by Scott Mackay
A rough man? Was that how Sung romanticized himself?
“The boat must have been old,” said Gilbert. “Edgar had some photographs of it.”
Sung nodded. “She was a coastal freighter,” he said. “Built in the 1940s. A lot of rust. She spent half her time in dry dock undergoing repairs. I used her to ferry goods up and down the Mekong River. I sometimes took her up the coast as far north as Da Nang, but never had her far out to sea until we had to leave. I knew it was a risk, but I couldn’t afford a new boat. As an ethnic Chinese living in Vietnam I had to work hard for what little money I made, and there was little left over for that kind of capital venture. We were really treated like second-class citizens. My boat was never meant for the high seas. We hit rough weather our fourth day out. One of the seams split in the forward hold. Not a big leak, but one that would sink us if we didn’t keep bailing.”
“So Ying Lau worked himself to death bailing.”
Sung lifted his chin, looked out the window where only the lower half of the CN Tower could be seen, the top half being shrouded by thick clouds. “Ying Lau was as stubborn as his wife,” said Sung. Sung sounded as if he resented Ying Lau.
“And once you reached Hong Kong you tried to help the Laus,” said Gilbert, now probing for the sake of Hukowich and Paulsen. “You obviously had connections in Hong Kong.”
But Sung was too practiced to take such bait. “I told officials that May spoke four languages. Many of the civil positions were held by British nationals back in those days. With the refugee camps full of Vietnamese, she could translate from Vietnamese into English for the English-speaking officials, and from Vietnamese into Cantonese for the Cantonese-speaking officials.”
Gilbert wasn’t going to be put off so easily. “If you know Pearl Wu, you must know Bing Wu.”
“Bing Wu is a business associate,” said Sung. There was that word again. Associate.
“And he helped you when you reached Hong Kong?”
“We help each other. It’s always been that way with Mr. Wu and I.”
“And the Laus met Pearl Wu for the first time in Hong Kong?” asked Gilbert. “I understand Pearl and Edgar are…” He cast around for the appropriate euphemism.
Sung looked away, his brow creasing with displeasure. “Mrs. Wu has brought dishonor to her husband on many different occasions with many different men.”
Gilbert saw his opening clearly enough. “Was Edgar one of those men?” he asked.
“The first and perhaps the most perennial.” Sung occasionally spoke with a colonial turn of phrase, the influence of his years in Hong Kong, back in the days when the Jewel of Asia had been governed by British masters.
Connections. Pearl Wu and Edgar Lau. Was Edgar Lau’s murder no more than a lover’s quarrel then? Why did he get the sense that Sung was purposely trying to implicate Pearl? He had to be careful with Sung. Sung sat like a king in this opulent downtown tower, but he was a man who smuggled human cargo into Canada; he was a man who had been photographed with Bing Wu in Wiang Phran; a man who had been indicted on that immigration scam a few years back with Kung Lok Triad members.
“Who else was sitting at your restaurant table the night Edgar was murdered?” asked Gilbert.
“I was with Tak-Ng Lai, a concert pianist from Shanghai. I own an agency. I bring Chinese talent into the country. Lai is on a six-city tour right now.”
Gilbert made a note of the name in his book, getting Sung to spell it for him. “Who else?” he asked.
“Xu Jiatun.” Sung spelled that too.
“And what does he do?” asked Gilbert.
Sung leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his stomach complacently. “He’s my bodyguard,” he said, the admission calm and assured, yet with implicit challenge. Gilbert let it go.
“Anybody else?” he asked.
“Charles Peng. He’s an agent and overseer for one of Bing Wu’s export companies. If you wish to find him, he’s staying at one of the many condominium suites Bing Wu owns at One Park Lane.”
The next day, Wednesday, Gilbert took Jennifer and Nina Christmas shopping at Eglinton Square, a suburban mall a mile from where they lived. Toddlers crawled over the dollar-operated rides—a dinosaur, a helicopter, and a spaceship—while nervous parents weighted with bags and coats hovered around them, making sure they didn’t fall. Storefronts glittered with tinsel and lights, green and red balls dangled from the indoor Japanese elms, and a chubby young Tamil woman, a Santa cap on her head, rang a bell collecting donations for the Salvation Army.
Gilbert kept glancing at Jennifer, who walked through the crowd as if in a trance, showing no interest in the festive shop fronts, her blue eyes dull, looking neither to the left or right, her lanky body leaning slightly forward as if into a wind as she trudged past other shoppers like an extra from a zombie movie. She still hadn’t washed. Her face was pale. Her straw-colored hair hung in limp unattractive strands. The season was invisible to her.
“Let me get some money from the bank machine,” he said. “We’ll go to the food court and have something to eat.” He put his hand on Jennifer’s shoulder but she shook it away. “Can’t we at least try to be friends?” he asked.
“He’s made a few mistakes, Dad,” she said. “So what? You don’t have to seem so happy he’s gone.”
“Who says I’m happy?” He felt as if he were walking through a minefield.
“This is turning into a real bummer,” said Nina.
“Nina, why don’t you and Jennifer go see if you can find something for Mom at Braemar’s,” he said. “Remember that blue dress she was talking about? See if you can hunt it down.”
“Dad, that dress was three hundred dollars,” said Nina.
“So?” said Gilbert. He thought of the Edgar Lau murder case. “I think I’m in for some overtime.”
“I don’t feel like buying a dress,” said Jennifer.
He saw there was nothing he could do to raise Jennifer’s spirits.
Nina hurried to Braemar’s, always eager to shop for anything. Jennifer drifted over to Santa’s Castle where little kids lined up to get their pictures taken with Santa, and young women in short red dresses, long black boots, and too much makeup acted as Santa’s helpers. Gilbert stood in line at the bank machine. He felt unfairly picked on by Jennifer. He fought hard to conceal how he really felt about Karl Randall, but somehow it got through. If Karl had ever exhibited even a shred of responsibility, Gilbert might have felt differently, but Karl walked through the world like a mercenary on the loose, taking or wrecking anything he wanted while hurting a lot of people along the way. Rain beat against the skylights. He didn’t mean to be an ogre about Karl. Easy-listening Christmas music—Silent Night with a backbeat—filtered through concealed speakers. But he simply couldn’t help it.
He was three from the front of the line when he felt his pager buzz against his belt. He drew back his coat and had a look: 8081. Joe’s extension at work. His partner was already working some overtime on the Edgar Lau murder case.
He felt for his cellular but discovered he’d left it in the car. He walked over to the nearest telephone booth.
As he dialed headquarters he kept his eye on Jennifer. She sat on the edge of the fountain next to Santa’s Castle. She listlessly raked her fingers through the water, staring at the nickels and dimes on the tile below, seeing nothing, preoccupied with her own pain, oblivious to the happy sparkle of the coins in the water. Lombardo answered on the second ring.
“Bad news,” he told Gilbert. “Pearl Wu is gone. She left the country. She’s back in Hong Kong.”
“Shit.”
“She took a Canadian Airlines flight to Vancouver on Thursday, then a connecting Cathay Pacific flight yesterday morning.”
“Is she running?” asked Gilbert.
“I’m not sure,” said Joe. “Canadian Airlines says she’s booked on a return flight a week tomorrow.”
Gilbert glanced at a salesclerk handing out sample rum balls and marzipan at
the Laura Secord candy store across the way, thinking this information through, then looked at Jennifer again.
“So she just went home for Christmas?” said Gilbert.
“That’s a long flight,” said Lombardo, sounding unconvinced. “Who knows if she’s coming back? I’d hate to have to try and find her in Hong Kong.”
Jennifer watched a young couple in love walk by. She had that look in her eyes, like she was completely alone in the world, and had been cheated out of the only thing that had ever mattered to her.
The uncertain nature of Pearl Wu’s plans left them nothing to do but wait. Right now he was more concerned about his daughter.
“Look, Joe, I was wondering if you could do me a favor.”
“Sure.”
“Jennifer’s a little down.”
“The Karl thing,” said Lombardo.
“It’s turning Christmas into a disaster.” Jennifer got up and wandered toward Braemar’s, looking like a phantom, the soles of her black Doc Martins barely leaving the ground. “I thought you might take her to a show or something. I’ll pay. What’s on at the Royal Alex? Is Les Mis still playing?”
“Sure, I can get tickets to that,” said Lombardo. Lombardo paused. “But why don’t you take her yourself?”
“Because I rate a little below zero with Jennifer right now,” he said. “And unless I give Karl the Citizen-of-the-Year Award, that’s the way it’s going to stay.”
“The guy stole his friend’s car,” said Lombardo.
“I know,” said Gilbert. “But maybe we think too much like cops.”
“And he overdosed on some weird drug.”
“Heart medication,” said Gilbert. From down the mall he saw Nina come out of Braemar’s, her face pinched with purpose. “I would really appreciate it, Joe.” Nina met up with Jennifer. The two girls headed in his direction, Jennifer lagging behind. “Look, I’ve got to go. They’re coming. When you phone her up, make it sound like it was your idea, okay?”
“Sure.”
“Anything I do for her right now is going to be like poison.”
“You have that effect on people,” agreed Lombardo.
“Shut up, you schmuck,” said Gilbert, and rang off.
When his two daughters reached him, Nina was solemn, looked as if she were about to announce the outbreak of World War III.
“Dad, they don’t have the dress anymore,” she said. “It’s gone.”
Gilbert didn’t like shopping for just that reason; it always became problematic. “So what do we do?”
“I had the girl phone the Braemar’s at Fairview, Scarborough, and Yorkdale.” Gilbert stared at his youngest daughter with a flicker of renewed hope. “They don’t have the dress in Fairview, only beige ones at Scarborough, and the blue ones at Yorkdale are a size too big.” For a fifteen-year-old, she had uncanny investigative skills. “They’re going to check their warehouse, but if the girl puts an order in today, it won’t get here until after Christmas.”
Gilbert felt his heart rate quicken. In some ways, this was more stressful than smashing open a door in a takedown. “So what do we do?” he asked again.
“You don’t have to worry, Dad. I found another dress, just the kind of dress I know Mom will like,” said Nina, her cheeks flushing. “I know she’ll love it. And it’s blue. Her favorite color.”
Gilbert’s shoulders sank. “Okay,” he said, sacrificing his judgment to his daughter’s shopping acumen. “Lead the way.”
He was much too worried about Jennifer to venture into what to him were the uncharted waters of women’s fashions, and would stick to offering up his credit card like a sacrificial lamb when the time came.
Eight
On Thursday afternoon, four days before Christmas, Gilbert sat in the back booth of the Great Canadian Bagel Factory on University Avenue and Edward Street. Across the street he saw a Federal Express man double-park his vehicle in front of Kinko’s Copy and run inside to make a pickup. At the next table, three lawyers from down the street—Osgoode Hall was no more than a few blocks away—argued over an arcane interpretation regarding capital gains tax law on heavy equipment, all of it in English, none of it comprehensible to Gilbert. Gilbert nibbled on his cinnamon-and-raisin bagel, no butter, waiting for Constable Jeremy Austin. Why they couldn’t meet in 52 Division, a block away in Chinatown, Gilbert didn’t know. He could only guess that Austin was, after all, in trouble of some kind. He looked out at the rain. He never knew rain could take so many forms. He remembered Austin’s voice on the phone: tentative, nervous, reluctant. Today the rain came down like tendrils of silk, coiling in helixes, a fine particulate, not heavy rain, but penetrating. He was curious about what Austin had to say.
At the front he saw a tall, heavyset black policeman with a mustache and sideburns push his way through the glass doors. This was Austin. Austin glanced first to his left, into the Second Cup coffee-bar part of the eatery, then to his left, into the Great Canadian Bagel Factory. Gilbert raised his hand, catching the man’s attention. Austin nodded, then glanced through the big windows out at the street, as if he suspected someone might be following him. The linebacker-of-a-man walked around the counter and moved past the soft-drinks cooler, reminding Gilbert of a big ship easing through a harbor. Austin wore a standard-issue blue parka with the crest of the force on both shoulders, and the usual police hat. He had a wide pleasant face, with a medium-dark complexion, congenial dark eyes, and a broad forehead. He slid into the booth. The man was anxious, tense, ready to talk. He launched right in, without preamble, perhaps incautiously, didn’t even ask to see Gilbert’s badge and ID.
“I’ve been hearing things,” he said. He looked at Gilbert speculatively. “How long ago did you say you worked at 52 Division?”
“It was my first assignment,” said Gilbert. “I was in patrol. I was there for my first two years before I moved up to the old headquarters on Jarvis. In ’72 and ’73. A long time ago.”
Austin nodded, a man who’d heard it all, knew it all, an eminent historian of his own turf. “A lot has changed since then,” he said. “I came on in ’78 and I’ve been working there ever since. I’ve never wanted anything more than straight community policing in my career. I’ve always made a point of trying to know the people in my patrol community. The Chinese in and around here trust me. When they have a problem they come to me. Ask Benny Eng. I like to think I have an understanding with the immigrant Chinese. I’m an immigrant myself, came up from Tobago in 1969, so I think I have that experience, that understanding, and that’s why these people come to me whenever they have a problem. They trust me. I try to do right by them.”
From outside Gilbert heard the thump-thump of a helicopter air ambulance coming in for a landing on top of the Hospital for Sick Children up the street. He saw Austin was going to ease his way toward whatever information he might have, so Gilbert just sat back and played it like a conversation between friends.
“We had mostly Toishan Chinese back then,” said Gilbert. “All from mainland China.”
“That’s right,” agreed Austin, with a soft West Indian inflection. “But then you had a lot of Chinese moving in from everywhere else. Hong Kong, mainly. Some from Vietnam. Some from Cambodia. Now we’re seeing a new wave of them, mostly from Fujian Province, most of them without legitimate papers. Ninety-nine percent of these people are decent, law-abiding folks.”
Gilbert heard the man’s reservations. “But we have to worry about the ones who aren’t, don’t we?”
Austin looked out the window, his eyes as dark as black coffee. “We’ve got some feuding, detective,” he said. “You understand what I’m saying?”
“Between the Vietnamese and Chinese,” said Gilbert. “All those shootings a few years back. I worked some of those.”
“The Toishan Chinese and the new Hong Kong Chinese are the ones who are feuding these days,” said Austin. “Each is trying to take over the other’s operations. You get your shootings, but you also get the Toishans infiltrating the
Hong Kong Chinese, and the Hong Kong Chinese infiltrating the Toishans. And that can create opportunities for a police officer like myself. That’s why I’m here. To tell you about my latest opportunity. To tell you about the Toishan informant I’ve developed over the last three years. He thinks he knows who killed Edgar Lau.”
Gilbert stared at Austin, noting for the first time the odd birthmark the constable had near his left temple, a dull brown patch that looked like a squid. “I’m not sure why we had to meet secretly in order for you to tell me this,” he said.
Austin leaned forward. “Because there’s more to this than just the Toishan and Hong Kong Chinese,” he said, “and I’m in it up to my ears. Like I say, a feud like this creates opportunities for police officers.” Austin’s implication couldn’t have been plainer. Opportunities for police bribes. Opportunities for police corruption. Gilbert was beginning to see the reason for the officer’s initial nervousness. “You found a remote gunshot wound at autopsy?” said Austin.
Gilbert raised his eyebrows, surprised that Jeremy Austin should know this. “Yes, we did,” he said.
“No one was ever arrested in that shooting,” said Austin. “It happened in Vancouver. I don’t know whether you’ve had that confirmed yet.”
“No,” said Gilbert, “we haven’t.”
“My Toishan informer tells me it was a contract shooting, tendered by the highest levels of the 14K Triad in Hong Kong, and that Tony Mok was the shooter.”
“Tony Mok?” said Gilbert, taking a moment with the unfamiliar new name. He quickly scribbled it down in his notebook. “Who’s Tony Mok?”