Or perhaps it wasn't a joke.
“Nice apartment,” he said.
“Not mine. Belong to friend.”
“Eddie Lau?”
Ruby gave him a Coke and did not an answer.
“Last time I saw you was in Bangkok. The circumstances were a little different then.”
“You angry with me?”
“No, I'm not angry with you. But I do have a few questions to ask. Mind?” he said, indicating the black leather sofa. He sat down.
“Got to get better tailor, Kee-Lan,” Ruby said. “When you sit like that you look like somebody's washing.”
“Don't change the subject, Ruby. We were talking about you and how you got out of Bangkok.”
“Guard left door open.” She fumbled with her cigarettes.
“You smoke too much,” Keelan said. She offered him the packet and he shook his head. “I've given up. You should try it. Deep breaths and drink a glass of water. Works for me.”
“Not good for you.”
“Smoking?”
“Giving up. What the matter with you, heya? Want to live forever?”
“Sometimes it feels like I have.”
“Smoke all my life and I am still alive, so where is the problem?”
“How's Eddie Lau?”
“Send his regards.”
“Great. Does he know you've been talking to us?”
“Do not tell him about our arrangement. Think he will be very mad with me if he know.”
“Our arrangement? We don't have an arrangement.”
Ruby knelt down in front of him. She put her hands on his knees. “You got a girl, Kee Lan?”
“That is not why I'm here, Ruby.”
He felt her fingernails through the fabric of his trousers, moving along the inside of his thigh. “Think about you terrible much. Maybe I can be your girl, okay.”
Keelan stood up and went to the window. Christ, this woman. When he turned around she was still kneeling by the sofa, her head bowed, staring at the floor. She looked like a juvenile who had been caught shop-lifting.
“Ruby.”
She would not look at him. She picked up her Dunhill lighter from the coffee table, tapping it on the glass surface, an impatient gesture, as if she was waiting for service.
“What's going on?”
“In big trouble, this time.” Her eyes filled with tears.
“You mean getting thrown into Maha Chai and being threatened with a firing squad wasn't big trouble?”
“Got to help me, okay?”
“I don't got to do anything. I tried to help you when the Thais threatened you with a shooting squad, pulled a lot of strings to try and cut a deal for you. A couple of days later I'm standing there with my ... looking stupid, because you've cut your own deal behind my back. I don't know if I want to do any more deals.”
There was a sharp crack. Ruby had bitten one of her fake nails. “What you think I should do, heya? Somebody come, say tomorrow we are going to get you free! What you think I should say? No thank you, must wait and see if American will get me ten years instead of twenty as special favor for Ruby? What you do if you are me, okay? You will do what I do: they open door, you fuck off quick!” She drew deeply on the cigarette. “Had it with this life, Kee-Lan. Hate it so much. Don't know how I end up like this.”
“You've said that before, too.”
“Do not know what it is like for me! Got to live, got to survive.”
“And how are you managing to survive these days? With a little help from Eddie Lau?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe,” Keelan grunted. “Where do I find him?”
Ruby shook her head. “Do not know, Kee-Lan. Tell you for true this time.”
“You wouldn't know the truth if it jumped out from behind the curtain with a fucking neon sign around its neck.”
“Maybe we can do deal, okay?”
“What kind of deal, Ruby?”
“I give you Eddie, you give me new life somewhere. Long way from here. New name, new papers.”
Keelan hesitated.
“Not propaganda you this time, okay? Hate this life, never know who is going to cheat you, who is going to hurt you. Live my whole life so scared for myself. Maybe now I want nice life, no drug, no triad. Maybe make baby. We got a deal, okay?”
Be careful, Keelan thought. Remember what Mac said. But let's see how this plays.
“Been stupid all my life. Done so many wrong thing. Think I am so smart. Not smart at all. Just stupid, stupid.”
“I can help you, Ruby. But you have to do exactly what I tell you. Okay?”
Ruby nodded. “Okay,” she said.
Chapter 68
LACEY opened the door in a white silk dressing gown. She smelled of mousse de bain, and there was pale pink gloss on her lips. “Oh my God, it's the drug squad,” she said.
Keelan smiled. “If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to be afraid of.”
“I suppose you want to do a body search,” she said.
He slipped through the door.
“Change your mind now,” Lacey said, “and I'll shoot you. I'll go back to the office, I'll get Tyler's midnight special, and I'll drill you. Is that clear?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Good.”
He slipped his fingertips inside the robe. “You're beautiful, Lace,” he whispered.
“And fragile. Please handle with care.”
“I promise,” he said, his voice hoarse.
He kissed her fingers, the palm of her hand. “Forget everything,” she whispered. “Just for tonight.”
There were clean silk sheets and the bed was carefully rolled back. But when the moment came they took each other, standing up, in the hallway. Then they collapsed on the silk carpets, laughing.
***
Eventually they made it to the bedroom. Keelan rolled on his side and stroked her back, tracing the long curve of her spine with his fingertips.
She opened one eye. “If you keep doing that I'll start purring.”
“I feel like a weight's been lifted off my shoulders.”
“I think the weight was a little lower down.”
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Have I been tested for AIDS? How much money have I got?”
“How old are you?”
“Shit, that's a lot worse.” She turned her head and smiled at him from the pillow. “How old do you think I am?”
“Oh, Christ.”
“You started this.”
“If I go too high you'll never speak to me again. If I go too low you'll figure I think you're immature.”
“How old?”
“Twenty one.”
“You think I'm immature.”
“For real? I guessed twenty five.”
“Not bad. Twenty seven. Last birthday.”
“You look much younger.”
“Wimp.” She sighed as his hands kneaded the muscles in her shoulders.
“I'm thirty six. Just thought you ought to know.”
“Practically a baby boomer. Do you remember the Beatles?”
“Sure. Someday I'll tell you about the Buddy Holly concert I went to before I went off to fight the Korean war.”
“Charlotte thinks all Americans are iniquitous.”
“What does that mean? Is that a Spanish word?”
“It means depraved. Immoral.”
“I find that a little rich coming from a country that elected Ferdinand Marcos. How come you can afford a maid?”
“I have an independent income.”
“So why are you a cop?”
“I'm trying to save the world. Aren't you?”
He didn't answer.
“I was married once,” she said suddenly.
“I didn't know that.”
“It lasted eleven months. He was an executive at Jardine Matheson. I guess he thought it was unconventional dating a policewoman. After we were married it just embarrassed him. He wanted me
to give it up.”
“And?”
“And two weeks into our marriage I transferred to Serious Crimes. My life turned into a Rambo movie - all violence and no sex. In the end he accused me of caring more about organized crime than I did about my own life.”
“Was he right?”
“What do you think?”
“Sounds like you're talking about me.”
His hands circled her back in rhythm. She groaned. “You have a talent, Keelan.”
“Everybody has to be good at something.”
“Well, I think you've find your vocation.” She rolled over, her hands above her head. “I think that side's done,” she whispered. “I think you'd better start on the front.”
***
After she had showered Lacey told him that a friend of Mac's, Tom Devoy, had invited her out for an afternoon sailing. Keelan was invited too. He made omelets for lunch and then they drove through the Aberdeen Tunnel to Causeway Bay.
The Atoll was a thirty foot gaff-rigged ketch, the hull built from teak, appointed with brass. “She's beautiful,” Keelan said, as they climbed aboard her in the Causeway Bay typhoon shelter.
“A real boat,” Tom said, grinning. He pointed to a thirty foot fiber-glass yacht at the next mooring. “Not like some of this fucking Tupperware.”
Hong Kong was a different city from the harbor. Black-eared kites patrolled the currents a hundred feet above and there were thick green forests around Cape Collinson and Lei Yue Mun and Joss House Bay. From a distance, it was beautiful again. 747's, leaving the runway at Kai Tak, soared overhead, following the channel east, the sun glinting on their silver bellies like sharks.
But even out here there was no escape from the city's underbelly. Slicks of refuse floated past them as far as Sai Wan Ho. Keelan caught Lacey staring hard into the water. “Stop looking for bodies,” he said.
“Only if you stop staring at the trawlers. I know you're itching to pull them over and search the holds.”
“Look at this crap in the water.”
“Tom says that when you get a few kilometers off shore the water changes from brown to blue quite suddenly.”
“Be nice to leave all the shit behind like that, wouldn't it?” he said and went to sit on the cockpit behind the mast.
***
Something had happened to him these last few days. He caught himself being happy. There was a light that he woke to in the mornings that had not been there for a long time, not since before the shooting, before the whole Bertolli thing. It had been his habit to go to bed late at night after too many whiskies, then wake up at two or three in the morning and sit in front of the television staring at late night movies in Mandarin, or relayed Asian soccer matches featuring teams from places he had never heard of.
For the last week, he had started going to bed sober and sleeping through.
There was a perverse sliver of his soul that was not pleased about this. How long does love last? it asked him. Anna, wherever she is now, she would want you to move on. But what about little Caroline?
Had he truly paid his penance? Three years with some community service seemed no sentence at all. If had been the prosecutor he would have taken it to the appeals court.
***
Lacey watched him. He sat with his back against the mast, staring empty-eyed at Waglan Island and the distant horizon. These changes of mood all happened so fast. He could turn like the weather.
“Is he all right?” Tom murmured.
She shrugged her shoulders, did not know how to explain it to him without breaking a confidence.
I could allow myself to love this man, she thought. But that would not be the smart thing. Easy to be a good listener, but getting in too deep was just asking for trouble. She should pull back, if she had any sense. She sensed that for John Keelan there would be no atonement until he had found a way to destroy himself. Perhaps then his conscience would be satisfied.
She didn't think she wanted to be around when that happened.
***
The girl climbed out of the hot tub, shot a glance of pure venom at Ruby Wen, who smiled sweetly back. The girl dived into the swimming pool. Ruby sat down on the rattan chair beside the Jacuzzi.
Lucien Baptiste spread his arms along the rim of the hot tub. There was a thick rope of gold around his neck, glistening against the damp mat of black hair on his chest. “A drink?” he said.
Ruby shook her head.
“Have you come to ask me for thirty thousand dollars?”
“Doan need thirty thousand dollars.”
“Good. I am not going to give it to you.”
The girl was watching them, her arms on the side of the pool.
He smiled. “Come on in, Ruby. Relax.”
Ruby took off her Piaget wristwatch and placed it carefully on the chair. Then with one movement she reached behind, released the zipper on the dress, and peeled it off. She was naked underneath.
She climbed in to the frothing water and sat down on the other side of the spa. She leaned back with her head against the wooden rim of the tub. He felt her toes stroke his groin. “Got deal for you, okay.”
“What sort of deal?”
“You say you got business in America. New York, West Coast, where?”
“West Coast.”
She arched her eyebrows and waited.
“San Francisco,” he said.
“What sort of business you got, okay?”
“How can we conduct delicate business negotiations when you are doing this with your toes?”
“You doan like?”
He pushed her foot away. “What do you want, Ruby?”
“Sell chicken in San Francisco maybe?”
“Maybe.”
“Buy chicken for too much, maybe I can sell you cheaper. Sell chicken not enough, maybe then I buy.”
“One ten a unit,” he said.
Ruby shifted her position in the tub so that she was sitting over one of the water jets. “This is real nice, no shit. No name for this in the Tao, heya. What will you call it? Fragrant water rushing past jade gate.”
“We are talking about chicken.”
Ruby shifted again, her face flushed. “Can buy this chicken in San Francisco?”
“Of course.”
“Buy from you at one ten. Fifteen unit. When you deliver, okay?”
“A week.”
“Week is okay.”
“Half down, half on delivery.”
Ruby looked as if she was going to choke. “Cannot. We do business how many time? Can trust me. Pay you in Golden Mountain.”
“A third.”
Ruby slapped the water with her hand. “Need this, okay? No shit. Give you in America. Not now. Cannot.”
“Payment in full before you get anything.”
“Okay, shake on our deal, okay?” Ruby said. She moved closer and he felt her hand squeeze gently between his legs. He tried to grab her but she backed away, laughing deep in her throat. “Don't butterfly when your girlfriend watching you. You out of your mind? Manila girls all crazy. She cut it off for you, no shit.”
Ruby got out of the tub. The water gleamed on her torso like a dusting of tiny diamonds. She took her time finding a towel.
“What about this thirty thousand for your sick mother?” Lucien said.
“Do this deal, I solve all my problem and you sell your chicken for good price. Everybody win.”
She picked up her dress and wriggled into it. As she walked away she shouted to the girl in the pool: “Boyfriend ready for you now. Ruby done all the hard work!”
And then she was gone.
Chapter 69
KEELAN was depressed by the inroads American fast food culture had made in Hong Kong. Perhaps it was some small payback for the heroin the Asians had flooded onto the streets of urban America.
The McDonalds in Kowloon was crowded with young Chinese, most wearing baseball caps and Converse running shoes and track pants. Why does the whole world want to look like homeboys
from downtown Detroit?.
There was beeping all around the restaurant as kids putting aside their cheeseburgers to stare at their pagers. An electronic nightmare. Four young Chinese women piled in with their small children. The women wore terry-toweling tracksuits and cheap joggers. The exotic Orient, he thought, and returned his attention to his companion.
Ruby wore black Azzedine Alaïa, cut to mid-thigh, and scarlet pumps. There was gold at her wrist and her throat, her earrings an inch long with jade hearts. She had two Big Macs in front of her. People were staring. I don't blame them, he thought. She could not have looked more incongruous if she had been the Queen of England sucking a thick shake through a straw.
“The deal's set up,” he said. “If you co-operate, we promise you immunity and you'll go on the Witness Protection Program. A new life, a new identity, in the United States.”
Ruby ignored the burgers, lit a cigarette, her foot tapping impatiently at the ground. “Never see my family again?”
“What family?” Keelan worked the lid of his cardboard cup and sipped his coffee. It was the color of mud. “Ruby, I don't want any screw-ups this time. You wanted my help once before and you ran out on me. It happens again, I swear, I cut you loose.”
“Will help you, okay. Got Ruby's word.”
“Give me one good reason why I should believe you.”
“Because you want to,” Ruby said.
Keelan shook his head.
“Even I not do this, they going to chop me anyway, no shit.”
“Who is?”
“My Eddie-ah.”
“Why?”
“Some foolishness.” Ruby bit into her Big Mac. Keelan wondered how she could eat so much and stay so thin. “Very scared now, okay.”
“I believe you. But if you help us you'll have no reason to be scared any more. We can protect you, Ruby, we can give you that new life you were talking about.”
“What you want me to do, okay?”
Keelan leaned closer. “First of all, where's Eddie Lau?”
“Shenzhen side.”
“China?”
“Come in, go out, whenever he want. Never stay more than two, three day.”
“How does he get in and out?”
Chasing the Dragon: a story of love, redemption and the Chinese triads (Opium Book 2) Page 28