by S. J. Rozan
And this photograph thing, I wasn’t sure I liked it, I thought to myself, as the helmsman stopped the sampan in the shallow water off the beach and the faces of a thousand of Cheung Chau’s dead, glowing in the first bright rays of the morning sun, watched Mark and me jump from the deck into the surf.
The water was cold, shocking. Waist high, the small waves first pushed me and then tugged me as I slipped over the stones below them. Two of the cops from the cabin leaped in with us, holding their guns well above the water and ready to fire, as Mark had his. The third cop stayed on the boat, to cover us.
Cover wasn’t necessary. Nothing moved on the beach but the surf, and then each of us struggling out of it. Seabirds wheeled and screamed in the sky. In the graveyard, nothing moved at all.
A path from the narrow beach twisted through a mound of weathered boulders, pitted from their years standing guard for the dead. Mark was first onto the beach, but despite his shout for me to hold back and let a cop go first, I raced by him and scrambled up the path. I heard him curse. Small stones, dislodged by our intrusion, clicked down the path, some splashing into the sea as Mark and the others charged up behind me.
Just around the boulders the path flattened. The first graves stood ten yards away, where the slope began. Between them and the cliff edge spread an uneven plain, all sand and stones and short spiky grass. The faces of the dead, someone’s ancestors, stared from the headstones in silent disapproval at the human form that sprawled there, spoiling their view of the sea.
I ran over and dropped to the ground next to him: Bill, face down, shirtless, unmoving as the stones. I stared at, but didn’t register, the swollen ridges crisscrossing his back, purple and blue, some spotted with dark blood. I heard a bird call to another and someone come up behind me as I pressed my hand to the artery in Bill’s neck. For a moment, nothing, and I was a stone at the bottom of a cold black sea. Then I found it, a strong and steady pulse, and I saw the morning sun blazing and heard the screech of the birds and thought this graveyard must be the most beautiful place on earth.
Mark called for an ambulance. It was a while in coming and when it did, it had to stop at the top of the hill, its two medics trotting down the path to where we were. By that time three more of Lieutenant Zhang’s cops had arrived, cops he’d sent when Mark told him where we were heading, but there was no point, because in this graveyard at this hour there were no living people but us.
Waiting for the ambulance, I took off Mark’s jacket, which I’d been wearing for hours, folded it, and slipped it under Bill’s head, thinking it would make a better pillow than the spiky grass. He stirred when I did that, saying something I didn’t get. He had a lump on his jaw and a gash on his forehead, but the major feature of his face was the twin pair of black circles rimming his eyes from the blow that had broken his nose.
“Shh,” I said, taking his hand. His wrists were raw with rope burns. “Tell me later. Everything’s okay now.”
He spoke again, one word, and this time I heard it: “Harry?”
“He’s fine. He’s safe. It’s okay.”
Slurring words, he asked, “What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
Broken nose, black-rimmed eyes, purple back and all, I swear he grinned at that.
The medics came. One of Zhang’s cops went back to the sampan with the helmsman, who’d run up the path to join us, gun drawn, as soon as he’d beached the boat. They headed back around the island. Mark’s cops from headquarters, Shen and Ko, had a quiet conversation with Mark before they went back to their rented sampan and did the same. I couldn’t hear what they said, but from the way Shen and Ko stood—elaborately casual, hands in their pockets, smiling small smiles and watching the seabirds—I could tell that neither cop macho nor Chinese reticence could quite surpress their pride at the compliments and thanks they were getting from Mark.
Zhang’s other two cops hitched a ride to town with the three cops who’d just come. Mark and I rode in the ambulance, he up front with the driver, me in the back with Bill. The driver negotiated as quickly as he could, which was slowly, through the vast cemetery, along paths barely wide enough, paths that separated large areas of close-crowded graves one from another. The paths were overhung with the green branches of trees, but the graves sat splendidly in the sun, falling away down the hillsides, looking out in all directions to the sea. Through the ambulance’s rear window I could see that many held oranges and the powdery remains of incense, evidence of the visits of conscientious relations. As we twisted along a leafy path we came to an area where the headstones stopped having photographs on them, and were no longer rectangular. Upright half-moons set among a tangle of greenery, they bore only the names of the departed, painted on them in red characters. This was the oldest section of the graveyard, all these people dead more than a century; and yet there were oranges and incense here, too, people honoring ancestors they had never known.
We descended into the town and came soon to the hospital, a two-story building at the end of the waterfront street. It was small, peaceful-looking: not the place of crisis and disaster I’m used to a hospital being. “Mostly for births, too much sun, and broken legs,” Mark told me. “Anyone who’s seriously injured they send to Hong Kong by helicopter.”
As it turned out, that wasn’t Bill. Bruised and battered as he was—he’d been beaten, said the doctor who worked on him, with something both hard and flexible, most likely a bamboo pole—X–rays and tests showed no serious internal injuries, nothing broken with the exception of his nose. I sat in a sunny waiting room while Mark, outside on a terrace overlooking the sea, made one call after another on his cell phone. The doctor set Bill’s nose, did some other things, gave him a shot of morphine for the pain, and told me I could go in to see him.
He was lying on his side facing an open window beyond which white boats danced on sparkling blue water. A bandage seemed to cover half his face, making a startling contrast to the black rims around his eyes. His wrists were bandaged too, but his back was still bare. His eyes were closed, so I whispered, “Hey,” prepared to leave if the morphine had begun to work and he was asleep.
“Hey.” Soft but clear, and he opened his eyes. “Harry,” he said, in a voice not strong but determined. “Did you tell me Harry’s okay, or did I dream that?”
“No, he’s okay. Steven’s with him. I think it’s over.”
“What was it about? What was the point? Maria said it was the uncle, but how can that be true?”
“It was,” I said. “It’s complicated. I’ll tell you the whole story later. Harry was where you said,” I added. “At Iron Fist’s kung fu school.”
“You got that?”
“Late, but I got it.”
“Hot damn.” He gave me that grin.
I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Tony got your nose,” I said.
“First thing he did. Only thing he actually did. The rest he farmed out to Big John.”
“I don’t suppose Big John minded.”
“He loved it. They did Iron Fist, you know.”
“I thought they probably did. They told you?”
“Said they were going to do me the same way. Tony wanted to peel the tattoo off my arm first, sew it to the back of his jacket. They had plans for you too.”
“I’ll bet they did.”
“Iron Fist pissed them off, though. This beating the crap out of people, with them it’s just openers. He wouldn’t tell them where Harry was, so they brought out the blowtorch. He jumped into the harbor.”
“He jumped?”
“Hands tied behind him, beat to shit. Had to know it was the end. Tony’s sure he jumped because he knew they could make him talk. Me they strung up to the goddamn mast in case I had the same idea. I was waiting for the blowtorch, but they never brought it out.”
“I said they couldn’t.”
His eyebrows rose above his black-circled eyes. “They listened to you?”
“They listened to their boss. L. L. Lee
. I went to see him and made a deal. He gave me until morning.”
“Oh.” His voice was getting slower, sleepier. “That explains it. About half an hour after they called you Tony got a call. In Chinese, so I don’t know what the hell went on. But Big John cut me down, dumped me in the cabin. Even threw me a beer. I was ready to nominate him for sainthood.”
“You can thank me for that,” I said.
“Thank you.”
“Any time.”
“Lydia?” He was struggling to keep his eyes open now. “Why did they want Harry? Why didn’t they make the trade? What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure. L. L. Lee was going to use Harry to make Steven agree to keep up the smuggling operation, but now he says he got what he wanted and he doesn’t need Harry.”
“Got what he wanted? Steven agreed?”
“Doesn’t sound likely, does it? But I don’t know what else to think.” A soft salt breeze drifted in the open window. “Getting on a boat with them,” I said. “Tony and Big John. That wasn’t a very good idea.”
“Didn’t mean to. Just trying to give Maria time. Big John pulled a gun on me at the end of the dock. Thought of hitting the water, but too many people around, in case he started shooting. Besides,” he winced as he shifted position, “I never said to love me because I was smart.”
“You never said to love you at all,” I clarified for him. “Just to marry you.”
“Is that right?” He appeared to be thinking about this new information. “Are you planning on it?”
“No.”
“Oh. Then go away and let me sleep.”
His eyes closed. The soft breeze came back. I kissed his cheek once more, walked to the door, turned again to look. The tattooed blue snake lay as peacefully on his arm as he did on the fresh white sheets. He was still, probably asleep already. It was a good thing that the question he’d asked me was whether I was going to marry him. That was the one I had an answer to.
I joined Mark on the terrace, where he was leaning on the railing looking at the sea. He turned as he heard me walk up. The stubble on his chin and the shadows under his eyes would have told me, if I hadn’t known already, that it had been a long time since he’d slept.
“How is he?” Mark asked.
“Lucky. He’ll be fine.”
“Good.” He leaned on the rail again, turned his eyes back to the sea. “They’re gone. Siu and Chou. Zhang has Marine District men out, and I have people all over Hong Kong and Kowloon, but word is they’re gone.”
“This fast? Gone where?”
“Right now, deep underground. In a few days, probably Taiwan. There’s a strong international trade in gangsters both ways.”
“Can you follow them? Will Taiwan cooperate?”
He shook his head. “Not big enough fish. Now that we’re PRC, they won’t deal with us unless there’s something really big in it for them.” A sleek speedboat skidded over the water, motor roaring. “But I know cops there. I gave them a heads-up. If Siu and Chou show up they’ll be watched. If they get out of line, maybe they can at least be taken out of circulation.”
He looked over the ocean, and I looked at him. “But you won’t get them,” I said. “You won’t be able to bring them in for killing Iron Fist. You won’t be able to clear that case.”
He shook his head.
“I’m sorry.”
He shrugged, not the Chinese chin-jut but the good old American shoulder shrug. “It might not matter. I can’t clear the case, but I identified the perps and everyone will know that. You could say I chased them out of Hong Kong. And I cleared two abductions, one reported, one unreported.”
“Still.”
He didn’t look at me, just at the boats and the birds and the water. I leaned on the rail and helped him look.
“I’m sorry about your jacket,” I said after a while. Seawater, sand, and Bill’s blood had made Mark’s linen jacket just about unsalvageable. I surveyed Mark and started to giggle. “And about your pants.” His pants, like mine, were still damp, sticky, and smelling of the surf we’d waded through. Trying to restrain my giggles, I said, “And your shirt’s had a hard day, too. And your shoes don’t look happy.”
He turned to face me. After a moment he shook his head, and a smile lit his tired face. “Private investigators, what a pain in the ass. Come on, I’ll buy you breakfast.”
“There’s a place that will take us, looking like this?”
All he said was, “Yes.” He offered me, formally, his arm. I took it. We strolled off the terrace, back through the waiting room, and, sticky smelly clothes and all, we headed out onto the wide, carless, waterfront street of Cheung Chau.
fourteen
Breakfast was delicious, though it wasn’t breakfast by either American or Chinese standards. Mark Quan and I sat at a picnic table under a canvas roof in the breezy sunshine of the waterfront street. The tables ran in an unbroken length for what would have been two New York City blocks; the changing colors of the roofs marked the different restaurants. Red, blue, yellow, orange, solid, striped, and dotted, with the sun glowing through them all: Ours was green, which I thought might have an unfortunate effect on the food, but Mark assured me otherwise. “You’ll feel like you’re eating in a tropical forest, fish you just pulled out of the water yourself. Or,” he suggested, “you could close your eyes.”
I couldn’t, though. I’d have missed the aquamarine of the ocean and the round whiteness of the clouds, the cheerful gray bulk of the Cheung Chau ferry pulling into its slip, the happy surprise as it disgorged an entire summer-school’s worth of fourth graders, a hundred excited black-haired children in identical yellow shirts and shorts come to spend a day at the beach.
I’d have also missed our whole steamed grouper, covered in chopped red peppers and a spicy bronze-colored sauce. It sat on the table between us next to a bowl of pork fried rice and a plate of steamed greens. We drank an entire pot of tea while we waited for the fish and rice and greens, and another while we ate them. We had green plastic plates to eat on and white plastic chopsticks to eat with and I had never had such a good meal in all my life.
For a while there was nothing but the click of chopsticks, the lapping of the sea, and the whispered words of other diners who ate their steamed buns and breakfast dumplings and gave each other slyly knowing looks as they discussed the question of what Mark and I had been doing all night that we looked and ate the way we did.
As the fish was beginning to look a little picked-over and the greens were almost gone, Mark said, “I have a favor to ask you.”
His back was to the ocean; I was facing it. I looked away from the drifting sailboats and bobbing sampans and met Mark’s eyes. “I owe you,” I said. “Whatever you want, I owe you more.”
“You don’t owe me. This is my job.”
“You broke every regulation they have. You broke regulations they haven’t written yet. That’s not your job.”
He grinned. “They’ll write them now.” The grin faded. “Listen: A kid was missing. I wanted to get him home. That’s my job.”
“Okay,” I said. “If that’s your story, you stick to it. What do you need?”
He poured us each more tea. “They didn’t make the trade because L. L. Lee said he’d gotten what he wanted. What he wanted was for Steven Wei to keep Lion Rock smuggling for him.”
“It’s hard to believe Steven agreed to that, but he must have.”
“That’s part of what I want. Lee will talk to you. I want you to call him and ask him what happened.”
“He may talk to me. He may not. In case you missed it, he doesn’t actually like me. And he certainly won’t give me any details.”
“I just want to hear him say what Tony Siu says he said.”
“All right, I’ll try it. What’s the other part?”
“Assuming that’s what happened, I want you to pretend you don’t know. To Steven, I mean. And especially to make him think that I don’t know. That I know nothing at all about the sm
uggling. He has no reason to think I do. I want him to believe he’s in the clear. Later on, I can use this to bring down L. L. Lee.”
Teacup in both hands, I looked at him. “Oh, Mark.”
“I know. I don’t like it either. But Lee’s a bad man and I can’t pass this up.”
“You’ll destroy the firm. Steven, Wei Ang-Ran … Mark, there’ll be nothing left. Wei Ang-Ran could even go to jail.”
“Not if he cooperates.”
“But …”
“Lydia, look what Lee’s guys did to Smith. On his orders.”
“They also delivered him alive, on Lee’s orders. He’ll recover.”
“Iron Fist Chang won’t.”
I was suddenly very tired. I put my chin on my hand.
“Iron Fist’s not the only one, over the years, Lydia. I’m a cop. This is my job.”
“But poor Steven … If he did agreed to this it was only to save his son. What else could he do?”
“Nothing. There was nothing else he could do. It’s not his fault he was in this bind, it’s his uncle’s. He’ll be paying the family debt. Zhong xiao dao yi. But that’s sometimes how it works.”
I knew that was how it worked. Someone in your family causes trouble or brings dishonor, it’s your obligation to sacrifice whatever you have to, to make it right. Wei Ang-Ran had been breaking the law for years, working hand in hand with a triad chief. Someone would have to pay. Steven, for all his high-rise modern-day Hong Kong trappings, was a very traditional Chinese family man. He’d be the first to understand.
“It’s not fair,” I said.
“No. But it’s how it works.”
I lifted my eyes from the fish on the platter, its head and tail still complete but all its bones exposed, and looked again at the sea. “I have to think,” I said. “And I can’t think now. I’m exhausted.”
Mark didn’t speak.
“I won’t say anything to anyone for right now,” I promised. “And I’ll call Lee for you. And I know you’re right, Mark. But it’s so unfair.”
Mark paid for our breakfast and we walked out onto the waterfront street, away from the restaurants and the town. The morning was no longer new and the day had grown hot. We stopped along the railing at a place where no one else was stopped and I dialed L. L. Lee at his shop on Hollywood Road.