Stealing the Dragon (25 page)
Buddha’s Universal Church is still the largest Buddhist church in North America, even though it was built in 1961. Although Buddhism has become the fastest growing religion in the United States, the size of its churches have remained relatively modest. But the founders of this church in the heart of Chinatown lacked the funds to build from scratch, so they converted an abandoned nightclub and renovated the dilapidated building themselves over a ten-year period. Today the interior is filled with colorful murals and mosaics, and the rooftop garden has one of the best views in the city.
Cape had never seen the view at night, and under different circumstances would have enjoyed it. But sitting with his hands tied behind his back gave him little opportunity to see more than ten feet in front of him. A crescent moon stared down at the roof, a malevolent eye covered by a cataract of thickening fog. Since the church was the tallest structure on the block, very little ambient light found its way to the garden from the streetlights and neighboring buildings. Beyond that, the garden was nothing but shifting shadows against the night sky.
Xan emerged from the darkness at the edge of the roof and strode through the garden. He was wearing a loose-fitting, long-sleeved black shirt and black cotton pants, with sandals on his feet. As the sparse light found him, his grizzled scalp and broad face flickered in and out of focus, making him appear headless.
“The street is deserted,” he said in English. His voice was deep and full of gravel, with a slight accent that seemed to come and go depending on how fast he talked. “They should have come by now.”
Cape said nothing at first, not sure if Xan was thinking aloud, but then said, “Maybe they don’t like costume parties.”
Xan smiled and leaned over Cape, getting in close. Cape could see the raised scar tissue coursing its way across Xan’s cheek, making one eye seem larger than the other.
“Cut yourself shaving?”
Xan gently squeezed Cape’s left shoulder.
Cape jerked backward, his body spasming as if struck by lightning, knocking his head back as a scream caught in his throat. He coughed violently, wheezing as air rushed from his lungs, bile rose, and his eyes started to water. His head struck the tiles again, hard, as vertigo hit like a sledgehammer.
An eternity that lasted only a few seconds passed and Cape opened his eyes, relieved to see the roof wasn’t spinning. Twisting his body, he managed to sit up and saw Xan standing ten feet away, idly passing something from hand to hand.
It was Cape’s wallet.
“The cards in your wallet say your name is Cape…?” He made it sound like a question. “Except, of course, this card.” Xan held up a brown card with a red triangle. “This card doesn’t seem like the others, does it?”
Cape took a deep breath, knowing Xan was only a step away from squeezing his other shoulder. “One of these things is not like the others?” he asked. “Who are you, a Muppet gone bad?”
Xan’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t move. “Where did you get this card?”
Cape looked at Xan and said nothing. He couldn’t move his left arm at all but tried to roll his shoulders to keep some blood circulating to his hands. He wondered if he could roll to the edge of the roof and…
what
? A five-story drop onto hard pavement was starting to sound pretty good.
“Do you have any other cards like this?” asked Xan patiently.
“Go fish.”
Xan took a step forward but his manner remained calm, unthreatening. “I have no interest in hurting you.”
Cape almost laughed, but it came out as a cough. “Gee, that’s reassuring. I’d hate to know what it feels like when you are interested in hurting someone.”
“One-eyed Dong,” said Xan. “You’ve met him?”
Cape nodded. “Charming guy, treats his guests much better than you,” he said, seeing no reason to lie. Xan wasn’t about to believe Cape found the card on the street.
“And what business does a
gwai loh
have with One-eyed Dong?” Xan held up another card. “This says you are a ‘licensed investigator’ in the state of California.”
“I’m considering another line of work,” replied Cape. “And how about you—a massage therapist?”
Xan raised his head slightly, and said with a hint of pride, “I am a teacher.”
Cape squinted, blinking his eyes dry. “Reading, writing, or arithmetic?”
“Life and death.” Xan’s eyes were two pieces of obsidian.
“Let me guess,” said Cape. “A girls’ school.” It was out of his mouth before he could stop it.
Fuck it—maybe it’ll get him talking
—
more time to think, less time to writhe in agony.
He sat up straighter, shaking his head to clear it.
Xan’s eyes grew wider as he studied his captive. After a long moment, he started to walk in a slow circle around Cape.
“Did you know that more than half the assassins in the world are women?”
“I dated a girl who tore my heart out.”
Xan ignored the remark and kept circling, making Cape think of a shark.
“It’s true,” said Xan. “What better way to get close to a man, especially a dangerous one? Women make men stupid, careless. Even a dangerous man is vulnerable when he’s with a woman.”
Cape thought of Sally, wondering how far back the two went.
Keep him talking
. “That can’t be easy, turning women into killers.”
“They are
weapons
,” said Xan. “But you miss the point—it’s impossible to teach women anything. They are stones, worn hard and smooth by waves of disappointment and years of sorrow, as predictable and stubborn as the tides.”
“Was that a haiku?”
Xan’s eyes flashed a warning, but he never broke stride. “But
girls
—girls are made of clay. Especially girls who lost their childhood to broken homes or tragedy. Start young, fuel their anger, and you can mold them, teach them, make them anything you want.”
Cape again thought of Sally—the Sally he knew. “One problem with your theory.”
“What?”
“Girls tend to grow up into women.”
Xan scowled. “By then they’ve chosen a path,” he said. “You can’t change who you are just because you’re old enough to drink. No one, not even a woman, can change their past.”
“Maybe not,” said Cape. “But they can make their own decisions.”
Xan waved his right hand dismissively. “Free will is an illusion,
gwai loh
.”
“Our fate is set?”
Xan nodded.
“Then why do you keep looking over the edge of the roof?”
Xan stopped circling and looked impassively at Cape.
Oh, swell. You pissed him off.
“He’s got a point, Xan.” The voice was muffled slightly, making it hard to pinpoint the location, but it seemed to come from directly behind Xan.
Xan whirled and thrust his right arm forward, his hand open and turned sideways.
Cape watched as a chain twenty feet long shot from Xan’s sleeve, its barbed tip flying through the air toward the bamboo stand at the edge of the roof. By its speed alone, it would impale anyone in its path. The sound of wood splintering was followed by a sudden clang of metal against metal, and Xan lurched forward, suddenly off-balance as the chain was torn from his arm.
Xan grunted and peered into the darkness as he rolled sideways, changing his position before a counterattack could begin.
He was too slow.
Three
shuriken
whistled through the air, the first two spinning over Cape’s head, their sound the only way to track them. The third throwing star also made a sound as Xan bellowed with rage. Turning his head, Cape saw why.
The six-pointed star, three inches in diameter, was embedded deeply in Xan’s right knee. He staggered and brought his left arm up in a swinging motion as he struggled for balance. Metal darts glinted in the half-light from the moon as they flew from his hand. Xan strained his ears for sounds of impact, but as he shifted his weight onto his left leg, a shape darker than the shadows materialized behind him.
The wooden sword swung low and wide, knocking Xan’s legs out from under him. Even as he fell, Xan managed to pull a knife, a
tanto
, from his belt, but the sword caught his wrist on the backswing with a loud crack. The knife slid across the roof, coming to a stop between Cape’s legs, the point of the blade barely penetrating the crotch of his jeans and nicking his thigh.
Cape’s breath hissed through his teeth in a mixture of primal fear and relief. With an effort, he tore his eyes from his crotch and saw the cloaked figure had dropped the sword to bring both hands down in a chopping motion, so fast that Cape never saw the impact, but Xan’s head jolted sideways. The hands came up again, repeating the strike, Xan slumping face-first onto the tiles.
From where Cape was sitting, spread-eagled at knife point, he couldn’t tell if Xan was still breathing. He didn’t need Sally to remove the black cloth from her face to know who had come to his rescue and almost castrated him in the process.
Sally shook out her hair and looked from Cape to the knife and back again.
“Oops.” Sally winced apologetically. “A couple more inches and that would have really hurt.”
“A couple more inches…you referring to the knife, or was that meant to be ambiguous?”
Sally smiled and shrugged her shoulders.
Cape exhaled loudly. “Thanks.” He nodded with his chin toward Xan. “I take it you know him.”
Sally looked down at Xan and nodded slowly.
“He was my…” She started to say
teacher
but stopped. When she turned to Cape, she had a bemused expression on her face.
“Let’s just say I grew up in his shadow.”
“Don’t you think you were a little rough on him?”
Sally looked at Cape, a slight smile on her face but her eyes as cold as emeralds.
“Do you have any doubt he would have killed you?”
“Nah, he was just warming up to me.”
Sally shook her head. “You’re delusional.”
Cape let it go, holding his arms up and back as Sally cut the ropes binding his wrists. Both arms tingled from lack of circulation.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
Sally shook her head. “Not yet.”
She walked over to Xan and turned him over. Blood soaked his pants around the right knee. Sally pulled the throwing star free and Xan grunted but remained unconscious. She wrapped the cloth that had been covering her face around the knee and pulled it tight, then turned to Cape and held out her hand.
“Hand me those ropes.”
“You sure?”
“Definitely,” replied Sally. “He’s coming with us.”
One-eyed Dong never claimed to be a brave man, and though he’d count himself smarter than most, he considered his real strength to be self-awareness. He knew he could never adapt to the new Dragon Head, so he left. Well, he
fled
, but that’s only because he couldn’t trust the bastard not to kill him. Dong was as mercenary as anyone else, even if he did have better table manners, and the Dragon Head couldn’t risk him jumping to a rival clan.
Zhang Hong, the previous Dragon Head, had lasted a long time, as respected and trusted as a career criminal could be—bold, visionary, and undeniably ruthless, but still fair in his own way. He honored his ancestors and kept to the code. But his son, Zhang Hui, was a bloody shark. Dong had no doubt Hui had killed his father to become Dragon Head. He suspected Hui would knock off his own mum if there was profit in it.
His only hope was to keep moving long enough for Hui’s greed to be his undoing. But sitting in a tunnel beneath a strange city, Dong wondered if even he had the patience to wait that long, or if his desperate circumstances would force him to act. He was running out of cities, and his chances were getting worse the closer he came to being cornered. He rolled his glass eyeball back and forth, letting the noise lull him into a trance where time and distant enemies held no sway.
Footsteps broke his reverie. Shen, the taller of his two guards, was approaching the desk. Shen and the other guard, Lok, were brothers whom Dong had rescued from abject poverty by recruiting them into the Triad. Fearless young men with flexible moral constitutions were always in demand, so Dong made arrangements to have money sent to the boys’ family every month. They were fiercely loyal and had risked everything by coming along on his self-imposed exile.
Lok’s name meant
happy
, and he certainly was, even in this cluttered, damp basement that had become their base of operations. Shen’s name meant
deep-thinking
, but tragically he was as dumb as a dish of soap.
Dong popped his eye back in and waited patiently for Shen to speak. After a minute of looking hopefully at the eager young man, Dong exhaled loudly and made the first move.
“Yes?”
“A package was delivered.”
“Where?” asked Dong. He hadn’t heard the trap door, and Lok had moved to guard the rear tunnel.
“At the opening of the south tunnel. Lok went out to buy more food at the grocery that stays open all night, just a few blocks away. I disabled the trap door and covered for him. He found the box ten feet inside the tunnel, where it opens near Stockton Street.”
“And?”
“I have the package.”
Here we go
, thought Dong. “And?”
“I opened it.”
“And?”
“I thought you’d want to know what was inside.”
“What?”
“I said, I thought you’d want to know what was inside the package.”
Dong blew out his cheeks. “
What
was inside?”
“A note,” replied Shen. “And…something else.”
Dong decided he wasn’t a patient man, after all.
“Just give it to me,” he said tersely.
“I don’t have it.”
“Where is it?”
“Lok has it.”
“Of course.” Dong pressed his palms against the desk and stood up, turning toward the back of the chamber. Shen followed two steps behind.
Lok stood maybe twenty feet down the tunnel, behind a metal grate with a door set into it. On his belt was a flashlight, and over one shoulder was a sword. Over his other shoulder was a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun.
“Lok!” Dong’s voice echoed down the tunnel.
Lok turned, smiling. He was always smiling, as long as Dong could remember. At first Dong assumed it was gratitude for being plucked from the Hong Kong slums, but now he suspected Lok suffered from the same cranial confinement as his brother.
“The box?”
Lok nodded and extended his right hand, palm up. It was a small cardboard box, the kind where the top slides over the bottom, the size that might hold business cards. Dong took it from Lok, who was still beaming, and held tight to the lid with his left hand, pulling the bottom down slowly with his right. The lid came off with a small popping sound.
Dong stared inside the box for a full minute before putting the lid back. His hands were shaking.
“We’re leaving,” he said, looking from Lok to Shen.
The two brothers looked at him and then at each other. “When?” They asked in unison.
“Immediately,” replied Dong. “Bring only what’s necessary. I will bring the heart.”
“What about the woman?” asked Shen.
“What about the
gwai loh
?” asked Lok.
“
I’m fine, thanks
.”
The three men jumped as the voice echoed down the tunnel, Dong almost dropping the box. Lok clicked on a flashlight to reveal Sally and Cape moving toward them, Cape holding Xan’s legs, Sally with her arms around his torso.
Dong waved awkwardly. “We were just—”
“Turning around,” said Sally, disgust in her voice. “Open the door.” She looked pointedly at Dong as Lok complied. She and Cape pushed past them and stutter-stepped to the nearest couch, where they deposited the still-unconscious Xan.
Dong’s face registered shock at seeing Xan, but Sally didn’t give him a chance to say anything. “A suspicious person might think you were about to steal the heart.”
Dong’s good eye narrowed as he stepped forward and handed her the box. “You insult me too easily,” he said quietly. “In another life, you would have worked for me.”
“I left that life behind for a reason,” said Sally. “In your world, people can only be trusted one moment at a time.” She broke eye contact with Dong and opened the box. Her jaw set as Cape stepped beside her.
A finger lay at the bottom of the box, severed just below the third knuckle. It was a woman’s finger, judging by the tapering and the nail, and Cape was pretty sure it was the pinky from the left hand. He had no doubt where it had come from.
Beneath the finger was a note written in Chinese, blood spotting the paper. Sally pulled the paper out of the box and read it aloud in English. “
Bring the heart or I will send you hers
,” she said in a monotone, then turned to Cape. “What time is it?”
Cape held up his watch. “Almost three in the morning.”
“We don’t have much time.” Sally put the paper back in the box and closed the lid.
“Where?” asked Cape.
“Ross Alley,” replied Sally. “The bakery.”
Cape nodded. “It’s Monday morning, isn’t it?” he said. “They’re closed Mondays.”
Sally looked at Dong. “Naturally, he doesn’t want to meet at his office or his home.”
Dong’s face was grim. “Lin’s already dead,
little dragon
,” he said, his voice barely audible. “You of all people must know this.”
“That why you were leaving?” asked Cape.
Dong waved his hand impatiently. “He knows about the south tunnel,” he said. “We’re sitting ducks.”
Sally shook her head. “He won’t come here—he doesn’t know what’s down here. If he was coming to us, he’d be here by now.”
“I can’t take that chance.”
Sally looked at Dong and smiled briefly, then stepped intimately close and whispered, “Yes, you can.” When Sally stepped away, Cape caught a glimpse of her eyes and was very glad he wasn’t standing in Dong’s shoes.
Sally turned her back on Dong and walked over to the couch.
Cape took his cell phone from his pocket and checked the screen. It had rung twice on the way over, but dropping Xan to answer the phone, though tempting, didn’t seem like an idea.
2 missed calls. 1 voice message. No signal
.
It would have to wait.
He moved toward the couch as Sally leaned over Xan. Taking a new length of rope, she bound Xan’s wrists, ran the rope around his ankles, then brought the rope over the back of the couch and across his throat. He’d choke with every swing of an arm or kick of his legs.
“This guy that dangerous?” asked Cape.
“He trained me.”
“You sure one rope’s enough?” asked Cape. “Maybe we should drop an anvil on his head, or a safe.”
Sally ignored him. Cupping Xan’s neck in her right hand, she tensed her fingers and squeezed where the neck met the skull, then set her left hand under his chin and twisted violently, stopping the motion after just a few inches.
Cape grimaced. “I had a chiropractor do that once.”
Sally nodded but kept her eyes on Xan. “It’s the same basic movement. If I keep going, it would break his neck.” She released Xan’s head and took a step back from the couch, then started counting just under her breath.
“Five…four…three…”
