Brazuca waits for Lam to finish a conference call. The call is on speaker and the language spoken is rapid-fire Cantonese. Lam’s participation is minimal. Just a word here or there to fill in the gaps.
He’s in Lam’s study, taking in the fine furnishings while he tries to disguise his impatience. It has been a couple of days since he discovered that Nora is being targeted. He’s tried to reach every motel in Midtown Detroit and come up empty. Nora isn’t answering his calls and her phone seems to be switched off, for the most part. She’s never been easy to get in touch with, so he’s not sure if she is just ignoring him or if there’s something else behind it.
“Sorry,” says Lam, as he disconnects the line. “My father’s on the warpath.”
“What did you do this time?”
Lam runs a hand through his thick dark hair and then rubs at the back of his neck. A platinum watch glints from his wrist. “Doesn’t have anything to do with me, thank God. He expects nothing from me now that I’ve married the woman he chose. He’s got great hopes for the grandkids, though.”
“Is your wife pregnant?” Brazuca doesn’t even know her name. Lam barely mentions her, or talks about why she’s never around. Where she is, this ghost wife, is something he doesn’t particularly want to get into.
Lam smiles grimly and shakes his head. “The only grandchild he’ll ever have died with Clem. Let him deal with that.”
Brazuca lets that go. Lam’s anger still overshadows all reason. Suddenly he’s tired of it all, and has especially had it with this man he’s given up his new leaf for. The only upside is the money, which isn’t holding the appeal that it once had. He reaches into his pocket and hands Lam a flash drive. “My report.” It had taken him two days to compile all his notes and extract the usable photos that he and Warsame had taken. The links that made up the supply chain. The Triple 9s at the Lala Lair. Curtis Parnell at the port. The Three Phoenix connection in Hong Kong—the mysterious players that have some bizarre interest in Nora Watts.
Lam opens the file on his laptop and reads it through. After he’s done, he steps away from the screen and pours a drink. He pours one for Brazuca as well, remembering to include Brazuca this time, but forgetting that he’s an alcoholic. “Last year, when your friend came to that conference at the chalet up north . . . she was looking for a missing girl. She thought Ray Zhang, one of my father’s colleagues, had something to do with it.”
Brazuca is startled by Lam’s sudden shift to Nora, who has been on his mind almost nonstop these past few days. When Lam had met Nora during her search for Bonnie, he had been thrown off by being in the presence of a woman who wasn’t in love with his money.
“That’s right.” Brazuca eyes the glass of scotch in front of him but makes no move to touch it. It hasn’t gotten any easier to push the glass away, but he manages to keep it together.
“I told you then that the Zhang family had a security guy who they used quite frequently and it’s been said he has triad ties.”
Brazuca nods. “Dao. Worked almost exclusively with Zhang for years.”
Ray Zhang was the patriarch of a wealthy family that was connected to Nora and the events of last year when Nora’s daughter, Bonnie, had gone missing, but the details were fuzzy. The only people who would know what had actually happened were Nora, who has a selective memory about the events, and Ray Zhang and Dao, who have both vanished. It was hard to forget the spectacular mess Nora had found herself in, though he had made a point not to talk about it with Lam. Nora’s privacy had been on his mind then. Her personal connection to the Zhangs, and that the deceased Kai Zhang was Bonnie’s birth father, was something that only she could discuss.
Lam continues, unaware of Brazuca’s sudden coolness. “Ray Zhang had some stink to him, but nobody questioned him about Dao when he was alive.”
Brazuca stares at him. “Nobody has seen Ray Zhang since last year. How do you know he’s dead?”
Lam, once an open book, becomes cagey. He looks at his watch. Takes a sip of his scotch and smiles without a trace of mirth. “I’ve heard rumors.” Lam turns the laptop screen to face Brazuca. He points to a photo of a shirtless Chinese man displaying his tattoos in his living room. It was a very famous photo in the Anti-Gang Unit, according to Grace’s research. “Jimmy Fang. He’s connected, through Three Phoenix, to the umbrella organization that Dao is affiliated with.”
Brazuca’s headache is back, now that the pieces have fallen into place. In one fell swoop he has gained his financial freedom and learned of a startling connection. Now he understands why Nora has become a target. Last year, when she went looking for her missing daughter, she made a powerful enemy in the Zhang family—and the head of their security detail: Dao.
Out of all the players involved in Nora’s drama, Dao was the most dangerous. A ruthless killer, with an alleged background as a mercenary.
“Are we good?” Brazuca says, standing. “This is the supply chain you were looking for?”
“Yes,” says Lam. “Thanks, buddy. I’ll take it from here.”
Brazuca opens his mouth to ask what Lam means by this, but decides that he doesn’t really want to know. It is obvious to him now that his friendship with Lam was always based on this, the fact that he is and has always been an employee to this man. A trusted employee, but one that is there on the payroll nonetheless.
“I’ll have your wire transfer ready in the morning,” Lam continues. He begins talking about his plans for vengeance against his father, drug dealers, and the world at large. But Brazuca has stopped listening. Men like Lam can afford to go on about personal vendettas and the like. Their wealth and connections will always protect them from danger. The everyday business of survival hasn’t touched them.
For people like Nora, on the other hand, that seemingly mundane task of making it through a day without someone trying to murder you isn’t as simple. Especially now, given what she’s up against. A personal vendetta by someone much more powerful than she is. A dangerous enemy, like the one he has now in Curtis Parnell, the biker who has gone to ground with a photograph of Brazuca stored on his phone.
Brazuca leaves without another word. There’s nothing more to be said. His exhaustion hasn’t left him. It has simply morphed into a kind of anxiety. In a perverse way, it hasn’t settled on him or the danger he might be facing with Parnell—if the biker hasn’t already skipped town. His own survival isn’t even on his mind. It takes him a long time to get to his car. The first reason is that he’s still in recovery. From a blow to the head, being threatened with a meat cleaver, having to chase college kids down streets, and the emotional weight of Crow’s death and insecurity about his own personal safety.
The second is sheer confusion.
He had tried, hadn’t he, to leave the past behind? There’s nothing he wants more than to get in his car and drive to Whistler. Book a cabin in the woods for a few days, test out the telescope that he’s been eyeing out there. Sleep. So why, now, does this feel like a distant dream?