The Black Dragon (7 page)

“What happened to Sing Sing? And Mr. Chow?”

In all the chaos it seems they have vanished into the night. Even with the shock of the kidnap and fight buzzing his veins, Danny feels dismayed at that. What did the girl know about Dad? Why does it feel like he's met Sing Sing before? And what has happened to her?

They go back into the Golden Bat and survey the damage. Waiters are escorting diners out through the broken glass and upturned furniture, while two chefs mount a rescue operation for the fish, scooping the frantically twitching survivors into a plastic bucket.

In the midst of the chaos, sparked out between two broken chairs, is the man who shattered the aquarium.

Time to act
, Danny thinks. He crouches over the body, feeling his pockets, making the quick moves he used to watch Jimmy Torrini do in the pickpocket routine. Long fingers working quickly. Easier when your mark is unconscious, of course.

A lighter, some cigarettes. A return ticket stub for the Star Ferry. Today's date. A receipt for a shoe repair outfit called Heart and Sole in somewhere called Wuchung Mansions. Danny commits them to memory and tucks them back in Ponytail's pocket. He glances at the man's feet. One of his slip-on shoes has come loose and his foot is bare.

On the hard sole of his left foot is a neat tattoo—and there's the same pattern again! Forty-nine dots, seven by seven. Alongside are two Chinese characters.

Again, one of the dots is circled: second column in from the right about halfway down. Is it the same as the one in the diagram at school? It's hard to remember, and he curses himself for a moment for not “paying attention to detail.” Dad would have grumped about that. Zamora comes over, shaking his head as he too clocks the pattern.

“Major,” Danny says. “As my lifelong friend, tell me about this sign.”

“We'll talk later, Danny. Police will be here in a moment. That's the priority. Ah, there's my hat.”

He stoops to pick up his bowler and frowns. A hole has been blown through the crown. Zamora puts his index finger through it, waggles it thoughtfully, before reaching up to feel his head. “Must have missed by millimeters!”

But Danny isn't listening. “Can you at least remember if one of those dots on our hotel door was circled?”

“Does it matter?” Zamora snaps, his usual good humor now decidedly off balance. He stops himself short, holding his hands up in apology. “Sorry, Mister Danny. Bad day.”

Danny nods. He still has the lighter in his hand. It's stamped in red with the same characters as on the man's foot—and quickly he shoves it into his jeans pocket.

But his thoughts have slipped to Sing Sing again, the sense of disappointment deepening. After all, her disappearance during the kidnapping is pretty suspicious. He thinks about the toughened hands, her defensive manner. He sees the challenging, direct smile sparking her eyes—and wonders what she meant about Dad. Where is she now? Back with her triad friends? She must be with the bad guys. Otherwise surely she, or Chow, would have stayed to help. Waited for the police. Maybe her interest was feigned and nothing more.

Zamora goes over to the pony-tailed thug and gives him a nudge with his boot. The man groans and rolls away. There, tucked under his thigh, is a little snub-nosed pistol. The major looks around quickly, sees Danny is staring out into the street again, and then stoops to pick it up in one neat movement.

Over the sound of the rain on the restaurant's canopy comes the wail of a siren.

9

HOW TO READ SOMETHING HIDDEN FROM VIEW

The first police to arrive on the scene seem almost uninterested. When Danny and Zamora do eventually get to explain what has happened, the policemen simply shrug and seem more concerned with the damage to the restaurant.

“We need to get a move on,” Zamora barks. “
Comprende
?”

“Wait for boss,” the shorter one says. For a moment Danny is worried that Zamora will punch him, but the dwarf turns away abruptly, shoves his hands in his pockets, and goes to stare out at the street.

The rain thickens, falling in curtains of water from the Bat's awning. Danny sits on a bar stool, thinking hard about the events of the last twenty-four hours. First, there was Laura's heightened alertness—as if she was expecting something. Then, Sing Sing mentioning Dad from out of nowhere. There was that unusual jagged edge to Zamora—even before the kidnapping. And then there's White Suit and the stupid dots that keep turning up everywhere. But as to how these pieces fit together, he has no idea.

Ten minutes later a plainclothes policeman arrives, shaking the rain from his shaggy mop of hair.

“Senior Inspector Lo, B Division,” he says. “Organized Crime and Triad Bureau.”

“We need to get a move on!” Zamora says again, exasperated.

“Just need to go through details.”

Lo has sharp features, an intelligent face. A thin, white scar jags down his cheek. As he asks his questions he keeps glancing at Danny.

“I see. And tell me again
exactly
what your aunt was doing here?” he says, looking at Danny, interrupting Zamora's blow-by-blow description of the fight.

“She was investigating something called the Black Dragon—” Danny stops himself. Lo seems decent, but Laura's warning about corrupt police flips back into his head. Better to be on the safe side.

Lo pulls a face. “Black Dragon?”

“Maybe it was something else,” Danny says quickly.

“Why don't we do this down at OCTB headquarters,” Lo says, motioning them toward his unmarked car outside. “
Much
quieter there. No prying eyes.”

“At least they got those two
idiotas
,” Zamora says, looking back up the street as they make their way through the puddles. Ponytail is being led to a squad car, head bandaged heavily, eyes vacant, while the other man, still unconscious, is stretchered away to an ambulance.

And all this time
, Danny thinks,
the gang is spiriting Aunt Laura into the Hong Kong night. We should be out there. Doing something
.

He frowns and then strides toward Lo's car.

They sit in the detective's cluttered office and wait.

And wait.

Three hours pass and the clock hands shudder slowly to half past midnight. People come and go in the corridor. Men in shirtsleeves, others in jackets stamped with OCTB in big yellow letters. Now and then somebody peers in, raises their eyebrows—and then drifts away again. Zamora drums his fingertips on the desk and the rain keeps tapping away on the skylight overhead.

Adrenalin and jet lag are tugging Danny in different directions. Hard to tell whether he's buzzing, or going under from the sleep deprivation. He shakes his head.
I must concentrate. Keep focused
.

“Where's that
blasted
detective got to?” Zamora says, slapping the desk hard.

Danny looks out into the corridor, and as he does so, the door opposite opens. Slumped in a chair, and brightly lit by a desk lamp . . . is White Suit.

The drowsiness rips from Danny's system. Wide awake again.
I knew it. I knew he was after us! So they've got him. Maybe now we'll get to the bottom of it. Maybe Laura won't take long to find. Maybe even by morning we'll all be sitting round the breakfast table laughing about the whole thing
.

But then the man glances up, eyes widening a fraction as his gaze meets Danny's. It's hard to read the look. Could be surprise? Or anxiety? A bit of both. But there's also something conspiratorial in the look. Something that makes Danny wonder whether he's reading the situation correctly. White Suit gives a very small shake of the head—then someone kicks the door shut and the slam echoes down the corridor like a gunshot.

“Major—”

But at that moment Inspector Lo comes back. A smile on his face and two Styrofoam cups of coffee in his hands.

“Sorry to have kept you.”

“
Madre mia
. At last,” Zamora huffs.

“Thought you might need refreshment.”

Danny is about to ask about the man in the white suit—but then sees that little shake of the head again in his mind. Maybe not. With that movement the man was saying,
Don't say you've seen me
. Or
Keep quiet
. Something like that. Only an instinct, but there's not much else to go on right now.

“What we
need
is for you to get a move on,” Zamora says, jabbing the table.

Lo spreads his hands to placate. “We have Miss White's description out to all units, all informants. Ports and border control. We'll hear something soon.”

“Will the kidnappers ask for a ransom?” Danny asks.

“Very likely. Your embassy has been informed.”

Lo lights a cigarette, looking down at the paperwork on his desk.

“What about the scumbags you caught at the Bat?” Zamora says.

“It seems they may not have been involved in the kidnapping, Mr. Zamora.”

“Of course they were!” Zamora says, getting to his feet. “We
saw
it! And it's
Major
Zamora!”

“Please sit down,” Lo says, very calmly. “It's a bit more complicated. They claim
you
assaulted
them
, you see. They may press charges. One of them is badly concussed. And there's lot of damage in the restaurant.”

“But there were witnesses,” Zamora splutters.

“It seems nobody saw it happen.”

“One of them had a gun,” Danny says, frustration building. Maybe he can try something, attempt the mirror force again. Worth a try. Probably a tougher nut to crack, though.

“But we find no gun,” Lo says, tapping the desk emphatically. Danny does the same and shifts his breathing to match the rise and fall of the detective's chest. He emphasizes it with a slight movement of his hand, fingers wafting up as Lo breathes in, down as he breathes out. In, out.

“What about Detective Tan? The one Miss Laura was trying to find?” Zamora presses.

“Detective Tan is on holiday, I'm afraid.”

“But Laura said—” Danny stops himself short in time.
Need to focus
.

“Hawaii, I believe.”

Lightning flashes in the skylight overhead. As Lo glances up at it, Danny does so too.

“What about the tattoo on the man's foot?” he says, trying to pace his voice into the hypnotic rhythm, the one Dad always used to relax, persuade, mesmerize his “marks.” He opens his eyes wide, showing the colors. “The pattern. You're going to tell me what those forty-nine dots are, aren't you!?”

The detective returns Danny's look, stubbing out his cigarette irritably. “No idea,” he says. “No idea at all. And the way we do things is that I ask questions. OK? You've had a shock. Let
me
do the police work . . .”

Danny sits back, deflated and rather embarrassed.

“And what about the Chinese characters next to the pattern?” Zamora insists.

Lo fires up his laptop. “They just say Kowloon, Mr. Zamora. Nothing else. Now, just need to do one more form. P28. Shouldn't take twenty minutes. Maybe a little bit more.”