“You’re a smart businessman, I’ll give you that. I mean, selling Afterlife Dollars to patients drugged up to their eyeballs on morphine. Genius.” She laughed.
Raymond looked at her.
Who are you?
“I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong end of the stick,” he said, voice calm and even because he knew she was trying to provoke him. Goad him into making a wrong move. “Like I said before, I have a responsibility to help people. Especially those who aren’t well enough to come to the branch, because they need it more than anyone else. As a matter of policy, we don’t sell to patients we consider non compos mentis. But if their relatives decide they want their loved ones to enjoy a happy afterlife, then we can’t say no. Now, miss, I believe I’ve patiently answered all your questions. I think it’s time you answered mine.”
He leaned toward her and smiled. She leaned back.
“Who are you? Why are you here?”
“I told you. For my aunt.” Her eyes fluttered nervously.
“Once again, why are you here?” He gave her the bully stare he’d learnt from Wu. For one moment, he got the impression she might buckle. But next second, she leaned in, close enough that he could smell her coffee-and-cigarette breath.
“I’m onto you, Mr. Li,” she said. “But I understand you’re trying to earn a living. And you’d like to do it without too many people asking questions, if you know what I mean.” She raised her eyebrow suggestively.
He leaned back, pretending to be perplexed.
“For instance, the police,” she said, twirling a finger. “You don’t want them asking too many questions, do you?”
“Ahhh!” he exclaimed, as if the penny had just dropped. He held up his forefinger. “Do you mind waiting here just one moment?”
She blinked as he rose to leave. Soon, he was back in the room with Lim Wei. A look of alarm crossed her face when she saw the two men standing next to each other. She rose, holding up her handbag in front of her body like a shield.
“Lim Wei. This lady here said something about the police,” Raymond said, his gaze fixed on her.
“You want to talk to the police?” Lim Wei said. “Sure. Hold on.” He took out his phone and dialed. Her eyes darted nervously.
“Freddy,” Lim Wei said into the phone a few seconds later. “How are you, old buddy? I’ve got someone here who wants to talk to you. I’m going to put her on. Here, miss.” He held the phone out to her.
“Who’s this?”
“Freddy Chang. Police Commander, Kowloon.”
She pushed past them and bolted out of the room.
16.
A CON OF HEAVENLY PROPORTIONS
From our special correspondent, Lesley Zhang
If you’ve watched TV recently, you might have seen a slick song-and-dance advert featuring pop star Franky Soo. The ad ends with an unusual promise: eternal happiness for just three thousand Hong Kong dollars. Now, if this has made you part with your hard-earned money in the hope of gaining an entry into heaven, beware: this is nothing more than a hoax crafted from a blend of ancient Chinese beliefs and modern consumer fantasy. The scheme is the brainchild of one Mr. Raymond Li, a stock-market trader with a dubious reputation. Mr. Li claims he can communicate with spirits from an Afterlife Central Bank. But when pressed for proof, he refuses to provide any, claiming that one needs supernatural abilities to be able to see the spirits. His story of a near-death experience that triggered his psychic journey is full of holes. Mr. Li claims he was in a car accident near Repulse Bay on July 17, 1998. Yet there is no record of such an incident having occurred on that date.
Furthermore, Mr. Li appears to be conducting his fraudulent operations with the full knowledge and collusion of certain police officials, including the commander of Kowloon …
Raymond stopped reading halfway through the article. Stung by shock, he stared at the accusatory newsprint for a few seconds. Then his eyes darted to the photo of the reporter under the headline.
Her.
The newspaper crackled in his hands.
On the other side of the desk, a guilty looking Lim Wei diligently avoided eye contact with Raymond. His head was lowered, gaze wandering everywhere.
“You asshole! You let a journalist in here!” Raymond shouted, apoplectic with rage.
“How was I to know?” Lim Wei protested.
“You don’t let unauthorized people in the office. That’s a rule, you numbskull.”
Lim Wei raised his palms in an attempt to placate Raymond. “I’m sorry. I’m going to fix it.”
“How the fuck are you going to fix it? It’s already out there.”
Raymond flung the newspaper aside and ran his fingers through his hair. A sick feeling rose from his stomach when he thought of the repercussions: customers finding out. Wu finding out.
Suddenly, the door burst open. A man appeared in the doorway, face white as the shirt he was wearing.
“The police … They are here for you.” He was looking at Raymond.
Raymond gasped.
“Go. I’ll deal with them,” Lim Wei urged. But Raymond stood motionless, mouth open, arms hanging at his sides.
“Go!”
Lim Wei pushed Raymond. The force from the muscled arms propelled him out of the office and sent him stumbling into the corridor. He regained his balance and charged as if the carpet under his feet had turned into a bed of blazing coals. He dashed out the fire exit, down the stairwell. Slap-slap-slap-slap. The sound of his feet pounding the concrete echoed in the shaft.
In the carpark, he stopped in front of his Maserati and tapped his pockets, feeling for the key. He kicked the license plate in frustration when he realized he’d left it in the office.
He turned around and ran, darting up the corkscrewing ramp, lungs gulping swigs of the sharp petrol fumes that hung in the air.
A pair of headlights swung around the corner. A car screeched to a halt inches from his feet. The wing mirror gouged his ribs when he ran around it, a trailing voice screaming profanities behind him.
After ascending three levels, he slowed to a brisk walk and went around the lowered boom gate. At the carpark entrance, he looked left and right before slipping out onto the pavement.
It was a bright morning, just after rush hour. Light traffic on the four-lane Canton Road: a handful of cars, a double-decker bus, a beeline of taxis at the rank outside the shopping mall. Not many people on the pavement, either. A few office workers on a coffee break, tourists strolling lazily, peering in shop windows, a grey-haired lady dropping her cigarette among the flowers in a planter.
Raymond thrust his hands in his pockets and lowered his head, eyes darting keenly. The sky-blue shape of a policewoman appeared in his vision. She was leaning toward a shop window, perusing a shiny object behind the glass. He turned abruptly, merging with the procession of bodies at a zebra crossing.
Once he reached the other side, he slipped into a busy side street lined with Chinese medicine shops, noodle restaurants and money changers. The neon signs jutting out from the building facades glowed in broad daylight. He walked calmly for about ten meters before his body jerked with a second wave of panic. He burst into a sprint, no idea where he was going; all he knew was that he had to keep running.
AN HOUR LATER, Raymond emerged from the gates of Central MTR Station, one of the thousands expelled from the belly of the relentless subterranean human conveyor belt grinding through the city. He ran up the stairs to the south exit, two steps at a time. Once on the street, he looked left and right, then chose the right.
Between the steel-and-glass towers of Central and the skinny apartment blocks of Mid-Levels, the sharply rising hill was covered with cramped low-rises and narrow alleyways. Raymond prowled these streets with his head lowered, stopping every now and then to give his aching legs a rest or to watch something that momentarily caught his eye: a coconut bra in a market stall, a woman with purple hair shining shoes, a man doing tai chi on a static escalator. But otherwise, he was an animal
on the move.
After a while, his wanderings brought him to a small Zen garden in the shadow of high-rises in Sheung Wan. His phone rang as he was passing through a green-and-red pagoda gate. He rushed to occupy a bench beside the koi pond, then answered the call, hand cupped over his mouth.
“Have they gone?” he whispered.
“Just left,” Lim Wei replied.
“Who were they?”
“ECU.”
“Huh?”
“Economic Crimes Unit. Seems there were complaints about you.”
“Was that journalist behind it?” Raymond hissed.
“She’s got everything on tape.”
“How’s that—” Then he remembered. Her handbag on the table. The recording device must have been inside it. He pounded the bench.
“I told the police you’re in Macau,” Lim Wei said. “That’ll give our lawyers a couple of days to figure something out. Meanwhile, I suggest you lay low. Don’t go home or come to the office.”
“Where do I sleep if I can’t go home?” Raymond moaned.
“Find a hotel, goddamn it.”
Suddenly, a noise erupted at Lim Wei’s end. It sounded like a clamor of angry voices.
Raymond stiffened. “What’s going on out there?”
There was no answer. Just a crackle, whoosh and repeated thumps, to suggest Lim Wei was running with the phone in his hand. The voices in the background grew louder.
Finally, he came back on the line. “It’s the customers. They’re demanding their money back. I’ve got to go.”
“What? Lim Wei. Hello—”
Raymond was speaking to dead air. The phone slowly fell away from his ear. His head slumped, and he stared numbly at the orange shadows circling in the koi pond.
The article. Police. Angry customers. Could it get any worse?
The phone rang again.
Wu.
He flung it away as if it were a live grenade.
THE BAR WAS a dimly lit wash of black: black walls, linoleum, tables and high stools. The waitress arrived, a glass of whisky sloshing in her hand. She was attired in black, too: a low-cut top over a pink pushup bra, tight shorts. Raymond gawked at her feline figure.
He licked his lips and scanned the other female patrons in the premises. A Chinese woman with bright red lipstick, stirring her cocktail. A saucy Filipina, checking her compact mirror. They barely cast a glance in his direction. He was the wrong skin color. The ladies were there to deploy their wiles to snare some rich gwailo with a flat in the city.
He drank up, wincing as the whisky burned his throat. He dabbed a serviette on his mouth and glanced up at the TV on the wall.
The channels changed from football to the news. He stiffened, half expecting his picture to flash across the screen. Instead, a somber-looking anchorwoman with a rose pinned to her beige dress stared back at him. The sound was turned off and her speech appeared in a crawler:
“The mystery respiratory illness has claimed six more lives, taking the total death toll to fifteen. All but one of the victims are believed to have visited a hotel in Hong Kong Central. Officials from the Department of Health have refused to comment, saying they’re still investigating the matter.”
Raymond shouted to the waitress, who was behind the bar. “Can we change it back to football?”
The waitress stopped wiping glasses and clicked the remote.
“Thank you,” Raymond said, when she came to clear the table. “You seem nice. Unlike that journalist who fucked me over. Don’t know what she’s got against me. I’m just a man trying to make a bit of money.” He covered his mouth with the back of his hand and stifled a burp.
“Another one?” she asked, removing the empty glass. He nodded. As she walked off, he looked at her swinging hips and sighed.
“Her name’s Lesley,” he continued when she returned with the drink. “I should teach her a lesson. But I don’t harm women. That’s what my father does. He’s a cunt. I’m a cunt, too. Just a different sort.”
He grimaced at his own slurring words and maudlin tone. If there was one thing he hated more than being drunk, it was self-pity. And right now, it was dripping out of every pore in his body. He drank up and asked for the bill, then stumbled out of the bar after leaving a huge tip.
A cool evening had descended on Lan Kwai Fong. Music and voices spilled from bars in the shophouses that ran up the hill. Raymond panted as he hurried up the steep slope, picturing himself on the deck of a sinking ship without a single lifeboat in sight.
He paused at the top of the hill, allowing his heaving lungs a moment to regain breath. A lady thrust a bunch of roses in his face.
“Only twenty dollars,” she said.
He looked at the flowers, old and shriveled, just like her. He removed his wallet and gave her a fifty.
“Keep the change.” He ran toward a taxi parked at the rank.
“Mister, don’t you want the flowers?” she called out to his back. He gave her a wave over his shoulder and climbed in the backseat of the waiting cab.
“Robinson Road, Mid-Levels,” he said to the driver.
Are you crazy? a voice screamed in his skull as he yanked the seat belt across his body. The police might be waiting for him. Or worse, Wu. But he was beyond caring. He was sick of running away. That’s what he’d been doing, not just this afternoon, but all his life. And what was the point when Wu’s long arm would find him anywhere? Why not just get it over with? If he was to get chopped up by a meat cleaver, better now when he was drunk. Wasn’t that what they did when they performed amputations on soldiers in the days before anesthesia? Ply them with alcohol?
A short while later, the taxi dropped him off in front of a skinny tower halfway up Victoria Peak. He craned his neck at the building. The row of yellow lights in the grey silhouette was broken by a gap on number eighteen. His floor.
His heart galloped as he walked past the empty concierge desk to the bank of lifts. Once he reached his floor, he moved noiselessly to his door and turned the key in the slot, waiting a few seconds before opening it.
A waft of cool air blew into his face. He took a step, half his body in the light of the corridor, the other half in the darkness of the flat, ears pricked for sounds. There was nothing aside from the gentle hum of the air-conditioning, which was always on because he hated the smell that filled the apartment when it was turned off.
He closed the door and turned on the light. The living room emerged from the blackness, cold and empty. He collapsed heavily onto the sofa, his body wrecked with exhaustion. He wanted to close his eyes and go to sleep, but he knew that wouldn’t end his troubles. There was only one way to make it all go away.
He inhaled a deep breath and extracted his phone from his pocket. He held it in his palm for a few seconds as he steeled himself for the call. Then he dialed.
A voice answered: small, birdlike. Raymond’s chest cramped. He lowered his head and pressed the phone to his ear. He could picture her doing the same. He was his mother’s son, after all.
“Raymond?”
There was panic in her voice. She knew. Damn mothers always knew. He held the phone to his chest and closed his eyes. Tears streamed down his face. He wanted to say something, because this was the last time he’d be speaking to her, but his throat was choked with too many words. The only person in the world he loved. Pain and love woven together so tightly you couldn’t separate one from the other. And regret, too. His biggest regret in life: that he was going to die without saving her.
He brought the phone back to his ear. She was still there, beseeching him to say something. “Raymond … Raymond …”
He hung up and wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. Then he strode purposefully to the study, where he sat down at his desk and typed his will on the computer.
He’d have bequeathed her everything—house, car, bank accounts, shares—but he knew it’d end up in the hands of the one person he didn’t want it to. So, he was going to ask for all his assets to be liquid
ated, a part of the proceeds to be used to buy her a lifetime supply of stuffed toys, the rest going to charity: a society for children abused like he was. The one he sent money to each month.
He finished composing his will and emailed it to his lawyer. Then he crossed the living room and opened the sliding door to the balcony. He stood at the railing, admiring the city skyline spangled with lights. Not a bad view if this was the last thing you were going to see. A front-row seat to one of the world’s premier dick-measuring contests, hundreds of them shooting up to the sky, glowing in the dark. The biggest one of them all, IFC Two, rising eighty-eight floors from the edge of the harbor, its foreskin pulled open to expose a glowing tip. The Center, to his left, not as big as the IFC but endowed with girth. On his right, the Bank of China Building, thin and long with crisscrossing veins.
He’d hoped that one day his own member would be represented in this hallowed pantheon, bigger, more impressive than anything out there. Bank of Eternity Tower. Shopping center on the lower floors, offices on top. In moments of extreme optimism, he’d even pictured what that would look like. But it wasn’t meant to be.
He sighed and peered over the railing. Hundreds of feet below, the tarmac, bathed in streetlights, wound like a gorge. There was no shame in this, he thought as he studied the drop. No shame at all. Most people would’ve defaulted to this after incurring a fifty-three-million-dollar debt. But he hadn’t. He’d given it a good shot, defied the odds to get this far. But if stuff happened that you had no control over, what could you do?
With a deep breath, he eased one leg over and mounted the rail, one foot in the air, the other on the balcony floor, hands holding on.
A second later, the body swung tantalizingly, both feet now in the air. A stiff breeze blew across his shoulder. His pelvic bone, the fulcrum of the seesaw, pushed into the rail, hands tightening their grip on the metal’s cold, rounded surface.
He dropped his head to his shoulder, tipping his weight decisively in one direction. At the same time, his hands let go. He fell through the air, and then there was a thud as his body hit the balcony floor and rolled over.
Dead Money Page 8