“Hey, I wasn’t going after you. That it really worked in the first place boggles my mind. Every other production would have pasted on the video screen in post.”
Ray relaxed into his chair and mumbled out a defense. “Mostly I broke things out of storage and tuned them up. Give me five minutes to replace the battery in that watch and it would work just fine.”
“Missy wouldn’t survive it being taken apart. It’s the closest thing to a wedding ring she ever got.”
“What can you do?” Ray put his hands up. “Anyway, props and effects were all Layne wanted to talk about. Maybe he struck out.”
I didn’t agree. If Ray had contributed nothing, why bother giving him a dossier on the flash drive? If Layne learned something beyond Near Death’s meager effects budget, Ray hadn’t taken note. It would have helped to review Ray’s tapes myself, but that wasn’t going to happen.
“Well, time to get moving,” I said, climbing out of my chair. When Ray shook my hand I held onto it. “Don’t let anyone in. I’m serious. People are dying over whatever this is.”
It was Ray’s turn to hold me in place. “If that’s the case, then let me outfit you.”
I laughed, expecting Ray to laugh along, but he was dead serious. The Magician was offering to open up his wardrobe.
It was a step too far.
“No way. I’m not looking to kill anyone, including myself.”
Against his better judgment, Ray let me go. “If you change your mind, you know where I am.”
6
I drove away from Ray’s compound until my cell service returned and called the best dim sum place around. My Cantonese was rusty, but it did the job. The woman who answered the phone slammed it on the counter and yelled at someone about how his business wasn’t their business.
“I can have you on the midnight cruise to Jakarta.” The combination of Yuen’s muted voice and ancient landline made it feel like I was calling a time traveler.
“I need you to get me in touch with Shensei Studios.”
I took in the static as Yuen went back to chewing. In all the time we knew each other, we never talked about his connection to the Hong Kong film industry. But no one was cast in Near Death on accident, including Yuen. Kit didn’t know him from Adam. Yuen had clearly gotten a push from someone else. A push that sent him from Hong Kong to California.
“I know I’m asking a big favor.”
Yuen finished what he was chewing on. “The real favor might be not doing you the favor.”
“That’s a good one. What were my lucky numbers?”
“I’ll call you back and let you know.”
If Yuen struck out, I had no backup plan. If Layne was looking into Near Death’s production, Shensei Studios was an essential piece of the puzzle. Kit had struck a deal with Shensei that included equipment, crew, and locations in exchange for distribution of the Jove Brand franchise in Asia. Given the desperate situation, Kit had no leverage to negotiate. Shensei Studios got the lion’s share of the Asian box office. That distribution deal now made the Shensei brothers half a billion dollars every three years.
In return, the new films were guaranteed to be screened, fulfilling the rights contract. American and European distributors could no longer force a default by shelving the release. It gave the Calabrias the upper hand when dividing the take in those markets.
I decided to gas up while I waited, but the gauge showed full. Ray was some host. Five minutes later, my phone rang.
“Go to the Shishi. They will let you in or they won’t.”
“Fifty-fifty, huh? Hope I get lucky.”
“Call no man lucky until he is dead,” Yuen rasped. In the background, the woman who answered the phone was going off on Yuen about abusing their all-you-can-eat policy.
“Four thousand years of philosophers, and your cookie place is ripping off the Greeks. Shameful.”
The woman who answered the phone yelled something about tying up the line.
“You might want to be unlucky this time.”
The phone went dead before I could reply. Fine with me. Yuen had delivered a solid closer.
Chinatown wasn’t far from Ray’s compound, while also being a world away. I parked in the neighboring zip code, took the BART to Union Square, and walked the rest of the way. Being in the tech capital of the world, at least a dozen people took pictures of me. I might as well have flagged my location on social media. I should have asked Ray to whip me up a disguise.
I saw Chinatown last. I heard it first, then smelled it, then felt it thrumming through my veins. It would never be a real place to me. I would always view it through the lens of a lanky teen who ran away from home, searching for something to search for. An outsider who refused to break, grudgingly passed from one master to the next, graduating against all odds to Hong Kong. My time here had been short, but it would stay with me forever.
I wove through the narrow alleys without too many bumps. It wasn’t long before my entourage formed. Tall, blond, white guys stood out on the secret streets. None of my escorts bothered to pretend they were doing anything but tailing me. I didn’t acknowledge them, but I didn’t ignore them either. It was good I didn’t need directions because no one would have provided them. Not to where I was going.
Shishi Opera House had always been and would always be in Chinatown. There were multiple performances every week, but you couldn’t buy a ticket. You had to be gifted one. Sometimes the players performed to a packed house, and other times for a solo audience. Those latter nights were the ones that mattered most.
Four pairs of Fu lions glared at me as I climbed the carpeted stairs. Yuen could announce my appearance, but he couldn’t secure an invitation. The doors would either open or they wouldn’t. I couldn’t control that. I could only control myself.
They didn’t open. I stood at the threshold, displaying no cracks in my veneer. I didn’t pace or turn away. The time had come to face the sin of fleeing Hong Kong, my aspirations at the bottom of the ocean with Kit’s plane.
The sun burned my neck. Sweat rolled down my face and stuck the shirt to my back, but I didn’t show any sign of discomfort. I would collapse first. Twenty years ago I made it three days. Like any aging man, I wondered if what I had gained made up for what I had lost.
I wasn’t given the opportunity to find out. After two hours the doors opened, washing me in cool air. The quick response could only mean one thing: the Shensei brothers wanted something from me. What exactly that was would be good to know so that I could deny them it until I got the answers I came for, but nothing came to mind. We hadn’t crossed orbits since Near Death wrapped.
I inclined my head slightly and removed my shoes. A pair of slippers was waiting on the far side of the door. They were my size. I didn’t look into the hexagram mirror as I took the right turn into the lobby.
I was no expert on Chinese culture—countless others had forgotten more than I would ever know—but I was aware of my status. I wasn’t Chinese, so I would always be an outsider. The credit for my accomplishments went to my instructors. It was like sending a chimp up in a rocket. Sure, the ape had a seat, but it wasn’t really steering the thing.
The lobby was small. I took the only door that stood open, neither hurrying nor lagging, instead moving with the confidence of purpose. It led into the house room.
The floor seats were in curved rows facing the stage. The balcony seats were likewise arrayed. The sole box seats, which had their own entrance, sat at a ninety-degree angle to the stage, so they could watch both the performance and the crowd. My host sat in that place of honor.
I chose the seat at the end of the row closest to the box seats, facing the stage, so my host could observe me without my observing him. I looked to the closed stage curtains in silent stillness. I didn’t fidget. It would cause me to lose face, and I had precious little to begin with. As a young man, I had dreamed of being here. Now I dreaded it.
The curtain parted. I concealed any hint of surprise. The play was sil
ent and short. A young builder struggled to erect a palace, but ceaseless storms undid his work. Desperate, the builder met with a sage, who gifted him a monkey. With the monkey distracting the storms, the builder was able to finish the magnificent palace. But the effort exhausted the builder, who collapsed before the palace’s threshold. As the curtain closed, the monkey bore the builder inside the creation that had cost him his life.
The silence built, but I said nothing. It wasn’t hard. I had plenty to think about.
My host finally spoke. “I am Shensei Runshaw.”
It was a challenge not to react. I had expected an intermediary. Runshaw Shensei was Chinese film royalty. His father founded one of China’s first production studios, committing traditional Chinese opera to film before birthing an entirely new genre: martial arts movies. What was one of the actual Shensei brothers doing in America?
“My name is Allen Ken,” I said, mirroring Runshaw’s family-first introduction. My reciprocation was purely for form’s sake. Runshaw knew exactly who I was. Even so, staging a production for my benefit in two hours was impressive.
“You were in one of my movies in Hong Kong,” Runshaw said.
“Yes. The one in partnership with Kit Calabria.”
“A partnership which transferred to his sister.”
Runshaw was letting me know where his bread was buttered. He wasn’t about to risk the steady windfall of a Jove Brand movie every three years. I could work with that. Not answering a question could be as good as answering it.
“The killings I stand accused of may relate to that agreement. Layne Lackey was murdered after investigating the production of Near Death.”
“Then you face the same danger.” Runshaw looked to the stage. “Are you prepared to weather the storm a second time?”
So this was what they wanted. To test me. Whatever the Shensei brothers had told Layne Lackey contributed to his death. And here I show up, another lamb to the slaughter. Runshaw was looking for a lion.
I rose up out of my chair. “Only one way to find out.”
The curtains opened to again reveal the golden palace. The backdrop had changed to indicate a passage into fall. Burnished leaves began to drift down from the concealed catwalks above. Unseen drums sounded a slow but building rhythm. The time had come to once again defend the builder’s fatal creation.
My muscles were stiff, but stopping to prepare would be a loss of face. I jumped onto the stage, ignoring the stairs. All those box jumps were finally paying off. I landed with a stomp. The wood reverberated under my feet.
Not knowing where the challenge would emerge, I took center stage. A man dressed in a baseball cap and a windbreaker strode from the left wing, his face concealed under an ivory demon mask.
Surprise wins fights. If you took two fighters of equal skill and size, the victor would be the one who seized the unexpected. The demon closed the distance between us with rhythmic bounding spins. The final rotation that brought him into range had a kick on the end of it. It arced down over my shoulder line, scything toward the back of my neck. For all its show, the technique was a fight ender, a one-shot knockout with the potential to put me in the ground.
I spun in the opposite direction as the attack descended, dropping my shoulder low. My hair swept the stage as I brought my own kick around. As the demon’s foot passed by, my heel connected dead center in the middle of his mask. He went down, his leg coiled under his limp body.
Runshaw Shensei knew who I had been, eighteen years past. Now he wanted to discover who I had become. This was my audition for the part he wanted me to play in the plot that left me framed for two murders. I saluted him, my fist and palm meeting under my bowed head.
The next demon came from above, leading with a flying knee that had twenty feet of drop behind it. His skintight black bodysuit transformed him into a floating ivory head. I hopped back, fully expecting the fall to finish him, but for a mind-boggling instant the demon’s descent halted and he landed lightly. He took to the air again with a physics-defying triple kick. My hands moved by instinct, but I checked the attacks poorly while stifling a cry of pain. I would be lucky to get out of this without broken fingers.
After another feather-light landing, the demon rose into a hover, reversing from a turning kick into a spinning backfist. The surreal change of direction tipped me off. I circled hard as the demon floundered in an attempt to rotate. I grabbed him by the back of his bodysuit, yanked him horizontal and hammered the heel of my hand into his collarbone. He gave a muffled scream as the bone snapped. His limp body was pulled back into the rafters by the elastic wires that had made his assault possible.
I regulated my breathing to conceal any signs of exertion. If this went on for more than ten minutes I wasn’t going to make it. Ten minutes was an eternity in full-contact fighting. The falling leaves were cut from crepe paper. Their accumulation made the footing treacherous. I accepted the surrealism of the setting. Everything outside would occur as it occurred. All I could do was address each moment as it came.
The third demon strode onto the stage wearing tight shorts, without shirt or shoes. He inched forward, his muscles coiled like springs. My other opponents had been traditional performers. The man behind this mask was not interested in putting on a show. He was a fighter.
His first attacks were feelers, noncommittal jabs designed to test my guard. I saw the kick too late. It landed solid below my ribs, a sweet explosion of pain that brought the world to into sharp focus. I did what I could to lessen the impact, going light and letting the force push me away rather than absorbing it.
Saving my wind cost me mobility, and the fighter pressed his advantage, launching a tight combination ending with a trip attempt. That’s when I knew I was dealing with Sanshou—a Chinese hybrid of kickboxing and wrestling.
I stepped out of the trip and put two shots into his body: right-hook left-hook. He slipped my follow-up to his jaw and went for the stomp. All my weight was on my right foot. If the kick connected, I was looking at knee surgery.
I slammed my knee into the stage and spun into a sweep. His stomp missed and my sweep hit. It wasn’t enough to put him down, but he slipped on a pile of paper leaves. After that he never recovered. Each of his parries were a breath behind my strikes. He should have submitted, but face did not permit it, so I ended it with a floating punch to his liver.
The drums stopped. I stood to show my respects, first to my foe, then to the stage, and finally to my host. Runshaw had gotten what he wanted in taking my measure. Who knew if he was pleased or disappointed by the results? Inscrutable might have been an out-of-fashion descriptor but it fit him to a tee.
“Three foes, three questions,” Runshaw said.
I gritted my teeth to hide a grimace. A detective who knew what they were doing would have come prepared. I had to wing it.
“What did Layne Lackey wish to discuss?”
“If we facilitated a transfer of contract for Kit Calabria.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
I had plenty more to ask but nothing worth my last question. Like how Layne Lackey had earned his audience with Runshaw Shensei. It would have been nice to know, but it was irrelevant. What mattered was what he’d learned when he’d had a seat at the table.
“I wish to reserve my final question for a later date.”
I could tell Shensei didn’t like it but he couldn’t refuse. He gave the slightest incline of the head and left without another word.
I stifled a yelp of pain as I dropped from the stage. The opera-house doors closed behind me before I was down the steps. I did not look back. I was dying of thirst but didn’t stop. Showing weakness was a loss of face and I was still being watched.
I bought a bottle of water waiting for the train and drained it in one pull. The impromptu play had been for my benefit. Kit discovering me at the Wushu Championships eighteen years ago hadn’t been happenstance. Kit needed someone to save the day, and the Shensei brothers had guided him to me.
Now they were betting I could pull it off again. They needed the killings to end to save the franchise. It all had to do with the Brand film rights. If the Calabrias defaulted, the Shensei brothers would lose a distribution deal worth a billion and a half dollars every decade.
It was impossible to explain how much fighting took out of you to someone who had never fought. It was an all-in endeavor. You gave everything, mentally and physically, to stop another person from inflicting permanent damage to your body. Most times, that person worked as hard as you, knew as much as you, and was as motivated to escape injury. I was soaked with sweat and couldn’t get enough air. If they’d let you ride on top of the train I would have.
I tossed the water bottle on the way to my car, seriously considering a hotel room. I was reaching out for my car door when lightning struck me. All my muscles seized as my joints locked. Everything that could cramp did as my body twisted into a chain of linked knots. The surge lasted somewhere between seven seconds and forever. When it stopped, all I wanted to do was lie there, which was good, because it was all I was capable of.
“Sorry about that, Mr. Allen, but safety first.”
I had been hit by a lot of things but this was my first Taser. Someone was kind enough to stand over me and block the sun. My eyes wouldn’t focus on account of not being able to blink. I tried to reply but my jaw was locked. I might have nodded.
“My firm has been employed to relay a message: Please cease and desist your amateur investigation.”
“That,” I paused, struggling to sit up, “wasn’t a bad workout.”
“If you’ll indulge me, I’ll add my own rider. You’re playing fantasy ball in a big-league game. That sort of reaching gets people killed.”
Something tapped me gently on the temple. I smelled the oil, felt the cool machined cylinder. It was shady, wherever my ambusher kept his gun.
My vision was coming back. I made out two men heading toward a pair of green Range Rovers. Two more men waited on the far side of their hoods. All of them wore the same outfit: blue ball caps, gray windbreakers, Dockers, and combat boots. The passengers got in before the drivers. I watched them pull away. I wasn’t chasing anyone in my condition and didn’t want to catch them anyway.
Jove Brand is Near Death Page 8