The Walled City

DAI

My whole body bounces as I stand by the rusted-out cannon, full of wild, untamped nerves. Up and down. Up and down. I wish Tsang would hurry his ass up. We never seem to get here at the same time. One of us is always late.

I see his cigarette first. Bobbing through Seng Ngoi’s almost-dawn dark like a firefly from hell. The very first time I saw Tsang — the night I drew the marks on my apartment wall — he was smacking the pack of cancer sticks against his palm. Pulling out the perfect one and setting it ablaze. That was many weeks, many charcoal lines, many clandestine meetings ago. I’d bet the number of cigarette butts he’s left at the Old South Gate would add up to cartons.

I stop bouncing, hold my breath when Tsang gets closer. Smoking is one of the few vices I never really took to. Probably because my father forced me to smoke an entire pack when he caught me lighting up in the rock garden. By the time it was over, I was the greenest, sorriest eight-year-old in Seng Ngoi.

It makes me wonder what my life would be like if he’d taken that approach for everything else.

“What’ve you got for me?” My handler hasn’t even stopped walking.

“Longwai isn’t budging. He’s keeping me in the lounge. I’ve still got the boy doing runs…” I trail off, wonder if I told the truth. Jin’s gone now — leaving just enough cat fur in my apartment to give my allergies hell. Not that I’m surprised. He’s one of the smartest kids I’ve come across. He probably figured out what I was up to and ran.

I wish he’d thought to snitch my first aid kit. That wound of his is going to need another cleaning.

“What about the whore?”

Whore… Tsang’s talking about the window-girl. It takes me a moment to realize this. To reconcile this brutal, bat-bashing word with the girl who’s been on my mind the past few days. I keep remembering the look that washed over her face when I set out the shell. The joy and longing. One hundred percent concentrate.

She looked at the nautilus like it was sunlight on a string. The most beautiful, pure thing in the universe.

She looked at me the same way. Like I was someone worth seeing. A goddamn hero. It was a stare that made me want to stand straight, look the part.

Too bad she’s wrong. For both of us.

“I’m testing her.” I spit the truth out like a bad pill: no hero here. “She’s trying to find out their names.”

“Still?” Tsang growls.

“I gave her four days.”

“Four days!” He sucks a sharp breath. His cigarette flares, lights his face like anger. “That’s awfully generous.”

“It’s what she needed.” Four lines. It’s a lot for me to give, but what I’m asking for is worth so much more.

“You’ve got to move faster. Get rid of the boy. You don’t need him anymore, and the last thing I need is you getting gutted for a failed drug run. Focus on the whore.”

Get rid of the boy. Focus on the whore. Up and down. Up and down. Maybe if I jump hard enough I can shake off his words. I go faster. Up, down. Up, down.

“Are you even listening?” Tsang’s cigarette is down to the nub, which means he’s getting crabbier than usual. His eyes gleam with its last ashes as they watch me jumping. Up, down.

“I need both of them.” Plan A and Plan B. “The boy is my only way into the brothel. I’ll need that when the girl comes through.”

“Why not let the whore do it all?”

My feet land flat on the ground. Stay there. I stare straight at Tsang. At the orange fire choking in a wreath of smoke. Almost dead.

“Stop using that word,” I tell him.

Tsang’s features twist into a smirk. He starts to laugh. “Sounds like someone’s got a crush. Now there’s a match made in heaven: a prostitute and a—"

“We done?” I cut off my handler. His cigarette winks out on cue.

“Next time we meet, I want results.” Tsang plucks the dead, smoking thing from his lips. Tosses it into a grimy puddle, where it hisses its own pitiful eulogy. “Stay focused, Sun Dai Shing. Your time is running out.”

MEI YEE

Yin Yu’s fingers were too tight on everything when she showed me the lacquered cabinet of servingware. Her knuckles were so white and strained I feared the decanter would shatter under her touch.

Serving wine and lighting pipes are simple tasks, but Yin Yu treated them as if they were the most sacred things in the world. She handed me a shimmering, holly-red serving dress, and endless instructions spilled from her mouth:

Come when they call.

Watch their glasses; keep them full.

Bow before and after every pour.

Don’t look them in the eye.

Her list went on and on, in a voice neither soft nor sharp, but strained like a rope twisted tightly. I couldn’t blame her for being upset. This was her job since the first day, when we were dragged fresh from the back of the Reapers’ van, bleary-eyed and shaking. It was her first step to becoming a Mama-san of her own. And there I was, taking it without word or explanation.

“I didn’t want this.” It was the closest I could come to an apology, to the truth.

Yin Yu’s smile was as woven as her words. She looked down at her too-tight fingers. “You weren’t the one who spilled a whole decanter on Mr. Smith. Honestly, I was afraid something worse would happen. It seems I was lucky.”

I wanted to tell her. I wanted to tell all of them about the window-boy and his seashell and the promise of a world outside.

But then I thought of Sing, and that was enough to silence any words I might be tempted to say.

So I picked up the tray and started serving. The first night it was only clients who filled the couches of the lounge. No Brotherhood in sight. And now, the second night, I’m chewing the insides of my lip, trying to keep the fear from showing. Tomorrow is the fourth day, which means the boy is coming back to my window soon. If the Brotherhood doesn’t meet tonight… if I don’t have the names…

I don’t know why the possibility makes me as sick as it does. There’s still a Seng Ngoi apartment waiting for me. A pool I can’t even swim in without drowning.

But I walk into the lounge, and the first face I see is the master’s. I look from couch to couch and see that every man is wearing black and scarlet. Only three of them have pipes.

Their eyes are fastened to the room’s most commanding presence, the one all of us fear.

I keep to the corner, my shoulder pressed against the serving cabinet. Across the room sits Nuo, dressed in the same low-cut scarlet dress, her fingers skipping over steel strings. The notes she plays are so soft I’m not even certain I hear them. But my ears are trained in other places, listening as the men offer their reports.

There are ten men in the circle; several of them are older, with silvering hair and creased brows. The only one I recognize is Fung. He sits in the far corner, face almost as fierce as the dragon inked onto it.

I listen for names, but these men are not friendly with one another. They toss around titles instead. Fung is called “Red Pole.” The man with golden incisors and the four deep nail marks down his cheek is the “Incense Master.” Another, a snow-haired member, is known as “White Paper Fan.” I lock the titles deep into my chest and try not to panic.

Why panic when there’s a rooftop garden? Will the ambassador still bring me flowers if I have an entire garden to smell?

The meeting stretches long. Each man gives a report filled with numbers and profits and loss and death. The master listens, his mouth set like stone as he scratches down notes in a book of parchment and red leather.

I keep listening, my ears straining for names until they ache. In the end, I walk away with four: Fung. Leung. Nam. Chun Kit. Five if you include Longwai. But I don’t. His name is everywhere.

Fung. Leung. Nam. Chun Kit. I keep the names on the tip of my tongue. Mouthing them silently to keep them fresh in my head. Again and again and again. Until they become one long name, without break: Fungleungnamchunkit. I recite it over and over — a silent prayer — as I wash out the glasses and put away the slender pipes.