“How do you know my name?”
Michael’s only response was the sound of heavy boots on the tin roof above, flashlight beams scouring the edges of the covered alley. Then, the window closed and the sedan reversed away.
“Friend of yours?” the woman asked.
“I never saw him before in my life.”
“He seemed to know you.”
“Yeah, I got that.”
The woman seemed to think about it. “We’ll worry about that later,” she said. “For now, you stick with me.”
The way she said it, like they were already old friends, Michael couldn’t help but cast his mind back on how the evening had begun.
Chapter 3
The reasons for Michael’s trip to Hong Kong were complicated, but they boiled down to this. His father had disappeared unexpectedly while on a business trip to China just over six months earlier. The official investigation into his father’s disappearance had been short but sweet, netting nothing but a one-line explanation and a death certificate. Per the official report, his dad’s speeding vehicle had plunged into a river gorge, and though the body was never recovered, it was determined that no one could have survived the fall. That was it. It was all Michael and his family got. When it became evident that no remains would be found, they had held the funeral just over a month later. To say it had been a difficult time for Michael would be to miss the point entirely. It had been devastating.
The news had come one night while Michael was cloistered in his garage apartment in Seattle’s old Belltown neighborhood. He had just gotten off his shift at Starbucks, the original store down by Pike Place Market, and was now at work on a proprietary piece of computer code. Michael had been floundering, just treading water for awhile now. He had no idea what he wanted to do with his life and it showed. His apartment, like his plan for the future, was a mess. He had done a double major in computer science and history at college, but instead of going to work for the Facebooks of this world he had decided to try life on his own terms for awhile. His own terms meant a variety of jobs and locales. No commitment, but no real progress either. With the code he was working on, he hoped to break free from the cycle of twenty-something malaise he found himself in. He knew it himself. If he could just commit to something, anything, things would work out for him. With this little piece of code, Michael thought he might just get on track. It could be something big. Maybe not Google big, but big nevertheless. If he could just get the application up and running, he had planned to present to venture capitalists in the coming weeks. Instead he had found himself picking out caskets.
Michael was fairly certain his father would have rather burned, but the lack of remains made the choice of cremation problematic. Both his younger sister and mother wanted a symbol, a coffin to lay to rest, even if it was empty. So as the eldest son, Michael had dutifully obliged. He picked out a coffin, he picked out a headstone, he even picked out the flowers, all while his mother sat lost in her La-Z-Boy, staring at the rain. The funeral had come and gone and Michael decided that the quickest way to get back to normal would be to act as though everything was normal. He rang up customers, he frothed cappuccino, he even presented to the venture capitalists, but as much as he wanted it to be, his heart wasn’t in it. They passed on the project. And that’s when Michael got the call.
It wasn’t a call really, it was a text, but its meaning was clear. His father’s death hadn’t been an accident. There was foul play involved. The message had come from a guy named Ted Fairfield, an old family friend and business associate of his dad’s. The text didn’t say much else other than the fact that Ted would contact him again. Six months later and here he was, half a world away in the back room of a broken down Indian restaurant about to come face to face with the person who would change his life.
“Come here.”
Ted Fairfield rose from the table. As always, Ted’s smile was as wide as an airplane hangar, his thinning gray hair tied back into a sparse ponytail. Ted opened his arms and Michael reciprocated with a hug. Ted had not only been a business associate of his father’s but was also his dad’s closet confidant. He was in his late fifties and lean and fit, his enormous toothy grin belying the fine lines on his face. Ted had always been there for Michael. When the news of his father’s death had come, it had been Ted who had brought it. Ted had been a pallbearer. Ted had spoken at the funeral. And Ted, of course, had arranged for tonight’s dinner. Seeing him now, in this strange place, caused Michael to feel a warmth he wouldn’t have thought possible under the circumstances, the warmth of family. Ted released Michael from his bear hug grasp, allowing a second man to speak.
“You’re late, Sport.”
The man was in his mid-forties, and though Michael hadn’t actually met him before, he knew this had to be his father’s business associate, Larry Wu — or as just about everybody knew him — Shanghai Larry. Larry worked for a multinational company that manufactured in the region and had also been a colleague of his dad’s.
“Take a load off,” Larry purred, rising from his seat unsteadily to shake Michael’s hand. “You’re your father’s son all right. Your father’s son all over.”
Larry released Michael’s hand, giving Michael the opportunity to drop his pack and cast his glance down the length of the rickety table. Larry was without a doubt the most formally dressed of the bunch that sat there, and judging from appearances, the least able to hold his liquor. In fact, Michael thought, if one of these things was not like the other, it was definitely Larry with his thousand dollar pin-striped suit and perfectly clipped salt-and-pepper hair.
As Ted made introductions around the table, it didn’t take long to realize that the rest of the group screamed of a wholly different aesthetic. They were younger, of course, but that was far from all of it. They seemed somehow connected. As though they belonged to some kind of secret club Michael could never join. There was a lanky Scotsman sporting dreadlocks and a pork pie hat who went by the name of Crust; a bubbly tanned Australian girl by the name of Song; a shorter guy with some serious facial hair and a French accent whose name Michael didn’t quite catch; and last of all, a low-key brunette who was introduced as Kate. It was Kate who sparked Michael’s interest.
About five-ten with a clear complexion and an aquiline nose, she was somewhere in her mid-twenties, her wide almond eyes lending her an air of sophistication that Michael couldn’t quite put his finger on. When she spoke, her accent was to Michael’s ear completely neutral, suggesting a solid Midwestern lineage, but something about the way she held herself told Michael that though her accent might be American, she wasn’t. She wore a rough cut white linen blouse, a long skirt, and a copper bracelet which seemed to be, as near as Michael could make out, yoga hiker chic. It was the kind of ensemble that would be just as at home at work as it would be at play, but Michael knew he was applying Seattle standards to what was undoubtedly a very different kind of woman. Fortunately, Larry interrupted before he could gawk any longer.
“So, Michael. Fresh out of Chek Lap Kok, I hear?” Chek Lap Kok was Hong Kong’s ultramodern airport and, given its ease of use, a preferred gateway to the East.
Michael checked his watch. “Ninety minutes and counting.”
“Well you couldn’t have picked a better place to land.” Larry pushed a big plate of curry Michael’s way and signaled the waiter for another bottle of beer. “When Teddy said I should come out and say hi, I didn’t know he’d have a whole table of fresh faces for me to meet.” He looked around the table, eyes glazed over. “Now where in the world were we?”