Free The Dragon Book by Gardner Dozois, Jack Dann Page A

looking for.”
    Parsons said: “I don’t like this. There are others it might be just as easily. Zhou on the fifth floor fits the pattern: he’s a loner too—solitary occupation, background hard to trace. All fits. And the woman, Lau, on the fourth floor opposite to Yang. Records say she was in Shanghai during the last hunt there. Lived in the same suburb as the victims. Now she’s here. No record of her travelling with the airlines.”
    Bob Choi shrugged; he stared at his cup. “Maybe she took a boat. Or walked.”
    “Or,” Parsons said, “she flew.” He folded the paper packet neatly with pale fingers, placed it in the empty tray. “If you wait till tomorrow, Burns can be here. They’re bringing him in from Hanoi.”
    “I’m not waiting for Burns. This is a fresh feed. Yang’ll be slow and torpid now.”
    “He’ll still be torpid when Burns gets here,” the young man said. “ If it’s him.”
    “I’ve seen him walk,” Bob said, stubbornly. “There won’t be two of them.”
    The young man’s glasses flashed as he glanced toward the apartment block. His voice was bored. “Well, I won’t try to dissuade you, Choi. If it’s Yang, go kill him. But don’t run to me for help if you mess it up.”
    Bob had his head back, draining the last of the coffee. He held the cup out. “Here. Seeing as how you hate a mess.”
    He looked across. The alley was empty. The young man and the bag of bones were gone.

     
    IN the broad, lit canyon of Bryce Street, umbrellas were up against the rain. A hundred gold and scarlet disks spun and bobbed above the pavement and across the thoroughfare, reflected to infinity in the mirrored glass of the cafes and pleasure-bars. There was a swish of skirts and a pattering of canes. Laughter tumbled over Bob Choi as he slowly climbed the seven steps to the entrance of the apartment block, a hunched figure in a long black coat, hatless, with weary pouches beneath his eyes.
    A gloved hand pushed gently at the door. No luck: locked fast, opened electronically by switches in each apartment. On the wall hung a rank of buzzers, each with its room and name tag, some typed neatly, others scrawled. The lettering for 4A: Yang , was written in blue ink—an ornately cursive script, sinuous and flexible. Bob stared at it briefly, then dropped his gaze to the lowest label. 1C: Murray, Caretaker.
    The noise of the buzzer was ugly and indelicate. While he waited, Bob Choi stared up at the rain and the wall of the building: big brownstone blocks, rough-hewn, easy enough to climb if necessary. A voice sounded in the intercom. “Yes?”
    Bob bent close. “Parcel delivery, sir.”
    “Who for?”
    “You, sir.”
    “I haven’t ordered anything.” The voice was curt. “Oh, hell—wait there.”
    Bob Choi waited on the step. From an inside pocket, he took a pen and a small slip of yellow paper. Then he removed the glove from his right hand.
    The door opened. A man in a crumpled brown suit stood there. He had fair hair, red cheeks, and bloodshot, raddled eyes. He regarded Bob Choi with blank hostility.
    “Where’s the parcel?”
    “In the van, sir. If you could just sign this.” Bob Choi proffered the pen and paper. Behind the man’s curtain of alcohol, he smelt faint traces of bitumen and sulphur—the usual chemical tang—drifting down through the darkness of the hall. He glimpsed the stairwell at the far end.
    “Where’s the van? I don’t see a van.” But the man took the paper, then the pen, his hand brushing against Bob Choi’s fingertips as he did so. He frowned, first at the blankness of the paper, then at the onrushing chill coursing through his blood, the numb cold enveloping his brain. Bob Choi was already stepping through the doorway as the man fell; he caught him, swung the door shut, lowered the body to the floor, all in one fluid movement, and stood motionless in the hallway, listening to the noises of the house.
    Water gurgled in pipes, floorboards shifted, rats moved