Dead and Kicking (26 page)

‘That makes three,’ I said.

‘Three, Mr Murdoch?’ she asked.

‘Saigon, Hong Kong and now here. That’s three times you’ve come to my rescue. Or is it four?’

Nhu gave me a look I couldn’t quite read and then turned her eyes back to the highway.

I felt something in my hair and when I reached up I found a still-warm empty .22 shell casing. I tossed it out the window.

‘It seems poetic somehow that Playford’s sleeping with the fishes,’ I said.

Nhu looked across at me. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Old Peng’s son, Playford, he’s sleeping with the fishes – he’s dead.’

‘Really?’

I nodded. ‘There’s been a lot of it going around. You know Old Peng?’

She nodded. ‘We’ve met.’

‘I’m surprised Crockett didn’t try to have Old Peng killed. He was a very dangerous loose end.’

‘Old Peng having a stroke was a lucky break for Crockett,’ she said.

‘Bit of a lucky break for Old Peng, too. Or maybe a stroke of genius.’

‘Stroke of genius, Mr Murdoch? I’m not sure I understand.’

‘I think you understand very well, Miss Hoang. Old Peng is obviously a wily old bugger. When he heard that Crockett was angling for a vice-presidential nomination, he must have figured there were loose ends Crockett would need tidied up and he was one of them. Bastard could get himself an Academy Award nomination for his performance in that wheelchair.’

‘Old Peng said you were no fool, Mr Murdoch. When did you figure out he had faked his stroke?’

‘When he gave me the negative in the casino. He was showing all the classic symptoms of a stroke involving the left side of the brain, you know, difficulty with speech and communication, paralysis of the right side of the body. Problem was, he signalled his nurse to stop next to me by raising his right index finger.’

‘You are an expert on strokes, Mr Murdoch?’

‘My old man had one,’ I said. ‘So exactly how did you get involved with Old Peng?’

‘I went to Macau to investigate money laundering through the casinos. Out of respect for Old Peng, as the senior member of the family, I requested permission to interview him. Playford had no objections since he believed the stroke had totally destroyed his father’s cognitive functions. I didn’t expect to find out anything of use – it was purely a courtesy.’

‘That’s when you realised he was faking?’

‘Yes. My grandmother had a stroke. I nursed her for many months after it happened, so I also know the signs, and I called him on it. He liked that and suggested I might possess talents that would be useful to him. He was in the difficult position of having embarrassing information on a rich and dangerous man who was aiming for high government office, and he also had a vicious and amoral son who was becoming increasingly impatient to take over the Peng empire. His position was perilous and he decided drastic and immediate action was needed.’

In Old Peng’s world, you first had to figure out who you needed to kill to get power and then who you needed to kill to keep it. It was a full-time job, the kind that kept a bloke awake 24/7, because as soon as you closed your eyes there were people waiting to put a bullet between them.

‘But you’re a police officer, Miss Hoang.’

‘I am also a realist, Mr Murdoch. After the reunification of my country, the traitors in the south – those who had served in the armed forces or who had helped the Americans – were punished for their crimes. Some very harshly and some with long periods in re-education camps.’

‘Very harshly’ was putting it nicely.

‘The extended families of the traitors also suffered,’ she continued, ‘with many restrictions and with greatly reduced educational and economic opportunities in the new Vietnam. Because of Uncle’s involvement, our family was denied many things. Even though I was born long after the war, it was not easy for me to reach the position I now occupy. The financial rewards are not great, and as a woman my chances for further promotion are limited. I felt this was an opportunity to explore other options. And Old Peng is a very generous man.’

‘So I’ve heard.’

‘When he told me about the photographic negative of Ambassador Crockett he possessed, I suggested you might be the person to use it to best effect since you had no love for the Ambassador.’

She had that right.

‘I contacted Uncle, who said he thought you were in Hong Kong, so I arranged to bump into you.’

‘The text message from Jezebel?’

‘Yes. But when you came off the Star Ferry I saw that you were being tailed by some very unsavoury characters, so I called in reinforcements from Old Peng’s team.’

‘And the invitation to dinner with Playford was arranged by Old Peng, so he could bump into me and give me the negative.’

‘When you mentioned the WorldPix exhibition, and that Crockett would be in attendance, it seemed the perfect opportunity and it became a matter of urgency.’

‘Is that why you took the photograph with my Leica and then lifted the memory card?’

She nodded. ‘The photograph was necessary to identify you. Old Peng insisted on putting the negative directly into your hands.’

‘Not a very trusting bugger, is he? And here was me thinking you were worried about your naked arse turning up all over the internet.’

‘That was definitely another reason to take the card.’

I’d been so busy showing Nhu what a smart bastard I was that I didn’t see where she got the gun from. It was a compact little Beretta Tomcat, a semi-automatic with a seven-round magazine. Judging from where she had the muzzle pointed, it looked like all seven rounds might be coming my way.

Miss Hoang was a world-class competition shooter. She’d taken out Playford at long range, hit Leroy Fong firing from a moving vehicle with a dinky .22, and now, sitting just a couple of feet from me, there was no way she was going to miss. This really wasn’t working out to be one of my better mornings.

‘So what do we do now, Miss Hoang?’ It seemed like a fair question.

‘I’m considering my options,’ she said.

‘You weren’t calling roadside assistance back there, were you?’

She shook her head.

‘Old Peng?’

She nodded.

‘And he dislikes loose ends as much as Crockett does?’ I said.

‘I’m afraid so, Mr Murdoch. I tried to talk him out of it but you know too much. You’ve outlived your usefulness and become a liability. I’m very sorry.’

‘Not as sorry as I am, Miss Hoang. But, of course, you realise if I’m dead you’re the only person left who knows what’s been going on, and that also makes you someone with a very short use-by date. The way I see it, as long as I’m alive you’re safe, and as long as you’re alive I’m okay.’

I didn’t know how much sense that actually made, and I didn’t really care, as long as it bought me a few extra seconds. Nhu looked like she was thinking this over and was about to say something when I stomped on the brakes, swung the wheel hard left and shouted, ‘Kangaroo!’

Nhu glanced up at the empty road ahead, and as the muzzle of the pistol swung away from me I biffed her one on the jaw.

I’d been brought up not to hit women, but in this instance I figured violence was my only option. Nhu’s head snapped back, hitting the side window with a solid thud, and the little Beretta flew out of her hand and landed in my lap.

For a couple of seconds I thought I was going to slide into a three-sixty and lose the Alfa completely, but with both hands on the wheel I managed to get it back on the bitumen and under control, just in time to get waved down by an oncoming Northern Territory police vehicle. The bright blue Commodore with its chequered blue-and-white police livery was probably heading for Gaffneys Creek, following the tip-off from Gwenda. When he flashed his headlights and hit the red-and-blue roof lights, it seemed prudent to stop.

An unconscious Nhu was slumped down in the seat, her back resting against the passenger door. I leaned across and wound the window down, gave Nhu a kiss on the cheek and smiled at the copper, who was leaning out casually through the police vehicle’s open window.

‘Looked like a bit of pretty dodgy driving back there, mate,’ he said. ‘Everything okay?’

It seemed like the right moment for a quick bit of self-assessing of the situation. I was in a car that didn’t belong to me, with a shattered back window and several large-calibre bullet holes in the rear panels. There was an unconscious, mildly concussed Vietnamese copper next to me sporting a nasty bruise on her chin. I had a semi-automatic pistol in my lap and a sniper’s rifle that had taken out a psycho Macau casino operator in the boot. I’ve been in worse spots before, but not many.

‘Guess I almost lost her for a minute there,’ I said. ‘Swerved to avoid a roo. But everything’s hunky-dory now.’ I glanced at Miss Hoang beside me. ‘Didn’t even wake up the lady.’

The cop looked across at me for a few seconds. Aviator sunglasses hid his eyes, making it hard for me to guess what he was thinking.

‘You might wanna consider taking things a bit easier for a while,’ he suggested, and then he gave me a nod and drove off.

As I watched his dust in the rear-view mirror, it seemed to me to be a very sensible suggestion.

Many thanks to Ben Ball and Miriam Cannell at Penguin, editor Janet Austin for her insightful suggestions and great catches, Jeremy McNamara and Nhut Huynh for advice on Vietnamese food and culture (any errors are all my own work), super agent Selwa Anthony, and to the several close friends whose lives I have been encouraged to creatively re-interpret.