Changes (11 page)

Damn.

All of this activity covered up nicely for the fact that I didn’t know what the hell else to do here.  I thought about calling Knox and asking for some helpful detecting tips, but I didn’t think he’d be amused.  I wanted to call Tracy, to hear her voice, but I didn’t.  I am a male, and we are such stupid creatures sometimes.

I took out the pictures I’d snagged from Mei Ling’s apartment and looked at them.  My mind kept seeing the image of her on the slab in the morgue. 

Several things occurred to me: 

One – any leads I
wanted
to follow out here were likely to get me into trouble.  Big trouble.  I’d gained some small amount of trust from Tony Lau; it wouldn’t be a great idea to go poking around at his dad and his business. 

Two – Maybe Mei Ling’s murder was some kind of revenge hit from another Triad.  If so, then what?  Triads, as a rule, handle Triad business. 

Three - the recurring thought that I was totally inept at this, as I was with most things in life, and that I should just order that roast beef sandwich I’d been eyeballing on the room service menu, buy a sixteen dollar beer, and hop the first available flight home.

Three was sounding better and better.

27

I woke up in the morning, after a depressing night of staring at shitty infomercials, and felt awful.  I was wasting my time here.  Time and a lot of money.  And to think, I had clients back home, possibly in pain, because I was off playing Sam-freaking-Spade.

On top of the feelings of failure, woe, and disappointment, I felt lonelier than I ever had in my life. 

Specifically, I missed Tracy.  And I don’t mean that in the way people usually do.  This wasn’t a fleeting feeling or a casual twinge.  It wasn’t a John Hughes marathon type of emotion. 

This was pain.

This was a drowning man’s longing for oxygen.

I needed to hear that I wasn’t a failure.   That I was important, even in some small way, to somebody other than a dead Chinese girl I’d never met.

I knew I could just pick up the phone and call Tracy, and I knew that I probably would, but it would only make things infinitely worse because it just drove the point home that I was here and she was there.  I couldn’t smell her hair or kiss her neck.  I could hear her laugh, but I wouldn’t see the way her eyes gleamed. 

In short, my sappy ass had it bad.

I pulled the phone book out of the drawer and looked up a few numbers.  I wanted to call to check on a few flimsy leads but my heart just wasn’t in it.  I set the phone back in its cradle and had another sixteen dollar beer.

When I picked up the phone again, it was to arrange for my flight home. 

I would be back in St. Louis at 8:35 p.m. that night.  Unable to resist the opportunity for masochism, I immediately called and got Tracy’s machine.  I left her the time when I’d be in, and said that I’d try back later.

After showering and packing, I went down to the lobby and checked out.  I had the bellboy hold onto my luggage in the check room, though.  I figured I could screw around sightseeing for a bit until I had to get to the airport. 

I spent a good part of the day just wandering around, lost.  I went to Chinatown and glared at each person as if I knew exactly what they were hiding; sadly no one threw themselves at my feet to confess.

Some of the sights and sounds and smells reminded me of the festivals when I was growing up.  It would be easy to pretend that I was back in Hong Kong.  Everything stood out more, seemed more real than real.  I wanted to go around touching everything. I didn’t, though.  That would’ve been weird and creepy.

It’s a strange sensation, to be homesick for two places at once. 

I learned one valuable lesson, though.  One of the best ways to cure any feelings of depression or inadequacy is to somehow trigger the survival response:  Adrenaline- nature’s first anti-mope drug.

In my case, the ‘trigger’ was a group of well-dressed thug types I caught following me through Portsmouth Square.  Considering my mental state, they might’ve been tracking me for awhile.  Of course, there was always the possibility that I was being paranoid…

So I strolled along, looking at shops, and turned down the first alleyway I saw.  They followed.  Five guys: three Chinese and two American, wearing Armani suits.  The alley was a dead end, thanks to a parked produce truck at the other end.  Chickens in crates squawked at us and each other.  I turned from the chickens and met my shadows.

"Eight Tigers, I presume?" I said.

A few of the guys exchanged surprised looks.  A big American kid stepped forward; his nose was crooked from numerous unset breaks.  He stabbed his index finger at my sternum and said, "You been pokin’ your nose where it don’t belong, man."

I laughed and said, "Oh, come on.  That’s a bad guy 101 line… surely you can do better than that?"

He ground his jaws together and stabbed harder with his finger.  "Fuck you!"

More originality.

I took the offending finger and bent it backward with a crunch until it touched his wrist.  He screamed.

One of the Chinese guys started reaching in his jacket.  I kept hold of the American’s broken finger and rammed him in the chest with my shoulder.  It accomplished two things: for one, it deflated his lungs and shut him up.  It also sent him flying into the Chinese guy, knocking him on his ass.

A kid to my left lunged in with a knife.  I yanked the American back by his now very broken finger and threw him into the two other guys.  My own little Three Stooges routine.

I leaned back in time to avoid the incoming knife and slapped the kid’s elbow with my left hand, and his forearm with my right.  It felt effortless, but with my full weight behind the strikes, his arm bones shattered like carnival glass.

The big American was up on his feet again, hugging his broken finger close to his chest.  He came in with a wild, looping hook punch from his good hand.  I caught him with open palm strikes to the elbow and nose simultaneously.  He decided to lie down.

One of the two remaining guys issued some kind of war cry and dove at me.

I guided him by and kicked him in the back of the skull as he passed.  He skidded across the pavement with his face. 

The last kid tried to run, but I snagged the back of his jacket and threw him to the ground.  I grabbed him by the face and said, "Go tell Jimmy that he’s not fooling anybody.  I know what he did, and when I can prove it, he’s gonna go away for a long, long time."

Okay, so that was a bit of a Good Guy 101 line, but I was so happy to actually be the good guy that I wasn’t going to give myself too much shit about it.

The kid nodded, wide-eyed and I let him go.

We both left the rest to squirm and cry on the ground, and I went back to the hotel for my bag.  I had a plane to catch, after all.

28

The flight was terrible.  We hit some turbulence from a thunderstorm, and the kid in the seat next to me spent half the time tossing his cookies.  A little acupuncture would’ve done the trick, but the kid’s mom wasn’t about to let me stab her son with needles, no matter how much I tried to convince her.

What a beautiful ending to a lovely trip.  Upon arrival, no one leapt into my arms.  No one showered me with kisses. 

Tracy hadn’t come.  And to top it all off, the airline lost my bag.

I walked to the long-term parking lot, picked up my car, and went home.  The apartment was smaller and dingier than I remembered it being.  Cold shadows huddled in the spaces untouched by piss-yellow streetlight.  I took a beer from the fridge and went to the bedroom.  I turned on the TV as a diversion, but there was nothing on but more infomercials.  I was not in the mood for any bouncy exercise pitch men, so I just turned the damned thing off.  The silence and emptiness were worse.

I went into the living room, and turned on the stereo.  The music I heard was not mine, but it was familiar.  One of Tracy’s CD’s.  She must’ve left it.  I turned it up and went back to bed. After I finished my beer, I turned off the lights and stared up at the cracks in the ceiling.

29

The next morning, I walked down to the park and practiced a little.  When I was finished, I called Knox on my cell; he’d left a few messages on my machine while I was gone. 

"Where you been, Lee?"

"Meditation retreat.  What’s new?"

"Lots.  I spent a good portion of my weekend sifting through financial statements and a shitload of other paperwork.  Taste of Asia, as we know, is run by Lau Enterprises.  Lau Enterprises is, of course, the business front for Jimmy Yi Lau, head of the Eight Tigers and his son, you ready for this…"

"Was engaged to Mei Ling Zhao," I said.

"How the fuck’d you know that?" he said, sounding deflated.

"Ancient Chinese secret," I said. "Does Lau Enterprises have any other interests in this city?"

"We’re looking into it."

"You and the mouse in your pocket?"

"Pretty much.  You got anything else you want to tell me?"

"Nothing solid."

"At this point I’ll take liquid or gas."

"No, that’s pretty much all I know for sure," I said.

The line went silent.

I could hear the gears in his mind turning.  They could use some oil.

After a minute, he said, "This is getting considerably more fucked up.  You know that, right?"

"Mm-hm."

"If any other flashes of insight come to you in your meditation, pick up the goddamned phone, alright?  I’m the cop and you’re the civilian.  Keep that in mind."

"Just doing my civic duty, officer.  Keep me posted."

We hung up.

None of my clients knew I was back yet, but that was just as well. 

I thought about calling Tracy, or even just stopping by the bar, but I didn’t.

Again, male pride.

Instead I just walked back home.

To pout.  All by myself.

I saw her black cavalier parked out front from a mile away.  It was easy to recognize from the roughly ten thousand bumper stickers on the back.  The faded, neon pink Vintage Vinyl, the orange and black Nine Inch Nails logo, the Misfits… a collection of bands and stores and sayings that reminded me of just how old I really was.

I opened the door to the stairwell that led up to my apartment and saw her at the top of the stairs, by my door.  She was leaving a note, from the looks of it.  When the door closed, she turned and saw me. 

I met her halfway, on the stairs.  Her hands cupped the sides of my face; her lips smashed into mine with almost enough force to shatter my teeth and knock us both down the stairs.  I guessed that she’d missed me too.  I lifted her and carried her up the stairs.  At the door, I fumbled with the lock while she made soft sounds against my neck that caused my brain to boil in its own juices.

We made it inside, but only just.

Boy, was it good to be home.

30

She hadn’t eaten, and by nine-thirty I had a bit of an appetite, myself.

We ordered pizza again.  It seemed the safest choice.  Through some universal anomaly, we both found ourselves unable to stay away from each other.  In public, things could get ugly.  In the aftermath of our lovemaking (there was no ‘glow’… just a lot of gasping and sweat and, well, bruises), I saw that she’d dyed her hair.  Parts of it, anyway.  Her normally inky, purplish black hair was now accentuated with intermittent streaks of platinum blonde and pink.

"Do you like it?" she asked.

I nodded.  It was different, but it suited her.  She could probably staple dead marmosets to her scalp and still be sexy as hell.

"I stupidly got it done Friday night, knowing that I was spending the rest of the weekend with my parents."

"I take it they don’t like it?" 

"My mom says I look like a hooker."

"Thanks, mom."

"I know, right?  Anyway, that’s why I didn’t know you were coming in…I hadn’t been home.  Sorry."

"I figured maybe the quarterback of the football team swept you off your feet or something, and you realized that you didn’t have to be with an old fogey like me."

"Okay, first thing?  Ew.  Vomit.  Secondly, old fogey, my ass.  Though I did have an interesting conversation with my parents about you…"

"Oh?" I said.  My voice actually cracked.

"Yeah.  They were all happy at first, when I told them that I’d met someone and that I liked that someone very much… My mom said she thought that I was coming out."

"Coming out of what?" I said, genius that I am.

"The closet, Randall.  My mom thought I was a lesbian.  And preferred that possibility, actually."

"Oh." 

Master of conversation, that’s me.

"I told them everything.  And I ended up having to remind them that I’m twenty-six years old and that I’m not retarded…" 

I watched her.  This was bothering her.  I figured she’d work it out, or not, but I clearly had nothing witty to say, so I stayed quiet.

"My mom, in turn, reminded me that she’s forty-seven.  I got a whole lecture on wants and needs and how I’m going to want to get married and have kids and blah, blah, blah."

"Do you?" I said.

She looked up at me and shrugged.  "I don’t know what I want, Randall.  Mostly, I think I just want to be happy, and you make me happy."

"Then why do you look so sad?"

"Because none of this should fucking matter, and I hate that it does.  I mean, I look at you and everything makes sense, but when I’m alone…I have these stupid thoughts.  Like, that you were learning to drive when I was
born
.  You know?"

I nodded.

There wasn’t anything to say.  There was nothing that either of us could do to change this.  I wanted more than anything for us to just let all this go, but the truth was that her mother’s ideas were nothing new to me; I’d thought similar things each time Tracy and I saw each other.  What was I doing?  What was I taking, stealing, from her?  There was so much of life that she could be experiencing, but she was hanging around with a schlub like me.