Their eyes are fastened to the room’s most commanding presence, the one all of us fear.
I keep to the corner, my shoulder pressed against the serving cabinet. Across the room sits Nuo, dressed in the same low-cut scarlet dress, her fingers skipping over steel strings. The notes she plays are so soft I’m not even certain I hear them. But my ears are trained in other places, listening as the men offer their reports.
There are ten men in the circle; several of them are older, with silvering hair and creased brows. The only one I recognize is Fung. He sits in the far corner, face almost as fierce as the dragon inked onto it.
I listen for names, but these men are not friendly with one another. They toss around titles instead. Fung is called “Red Pole.” The man with golden incisors and the four deep nail marks down his cheek is the “Incense Master.” Another, a snow-haired member, is known as “White Paper Fan.” I lock the titles deep into my chest and try not to panic.
Why panic when there’s a rooftop garden? Will the ambassador still bring me flowers if I have an entire garden to smell?
The meeting stretches long. Each man gives a report filled with numbers and profits and loss and death. The master listens, his mouth set like stone as he scratches down notes in a book of parchment and red leather.
I keep listening, my ears straining for names until they ache. In the end, I walk away with four: Fung. Leung. Nam. Chun Kit. Five if you include Longwai. But I don’t. His name is everywhere.
Fung. Leung. Nam. Chun Kit. I keep the names on the tip of my tongue. Mouthing them silently to keep them fresh in my head. Again and again and again. Until they become one long name, without break: Fungleungnamchunkit. I recite it over and over — a silent prayer — as I wash out the glasses and put away the slender pipes.
10 days
JIN LING
It took two days to find a replacement tarp. Two days of picking through disgusting piles of rubbish. In the end, I had to go to Mr. Lam’s shop. Use the money in the orange envelope.
And now that I have a tarp, there’s no perfect place to pitch it. My favorite spots are claimed. Some by the older vagrants. Men and women who cram into the warmer corners with wadded newspapers and moth-eaten, mildewed coats. Others by groups of twig-limbed orphans. Who watch me pass with hungry, wide eyes. Bare-toothed snarls. I walk quickly. Head down, hoping none of them remember my face. Hoping word doesn’t get back to Kuen. Other spots, by the water spigots and sewer grates, are too exposed. I need a place that’s out of the way. Hidden from Kuen’s pack.
For two days I’ve avoided the thug. Not an easy task. Even in this maze of corners and ever-night. He’s on the hunt: Three times I’ve slipped into a shopfront or alley crack, watched his pack pass. They’ve spread out, roaming the streets in pairs. Raking every walkway and back again. Knives glinting.
Kuen’s out for blood.
I just have to stay one step ahead of him.
So I keep walking. Searching for a place out of sight. Safe. I stay off the main streets. Away from the grandmothers gossiping around soap tables, dealing black cards and coaxing fortunes from one another’s palms. Away from mothers kneeling by water stations, scrubbing sauce stains out of their families’ shirts. Away from the factory men standing long hours, pouring liquid plastic into molds.
But eyes are everywhere. Even in the loneliest corners. An old man shuffles by, picking out scrap rods for recycling the way a sparrow selects straw for a nest. He tosses them into his wheelbarrow with a crash that makes me shiver. Walk faster. Around another corner. Too fast. No pausing to listen for other steps.
I see the boys first. Two of them, walking slow. Combing the stoops and barred windows with eyes and knife-points. My feet are still in a hurry, still rushing forward when they see me.
The closest boy stops. His nose scrunches, then flares. “It’s him!”
The survivor kicks in. She twists my hips midstep. Lights blur. Gravel hisses under my feet. Lunge, lunge, stretch. I’m running before I can even see where this street will take me.
There are no gaps or alley cracks for me to vanish in. The corner I turned is long behind. This stretch belongs to storefronts and gated stairwells. One of these apartment doors swings open. Nearly catches me in the face with white grating.
Get off the street! The survivor doesn’t hesitate. She jumps. Into the doorway. Past the startled old tenant with the key in his hand. Up, up, up the steps.
This complex is like Dai’s. With stairs that wind up like a never-ending paper clip. Noise carries far in the hollow space. I hear Kuen’s two boys panting and plodding up the steps. I take my precious, flapping tarp, spread it wide, and let it fall. Curses and the sound of wrestled plastic push me higher — past door after gated door. Ten floors of this.
And then, the end. The final door. This one isn’t gated. It isn’t even really closed. There’s no fight when I slam into it, burst into the open free.
Water. Everywhere. Falling from the dark, dark sky. Bursting like freckles across my face. Drumming the puddles at my feet. Wet sinks into my boots. My steps slosh, slide through rising pools, past someone’s abandoned sunbathing umbrella, between two trashed mattresses. All the way to the ledge.
This building’s rooftop is shorter than the others around it, stunted by at least four stories. There’s only a single edge, a gap where the fourth wall doesn’t fuse to the building I’m standing on. It’s too far to leap across. And I’m not even really sure what I’d jump to. All the windows in front of me are flat, barless.
The only way off is down. Where raindrops shimmer, dim, and die. Swallowed by the canyon. It’s not all black. Verandas jut out the side, their slanting tin roofs clinging like fungus to the far wall. But getting to them…
It’s a drop that makes my hairs bristle and rise.
Behind me the stairwell door smacks open. Both boys spill out into the rain.
“Gotcha!” The first boy sees me on the ledge, slows down. His steps don’t splash anymore. His blade stays straight. “Kuen’s been looking forward to seeing you, Jin!”
Fight or flee. I look away from their knives. To the slippery, wet metal roofs. To the fall.
“He’s got plans for you,” the boy goes on. Steps closer. “I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes for all the porridge at Mrs. Pak’s.”
“Or boots!” His partner snickers.
I can’t make the jump. It’s too far. Too wet.
And I can’t fight the boys. Not without getting cut or killed.
The survivor turns back to the edge.
She jumps.
My stomach is high, high, high in my throat. My hands are clawing, scrabbling at air as empty as my gut. The rain around me catches the window lights, twinkles like stars. They look almost still. But we’re falling together.
My boots meet the tin first. Their City Beyond soles grip through the wet. Stick. My knees crumple and my hands splay, steady me.
I made it. For a few seconds I’m frozen in my frog-squat.
Stunned. My chasers’ curses fall with the rain. I look up and see the first boy has sheathed his knife. But he’s not walking away. He stands on the ledge with nervous lips, wide legs.
He’s going to follow me.
I scramble to the edge of the roof. All around are laundry lines and pipes. None of them appear strong enough to hold me. Every veranda is barred. There’s a crossway between the two buildings, woven together with bamboo and wire. Reaching it would take another jump.
This time I don’t hesitate. Kuen’s boy is crouched, ready to spring. We take to the air at the same time. Desperate birds, clipped wings, deadweight.