Henry Chang - Red Jade

“Interrupt?” she said skeptically. “Interrupt what? ” She paused. “Were you annoyed?” Another pause as she finished her cigarette. “Wait … you weren’t jealous, were you?”

“Jealous?” Jack laughed, “ Me? Why would I be jealous?”

Alex smiled a knowing smile, shook her head at him. “ Right . Who’d be hitting on me anyway, right? The lady’s got baggage, going through a divorce, has a kid, drinks too much …”

“I didn’t mean that,” said Jack defensively. “I never said that .”

Alex took his hand again. “Come on, let’s go,” she said quietly.

“Where?” he asked as he looked back toward the ballroom. “You’ve got music, alcohol, right in there.”

“I’ve had enough drinking and dancing for a weekend,” she offered. “Plus I owe you a rain check. From New York.”

“Yeah,” Jack remembered. “Espresso, with sambuca.”

“You’ve got a good memory,” he heard her say. “Then again, you’re a cop.”

He put out his cigarette, said, “Okay, sure,” and followed her back through the crowd.

Her suite was small but featured two single beds and some countertop space that also served as TV stand and coffee table.

“Weren’t you rooming with someone?” Jack asked as Alex prepped the coffeemaker. She was a bit tipsy in her heels, and he noticed the bottle of sambuca had already been opened.

“Joann left already,” she answered. “She had an eleven o’clock flight.” She dimmed the light from the table lamps.

“Red-eye back to New York, huh?”

“Right.” She poured shots of the sambuca liqueur.

Jack could smell the coffee brewing, then the fragrance of herbal shampoo, or body spray, as Alex nudged up beside him, high heels off now, in her bare feet.

“So, how was your weekend?” she asked, lighting a cigarette.

“You wouldn’t believe it.” He wanted badly to tell her, to brag a little, but knew better. She helped him out of his jacket, draping it over the lone chair.

“Try me,” she challenged.

“Let’s just say I caught a bad guy.” He grinned.

“Always the good cop, huh?” she quipped, taking a sip of the liqueur. She clicked on the bedside radio to a bluesy saxophone tune, then dialed down the volume to low.

He noticed a wood-and-brass plaque with her name on it and an inscribed crystal bowl on her night table.

“Congratulations,” he said admiringly.

“Thanks,” she replied with a big smile. “Coffee’s almost ready.”

He resisted the urge to hug her, to taste the sweetness of the sambuca that glistened on her lips.

“What?” she said as she noticed his stare. “Is there something on my face?”

“No, it just feels good to look at you.”

“You drunk or something?” she teased.

“Nowhere near as drunk as you are,” he teased back.

“Oh yeah?” She poured a little more liqueur over the coffee in the little Styrofoam cups and took a sip. “Here you go,” she said, abruptly planting a soft kiss on his lips, the taste of espresso trailing her smoky breath.

He took a steamy sip of the mixture.

“You know this will keep you up,” he warned.

“Exactly,” she grinned. “My final night in Seattle. I want to make it last.”

They savored the aroma, then rested their cups on the countertop. She closed her eyes and slowly rolled her neck. He massaged her taut shoulders, which brought a deep sigh from her. He smelled a musky scent emanating from her.

Alex turned and looped her arms over his shoulders, leaning into his body. Jack pulled her even closer, his hands sliding to her hips. They found themselves drifting to the slow grind of saxophone blues, and he assumed that the electricity dancing between their bodies came from the shuffling friction of their feet along the carpet.

He could see questions in her eyes, even in the dim shadowy light.

It started with a series of light, little kisses, with his lips lingering on hers, then pulling back slightly, savoring it. He was captivated by the scent of her skin, the warm licorice exhalation of her breath. More kisses were exchanged between searching looks, questions unanswered in the fleeting moments.

“Unzip me,” she said softly, and he tugged the zipper down smoothly to the small of her back. She shrugged her shoulders and twisted against him until the gold dress fell away to reveal skimpy gold satin lingerie.

He took a breath before kissing her hard on the fleshy part of her throat. She shuddered, and reached for his belt buckle just as his cell phone vibrated. A buzz kill.

His first thought was to ignore the call. Surely it could wait, damnit. But after the second vibration he wondered who might be calling at this hour, here in Seattle. He thought it might be Detective Nicoll, or SPD, something to do with Eddie Ng in custody. A quick update? His curiosity got the better of him and he shot Alex a sheepish look before backing away to take the call.

He never took his eyes off her until his cell-phone screen lit up the frown across his face. It was Captain Marino, transferring a trans-Atlantic call through bursts of static interference. Something to do with the northern lights.

The international call had been patched through via the 0-Five, vetted and approved, Jack guessed, by Captain Marino himself. The Royal Hong Kong Police was partnering with INTERPOL, he heard through the static.

Jack recalled different law enforcement agencies as he waited through the introduction. INTERPOL was shorthand for the International Criminal Police Organization, headquartered in Lyon, France. It consisted of more than a hundred member nations and dealt with international crime through local law enforcement. Its focus included watching for lost or stolen passports and locating fugitives from justice.

A Red Notice was INTERPOL’s highest level of alert, an arrest warrant that circulated worldwide.

The RHKP’s voice was typically Chinese-British, formal and to the point: “A fugitive who is a top member of an unlawful secret society may have arrived in the United States, at Seattle. His name is not important, as he travels under an alias anyway. He is sixty-three years old, a number 415 Paper Fan rank, in the second tier of command of the Hung Huen , Red Circle triad, a criminal organization.”

Jack quickly recalled what he knew about triads, their ranks, their history. He could hear the echo of Lucky’s words, rapping about the tongs. Triads were Chinese secret societies, benevolent brotherhoods that went back through the centuries. Mostly now they were criminal gangs operating out of Hong Kong and China, gangs that had fingers in everything from China White heroin to human trafficking. Everything from knockoff handbags to money fraud, not to mention gambling, gang protection and prostitution, muscle mayhem and murder.

As for how the ranks were set up, Jack knew it all started at the top with the Dragon Head, the loong tauh. Lucky had demonstrated some secret hand signals once. Beneath the Dragon were several officers: a planner, consigliere , called Paper Fan. An enforcer known as a Red Pole. Couriers, like liaisons, were Grass Sandals. Then there were other ranks Jack wasn’t sure of. Incense Master. Vanguard. The stuff of folklore and Chinese legends.

The sambuca was working against his mental clarity now. He felt the thirst for alcohol even though he knew hot tea would be better.

“Hocus-pocus,” Lucky had said, ho-cuss poke us . “Fuck dat , kid. Me and the boyz are blood-in by deed, understand? We ain’t lighting candles and reciting shit, and jumping through smoke. We ain’t pledging to nothing but the dollars. Kill the chicken, drink the blood? Get the fuck outta here. Each of my boyz came in and did the deed , you know it? This ain’t no fuckin Boy Scouts, okay? China White? Yeah, their H is hot, but we ain’t jumping through no hoops for it. Membership? We like the money maker , not the money taker. We don’t pay dues, we collect dues.”