Chapter 8 Old Friends and New Faces
OLD FRIENDS AND NEW FACES
All these years later, and a much older Mercy Chan was again looking for the man who knew everyone.
Driving wasn’t a possibility in the Walled City.
The roads were too dense and narrow, and some were barely strong enough for pedestrians, let alone vehicles.
Once the triad cars reached the walled boundaries, they all climbed out, leaving only a couple of enforcers to park the cars elsewhere in Hong Kong.
Everyone else peeled off and moved rapidly toward Snakeskin headquarters. Mercy, though, had a different place in mind. She needed to find someone she hadn’t seen in over a decade.
She picked her way through streets laden with incense and offers, past priests and hawkers offering last-minute deals on fu talismans.
By tomorrow, the shops would be shutting in the early afternoon, ahead of Hungry Ghost Festival.
Everyone stayed in and went to bed early on such dangerous evenings.
Rooms and addresses changed often, but Mercy still heard from Lau Yik a few times a year through his letters, and she was fairly certain he was in this part of the district.
After a few wrong turns and a little bit of backtracking, she finally found the door she was looking for on the eighth floor of Kowloon Walled City’s westernmost side.
At least, she thought it was the door; the address matched.
The name on the mailbox outside, however, was someone else’s: a woman Mercy did not know, and had never heard of.
It could mean Lau Yik had moved, or perhaps he’d finally gotten married after all these years.
One way to find out; she knocked loudly.
The letterbox flap lifted. “Who is it?” A high-pitched voice, irritable and tired-sounding.
“It’s Mercy Chan.” She hesitated, then amended that to, “I used to be called Chen Mei Chi, and I’m looking for a friend of mine. His name is Lau Yik—”
“Buddha’s tits!”
“Excuse me?” she said, taken aback.
“Ugh.” A long-suffering sigh. “Just come in, Mei Chi. Easier to explain in person.”
The bolts drew back, and after some fumbling with locks from the inside, the door swung open.
Mercy squinted in the half-gloom of the alley.
A stranger looked back at her. Well, not quite a stranger. The eyes were the same—wise, dark, slightly crinkled at the corners. The dinted spectacles, so often repaired, remained unchanged. Mercy remembered them well.
But apart from that, the man she’d known as Lau Yik was gone.
In his place stood a woman of nearly sixty, lean and compact as Lau Yik had been, wearing a loose black shirt and dark slacks.
Long gray hair was gathered in a tidy ponytail, and fine lines etched the handsome face.
Her sandaled feet were a little swollen around the ankles.
“The years have been kind to you,” Mercy managed, struggling to hide her surprise. Lau Yik—was that still the right name?—had said nothing about a transformation in those sparse letters. “It’s so good to see you again … big sister.” Not so different from saying “big brother,” she decided.
“Thank you. I’m glad to see you, too.” A tentative smile on that serious face. “I go by the name Erika now.” She gestured. “Please, come in. You too, Bao.”
Bao purred, slinking inside as if he owned the place.
“Erika,” Mercy echoed, stepping across the threshold.
“That’s nice. English names are trendy, I hear.
” She glanced around at the small flat: clean and minimalist, which had always been her friend’s style.
A TV set, some furniture, a small cooker.
A bed and a shelf of books. Her friend had always preferred to live simply.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Erika said, dryly. “And don’t give me shit for an English name, not when you have one yourself.”
“I don’t mean offense, I just wasn’t expecting it. People are allowed to change and grow. Including me, and including you.” Mercy pulled out a chair and sat down at the little kitchen table. “Still. Why didn’t you tell me?”
Erika settled across from her. “What was there to tell? I changed a little every day, over many years. It did not seem worth mentioning. Do you write to tell me how much you’ve aged, every few months?” She shrugged. “Anyway, not everyone feels about change as you do.”
“Not everyone is smart,” Mercy agreed. “Tomorrow is a new day, hey?”
“Tomorrow is a new day,” Erika agreed, and the tension eased from her shoulders.
Mercy grinned. “How are you doing, big sister? It’s been too long.”
“Good, good. I run my school, and pay my rent.”
Mercy nodded. With the war long over, Erika had returned to teaching unruly local children.
Erika added, “I pay my triad dues, too. You’d better not be here for money.”
“Of course not!”
“But you still work for that Snakeskin woman, don’t you?”
Mercy grimaced. “I don’t know.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
She found herself launching into an explanation of the day: the fire-breathing grandmother, to start with.
Then the water fetcher, and her odd demeanor.
The demolitions consultation that Cobra Lily had chosen to attend, and the trip from Kowloon into Hong Kong.
The strangeness of the Executive Council member, Tsang Kit Ling.
The ill-fated meeting, Kit Ling’s accusations, and Cobra Lily’s loss of face.
“This is serious business. Especially that dead girl you met,” Erika said, when she’d finished. “Let me see those files.”
Mercy slid the binder across the table. Erika flipped through it, silently shuffling through photos, eyes narrowing as she skimmed reports.
“That’s a lot of dead people,” she said eventually.
“Yes.” Mercy drummed her fingers on the tabletop. “I can’t help but think there is a connection. The girl, the demolitions, the councilwoman … it all feels linked. Don’t you think it’s a bit too convenient, this ghost arriving just in time to serve Kit Ling’s agenda?”
Erika sat back, fingers interlaced thoughtfully. “Ah. You think this councilwoman has found a ghost to inflict on Kowloon, in order to make the city look dangerous, so that she can demolish it? And if so, maybe it is targeting you, specifically, because you’re associated with Cobra Lily.”
“Something like that.”
“Where would a government official even find such a ghost, Chan?”
“That’s why I’m here.” Mercy scooted her chair forward a little. “I think this ghost might be something left over from the war. One of the spirits rounded up during those city-wide exorcisms. You know, something more powerful than normal.”
“Ah. Down in the Murray Building, no? I suppose she would have access to those,” Erika said, with a sidelong look. “Which ghost were you thinking of, particularly?”
Mercy spread her hands. “You tell me, old lady. This is your area of experience. I didn’t really know much about the ghosts that ended up down there.”
“Who are you calling old? Aiyah. Let’s have a drink.” Erika got up to fetch some bottles of beer from a nearby shelf. She popped the tops with her teeth and extended one to Mercy, who accepted it gratefully. They each took a long sip of the sour, slightly warm liquid.
Erika belched quietly, patted her belly, and said, “That’s better. Beer always helps me remember things. You know … now that you mention it, something is coming back to me.”
“Oh?”
“There were rumors, during the war years, of ghosts who fought in the resistance.” Erika ran a thumb over the neck of her beer bottle.
“You’re right about the ghosts down in the Murray Building.
They are not just any old spirits. Almost all of them were spirits of unusual strength, who helped fight against the Japanese. ”
“Why on earth,” Mercy said, faintly astonished, “would ghosts fight the Japanese?”
“You’re kidding, right? Can you truly not imagine what a ghost might have against invaders and occupiers who killed thousands?”
“Well … fair point,” Mercy admitted. “Still, it seems very noble of them. Given that they are ghosts.”
“Who cares about their motivation, if they’re on the right side in a battle,” Erika said.
“There was one particular spirit who had an affinity for water. I can’t remember the details, though.
She was known for drowning, and strangulation.
Got herself onto Japanese ships, somehow, despite all their wards. ”
“This is during the time I was working for you? I don’t remember any stories of that!” Mercy said, eyebrows raised.
“Yep, same time. But you wouldn’t have known about it, Chan. Even I know very little! The guerilla groups in Sai Kung didn’t share much information about her, because they protected her existence.”
Mercy nodded. “Did they catch her, this ghost? Are you sure she’s one of the ones bound in the Murray Building?”
“How should I know? She disappeared after the war, so maybe she was captured and put into a gourd. Or maybe she faded naturally, as some do.” Erika fished out a pack of cigarettes and offered it to Mercy, who took one. “What will you do? Curious minds wish to know!”
“The only thing I can do: investigate this Kit Ling person. And look for the ghost she has set free,” Mercy said, fishing around for a lighter. “The one question I can’t figure out is why she cares so much. What’s it to her whether Kowloon is demolished or not?”
“Now that, I can definitely help with.” Erika flicked ash. “What if I told you that our friend Kit Ling owns property in Kowloon?”
“You’re joking me.”
“Afraid not. She bought property here a few years ago, through a proxy. Trying to keep it quiet.”
“Why the hell did she buy anything in here? Types like her don’t want to live in Kowloon, do they?”
“Oh, she’s not living in the district!” Erika barked a laugh. “Same reason a lot of people want property in Kowloon, no doubt. Every time the government talks of demolition, the prices shoot up.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You just don’t think like a crook, do you?
” Erika jabbed the table with an index finger.
“Listen. If the government demolishes Kowloon, it will have to pay compensation to its residents. And if you were, for example, some unscrupulous politician who happened to own that property, you could manipulate things. Drive the prices up, and cash in on the sale.”
“Like insider trading?”
“Exactly.”
Mercy sat up straight, both feet on the floor. “How do you even know all this?!”
“I used to have many contacts among the government, such as it was. Especially during the war.” Erika smiled. “A few of them still write to me, every now and then. One of them is a tenant of Kit Ling’s, as it happens. Though I had no idea the information would become important.”
“Well. Thank you, big sister.” Mercy reached across and squeezed the other woman’s hand. “This has been deeply helpful. Do you know the address for this property?”
“Ever been to the Birdcage?”
“The phoenix house?” Mercy said, utterly floored. “How does a councilwoman get away with owning an opium-den brothel?”
Erika smirked. “It’s registered as a residential address. And she’s not the only civil servant collecting rent from Kowloon—many of them are corrupt.”
“Even more reason I should visit, then,” Mercy said, mind racing. “Preferably through a back window, with no one watching.”
“You want to break in, Chan? Is that wise?”
“Are there any better leads? These shady bastards are all connected somehow, and that’s as good a place to start as any,” Mercy countered. “If I can show that Kit Ling or others have a corrupt interest in demolition, that will be enough to halt the process.”
“Sounds dangerous and risky to me,” Erika muttered.
“What choice do I have? I can’t just knock and ask politely, can I?” She shrugged. “I will be cautious.”
“Like you know the meaning of the world ‘cautious,’” Erika groused, and Mercy laughed. “Listen, don’t go now. Evening is here, and it is getting dark. You do not want to be roaming Kowloon in the dark by yourself, eh?”
“The streets are safe—”
“The streets guarded by triad enforcers are safe. Yes.” Erika stubbed out her dying cigarette into a cluttered tray. “But if we are to visit Kit Ling’s property, we should do it when the den is quiet and asleep. It will be lively and full of clients during the night.”
When Mercy hesitated, Erika added, “Aiyah, what’s the hurry? Are you rushing to reincarnate? Keep an old woman company for a few hours. We will have a drink, play some card games, and I can show you around my classroom. Then tomorrow morning, we can go early to this councilwoman’s house. Together.”
“That does make sense, and another pair of eyes would be welcome,” Mercy said, giving in. “Alright, let’s finish these drinks and go have a walk. I always did want to see your school.”