Reflecting the Sky (39 page)
Read Reflecting the Sky Online
Authors: S. J. Rozan
“The same to you,” he replied politely.
“Aren’t they ever going to let you get dressed?”
“They wanted me to, but I said you were coming so why do something that would just have to be undone again?”
“Quick, I’ll call the doctor, you’re delirious.”
“Nah,” he said, “I’m fine. You do look great, though.”
“You like it?” I turned around to model my dress for him. “It’s what all Cheung Chau’s best-dressed twelve-year-olds are wearing. You want to stay or leave?”
“Is that a question?”
“Okay.” I unslung my backpack. “Here, you’ll need this. And don’t think it was easy getting something that size on a Chinese island.” I handed him the shirt I’d bought him, a soft, loosely woven tan cotton short-sleeved XXL. “Seriously,” I said, “do you think you can wear a shirt?”
“If it’s the price of leaving. The good thing about this hospital is I can’t understand a word anybody says, so I don’t know how bad off I am. Still, you can’t smoke in here, you can’t get a cup of coffee, and with the exception of you all the pretty girls seem to be out there.”
“What about the nurses?”
“Well, with the exception of them, too.”
I stepped out into the hall while he changed. When he came out he was moving slowly and stiffly, but he seemed steady enough on his feet. We did the hospital paperwork and headed toward the ferry. People stared as we made our way, gawking at the little Chinese woman in the white dress in the company of the big, black-eyed, bandaged Westerner. I began to feel like Dr. Frankensteinette out for a stroll with her newest monster.
“I can hire us a boat,” I said to Bill. “If you want to get there faster.”
“Another small boat? As they say back home: fuggedabadit. The only things I’d consider instead of the ferry would be a helicopter or the Queen Mary.”
“Can’t do it.”
“Well, then.”
The next ferry was in less than twenty minutes, anyway, so we waited across the waterfront street at the Taiwanese teahouse. Bill ordered iced coffee, and though it came whipped up with frothy milk and crushed ice and sugar, he pronounced it delicious. I had some gorgeously sunset-colored thing that had to do with mango and tamarind, and while we drank I filled him in on all the things he didn’t know, all the things Mark and I had worked out or found out or theorized after he’d left for Cheung Chau.
“Wei Ang-Ran,” Bill said when I’d gotten through that part, shaking his head with wonder. “What is he, nuts?”
“Desperate,” I said. “And as he told us, not a man of plans.”
When the ferry came we bought first-class tickets, which gave us the option of the air-conditioned forward cabin or the breezy upper deck. Bill preferred the deck, saying it was actually easier for him to stand than sit, and besides, outside he could smoke. So he leaned on the rail and I sat in a plastic deck chair with my feet up on the same rail, companionably near his elbow. He dragged on a Chinese cigarette, which he claimed bore about the same resemblance to an American one as the Taiwanese iced coffee had to the coffee he was used to: revolting, unless you’re desperate and you’re on a Chinese island where it’s all they have, in which case it’s totally terrific.
It was late afternoon by now, and the rounded green mounds of the out-islands drifted past us, softened by a thin heat haze. Other boats scudded along the water and birds flew overhead and the wind pushed my hair around.
“Listen,” I said after a while. “Are you smart enough to think right now?”
“I thought we decided smart wasn’t my strong suit.”
“Just answer the question.”
He took his cigarette from his mouth. “I guess I’m no dumber than usual. What’s up?”
“I can’t figure out how Steven Wei knew to go to L. L. Lee, to make the deal.”
He watched the islands float by. “I have another one.”
“What’s that?”
“How did Lee know Harry was missing in the first place?”
I frowned. “That doesn’t seem so hard. Tony told him. Tony and Big John knew what was going on almost from the beginning, because Iron Fist went to them for help after Maria went to
him
for help.”
him
for help.”
“Not bad, but not true. According to Tony they were freelancing. Tony was surprised when Lee called and said he wanted Harry. I think he was pissed off, too, because he’d been looking for a big score. But Lee’s their boss, and on the plus side, they figured they’d impress the hell out of him by how fast they could get this done.”
“When did they tell you that?”
“When we were still friends, before the boat.”
“So who told Lee about Harry? And who told Steven about Lee?”
Bill shuffled in to where the concession stand was and came back with tea, coffee, and coconut cookies, but none of that made either of us any smarter. I sat in my deck chair and sipped my tea and watched the islands slip by, and I thought I was thinking about L. L. Lee, but something must have happened, because the next thing I knew a hand was gently stroking my hair and Bill’s voice was saying, “Wake up.”
“Huh?” I said incisively.
“We’re here.”
I looked around. My feet were still up on the rail, my half-finished tea sat on the deck under my chair, and a row of skyscrapers stared me right in the face.
“Oh.”
“It’s those trenchant comments,” Bill said, reaching for my backpack, “that way you have of cutting to the core of the issue—”
“Oh, quiet. And give me that.” I grabbed the pack before he could pick it up. “Monsters can’t carry the supplies, only doctors.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
The walk from the Cheung Chau ferry to the Star Ferry was short, and the wait for the ferry was short, and the ride across the harbor to Kowloon was short. The walk from the ferry to the Hong Kong Hotel was also short, but as frantic with cars and jackhammers and surging tides of people as an end-of-the-day Monday in Hong Kong might suggest. We stepped aside and gave way and generally were so slow-moving and unaggressive that three different people actually snapped at us.
At the hotel we checked for messages, but the only one was from Grandfather Gao, from yesterday, asking to be kept informed. Okay, I thought, you’re informed. And I’m off duty until I shower, eat, and sleep.
“Here’s the plan,” I told Bill. “I’m going to take a shower, put on some clean clothes, and make myself feel human again. Then I’ll come up to your room and we’ll order the best meal room service has. Then I’ll go back to my room and sleep until morning, or afternoon, or whenever I want. Unless,” it occurred to me, remembering I’d just retrieved him out of a hospital, “you just want to go to bed and you don’t want company.”
The grin started to spread across his bandaged face.
“No!” I said. “Don’t even bother. You know exactly what I meant.”
He sighed in acknowledgment. “But you’ll come to my room?”
“Only for dinner.”
“It’s a start.”
“No, it’s dinner.”
We parted in the elevator. When I reached my room I spent a little time staring out the window as the neon crowning the buildings of Hong Kong Island began to glow through the purple dusk. Then I spent a lot of time in the shower, first under hot water to scrub off the salt and sand and sweat, then cold water to bring my brain back to life. I dried my hair and put on a thin white cotton sweater and a pair of khakis. I took my cell phone with me, because you never know, and headed to Bill’s room.
He had showered too, and shaved, and changed. In his room as in mine the air-conditioning was on, but here the windows were also open, to empty out as much cigarette smoke as possible. This might be a losing battle, considering he was adding to it as he opened the door to let me in, but it was Be Nice To Bill Day so I didn’t point that out.
He had the TV on. A crisp young Chinese woman was delivering the news in English; Hong Kongers must be the same as Americans, watching the news with their dinner, making sure they hadn’t missed anything while racing through another day of getting and spending. The young woman summed up what looked like a very slow and soggy Legislative Council meeting; then she moved right on to the prospects for two fillies new to Hong Kong in Wednesday’s big-purse race at Happy Valley.
“You can turn it off,” Bill said, handing me the leather folder from the desk with the room service menu in it. “I just thought it would be useful to see if anything about the Weis or Cheung Chau or anything had hit the news, and if it did, what spin they’re using.”
“As usual, a step ahead. Let’s leave it on for a while. It’s really kind of interesting.”
Actually it was fascinating, a collection of information useful to the English-speaking Hong Kong community—meaning, expatriot and probably upper class—or at least, what a TV station thought would be useful to them. The kinds of local-interest stories that fill American newscasts—fires, political squabbles, hero pets—were completely absent, replaced with stories about a new even higher-speed train connection to the airport, or rumors reported as news about a land development deal on the border with Guangdong. Absent also were any crime stories. Not a mugging, jewelry-store robbery, or talking-head defense lawyer to be seen.
“I don’t think we’re going to make it onto this news,” I said, handing the menu back to Bill. “There seems to be no crime in Hong Kong, probably bad for business. I’m having Hainan Island chicken.”
“That sounds good. What is it?”
“How can it sound good if you don’t know what it is?”
“Because I’m hungry enough to eat the menu.” He took a club soda out of the minibar for me, and a beer for himself. There was an empty bottle on the desk; he’d already finished one in the time it took me to shower and get up here. Well, he was entitled. He ran his eyes over the menu while I explained the coconut and spicy dipping sauces that were the glories of Hainan Island chicken. I was doing a pretty good job, too, when suddenly my mouth froze open and my head snapped around to the TV as though I were a marionette.
“We take you now to the Peninsula Hotel,” the crisp young woman was saying, “where an American doctor, Dr. Franklin Wei, has, in a very unusual move, called a press conference. He promises information of great interest to the authorities concerning triad activity.”
“Oh, my God,” I yelped. “What’s going on?”
The TV anchor’s face was replaced on the screen by the grassy slope in front of the Peninsula. Franklin Wei, looking very somber and determined, stood at a set of microphones before a small knot of reporters. He wasn’t speaking, but seemed to be waiting for something. Maybe more reporters. The dusk of evening had drained the green from the slope, but I didn’t think it was dusk that had drained the color from Franklin’s face.
Bill stared at the screen also. “Get down there,” he said. “You move faster than I do. I’ll come as fast as I can.”
He was reaching for his shoes; I was gone before he picked them up.
The elevator didn’t move nearly fast enough for me, but once I hit the street I moved fast enough for myself, zipping through the sidewalks full of people, once charging across a street against Hong Kong traffic. Yes, okay, I thought to the cursing, honking drivers, fine, everything you’re saying is true. I ran faster. The Peninsula was only a few blocks from the Hong Kong Hotel; I felt like it was taking me forever to get there, but in truth, when I screeched to a halt at the grassy slope, it seemed that Franklin had only just started to talk.
“ … first came to Hong Kong only a few days ago,” he was saying, in English. White TV lights cast sharp shadows on the grass and on his face. “However, I’ve been involved in an illegal smuggling operation in partnership with members of a Hong Kong-based triad for many years. My family owns an import-export firm, Lion Rock Enterprises. The firm was founded by my father, Wei Yao-Shi, and his brother, Wei Ang-Ran. My father died recently and my brother, Steven Wei, came into the business. None of these men had any knowledge of my illegal activities or were involved in any way.”
He paused, looking around at the assembled reporters. He looked down, swallowed, then squared his shoulders and continued. “For years this triad has paid me to arrange for antiquities from the Chinese mainland to be smuggled into Hong Kong and through Hong Kong to the U.S., hidden in furniture Lion Rock was importing. I was able to do this because the strict honesty and uprightness of my father, uncle, and brother made it impossible for them to even see what was going on, much less, if they had seen, to suspect that I was involved. Recent events—the death of my father and the entry of my brother into the business—have made me decide to end my relationship with the triad. However,” and here Franklin managed a small smile, “ending a relationship with a triad isn’t easy. I thought the best way to do it would be like this, in public.” One more pause; then, “That’s all I have to say for now. I’ll give details of the operation to the authorities in the morning, if they’re interested. Thank you very much.”
Franklin Wei turned from the microphones, ignoring the shouted questions of reporters, who began crowding after him. The doormen at the Peninsula, accustomed to famous guests, politely but unshakably refused entry to the reporters, who were left to yell requests for interviews at the revolving door as Franklin disappeared inside.
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