The Golden Mountain Murders (7 page)

T
wo days later Fong stared out the window of Agnes’s Fine Coffees on the main street of this peculiar little tourist town. Fong had purchased a Styrofoam cup of Agnes’s special blend and sat at the raised counter by the window. He watched the parade outside. Down coats, baggy pants, toques, snowboards, blond hair, fleece vests, bright colours – and packages. Everyone carried packages emblazoned with the names of incredibly overpriced stores. Behind the two-storey buildings on the other side of the street three steep jagged mountain peaks gave the lie to the surface civility of the place. The most southerly of the peaks shone white in snow. The other two were in shadow and bespoke the cold out of which the tourists were feverishly trying to buy their way.

To his right the Mount Royal Hotel modestly occupied a corner. Across the way the Ultimate Ski Ride battled for the public’s attention with the Rose and Crown Pub, the One-Hour Film Lab and the Shirt Company. But it was a small store beside the pub that held Fong’s eye: It’s In The Cards.

Although Fong understood that the place sold greeting cards – though he couldn’t for the life of him comprehend why anyone would need such a thing when all one needed was a pencil and paper – it wasn’t the items sold that drew Fong’s attention. It was the thought – It’s in the cards – that bothered Fong. The deeply fatalistic idea that one’s future is predestined, already in the cards – that the cards have already been dealt. The giving up involved in such a thought appalled Fong. The idea that trying diligently to make things better was futile, that hard work and honesty were useless in the face of predestination made Fong want to spit. The whole idea struck Fong as obscene. When he heard people accepting stupidity with a casual shrug of the shoulder or as in the case in Western China with the expression “Inshallah,” he wanted to take the person by the ears, shake him hard then scream into his face, “Wake up. Do something. Don’t accept. Fight back. Human beings are not dumb animals.” There are some things above our power to change but not everything. A stupid government decision is not some god’s will. A lazy, drunk, water controller who poisons his whole town is not enacting the will of some deity. Villages ravaged by AIDS are not part of the manifestation of some godly master plan. They are the direct result of human greed and have nothing to do with some heavenly will. They are not in the cards. They are the acts of men – acts that must not be accepted or excused. Acts that must be stopped, and pawning them off as some sort of predestination is nonsense and more importantly – dangerous.

The door to Agnes’s Fine Coffees opened and Robert, dressed in a suit wearing a topcoat, the only one that Fong had seen in Banff, entered. He headed to the back and exited out the rear door as Fong’s instructions had told him to. Fong waited and watched the street traffic. It all moved as before. No one stopped to stare into a store window across the way; no one stopped to tie a shoe. No car pulled over as if to adjust a rear-view mirror. And more importantly, no one followed Robert Cowens into the coffee shop then out the back door. A few minutes later Robert came around the block a second time. Fong nodded. Robert entered the shop a second time and took a seat at the back. Fong examined the street traffic again then moved back and took a seat opposite Robert.

“You’re the only one in this town wearing a suit and tie.”

“I’m the only one west of Winnipeg that even owns one.”

“Is that good?”

“I never thought about it. It’s one of those things that just is.” Then Robert thought for a moment and said, “You know who Waylon Jennings is?”

“No. Should I?”

“Not unless you like country music.”

“You mean like the Beatles?”

“No. Not like the Beatles. Country music . . . never mind.”

“What did Mr. Waylon say?”

“Mr. Jennings,” Robert corrected Fong.

Fong smiled. “You people still using the given name first? When will you learn?”

“Probably when we’re as old and smart as you Chinese.”

“Ah – could be a while.” Robert nodded and allowed himself to smile. Fong asked, “So what did Waylon say?”

“He said that he was a success because he turned fifty and didn’t own a single suit or tie.”

“You’re older than fifty, aren’t you?”

“Fifty-two.”

“You own a suit and tie.”

“Seventeen suits and more ties than I can count.”

“So you’re not a success then?”

“But I am.”

“Then perhaps Mr. Waylon is wrong.”

To Fong’s surprise Robert looked out the window. Then he adjusted his tie despite the fact that it didn’t need adjusting. When he looked up Fong was staring at him. “I don’t know Fong . . . I really don’t know.”

Fong clearly caught the note of hurt in Robert’s voice. He noted the man’s pallor. It wasn’t good. How sick had he been – or was he?

“By the by – you owe me a thank you.”

“I do?”

“Yep. I arranged to have your Beijing watcher picked up for loitering.”

“Loitering?”

“Kananaskis is a very tight little community – they’re not big on strangers. He should be out by now. I left a message for him to meet you in Calgary.” Robert giggled. It was a strange sound.

“What?” Fong demanded.

“Have you ever tried to find an address in Calgary?”

“No. I’ve yet to have the pleasure.”

“Actually the city is laid out in a very orderly fashion. Whole areas of streets have the same name like Crowfoot.”

“Isn’t that confusing?”

“In theory, no, because there is a Crowfoot Road, a Crowfoot Terrace, a Crowfoot Boulevard, a Crowfoot Crescent, a Crowfoot Circle and many more Crowsfeet than there are on an old man’s face.”

Fong didn’t follow that but he smiled anyway – it seemed to be what Robert wanted.

“The problem is that each of these Crowfeet roads feed into and out of each other. So once you are in Crowfeet land you should be able to find any Crowfeet address. That’s the theory.”

“And the practice?”

“Not always so simple. For example, I gave your Beijing handler 1249 Crowfoot – no road, boulevard, crescent et al. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if he’s still looking for you.”

“He’ll find me quickly enough. He’s no doubt already reported me at large.”

Robert shrugged.

Anxiously, Fong asked, “He’s not hurt, is he?”

“No, Fong. I’m a lawyer not a terrorist.”

“That is a kind of terrorist in some people’s eyes.”

“In yours?”

Fong paused. He stirred his coffee. “Terrorism takes many forms – hope, but a few.”

Robert didn’t know what Fong meant. Suddenly he wasn’t completely sure what much of anything meant. Why had he come first to Calgary and now to Banff? What the fuck was he doing altogether? But all he said was, “Huh?”

Fong looked Robert straight in the eyes. “If you stood at the top of a building whose lower floors were on fire – what would you do?”

“Wait for help?”

“And if the building was tall enough that you knew no help could get to you?”

“No way down?” Robert was suddenly fully engaged.

“None.”

“I’d wait until the heat got to me then I’d jump, I guess.”

Fong looked at Robert with something akin to wonder in his eyes. “Would you?”

“Jump? Would I jump, yes.”

“Would you?”

“Yes. Fong?”

Fong didn’t answer. He looked out the window at the mountains – snow-covered crests, trees clinging to life at every jutting. Then he shook his head.

“What, Fong?”

“Agnes’s special coffee tastes like dark water.”

“Ah, New York City coffee has come to the great Canadian West.” Fong looked back at him, a question rising to his lips. Robert beat him to it, “Never mind. So, would you jump, Fong?”

“No, Robert — I’d fly.” He almost added: like the guy from the Trade Towers but didn’t because he wasn’t sure either of Robert’s reaction – or his own.

Robert nodded. A path of perception opened and Robert in a simple synapsal flash knew why he was in Banff, Alberta, wearing a suit, a tie and an overcoat, and he knew that he had one thing left to do in his life – fly. Fly fly fly at the end of the day.

The old assassin waited patiently. He’d made himself wait all day, so waiting for a few more minutes didn’t bother him. In front of him in the line were a young American couple with two children. One was asleep in the arms of her mother; the other was pulling hard at the coat of her father. She had clearly had enough for one day.

“Now what?”

“You’ll like this, Beth.”

“I won’t. I didn’t like the other stuff we did today, why should I like this?”

Because it’s like candy, the old assassin said to himself as he felt the tug of his own desire for something sweet. That “tug” was now very much like an addiction, he knew. How odd to have an addiction at this point in one’s life. He’d heard that Brezhnev, the former Soviet leader, had had a serious smoking habit and that he had been given a silver cigarette case with a timer in it as a present by the Swiss ambassador. The timer was set so that Brezhnev, at that time the second most powerful man in the world, could only open the case and get to his cigarettes on the hour and the half-hour. Those who were in the know realized that if they wished to get anything from the old bear they had to schedule their meetings either just after the hour or just after the half-hour. If not, Brezhnev hardly followed the conversation because his concentration was fully on when he could get his next cigarette. An image leapt into the assassin’s head. A desperate military man rushes into Brezhnev’s office screaming: “Missiles are heading our way, Premier, what should we do?” But Brezhnev doesn’t answer. It’s seven minutes to the hour. All his concentration is on getting through those seven minutes to his next smoke. Missiles be damned, I need that smoke.

The assassin smiled. When he met Premier Brezhnev he had been sure to have his conference set for just past the half-hour. It had been a very successful meeting. The Bear had been smoking, happily. He had listened carefully as the old assassin had laid out the conditions upon which the Guild would accept work from the Russian. Brezhnev had commissioned two assassinations through the haze of his smelly Ossetian tobacco. The old assassin had bowed shallowly and replied that he would present the opportunity to the Guild. He did nothing of the sort. The Russians were the enemy – always had been and always would be.

Now he too had a habit, the old assassin thought. Sweets. He craved sweets – like this BeaverTail concoction for which he was waiting in line. He’d first seen a ski-jacket-clad woman eating one on the street. He had stopped and stared, then tracked down the source of the sticky Canadian delicacy, and now he waited patiently for his turn.

“In the car and out of the car and in the car and out of the car and in the car and out of the car . . .” the girl sang quietly as if to comfort herself – although it occurred to the old assassin that the child was commenting on the trip she had had with her parents. He looked at the parents. They didn’t seem to be having much fun either; maybe a BeaverTail would perk them up.

The BeaverTail was a disappointment. Although sweet, it was a wheat pastry. And wheat, though now popular in the New China, was not something that he had ever developed a taste for. So he picked the syrupy parts and the hard candy off the flat dough and sucked on them as he watched the sun set over the mountains that encircle Banff. I hope Fong is enjoying his time with the sick Long Nose, he thought as he watched the fading of the light. Quickly, he was surrounded by the darkness and the cold. He cast aside the remainder of the BeaverTail, purposefully missing the municipally supplied garbage can. Several passersby stared at him. One was about to comment then thought better of it. This overconcern with cleanliness reminded him of Japan. He hated Japan. A little filth was only human. It stopped obscenity like he had seen as a boy in Nanking during the war.

His training had not been completed when the word came to the school that they were all needed in the old capital. By then the Japanese had controlled most of China for almost a decade. The Manchu emperor was a contemptuous joke and the Japanese were bleeding China for all it was worth to support their war effort against the Americans. The Japanese soldiers who had invaded China were cruel but well trained. They were committed occupiers – Japanese descendents of the Samurai. In their own way honourable. But as the war wore on and China was no longer a military concern, the Japanese rotated their troops. These new soldiers were conscripts, often illiterate country people, who hated the Chinese with a passion that only a child can have for a powerful parent. The hatred had come to a boil when Nanking refused to surrender. A brief battle ensued and the much-underarmed Chinese were quickly defeated.

Then the Japanese soldiers were let loose on the populace. Thousands of women were dragged from their homes, stripped naked and gang-raped. Old men were nailed to walls, young men castrated, whole ancient inner-courtyard compounds were sealed shut with all their generations locked inside while the buildings were set alight.

Then the Guild of Assassins had arrived. They were not large in numbers, but they were trained to kill. His first night in Nanking the old assassin had killed seven Japanese soldiers as they sat by their guard post and told stories of Chinese women crying beneath them as they had their way. Of course he was not an
old
assassin then.