by Cole Reid
Li Xing left the key on top of the cabinet with the white porcelain. He figured Baba would find it eventually, but not too quickly. He locked the front door from the inside and closed the door gingerly, to cover his exit. He walked through the yard hastily; he didn’t want anyone noticing his retreat. He threw his shoulder bag over the brick wall, surrounding the main yard, and scaled the wall with the duffel and its value. Li Xing landed harder than expected in the grass, on the outside of the brick wall. He did a slight panorama of the house, to make sure he was alone or to take one last look. Li Xing himself wasn’t really sure. Realizing that no one noticed his exit, he lit a celebratory cigarette. The light from the fire gave him a clear view of his gold watch. It was 3:18 in the morning; he was actually running late. His plan was to be out of the house by three o’clock, on the dot. The first bus leaving the train station was at 6:30am. He calculated it would take him an hour and fifteen minutes to walk to the train station. In reality, it took him over two hours. He didn’t walk at the speed of someone walking through a graveyard. He walked with the speed of someone walking to his own grave. His steps were unsure, like a baby or a coward. Truthfully, he was both. But he was more coward than baby, because he liked the night when no one was paying attention. He walked comfortably through the nighttime darkness—unseen.
Li Xing realized that he had never had a moment as comfortable as the one around him. Blanketed by the darkness, nothing was wrong. He felt so relaxed being unseen, with no one to judge his actions and no visible actions to judge. As he walked, he wished he could have lived his life that way—invisible. But there was always someone to see him, a father or a boss. He spent so many waking hours thinking about the day when there would be no one looking over his shoulder. He frequently thought of the day when Baba would die. The family would be much smaller, but there would be less judgment. Mama had always been happy that he was healthy and didn’t get into any trouble that he couldn’t get out of. Baba always wanted more. It troubled Li Xing to think of what would happen after Baba died. It would leave Mama alone and he didn’t want that. He realized that Baba’s death really wasn’t what he wanted. He just wanted out of his own family, so he had escaped to find a new family, one whose rules were easier to follow. Although he didn’t always agree with the rules, the rules were straightforward making them easy to follow. Living under the rules of his Hong Kong family was easier than living under Baba’s rules, at least, that’s what he told himself. But he had broken the rules of his family in Hong Kong, as well, rules that were straightforward. The rules had predetermined consequences, but he broke them anyways. He sat outside the dark train station and thought about it. Maybe he was just greedy, he thought. He couldn’t remember a time, when he didn’t want something more. He left Kuandian years before because he had wanted more and he had blamed it all on Baba. But there in the haunting of the dark train station, Li Xing had no one to blame but himself. He realized that Baba had a point. He was only trying to teach his son that there were certain rules that had to be respected. Li Xing had only ever respected opportunity. And he had always had the opportunity to place some blame on Baba, so he placed as much as he could. He knew he shouldered the blame for his darkening situation but it was easier to place the blame on Baba. He put as much as he could on Baba—just about all.
The black silhouette of the train station stood out against the dark, but lit, sky. The fog-free night showed motionless stars, shedding light on an otherwise dim-witted man. Starlight strained to reach the blackened train station, where Li Xing’s cigarette shined like a beacon, giving light to the darkness. He smoked cigarette after cigarette, until he was down to his last two. He paused to understand if he should save the remaining pair. He decided he would buy a new pack if the vendors arrived before the bus left, otherwise he would save himself just one. As he lit his second to last cigarette, he thought he saw a figure moving in the distance. The shadow of the train station gave him solace when he thought he was alone. But his thoughts were on the presence of another. He told himself his mind was playing tricks on him. Since his conversation with Baba, he hadn’t spoken to anyone. He thought he might be imagining a companion for himself— his mind reminding him of his own loneliness. But then he heard footsteps. They were shallow but not faint, and legitimate. He thought it might be an animal but there were only two distinct sounds, one foot and the other. The sound moved steadily toward him and startled him. The darkness meant he was without sunglasses. He felt tough behind sunglasses—tough enough to act tough. But the blanket of darkness seemed breached with someone else around. Li Xing realized the figure in the dark could see him by the light of his cigarette, but he couldn’t see the figure. He quickly threw his cigarette to the ground and stomped it out to cover himself with his dark blanket. In the darkness, he felt tough again.
“Who’s that?” Li Xing cried into the darkness. The darkness responded with footsteps, closer and louder. Li Xing stood in the darkness growing increasingly nervous.
“Baba,” said Li Xing, “You?” The darkness responded by laughing like a child.
“Who are you?” asked Li Xing.
“It’s me,” said the darkness.
“Who?” asked Li Xing.
“Xiaoyu,” said the darkness.
“Xiaoyu?” said Li Xing.
“Yeah,” said Xiaoyu.
“How did you get here?” asked Li Xing.
“I walked like you,” said Xiaoyu.
“How come I didn’t see you?” asked Li Xing.
“I saw which way you left down the road,” said Xiaoyu, “This is the only place you could come at this time.”
“Did you come alone?” asked Li Xing.
“Yes,” said Xiaoyu.
“Why did you follow me?” asked Li Xing.
“I’m coming too,” said Xiaoyu.
“Where?,” asked Li Xing, “With me?”
“I know you make money. I need to make money like you,” said Xiaoyu.
“You’re too young to make money like me,” said Li Xing.
“I know you’ve got a lot of money and I need a lot of money,” said Xiaoyu.
“Why do you need money?” asked Li Xing.
“To go to Beijing to be with my sister,” said Xiaoyu.
“Go back,” said Li Xing.
“I can’t go back,” said Xiaoyu, “I got everything with me,” said Xiaoyu.
“You don’t want to come with me,” said Li Xing, “Go back.”
“There’s gotta be something I could do to make money where you go,” said Xiaoyu.
“I’m not gonna tell you you’re wrong, but there is no place for a kid like you,” said Li Xing.
“But here is no place for me, so what’s the difference?” said Xiaoyu.
“There is much more dangerous,” said Li Xing.
“More dangerous than your father,” said Xiaoyu. The reference made Li Xing pause and think. References to Baba always had the same effect. Returning with the money and a kid, who could be put to work, would put him in a better position than returning with the money alone.
“You’re headstrong like your mother,” said Li Xing.
References to his mother always made Xiaoyu go silent. He was only eight years old and didn’t know how to handle the topic of a woman he’d never met, the one who gave him life.
“Ok, you can come, but you know this is your choice,” said Li Xing.
“I know,” said Xiaoyu.
“And you have to do what I tell you when I say so,” said Li Xing.
“Ok,” said Xiaoyu, “Where are we going?”
Li Xing lit his last cigarette, “Hong Kong.”
Chapter Seven Hong Kong
They noticed the sounds before anything else: slowing train over tracks; people’s voices rising. The trip was more touring than travelling. Travelling was from A to B. They had taken three days and went from A to F. Li Xing was surprised at how ignorant Xiaoyu appeared to be toward his surroundings, but ignorance was the wrong word. The boy w
as aware of his surroundings but he was unaffected by it. The boy wasn’t ignorant. He was the opposite; he was tolerant. The crowds, the queues, the units and the news were all inconvenient and still the boy seemed comfortable. He barely said a word for three days and no matter what he said, none of it could be taken as complaining. He wasn’t comfortable with inconvenience, he was accustomed to it. The voice of the train whistle as the train slowed down and the high-pitched sounds that relieved passengers made were nuances not annoyances. It was early afternoon by the time the train pulled into Kowloon-Canton Railway East Line Station. Li Xing told himself the skyscrapers would tickle Xiaoyu’s imagination—stun him with human potential. But he was waiting for late evening, when the nightscape was seasoned with neon. At night, you could really see the city. Li Xing thought, perhaps, the boy would understand why he had come to the city. More to the point, Li Xing was hoping the boy would understand why he had done so much to stay—to make it.
Li Xing didn’t have to wake Xiaoyu. The boy was already staring out the window at the mass. The concrete canopy over the train platform darkened an otherwise sunny day. Xiaoyu didn’t show any eagerness to get out of the dark into the sun. The boy, more than most adults, was able to limit his range of emotion as his long tour came to an end. He didn’t let on that it was his first visit to the city. Xiaoyu stared out the window long enough to map his surroundings but not too long. Li Xing had realized during the trip it was impossible to assume a parental role with Xiaoyu. Xiaoyu had never had a parent and had never needed one. He joined the queue of people, filing out of the train onto the platform, without prompting. The wonder of it all ceased to amaze him; he had come with a purpose.
“Where are we going?” came an appropriate question.
“We need to find a hotel,” said Li Xing.
“Why don’t we go to your house?” asked Xiaoyu.
“Because it’s not mine anymore,” said Li Xing.
“Who does it belong to?” asked Xiaoyu.
“Someone more favored,” said Li Xing.
Xiaoyu was sure he didn’t fully understand his uncle’s meaning; he was also sure he wasn’t supposed to. Xiaoyu knew his uncle had a flavor for candor disguised as sarcasm. He was sarcastic about Baba, but his sarcasm always tasted like the truth. Xiaoyu knew if his uncle was being vague, he meant to be. Xiaoyu was too young to know what his uncle was talking about, which caused a quick and uncontrollable spurt of emotion. Xiaoyu had always felt he could only trust his sister, but when she chose to leave without telling him, he felt betrayed. It didn’t hurt him that she left. He had gotten over his mother’s death as soon as he was told. It hurt him that she hadn’t told him. He bore an inborn contempt for liars, now he categorized withholding the truth as another form of lying. He thought everyone was bound to lie at some point. Even his mother, whom everyone spoke so high of, must have lied sometime. Xiaoyu told himself he would have to learn when someone was lying, because everyone was bound to lie to him eventually. He was sure his uncle was lying to him. His feeling came as an internal rupture—a heart attack. For years, he told himself his sister was the only person to trust. Now, he told himself there was no one. He looked around the train station as he followed his uncle through the crowd. He was in a bigger place than he had ever been and he didn’t know where he was going. He tried to focus on not losing his uncle in the crowd. Silently, he thought it might be better if he did. He looked at the people in the crowd and wondered if any of them were as attached as they appeared to be. He didn’t know.
Li Xing walked out of the glass door entrance of the train station with four people between him and Xiaoyu. Xiaoyu remembered his uncle’s black slacks, so he could spot them through the malaise of people. Li Xing stood on the curb in front of the train station with one finger in the air. A beige taxi spotted him and made a quick appearance. Li Xing hopped in the taxi with his shoulder bag and duffel. Xiaoyu ran around the back of the taxi and opened the door and dove onto the seat. Li Xing gave Xiaoyu a look as if he didn’t expect him but didn’t mind him.
“Moon Luck Hotel,” said Li Xing.
“Moon Luck Hotel,” said the driver, “Sure?”
“Sure,” said Li Xing.
The exchange with the driver was strange, especially to Xiaoyu. A non-local wouldn’t understand why the driver would ask if a passenger was sure about a destination. The reason was the destination—the Moon Luck Hotel. The Moon Luck Hotel was an old smugglers’ drop off point. It had the status of neutral territory among the eight branches of Hong Kong’s organized crime family—the Triads. It could be used by all of them as a quick drop, without any branch claiming it as their territory. The hotel was owned by the Triad family but not loyal to any branch. Hotel management enforced the rules. The rules existed to keep the Moon Luck and its space neutral. The main rule was everyone was a paying customer. Management played no favorites. The patriarch of any branch in the Triad family would be charged a normal rate for staying at the hotel. But patriarchs didn’t stay there; smugglers did. The hotel got its name in the 1950’s and 60’s when most drug smugglers ran boats at night—by moonlight. If they ran out of luck and needed their luck extended, they could stash their load and themselves in the hotel. It didn’t matter whom they were working for or what they were carrying. They could check into the hotel and they would be looked after. Some smugglers left their loads in the hotel and slept on their boats. It depended on how paranoid the smuggler. All good smugglers were paranoid. Another rule was The Rule of Eight. The Rule of Eight said no matter who the smuggler was or what load he was carrying, both had to be gone on the eighth day. It didn’t matter who picked up the load, they only had to ask for it by name—usually a woman’s name, like Margot Yow. The rule was originally known as the Harbor and Hold Rule. The hotel would harbor no smuggler and hold no package for more than a week. But the idea came from a smuggler to extend the week one day from seven to eight—a symbol—one day for each branch of the Triad family. The idea reinforced the neutrality and cooperation of the hotel; each branch gave a single day to the other branches. Each branch in the family agreed to eight days, so the rule was changed.
If hotel management claimed a violation, the Triad family system enforced the rules. Though the system caused its own downfall. It wasn’t violations that became the problem. It was enforcement. The Moon Luck was itself a 4-star hotel, catering to public clients. In fact, it funded itself mostly from legitimate receipts of legitimate guests. But the hotel’s connections with the underworld became increasingly noticeable to innocent patrons. The rules of the hotel were always clear. Despite the clarity of the rules, there were rule-breakers. If on the eighth day a smuggler refused to checkout, he would have to be forcibly removed by enforcers from other branches of the family. In such case, his load would be forfeited and he wouldn’t get paid. The problem was so many smugglers were instructed to stay for longer than the eight-day hash mark, or they were told to wait for further instructions and further instructions came late. While waiting for instructions on their loads, smugglers began protecting themselves. If enforcers from one family branch tried to evict a smuggler from another branch, there would be a fight. Depending on how many smugglers loyal to the same family branch were staying in the hotel, smugglers could equal the number of enforcers trying to evict them. Sometimes smugglers outnumbered the enforcers—which got extremely bloody. The escalating violence caused an unofficial turf war for the hotel. It wasn’t a matter of how tough were your enforcers, but how many were your smugglers. The Triad branch with the most smugglers in the hotel at any given time could not be evicted—breaking the rules. If the rules could not be enforced inside the hotel, they would be enforced outside. If smugglers from one branch of the family killed enforcers from another branch, retaliation would be taken anywhere. Smugglers’ boats got burned and high ranking members of each branch were gunned down in public: at restaurants; at bars; at nightclubs and churches.
The Moon Luck’s role in the increased city violence didn’t
go unnoticed. The Hong Kong Police Force conducted multiple raids on the Moon Luck, during the late 1950’s. Some of the evidence collected at the Moon Luck, helped to expand law enforcement’s knowledge of efforts by organized crime in Hong Kong. The Moon Luck shared responsibility for the formation of Hong Kong’s OCU—Organized Crimes Unit. The OCU had an ongoing interest in the Triad family system. The OCU kept a database specifically for storing information about the eight branches, their leadership and businesses. After the formation of the OCU, the Moon Luck was under heavy surveillance. The Triads knew. The Triad family agreed to abandon the Moon Luck and its management. Starting in the early 1960’s, the eight branches operated strictly in their own territories. No attempts were made to have shared space, until they began sharing space online in the early 2000s.
By 1962, the Moon Luck was no longer cooperating with the Triads and tried to rebrand itself, as a hotel for hipsters. Although the Triad family had abandoned the hotel, there were still small time pushers and wanna-be crooks, who hung out at the Moon Luck. The OCU kept minimum surveillance of the hotel, in case the hotel was still related to Triad activities. One thing became clear, by the mid 1960’s, the Moon Luck was no longer a hideout for smugglers but a hangout for prostitutes. One smuggler, who survived the hotel’s turf war, held a special place for the hotel. He had the idea to take advantage of the hotel’s infamy, describing the Moon Luck as a cigarette with one last puff. He suggested that all eight branches should time a specifically large load all on the same day. Knowing the hotel was still being surveilled by police, the Triads let word leak to the streets of Hong Kong and through the prison system. The word was a major drug load being trafficked by all eight Triad branches, through the Moon Luck Hotel on the same day. The word was true but only half so. There were major shipments coming in by all eight branches on that day, but nowhere near the Moon Luck Hotel. High-ranking members of each Triad branch began to check in at the Moon Luck, just as word made it around to police. On the worded day, recognizable members of all eight branches converged on the hotel, bags in hand. The police raid that followed was one of the most embarrassing in the history of the OCU. Guests of the hotel were set upon, by over sixty members of the Hong Kong SWAT team and forty from the OCU. Among the most incriminating contraband discovered, were copies of pornographic magazines and some whiskey one patron had not paid duty stamps on.