The Dragon and the Lumberjack

by S. W. Ellenwood

“More resources than Boqin?” Heng said, panicked.

  Jack stopped a few steps from Heng. “Yes.”

  “You sure? Let me live, and I’ll tell you all I know.”

  “Or…” The Lumberjack released the axe with one hand and swung it down, implanting the blade into Heng’s knee sideways. Heng cried in pain as his knee gave way under his weight. The axe head hit the ground, causing it to go even further into Heng’s knee. “I just chop you up bit by bit before I kill you to show who has the real power in Hong Kong,” the Lumberjack said, kneeling over Heng’s body before pulling the axe out of Heng’s knee.

  Heng screamed through his teeth as he held his hands over the gash in his knee. “Maybe a little too late for that,” Heng said, his face buried into the plywood floor.

  “Why? Just because Boqin has a few Red Dragon traitors means he can challenge us?” The Lumberjack pushed Heng over with his axe to see his face.

  “Because he has Tao,” said Heng.

  The Lumberjack grabbed Heng by the hair and pulled him close to his face. “Talk before I bleed you like a pig.”

  “Boqin called me, wanted me to join him, said Tao already joined so I should too.”

  The Lumberjack let go of Heng’s hair and stood up. Heng’s head hitting the floor echoed through the empty room. He stared at Heng for a few moments as tears rolled down Heng’s face and the blood spread to the Lumberjack’s shoes.

  “That’s it?” the Lumberjack finally asked. “He privately told you Tao joined him? Have you ever heard of this little thing called lying?”

  “It wasn’t private,” said Heng. “Tao was in the call too.”

  Chapter 44

  The Box

  J ack’s hand popped out of the room Heng entered moments ago and ordered for the shoe box. When the kid gave Jack the cardboard shoe box, he noticed blood on Jack’s sleeve. Jack closed the door again, and they all stood in silence. The kid observed Yong, who was drumming his fingers as they waited, and asked, “Are you in charge now?”

  Yong stopped drumming his fingers. Tin and Tan looked up at Yong to see his response. “No, the Dragon Head is.”

  The door opened, and Jack stepped out with the box in his hands. His suit was spotted with blood. His gloves were soaked. “Wrap the body up and dispose of it,” he said. Jack placed the closed box on the ground and stepped aside to let Tin, Tan, and the kid in. The kid vomited when he caught a glimpse of his former boss’s body.

  “Get going,” Jack demanded, “you can vomit when you get home,” Jack closed the door behind the kid. Jack took off his latex gloves and placed them in the outside pockets of his suit, before stripping that off too.

  “Did you know about Tao?” Jack asked, handing Yong his suit jacket.

  Yong placed the coat in a trash bag. “What about him?”

  “He’s with Boqin.” Jack took off his pants and dumped them in the trash bag.

  “Shit,” said Yong.

  “Boqin was trying to leverage that to get Heng to join him.”

  “I didn’t know anything about that.”

  “I’m not surprised, it happened yesterday.” Jack took off his white undershirt and gym shorts that he wore under his suit. “Guess Boqin heard about our failure and wanted to take advantage of it.” Jack looked down at the box, while Yong stuffed the rest of Jack’s clothes into the trash bag. “Give me your burn phone, I’ll get you a new one,” ordered Jack. Yong handed Jack an old silver flip phone.

  Jack dialed and hardly waited for a second before speaking. “Hey, can he talk?”

  Yong placed the bag by the box against the wall and watched Jack curiously. Jack said into the phone, “Hey, do you need that package or can I send it to a friend?”

  Yong tried to eavesdrop on what the response was but couldn’t as Jack turned and walked away from him in nothing but boxers.

  Jack continued his side of the phone conversation. “He recently got a new roommate, and I wanted to congratulate him… A big fellow… Yeah, he suffered… Thanks.” Jack hung up and tossed the phone to Yong. “You will get a new one in a few weeks, burn it and the clothes.”

  Yong handed Jack a duffle bag with gym clothes that Jack quickly threw on.

  “Aren’t you afraid this will start a war?” asked Yong.

  Jack finished putting on his clothes and grabbed the box, saying as he left, “This isn’t for Boqin.”

  Chapter 45

  New Beginnings

  “I love your new place, very modern,” said Tao as he sat in Boqin’s new house. The living room’s windows overlooked Deep Water Bay toward the forest-covered Middle Island.

  “I’m not fond of the windows, though,” said Zemin. “Too much exposure.” He was sitting opposite of Tao on a black couch.

  “You worry too much,” said Enlai, seated to Zemin’s right.

  “No, just an observation, always check your blindsides,” said Zemin.

  Enlai chuckled at his younger brother and said, “He’s right.”

  Boqin came around the corner carrying an old silver tray with a new white tea set and said, “That’s why I had all the glass in the house replaced with bulletproof glass.”

  Zemin relaxed a little more in his seat. Boqin placed the tray on the glass coffee table and started to pour tea for his guests. As he handed them each a cup on a saucer, he said, “I take it you all are also settling into your new homes as well?”

  “I am at least. When did you go into the real estate business?” Enlai asked.

  “A few years ago,” Boquin said. “Diversifying your interest is always safer than putting everything into one business. Besides being a great money maker, it comes with super cheap homes for you and your brothers.” After serving everyone, Boqin sat down with his tea at the opposite end of the coffee table from Enlai. “Speaking of, how are you all?”

  Enlai started. “Great so far. I wasn’t fond of losing one of the bus routes, but the taxi cabs have picked up the extra slack and then some. Also, I’ve been very successful using them as drug runners. A few days ago, I was able to move more than twenty-thousand dollars’ worth of cocaine and heroin around to my dealers.”

  “Good,” said Boqin, though he didn’t seem that impressed. “How are your dealers handling that much inventory?”

  “Alright. I’m going to have to start slowing it down if they don’t start moving it faster.”

  “I don’t think you will need to slow that down.” Boqin took a yellow dry erase marker out of his blue polo’s breast pocket. “What about you, Zemin?”

  “I’m alright,” said Zemin. “My protection rackets are doing alright, and I’ve also started to expand to some lower level apartment complex with the extra money from the bank hit.”

  “Good, good, Tao?” Boqin took out a blue marker.

  “Went out on a scout for some new girls since I haven’t had some young blood in a while but came up pretty short since I don’t have that many suppliers since the mole.”

  Boqin took out the last two markers, green and red, and said, “That was a bad year, but also a good year in the long run.” A door opened behind them, and footsteps echoed through the empty halls. “As it freed us all from our old authority.”

  Gui walked into the room, his thin arms lifted up like he was about to hug the entire room. “Brothers! How are we?”

  Shock and confusion covered all the faces except for Boqin’s, who stood up and embraced him.

  “I thought you were in prison?” asked Enlai, standing with the others to greet him.

  “I was,” said Gui, “but thanks to the help of some new friends I got out early and got reconnected with Boqin as I laid low outside of Hong Kong.” Gui sat down in Boqin’s chair. “This feels like a reunion of Red Dragon misfits.”

  “What kind of friends?” asked Zemin.

  “Powerful friends,” stated Boqin as he started writing their names in a line on the window with his markers. “And with that, we have our triad.” His name was the only one absent from the window. “And thi
s is where we start.”

  Boqin pulled out a black dry erase marker from his pocket and began to write occupations under the names. Gui got a supplier. Enlai was the runner, Tao, the dealer, and Zemin, the protector. Boqin connected the names with arrows like a typical business supply chain. He then drew a circle around it, with Zemin’s name just outside of the chain. He took a step back so his Red Poles could see it in its entirety. They all nodded as it fell into place.

  “Now, there is some room for mixing it up,” said Boqin, “as I know Zemin will want to deal with his own apartments by his people. And as we expand you all will need to be ready to promote your own 49ers to take Red Pole positions around the city as we will be focusing on the bigger picture. But, that is it.” Boqin stepped back with pride to admire his work.

  “This really changes it up,” commented Tao.

  “Does it, though?” Boqin responded. “When we were under the Red Dragon’s foot, this is what they used, but we were just too little to see it. We’ve all been doing well so far, but this,” Boqin tapped on the window, “this can make us soar. All we need to do is focus on what we are best at.”

  “It wasn’t this, West-ish,” said Tao.

  Enlai voiced his concern before Boqin replied to Tao. “What is Gui supplying?”

  Gui’s thin face stretched as he smiled. “Everything. Do you want girls? Boys? Weed? Cocaine? Heroin? Acid? I can literally get anything.”

  “Sounds too good to be true,” said Zemin. “Where is all of it coming from?”

  Boqin stepped in. “That’s confidential. All I can say is, it’s a third party that is global.”

  His Red Poles were reserved in their faces as they looked at the window and Boqin’s plan.

  “Look,” Gui quickly breaking the silence before it grew into more uncertainty, “I already got some of everything to give you all a taste. No wasted time in looking, no wasted resources or energy on opium gum. Just the finished product. Young slaves, new weapons, excellent drugs. I’ll have your personal choice delivered to your home soon.”

  Lust in their eyes grew as they dreamt.

  “I know you all have suppliers,” said Boqin, picking up where Gui had left off. “This supplier will far surpass any other supplier. They can offer more with a greater diversity and a lower price than any of your guys. Because if we are going to sweep away the smaller groups of idiots, dealers, pimps, and the Red Dragon, then we need to outpace them with our drugs, our whore houses, and our weapons. Once we have them bleeding by a thousand cuts, we will stretch our claws outwards as the most powerful triad in Hong Kong. The White Tiger.”

  Gui’s face grimaced as he said, “Are we actually calling ourselves that?”

  Chapter 46

  A Package

  T ao thought long and hard as he was driven back home. The afternoon talks with The White Tiger rolled around his mind as he stared out at the high-end suburb where he lived. The porch lights shone out in the dark night. He thought about this new process, this new hierarchy, and wondered if he was doing the right thing.

  Or the most profitable thing.

  His mind roamed to the new suppliers. Boqin and Gui played it very close to the chest, and he didn’t like that. The car pulled into his gated driveway. The driveway was lined with cherry trees on both sides, and even at night, he could still make out the pink blossoms. The car drove up to the front door, where several guards stood. Two had dogs, while the rest stood at attention. He tried to see the problem, but saw nothing out of the ordinary until the car was right in front of his house. That is when he saw the opened shoe box on his doorstep.

  He said no words as he exited the car. His eyes did not wander from the box as he approached it. The closer he grew to it, a faint odor rose, an odor of decay. His guards didn’t move as he stopped and looked into the box. The only sound in the entire courtyard was the dogs panting behind him. Tao clenched his fists.

  “When did it arrive?” he demanded under his breath, his eyes not breaking with the box.

  “This afternoon,” said the guard to Tao’s right.

  “Who delivered it?”

  “No one knows. A blue lantern took it and placed it on the doorstep without thinking. Once the dogs checked it out, we opened it and haven’t touched it since.”

  “Bring him to me,” Tao said calmly as he kneeled down and gazed at the face of Heng’s decapitated head. Footsteps on concrete rang out with no echo behind them. A baby-faced teenage boy standing with his face down met Tao.

  “What were you thinking, bringing an unordered, unknown package to my doorstep?” Tao’s questions were calm but authoritative.

  “I, I, didn’t know about our system, my, my…”

  Tao cut him off. “What if it was a bomb?”

  “I, I, didn’t think of that since that’s a dirty western way-”

  “Your arrogance will not save you.” Tao walked down the few steps toward him. “Our world is rapidly changing.” Tao stood right in front of him, glaring at his bowed head and softly shaking body. “And we need men who can adapt, not boys who can’t.” Tao snapped his fingers and walked away as all the guards drew their knives and killed the boy by a thousand cuts, more or less. The dogs stayed seated and waited for the guards to be done with their dinner.

  Once inside, Tao called Boqin immediately and informed him of the situation. Boqin didn’t interrupt him once. Tao paced back and forth in his upstairs study until he was finished talking and then sat in his desk chair, rubbing the leather armrest and staring at a screen saver of a small ball bouncing around and changing colors.

  Boqin finally spoke. “Well, we can manage without him.”

  Tao sat up. “And?”

  “And we aren’t going to respond yet,”

  “What the-” Tao began to curse but Boqin stopped him and reminded him of his place.

  “Do not curse in my presence,” demanded Boqin. “I am your superior, I am the head of this triad and I say we don’t do anything. Start thinking like a Red Pole or I will replace you with someone who will.” Boqin hung up.

  Tao threw his cell phone across the room, making a mark in the door. Tao cursed at the empty room for a full minute. He caught his breath as his mind moved a thousand different thoughts around as his anger still burned for his new boss - though Tao could tell Boqin had a boss above him.

  “It’s the Red Dragon all over again,” Tao said to himself. His thoughts grew slower as they converged to their final destination. Caring not of the consequences or the cost, but to take matters into his own hands and avenge his friend.

  Chapter 47

  Fishing

  T iě’s memories trickled back into him as he gazed into the open sea. Then one particularly intact memory rushed upon him, and he was there again, on a lonely island so long ago. Sand moving between his toes. An old freight ship toppled over on the beach. Dead employees of The Twelve laid scattered on the beach as the birds picked him. And, possibly disconcertingly, Guòqù’s clean and intact face smiling at the sight.

  The old motorboat sparked and brought him back to the present. Guòqù stopped the boat on the strangely calm bay. Guòqù’s prisoner was unconscious on the floor of the vessel, with his shoulder wound neatly bandaged. Guòqù’s leg was wrapped as well. A sewn-up patch covered the bullet hole on his torn pants. He watched as a small school of fish came to investigate his boat. He watched them carefully, like a cat about to swipe. Memories of the island came back to his mind.

  The prisoner made a sound.

  The school of fish quickly scattered. Guòqù turned his attention to the 49er as he awoke. The prisoner tried to sit up but couldn’t due to his bound hands and feet. He started shaking violently for a few moments, before seeing Guòqù at the head of the boat. Guòqù’s face covered, the prisoner’s eyes moved frantically, trying to make sense of the shadowy figure sitting on the edge of the ship. Guòqù let the prisoner look long enough for the silence to set in and his curiosity to take more hold than fear.

  �
��What do you want?”

  “Where’s Lóng?” Guòqù asked calmly.

  “Who?” The prisoner’s lie was thin and weak.

  Guòqù lifted his Jō off his shoulder and drove it into the floor of the boat. Water quickly flowed in.

  “What the shit?” The prisoner tried to move but couldn’t as he was zip tied to the boat.

  Guòqù asked again, no change in his voice as his combat boots got wet.

  “I don’t know man! They didn’t tell me!”

  Guòqù asked again, the water covering his feet now.

  “I don’t know! I was just a guard!” shouted the 49er as the salt water came to his shoulder. Guòqù impaled the boat again. The front of it was descending faster but Guòqù was still unmoved as the sea came up his shins and engulfed the 49er’s ears.

  “Where is Lóng?” asked Guòqù, unfazed by the water.

  The 49er strained to keep his face out of the sea. “I don’t know!”

  Guòqù didn’t ask again and just watched as the sea slowly engulfed the 49er’s head and the front of the boat. The shouting and cussing quickly turned to drowned out yells, with bubbles replacing the curses. By the time he stopped screaming, three-fourths of the vessel was submerged, with Guòqù calmly floating in the sea. He waited only a few moments till he dived under and pulled the thug free, breaking the wood and some bones. Once the prisoner’s head was above water he coughed loudly in Guòqù’s face, salt water spraying him.

  Guòqù asked him again for the final time. “Where is Lóng?”

  Snot dripped down the 49er’s face as he caught his breath. “The pier. We were going to the east pier to drop off the package on a boat named Koporso, that’s all I…”

  Before he could even beg, Guòqù pushed his head back under until the prisoner stopped struggling, and his dead body floated up. Guòqù swam back to shore to start seeking out the ship named Koporso. He had a small smile under his steel jaw, just like that day on the beach.