rivers of gold. Makes no difference. They want a rope so they can build a bridge from here to there. It starts with a rope. That’s you, Inspector. That’s you.”
I shook my head. “Don’t bet on it.”
5
The next afternoon, I went downstairs to complain about my phone. It was blinking, and it wouldn’t stop.
“That means you have messages,” said the clerk. With his wrist extended just so, he indicated the button on the phone that meant messages. “You push this and your mailbox will tell you what messages you have. We’ll make it easy. I’ll push the button; you listen,” he said. The message said I was to stand under the canopy at the front door at 1:00 P.M. It was almost one, so I started out the door. The man with the long stare had been at the far end of the counter, watching me, the whole time.
“Do we know each other?” I walked over to him. “Because if we don’t, you’re getting on my nerves.”
He shrugged, a gesture with no impact on a stare.
I went outside, and a minute later a black car appeared.
A little man jumped out from the passenger side and opened the rear door. “In,” he said. “Now.”
I got in. The same man who had been in Kim’s office was sitting in the shadows. He had switched cologne. The new stuff seemed to destroy oxygen and possibly affected the light as well. I’d never seen the backseat of a car so dark. It was like taking a drive in a black hole. That was not a comforting thought, and I started to sweat. The door slammed shut. Now all of the light from the outside was gone. I could see Zhao, dimly, but I couldn’t see my own body. When I held up my hands, they weren’t there.
“A nice illusion, Inspector. It gives people a sense of disquiet-who is here and who is not? Well, life is transitory, like pleasure.”
“We have business?” Maybe it was only an illusion, but for some reason I had no trouble seeing Zhao’s eyes. He was looking at me with unrelenting dislike. A stare may be unnerving, but it is basically passive. This look was launching a thousand poison-tipped arrows. “Or are we going to discuss Aristotle?”
The driver accelerated around a curve, and the car jumped ahead. We might have been preparing to take off, for all I knew.
“Some of the roads around here aren’t all that good.” I felt around for a seat belt. “Your driver might want to take it easy.”
“Don’t worry about the roads, Inspector, or belting yourself in. These are the least of your concerns.”
“In that case, let me go to the obvious question: What are the most of my concerns?”
Zhao laughed. He might have been a panther sitting on a branch above the forest floor, licking his paws and laughing. His eyes were embers; his teeth shone; his hair was sleek. For the first time I could make out what he was wearing. Black, all black-black sweater, black trousers, black shoes. They should have been invisible in the darkness.
“The most immediate of your concerns is simply how to stay alive.” The focus dissolved from his eyes. “I don’t mean right now. You’re in no danger at the moment. But next month, next year.” He sighed. “Who can tell, the times are so unstable. In such times, we need to be under-”
The car swerved violently to the left. I was thrown against the door, but Zhao didn’t move.
“You see, Inspector? This is exactly what I was saying. In unstable times, you need something secure, something you can hold on to.”
“And why do you think the times are unstable?” They must have removed the seat belt on my side, because I couldn’t find it. “Maybe there’s nothing wrong with the times.”
“Yes, that’s right. Exactly right. As usual, you’re on the mark. That’s what people have told me: ‘Inspector O is a man who can see through the fog.’ Can you actually do that?”
“Fog is not a problem.”
“No? And what is?”
“Bullshit is the problem. You’re wasting my time, Zhao. Get to the point.” I didn’t think I wanted him as a lifelong friend, so there wasn’t much to lose by being blunt. He wanted to scare me, rough me up mentally. So far, it wasn’t working.
Zhao’s lids dropped, and for a moment I thought he was dying. Sleek and dangerous one moment, dying the next. Not all that unusual, especially for a gangster. He opened his eyes again slowly. “You plan to go to Macau. I don’t think that is wise.”
“Not wise.”
“What happens in Macau isn’t your business.”
“Everyone seems to have a great deal of interest in this trip. Major Kim thinks it quite important that I go. So does Colonel Pang, as a matter of fact.” That was not strictly true, but it seemed to me that Zhao wasn’t a stickler for honesty. He and Pang apparently didn’t get along; I needed to know exactly how bad their relations were. It took less than a heartbeat to find out.
“If I were you, I would stay as far away from that bastard Pang as I possibly could. People like him are a deadly disease, and you don’t want to catch it.”
“Anything else? I like my advice in a big bag so I can keep it all in one place. When advice comes in dribs and drabs, it can get mislaid, you know what I mean?”
“Here’s something for your bag, then.” The window on my side opened. “Take a good look, Inspector. This is my territory now.”
“What is it about you people? This is not your country. It’s not yours, never has been, never will be-not now, not ever.”
Zhao cocked his head, the first sign I had that he was really paying attention. “Down, boy, I said ‘territory,’ not ‘country.’ I don’t need your ragtag nation. But I’m serious about my territory. What’s mine is mine. Do I make myself clear? And no one takes it away from me. Not Pang, not your brothers in the South. And especially not you.”
Something clicked. “You and Kim share a dangerous misconception. You both think my ragtag nation has already collapsed. You seem to think you can move in at this point to bite chunks off the carcass.”
“I don’t think.” Zhao lit a cigarette. His eyes reflected the glow. They became yellow and luminous, bright spotlights in the black. “Thinking is all about assumptions, and perceptions, and convictions. To think is to assume rationality, and that can be very fatal. I act on instinct.” Again, the panther, outwardly in repose, his head resting against the back of the seat, but every muscle alert, every nerve primed. “Yes, your country is a corpse. And you only have a few weeks, maybe a month, to decide whether to die with it or to get away. I can give you a comfortable new existence, a new life. I have money, friends, a place where you can enjoy life for the years you have left.”
“And what should I do to earn this reward of rebirth?”
“Do nothing, nothing at all. It’s an ancient principle, Taoist, not exactly in its pure form, of course. I have adapted it slightly. But the core remains intact.”
“The essence of the concept is effortlessness, Zhao, not ‘do nothing.’ Give oneself up to the flow of the universe, become in perfect harmony with Righteousness. That is not ‘nothing,’ but everything.”
“No!” He sat up suddenly. I saw the driver wince and turn his head, which told me that the conversation was being piped into the front. It also told me that the driver was missing part of his left ear. “No! I’m not going to get into a philosophical duel with you. I’ve given you a choice. Get out of my way or get run over.
