Dead in Hong Kong (Nick Teffinger Thriller)

by Jagger, R. J.

  No.

  Sorry.

  He took a curious look at the way Emmanuelle clutched her purse, and said, “Okay, thanks.”

  He never asked their names.

  They took the MRT to Central where there were a billion people around in case the cops traced a phone signal. They turned on the dead man’s cell, copied everything in the memory—especially recent calls to and from—turned it off, and then did the same with the other two. They took the Star Ferry across the harbour, went to the far end of the boat, made sure no one was looking, and dropped all three of them over the side.

  The deep choppy water swallowed them instantly.

  “What about the gun?” Prarie asked.

  Good question.

  They had debated it all morning—it saved their lives once and gave them an edge for the future, but it also connected them to a murder and was illegal as hell.

  Now it was time to decide once and for all.

  “We have four bullets left,” Emmanuelle said. “You decide.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  They wiped it for prints one more time, made sure no eyes were on them, dropped it over the side and watched it disappear into the salty green water.

  There.

  Done.

  “I feel a hundred times better,” Prarie said.

  “Yeah,” Emmanuelle said, but there was no conviction in her voice.

  THE KNIFE-WEILDING MANIAC who forced Prarie to shoot him last night turned out to be Pierre Durand, 37, from Paris, according to his wallet. The other two were Nicholas Lefebvre, 32, also from Paris, and Michael Chow, 25, from Hong Kong. “We need to figure out if they’re a group trying to find the paintings or the ones who took them in the first place,” Emmanuelle said.

  “How do we do that?” Prarie asked.

  Good question.

  “As far as our two Paris boys go, I know a P.I. back home who isn’t above breaking into a flat or two if the money’s good enough,” Emmanuelle said. “The problem in this case, though, is that it’s so sensitive. If I tell this guy to look around for something connected to paintings, he might put two and two together, which wouldn’t be good.”

  “You don’t think he can be trusted?”

  Emmanuelle tilted her head.

  “With normal stuff, yes, but with something this big, no one can be trusted,” she said. “Everyone becomes a player.”

  Prarie considered it.

  Then said, “Maybe we need to go back to Paris and do it ourselves.”

  “You mean, break in?”

  “Right.”

  Emmanuelle shrugged.

  “It’s a possibility but it’ll take time,” she said. “Maybe what I can do is keep it vague, so he doesn’t know what he’s looking for. I can just tell him to gather up papers and copy computer files, assuming there are computers, and then send it all to us.”

  “What kind of papers?”

  “The normal stuff—bank statements, phone records, et cetera. Even then, he might spot something he shouldn’t.” She cocked her head. “Yeah, I’ll do that and just hope it doesn’t come back to bite us. In the meantime, let’s concentrate on our Hong Kong friend.”

  Michael Chow.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Day Six—August 8

  Saturday Morning

  ______________

  THE SIGHT OF D’ASIA’S FACE brought it all back—the rain, the blond-wig attacker, the body dump, and most of all the incredible passionate moments in the bedroom as the storm rattled the windows and lightning electrified the sky.

  Moments that changed his life.

  Inside the hotel room, d’Asia wrapped her arms around Teffinger’s waist and laid her head on his chest.

  Safe.

  Protected.

  “I shouldn’t have come here,” she said. “If someone follows me, you could be in trouble.”

  “How did you even know I was here?” Teffinger asked.

  “I could feel you in the city and started calling hotels,” she said.

  “You could feel me?”

  She nodded.

  “Don’t ask me to explain it,” she said. “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.” She kissed him and said, “I can’t believe you came all this way.”

  Teffinger exhaled.

  “I didn’t think I’d find you,” he said.

  “Technically you didn’t,” she said. “I found you.”

  Teffinger rolled his eyes.

  “So you’re a better detective than me? Is that what you’re saying?”

  She smiled.

  “Yes, but don’t worry, you’re still young—you’ll improve. Maybe if you’re good, I’ll show you some of my tricks.” She ran a finger in tingly circles around his bellybutton. Then she grabbed the towel and yanked it off. “One of us is naked,” she said.

  “That’s an uneven situation,” Teffinger said.

  “It is.”

  “It upsets the balance of the universe.”

  “It does.”

  “That’s not good.”

  “So how are you going to fix it?”

  EVERY MOLECULE IN HIS BODY screamed for him to throw the woman on the bed and rock her world like no one ever had, even him.

  But it wasn’t that simple.

  Fan Rae pulled at him, hard and forcefully. Just a couple of hours ago, she asked him to move in. Also just a couple of hours ago, he said yes. He didn’t know exactly what that meant as far as a commitment went, but did know that it meant something. And he knew for certain that sleeping with d’Asia would be a violation of whatever that something was.

  Damn it.

  He picked the towel off the floor and wrapped it around his waist as d’Asia watched with confusion.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to,” he said. “I do, more than you can even believe.”

  She raised her arms, put her hands around his neck and brought her mouth close to his, so close that the warmth of her breath filled his world. She rubbed her stomach against his and said, “What’s wrong? Don’t you like me anymore?”

  Teffinger exhaled.

  “Let’s talk,” he said.

  OVER THE NEXT HALF HOUR, he learned a few things. After returning to Hong Kong, d’Asia went into hiding, deep hiding, while a P.I. she hired by the name of Sammy Tsng tried to figure out what was going on.

  So far he didn’t know squat.

  He had however worked hard and used up the retainer.

  Now he needed more money.

  “I never stopped thinking about you Nick,” d’Asia said, “not for a moment. I almost jumped on a plane to Denver fifty different times but each time I reminded myself that I’d ruined your life enough.”

  Teffinger put his finger to her lips.

  “Nothing was your fault,” he said. “I think I know who’s trying to kill you—or at least one of them—I don’t know how many there are.”

  She studied him.

  Then she said, “You’re actually serious.”

  He nodded.

  “Dead.”

  “You know who’s trying to kill me?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Weird, isn’t it? I couldn’t find you, but did find out who’s after you.”

  “Well, spit it out,” she said. “Who is it?”

  HE STARTED AT THE BEGINNING.

  Rather than reporting the incident to the Lakewood P.D., he dumped the woman with the wig near some railroad tracks in Denver after d’Asia ran out of the house. That way he’d have jurisdiction over the case and would get cooperation from the Hong Kong authorities when he came here. He’d been working with a detective named Fan Rae Fan since he arrived.

  “We sort of developed a thing,” he said.

  “You’ve only been here a few days.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “And is thing serious?”

  Teffinger raked his hair back with his fingers. It immediately fl
opped back down over his forehead.

  “This thing is on a path of self-destruction,” he said, “because she’s involved with the people who are trying to kill you, although I don’t know exactly how. I’m still trying to figure it out.”

  With that, he told her the story of the conversation he overhead at Hei Yewan, and how he tried to follow the mystery woman.

  “Describe this woman,” she said.

  He did.

  She listened, solemnly.

  “Do you know her?” he asked.

  She shook her head.

  “I might if I saw her, but not by that description,” she said. “So what do we do?”

  Easy.

  She would stay in hiding.

  Teffinger would stick by Fan Rae and wait for the mystery woman to surface.

  “Are you going to be sleeping with this detective—this Fan Rae Fan?”

  Teffinger shrugged.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Meaning you might?”

  “Right, I guess so.”

  She cocked her head. “You know something? I had you all wrong.”

  “What does that mean.”

  “It means that Fan Rae Fan is the enemy,” she said. “Staying close to the enemy to get information is one thing. Sleeping with the enemy is something entirely different.”

  Teffinger considered it.

  He couldn’t argue but he also knew that he couldn’t promise he wouldn’t sleep with Fan Rae.

  She was in his blood, for better or worse.

  He had fallen for the wrong woman.

  He knew it.

  He still couldn’t do anything about it.

  “How can I trust you if you’re sleeping with the enemy?” d’Asia asked.

  “I’d never do anything to hurt you. You know that.”

  She studied him, headed to the door and said, “I need to think this through.”

  Then she was gone, again.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Day Six—August 8

  Saturday Morning

  ______________

  THE SALTWATER HAD SOME CHOP, but not enough for the Predator to notice as it sliced through Victoria Harbour. Kong stood up and let the wind blow in his face. He had to admit, the boat was nice—big, fast, strong, loud, sexy. Most guys thought it was macho. Kong didn’t. Macho wasn’t standing at a throttle, no matter how much boat was connected to it. Macho was untying a sailboat and pointing it straight into the meat of a storm.

  He felt good.

  No, not good.

  GOOD.

  Jack Poon had taken him into his trust, which would ultimately mean riches beyond Kong’s wildest imagination. He’d need to earn it, sure, but that was just a matter of performance. Don’t screw up any of the front-end projects; that’s what he needed to concentrate on.

  It would be interesting to see what this P.I. wanted him to do.

  This woman named Brittany So Kawk.

  The one he wasn’t supposed to screw.

  A Star Ferry crossed in front of them, a couple hundred meters ahead, and threw out a good-sized wake.

  The Predator would get airborne.

  Kong held on.

  The man at the wheel said, “Oh yeah, baby!”

  He hammered the throttle.

  The front end of the boat jumped when it hit the wave and the engines whined as the props got dangerously close to breaking the surface.

  The guy at the wheel grinned at Kong and hollered.

  Then, wham!

  The boat pounded down and headed for the second part of the wake, coming off the starboard side.

  No problem.

  Kong looked at the ferry.

  What he saw he could hardly believe.

  TWO WOMEN WERE NEAR THE STERN, dropping what looked to be a gun into the water and watching it disappear. Even at a distance, Kong recognized the taller woman—the blond—as the one who pulled his computer out of the dinghy and ran. The other woman had the same size and posture as the woman who broke into his boat and then disappeared after she rounded the pier.

  Kong grabbed the arm of the man behind the wheel.

  The noise of the hull pounding against the chop was deafening.

  Kong had to shout to get his voice over it.

  “Drop me off over there!”

  “What?”

  Kong pointed to the left and said, “Drop me off over there!”

  “You don’t want to go to the sailboat?”

  “No, go over there! Kowloon!”

  They flew over the second part of the wake, crashed back to the water, and then carved to the left.

  Kong kept his eyes on the women.

  You two want to play?

  Fine.

  Let’s play.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Day Six—August 8

  Saturday Morning

  ______________

  MICHAEL CHOW lived in North Point, five kilometers east of Central, in Flat 18, 1F, Coronet Court, 321 King’s Road. Like most Hong Kong streets, the place was jammed with shops, people, vehicles and signs. A waist-high guardrail separated the sidewalk from the street. The flats were piled up for several stories above the shops and looked just as busy as the street itself. Air conditioners stuck out everywhere and hummed with a mean persistency. The entrance was an inconspicuous door sandwiched between two shops. Prarie and Emmanuelle walked into that entrance and rang the buzzer for Chow’s flat.

  No answer.

  They pressed it again.

  Same thing.

  “What do you think?” Emmanuelle asked.

  Prarie shifted her feet.

  “We’ve come this far.”

  They headed up.

  They didn’t encounter a lot of people on the way, but the ones they did meet gave them an extra curious stare.

  They were western.

  The building wasn’t the Ritz.

  They knocked on Chow’s door.

  No one answered.

  THE DOORKNOB WAS LOCKED and wouldn’t turn, but the door hadn’t been pulled shut all the way and the latch hadn’t caught. When they pushed, it actually swung in. They stepped inside and closed it solidly behind them. The place was scorching in spite of the air conditioner.

  It was small, too.

  They didn’t talk and set to work.

  Prarie downloaded computer files while Emmanuelle shuffled through papers. They hadn’t been at it for more than five minutes when a noise came from the door.

  They froze.

  Someone outside was sticking a key in the lock.

  “Someone’s coming!”

  Prarie looked around for something to fight with.

  Anything.

  She grabbed a pair of scissors.

  Two seconds later, the door opened.

  A WOMAN WALKED IN, stopped in her tracks and said something in Cantonese. She was in her early twenties, timid, slender and conservatively dressed in shorts and sandals. She didn’t have the look of a person involved in something desperate or illegal.

  She looked innocent.

  “Speak in English,” Emmanuelle said.

  The woman switched to English.

  “Who are you?”

  “Friends of Michael’s,” Emmanuelle said. “Who are you?”

  “His girlfriend,” she said. “How did you get in here?”

  Emmanuelle sat down on the couch and motioned for the woman to join her.

  “Let’s talk for a minute.”

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Day Six—August 8

  Saturday Morning

  ______________

  TEFFINGER KNEW D’ASIA wouldn’t come back but hung around for an hour anyway before checking out and heading down to the car. The more he thought about it, the more he saw her point. He wouldn’t trust anyone either if they were sleeping with the enemy.

  He was halfway to Fan Rae’s when he realized something bad.

  D’Asia never asked for his number.

  Teffinger didn’t
have hers.

  He didn’t know where she was staying, other than down deep. Hell, he didn’t even know her last name. He turned around, headed back to the Fleming and checked back into his room. The guy at the reception desk gave him a curious glance and then kept all expressions off his face.

  “Welcome back to the Fleming, Mr. Teffinger.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “It’s good to finally be back. It doesn’t look like much has changed since the last time I was here.”

  There.

  Done.

  This way, if d’Asia needed to contact him, she’d at least have a place to leave a message.

  HE MUST HAVE HAD A LOOK ON HIS FACE when he got to Fan Rae’s flat because she asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  She studied him and said, “Okay, be that way.”

  “Honest, nothing’s wrong.”

  “Fine.”

  He ran his fingers through his hair.

  “Okay, there is one thing.”

  “I knew it—”

  “I don’t think your friend from work likes me,” he said, “the one who stopped in at Hei Yewan. She barely even looked at me when she left.”

  Fan Rae paused.

  Then said, “Don’t take it personal. She’s like that.”

  “So what’s her story?”

  Fan Rae cocked her head. “Why? Do you like her?”

  He shrugged.

  “No, it’s just that she seemed interesting,” he said. “Maybe we should go out for a drink tonight and invite her along. I’m sure she has some good stories to tell about you.”

  Fan Rae rolled her eyes.

  “Where are you going with this, Nick? Are you looking for a threesome?”

  He held up his hands in defense.

  “No, not at all—”

  She put a finger on his lips. “I don’t mind, if you want to,” she said. “I’ve done them before. But it can’t be with anyone from work. I’m sure you understand why.”

  THEN SOMETHING UNEXPECTED HAPPENED.

  Fan Rae said, “So we can bring her along if you want, but you only get me at the end of the evening.”

  “Trust me, you’re all I want,” he said.