ABC -- Wu, Liu, Qi

12,300 words (Background)

. . . She looks back at the house through the rear window as she adjusts the strap on her son's car seat. Hell is fine when seen from the view of departure. That hell-house, she thinks, and breathes a sigh of deep satisfaction, catching sight of Peng's penetrating eye in the rear-view mirror.

"Why do you drive such a bloody vulgar car?" she snaps and his eyes flare wide for a second before returning to the road. "A white Honda Prelude, my God, just put a big flashing sign on the top. T--R--I--A--D blink, blink, blink!" She spits the words to the back of his neck and he doesn't even flinch, but she knows she's hurt him. She knows the knife has gone in and twisted. A no-name, from nowhere. A nothing who hit the big time with his skills as a fighter and a Honda Prelude, one step short of arriving, the next car a BMW. How she hates the bastard.

He drives at speed, confident behind the wheel. The first time he drove it he got a hard-on. Tonight his nuts are tight, screwed up with tension, the fear of the fight impending. But there'll be no fight. If the Wu Long hit, the first he'll know is when he meets the devil to pay for all he has done in arriving thus far. The devil scares him, not the enemy. He plans to make amends later, when he has money, but for now he has to live past tonight to make the money. It's too soon to meet the devil. He glances back at Lisa. She's right, though, they'll recognize this car. Damn her heart for knowing.

There's a clunk as if something has hit the passenger door and Frankie, the second guard, almost screams in panic, "What's that? What's that?" Peng doesn't know. His eyes are wide with fear but he doesn't slow, the car's still moving, whatever it is can't be serious.

"We can't stop, as long as we move we have a chance."

They're rolling down the hill into the city and soon they'll be lost in the side streets. Round this corner and then . . .

The burning wreck is barely recognizable yet they know it's the limo.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!" Frankie is describing what's happening in his pants. They approach the flames and mangled metal. Peng barely looks at it, Lisa turns away. Even she feels no victory over the Tai Tai for such an end.

"The explosion was what we felt up there on the hill road," says Peng calmly.

Lisa shouts, "You bastard, you don't give a shit do you!"

He glances back at her in the mirror, "It could have been us," he says, "and it still might be."

She's silent, but she's thinking the same as him -- get rid of this car.

"I gotta get home! I gotta get home!" Frankie is muttering in English one second, praying in Cantonese the next.

"You got a car, Frankie?" Peng asks.

"Yeah, sure. Maybe we should use it."

Peng's thinking. Lisa watches him in the mirror. She hates him but she trusts him because she knows he wants to live too.

"We'll drop you off and come back in ten minutes," Peng says. "If we stay too long in one place they may spot us."