“Go home and sleep till I wake. What about you?”
“Same thing, I think. Call me when you get up.”
Louise has a condo in Oceanside. On the water. You have to be there in the early morning. It’s hard to describe the rising of the sun over the ocean. I always think of the people who live across the water who are losing the sun at the same time that we are gaining it. They’re going to bed while we’re rising. And when we go to bed, Asia is rising in the East.
I watched her pull away and felt a strange loneliness.
Sammy was waiting on the porch when I pulled into my drive, gravel flying away from the tires. It was late morning.
“Seen any bad guys lately?” I said.
He stared, made his way slowly down the porch stairs, stopping several times to rub himself against the railing supports. I waited for him. When he got to me, he pushed himself against my pant leg to let me know he missed me—but I knew it was because he was hungry. Sammy would make a great politician. So, I went to the fridge, pulled out an open can of Friskies Tuna, spooned some into a dish and microwaved it for five seconds. Then I placed it on the porch rail—to keep it out of Herman’s reach—not that the old gator would go for Friskies. Sammy purred his way to his breakfast while I headed for the bedroom. But first I propped open the screen door so he could get back in.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Destination
He fell asleep when the sun drifted behind the trees and darkness crept into the car. The men were talking in a drone—low enough so he couldn’t hear what they were saying. And then he finally fell off the earth. And he dreamed of a stream that ran near his house, or somewhere near the house—he wasn’t entirely sure— filled with shiny stones of varied colors that shone in the sunlight, and he reached down, picked several up, and felt them, as if they were precious, and tossed them back again, wondering at their brilliance. Then he stepped among them, in bare feet, and gazed about, at the woods, at how the stream wandered through the woods, and at the cool of the water as it washed over his feet. And the peace, the quiet of the woods, the absolute quiet bathed him.
And then he woke. The trees looked different from the ones he was used to in Muskingum, Ohio. They were thick and covered with hanging plants. And the road was lined with heavy underbrush, the fields all dense and green and smelling sweet. Another odor came through the car—like rotten eggs. He didn’t like it and the smell made him feel bad that he wasn’t home. It made his stomach hurt. And he wondered why his dad wasn’t following him. To make sure he looked through the rear window. The road was empty.
“You awake, eh, young fella?” the man in the passenger seat said, turning around and smiling. His teeth were bad, the Boy thought. And he felt his heart beat against his ribs. And his hands worried themselves as he watched the man.
“We’re almost home, boy.” the driver said, looking at him in the rearview mirror. “You’re going to meet your new family in a few hours.” And the trees and the brush blurred for the Boy as he thought about what the driver had told him. About the new family. And he had lots of questions that rushed through his mind as he stared at the face in the rearview mirror, the face that never left him and never changed how it looked at him.
The Boy thought that he might have to run away to get back to his family, and that these men were the ones his parents had warned him about—and how was he to know? He hoped that he wouldn’t get punished when he got home, and he worried about that as he watched the trees falling away behind him and the distance narrowing between the car and where he was headed. Then he saw a strange looking tree, one that looked like trees he had seen in a book about Florida, like a palm, and he thought maybe he was in Florida.
He fell back into the seat and wondered what his father would have told him to do. And he had no idea.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The Message
When I’m alone—which is most of the time—I have trouble sleeping—which is most of the time. And those dreams…! This morning was no different. So, I stared at the clock on my dresser—red numbers, so I can’t miss the time. And I hate that part of not sleeping—seeing the minutes and hours go by and I’m still awake, sometimes not knowing if I’m awake or sleeping. I tried to empty my mind and my eyes must have closed because when I opened them again and checked the clock, it read 8:01 and I knew it was in the p.m. because it was dark. I had slept for ten hours straight.
I could hear the noises of the swamp in the darkness. There were no lights. I had only sounds to guide me. And my feelings. And the sound of Sammy sleeping next to me. He does that. Curls up and squeezes as close as he can to my head. Someday I expect to wake up and find Herman curled up next to him.
I heard a noise. In the kitchen maybe. I lifted the sheet off my body as quietly as I could and slid off the bed. No sound. Then I heard it again. Like the murmur of slippers against the floor. I froze half way off the bed and wondered where my gun was, then remembered it was in my nightstand. I opened the drawer quietly and felt the cold of the Glock. I pulled it out, checked the load as quietly as I could, then slipped into a corner near the bed. There was no light anywhere.
Sammy stirred and jumped off the bed and purred next to me. I was too tense to tell him to keep quiet. I held the Glock at my side and felt for the furniture that stood between my bed and the door. My dresser was on my left. I skirted it and slid alongside so that I was now directly behind the open door. I still couldn’t see anything.
I heard someone breathing near me—in the room! Then that someone hit me from behind. The gun slipped from my hand and I heard a pop as I landed on the floor, my brain whirling, a brilliant white light spreading everywhere. And then it all went away and darkness spread over my world…
Sammy woke me, his breath against my mouth. Everything was still black, except for the red numbers on the clock that read 3:33. I guessed that it was in the a.m. because the moon was framed in the window. If that’s the case, I had lost about six hours or more. And some blood too—if the sticky stuff on my head was what I thought it was. I reached up and found a lump on the back of my head that felt as large as an Idaho potato. It hurt like hell. So did my ribs.
I crawled to the bed, reached for the lamp and turned it on.
The room was tossed like a storm had hit it. Every drawer in my dresser was on the floor. And in the middle of the mess was my gun. I stumbled into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I was hoping the person I saw wasn’t me: my hair stuck to my forehead—sweat and blood all mixed together—my right cheek bruised where I must have hit it when I fell. And the back of my head—when I held a hand mirror up to the mirror on the medicine cabinet—it looked...well, just nasty. Whoever hit me was quick, quiet, and deadly. But clearly if he wanted to kill me, he would have.
I stripped, got in the shower and watched the blood run down the drain. After I dried off, I stood in front of a full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door and looked at the damage. Besides needing a new face, I had survived. If some ribs were broken there wouldn’t be much an ER doc could do. So I voted on whether to go to the hospital or not. It was one to nothing not to go. Then I sat down on the bed to think about what to do next. One thing at least, I had gotten sixteen hours sleep—maybe more. Hell of a wake-up call though. I could have slept longer.
Then I noticed it. On the night stand. In plain sight. How had I missed it? An Origami. In the shape of a Black Lotus.
I called Richie. His voicemail picked up: “We ain’t here. Leave a message.” I did. And I lay back down to think and let my pain seep into the mattress.
The Boy woke as the car hit ruts in the road. He looked out at trees that hung over the road and ahead was a house. A large one. White with several floors. The second floor was mostly hidden by the trees and by the moss that hung from them. Some of the branches snapped at the car even though the man driving tried to avoid them. Then he saw him: a man waiting in the drive, in front of the house.
“You’re home, kid,” th
e man in the passenger seat said, turning around, and the Boy’s stomach gave way to fear. His heart was beating faster than he ever remembered and his mind was confused. ‘Home’? This was his home? And he couldn’t talk. He just sat frozen in his seat as the car drew nearer, his eyes locked on the man who stood in the driveway, in front of the big white house, with a smile on his face, his hand raised as if to say you’re here. The Boy couldn’t breathe, and a mist covered his eyes so he couldn’t see the man anymore, nor hear the voices of the men in the front seat talking, though their lips were moving and they were turned to him. And he went dizzy and heard himself call out—for his mother and father, knowing all the while they were too far away. Don’t get into a car with strangers. His mind faded with the mist, and the Boy fell back onto the seat.
He felt as though he had died.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Richie
Early Saturday Morning, December 3
I heard chimes in the distance. They were coming from the dark. I slid out of bed, holding my side to ease the pain—those ribs. My cell was on the dresser and still lit up from the call. There was a message from Richie.
We had grown up together on the near east side of Cleveland. Richie, Tony DeFelice, and I. In those days—in the mid-70s—the streets of Cleveland were rough. So every day was fight-day. Richie used a baseball bat. I used my fists. DeFelice had a gun. He carries a gun today—only it’s legal. And Richie? Today, he’s got every gun imaginable. But his weapon of choice is still his Louisville Slugger. “Larry Doby signed it—right here,” he would brag, pointing to the scrawl on the thick end.
“So, what’s up with you, bud,” said Richie when I called him back. “Ma wants to know where you been. You ain’t been back to the neighborhood. For what? A year?”
“It’s only been two months,” I reminded him. “Remember? The Russians?”
“Yeah, yeah, I know. It seems like a year. You know you got a friend here. You gotta keep in touch you wanna keep your friends,” and before I could jump in, “so what’s goin’ on?” he demanded.
I filled him in on Cynthia and her father and saved the latest episode for last.
“Holy fuck, Coop!” Then silence. “You okay?”
I told him I was, but figured I needed his help.
“I’m on my way,” and before I could say anything more, he was gone. I wanted to tell him, Take your time. But…anyway.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Call Wong
That Same Morning
Then I called Cleveland Wong, a friend of mine who works in Homeland Security. Actually, he’s the Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security with an office in D.C. and one in Florida as well. But I didn’t call either. I called his personal number because...well, because it was early.
“Cooper! What do you want? You realize the sun’s not up? That means I’m not either.” Obviously not happy. Cleveland wasn’t happy very often. His father gave him his name because of where he was born. Cleveland, Ohio. Wong has never liked it. “Don’t call me Cleveland,” he told me when I first met him. “My name is Wong.”
“So okay, you got me, what do you want?” he said, still irritated.
I told him about the oil rig in the Gulf, to which he responded, Sure I know about that and so what? I said the “so what” is that the rig sent a boat after us and shot one of our crew.
“Jeez, Cooper. Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
I told him it just happened.
“But, wait a minute, what the hell you guys doing in Cuban waters anyway. You’re breaking International Law.”
I told him briefly about the case: Jack Hayward’s disappearance, about finding his body, about the pictures of the Zhi Zhu Nu and the small rig, and about the shooting of Cynthia in the Straits and that the shooting took place outside Cuban waters. “So, I’m figuring this is a Homeland Security issue,” I said.
“And,” I continued, “someone came into my house this morning...”
“Yeah?”
“They were looking for something—I don’t think they found it.”
“What do you think they were looking for?”
“Beats the hell out of me—something about the case I’m working on—maybe the pictures of the rig.”
“Yeah. But why are you telling me? You need to tell the locals.”
“I figure it’s all related.”
“Uh-huh.” He paused. “You okay?”
“Yeah. But the reason I’m calling is that the person who beat the hell out of me left something behind,” I added, pushing him.
“Come on, Cooper. Tell me what you want to tell me, for Chrissake,” he shot back, growing impatient.
“He left an origami shaped like a Black Lotus.” I paused for few moments.
“A Black Lotus?” More a statement than a question.
“That’s right. And you know what that means, right?”
“It means someone is trying to deliver you a message, Cooper. Maybe you ought to listen. But why’re you calling me about this?”
“Because I think the Tong is involved in Jack Hayward’s death. I think they shot him.”
Silence for a while.
“The Tong!” He paused for a moment. “You’re kidding. Why would the Tong be involved with the killing of Jack Hayward?”
“Let me explain. It’s a Chinese rig, right? The Zhi Zhu Nu.”
“Right.”
“A group of guys attacked our boat in international waters—not Cuban—and shot at us, actually hitting Jack’s daughter.”
Cleveland was silent. But he was still there. I could hear his breathing.
“Then right after that someone breaks into my house—how the hell they knew where I live, I don’t have a clue—hits me over the head and leaves a Black Lotus origami on my bedside table.” I paused again. “I think they’re guarding the rig.”
“That’s crazy. The Tong? Guarding an oil rig?”
“You know about the rig, right?” I said.
“Yeah. Sure. It was built by a Finnish company for a Chinese oil exploration outfit. The project also has some serious Venezuelan backing. But it’s all private stuff. Our people know all about it. They don’t like it because the American companies say Why can’t we drill, baby, if the Chinese are drilling? We say because they are drilling in Cuban waters. Hey, the Chinese bought the drilling rights from Cuba. And—to make your day even better, Cooper—the Russians are trying to get into the same game.”
“Okay. So that takes us back to the Tong. Do you know the story about the Black Lotus Tong?”
“Oh sure. Sherlock Holmes. Famous story. About Zhi Zhu and General Shan and the Black Lotus gang. Very good story.”
“Do they really exist?”
“The Tong? Of course.”
“No, I mean the Black Lotus Tong.”
“Of course. All very secret. That is one of the problems with Chinese gangs. Secrecy is very important. Very difficult to get into the gang. Impossible to get out. Very dangerous people,” he warned. Then, after a pause, “So, Cooper, what do you want from me?”
“I need you to make a phone call.” Maybe he nodded. I don’t know. I didn’t care.
I told him who and why. I heard a grunt. Figured that for okay, and signed off.
I was tired. No, beat. I sat back down on the bed, dropped my head in my hands, turned off the lamp, and fell back, pulling a pillow over my head. Just for a few minutes, I thought, until the rising sun chases away the demons and peeks in my window. And the minutes turned into hours and the hours into a deep, deep sleep.
The house was big. A big living room and big bedrooms. It was not like the Boy’s house back home, not like his bedroom there, which was small and had a bunk in it—in case a little brother or sister came along, his mom had said. There was no bunk bed here. No mom or dad here. Just the Man in the driveway.
He had slept through most of the day and was exploring the house. The Man didn’t know he was awake. The Boy had thought about running away but
he didn’t know where he would go. He didn’t know where he was.
“There you are,” said the Man from the driveway, coming through the front door. “I was looking for you. How do you like your room?”
But the Boy didn’t know how to answer that question. It wasn’t his room. It didn’t have his games, or his books, or his baseball cards, or his guitar, or the buckeyes he had been gathering for the past year to make a chain he planned to take to school and show his friends. They all had one—a buckeye chain. You would wear your chain around your waist and other kids would try to break yours and you would try to break theirs and then you would throw at each other. And yes, it would hurt when you got hit. But that was part of the game: not to be afraid of getting hit by a buckeye.
So, the Boy didn’t understand why the Man would ask him if he liked his room because there was nothing there that he had back home. He was afraid to tell him that, so he just said, “Yeah, I guess.” And the Man nodded.
He was tall and had a short grey beard. But the Boy didn’t think he was much older than his dad because his hair wasn’t very grey—just his beard—kind of grey—and his face didn’t look old and he didn’t act old—not too much. And he had a little stomach that stuck out over his belt buckle. And he wore glasses that made him look serious. And he looked like a nice person, though the Boy didn’t understand why he was here and he was afraid to ask him. Don’t go with strangers….is all he could think of.
The men who took him were strangers. So, they definitely must be bad men. But then he didn’t know for sure whether the Man was bad. After all he didn’t personally take him. “I’m a friend of your parents,” he said as he stood in the doorway. “They told me, if anything happened to them, I should take you. And I’m sorry to say that something bad did happen to them.” The Man seemed to think carefully about what he was saying, “and now I will take care of you. You will be able to go back home if they get better. But until that time, you will be staying here with me. You won’t be able to call them because they are not at home now. Maybe later when they return. I will let you know when they do. Do you understand?”
A Cold Copper Moon (The Cooper Series Book 3) Page 9