Dead heat, p.17
Dead Heat, page 17
Windsurfers Do It Standing Up.
The Chens wanted Lee, and she wanted her mother. What was Lee doing here?
He peeled himself from the palm and leaned against her car’s bodywork. The Band-Aid had gone, and she could see a row of neat stitches along the jagged tear in his right ear. Another wound to wear along with the rest of his fighting-dog scars.
He looked at her bandaged hand on the steering wheel and said, ‘Did they do that? Chen Xiaoqiang and his gang?’
‘Yes.’
He looked away.
‘I’d like to see them dead.’ Her tone was harsh.
‘You’re not the only one.’
He took a slow pull on his cigar and inspected the glowing stub while he exhaled. ‘How’ve you been anyway? Aside from the hand, I mean.’
‘Sweaty.’
‘Yeah. Stinking, isn’t it?’ He glanced over his shoulder at the park office, its whitewashed walls barely visible through the banana trees, then back. ‘Why’d they let you go?’
She decided to give him as little information as possible. ‘What happened to the hire car? The car you left in the creek?’
‘I got rid of it.’
‘Why? They went mad. Ronnie Chen hired it and they were going crazy—’
‘I hired the car. I just used Ronnie’s name. His driving licence. His credit card.’
‘Why?’
‘Smokescreen.’
‘Smokescreen?’ she repeated blankly.
‘Yeah.’ He took a pull of his cigar. ‘You know I worked with the RBG?’
She swallowed drily. ‘I might have heard something about it.’
‘From your mate Daniel, no doubt.’
She didn’t respond.
‘Well, I kind of fell out with them. I’m now freelancing, you could say.’
She was about to ask about the two guys from the Dragon Syndicate in Fuzhou, when he said, ‘What occurred with Chen Xiaoqiang and his mob?’
‘What occurred?’ An urge to hit him, to shake him out of his composure swept over her. ‘Oh, nothing much. They just took a pair of secateurs to me, shortened my finger a couple of centimetres, grabbed a baseball bat and . . . and . . .’
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him about her mother.
He was watching her unblinkingly. ‘And what?’
She looked away. ‘Nothing.’
He took a studied drag on his cigar, looking to one side and at a bunch of coconut palms. ‘They’ve got someone, haven’t they?’
Georgia switched her gaze inside the car and at the speedometer, splintered with cracks.
‘Who is it?’ He suddenly sounded weary. ‘Tell me, Georgia. Who are they holding?’
The way the cracks ran from the dial made it look as though someone had slammed a screwdriver in its centre. Vaguely she wondered if that’s what had happened, and if not, how the dial came to be broken.
‘Georgia.’ His voice was soft, insistent. ‘Tell me who they’ve got.’
Her voice choked as she admitted, ‘My mother.’
‘Your mother?’
‘They’re keeping her hostage.’ She couldn’t stop the tears welling. ‘They want me to find some disk. The one Suzie had in her bumbag wasn’t any good. They kept asking for “the rest”.’
He looked down at his feet, rubbing the bridge of his nose. ‘And they want you to find me and turn me over to them. That’s why they have your mother.’
Her head jerked round to stare at him. He’d got it in one. No doubt being a criminal made it easy for him to see what the Chens were up to.
‘You haven’t called the police,’ he stated. ‘Any reason?’
‘They said they have friends in the police . . .’
‘Just the one.’
‘What?’
‘One dirty cop.’
Small pause while she took this in.
‘Who is it?’ she asked.
‘They keep themselves anonymous and get paid through a numbered account in Panama. That’s all I know.’
A horrible thought crossed her mind. ‘It couldn’t be Daniel, could it?’
Lee gave a choked laugh, almost a guffaw. ‘He’d like to see me strung up, sure, and he’s capable of creating his own agenda when it suits . . . He tell you about Amy Robins?’
‘Er . . . no.’
‘Whole town knows that story. You should hear it. It’s a real eye-opener.’ The amusement left his face as he added, ‘One thing certain in this world is that Daniel Carter isn’t Spider.’
‘Spider?’
‘That’s how dirty cops are known. They sit in their webs and pull the strings they want, stockpiling enough readies for a fat retirement.’
‘If I go to the police, will this Spider tell the Chens?’
‘Oh, yes. But they won’t kill your mum . . . What’s her name?’
‘Linette.’
‘Well, Linette’s more valuable to them alive than dead, as I’m sure you can appreciate. But having said that, should the cops get too close . . .’
She knew what he meant. The Chens wouldn’t hesitate to kill her mother, dump her body and get rid of any evidence of kidnapping.
‘So what should I do?’ she asked. ‘Can’t the police help at all?’
He thought it over briefly. ‘Not with Spider sitting pretty. The cops make a move for your mum, they’ll just shift her around. Make her even harder to find.’ He mulled a bit longer. ‘You tell anyone about Linette?’
‘Just you.’
‘Best keep it that way. Not a word to anyone. Not even your pal Daniel, okay? Or Spider will hear.’
She gave a nod.
‘Good. Because the only hope we’ve got of getting your mum back is to do it on tiptoe. Ask a few quiet questions in the right places. Find out where they’re holding her.’
‘How will you do that?’
Lee checked the tip of his cigar again. ‘I’ve ways and means.’
Damp with sweat, she shifted a little, feeling the indentations from the plastic seat on the backs of her thighs. For the life of her she couldn’t think why he would help her find her mother, and said so.
‘You really want to know?’
‘Yes, I do.’
Steadily smoking his cigar, he told her he was born in a river town called Fuling, which was noisy, dirty, overcrowded, and the streets rose up the sides of the riverbank so steeply they were like stairways and the residents had leg muscles thick and hard as rope.
He’d been eight years old when his grandmother, Hairlip Jiang, a Daoist fortune-teller he shared a room with on one of the lower stairways of Fuling, told him that if you saved a person’s life, you were responsible for them for ever. When he’d asked why, she’d sighed and rolled her rheumy eyes.
‘Ayieee! Young fireball, you know so little it makes me breathless! It is so simple that even an ignoramus like yourself can grasp it. When you save a person’s life, you alter their destiny. If you intervene with destiny, you must be responsible for it.’
He had argued with her about firemen, ambulance men and earthquake rescue services, but she said it was their job, so it was okay for them not to be responsible.
‘If you are walking along a river and you see a man drowning, think twice before you dive in and save him,’ Hairlip Jiang had insisted. ‘You might not only change his destiny, but your own.’
When Lee fell silent, Georgia said, ‘But that doesn’t make you responsible for my mother.’
He looked at her like her boss would if she hadn’t been listening at the sales meeting. Patiently, he said, ‘If I hadn’t saved you, she wouldn’t be where she is now.’ Tapping a length of ash from his cigar, Lee added, ‘Think of me as your own private hawk. Able to see far and wide and warn you of impending danger and, if necessary, to strike and kill in your defence.’
She wasn’t sure she found the thought of having Lee as her private hawk particularly reassuring, and remained silent.
‘They give you a deadline?’
‘Until Sunday. Then they’re going to’ – she took an unsteady breath – ‘kill her.’
He nodded. ‘We’ve five days. Enough time to sort something.’
Watching the way his lips closed around his cigar made something inside her shiver, and she felt a strange urge to touch him. It was relief, she thought, and gratitude. Relief she had an ally who knew about her mother’s danger, gratitude for an ally who was going to help get her back.
‘You got a mobile?’
‘Yes.’
‘Number?’
She watched him punch it into his own phone, cigar clamped between those lips that never smiled.
‘I’ll give you a buzz every day or so. See what’s happening.’
‘Can I have your number?’
‘I don’t think so.’ He put his mobile back in his rear pocket. ‘You have any luck with Suzie’s brother? Wang Mingjun? Know where he is?’
‘Not really,’ she said, then frowned. ‘How did you know his first name?’
‘Wang Ming Shu. Wang Ming Jun.’ He explained how Chinese names were different to their Western equivalents, in that their first name was their surname, their second generational, their third current. His was Denham Fong Lee. Hers would be Parish Davies Georgia.
‘How come you want J—’ She nearly said Jon by accident, and hastily amended, ‘Mingjun?’
‘It’s important I get in touch.’
‘What about?’
He shrugged. ‘This and that. You seen Carter lately?’
Her heart gave a bump. ‘Er . . . yesterday.’
‘Any news on finding who sabotaged our aircraft?’
He said it so matter-of-factly, like he had when they’d been sharing her deep-fried oysters on the beach, that she paused.
‘Daniel did . . . um, mention it.’
He brushed a speck of invisible dust from his arm. Studied his cigar some more. Then studied her. She found herself picking at her bandage, unable to meet his eyes. The moisture on her skin was like a layer of warm oil and she wiped her face, longing for a cold shower.
He said, ‘He thinks I’ve something to do with it?’
Startled, she looked up. ‘I didn’t say that.’
‘He knows me. He knows I’m not suicidal.’
She was on the verge of saying that Daniel thought Lee had fabricated the sabotage story when she was struck by a sudden sensation of being on a tightrope, balancing between two men with two different goals. One on the right side of the law, the other a fighting-dog with his own rules. She had no way of knowing what to say between them, and mistrusted each in their war against the other. She was defending them both.
Lee said, ‘So where’s the spoke in our wheel?’
‘Insurance,’ she said, and told him that if the plane’s sabotage was proved, the insurance company wouldn’t pay out. ‘Becky will owe the bank something in the region of sixty grand and it’ll cripple her.’
Lee frowned. ‘You’re right, but I’m amazed the insurers aren’t crawling all over it. They’ve an interest, after all. You know who they are?’
She shook her head.
‘My guess is someone doesn’t want us looking too hard,’ he said, dropping his cigar and grinding it out with his boot. ‘Bet Spider’s doing his worst.’
She was about to ask him more about Spider when he put a hand in his front pocket and withdrew his beeper.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Got to go.’
Immediately he spun on his heel and headed for his Mitsubishi.
‘No, wait!’ Georgia got out of the Suzuki and raced after him. ‘Do you know anything about Ronnie Chen’s murder?’
He spoke over his shoulder. ‘Sure, I do.’
‘Who killed him?’
He was already in his car, and had started the engine.
‘Lee!’
Snapping on his seat belt, he picked a gear and released the handbrake. He glanced across at her as his foot pressed on the gas.
‘You’ve guessed right. Don’t push it.’
Shocked into immobility, she watched the Mitsubishi barrel through the gates and swing right and away from the town. A handful of crimson bougainvillea petals drifted through the dust kicked up by his car and settled on the road. They looked like drops of blood.
Twenty-four
On her way to meet Yumuru at the gun club the following morning, Georgia thought about what Lee had said about hiring the car in Ronnie Chen’s name. A smokescreen. He had wanted to lay a false trail, she realised, tricking anyone following him into thinking Ronnie was alive when he’d just murdered the man. Lee had obviously ‘stolen’ Suzie, as the Chens thought, and it looked to her like it was a race between the Chens and Lee; whoever got Suzie’s brother won the war.
Also, Lee appeared convinced the Piper had been sabotaged, but she couldn’t be sure he wasn’t manipulating her to report this back to Daniel. Lee could tell her a barefaced lie and she’d never know it. The man’s rock-like face was perfectly unreadable.
When she arrived at the gun club she saw Yumuru was waiting for her in his Land Cruiser, and as she approached, he opened the passenger door and indicated she get inside.
Settled in the passenger seat, she watched as he reached behind his seat and, grabbing a large foil-wrapped package, plonked it in her lap. It was still warm.
‘You cooked breakfast?’ she said, delighted.
He gave a grunt.
Georgia unwrapped the egg and bacon sandwiches, and passed Yumuru his before tucking into her own.
‘I thought you’d be vegetarian,’ she remarked.
‘I am,’ he said around a mouthful of bacon sandwich.
She gave a muffled laugh.
‘Hey, don’t come the high horse with me,’ he protested. ‘We always had a cooked breakfast in the services, and it’s thanks to you I feel like I’m back in the army. You’re the devil, aren’t you?’
You little devil.
She was caught by a memory of her mother standing in the commune’s clearing in the rainforest, face startled. Georgia was nine and had a ragged, very thin, young dog at her side. She was out of breath, and so was the dog, whose tongue was lolling almost to the ground.
‘Isn’t that Jo Harris’s dog?’
‘She’s mine,’ said Georgia. ‘I’ve called her Pickle.’
‘I think you’d better take her back, before Jo gets cross.’
‘No!’ Georgia put a hand on the dog’s skinny spine. ‘Jo was kicking her and Pickle was yelping but Jo wouldn’t stop. Look.’ She showed her mother the bloody gash on the dog’s rear leg, the fresh scabs on her muzzle and belly.
‘You stole Jo’s dog?’
Georgia concentrated on stroking the rough fur on Pickle’s head. The dog looked up and gave a faint wag of its tail.
‘You little devil,’ her mother laughed.
The next day Linette went and bought the animal off Jo for fifty bucks. Georgia and Dawn ate nothing but eggs that week since their mother’s grocery budget had been blown, but they didn’t care. They had saved Pickle.
Around a mouthful of sandwich, Yumuru said, ‘How’s the finger?’
‘Better, thanks.’
‘It shouldn’t hold you up much. I’ll show you how to reload single-handed.’
He ran her through a preparatory talk while they ate, how to respect a gun, and when handed a gun, not to point it at anything she didn’t want to shoot and to always check and double-check it was unloaded. He ran her through safe ‘carry’ procedures for a loaded gun and when he’d finished his pep talk he passed her a pack of caramel Tim Tams.
‘Sugar hit before we begin,’ he said.
Her favourites. He was definitely a mind reader and was, as she’d hoped, a wonderfully patient teacher. He showed her how to use a 9mm Glock, a .38 revolver, a .22 rifle, then a .300 Winchester Magnum that had her ears ringing and her shoulder howling with pain because, Yumuru calmly told her, she hadn’t been holding the weapon absolutely correctly.
He showed her how to reload single-handed, and when they’d finished, he went to the restroom, returning with his hair wet and water soaking his shirt front as though he’d tried to splash away the cloying smells of gun oil and burned cordite.
‘The things I do . . .’ he said with a wry smile, then his expression turned sombre. ‘You’re frightened, aren’t you? Angry too, or you wouldn’t have spent the past two hours firing at a silhouette like it was a real person.’
He was right. Every time she’d aimed at the target, a black-and-white picture of an armed man racing toward her, she had pretended it was Jason Chen in his leather jacket.
‘Can’t you settle it without using guns?’ he asked.
‘I hope so,’ she said, but she could hear the doubt in her voice.
*
Come midday, Georgia was approaching Evie’s office, watching a cockatoo gliding past her, screeching away, and thinking how strange it was that such beautiful birds made such a terrible din, when she saw Jason Chen.
It was only a glimpse of him in the back of a black Mercedes sweeping past, windows open, but she knew it was him because he turned his head and looked at her, right into her eyes.
For a second, sheer terror drenched her, and then she was running after the car, yelling, ‘Where’s my mother? Where is she, dammit? Wait!’
The car powered away, quickly vanishing behind a thick clump of banana trees. By the time Georgia reached the park gates, the black Merc was nowhere to be seen.
Knees like putty, she put a hand against a palm tree and tried to regain her breath. He’d been waiting for her.
After a few seconds Georgia pushed herself from the palm and walked fairly steadily back down the road, trying to ignore her finger’s dull throbbing. The painkillers she’d taken at the shooting range had kicked in a while back and she knew it had only started aching again because she’d been reminded of those white plastic secateurs with the little black button on the side.
Jason Chen had wanted to make sure she’d seen him, to keep her scared, and let her know that he knew where she was staying. He saw her as he would a cockroach; insignificant and easily crushed.
