nods.
He touches the back of his hand to her cheek. âAnd what can you offer in return, as collateral?â
She doesnât move away or answer.
âSurely someone in your position must have access to information that could be of value to someone like me. Say, a company or security that is about to be compromised or investigated. Or another that is about to be vindicated or cleared. Iâd say that a certain type of hard information would be worth ten off your tab and ten in your pocket for spending money this evening. A bit here and a bit there and who knows maybe a long overdue winning streak, and you might be solvent by yearâs end.â
She finishes her absinthe and stares at the wall. The wall of a ratty fucking illegal casino barge on the darkest, shittiest pier in Hong Kong Harbour. Talking to a gangster, one twenty in debt with no end in sight.
Always doing the right thing.
âWhat do you think, Agent Sobieski?â
She puts down her glass, takes a breath, and turns to face Cheung. âPhilo; big French pharma company; word is their latest FDC approval isnât going to happen anytime soon and theyâre about to have major money laundering charges dropped on them by the end of the week.â
Cheung smiles, then claps his hands. âExactly what I was talking about. What else?â
âWhat else? Nothing now. Iâm working on the murder of a trader for Hang Seng, but thereâs nothing there.â
âFor now?â
âCorrect.â
âBut if there is something there, or involving something else, weâll stay in touch?â
*Â *Â *
Within twenty minutes she turns her ten-thousand-dollar advance into seventeen. But the more she wins, the worse she feels. Worse than losing. Worse than being alone. At one-forty-five she gets up from the table and backs away, afraid that if she stays she might win again. On her way to cash in at the bank, the blond Dutchman catches up to her. Her eyes are glassy and her thoughts are guilt â and absinthe-twisted.
âWhat?â
âI tried.â
âTried?â
âTo go, you know, to go fuck myself. But I was not successful. Which is why I was wondering, if youâre leaving, if youâd like to join me. To show me the proper way.â
2
New York City
G rowing up, during stressful moments, he used to lash out. At his parents. His teachers. Fellow students. Back then it was different. Back then, they didnât prescribe Ritalin or send him to a psychiatrist or assume that he had ADD or Aspergerâs. Back then they stuck him in what was technically known as the special ed class, but more commonly known to his fellow students and even some teachers as the retard room.
After a while he taught himself to control his outbursts by imagining that he was in a spacecraft coursing through the heavens. This was a by-product of his fixation on aeronautics. He calculated travel to distant galaxies in light-years, earth years, dog years. He gauged his changing weight depending upon the gravitational pull of the nearest celestial body. Real and make believe. And he was constantly measuring the distance to the next planet, the next star system. Always moving farther away from his own blue-green sphere. Never back toward home.
It helped. Soon he was back in honors classes, considered smart yet odd. With time, he adopted other coping mechanisms. But after Erin died and during the divorce, when nothing else worked, when he was filled with rage and frustration, it got so bad that he even tried the spaceship exercise again. But it was no use. His emotions and imagination had been grounded. So he lost himself more than ever in the numbers, even though he had grown to detest them.
*Â *Â *
Havens comes out of the park at Columbus Circle. More people, lights and traffic. Forty-three blocks from the apartment. Feeling safer but far from safe. Standing under a streetlight across from the Museum of Design he