"I paid some visits down south this morning. Figured it's my best shot if I wanna found anything." His smirks stay as the run of passion in his voice differentiates greatly from his usual self and the tones when I first arrived.
"Didn't know you have friends in Piao Jie."
"Hmph, well I doubt half of them will ever talk to me again." A twitch and a drop of mouth were quickly covered by a shrug. "The first few suckers at the outer rims and ‘carriage track’ either knew none or tried to swindle me, me!" Uncle pats on his prominent rib cage and repeats it in an offended tone as if I didn't catch the absurdity.
"Besides them, the rest just lock their mouth tighter than a Cambodian smuggler in questioning. Showing the page in the catalog seems to trigger some gene code in y'all pendejo's blood...." He takes a drag to quench his growing fret and rests his skeleton arm back on the counter. During which, I already had a clear idea of how his little trip ended.
Most likely he figured out why I came to him for the blade instead of Piao Jie.
"So I went a couple miles further down that nasty place. There's a guy named Lou....whatever I call him Lou. He’s been running in my field of for a long time, known him for even longer. And he's much, much more flexible to his own principles." A pause by the uncle as he brings the cig back in his mouth unconsciously. When he's breathing out the flavored white loaf, his eyes reluctantly roll to the edge of the filter where they print the logo and name.
"I get a feeling you had fun playing detective." Uncle snores, sucking in a veil of smoke enchanting near him.
"Keep up the bullshit and I'm going to revise my commission." Javier spares a finger to scratch his left eye bag. "Lou's not just in the pawn business. He got a place in the Cantonese neighborhood and dozens of warehouses across the city but most importantly, he's got connections to the chinks." And here we go. "Unlike the others, he didn't react much when I showed him the page, not on the surface." He lets out a short chuckle with acerbic tone hidden in the soundless end.
"No. He's a professional. Ese bicho raro... He took a good look at the page and brought a thick as all hell Chinese dictionary, and starts yapping about that jade pendent hanging on the pommel, remember?" He swirls a lil circle in the air with the almost extinguished bud. Funny enough, I can tell his painting the shape of that piece.
"The one with 'Qin' on it?" The circle turns to an open palm and just as quickly, he snuffs the last bit of cig to the pile on the ashtray, the straight brown filter makes it stand taller than the other.
"Aye. Now he said, the one on auction book was exaggerated." With his right hand back on his waist, the tone of his voice turned around subtly. "The history was at least....you know a bit of Mandarin don't ya?" He asks, with lips slightly agape after the sentence. I straighten my posture a bit and reach past the dagger and uncle to dust off the ashes gathered on tip.
"You know damn well of that." A hum.
"The word 'Qin' looks about as identical as a thousand years ago to today. But there are still nuisances according to him." Javier shrugs off these words. "The way of writing it, he said. The lower part is slightly different whatever the fuck does that mean... and you wouldn't happen to know anything about it?" A raise of brown and corner of mouth without much cordial behind. I return him with a real one.
"Do I look like a goddamn calligrapher or historian?" The remark brings the stretch of smirk wider and he waves it off like a stench.
"He was convinced of two things. First, the piece is a modern remake, not an actual antique, because of the pendant and the condition of the metal from picture." A slow inhale is auditable when standing a knife's reach from him. "Second, it could very well belong to the emperor's family."
"Can't say the resemblance doesn't manifest. The sharks do have a habit of collecting Chinese antiques, heard the family got a private museum of sorts." I play it off as much as my enthusiasm carries. Javier simply nods. "But why would they sell a piece just to nag it from auction? Assuming Lou's intuition is valid."
"He has pictures."
"Of?"
"Private rituals and initiations in the inner circles of the Qin." Two fingers run a circle in the air, he explains half-heartedly. I laugh a short chuckle.
"Those information sounds ambiguous coming from a pawn shop owner. And he put a lot of trust in you to give these information." Uncle shakes his head with pursed lips.
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"I've told you. He runs much more than shops and collaterals, him and I go a long way back. Look," Javier takes a step forward to my shoulder's reach, standing upright with both hands out and unsure of where to reside. His gray eyes are certain, the color dims flat, but all the other little signs lie. "I know it's sketchy. This whole thing about the piece. Mierda, I'd agree with you. Which is why you should drop it, don't try to nag from this..." He cocks his line of sight at the knife in sheath sitting quietly on table. "Or anything from this cursed tribulation. The water's way too deep, even I can't see the bottom of it. And I'd dump it in the canal if I were you. It speaks nothing but trouble."
"I'm not trying to make a buck from it Javier…Tell you what," One more time, I put on the mask of sincerity. Small frowning, nostril opens a little with long inhales, muscles around mouth tenses. Eyes wide open. "Tell me everything Lou told you and I'll drop it, completely. So both of us can forget about it." Javier nudges the corner of mouth into a strange angle with head crooked, look more like a compromise than a confirmation.
He fixes himself and walks past me, through the batwing and back behind the counter. The focused light paints a veil of shadow on his expression.
"He wasn't too thrilled to see me at first. After all, I couldn't even remember the last time I reached the bastard. Nothing a couple of trip down old times can't fix. We talk about how the world was shit and is heading towards a deeper shit with worse market prospects in all lines of work including ours. Then he told me he's semi-retired and nowadays it's either tending the shops or occasionally working as an appraiser for the family." I whistle a low tone. And make a mental note of this man.
"He caught a glimpse of a variation of the dagger years ago while on commission. It was just sitting there, on the table next to a ball of oranges." Javier’s laugh was crude and coarse. "Not exactly this one or the one in the catalog. But no mistaking its origin. The photo was an accident, he caught a glimpse in frame while documenting his work at the Qin estate. Then he got curious." Uncle clears off the acid-proof box and rests both elbows in front, leaning in like any other day. "When I asked him about its origin he started jumping circles like a circus lion, but something he's generous or uncaring enough to disclose is that 'Zhang Dao' aren't actual antiques. But the blades are true works of old art. Sharper than all and more enduring than I have it credit for." He lets out a faint smirk at the end of his own eyes.
"Did he tell you anything about the auction?" I exhale a sign unintentionally for now I'm sure this is another dead end.
"He skimmed through it and denied knowing anything. I'm not as much as keen as you are with glim I admit. But he was surprised underneath when he saw the dagger in the catalog. Said it's impossible, said the family would never hand it to outsiders let alone sell it to an auction house." I hum a groan. It’s….thought provoking that the dagger would appear in an auction. Honestly, It never crossed my mind that there's more than one.
"In the end, he gave the same advice as I'm giving you. 'Drop it. Forget about it. Don't even touch it if it falls by your feet.'…..Over seven years with those chinks changed him." Old man states without contempt or scornfulness. Whimsical maybe. "He used to be the greediest cabrón I know, now he's holding onto a steady retired lifestyle like a mother to her infant son." Shaking his head lightly behind the light makes him seem as if a phantom. "Bad business. All of it." He says.
"Tío. I won't question your decision, but I have to ask. Do you believe everything he said?" A laugh turns into a sign.
"I doubt the photo's legit. But I don't doubt his words, not a single one. I know his lies well, therefore I know his truth as well." I can only answer with a dull nod. An irritation at the end of numbing void grips me slowly.
"Then I suppose that's it." I get off the counter and pick the dagger up in a grip to put it in my inner pocket, the thing fits just about where the handle reaches my chest. And I pull out a carton of black special from the same pouch. "Your commission."
Uncle was about to roll his eyes back but didn't for some reason. Standing there, I leave my vision on the floor and check all the little unimportant nuisance but he doesn't utter. So I do it for him.
"Ask away before it kills you.” He sucks them lips in for moister and gently takes the carton of cigarettes behind the counter, and comes back up with those moving grayish white swarming towards me like the end of a tube.
"....I don't care where you stole it. Only if you meant it about tossing it off the river." I grin. 23 hours overdue but he finally speaks his initial thoughts on the piece. The man has a much more precise intuition than mine, and that dagger must spell it all wrong in his eyes.
"Of course." I straighten the wrinkles on my jacket from stuffed inner pockets. "When have I go back on promises?" I squeeze out a smile with corners curling down. He nods. Not much in confirmation, more as compromises.
The cold pommel nags my chest on each step, somewhere above my heart. A pressure thus spread like a steady drum.
***
Wandering in the Lane's backstreet at 7 or so never felt so surreal. I can see the brick-paved, concrete-filled road bare and naked without much else to pay my mind to. Animals are behind open cages, loiters and freelancers are mostly gathering what happened at West today. Some doors shut, some folks are coming out in large groups, hugging shoulders and turning heads. The air inhabited our behaviors with a smell of rustling salt by sea and a voice in my head getting louder with howls and scorns.
It's not just the atmosphere. As I walk my way back to the closest metro station at Via Martinase. The mood and the breaths, the steps changed from tensely casual to oblivious strides and strolls. You can tell the number of pedestrians on sidewalks dwelled, but that's news away from downtown and its surrounding terrain. Just like the Asian in rugged clothes hanging his head by the notch under his throat is nowhere near your concern.
It's not just the atmosphere. It's the slow loss of my patience. A day of crawling around, sniffing around like a dog behind someone's. And I got none but gossip and myths.
Xiao tried to kill me two nights ago. This is the only thing evidential. But it gets me nowhere further than where I was except more implications about her and Nan's troubling past. A laugh almost comes out while I'm riding the circular line. Wonder if they had the same experience digging up my dirt? A smirk hangs in front of my tired and sardonic mind, the rest of the ride went uneventful due to me not paying much attention.