"How dare that jumped-up little cocksucker tell me what to do! How dare he summon me like one of his runners!"
Lu's men kept their heads lowered, their eyes averted. They had been poring over a plan of the lowers, discussing the recent incursions by the i4K in the eastern stacks and the movements up-level of the Red Gang to their north, trying to work out countermoves, but this had pushed all that from Lu Ming-shao's mind. For ten minutes now he had raged, taxing the limits of his invention with the names he had called the United Bamboo's 489. And yet everyone there knew that Whiskers Lu would go. He had to. For Fat Wong was currently strong, his alliances in Council secure, whereas the last year had seen the decline of the Kuei Chuaris fortunes, the erosion of their once firm links with their neighboring Triads.
Yes, and that too had been Fat Wong's doing, no doubt. Lu Ming-shao had no proof of it, but how else could it have happened? Why else would the i4K have dared encroach on Kuei Chuan territory unless Fat Wong had given his tacit agreement? And now this.
"Why not kill him?" Visak said suddenly, speaking into the stillness between Lu's rages.
Whiskers Lu laughed humorlessly and fixed Visak with his one good eye. "Kill him? Kill Fat Wong?" He laughed again, this time in disbelief. "How?"
"An assassin," Visak said, meeting Lu's ferocious stare. "I know a man. He's special."
"Special?" Whiskers Lu leaned forward, holding the edge of the table, and laughed. "He'd have to be a ghost and walk through walls to get Fat Wong."
Visak lowered his head. "With great respect, Master Lu, this man is special. He could get Wong Yi-sun. Wong and all his top men."
Whiskers Lu was breathing shallowly now, his hands gripping the table's edge. His mottled, masklike face twitched violently. Then, relaxing, he pushed back again, composing himself, drawing his silks tightly about him. He turned, making a show of studying the glass cases on the wall behind his desk—the cases that contained the heads of his three great rivals—then nodded.
Lu Ming-shao took one of the heads down, studying it a moment, a brief smile flitting across his glasslike features as he recalled the moment he had killed this one—that look of dumb incomprehension in the man's eyes as he had choked the breath out of him, and the great surge of satisfaction he had felt afterward. Unconsciously he smoothed the tip of his thumb across the surface of the blinded eye, then reached up again, setting the head back in its place.
"All right. But it has to be tonight. Understand? I'll be fucked if I'll let that bastard live to see another day. Not after the way he's insulted me. Contact your man at once. Offer him whatever he needs. Then bring him here, understand? I want to see this ghost. An hour from now if possible, but tonight, at any rate. Before the meeting."
He turned, meeting his lieutenant's eyes. "Oh, and Visak. You will make sure of your friend, won't you? Very sure."
Visak nodded, then, bowing low, turned away. Whiskers Lu watched him go, then sat, thoughtful now, his rage spent. For a moment he was silent, staring at the handwritten note, then, reaching out, he crumpled the note into a tiny ball, popped it into his mouth, and swallowed.
For a moment there was nothing. Then, as if all the tension in the room had been suddenly dispelled, Whiskers Lu began to laugh, his laughter echoed back at him.
LU MING-SHAO pushed the young girl aside unceremoniously, then eased his huge bulk up off the bed. He pulled on the robe his man was holding and tied the sash tightly about his waist, eyeing his lieutenant.
"So he's here, then?"
Visak lowered his head. "In the audience room, Master."
"Unarmed, I hope."
"Yes, Master. And under guard."
"And the task I want of him. He Understands what it entails?"
"He does, Master."
"Good. How did he react?"
Visak hesitated, his eyes straying briefly to the young Han girl on the bed, who lay there, naked, watching the exchange, her eyes, curious. He looked back at Lu Ming-shao, meeting his one good eye.
"Our friend is rather a cold fish. He is not one to ... react."
Whiskers Lu stared at him a moment, then laughed delightedly. "Good! I warm to him already."
They went through, Visak leading the way, Whiskers Lu's runners kneeling, bowing low before him as he approached. The door to the audience room was barred by two of his best men, Meng Te and Huang Jen.
"Okay," Lu said, looking about him and smiling. "Let's meet our special friend."
Inside, the unexpected. A tall man dressed totally in white, his back to them, his head tilted slightly, looking down, as if he was cradling something. As he turned, they saw what it was. A baby.
Whiskers Lu glared at Visak, angry that he'd not been prepared. "What is this?"
The tall man looked down at the baby, then, looking back at Whiskers Lu, threw it at him.
Lu Ming-shao, taken totally by surprise, raised his arms in reflex, catching the child. As he did, the man drew his gun and fired twice. Whiskers Lu heard the choked cries and felt the floor shake as the bodies fell either side of him, but he himself still stood there, untouched.
The stranger put the gun away. "The unexpected is a powerful tool, don't you think, Lu Ming-shao?"
Lu Ming-shao swallowed, his anger something cold and hard. "What the fuck do you think youVe doing, friend?"
"Those two were traitors," the tall man answered calmly. "They made deals behind your back. They sold you to another."
Lu Ming-shao turned, looking down at the fallen bodies of Meng Te and Huang Jen. Was it possible? Yet even as he asked the question he knew that it was perfectly possible. After all, he was the outsider here. There were no blood ties as existed between the other 4893 and their men. They were his men through force alone, not loyalty.
He looked down at the child that rested, strangely silent in his arms. A Hung Moo, it was. An ugly little brat, weeks old at most. He lifted it slightly, as if to test its weight, then threw it back at the stranger.
The tall man stepped back, letting the child fall, screeching, to the floor. He had a knife in his hand now. A huge, wicked-looking thing with a white pearl handle.
Whiskers Lu drew his own knife and, bellowing loudly, lunged at the other man, knowing now that he had been set up. But he had taken only two steps before he sank down onto his knees, his breath hissing painfully from him, Visak's knife buried to the hilt in his upper back, Visak's weight bearing him down.
The baby was silent now. It lay beneath Lu Ming-shao, crushed by the weight of the two men.
Visak got up and moved away, leaving the knife embedded in his former Master's back, his eyes going to the tall man.
The stranger moved closer, standing above Whiskers Lu, listening to the pained wheezing of his final breaths, the soft gurgle of the blood in his pierced and damaged lung. Then, with the sole of his left boot, he forced Lu's head down brutally into the floor, turning his foot, the heel gouging into the melted, masklike face of the dying man, cracking open the brittle mottled plastic of his flesh, as if he were crushing an insect.
Lehmann looked up past the dying man, meeting Visak's eyes. "Summon the Red Pole, Po Lao. Bring him here at once. And if he asks, tell him only that things have changed. That he has a new Master."
MAIN HAD BEEN EMPTIED. Beneath the clock tower, the decapitated bodies of those who had opposed Lehmann were laid in rows,
more than three hundred in all, their severed heads stacked in a huge pile close by.
Lehmann stood there, gaunt yet imperious, looking about him at the heartland of his new territory, his face betraying nothing at that moment of triumph. Twenty ch'i away, in the shadow of the tower, stood Soucek, Visak at his side. The two men had fought hard these last few hours, quelling the last pockets of resistance; making sure no news of this got out before its time. Now it was done, Lehmann's rule made certain. At a signal from the albino, Visak bowed and went across, calling the men in from the main corridor.