Jake Maroc - Shan Part 41

The moment she crossed the frontier into Burma, Qi lin became more cautious. This was no longer China; her doc.u.mentation was useless here. In fact she had stuffed the papers into a pouch and buried it on the Yunnan side. In the Shan States, the Chinese government was active in trying to destroy the trade; thus a Chinese citizen there would be subject to hard scrutiny and heavy suspicion. But a fugitive newly escaped from prison, that was another matter entirely a Especially if her story was that she was looking for her sister who had fled China just days before her.

Shan means "free people." This same basic meaning can be applied to the words Siam and a.s.sam, the names of peoples who have settled over a wide area of Southeast Asia. From perhaps the fifteenth century to 1959, the Shan were ruled by thirty-four sawbwas, lineal princes whose individual fiefdoms were pa.s.sed down in true feudal hereditary manner. Nowadays, the Shan warlords who ruled the Golden Triangle were often hybrid offshoots of those original ruling families.

But there were otherand no doubt to herfar more dangerous warlords. These few were rogue generals who had defected from the Chinese Communist army. Greed, avarice, the lure of power beyond most men's wildest dreams, these warped ideals were what drove them. These few, even more than the Shan princes, would be more suspicious of any Chinese crossing the border. More than anything else, Qi lin did not want to run into one of these.

Quite near the frontier, she was picked up by Shan soldiers. They wore the red headbands, floppy white trousers, fatigue blouses and peculiarly heavy quilted jackets traditional of the Shan people. She did not know their dialect but, when prompted, one of them spoke an atrociously accented form of pidgin Mandarin.

Qi lin allowed herself to be searched and questioned. At length, she produced the photograph of the old doctor's daughter. "Sister," she said, pointing to her. "My sister."

Mok, the one man who spoke the vile Chinese, pa.s.sed the photograph around. There was a conference among all the soldiers. Then Mok turned to Qi lin, said, "You wait here." His face grew fierce. "If you move, orders shoot, kill." Qi lin nodded docilely.

Mok left her surrounded by the others. Behind them was a concrete bunkerlike structure. Qi lin could scent a peculiar odor, sweet and, at the same time, sharp, at the back of her throat. She coughed, raising her hand to her mouth, and one of the soldiers leveled his AK-47 at her. Qi lin lifted both hands, palms toward the soldier. "It's all right, you motherless t.u.r.d-sucking pox-ridden dog," she said in her most servile tone of voice. "I've got nothing up my sleeves." She smiled and the young soldier bared his teeth in response. They were as black as night.

Qi lin could see more soldiers trudging with backs bowed by burlap sacks in single file through a door to the concrete building. Other soldiers guarded them with AK-47s. Qi lin had not seen such a ma.s.sed display of firepower in her life, even when she was a member of the Gong lou-fu, the Steel Tiger Triad.

In the distance she could see the mule train from which soldiers were off-loading the burlap sacks. Now she recognized the smell. It was opium "cooking." This was a "factory" where the raw opium was refined into Number Four or Double Ouglobe, a form of heroin that was so concentrated it took up about one-tenth the s.p.a.ce of a pound of the raw product. In that way it was far easier to transport over difficult terrain, and to smuggle into civilization.

Mok was coming back and Qi lin redirected her attention. "None see her," the soldier said. It was all Qi lin could do not to wince as the man single-handedly destroyed the language.

"I want to see the head man anyway," Qi lin said, careful not to move; she was all too aware of the AK-4ys trained in her direction.

"Uh?"

"The head man."

"Head man?" The puzzled look remained on Mok's face for a moment. Then he brightened. "Ah Ko Gyi," he said. "Go see him."

"Yes," she said. "That is what I want. Now."

Mok nodded. "Go now." Mok signed to the other soldiers and they closed ranks around her.

Qi lin watched Mok's eyes. They were flat and wholly opaque. Something had happened while he was away. What?

By sunset, Qi lin and her escort had traveled perhaps seven kilometers in distance. Also they had ascended just over four thousand meters. By then she was shivering with the cold. No one offered her a jacket.

On a narrow plain high in the mountains, they came upon a village composed of bamboo latticework houses grouped around a central clearing.

"Is this where the Ah Ko Gyi is?" Qi lin asked.

Mok ignored her. He had said nothing during the entire trek. Qi lin felt a shiver of a dark premonition. But it was too late to turn back. And, in any case, where would she go?

Within the Shan village, the other members of the escort melted into the twilight. Mok took Qi lin by the arm, directing her to a bamboo-and-mud house somewhat larger than the rest. The local warlord's residence, Qi lin reckoned.

Someone must have pa.s.sed on the news of their arrival because as they approached the beaten-down staircase to the wide veranda several figures emerged from the house.

As if this were a prearranged signal, Mok pushed Qi lin forward. "The intruder," Mok said in quite excellent Mandarin. Qi lin gaped at him as Mok repeated the story of who she was and why she was looking for the woman.

"Your name?" the warlord barked.

Qi lin lied without thinking, an instinct for self-preservation. She took her first good look at the man, who was exceptionally short, as round as a vat, with the most powerful arms and shoulders Qi lin had ever seen. He was wearing army fatigues, a sleeveless shirt of a dark indeterminate color to which were affixed several gold and silver pins as if they were medals, Around his waist was a webbed ammo belt with a black leather holster containing what appeared to be a U.S. Army Colt .45. He wore soft leather boots all the way up to his knees. He seemed totally immune to the biting cold of these high alt.i.tudes.

"Is this the one?"

Qi lin did not understand the question, and was about to say so when she realized that the warlord was speaking to a shadowy figure behind him. The figure moved slowly, almost, Qi lin believed, painfully forward.

"Yes," the old man said. "That is she."

Qi lin goggled. Buddha! She had seen that old man before! Her heart sank. All the miles since her incarceration at the hands of ColonelHu raced in upon her. She felt as if she had been traveling in a circle. "Huaishan Han?" she said bewilderedly. "Is that you?"

You were nothing in Miami unless you lived overlooking the ocean. Mako Martinez lived in a condo duplex so vast Simbal figured the whole top floor of the Quarry offices could have fit nicely into its layout with room to spare. It was on the thirty-third and thirty-fourth floors, accessed by an elevator that rose fast enough to give you a nosebleed.

The hallway was wide and plush as a thousand-dollar-a-night wh.o.r.e. It was decorated in modern Miami pastel, padded wallpaper in a ribbon pattern reminiscent of water. There were real paintings scattered here and there, and expensive-looking rattan furniture flanking the bronze doors of the elevators as if the designers thought this might be a comfy place for a late-night chat. Every few feet bra.s.s-edged translucent gla.s.s wall sconces drifted light up at the pale salmon-colored ceiling.

"This place reeks from money," Simbal said.

Martine Juanito Gato de Rosa grunted. "There are three more towers like this scheduled to be built. If it weren't for the cash Mako and his pals poured into this place to keep it afloat, it would've been just a rusting skeleton by now. The condo business down here stinks. We got so many they're coming out've our a.s.ses."

"You sure Bennett'll be here?" Simbal asked.

"Nothing's ever for sure in Miami, dude," the Cuban said. "Don't need me to remind you of that"

Double doors at the end of the hall opened and they were in. Simbal had seen many a palace before but, really, he thought, this takes the cake. The whole of the south face of the living room which, Simbal estimated at no less than sixty-five feet long, was a wall of gla.s.s which looked out over the Intracoastal waterway, islands spangled with night lights. Off to the right rose the distant high-rise hotels of the Beach, as it was locally known.

Near the eastern end of the room, a great floating spiral staircase made up of Lucite wedges lit along their front edges with tiny sparkling lights wound its way up to the second floor.

Otherwise, the expanse was filled with lengths of sleek slate sofas, oversized curved chairs of supple umber leather that had that man-eating look indigenous to so much ultramodern furniture. Taupe sand-painted walls upon which enormous, eerily amorphous abstracts in smears of mauves and pinks floated. Potted fiddlehead ferns, sproutingcorn plants, feathery horsetail palms strewn about. There was even a natural hemp hammock strung between architectural columns. A model of grotesquely inhuman proportions was stretched out on it, exhibiting her bone structure.

The place, Simbal decided, would have given the Shah of Iran the w.i.l.l.i.e.s. He edged away from the Cuban and went through the crowded living room. Rock music was blaring. The Police. Simbal was amused.

There were so many men wearing unconstructed linen and silk jackets, sleeves pushed up their hairy arms to call all the more attention to the T-shirts they wore underneath that Simbal thought, Good Christ, are they filming "Miami Vice" anywhere near?

He went up the spiral staircase, which was narrow enough so that when he had to pa.s.s a woman in a crepe gown and a Martini coming down, things got interesting. For a moment, Simbal thought she was going to ask him to do it right there but she only licked her lips and said, "I'll be sure to see you later."

Upstairs the polished honey parquet floor gave way to thick pile wall-to-wall the color of clotted cream. It made you want to take off your shoes and run through it barefoot. Which was just what a young woman with long red hair was doing. She had lifted her full Mexican peasant skirt up with both hands so high not only her sleek thighs gleamed in the lights but the smallest pair of panties Simbal had ever seen. The sea of hair in which the minuscule swatch of fabric was buried was the object of everyone's attention.

Simbal looked around, found the portable bar. He asked for an Absolut on the rocks and took a sip. Wandered off.

There was a balcony up here as well. Not as wide, perhaps, as the one on the first floor, but it was adequate enough. Simbal peered out through the gla.s.s at the motor launches moving lazily along the Intracoastal. A tiny uninhabited island had been festooned with colored lights so the lush unspoiled foliage could be admired at any hour.

His eye caught a movement and the multicolored illumination revealed the flat planes of a face with which he was familiar. Run-Run Yi. New York's diqui honcho and, by all reports, Alan Thune's strongest supporter into the organization's higher echelons. Who was he talking with?

Simbal drifted some more. Darkness and then the light. Bennett! The voodoo spook himself. Simbal took a long look and then, as Bennett suddenly turned in his direction as an eruption of noise came through the open window-doors, stepped quickly back.

When Simbal looked again Yi was alone. Cursing, he put his drinkaside and went out along the terrace. Movement, shadows and light, blending. Couples swaying to the rich, soaring voice of Nona Hendryx, funky, jazzily complex.

Pushed his way through the throng, pa.s.sed right by Run-Run Yi, who was leaning on the rail, staring down. Simbal paused, did the same. Saw Bennett on the floor below.

Inside, the woman with the long red hair had lifted her peasant skirt all the way over her head. Already three Latino types, dripping grease and nine-hundred-dollar Armani suits, were beginning to close in, the hungry look of the predator on their shiny faces.

An egg-shaped c.o.c.ktail table had been cleared of its carefully arranged array of crystal bowls, thick verbena-scented candles, a stark j.a.panese-style arrangement of bird of paradise, and now four kneeling couples were taking turns slurping lines of white powder off the gla.s.s top with a golden straw.

Jesus, Simbal thought as he brushed hurriedly past them, all this scene needs now is Lot's wife.

His progress down the shimmering spiral staircase was impeded momentarily by a macho man with too much hair and gold on his chest who was drunk or high or both. Simbal finally pushed him in the direction of the egg-shaped table.

As he raced the rest of the way down to the lower floor, he wondered what had happened to spook Bennett. Had he caught sight of Simbal? If so the recognition factor had been instantaneous. Then Simbal remembered a note from Bennett's accessed U file. That was the confidential shrink personality-evaluation section. Bennett had an eidetic memory. His recall of visual data was absolute. Then it was a sure bet he had caught a glimpse of Simbal.

Talking Heads were singing about a psycho killer as Simbal got a visual fix on Bennett. The Cuban had picked him up as well, knew from the look in Bennett's eyes that a wheel had come loose somewhere. He and a young Mexican woman were standing between Bennett and the front door.

Simbal headed their way. There was some heated talk but David Bowie singing something about Templars and Saracens made it impossible to make out what, even though the two of them seemed to be shouting.

Bennett raised his fists first and the Cuban tramped hard on his instep. Bennett used his elbow, ramming it into the Cuban's ribs. Then his ham fist, already c.o.c.ked, struck down at the side of the Cuban's face.

Gato de Rosa was reeling as Bennett grabbed at the Mexican woman, spun both of them out the door. Simbal caught the Cuban as he was about to fall, lifted him up. His head came around, his eyes uncrossing slowly.

"Martine?"

"That you, dude?"

"Yeah. Bennett's a little high-strung these days, wouldn't you say."

"He's got Maria. She's a local contact I've been working." The Cuban hawked into a linen handkerchief. Stared at it as if he'd never seen his own blood before. "G.o.dd.a.m.n it!"

"Let's get the sonofab.i.t.c.h," Simbal said.

"You watch that dirty temper of yours, dude," the Cuban said. "That's my corazon he's got with him."

The sconces of light seemed like empty smiles, mocking them. Gato de Rosa swabbed at the side of his mouth with the b.l.o.o.d.y handkerchief as the descending elevator tried its best to burst their eardrums.

"No one's ever done that to me," the Cuban said. He seemed more concerned with the loss to his peculiar brand of personal honor. "Hijo de puta!"

"What'd he say?"

"He said to me, *What's that G.o.dd.a.m.ned f.u.c.king pig, Tony Simbal, doing trying to shove his snout up my a.s.s?' I told him he must be hallucinating. And he said, *Simbal's f.u.c.king here and you'd better believe that I know who he's looking for. He's a G.o.dd.a.m.ned one-man terminator.a"

"I resent that!" Simbal said hotly.

"Don't knock your rep, dude."

The doors slid open on the ground floor and they stepped out. Simbal took a step toward the lobby but the Cuban said, "Hey, man, this way."

They went out the back, down a wide bluestone path lit by bra.s.s ground lights with a vaguely nautical motif. Palm fiddlehead swayed and insects buzzed, flinging themselves suicidally against the hot lights.

Ahead of them Simbal could see the boat slips that, along with the famous but faded Australian tennis pro, was one of the condo's main selling points.

"He didn't come in a car," the Cuban said as they began to sprint down the path. "Cars make Bennett nervous. He doesn't go anywhere he can't get to by boat." He pointed as they turned along the quayside. "That's his cigarette there. The black one with white trim."

Cigarettes were common in Miami. Slim power launches that werealmost all engine, they were manufactured primarily as racing craft. In Miami they had been adapted for use by the drug smugglers who plied the ten thousand waterways, covelets and tiny beachfronts that beribboned the coastline.

"Don't come any closer!"

Bennett's shout brought them up short. They were not more than one boat's length away from the stern of the black cigarette.

"This's the end of the line for the two of you!"

"Eddie, I don't know what's gotten into you. I"

"Shut your f.u.c.king lying mouth, you Cuban c.o.c.ksucker!"

"Now, look!"

"No, you look, pimp-face!" Bennett emerged from the shadows of the cigarette's cowling with a figure held tight to his front. Simbal could see the Magnum .357 pointed at Maria's temple. "You look at this. Wanta see her brains splattered all over the dock, hotshots?"

Simbal and Gato de Rosa said nothing.

Bennett laughed and his heavy face twisted in a sneer. "Look at you! I wish I could play you a video tape of your faces. Jesus, you look stupid! What a couple of f.u.c.king Boy Scouts."

"Let her go, Eddie," the Cuban said. "She's only a skirt. You don't want to do nothin' to her."

Bennett sneered. "You better pray I don't, dude."

"I don't know what you're up to, Eddie," the Cuban said.

"I know," Simbal said. "He's joined the lunatic fringe."

"Watch your mouth, Boy Scout!" Bennett pushed the muzzle of the Magnum so hard against Maria's temple, her head canted over at an angle. "You think I won't waste her? You're f.u.c.king jerks. They sent me up to New York to do a number on Alan Thune. You heard about that one, I know, every-f.u.c.king-body heard about it. That was the point of it."

"What the f.u.c.k're you doin'?" Gato de Rosa said to Simbal under his breath. "I warned you about this."

The thing was, Simbal knew, to break the deadlock. This was not a siege situation where time was almost always on the side of those who waited longest. This was what Simbal called a flashburn, a short-fuse situation that was going to be resolved quickly one way or another. The person who thought the fastest would come out the winner. He looked for a minute into Maria's liquid eyes, saw to his surprise no fear or panic. That was good. Perhaps there was a chance, after all.

"You know what you've become, Bennett?" Simbal deliberately raised his voice. "You're a pariah!"

"Martine," Bennett said, "what's he talkin' about?"

"You ain't got a home, buddy," Simbal continued. "You're a rolling stone n.o.body wants."

"You're f.u.c.king out of your mind!" Bennett called back. "Looney tunes!"

But Simbal had his attention. "You've been put on the hit list."

"f.u.c.k the DEA!" Bennett said, laughing again. "I got myself a better home. I make more money than you poor dumb s.h.i.ts could ever dream of."

"I'm here to put you out of your misery, Bennett."

"Yeah, I figured. The Company hitman."

"No, no, you've got it wrong, Bennett. The diqui hired me."