Barry Eisler - Rain Storm aka Choke Point

I did a series of thorough surveillance detection moves, wondering how the hell someone could have tracked me, and who it could have been. Having someone stay on you when you think you’ve gotten clean feels highly unpleasant.

When I was confident I was alone, I found a pay phone. I punched in the number the hotel had given me.

The phone on the other end rang twice. Then a voice boomed out, “ Moshi moshi ,” Japanese for hello, in a thick Southern twang.

“Jesus Christ,” I said. Dox.

“Well, some people think so, but no, it’s just me,” he said, with annoying good cheer. “Did I get the Japanese right?”

“Yeah, it was perfect.”

“I think you’re just saying that. But thank you anyway.”

“What do you want?”

“Ain’t you going to ask how I found you?”

“Not until I put you in another leglock.”

He laughed. “I told you, you don’t need to do that. I’ll tell you what you want to know. In person.”

I paused, then said, “All right.”

“Where are you now? Still at the hotel?”

That’s when it hit me. I knew how he’d done it.

“Yeah,” I said, testing my theory.

“Well, okay, good. I’ll come to you. Tell me, though, I don’t know Hong Kong so well, what’s the best way to get there again?”

I smiled. “Taxi.”

“Sure, that makes sense. But give me some directions. I like to know where I’m going.”

Yeah, that was it. I’d been right. “Just tell the driver the name of the hotel,” I said. “I’m sure he’ll be able to find it.”

There was a pause, during which I imagined him looking decidedly nonplussed. “Damn, what was the name of the place again?” he asked, trying valiantly.

I laughed and said nothing. After a moment, he said, “All right, all right, you got me. I’ll meet you anywhere you want.”

“Why would I want to meet you at all?”

“All right, I was out of line. Just wanted to see if I could sneak one past you, but you’re too slick. But you’ll still want to hear what I’ve got to tell you. Believe me on that.”

I thought for a moment. Of course I wanted to meet him. I needed to know what all this was about. But I would have to take precautions. Precautions that could prove fatal to Dox if things didn’t go the way I wanted them to.

“Where are you now?” I asked.

“In a coffee shop in Central, ogling a table of Chinese girls. I think they like me.”

“They must not know about your sheep proclivities,” I said.

He laughed. “Shoot, partner, not unless you told them.”

“Stay put for a while. I’ll call you back.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll call you back,” I said again, and hung up.

If this had been Tokyo, I could have told him immediately where we should meet and how. I had studied the city for the twenty-five years I’d lived there, and knew dozens of venues that would have worked. But Hong Kong was less familiar to me. I needed to map things out.

I walked to the causeway, then headed west, toward Sheung Wan, looking for the right locale. It was Sunday, and the area was animated with the chatter of thousands of the island’s Filipina maids, who were out enjoying a weekly day of relief from their labors. They sat on flattened cardboard in the shade of the long causeway ceiling and picnicked on pancit palabok and sotanghon and kilawing tanguige and other comfort food and felt, for a few brief moments, that they were home again. I liked how physical they were: the way they braided each other’s hair, and held hands, and sat so close together, like children finding solace, a talisman against something fearful, in simple human contact. Despite their transplanted lives and the loss of what they left behind, there was something childlike about them, and I thought that it was probably this seeming innocence, joined incongruously to an adult sexuality, that drove so many western men mad for Southeast Asian women. Such charms are not lost on me, either, but at that moment, desire wasn’t really what I felt for them. What I felt, dull and somehow surprising, was more akin to envy.

I continued down the causeway, then moved south into the Western District, named entirely for its position relative to Central and without reference to culture or atmosphere. In fact, characterized as it is by the craggy faces of ancient herbalists concocting snake musk and powdered lizards and other such antique pharmacopoeia; the aroma of incense from its temples and of cooking from snake restaurants and dim-sum bakeries; the cries of its fishmongers and street cleaners and merchants, Western feels significantly more “eastern” than the rest of Hong Kong.

I stopped in one of the innumerable bric-a-brac shops on Cat Street and bought several secondhand items, all of which were intended to distract the shopkeeper and would soon be discarded, save one: a gutting knife with a four-inch blade and a horn handle. The knife was nestled in a leather sheath and the blade was satisfactorily sharp.

In my wallet was an old credit card, around which I keep wrapped several feet of duct tape. Thousand and one uses, they say, one of which, it seemed, was securing a gutting knife to the underside of a causeway banister. If I saw anyone following us or detected any other signs of duplicity, I would lead Dox past the banister, retrieve the knife, and finish him with it.

I would have preferred to keep the blade on my person, but Dox wasn’t stupid, despite the appearance he cultivated, and I knew he’d be looking for signs of a weapon. Adequate concealment on my body was possible, of course, but would make for an unacceptably time-consuming deployment. Better to have the element of surprise. Likewise, it would have been sensible to wear some extra clothing, with a running suit or something similar between the outer and inner layers, which I could quickly peel off afterward if things got messy. But I knew this was also something Dox would spot. There was a compromise, though. I purchased a dark nylon jacket and a carton of baby wipes, which I stashed under a trashcan in a public restroom not far from where I had placed the knife. If I had to deal with Dox and got bloody in the process, I could duck into the restroom and quickly make myself presentable again.

I continued east on the causeway, then into the International Financial Center, which houses a large shopping mall. I wandered around until I had found a suitable setup: a third-floor vantage point overlooking a second-floor bookseller called Dymock’s. From the third floor I could monitor not only the entrance to the bookstore, but the nearby second-floor entrance to the mall and the approaches to my position, as well. If I saw something I didn’t like, I could disappear in any one of a number of directions.

I called Dox from a pay phone.

“ Moshi moshi ,” he said, in his thick drawl.

I wondered briefly whether I was giving Dox too much credit in thinking that his hayseed thing was only an act.

“Still ogling those girls?” I asked.

“Them and some new ones,” he said, his voice booming with good cheer. “There’s enough of me for all of ’em.”

“Meet me in the Dymock’s bookstore in the IFC shopping mall.”

“The what? I don’t…”

“Save the hillbilly stuff for someone who cares,” I interrupted. “The International Financial Center shopping mall. Second floor. At Hong Kong station on the MTR. It should take you less than fifteen minutes to get there. Longer than that and I’m gone.”

“All right, all right, no need to get unpleasant about it, I’m on my way.”

“I’ll be watching along the way, Dox. If you’re not alone, I’m going to take it personally.”

“I know, I know.”