Nine Dragons - A Beatrix Rose Thriller: Hong Kong Stories Volume 1 (Beatrix Rose's Hong Kong Stories Book 2) Read Online Free Page A
first train that was heading west.
She thought about Doss.
He would shortly be the sixth victim of their arrangement.
The men that had been marked for death at her hand had been a varied group. Most of them had underworld connections in one way or another. Beatrix did not ask for the details, but it was quickly apparent when she started to research the targets to assess their habits and patterns, divining their weaknesses and the times when they were most vulnerable. The first had been a member of the Wo Shun Wo who was informing on his brothers to the police. It had been a difficult assignment. The man had been granted police protection, but Beatrix had been able to gather that he visited his mother on Sunday evenings. She had staked out the old woman’s flat and, with his escort waiting in the lobby downstairs, she had thrown him out of the tenth-storey window into the rubbish-strewn shaft between one building and the next.
Another man had been responsible for laundering triad money. Beatrix guessed that he had been skimming a little from the top, not that the nature of his guilt would have made any difference to her. He liked to go fishing on his private junk every Tuesday afternoon. Beatrix had stowed aboard, drugged him and tipped him overboard.
The last one had been messier. Beatrix had broken into the man’s expansive apartment in Central, but he had awoken just as she approached him in his bed. She had stabbed him, but there had been a struggle, and she had ended up garrotting him with the electrical flex from the lamp on his bedside table. Chau had been involved in the aftermath, removing the body and cleansing the apartment so thoroughly that there was no trace of what had happened there. Chau was clumsy, and gauche, and unsuited to the preparatory work, but Beatrix was prepared to admit that when it came to clean-up, he was the epitome of professionalism.
It was midnight when she alighted again at Wan Chai. She made her way back to her apartment block. She had been on edge for hours, and it was tiring. She was ready for sleep.
#
HER FLAT was on Lockhart Road, not far from the bar she had been in earlier. It was only a ten-minute walk to the west before she was in the bustling, neon-drenched heart of Wan Chai, but it was a different world. This was the heart of old Hong Kong. The buildings were a hundred years old, and showing their age. Instead of neon, the small stores advertised themselves with weather-beaten signs that hung above their front doors on creaking hinges. It wasn’t the sort of place with any appeal to tourists save those who stumbled out of the clubs and wandered to the east, looking for Wan Chai MTR station and ending up all the way over at Causeway Bay. Skinny cats lounged on windowsills and rooftops, bathing in the light of the moon. Mangy dogs snouted through garbage, competing with rats that were almost as big as they were for the choicest morsels.
The small stores were still open, and the owners sat outside their establishments on plastic chairs, often with pots of tea or bottles of Tsingtao on folding card tables. Others wandered by in traditional Chinese dress. Deliveries were made by handcart and Beatrix had to step aside as one youngster pushed his barrow along, struggling with the sacks of rice that he was delivering to the neighbourhood restaurants.
It was busy and bustling, noisy and alive, and Beatrix loved it.
She could have stayed in one of the shiny apartment blocks in Central or Mid-Levels, rubbing shoulders with the bankers and lawyers and accountants who retreated there at the end of the day, but she had no interest in that. If she was going to have to stay in a place, she wanted to experience it properly. She wanted the dirt and the grit, the stench and stink. She wanted the colour. There was a more practical motivation to her decision to locate herself here, too. It would be harder to find her if she were submerged within this teeming morass of humanity.
She
She thought about Doss.
He would shortly be the sixth victim of their arrangement.
The men that had been marked for death at her hand had been a varied group. Most of them had underworld connections in one way or another. Beatrix did not ask for the details, but it was quickly apparent when she started to research the targets to assess their habits and patterns, divining their weaknesses and the times when they were most vulnerable. The first had been a member of the Wo Shun Wo who was informing on his brothers to the police. It had been a difficult assignment. The man had been granted police protection, but Beatrix had been able to gather that he visited his mother on Sunday evenings. She had staked out the old woman’s flat and, with his escort waiting in the lobby downstairs, she had thrown him out of the tenth-storey window into the rubbish-strewn shaft between one building and the next.
Another man had been responsible for laundering triad money. Beatrix guessed that he had been skimming a little from the top, not that the nature of his guilt would have made any difference to her. He liked to go fishing on his private junk every Tuesday afternoon. Beatrix had stowed aboard, drugged him and tipped him overboard.
The last one had been messier. Beatrix had broken into the man’s expansive apartment in Central, but he had awoken just as she approached him in his bed. She had stabbed him, but there had been a struggle, and she had ended up garrotting him with the electrical flex from the lamp on his bedside table. Chau had been involved in the aftermath, removing the body and cleansing the apartment so thoroughly that there was no trace of what had happened there. Chau was clumsy, and gauche, and unsuited to the preparatory work, but Beatrix was prepared to admit that when it came to clean-up, he was the epitome of professionalism.
It was midnight when she alighted again at Wan Chai. She made her way back to her apartment block. She had been on edge for hours, and it was tiring. She was ready for sleep.
#
HER FLAT was on Lockhart Road, not far from the bar she had been in earlier. It was only a ten-minute walk to the west before she was in the bustling, neon-drenched heart of Wan Chai, but it was a different world. This was the heart of old Hong Kong. The buildings were a hundred years old, and showing their age. Instead of neon, the small stores advertised themselves with weather-beaten signs that hung above their front doors on creaking hinges. It wasn’t the sort of place with any appeal to tourists save those who stumbled out of the clubs and wandered to the east, looking for Wan Chai MTR station and ending up all the way over at Causeway Bay. Skinny cats lounged on windowsills and rooftops, bathing in the light of the moon. Mangy dogs snouted through garbage, competing with rats that were almost as big as they were for the choicest morsels.
The small stores were still open, and the owners sat outside their establishments on plastic chairs, often with pots of tea or bottles of Tsingtao on folding card tables. Others wandered by in traditional Chinese dress. Deliveries were made by handcart and Beatrix had to step aside as one youngster pushed his barrow along, struggling with the sacks of rice that he was delivering to the neighbourhood restaurants.
It was busy and bustling, noisy and alive, and Beatrix loved it.
She could have stayed in one of the shiny apartment blocks in Central or Mid-Levels, rubbing shoulders with the bankers and lawyers and accountants who retreated there at the end of the day, but she had no interest in that. If she was going to have to stay in a place, she wanted to experience it properly. She wanted the dirt and the grit, the stench and stink. She wanted the colour. There was a more practical motivation to her decision to locate herself here, too. It would be harder to find her if she were submerged within this teeming morass of humanity.
She
Readers choose
Jordan Ervin
Karen Robards
Alton Gansky
Vicki Keire
Meredith Woerner
Danielle Sosin
Jinx Morgan
Meg Cabot
Adrian eng Smith