Stealing the Dragon

Chapter Twenty-two

San Francisco, present day

Of the countless Chinese restaurants with Hunan in their name, only one served tourists by day and gangsters by night.

Located in the middle of Grant Street, Freddie Wang’s restaurant was a known haunt for criminals, but since Freddie routinely swept the place for bugs and never handled transactions on the premises, he managed to keep the place open despite its questionable clientele. The trick was convincing law-abiding citizens to clear out before the conversations in the dining room turned to drugs, gambling, and prostitution.

So Freddie started giving away fortune cookies with very special fortunes inside. The cooks and waiters studied each table, then ran back to an old man crouched in the kitchen who wrote custom fortunes. A young girl on a date might get a fortune warning her that the young man sitting across the table was in the midst of an outbreak of genital herpes, while a family of nervous tourists from the Midwest might open their cookies to find a prophecy of an impending earthquake. There were no lucky numbers or promises of wealth and happiness at Freddie Wang’s place.

Cape took a seat in a corner booth, where he waited for almost an hour, watching the tourists clear out one table at a time, some engaged in heated arguments about what they’d just read about each other. By nine o’clock he was alone in the dining room, sipping Tsingtao from a bottle and watching the waiters clear the tables. When the last of the tablecloths had been removed, a lone waiter walked across the room and set a small plate in front of Cape, a single fortune cookie resting on its plain white surface. Cape cracked open the cookie and let the crumbs fall out of his hand as he read the small slip of paper.

Come upstairs, gwai loh.

Cape suppressed a smile as he made his way to a narrow stairway beside the entrance to the kitchen. His last time here, he had been with Sally, and his fortune was part threat and part insult. He was moving up in the world, now rating a simple invitation laced with disdain. The call from Harold Yan had done the trick. Freddie may not like Cape, but at least he’d talk to him.

At the top of the stairs, a thick-waisted man named Park waited impassively next to a door, wearing dark glasses and a suit that cost more than Cape’s car. Park spent all day, every day searching people, and he was getting sick of it. His name meant cypress tree, and recently he’d been having dreams that roots were growing from his feet from standing around so much. With a brusque gesture, he indicated Cape should raise his arms, then pushed him roughly against the wall and patted him down. When he got to Cape’s waist he hesitated, feeling a strange bulge on his right side. Reaching under the tail of Cape’s sport coat, he pulled a wad of yellow rubber from beneath Cape’s waistband. He took off his sunglasses and screwed up his face as the thing unfolded in his hand.

It was a rubber chicken.

“I brought that as a present to Freddie,” said Cape over his shoulder. “Figured the guys in the kitchen could do wonders with it, especially with the right sauce.”

The guard threw the chicken back at Cape but caught himself before following through with his fist. He’d clearly been given orders.

“Should I have brought cat instead?”

The guard grabbed him by the collar and turned him to face the door, then twisted the knob and shoved him forward. Cape raised his hands in time to avoid opening the door with his face.

It was dark inside, the only light coming from an old lamp with a green shade sitting on a desk. The cloying smell of incense filled the room, and thick tendrils of smoke curled in the subdued light. Behind the desk sat Freddie Wang, his long gray hair sprouting from a high forehead, his dark eyes squinting through the smoke as Cape stepped forward.

“I hear you died last year,” said Freddie, his voice like dry reeds cracking in the wind.

Cape shrugged. “I heard that, too,” he said. “Turns out I just had a bad case of food poisoning….I think I got it at this restaurant, as a matter of fact.”

Freddie cackled, which quickly turned into a wracking cough. A gnarled right hand moved into the pool of light and snatched a lit cigarette from a carved wooden ashtray, then scuttled back out of sight like a cockroach. As the tip of the cigarette glowed red in the darkness, Freddie’s cough subsided.

“If you got food poisoning here,” he said slowly, “you’d stay dead.”

Cape nodded but didn’t say anything, moving to sit in one of the two straight-backed chairs in front of Freddie’s desk. As he turned to sit, Cape noticed a stolid-looking man lurking in the shadows behind him and to the right. He had long black hair pulled tight into a ponytail and hands that looked too big for his body, jutting out from the sleeves of his suit like oven mitts. Although they came in all shapes and sizes, Freddie always had protection.

“So what you want?” asked Freddie testily.

Cape noticed Freddie’s accent came and went depending on his mood and realized taking a seat without being asked had irked his host. Freddie didn’t like visitors.

“I want your wisdom,” said Cape pleasantly.

“Fuck you,” said Freddie. “You think you kiss my ass, tell a joke, I tell you stories?”

“Nah,” said Cape. “I think that if you tell me stories, then I leave you alone.”

“You make threat?” Freddie leaned into the light. His face stretched painfully as he stared at Cape, the wrinkles unfolding like a broken accordion. His left eye was droopy and faint, its inner light all but extinguished, but his right eye glowed like a black sun. Cape caught himself leaning forward unconsciously, as if he were getting sucked into Freddie’s gravitational pull.

“I want to know about the refugees on that ship,” said Cape evenly.

“Fah,” spat Freddie in disgust, leaning back in his chair. “You talk to cops?”

“I have,” said Cape, “but I won’t talk to them about you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

Freddie’s half-lit face contorted again, revealing a mole on his right cheek sprouting three prominent hairs. “I look worried, gwai loh?”

Cape shook his head, smiling. “No, Freddie. You look great-you look like a lingerie model. They say aberrant facial hair is all the rage this year.”

Freddie coughed violently in response, then gagged before summoning a wad of phlegm from the back of his throat. Leaning forward, he spat it expertly into the center of his ashtray. Running the back of his right hand across his mouth, he took another drag on his cigarette before his breathing returned to normal. Cape sensed the bodyguard moving closer, but Freddie waved the man off. When he spoke again, his voice crackled as if a fire had started somewhere deep in his chest.

“You talk to cops about me,” he wheezed menacingly, “I eat your eyeballs.”

“So that’s what’s in hot-n-sour soup.”

Freddie squinted through the smoke, his baleful right eye unblinking.

Cape shrugged. “Deal.”

“You know what’s on boat?” asked Freddie. “Besides dead Chinese?”

“Nope.” Cape shook his head. “You?”

Freddie shrugged but didn’t answer, looking from Cape to the bodyguard, then back again. Freddie loved playing the part of the Asian gangster, and Cape sensed this was one of those obtuse conversations in which Freddie spoke in half-truths and riddles, as if the constant threat of surveillance hung over him like so much cigarette smoke. Few professional crooks had stayed in power and public view for so long, so maybe the paranoia was justified.

“You think that’s important?” asked Cape, trying to keep the conversation going. “The cargo?”

“Not to me,” replied Freddie. “But many people lose money when ship crash.”

“On the cargo, or the passengers?” asked Cape.

“Cargo insured,” replied Freddie. “Passengers, maybe not.”

“Did you lose money, Freddie?”

“Me, I have plenty insurance.” Freddie smiled broadly, his teeth yellowed from smoke.

“So you’re saying the refugees’ families paid for their transport, or they did themselves-and that money’s gone,” said Cape, wanting to spell it out. “But someone like you keeps your share no matter what.”

“What you mean, like me?” asked Freddie defensively.

“The snakehead,” replied Cape, trying out the word and watching Freddie for a reaction.

Freddie shook his head, a series of popping sounds like hiccups coming from his throat. Cape realized he was chuckling.

“You get lesson in smuggling?” asked Freddie.

Cape shrugged.

“Too bad you not get lesson in thinking,” said Freddie caustically. “No snakehead here, gwai loh.”

It was what Cape expected him to say. Freddie may have to talk to him, but he didn’t expect to get a full confession. “My mistake,” he said amiably. “So what were you saying about the cargo?”

“Had to go somewhere,” replied Freddie. “Maybe people on boat headed to same place as cargo.”

Cape nodded but remained silent. This was probably as far as Freddie was prepared to go, at least on the record.

“We done here?” asked Freddie pointedly, confirming the suspicion.

“Sure,” said Cape. “If you say so, Freddie.” He stood but didn’t move away from the desk.

“You used to live south of Market Street,” said Freddie. A statement, not a question, maybe reminding Cape he knew where to find him.

“Yeah.”

“Lots of warehouse space there,” said Freddie idly.

“Some,” said Cape, noticing how Freddie had leaned back into the light so he could read his expression. “Some have been turned into lofts, though. You know, residential space.”

“People living in warehouses,” mused Freddie.

Cape met his gaze and nodded. “Imagine that.”

Freddie chuckled softly, then faded back into the shadows.

Cape turned to leave, suddenly realizing the bodyguard that had been standing behind him was no longer there. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up as he heard Freddie cough behind him.

“Last time you here,” Freddie called out, “you came with friend.”

Cape turned at the door. They both knew whom Freddie was talking about. Cape had only seen Freddie before with Sally at his side for protection. Even Freddie wouldn’t mess with a girl raised by the Triads.

“Lots of people killed on that boat,” added Freddie, his voice charged with an undercurrent of satisfaction.

“You have a point, Freddie?”

“You alone now, gwai loh,” said Freddie, chuckling. “Better watch step.”

“You making a threat, Freddie?” asked Cape evenly. “You did your favor for Yan, and now that we’ve had our little chat, I’m fair game-is that it?”

Freddie stayed in the shadows, saying nothing, his claw of a hand reaching for the ashtray.

“Or are you just worried about me?” added Cape.

“I look worried?” asked Freddie, the red tip of his cigarette glowing in the darkness.

“No, Freddie,” replied Cape. “You look fuckin’ great.” He turned the doorknob, half expecting it to be locked, but it swung open with a rush of cool air. The smoke from the office billowed into the short hallway, making him realize how claustrophobic he was feeling. Cape descended the steps two at a time, thankful for the cool of the night fog as he left the restaurant behind him.

His car was where he’d left it, without a ticket on the windshield. A minor victory in the scheme of things, but at this point Cape wasn’t taking anything for granted. The neon from the restaurant reflected off the side panels of the old convertible, colors twisting in a lurid dance along the contours of the car. It looked like it was riding low. As he crossed the street, Cape noticed something behind the left rear wheel. Squatting down, he picked the object up and studied it in the murky light.

It was roughly the size and shape of a Walkman, except without the outer casing. Wires ran from a red interior to a blank LCD screen and AA battery. Squinting, Cape saw that the red area looked soft and malleable, like Play-Doh, and behind the battery was a thin wire that looked like it could be an antenna. Next to the battery was a small switch, which Cape decided not to throw, but he did move the box closer to his car to test a hypothesis. Feeling the pull of the magnetic base, he had absolutely no doubt about what he was holding.

It was a bomb.

Cape glanced back at the restaurant, but the front door was closed, the lights on the first floor turned out. The rest of the street was just as quiet, save for the occasional car cutting across a block away. Taking one more look behind him, Cape slid his key into the trunk, popped the lid, and saw right away why the car was sitting low.

The bodyguard with the oven mitt hands stared at Cape with a surprised look on his face. It was an expression that wouldn’t be changing anytime soon, since his eyes were dead and unblinking. The face locked in a rictus of shock. The angle of the head reminded Cape of a marionette. He wasn’t a pathologist but was pretty sure the guy had died from a broken neck.

Cape blew out his cheeks and stood for almost a full minute staring at the corpse in his trunk. One half of his brain told him to call the cops while the other half made a compelling argument for kicking in the door to the restaurant and demanding answers from Freddie.

Instead he shook his head, trying for a moment to embrace the madness that had taken over his world. Cape tossed the bomb onto the body and closed the trunk, then walked around and got behind the wheel. As he pulled away from the curb he glanced in the rear view mirror, but the fog had grown so thick it was impossible to see more than a block away. He pulled his collar up and muttered to himself as he drove deeper into the fog, Freddie’s rasping taunt chasing him down the street.

“You alone now, gwai loh.”