“Now about that money you were so kindly offering… Tse hastily withdrew the bills he had in his pocket and handed them over. Tristan checked the man’s wrist.
“Too bad,” he said.
“No watch.”
“Tristan!” Marissa called.
“Let’s get out of here!”
“Ta,” Tristan said to Tse, then he calmly followed Marissa.
“Did you have to do that?” Marissa demanded angrily when Tristan caught up with her.
“Was that stunt some kind of masculine ego trip? We’d just gotten out of one mess and you were trying to get us into another.”
“That’s not the way I see it.” Tristan said.
“Besides, we needed cab fare.
“Hold it!” Tristan said, stopping abruptly.
“What now?” Marissa cried.
“We have to go back,” Tristan said.
“I lost my favorite hat.”
Marissa yanked her arm from Tristan’s grasp and strode off.
She didn’t find his antics the least bit entertaining. She was beginning to tremble. The confrontation in the Walled City had unnerved her, and the initial shock was wearing off. It had been a mistake to go in there. She was angry at Tristan for having jeopardized them in the first place; she was even angrier with him for taking the risk of the final confrontation with Tse.
Tristan again caught up with Marissa and fell in step without another word. Only a block away from the dark entrance to the Walled City, the normal hectic confusion of Kowloon began.
They easily found a cab that carried them back toward the Peninsula
Hotel.
During the ride, Marissa brooded. She began to realize that she would have to come up with some idea of how to contact the Wing Sin Triad if that’s what they hoped to do. If the venture to the Walled City was the best thing Tristan could come up with, she’d better not rely on him.
Some years back she’d read a thriller where the hero needed information in a strange town. He got it by hiring a limousine.
The idea was that a good limo driver knew his city inside and out, the legitimate side and the illegitimate.
Turning to Tristan she said, “I’ve got an idea.”
“Wonderful,” Tristan said.
“let’s hear it.”
Robert paced his study, swearing under his breath, occasionally punctuating his string of curses by stopping to pound a fist on his desk. Marissa had indeed caught him as he was about to leave for work. But the call had so irritated and disturbed him, he’d put down his briefcase to fume until he got some composure back.
“What the hell is she doing in Hong Kongr’ he said aloud.
She’s carrying this nonsense to ridiculous extremes, chasing around the world on a whim.”
Robert at down in front of his computer. He wondered if he ‘should call their doctor. What if Marissa was having a nervous breakdown? Shouldn’t he intercede?
Robert sprang out of his chair and began pacing again. He just couldn’t stay still. What should he do? Up until that moment, he’d thought the best thing was to let Marissa wear herself out with this wild-goose chase. Australia was one thing, but Hong Kong!
“Why did I ever marry?” Robert asked himself, reverting back to a verbal dialogue with himself.
“Oh, for those good old bachelor days when my worst worries were getting my shirts from the laundry.” He stopped his pacing.
“Hell,” he snapped.
“I still have to get my shirts from the laundry.” He tried to think of what marriage had brought him, and at that moment he couldn’t think of anything.
“What am I going to do?” he wondered.
“What should I do?
What can I do?” he said aloud. Deep down, more than anything, Robert simply wanted his wife back. If she wouldn’t come willingly, maybe it was time to go get her.
Robert stopped his pacing and stared out the window. He had another thought. What if she wasn’t in Hong Kong? What if she’d been lying or was being sarcastic? Then he remembered the call had been collect. Sitting down in his desk chair, Robert dialed the phone company. After a minor hassle, he got the calling number. It was a Hong Kong number. He dialed it, hoping to find out the name of the hotel or wherever it was she was staying. When the phone was picked up he had his answer: the Peninsula Hotel, the same hotel that he’d stayed in the two times he’d been to Hong Kong on business.