Reflecting the Sky by S. J. Rozan Page A

it. We’d taken the hotel’s phone number and given him our cell phone numbers in exchange. We’d given them to the Weis, too, Steven Wei nodding in distracted thanks, Natalie Zhu raising a barely discernible eyebrow as she found out we’d actually gone out and gotten cell phones since this morning.
    Now, to me, Bill said, “Where?”
    “How about the park? The scene of the crime.”
    “Maybe.”
    “Not the park? You want to go somewhere else?”
    “No, the park’s good. I meant maybe it’s the scene of the crime.”
    “You really don’t buy the idea that this is what it looks like?” I asked as we headed downhill to the little park that, according to Steven Wei, Maria Quezon and Harry went to all the time.
    “What the hell does it even look like?” I raised my eyebrows at the short-tempered growl in his voice, but said nothing. He shook a cigarette out of the pack, lit a match as we passed under the fronds of a huge palm tree growing on a wall. “The kid grabbed the day—just about the hour—we show up from New York. Two ransom demands, one for more money than the family has, one for less than the risk is worth.”
    “You think that’s true, that they don’t have that much money?”
    “Maybe it’s not. Maybe they’re not sure about us and he was being cagey. Shouldn’t be hard to find out.”
    “All right,” I said, “but if the first call was from phony kidnappers, what was the point of sending Steven Wei to Wong Tai Sin? If that was you, wouldn’t you just want to get in and get what you could before the real guys call and Steven realizes he’s been had?”
    “Yes,” he said shortly. “So, assuming that one of the calls is real and that’s the one that sent Steven Wei to the temple, who made the other one, and how did they find out the kid was taken?”
    “Assuming.” I turned to look at him. “You think maybe neither is real?”
    “I don’t know what I think. If that was the real call, why wouldn’t they prove they had the kid?”
    “Maybe,” I said slowly, “something’s happened to the kid.”
    “I thought of that.” Bill said, his voice lower. He gazed down the hill, across the harbor. “But even if the kid’s already dead, they’d know what he was wearing. If he had birthmarks, they’d know that. Missing teeth, whatever. They could have tried to fake it.”
    “Maybe they don’t think that fast. Maybe they’re nervous. Maybe they’re not pros.” I stepped aside for a sweating woman pulling a grocery cart up the steep sidewalk.
    Bill didn’t answer me directly. He said, “There are a few other things I want to know. I still want to know why the apartment was wrecked.”
    “And who let us up.”
    “And who paid the old lady prayer-seller at Wong Tai Sin.”
    “And how your friend Iron Fist Chang fits in.”
    We walked between wooden gateposts holding up a red arch with the characters for “Kwong Hon Terrace Garden” painted on it in gold. The concrete-paved park nestled between low, old buildings, ran through the block and ended in another arched gateway to another street. Small children shrieked as they ran through sprays of water from the mouths of three bronze frogs. Half a dozen Filipina amahs shared sliced papaya and cans of coconut soda, giggled and gossiped, called to their charges. We sat on a concrete bench in the shade of a banana tree. I stared at the bananas, growing upside down just the way they’re supposed to.
    “Old Mr. Wei,” Bill said. “I want to know what he was worried about. I want to know what we were sent here to do.”
    I looked at him, watched his eyes follow an amah as she jumped up to comfort a toddler who had slipped in the bronze frogs’ pool. She picked the child up, hugged and cajoled him, gave him a slice of papaya, and sent him, giggling, back to his friends. I touched Bill’s arm. “I’m sorry,” I said.
    He turned to me, surprised. “About what?”
    “This.” I waved my arm around. “Everything’s