The car door swung open.
"Sir," his man said.
The flash of the Dupont Classic momentarily chased away the darkness of true night. Chang put a cigarette between his teeth, inhaled, and then put out the lighter. The smoke tasted bad, just like his mood.
Chang stepped out of the car, and his man shut it behind him. The echo of more doors closing bounced down the row of shipping crates as the rest of his entourage left their seats in well-appointed sedans. He had brought only a small crew although he doubted that any of them were necessary. In total, six Triads in their black suits joined him in the creepy quiet of Roanapur's shipping yard at 4:37 am.
Chang had been sleeping when the phone call from Fry Face twenty minutes prior demanded his immediate attention. His private cell nearly clattered off the night stand, and he had to scramble to catch it before it nosedived onto the tile floor.
"Chang, meet me in the usual place. Now," she had said. No greeting, all business.
"It's 4 am, sweetheart. If you want a date at this hour, you have to ask nicer than that," he had replied with a stifled yawn. The sheets were cool and soft, and he had no desire to leave them until well after the sun was up.
Balalaika's brittle tone did not soften. "I have something of yours."
"Is that supposed to tempt me?"
"You have thirty minutes to claim it."
A click, then an empty signal on the line.
Chang had pushed back his deliciously smooth sheets and stood up.
He didn't micromanage. He let the Paper Fans handle the daily details, but Chang knew his business. To the extent of his knowing, Chang wasn't missing anything, so Balalaika's phone call had ruined his easy night's sleep in more ways than one.
There he was at fuck-all o'clock to meet with her at the usual spot when he should have been lost to the pleasure of sleep, and she was late. To top it off, the city had gone silent around them. No gun shots, no honking horns, no shouted curses. It was rare when the city was capable of such peaceful moments, but even the wicked needed rest sometimes. It was just creepy as hell when it happened.
"I don't like this," Danny Lo spoke up. He tossed his gun from hand to hand, then stuffed it back in its holster at his rib. "What does that cunt want with us at this hour?"
Chang narrowed his eyes behind his sunglasses. Danny was a good shot and the loyal type, but he lacked class. Typical 49er for life. His questions weren't usually worth answering, but the situation was unusual, which was Roanapur-ese for "somebody's gonna die". All of the men looked uneasy.
"Relax," Chang told them. "If Fry Face wanted to go to war, she-"
"- wouldn't have bothered to wake you up first," Balalaika finished. She stepped out of the shadows with a phalanx of men behind her, all sullen as stone. "Shall we begin?"
"Just waiting on you," Chang said.
Balalaika removed her long coat and took her gun from its holster, handed both to Boris, and stepped forward for the inspection.
Chang tossed his jacket and double pistols to Biu and stretched out his arms. The pat-down was professional and thorough. Chang thought about what he was going to eat for breakfast after he concluded this sure-to-be unpleasant business. Maybe a nice drink by the pool. He imagined the chlorinated water lapping at its blue tiled parameter. He did not think about Biu's hands running the length of Balalaika's lovely leg or smoothing the fabric of that red suit around the curve of her hip. No. Chlorinated water.
Inspections passed, Roanapur's criminal leaders turned in unison and walked the length of the shipping row to the dead end where they had talked so many times before. Chang had called it "Make Out Lane" once, just to piss her off. It had worked so well that he felt lucky to have survived the incident with no broken ribs, but two hours of sleep made it hard to find a witticism now.
It was a moot point anyway. Beside him, Balalaika radiated unhappiness. His ribs wouldn't survive the effect of a joke on her current mood.
They reached the end of the walk and turned back to look at their men. They always met this way, side by side, never looking into each other's faces.
Out of the corner of his eye, Chang watched Balalaika take a hard pull on her cigar. The smoke from her mouth didn't even rise under the weight of the humidity.
"Alright, enough teasing," he said. "You found something of mine?"
She pulled five Polariods from the inside of her jacket and held them out for him. The offering hand shook ever so slightly. Chang felt his stomach drop away.
The Chinese man in the photographs had been worked over. Busted lip, black swollen eyes, gashes, bruises. Chang thumbed through the pictures, trying to see if he knew Balalaika's captive. She stopped him at the fourth picture.
"There," she said, using a lacquered nail to point out the triangle tattoo on the man's chest. "We didn't find it right away or we wouldn't have damaged him quite so much, but he is yours, correct?"
Chang studied the mark. Whoever he was, the man was a Triad and an important one. Only the upper echelon of the organization bore that particular symbol. But he wasn't one of Chang's. Even bloodied and swollen, Chang would have recognized the face of any man of his.
Even so, there was something familiar about the beaten man.
"Heung Hao," Chang found himself saying and instantly wished he hadn't.
The Heungs were the royal family of the Sun Yee On Triad, and the man in the photos had been the third heir to the golden throne until he betrayed the brethren and stole from his brothers, over some women no less. What a joke. Hong Kong had alerted Chang that Hao might try to refuge in Thailand, and if he did, Chang had orders to return him to the fold for "the treatment of traitors", which meant the meat cleaver and a well-documented stack of body parts to serve as a warning to others. It was a gruesome punishment, but effective. Should Sawyer the Cleaner ever wanted to change locations, Chang felt certain she would fit right in with Hong Kong's disposal team, if the Triads ever opened their ranks to women, which they wouldn't, not even to a woman as impressive as Balalaika.
"Then he is one of yours," she said.
Chang glanced back at her. Her eyes had gone up to the yellow moon. She flicked ash from her cigar, and those icy blue eyes shifted to track its glowing descent to the asphalt.
"Tell me where you want him dropped off," she said at last. "I will make the arrangements."
Her balletic hand guided the cigar to her mouth for another long pull. She was actually inhaling, not tasting the smoke as she normally did.
"Mind if I ask where you found him?" Chang asked.
"Drunk in one of my establishments," she answered while Chang studied her sideways.
"I'll cover the damages," he said, just to keep her talking. Something was off with her.
She laughed low and bitter. Her cigar travelled back to her mouth, and he saw it again. Her hand was definitely shaking.
The moon tore the clouds with its yellow teeth, and Chang saw something else in the light. Her suit was always red, but her blouse normally wasn't. Fresh blood soaked the cuff. It half-glistened in the moonlight. One didn't get that kind of soaked from roughing up a thug. A punch left a splatter, and Balalaika wouldn't mess her hands like that. No, enough blood to soak three inches of fine cloth came from a severe wound. It happened when you used your hands to stench the gush of deep blood.
Chang let his eyes flit back to phalanx of her men in the distance. Their sullen faces stared ahead, so the light fell past their eyes, leaving holes of darkness in their stony faces. They were a humorless lot on a good day but, now that he bothered to look, Chang saw their stricken features clearly, and he wondered who among them Hao had killed that night. It had to have been accidental, a lucky shot. Balalaika's Desantniks did not fall to any playboy with a heavy family name.
Balalaika breathed beside him. The smoke gathered around them like a ghost.
"No payment is necessary," she said. "Now, for the location for the drop off, Mr. Chang?"
It was killing her to offer. Balalaika promised valor in death for her men, and Heung Hao's life was hers to snuff out. She owed it to her fallen comrade, she craved revenge, but the tattoo had stayed her hand. She could not kill a Triad without starting a war. It was respect for their treaty that brought her to the shipyard to meet with Chang. She shook with anger because her mind could not justify the primal urges of her black heart.
Chang found the lie sweet and easy on his tongue.
"A drop off for that guy, huh? Sounds like a pain. How about if you do the honors and we all go back to bed?"
He started walking away before he could take back his stupidity.
Behind him, Balalaika took out her phone. A few words in Russian from her lips, a pause, and a distant scream over the line. Two shots, then silence. Balalaika closed her flip phone with a muted click.
Chang kept his face cool and untroubled, like the surface of his pool in the morning. There would be no traitor's treatment for Hao; Chang would figure out a plausible story to appease Hong Kong later.
Balalaika fell into step beside him. He watched her taste the cigar smoke and exhale completely, like a sigh. Her hand no longer shook.
"I did not ask for a favor," she said to him in a low voice, but the edges of her mouth curled up in a small smile.
"Yes, you did," Chang replied with a grim smile of his own. His superiors were going to be pissed, but he would prefer them over a grieving and vengeful Balalaika.
She looked at him at last, that sphinx's smile of hers spreading across her scarred face, and Chang did not think her staggeringly beautiful in the light of the yellow moon. No. Not at all.
"I won't forget this," she swore, and then her lovely legs bore her away from him to the spot where Boris waited like a dog, holding his mistress's things.
"It is finished," Balalaika told him as she swung the coat around her shoulder. "Let's go."
She and her men faded into the shadows again.
Chang did not enjoy the steady clack of her high heels as she walked away. He did not stash the memory of her smile into the safest vault of his mind. He focused on collecting his guns from Biu, ducking into the car, and lighting another cigarette.
He made his mind think of cool sheets and chlorinated water, not on the pleasure of knowing that Balalaika, jaw-achingly beautiful tsarista of Hotel Moscow, owed him a favor.