Red Phoenix

back, silently cursing Leo.
    Freddie Mercury again. Best of Queen.
    I flipped through all six CDs in the box. All of them were Best of Queen.
    That bastard. He hadn’t just been through my CD collection, he’d been through my goddamn books as well and obviously been reading them.
    I smiled at the deliberate irony. Best of Queen. Cute.
    I quietly contemplated revenge as I wound my way down the hill. Gold must have helped with this one; Leo wouldn’t have been able to copy the CDs himself. It would take me a while to think up something suitably cruel to get him back with. Maybe Michael could give me a hand. Yes.
    I turned left at the bottom into Connaught Road and crawled through the traffic of Central. Lunchtime crowd; but I was adding to it. I went past the Star Ferry terminal on the right. I wasn’t parking there today, although it was the most convenient car park for John’s building in Central. He had a small office in the building to manage the tenants, and I made a mental note to drop in there after lunch and talk to them about occupancy. We needed to keep the building completely leased out, even if it meant dropping the rent.
    I continued along Connaught Road, under the huge overpass that carried pedestrians to the Star Ferry. The office workers in their business suits and smart shoes bustled from one side to the other. I still hadn’t bought any suits. Miss Kwok would definitely dock my pay. I smiled. I had come such a long way since she’d asked me to spy on John Chen and I’d resigned on the spot.
    Kitty Kwok still called me. She had been a total bitch to me at the first charity function I’d attended withJohn, but after that had suddenly warmed up and kept asking me to lunch or to visit her house. It was obvious I made an excuse every time, but she still kept at me. She’d probably worked out what the ring meant, and was trying to keep me onside. She even had April harassing me about visiting as well. April’s baby was due in another month. I made a mental note to give her a call and check on her.
    I turned left and meandered up a tiny one-way street. The sidewalks overflowed with people and many of them walked on the road. I sounded my horn to let them know I was coming and they looked at me blankly then moved to let me through. Normal working day in Central.
    I turned right and went down the ramp under the shiny new building, The Centre. Spectacular neon lines marked out its floors, making a rainbow of colours that moved slowly up its sides at night.
    I grabbed a ticket on the way into the car park and parked at the bottom of the casual area away from the other cars. One of the reasons I’d chosen The Centre: the car park was large and convenient to where I was going, but even better it often had areas that were empty of cars. I stepped out, locked the car, and waited.
    Gold appeared next to me and quickly saluted. I nodded back and we went to the elevators together.
    We exited at the ground floor. Huge silver-clad pillars supported the building over the open paved area at ground level with small gardens and fountains. A large-screen television to one side displayed the latest stock prices.
    Central Market stood on the other side of the road. It was old and blackened from the car exhausts, and reeked of blood and ripe meat from the butcher stalls inside. The pigs were delivered in the morning,butchered and the meat hung in the heat without refrigeration for the whole day. A public toilet under the market at the end of the street added to the aromatic mix, making the walk past quite unpleasant.
    As usual for a summer’s day it started to rain. I pulled out my umbrella and opened it, and Gold huddled underneath it with me. Eventually he gave up, turned towards me and made a large umbrella appear in his hand. He moved away and opened it. The road was awash and we skipped over the puddles to the market.
    We stepped onto the escalator outside the market and turned onto the walkway at the bottom of the Mid-levels escalator. We were under cover now; I folded my umbrella and put it away. We stepped onto the long moving ramp, and Gold turned towards me and made his umbrella disappear. Neat trick: I wished I could do that. Sometimes I would accidentally leave the umbrella at home, drying, and be stuck without it in one of Hong Kong’s massive rainstorms.
    Gold peered at the water gushing from the sky. ‘May get an amber rainstorm warning.’
    ‘If it keeps up like this, we’ll get a red or a black