Fall Guy

by Scott Mackay

  Twenty-Three

  Uniformed officers of the Hong Kong Police Force came to get Gilbert from the Chinese fishing village of Yencheng. They forgot to bring him coffee, but he didn’t care, he was just glad to be getting out of there. They took him back to Hong Kong, following a coastal road through Kwangtung Province. Gilbert saw walled villages, temples with pagoda-style roofs, and bamboo-hatted peasants plowing rice paddies with ox-driven plows. He was anxious to get back to the hotel.

  They crossed the defunct colonial border forty-five minutes later.

  As he and the police officers made their way through the New Territories—the semi-rural and suburban area immediately north of Metropolitan Hong Kong—his suspicions about Dunlop were renewed. Something not right about the man, he thought again. Probably Wu’s man. But then again maybe not. Just because there were corrupt police officers in 52 Division didn’t mean there were corrupt police officers everywhere.

  Still, being around the man irked Gilbert. The road veered close to the Kowloon-Canton Railway. Gilbert saw a train clanking north toward China. If Dunlop was indeed Wu’s man, Gilbert wondered what role he was playing in this whole sad business.

  He expected Dunlop to debrief him, but Dunlop mercifully allowed him to sleep first.

  “We have everything on tape,” said Dunlop. Gilbert didn’t like the smile on Dunlop’s face. Something told him he had to act fast if he was going to arrest Pearl successfully.

  When he got back to the Ritz-Carlton, he phoned headquarters and had Gordon Telford write a warrant on Pearl for unlawful possession of a firearm. He was going to nab her on the Derringer, just as a way to hold her until he himself could write a more detailed warrant on the…yes, on the manslaughter charge.

  “Phone me the minute you have her in custody,” he said. “You’re going to have to move fast.”

  He and Joe had lunch after that.

  “Jesus, you really had me worried,” said Lombardo. “I thought for sure he was going to kill you.”

  “No,” said Gilbert, and took a sip of his second merciful cup of coffee. “No, he treated me fine. I was more worried about you. Man overboard, and all that.”

  Lombardo looked to one side, ignoring his eggplant with garlic sauce. “I’m going to have to work out more,” he said. “It took me an hour to swim back to Ferry Street. It was a lot further than I thought. By the time me and Dunlop got in the helicopter and were heading out to sea, you were long gone. I’m sorry about that, Barry. I’m a slow swimmer. I should come with you to Leaside Pool. I’m starting to lose my edge.”

  Gilbert shrugged. “I’m okay, aren’t I?” he said. “Other than a bit of caffeine withdrawal, I’m perfectly fine.” Gilbert grinned. “Eat your eggplant,” he said. “The hotel’s got a swimming pool. We can go for a swim later. I’ll help you sharpen your stroke.”

  “You better phone your family first,” said Lombardo. He shook his head. “I called them,” he said. “I had to let them know that you were…you know…that you were out there with Tony. I felt it only fair that they should know the situation.”

  Gilbert nodded. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”

  Because it was two o’clock in the morning in Canada, he put off phoning his family until six, Toronto time.

  In the meantime, Dunlop called and asked Gilbert and Lombardo to come to HKPF headquarters. They took a taxi. Together with Dunlop and one of the DEA’s Hong Kong agents—a proxy Paulsen—they sat around with coffee and croissants and listened to the Tony Mok conversation.

  Once the tape was finished, Dunlop lifted his chin, curious. “What do you plan to do about Tony, now that he’s on the run again?” he asked.

  Gilbert gazed at Dunlop. His face settled. “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Because he’s murdered Hoi Hsien now, hasn’t he?” said Dunlop. “And that’s changed the complexion of the whole business.” Dunlop raised his chin. “I think he’s rather our bag of groceries now, don’t you?”

  Gilbert stared at his croissant. “I suppose he is,” he said.

  When Gilbert got back to the hotel, he had a message to call Gordon Telford. He called immediately.

  “We got Pearl,” said Telford. “We nabbed her at One Park Lane. We found the gun.”

  As Gilbert hung up, he grinned. Dunlop could sound the alarm to Wu’s people any way he wanted now. They had Pearl, and nothing Dunlop could do was going to change that.

  He phoned his family. Nina answered. Nina always answered. She was at that age where the phone was a necessary umbilical of life.

  “You’re okay,” she said, sounding surprised but immensely relieved.

  He smiled, overjoyed to hear her voice. “I’m okay,” he said. “Is Mom there?”

  “Dad, you’re really okay?” she said, her voice climbing into its higher range. This was his little girl, his little Nina. “Are you really all right? Did that guy hurt you?”

  “I’m all right. I’m just tired. I want to see you guys badly.”

  He heard her pull the phone away. “Mom, it’s Dad. He’s alive.” Her voice now quavered with excitement. God, he loved that girl. The father-daughter connection between them vibrated all the way across the Pacific.

  He heard the phone change hands.

  “Barry?” said Regina.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  Nothing made him feel better than hearing Regina’s voice. A mellow soprano, supremely feminine, it made him think of her perfect white teeth and pink lips.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “Joe said he phoned you.”

  “What happened?” He heard the chronic worry in her voice. “I thought I was going to lose you.” Her voice grew thin, as if the trials and tribulations of a homicide detective’s wife were too great to bear.

  He took a deep breath. “It didn’t go quite according to plan,” he said.

  “But you’re all right?” she said. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

  “I’m fine. I was thinking of you guys, though. Especially when I got to China. I spent a night under a tree there. And I thought about you guys constantly.”

  “Jennifer wants to talk to you.”

  “She does?”

  “She’s emotional, okay?”

  Gilbert paused. “Okay,” he said. He swallowed, prepared himself. “Put her on.”

  He heard the phone change hands again.

  “Dad?” Jennifer sounded as fragile as a snowflake.

  “Hi.”

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  A long pause. “Dad, I’m sorry,” she said at last. “I’m sorry I treated you the way I did. I thought I was never going to see you again.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m okay.”

  Another pause. Her voice got shakier. She started crying. “I’m really sorry I said all those things, Dad. Mom said you looked so sad when you left. I really felt bad about that. I don’t want you to be sad. That’s not the way I want you to be. You’re my father. You’re my dad, Dad.”

  Here was his firstborn. He remembered her as a child. Smart. Inquisitive. But dark. Prone to long periods of silent contemplation. Able to feel. And feel deeply. What he felt from her now was nothing but love. Nothing would ever change that, he realized. Her fiery passion for Randall, her passing infatuation with Joe…they were all ephemeral emotions compared to what he felt coming from her now.

  “I’ll be home in a day or two,” he said.

  “Good,” she said. She paused again. He heard her sniffle. “That’s good,” she repeated. “I just want us to be normal again, okay? I don’t know what happened to us. But it was like we were on different planets for a while. I don’t want that to ever happen again.”

  “Neither do I.”

  A silence hung between them. The silence was more eloquent than all their words. “Love you, Dad,” she finally said.

  “And I love you, too,” he said.

  “Here’s Mom.”


  He heard the phone change hands a third time. “Well?” said Regina.

  “Well what?”

  “Just a sec…she’s going…she’s leaving the kitchen.” He waited. “Okay, she’s gone. How’d it go?”

  He took a deep breath and exhaled in relief. “It went a lot better this time,” he said.

  An hour later, Gilbert received another call from Ian Dunlop.

  “I’m afraid Tony Mok’s been murdered,” said the HKPF officer. “Have a uniformed constable bring you to the Happy Valley Sports Ground apartment complex on Wong Nai Chung Road. I’m at the scene now. Apparently Tony was trying to give Hoi Hsien’s widow some money. Two gunmen opened fire from the stairwell.”

  A driver came and got Gilbert and Lombardo at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel fifteen minutes later.

  “Dunlop still bugs me,” Gilbert told Lombardo. Lombardo’s face was awash in the dim neon light coming from the street. “How could two gunmen be waiting for Tony? They would have to know Tony had plans to give Hoi Hsien’s widow money. How could they know that without knowing about the tape? One of the first things Tony said to me was that he was going to give money to Hoi’s widow. Dunlop heard the tape. He told those gunmen to go wait there in the stairwell on Wu’s orders. Dunlop’s working for Wu.”

  Towering buildings rose on either side of them as they made the slow climb up to the Pun Shan Kui—the mid-levels, as they were called—to the Happy Valley Sports Ground apartment complex. They veered right as they reached Wong Nai Chung Road, followed it south, and exited onto a side street just before the Aberdeen Tunnel. They got out of the car and walked the rest of the way to the apartment complex.

  They entered the lobby and took the elevator to the seventh floor.

  The corridor buzzed with police activity. Tony Mok lay facedown in the middle of the corridor in a meter-wide smear of blood, his hands at his sides, palms upward, his feet pigeon-toed, his head turned to the left, and his cheek speckled with blood. Gilbert and Lombardo looked at each other, then continued along the corridor past the open door of a tiny apartment where two detectives talked to a distraught young woman. They found Dunlop by the fire door at the end of the corridor conversing in fluent Cantonese with another detective. Spent shell casings circled in yellow chalk lay on the concrete floor of the stairwell landing. Dunlop nodded a greeting to Gilbert and Lombardo.

  “I’m sorry this didn’t turn out differently,” he said.

  “Is that Hsien’s widow?” asked Gilbert, nodding back toward the apartment.

  “That’s her,” said Dunlop. Dunlop shifted uncomfortably. He looked at Gilbert, slid his hands into his pockets as if he were trying to hide something. “Tragic, really. For Tony to end up like this. It doesn’t seemed fair, does it? Oh, and by the way,” he said, “I’ve just received word that Tony’s blood phenotype and some other records have arrived from the Prince of Wales Hospital. Shall I have an officer bring them to your hotel? Are you still interested?”

  Gilbert stared at Dunlop, disliking the man more than ever. “Yes,” he said. “Have him bring it to our hotel.”

  “Right you are, then.”

  And that was that. He thought of Hoi Hsien, his purple velour nightclub jacket, his big ears, his pathetic attempt to play gangster; then he thought of Hoi’s widow and her two little girls. He glanced at Tony one last time. He felt a presence in the air, that invisible monster at the center of it all, Bing Wu. There was no more to say. Tony lay dead on the floor, with corrupt police officers all around him. Gilbert turned to Lombardo.

  “Let’s get out of here,” he said. He gave Dunlop one last look. “It smells in here.”

  The records from the Prince of Wales Hospital included not only the original of the blood phenotype on Tony but blood phenotypes on Foster Sung and May Lau.

  “May Lau?” said Lombardo.

  “I’m as surprised as you are,” said Gilbert.

  “Whatever prompted you to follow this up?” asked Lombardo.

  “You know me, Joe,” he said. “Desperate detectives always go for the long shot.”

  Gilbert phoned Dr. Blackstein in Toronto, and together they went over the results.

  “Blood phenotype results are never a hundred percent accurate, Barry,” said Dr. Blackstein when they were through. “But I’d say you’ve got a nine-out-of-ten chance that Foster Sung is Tony’s father. And I would say that May Lau is his mother.”

  Gilbert hung up and told Lombardo the news.

  “I still don’t get it,” said Lombardo. “Why would Foster and May deny their blood connection to Tony all these years?” He looked out the window, where Hong Kong glittered in the wet night. “Do you think Tony had any idea Foster and May were his parents?”

  “No.”

  Lombardo frowned. “Why would they do something like that?” he said. “Why would they hide it from Tony? No wonder he turned out the way he did. I don’t understand the way these people think, Barry, I really don’t. This is almost as crazy as Edgar slashing Pearl’s face, or Bing Wu hiring Tony to take the fall for Pearl’s crime. How could May deny her own son? What is it with these people?”

  Gilbert shook his head, as bewildered as Lombardo. “I wish I knew, Joe,” he said.

  Twenty-Four

  Back in Toronto, Gilbert and Lombardo went to see Pearl Wu in her detention cell. Gilbert knew that holding her on a gun charge could be only a temporary measure, that they couldn’t expect to hold her more than another two or three days before the Red Pole got her out on bail. But he hoped by then he would have affidavits from May Lau and Foster Sung to confirm her guilt in Edgar’s murder.

  Pearl smiled when she saw them, but her smile was wistful, and she looked infected—infected the way killers looked after they killed someone, afflicted with a brooding and persistent introspection; with guilt, fear, and, worst of all, with apathy. She looked at Lombardo. Her eyes widened.

  “You a handsome guy,” she said.

  Lombardo grinned, but he wasn’t taken in. Gilbert knew Lombardo felt the murder-rot coming off her. Yes, Gilbert wanted it arraigned as a manslaughter, she had suffered a lot, she was a victim, but, as Mok told it, her face still had gone blank at the penultimate moment. Her face went blank and she fired the gun. Blank with that blankness killers sometimes got. Her fervent love had been matched by an equally fervent hatred. And she deserved at least some time behind bars for that.

  “And you’re a beautiful woman,” said Lombardo, because Lombardo couldn’t stop being Lombardo, no matter what the circumstances.

  She turned to Gilbert. “Hi you, there again,” she said.

  “Hi,” he said. “I hope they’re keeping you comfortable.”

  “No room service,” she said. “And no complimentary towels.”

  “Pearl…” he said, his eyes narrowing. “Pearl, we know you killed Edgar. I spoke to Tony Mok in Hong Kong. He told me everything. And we have it all on tape.” He had to make his try again. “The tape suggests you may have killed Edgar in defense of Tony Mok. You’d make this a lot easier if you’d just sign a confession to that effect.”

  Her beautiful Chinese eyes misted over with tears. “I not kill Edgar,” she said. “You talk to my lawyer. I never kill Edgar.” He saw she wasn’t going to bite. “I love Edgar.”

  With that she began to weep. Her weeping reminded Gilbert of the way May Lau played the Chinese violin. Gilbert and Lombardo looked at each other. A woman weeping was a woman weeping, and what could you do about it? She had a lot to weep about. She was bursting at the seams with sorrow, and nothing they could do could fix that. Here was her grief, finally finding its full force. Here in this detention cell, Edgar’s ghost haunted her. Here was her life, her sacrifice, and all the cruelty she had endured. She was a ruin, beyond redemption, any happiness fading right out of her, any hope long since departed. And so she wept.

  There wasn’t much left for her to do.

  He went to see May Lau.

  The day was windless, full of rain, with the d
rops coming straight down in thick silver streaks. May Lau wore black again. He had to look at her in a new light. She was Tony’s mother. As on the previous occasion, she poured tea.

  She dropped the teapot when Gilbert told her Tony was dead. Dropped it as if by accident. Her face showed no change. The hot green liquid dripped off the edge of the table to the floor. Her calico cat raised its head in momentary interest, then grew drowsy again and went back to sleep. Tendrils of steam rose from the cheap throw rug beneath the coffee table.

  “These hands of mine,” she said. She stooped to pick up the dropped teapot.

  “Here, let me take that,” said Gilbert.

  He lifted the teapot and set it on the table. May Lau walked to the kitchen, came back with a towel, and wiped up the mess.

  “How did he die?” she asked, her voice soft, resigned.

  “He was shot.”

  May nodded, continued to wipe the tea from the floor, as if she always knew Tony would die that way. She was performing, he could see that. But her performance was a weak one, strained and unconvincing. As the dish towel grew dark with tea, she looked as if she were struggling for something appropriate to say.

  “He was too young,” she said at last.

  Her words were anything but heartfelt. Her strain passed, and it now seemed to Gilbert that the death of Tony Mok meant nothing to her.

  “I talked to him the night before he died,” said Gilbert. “We talked about Edgar’s murder.” The same sad theme, played in a hundred different ways. Gilbert recounted Tony Mok’s version of Edgar’s murder to May Lau, how May had come up seconds after the shooting and found Pearl with a gun in her hand. He told her of Foster Sung’s arrival.

  “While Edgar lived, you all went with the unknown-assailant story,” he said. “You knew Edgar would be questioned by police. He was going to tell them he had no idea who his attacker was. You were trying to protect Pearl. As a way to spare yourselves trouble from Bing Wu. But when he died…well, you all just waited to see what would happen. I’m sorry he died. And I’m sorry Tony died. You have my condolences.”