Live Bait (15 page)

She might have chosen the cat as a contrast to the pale blue silk cheongsam she wore. It flattered her and made all the compensation she needed for being small in the breast. She looked good enough to nibble.

I said, "Hello, thank you for asking me over."

She ushered me in, backing a pace to make room. I took a microsecond to glance through the crack of the door. There was nobody behind it. "My brother would not stay," she said.

I digested that while I looked around the apartment. It was sparely furnished with lean-looking chairs and a table that had not come from any of the city's bargain stores. The wall paper was Orienetal grasscloth and the few pictures were delicately Chinese flowers and mountain scenes.

"You have a lovely home," I told her, and wondered where the hell her lowlife brother had gone.

She nodded graciously and poured the cat down into a chair.

"Thank you. Some of my friends think it a bit too ethnic."

She played the word like a trump card and we both laughed.

I glanced around. "You brother doesn't live with you?"

"No." She shook her head vigorously. "I don't think we are, what's the word? compatible. Not since he grew up. Would you like some tea?"

"That would be great." I stood up as she moved to the kitchen and went with her. I have been in too many booby-trapped places to relax until I've scouted the ground. And I knew what kind of person her brother was.

She sensed what I was doing. "I assure you, Chang has gone," she said and smiled awkwardly.

I shrugged. "No matter. I'm glad of the chance to talk to you. Your brother isn't important." Nor would he be, unless he came whirling out of one of the back rooms, swinging a cleaver.

Then I relaxed and watched her as she prepared tea, moving with the same grace that had delighted me in Li. She filled the kettle and brought out a tiny pale blue porcelain tea pot with a handle held on with raffia. She put a few pinches of green tea into it and turned to face me.

"The reason I called you was to talk about him," she said. She was standing foursquare and it seemed to me there was an unusual toughness in her face. I wasn't sure if she had hardened herself to discuss her brother, or just to keep me at arm's length.

"What did you want to discuss?" I tried to keep my voice conversational. We weren't talking about the angry little punk she had sprung that morning. We were talking brothers, period. No harm in that.

"He wouldn't tell me what he had done," she said. The kettle began to steam and she turned the gas off with a faint pop. "I wondered why he would do anything so bad as breaking and entering. Nobody in my family has ever been arrested before. But he wouldn't tell me. He said that I was a woman and he was a man and I had no right to ask him any questions."

"A whole lot of men feel that way, not just your brother," I assured her. "I guess it's worse in the Orient than it is here but it's a common enough answer."

She poured the water into the pot. "That is not an answer, Reid." Her accent whispered on the edge of the R sound, almost transmuting it into an L.

"You didn't ask a question," I said, just as softly.

She put the tea pot and two little handleless cups on a tray and picked it up. "Now you are being evasive," she told me, firmly. "I wanted to know what he had done at your house."

I told her. She stood there with the tray in her hands, looking into my eyes. Then she nodded and ushered me through to the sitting room, pointing the way with her chin.

"Do you know where he works? Who his friends are? Where he lives, anything about him except that he's your brother?" They were hard questions but I had no way to make them soft for her.

She set the tray down on a low bamboo table. "I do not know much about him. He works for an importer."

"What's the company name?" I asked.

She paused, her hand halfway to the teapot. "Is this an interrogation?" she asked politely.

"Forgive me. It's a long time since I had tea with a girl. I've forgotten my manners." I sat back and said nothing and after a pause she poured tea for both of us. I took it and said "Daw jeh," and she laughed with delight.

"I thought you spoke Mandarin," she said.

"I'm a man of many surprises." I didn't bother to explain that I had learned the Cantonese for "Thank you" while eating a fried egg sandwich in the back of the Jade Pagoda in Murphy's Harbour. I could also say "Please" and had made Chong's wife collapse in helpless laughter by asking for a translation of "You are very beautiful." Aside from that I knew nothing that wasn't on the menu.

Su didn't follow it up anyway. Her mind was too much on her brother. She sipped her tea and said, "I do not know the importer's name. He has never told me. He doesn't tell me anything unless he has to."

I started to probe, more gently. "Is there any way I could help?"

She looked up, then down at her tea cup, demure as one of the painted figures on the wall behind her. "You would help me?"

"I would try." I knew enough about Oriental etiquette to leave it at that. I must give her no reasons, pay her no compliments. The whole business had to be dispassionate, no trouble to me, no value to her, otherwise she would be indebted and that would make the situation untenable.

She was more Western than Li might have been. She looked me straight in the face and said, "That would be very kind of you."

"Pleasure." I waved a hand. If I was going to be doing any favors for her, it was good that they would bring me closer to this case. I might find out who was behind it all and celebrate its end back here when all the shouting and chasing and locking up were over.

"I only know that he has a friend who works in a restaurant on Dundas Street," she said.

"Didn't he tell you anything more? The friend's name? The name of the restaurant?" Interest in the case was taking over again. I guess I'm a better cop than I am ladies' man.

She spoke quietly, not looking at me. "His friend is called Wing Lok. He works at the Palace Gates." Her voice sank to a whisper. "I don't think this friend is good for him. He loves to gamble."

I didn't call that a hot newsflash. All the Chinese men I've ever met, in Canada, or Saigon, or Hong Kong where I spent some R & R time from Nam, they lived for their gambling. It made their eighteen-hour work days more bearable.

"I'll go and talk to this Wing Lok and find out what I can about your brother." I would try anyway, if he spoke any English; it would be good to get an understanding of the nasty little hood Su's brother seemed to be. It might just open up the whole case and then I could finish with it and devote the rest of my time to calling around here.

Su was seated across the table from me and she put her cup down and looked at me, her eyes spilling over with gratitude. I stood up and set down the tiny cup. "No time like now," I said. She got to her feet, the cheongsam opening gracefully to the thigh. She had good legs, I noticed, without even realizing I had looked. And she was tall for a Chinese girl, perhaps five-three, her forehead reached my chin. On impulse I stooped and brushed her hair with my lips. And of all impossible imaginings she tilted her face to me, eyes closed, lips moist and I bent further and kissed her mouth.

I don't know what I expected, perhaps the dry scared kiss of a high school girl on a first date. I knew that she would not have the same intensity of emotion that Westerners did when they kissed. She was different, exotic, shy, scared, whatever. But when our lips met, I melted.

My arms went around the smoothness of her shoulders and I held her close, lifting her to tiptoe height as we clung together. And when our mouths at last parted, she did not open her eyes. You can tell me it was wrong, it was too soon after meeting, that our coming together had been full of too many old memories. I knew all that but I was disarmed entirely. I kissed her again, holding her to me until she opened her eyes and said, "I think you are a bad man, Reid Bennett," and giggled.

"What can I say?" I tried to chuckle but my voice was harsh with longing. This was not just a woman, something to take into the bedroom and make love to, this was the reincarnation of all I had longed for when I still was young enough to be innocent.

"I do not think my brother is very important to you," she said, her words formal but her eyes dancing.

I crossed my heart with a quick sketchy flourish. "Believe me, Su, he's the second most important thought in my head right now," I said, trying not to match her chuckle.

She laughed out loud and stood at arm's length to look me up and down. "You are very bold," she said. "But I think I know what to do."

She turned, still holding my hand, and led me through to her bedroom. She had a queen-sized bed covered with a down quilt in some smooth fabric the color of her golden skin.

She stopped beside it and turned to look me in the eyes, seeking what? I didn't know. I was intoxicated by her nearness. I raised my free hand and stroked her cheek. She rolled her face towards my hand, pinning it softly against her shoulder. Then she pulled her hand free of mine and reached over her back to unfasten the top of her cheongsam.

We undressed, in pace with one another, not speaking. Her body was lithe and hard, reminding me almost unbearably of the beauty of Li but I pushed that memory out of my mind. This girl was living and strong and lovely and I had survived those old scars.

I lifted her in my arms, bending my neck to kiss her firm little breasts, feeling the nipples ripen under my lips. She groaned, so quietly it was almost an assault to have heard her, and softened in my arms so that I lowered her on to the bed like a bundle of clothing. I caressed her concave little belly, gently exploring further until she stiffened and clung to me and climaxed.

"Quickly. Now," she hissed and pulled me down on to her.

Afterwards we lay, looking at the ceiling. I was out of touch, remembering the straw thatch that covered the mat where Li and I had loved. "You are very quiet," she said gently.

"That's what beauty does to me," I said, rolling up on one elbow. I bent down and kissed her nose. "If you were ugly I'd be talking your head off now as I grabbed my clothes."

"I am not beautiful," she smiled a tiny smile. "I know what I see in the mirror. I have a Han face, like five hundred million other women."

"There is nobody in the whole world who looks like you," I promised her. "You're special." And then she kissed me and we were back where we started.

Later we showered together and then she made tea and finally we embraced one last, sated time and I left, feeling as if I had just been handed an Olympic gold.

 

 

 

 

Chapter 19

 

 

T
he Palace Gates was a middle-brow restaurant new enough to serve Szechuan cooking instead of the traditional Cantonese food that used to be the only game in town. It had a double frontage and about fifty tables inside. Most of them were empty at three in the afternoon, just a couple of kids who looked like students from the Ontario College of Art around the corner and a pair of good-looking matrons discussing plans for the Bar Mitzvah of one of their sons.

I seated myself in a corner, remembering the way I'd been outfought the night before. I didn't want efficient little warriors coming at me from behind if Wing Lok decided he didn't like the look of me.

The manager was a well-dressed man in his fifties. He was Chinese, of course, but close to six feet tall, which was rare, and dressed in a dove-gray three-piece suit. It was a little out of character for the quality of the restaurant and I wondered if he was one of the big wheels in Chinatown. I knew the Chinese had their own internal organization, as rigidly defined as the city council and mayor. I wasn't sure what the significance of the authority was, but it mattered enough for men like this to dress as if they worked the Stock Exchange instead of a restaurant.

He came across to wait on me personally so I guessed that most of the help would be off duty. Probably Wing Lok with them, but I would try to make sure. I ordered a beer and pretended to be looking at the menu while I waited for the manager to come back.

He brought it and beamed as if it was the most fun he had had all week. I smiled back and asked "All alone today, no help?"

He smiled some more and allowed that there were very few people working, just the cooks preparing for the dinner rush.

"Is Wing Lok working?" I asked him politely. He did not quite start with surprise but I could tell it was unusual for a stranger to be looking for the help.

"Wing Lok is your friend?" The smile went on but I dropped mine now.

"Kind of," I said. "Is he here?"

The smile became even more urgent. "No. He not here until fi' o'clock." I wondered what made him so anxious. Had other foreigners been ahead of me asking for the kid? Was he the boy's father? What?

"Then I'd better wait." I said, "Maybe I could get something to eat, if the kitchen isn't closed."

"Of course." He handed me the menu but I just laid it in front of me on the table again.

"Have you seen him today?"

He was serious now. "Not today. He not in today. His day off until fi' o'clock."

"Yeah, well I have to see him. I'm with the government." His concern increased and I guessed I'd hit a nerve. Perhaps the boy was here illegally. There are around twenty thousand visa students attending boarding schools in Toronto. The city is popular, especially with Hong Kong Chinese. Most are legitimate but the occasional one gets in as a student and goes underground. Mostly it means only that they don't want to go home, they find opportunity in some restaurant or laundry but some of them end up in crime. At least, that's the word I heard once, when I attended a Provincial meeting on law enforcement.

The boss was smiling again, trying to avert whatever evil eye I represented. I put him at ease. "Not Immigration, Revenue Canada, it's about his income tax."

The sun came out on the boss's face. Income tax was no crime. He would pass my message. But I didn't let it ride there. "Where could I find him? I'm supposed to be off duty at four thirty and I don't want to wait around after that."