Changes by Charles Colyott

Jimmy Yi Lau.
    Over an exquisite lunch in the apartment, I found out that Tony was actually getting some attention for his art. 
    Ah, what the hell do I know?
    I learned that Oddjob’s actual name was Lawrence, and that the driver was called Daniel.
    That was about it.
    Tony Lau claimed that Mei Ling spent the night at his apartment a little over two weeks ago.  He said Daniel had driven her home.  It was the last he’d seen or heard of her.  I remembered what Tracy told me and thought it unlikely that Mei Ling had been abducted.  Still, one does not go from the top of the food chain to the bottom in two weeks.  In any case, I believed Tony’s story.  He’d managed a stoic front since hearing the news, but it was obvious he was upset. 
    He must’ve believed me too.  I remained breathing, and he gave me his business card and told me to contact him if I found out anything.  I stood to leave.  Daniel offered to drive me back to my hotel.  I decided to take him up on the offer, since I didn’t know where in the hell I was.
    Before I left, I had to ask one question.  "Did you know that she was pregnant?"
    Nothing in the man’s face changed. Without a word, he stood and left the table.  Daniel took me by the elbow, a little roughly, and guided me from the apartment.  During the drive back to the hotel, neither Daniel nor I spoke.  When he parked at the curb, he said, "It’s a hell of a thing, you know.  She was… a good girl."
    I hadn’t gotten into the details with them about how and where her body had been found.  I figured Tony Lau had enough to deal with.
    I left the car, got up to my room, and sat down for a good long think about everything.
    And promptly fell asleep.
    I got up around seven in the evening and practiced for awhile.  When I was finished, I took a shower and looked at the room service menu. 
    I checked the minibar.  Six bucks for a domestic beer (not counting the ten dollar "restocking fee.") 
    Damn.
    All of this activity covered up nicely for the fact that I didn’t know what the hell else to do here.  I thought about calling Knox and asking for some helpful detecting tips, but I didn’t think he’d be amused.  I wanted to call Tracy, to hear her voice, but I didn’t.  I am a male, and we are such stupid creatures sometimes.
    I took out the pictures I’d snagged from Mei Ling’s apartment and looked at them.  My mind kept seeing the image of her on the slab in the morgue. 
    Several things occurred to me: 
    One – any leads I wanted to follow out here were likely to get me into trouble.  Big trouble.  I’d gained some small amount of trust from Tony Lau; it wouldn’t be a great idea to go poking around at his dad and his business. 
    Two – Maybe Mei Ling’s murder was some kind of revenge hit from another Triad.  If so, then what?  Triads, as a rule, handle Triad business. 
    Three - the recurring thought that I was totally inept at this, as I was with most things in life, and that I should just order that roast beef sandwich I’d been eyeballing on the room service menu, buy a sixteen dollar beer, and hop the first available flight home.
    Three was sounding better and better.
     
     
    27
     
     
    I woke up in the morning, after a depressing night of staring at shitty infomercials, and felt awful.  I was wasting my time here.  Time and a lot of money.  And to think, I had clients back home, possibly in pain, because I was off playing Sam-freaking-Spade.
    On top of the feelings of failure, woe, and disappointment, I felt lonelier than I ever had in my life. 
    Specifically, I missed Tracy.  And I don’t mean that in the way people usually do.  This wasn’t a fleeting feeling or a casual twinge.  It wasn’t a John Hughes marathon type of emotion. 
    This was pain.
    This was a drowning man’s longing for oxygen.
    I needed to hear that I wasn’t a failure.   That I was important, even in some small way, to somebody other than a dead Chinese girl I’d