by Jon F. Merz
I'd spent time learning my way around Tai Tung, but that was years ago. Times change and with a gang of teenaged vampires holding court, the layout was likely different from the last time I'd been in here.
I parked my Mercedes by a newly busted meter and then walked over. My feet crunched fresh-fallen snow underneath, but even this blanket of white couldn't mask the smells of garbage, urine, and crumbling hope. In this part of Chinatown, they didn't see much of the American Dream beyond fourteen-hour stretches in the fires of greased woks.
I checked the rear door fire exit of one of the buildings. Last time I'd been here, it was always kept open for the low-level drug pushers to duck inside away from the scanning eyes of cop cruisers.
The door swung open, and the same wires that had dangled down the last time from the alarm still jutted at the top of my head. Some things, it seemed, didn't change.
The stairs went down to the basement, but I avoided them. The basement of Tai Tung was a cesspool of broken water pipes, garbage, effluence, and big freaking rats. Even here by the door, the stench creeping up made my stomach churn slightly.
And I'd lost what little buzz I had left.
I climbed the stairs and ran into a little old lady pushing a wire cart filled with empty soda cans. She looked up, her eyes still vibrant even if the rest of her wasn't. The sudden appearance of a lo fan in an otherwise all-Chinese place caused her to frown. Before she could start cussing me out, I held up my hand and showed a picture of Andrew Jackson.
" Ngoh seung jou che."
Her eyes narrowed and faster than I would have thought, she snatched the twenty out of my hands and pointed upstairs, rattling off a series of twists and turns that would take me to my destination.
Apparently, the same phrase to get an audience with the local gang leader still worked. I'd told the old woman I wanted to rent a car.
She ambled off down the hall and I took the stairs to the 3rd floor, letting my eyes and ears become slowly attuned to my environment. I caught snippets of a half dozen dialects obscured by paper-thin walls. Bangs and creaks echoed across the hallway. Kids cried and laughed. Adults yelled. I heard TVs and radio set to one volume: loud.
I made my way down the hall, bypassing a pile of empty cardboard boxes someone had simply left in the middle of the corridor. I shrugged. Someone's take on the paper tree, apparently.
As I neared the end of the hallway, a door opened and I found myself facing a street tough. He didn't look even remotely surprised to see me. Granny must have had a cell phone hidden in the cans.
Nature of the beast in a place like this.
"Whaddyou want, lo fan? You're out of your place here."
I stopped and kept my hands where he could see them. Knowing how they operated, there were probably at least two guns aimed at me at the moment from somewhere behind me. Better to play this cool.
"Tell Huang I want to talk with him."
"-the fuck makes you think Huang wants to talk to you?"
I shrugged. "Doesn't matter if he wants to talk to me or not. I'm here. Tell him that."
He frowned and I saw him debate whether he should just kill me. But it wasn't everyday a round eye came strolling into their world by the secret entrance, knowing what to say and who to say it to. Another moment of internal debate and his frown deepened. "You got a name?"
"Lawson."
He sniffed. "You say that like it should mean something."
I shrugged again. "Nah. Just tell him I'm here. I want a talk."
He vanished behind the door and I stayed where I was, unmoving. Somewhere close by, I thought I heard the delicate sound of gears turning and picked out the smoke detector set lower than they normally were. They'd housed a surveillance camera in it and right now they were rolling it over me, trying to figure out who the hell I was.
I looked up and smiled at the hidden lens.
Then, just for good measure, I waved.
A second later, the door opened and the kid beckoned me inside. I stepped into a room utterly barren except for its white walls and another door. The greeter stood there, along with three armed kids, each of them pointing an AK at me. The oldest of them couldn't have been more than sixteen in human years.
Greeter kept his distance. "You packing?"
I nodded. "Always."
"Show me."
I opened my jacket and nodded to my right rear hip. The kid nodded. "Okay, take it out slow. Do it too fast and these guys will punch holes in you."
I plucked the USP out of its holster and handed it over. The greeter eyed it. "Nice."
"Thanks."
He hefted it. "Kinda heavy."
"Well, you're still a growing boy. Give it time. One day even you might be able to handle it."
He eyed me. "Don't push your luck, chun lo fan. Huang might want to see you, but that don't mean he wants you to live that long."
I glanced around the room. "Where is he?"
The greeter gestured for me to follow him through the other door. "Come with me."
We walked through into another corridor, this one different from all the rest. It was thickly carpeted and there were posters on the walls. I heard loud dance music booming out of speakers somewhere close by. Toward the end of the hallway, the door in front of us opened and the music instantly got louder.
I walked into a dance club.
We passed through throngs of teens jamming and gyrating on a wooden parquet floor while strobes overhead flashed red, yellow, and blue lights. Shadows grew and shrank as bodies pressed close to us. The greeter seemed unfazed by any of this. But I was surprised. A concealed nightclub in the midst of an apartment complex was pretty compelling.
A couple of girls gave me the once over. I guessed they didn't get many white guys wandering through. Shame. I could have taught them the Electric Slide.
We crossed the floor and a set of stairs led us up to a balcony that overlooked the dance floor. Huang must have commandeered an entire two floors for himself and his crew and simply knocked through the ceiling to build this place.
At the top of the stairs, another pair of thugs barred the way. They parted only slightly. Each of them could have played on the offensive line for an NFL team.
Looking back and down at the way the place was laid out, getting out of here in a hurry was going to be a problem. And I only had two extra mags for the USP.
"Hey."
I looked back and saw the greeter waving me on. He approached a red velvet couch. On the couch sat a fat dude who looked all of thirteen. I almost smiled, but kept it in check. They didn't make Chinese gangsters like they used to, apparently. But the two girls on either side of him were pretty enough. At least that had stayed constant.
As I approached he frowned at me, trying his best to look tough despite the obvious barrage of acne. "You Lawson?"
"Yeah."
The greeter handed him my USP. Huang slid the magazine out of it, popped a round off the top and fingered it. After a second, he glanced back at me. "Fixer."
"That's right."
Huang spread his arms around his girls. "So, what does the Council want with me? We haven't done anything wrong. Certainly not enough to warrant a visit from one of your kind."
He spat that last bit out as if he expected me to be offended. Maybe I was. After all, he'd ruined what was otherwise a pretty crummy night.
"What-not even a Merry Christmas to me?" I grinned. "Not exactly the sort of holiday spirit I expected."
"Merry fucking Christmas," aid Huang. "Now, answer the question. Otherwise, the only gift Santa's bringing you this year is a very painful death."
I spotted a chair nearby and sat down, keeping my eyes on him the whole time. "You're getting ready to do business with a guy named Hess."
Huang shrugged. "Never heard of him."
I smiled. "Listen, Huang: it's Christmas. And it's cold and snowy outside." I spread my hands. "Here's the thing: I was pretty damned comfortable back at my place. I had a stiff drink. I had some tun
es on the stereo. And then I get a phone call. Interrupted the whole vibe I had going."
"That's too bad."
"Yeah, well, see, if I come all the way down here to visit some pimple-faced little fuck like you, then chances are good that I'm not in the mood to listen to your bullshit. So, why don't you and I pretend that I know that your gang here is getting antsy with the Vietnamese controlling everything between Kneeland and the Tyler and you guys want a piece of the action. To do that, you need firepower. Hess deals in that shit."
Huang said nothing for a minute and I wondered briefly if I pushed it too far with the zit comment. Then he smirked. "Okay, so we want guns. Big deal. We got a right to eke out an existence, right? Or is the Council into depriving us of our fair share?"
"Nobody's denying you anything. This place cost a pretty penny to set up. The Council saw to it that you got money."
"It's not enough."
I sighed. As if it wasn't bad enough having to deal with full-grown megalomaniacs, now I was having to deal with teen despots. I wasn't getting paid enough for this shit. "It is enough. And you'd better learn to be content with what you've got. The last thing any of our kind needs is a high-profile gang making the streets of Boston run red."
Huang eyed me. "And if I don't feel like listening to you?"
I shook my head. "It's not coming from me, junior. It's coming down from the Council. And you'd better believe they aren't about to sit back and tolerate impudence from a young Turk like you."
"So I kill you. Send them a message I don't like being fucked with."
I leaned back in my chair. "You ice me and you'll have a STA-F team kicking in your door before dawn. And those guys won't leave anything behind but a worthless smear where you sit now."
Neither of us said anything for a minute. I didn't feel the need to sell it any harder than I just had. And Huang obviously had to make a judgment call here. Whatever degree of control he had over his gang was at stake. He could keep things running pretty smooth and abandon his New Year's world domination resolution.
Or he could be stupid.
"Am I intruding?"
The accent told me instantly I wasn't the only white guy in the room any longer. And here I liked being unique.
I glanced over my shoulder and saw the man standing behind me. He stood a few inches taller than me but his face was blotchy and the tip of his bulbous nose gleamed red like he'd been in the sauce for eons. The long red overcoat with the fur collar didn't do much for his look, either. He looked like a circus clown with a bad tailor.
The two goons behind him hauling hockey equipment bags looked about as wide as the Chinese offensive linemen.
Great. Now I had four to deal with.
Who was it that said it was better to give than receive?
They were right.
A beefy paw appeared next to my face. "My name is Rudolf Hess."
I looked at the hand and nodded. "Lawson."
Hess gave a short gasp that sounded painfully theatrical. "You're joking."
I leveled a gaze on him. "Not even close."
Hess clapped his hands together and then sat down next to Huang, displacing the two tarts that had been sandwiching him. "Do you know, my young dictator, who this is who sits before you?"
Huang shrugged. "Fixer. Big deal."
Hess rolled his eyes. "Ach, youth. They have such little grasp of history and its significance."
"And you do?" I asked.
Hess nodded. "Of course. Only a fool would wander into a new territory without first assessing the various risks and rewards of doing business here." He leaned back. "In my case, it was first necessary to determine whose jurisdiction I was about to intrude upon."
"Mine."
Hess inclined his head. "Naturally. And after doing my homework on you - or at least the scant amount of information I was able to acquire - I must admit it did give me pause."
"Not enough apparently."
"Well, despite your rather impressive resume, the all-mighty dollar is...well, all-mighty." He winked and I found it vaguely nauseating.
"You can't peddle your wares here, Hess. The Council knows about it. And they're not happy." I paused for effect. "At all."
Hess held out one of his hands and examined his cuticles. "Yes, well, that would be a bother to me." He smiled at Huang. "Now, it seems to me that we have some unfinished business to conclude."
Huang shrugged. "Maybe I don't want them anymore."
So, he wasn't entirely stupid. Score one for the youth of the vampire race. And color me surprised.
Hess' smile only broadened. "My dear boy, you simply do not phone me up and ask for an order of illegal weapons only to back out of that deal at the very last moment simply due to the appearance of one unarmed Fixer."
"Temporarily unarmed," I corrected him.
Hess ignored me and pointed at his goons. "After all, we went through the trouble of bringing the weapons down here. I think you'll be very pleased with the assortment of pistols and submachine guns in the bags. And I've even thrown in a thousand rounds of ammunition. I think you'll find there's enough potency in those bags to take care of whatever competition the Vietnamese can mount."
I could see the gleam in Huang's eyes as he reconsidered his position. I frowned. Don't do it, kid. Don't be the fool.
And then I caught the slight nod that Huang gave to the greeter. Everything erupted all at once.
The two Chinese refrigerators body-checked Hess' goons and they spilled into the seating area. The bags of guns spilled everywhere. Huang's boys pulled guns and leveled them on Hess and his men.
Huang looked at Hess. "I don't remember asking you to sit down."
Hess took a deep breath and exhaled it smoothly, looking utterly unperturbed. "I do dislike business partners who double-cross me. It really makes things a lot messier than they need be. If people could simply hold to their promises, I think the world would be a better place. I really do."
Huang tossed me my USP. "You're not unarmed anymore."
I caught the gun and turned it on Hess. "Kid said he didn't want any of your stuff. I think the least you can do is respect his wishes."
Hess kept his attention on Huang. "Where is my money?"
Huang grinned and reached under the couch, bringing out a briefcase. "You mean this stuff?"
Hess chewed his lips thoughtfully. "Is it all there?"
Huang shook his head. "It's not in play any longer, Hess. Now do like Lawson says and get the hell out of here."
Hess held up his hands. "Fair enough, fair enough. I only wished to do some business like any entrepreneur would. But I understand." He stood and smiled at Huang. "I wish you a very Merry Christmas."
But even as he bowed I was already screaming at Huang to duck.
The explosion blew me out of my chair and down the stairs to the middle of the dance floor. My ears rang and everything happened in slow motion. I saw kids screaming. Smoke. A fire up in Huang's balcony. I heard gunfire. Rapid-fire and staccato blasts. The smell of blood on the air.
I saw movement. And then someone in red went running past me.
Hess.
I rolled, tried to get a bead on him with the USP. Somehow, I'd managed to hold on to it during the blast.
But there were too many bodies in the way, all of them in a mad rush to get out of the club.
I got to my feet, nearly fell back down and realized how dizzy I was. But I had to make sure. At the top of the stairs, the scene was a bloodbath. Huang had two rounds in his chest, blood spilled down the front of his shirt. I watched his incisors extend and then retract as he died.
But Hess' goons had both gone down as well. Huang's men were down for the count as well. So much for aspiring to move out of Tai Tung.
I grabbed the railing and made my way back down to the parquet floor. The stench of smoke was getting worse. In the enclosed club, it was spreading fast. I hoped Huang had had sprinklers installed at least.
On cue, it started raining.<
br />
At least the innocents living here wouldn't burn to death.
I ran down the hallway back to the exit. Along the way, I saw more evidence of Hess' handiwork. More of Huang's men lay dead.
But someone had managed to squeeze off a round.
There was a blood trail on the floor.
Back in the apartments proper, the trail grew spotty, but it led me to the staircase. I found a bloody handprint on the door exit.
Outside, the December wind blasted me with fresh snowflakes stinging my skin. I brought the gun up. Hess might be waiting for me to come out.
But I saw only pink and red snow leading down the street alongside footprints in the drifts.
Oak Street led toward Curve Street and the splotches on the snow showed that Hess must have fled in this direction. Ahead of me, the dark underpasses of the route 93, the Turnpike, Surface Road, and a bunch of other highways all converged, creating an almost subterranean landscape normally populated by the homeless.
I heard the engine gun and dove right as the Escalade came tearing at me. I came to my feet in a pile of trash and leveled the USP on the rear windshield, blasting away as another gust of wind tore through the night.
The Escalade jerked to the right and slammed into the side of a brick tenement about a hundred yards away.
Hess fell out of the SUV and ran for the cover of the dark under streets. I'd caught a glimpse of the briefcase.
I popped a fresh mag into the USP and gave chase.
In normal conditions, the dark wouldn't present much of a problem for me or my kind. We've got great night vision. But swirling snow and a strong wind made seeing tougher than usual.
A bullet splanged off the girder next to my face and I winced. The muzzle flash had come from my ten o'clock and I sent two rounds screaming back at it before I moved again.
Hess kept leading me further into the darkness. I stumbled repeatedly on piles of garbage, unused tarps, old tires and more. Trying to make sure I didn't walk into a face full of gunfire was taking most of my attention.