“I need to piss.” I make my voice hard, matter-of-fact.
He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even open his eyes. But I still know he heard me because of the way his lips thin and twitch.
“You got a bathroom I can use?” I ask, this time louder.
His eyes stay shut. I feel like a kid with a stick, poking not-so-tenderly at a snoozing dragon. It would be stupid to push harder, but today’s number burns in the back of my mind. Sixteen days.
I think of it, swallow, and make one more prod. “You got anything? A can?”
“Hold it,” he growls.
“Can’t.” I poke back.
One eye opens, dark and webbed with tiny red veins.
“You’re awfully demanding for a vagrant.” His words all slur together when he says this. “Well-dressed, too.”
My chest feels tight, like an empty cola can being crushed under someone’s knuckles. I try to breathe long and slow — the way my English tutor used to make me do whenever I panicked over my lessons — but there’s too much smoke in the air.
I’ve never claimed to be a vagrant. It’s just an assumption people make. I always let them, because it’s better than explaining the truth. Who I am. What I’ve done. Facts that would change Longwai’s attitude toward me very quickly.
“I get by.” I shrug.
If he’s disappointed with my answer, then he doesn’t show it. He shuts his eye again and waves a hand toward the closest man in black. “Fung will show you where it is.”
Fung, a surly man with a nasty red facial tattoo, doesn’t look too pleased with this task. He glares and shuffles down the west hall, always keeping me in arm’s reach. I walk slow, take in as much detail as I can. Every door we pass is shut, locks on the outside. There are placards in the center, names etched in red paint. These characters blend with the scarlet lanterns that hover over our heads. From some angles they’re invisible.
“Here.” Fung throws his shoulder against a sliver of door. It’s barely wider than my chest, cracking open to reveal a dark, musty space. “Hurry your ass up.”
I don’t waste time in the filth closet. The only thing I’ve accomplished on this venture is figuring out that what I’m looking for isn’t down this hall. Only girls’ rooms and a putrid, open sewer pipe.
My hands shove deep into my hoodie’s pockets as I trail Fung back to the lounge. No more using the bathroom as an excuse to look around. I’ll have to find some other way. Build up trust and feign interest in the Brotherhood. Create some sort of diversion.
Voices, sharp and sparring, like fencing swords, jerk me out of my plotting. They’re so loud they even make Fung stop. He hovers at the end of the hall with me behind him, listening.
“No one else sees her, do they?” a man asks. Something about his voice is familiar, makes me twitchy. It has a foreign sound to it, like a knife chopping liver. The same way my mother speaks. His syllables stab me with homesickness.
Longwai’s voice is easy to recognize. “Of course not. You bought out her time long ago. I’m a man of my word. I thought you knew that, Osamu.”
My arm hair prickles. That voice. That name… Osamu. I do know him. I know how he gets drunk on bottles of imported sake and sweet-talks women at his fancy embassy parties. I remember his face perfectly.
He probably won’t remember mine — it’s been a long time since I’ve been to any parties or embassies. But I can’t take the risk. Not here. I bring my hands out of my pockets and yank my hood up, in case Fung decides we can interrupt.
“If I find out you’ve been cheating me…” the politician growls. “If I find out she’s been with others, I’ll—"
“I’d think long and hard before making any threats, Osamu.” Longwai’s voice is unbending, set in stone. “You might have power in Seng Ngoi, but this is my territory. My rules. Your diplomatic immunity means shit here.”
“You aren’t as untouchable as you think you are,” Osamu rumbles.
No, he’s not. Not if I can find what I’m looking for and do what needs to be done.
My heart claws even higher in my chest, up my throat. So many people, so many officials went to great lengths to keep “the day” shielded from Longwai’s wide infrastructure of knowledge. They rooted out moles with lie detectors and double agents. Kept all the details on the strictest security level and their one loophole: me.
And now Osamu’s here running his mouth, threatening to expose it all.
But Osamu wouldn’t know… would he? He’s a foreign diplomat, with no interest in Seng Ngoi’s city politics. I’m probably just reading into his words. Sliding my own fears between the syllables.
Longwai laughs. “I’m glad we understand each other. Did you only drop in for a chat or were you planning to cash in on your interests?”
“I was on my way to see her, but I’m afraid I’ve forgotten my bouquet. The woman who usually sells them on the street wasn’t there this evening. I’ll have to find another vendor.”
The drug lord’s laughter continues, gaining speed and volume like an avalanche. “You don’t need flowers to get bedded, Osamu. Your coin is good enough there.”
“No, I don’t suppose a man like you would appreciate subtleties.” Osamu says this without fear. “I need the flowers. I’ll be back.”
I hold my breath and listen, but all I hear are footsteps in the other direction. Osamu is gone. Good.
When Fung leads me back in, the men are laid out on the couches, stoned and still, like nothing ever happened. Only Longwai is visibly awake, his normally lazy eyes bulging and agitated.
“Can you believe it?” He seems to be talking to no one in particular, but his eyes are quick to find me. “Threatening me? Over something as trivial as that girl… Fool’s obsessed with her. He brings her flowers and gifts like an actual lover. He even paid for a whole extra month of services so I’d move her into the only room with a window.”
Window. My mind snags on the word. If there’s a window, then there’s another way in.
The shine of ranting slips out of Longwai’s black eyes. He studies me, intent, and I realize my hood is still up. “How old are you, boy?”
For a brief moment I consider lying, but that would be unnecessary. Not to mention stupid. “Eighteen.”
“And you haven’t joined any of those ragtag groups that fancy themselves gangs? Most boys your age were snatched up long ago. Unless you’ve been holding out for an invitation…”
It’s not hard to guess what he’s hinting at — an invitation to be inducted into the Brotherhood. To officially join the ranks of murderers, thieves, and drug addicts. To organize my crimes. In a completely different life, I might’ve leaped at the invitation. If I were starving, living day to day like Jin or Kuen or so many of the other vagrants here, I would have screamed yes. Begged it.
But Longwai’s not offering. And even if he were, I wouldn’t take it. While it would be a surefire way of gaining his trust, joining the Brotherhood as I am now — going through its elaborate, invasive rites of passage — will expose me. Get me knifed into little pieces and killed. My secrets would not keep if Longwai looks close enough.
It’s not worth the risk. Not yet.
“I prefer to be on my own. Fewer complications.” Because this is true, I have little trouble saying it.
“What about the other boy? Jin?”
Shit. The old man doesn’t miss much. I manage to keep my face straight. “You said this job took two, so I brought two. He’s disposable.”
“And yet you’re the one facing the knife if he doesn’t come back with what I want The disposable one.” His last sentence hangs in the air like bait, begging me to bite, wrestle, fight.
I stare down at my toes. They remind me of the freshwater eels in the tanks of the seafood restaurants, alive but cramped, stacked on top of one another until I don’t see how there’s any room for them to move at all.