Snakehead tct-4 Read online

  Clara barked and danced around Margaret as she made her way through the gun room and into the kitchen, but quickly returned to sulk in her basket when Margaret gave no indication that she was going to feed her. The dirty dishes piled on every available workspace were depressing, and Margaret wondered why Mendez didn’t simply have someone come in for a couple of hours each day to keep the place clean. The smell of stale cigar smoke and alcohol hung sour in the living room. She switched on the ceiling fan, kicked off her shoes and went upstairs to her room to find some clean underwear.

  She stood for a long time under the shower, letting the hot water cascade over her upturned face and run in snaking rivulets between her breasts, pouring in a stream from the thatch of golden hair that covered her pubis. It felt so good she didn’t want it to stop. Fatigue swept through her, deliciously warm, irresistibly enticing. She soaped herself with a soft sponge, smearing the lather in luxurious bubbling sweeps across her skin and then allowing the water simply to wash it away. She worked the shampoo through her hair and then rinsed it until it squeaked between her fingers, letting the water wash the soap from her eyes before she opened them to see the fleeting movement of a shadow beyond the bathroom door. A tiny, startled exclamation escaped her lips and she instinctively crossed her arms over her breasts.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she called, but there was no response. The door was lying about six inches ajar, and she could see into her bedroom, clothes strewn across the bed where she had dropped them. She immediately turned off the shower, goosebumps standing up all over her body. Still there was no sound, and there was no further movement. She pushed open the door of the shower cubicle and grabbed a soft white towel from the rail, wrapping it around herself and stepping quickly out on to the mat. ‘Hello,’ she called again, and was answered by the same silence as before. Tentatively, she pulled the bathroom door open wide and saw that the bedroom was empty. Had she imagined it? And then she remembered that she was not alone in the house. Perhaps Clara had wandered in, curious about the strange perfumed smells. And she let out a deep breath for the first time in what felt like minutes.

  Partly reassured, she rubbed herself quickly dry, slipped into her bra and panties and towelled her hair until it hung in curling clumps over her shoulders. She dragged a clean white tee-shirt over her head and pushed her legs into a pair of dark blue baggy cotton cargoes. A sense of security returned with the pulling on of clothes. She tugged a comb through her hair and padded barefoot down the stairs.

  Mendez was sitting in the smoking porch puffing on a freshly lit cigar. CNN was playing on the big screen in the living room and on the small TV in the porch. Margaret glanced through the passage leading to the kitchen and saw Clara eating from her bowl. The reassurance that she had clung to briefly in her bedroom quickly evaporated, and was replaced by a sick feeling in her stomach. She slipped on her sneakers and opened the door into the porch. Mendez dragged his eyes from the screen and smiled. ‘There you are, my dear. Good shower?’

  ‘How long have you been here?’ Margaret asked.

  He frowned. ‘I just got in.’ Clara pushed past Margaret’s legs in the doorway and dropped herself at her master’s feet.

  ‘And you haven’t been upstairs?’

  ‘No.’ His frown deepened. ‘Margaret, what’s wrong?’

  She shook her head, not sure whether to feel foolish or suspicious. Was it possible that he had been in her room, watching her in the shower? Clara had been busy eating, so it wasn’t the dog she had seen. ‘Nothing,’ she said lamely. ‘I just thought I heard someone up there, that’s all.’

  Mendez laid his cigar in the ashtray and stood up to cross the porch. He was strangely flushed, so that his white goatee appeared to stand out from his face. ‘My dear, all this is getting to you. You need to relax. Let me get you a drink.’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her face. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  Her stomach was churning now. There was the oddest look in his eyes. ‘I’m fine.’

  His head was raised slightly, eyes half closed, as if he was breathing her in, the smell of her fresh and fragrant and warm. She tried to wriggle free of the hands on her shoulders, but they gripped her more tightly. And then suddenly she found herself pulled hard against him, and his face was pressed to hers. Wet lips, a clash of teeth, the smell of cigar smoke and the rasp of whiskers on her soft skin. She felt his erect penis pushing hard against her stomach, his tongue in her mouth. And for a moment thought she would be sick.

  With a huge effort, she pulled herself free of him and stood back, gasping half in fear, half in anger. ‘Jesus, Felipe, what the hell are you doing!’

  He looked at her with something like panic in his eyes. ‘Margaret, I’m sorry,’ he blurted, and took a step toward her.

  She stepped quickly back. ‘Don’t come near me!’ She was breathing hard, fists clenched, trying to control an urge just to turn and run. She knew now that he had been in her bedroom watching her all that time.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said again. ‘Please don’t leave. It won’t happen again, I promise. You’ve no idea how lonely it gets here. How lonely I’ve been since Catherine…’ His voice trailed away and he looked miserable, turning his gaze to the floor, unable to meet her eyes. ‘I’ve always thought you were…’ He lifted his eyes to look at her. ‘…desirable. I used to envy Michael. It’s what I found hardest to forgive him. That he took you away. That when he broke with me I could no longer see you. I could hardly believe it when I saw you sitting at the conference table at Fort Detrick. It was as if fate had brought you back to me.’

  Margaret stared at him in disbelief. ‘You’re sick, Felipe.’

  He nodded. ‘Yes. Sick with regret, Margaret. Sick that I allowed some base sexual instinct to spoil things between us. I promise…’ His spaniel eyes pleaded with her. ‘…I promise it won’t ever happen again.’

  ‘No, it won’t,’ she said, and she turned and strode back into the living room, lifting her purse from the recliner. ‘I’ll come back and get my stuff in a day or two.’

  ‘Margaret…’ she heard him call after her as she went out through the kitchen. A sad, plaintive call of abject misery. She almost felt sorry for him.

  Chapter Twelve

  I

  It was after ten when she got back to Houston. The sky had cleared and the mercury fallen. The night air had a chill cutting edge to it as she crossed the car park and up the ramp into the lobby of the Holiday Inn. At reception they told her that Li was in room 735, and she rode the elevator up to the seventh floor. Her head felt full of fog. Nothing seemed clear to her any more. All the shapes and patterns of her life, which she had tried so hard these past twelve months to define with decision and clarity, were blurred and confused. She felt vulnerable and, worst of all, lonely. The safety and comfort she had hoped for at the Mendez ranch had vanished in a moment. And now there was only one avenue left open to her. But it was a road she had travelled before and found it led nowhere safe.

  Li opened the door of his room and stood against the light, naked except for a pair of boxer shorts. He loomed over her, taller than she ever remembered him. The television was on in the background, his room filled with the smoke of many cigarettes.

  ‘Room service,’ she said.

  He said, ‘I didn’t order anything.’

  ‘I read your mind.’

  ‘And what did you see there?’

  ‘Two people. A bed. Sex. Sleep.’

  ‘In that order?’

  ‘In any order you like.’

  He pursed his lips and stood for a long time thinking. ‘I don’t have any change,’ he said.

  She frowned. ‘What for?’

  ‘A tip.’

  ‘It’s a complementary service.’

  ‘In that case you’d better come in. I’ve never been one to look a gift horse in the mouth.’

  She pushed the door shut behind them. ‘I’m not sure I like
being called a horse.’

  ‘But you have such lovely fetlocks.’ He stooped to crook an arm behind her knees and lift her off her feet. She put her arms around his neck.

  ‘As long as you don’t feel the need to take a horsewhip to my hind quarters.’

  He smiled. ‘Some women quite like that.’ He paused. ‘I’m told.’

  ‘Not by me. I’d be inclined to think it might spoil the ride.’

  ‘Or spur you on to greater things.’ He laid her on the bed and leaned over her, so that his breath brushed her face.

  She grinned and slipped a hand inside his boxers. ‘That’s all the spur I need.’ And she closed her eyes and let a huge wave of sexual escape break over her. For a few minutes of exquisite pleasure she could be free of a life that was falling apart yet again. She felt his hands on her skin, his lips on her face, her breasts, and as he entered her, she flung her legs around his back and pulled him to her so tightly that she squeezed all of the air out of his lungs.

  * * *

  Afterwards, they lay for a long time in silence. The light of the television flickered in the darkness of the room, the canned laughter of a nonexistent studio audience modulating in time to the regulation thirty-second gags of some mediocre sitcom. Eventually, Li raised himself on an elbow and saw that Margaret’s face was wet with tears. He sat upright. ‘What’s wrong?’

  She reached up and ran her fingers over his split lip, the bruising high on his cheek and around his left eye. ‘It’s just me,’ she said smiling sadly. ‘And life. I never seem to get the two things running in harmony.’ And she told him about Mendez. His abortive sexual advances. A sad and lonely only man, she said. And she told him how she was homeless now and unable to concentrate on her work, or on anything very much. She told him about the virus they had taken from Steve during autopsy. How it had used him to grow stronger, smarter. And she told him about her despair that there would ever be a way out of any of it.

  He wiped the tears from her face with the flat of his hand. He had a great need to talk to someone, but she was too fragile right now to share his burden. So he held his peace and asked her about Xinxin and Xiao Ling.

  Margaret shook her head. ‘Xinxin won’t speak to her, won’t even acknowledge that she’s there. And your sister isn’t making much of an effort to change that.’

  He heard the disapproval in her voice, and his own despair welled up inside him. He lay down again beside her and dragged the top sheet over them both, and they fell back into silence. After a time he reached for the remote and switched off the TV. Outside, the sound of late night traffic on Main drifted up to the open window. He heard Margaret’s breathing slow and thicken and he turned over on to his side, pulling his legs up in the foetal position. He knew he wouldn’t sleep. There was too much going on in his head. And then he felt Margaret shifting in the bed beside him, and the warmth of her body as she turned to fit herself into the curve of his back, pulling her legs up behind his. An arm slipped through his, and her hand cupped itself around the curve of his chest. He felt her breath hot on his neck. He wished he could lie like this forever.

  * * *

  Her eyes flickered open and she saw the red glow of the digital bedside clock. It was 2.30 a.m. The sheet was twisted around her waist. She reached over to find the reassuring warmth of Li and found the bed beside her empty and cold. She rolled over, immediately awake, and the shadow of his absence was dense and dark. She sat up and saw the silhouette of a man standing against the net curtain at the window. He seemed to be staring out into the streetlit night. ‘Li Yan?’

  The figure turned. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I couldn’t sleep.’

  ‘Come back to bed. I know how to make you sleep.’

  She heard his smile. And the regret in his voice. ‘Too much on my mind. Do you mind if I smoke?’

  ‘You’ve never asked me before.’

  ‘We’re in America now. I feel self-conscious about it.’

  She laughed. ‘Smoke, for God’s sake!’ He lit a cigarette and she said, ‘So what’s on your mind?’

  ‘Fear.’

  ‘What are you afraid of?’

  ‘I’m afraid of what’s going to happen to my sister when the ah kung’s little horses get to her. Which they will.’

  She pulled her knees up to her chin. ‘She’s under armed police guard, Li Yan.’

  She saw the shake of his head. ‘They’ll still get to her. These people never give up.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because she can identify the ah kung. She has seen him, and he knows it.’

  ‘How does he know?’

  ‘Because I told him.’

  Margaret stared at him hard in the darkness. She saw the end of his cigarette glow red as he drew on it, and then the shadow of the smoke against the window. She felt herself tensing. ‘You know who he is?’

  He nodded. ‘I wasn’t certain. Until I made a phone call shortly before you showed up tonight.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  Li snorted in the dark. ‘A man of impeccable reputation. Chairman of the Houston-Hong Kong Bank, board member of the Astros baseball team, elected member of Houston City Council.’

  ‘Soong?’ Margaret said, incredulous. ‘The guy you met at the stadium yesterday?’ She saw him nod his acknowledgement. ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Wang’s diary spoke of the ah kung’s nickname. Kat. The Cantonese word for “tangerine”, a Chinese symbol of good fortune. Soong wears a ring with the character for “tangerine” engraved in amber — amber the colour of tangerine. It is a very old ring, and the engraving is almost worn away. You can’t see it with the naked eye. When I asked to run my thumb over it, he must have been gambling on my not being able to feel it either. But it was there, and I could read it with my skin as clearly as if I could see it. Kat.’

  She watched him smoke in silence, running everything he had told her through her mind. Finally she said, ‘If “tangerine” is a universal Chinese symbol for good fortune, then it could be coincidence. There could be hundreds, maybe thousands, even millions of people wearing jewellery engraved with that character.’

  ‘That’s what I told myself,’ Li said. ‘Then it occurred to me that it was such a big, ostentatious ring, that no woman he had slept with could have failed to notice it.’ He moved toward the bed to stub his cigarette out in the ashtray and sat down on the edge of the mattress. ‘That’s how Xiao Ling knows him. She was a gift to him while she was working as a hostess at the Golden Mountain Club. When I called her, she remembered the ring quite clearly.’

  ‘Arrest him,’ Margaret said.

  Li laughed. ‘And charge him with what? Wearing a ring? Your law enforcement people would laugh me out of the country.’

  ‘At least you know where to start looking.’

  He gasped his frustration. ‘Margaret, a man like that will have been meticulous in covering his tracks. It could take months of investigation, and we might still find nothing. Meantime, all he has to do is get rid of my sister and we won’t even have someone to say they heard him called Kat.’

  ‘He’s bound to make a mistake, Li Yan. Sometime. Somewhere.’

  Li waggled his head. ‘People like Soong don’t make mistakes, Margaret. That’s why they don’t get caught.’

  ‘Everyone makes mistakes,’ Margaret said. ‘Otherwise you and I would be out of a job.’

  The long single ring of the telephone startled them. Li looked at the phone and it rang again, but he made no attempt to answer it.

  ‘It’s not for me,’ Margaret said. ‘No one knows I’m here.’

  Li picked it up on the third ring. Soong’s voice was barely a whisper, scratchy and tight with tension. His Mandarin, despite his previous protestations, was fluent. ‘You know who this is?’

  Li said, ‘Yuh.’

  ‘I know who the ah kung is,’ he said.

  Li heard the blood rushing in his ears. ‘Who?’

  ‘I can’t tell you on the phone. And the minute
I do we’ll both be in danger.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘A meeting.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now.’

  Li glanced at Margaret. Her face reflected the pale light from the window. She was frowning. ‘Where?’ he said.

  ‘My suite at the stadium. I’ll leave the side door unlocked. Come straight up. And in the name of the sky, don’t tell anyone.’

  A click sounded in Li’s ear and the line went dead. Slowly he replaced the receiver and sat lost in thought for more than a minute.

  ‘Li Yan?’ Margaret put a hand on his shoulder.

  He turned. ‘You were right,’ he said. ‘He just made a mistake.’

  He relayed the conversation to her and she said, ‘But you’re not actually going?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Li Yan, it’s a trap. Surely you must see that? It would be madness to go on your own.’

  He said, ‘So I get the full weight of the task force behind me and we storm the stadium. Then what? There’s still no proof against him. No evidence of anything. He’s so careful, he didn’t even say his name on the phone.’ He stood up. ‘The only way I’m going to get him is to let him play his hand. Compound the mistake.’

  In a sullen silence, Margaret watched him dress. She knew there was no point in trying to make him change his mind. She had known him long enough to know what an exercise in futility that would be. When he stooped to brush her cheek with his lips, she whispered, ‘Be careful.’ And the moment he was out of the door, she snatched her purse and retrieved the list of telephone numbers sent to her by FEMA. She switched on the bedside light and ran her fingers down the names until she found the number of Fuller’s cellphone. She snatched the phone and punched it in.