Emerald (7 page)

With that, the phone went dead, and Tam stared at the silent instrument in his hand until the busy signal snapped him back into a vague reality. Dropping the receiver into its cradle, he looked again at the large lump on the bed mostly covered by a dirty sheet and shook his head. Who was this?

He staggered across the small room, grabbed the half-full bottle of cheap gin on the broken coffee table, and sat down hard on his one chair that still had four legs. Lifting the bottle to his lips, he gulped. His befuddled brain beginning again to focus, he dropped the bottle to his side and remembered what White Paper Fan was talking about.

His friend, well, whatever friend one could have in this business of theft, murder and betrayal, had crossed the Triad and not turned over to them all the gold from the last shipment. Tam knew about the double-cross, but had kept the secret. All the Triad knew was that Tam had not kept the date to reveal when the shipment was to arrive in Hong Kong. Several days after the gold arrived, the Triad found his friend in some posh hotel in Singapore, with several gold bars still in his possession, and returned him to Kowloon to be an example for the rest of the Triad’s “employees”. Tam, along with the others, was to stab his naked friend with a long steel barbecue fork passed around to each person in the loft until death delivered that final blow. Then the still-warm body was unceremoniously thrown on the large grill in the loft and burned, while everyone choked and gagged on the smell of the burning flesh. Now he knew there was no way he would fail in this last chance before some equally vicious fate would befall him. Tam threw the gin bottle across the room, both in anger and in an attempt to put his thoughts completely out of reach. With the crash of the bottle the lump in his bed sat up startled, the sheet falling to her waist. She stared at him through disheveled hair covering much of her face and flabby arms struggling to cover sagging breasts, her mouth open.

“Where the hell did you come from?” Tam shouted in disbelief.

“Don’t yell at me, mister, I got you home last night, didn’t I? You sure weren’t any fun last night, and if you don’t want me, just give the money you owe me and I’ll leave you to your bottle.”

“Money I own you? I don’t even remember you and besides looking you aren’t worth any money. Hell you should pay me for the bed you slept in. Now get the fuck out of here before I throw you out on your skinny ass.”

He started toward the bed with his hand raised.

She climbed out of the bed, grabbed clothes and without even getting dressed ran out the door. “Ok, Ok, don’t get your blood in a boil.

Finally, he forced himself into the shower, which was never hot, got dressed, and went to the bathhouse down the street to take a long, hot soak in an effort to clear his gin-warped brain.

It was just after six when he entered the street where the lights of the Tsimshatsui district of Kowloon were just beginning to flicker on, adding a sense of surrealism to the thousands of multi-colored neon shop signs. The foot traffic was beginning to thin a bit, and Tam knew that most of the sweatshop workers were on their way back to their little hovels for their meal of fish and noodles. The frantic pace of the city was beginning to soften, and he knew that soon the streets would be filled with those in suits on their way to bars and fancy dinners in their chauffeur-driven American cars.

Physically, he almost felt human again. That long bathhouse soak in the steaming tub had taken care of most of the alcohol in his blood stream and the hard massage had released most of the tension caused by White Paper Fan’s phone call. Now for a steak and all the trimmings and he’d be almost ready for the reclamation of his reputation with the Triad.

After a dinner that actually tasted good and leaving the Americanized native restaurant, Tam reached the bottom of Salisbury Road and watched the next Star Ferry to Hong Kong Island pulling into the terminal. The dark green and white oval shaped ferry began to slow and then Tam lost sight of it as he walked into the long tunnel-like entrance to the ferry terminal. Dropping a few coins into the turnstile, he began walking faster matching strides with other passengers hurrying toward the waiting boat. At the end of the platform, he turned the corner and started down the ramp toward the waiting ferry. In his haste, he stumbled on the slanted ramp, studded with raised strips of wood, just before he reached the gangway. He felt a push. He quickly regained his balance and glanced around at the others hurrying to board the boat. He saw no one that looked suspicious to him, and his hand came out of his pocket where, almost instinctively, he had grasped the handle of his switchblade. Finding a seat on the open deck near the entrance so he could be one of the first off the ferry when it reached the terminal on the Kowloon side of the bay, he relaxed, took a deep breath and looked around at the two dozen or so fellow passengers.

He had been out of work for the Triad for, what was it now, just three weeks, not very long really, and yet he felt somewhat rusty. His usually, when sober, sharp protective senses he always prided himself on seemed just a bit dulled. I guess I’ll have to watch myself. I wonder what the Triad has in store for me this time.

The bell rang on the Star Ferry, signaling the reversing of her engines just as the ancient boat slid along side the Ferry terminal on the Hong Kong island side of Victoria Harbor. The Chinese deckhand tossed the heavy woven hawser to his compatriot on the pier and scampered aft to do the same again at the other end of the ferry. The bell rang once more, and the passengers rose and began pushing their way to the exit. Tam moved to the rail near where he was sitting and watched the passengers quickly leave the ferry. He spotted no one that raised his suspicions, so he exited the boat and walked up the gangway toward the taxi stand on Edinburgh Place opposite the general Post Office. As he left the entrance of the Star Ferry Pier, he hesitated. Should I take a taxi or should I walk? Glancing at his watch, he saw that he had plenty of time to leisurely walk the few blocks to the rendezvous spot on Wing Kut Street, so he stepped into the street, still busy with traffic at this hour. The sidewalk traffic had thinned out considerably, and Tam could stride out quite rapidly without bumping into every sixth pedestrian.

As he walked long, he began to worry about his meeting in a few minutes with White Paper Fan, the Dragon Head of the Triad. After the last fiasco when he had been drunk and failed to take the information to White Paper Fan in time for their planning session, he had pretty much dropped out of sight. Oh, he knew that he could never disappear from the Triad entirely, unless they wanted him to, but he thought perhaps they’d leave him alone for a while. No such luck.

He walked along Connaught Road Central for four blocks, past the tall marble and glass banking buildings, trying to walk a straight line so the hurrying pedestrians would have to dodge him. This gave him a sense of purpose and power. Traffic on the streets was still busy. He turned right and up Wing Wo Street, left on Des Voeux Road Central, past more huge buildings spewing late-working, suit dressed men onto the street. He wondered what it would be like to work in one of these massive buildings. Crossing the intersection he walked past the Fu Hing Building and entered an unlit, nondescript brown door, tucked between two small jewelry shops that he knew were fences for stolen gems. Tam took in a deep breath of cooked fish and rice and climbed the wooden stairs. Walking to the end door on the right, he knocked softly three times, then paused and knocked once again. A buzz sounded. He turned the knob and entered a dimly lit room.

Squinting a little to adjust his eyes to the dim lighting, he saw the obese figure in a gaudy red and gold robe, sitting on a huge, padded, blue, Chinese chair.

“Come in, Come in, my favorite drunken 49-boy,” the high-pitched voice of White Paper Fan said. “Come closer and let me smell your breath. If you have been into the bottle since I talked to you earlier today, we can dispense with your possible assignment and just move on to your disposition. Now come over to me and breathe on me.”

Tam was always amazed that such a small, squeaky voice could come from such an obese human being. As he walked over to the huge man, he could smell the nauseating odor of the cheap perfume mixed with an unwashed body. Tam wanted to gag, but steeled himself, walked to the man, leaned over, and breathed heavily onto the mass of flesh that was a face.

“Well, well, you have developed the skill of reviving from one of your drunken stupors quickly, haven’t you? Now let us see if you can revive your career with the Triad. This won’t be as easy as getting sober, but it’s your last chance. We have received information that there will be an auction in Geneva, Switzerland of a very special emerald that someone connected to our little operation would like to have in his personal collection. Your job will be to fly to Geneva, get the emerald, and take it to our client in Germany. The details of your assignment, airline tickets, a little expense money, your contacts in Geneva and Munich, are in that packet on the table by the door. The financial arrangement for you to bid have already been put in place with the auction house, so we won’t have to worry about you running off with our money. Now go and get out of my sight before I change my mind. I would wish you luck, but deep down I hope you will fail us, so I can hurt you the way your mother hurt me by screwing that British bastard years ago.”

Within five hours of leaving the smell of White Paper Fan, Tam took a taxi to the Kai Tak Airport, checked in, and attached himself to a vacant seat in the Lufthansa boarding area. He watched the people around him for a while, wondering what was in store for them wherever they were going. His eyes grew heavy and he slumped in his seat, leaned his head back and began to think about himself and where he had gone wrong with his life.

He knew that despite his dissolute lifestyle, he still could present himself, when sober and prepared that is, as a very knowledgeable gentleman, a connoisseur of the arts. And, he had the education to back it up. He had a black belt, or close to it, in some ancient form of marshal art, he couldn’t remember which one at the moment, and it had been a long time since he needed to use that, except to once in a while roll some other drunk to get more drink money.

He knew because of his background, the Triad had chosen him in the past for stealing shipments containing art objects, jewels, paintings and historical artifacts. He could quickly tell if the items were genuine or not. He knew his usefulness to the Triad relied only upon his expertise, not in the phony flattery White Paper Fan laid on him, or his shaky martial arts. He knew that Fan just needed to stroke his own ego and belittle him in the process, but he also knew that Fan was vicious and willful enough to kill him, even outside the Triad’s territorial oversight. He knew his key to escape this chaotic, messy life was money, and lots of it. If somehow he could make a big score he might find his way to some Pacific island where he could drink and screw native girls all he liked. There he would be free of the Triad grasp. At least he knew it when he was sober. But booze always seemed to get in the way, and he knew that, too. Knowing all this didn’t make anything better. Sue Lai Mee, his only real love was still dead, had been for five months now and his heart had died with her, and nothing really seemed to matter after that.

His few friends wondered why he was still alive in the Triad especially since he had botched his last four jobs because of his drinking. Now no one would seriously consider him for a job of any sort any more they thought. But the occasional job for the Triad provided the only means of an income since he didn’t have a wife or relatives to care for him. He knew there were Triad members who watched him constantly because he wanted out and they knew if he ever got a chance to make some good money and run, he would. Maybe this trip to Europe and this emerald might be his chance.

Tam was jarred from his reverie by the loud announcement of his flight. As he got up he threw his paper coffee cup in a trash bin and noticed he had spilled some on his pants. He waited in the boarding line, wiped his pants with a handkerchief and noticed a man smiling at his attempt. On the plane, his small bag stowed in the overhead bin, he waited nervously for this adventure to begin. Reclined his seat in the Lufthansa coach section after the seatbelt sign flashed off, he opened the heavy manila envelope White Paper Fan had given him and began to re-read the instructions he had already read several times before he caught his flight. After reading them again, he started to formulate a plan in his mind for escape, but in a few minutes, the roar and vibration of the giant air ship lulled him into a fitful sleep.

H
ans stood for a moment, put on a pair of Fendi glasses, adjusted the handkerchief in the pocket of his charcoal, pinstripe Gucci suit, and made sure his tie was tight and straight before he opened the ornately carved door, and entered Christie’s Geneva branch of the international auction house. As his eyes became accustomed to the filtered gloom, he saw all of the clutter in the room, which surprised him. The shelves lining the walls were filled to overflowing with books and catalogues of every size and shape. Object d’art and paintings leaned against every available table and filled the few wall spaces between the bookshelves. Hans noticed the ancient Oriental carpet showed a definite wear path from the front door to a door at the rear of the room. This place looked more like an old neglected antique shop than the local office of the most prestigious auction house in the world. Had he made a mistake about the address?