Now. The time is now.
My hand wraps around the glass shard again, pulls up, and out to strike.
“What is all this?!”
A new roar causes my arm to freeze, midair. It isn’t Longwai — the expression on his face is set and silent. He stares behind me, at the shadows crowding the doorway, blocking all ways to freedom.
For once I’m thankful this glass is so small. It hides perfectly beneath my knuckles, betraying nothing. I hold it tight and look around.
Osamu. My Plan B. Jin Ling did her job.
The ambassador is in familiar garb. I’ve seen him wearing the same style of tuxedo since I was too young to really know who he was. What always stood out to me were his gold cuff links, how they twinkled under the torchlight in our rock garden as he sipped cocktails and flirted with every woman there. Including my mother.
He doesn’t recognize me — I doubt he even sees me at this point. Osamu’s anger is bullish. So focused he didn’t even remember to remove his shoes at the entranceway. His shiny leather oxfords stamp into the reeking room, shaking every floorboard.
“What’s going on, Longwai?”
“Brothel business,” the drug lord bristles, but the yell has left his voice. I notice his free hand is tucked to his side. The one his gun is hidden on. “None of it concerns you.”
I’m so close to Mei Yee I can hear her breath changing. It gets faster in a way that the threat of Longwai or a heroin needle couldn’t spur. It’s the closeness of him — the way a rabbit’s heart explodes under the stare of a hunter.
The ambassador’s eyes travel up her arm, taking in Longwai’s fingers still on her wrist, the bulging vein, and Fung’s knots. “Mei Yee is my concern. I thought I made it very clear to you that she wasn’t to be touched.”
“I’ve respected your wishes for as long as it’s been convenient. That time has long run out. Lest you forget, Osamu, I’m the one who owns this brothel and these girls. Mei Yee included.”
The men stare at each other, like two silverback gorillas facing off on a single piece of territory. Ready to tear each other apart. A dramatic nature-show moment in the flesh.
Mei Yee shakes beside me. I wish hard, hard, hard that I had my gun.
Osamu reaches out, wraps his hand around Mei Yee’s wrist. Their skin is so different — hers white as snow, his covered with age spots and wiry hairs.
“Name your price,” he says, and I think of all the many bruises I saw on Mei Yee’s skin that night at the window. How they match his touch exactly. I don’t mean to, but my grip grows tighter, pushes so my skin is torn apart by the glass.
“It’s not about the money anymore, Osamu.” Longwai’s voice is both hard and peeling, like callused skin. “She’s up to something. Keeping secrets. I want to know what it is.”
For a long moment all is stillness. There’s the quick avalanche of Mei Yee’s breaths. The old woman in her clingy silk, taking everything in like a spider on a web. And my hand tight on glass.
“Secrets?” Osamu is looking around, eyes wide and clearing, like a man who just woke up. Glimpse by glimpse he swallows the room: the filthy pile of rags, Longwai’s gun, Mei Yee, me…
And then his eyes dart. Back and forth. Back and forth like one of those plastic table tennis balls, ricocheting between Mei Yee and me.
“I see how it is,” he says softly.
I feel the heat of my own blood swimming across my palm.
“It’s information you want?” Osamu’s voice is a lake. Placid and calm on the surface, plunging to unknown depths. “You’re not going to get it from Mei Yee.”
His eyes set like stone on my face. “This is the one you want. Sun Dai Shing. What is the heir of Sun Industries doing flirting with the likes of the Brotherhood? I’m sure he has more than enough secrets to keep you entertained for the rest of your miserably short career.”
Goddamn Osamu. Not a very good Plan B.
All the heat and threat that Longwai was pouring onto the ambassador shift, unload like dragon fire on my shoulders. The drug lord lets go of Mei Yee and draws his gun in a fluid, lethal, mongoose movement. The barrel stares at me — hard and unforgiving.
Game over.
He pulls the trigger.
JIN LING
I can’t keep up. The ambassador is gone. Vanishing into the Walled City before I can release my seat belt. Even that’s hard. My right arm bursts with pain. Weakness. There’s a dampness in Hiro’s shirt; my side’s bleeding again. Tears of pain fill my eyes. Make everything dazzle. The lights, the darkness, the flaring red lanterns of New Year’s. Everything is shining. Mixing together.
I feel done. But my sister’s face, her voice, is the clearest it’s been in years. I see her smiling behind the steam-wisps of our weakened tea. I hear the lullabies she sang over me after Father’s thrashings.
I think of Mei Yee and get out of the car. Leave the stink of rich cologne and leather. I’m walking, dragging through the Old South Gate. My walk feels like a twisted dream, into the heart of this unreal city. Through the last two years of my life:
The sewer grate where I made my very first camp. The shops I stole from, the stoops I haunted. The window I used to peer into every few mornings to watch cartoons. The alley where I rescued a gray kitten from his vagrant tormentors. The second alley, where I rescued him again. Mrs. Pak’s restaurant and Mr. Lam’s junk store. Mr. Wong’s dentist chair. The hidden corners where I pitched my tarp. And on. And on.
Over soon. It will all be over soon.
The gun hangs heavy in my jacket pocket. All six bullets weigh my steps, make each foot forward seem more impossible than the next. I keep going. Because that’s what I do. That’s what I’ve always done.
Only this time — this crucial, final time — I don’t think I have the strength.
My boots plow over puddles of ice. Step, step, pain. I stop. Lean against the apothecary’s door. Try to focus on the dozens of jars with dried roots and bits of animals through the bars. My vision is double — smears of light and color and dark.
I’m almost there. One more turn and I’ll be at the mouth of the dragon’s den. It can’t be more than twenty steps, but it might as well be a completely different country.
An empty can, riddled with rust holes, clatters down the street. Causes my neck to snap up, alert. I can’t see much. Just the fog of my breath and the dark. Blurring together.
“There he is!” someone shouts, and I hear footsteps.
One by one, I see them. They come from all directions. A ring of boys and rags and knives. Their faces are pale and whittled. Carved by flickering lights. So sharp and bony that I’m not even sure they’re human. Maybe they’re demons. Evil spirits come to swallow me down into the fires of the afterlife. To devour my soul for what I did to the jade dealer. To Kuen.
My hand fumbles, sliding from the doorframe down toward my pocket. Toward the revolver.
But there are more than six of them. Even counting through my double vision.
One of the boys comes into focus. He’s squinting at me, lips screwed to the side. His blade is a sick shade of silver, slashing the night in front of him. “You sure it’s him? Looks different to me.”
“Got new clothes is all. Nice ones, too!” a voice calls from my left.
“Ho Wai’s right,” another boy says. “That’s him. The one that gutted Kuen.”
The boy directly in front of me steps closer. His knife moves with him; its edge hovers dangerously close to my throat. “Well, well, Jin.” A grin splits across his sharp, starved face. “Fancy seeing you here.”