Changes (29 page)

He couldn’t shake his head, but I could tell he didn’t.

"Tell your boys to stop this before it gets out of hand."

He glared at me with his one free eye.  I pushed the gun a little more.  He gave the word, and the others lowered their weapons.

Somehow the cops were there – guiding away the freed hostages, separating the gangsters, frisking them, cuffing them.  Knox laid a hand on the top of the gun I had pressed halfway into Chinese Don Johnson’s skull and told me to let go. 

We’ll take it from here, he said.

Upon releasing my grip on the pistol, I felt a wave of weakness travel from my fingers, up my arm, and throughout the rest of my body. 

The adrenaline washout.  I felt shaky and cold, so I worked my way past the frantic cops and feds, past the gawking and fearful would-be travelers, and planted myself on a padded bench by the baggage carousel.  As I sat and tried to regain control of my motor functions, Ang’s crew were taken out in handcuffs and loaded into the back of a couple of police cruisers.

"We’ve got men posted throughout the route."

I looked up at Agent Janik and nodded.

"In case… anyone tries anything like last time."

I nodded again.

"Ang?" I said.

"We’ll find him." he said.

Knox came over, carrying a bag, and said, "We got this, at least."

He laid the bag, a black briefcase, on the bench next to me and said, "Tag says Jakob Smith… be a shame if the lock on it didn’t work…"

Agent Janik said, "What?"

"You got a paper clip?" Knox said.

Janik looked through the thick stack of reports in his case folder and slid one free.

"Why?" he said.

Knox tossed it to me.  I straightened out the metal, slid it into the first lock on the briefcase and, after a moment of jiggling it around, heard a click.  The second lock opened as easily.  Before I could open the case, Janik said, "Hold on just a damned minute."

I stopped and looked up at him.  Knox looked from me to Janik and back.

"Broken lock or not, I can’t have a civilian tampering with evidence," Janik said with an almost imperceptible wink.  He slipped on a pair of latex gloves, knelt in front of the case, and gingerly opened it.  There were Cantonese-English phrasebooks, neatly folded maps of the city, a stack of postcards from various tourist sights, and a small manila envelope.  Janik took the envelope and tipped it, pouring a stack of photos onto the bench.

The top one I recognized.

I’d taken one just like it from Mei Ling’s apartment.  It was her, smiling, arm in arm with a guy who was not Tony Lau.  It seemed faded somehow, and the color was off, but otherwise it was the same picture.  I asked Janik to spread the pictures out; I was impatient to see them all, but, without gloves, I was at his mercy.  The other photos were all of Mei Ling as well, but in much younger days.  School pictures, snapshots taken at sporting events, a few birthday shots.  She was just a kid in most of them. 

Only the first really showed her as she had looked just before her death.  After several minutes of futile study, Janik gathered the packet of photos and moved to put them back into the briefcase.  A few slipped from his grasp and fell, swirling like leaves, to the floor.

Out of habit, I leaned forward to retrieve them and froze.  Scribbled characters across the back of one photo read
Kwun
Yam Beach, 1968. 
I picked up the photo, despite the protests around me, and flipped it over.

92

The search was fruitless.

After six hours, and with a great deal of pressure from the local authorities, the airport was reopened.  Those who had been detained and questioned and searched and put through hell left threatening lawsuits and exclusive interviews to the media. 

Janik looked miserable.

Understandable, considering the abuse he’d taken from damn near everybody.  At the end of the day nobody really remembered the successful arrest of six suspected cop killers - the media, the public, and most of the cops just labeled the operation a giant screw up.

So did I, but not for the same reasons.  Ang Su Chan had been here and, somehow, slipped through our fingers.  I called the hotel and left a message, and then called Master Cheng to let him know what was going on.  I told him to be careful.

Cheng told me to go fuck myself.

After hanging up with him I checked in with Janik and Knox, made sure there wasn’t something else I could fatally screw up with my presence, and told them to have a good night.

I knew they wouldn’t.  Neither would I.

It was after eight, and dark, when I left the airport and found one bit of good luck – my car had only received a parking ticket and had not been towed.  I unlocked it, got in, and started the engine – all without incident.  Apparently, the universe thought I’d had enough crap for one day.

I drove.

Maybe it was the absence of a working radio in my loaner car, or the remaining bit of adrenaline sharpness to my vision.  Maybe it was boredom, dumb luck, or some secret sixth sense.

But by the time I reached the highway, I
knew
that I was being followed.

93

The vehicle was a white station wagon.  Missouri plates.  The silhouette in my rear view mirror lacked any identifying traits, but I was certain it was not a well-wisher.  I didn’t particularly care.  I took the exit for the hotel, and watched the station wagon pull off behind me.  I let the valet park my shitmobile, and I went inside before my shadow got too close.

In the elevator, I started feeling strange.  Sick.

If it was Ang, he had no reason to follow me.  Slick as he was, he could’ve gotten to me pretty much any time he wanted.  So what was going on?

It tickled the back of my brain and the elevator dinged as each floor passed.  The sickness solidified into a ball of lead in my stomach as the elevator doors opened on our floor.  I ran down the hall, to our room, and knocked frantically.

When there was no answer, I fumbled the key card from my wallet and slid it in the lock.  The strength vanished from my legs as soon as the door opened. 

A chair lay on its side in the middle of the room – the only thing really disturbed – but Tracy was gone.  It wasn’t until I turned around, back toward the door, that I saw the gun.

She must’ve tried to get it.  Must’ve tried to use it.

The paper bag lay, torn, beside the couch.  The small pistol was twenty feet away, lying alone on the carpet.  Somewhere, Tito mewled.

The phone rang.

94

I picked it up.  My hand felt ready to crush the receiver.

"
Dr. Lee?
" Ang said in Cantonese.

"Ang Su Chan," I said.

"
I tried to make you stop, Doctor.  I am sorry that it has come to this
."

"You have Tracy?"

"
As I said.  I am sorry."

My stomach dropped.

"Is she alright?" I asked, my voice quivering.

Silence.

"Is she, you fuck?" I screamed.

More silence.

Then,
"Let us be civilized, Dr. Lee."

"What do you want?"

"
I want what you want, Doctor.  I want this to end."

"Alright, Ang.  How do we end this?"

"I think you know how this ends, Dr Lee."

Yes.  But if there was to be a meeting, I would – at least – choose the place.

"You know Millar Park?  Off of Olive?"

"Of course."

"Meet me there, in twenty minutes."

He hung up.

I hurried to the car and drove to the park where I first met Master Cheng.  Set back from the street, I found an area far from the streetlights, and parked in the darkness.  I got out and moved to a grouping of small pine trees fifteen feet from the car.

And waited.

And watched.

Headlights rounded the bend and approached slowly.

I shoved my hands in my jeans pockets for warmth and shivered a little.  The air carried the steam of my breath in billowing clouds.  The station wagon parked next to my car, and the headlights turned off.

I thought of Tracy, and felt the sickness return.  Whatever had happened to her… I should’ve been there.  I should’ve protected her.

Not the first time for this,
my mind said. 
You’re not too great with the whole protection thing, are you?

The door opened and the driver emerged.  The natural grace of his posture, the loping sort of stride, the harsh sharpness of his movements – I wouldn’t have searched so hard for my enemy if I had only known he would come to me.

He peered into my driver’s side window, opened the door, and cursed under his breath.

My stomach roiled. 

What has he done to her?

He looked around, cursed again, and checked the back seat.

Was she suffering, was she crying out for me to save her? 

My fingernails dug into the palms of my hands.  My jaws clenched so hard that my teeth ached.

I called out his name.

Turning, he sank into a defensive pose like a cat.  I watched his head sway back and forth, searching the darkness.  I stepped out of the trees slowly, without making a sound.  He could not see me but, backlit from the streetlights, I still saw him.

"
Why don’t you come out in the open
?" he said in Cantonese.

"First tell me about the girl.  Why did you kill her?" I replied.

I could not make out his features, but his swaying stopped.

"What does it matter?"
he said.

"I have to know," I said. 

He seemed to shrug. He walked toward my voice and said, "
Duty, though that word means nothing to you, I’m sure."

I stayed on the move, flanking him to the right in case he had a weapon.  "I understand duty.  I don’t understand murdering a pregnant woman.  I don’t understand terrifying her with damnation before killing her like a coward…"

"You think I enjoyed it?  You are wrong, boy.  You do not understand duty… in life we must sometimes do things, horrifying things… not because we wish to."

"And this ‘duty’ makes it okay?  It makes what you did right?" I said.

He laughed a short, harsh laugh and said,
"No.  Never right.  There is a special hell reserved for men like me."

"So now you’ve come to kill me, now.  To clean up one more loose end?"

"I come to put an  end to this,"
he said quietly.

95

I took a deep breath and stepped into view.  Ang Su Chan remained a shadow silhouetted by the street lights. He surprised me by raising his right fist and covering it with his left palm – a traditional salute among martial artists – and bowing slightly.

I returned the gesture and waited, unsure of what would happen next.  The old man exploded into action, arms coiling and twisting.  In one second, the strikes were loose, whip-like tentacles, in the next moment, they were solid, thrusting punches. 

I let him come, deflecting the lashing barbs and cannon fists.  The strikes slammed against the wounds in my arms, sending jolts of pain through my body.  I felt something tear, and a warm wetness began to seep into the sleeve of my jacket.  Fear tugged at my mind.  Fear, and doubt.

I can’t do this
.

No.
 
You have to.  For her.  For them.

Why?

Because you’re the only one who can.  And because this fucker deserves to die.

I thought of Tracy.  I thought of Mei Ling and her child, of Madame Chong, and Jade.  I thought of Jimmy Yi Lau and Samson, of the policemen who fell. 

I thought of Grace.

And I howled as I rushed in for the attack.  I saw Ang’s teeth in the streetlight; a smile.  He easily parried my strikes, opening up my chest, and struck out with his fingertips. 

I leaned back and rolled away from the strike.  Ang managed only a glancing hit, but it was enough to make my heart skip a beat.  He moved in again, and the back of his wrist cracked my cheek.

He’s too strong.
 
I can’t fight him.

The words of my teacher echoed in my mind as Ang’s blows tested my abilities.  I fended off the strikes as best I could, but my body felt heavy, tired.

I breathed in the cold night air and said a silent apology.  To Tracy, to Knox, to Mei Ling.

To Grace.

Because, just for now, I couldn’t hold on to them anymore.

I exhaled.

I let go.

My body relaxed, and, as Ang moved in with renewed attacks, I began to parry him with touches light as the flecks of snow that began to fall.  And with every point of contact, I stuck to him, following his movements, smothering them.  His fury was a terrifying thing, a physical presence, and his every movement then was designed only to kill.

The space around me was mine, though, however much the old man tried to take it.  His punches and kicks became deadly feints, they were supposed to make me react, make me move.  I was supposed to attack or retreat; I did neither.

Instead, I played.

The old man presented an opening in his stance – an obvious trick to get me to attack low; I slapped him in the face.  He reeled and covered himself clumsily, expecting me to follow up with another strike; I didn’t.  He lunged, stabbing fingers toward my vital points.

I shifted my weight backward, just out of his reach.  In his anger and overconfidence, he overextended by perhaps an inch.

Capturing his wrist with my left hand, I stepped backward and pulled him into my right knifehand strike – a technique from the form known as ‘Repulse the Monkey.’  I had done so playfully, but as I struck his right shoulder at the joint, I felt it separate.  He howled from the pain and shrank away.

I let him.

He stumbled and, with deceptive speed, lashed out with a kick to my ankle.  I winced and barely dodged a wide, arcing strike aimed at my eyes; his knuckles glanced off my split cheek, sending sparks of white heat through my face.