The six little kids finished their drill and lined up in three rows, bowed to their instructor, and then, temporarily dismissed, ran screaming with laughter to splash each other with water from a fountain at the end of the garden. I watched Steven and Maria watching them and thought, maybe what Steven had just told us was what he really believed happened. Maybe his bedrock dedication to family loyalty would not let him think evil of either his uncle or his son’s amah, and maybe this was the story Maria had told him and he bought it.
No, Lydia, I thought, as the master called a break, and the rest of the kids flopped on the grass, ran to the fountain, laughed and teased and poked each other. You’re exhausted, you’re hot, you’re running on empty, and this is not a good time for you to try to think, I lectured myself. Obviously, if Steven Wei knew enough to go to L. L. Lee, he knows most, if not all, of what’s been going on here.
Except, myself said back, answer me this: No matter how much he knew, how
did
he know to go to L. L. Lee? Maria didn’t know about Lee. Mark didn’t tell him. The only one who knew about Lee was Wei Ang-Ran, and he’d been not-quite-arrested in HKPD headquarters all night.
All right, I said to myself, all right, we’ll make a deal. The deal is: Shut up. This is a question you want the answer to because there’s no such thing as a question you
don’t
want the answer to, but it’s not an urgent question. Nothing is urgent now because this business is over. Probably when you get some sleep, and talk this over with Bill, or with Mark, the answer will be so obvious you’ll feel dumb for not having thought of it right now. So worry about this later, how about that?
Myself seemed too tired to argue, so the deal was struck.
I waited while Mark checked over the ID Steven had brought with him: passports, birth certificates, fingerprints from a time he’d done an audit for a government agency, school photos of Harry. All this had been gone over by the Marine District cops already, of course, and it all checked out; Mark just wanted to be sure, for himself. In the end, he was, and so was I: This man was Steven Wei, and Steven Wei was this man.
Mark told Steven, the Tiger Gate master, and the Marine District cop still stationed up there that Steven, Maria, and Harry could leave. We shook hands and bowed all around; then he and I climbed into our patrol car and headed back to town.
At first no one spoke as the car tooled along past peaceful houses with terraced gardens snoozing in the sun. Then: “I have to go back to Hong Kong,” Mark said. “I have reports to make, all that sort of thing.” He leaned back against the seat and breathed a tired sigh. His day, which had started yesterday morning, wasn’t over, and he seemed like he was suddenly feeling it.
I touched his hand. “You look exhausted.”
He turned to me with a small smile; then he folded his fingers over mine. “I don’t know about American PIs,” he said, “but this isn’t really the everyday life of a Hong Kong cop.”
“Us either.”
He looked a while longer. “Us?”
I shrugged.
He nodded. We didn’t say anything more on the ride to town. But he didn’t let go of my hand.
Mark took the next ferry back. Now that the case was wrapped up, a sleek, fast-running police launch would have been a luxury difficult to explain.
“It’s okay,” he said. “In fact it’s better. The slower the ride, the more sleep I’ll get.”
I waited for the boat with him; then, just before he boarded, I gave him a quick kiss good-bye. At least, I meant it to be quick. He had other plans for it, and when it ended he was grinning. “Sorry,” he said. “That wasn’t fair.”
“Yeah, you look sorry. I might have to report you for abusing your authority.”
The scar on his lip stood out the way it always did when he grinned, white now in his tired face. What is it with you and men’s grins, Lydia? I asked myself sternly, but myself had been ordered earlier to shut up and had nothing to say.
After the ferry left I turned and walked back along the waterfront street. It was only a few hours since breakfast, but I was starved, so I sat at a small round table outside a Taiwanese teahouse and had one of the thick neon-colored fruit drinks the Taiwanese like so much, and a couple of lemon cookies. I called the hospital, where they told me Bill was asleep but could be discharged later in the day. I watched the boats in the harbor and the strolling couples and the sleeping dogs until my drink was finished, and then I walked up one of the narrow streets into the town.
I went from shop to shop, buying first a sundress, a white cotton sleeveless affair with red piping and a sash that tied in the back. The proprietor let me change in the room behind the shop, which as it turned out was her kitchen. A shower would have been nice, too, but on the other hand the day was promising to be so hot that there was probably no point. I bought a bright blue backpack at the next store and stuffed in it the shirt and pants that had been so crisp and fresh yesterday morning, before the running around and the chasing people and the surf. I bought a bag of oranges and a bottle of wine, and though I was tempted, at the funeral-supplies store, by the paper boats and cars, the TV sets and cell phones, I didn’t know the people I was going to see. So in the end I just bought incense and tiny wine cups, and I set out.
The walk to the cemetery from the center of town was hot and hilly, though most of it was in the shade of wide-leafed palm trees. My steps fell into a rhythm, an easy, relaxed one, and I emptied my mind and just watched the houses and gardens go by me on each side, the tiles and the flowerpots and the trees. I reached the graveyard and passed through the oldest section first, the one with the half-moon graves and no photographs. Eventually I came to the newer areas, and with the aid of posted maps, I found the section that swept down to the sea.
At the bottom of the slope, on the spiky grass plain, twelve graves stood in the front row. The faces of the dead watched me now as they had watched us all at dawn, Bill and Mark and the cops and me. Seabirds called and the sun leaned hotly on my back as I poured a cup of wine at each of the front-row graves, lit some incense, and left an orange. The photos showed old men and old women, mostly, but two were young men and one was a child. Two were named Chin, and I knew I was as much American as I was Chinese when I wasn’t sure if that warmed or chilled me.
After I was done I climbed back up the hill and, again consulting the map, headed for the temple of Tin Hua. The walk there took another hour, some of it in shade, some in the full glory of the morning sun. The path climbed up and down, twisted and turned, taking every opportunity it could find to burst from leafy splendor into a clearing with a breathtaking view of the sea. After the fifth or sixth of these exuberant events, I paused to wipe the film of sweat from my face, to watch the white surf break on the golden boulders along Cheung Chau’s shore, to see the sun sparkle on the deep blue water and listen to the wheeling seabirds’ cries. If I were a path with views like this, I conceded, I’d probably be a little overdramatic and flamboyant, too. I wondered briefly what stone made golden boulders instead of regular gray ones, but I didn’t give it too much thought, because that was the kind of thing that Bill always knew. Although this was Hong Kong, a place so foreign and strange that maybe he wouldn’t have the answer. But if he didn’t, I could ask Mark.
The Tin Hua temple was a smallish affair carved into solid rock, its pagoda roof and half-closed shuttered front making the interior dim and cool. Every inside inch was painted crimson or turquoise or gold, every surface covered with embroidered cloth, statues of Tin Hua and her fellow deities, candles and incense burners and plates of offerings. The air was thick with smoke. Candlelight glanced off gilding and brass offering plates like lights winking on and off in the smoky distance. There was no sound but the surf crashing on the rocks below, but I imagined Tin Hua liked that.
I lit my incense and left my oranges, and then on an inspiration I bought an incense spiral from the monk who seemed to be the temple’s sole attendant. With a slender bamboo pole, he found a spot to hang the spiral on the crowded ceiling, and I lit that too. It was very long and thick; it would burn for a week. After I’d left Hong Kong, I thought, watching my smoke curl and blend with the smoke from other peoples’ offerings, after I was home, back in Chinatown, New York, America, this incense in the Tin Hua temple on Cheung Chau Island would still be burning.
It took me another hour to walk back to town, half of that along a flat path by the waterfront. I took a long, long drink from a water fountain on the path, and then stuck my whole head under the cool stream, rinsing my face, soaking my hair, letting water run down the back of my new sundress. By the time I reached the row of colored-roofed restaurants Mark and I had had breakfast in I was totally dry again. I went beyond that row to a shady plaza dotted with large dogs who seemed to think this cool, stone-floored spot was a great place to spend a day this hot. I agreed, so I chose a table at one of the cafés that fronted it. I ordered lunch—fish soup with carrots and noodles, and a pot of tea—and drank another gallon or two of water while I took out my cell phone and called my client.
It was 2 A.M. in New York, but Grandfather Gao’s “
Wai!
” sounded both calm and alert.
“It’s Chin Ling Wan-Ju,” I told him. “Everything’s fine.”
Grandfather Gao is not the type to sigh with relief, but the barely discernible relaxation in his tone when he spoke was the next best thing. “I am pleased to hear that, Ling Wan-Ju. Can you tell me what has happened?”
I laid it all out for him: Iron Fist, the prayer-seller, Tony and Big John; Wei Ang-Ran, Steven, and Harry; Mark, Maria Quezon, and L. L. Lee. My lunch came and started to cool on my table and I was still talking.
“I am sorry for what your partner has suffered,” was the first thing Grandfather Gao said when my story was done. I took advantage of his continuing, “Please convey to him my sympathy. I am deeply in his debt,” to slurp down some noodles.
“Thank you, Grandfather. He will be pleased to know he’s served you well.” I sneaked a quick piece of fish and, hoping the connection wasn’t quite good enough that he could hear me chewing all the way in New York, asked, “Grandfather, one thing has been troubling me. From what you know about Wei Di-Pen,”—Steven—“does he seem like the kind of man who would make a deal with Lee?”
“A man may do many unexpected things for the sake of his family,” was his reply.
“That’s true, of course. But even assuming he made the deal, I’m not sure how he found out Lee Lao-Li was involved in this at all.” He didn’t answer. I sighed, sipped from my teacup. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. The little boy is safe. Bill’s safe. But Grandfather …”
“Yes?”
“What should I do about what Quan Mai asked of me? Can I really just let him shut a trap on Wei Di-Fen to bring down Lee Lao-Li?”
For longer than I expected there was silence from New York. I covered the speaker part of my cell phone with my hand so I could eat more fish and some crunchy strips of carrot. Probably, Grandfather Gao was thinking up some polite way to point out the path that would have been obvious to anyone more clear-thinking than Chin Ling Wan-Ju. My problem was, I couldn’t anticipate him. Either he was about to tell me that it wasn’t my concern, that Steven Wei was going to have to, as Mark had said, pay his family’s debt, and I should butt out; or he was going to say of course I couldn’t let that happen, that my long-standing relationship with himself, Grandfather Gao, created a debt I owed to the son of his oldest friend—a man my own grandfather had known—and that it was therefore my obvious obligation to warn Steven. Both approaches were very Chinese, totally believable. I waited to see which it was.
It was neither. “Perhaps, Ling Wan-Ju,” Grandfather Gao said as I lifted some noodles out of my soup bowl, “when you find the answers to the questions still troubling you, you will find that they solve this problem also.”
I was a little surprised at the implication here. “Find the answers?” I said.
“You will not walk away from an unanswered question.” All the way from New York I could hear Grandfather Gao smiling. “I have known you too long to think otherwise. Now, Chin Ling Wan-Ju, enjoy the rest of your lunch.”
And Grandfather Gao rang off, leaving me alone in the shade with my soup and the sleepy dogs.
After lunch, still thinking over what Grandfather Gao had said, I walked along the waterfront street past the ferry terminal to the hospital. I was beyond exhausted now, beyond adrenaline-fueled, beyond determined. I was hot and pleasantly sleepy, maybe even a little stupid, but I didn’t care. Grandfather Gao might be right, but there wasn’t an unanswered question on earth I was capable of doing anything about right now. I’d collect Bill from the hospital, we’d go back to our hotel on Kowloon, I’d sleep, and then I’d start worrying about rounding up any stray answers I needed.
Some of it worked out that way. But the thing about answers is, if you don’t find them, they have a way of finding you.
Bill was perched on the edge of a chair by the window drinking tea when I got to his room. He wore a hopital gown open at the back and a pair of boxer shorts.
“Nice legs,” I said, entering the room.