The survivor

Seventy-Nine

When the Man with the Bamboo Spine got the call, he was already walking under the Hastings Street overpass. The crossroad below the pass was Raymur Street, and it was home to most of the cross-dressers and transsexuals Vancouver had to offer.

The overpass was in shadow, not only from the overhang of the road above, but from the cloudless sky. A grey darkness had slowly crept into the city, smothering it like a giant slate cover.

The Man with the Bamboo Spine did not notice the sky. He marched along Raymur Street, staying close to the railroad tracks that ran on the east side of the road. The tracks were set slightly off the main path, on depressed land — decent cover if shooting started. And it probably would. For though he had not seen Shen Sun Soone in over two decades, he knew the kind of man he was. A survivor.

Much like himself.

The phone call he was waiting for finally came. It was inevitable, and had been ever since Shen Sun Soone’s face had been plastered on every TV set in every window. The Man with the Bamboo Spine picked up.

‘Yes,’ he said.

The voice on the phone was Sheung Fa, and his tone was unusually low, distant. There was regret in his words, and grief, so much it was palpable. ‘The situation has changed for the worse.’

‘Yes.’

‘There is no longer an alternative.’

‘No.’

‘Do what must be done.’

‘Yes.

The Man with the Bamboo Spine snapped the cell phone shut and put it away. He looked across the road into the Raymur projects and saw the townhouse address of 533. The man who lived here was Lien Vok Soone — the father of Tran Sang Soone and Shen Sun Soone. Judging by the photographs, he was an old man, short, thin and frail, and from the history in the package, he was the owner of a small convenience store. A simple but honourable man. Another survivor.

It changed nothing.

The Man with the Bamboo Spine was going to kill him first.

And then he would find Shen Sun.