Read Dead in Hong Kong (Nick Teffinger Thriller) Online
Authors: R.J. Jagger
Dead in Hong Kong (Nick Teffinger Thriller) (31 page)
“I knew everything that was going on,” Emmanuelle said. “When he killed Jean-Didier, that was too much for me. I couldn’t tell the police, first because he left no proof behind, but more importantly because I knew he’d kill me. I knew I had to get away from him and I did. By that point, though, I also knew that there were five original paintings out there in the world somewhere. I knew that Girard would go after you next. And I also knew that you could help me find the paintings. So I came up with a plan to pretend I was working with an insurance company and got you to help me. That was partly for me, but it was mostly for you. I wanted to get you out of Paris so Girard couldn’t get his claws into you. I knew he’d kill you if you didn’t cooperate.”
Silence.
“Somehow he tracked us to our hotel,” Emmanuelle said. “When the lady showed us the printout of his face, sure, I knew who he was, but what was I supposed to do? Stop and explain everything to you on the spot? I just wanted to get out of there. In hindsight, that lady must have tipped him off, and must have been paid to get us to head to the alley. When you came out alone, he figured that was good enough. All he needed to do was use you for bait to draw me in.”
Prarie exhaled.
“This is all so twisted,” she said.
“Yes it is.”
“So you never intended to return the paintings at all?” Prarie asked. “You intended to keep them for yourself?”
“That part is true,” Emmanuelle said. “But I was going to give half of whatever we recovered to you. You could return your half if you wanted.” A pause, then, “By the way, there’s one more thing you should probably know.”
Really?
What?
“YOU REMEMBER THAT I FORMED that alliance with Kong, after he took me to the dungeon, and I agreed to cut him in if we recovered anything, right?”
Yes.
Of course she remembered.
“Well, he called me today,” Emmanuelle said. “He had information that one of the original paintings ended up with the artist, Guotin Pak.”
“How did he know that?”
“That’s a long story,” Emmanuelle said. “The short of it is that he told me to get over there, right that minute, and find it before some other people showed up. I never made it, though, because I’ve been looking for you all day. That painting is gone by now.”
Ouch.
“Kong called me again, about an hour later when he got a chance to talk in more detail, and he told me the whole background of how the paintings got stolen from Musee d’Orsay, and sold, and fakes got switched, and stuff like that. He got the entire story from a man named Jack Poon, who is behind the whole scheme. Anyway, the gist of all that is that Vance Wu ended up with one of the originals. Poon had already deployed his men to recover it. The other three originals were sold around the world, to buyers in Cairo, Rome and Madrid. What that means to us is that all five paintings are now gone.”
“So we did all this for nothing,” Prarie said.
“In hindsight, yes.”
“And now we get to die for it.”
Right.
RUSTLING NOISES CAME FROM THE OTHER ROOM.
“Here he comes,” Emmanuelle said.
Prarie pulled at the ropes.
They didn’t budge.
Day Eight—August 10
Monday Afternoon
______________
A FIGURE STEPPED INTO THE BEDROOM. Prarie turned her head. The figure wasn’t a man. It was a young Chinese woman, about twenty. She looked like she’d been through the war. She stepped back out
, t
hen returned a few moments later with a knife
a
nd cut them loose.
She
didn’t speak English or French but
told them her name.
It was
Syling Wu.
She led them into the basement. It was obvious that she had been a prisoner there for some time. Jacques Girard was on the floor
, d
ead
w
ith a fork in his eye
a
nd a serious wound to the back of his head.
Prarie and Emmanuelle hugged the woman.
“I don’t know who you are or how you got the upper hand, but he had it coming,” Emmanuelle said. “He had every bit of it coming.”
THEY CALLED THE POLICE, anonymously, but left before they showed up and headed to Guotin Pak’s house on the bluff. The place was trashed. Someone had beaten them there and tore the place apart. The walls were gutted. The ceiling was pulled down. The floor was pulled up.
“We’re too late,” Emmanuelle said.
“Oh, well, we had to try.”
“Right.”
The only thing left intact was the painting in progress
, s
till sitting there
i
n the middle of the room
, w
orthless.
They went outside and sat down on the steps.
“Now what?” Prarie asked.
Emmanuelle shrugged.
“Now we get the hell out of Hong Kong while we’re still alive.”
THEY GOT IN THE CAR.
Emmanuelle cranked up the engine but didn’t take off. She just sat there behind the wheel.
“What are you waiting for?” Prarie asked.
Emmanuelle turned the engine off and got out.
“I want check something,” she said.
Inside, behind the work in progress, they found a second painting, tacked on the stretcher bars, protected with a plastic barrier.
Claude Monet’s “Poppies.”
The original.
“I’ll be damned,” Prarie said. “He hid it in plain sight.”
THEY CAREFULLY ROLLED IT UP and sealed it a cylindrical tube, set it in the backseat and drove into the storm, looking for a hotel. On the way, Emmanuelle said, “I’ve been thinking.”
“
Yeah?
”
“
Yeah.
With what we found out ourselves, combined with what Kong told me, we pretty much know the whole story of what happened. The other four paintings are beyond our reach. What we can do though, at this point, is send an anonymous email to Musee d’Orsay, the Hong Kong police and the Paris police, setting out the whole story, including the names of the people who have the other four paintings. We’d need to be careful to not say anything that will implicate us in an illegal activity, but that’s doable. Armed with that information, they should be able to recover the other four. Your father’s legacy and reputation will be restored, to the extent it can. That’s what you wanted, right?”
Right, i
t was.
“Except I was hoping to get all five back,” Prarie said.
Emmanuelle chuckled.
“That isn’t going to happen, girlfriend,” she said. “I’ve gone through too much brain damage to give up number five. It’s mine—ours, actually, half is yours. Plus Kong gets his cut.”
“I don’t want my half,” Prarie said.
“Okay, then, it’s mine,” Emmanuelle said. “I deserve something for all this, don’t you think?”
Prarie considered it.
The answer surprised her.
“Yes. You do.”
Day Eight—August 10
Monday Night
______________
D’ASIA PRESSED THE KNIFE against
Teffinger
’s throat. “I’m actually sort of sorry to see it end this way,” she said. “You did, after all, travel halfway around the world to help me. Then you get killed for all your troubles. It doesn’t seem fair, does it?” Silence. “It’s nothing personal,
Teffinger
. It’s just a contract, and a contract is a contract. When I get them, I fill them. It’s called maintaining my reputation. Do you have any last words? Do you want to say goodbye to Fan Rae one more time?”
“No,”
Teffinger
said.
“No?”
“No.”
“Okay then.”
“I do have one thing to say to you, though,” he said.
She pushed the knife harder against his throat.
“Go ahead, but I’ll warn you in advance not to piss me off.”
He exhaled.
“Can you scratch my nose?” he asked.
She chuckled.
“If you’re planning on some lamebrain sudden move, it’s not going to work,” she said. “Save your strength.”
“Actually, it really does itch,” he said.
She looked at him
, t
hen scratched his nose.
He made no moves.
“THANKS,” HE SAID. “That’s a lot better. Before you kill me, I want you to think about something. You’re killing me because you have a contract to do it. Has it occurred to you yet that the person who gave you that contract has fired you?”
Silence.
“What do you mean?”
“What I mean is this,” he said. “The guy who just attacked you upstairs, the one I saved you from, where do you think he came from?”
She chuckled.
“He’s a friend of Tanna’s,” she said.
“Yes and no,”
Teffinger
said. “Tanna’s picture was in the newspaper Sunday morning, in the entertainment section. Did you know that?”
“No, and I don’t really care.”
“Me and Fan Rae were partying with Yuki, the singer, at the Dragon-i,” he said. “Tanna was there too. So were the paparazzi. The next day, there were pictures in the newspaper. Tanna was in those pictures. She was sitting on a couch, in the background, but there was no mistaking it was her.”
“So what?”
“So here’s what I think happened,”
Teffinger
said. “The man who gave you the initial contract to kill her saw her in the paper. He then realized you lied, when you said you killed her and disposed of the body. He then put a contract out on you because you lied to him and couldn’t be trusted any longer. The guy upstairs was the hitman for that contract.”
D’Asia chewed on it.
“You have no job left,”
Teffinger
said. “When you show back up, and say that you killed me, they’ll just take that opportunity to wipe you off the face of the earth. Wham, you’re gone. Nighty-night, little angel.”
She stared at him.
Her face started to change.
“Here’s what we can do,”
Teffinger
said. “You let me and Fan Rae go and we’ll let you go. We all go our separate ways. You can disappear. You’re a marked woman and need to get out of Hong Kong in any event. You have the money saved up to do it.”
D’Asia stood up
a
nd paced.
Then she said, “What about Tanna? She’s still out to kill me.”
“When we tell her you let us go, she’ll back off,”
Teffinger
said. “An eye for an eye.”
D’Asia pointed the flashlight at Fan Rae.
“That’s true,” Fan Rae said. “I’ll personally guarantee that she backs off. Everything will be even. No more killing, no more looking over our shoulders, either direction.”
D’Asia continued pacing.
Then she cut the ropes on
Teffinger
’s hands
, h
and
ed him the knife and flashlight, and
ran out the door.
R
ead
them
in any order.
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Bryson Wilde Thrillers
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