-----
Part 5
Page 1
A moment, please, for knocking.
Some doors are, if it can be understood, not designed
for visitors. Doors highly resistant to the average massive, air-shaking
rattle. Thick, sometimes metal, and occasionally heavily-carved so as to
discourage any potential callers from hammering with all their might. These
are not doors for disturbing their owners; they are doors for knocking
timidly and quietly, in a polite way so that the residents behind the door
will take pity on you and open up on account.
The door of successful hutong black market man Jin
was not one of these. He couldn't quite afford it. He'd been saving up,
though.
No, the best Jin had managed was a door so heavily
adorned and convoluted in its design that the knocker would simply have
a hard time knowing what and where would be the best place to tap. It was
a poor man's solution, accrued over the years, but it seemed to suffice.
But then had come Xiao Shujuan.
Xiao Shujuan was the nemesis of that door. Not his
office door, that was a normal door, but the back door that he usually
didn't let customers know about to begin with. He'd let Xiaolong know,
for convenience's sake, but knew even at the time he was going to end up
regretting it.
Shujuan knew exactly where to knock. Shujuan knew
exactly where to hit and how to hit to make the whole thing rattle, not
from an actual brute strength but a carried vibration, that shook the window
pane that scraped the door frame that ground on unstable walls that made
Lucy's fishbowl shiver and Lucy dash around in mad fright.
It was for this reason, sick of having that horrible
explosion in his ears and Lucy swimming up her little goldfish life in
a single dart, that dragged Jin out of bed long before the effects of the
drug had worn off, and answer the door.
Shujuan was holding up a box.
"Why, thank you, pet," Jin sighed, taking it from
her. He leaned on the worried door frame for support while he rifled through
uncountable pockets for the rest of her money. "Has anyone noted that your
work has been quite diligent lately?"
"A few people," the girl muttered, taking the crumpled
bills. He didn't even try to pass her fakes now. There was no joy in it,
because she didn't check.
That, above everything else, had been a big clue-in
that the leader of Xiaolong was mentally ill. It had given Jin nightmares,
turning it over in his head so much. His poor expert door-knocker.
He shook the box instead, for the satisfying dull
rattle.
"Do you wish to know what I have in here, angel?"
he offered, for pity's sake.
"Human bones?"
"Most apt. You're getting better."
Shujuan shrugged. "None of my business."
"They died naturally, I assure you. Well, if we
can account the Chernobyl incident as a natural death. It was an odd fluke
for us too, to find the bones of radiation-decayed humans, ground into
a fine powder and inhaled, were--"
"I don't. Want. To know," Shujuan repeated, gritting
her teeth. She glared. "You're high, aren't you?"
"As the orbital space station, my dove." He smiled
pleasantly, through a bit of effort to get facial muscles too cooperate.
"And how is business?"
"Business."
"Word going around is that you had a little encounter
with some of the local Triads last week."
"One guy," the human corrected testily. "An' we
haven't heard from him since. So he's good as gone."
"Assuredly not. Speaking as one who has dealt with
them before and will forever regret it. No, my dear, they don't go away
because you neglect to follow up. Anything but. That being precisely the
situation as I've heard tell of it around my territory. They are asking
about you."
Shujuan lifted an eyebrow. "Asking you, y'mean?"
"A little pressure. Nothing that has cost me a limb
yet." He demonstrated, holding up a scruffy hand.
"What'd you tell them?"
"Public information only, pet. Nothing they had
not already learned from other sources." Jin paused, considering. "There
is apparently a package you refused to deliver?"
"Lost," she insisted. "It's a terrible tragedy,
but all they gotta do is ask for a refund and it's square."
"Oh no no. No." The youkai shook his head. "I'm
afraid it doesn't quite work that way, angel."
-----