by Mel Odom
“He doesn’t need us for that,” I pointed out.
“No, but he wants you there.” She flicked ash from her cigar. “And I’m charging him for the time he spends gloating, so I don’t want to lose my percentage.”
When there was a percentage involved, there was no use arguing. I knew that, so I stayed quiet and waited.
“The wiretap we placed on the police force has borne fruit.” Kindly Cheng placed a sophisticated commlink on the table with a wolfish grin. “My people have delivered a snippet of a recorded video call between the Plastic-Faced Man and Chief Inspector Krait of the Special Duties Unit.”
“Whoa,” Gobbet said under her breath. Since she’d seen a vampire earlier tonight, I assumed that getting that kind of connection was something startling.
I was definitely interested. Hong Kong was hands-down the most dangerous place I’d ever been, and it was chilling to think the old man was lost somewhere in the middle of the sprawl.
“Unfortunately,” Kindly Cheng said, “it’s only a snippet. There were some technical difficulties with the tap.” She took a puff off her cigar. “The person responsible has been sacked.”
I took that to mean a body would be turning up in the harbor soon. Or would never turn up at all.
She stabbed a lacquered fingernail on a button, and the comm crackled to life with a shrill squeal that made Gobbet cover her ears and the rats under her clothing shift anxiously.
A video blossomed on the screen, and two voices—a man’s and a woman’s—took shape. The woman was louder, closer. She was older and intense. The other speaker was the Plastic-Faced Man.
“This is Chief Inspector Krait,” Kindly Cheng said, tapping the woman.
“…say that again,” Krait said. “There’s something wrong with this line.”
“I said,” the Plastic-Faced Man said, “my client isn’t interested in hearing more excuses, Inspector.”
I swapped looks with Duncan. So the Plastic-Faced Man was working for someone else.
“That’s what I thought you said,” Krait replied angrily. “I’m not making excuses, mister. I have a department to run.”
“Not for much longer, if those two Westerners aren’t found.” The Plastic-Faced Man took a breath. “They’re linked to this Raymond Black somehow, and my client wants them out of circulation immediately.”
“The two runners are his accomplices, too—the little ork and the dwarf with the cyberdeck.”
Wide-eyed, the two women stared at each other. Before, they’d been tangentially involved. Now they knew for certain they were on the hit list with Duncan and me.
“I’m aware, Inspector,” the Plastic-Faced Man grated. “Thank you. We don’t know how much any of them know, and my client is adamant that the risk be mitigated immediately.”
“I’ve already made this the SDU’s highest priority. If Josephine wants more resources on it, I’m going to need allocations from elsewhere in the department.”
“That is a problem that can be easily dealt with,” the Plastic-Faced Man assured her. “My client wants this over. Now. No more excuses. No more fuck-ups. No more cops floating in the river.”
At that, Kindly Cheng smiled and waved to one of the servers to replenish her drink.
“Tell her we’re redoubling our efforts,” Krait said.
Her? I filed that away and looked at Duncan. He shook his head, but his eyes gleamed. We’d just greatly narrowed the list of suspects. It was a move in the right direction.
“Very good,” the Plastic-Faced Man said. “Dead or alive, you bring them to me. My client requires my personal verification that the threat has been eliminated.”
Crackling splintered the audio for a moment.
“Hang on,” Krait said, annoyed, “this line is getting worse.”
The recording ended abruptly. Kindly Cheng punched the comm’s button again. “Unfortunately, that’s all I have at present. There are other avenues of gathering information.”
“That’s the guy we saw in the surveillance footage,” Gobbet said. “The one who killed Raymond Black. That plastic face looks a lot cooler closer up.”
“I think it’s kind of pretty,” Is0bel added.
Duncan sighed in displeasure, and the two quieted. “That video doesn’t tell us much. I mean, we already know there’s an APB on us. All we’re sure of now is that the man with the plastic face is definitely working for someone else. A woman.”
“And I know who the woman is,” Kindly Cheng said.
She instantly had my full attention.
Chapter 52
Josephine Tsang
“I have strong reasons to believe that the woman the Plastic-Faced Man referred to is Josephine Tsang,” Kindly Cheng said.
The name meant nothing to me. I glanced at Duncan. He shook his head and looked impatient.
“That disease-ridden dog-fucker.” Kindly Cheng finished her shot and waved for another. “I should have known it was her from the beginning. And she had the nerve to call down the heat on my runners? On Nightjar? Oh, that scabrous fossil is going to pay.”
“This woman has enough power to order the HKPF to hunt us down?” Duncan asked.
“She’s a large contributor to the HKPF,” Kindly Cheng snarled. “Particularly to the widows and orphans of fallen officer charities. And to various award programs for outstanding officers.” She spat on the floor. “She’s also the CEO of Tsang Mechanical Services, and a member of the Hong Kong Executive Council.” She shook her head. “Josephine-dogfucking-Tsang.”
“What do you think the connection is between her and the Plastic-Faced Man?” I asked.
“I don’t know yet. But I will find out.”
“He called her his client,” Duncan pointed out. “That may be some sort of lead we can follow.”
“Perhaps.” Kindly Cheng took another puff of her cigar. “Right now, all we know is that he is her instrument—the one who killed Raymond Black.”
“Raymond is not dead,” Duncan said.
For a moment, I thought Kindly Cheng was going to react to his opposition. A frozen heartbeat passed, and she shrugged. “Yes, you may have mentioned that before, Gun Show. Regardless, the Plastic-Faced Man is still our best lead for figuring out what’s going on.”
I wanted to steer the conversation into a more productive avenue. Before someone got hurt. “What is Tsang Mechanical Services?”
“Josephine’s baby,” Kindly Cheng replied. “It was a B-rated corporation before she married into the Tsang family.” The way her lips twitched in displeasure, I knew there was a story there, but didn’t pursue it.
“But after she fought for and won the contract to rebuild Kowloon Walled City, their fortunes rose. High.” Kindly Cheng downed another shot. “They began a rise to power that eventually landed Josephine on the Executive Council.”
“Walled City?” I repeated. “The Walled City?”
“Yes. The same place Raymond Black hired my runners to take him. I’ve already connected the dots. I don’t know what it means, but it clearly means something.”
“What is this Executive Council?” If I’d been told, I didn’t remember.
“May I, Auntie?” Is0bel asked.
Kindly Cheng shrugged and smoked.
“Hong Kong is run by a consortium of powerful corporations called the Board of Governors,” Is0bel said. “They set up the Executive Council, an eight-member committee of exemplary Hong Kong citizens to represent the people and run the city on their behalf. But, of course, you don’t vote for them—that would be too…unpredictable.”
Duncan snorted in disgust.
“Instead,” Is0bel continued, “every two years, two Executive Council slots come up for election, and the corporations on the Board of Governors put up some possible candidates and vote among themselves in a closed door session.”
“Closed door?” Duncan asked in a sarcastic tone. “I’m shocked.”
Is0bel ignored him and continued. “Of course, every single one of
these candidates is on some corporation’s payroll, somehow. Wham, bam. Instant government.”
“Tsang’s a CEO,” I said. “What do you know about her?”
“She was Hong Kong Philanthropist of the Year in 2054 and 2056.” Kindly Cheng smiled coldly. “Children’s hospitals. Homeless shelters. Food distribution centers.”
“Good causes,” Is0bel said. “And the kind that get good PR because people are too lazy and myopic to look for the real people doing the hard work. The face-to-face-with-the-poor work.”
“Don’t be so cynical, Is0bel,” Kindly Cheng said. “Coming face-to-face with the unsanitized-for-video poor is distasteful, dear. You know that.” She shifted her attention to me. “Beyond being a CEO and a philanthropist, I also know that Josephine Tsang is a lying, conniving bitch.”
Oh, yeah, there was definitely a story there. “Philanthropist and bitch? Those two things sound mutually exclusive.”
Kindly Cheng snorted derisively. “Wake up. Power is power. Whether you’re providing children with three hots and a cot or you’re negotiating a treaty with a multinational corporation, it’s all the same.”
“It doesn’t sound like you like her very much.” I wondered if we would eventually get the true story.
“Whatever gave you that impression, my sweet?” Kindly Cheng’s smile cut like a razor. “No, my darling, I don’t like Josephine Tsang. And I’m going to fuck her up. I’m going to fuck her up bad.”
“Care to elaborate on that?”
“No.” The Straw Sandal picked up her shot glass and drained it. “Not now. Not today. But you’ll be there, my darling. I’ll make it a party.”
“What can we do?”
“For the moment, nothing.” Kindly Cheng rolled the shot glass between her palms. “There’s nothing we can do to touch Josephine Tsang, as much as I hate to admit it. But the Plastic-Faced Man is a different story. He’s a third-party operative who’s been careless, and he’ll live to regret it.” Her black eyes turned hard as anthracite. “For a while. If Tsang thinks she can take out two of my runners and get away with it, I’m going to have to explain some things to her.”
It didn’t take a lot of imagination to figure out what she meant by that. I realized again, I was a lot deeper in the shadows now than I’d ever been. And there was no turning back.
Duncan nodded, and I thought maybe he was adapting faster than I was to our situation, which was scary.
“We’re going to find the Plastic-Faced Man and we are going to hurt him,” Kindly Cheng promised. “We’ll hurt him until we know everything he does. And then we will use that to strike back at Josephine Tsang. You will have your vengeance, and I will have my own…satisfaction.” She stood and turned from the table. “Now get out. I have work to do. I’ll contact you when I know something.”
Chapter 53
“They Only Have Appetite.”
When we got back to the Bolthole, I crashed hard, and nightmares chased me through the small hours of the morning. I dreamed I was standing in front of the Walled City in the rain, and as I looked at the dark skyscrapers, something reached into my chest and squeezed my heart. Adrenaline filled my body, but I couldn’t move. Somehow I managed to keep from passing out or falling over.
Then I was inside the Walled City. Residents knelt all around me on the needle-covered ground, chanting, and the coarse language they spoke sounded like gears grinding. More people knelt on balconies of the leaning buildings that seemed only centimeters from tipping over.
When the world exploded around me, all I could see was gnashing teeth. Thousands and thousands of them, waiting to chew me to bits. Duncan, back when he was ten years old, managed to run between them, narrowly escaping death time and time again. Halloweeners, Seattle gangers in garish masks who altered their faces and bodies, chased him out of the shadows, just as they had all those years ago.
I caught his hand like I had back then and we ran. In front of us, a heavy industrial door suddenly took shape. There were words scrawled there in yellow paint, but I couldn’t read them.
I woke up gasping for breath, covered in sweat. I wanted to get up and walk it off, but I was afraid of what lay in the darkness.
Instead, I picked up my pistol and put my back against the bulkhead, letting the cold seep into me as I waited out the night.
The next morning, I felt like I’d been hit by a maglev train at full tilt. Duncan looked like he’d been at the next station. Neither of us talked about what had kept us up. I thought we both just wanted to forget about it, but we knew we couldn’t.
While we were at Club 88 getting more ammo and munitions, chatting up a couple street sams—Andrei Lukianov and Gherik, friends of Is0bel—about other munitions dealers in Heoi, Kindly Cheng contacted us over our commlinks. I wondered if the woman just didn’t sleep, or if she was having nightmares like we were. I didn’t ask. She didn’t tell anyone anything unless there was a chunk of nuyen in it for her.
She said Shenyang wanted to meet, and told us where. I told her we’d be there because I knew we didn’t have a choice.
Shenyang met us in a teahouse not far from the MTR. Today he had bodyguards, both of them people Gobbet knew: a street mage named Dimalanta and an ork named Shiny who was as close to being a cyberzombie as I’d ever seen. Unlike us, Shenyang looked well rested and pleased with himself. “Good morning, good morning.” He waved us to seats.
We sat. The bodyguards sat at another table.
“I have to say that I am pleased with the way things turned out,” Shenyang told us, “but that has got to be one of the single strangest stories I’ve ever heard. Vampires in the trid industry.” He shivered theatrically. “What a nightmare. Can’t believe you let that leech keep suckin’ on Neville. Big ace to have in his pocket. And what if she starts bitin’ on other people? Actors and whatnot?”
“That’s not our problem,” Duncan said. He cracked his knuckles. “Who knows? Maybe there’s a sequel in the works? We’ll get paid again to pull somebody’s ass out of the fire.”
Shenyang grimaced. “Not an optimal outcome, but I guess it’s okay. You got me Wong, and that means Neville’s show’s dead.”
His commlink rang for his attention. He checked the screen and held up a finger as he scooped it up. “Wait one.” His voice changed as he answered, became gruffer. “Yeah, who is it? Whaddya want?”
Duncan rolled his eyes at me.
I shrugged. We were getting paid for this. It was all good.
Neville Ma’s handsome face bloomed on the commlink screen. “Hello, Shenyang. I just wanted to let you know that I’ve released Penelope Wong from her contract. If you’re still interested in her, she’s all yours.”
Like the screamsheets hadn’t already been filled with the news.
“Also,” Neville went on, “I hope your business is doing all right. I’d heard you’d had some problems with cash flow. If you need a loan, I’d be happy to help.”
I shot a pointed look at Shenyang. If he was going to default on payment for the run, Kindly Cheng would want to know that.
Shenyang quickly shook his head. Then he turned his focus back on Neville. “You don’t sound too mad, Nev. What’s the catch here, anyway? You must have the next big thing lined up already.”
Duncan snorted and shoved his feet farther under the table, looking as bored as I’d ever seen him.
“Oh, Doctor,” Neville said, “there’s no need for a next big thing. “Do you want to know why I keep winning our little contests, and you’re always playing catch-up? It’s because you think people like Miss Wong actually matter. They don’t. Stars are crafted—molded out of talent, yes, but ultimately constructed. With enough time and effort, anyone can be made into a star. It’s just a question of manipulating public perception.”
“Maybe so,” Shenyang said stubbornly, “but I got her now, and your show’s dead in the water without the star. What do you think of that, eh?”
Neville smiled. “I’m going to do what any good soap opera
producer would do: write her character out with a tragic death, and bring on someone new. You labor under the misapprehension that viewers have loyalty. They don’t. They only have appetite.”
Shenyang looked like he’d swallowed a toad.
“As long as you chase stars like Wong,” Neville said, “you will always lose. Don’t be afraid to think bigger, Doctor. Go for the drama, not the dramatists.” He broke the connection.
Looking up at the ceiling, Shenyang unloaded a stream of particularly creative curses and called down retribution from the heavens on his rival. After he ran out of breath, he looked at Duncan and me.
“That dirty little weasel,” Shenyang said. “Insulting my creativity like that! The nerve!” He threw his napkin on the table. “We’re done here. Thanks for all your help, but I gotta get going. I gotta talk to a guy about buying a buncha snakes.”
He got up and left the table, his bodyguards trailing after him.
Duncan and I watched them go, then waved the server over and ordered the breakfast we’d missed at the Bolthole that morning. Shenyang hadn’t given me an appetite, and the menu at the diner wasn’t really compelling, but we were out of sight of the HKPF, and I knew I needed to eat.
After we finished eating, I checked in with Kindly Cheng, letting her know the meeting was over.
“Good,” she said. “I’ll send him our final bill. In the meantime, I have another run you will be interested in.”
Chapter 54
The Shangri-La Snatch
“What is it?” Duncan asked. “We barely got back from the last one.”
“Nonsense. You’re young. Make profits while the gods are charitable.” She took a drag on her cigar. “One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that even the rich and powerful have annoyances. Thorns in their side, if you will. No one is without troubles. The rich just have different ways of solving them. And we take our profit from it.”
I mouthed Raymond’s name to Duncan, reminding him why we were there, and he reluctantly quieted.