CHAPTER 35
CHAPTER
JUST YOU, DILLON,” SAID MASUYO. “Not him.” She gave Thura a derisive look.
Thura took the insult with good humor, giving Nash a mischievous glance.
“Yes, ma’am,” said Thura. As he walked off he added in a voice only Nash could hear, “Watch your back.”
“Where would you like to go, Mrs. Steers?” Nash asked.
“Let us venture to Kowloon Park.”
“All right, but, as we discussed before, there might be people out there looking for you after your escape from prison. They would know that your daughter lives in Hong Kong.”
“And as I told you before, I look nothing like I did in that place, and I have my life to live and I intend to live it. It is your job to make sure I am not harmed. So do your job, Dillon, and let me worry about everything else.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Nash was going to order a car, but Masuyo insisted that she wanted to walk.
His comm pack in place and his earpiece in, the armed Nash felt like a Secret Service agent on protection detail. When I’m actually quite the opposite of that.
The park was filled with walking paths, water features, and statues of serious-looking men in contemplative poses.
But there were also whimsical sculptures of colorful cartoon and superhero characters, graffitied steps, racks of vending machines, and, jarringly, a McDonald’s.
There were fountains of different sizes and legions of strutting flamingos, and large turtles swimming in pools.
And rising above all of this were the massive skyscrapers of Hong Kong.
They passed an ice cream shop, where Masuyo had Nash purchase her a cup of soft serve vanilla. “The weather is warm and I am a bit overheated,” she explained, though there was no need to do so.
As they moved along Masuyo really looked at nothing.
She just walked with a firm step and stared straight ahead while she slowly spooned the ice cream into her mouth.
She had to use a public toilet and Nash offered to hold her ice cream for her, but she refused.
When she came back out she led him down a set of steps that opened into a quiet area where there was seating.
She settled on a bench and ordered Nash to sit beside her.
For a few minutes she said nothing, and Nash was not compelled to break the silence.
At last she said, “It was my daughter’s idea, the outing with her.”
“Was it?” asked Nash.
She glanced at him. “You are a smart man, Dillon. You know that it was.”
“I suppose she wanted you to spend time with someone from the past. To help you resettle into your new life.”
“I would never have chosen a mere servant with whom to do so.”
“I thought Hiroko was an honored friend of the family’s.”
“Ridiculous. She was a paid caregiver to my daughter. That is all.”
Nash wondered if the woman did not know about Hiroko pulling Steers from the plane’s wreckage and saving her. “I’m sorry, I just assumed.”
“Never assume. It is not a good tactic, for anyone.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Nash, recalling that Steers had once said something similar to him.
“Now to your knowing my real name, Dillon, let us discuss.”
“I thought we had, ma’am.”
“You did no research. No one connected with my daughter told you. You came by this knowledge another way clearly.”
Nash started to tell her, despite the risk to what he was trying to do with the FBI, that he’d heard it from Temple.
But before he could she added, “And your making up lies or excuses now is neither helpful to me nor beneficial to you.”
Nash closed his mouth. Too late to try to explain, he concluded.
“What we must discuss is loyalty, Dillon. Where does yours lie?” “I thought it obvious.”
“Not to me. So explain it to an old woman who has been out of the world for so long that her senses are not where they should be.”
I think your senses are far better than most, thought Nash. “I work for your daughter, but my mission is to see that no harm comes to you.”
“From any source?”
“From any source.”
“So you are loyal to me above all others?”
Nash knew this question was coming. It was like college debating, which Nash had actually done, where your opponent sought, by one logical statement after another, to box you right into a corner.
“Dillon?” she said when he did not answer.
“You place me in a difficult position, Mrs. Steers.”
“Where else did you expect me to place you, Dillon? Please do not make me believe you are not up to this. I would hate to have you replaced.”
She said the last word in a way that sounded to Nash like killed. And he could see very clearly how Masuyo had built a criminal empire. He now focused on how immensely difficult that must have been, since the woman would have had formidable opponents all around.
“If I have to make a choice, Mrs. Steers, I would have to say that my loyalties lie with you, because your daughter instructed me so.”
He hoped he had done enough table turning on the woman to let that statement suffice against his being replaced.
He got an answer when she glanced away, but not before he saw a disappointed look on her face. Not disappointment in his answer being a bad one, just an unwelcome one, because it seemed to be sufficiently nuanced to prevent further interrogation.
“Then, to sum it up, you are loyal to me. You report to me. My daughter does not come into the equation. If I find that she does, then you will go away, forever, are we clear on that?”
She stared at him, her eyes like twin knife blades looking to pierce him.
“I am very clear on what must be done going forward, Mrs. Steers.”
“If I do find that you have been disloyal, then my daughter will learn that you knew my real name to be Dai Lu. I wonder what she will do with that information.”
Nash didn’t have to wonder for a single second.
As they got up Masuyo left her ice cream container on the bench. When Nash went to retrieve it, she barked, “Leave it, Dillon.”
He followed her to the steps they had taken down to this spot.
When he glanced back a few moments later, the ice cream container was gone. He gave a searching look all around but he couldn’t see who had taken it.
What in the hell had just happened?