Chapter 4

I woke the next day to the sound of knocking on my door. I quickly jumped out of bed and threw on some boxers to go answer the door. I swung open the wooden frame and was met by a man half my size. The poor man looked frightened and I almost felt for him; almost.

"What?" I asked, my eyes narrowing. I hate being woken from my sleep, and last night had been a long night. The man took a step back and inhaled three times before he could speak, and when he did speak, he stuttered.

"S-sir, I-I … Ms. Ch-Ch-Chang asked my to p-pick y-you up." He finally got that damned sentence out. At greater observation of this tiny man, I realized that he was indeed Asian. I should have known that she would send the damn driver before I got up. I scratched my head and told Li to wait outside while I threw on some clothes. I wasn't dressing to impress Ms. Chang so I just threw on some simple gray slacks and a white button-down shirt. I opened the door, startling poor Li again. After he finally calmed down he led me to the Black Rolls Royce waiting outside, opened my door for me and drove me towards the Chang residence. I could get used to this.

On the ride over there a few things ran through my mind. Questions about the day before, such as: why had Roddy dropped me off coincidentally at the Savoy? What was the riverfront property that Mr. Winner had mentioned Chang wanted to purchase? And lastly, why, if the three-segmented families were at war, did Roddy have such a close connection with Heero Yuy, the Yakuza boss? All these questions and more I was planning to ask Roddy when we got there.

Along with those work-oriented questions, I also thought about how I was going to deal with the sexual tension between me and Ms. Chang. She is beautiful and I love beautiful women; they make my heart sing, and she was the most beautiful woman that I'd seen in a long time. She reminded me of this girl I dated when I was on the force. This dame I used to date was smart and confident and didn't take shit from me, just like Roddy. But Roddy was different. There's an element of danger involved with fooling around with her. I'm sure that Mr. Winner felt the same way about screwing her, although I'm sure he gets his share of beautiful women. I know this conversation shouldn't even be going along in my head, but being alone with a beautiful, flirty, dangerous woman is a hazard that makes me want more. I guess Duo was right when he said that I was in over my head.

With a jerk Li parked the car. I suppose I shouldn't tell Roddy that her driver is a bit on edge. I'm sure she knows. Li comes to the back door and opens it for me; I don't think that I'll ever get used to that. I step out and he directs me to the top of the stairs. From the outside this place is intense. Let's just say that this is definitely the home of a Chinese mob boss. The home is traditional Chinese architecture; small awnings and a large courtyard adorn the front of the house. I stepped inside of the gate and was met with the smell of blossoming trees and large amounts of bamboo. I stood there for a while, wondering where these people got the money from then shrugged my shoulders and walked towards the entrance into the house. I rang the bell and another Chinese man answered the door; this time the man was tall and large.

"Yes." He asked and looked me over.

"I'm here to see Ms. Chang." I say coolly. He looks me over again, grunts and lets me enter.

"Wait here." He says and I look around the room once more. There are cherry wood chairs and plush, cream carpet. Large, black screens with peaceful scenes etched in them adorn the room. There is bamboo everywhere and large lanterns are hanging from the ceiling.

"Aw, no suit for me today." I hear her say from behind me. I turn and look at her. She's even more beautiful than I can remember. She's wearing a traditional Chinese dress. It's black and has a large, red dragon traveling south his tail starting at the top and his head getting larger and more detailed towards the bottom. There are slits up both sides and the dress shows a modest amount of leg. Her hair is up with two black chopsticks, yet she has two small wisps framing her hair. Her makeup is light and modest, if she's wearing any at all.

"I'm sorry, I didn't know that this was a formal occasion." I say with a smartass tone. She smiles and drapes herself across the couch.

"Nice place you got here." I say walking towards the couch.

"Oh this old place." She pats the seat next to her; I opt to take the couch across. I see her pout with disdain, then she smiles again.

"Shall we get started." I say pulling out my pad and pen. She sits up quickly and tries to look serious.

"I'm ready when you are," the soft, sexy tone that she used sent shivers up my spine, but I have to keep my mind on the goal.

"Why didn't you tell me that you and your husband frequented the Savoy?"

"I didn't think that it made a difference to the case."

"What? I said tell me everything. Important people that I believe could be involve in your husband's disappearance frequent that place as well."

"Like who?" she said and I see her pull a gold cigarette case from her pocket.

"Well, Heero Yuy for instance. Aren't the Triads, Yakuza, and the Cosa Nostra at war?" She giggled at this and I only stared stoically at her.

"Heero and I are old friends." She said in a seductive tone that couldn't be mistaken for anything else other than lust.

"How many men have you slept with other than your husband."

"What makes you think that I slept with Heero?"

"Your tone of voice, switch of body language." I say.

"You're so skeptical. Only Quatre. Heero and I are just good friends."

"Why didn't you tell me that you slept with Mr. Winner?"

"I didn't think that it was relevant to the case. I don't see how this information affects the objective at all. Besides, that was only once with Quatre, I'm in search of my husband."

"Have you ever thought that maybe he and this Persephone dame ran away together?"

"I know they didn't. He left his sword here with me. He said that if he were to ever leave me that the sword would be gone. It's still here." She nodded her head in the direction of the fireplace and I looked at the large, looming sword that hung over the mantel. She was right it was still there.

"You and he have a strange relationship."

"Not as strange as some marriages. I'm married to a mob boss; I knew some of the moral implications to that, but I loved him all the same. No matter what happens in our marriage- infidelity or otherwise- we still come back to one another."

"So basically you two don't care if the other fucks around?"

"To put it crudely, no, we don't." she smiled as the servant brought her tea. She sipped it cordially.

"Tell me about this Winner fellow."

"He's blonde, handsome, smart. He's everything that a woman could want, in bed and in public. He's also nothing to do with the mob and my husband's disappearance so I would like it if you would kindly leave him out of this. He just owns that godforsaken club."

"How do you know?"

"He's a businessman not a mobster."

"I've seen many a businessman turn into a mobster."

"I'm sure you've seen a lot of things, but Quatre is… just leave him out of this." She says taking a long, nervous drag from her cigarette. I reach over and grab the small, handle less teacup and she pours me some green tea.

"Why are you so nervous?" I ask, seeing that it catches her off guard. She takes another long drag from her cigarette.

"The questions you ask would make any person nervous. Quatre is very dear to me and I wouldn't want anything to happen to him." She says looking down into her half-empty teacup. I give her a minute and she returns her focus to me. Actually, she returns her focus to the picture behind me.

"I'm sorry, but I need to know everything about you and your husbands life- dirty laundry or otherwise- before I can even begin on this case. Finding these types of things out from others makes you look more like a suspect than anything else. I just need your cooperation." She looks up, takes a long breath and sighs deeply.

"Why don't we take a break from this? I need to take a walk and I guess I could show you the house." She says standing from the couch and stretching her arms and legs like a cat. I stare at the curves of her body through that thin, satin dress. She's not wearing a bra; I suppose that the dress is tight enough up top that she doesn't need to and any other man wouldn't have noticed, but I'm not any other man. Her hips were clinging slightly to the thin material and the slits on the side only showed a modest amount of delicious, creamy caramel brown leg. Her hair was up in a tight bun at the nape of her neck and she looked good enough to eat. The image of throwing her down on that couch and ravishing her better than her husband or the twit Winner was running through my mind, and it took a hell of a lot of self-control not to do it. She smiles, noticing that I was checking her out and saunters towards the glass door that leads to the lavish courtyard that I just left. I watch that beautiful ass jiggle and I realize that I'm now giving into the same temptation that I promised myself in the car not to even contemplate. Oh well, to hell I go; if the woman offers I damn well not turning her down.

We step into the courtyard and as soon as we're out there she puts on these black, satin slippers. I hadn't noticed that she was barefoot earlier; what a detective I am. She bends down to pick up a watering pitcher and smiles as me when she starts her trek around the garden. I follow her, watching as she waters some plants and neglects others.

"You know, Mr. Barton, you could get yourself over your head if you don't watch out. You're in with some extremely powerful people. None of which wouldn't think twice about snuffing you out and your friend as well," she says this without any tone of voice and the words actually scare me.

"That's the job of a private detective; we don't have the luxury of being police." I said catching up to her side and waiting for her to water the sweet-smelling blossoms that were just budding.

"You were on the force once, though, why did you leave?" she asked, turning to stare me in the face. I wince visibly at the thought of Cathy.

"Did I bring back some bad memories?" she asks, her eyes searching my face for some answer. I lift my head to see the hazel orbs staring at me and I smirk.

"My sister, she's the one that helped me open the agency. The guy you saw last night was her husband." I say, hoping that this will suffice.

"Was her husband? Did they divorce?" she asks; she's pretty damn good detective in her own right.

"No, my sister, Cathy, was killed." I say. She stops in her tracks.

"I did bring back some bad memories. I'm so sorry." The silence is thick and the tension is even thicker as we stroll around the courtyard. The birds are chirping and the flowers are blooming. If someone was spying on her, they would have thought that she and I were lovers; the scene is not lost on me. She walks to a small pond in the middle of the courtyard and starts to feed the koi that are swimming freely.

"These were gifts from Heero Yuy. He loves to breed these fish and these were some of his best." She says pointing at the randomly colored fish. Then she walks to a small bench under a cherry blossom tree and sits down. I go join her quickly, after taking a small glimpse at the koi.

"We must not let our pasts haunt us, that is something that Wufei always tells me." She said as I came to join her on the bench.

"What kind of man is your husband?" I ask. She looks at me and smiles a fond smile. I can tell that she actually loves this man.

"Strong and stubborn, a real bastard really…" she trails off and looks down at her hands, they are shaking.

"Then why are you still with him?" I ask. She looks at me and smiles again.

"There are times when he's just perfect and gentle and loving. Those times I can't say are often, but when he is I know he loves me." I can see tears start to water into her eyes and offer her a handkerchief. I put a reassuring hand on her shoulder and she smiles.

"Thank you. What more do you need know?" she asks, getting back to business. I guess she needed some fresh air like I did. I pull out my pad of questions once again and scan the list. She's waiting patiently for me to get my act together.

"Quatre mentioned that he wanted him to sell the Savoy. Why?" I ask. Her eyebrow cocks and she gets a smirk of disapproval on her face.

"He was trying to pull all of the three families together to buy some riverfront property. Quatre is one of the most wealthy men in the city, if he moved the Savoy to the property there would be more money coming in."

"What kind of business does Winner do at the Savoy?"

"Hn. You ought to know, you were there." She said.

"Whore, gambling, the rest seems legit. It has to be for him to be hanging around with Peacecraft." Her smile was unmistakably wicked. The look seemed to scream: foolish boy.

"The Cosa Nostra push spank through Winners club." She said.

"Merquise wasn't there last night." I replied, but she still kept giving me that look.

"You didn't look hard enough. His wife, Lucrezia, was there. But I doubt that they have anything to do with my husband's disappearance. Really and truly, I don't have a clue who could be behind my husband's disappearance. The "bad blood," that the papers so heavily displayed in their newsstands and newsreels were an over dramatized farce. The "bad blood" was only in everyone's heads."

"Then why is your husband missing, with one of Winner's girls no less?" I asked, looking her directly in the eye. I was sure she was giving me some kind of clue, but I couldn't tell. Maybe I should find a way to speak to Yuy, without her knowing.

"That's your job," a servant came in and handed her a letter. She quickly opened it and her eyes lit up, "I have somewhere to be in an hour. I'm sorry to divest of you so quickly, but this is really a pressing and important untimely engagement. Li will see you out." She says as she stands from the bench and quickly runs into the house. Li does, in fact, show me out and I realize that in this hour that I was conversing with Ms. Chang that I didn't find out one complete answer to any of the questions; this woman was better than any politician, and potentially more dangerous.