by Cole Reid
“Excuse me Sir, do you know what’s the time,” said Huang Sitian. The line was well rehearsed, then rehearsed for natural appearance. Inspector Mak smiled. Huang Sitian had a young face, even for a young man.
“It’s nearly eight o’clock,” said Mak, “You have somewhere to be?”
“Yes, in about fifteen minutes,” said Huang Sitian.
“You’re meeting someone here?” asked Mak.
“Around here,” said Huang Sitian.
“Where exactly?” asked Mak. Huang Sitian began to hesitate. Mak’s eyes stared intently. The long seconds began to count themselves. Mak’s hand began to move steadily up toward the inside of his coat. Huang Sitian wanted to say something else but he couldn’t think of what else he might say. The moment seemed to last too long. But it all happened so quickly. Lin Jun was first to fire a shot. Although, he was supposed to shoot Mak in the leg he shot him in the buttock. It seemed an easier target and he had a sense of humor after being stuck in the garage for weeks and weeks. Yue Tian’s shot missed its mark as Mak tilted sideways from the first shot. Yue Tian was aiming for Mak’s right leg but hit Huang Sitian’s shin instead. The shot caused Huang Sitian to keel over and fall against a shop window. The shot confused Mak. After almost two decades on the Hong Kong beat, his instinct told him when an ambush was coming. Seeing Huang Sitian shot in the leg made him change his mind about one thing. He guessed Huang Sitian wasn’t part of the ambush. He guessed wrong. In all, the accidental shot saved Huang Sitian’s life but he wouldn’t see it that way. Mak drew his gun from the holster inside his jacket. He would have aimed at Huang Sitian but he tried to roll over and aim at Yue Tian. Yue Tian was bumped from behind and had trouble regaining his balance. Mak turned to aim his gun but his hand was kicked hard forcing his finger off the trigger. No shot was fired. A masked Xiaoyu leaned in with his knife drawn. He locked his left arm around Mak’s face turning his head to expose his jugular vein. Xiaoyu drove the knife as deep as he could into Mak’s neck. He twisted the knife to compound the damage before pushing Mak’s head to the floor. Some bystanders screamed, some just switched to the opposite sidewalk. Others thought they were in a low-budget crime film. Others did nothing or didn’t notice. Xiaoyu grabbed Huang Sitian and put the knife to his throat.
“Say anything and I will kill you,” said Xiaoyu loud enough for bystanders. Xiaoyu threw Huang Sitian over his shoulder and carried him to the GT. Xiaoyu dumped Huang Sitian in the trunk. Yue Tian and Lin Jun jumped in the back seat of the GT. Xiaoyu had the passenger seat. Yi Le had the engine running and accelerated around the block. Yue Tian and Lin Jun lied down in the back seat, masks off. Xiaoyu took his mask off as well. The four men drove to the garage on Bristol Avenue and exchanged the GT for the Civic. In the garage, the plan was altered by the presence of a wounded Huang Sitian. Instead of putting Xiaoyu in the trunk alone, Xiaoyu climbed in the trunk while Yi Le and Yue Tian eased Huang Sitian in behind Xiaoyu. Lin Jun switched the plates on the GT, from one phony number to the next. Lin Jun, Yi Le and Yue Tian left the garage in the Civic with Xiaoyu and Huang Sitian in the trunk.
Liu Ping was supposed to return to the garage with Huang Sitian. Instead he returned alone and late. He drove around Kowloon to make sure he wasn’t followed or suspected. It was five-thirty in the afternoon, but their day was only half over. Xiaoyu didn’t want Deni to find out about the attack on Inspector Mak. Deni was a coward. The attack on Mak would make Deni feel his conspiracy cracking; then a coward would want to run. Xiaoyu wanted to get to Deni before he had the opportunity. With a wounded Huang Sitian and tardy Liu Ping they were burning their own clock. Huang Sitian would have to be left behind. With a bullet in his shin, he would need to be looked at. Xiaoyu had to think on the go. He called Mr. Cheung and left Huang Sitian for him to find. The same Saturday, Deni was scheduled to give a presentation at the Harbour Gate Suites. Xiaoyu remembered the location. It was where the Moons stowed him after he first received the Mark. He spent four weeks alone on the ninth floor, free to do anything but leave. It was the first time he met Deni Tam.
• • •
The hotel ballroom was nearly full. There were fifteen tables and eighty four people. Deni stood on a one-meter stage and the ceremony. He wore a three-piece light tan suit with light orange shirt and tie. He had decided against a pocket square. A large drop-down screen served as a backdrop to a presentation about expansion. The screen hosted a computer slide presentation with charts, figures and pictures. The plan as it was explained was for the Moons’ hotels to branch into resorts in Macau and Australia as well as time-share condominiums. Deni was making good on his promise to legitimize the Moons’ businesses. But he was doing it without their knowledge. The appropriately titled South Moon Group was based out of Macau, one of the dummy corporations the Triads setup to buy Hong Kong real estate. For the time being, South Moon Group was still just a shell. Deni was using the shell to protect his nest egg, the money he had been siphoning from the Moons’ less legitimate businesses. Some of the money was found by Xiaoyu’s uncle—some. It wasn’t much compared to the pot, but it was too much to overlook. Deni blamed the theft on Li Xing and had him dealt with accordingly. Xiaoyu mocked Deni for his paranoia but measuring the depth of Deni’s betrayal, he had every right to be paranoid. After turning dirty money clean and using it to buy property and build a business, he could install himself as chief executive and pay himself handsomely, legitimately. Uncle Woo selected Deni to lead the Moons because he had ‘a modern mind’ but Deni’s mind was too modern for Uncle Woo. If guilty, Deni thought he was only guilty of thinking passed the Triads’ ancient way of doing business—trying to earn a dirty profit in a city undergoing a long-term clean up.
Two thick-chested men sat in chairs on the right and left of the ballroom doors. They weren’t Moons; they were private security personnel hired by Deni. This was fortunate for Xiaoyu. Had they been Triads they would have known whom they were guarding. Because they weren’t, they thought he was just another local businessman—they had guarded many with little incident. And they were unarmed. Xiaoyu walked to the door paying no attention to the seated guards. As soon as he grabbed the door handle, a strong hand grabbed his.
“Can I help you?” asked the seated man on the left, now standing.
“I’m here for my uncle,” said Xiaoyu.
“Your uncle’s not inside,” said the man on the right rising to his feet.
“No one goes in, sorry,” said Lefty.
“Mr. Tam is there?” asked Xiaoyu with his free hand in his jeans pockets.
“Haven’t seen him,” said Lefty.
“Now’s last chance,” said Xiaoyu chopping Lefty in the throat then spinning to connect his right elbow to Lefty’s temple. Righty swung a solid hook at Xiaoyu’s head missing as Xiaoyu shifted his weight to his left leg bending at the knee. As Righty’s punch came and went, Xiaoyu stomped Righty’s shin with his heel, twisting forward counter-clockwise to end up slightly behind him. Xiaoyu kicked Righty’s knee from the back catching him by the neck as he fell. With a backward twist, Righty’s neck bone became useless and he fell face forward, creating a slight obstacle between Xiaoyu and Lefty. Lefty froze in motion as his colleague’s body hit the floor softly, giving Xiaoyu time to grab his hand and twist it against itself. Xiaoyu chopped Lefty in the armpit before cupping his hand around the back of Lefty’s head and tossing him forward. As Lefty flew forward, Xiaoyu held his wrist firm causing it to twist enough for a compound break. Lefty didn’t have air to scream because all air was knocked out of him as he hit the ground. Xiaoyu raised his knee high and stomped on Lefty’s head leaving him unconscious with a fractured skull. Xiaoyu hit redial on his cell phone to call Liu Ping.
Less than a minute later, Liu Ping entered the hotel lobby with his six others. Liu Ping and the brothers met Xiaoyu by the ballroom door. Xiaoyu gave them a nod and they took out their pistols making them unsafe. Xiaoyu pulled open the double door wide enough for most of the others to enter on his heels.
Many of the gathered investors turned back to see Xiaoyu and the Sheltered Ones enter and felt uneasy. Xiaoyu walked forward straight toward the stage as Liu Ping and the others spread their numbers wide and slowly floated toward the stage in ghostly fashion. When it was noticed that all but Xiaoyu had guns drawn, investors began to nervously leave their seats and head for the exit. Deni’s legs were too heavy to move at the shock of seeing Xiaoyu enter and his investors exit. He blinked hard, disbelieving what he saw. Xiaoyu hopped onto the stage and headed toward Deni. Cupping his hand into a U-shape, Xiaoyu hit Deni in the throat and covered Deni’s face with his hand, pushing him to the floor. Xiaoyu walked to the podium where the laptop computer was in the middle of Deni’s slide show presentation. Xiaoyu ejected the disc holder and removed a gel-colored CD from inside his jacket. The room had emptied except for Liu Ping and the other Sheltered Ones standing grim and still in the dark, while Xiaoyu and Deni basked in the light of the stage. Xiaoyu put the CD in the drive and loaded it back into the computer. The word Loading… flashed on the large screen joined by sounds of the laptop waking up. The screen suddenly sprung into action. Instead of showing a static image of a planned resort, it showed two men—looked like friends. They were chatting in a simple room with simple chairs and simple table. They smoked cigarettes out of the same pack and talked about things better left off camera—they didn’t know they were being recorded. Deni looked at the video as if peering into another dimension. He had a confused and startled look in his eyes—an error message. The fact that the video existed didn’t fully register. But Deni was conscious enough to understand that it did. He tried again. Liu Ping and the others were seeing the video for the first time. The video did nothing but reaffirm their faith in Xiaoyu and replenish their desire to back him up. As the video played, Deni couldn’t accept how long it was; it kept going. A childish sentiment of wanting to be invisible came over Deni. The adult in him said it wasn’t possible so his mind charged forward with a more realistic goal. Deni propped himself up from the floor with his left arm and reached for his back toward his belt. Deni pulled out a black Smith & Wesson Sigma pistol that looked too big for him. He tried to remove the safety and aim the barrel at Xiaoyu in one motion. Before he could get his target lined up, he felt a punch in his left shoulder. He sat up on his knees and tried to reposition himself to get another view of his target, when he felt a punch to his side then to his hip then to his head. Deni fell over toward his right but held on to his Sigma pistol. He told himself he was ok and could still get up but his body began to fluctuate feeling very cold then warm. He tried to angle himself up and was shot again in the side, forcing him to drop his pistol. His senses were starting to combine themselves and he could feel or see or hear something coming closer.
Liu Ping walked closer to the stage and held his pistol out, safety on. Xiaoyu walked across the stage toward Liu Ping and grabbed the pistol from him. He walked over toward Deni, seeing his eyes were still open—still staring. Xiaoyu could see Deni’s chest still rising—still breathing. Xiaoyu reached in his back pocket and pulled out photographs. He threw the photographs down on the stage in front of Deni’s face. Deni rolled his head ever so slightly to the right, to see the photos. The photos were his own handiwork. The photos showed Li Xing’s mutilated body lying apart but put together in a bathtub—Xiaoyu’s uncle.
“The price of disloyalty,” said Xiaoyu unclicking the safety on Liu Ping’s pistol. He aimed the muzzle at Deni’s head and fired all rounds left in the gun. He walked back down stage toward Liu Ping and gave back the emptied pistol. Hopping down off the stage, Xiaoyu found an empty chair. He sat down with his hand covering his face, as if to have time in his own world. Time could be noticed going by as he sat silently to himself. Liu Ping and the others started to look less like ghouls and more like uneasy young men. Liu Ping stood over Xiaoyu while the others closed in.
“Gui, cops,” said Liu Ping. Xiaoyu looked through his fingers at Liu Ping.
“The cops’ll be here. We should go…now,” said Liu Ping.
“Is that so?” said Xiaoyu.
“Someone heard the shots, they won’t be ignored,” said Liu Ping.
“We wouldn’t,” said Xiaoyu, “Drive the speed limit. Lose your guns. Take parallel streets. If you see cops notify the rest of us and which way they’re going.”
“Where we going?” asked Yi Le.
“The marina. Uncle Woo’s yacht. It’s parked in number 67, Uncle Woo said it was his best year. Name is White Fog. And it is white if you’ve never seen it,” said Xiaoyu, “Now you know. Go!”
The Sheltered Ones moved quickly. They were preoccupied by thoughts of where they would dispose of their pistols. None of them had been given much in life and all grew psychologically attached to their pistols. The solution to the questioned came as they neared their destination. They would simply throw their pistols overboard Uncle Woo’s yacht—a burial at sea, like Uncle Woo himself. That is what they did. The yacht was 80-feet long boasting wood where it could—classy. It was all-white except for a red wood trim around the hull. They stood at the front of the yacht and threw their guns over. Liu Ping presided over the ceremony saying a few choice words—as always—he said what the others were thinking. Xiaoyu stood in the doorway of the main cabin facing the front deck. He said nothing. It wasn’t his ceremony. He had no gun to throw. Xiaoyu retreated inside and found brandy in the yachts recreation room. He poured a glass for everyone on the yacht even himself. Liu Ping and the others came into the recreation room and saw the brandy in glasses, not snifters.
“What are we drinking to?” asked Liu Ping
“Our late uncles,” said Xiaoyu, “Now may they rest in peace.” The others took up their glasses and pinged them one against the other. Each took one big swallow of brandy and poured the remainder on the floor—a tribute.
“Where will we go, Gui?” asked Lin Jun.
“Nowhere for now. It makes no sense for us to be out in the city,” said Xiaoyu.
“We wait here?” asked Yu Hong, “For what?”
“Daybreak,” said Xiaoyu, “Then we go to Macau, we have corporations there. We can operate from there. It’s a different place, we clean our money we operate legitimately.”
“We go on this boat?” asked Yu Hong.
“Not this one,” said Xiaoyu, “We take one of the ferries or even a plane, but we’ll have to split up. I’ll stay behind to make sure I find all the paperwork on the companies we have set up there. It’s no risk for any of you. You all must go.”
“We can’t hide in Macau from the other Triads,” said Liu Ping.
“I don’t plan to hide,” said Xiaoyu, “I ran from home once before. It’s been enough. You can go further if you feel the need. We all have our own choices to make. It’s that simple.”
“And what if they do come for you?” asked Liu Ping.
“I think you know me enough to answer that for yourself,” said Xiaoyu. Sensing Xiaoyu’s determination the others did not want to ask too many questions. Xiaoyu was right. They had their own decisions to make, an uneasy task for young men built under a command structure. A sudden loud mechanical coughing interrupted the melting pot in the recreation room. The coughing sound was steady and increasing. The coughing was accompanied by a more rhythmic sound of howling sirens, yelping in circles. The light on the inside of the recreation room was ambushed by the blue and red lights approaching from outside. A high-powered light in the sky focused on the yacht. Liu Ping quickly killed the light in the recreation room.
This is the Hong Kong Police Force. If you are on board the yacht in slot 67, you have one minute. There was no more talking, outside or inside. Xiaoyu motioned to the others that they should try to escape in different directions. Balling his fist, he gave the order for them to go. They did, all but Liu Ping. Xiaoyu crouched down on the floor and Liu Ping came with him. In the incessant light of the helicopter overhead, Liu Ping showed Xiaoyu he still had his pistol with him. Xiaoyu looked at him and shook his hea
d.
“If they catch you with that,” said Xiaoyu.
“I don’t want them to catch me,” said Liu Ping, “I want to defend myself. Pigs aren’t friendly to Triads.”
“You won’t have to defend yourself, they don’t want you,” said Xiaoyu.
“What do they want?” asked Liu Ping.
“Me,” said Xiaoyu. Liu Ping looked at Xiaoyu heatedly.
“I’m going out there, they’ll take me and you’ll have time to go out that way. You go quick,” said Xiaoyu.
“I’m not a coward,” said Liu Ping.
“Deni was a traitor. Uncle Woo is dead along with four of ours. We are down. Who’ll lead us?” said Xiaoyu.
“You,” said Liu Ping.
“Don’t be stupid,” said Xiaoyu standing up. He stepped over Liu Ping raised both arms high and stepped into the lights. He walked around the port side of the yacht toward the dock. Liu Ping watched him as he passed the windows of the recreation room. He didn’t look back. Xiaoyu stepped down onto the cement pier and walked steadily toward the police officers gathered on the marina. The helicopter above followed him—every step. Xiaoyu walked directly toward a group of SWAT officers and turned his back to them, arms still raised. As the officers approached, Xiaoyu saw Liu Ping—pistol drawn—following his tracks up the pier. One officer grabbed Xiaoyu’s right arm and slapped a metal cuff around his wrist. Xiaoyu looked at Liu Ping, who was just out of range of the helicopter’s spotlight.
“I said no!” yelled Xiaoyu. He spun around and used his open right palm to push the officer back. He leaned in shifting his weight forward and grabbed the officer’s baton before shifting his weight backward and kicking the officer to the ground. With one hand still cuffed, Xiaoyu sized up the baton and tossed it to check its weight. Officers closed in on Xiaoyu with batons drawn. Xiaoyu blocked the first swing with his own baton and forced the officer’s arm downward. He grabbed the same arm and wheeled the officer around sweeping his leg out from under him. Another two officers approached and he backed up on the pier. As the two officers closed in, Xiaoyu turned sideways and did a windmill with his arms skipping to the side to angle his body between them. The windmill made them pause thinking he was trying to attack. Between the officers, Xiaoyu pushed his knee into the back of one officer’s knee causing him to kneel and knocked him out with a swing of the baton. The other officer retaliated with a downward swing, which Xiaoyu kneeled to block holding his baton up with both hands. From the kneeled position, Xiaoyu dove for the officer’s ankles. He wrapped his arms around the officer’s shins locking his grip. With one pull, he lifted the officer off the ground and flipped him over his shoulder, pinning the officer on his back.