In the Dragon's Tail

Chapter 6 - Back-Alley Brawl

"You mean Zhi Ling Dao, the local underworld boss?"

"That's him. About half a year ago, Hunter persuaded me to introduce him to Zhi. I, stupidly, obliged to his wishes."

"Why? You're aware of Hunter's background, right?"

Tears welled up in her eyes again. "See, Zhi - he's my... master, of sorts." She stood up from her seat, then turned around and showed me on the bottom of her back, a small brand, shaped like a diamond with a small dragon inside. "Zhi owns me. Every facet of me. Just like he does with all of his girls. And he wants to make sure everyone knows it."

"And what does it have to do with Hunter?"

"Hunter and I, we're very much in love, to the point that he repeatedly made me leave my job, which of course I can't. He told me that he wanted to marry me and bring me to the Philippines, but of course that's easier said than done."

"So what did he do? What did he tell you?"

Tears gushed down her cheeks, but her face remained stoic, as if she didn't have enough strength to live through the memories again. "He told me that he wanted to meet Zhi, and buy me from him. That way we can move to the Philippines and start over. Initially Zhi gladly welcomed him to his entourage, but made it clear that the only way he'll give me to Hunter was if Hunter did all of his bidding. It's only a matter of time until Hunter sank deeper and deeper into the organization despite my constant pleas to him, until our relationship deteriorated because of his subservience to Zhi."

"And what happened after? Is Zhi aware of Hunter being a former drug informant?"

"We kept it a secret. Hunter, turns out, happened to send some of Zhi's close business partners and middlemen to prison during his days as an informant. And that's what's been scaring me."

"That Zhi found out he was a drug informant, and came to a realization that Hunter's using you to get closer to him and nab him."

"Exactly."

I sighed, "Some mess we have here, huh? You served the pie to the boys, they took their slices, and took the rest to throw in your face."

"I'm sure they're already on me. If they managed to get someone like Hunter disappear, there's no doubt they'd do the same thing to me. That's why I haven't been here these past few days."

"By the way, how did you manage to climb up the window?"

"There's a ladder at the back of the metal garbage bin outside. I just set it up whenever I need to get inside discreetly, then pull it up to the attic. That's why I thought there's no one here, because the ladder's still hidden. How were you able to get inside?"

"Oh, me? Ha. I went full Spider-Man on your walls, Mary Jane."

"Screw me. If you can't even find a ladder, how can I count on you to find my boyfriend?

"Not what I'm paid to do. Ladders don't have powerful daddies back in my country." She laughed at me. For now this is all I can do to make her feel better. "I'm with-"

I bent down and put my finger tightly in front of my lips. I pushed her down to hide behind the counter. I peeked through her front window. From the curtains of her window I could outline a shadow hovering from outside. It was accompanied by another shadow, taller, and their heads were close to the window to peek at the inside. At this point I took out my pistol again and popped the magazine inside, attached the silencer and aimed it at the door. I looked at Stephanie and motioned for her to be quiet, then pointed to the door that goes straight to the back alley and indicated that's where we're going out. She nodded to confirm she understood.

The shadows lingered for about three minutes, and after that the tall shadow disappeared first, followed by the shorter one. I crouched and opened the door to the alley to peek from both sides to see if we could go out. Seeing that there was no one there, I slowly walked back to Stephanie, now pale with fear, and took her hand to pull her upright.

"It would be better if you stay under my protection. I'll take care of you." She agreed, and before we finally got out, I took my phone and texted an asterisk to Arquiza's number. He replied back with another asterisk, letting me know he was on his way to my location. I opened the door holding Stephanie's hand on my left while making sure she was fine.

We barely made it five steps from the door when we came face-to-face with two men—both in black jackets and jeans, built like pros. One matched my height. The other was taller.

We locked eyes—silent recognition. We all knew what this was.

I moved first.

The tall one reached for his weapon just as I drew mine. My Beretta came up smooth and fast. One squeeze, and a red hole opened between his eyes.

Blood and brain sprayed across his partner's face. He froze—just long enough.

I turned my gun to him.

Too late. He kicked the pistol from my hand. It clattered at Stephanie's feet.

He went for his own weapon. I grabbed his arm, pulled down hard, dropped under him, and flipped him over my back. His head cracked against the concrete.

Kata guruma. Thanks, sensei.

His gun slid to the wall near where I climbed earlier. I held onto his arm, rolled him onto his side, and pulled—hard—hoping to snap the elbow. But he was strong.

He yanked me forward, slammed me to the ground, then shoved me face-first and kicked hard. My ribs cracked under his boots.

I blocked the next strike and drove my foot into his groin. He collapsed to his knees.

I tried crawling toward my gun—but he beat me to it. Not with a gun—this time, a knife.

A Bowie. Big, fast, and close.

I got to my feet, dodged the first swipe. He lunged. I caught his arm, turned it, dragged him forward.

When his face got close, I struck—hard, fast—my palm crashing against his chin, snapping his head back.

A sharp crack.

He crumpled.

I staggered, breath ragged.

First fight of the day. First two bodies down.

I didn't think it'd get this ugly, this fast. I never thought a brawl - a back-alley brawl for that matter - could end up as deadly as it did just now.

I looked around. Fortunately, no commotion started after the brutal m******e that just took place. No one's around to see, and apart from a single suppressed fire from me, there wasn't much noise. I looked around for Stephanie, but I couldn't see her. I started to panic. Maybe they had another companion who grabbed Stephanie while I was brawling? I went back inside to look for her; she was not in the kitchen or the living room, but I found her locked up, hiding inside her bathroom.

"Steph? It's me," I said while knocking on the door. She opened a small hole to peek. "You can come out now. I got you."

She hurried out of the bathroom and ran to me. She held me in an embrace and weakly asked: "Is it over? What happened to them?"

"Dead. Now, get your things. Everything you're gonna need: clothes, money, whatever you can bring. You're never getting back here again."

She was shocked by what she heard, but she complied and went up to the attic to get her things. While she was busy packing, I thought of cleaning up the scene before anyone sees the bodies. I approached the corpses, and before I even brought them inside the house, I searched them for whatever else they may be carrying. I rummaged through their clothing, but found nothing but wallets and phones on each of them. I dug on the back pocket of the man I just shot in the head, and found three keys with a poker chip keychain attached. "Diamond Dragon Hotel and Casino".

I put the contents of their wallets into my pocket - IDs, and money that in total was worth five thousand patacas or more than thirty thousand pesos. I was about to go inside Stephanie's house to get some stuff when I heard someone honking at the end of the alley.

"Yo, it's your Uber driver he... holy s**t!" Arquiza shouted as he looked out the window of his Pajero. I motioned for him to shut up and run to me, which he immediately did. When he got closer to see the two lifeless men, his face filled with worry and fear, and he put his hands behind his head. "Maj. What shall we do?"

"Help me get them into the bathroom."

We took care of the tall man first, who was bleeding from the head, causing the pavement to turn red. Arquiza positioned himself on top of his body while I held on the feet and thighs; we both counted to three and together we lifted both ends of the corpse, then chucked it to the bathroom, slumped on the floor. We then worked on the second man. We tried to lift his body as well but Arquiza had a hard time because his head was moving too much, so we decided to just drag it and place it on top of the tall man's body. I wiped some drops of blood from the door, while Arquiza took out large, wet garbage bags from a nearby bin to cover the blood where the tall man laid dead earlier. As he did so, Stephanie came down the stairs with a large backpack and suitcase.

"So," I said as I heaved, "good to go?"

"Yes. Where are the bodies?"

"Getting to know each other inside the bath. The taller one's sharing a piece of his mind to the other, but the latter is too stiff to care."

"Am I really never going to go back here?"

"I'd advise against it. Unless you're cool living in some place where two dudes brutally died trying to kill you."

She looked inside the house for anything she might have forgotten. She was about to leave when she stopped for a moment, and went back to get her family's picture. When she got out, I introduced her to Arquiza, who's standing in the middle of the alley but still looking anxious.

"Steph, this is Sergeant Arquiza. He's with me. Nel, may as well introduce yourself." Arquiza smiled at her. "For now, I'll be leaving you with him."

Stephanie protested. "What? Why?"

"It's gonna be just for a while. I just gotta check on something. Just ten, fifteen minutes, tops." I made sure she calmed down before I left her, and spoke to Arquiza in English to help her understand. "Just go around a couple of blocks. Same drill, I'll text you when and where to pick me. As you do, call your people to do a cleanup on this house. I just need to check on those guys, where they came from and whatnot. Take care of the girl."

"On it. Don't be long."

"I won't."

I watched Stephanie get into the passenger seat, until Arquiza finally drove away. I walked back to the alley I came from while turning my jacket over; now the brown side is inside and the black side is out. I put on my wayfarers and peeked to the left before heading out back to the streets. Behind the wall, I could see a motorcycle blocking the front of Stephanie's door. I looked around to make sure that no one else was out there, and when I was satisfied that there's no one else, I approached it, a black Royal Enfield Himalayan. Behind it are three carbon fiber luggage compartments. I opened one with a key; inside are three clean shirts that they'd probably use for the getaway. When I opened the right luggage compartment, I was surprised by a variety of guns. There were five: a Chinese replica of the Desert Eagle, two disassembled Tec-9s, a small Pistolera Makarov with a suppressor and another Chinese replica of a SIG Sauer P226. I went to the other side to open the left luggage compartment. When I opened it, I saw nothing but an A4 brown envelope. A nylon thread tightened its flap and it's obvious that it hasn't been opened yet. I unsealed it to see what's inside, and when I caught a glimpse of the contents, I was stunned. Two bundles of orange paper bills, all one thousand Macanese patacas. I didn't take the money out of the envelope but I was able to see the paper rolls binding them, and there was written "50" for both of them.

I put the envelope inside my jacket. One hundred thousand Macanese patacas. What do I do with all of this?

I left the motorcycle in front of Stephanie's house and staggered back to where Arquiza first took me texting him again with an asterisk. While waiting, I took out one of the phones I got from the boys. It's locked so the contents can't be accessed, so I attached a thumb-drive to its USB-C port using an OTG cable. It only took a few seconds and the debug menu appeared on the left side of the screen. I selected the option to unlock the phone, and when I was granted access I went to the last calls and texts it sent and received. Just this past hour, there were four calls using this phone to a specific number, and it also received a text from the same number he was calling. I read the previous messages, all in Cantonese, and discovered that last night they were paid a downpayment of fifty thousand patacas each to find and kill Stephanie. After about five minutes of waiting, the Pajero came back to pick me up. When I got into the front passenger seat, Arquiza immediately started the engine and drove back to the consulate.

"Paid assassins, hired to kill our lady friend here. Saw the texts." I showed Arquiza the two phones, as well as the wallets, and put them all in the glove compartment. "Let's have those numbers tracked and those guys identified. Let's-"

I hastily opened the window to throw up outside, as the car moved into the center. I noticed that the vomit I spat out was mixed with blood, something that scared the people on the sidewalk who saw. I suddenly felt the pain in my stomach and chest from the repeated blows they received, and I started to feel dizzy. My nape went numb, going up behind my ears. The effect of the adrenaline rush is wearing off.

Arquiza was worried, but he just kept driving. "Maj, are you alright?"

I assured him that I was fine. "Yes, yes Nel. Le... let's just go back to the consulate."