Code Name Komiko by Naomi Paul Read Free Book Online Page B

to the narrow alleyway into which the Mercedes had turned. The Mercedes’ headlights shut off, and the black car was all but lost in the dark between buildings.
    “Keep going,” Lian instructed. “Pull over at the end of the block.”
    The cab slowed to let a bus by, then made for the curb. As she passed the Mercedes, Lian saw the potbellied man opening Harrison’s door for him. The dome light threw odd shadows onto the man’s jowly face.
    “You sure this is where you want to be?” the cabbie asked, as she counted out the bills for the fare.
    Lian certainly didn’t want to be there, but she’d followed her hunch this far; she had to at least snag some photos of Harrison and the mystery man. She palmed her phone, brought up the camera app, and took a deep, calming breath. Out the back window of the cab, she saw the two men emerge from the alley and head up the sidewalk.
    Now or never.
    She stepped out of the cab and directly into a puddle of what she hoped was just dirty water. She swore lightly under her breath as the wetness seeped into her shoe.
Off to a great
start
. She closed the car door and patted the fender to send the cab on its way.
    Harrison and his companion had a substantial lead on her, but she narrowed the gap quickly; the portly man wasn’t a speedy walker. The two men paused at a crosswalk, and Lian ducked into a doorway littered with used lottery tickets. She held out her phone and snapped a couple of shots, but they were useless: backs of heads, dark and blurry.
    Another photo, taken as the men passed under the bright white neon of a beer sign, was a little better. She knew how ridiculous she must look, tottering down the Kowloon sidewalks in her cheongsam, holding her phone out at odd angles in front of her, heels going click-squish-click on the pavement.
    “Fish ball?” a street vendor barked, startling her.
    “I just ate,” she said, breezing past him, hoping that she sounded cooler than she felt.
    Up ahead, Harrison and his driver suddenly broke left and disappeared from view. Lian ran as fast as she dared to catch up. The men had slipped into a narrow alleyway between two towering, ramshackle apartment buildings. She craned her neck and squinted into the darkness.
    Their destination was at the far end of the alley: what looked to be a tiny café, tucked away and calling as little attention to itself as possible. From this distance, she couldn’t even read the signage.
    Lian could feel her heartbeat’s pressure in the back of her eyes. This was stupid and dangerous. There was no one in the alley but her and the men. This was the sort of dark corridor that a defenseless young woman might walk into but never come out of.
    She thought of Mingmei, who’d had a very expensive clutch purse grabbed from her the last time she’d been in the Kowloon part of Hong Kong. Lian could almost hear her friend telling her to cut her losses and go home.
    But she had come this far, and her curiosity was piqued. She brushed away her reservations and took a cautious step into the alley.
    The potbellied man reached the café door and suddenly turned to check behind him. Lian dropped quickly behind some trash cans, her heart thudding. Her legs, constrained by the dress, were instantly wobbly, and she strained to keep her knees from hitting the grimy pavement.
    From the alleyway’s far end, she heard the fat man rap on the door—three fast knocks, a pause, then two more. She gingerly held the corner of her phone out around the trash bin, and watched on the camera screen as the men were let inside the building. From here, they were two small shadows. She had to get closer, had to get a clear enough photo to make this peril worthwhile.
    The door closed behind the men, and Lian made herself count slowly to ten before she stood and moved down the alleyway, staying as close to the wall as she could. The sign over the door, she could now see, read THE FAMILY HAND CAFÉ. And below that, the characters for
mahjong
.