THE LIFT OPENED NOISELESSLY ONTO A SUNLIT foyer on the fifty-seventh floor. A large embossed chrome sign on the wall behind the reception desk triggered a cramp in Raymond’s stomach.
“SECRETARY, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE”
A woman with blow-dried hair and bright red lipstick glanced up from her computer. The police officer accompanying Raymond leaned toward her and muttered something. Raymond stood back and looked at them with a mixture of anxiety and confusion.
Officially, he wasn’t under arrest. The officer hadn’t come in waving a warrant. Neither had he read Raymond his rights, nor snapped a pair of handcuffs around his wrist. None of that cop-show stuff.
“Sir, do you mind accompanying us?” The request had been polite but firm. Raymond complied. Twenty minutes later, here they were, in the office of the highest law-enforcement official in the land.
The woman ushered him through a frosted-glass door. He entered a large grey room with a metal filing cabinet against one wall; a large framed photograph of the chief executive on the other; sparse, tidy desk in the middle. The secretary was at the window: a beige-and-black hole in the floor-to-ceiling view of the Tsim Sha Tsui skyline.
He turned around and looked Raymond up and down. He was a small man with sharp eyes and a hard, wrinkled face. The youthful shine on his precisely parted black hair suggested it was dyed.
“Sit,” he ordered.
Raymond lowered himself into a chair. The secretary sat down and opened an orange folder. He licked his fingertip and turned a page.
“I’ve never seen anyone with so many speeding tickets. Must be some kind of a world record,” he mused.
“Is that what I’ve been summoned for? Speeding fines? Must be a slow day around here.” Raymond snorted.
The secretary looked up from the file. “Slow day? Do you have any idea what else is in here?”
Raymond shrugged. “Lies, false accusations.”
“Now why would anyone make false accusations against you?”
“There’s an expression in English. Tall poppy. When you grow too quickly, people try to cut you down. Success breeds envy. As a successful man yourself, you should know that.”
“Don’t you go comparing yourself to me,” the secretary fumed. “My idea of success is putting men like you away. You’ve done pretty well in this pandemic, haven’t you?”
“So have companies selling face masks. How come they haven’t been summoned here? I won’t apologize for being a businessman. Not when my product is serving the country in its hour of need.”
“Hour of need?” The secretary chuckled. “Whose need, Mr. Li? Whose need?”
“Do you know how many people are losing their jobs every day? Hundreds. Guess who’s employing them. Me. Victimizing me is not only going to hurt the economy, you’re also robbing people of the one thing that’s giving them the confidence to brave the virus. What do you think will happen when you close their Afterlife Dollar accounts? You think they’ll take it lying down? There’ll be riots. The virus is bad, but you are making things worse with your misplaced crusade. You’ll be known as the man who fucked the city when it was on its knees. Tell me, is that what you want for a legacy?”
The secretary inhaled sharply. “Are you threatening me? Bad idea.” He read from the file. “Thirty-seven counts of fraud. Twenty-nine violations of banking and financial services code. Embezzlement of company funds. False reporting … wait, what have we got here? Money laundering for the Blue Lotus triad. I’ve got this special prosecutor for economic crimes, Wey Fong. He’s a real dick. I mean, I’m saying it, so you can imagine. If he gets his hands on this, you’re looking at, let’s see … minimum seventy years.”
Raymond swallowed.
The secretary smiled. “What’s the matter? What’s the expression in English … ah, cat got your tongue?”
Raymond said nothing. There was nothing to say.
It’s over.
“Nothing would please me more than seeing you in jail,” the secretary declared. But next moment, he pushed Raymond’s file away.
“I summoned you here not to arrest you, but because of a ten-year-old boy on life support,” he said, voice softening along with his face.
Raymond blinked, surprised by the turn of events.
“Do you have children, Mr. Li? If you did, you’d understand my pain.” He sighed with remorse.
“He banned us from wearing masks,” the secretary said, glaring at the photograph of the chief executive on the wall. “‘The cabinet needs to lead by example.’ That’s what he said. So I did as I was told. I acted as if the virus didn’t exist. On my son’s birthday, we went to the beach. We played in the water, built sandcastles, ate ice cream. Next day, he came down with a fever. Hundred and two. I rushed him to the hospital. ‘Please, God, not the virus,’ I prayed as they took him in. A few minutes later, the doctor was sitting me down and giving me the news no parent wants to hear.” He drew himself erect and wiped a tear from his eye.
“Five years ago, I made a promise to my wife on her deathbed. That I’d look after our son. I failed, Mr. Li … because of him,” the secretary hissed at the photo of the chief executive.
Wrong. Because of you, Raymond thought. Because you were too much of a wimp to stand up to your boss. You put your career before your son. And now he’s dying, you’re whining like a bitch, expecting the world to feel sorry for you.
What a loser!
“Here’s my problem, Mr. Li. It hurts to let scum like you walk away, yet—”
“If you arrest me, you lose your only chance of a happy afterlife for your son,” Raymond completed the sentence. “You already failed him once. You don’t want to do it again. I know you don’t think much of me, but I understand your pain. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure your son wants for nothing in his next life.”
“How will you do that?”
“I’ll ring the office and instruct them to open an account in his name and deposit one million Afterlife Dollars into it. I’ll also have a word with the chairman of the Afterlife Central Bank to give him special treatment. Your son will enjoy eternal happiness. I give you my word.”
“How much is it going to cost me?”
Raymond waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t worry about it.”
“You trying to bribe me?”
“Not bribe. An act of compassion from one human being to another,” Raymond corrected. As the secretary fell silent, Raymond savored the man’s dilemma, knowing there was only one possible outcome. Because only he could offer redemption from the guilt of being a callous father.
“You’re free to go.” The secretary sighed.
“What about that?” Raymond gestured to the file.
The secretary clenched his jaw and threw the file into the bin.
Raymond brought his hands together and smiled. “While you’re at it, could you also drop the speeding charges and reinstate my license? I’m missing driving on these empty roads.”
RAYMOND STEPPED OUT of the secretary’s office and closed the door behind him. He walked past the unattended reception toward the foyer. He didn’t look left or right. Most of all, he didn’t look back. He crossed the bank of lifts to a door leading to the fire escape, walking down the fifty-seven floors to the main lobby. He lowered his head as he passed a group of policemen near the reception. After exiting through the revolving doors, he waited till he’d gone past the carpark before bursting into a sprint.
A few minutes later, he entered a coffee shop, heading straight for the empty table at the far corner. He sat down and placed his palms on the table, giving his heart a few moments to settle. Then he took out his phone and dialed the number before there was another twist in the tale.
The phone rang for a long time before someone answered.
Raymond cleared his throat. “Is Wu there? It’s … Raymond.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“Are you trying to be funny? Wu died of flu three months ago,” the man growled, and hung up.