Season One, Episode Sixteen: Moaji

Markus walked over to the other room to pick up the phone, while Trick poured Charlo' another cup of green tea.
‘Do you know moaji?’ the Taiwanese man asked her.
‘Never heard of her,’ Charlo' smiled.
‘Do you like sweets?’
‘He does,’ Charlo' said with a wave in the direction of the other room. ‘He always has marzipan on him.’
Trick smiled.
‘He learned that here. He was bored with life, so he went about making things himself. Painting, at first. When the galleries weren't interested, he turned to food.’
‘Interesting. So what kind of food were you mentioning there?’
‘Moaji. The aboriginals here in Taiwan make them. Rice stamped into a sweet ball, with peanut or sesame inside and outside. I'll get some for you to taste.’
Charlo' wondered whether he was going somewhere to listen in to Bentley's conversation. But Trick was back in seconds. Carrying a tray with four peanut-colored balls. He offered her a pair of chopsticks.
‘How did you meet Markus?’ she asked.
They reclined, munching on the moaji.
‘Our fathers knew each other. His was stationed here for a long time, and obviously, my father was Taiwanese.’
‘You say his father was stationed here, you mean like a military man?’
‘Something like that. I was young, I don't know too much about that. Markus and I went to the same school and grew up together until he left for the States.’
‘With his dad.’
‘His dad stayed here,’ Trick said.
Charlo' detected a finality.

Markus picked up the phone.
‘Lose the girl,’ said a gruff voice.
‘What? What are you saying, and how did you find me?’
‘Don't ask me questions I don't want to answer,’ Riot said. ‘You're busy in a completely wrong way. Get rid of the girl.’
‘I need her to watch my back. Did you have anything to do with those thugs who attacked me?’
‘So why do you say they attacked just you and not the girl as well? Lose her, you don't need her. And you shouldn't have gone all the way to Taiwan. There is nothing for you there.’
‘Remember who told me to do this for my sister? You did,’ Markus said.
‘I didn't tell you anything. I just gave you some of her belongings, because she wanted you to have them,’ Riot said.
Markus thought back to Riot's impromptu visit and to his sister's objects. Was he wrong about the Three Elders?
‘Do you mean the Three Elders were not the important object in there?’
‘I expected you to be smart enough to figure that out on your own, smart heart.’
‘Hold on. Did you just say smart heart?’ Markus said.
‘Remember, I worked with your sister, she told me what she called you, only I'm beginning to wonder why. As I said, lose the girl and get your act together,’ Riot said. ‘I'll find you for our next talk.’
He cut the connection, leaving Markus staring at a silent phone.

‘He's so predictable, it's beyond sick,’ Riot said to the woman standing behind him eating an apple.
‘Do you think he will get rid of her?’ she asked.
‘Charlo' is not the kind of woman you get rid of after a phone call, I know her too well for that.’

‘You need to return home,’ Markus said as he sat down next to Charlo' and took a pair of chopsticks Trick handed him.
‘Do you really know what you're doing? Running all the way here, dragging me along? You get me shot at by a bunch of roughnecks and now you send me away like I'm a piece of dirt?’
Markus put the chopsticks down.
‘I feel it will be safer for you if you're not with me.’
‘Who was that talking to you?’
‘His name is Riot. He's the man who gave me my sister's belongings after her death.’
‘How do you know he's not her killer?’
‘He's a colleague of hers. If he had killed her, would he have bothered to show me his face and give me her things? Is that your logic?’
Charlo' gave him a look that killed while Trick concentrated on his moaji.
‘I am doing for my sister now what I couldn't when she was alive.’
‘You killed her murderer. What more can you do?’
‘My sister gave me those things. They're a message from the grave, she wants me to do this.’
‘This creep, Riot you call him, how do you know he’s not fooling you?’
‘I know those objects were in my sister's possession, he didn't fool me, they were hers.’
She grabbed another moaji ball.
‘You're not getting rid of me this easily.’
Silence fell as the three digested the moaji.
‘We need to go to Macau,’ Markus said as Trick nodded in agreement.

NEXT: Markus Bentley and Charlo' head for Macau in Episode Seventeen before March 3.