Sliding the gun into his inside breast pocket, Willy glanced at himself in the rearview mirror. The gun was bulky. He buttoned the jacket. He was wearing his best suit, knowing that he’d have to go into the Peninsula Hotel. He checked the mirror again.
With the button done, it looked much better.
After starting the car, Willy drove to Nathan Road and headed south. As he approached the Peninsula Hotel, he began to feet a tingle of anticipation. Of all the various things he did for Female Care Australia, this was the kind of action he liked the best.
Originally he’d been hired only because he spoke fluent Cantonese.
But gradually he’d been given other responsibilities, and he’d proven himself over the years. In the “security” department, he was second only to Ned Kelly.
Pulling up directly in front of the hotel, Willy parked in an empty slot despite a sign forbidding it. He got out of the car and approached the doorman. He palmed two hundred dollars in Hong Kong currency and gave it to the man.
“I trust my car will be all right where it is?” he asked in Cantonese.
The doorman bowed, slipping the money into his pocket.
Willy entered the hotel with a sense of pride. He was living testament to the Hong Kong ethic of diligent individual effort yielding success. As a child growing up dirt poor in Sydney, he had never imagined that one day he would be walking into a world class hotel and would feel comfortable doing so.
I
At a bank of house phones, Willy asked the operator to put him through to Marissa Blumenthal. He waited, hoping that she was indeed a guest. Without much ado, he was put through to her room. At first he planned on hanging up immediately, but he hated to forgo the thrill of speaking with his mark. But no one picked up.
Willy dialed the operator again, this time asking for Tristan Williams. There was no answer in his room either. Willy guessed they were out together. That was a good sign. He needed them together. His plan was simple. He would walk up and shoot each of them once in the head. Preferably, he would make his move in a crowded area. Then he would simply drop the gun, leave, and melt into the crowd. He’d done it plenty of times before. In Hong Kong, it was easy. In Australia, it was a lot more difficult.
Leaving the phones, Willy went to the newsstand and bought himself a copy of the Hong Kong Standard. With newspaper in hand, he walked into the main part of the lobby and took a seat where he could keep an eye on both the front door and the front desk. What he planned to do was wait for his quarry to come to him.
“Medicine in Hong Kong is an interesting mix,” Dr. Myron Pao said.
“I was trained in London, so obviously I favor Western-style medicine. But I don’t ignore the traditional medicine either. Herbalists and acupuncturists have their places.”
Marissa and Tristan had found an internist who was on the staff of the hospital and who was happy to show them around.
Accustomed to private hospitals in Boston, Marissa was amazed by the conditions in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital but impressed by the productivity. The number of patients seen in the clinics and treated on the wards was astonishing. Dr. Pao explained that Chinese families handled much of the inpatients’ personal care themselves.
“What about tuberculosis?” Marissa asked.
“Is that much of a problem here in Hong Kong?”
“Everything is relative,” Dr. Pao said.
“We see an average of about eight thousand new cases of TB each year. But that’s with a population of about five and a half million. Considering the crowded living conditions, I don’t think that is alarming. I’m sure that one of the reasons we don’t see more is because we vaccinate children with BCG. Contrary to your experience in North America, we find BCG quite effective.”
KIN
“Has there been much of an increase in the incidence of TB over recent years?” Marissa asked.
“There was when boat people from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos first arrived,” Dr. Pao said.