Ruby leaned forward, her arms hugged about her chest. “Sick of this life. Really sick of this.”
“You can trust me.”
“Can never trust yellow air.”
Keelan wanted to shake her. Can’t you see they've abandoned you? Eddie Lau, Baptiste Crocé, the rest of them, they've left you to rot in here! I am your only way out of this hell hole.
“What else I have to do, John?”
“You have to be prepared to go to court and testify.”
“This is Thailand, Kee Lan. I say I will testify against Louis Huu, they kill me in here for sure.”
“No, not here, in the United States. You’ll be extradited.” When she did not answer he leaned forward and lifted her chin so that he was looking straight into her face. “You've got so many choices, Ruby? Had any better offers lately?”
Ruby jerked away, hung her head on her chest.
“Let's start off with one simple question. How did Eddie Lau know there was an arrest warrant out for him in Hong Kong?”
“Because I tell him.”
“And how did you find out?”
“Feng shui man.”
Keelan stood up. “Okay, that's it. I'm getting the guards.”
“Okay, Kee-Lan tell you, okay? Was your good friend, Mac.”
Keelan stared her. “That's bullshit.”
“No bullshit, tell you for true.”
Keelan felt physically sick. Not McReadie, he was a friend, he was Sian Lacey's uncle. He was also a chief inspector in the Hong Kong Narcotics Bureau. “I don't believe you.”
“Don't care what you believe, no shit.”
“Why?”
Ruby held up her thumb and index finger and rubbed them together. “Why anyone do anything, heya?”
Keelan shook his head. It had to be a lie. “We'll get back to that. Tell me about the seven keys of heroin.”
“Mien lap,” she said. “Chinese padded jackets.”
“What?”
“Sew powder into lining of the jacket. Little bit in each jacket, how anyone going to know? Send air freight to Shenzhen.”
“Shenzhen City? Is that where Eddie is?”
She stared at the floor. If she was going to give up Eddie Lau, she had better do it now.
“Ruby?”
She nodded her head.
“Wait a minute ...” Keelan said. He sat down behind the desk and took a yellow legal pad and a pen from his briefcase. He pushed a pack of cigarettes across the desk to Ruby, helped her light one. “Okay. Let's go.”
“Make the deal with Frenchman who live here in Bangkok, Crocé ...” She pronounced it Kwo-chao. “Then we arrange pick-up...”
“How?”
“He says go such and such place. Then they call me on mobile service. Give me registration number of car. Keys are under steering wheel, exhaust maybe. Little four in suitcase in boot of car.”
“And you sew the stuff into the padded jackets.”
“Repack in boxes, send air freight to Guanzhou. Eddie arranges pick up, brings back to Shenzhen ...”
“Slow down.”
“Cannot slow down. Way I talk. You write faster.”
“Okay, go on.”
“Has textile factory in Shekhou City. Sends jackets to United States, through Hong Kong, part of very big consignment. Very hard to find. Got to rip open many jacket to find the little four.”
“What's the name of the factory in Shekhou?”
“Friendship Textile on Nanshan Lu.”
Keelan stopped writing. He stared at what he had written. “Perhaps we could talk to the Chinese,” he said, thinking aloud.
“Can talk all you want. Have a saying in Canton: Mountains are high and the emperor is a long way away. Shenzhen is not part of China, Shenzhen is part of Shenzhen.”
“If we got Eddie on US soil, we could arrest his ass.”
“Eddie-ah never be so stupid.”
“Maybe he could be stupid for you.”
“Does not even come to Bangkok for his Ruby-ah. Why you think he will come to Golden Mountain?”
“We have to find a way to get him out of China.”
“Never happen.”
It might, Keelan thought, if we have you as bait. And we could bait the hook for more than one fish. According to US Immigration records, Louis Huu visited the West Coast at least every six months. If he could get him into a US courtroom and put Ruby Wen on the stand, he could get a conspiracy conviction under the RICO statutes.
“Tell me about your meetings with Mister Louis Huu.”
“First you get me out of here.”
“No, first you agree to testify in the United States. Then we'll see what we can do.”
“Tell you too much already.”
“Too much? I can’t touch this Corsican guy, he’s too well protected. And you can incriminate Eddie Lau all you want, but he’s over the border in Shenzhen. You haven’t given me enough to arrest anyone yet.”
“Enough for Eddie to wash me if he ever find out.”
“Did you ever have conversations with Louis Huu about importing heroin into the United States?”
“Sure,” Ruby said. “I tell you that, okay.”
“Did he tell you where he buys his heroin, who his contacts are in the States?”
“Maybe.”
“Come on, Ruby.”
Ruby hung her head again.
“Seven keys of number four, Ruby. That's one hundred and fifty years at least. With time off for good behavior you'll be out when you're a hundred and ten.”
“Got to think about this.”
“There's nothing to think about. You want to rot in jail, or not?”
“Okay, heya! He buys from some General.”
“What's his name?”
“Doan remember.”
“Ruby!”
“Doan remember, okay! Some guy in BPP.”
“No shit,” Keelan said, and kept writing. The BPP were the Border Patrol Police, a Thai paramilitary unit ostensibly formed to stop communists infiltrating the border. They were financed by the CIA. Same old story; scratch a drug dealer, find a spook. “Who are his contacts in the States?”
“Not know.”
“Ruby ...”
“Not know, okay! Not his mother, he doan tell me everything! Not know anything about Louis Huu in Golden mountain!”
Keelan tore the paper from the pad and stared at what he had written. “Okay,” he said, “we're going to do this over again, only we're going to be a little more precise, and I want you to give me everything you know. Who said what to who, where and when. Okay?”
“Ruby Wen is dead,” she said.
“Trust me.”
Ruby remembered what her father had told her when she was a child. When you're alive don't go to the police, when you're dead don't go to hell. She had just broken the first of his rules, and she was afraid that very soon she was going to break the other.
Chapter 58
VINCENT TSE stood at the bow of the launch, looked up as it passed under a road bridge. Above him, the traffic tooted and snarled in its own choking fumes. The coffee brown canal was polluted and it stank, but it was a more civilized way for a man to get himself across this overcrowded city.
The river was heavy with mud. Water hyacinth, torn from the banks by the monsoon floods, floated in thick clumps. Rice barges, water taxis and long wooden skiffs loaded with spiky rambutans and jackfruit scooted past them.
They passed under yet another bridge and then the hang ya pulled into a landing stage, seized the mooring rope and hopped onto the bank to secure it. Vincent, his briefcase clutched in his right hand, was helped ashore by a white-jacketed servant.
A large Shanghai Chinese, muscles bulging under his sports shirt, oversaw the operation and led Vincent up to the house. A path wound through a tropical garden to a traditional Thai home, two story, built entirely from teak. Orchids hung from slatted wooden boxes from the terrace on the upper floor.
The muscle took off
his shoes at the entrance and indicated that Vincent should do the same. Inside, it was dark and cool. It reminded Vincent of a museum. There were ancient Burmese Buddhas, wooden statuary from Cambodia, blue and white porcelain from China, Thai silk carpets.
Louis Huu waited for him upstairs on the terrace in a blue velvet smoking jacket embroidered with gold brocade. He greeted him as if he were a family friend.
“Vincent!” he said, extending his hand. “You do me great honor to visit my humble home.”
“It is I who am honored,” Vincent answered. “I have heard such great reports about you.” Just not from Eddie.
“Come and sit down. Will you drink tea?”
They sat side by side on the terrace and drank lemon-scented tea, while Louis made inconsequential conversation about Hong Kong and Happy Valley and a shopping center development he was considering in Shatin. A gentle breeze stirred the temple chimes.
He was such pleasant company that Vincent had to remind himself that his host might not let him leave alive should the result of the meeting not be to his entire satisfaction.
Finally it was time to get down to business. “My higher authority has sent me here to discuss a matter that is causing him great concern,” Vincent said.
“What matter is that?”
“He is anxious over misunderstandings that have occurred between you in the past. He does not want this to affect your friendship. My higher authority wants you to know that he thinks of you as an older brother.”
Louis Huu took a cigarette from a silver box on the table and fitted it into an ivory holder. “I am flattered by his words. What does he propose, that we can heal these wounds?”
“I have in my briefcase a letter of credit for twenty eight million baht to clear the question of a debt you are owed.”
Vincent flicked open the clasps on his briefcase and took out a thick manila envelope. Louis Huu studied it for a moment. “I am happy to accept. To show my friendship I am inclined to waiver the question of interest.”
You can go defecate in your grandmother's ear for your interest, Vincent thought. “He also hopes you might revisit your business relationship. For your mutual profit.”
“Now this troublesome matter has been resolved, we can certainly talk business again.”
He gave Vincent a soft and golden smile of triumph.
And a white-jacketed male servant brought more tea.
***
Finally Vincent rose to leave.
“There is one more small matter,” he said, almost as an afterthought. “My higher authority wonders if you might be able, as a friend, to offer a small measure of assistance.”
“If it is in my power.”
“My higher authority has a very dear friend who has been wrongly imprisoned in Maha Chai, here in Bangkok. Her name is Ruby Wen sui-ming. She was falsely accused of possessing certain narcotic substances. He wonders perhaps if you might intercede with the relevant authorities here in your country, and clarify this misunderstanding.”
Louis Huu frowned, as if trying to summon the details of the case from his memory. “Ah yes, Miss Wen. Tell your higher authority there is no need for concern. I am reliably informed that she may be released at any time. However please also to tell him that a fee of three million baht may be payable to expedite the paperwork.”
Dew neh loh moh on this Ruby Wen! Three million on top of the twenty eight they had already spent to placate this steaming pile of pig manure. It would clear almost all the cash they had on hand. For a woman!
“I will arrange the transfer first thing in the morning,” Vincent said.
Chapter 59
TWO days after her interview with John Keelan, two soldiers with Smith and Wesson automatic pistols on their hips came to fetch Ruby Wen from the women's compound.
“Where you taking me?” she said.
The soldiers did not answer. Ruby was marched to a small shed in the men's compound. In the middle of the shed was an anvil and a bench.
“What are you doing?” Ruby shouted.
The blacksmith did not answer her. He selected a set of chains and ankle rings, and motioned for her to put her leg in one of the rings. The guards shoved her forward. There was no point in resisting.
She was forced to put her leg on the anvil and the blacksmith pounded the link shut with a hammer. Then he repeated the process with the other leg. The chains were too heavy for her and she could not walk in them. The blacksmith tied a piece of string to the chain so she could walk small steps by carrying the links.
Her hands were cuffed together.
She was herded through the gates onto a waiting prison bus. It was crowded with prisoners; guards persuaded any stragglers to board faster with a cattle prod. The bus moved off.
They drove through the gates onto the choked streets of Bangkok. A monsoon storm had flooded the streets, slowing traffic even more than usual. Someone told Ruby they were going to the courthouse. I wonder if Prassaran will be there, she thought. I don't care anymore. They can shoot Ruby-ah if they want.
The courthouse yard was a bedlam of police, officials, weeping relatives and reporters. She was herded out of the bus again and down a long corridor into a packed courtroom. Julian Prassaran was indeed there. The dapper Indian lawyer stepped forward and thrust a document into her hand.
“What is this?” she said to him.
“It is the charge sheet,” he said. “Don't worry. Everything will be all right.”
Ruby looked around, saw Louis Huu sitting at the back of the courtroom, behind the armed police and reporters. He smiled.
When Louis Huu smiles at you, she thought, is as good as all over.
The judge read out the charges, Prassaran told him they would be pleading 'not guilty' and asked for bail. The Public Prosecutor nodded his assent.
Bail was set at one million baht.
The guards hustled her towards the doors. The heavy chains made her stumble and she almost fell. “What's happening to me?” she shouted at Prassaran.
“You are going to be released,” he called to her. “Mister Lau has taken care of everything.” Then he thrust some papers at his assistant and nodded briefly to her. “Good luck to you,” he said and disappeared into the crowd.
A policeman pulled her down some stone stairs to the holding cells. She felt like a cork on a stormy ocean, battered this way and that, completely out of control.
***
“They're letting you go,” Sumalee said.
Is this some new torture? Ruby thought. Not going to release me, just some fun they are having with a poor girl's head. But she changed into a clean white T-shirt and a faded blue sarong anyway, and waited. An hour later the guards came to escort her to the governor's office. She was told to sit outside while he finished the paperwork.
Ruby fought down panic. She tried to think this through; left to rot in prison for almost four months; then talks to the DEA, maybe bad decision, cannot help it, feeling very down; forty-eight hours later Eddie Lau arranges her release, Louis Huu appears in the courtroom, not a good sign. Louis Huu is smiling.
Ruby Wen, you are in big trouble, no shit. They have found out that you talked to Kee-lan! They are going to wash you! But if they want to wash you, why not pay Summalee to do it, like she killed Nan? Maybe they want to torture you first, cut off your fingers and toes, leave you somewhere as big lesson so no one else ever talk to the yellow air.
She thought about demanding to see Kee-lan. But what good would that do? Americans cannot help her here. No place safe, not in Thailand, not anywhere. Ruby Wen is on her own now.
The guards escorted her to the gates. The doors slammed behind her.
And that was it, it was over.
The hubbub of hawkers and car horns and revving engines she had heard so often beyond the high walls now pressed in on her. Someone rushed past, bumping her against the wall. Ruby felt as if she had been cut adrift in a boat.
There was a black Mercedes parked on the other side of the stre
et. The driver punched the horn and flashed the headlights. The electric window whirred down; Louis Huu waved and beckoned her over.
Know what happen next, she thought. Drive to warehouse, get out blowtorches and pliers.
She turned and ran. She sprinted past a rattan shop and the old lady baking bananas over a charcoal brazier, knocked over a basket of ginger root at a hawker's stall. She darted into an alley of old furniture shops, down a narrow lane where the Mercedes could not follow, only stopped when she was exhausted. She collapsed onto the steps of a Chinese temple.
While she caught her breath, she took stock.
Got no passport, got no friends, just a handful of cash she took from Soong at fan tan. Ruby-ah is just alone. Two of the biggest gangsters in Asia going to wash her.
Maybe Ruby Wen should volunteer for Article Twenty Seven, she thought. At least that way is quick. Just when a girl is up to her neck in shit, last thing she need is Louis Huu making waves.
Chapter 60
Kuala Lumpur
KUALA Lumpur had risen from a mudpile of shacks a hundred years before to become a prosperous modern city of stark white high rises. The new skyscrapers dwarfed the white domes of the mosques and the intricate curlicues of ancient Chinese and Indian temples.
Ruby found her way into the Chinatown district, to the Yasmin Restaurant on Jalan Sultan. It opened onto the street, a drab establishment, just a dozen laminated tables with a few wooden chairs. There was a Coca-Cola calendar on the wall, with a picture of a glamorous blonde woman posing against a Lear jet; there was another, cheaper calendar of a Chinese girl in a cheongsam in a ridiculous cloying pose. Dusty bottles of soft drink were ranged along narrow wooden shelves above a metal refrigerator. A dirt-encrusted fan turned slowly on the ceiling.
A sign to the left of the door said: Travel Agent. There were torn and ancient posters of Hong Kong, Singapore and Bombay, and hand-written signs had been tacked to the dirty green walls to advertise local tours. At the back was a single wooden desk with a metal sign: Green Crescent Tours.
The desk was unattended.
Chasing the Dragon: a story of love, redemption and the Chinese triads (Opium Book 2) Page 24