Ridley Pearson - The Risk Agent

“And to think just yesterday I saw him riding on Nanjing Lu. It reminded me of the debt, you see?”

“Yesterday?” the manager inquired.

Knox was impressed that she attempted to nail down the date of the driver’s injuries.

“I am afraid that is impossible, cousin,” the manager said. “The accident occurred Thursday.”

“Thursday?” she repeated.

“Exactly so. Late afternoon.”

“But I was so sure.”

“I think not,” he said.

“Here, then,” she said. “The debt plus a little something for his troubles.”

“Generous, indeed.”

“You will see he receives it?”

“By my honor, of course. I have someone going that way now. You needn’t trouble yourself with it a moment longer.”

Grace exited the storefront along with the manager, who leaned over to one of his riders and handed him what had to be the money.

Knox rocked the scooter off its stand and rode past, making sure Grace had a chance to see him. They met minutes later at the far corner. She climbed onto the back of the bike, saying, “The driver’s wearing a green tam.”

“Saw him.”

“Headed west on Xincun.”

Knox steered the bike around the block.

“Hurry!” she said. “We’ll lose him!”

“Seriously? Do you think I’ll lose him?”

Knox gunned the scooter, forcing her to grab him around his waist. He weaved through oncoming traffic into the westbound bike lane.

They caught up to the delivery man and followed the bright orange box strapped to his rear fender. He collected a take-out order from an Indian restaurant on Dagu Lu near the Four Seasons Hotel and headed northeast. His next stop was at a Thai restaurant-a second pickup. They rode behind him for another fifteen minutes. His first delivery was made in Huangpu District, the second in Changning. From there, the driver headed to Putuo District and a crumbling lane neighborhood destined for the wrecking ball.

Knox slowed, allowing the rider a substantial lead.

“We’re here,” he said over his shoulder.

The old lilong’s lanes were narrow and cluttered with rusted bikes and scooters. Houses sagged, bowing to gravity. Roofs were patched together with corrugated tin and blue drop cloths. Such neighborhoods existed as islands bound within the clusters of newly erected apartment towers, the contrast startling.

Knox and Grace putted down the lane, passing three intersections with even narrower sublanes running off to the right.

She tapped him on the shoulder.

Knox braked and backed up using his feet.

“I saw him turn left,” Grace said.

A moment later, Knox, too, swung the bike left at the end of the sublane. The delivery man was just pulling to a stop. He left his scooter and entered a rundown stairwell, reappearing briefly on the second-floor balcony.

“We wait,” Knox said, sneaking a look at his wristwatch.

Grace absorbed every detail of their surroundings-the hung laundry, the decrepit scooters, the timeworn faces in the open windows. A minute later, the delivery man reappeared. He drove past them, the sound of his engine growing distant.

Knox and Grace climbed the dingy stairs. Sounds of people coughing wetly behind closed doors mixed with a baby’s crying over a background drone of Chinese soap opera.

At the top of the stairs, a landing offered three doorways, all hanging open for ventilation. Grace thrust her hand out to block him-this was for a Chinese. She stepped through the first door.

A woman’s weathered face looked back at Grace, a cigarette dangling from her lower lip. She said nothing, only stared. Grace bowed and left, keeping Knox back and entering the second doorway.

“Hello, cousin!” she said loudly. “I trust you have just received the money you were due. I desired to see you received it. I am forlorn to see you so indisposed.”

The man lay on a bamboo mat beneath an open window wearing only pale blue pajama bottoms, his battered head on a folded rag. He had facial bruises and poorly treated lacerations on his arms. The purple and black marks on his bare chest bore the distinct shape of fists.

Knox stepped in behind her. He shut the door.

The man asked Knox to reopen the door. He spoke a dialect of Mandarin, not Shanghainese, Knox noted.

Knox, also speaking Mandarin, said, “I prefer to leave it closed, cousin,” his tones just right: menacing and impressively Chinese.

The room was spare, a small tube television along the near wall.

“We come for a simple reason,” Grace said, also in a chilling monotone. She approached the man. “We are simple people with simple needs.” She hooked a three-legged cobbler stool with the toe of her shoe and dragged it alongside the man. She sat down upon it. Every motion was confident and bold.

“It is extremely important, cousin,” she said, “that you do not lie to us.”

The delivery man’s eyes ticked between Grace and Knox.

“I want no trouble,” he said.

Reciting a proverb, she said, “‘The greater your troubles, the greater is your opportunity to show yourself a worthy person.’”

“Please.”

She said, “Lu Hao is my cousin.”

The man’s already sickly face drained of nearly all color.

Knox thought, Sometimes I love this work.

“We know you visited him.” She glanced over her shoulder at Knox, as if she needed his assistance.

“Seven,” Knox supplied.

“At least seven times,” Grace repeated. “Seven is a neutral number, is it not? Could be bad for you. Let me see your hand. Let me read your lifeline.”

She took hold of the unwilling man’s forearm. He lacked the strength to stop her.

She held his hand in both of hers, secured by the thumb in her left, and his pinky finger in her right. She lowered her voice to a whisper.

“This line is bad,” she said, tracing his palm with her red fingernail. She drove the nail down intentionally hard. He grimaced as tiny beads of sweat sprouted on his upper lip and forehead. He tried to withdraw his hand but Grace only tightened her grip, spreading his fingers farther apart.

He grimaced.

“You will please tell me where we can find Lu Hao,” she said calmly.

His eyes darted between Grace and Knox, measuring them.

Knox said, “I am not sure he heard you. Time is running short.”

Grace spread his fingers farther.

“Lu Hao! Friend!” the man said sharply.

“What kind of friend drops off a ransom demand?” Grace asked.

The man’s lips pursed gray.

“We have you on security camera,” Knox lied. “Sherpa delivery to The Berthold Group.”

“His location,” Grace said. “Think clearly before you answer.” She maintained the outward pressure on his fingers.

I do not open food container before I deliver,” the man complained. “I pick up. I deliver. How am I supposed to know what lies inside?”

Grace snapped his finger, breaking the knuckle. He screamed. The finger hung like a broken twig. She seized his ring finger.

“Let us try again,” she said in an eerily calm voice. “Where is Lu Hao?”

“Please. I beg you-”

She threatened this finger.

The man spit out an address so fast it was indiscernible.

Knox did not trust it. A delivery man would not be given the hostages’ location. He was just trying to stop Grace from hurting him.

Grace shot him an inquisitive look. Knox shook his head.

“Slowly, now,” she said. “Speak clearly, so I can understand. But know this: you lie to me-to us-and your family will mourn your ignorance.” Grace applied pressure to his finger.

The man carefully repeated the address in the Xinjingzhen neighborhood.

“You lie,” she said.

“By the gods, I speak the truth!” He repeated the address twice more.