by D. L. Kung
The afternoon was wearing on. The only thing that would make her feel better was some solid progress in some direction—any direction. She flipped through the file on Jason Ng’s UniGlobal. The magazine had never done a profile on him or his company, and there wasn’t much in the way of background information; just a run of short property items in which his company figured.
Perhaps the simplest approach was the direct one. She found the number and called up the main office, asking for Ng’s secretary.
‘This is Business World calling,’ she said. ‘I’m doing a story, a feature possibly, on leading families in Hong Kong as the city moves into the future under Beijing’s coming administration. Sort of a portrait of the next generation of local leaders.’
‘Yes?’ said Ng’s secretary. ‘You’d like an interview with Mr Ng?’
‘Yes,’ said Claire. ‘Not a long one, just a few comments about the challenges that his son or daughter will face running a company in a new era, so to speak.’
‘Just a moment, I’ll put you on to his deputy.’
Claire waited as patiently as she could, remembering Dr Liu’s trembling narrative, ‘The recipient was the daughter of an important Hong Kong real estate magnate, and nothing was to go wrong. They didn’t even want to risk a cadaveric transplant, they said . . . they said they wanted the organs as fresh—’
‘Hello, this is Roderick Woon. May I help you?’
‘Mr Woon, I’m the bureau chief here in Hong Kong for the American weekly Business World. We’re doing a story on the next generation of businessmen and business women in Hong Kong and the future of the big family fortunes.’
‘That sounds interesting,’ said Woon. ‘Mr Ng reads your magazine. He went to business school at Columbia.’
‘That’s great. I’m especially interested in how he sees the future role of his son or daughter, especially a daughter, in the firm. We’d like to highlight the women, since Hong Kong has a lot of prominent females in business and government already and—’
‘Well, then, I’m not sure Mr Ng can help you there,’ Woon apologized. ‘He doesn’t have any children; but his nephew is doing very well on our corporate management team looking for expansion opportunities on the West Coast.’
‘Oh, uh,’ Claire said, nonplussed. She had been so sure she was on the right track, she didn’t know what to say. ‘Um, well, his nephew then, sure, maybe you could pass my request to Mr Ng, and come back to us?’
‘He’s very busy, but I’m sure if you allow us some time reviewing his schedule, he’d like to meet you.’
Claire felt sick to her stomach again. It wasn’t a dead end, since she could always ask Ng later if he’d heard any gossip about who was picking up the tab for an ob-gyn wing across the border, but maybe she was further off the track than she’d thought. Maybe there were two donors to First Affiliated?
Or had Liu, in his obvious distress, misheard the guards in the van? Claire checked the Who’s Who for the entry on Ng. Cecilia would have thought of that already. Wife, no children. Was Guangzhou swimming with cash from a Hong Kong magnate ordering spare body parts like so many Midas mufflers?
She put the answering machine back on, packed up her bag, grabbed her umbrella and headed out the door. She needed fresh air, and if that wasn’t to be had in Hong Kong, at least she could fill her lungs with salty sea air and pretend she was doing something useful.
She was going back to Vic’s apartment. She still had the spare key in her bag. The police had searched his place, but there was the chance that something that looked innocuous to a young constable would be a clue to her. She didn’t pretend to be a detective, to know anything about fingerprints, carpet fibers or blood traces. That was the sort of thing she’d read in mystery stories where neat little puzzles were tidied up nicely in the last three chapters.
But you never knew.
The cold winds had driven all the passengers off the ferry’s upper deck. The white plastic chairs fought over on the hot days of high summer were piled in neat stacks next to the drink vendor’s bar inside. The sky hung gray and heavy again. It was just a matter of hours before the gales returned to the darkened harbor waters.
When was the last time she’d seen the sun? Last Saturday morning when they had hiked to Tai Long with Fresnay?
She wished she’d brought more than just an umbrella. More rain would turn her silky dress into a squeaking, mucky mess binding her knees. She settled into a corner seat indoors and watched the dozens of people who settled around her. Some carried cheap paperbacks, others opened packets of potato chips or chatted with a neighbor while their children dashed up and down the aisles. Two grannies in rayon pajamas and heavy rubber-soled sandals pulled out knitting and started to work rapid-fire rows of stockinette.
Then Claire saw him again and she felt the blood drain from her face.
The same back, the same shoulders, the same man who loitered in their lobby and followed her to the registry. She couldn’t see his face. She couldn’t be sure. He was talking to the tea vendor at a counter with his back turned. She got up and started toward him. The conversation ended and without turning around in Claire’s direction, the man stepped to the door to one side of the counter, pushed open the two heavy glass panes and headed out onto the windy deck. Claire rose and skirted around two children squatting in her path. She worked her way up the aisle against the tilt of the ferry, made it to the doors, and leaned into them. She would confront him and demand to know his name and his purpose. The wind was working against her, but she forced one door open and thrust her side into the gusts.
But there was no one on the deck. She stared again and holding on to the railing worked her way to the tip of the boat where the stairs leading to the engine room were chained off. This was crazy. Again, it seemed she’d imagined this man out of nothing.
She disembarked, jostled side to side by impatient commuters, and made her way down the gangplank to the wind-swept waterfront. The light bulbs strung along the quay kept the noisy generator working overtime to fight back the cloudy gloom, but the juice and fish vendors who ran their stalls under their glare had been driven away by the afternoon’s bad weather.
She threaded her way determinedly through the narrow alleys of the market to the steep hill leading to Vic’s. The rapid ascent cost her a little breath.
Across the narrow concrete bridge, the house stood silent. The police hadn’t sealed Vic’s front door and it was unlocked. Even though they seemed to have finished with the place, she entered as quietly as she could. She hesitated. The stale odors of Vic’s life hit her nostrils—the smell of his cigarettes rising from the cheap sea grass floor covering and the ashy smell of a half-burnt mosquito coil poised like a green worm on a cheap blue and white plate on a bookshelf next to the sofa.
She also detected Nancy’s stale perfume, Dior’s well-named Poison, wrapping its cloying fumes around her. She went to the window, and after some resistance from its warped frame, forced it open, but she broke the rusted hinge and now it swung back and forth in the strong breezes coming up the hill from the sea.
She took a deep breath of fresh air and rested there, wondering if visiting the scene of a vicious crime without so much as telling Xavier, Fresnay, Harris, or Slaughter was foolhardy.
There was a slight sound, probably one of the island’s thousands of rats scuttling out of the kitchen. She crossed the living room to the bedroom.
The dark, still silhouette of Nancy Chew stood frozen in the doorway of the clothes closet. She’d been hiding and hoping she wasn’t going to be discovered.
‘Diao ney. What’re you doing here again?’ she demanded. She switched the blinding force of a flashlight directly into Claire’s eyes through the afternoon gloom.
‘Nancy.’ Claire’s breath rushed out of her body in relief. ‘I’m looking for anything that could tell me what’s happened to Vic. What are you doing here? The police lost track of you. Your office is worried—’
‘Taking my clothes.’ Nan
cy said, but she didn’t resume whatever it was that Claire had interrupted. She hardly moved. Claire looked around her and saw no bag or clothing.
‘By flashlight? You’re not packing,’ said Claire. ‘You snuck back her to look for something in secret.’
‘Leave me alone. You just get me into trouble. I don’t want to see more police. They ask so many questions. Got some creepy asshole following me all the time. I don’t know anything. You hear me? I don’t want any more trouble. Go away before you make trouble for yourself. You look out for yourself, like you guay po always do. Vic said you were never supporting him. And Craig told me you never gave him good assignments. You were just in their way. You think you’re some kind of reporter queen.’
‘What are you looking for?’ Claire insisted. ‘If you know something, you should tell the police. They already suspect you of knowing more than you told them last Monday.’
‘They can’t prove I did anything.’
Nancy had seemed trapped, but now advanced on Claire menacingly. Claire was reminded how harsh and loud a thwarted Cantonese woman could get. She had once seen an angry wife trail her husband for block after block through Central District, railing at him at the top of her lungs.
Claire tried to hold her ground. She was standing just inside the open bedroom door, blocking Nancy’s exit. It wasn’t going to be pleasant, but it was just as well that Nancy had exploded. Perhaps Claire would be able to pry more out of her in a temper than in the emotional chill of the American consulate.
‘You knew that Hager was shot. Who told you? Nobody knows that unless they saw the body or know the murderer. And that gun is missing, isn’t it? Maybe you hid it somewhere. Maybe I should help you look for it now. You must have hid it pretty well or the police would have found it.’
It was a bluff, but Claire was desperate to break Nancy down. The girl knew something, she was sure, something important.
‘I care about Vic, more than you or anybody want to know. He’s a good person. I’m sorry about a lot of things that happened, but Craig was in big trouble already. I didn’t kill him.’
Claire reached across the open doorway and switched on the ceiling light.
Nancy hissed and then her green pupils narrowed like a cat’s and she screamed. Her eyes grew wild with fear as she flung herself at Claire, sunk her nails into Claire’s forearm and shoved her aside, pushing through the doorway. In two seconds the front door slammed behind her and Claire heard the girl’s panicked descent, her heels clattering down to the concrete bridge outside.
Then the tiny apartment sat drenched in stillness. In the distant harbor, Claire heard the ferry’s foghorn, sounding its hourly departure.
Suddenly there was a sound just above her right shoulder. An animal? No. Someone breathed on the hairs at the back of her neck, and she understood Nancy’s frenzied dash to safety.
She’d trapped someone already spying on Nancy from behind the bedroom door.
Claire turned, but like a light bursting all around her, the room turned very bright and blinding. Reverberations of a blow flowed down to her feet, and her knees rose up in front of her face. Now unseeing but still conscious, she knew only that the mildewed hemp covering the floor was scratching her cheek and shoulders. Her hands reached out, but she grasped only air. Struggling futilely against a convulsion rising from her stomach, she heard the front door slam for a second time.
She gagged and vomited from shock.
The broken window in the living room banged back and forth in the rising storm. Then the relief of oblivion came as she passed out.
Now she was dreaming she heard a Cantonese woman wailing, male voices and the squawk of a police walkie-talkie. She was riding on the ferry again but lying on a stretcher under a blanket. Was it a dream? It seemed so real. There were more voices, strong and calm. Who was there? Who was lifting her? Her shoulder bumped into something.
‘Gently, gently,’ someone said. There were hands on her legs. There was the sound of sloshing water, more voices, suddenly a harsh light. A hospital lamp overhead. Then it was dark and warm again. She dreamed she was on a small boat with a siren, the windows awash with rain. She welcomed the cool spray on her cheeks and she tasted the bite of salt on her lips.
It was not a dream.
Chapter Eleven
—Friday—
Xavier was on the phone, arguing with his Geneva headquarters in French, but swearing to himself under his breath in Swiss German. From her side of the bed, Claire didn’t bother to try understanding any of it.
He’d delayed an agency trip to Tokyo for a day to make sure she was all right. Only a very slight fracture was the good news, but it would take three more days to make sure there were no complications from swelling. She tried to turn to look at him, but the right side of her head behind her ear was still a little swollen. She stayed nestled on an ice pack that had melted half an hour before.
At least the attack had happened on a Thursday. She had the weekend to recover and McDermott would excuse her from New York’s next news cycle.
‘They’re hopeless.’ He slammed down the receiver. ‘They’ve delayed approval for our irrigation project in Sichuan. Something about having to change the internal communications system. Don’t they have anything better to do back at headquarters than make more busywork for the people in the field?’
At least this distracted Claire from the pain. ‘Sorry, I didn’t follow that. What have they done?’
‘I don’t believe it. We spent almost two years negotiating this aid deal with the provincial bosses. I personally guaranteed transfer of the first payment into the Bank of China this week. The Chinese project directors are meeting in Chengdu to finalize their schedule. LaConte just said they’re postponing all new documentation for one week while the computer coding is changed. Nothing was wrong with the computer coding!’
Xavier sat on her bed and put his head in his hands.
Claire put her arms around his waist. ‘It’s not a tragedy,’ he shrugged appreciatively. ‘Not like your problems with Vic and Craig. It just means another week of phoning Beijing—no, I’ll just fly up there and then go on to Tokyo. And the delay will anger the Japanese.’
He cursed again, pacing the floor at the foot of her bed. Claire cringed as his voice hit her eardrums, and he apologized.
‘No, no, I’m glad you’re here,’ she said. She took his hand and drew him back down onto the bed. ‘I’m so glad you were at the hospital, you talked to the police and the doctors, you . . . you were there.’
‘I’m still here,’ he said.
‘I’m not used to someone being there for me.’
‘Maybe you should get used to it.’
‘I wouldn’t fight you off.’
‘As long as you understand that when I’m traveling, I’m still with you. I’m always with you.’
‘I know you have to go. I’ll be all right in a day or two.’
‘Why did they decide to change the computer codes? Because they are bureaucrats and they think if they don’t make work for everyone else in the few hours when they are not having meetings and lunches, they’ll stop breathing.’
He looked down at her and sighed. ‘I’m sorry, I’ll let you rest.’ He stuffed his hands in his pockets and headed back down the corridor. Claire heard him go into her study, unlock his battered old briefcase and take his papers out to work on the balcony.
Claire sighed. It was a relief to see orderly, managerial Xavier blowing off steam for a change and looking to her for comfort as well as offering it. It seemed so natural to them both. She lifted herself very gingerly off the pillow and reached for a pile of CDs next to the bed. There was one of her favorites, Mitsuko Uchida playing Mozart sonatas, but on reconsideration, she thought that if her head was clear enough for Mozart, it was time to get out of bed. She went to the piano and pulled out her own dog-eared yellow Schirmer’s score of Mozart and fingered the simple, sweet melody of K331.
For her, playing was thinking without
words. Sometimes, when working on her computer, she interrupted her work to ‘search’ for something, a word or phrase. Now it was as if something Xavier had just said had put her brain into ‘search mode.’ What for?
Something Xavier just said reminded her of . . . what?
She remembered lying on Vic’s floor. She pieced together the sounds she’d heard into something more coherent. The banging of the window in the wind, the wailing of the neighbor come to complain, the walkie-talkie squawk of the Cheung Chau policeman discovering her crumpled body and then Xavier waiting at the Central ferry dock as they carried her from the small police launch.
She felt again the blanket wrapped around her and strange hands lifting her legs gently into the ambulance headed for Adventist Hospital. Once they had given her sedation, she’d lost track of the process of X- rays, blood tests, and measurements of her swelling skull.
A thought popped into her head as her fingers explored Mozart’s second variation; Xavier’s communication codes were similar to Business World’s four-letter e-mail address codes. Computer overhauls happened with such regularity in New York that she was amused Xavier was so disrupted by it.
Business World took security very seriously and issued fresh codes annually.
Now she knew what was nagging her. Her fingers stopped, suspended over the keyboard. She made her way carefully down the narrow corridor and eased into her study chair. The movement increased her circulation, making her head throb harder.
After a moment, she pulled herself together and turned on her computer. It autodialed New York’s computer and at its cue, she entered her name and the password to her e-mail. Damn, sometimes the New York system was so slow. Of course, she recalled, it was now only Thursday night in New York. The mainframe computer was going full steam, putting an entire magazine into layout, churning out the final copy for the editors’ desks, and electronically pumping column after column to their New Jersey printing presses.
The computer finally scrolled down through her messages. When had Vic’s telex from Shanghai arrived? A week had passed. It seemed so long ago. She found it again, one line in the directory, message 32.