The Code War (43 page)

'Then, sir, as you are the only father I
have ever known, I am going to come with you. We shall depart
together.'

'I understand, Chu. If I had had a son,
I wish he were like you. We will go together if that is your
wish.'

For a moment Monkey rested his hand on
Chu's shoulder and looked at him with something approaching
tenderness. Then his stern face reasserted itself.

'Come,' he said. 'Let us go down and
greet our guests. We must smile and be good hosts so that they can
have fun. Much fun. Tomorrow they will be alone.'

Nathan Road, Yaumati,
Kowloon

Lafarge tore his eyes away from
the ambulance and looked back down the road. He had heard the
unearthly crash as Zhivkin hit the lightship after his long fall.
He was just in time to see his fellow demon force his way inside
the craft.

As he ran across the road he saw Jabez
appear momentarily on the pavement, kicking and thrashing while his
broken wing lay flopped beside him. Then Jabez seemed to hook his
foot around something and all disappeared.

Lafarge reached the spot and
looked around. There was no sign anyone, human or otherwise, had
been here. Wait. Lafarge spotted an unusual small round object
lying on the ground between two metal bins. Something about it
didn't look earthly. He was scared to touch it. It might be
something heavenly and poisonous.

He had to report back.

Kodrob's Squadroom,
Inferno
.

Jabez lay crumpled in the corner of
Kodrob's squad room breathing heavily. The temperature in Inferno
was considerably hotter than in Heaven and his lungs were
struggling with the searing air.

He looked up at the ruddy faces leering
down at him. They seemed just as astonished to see him as he was to
be here.

'The blessings and peace of Heaven
on all of you,' he wheezed.

A boot landed in his side. 'Enough
of that you ugly pig,' Holzman snarled. 'You're our prisoner.
You're a jail bird with a broken wing. You're in Lucifer's kingdom
now and you don't leave till he says so.'

Kodrob pulled Holzman aside.

'Get him a drink' he said to Pu Gash. To
Jabez, 'What do you want?'

'Water.'

'We don't do that here. What else?'

Pu Gash offered Jabez a beaker of
unleaded.

Jabez sniffed the concoction and choked
sending the beaker's contents flying across the room.

'Hey, that's good stuff.
T
hat's a top tub,' shouted
Holzman.

Bezejel was watching from the back of
the room.

'Kodrob, he's in your charge,' she said
curtly. 'I'm going to meet with the Leader and find out what he
wants to do.'

As she was about to sweep out of the
room Zhivkin burst in.

'The machine,' he shouted
miserably. 'The machine I stole. The craft. It's gone. Somehow
they've taken it back.' He went up to Jabez and aimed a savage blow
at his head before being pulled off by Kodrob just in
time.

'I stole an invisible lightcraft
and got rid of the angel,' he shouted at the room in general. 'It
was a perfect ambush. Now we've got the bloody useless angel and
lost the craft. You scumball. It's all your fault.' He wrested
himself from Kodrob and again aimed a kick at Jabez, this time
catching him behind the ear and cutting his scalp.

'Relax Zhivkin
,' advised Bezejel as Kodrob for the third time stepped in
to protect the angel. 'There'll be time for games later. Maybe
we'll wrap him in seaweed and play rollerball with him like we did
with the banshees. We'll see how well he flies then.' She looked
around the room before letting her eyes fall wrathfully on Jabez.
'I'll be back later,' she threatened. 'Don't look forward to my
return.'

Yaumati Police
Station

Dan Kelly replaced the receiver in its
cradle and looked at the flip chart by the side of his desk. Beside
it, on the wall was a map of Kowloon with a number of brightly
coloured pins sticking in it.

He turned to Liu Jai and Hui Fen.

'The blue pins represent Brother
establishments,' he declared. 'All the other DIs I've spoken to are
reporting take-overs in their area by Brother. Plus openings of
brand new dancing parlours, sleazy cinemas and recruitment of
heroin dealers. What's interesting is that all of them thought the
growth of Brother was localised in their territory, just part of
the give and take pattern of triad change. But the thing is,
there's no mutuality about any of it. It's all one-directional.
Brother is swallowing everything and giving nothing back. Brother
is becoming a total monster.'

Dan went to the flip chart and picked up
a marker pen. He added the name of a housing block in Sham Shui Po
whose heroin dealers had reportedly transferred their allegiance to
Brother. 'That's a new win for Brother just today,' he told
them.

'It's slick,' added Hui Fen. 'Everything
I've learnt says that Brother are consolidating by persuasion and
gentle pressure, not by force like in the old days. But I've learnt
something else.'

'Go on,' said Dan.

'All is not well inside the
organisation. From the outside it seems that Fatty Lo is in
complete control. But I've heard that there are some voices, mainly
centred around one of his lieutenants called Chopper Kwok, who
think he's going too slowly. Kwok is suspected of involvement in
the savage attack on two police sergeants some time ago. He's
brutal and impatient. There could even be a battle for power, a
take-over at the top.'

'There's more
,' said Liu Jai. 'In the last few weeks a mysterious
western woman has been seen in Fatty's company. We don't know her
name. She has come from nowhere but is already seen as quite
influential. That has ruffled a lot of feathers, especially in an
organisation like Brother where seniority traditionally goes with
time. The longer you work in a triad the more you are trusted. I
agree with Hui Fen that there is resistance to Fatty in some
places. That will be increased if he tries to bring in someone new
and give them high rank, especially, and I hope you don't mind me
saying it, a foreigner.'

'Yes,' agreed Dan, 'and a woman
foreigner at that. I'm sure all the macho gangsters in Brother are
well unchuffed with that.'

Hui Fen looked at her watch.

'It's 10 pm,' she said. 'I know you like
to change your woman every week Daai Lo,' she looked sideways at
Dan, 'but I have a family who need me.'

'You mean when they need someone to
change the TV channel for them,' laughed Liu Jai.

Hui Fen cuffed him playfully. 'Isn't it
time you put your pyjamas on and sat on your potty, young man?'

'It sure is,' said Liu Jai. 'Let's face
it, I won't be paid overtime for being here.'

'No, neither will I,' agreed Dan with a
philosophical grin. 'Listen,' he said,

'I'm going to have a word with a
CID superintendent I know at Kowloon Police HQ. I trust this guy,
he was my teacher at police training school. He's the RHKP's
liaison wit
h the FBI and Interpol and so
on. I'm going to ask him if he's heard of any concerns from outside
Hong Kong about Brother. It will be good to learn just how far
their tentacles have gone.'

'Be careful,' warned Hui Fen. 'Brother
go back a long way with a lot of people in the police.'

'I know,' said Dan. But there are plenty
of honest guys left in the force too.

On his way home that night Dan drove to
the Walled City of Kowloon, a curious enclave that by a quirk of
history still came under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic
of China.

Uniformed Hong Kong policemen were
forbidden to patrol its narrow lanes lest their presence in
'China's territory' be used as a pretext for an invasion of the
colony by the People's Army.

The exterior of the Walled City wasn't
actually a wall but an almost unbroken circular terrace of
unlicensed doctors and dentists, apothecaries, fung shui advisers,
herbalists, bonesetters, acupuncturists and rather nice tea
shops.

Dan parked his car in nearby Wang
Tau Hom Estate, walked across the perimeter road and dove into one
of the narrow alleyways that labyrinthed its way to the centre of
the enclave.

The Mad Woman was still up and
expecting him. Jacintha was a missionary from Glasgow who had made
her home and operating base in this part of Hong Kong because 'it's
off limits to all the other pastors, angel which is great because I
canna stand competition.' Initially hated and threatened by the
local gangsters Jacintha had earned her place in the Walled City
and had made many a heroin dealer give up his trafficking and turn
to the Lord. The population accepted her and often went to her with
their problems. But they still thought she was mad.

'I'm taking on a really heavyweight
gangster,' said Dan to the Mad Woman over a cup of jasmine tea. 'I
don't go to church very often but somehow I feel the need for some
spiritual support. Will you pray for me?'

They stayed up long into the night
and read the book of Mark together. Afterwards Mad Jacintha
anointed Dan with oil and called on the Lord of Hosts to send his
angels to protect him. Dan drove home through the traffic-free
streets and for the first time in an age he didn't go straight to
the fridge and reach for a cold can of San Miguel beer. Instead he
undressed, collapsed on his bed and slept like a cherub.

Ho Tin Girl Friend Bar
and Film Club, Yaumati, Kowloon

The two junior accountants picked
their way down the narrow street beside the sixteen-storey
building. In this part of Yaumati a tower block could contain hair
parlours, restaurants, shops and businesses as well as apartments.
Every building was a self-contained village. The air space above
the street was criss-crossed with dozens of electricity cables and
telephone lines, many of them illegal. In the doorway a young man
in a battered leather jacket drew on a cigarette and fiddled with
the stash of heroin packets in his pocket. His eyes roamed in every
direction checking for police, rivals and customers. The
accountants stepped past him and walked under the arch with the
garish neon sign and followed the narrow stair to the fourth
floor.

Entering a room with hanging pictures of
Cary Grant and Marilyn Monroe, they were greeted by a large man
behind a small counter. His stubbled face, string vest and tattooed
fingers were meant to give one message: don't make trouble.

'Film only? O
r film and company?' he asked in a gravelly voice, looking
from one to the other and trying to work out if they were
undercover cops.

'How much is film only?'
asked one of the white-shirted pair
chirpily.

'Nine dollars. Film and company, thirty
dollars.'

'What's the film
tonight?
' asked the other.

'Deep Throat,' came the almost
incomprehensible growl.

'Say again
?'

String Vest made no response but looked
coldly at the speaker. That's the kind of trouble I was talking
about.

'OK, never mind. Two for the film.
No company.' Chirpy accountant handed over two $HK10 notes while
his shadow remained slightly behind him, taking cover.

String Vest took the money and
gave them a sour look for change. The film club only made money if
customers paid for female 'company' while they watched the blue
movies. What did they think this was, a regular cinema? He
indicated a curtain partition and the two office workers stepped
through it to find their seats and catch up on finest American
culture.

An underfed hostess in a tartan
skirt and a cheap blouse with faded dragons on its sleeves followed
them.
'You like some company? Touch your
trouser while you watch film?' Her voice carried all the
friendliness of a female boar. The accountants declined.

In a luxury apartment beside the tiny
cinema, replete with state of the art sound system, Italian tile
flooring and furniture from Hong Kong's finest shops and at just
the moment when Nancy was being handcuffed to the iron flue in San
Po Kong, Chopper Kwok was swirling a Hennessy XO Cognac around a
balloon brandy glass.

Chopper earned his sobriquet after
ambushing two uniformed police sergeants one night while they were
on patrol in Tsim Sha Tsui. Wearing a scarf around his face, he
forced them to their knees before slashing them with a heavy
kitchen knife and making off with both their revolvers.

He had never been charged with
this crime, not because the police didn't suspect him, but because
the revolvers had never been found and there was no other evidence
against him. Chopper had made his way into Brother soon after and
the organisation had done its best to mould him into a mature
criminal while persuading him to leave out the violence. But
Chopper's old
instincts were not
persuadable. He continued to use brutality to achieve his
ambitions, not only with rival gangs and police but even with his
own team.

The Ho Tin Girl Friend Bar and
Film Club was one of eight establishments owned by Brother but run
by Chopper. He had a big appetite for food, (though not as big as
Fatty Lo) but an even bigger appetite for women.

More than these however, he had an
appetite for power.

Chopper Kwok had given the speech at the
cock-fight evening in which he had criticised those who wanted
Brother to ramp up its criminal operations more aggressively. In
reality Chopper was at the forefront of those who were ready to use
more violence to achieve faster growth. He was covering up his own
tracks by pointing the finger of blame elsewhere. But violence was
in his make-up. Chopper was the accepted No.2 in Brother and
impatient to accede to the top table in the fraternity and become
Big Brother himself. But he knew it didn't do to be too open about
your intentions. Far better to shout 'the enemy is over there' and
in the meantime position yourself closer to the king so as to
ensure your knife strike in his back didn't miss.