“So I noticed. It sounds a lot like holly.”
“Really?” Kang looked at Richie and smiled faintly. “Holly takes at least a couple of years to germinate after you put the seed in the ground, or so I’ve heard.”
Richie sat up. He seemed better, energized somehow.
“Holly…,” Kang said. “Tough little tree. Refresh my memory, what kind of leaves does it have?”
“Leathery, spiny.” I hesitated because I hated to give him what he wanted. “And glossy.” What a son of a bitch he was, both of them were. “And you two want to talk me into joining this loose resistance, I suppose. It was you who pulled me back into this sewer from the beginning, wasn’t it, from the moment that car stopped in front of my cabin. How you did it I don’t yet know, but if I go back and look, I’m sure I’ll find your paw prints.”
Richie was staring at me intently.
“Sorry,” I said, “but I don’t have the time or the inclination to help.”
“Is that so?” Richie had sunk back against the cushions. His voice was flat. “You went to Macau to help Kim.”
“I didn’t. I went to find out what is going on. Besides, I had to prove something to myself.”
“That’s fine,” Kang said. “That’s good. A little self-validation before the sheet is pulled over your face for the last time. While you’re at it, you might consider whether you really want to be treated like dirt between the toes of China. Because that’s what you’ll end up being. The South Koreans will lose the game; the Chinese will win. Seoul is a pack of fools. You want to join them? I wish you the best of luck.”
Succumbing to imagery never leads anywhere good. On the other hand, the mental image of 10 billion Chinese toes did carry a certain weight. “What do you propose doing about it?”
“We don’t need to fight the Chinese, Inspector. We don’t even have to make them unhappy. We need them to think we are prepared to cooperate. It wouldn’t take much. Colonel Pang is a reasonable man, as you’ve seen. It’s too bad he’s been marked to die.”
“Pang? Marked to die?”
“That surprises you? Not by us. Kim and Zhao have apparently decided they need to get rid of him. Kim is under strict orders not to rile the Chinese, so he’ll let Zhao and his viper do it.”
“Kim and Zhao are cooperating in this?”
“Not only in this.”
“What about Pang-I assume you’ve warned him?”
“Warned Pang? Why would I? He wouldn’t warn me if he learned that I was on a list for elimination. And he won’t warn you, either; don’t fool yourself into thinking he will. He’s very smooth.”
“This is beginning to sound like a class reunion. Is there anyone involved in this whole thing that you don’t know?”
“I haven’t had much to do these past long years but go over my mistakes, pummel myself for all the missteps, and think ahead to this moment. Believe me, I’ve thought about it. I’ve examined every angle. I’ve run through all the options. I’m ready to do whatever is necessary. My only question at this point is: Are you?”
5
That night, Greta drove me back to my hotel.
“You don’t like the brake pedal?” I said as we went through the gears.
“I’m saving it for someone special.” She pulled into a spot near the castle, with a view of the city. “You’re not as much of a coward as you pretend, are you, Inspector?”
“That depends.” We weren’t anywhere near my hotel.
“We went through a lot of trouble to bring you here.”
“So I noticed. It might have been easier if you’d stayed in Macau long enough to talk to me there.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Sure you do. You go there to gamble, or just leave messages?”
“Macau is an interesting place,” she said. “I’m sure you must have enjoyed your stay.”
“Something went wrong; the message didn’t get to him on time.”
“ ‘For want of a nail,’ isn’t that what they say?”
“You must know why he wanted that room, that particular room.”
She looked at her watch. “Deadlines loom, Inspector. Your hotel is at the bottom of the hill. It’s not that long a walk, though the cobblestones can be murder in the dark. Maybe we’ll see each other again.”
Her car disappeared before the engine even made third gear. As I made my way down the hill, I looked for a phone. It seemed to me that I couldn’t stand aside and let events take their course. If I knew Pang was targeted, he deserved to be warned. Yes, absolutely, I wanted him out of the country, back on his own side of the river. For that to happen, he didn’t need to end up dead. Whatever he had done to the captain was between the two of them. This was different; it was between Pang and me.
“The colonel isn’t here.” The voice on the other end was clear and crisp. There was no crackling on the line. We could have been within a few blocks of each other. More likely, the voice was in Beijing, ready to route the call to Pang once a few details were cleared up-like who had dialed the number and why.
“Yeah, he isn’t there. Never mind that. I need to talk to him, urgently.” I was using a pay phone, and I didn’t know how long I could talk. The woman who sold me the phone card in the tobacco store had been short-tempered. She was about to close for the night and didn’t like it when I showed up. After I fumbled with the money, she muttered to her husband, grabbed the bills from my hand, and held up a few.
“What?” she said in Russian. “Tabak?”
It was the only Russian she knew, or all she would admit to knowing. I wanted the most expensive phone card she had, but judging by how she threw it on the counter, I wasn’t too sure that was what I got.
“You need to talk to Pang urgently?” said the voice on the other end. “So do I. So do a lot of people.”
I figured I knew what that meant. “Something happen?”
“You have a reason to know?” The voice became full of thorns. “Where are you calling from, anyway? Who told you how to access this system?”
“Maybe I owe him money, a lot of it.”
A pause. “Well, invest it. Put it under your pillow.” Another pause, longer this time. “Never mind; forget the pillow.”
“He’s dead?”
“You could say that. His lungs were next to him when he should have woke up this morning.”
“Ah.” It was all that came to my mind. I took a deep breath and hung up.
PART III
