Peter May - Snakehead

‘Uh-uh,’ he said. ‘No warnings. Where’s Badger?’

The flunky gulped. ‘In the bar.’

‘Show us.’

He pulled the little man out from behind the desk, and they followed him up dark, carpeted stairs and through a door into a large salon with tables set around an empty dance floor. There was a small stage at the far side, and a long bar set against the near wall. Subdued lighting around the perimeter of the salon revealed groups of two or three men, and the occasional girl, sitting drinking at tables. The light along the bar reflected in the faces of customers and girls perched on high bar stools, nursing drinks and smoking cigarettes. Badger and a couple of his ma zhai stood in a group at one end drinking beer by the neck. Some record from the singles charts was belting out across the sound system.

‘Turn that shit off,’ Fuller shouted at the flunky and pushed him toward the bar. The little man squeezed in past the barman and switched off the stereo. The sudden silence startled everyone in the salon, as much as if a gun had gone off. The hubbub of voices became instantly self-conscious and quickly died away. Eyes turned toward the three law enforcement officers. Hrycyk stepped up to Badger and pushed a gun in his face and flapped his badge at him. The dai lo grinned his passive defiance as Hrycyk frisked the pockets of his leather jacket and drew out his wallet, flipping it open to the ID window.

‘Ko-Lin Qian,’ Hrycyk said, reading off it. Then he grinned at the white stripe. ‘Aka Badger. Aka Fuckhead. I have a warrant for your arrest. Turn around, put your hands on the bar.’ The dai lo did as he was told, still the same defiant smirk on his face. Hrycyk kicked his feet apart and checked him for weapons. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘put your hands behind your back.’ And he slipped his gun back in its holster and snapped on a pair of handcuffs.

The dai lo turned around to face him. ‘So what you arrest me for?’ he said. ‘Breathing? I thought air was free in America.’ A couple of his ma zhai sniggered.

‘Free for Americans,’ Hrycyk said. ‘Not for illegal aliens.’

‘I’m no illegal alien,’ the dai lo said. ‘I got papers.’

‘Papers lie.’

‘Truth is,’ Li said suddenly, speaking in Mandarin, ‘no one gives a shit whether you’re an illegal alien or not.’ Badger’s smirk evaporated. There was an absolute hush in the room.

‘What the hell are you saying?’ Hrycyk demanded.

But Li ignored him and continued in Mandarin. ‘We want information, kid. We need the name of your shuk foo . And you’re going to give us it.’

Li saw apprehension in the dai lo ’s eyes. Badger glanced quickly around the watching faces, then thrust out his jaw defiantly at Li. ‘You know I’m not going to do that.’

‘Sure you will,’ Li said quietly. ‘Because I’m a nice guy, and I’ll ask you nicely.’ He paused. ‘Once.’ And he sighed. ‘After that, who knows? Maybe I’m not such a nice guy any more. You read the papers, you know how we do business in the PRC.’ He grinned.

Hrycyk was glaring at him. ‘You gonna let us in on this private conversation or not?’

Li shook his head. ‘No.’ He took Badger by the arm and jerked him toward the door. ‘Let’s go.’

When they got to the car, they put Badger in the back and Li slipped in beside him. Hrycyk turned and glared back at Li. ‘What the hell was all that about in there?’

‘Yeah, come on, Li,’ Fuller said. ‘We haven’t been holding anything back from you.’

‘No, of course you haven’t.’ Li said. ‘Let us just say at this point you do not need to know.’ He paused. ‘Trust me.’

‘About as far as I could kick you,’ Hrycyk growled, and he started the motor.

Badger snorted. ‘Where’d you pick up this heap of shit?’ he said sarcastically, making a poor attempt at bravado. ‘The breaker’s yard?’

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Hrycyk snarled angrily, and they jerked away across the tarmac with a squeal of tyres.

They drove in silence then along Bellaire until they turned on to the freeway at Sharpstown, heading east on the 59 before turning north on to the 45. Badger sat sullenly next to Li, staring out of the window. As the skyline of downtown started growing on the horizon he asked in Mandarin, ‘Where are you taking me?’

‘INS lockdown,’ Li said.

The dai lo shook his head bleakly. ‘You know you’ve signed my death warrant.’

‘Have I?’ Li asked innocently.

‘You know they’re going to kill me. I’m not going to tell you what you want to know. But they’ll make sure of it. One way or another.’

‘So, if they’re going to kill you,’ Li said, ‘why not tell us? What difference does it make?’

Badger looked at him scornfully. ‘I’d rather die.’

‘So die,’ Li said, turning to the front again. ‘Who gives a shit?’

Dark clouds were gathering again in the northwest, with the promise of more thunderstorms. They flashed beneath a couple of flyovers, the skyscrapers and tower blocks of downtown now directly ahead of them, late afternoon sunshine slanting through the clouds to reflect off acres of glass.

‘Pull over,’ Li said suddenly.

‘What?’ Hrycyk flicked a backward glance at him. ‘What do you mean, pull over?’

‘I mean stop the car,’ Li said, almost shouting.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Hrycyk pulled across two lanes of traffic, to the accompaniment of a chorus of horns, and burned rubber to bring them to a halt on the hard shoulder.

‘Wait here,’ Li said, and he grabbed the dai lo by the collar and pulled him out on to a band of concrete littered with shredded tyre and fragments of glass. The barrier was scraped and scored, scarred by dozens of minor and several major accidents. He began walking him away from the car and glanced over the barrier to the slip road passing beneath them. It was a drop of about thirty feet. Beyond, he could see the distinctive building of the Texas Historical Museum, and in the distance the trees flanking Buffalo Bayou and the patch of green that was Sam Houston Park.

‘What are you doing?’ Badger was worried now.

‘Maybe I’m going to throw you over,’ Li said. ‘Or push you in front of the next truck.’

‘In the name of the sky,’ the dai lo screamed at him. ‘Are you mad?’

‘Maybe,’ Li said. They were having to shout above the roar of the traffic. He glanced back and saw the silhouettes of Hrycyk and Fuller leaning over the seats, watching them through the rear windshield. He turned back to the boy. ‘You want to die or you want to live?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think maybe we stopped here to let you have a pee, because we didn’t want you soiling the car. And you got away before we could stop you. Jumping down on to that road and sprinting off toward the Bayou.’

Badger looked over the barrier. ‘I’d get killed jumping down there.’

‘So run until you get on to the ramp.’

The boy frowned at him. ‘Why would you do that? Why would you let me go?’

‘ Guanxi .’

Badger looked at him as if he were insane. ‘ Guanxi? What are you talking about? You don’t owe me anything?’

‘I will when you tell me the name of your shuk foo , then you’ll have guanxi in the bank with me, big time. I’ll let you go. You say you escaped. We don’t have you in custody, they don’t have to kill you. And they know you didn’t even have time to tell me anything, even if you had been so inclined. Which, of course, you weren’t.’

Badger stared at him hard for a very long time. A huge truck thundered past, throwing clouds of rubber dust and exhaust in their faces. Then, ‘Guan Gong,’ he said. ‘It’s his nickname. That’s all I know.’