Page 186 of Roberto

Lau never asked to see me.

“About what?” I asked.

“How should I know?” Gongsun said crossly as he plugged the flash drive into his computer.

I turned to leave.

“See you tomorrow,” he said, and I knew he was staring at my ass as I walked out of the room.

I didn’t bother to respond.

I checked in with Mrs. Feng, Lau’s harpy of a secretary. She made me wait 15 minutes before letting me into his office.

When I entered, Lau was sitting behind his desk in his customary Nehru suit. Today it was light blue.

He was looking at reports on paper. He rarely used a computer; he preferred having everything printed out for him, even his emails.

“You wanted to see me, sir?” I asked in Cantonese.

“Ah, Ms. Chan,” he replied without looking up at me. “Please, sit.”

I took one of the chairs opposite him and sat down nervously. I felt like a little girl who had been summoned to the principal’s office.

Lau perused the papers for another 60 seconds before finally putting them aside. Then he looked up at me and gave me that fake grandfatherly smile.

It was like a Great White had somehow learned to give its prey a disarming grin that disguised its rows of jagged teeth.

“How are you, Ms. Chan?” he asked pleasantly.

“I’m well, Mr. Lau.”

“Good. I heard you had a bit of an altercation with alaowailast night.”

Laowaiwas the term for a foreigner – typically a white Westerner.

Though not exactly a slur, it wasn’t the most complimentary term.

I had no idea how Lau had heard about the German. Even odder was that he cared. I usually had to throw out two or three customers a week, and Lau had never asked about it before.

Not since the Russian.

He didn’t give a damn until somebody died.

“It was nothing,” I said. “A German customer got irate, so we refunded him and escorted him out.”

“Not the German,” Lau said pleasantly. “The Italian.”

I frowned.How did he know about –

Then I realized.

Han.

That piece of crap must have told Lau.

“I wouldn’t call it an ‘altercation,’” I said with a forced smile. “Merely a little argument.”

“About what?”

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