Chapter Twelve

“Why didn’t you just leave the house?” Simon was horrified after Sanantha told him what had happened. He held both her hands in his as they sat facing each other on his couch. She had come over without first telling him what had just happened. “You could always call somebody to come capture the snake. It’s not like you have pets or children that needed defending.”

She smiled warmly at his concern. “I know how to deal with snakes. Remember, I grew up in a jungle full of snakes.”

“And you killed it?”

“Believe me, I didn’t want to. I couldn’t think of any other way to dispose of it. I even asked Madame Erzulie for inspiration, but she didn’t give me any.”

Simon gave her a puzzled look.

“It’s the same as you Catholics asking the Virgin Mary for strength. I couldn’t call the police or anyone else without starting an investigation into my attempted murder. I had just found out the government is investigating me for deportation. I can’t afford to draw any more government attention onto myself.”

“Deportation?”

Yeah, my work visa is being reviewed. I’ve got a hearing in two weeks. I went down there this afternoon and they couldn’t tell me anything. Just more stress to my day.”

“So you’re not going to tell the police that someone tried to kill you?”

“No, and neither are you. Especially when I have a really good idea who it was, and that person is apparently above the law.”

“Really? Oh, you mean Lo Cheung?”

”Absolutely. Remember, this guy has been out to ruin Young Nae for years. We think he killed Randolph’s wife and put his daughter in a coma, with a poisonous snake.”

“I remember what Doctor Macklin said at the hospital. So why would he come after you?”

“Randolph is still too confused to make any real connections that could implicate Lo. I have been poking around asking questions, so I am a threat.”

Simon thought for a moment what this all meant. “Well, if this guy is so powerful, what can you do about it?”

“I want to meet him.”

He looked at her with one gray eyebrow raised, hoping to see that she was joking. She wasn’t. “You do realize that however brave you are, such a meeting could lead to your death and disappearance.”

“Only if he is responsible. Besides, I have you to tell the police if I disappear. I imagine the police would love to have real evidence against such a notorious figure.”

“This is your patient’s mess. Is it worth your life?”

“No, it isn’t. The truth is, if someone is out to kill me, I don’t want to die in my sleep one night not knowing who did it. The Russell’s Viper in my apartment means I don’t get to just stay on the sidelines anymore.”

Simon took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I guess not.”

“So,” she said matter-of-factly. “Can you get me an introduction?”

His eyebrow shot back up again. “Because his son is my patient?” “

“Do you think that violates some ethical concern?”

“Ethics be damned,” he laughed nervously. “I’m just wondering if my connection is strong enough to get you in.”

Her face broke into her broadest, most dimpled grin and she threw her arms around his neck.

* * * *

Sanantha sat on the park bench in the noontime sun and wished she had agreed to a shadier spot. She was certainly familiar with heat and humidity from her life in the Caribbean. The tropical sun could be brutal on any continent. Gotta love the tropics, she thought. Even in the rainy season, the moment the clouds break the sun comes roaring down. She was glad she had thought to put her hair up in an oversized white turban. Her loose white cotton dress helped too.

She pushed down her oversized dark sunglasses and checked her watch: 11:58. She had been pondering all morning how she would start this conversation. How do you ask a man if he is trying to kill you while not accusing him if he is not? She pushed her glasses back up. She wished she could remember more from the Criminal Mind class she took twenty years ago in Med School.

In that moment of quiet anticipation, she realized she had gotten herself into another tangled web of men jockeying for power and hiding secrets. She came to Malaysia to recover from Charles, Joseph, and Silas. Now she was back in it again up to her elbows with Randolph, Young Nae, and Lo Cheung. What was it with these men? What was it with her?

She returned to watching the road that wound through the park. She didn’t know that many quiet and public places. Most public places in the K-L metro area were far from quiet. Even this spot wasn’t actually quiet. The buzz of traffic and honking horns blanketed the city. The stench of exhaust was also inescapable. She had picked this spot hoping easy access would appeal to the busy businessman.

So she was surprised when the group of three Asian men who were jogging on the park path slowed and walked up to her. The man in front had graying hair and shoulders that seemed a bit too broad for his five foot three height. The two men behind him were much younger and taller, and clearly there to protect the older man. They were all dressed in expensive looking jogging suits with the distinctive YSL logo on the breast. The short leader was wearing ridiculous gold-framed sunglasses with big square yellow lenses.

Yellow sunglasses. She put the creepy coincidence out of her mind. She stood up, but let Lo Cheung speak first.

“Doctor Mauwad, I presume,” he said extending his hand.

She shook it perfunctorily. “You must be Mister Lo. Thank you for agreeing to meet me on such short notice.”

He bowed his head slightly. “Not at all. I welcome the opportunity to clear up what I think has become quite the misunderstanding between us.”

She blinked involuntarily behind her own large, dark sunglasses.

“May we walk while we talk? I’ve got my heart rate up and I want to bring it down slowly.”

Sanantha looked around to see if there were others in the park who would see them walking, and there were. “Sure. I brought comfortable shoes. So you think you know why I wanted to see you?”

He smiled boyishly. “I have spies everywhere. That is what you would expect from a shady character such as myself, yes?”

She tried to play along, but wasn’t sure what he was driving at. “I didn’t say that.”

“I know I have a reputation. I also know you have been treating a good friend of Young Nae Yoon. So I am quite sure Mister Young has told you some colorful things about me.”

As she walked along beside him, she stayed aware of whether there were witnesses. She hoped her big glasses hid her looking around. She also gauged how close his bodyguards were and which way she should jump if they tried to grab her. “Well, Mister Young is not my client, so I do not have a duty to him of confidentiality. Aside from what he may have told me, I need to ask you something a bit more directly.”

She waited until he met her gaze. She did not like being confronted with those gaudy, gold-rimmed yellow sunglasses.

“Did you try to kill me last night by setting a poisonous snake loose in my apartment?”

He stopped walking, blinked involuntarily, and locked his face in a blank stare. Then the corner of his mouth creased into a tiny grin. “My goodness! You are direct, aren’t you?” He took a deep breath and chuckled. Then he took another breath and blew it out noisily. He looked her straight in the eye and said flatly, “No. Not my style.” Then he cocked an eyebrow at her, and added, “That was very brave of you, especially if you had thought I did it.”

All the while, Sanantha did her best to show no emotion on her face. Again, she was glad to hide her eyes behind her big, dark glasses. “I will admit, it would make me a lot less nervous if I believed you. You mentioned the ‘colorful’ things Mister Young has said about you. He says this is exactly your style. He says you have killed with snakes before, recently.”

Lo Cheung shook his head slowly and started to walk again. “You are, of course, talking about Mrs. Macklin and her daughter. When Young Nae originally accused me of those crimes, I not only cooperated with the police, but I assisted with their investigation. You see, I have an extensive information gathering organization. I trade commodities, and I need to know whom I am dealing with at all times. The police had a hard time finding any personal records on several suspects, and I supplied them with what they needed to know. Unfortunately, we eliminated all the suspects and were left with no one to arrest. Whoever killed Cheri Macklin did it without leaving a single shred of evidence. Then, as if to rub our noses in our failure, he did it again to Desiree.”

“Doesn’t that strike you as implausible? The case isn’t closed, I hope.”

“I believe the police have stopped investigating. Any new evidence would of course reopen it. Maybe you are the new set of eyes we need to see what everyone else missed.”

She raised an eyebrow and looked over the tops of her sunglasses at him.

“I’m not trying to flatter you, Doctor. I appreciate you still have no reason to trust me. I agree with you. We must have missed something.”

“I’m not a criminologist, but I like to think I understand why people do what they do. Snakes are used in cultures all over the world to invoke the power of nature, either for faith healing or to instill fear in people. Has Young Nae made enemies with anyone who would call on the supernatural?”

“Malaysia has a long history of folk magic. Indeed, snakes are a big part of it. The police found no evidence of sorcery either.”

“We do have evidence of Silat Seni Gayong being used on Randolph Macklin.”

“Let me guess. Young Nae has told you I dabble in Silat black magic?” He pursed his lips and shook his head as if he had tasted something bad. “My love is Kung Fu. That dim mak sorcery is not remotely similar. My interests are a matter of public record. I have been sponsoring Kung Fu schools here and elsewhere in Asia for the last twenty-five years.”

Lo was clearly eccentric. More than that, though, something about his demeanor just wasn’t sitting right with her. “So if what you say is true, and you are this upstanding member of the community, then why has Young Nae singled you out as such a villain? You don’t deny you are his business rival.”

“That is true. I am his rival, on many fronts. He is in fact far more ruthless than I, especially in business. I don’t know why he blames me for his misfortunes. Maybe he thinks I am an easy target. Doing so wastes a lot of time he could spend pursuing the actual criminals who have caused him harm. I have wondered about this myself, and the only guess I can venture is he needs someone to blame since he doesn’t have a family to build him spiritually.”

“Spiritually?”

“Now I’m having a translation problem. Of the soul. Of the feelings.”

“You mean emotional support? I thought Asians held family connections very closely, especially Koreans.”

“You have done your homework,” Cheung commented wryly with a point of his finger. “Normally Koreans are very close to their families. Not Young Nae. He is the lone wolf. He was severed from his family when he refused to cancel a business deal to attend his grandfather’s funeral. That was fourteen years ago. So he’s had a lot of time to grow strong on his own.”

She couldn’t pin down what was bugging her about him. “You speak of him almost as if you admire him.”

“Only the way you would admire one of these poisonous snakes. He has achieved things that I wonder at. He has become adept at getting the Malaysian government to let him violate zoning and pollution laws and the rights of his factory workers in the name of economic development. If there was any motive for it, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Young Nae who got your work Visa pulled.”

Now it was Sanantha’s turn to blink involuntarily. She hoped her sunglasses hid her reaction.

Lo Cheung paused at her silence. “I did my homework too. My point is, he seems to have come to believe he has the right to seize whatever he can. I’m not sure my amazement at his ruthlessness counts as admiration.”

“Well, you’ve certainly given me a lot to think about.” Why did he irritate her so?

“You are not convinced I’m not the bad guy in this whole affair. You spoke of motives. Other than my business competition with Mister Young, he means nothing to me. Neither do any of his family or associates, including you. What possible motive would I have for harming you? Or Doctor Macklin’s wife, or daughter, or Doctor Macklin himself? If I wanted to destroy Young Nae Yoon, I would do it on the field of commerce. Look to your learning of people’s beliefs, Doctor. Would a devout Buddhist practitioner of Kung Fu be so dishonorable as to assassinate the close associates of a rival when so much more could be gained by conquest on the open battlefield?”

By now, they had walked around the park path and had returned to the bench where they had started.

It was those glasses. Those gaudy, flashy, gold rimmed glasses. “Then my question to you, Mister Lo, is if I don’t matter to you, why did you meet me today, and why spend your time trying to convince me that you are not, as you said, the bad guy?”

Cheung smiled at her. “If I might be so bold as to quote the Buddha, ‘Your work is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.’ I met with you because I wasn’t joking when I said you might be the one to solve these murders. If you do, that will clear my name once and for all.”

Sanantha stopped walking. “You’re going to think I’m a nut, but can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure, you can ask.”

“Would you please take off those glasses for me?”

He grinned. “I will if you will.”

She caught herself. “Oh, of course.”

They did, and she was relieved to see that he had normal dark brown Asian eyes. “Thank you. Just a personal foible of mine.”

“That’s all right. If looking me in the eye can convince you, then I am happy to oblige.”

“Like I said, you’ve given me a lot to think about.” She extended her hand and shook his. “Thank you.”