The Black Dragon (5 page)

He keeps looking for a long time before finally twisting back again.

Zamora glances at him. Not hard to see the mixture of anxiety, excitement, and grief playing on Danny's face.
Going to be a bit of a balancing act
, Zamora thinks.
We need to lift the boy's spirits
.

But we need to keep our eyes open too. Just in case.

6

HOW TO TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS

They turn along the waterfront. The traffic has snarled, bumper to bumper. People nudge to change lanes. Horns blaring.

It makes Danny think of the Khaos Klowns doing their Demolition Derby routine: souped-up bumper cars ramming across the arena, colliding in flame and smoke as the band thumped out a fuzzed guitar riff. One by one the Aerialisques came dropping from out of the air on their bungee cords, plucking the drivers from their dodgems—the Klowns suddenly sprouting angel wings as they ascended in the girls' arms—and calm slowly returned to the arena. He finds himself smiling. Almost as if he chose to have that memory . . .

Laura claps her hands, breaking the spell. “Attention in the back, please. I'm going to get Mr. Kwan to drop you and the bags at the Pearl. I've got to go and meet Detective Tan, my contact.” She scribbles on a business card and hands it to Danny. “This is a restaurant in Mong Kok. Across the harbor in Kowloon. Take the Star Ferry and meet me there. Eight o'clock sharp.”

They lurch onto the forecourt of the Pearl Hotel, a great slab of glass commanding Victoria Harbor. The taxi backfires as Mr. Kwan brings it to a stop, and Danny looks back at the puff of smoke from the exhaust.

Through it he sees White Suit again.

The other taxi, presumably the same one from the airport, has pulled up some way back and the tall, thin man is on the pavement, chatting to his driver through the window. Again, as casual as you like. But then the man glances, for a fraction of a second, straight in Danny's direction, before a green tram trundles past, obliterating him from view.

A coincidence?

Danny nudges Zamora. “I'm not sure, but I think we're being followed. Don't look round too quickly, but a tall man, white suit.”

“Come off it, Mister Danny!”

“I'm sure he was at the airport. And now he's here.”

“Then he's probably staying at the same hotel.”

Mr. Kwan is piling cases onto the pavement and a bellhop starts loading them onto a trolley. “Here, let me help, young man,” Zamora says, swinging out of the cab and effortlessly picking up the two biggest. “Our fault for bringing so much.”

Laura ruffles Danny's hair.

“Aunt Laura—”

“No time now. I just need to speed-freshen.” She takes perfume from her bag and sprays her wrist liberally. He's never really liked its cloying smell and he wrinkles his nose. Laura looks into Danny's eyes, holding his gaze for a moment. “Do what the major says. At all times. Understand?”

“But—”

“It'll have to wait!”

Reluctantly Danny gets out of the taxi.

Laura taps Mr. Kwan on the shoulder. He crunches the gears hard and sends the car lurching into an almost nonexistent gap between the cars and a tram. In seconds they're gone.

Danny turns round to check for White Suit. The man's still there by his taxi and seems to hesitate for a moment, throwing another glance at Danny—right at him—before snapping back into his own cab. Kwan's car is lost in the traffic ahead, but you can tell where it is by the exhaust coughing from its tailpipe. White Suit points after it, and his own taxi darts forward. It clips a delivery van a glancing blow and is away down Connaught Road, to a fanfare of protesting horns.

Danny watches it for a moment before turning to Zamora, eyebrows raised.

“You see?”

“I dunno, Mister Danny. Crazy place.”

“Didn't you see him?”

“Just some josser in a hurry,” Zamora says. “Like always. Like your aunt. Not like us circus folk.”

He shakes his head and goes in through the revolving doors, keeping his eyes lowered. “Crazy.”

Maybe this White Suit business is nothing
, Danny thinks.
Maybe Laura did change her plans at the last minute. Maybe she has told me everything she knows
. And yet, deep down, he knows that's wrong. In the circus you were taught to trust that sixth sense, that survival instinct. Somewhere—quietly at the back of your mind—it might be whispering its warning.

And it might just save your life.

7

HOW TO CATCH A FURTIVE DWARF

The Pearl Hotel may be anonymous but it is certainly grand. Potted palms and acres of marble. Mirrors and polished chrome reflect the uniformed bellhops, while the wealthy men and women lounging around look bored and irritable.

Danny watches Zamora chatting to the receptionist, the dwarf's infectious laughter punctuating their conversation. The major's solid presence is reassuring, and despite the questions ticking away in his mind, Danny decides to let things lie. At least for now. Zamora turns away from the desk and comes back over, scratching his head.

“We're on the seventh floor! Could be worse. Height-wise, I mean!”

“How'd you ever manage in the circus, Major?”

“It's OK if I'm doing something. Like riding the wall. And the cannonball thing was always over so quickly I didn't realize how blinking high I went. Until I saw it on video one day.”

The dwarf grimaces, shoulders Danny's bag along with his own, and leads the way to the elevators. Danny checks over his shoulder as they go, the sudden urgency of White Suit's actions out on the road still dogging his thoughts.

In Room 712 a floor-to-ceiling window reveals a dramatic panorama of the harbor, the sprawl of Kowloon on the far side, clouds boiling up over the hills, and China beyond. Zamora approaches the window and peers at the sky uncertainly.

“What shall we do first, Mister Danny? How about showing me this jumping man of yours?”

“OK. I'll find my cards.”

“Good. Then we'll see about—”

Zamora stops mid-sentence, his head cocked on one side, as if listening to something. Nothing obvious to be heard above the hum of the air con, but the lines on the major's brow deepen.

“Tell you what. How about you practice a couple of times? I'm just going to have a quick word with the concierge. Won't be a moment.”

It's Danny's turn to frown now. A distinct note of tension has crept into Zamora's voice.

“I'll do our secret knock when I'm back. Like the old days, no?”

Puzzled, Danny goes to sit by the window, riffling the cards through his fingers, watching Zamora move stealthily toward their door. The major pauses there for a moment, again listening hard, and then slips out of the room. Danny hears him muttering away in Spanish under his breath, and then the door snicks shut.

Weird. There's definitely something up, and yet again things are being kept from him. He drops the cards back into his pocket and moves silently across the room, pausing by the door, and—yes—there's a faint sound to be heard. Like someone breathing in a labored way, a dry rasping sound.
OK then, so let's see what's going on
.

He whips the door open and catches Zamora crouched on the floor, caught in the act—of what? The major half falls into the room, and then looks up at Danny. Something guilty in that glance.

There's a paper tissue in his hand, and, low down on the polished wooden door, a smudge of what looks like chalk.

“Some kid must have been playing around,” Zamora says.

But what remains of the graffiti grips Danny's attention. There are two and a half tiny rows of dots neatly done right at the base of the door. Above that they smudge into a chalky cloud.

“Think I'm only making it worse,” Zamora says, rubbing away again at the pattern.

Something familiar about the dots
, Danny thinks, even as the last of them disappear.
I've seen something like it. Recently
.

He closes his eyes. Something here in Hong Kong? No, before that. How many dots in the row? Six or so? At school, after the explosion. He remembers that charred paper he stuffed into his back pocket.

“Major,” Danny says. “I saw a pattern like that at school last week. It was a square, made of dots. Seven by seven, I think. Was that the same?”

The strongman stops dead, sucking a breath in through his teeth. He feigns nonchalance—the kind of thing he forced each time he lowered himself down the barrel of the spring-loaded cannon.

“Seven by seven, you say? At school?”

“Yes. After the explosion.”

“Did you tell Miss Laura about it?”

“No. I forgot about it. Until just now.”

Zamora's on his feet, stuffing the hankie into his pocket and striding toward the phone on the desk. “Think I'll just give her a quick ring.”

“What does it mean?”

“Hmm,” Zamora grunts. “What?”

“That pattern.”

Zamora puffs out his cheeks, listening expectantly. He shakes his head.

“Switched off.”

“And the man in the white suit. The one following us?”

“
No hay problema
. But do you know what, Mister Danny? I'm not so keen on this room after all. Let's see if we can't get it changed.”

“Answer me!”

But Zamora just shakes his head and reaches for the phone.

There were two kinds of silence that used to fall in the circus trailer after a long day on the road, or after a performance.

There was the easy one: when Mum and Dad would potter around, removing their stage makeup, preparing a meal on the little stove. Nothing to be said, just the peace that comes after rewarding effort. A day gone well.

But then there was—occasionally—the strained one: the uncomfortable silence when something was going unsaid. A rare, unvoiced disagreement, a strain in the connection between them. Something fragile. First Dad, then Mum would glance at him, then look away again, and the air in the trailer seemed heavier. There were a lot more of those silences on that final tour as they ticked off the cities and headed toward Berlin. Destiny. Cold weather locked around the Mysterium, somehow making the unfathomable hush all the more glacial.

Now, in a new hotel room five floors higher, a silence as heavy as any of those has descended. From time to time, Zamora tries Laura's mobile, the lines furrowing deeper on his forehead, and then goes to gaze again at the harbor, his vertigo forgotten.

Eventually after one last try he bangs the phone back on the desk. “Now it's gone to unobtainable. What does that mean? She's always gabbing on the thing. Or Twittering or whatever it's called.”

He coughs and turns round, staring hard at the floor. “Well, we'll see her soon enough.” Then he tries to lighten the mood. “Well then, Mister Danny. How's school? Made many friends?”

“They think circuses are for little kids.”

“Goes to show how much these jossers know. Remember the Khaos Klowns, for God's sake. They even gave me the willies. And the Aerialisques? Hot stuff, no?” He laughs, but his heart's not in it.

Danny is fidgeting the cards between his fingers again.
I always thought Zamora would tell me everything
, he thinks.
Never treated me like a little kid. Not even when I was tiny
.

Frustrated, he picks the top card from the deck, and with a sharp snap of index and middle fingers, sends it hissing through the air. It strikes the desk lamp on the far side of the room with a clunk. Bullseye.

“Did old Blanco teach you that?” Zamora says.

“Yep.”

“Best knife thrower I ever saw.”

Danny goes over to Zamora at the window. Purple and black clouds are packing the horizon, bruising the sky. His fingers keep fiddling the deck anxiously—and suddenly it slips and he's fumbled all the cards to the floor. He turns to face Zamora.

“Do you know what this diagram is . . . the dots?”

“Oh well,” Zamora says, flapping his arms in discomfort. “Probably nothing.”

He turns away, trying to bring the subject to a close—and silence falls again. Suddenly it's not the reunion Danny has hoped for.

“So why change our room then? Why the rush to get Laura—”

“Blast it all, I'm sure there is nothing to worry about,” Zamora snaps, an edge to his voice that brings Danny up short.

“Sorry. Just tired,” he says, flopping back on the bed and closing his eyes. “Let's recharge a bit before dinner.”

In seconds, just like the old days when they had arrived in some new city and finished the pitching of the encampment, he's fast asleep, leaving Danny to stare out at the harbor.

He eyes the clouds, mulling over the day and its developments. There's a storm gathering. You can feel it charging the air.