While he was there, he heard the front door slam, loud like a gunshot.
Tze advanced across the room and enveloped Frankie’s hand in his. Rough skin, hard like old leather crossed the younger man’s pale office-worker fingers. Tze leaned into him, and Frankie felt profoundly naked beneath the man’s flinty gaze. The CEO of Yuk Lung had hard amber eyes set deep in a face tanned by exposure. Tze wasn’t as tall as Frankie had been expecting, but the man was thickset and broad across the chest. He looked more like a wrestler than a corporate executive, and it wasn’t hard to imagine him as the Mongol warrior some compared him too. Frankie imagined Tze in horsehide and armour and knew he’d be as comfortable with it as he was here and now in his spidersilk Tommy Nutter original.
“Alan was a good man,” he rumbled. “He had vision and character. He will be missed.”
Frankie swallowed. “I… Please, sir, I haven’t yet been given the details of what happened…”
Tze threw Alice a look and she gave a shallow nod. “A bad business, Francis. I hesitate to speak of it here.” He looked away. “Be assured that the company is expending every effort in the matter. Your brother has been granted full honours. ”
“Thank you,” said Frankie. “But if I may ask how-?”
“Alice will brief you this afternoon,” Tze said, with a finality that ended the line of conversation like an axe-blow. “But before then we must address a matter that concerns you, and you alone.”
“I don’t understand.”
Tze gestured to a portly woman hovering near the door, and on cue she came closer. Her face was a little too perfect for the body it was on. “Francis, this is Phoebe Hi. She is a cousin of our corporate clan, from the RedWhiteBlue group.”
Frankie gave her a weak smile. RedWhiteBlue Inc. was YLHI’s entertainment division, a hit factory churning out music, vids and home vircade games across half of the Pacific Rim. Hi gave him a plastic blink of seamless teeth. “I worked closely with your brother,” she said. “I hope to do the same with you.”
Tze gave her the slightest of nods and Hi retreated a couple of steps. “Yes, my boy. I’ve brought you here because I hope you will accept a gift from us.”
“Gift?” repeated Frankie, his head spinning.
The other man rubbed at his tightly trimmed beard. “I know that nothing can replace your brother, but it is my hope that you will allow me to demonstrate the regard in which he was held by Yuk Lung.” He placed a fatherly hand on Frankie’s shoulder, the other reaching for the metal box on the table. “I want you to take Alan’s place here in Hong Kong. I want you to assume his duties and position within our clan, with all the responsibilities and rewards that entails. Will you join us, Francis?”
As if there was any other answer to give. “Of… Of course, sir. But I…”
Tze put a finger to his lips. “Ssh. No doubts, lad. We have none of that here.”
Frankie nodded. “I, uh, accept, sir. It’s an honour.”
“We are a traditional corporation, Francis,” Tze continued, opening the box. “In this day and age, to some that makes Yuk Lung seem… peculiar in its practices.” His fist came up and in it was an ornate four-fold brass dagger. “This is a ghost knife. It is more than two thousand years old.” He offered it, blade-first.
Gingerly, Frankie took it, feeling the razor sharp edges pulling at the skin of his palm. Tze smiled a little and cupped Frankie’s hand in his, pressing the younger man’s flesh into the blades. Where it cut him, it felt icy cold.
“It is important,” Tze said, tightening his grip, “for men to understand that the wheel turns only when the axle is oiled by blood. ”
Session #542, resuming at 3. 38pm
DR YEOH: Are you ready, Sally?
SALLY: Okay. Can I get a smoke?
DR YEOH: I’m afraid not. We’ve talked about that before. You can’t smoke in the clinic.
SALLY: Oh yeah. Right.
DR YEOH: So. Let’s continue. We were talking about your friend, Cynda.
SALLY: Not my friend any more.
DR YEOH: Why is that?
SALLY: I told you. I saw what she had in there.
DR YEOH: In where?
SALLY: Inside her head.
DR YEOH: What did she have in her head, Sally?
SALLY: Worms. Black worms and snakes.
DR YEOH: How did that make you feel?
SALLY: Sick. I thought she was my friend, but she…
DR YEOH: Take your time.
SALLY: All these years and she had worms in her head. I shared a flat with her, a bathroom. We drank from the same cups. I never would have if I had known.
DR YEOH: How did you find out about the worms?
SALLY: Yonni brought these geltabs around. New things, never tried them before. We had some drinks and we dropped a few.
DR YEOH: And then you saw…
SALLY: Worms. Coming out of her eyes and nose. She was screaming at me, she said I was going to kill her.
DR YEOH: Perhaps you only thought you were seeing worms. Perhaps it was the tablets, did that occur to you?
SALLY: No. I’ve tripped before. I know the difference. Tliis was real. As real as you are in the room with me right now. Do you think I would have? Do you think I would have if I hadn’t known they were real? That would have been crazy.
DR YEOH: What did you do next?
SALLY: She had a big plaster cat on the mantle. I never liked it. I beat her skull in with it and killed the worms. I know it worked because they were all gone after that.
DR YEOH: How did that make you feel?
SALLY: Better.
Session #542 ends.
4. The Game of Death
Fixx saw the taxi-sampan come around the corner on to Decatur Street and stepped lightly from the balcony and on to the prow of the chugging boat. The aged fellow at the helm peered up at him from under a woollen cap, his sunken brown face giving Fixx a sour look in return.
“Give a man a ride?” he asked, as the sampan bobbed in the wake of an airboat.
The sulky driver jerked his thumb at the people in the passenger compartment and set off again. Fixx swung himself over the windscreen and joined the surprised family of tourists in the back. Father, mother, two boys. Dad was already fumbling for a Day-Glo taser on his belt, Mom shocked by the sudden arrival of a large black man in a ballistic kevleather long coat. The boys watched, wide-eyed.
He took off his espex and gave the lady a winning smile. “Joshua Fixx, ma’am. My most profuse apologies for taking advantage of your boat.” He kissed the back of her hand with gentle reverence.
Dad had the taser in his fist now. “Just a darn minute, pal! This is our taxi!”
A SoCal accent. Fixx had the measure of these folks in a heartbeat; some midlevel whitebread splashing out on a transcontinental vacation to shut up his bored wife and whiny kids, venturing out from the west coast with little or no idea how the rest of the You Ess of Ay actually worked beyond the walls of their gated community in the burbs.
“How are you liking Newer Orleans?” He said the name of the city like N’Arlens, because that was how the touristas expected it. “She’s a peach, ain’t she?” He took in the riverine streets with a casual gesture, removing a twig from his sleeve. In the distance, a French horn was razzing the sky at a rooftop cafe deep in the Vieux Carre.
Dad brandished the taser like it was a holy cross against a vampire. “Don’t make me use this!”
“Ah, hush yourself now.” Fixx snapped the twig right under Dad’s nose and the man went slack, head lolling forward. A line of drool emerged from his lips along with a low snore. Fixx gave Mom an apologetic look and threw the taser into the water as the taxi turned on to Canal Street. She clucked and flailed over her husband, unable to wake him.
“Hey mister,” said one of the boys, the elder of the two. “Did you kill my dad?” He wore a Subburb Sux screen-T with Mall-ratz gangcult colours.