.
“No shit.” Tony surprised me with an answer in accented but completely understandable English. I saw Bill’s eyebrows rise. “Big man,” Tony went on, still in English, to Bill, dismissing me. “Hides behind boss, behind girl. Business with you, not finish.” He took a step closer.
“No,” Bill said, not moving. “We’re finished.”
Tony shook his head. “Who sends you?”
“No one sent me,” Bill said. “I was out for a walk.”
“Bullshit”
Bill said nothing.
The other three men at our table abandoned their fried rice and scurried away.
“Spying,” Tony said. “For who?”
“Maybe, for police,” smiled the guy we didn’t know. He was taller than the other two, almost as tall as Bill, and wider across the chest than I thought anyone could be without being actually fat. He spoke English, too.
“Who’s your friend?” Bill asked.
“Shit,” Tony said, slapping himself on the forehead. “Sorry, so rude. This Big John Chou. This, Iron Fist Chang. Myself, Tony Siu. Who the fuck you?”
Not a bad command of English idiom, I thought, for a Hong Kong longshoreman.
“I’m Bill,” Bill said. “This is Lydia. Does Iron Fist speak English, too?”
“No. Never can learn. But Iron Fist don’t need speak English. Speak kung fu.”
Big John laughed at that and translated it for Iron Fist. Iron Fist smiled too, but he didn’t look happy.
“Why would the police spy on Lion Rock?” I asked. All eyes turned to me.
“No reason,” Tony said. “Never stops police. Just to be pain in the asses.”
“We’re not police,” I said, resisting the impulse to point out that asses should be singular. “We’re Americans.”
Tony sneered. “So, American police.”
“Wish we could help you guys,” Bill said. “But we’re just nosy American tourists trying to finish our dinner here.”
“Nosy,” Tony said. “Damn right, nosy. Big damn American nose. You have enough guts stop hide behind girlfriend, get up, we break big nose for you.”
“It’s been done,” Bill said. “But last time it didn’t need three guys.”
Tony reddened. Big John stepped forward, put a hand on Bill’s shoulder. Bill snapped his arm to shake Big John off. He started to stand.
“Wait,” I said.
The woman at the wok was staring angrily. Most of the other diners had fled.
“Come on,” I said to Bill. “What’s the matter with you? It’s not worth it. Sit down.” I turned to the other men. “You, too.”
Slowly, Bill sat. Tony and his friends stayed on their feet.
“If you sit down so this lady can get back to making a living,” I said, “I’ll tell you why we’re here. Otherwise, if you want to keep your jobs, get lost. Wei Ang-Ran won’t be happy if he hears about this.”
I wasn’t sure Wei Ang-Ran’s name would have much of an effect, but it was all I had. For a minute it didn’t seem to be working. Then Tony signaled his pals, and they all sat down. Iron Fist asked Big John what I’d said and got an answer. They watched me, waiting.
“Order something,” I said.
Tony frowned. “What?”
“You’ve driven this lady’s business away. Now order something.”
“Shit,” said Tony, but it must not have seemed worth arguing over. “Beer!” he called in Chinese to the woman at the wok, pointing at his friends and himself.
I decided that was good enough.
I took a breath and looked at the three. “You’re right. We were spying,” I said.
Bill lit a cigarette. So did Tony.
“We were sent by an American company with an interest in buying Lion Rock Enterprises,” I went on. “What seems good on paper isn’t always good close up, so they wanted us to get a look at the place. Apparently it’s not a good time for Wei Ang-Ran; he said you’re very busy and he wouldn’t let us see the warehouse. Of course, he doesn’t know where we’re really from. We told him we’re friends of a friend of his. So we couldn’t insist. That would have made him suspicious.”

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