A Cold Copper Moon (The Cooper Series Book 3)

by Richard Conrath

  “My family roamed this territory long before the white man—and your people,” he said, turning to Wong, “came to our land...” That’s Huck. “We had buffalo. You shot them.”

  Wong shook his head. “The Chinese didn’t shoot buffalo. They built your railroads! Slave labor.”

  “Please,” I said, holding up my hands. And Huck and Wong both shut up.

  “Nice place you got here, Cooper,” said Wong, as we climbed the three steps to the front porch. Sammy, of course, was there—inside the screen. Wong stared at him. He was afraid of cats. Sammy hissed at him. ESP. Wong skirted Sammy like he was avoiding a roadside bomb. When he had safely escaped, he fell in behind us as we headed for the kitchen where we could spread out, have a beer, and make a plan.

  Chapter Eighty

  Office Talk

  “So, see if I got this right,” Wong began as we settled around the kitchen table. His hands formed a tent in front of his face as he looked over the tops of his fingers at each one of us. “You found a sample of some suspicious substance in Shark River where Ms. Cynthia’s father was killed. And you told me that Doctor Graham Bell confirmed your suspicions about the substance. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “And this substance is consistent with what is used in fracking and in directional drilling.” He paused, pulling his glasses down so they rested on the tip of his nose.

  Again, I said, “That’s right.”

  “Uh-huh. And....there’s that shooting this past evening from a go-fast boat—for no reason.” Pause. I nodded. “From a boat that you saw parked by an oil rig in Ponce de Leon Bay? And—correct me if I have this wrong—you say this go-fast boat is the same boat that was parked at the Zhi Zhu Nu?” Nods all around.

  “And you conclude that maybe our friends on the rig are not only engaging in illegal drilling but maybe also using the rig—maybe both rigs—as platforms for drug distribution. Right?”

  “Right,” I said. And everybody else nodded again. I wondered where this was going. Wong wasn’t usually this talkative.

  “You know about DTOs, right?” I did but I didn’t tell him that. I wanted to hear what he had to say.

  “Drug Trafficking Organizations,” he continued. “You know that the greatest danger to this country“ (talking only to me now) “is not terrorism but the inflow of drugs across our borders—especially the southwestern border?”

  Richie and Huck were listening intently. But they looked like they were asking the same question I was: Where was he going with this?

  Wong continued. “Smuggling drugs into the U.S. by maritime means only accounts for about one percent of all the drugs that flow into our country—I’m talking coke, meth, heroin, and mary juana.” His idea of a joke.

  I got up and fished out a bottle of wine from the fridge. “You need this,” I told Wong.

  “Amen to that,” said Richie. Then, “Where the fuck we goin’ with this?”

  Wong, ignoring the comment, went on: “So, ever since you told me about what you found about the go-fast boat, I’m thinking, you’re right.” He wasn’t looking at me, but he was talking to me. “I think the Chinese guys are taking over the distribution of drugs in the Caribbean and using the rigs as a cover.”

  I saw Homeland Security written all over his brow—the Deputy Secretary at work in south Florida.

  “Let’s get some shut-eye, boys, and first thing in the morning I want you to show me where Hayward was killed. And I want to see where you got the sample, and then I want to go over to that damn rig and find out what the hell’s going on—I mean the Zhi Zhu Nu. And if Li Lang Zhu is involved, then she and I are gonna have a little talk.”

  I had never seen Wong so wound up. I guess I finally got to him.

  Chapter Eighty-One

  Muskingum of O.H.I.O

  Friday Night, December 9

  The bus doors hissed and cold air rushed into the interior of the bus waking Maxie. And the driver announced that it was the Muskingum stop and everybody had about ten minutes before the bus left for Columbus.

  “Come on, Maxie,” said Joey, as he shook him awake and began to pull down his own bag from the overhead compartment. “You got a bag?”

  “Yeah,” said Maxie. “It’s up there with yours. I’ll get it.” And he did, climbing over the seat and reaching over the people seated in front of him to grab his bag, and he was just tall enough to get it from where he stood. He was almost 5 feet 8 inches actually. Then he had it in hand and was following Joey to the door and down the stairs to the cold, to the snow, to the small station that was on the main street of where he used to live. He didn’t remember this place, but of course he had never taken a bus from Muskingum to anywhere because his parents always took him places. The Boy looked down the street as he pulled his hood up over his head, Joey urging him, “Get inside, dude, it’s too cold to stay out here.”

  Maxie looked around and didn’t recognize any of the buildings that lined the street in the snow, in the cold, and suddenly he was very nervous. Maybe he had made a mistake leaving the comfort of his home in South Carolina, and his tutor, and even the Asp, even though he was a scary person—like a shadow. At least the Asp took care of him.

  Then Joey grabbed him, ending the spell, ending the thoughts of returning, the rethinking of going back to the home that was really not his home and then they entered the warmth of the bus station, in good old Muskingum of O.H.I.O. and the Boy wondered what waited for him at his house on Main Street. And he wondered if Anthony might be there in his antique shop, because he lived there in an apartment upstairs. He was thinking of that—just in case. You know—if he needed a place to sleep.

  Chapter Eighty-Two

  The Call

  Early Saturday Morning, December 10

  It was 7:15 when I smelled coffee perking. Richie. He was probably up at 5:00 and ran to the all-night grocery store in Oceanside to stock up supplies. I had nothing but wine, cheese, peanut butter, and Sammy’s food in my fridge.

  Richie loves to cook. When he does, he starts early. If it’s Italian, he begins to cook the sauce at 2:00 a.m. He puts the bread in the oven by 5:00 and starts the sausage and peppers around 7:00—that’s for a 12:00 lunch. Sicilian style.

  This morning the only other odor coming from the kitchen was the smell of bread baking, a rich, tempting smell, enough to make anyone lose their taste for a diet.

  I was following the smell of the coffee and bread when I heard the guest bedroom door open and turned to see Wong duck under the fan and head for the living room couch.

  “You look like hell,” I said as he mussed up his full head of black hair and tried to wipe sleep from his eyes. Then he just sat, staring into the kitchen.

  “I feel like hell,” he said, then paused and looked into the kitchen where Richie was busy grilling maple-smoked ham. “But it smells like Richie is cooking up something good.” And he got up and we both headed for the kitchen where we pulled up chairs and watched Richie take bread out of the oven. It was just after 7:00 a.m. and the bread was hot and risen.

  “Wow!” said Louise, standing in the bedroom door. “Why didn’t you wake me?”

  “Wanted the bread for myself.”

  “You’re in trouble, Coopertino,” she said yawning, then struggled to the table.

  “Where’s Huck?” I said, turning to Wong. Louise and I had gone to bed before the others.

  “I was on the couch,” said Richie, opening the fridge and pulling out the butter. “Huck was in the guest bedroom with the Chinese guy,” he said—not thinking.

  “Fuck you, too,” said Wong. He was in a bad mood already. Richie made it worse.

  Then the four of us sat while Richie served hot bread and crispy grilled ham and poured regular coffee—I skipped decaf in deference to Wong. Then Richie joined us and we all feasted on the ham, the bread and butter, and the blackberry jam that melted on it, and for the moment we forgot about Shark River, and the Zhi Zhu Nu, and even about Jack’s murder—just for this moment.
And then Wong broke the silence.

  “I didn’t sleep last night,” he said.

  “Because...?” I said.

  “I have to make a call.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  No response.

  Then, “I better make that call,” said Wong, surly. He got up from the table and walked out to the porch. Sammy followed him, rubbing against his leg. Wong pushed the cat away with his foot.

  “Hey,” I said. “Easy with Sammy!” He wasn’t paying attention.

  We all watched as Wong thumbed in a number and waited. The National Forest was quiet, as it is every morning until the swamp creatures waken, then, if you listen carefully, you can hear the life that exists below eye level, in the reeds, beneath the mangroves, in the grasses of the Everglades. But it’s a subtle sound and it didn’t drown out Wong’s voice as he spoke—in Chinese—at first quiet as though respecting the silence of the Swamp, and relaxed, and then, ever so slowly, growing tense and perturbed, then yelling, Wong’s voice disturbing the silence. And I knew why he was sour; I knew who he was talking to. It was Li Lung, the father of Li Lang Zhu, Tarantula Woman. The Zhi Zhu Nu named in deference to her.

  Then Wong broke into English, probably so we could hear. “They have given the giant oil rig in the Florida Straits your daughter’s name.” (Just as I thought.) “And you, what do you know about this?” And he went on, sometimes in English, sometimes reverting to Chinese, and now and then looking back at us, then turning away, angry. And then it was over, and he walked back into the kitchen, his shoulders bent like a man ashamed of his height and shaking his head.

  “Wo hen cankui he houhui,” he muttered, then looked up. “I am so ashamed,” he said. “Li Lung denies everything. No drug transportation. Nothing to do with the rig in the bay. Didn’t know anything about that, he said. I asked him about the fast boat that you saw at both rigs. He didn’t know anything about that either. He says we are overreacting!” And Wong threw up his hands. He studied us for a few moments.

  Then, “I think we have big trouble—”

  “In Little China,” I said.

  Chapter Eighty-Three

  Back to Shark River

  Later Saturday Morning, December 10

  “Okay. We need to get on the road,” said Wong. “Need us to help clean up?” he said turning to Richie. Like it just occurred to him.

  “Nah. Let the little lady do that,” Richie said, turning away from Louise and whistling as he picked up dishes and carried them to the counter. He turned around just as Louise was swinging at him with a wet towel. Because he had turned, she hit him in the face.

  “Yeow!” he yelled, ducking, his hands over his head. “I was kidding!” His face red from the impact of the cloth.

  “Uh-huh,” said Louise. “So was I.”

  “Geez,” said Wong. “You guys! Okay...” And he was getting serious. “This is the story about the Zhi Zhu Nu...”

  Then he went on to explain how the giant rig, put together in the shipbuilding ports of three different countries, including Russia and the UK and owned by a Chinese firm with partial funding from Venezuela, had completed its drilling operation in its current western site that was offshore from Havana, and would be moving toward a new site, still in Cuban waters but further east, and that the offshore drilling activity—“believe it or not“—was “fully compliant with U.S. regulations“—as far as could be determined since inspections currently were almost non-existent (“fucked” is what he actually said) due to the tensions between the two countries—and that the present site was now non-operative, its two-hundred man workforce gone. “Just a skeleton crew,” he added. “And now the only thing happening on that baby is maybe a little...”

  “Drug activity.” I added.

  “That and some distribution—”

  “That we need to curtail,” I said.

  “Right.” A pause. “You want to finish my remarks?” he said. Testy.

  “No. You’re doing fine.”

  “Okay,” (holding his temper) “then let’s see if we can catch some bad guys.”

  We packed for a day trip and were back on the road again at mid-morning, Wong in the front seat with me, Louise in the second seat with Richie. They’d made up. Huck had crawled into the cargo section of the wagon.

  Everybody was quiet. A short night—not much sleep. Wong had stretched out his legs as far as he could—which wasn’t far. He tried to squirm himself into some sort of comfort and wasn’t successful.

  “So what else did Li Lung have to say?” I said. There was an uncomfortable silence.

  But then, “I’m worried about his daughter.”

  “Li Lang Zhu?”

  “Of course. Liu Xue is a sweet girl. Do you know the story of the Spider Woman in Chinese culture?”

  “A little. I know the film Zhi Zhu Nu—The Spider Woman. And it was a really bad movie.”

  He nodded. “Yes, yes, yes. I know that film as well. And you are right, it was stupid. Yet it tells the story that Chinese people know about the Spider Woman.

  “You know Zhi Zhu, which means The Spider, was an assassin who worked for the Black Lotus Tong.”

  I nodded, having told the same story to Louise several times. But I didn’t stop him.

  “In the movie Jade Leung plays two roles, Kenny and Ken, one an evil woman who kills her lovers while they are in midst of orgasm,” and he paused as if to apologize, “and the other sensitive and kind. The two are in fact one person. Like your Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Twins in one body. Spider Woman is Kenny. The final crazy part of the story is the detective who is pursuing Kenny, suspecting that she is a serial killer, is Michael Wong. Crazy, huh?”

  I must have looked confused.

  “You know, Wong, like the detective Michael Wong.” He paused. “Ironic, no?” I must have still looked puzzled. “I, Cleveland Wong, pursuing the daughter of my good friend, Spider Woman.” He was shaking his head. “It all spells...”

  “Yeah. Trouble…“

  “Big trouble...”

  “In Little China.”

  “You already said that,” he said, annoyed.

  “I know. I liked it then and—“

  “Uh-huh. Once is enough.”

  After a pause he continued: “Snow called me to say that Li Lang has left Boston and is now in Florida. And she’s worried about her boyfriend, Lei Sun. She thinks he is with Li Lang.” Pause. “She wants us to look out for him,” he added, shaking his head.

  “You think he doesn’t need looking out for,” I said.

  “That is correct,” he said.

  We were on the bridge that crosses the Bay of Florida and enters the Lower Keys. Key Largo was visible in the distance.

  “Snow is thinking Li Lang is working with the Tong in the distribution of drugs.”

  “I think we saw Li Lang land by helicopter on the Zhi Zhu Nu. And I think Liu Xue’s boyfriend was with her,” I reminded him.

  “I know. You told me. But I thought you made a mistake. In fact, I didn’t want to believe it. I mean...” He hesitated.

  “What?” I said, looking over at him. He was staring out at the Bay which runs beneath the bridge and stretches from the top of the Keys to Key West. The sun was high in the sky, but it hadn’t crossed the meridian yet to reach high noon. And it was a warm sun that came through the windshield, not the burning sun of July and August.

  “She is my niece, Cooper,” he said, staring into the sun.

  Chapter Eighty-Four

  The House on Main Street

  The Boy and Joey walked down Main Street, in the dark, in the cold, and it was still snowing. They walked because nothing is very far in Muskingum, Ohio, nothing that a short walk wouldn’t take them there. And they passed Anthony’s Antique Shop, and Maxie’s stomach turned as they did; and they passed the entrance to the college; and the great tree-filled lawn that fronted the administration building, behind which were the faculty offices of the philosophy department where his dad taught; and Maxie wished his fat
her still taught there, that he wasn’t dead.

  Maybe he’s not, he thought—but quickly dismissed that idea because the Man had said he was and why would he lie? Maxie got a headache and didn’t want to think of those things anymore. And then, up ahead, there it was: on the right, up a small embankment where he had chased his baseball down the hill, where he remembered meeting a man at the base of the hill where the ditch met the road. He stopped and stared at it. Joey stopped and stared as well.

  “What’s the matter, dude?” Joey said. But Maxie couldn’t tell him, couldn’t tell him about the feeling in his stomach as he watched, about the terror when the man shoved him into the car, about the helplessness as he watched his house disappear in the rear window and about how he had hoped that his dad and mom would see him and...and he had to look up to see it, towering above the road. His house. How could he ever forget it? And he gasped as he took it in, that house that he had dreamed about so many nights in his new home that was never his home, that was a place of captivity.

  This was his home, and it was still here, looking just like it did so many years ago, the porch and the swing, and the screen door, and the second story that looked out over the street, and his bedroom, up there on the second story, where all his toys had been, and his bed, and his glove and bat, and he looked for lights, any sign of life, in this house, where his mom and dad used to live, any sign that someone was still living there who could tell him what happened to his mother and father. He was frozen, staring.

  Joe E. Lewis was staring at the Boy, because Maxie was standing like a zombie, his body locked in the snow and his eyes locked on the house. And there were no lights, no sign of life at all, in the dark, in the cold, and it was snowing there on Main Street, in Muskingum, Ohio.