Riding the Snake (1998) (21 page)

They were nearing the East Lamma Channel when the man with good shoes came down to the hold and got him. They went up to the deck and to the stern of the freighter.

"You must jump as far from the boat as you can to avoid the huge propeller," the man said. Then he motioned for Fu Hai to jump. Fu Hai was not a strong swimmer, but without thinking, he held his nose and leaped as far as he could, slipping slightly as he jumped, falling dangerously close, landing in the boiling wake at the back of the boat. He could feel the rush from the churning propeller as he kicked to get away.. . . Then his head came up and he swam as hard and fast as he could toward the shore.

The quick current took him and he was swept along in the oily sea, barely keeping his head above water. The harder he swam, the farther away the shore seemed to be. Jellyfish stung his legs.

Fu Hai began to panic. He would not make it. His life would end right here, a mile from Hong Kong. Brackish water filled his mouth. He accidentally inhaled it down into his lungs, coughing, choking, and sputtering. He swam harder, dog-paddling desperately to reach land but being carried farther down the coast like a small twig after a huge rain. He knew he was in trouble, close to drowning. Suddenly he saw an orange metal channel marker coming up at him fast. If he could only get to it, he might live. The current was moving faster now as it rounded the headland. The channel marker rushed up at him. He grabbed for it, and there was a loud clang as the metal buoy hit his head. His hands slipped down on the slimy sides, the barnacles there cutting his flesh to ribbons. Then he found an eye-hole down near the base and held on. Blood was in his mouth and all over his arms. He was gagging from the water in his lungs and stomach. The current ripped and tore at him, and then, because he was weak, he lost his hold and was swept away again, into the current toward the dark, mountainous side of Hong Kong Island.

Somehow, with superhuman effort, Fu Hai managed to keep his head above water as the current carried him rapidly along. He was about to lose consciousness when, without warning, he crashed into a rock jetty wall that protected the shoreline from the ocean flow. He was weak from the effort and tried several times to climb up on the hard, algae-covered granite rocks--each time slipping back into the water. Finally, when he had almost no energy left, he made one last try and managed to get half his body out of the current and up onto the rocks. He sucked in air until he had the strength to pull himself the rest of the way out of the churning water. His heart swelled. He had made it.

Zhang Fu Hai was finally in Hong Kong.

Chapter
18.

Crossing Paths

Before Wheeler and Tanisha left Willard Vickers's house at eleven P
. M
., it had all seemed to make pretty good sense. He'd told them about a Hong Kong cop he knew. The Royal Police had been reorganized. The Chinese had brought in a contingent of police from Beijing, but some old-time Brits were kept on the force for continuity. Willard said maybe his friend could help. Using Wheeler's credit card, they called Hong Kong.

He had an English accent and the terribly British name of Julian Winslow. Julian said they'd been trying for six years to tie Willy Wo Lap Ling to the Chin Lo Triad, but Willy had been very careful, very thorough. . . . Two Hong Kong informants and two detectives had been murdered over rumors of his involvement. Nobody else wanted to talk much about Willy.

Wheeler and Tanisha had booked two rooms in the Cleveland Ritz-Carlton, downtown.

Tanisha had never stayed in a hotel like the Ritz-Carlton before. After they checked in, she walked around her room looking, in awe, at the antiques. She touched the crystal lamps, ran her hand over the beautiful terry-cloth robe in the bathroom, which had the Ritz-Carlton emblem embroidered on it in gold.

An hour later, she met Wheeler downstairs in the ornate bar. She sipped a cola while he took giant gulps of his double Scotch/rocks. She kicked off her shoes and was trying to figure out what to do when he blurted, "Let's go to Hong Kong."

"Huh?" she said.

"If that Hong Kong cop thinks Willy Wo Lap Ling is part of that Triad, and if Vickers thinks Willy's about to run for office, maybe we could find out what's going on. ... I can't believe Wo Lap would run for government without a lot of money on the table. What if we could find out, get a police raid mounted or something?"

"This isn't half-time at the U
. S. C
.-U
. C. L. A
. game. You shoot beer on these guys, they won't just chase you around in short pants."

"You get that out of the police computer?" he asked, startled that she knew about it.

"No . . . it's not in the computer."

"Then how did you know?"

"I was there, Wheeler. I did my last two years of criminology at Bruintown. I was in the U
. C. L. A
. rooting section--you sprayed me with beer."

"It was a great stunt, wasn't it?" he grinned, warmed by the memory.

"You're a real project," she finally said, then they were both smiling. That incident, which had so defined their differences fifteen years ago, now seemed to bring them together.

"I loved my brother but I resented him too," Wheeler admitted. "Some part of me is saying, if I could find out what happened to him, if I could solve his murder, then . . . maybe ... I don't know. Maybe it's the first step to things being different for me. I know it doesn't make sense, but. . . that's what I think."

It was the exact same thought that had been going through Tanisha's mind.

He looked up at her unexpectedly, and for the first time, they really saw into each other.

"Look, I'll pay for the trip to Hong Kong," he suddenly said. "You can get your passport overnighted to you here. I've got mine. Let's go ask the Hong Kong cop to help us. Who knows what will come of it? Maybe we'll learn something. Maybe not. Cost you nothing but two days of your life, and you'll get to see one of the most exotic cities in the world."

She sat there looking at him, wondering why she was drawn to the idea. Why she even gave a damn about Prescott Cassidy or Angela Wong ... or Wheeler, with his Scotch breath and boyish charm. The world she came from was dark and terrifying. Hope was a scarce commodity on her block. Her friends, growing up, had had no future plans. Making it to tomorrow was the ultimate reward. They buzzed in aimless panic like bumblebees caught out after dark, until they crashed in some accidentally tragic way or were jailed for their rage and helplessness. At age thirty-five, she had almost no friends left down in the hood. The girls distrusted her; the boys were either dead or in jail. Worse still, she had failed despite her promise to her dead sister. She had made no contribution to the quality of their lives.

They said everybody in Black America was one relative away from the penitentiary or a drug collapse. It didn't matter whom you looked at--how high up you went. Dr. Joycelyn Elders had a crack-smoking son. Jesse Jackson's brother was in jail. They were all drawn back to their beginnings, circling the drain, drawn by circumstances or love. Everybody just precious moments from extinction. So why this--why consider this?

She looked at Wheeler, who sensed her distress and, for once, had the good sense not to speak. He was a black sheep like her.... He had become the same problem for the people in his country club bar that she was in Zandel's beauty shop. Could it be that simple? Or was it because when he looked at her, he seemed to see a woman--not a Black woman? She knew it would be dangerous to believe that. It was that kind of thinking that always ended up coming back and breaking you. But she pondered it anyway and then rejected it. She knew herself better than that.

Underneath everything else, her demon was survivor's guilt. Her kindergarten class had been social cannon fodder. How could that group of once shining futures be such a rat hole of failed expectations? What she really had was cultural guilt--guilt about moving out of the neighborhood--guilt about buying her clothes in West L
. A
.--guilt about trying to go someplace else ... be something else. Because deep down in her heart, she hated "Rings" Williams. Hated that sloe-eyed little girl. Deep down, she wanted to be someone else. But she didn't know how.

Was she looking for redemption or escape?

"Make the reservations," Tanisha said to Wheeler, then she got up and left the bar to call Verba before she changed her mind.

"I'm sorry, Captain. I know it's late, but I had a family emergency here in Cleveland. I'll be in on Monday," she lied.

"Listen, Tanisha, these I
. A
. guys mean business. They're set to harpoon you. I asked for a look at the file. Everything's a big secret, so they said no, but one guy told me that some Blood G-ster named 'Blue Mandango' said you were transforming on the man."

So Blue had said she was turning in cases. Forget that Blue wasn't even in her old set, or even around when her neighborhood crew was still Cripping. He was an off-brand buster from the Rolling Sixties gang.

The Sixties and Tanisha's old friends got into it frequently over adjoining territory. She had dated two Crip ghetto stars while Blue was trying to slam her. Anything Blue said was bullshit. I
. A
. couldn't be so out of it they'd believe a rival gang member.

"You hear what I'm saying?" Verba interrupted her thoughts.

"I understand, Captain."

"Okay, I'm gonna tell the Shooflies ten o'clock Monday. You be there. Otherwise nobody can give you any cover."

"Nobody ever has," she said sadly. Then there was an empty sound on the line to L
. A
. Captain Verba had hung up. She wondered if she was making a horrible mistake.

Fu Hai sat on a rock in Wong Chuk Hang under the five-thousand
-
year-old Neolithic carvings that no longer had meaning, and waited. As night came, he fell asleep and didn't wake up until morning.

When he awoke, he was looking right into the eyes of a large, black naja naja. It had crawled up close to investigate. Its tongue slithered out as its prehistoric eyes gleamed, showing the viciousness of the ages. Fu Hai didn't move. He was terrified. He knew the hooded cobra was one of the most venomous in the world. His heart almost stopped beating as he stared at the deadly reptile. Then, unexpectedly, the snake just turned and slithered away.

Fu Hai sat up. He took a giant breath. He thought maybe this was an omen. He was "Riding the Snake" and this deadly snake had left him alive to go to America.

At a little after ten in the morning, Big-Eared Tou's cousin came for him. She was tall, slender, and very beautiful. She wore the old-style slit Chinese dress, which had made a fashion comeback with the repatriation of Hong Kong to China.

"I will take you to a place where you will stay. It is not very beautiful, but you will be safe from the police there until we can get you travel papers." She had a small suitcase, and she handed it to him. "Put on these clothes," she told him, "so you will blend in."

He went behind a rock and opened the suitcase. He pulled out a blue suit. The stitching was poor and the suit had little style, but still, it was the most beautiful suit of clothes he had ever had. He took out the new white shirt and tie and unfolded them. He put it all on, then took the socks and the cheap new shoes out of the suitcase. The shoes were two sizes too big, but he laced them tight, and cinched the belt holding up the new pants. Once he was dressed, he put the old clothes from the silkworm factory into the suitcase and came out from behind the rock.

"I will never be able to pay you back for these beautiful gifts," he told her.

"Yes you will," she said. There was something about the way she said it that unsettled him, as if her words held some dark secret. Then she handed him a cellphone to clip onto his belt. He looked at it in amazement.

"It doesn't work," she told him. "It has no mechanism, but with it on your belt, you will look like you belong in Hong Kong."

Then, without holding his hand, she led him down the hill to a taxi. They got in and she gave the driver an address in the New Territories of Kowloon.

They took backroads, but still Fu Hai was startled at the magnificence of the Colony. Rolls-Royce, Lexus, and Mercedes sedans transected the wide streets. People hurried to their destinations. The city, with its rickshaws and floating junks, skyscrapers and neon signs, mixed East with West.

They headed through the tunnel that went under the harbor, leaving Hong Kong Island. The pretty girl said nothing. She didn't look at him or even appear to notice that he was smiling proudly in his new Western clothes.

They finally pulled up across the street from what looked like a wall of crumbling buildings. She paid the taxi driver and got out of the cab, then motioned for Fu Hai to follow. Strangely, there was a beautiful Rolls-Royce parked in front of the shabby buildings.

"This is the Walled City of Kowloon," she told him. "It is a ghetto, but it is controlled by our Triad."

He nodded and looked at the Rolls-Royce. He had never seen such a beautiful car like this up close.

"That is the car of the new Shan Chu of the Triad," she told him as he stared at it. "His name is Henry Liu. He is very thin and very vicious. ... He limps badly from an old wound. In the street, they call him Limpy Liu. When you are inside, he will tell you what you must do to earn your way. You must agree to whatever he tells you."