Night in Shanghai by Mones Nicole

Author:Mones, Nicole [Mones, Nicole]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2014-03-04T00:00:00+00:00

As Thomas and Song were leaving the Peking Road studio, Zhao Funian, Du’s hired assassin, was peering out into the rain from his rented room on the corner of Avenue Édouard VII and Tibet Road. The restaurant where that brown dwarf whore Morioka and the foreign piano player were supposed to meet, right next to the Great World Amusement Center, was ideally located across the street from his window. The only problem was that the Great World had decided to hand out free tea and rice, and thousands of refugees, who had been filling the French Concession for days, were now squeezed into a clotted bottleneck directly in front of his target. He would never get a clear shot without killing a few others, but what did that matter now? One had to be thorough in crushing dry weeds and smashing rotten wood. His rifle was poised, and he scanned through the rain, while Wing Bean, who stood next to him, studied the crowd through binoculars.

“Ei, is that leper turd really going to show up here? Today?” The radio was chattering about the fighting in the northern districts, and the bomb concussions could be heard and felt underneath the rain, while the street below roiled with people fleeing for their lives. Morioka seemed unlikely to keep a tea date. It was five minutes to the appointed time.

“The rain is slowing,” Wing Bean said, continuing to sweep his binoculars back and forth across the packed sidewalk in front of the restaurant.

Zhao shook his head at the futility of it. “That whore’s not coming.”

But then Wing Bean staggered, so suddenly Zhao thought he had been hit by some stray bullet, shot, and felt a stab of sadness, such a young man—

But the younger man was only shocked. “Gods bear witness! I see him. It’s him. The piano player.”

“What!” Zhao snatched the field glasses from him and trained them down on the dense mass of refugees, dialing the focus, frantic. “Are you blind in your dog’s eyes?”

“No. I work at the Royal! That’s him.”

“Where?”

“On the corner. See? He’s with a woman.”

“A woman—” Now Zhao had him at last in his sights, and his stomach turned over: oh yes. He was with a woman all right.

Song Yuhua.

“Get the camera,” he whispered. She was pressed close to the American as they moved together, her dress wet and clinging, her hips sinuous, talking to him, pressed up to him, touching him, by all his ancestors. Touching him. “Hurry!” he cried to Wing Bean, who saw the same thing and stood with his mouth hanging slack.

“But that whore Morioka could arrive any second. He’s the one we—”

“Stupid melon! Get the camera!”

Wing Bean pawed through his canvas bag.

“Give it to me. Is there film in it? Hurry!”

But Wing Bean held it back from him. Something profitable was about to occur, without him. “Why?”

“Never you mind!”

“Why?” Wing Bean repeated, which caused Zhao to swing at him—and miss.

Zhao glanced out across the street. Her clothes were wet and everything of her body was visible.

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