Reflecting the Sky (31 page)

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Authors: S. J. Rozan

BOOK: Reflecting the Sky
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A small part of my brain noticed that my phone’s shrill chirp got as much of a reaction from Mark as from me, and was gratified. The rest of me was occupied by the plunge into my bag to retrieve the thing and the slapping of it onto my ear.
“Wai!
I mean, hello!” I shouted. I felt a flood of hopeful relief. This must be Bill. He must be all right: What could have happened, since the danger to Harry had all been made up? The rest of this, everything else we didn’t understand, could be sorted out at leisure now that the really important part—restoring Harry to his family—was about to be taken care of.
But it wasn’t Bill.
It was a woman’s soft voice, speaking in English accented with something that wasn’t Chinese. She asked for me.
“This is Lydia Chin,” I said.
Before I could say anything else, she went on in a hurried whisper: “Your friend. I think your friend is in trouble.”
“Who is this? What do you mean, trouble?” I mashed the phone harder against my ear, as though that would help me understand.
“I am Maria Quezon. He tell me to call you. He say you know where he go and why.”
“I do.”
Mark had leaned across the table when he’d heard me say
trouble
. His hand stuck out, as though to grab my phone and plaster it to his own ear. I shot him a warning look and said, “What happened?”
“Your friend, we talk. He … advise me. Then he see two men. Tony, he say to tell you, and the big one. They watch us drink coffee but do not come to talk. Your friend tell me, go out the back, go away. He go talk to them. He say, if he don’t come meet me, I call you. He do not come.”
“Where are you?”
Carefully, she said, “At the harbor, along Praya Street on Cheung Chau Island, is where he see the men.”
“You didn’t see where they went?”
“No. I run away, like he say to do.”
“Where are you now?”
A pause. Then, “I cannot say.”
“Is Harry with you?”
Desperately: “You must see. Your friend, he seem like a good man, but I do not know him. I do not know you. My Harry—”
“Maria,” I said urgently. “I know what happened. I know about Harry’s great-uncle, and that you took Harry away to keep him safe. But that’s all over now; the danger is past. You can come back.”
She paused. Then, “Your friend,” she said, “he tell me to run away. These men, they frighten me. I think they frighten him, too, but he go to them, he do not run away with me. They are danger. Maybe he is danger too. I do not know you. I do not tell you where I am.” Her voice, soft as it was, was firm. I suddenly thought of my mother, turning down with calm finality the pleas of all her five children to be allowed to go play in the park if we promised to finish our homework
after
dinner.
And I couldn’t argue with Maria Quezon. Tony Siu and Big John Chou seemed like dangerous men to me, too. I stared across the water at the yellow lights stringing the Kowloon waterfront.
Mark reached out for the phone again, and I realized the room had gone silent. I spun away from him and said, “Maria? Maria, give me your cell phone number.”
“Your friend tell me don’t use the cell phone. He tell me, don’t use no phone more than once.”
Now it was my voice that sounded desperate. Part of me listened to it, the higher pitch, the rapid words. “Maria, I have to be able to keep in touch with you. It’s important.”
“Yes,” she finally said. “Yes. I call again.”
The phone went silent in my ear.
 
I slowly lowered it as Mark demanded, “Lydia? What the hell’s going on?”
“That was Maria.” I spoke in English, as he had. “Tony Siu and Big John Chou showed up on Cheung Chau. Bill kept them busy while she escaped. They were supposed to meet up, but she hasn’t seen him since.”
I heard my voice, composed, reporting, and marveled at it; I saw myself, as if from across the room, fold the phone and clip it to my belt. It was closer, there, than in my bag, for next time I needed it. I noticed Wei Ang-Ran’s puzzled look, and thought, he must be waiting for someone to explain this to him; he doesn’t speak English.
“Lydia? Lydia!” Mark’s hand hit the table. The slap rang, the table shook. “What else? Where did they go? Where’s the boy?”
Startled, I stared at him. The Kowloon lights glowed brighter and I could hear the faint hiss of the air-conditioning as it washed cool air over us from the ceiling. I shook my head hard, to clear it. Don’t go losing it, Lydia, I demanded. Not now. Not now.
I swallowed and spoke. “Harry’s with her but she won’t tell me where,” I said. “She doesn’t know where Bill and those guys are.”
“How did they know to go to Cheung Chau?”
“I don’t know.”
Mark’s eyes met and held mine. He reached out and very briefly covered my hand with his, and for that moment his large warmth made me feel brave and hopeful. He withdrew his hand and turned to Wei Ang-Ran.
“Sinsaang,”
he said, in sharp and commanding Chinese, “the two members of Strength and Harmony who work for you, the ones who call themselves Tony Siu, Big John Chou”—those names he gave in English—“are on Cheung Chau Island, where Maria Quezon took your great-nephew. How did they know to go there?”
But the old man had another question. Eyes wide, he asked, “Is that where Maria Quezon is? With Hao-Han? The boy is all right?”
“We don’t know that,” Mark said. I thought that was a little cruel, but right now I didn’t care. If that’s what it took to shake Wei Ang-Ran up and get him to talk, it was fine with me. “How did these triad members know where to go?” Mark repeated.
The old man shook his head, a slow movement. “I know nothing about them. They come to Lion Rock when the shipments come in. They take what is theirs, they leave again. I try to keep away from them. They frighten me.”
Great, I thought, a consensus.
Wei Ang-Ran’s eyes, which would not look at Mark or at me, glistened. He turned them to the window, to the gray harbor, the ships you couldn’t see. “When I started smuggling,” he said to the water, “it was the time of the Cultural Revolution. I knew what was happening in China. Everyone knew. Ancient treasures smashed in the streets, fed into bonfires while gangsters howled. Lee Lao-Li came to me. I knew him only as a dealer in fine antiquities; at that time I knew nothing about Strength and Harmony. He begged me to help save the treasures of China.”
In the harbor a headlamp on a ferry caught a sampan crossing the ferry’s prow. The sampan was for a moment visible, then, outside the lamp’s reach, vanished again.
“I knew I could not tell my brother, he would never have agreed. He was an upright, virtuous man. But he loved the ancient ways. I watched him grieve over each new report from the mainland. I thought by joining with Lee, I was doing right.” In a low voice echoing with the sadness and regret of a lifetime, he said, “This was the only important decision I ever took without my brother’s counsel. I knew, all through the years, that something bad would come of it. I am not a man of plans.”
Mark seemed about to speak, but Wei Ang-Ran went on. “At first, the smuggled treasures were few. They were small. I felt proud to have rescued them. In one shipment were three jade Buddhas, pendants to wear. They made me think of my brother. Of his jade. I could not believe I was doing wrong.
“But they grew more numerous, came more often. I began to worry. I stopped wanting to know what was in the shipments, to see them. I wished Lion Rock were not involved in this business.
“After China changed,” he went on, still speaking to the harbor, “I tried to end Lion Rock’s involvement. Three times I went to Lee, saying the danger is over, I would like to sever our ties. He would not permit it. Now, of course, now that my brother has died, now that my nephew is entering the business here in Hong Kong, not in New York far away—now at least he understands continuing is impossible.”
To the east along the shoreline the colored neon crowns of the buildings were starting to shine. Enough, I suddenly decided. I don’t care. Damn the smuggling. I stood because I couldn’t keep still anymore.
“Mark—”
“I know,” Mark said. He turned to speak to Wei Ang-Ran, but as he did the conference room door opened and a uniformed cop stuck his head in.
“Sergeant, call for you. Your desk phone.”
Mark’s eyes met mine as he rose swiftly. Heading around the table and out the door, he pointed at Wei Ang-Ran. “Stay with him,” he ordered the uniform. “He doesn’t leave.”
“Yes, sir.”
I was right on Mark’s heels through the maze to his desk. He leaned across the desk to grab up his phone, barked,
“Wai! Wai!”
Beyond the partitions, in the maze, the sounds of cops coming and going. In here, silence. Mark, holding the phone to his ear, walked around the desk and sat in the chair behind it. Listening, listening—finally, in Cantonese, he asked, “What about the woman? Does Ko have her?”
More silence while he listened to the answer.
“No,” Mark said. “Yes, okay.”
I squeezed my hands into tight fists of frustration while I followed Mark’s half of this conversation. It was like listening to a radio broadcast constantly interrupted by static.
“Shit,” Mark said. “Damn. No, it’s not your fault, Shen.” Glancing at his watch: “Well, that depends—you’re off duty by now, you want to stay with it? … They’re triad, Strength and Harmony. The European’s an American cop … . No, unofficial … . Because you didn’t need to know until now, Shen.” Longer pause. “No.” Pause. “All right, good.” Another silence, ending with, “We will. Good work, Shen.”
He hung up, looked up at me, switched to English. “Shen stayed on Smith while he talked to Siu and Chou and followed them when they went off together. Ko tried to stay with Maria Quezon but he lost her. I can see that; the town there is worse than Wan Chai, where we lost the prayer-seller.”
“And?”
“Smith, Siu, and Chou got on a boat, a small launch, and headed around the south side of Cheung Chau. Shen says it looked like Smith went under his own steam, that he wasn’t coerced. Shen and Ko rented a sampan, all they could get. The launch was too fast for them. They lost it. They’re still on the water, but it’s getting dark.”
Boats. Bill doesn’t like boats. “You told Shen Bill was a cop,” I said. “He’s not a cop.”
“But Shen is. He’s likely to take a personal interest in what happens to another cop. He and Ko are going to stay out there, see what they can find.”
I met Mark’s eyes. They were dark and unguarded, and they looked like mine. Bill’s eyes were deep-set, shadowed. “Thank you,” I said.
He nodded. “I think—”
But I wasn’t about to hear what Mark thought. Cutting off his words, a cell phone rang. Mine, cheeping from my belt. I hate you, I thought as I yanked at it and flipped it open. You stupid thing, I hate you.
And then was immediately sorry, because the voice was Bill’s.
“Lydia, it’s me.” His words, I thought, sounded wrong: tight and strained. A chill touched my spine.
“Are you all right?” I said. “Where are you?”
“A boat, off Cheung Chau.” No more answer than that.
“Are you all right?” I asked again.
“Been better,” he said. “Not as tough as I thought. Should have trained longer. Maybe as a stuntman.” A laugh, without humor.
He’s hurt, I thought, hurt badly enough that he’s not thinking straight. “Bill—”
Then a voice that wasn’t his.
“He’s definitely been better,” Tony Siu said in Cantonese. “But he could definitely be worse. How’re you doing?” As though we were making casual conversation.
“What the hell’s going on?” I demanded.
“I want the kid,” Tony Siu said, in the same easygoing manner. “What I really want is to throw your friend here into the ocean so I can watch him kick for a while before he sinks. But I can wait. I can probably wait until morning. If I don’t have the kid by morning, splash.”
Careful, Lydia, I told myself. Take a deep breath and play this carefully. “I don’t have him,” I said. “Harry. I don’t know where he is.”
“That’s what your friend says. It’s what he says now, at least. An hour or so ago on the Praya he said for the right price he’d take us straight to him.” I looked up at Mark. His jaw was tight with the same frustration that had clenched mine a few minutes back.
“We worked out a deal,” Tony Siu went on. He was much more articulate in Chinese than in English, but it didn’t make him more likable. “He’d been sitting there with the kid’s amah looking into each other’s eyes like they just got out of bed, so I figured he knew. Actually, I still think he knows, but he wants to be a fucking American hero. Anyway, he says he knows, so we rent this stinking boat. Sail around to the ass end of this stinking island. Now he tells me he doesn’t have any fucking idea where the kid is, he was just buying the amah time to run.” In English he suddenly exploded, “Cocksucker!”

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