Chasing the Dragon: a story of love, redemption and the Chinese triads (Opium Book 2)

by Colin Falconer

“It's a private view, Lace.”

  “I hope so. I wouldn't like it to become a trend.” She looked at her watch. “Better go, or I'll be late for Charlotte.” She turned to go.

  “Did you know about Vincent's supposed relationship with Eddie?”

  Lacey looked puzzled. “Just what I've read in the files.” She could not read the expression on McReadie's face. “Both Wo Sing Wo office bearers. Vincent's also a close business associate.”

  “Very close.”

  “Can you explain that?”

  “The rumor is, on the street, that Eddie has Vincent's tooth marks on his pillow.”

  “They're lovers?”

  “You think Conservative backbenchers are the only ones with kinks in the pin?” He finished his Scotch and signaled Tony for another. “Just thought you ought to know.”

  She looked at the whisky. “Can I give you a lift home?”

  “What for?” he said and asked Tony for a packet of nuts. Dinner. He was set for the night.

  Queen Mary Hospital, Pokfulam

  Eddie sat beside the bed, watching Vincent's breath cloud the oxygen mask, listening to the rhythmic blip of the heart monitor. His jaw was broken in three places, and the surgeons had wired it back into place. His nose and cheekbone were shattered, there were gaps in his mouth where he had lost teeth. His whole head was swollen, like a soft and over ripe fruit. The doctors feared a cerebral edema, there was a chance that he would need further surgery. Ten of his ribs were broken. There was some internal bleeding. He might lose a kidney.

  But worse even than this; they had taken away his face, his respect. Soon everyone in Hong Kong would know that Eddie Lau's White Fan had cried out like a girl when they beat him. The boys who did it were raw kids, fresh out of school.

  Someone hovered in the doorway. He did not look up, thinking it was one of the nurses. “How is he?”

  Eddie did not reply.

  “Your friends and associates have met with a great deal of misfortune in the past few weeks, Mister Lau. Have you thought perhaps of lighting some incense to Kuan Yin for protection?”

  His head jerked around. It was the detective he had met that day in the Wanchai police station, the one who had issued the arrest warrant. He could not remember her name. “What do you want?” he said.

  “I want to find the people who did this.”

  “It is none of your business.”

  “I'm a detective in the Serious Crimes Squad. This is a serious crime.”

  “You think putting the sons of lepers who did this in prison is punishment? How long have you lived in Hong Kong, detective?”

  “All my life.”

  “And you still don't understand the Chinese?”

  “I understand the law.”

  “Your law, not mine.”

  “If you go after the men who did this, we will come looking for you.”

  “I piss on all your ancestors. Get out of here.”

  “Very well, Mister Lau. But you have been warned.”

  He spat something at her in Cantonese. She left.

  Eddie continued his bedside vigil.

  He felt broken inside. How could this happen? Vincent was the artist, the thinker, the planner. He wasn't a fighter, how could they make him a target? I was supposed to protect him. I'm the one they should go after, me.

  It was his fault they had hurt Vincent. He had been reckless, and Vincent had told him to be careful. He should have foreseen that this was the way The Ox would take revenge. He had failed; but when he went after the men who did this he would not fail a second time.

  Chapter 26

  They found the bodies in the basement of an abandoned tenement in Johnston Road. It had been built just before the war, an ancient monument by Hong Kong standards, now due for demolition and redevelopment. The entire perimeter of the building was cordoned off with yellow police tape, and there were constables on duty at the gate to deter the curious. Lacey held up her ID and slipped underneath the tape.

  The foyer was tainted by years of decay, the accumulated stink of boiled cabbage and must and urine and sweat. A heavy fire door on the other side of the ancient elevator had been propped open. It led down to the basement.

  Lacey had seen many crime scenes, told herself she was hardened to it. But this was truly shocking, a nightmare. There were three bodies, and most of their contents was now smeared on the floors and the walls. They had not died well.

  Tyler was standing at the foot of the basement steps with two of the detective sergeants from her squad, Brian Kwok and David Poon. They were waiting for the government chemist and a senior staff officer from the Identity Bureau do their work. A police photographer was taking shots of the scene, under Tyler's direction. Two halogen lamps had been set up on tripods in the corners of the room. It looked like the set of a horror movie, with Tyler the director.

  He saw her and raised his eyebrows in greeting. He was holding a silver foil container, eating chicken and rice with a fork. “Don't you hate it when you get these calls during lunch?” he said.

  Lacey took a closer look at the three bodies. The men were naked, their hands tied behind their backs. They had been systemically butchered.

  “Whoever did this is not a pleasant human being,” Tyler said. He spooned in some chicken and rice.

  “It looks like a hand grenade went off.”

  “If you notice there's some conduit and a length of barbed wire in the corner. It seems that one of these gentlemen had the conduit inserted into him, followed by the barbed wire. It was then removed, with prejudice, in the same order as it was first introduced. As I said, whoever did this was not the sort of person you or I would have for dinner.”

  “Christ Almighty.”

  “The others were similarly abused, but without the same degree of invention. They had various body parts removed before they were dispatched, apparently with a meat cleaver.”

  “Who are they?”

  Tyler pointed out one of the bodies. What Lacey had taken for another bloody wound resolved into the shape of a crimson opium flower. A tattoo. Another one, of a snake.

  “He's one of the three men who attacked Vincent Tse.”

  “Not yet proved, but you are not stretching the laws of probability.”

  “Eddie Lau's handiwork.”

  Tyler finished his chicken and rice. “Or one of his pleasant friends. They say Won Ton is supposed to enjoy this sort of thing.”

  “Enough to put you off your lunch, isn't it?”

  “A man has to eat. '

  “I need some fresh air.”

  Lacey went back upstairs. Graffiti was plastered across the bare concrete walls, piles of rubbish rotted in the corners.

  Brian Kwok joined her.

  “Time of death?” she said.

  “The coroner says rigor is not complete and is no maggots so estimate between four to twelve hours. So sometime between one o'clock last night and nine o'clock this morning.”

  “Canvass the block, see if anyone saw or heard anything.”

  “Do we bring in Eddie Lau?”

  “And have his silk charge us with harassment?” She shook her head, pondered for a moment. “We'll search his apartment though. He expects us to, but we'll do it anyway. Won Ton as well. Tell David Poon to comb the basement, the stairs, both exits for prints, hair, whatever ...”

  Tyler appeared from the fire stairs. He tossed his empty foil tray into the corner under the stairwell. “Forensics will find that, dust the prints and haul me in for questioning.”

  “If these are Sun Yee On boys, this could be the start of a triad war.”

  “Could be. I'll see you back at the office. There's this great little cake shop in Amoy Street. I'll pick us up a couple of lotus seed buns.”

  ***

  Keelan picked up the phone in his office on the first ring.

  “Lieutenant. This is Detective Inspector Lacey.”

  Keelan felt his mood lift. He relaxed, and put his feet up on the desk. He reached fo
r his cigarettes. “What can I do for you?”

  “I want to talk to you about Eddie Lau.”

  “Eddie Lau ... sorry, can you give me the Chinese Commercial Code for that?”

  “What?”

  “Come on, detective, there's only four hundred and seventy two surnames for the entire Chinese population. Which Eddie Lau are we talking about?”

  There was a beat and then he heard her laughing. “Okay, I deserved that.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “I tried calling Mac but he's out. I thought you might be able to help me. Do Narcotics still have him under surveillance?”

  “I believe it was called off.”

  “Damn. Why?”

  “Usual story, lack of manpower. Why, what's the problem?”

  “I’m trying to establish his movements last night.”

  “I take it he wasn't at home reading a good book.”

  Keelan watched a green and white Cathay 747 grope for the runway at Kai Tak between the towering white boxes of Kowloon.

  “What are you doing this afternoon?” she said.

  “Saving the free world from the menace of narcotics.”

  “Perhaps I can help you with that. I'll pick you up in half an hour.”

  “Okay,” Keelan said, and replaced the phone on its cradle. Well I'll be damned.

  Chapter 27

  Causeway Bay was Hong Kong's glimpse of its own Bladerunner future; vast presses of people living vertically in white, bright-lit boxes sprawled around Victoria Park and out to the oppressive cluster of North Point.

  The elevator was broken so Lacey and Keelan had to walk eleven floors to reach the apartment they were looking for. Lap-sap - rubbish – was piled in the dark corners of the stairwell. It reeked of piss. Even in the middle of the afternoon it was so dark they could barely see the stairs.

  They found a green-painted door. Keelan smelled cabbage and ginger and garlic. Lacey took out her ID and knocked.

  A squat and smooth-skinned Cantonese in a white vest and ill-fitting grey trousers peered out.

  “Chang mai-cheung?”

  The man nodded, looking dazed.

  Lacey held out her shield. “Detective Inspector Sian Lacey, Wanchai CID.” She indicated Keelan. “This is Lieutenant John Keelan, one of my colleagues.”

  The man just stood there, blinking like an owl.

  “May we come in?”

  “The police!” the man shouted in Cantonese. “The police are here! Something's happened to Pui-kee!”

  Eyes peered out at them up and down the corridor. She edged her way through the door into the apartment.

  Mrs Chang appeared in the hallway, a small woman in a faded purple terry toweling tracksuit. Her hair had been bizarrely permed. Keelan followed Lacey through the door and shut it.

  “Pui-kee?” the woman said to Lacey.

  “I'm afraid so.”

  Children crowded into the doorway behind Mrs Chang, the youngest perhaps just four or five years old, the oldest a teenager. “He is hurt?”

  “I am sorry. I have some bad news for you. Would you like to sit down?”

  “He's dead?” Chang shouted. He slumped against the wall. His wife almost fell in a dead faint but one of her daughters sprang from the doorway and caught her before she hit the floor. Two of the older boys dragged her towards the bedroom, her husband stumbling after her.

  The apartment was cramped, a single window overlooking a panorama of laundry poles. A baby, no more than eighteen months old, played on the balcony among the clutter of withered potted plants. Two finches in tiny bamboo cages chirruped above its head. Keelan counted just the one bedroom, folding beds stacked against the wall. Where did they fit everyone?

  There were shelves littered with an array of beauty products and cleaning aids, the junk of a thousand television commercials. An old woman sat in a chair watching a Chinese soap opera.

  “Hello, grandmother,” Lacey said respectfully, in Cantonese.

  The old lady stared back and said nothing. Mrs Chang had recovered from her faint. He heard her screaming in the bedroom.

  The Kitchen God smiled absently from his shrine in the corner of the room. There was incense, a mandarin, a bar of chocolate and a packet of Dunhill cigarettes at his feet. Still not enough to keep the bad luck away, Keelan thought.

  “Thanks for bringing me,” Keelan said in a sour voice.

  “You wanted to understand more about the Chinese gangs.”

  “This is it?”

  “This is part of it.”

  Chang came out of the bedroom. His eyes were glassy with shock. “Is it possible there is some mistake?” he said.

  There was a photograph on the mantelpiece, a posed studio shot of the whole family, no one was smiling. She pointed to the teenage boy at the far left, the one with the tattoo of an opium poppy on his hand.

  Chang put his hands on his head and shouted at her in Cantonese, it sounded as if he was accusing her of killing his son. “What's he saying?” Keelan said.

  “He wants to know if there might be some mistake.”

  Keelan shook his head. “I've always hated this part of the job.”

  “These people may be able to help us.”

  “I think he's going to faint too.”

  But Chang did not faint. He went back into the bedroom and slammed the door. They caught a glimpse of his wife wailing on the bed, her children gathered around her. When he came out again she told him, as gently as she could, that another policeman would come by later to take him to see his son and make a formal identification. Then they would need him and his wife to answer some questions.

  There was another long conversation in Cantonese, and every time Lacey said something he would hold his head and walk around the room wailing. The old grandmother turned up the volume on the television.

  “What's he saying?”

  “He asked me how he died.”

  “He won’t want to know that.”

  “I said he was murdered and that it was gang-related. That he died of a knife wound.”

  “Or several hundred.”

  “Have to let them down easy.”

  “Amen to that.”

  Finally they were done and they left. The Changs’ neighbors were gathered in little groups in the hallway. Word had spread fast.

  ***

  Lacey pulled over outside the Hopewell Centre. It was late afternoon and the concrete towers of Wanchai left the side street in permanent shadow.

  “So, why did you bring me along to see that particular show, detective?” Keelan said.

  “This is not San Francisco.”

  “No shit, Sherlock.”

  “We've had liaison officers over here before. They go back to the States thinking every Chinese is a triad. But most Chinese are hard-working and law-abiding people. The kids that get involved in crime are just that - kids. The triads use the youth gangs to do their dirty work for them. But they're not the planners, not the brains. They're just poor and angry and for them it's just a fast track to big money. They've got nothing to lose.”

  “And they're willing to risk it all.”

  “Most of them are like Chang, they come from overcrowded apartment blocks with no hope of anything better. His parents would have had no idea the trouble he was getting into. He starts hanging out at a games arcade or a martial arts gym. That's where the triads do most of their recruiting. He sees some older kid, he looks tough and he has money to throw around, he invites him to be his 'follower.’ Chang starts off by 'hanging the blue lantern', that's what they call it, it's like an apprenticeship. The older kid tells him someone needs roughing up, or else he wants him and his friends to shake down a certain restaurant. Well, it's not so hard. He goes into the place, eats a meal with his friends, then refuses to pay. Or else he stands in the doorway, looking tough, glaring at all the customers. And he thinks this is kind of fun. He hasn't got a job, or anything better to do. Later on, if he proves himself he's invited to join the t
riad as a 49. Suddenly he has money in his pocket and everyone's scared of him. He's got face for the first time in his life. In time he may recruit mah jai's, horses - followers - of his own and run deals of his own and have other people do their dirty work while he launders the profits into a respectable business. They always make sure they give a cut to the guy above them. That’s a triad. It's like a Ponzi scheme with meat cleavers.”

  Keelan nodded. “So how are we going to stop them in the States?”

  Lacey shrugged. “You could start by learning Cantonese, recruiting Chinese police. Unless you infiltrate their organization, you don't have a prayer.”

  “You think we’re the next target?”

  “The US is not a target, it’s a done deal. While these guys can still make ten per cent on the Hang Seng the big names will stay in Hong Kong. But they'll also have a bolt hole ready in Australia or Britain or Golden Mountain.”

  “Golden Mountain?”

  “It's what the Cantonese call California.”

  “And Chang?”

  ‘Beat up the wrong guy is all. There are plenty ready to take his place.”

  He started to get out of the car and stopped. “Look, detective ...”

  “You can call me Lace. Everyone else does.”

  “Thanks. This afternoon wasn't pleasant but it was an education.”

  “No problem.”

  He hesitated. “Perhaps we can have a drink some time … Lace.”

  She fiddled with the rear vision mirror. “I don't think so.”

  “Okay. Forget I said it.”

  “Nothing personal. But I never let my working life and my private life overlap. Besides, I don't go out with married men.”

  Keelan started to say something else and changed his mind.

  “Okay. Well, thanks again.”

  She watched him cross the street. He was a strange one. She still hadn't quite worked him out.

  ***

  As he rode the elevator Keelan thought about Anna. Why, whenever he was with another woman, did he still feel as if he was cheating? Someone had said to him that time was a great healer. He suspected that people who said that had never had wanted to curl up and die from grief. Some wounds never healed; you just nursed them along, he supposed, one day at a time and you kept doing that till the day you died.