Snakehead tct-4

by Peter May

  ‘Who was the shuk foo?’ Li asked.

  Xiao Ling shook her head. ‘I don’t know his name. But he was always around the club. ‘You’d need to ask the dai lo. He was Badger’s uncle.’

  Chapter Eleven

  I

  The Golden Mountain Club sat in a corner of Ximen Plaza, flanked on either side by rows of shops. Mona’s Skin Care, Mountain Optical, Old China Fast Food. A billboard tacked to the exterior advertised, in Chinese characters, John P. Wu, Dentist—Dentista. Immediately next door was a Vietnamese restaurant boasting dancing and karaoke. The entrance to the Golden Mountain Club itself sat back in the shade of a covered walkway. A couple of felony notices in English and Spanish were pasted to the smoked glass of the door. A sign read: SMOKING PERMITTED WITHIN. Which brought a smile to Li’s face. The idea of a non-smoking Chinese club was risible.

  They had been watching the club from Hrycyk’s beat-up old Santana on the far side of the plaza for nearly three hours. It had opened shortly after midday, and a steady flow of customers had followed the first staff — a dozen or so young to middle-aged men wearing suits and ties beneath overcoats that were superfluous in the midday heat of a Texas fall, several girls with short skirts and painted faces, miscellaneous youths in jeans and sneakers. You could tell the staff from the customers. The staff all had dead eyes and a reluctant gait. The customers had an air of anticipation about them, a sense of optimism.

  Reluctantly, Li had left Xiao Ling at the house in Georgetown, protected by two armed police officers. She had refused to accompany them to the morgue where Margaret had made a positive identification of one of Li’s attackers — the one who had made the slit-throat sign to her from the passenger seat of the white Chevy. He was the one Li had wrestled the gun from the previous night, blowing away one half of his face in the ensuing struggle.

  Now he, Fuller and Hrycyk were going after the dai lo known as Badger. It was a straight line of connection from dai lo to shuk foo to ah kung. The problem, they knew, would be in persuading Badger to squeal. There were codes of honour and loyalty here that law enforcement officers had been unable to break in thousands of years.

  It was nearly three when they saw the unmistakable white stripe through the dark hair of a young Chinese wearing a black leather jacket. He was walking across the plaza with the swagger of someone in possession of absolute self-confidence. His hands were pushed into the pockets of tight designer jeans, and he wore soft green suede shoes. His white tee-shirt was emblazoned with the logo of some American heavy metal band. The ubiquitous cigarette dangled from his lips. He swung open the door of the Golden Mountain Club and waltzed in like he owned the place.

  Fuller was set to move there and then, but Hrycyk stopped him. The old immigration hand had been here many times before. ‘Give him time to settle,’ he said. ‘Time to have a beer or two. Time to relax. We’re not so likely to lose him that way. We go in now, he’s still buzzing. Physically, mentally alert. And let me tell you, Agent Fuller, I’ve had it with chasing people up alleys. I’m too old for that kinda shit.’

  So they waited another half-hour. Li and Hrycyk smoked more of Hrycyk’s cigarettes. ‘First stop, you’re buying some of your own,’ Hrycyk kept saying.

  Fuller, full of impatience and irritated by the constant smoking, kept the window wound down at his side. ‘Next time,’ he said, ‘we bring along a HEPA mask so I can breathe.’

  Li, sitting in the back, kept his own counsel and said nothing. Even if they were successful in pulling in the dai lo, he had grave doubts about how much, if anything, they would learn from him.

  Hrycyk turned to him, and out of the blue said, ‘You were kidding me, right? About this heap being built in China?’

  Li shook his head solemnly. ‘Rear off-side window winder always breaks off on them.’

  Hrycyk looked at the broken window winder on the rear off-side window and narrowed his eyes. ‘You already clocked that,’ he said.

  Li shrugged. ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

  ‘Shit,’ Hrycyk said. ‘I’m trading this wreck in first chance I get.’ He opened the driver’s door. ‘Time to go and get that little Oriental bastard!’

  Inside the main door there was a small reception area with a desk and a gold 3D profile of the United States mounted on the wall behind it. It was gloomy here, subdued red lighting, smoked glass doors turning day outside into night. A flunky in a suit looked up, startled. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘this is private club. Members only.’

  Hrycyk pushed a warrant in his face. ‘Picked up my membership this morning,’ he said. ‘From a judge downtown.’ And he flipped open his wallet to show him his badge. ‘INS.’

  Fuller waved his badge at him, too. And Li held up his maroon Public Security ID. ‘Beijing Municipal Police,’ he said. ‘CID, Section One.’ Which had a great deal more effect than either of the other two. The flunky paled. He reached forward under the desk, and Fuller grabbed his arm.

  ‘Uh-uh,’ he said. ‘No warnings. Where’s Badger?’

  The flunky gulped. ‘In the bar.’

  ‘Show us.’

  He pulled the little man out from behind the desk, and they followed him up dark, carpeted stairs and through a door into a large salon with tables set around an empty dance floor. There was a small stage at the far side, and a long bar set against the near wall. Subdued lighting around the perimeter of the salon revealed groups of two or three men, and the occasional girl, sitting drinking at tables. The light along the bar reflected in the faces of customers and girls perched on high bar stools, nursing drinks and smoking cigarettes. Badger and a couple of his ma zhai stood in a group at one end drinking beer by the neck. Some record from the singles charts was belting out across the sound system.

  ‘Turn that shit off,’ Fuller shouted at the flunky and pushed him toward the bar. The little man squeezed in past the barman and switched off the stereo. The sudden silence startled everyone in the salon, as much as if a gun had gone off. The hubbub of voices became instantly self-conscious and quickly died away. Eyes turned toward the three law enforcement officers. Hrycyk stepped up to Badger and pushed a gun in his face and flapped his badge at him. The dai lo grinned his passive defiance as Hrycyk frisked the pockets of his leather jacket and drew out his wallet, flipping it open to the ID window.

  ‘Ko-Lin Qian,’ Hrycyk said, reading off it. Then he grinned at the white stripe. ‘Aka Badger. Aka Fuckhead. I have a warrant for your arrest. Turn around, put your hands on the bar.’ The dai lo did as he was told, still the same defiant smirk on his face. Hrycyk kicked his feet apart and checked him for weapons. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘put your hands behind your back.’ And he slipped his gun back in its holster and snapped on a pair of handcuffs.

  The dai lo turned around to face him. ‘So what you arrest me for?’ he said. ‘Breathing? I thought air was free in America.’ A couple of his ma zhai sniggered.

  ‘Free for Americans,’ Hrycyk said. ‘Not for illegal aliens.’

  ‘I’m no illegal alien,’ the dai lo said. ‘I got papers.’

  ‘Papers lie.’

  ‘Truth is,’ Li said suddenly, speaking in Mandarin, ‘no one gives a shit whether you’re an illegal alien or not.’ Badger’s smirk evaporated. There was an absolute hush in the room.

  ‘What the hell are you saying?’ Hrycyk demanded.

  But Li ignored him and continued in Mandarin. ‘We want information, kid. We need the name of your shuk foo. And you’re going to give us it.’

  Li saw apprehension in the dai lo’s eyes. Badger glanced quickly around the watching faces, then thrust out his jaw defiantly at Li. ‘You know I’m not going to do that.’

  ‘Sure you will,’ Li said quietly. ‘Because I’m a nice guy, and I’ll ask you nicely.’ He paused. ‘Once.’ And he sighed. ‘After that, who knows? Maybe I’m not such a nice guy any more. You read the papers, you know how we do business in the PRC.’ He grinned.

  Hrycyk was glaring at him. ‘You gonna let us in on this private conversation
or not?’

  Li shook his head. ‘No.’ He took Badger by the arm and jerked him toward the door. ‘Let’s go.’

  When they got to the car, they put Badger in the back and Li slipped in beside him. Hrycyk turned and glared back at Li. ‘What the hell was all that about in there?’

  ‘Yeah, come on, Li,’ Fuller said. ‘We haven’t been holding anything back from you.’

  ‘No, of course you haven’t.’ Li said. ‘Let us just say at this point you do not need to know.’ He paused. ‘Trust me.’

  ‘About as far as I could kick you,’ Hrycyk growled, and he started the motor.

  Badger snorted. ‘Where’d you pick up this heap of shit?’ he said sarcastically, making a poor attempt at bravado. ‘The breaker’s yard?’

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ Hrycyk snarled angrily, and they jerked away across the tarmac with a squeal of tyres.

  They drove in silence then along Bellaire until they turned on to the freeway at Sharpstown, heading east on the 59 before turning north on to the 45. Badger sat sullenly next to Li, staring out of the window. As the skyline of downtown started growing on the horizon he asked in Mandarin, ‘Where are you taking me?’

  ‘INS lockdown,’ Li said.

  The dai lo shook his head bleakly. ‘You know you’ve signed my death warrant.’

  ‘Have I?’ Li asked innocently.

  ‘You know they’re going to kill me. I’m not going to tell you what you want to know. But they’ll make sure of it. One way or another.’

  ‘So, if they’re going to kill you,’ Li said, ‘why not tell us? What difference does it make?’

  Badger looked at him scornfully. ‘I’d rather die.’

  ‘So die,’ Li said, turning to the front again. ‘Who gives a shit?’

  Dark clouds were gathering again in the northwest, with the promise of more thunderstorms. They flashed beneath a couple of flyovers, the skyscrapers and tower blocks of downtown now directly ahead of them, late afternoon sunshine slanting through the clouds to reflect off acres of glass.

  ‘Pull over,’ Li said suddenly.

  ‘What?’ Hrycyk flicked a backward glance at him. ‘What do you mean, pull over?’

  ‘I mean stop the car,’ Li said, almost shouting.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Hrycyk pulled across two lanes of traffic, to the accompaniment of a chorus of horns, and burned rubber to bring them to a halt on the hard shoulder.

  ‘Wait here,’ Li said, and he grabbed the dai lo by the collar and pulled him out on to a band of concrete littered with shredded tyre and fragments of glass. The barrier was scraped and scored, scarred by dozens of minor and several major accidents. He began walking him away from the car and glanced over the barrier to the slip road passing beneath them. It was a drop of about thirty feet. Beyond, he could see the distinctive building of the Texas Historical Museum, and in the distance the trees flanking Buffalo Bayou and the patch of green that was Sam Houston Park.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Badger was worried now.

  ‘Maybe I’m going to throw you over,’ Li said. ‘Or push you in front of the next truck.’

  ‘In the name of the sky,’ the dai lo screamed at him. ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘Maybe,’ Li said. They were having to shout above the roar of the traffic. He glanced back and saw the silhouettes of Hrycyk and Fuller leaning over the seats, watching them through the rear windshield. He turned back to the boy. ‘You want to die or you want to live?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think maybe we stopped here to let you have a pee, because we didn’t want you soiling the car. And you got away before we could stop you. Jumping down on to that road and sprinting off toward the Bayou.’

  Badger looked over the barrier. ‘I’d get killed jumping down there.’

  ‘So run until you get on to the ramp.’

  The boy frowned at him. ‘Why would you do that? Why would you let me go?’

  ‘Guanxi.’

  Badger looked at him as if he were insane. ‘Guanxi? What are you talking about? You don’t owe me anything?’

  ‘I will when you tell me the name of your shuk foo, then you’ll have guanxi in the bank with me, big time. I’ll let you go. You say you escaped. We don’t have you in custody, they don’t have to kill you. And they know you didn’t even have time to tell me anything, even if you had been so inclined. Which, of course, you weren’t.’

  Badger stared at him hard for a very long time. A huge truck thundered past, throwing clouds of rubber dust and exhaust in their faces. Then, ‘Guan Gong,’ he said. ‘It’s his nickname. That’s all I know.’

  Li said, ‘If you’re lying I’ll put it about that we cut a deal, and you’ll be a dead man anyway.’

  ‘Guan Gong,’ the dai lo said again, and met Li’s eye directly.

  Li shouted, ‘Go!’ And the dai lo ran, still handcuffed, his white stripe catching the sunlight as he went, feet hammering on the hard concrete.

  Hrycyk and Fuller were out of the car in a second, weapons drawn, running toward Li.

  ‘What the fuck’s going on!’ Hrycyk screamed.

  ‘He got away,’ Li said.

  ‘You let him go?’ It was Fuller this time, glaring at him, full of incomprehension.

  Li shrugged. ‘He gave us what we wanted.’ And he started walking back toward the car.

  Fuller and Hrycyk exchanged impotent glances, then Hrycyk looked along the hard shoulder to where the distant figure of the dai lo was heading down the slip road, almost out of sight. ‘Fuck it,’ he said, and headed back along the concrete to where Li was already waiting for them in the car.

  II

  The sunlit grey stone edifice of City Hall, a jumble of squares and rectangles carved into a black sky, looked out across what looked to Li like a large swimming pool. Lined with trees and picnic tables, the long turquoise blue rectangle of water stretched between the municipal building and Smith, where the curve of a blue glass tower reflected its neighbouring white skyscraper like a building toppling in an earthquake. Both dwarfed the City Hall.

  Li and Hrycyk stood outside on the cobbled concourse, waiting for Fuller. Hrycyk was impatient and could barely stand still. ‘Gimme a cigarette,’ he said to Li. He had insisted they stop and that Li buy his own pack. Li handed him one and lit another himself. Hrycyk was shaking his head. ‘I still can’t believe you did that,’ he said.

  ‘What, gave you a cigarette?’

  Hrycyk hissed his irritation. ‘Let the kid go.’

  Li shrugged. ‘Seeing is believing.’

  ‘I mean, is he stupid, or what? As soon as his people find out we’re asking for Guan Gong, they’re going to know he told us.’

  Li let the smoke creep from the corners of his mouth. ‘I guess he never stopped to think about that.’

  Hrycyk gazed at him. ‘You know you’re a devious bastard, Li.’ He meant it as a compliment.

  ‘Thank you,’ Li said. ‘So are you.’ He paused. ‘Without the devious bit.’

  Hrycyk laughed. ‘You know, there are times, Li, when I think I might even get to like you.’

  Li took another pull on his cigarette. ‘Can’t say I think I’ll ever feel that way about you,’ he said.

  Fuller hurried down the steps to join them. ‘Soong’s not there. His office said we’d find him at the Houston Food Bank.’

  ‘A food bank?’ Li asked.

  ‘It’s a kind of charity thing,’ Fuller said. ‘Companies donate food to it. You know, stuff past its sell-by, or in damaged tins or packaging. Or just plain donations. The Food Bank distributes it to the poor of the state. Soong’s bank donates manpower. All his employees put in one afternoon a week at the place. And so does he.’

  * * *

  The Houston Food Bank was in the Herstein Center warehouse between Jensen and Vintage on the Eastex Freeway, a bleak industrial landscape of empty lots and rundown commercial properties. A couple of cops at the gates of the parking lot had pulled over a pick-up and were checking the tread
s. The driver was young and black, the cops were white, and Li thought it didn’t take too much imagination to figure out why he’d been stopped. The parking lot was nearly full, and Hrycyk had to park a long way from the main entrance. As they crossed the lot, the first fat drops of rain began to fall. The sun had disappeared behind a brooding sky of battered-looking cloud. The air was full of electricity and the promise of storm.

  Inside, they asked for Councilman Soong, and a young black man took them in back through the warehouse. They passed a line of Chinese volunteers packing foodstuffs into cardboard boxes on a conveyer belt. Through hanging straps of plastic, they entered an area of metal staging thirty feet high, piled on each level with plastic-wrapped boxes of food straight from the manufacturer. ‘Being law enforcement people,’ the young black man said, ‘you folks’ll probably be interested to know that we got prisoners down from Huntsville working here. Trustees working their way back into society. And a lot of the fresh food we get comes from the prison farms up there.’ He grinned. ‘So each time you put someone away, you’re sort of doing us a favour.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind the next time I’m making an arrest,’ Fuller said dryly.

  Soong was driving a forklift truck between aisles at the far side of the warehouse, loading pallets onto staging. Motion detectors in the roof switched overhead lights off and on as he moved between rows. He was still wearing jeans and his red leather baseball jacket. Only now he had completed the outfit with an Astros baseball cap. He grinned and waved when he saw them coming. ‘Gimme minute,’ he shouted. And they watched as he skilfully manoeuvred the forklift to slide a pallet onto the top level. He lowered the forks to the floor, cut the motor and climbed down, pulling off his gloves and stretching out a hand to shake theirs. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Pleasure to see you. To what do I owe honour?’ But as usual he didn’t wait for an answer, waving his arm around the warehouse instead. ‘What you think of food bank? Good idea, yes? Good PR for Chinese help here. Good community relation.’ He grinned mischievously. ‘Besides, I always wanted to drive forklift.’