Reflecting the Sky by S. J. Rozan

As he listened to the response from the other end of the line, Natalie Zhu came and stood before him. She made no move to take the phone from him, but her presence seemed to challenge him into steeliness, and when he was through listening, his voice was controlled and calm.
    “What proof do I have that you are holding my son?” he asked in Chinese. “Let me speak to him.”
    An answer; then, “No, that is not enough. I have gotten another call. Someone else also claiming to be holding my son and his amah.” Pause. “With a—different demand. I will bring the jade wherever you like if you bring my son to me at the same place, but I will not turn the jade over to you before I see him.”
    Pause. “Yes, I have the jade. I can—No, it—” To whatever went on at the other end after that, Steven Wei managed only fragmented replies. Then suddenly he lost his composure and shouted, “Wai! Wai!” into the phone. He shouted once more, then stopped.
    Face flushed, he lowered the phone and looked around the room. “He said if we don’t give him the jade we’ll be sorry. Then he hung up.” Realizing he’d spoken in Chinese, he repeated himself in English.
    “Did he offer proof?” That was Natalie Zhu, sticking to the important point.
    Steven Wei shook his head. “He said he thought this was a transaction between gentlemen. That he’d been behaving as one, but if I chose not to do so, he could behave … in other ways.” He looked at Natalie Zhu. “Do you think that means—?” “Did he say he would call again?” She cut him off.
    “Yes.”
    Natalie Zhu, arms crossed over her silk blouse, kept her eyes on Steven Wei for a while. Then she turned deliberately to face me, Bill, and Franklin Wei.
    “I’m sorry,” she said, not particularly sounding it. “We must speak privately. Dr. Wei, it is unfortunate that your arrival has come at this bad time. The situation will no doubt be resolved soon. We will let you know as soon as there is happy news to report. Miss Chin, please leave the jade. We will call you.”
    So here we were, getting thrown out of the Weis’ apartment again. I opened my mouth to object, though I wasn’t sure on what grounds besides Lydia Chin’s need to be in on everything. Then, meeting Natalie Zhu’s eyes, I abruptly stopped. I did some quick mental flip-flops, then decided.
    After all, Grandfather Gao had told me to do what I thought was right. And if none of this had ever happened and everything had been okay to begin with, Steven and Li-Ling Wei would be effectively in charge of this jade by now anyhow.
    Taking the velvet box from my bag, I handed it, not to Natalie Zhu, but to Li-Ling Wei. One hand over her huge stomach, she opened it. Both Steven and Franklin Wei looked in at the laughing Buddha gleaming on his white silk.
    Franklin smiled. “I remember when Dad got that,” he said. “I must have been, I don’t know, five. He brought me one, too, not a Buddha, just this thing.” He reached under his shirt and pulled out a gold chain from which dangled a pointed jade amulet, faceted and about an inch long. “It was the only old-timey thing I ever saw him do. I haven’t worn it since I was like twelve, just put it on when I decided to come here. Seemed like, I don’t know, a cool thing to wear to Hong Kong.”
    Steven Wei slowly reached under his own shirt and pulled out an amulet exactly like it. “I don’t remember a time when Father did not wear his jade,” he said. “Or a time when I did not wear mine.”
     
    “I want to talk to you,” I told Bill, standing on the sidewalk on Robinson Road, after, to the rattle of jackhammers in the swampy heat, we had put Franklin Wei in a taxi.
    “I’m at the Peninsula,” Franklin had said. “Will you call me? I mean, if anything happens?” Gesturing upward in the general direction of the twenty-sixth floor, he added, “They might not think of it.” They might not, I thought; or they might, but that didn’t mean they’d do