Carl Hiaasen & William D. Montalbano

by A Death in China

  “Do you know what the hell time it is?”

  “Is this Mrs. Bertecelli? Mrs. John Bertecelli?” asked a fuzzy voice.

  “Yes. Yes, it is. Is this long distance?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Tom Stratton said. “I apologize for calling at such an hour, but it’s morning here in China—”

  “What? You’re calling from China?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Peking. I’m Steve Powell, with the United States Embassy. I handled the arrangements after your husband’s unfortunate …”

  “Death,” Violet said helpfully.

  “Yes, of course, back in July. That’s the reason I’m calling, Mrs. Bertecelli. I’m not exactly sure how to go about telling you this, but in recent months there have been reports of irregularities in the shipment of human remains from China back to the United States.”

  Violet said, “Johnny died of a coronary.”

  “Yes, I know. But we’ve had complaints from a couple of families about the quality of the metal on the coffins. In the case of one poor fellow, the hinges snapped off and the lid came loose.”

  “The coffin was just fine. It was actually very nice. Did you pick it out yourself, Mr. Powell?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Well, it was lovely. Everything was just fine with Johnny. They sent him to Riordan’s Funeral Parlor and he was buried at St. Francis with his ma.”

  “That’s excellent,” Stratton said. “And our files show he was laid to rest in plot E-seventy-seven.”

  “No, sir, that’s wrong,” Violet said. “It’s plot number one-sixty-six. I remember ’cause one-sixty-six was Johnny’s best-ever score in the bowling league. That’s how I remember the plot number.”

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bertecelli, you’re absolutely right. I see it here now, right in the file. Plot one hundred sixty-six.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Bertecelli. That was St. Francis Cemetery?”

  “That’s right. Grand Central Parkway, Queens.”

  Tom Stratton hung up the phone and hurried to the nearest Eastern ticket counter. The video monitor now showed that his flight to Kennedy Airport would not depart until two in the morning. Dejectedly Stratton walked back to the lounge and ordered another beer and stared out the window to the runways, where the jets still waited in the rain. He prayed that it was storming like hell in Queens.

  WANG BIN SAT DOWN in a heap on the ground. His chest heaved, and he could feel drops of sweat trickling into his eyebrows. He watched furiously while Harold Broom grappled with the coffin, muttering obscenities from the dank hole where he worked. The sky was cloudy. Cars and trucks raced by on the parkway, drowning out the other night noises. Headlights from the scattered traffic would suddenly turn the tombstones yellow, and cause an eerie dance of shadows across the hillside.

  “We need assistance,” Wang Bin declared.

  “We need a backhoe,” Broom growled. “The dirt down here is like concrete.” He tossed down the shovel and tried swinging the pick. The musty earth around the coffin crumbled away in hard clods, but the box itself held fast where it had been buried under a chorus of Hail Marys. “Get down here and help me lift,” Broom said.

  But the two of them—Broom, nauseous and half-drunk; the deputy minister, exhausted, his thin arms cramped from the shoveling—could budge the coffin only a few inches and no more.

  Broom glanced at his watch. Four in the morning. Time was running out. Wang Bin was right: They needed help.

  “Stay here,” he said, fishing for the keys to the rental car.

  Wang Bin was too tired to object to being left alone, but after Broom had been gone half an hour, he began to worry. What if the fool never came back? What if he got scared and abandoned him? Enough money had been collected already to finance a very comfortable life for a man like Broom … and where would that leave Wang Bin?

  He stood up and stretched his aching arms and legs. The headlights from the highway caught him square in the eyes and he turned away grimacing. In the opposite direction the sky was tinged orange by the incredible lights of Manhattan. Wang Bin doubted if he could ever grow accustomed to life in this city; he understood now why David had chosen a rural place, a small and orderly place. A manageable place.

  Not far away, a dog barked excitedly.

  Where was Broom?

  The deputy minister regarded his American partner as a truly despicable man. He had not understood the vagaries of Broom’s behavior at the graveyard in Florida, only that the desecrations had been meant as a ruse to confuse the police. The art broker had assured him that no one would check the coffin after they had buried it again, and he had been right. But it was the way Broom reveled in the vandalism that Wang Bin found so utterly repulsive. He would shed himself of the man as soon as possible, and now … now he was stranded in a cemetery, desperately hoping that Broom was greedy enough to come back. Wang Bin needed Broom and this, too, was a foreign emotion. In China, he had been provided everything he needed; here, without his title, absent of his authority, he felt helpless and common. To defer to a man like Broom was disgraceful, but, for now, quite necessary.

  Wang Bin’s heart raced at the sound of an automobile winding up the road toward St. Francis Cemetery. An involuntary smile came to his lips when he saw Harold Broom, flanked by two tall, slender figures, trudging down the hill.

  “Pop, say hello to Tyrone and Charles.”

  Wang Bin nodded but caught himself before he bowed. Tyrone and Charles were both angular black teenagers, but they appeared very strong. Tyrone sported a red ski cap and Charles was dressed in a white-and-green sports jersey of some sort. It occurred instantly to Wang Bin that the two strangers could handily overpower him and Harold Broom and steal the treasure themselves.

  “These gentlemen were testing the back door of a liquor store down the street,” Broom was saying. “Good thing. I happened to see ’em before they got into real trouble. They said they’d be happy to help.”

  “For how much?” the deputy minister inquired.

  “Hundred bucks apiece,” Broom said.

  Wang Bin said nothing. Broom shrugged. “Whaddya want at four in the morning, Pop? I didn’t have time to take out an ad in the goddamn Times. They look like good workers to me. Right, boys?”

  Tyrone shrugged and Charles said, “What the hell is this deal?” He gestured at the open grave. “What’s the fuckin’ story? I ain’t messin’ with no stiffs.”

  “Me neither,” Tyrone said.

  “I’m not asking you to mess with a stiff, pal. I’m asking you to help us get the coffin out of the ground. A little manual labor, that’s all. We won’t kill you, take my word for it.”

  “Don’t seem right,” Charles said, peering into the hole.

  Broom said, “Fine! You don’t like it? Then beat it. Get the hell out of here!”

  Wang Bin looked at him sharply.

  “I didn’t know you guys were a couple of pussies,” Broom said. “Shit. For two hundred bucks I’ll go find a couple of men to help with this.”

  As Broom waved his arms theatrically, Charles calmly seized him by the back of the neck and said, “Shut up, you greasy jive mo’fucker. Give us the bread and we’ll dig.”

  The art broker huddled with Wang Bin as the two teenagers wrestled with the coffin. “You got to know how to talk to these people,” Broom explained.

  “I don’t like them,” Wang Bin whispered.

  “Of course you don’t.”

  “I don’t trust them.”

  “Relax, Pop.”

  Broom hopped into the grave. Within minutes, he and the two teenagers had hoisted the coffin of John Bertecelli from the hole and laid it on the ground. Tyrone sat down on a headstone and said, “So who’s in it, Dracula?”

  “I don’t want to know,” Charles said. “Let’s split.”

  “No, man, I want the dudes to open it.”

  “You can go now,” Broom said. “Thanks for the help, fellas.”

  “Open it, man!”

  “No.”r />
  “Okay. I’ll open it.” Tyrone lifted the pick and windmilled it at the coffin. The lid skewed from the hinges. Tyrone kicked it off with one of his basketball shoes.

  “Shit,” he said. “It’s a mummy!”

  Swaddled in plastic, a Chinese spearman stared through wide eyes into the firmament.

  Broom stepped forward and said, “That’s enough. You’ve seen it, now get the hell out of here.”

  “What’s it worth?” Charles asked, leaning over the coffin, hands on his knees.

  “Let’s haul it out of there,” Tyrone suggested. “You get that end—”

  “No!” Wang Bin said.

  The black teenagers looked up to see the old man pointing a chrome-plated pistol at them. They noticed that his arm was rigid. Charles chuckled and fumbled with the statue.

  “Why you so uptight?” Tyrone said to Wang Bin. “This mummy must be somebody special to you, that right? Is this your old man?”

  “Tell your friend to let go of the artifact,” Wang Bin instructed.

  “He ain’t gonna break it.”

  The crack of the pistol got the dog barking again. Charles wriggling on the damp ground, clawing at his right arm. Tyrone was speechless.

  “Oh shit, Pop,” Broom said in a husky voice. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

  “I agree,” the deputy minister said. “Mr. Tyrone, would you please help Mr. Broom carry the artifact to the car? If you make trouble, I will shoot your friend again and again until he is dead.” By this time Charles was sobbing, and his New York Jets jersey was sticky with fresh blood. Tyrone gingerly lifted the Chinese spear carrier by the head while Broom—suddenly sober—carried the other end. The two unlikely pallbearers tenuously made their way up the hillside, weaving among the tombstones. Wang Bin held the pistol steadily on his captive and wondered sourly if this was going to be the only way to gain people’s obedience.

  THE FIRST COP on the scene was a patrolman named Sanderson, who borrowed a spool of kite string from one of the neighborhood kids and cordoned off the gravesite using four other tombstones as corner posts. The total effect, Sanderson noted with self-satisfaction, was to convey the impression of an actual crime scene. All that was missing was the chalk silhouette.

  Tom Stratton arrived by cab at 7:15 A.M., a haggard presence among the rabid, coffee-hopped reporters. Because he was carrying a fresh spray of flowers, Stratton was immediately marked as a grief-stricken relative and besieged with questions. Who would want to steal Mr. Bertecelli’s body? Had a ransom note been received? Did Mr. Bertecelli practice satanism? How was the widow holding up?

  Stratton deflected his interrogators and was relieved when a plump brunette woman identified herself as Violet Bertecelli and began to tell her sad story to the mothlike newsmen. The moment also offered a breather for Officer Sanderson, so Stratton walked up and asked what had happened.

  “Some assholes ripped off a corpse here, which is grand theft, presuming the item taken has a value in excess of one hundred dollars. We’re looking for two or three perpetrators, at least one of them armed with a pistol.” Sanderson shrugged. “Who knows what to think? You want my opinion? Kids. Maybe it’s some kind of sick fraternity ritual. Else it could be ’Ricans. They’re all into that witchcraft shit. Voodoo, eatin’ chicken heads. Could be that. Hey you! Get out of the fuckin’ hole!” Sanderson waved his nightstick at a photographer. “Get out of the goddamn grave. What are ya, some kinda sick hump?”

  “Somebody said there was an ambulance here,” Stratton remarked.

  “Yeah, that’s the odd thing.” Sanderson took out his notebook and read from the top page. “Victim’s name was Charles Robinson, aged seventeen. Long juvenile record for b-and-e, shoplifting, boosting bicycles. Nothing like this.”

  “Was he hurt badly?”

  “Naw, you know them people. You got to shoot ’em in the asshole to do any real damage.” The cop laughed. “You a relative of Mr. Bertecelli or what?”

  “No, I brought some flowers for my grandmother’s grave. It’s up the hill a ways. I was just curious, that’s all.”

  “Well, the little shit was shot in the arm. He’ll live. I’m pretty sure he was involved in the whole thing. He’s not talkin’, naturally. Says he was walkin’ by the graveyard on his way to church when some crazy Chinaman shot him.” Sanderson shook his head admiringly. “You got to give these douche bags credit for imagination. Fuckin’ weird, even for Queens.”

  The retinue clinging to Violet Bertecelli suddenly moved with her to the edge of the damaged grave. She stared at the broken casket and began to wail, accompanied by the sibilance of a dozen motordrive Nikons.

  Chapter 24

  THEY DROVE SOUTH. Broom was careful to stay at fifty-five, and even so he could not keep his eyes off the rearview mirror. He was ragged and nervous. A shooting had been the last thing he had expected. The Chinaman had balls, that was for sure—how the hell had he gotten that gun?

  As always, Wang Bin rode in silence. In contrast to Broom, the deputy minister was placid, almost serene. He seemed to pay particular attention to other cars. The brighter and newer they were, the more he stared. One time, when a black Porsche flew past them, Broom thought he noticed Wang Bin smiling.

  He’s like a little kid, the art dealer thought. A little kid with a chrome-plated .38.

  “I am hungry,” Wang Bin said.

  Broom found a Burger King. He used the drive-in lane, braking as they pulled abreast of a plastic menu board.

  “What do you want?” he asked the deputy minister.

  Wang Bin squinted at the colorful menu sign for a long time. A young girl’s voice cracked on a speaker box and said, “Good morning, can I help you?”

  Wang Bin sat back, startled.

  “Tell her what you want,” Broom commanded.

  “Tell who?”

  “The girl! Tell her what you want to eat!”

  “I see no one.” Wang Bin looked above and beneath the sign. “Who is speaking?”

  “Welcome to Burger King, can I help you?”

  “It’s a bloody microphone, Pop!” Broom leaned out the window and shouted: “Two Whoppers, two fries and two coffees!”

  After Broom paid for the food, he parked the car in the shade of a maple tree. He tore open his hamburger carton, took two bites and said, “It’s a good thing I’m your partner. Otherwise you’d fucking starve in this country.”

  Wang Bin meticulously unwrapped his hamburger. He lifted the bun and examined the meat. He was overpowered briefly by the hot smell.

  “Go on, eat,” Broom said. “We’ve got a long ride.”

  Wang Bin forced himself to take a bite, and chased it down hastily with black coffee. “I would have preferred to wash myself before—”

  “Sorry if I offended your Oriental hygiene, Pop. After all this is over, I’ll take you to Hong Fat’s for real won ton soup.”

  Wang Bin said, “I would like an accounting of the moneys.”

  “Finish your lunch. We’ll talk about it later.”

  Wang Bin sipped at the coffee, but found himself longing for tea. Broom was impudent, and shamefully greedy; this the deputy minister had known from the first day. Now, in the final stages, it came down to trust. Wang Bin studied his oily partner as Broom gnawed on a french fry. In a cold rush it struck him how foolish he had been. Broom was his chauffeur, his travel guide, his interpreter, his caretaker; Wang Bin needed him. There was no doubt.

  Yet Broom did not need him. Not anymore. The soldiers had arrived. The buyers were in place.

  Coldly, Wang Bin began to see himself as excess baggage.

  “What of the money?” he asked again.

  “We’ve been through this.”

  “Once more, please.”

  “All the accounts are in the name Henry Lee. That’s both of us. We’re both Mr. Lee. Both signatures are good at all the banks. As of today we got money in Texas and Florida. Lots.”

  “You said the spearman is for a Washington muse
um.”

  “The curator of an important museum. An expert,” Broom muttered. “He would only agree to three hundred thousand, C.O.D. No money down.”

  That extinguished Wang Bin’s faint hope that Harold Broom might be an honorable man. Broom was a liar. Wang Bin knew there had been a substantial down payment on the Chinese spear-carrier. He had found the deposit slip in Broom’s wallet, three hundred thousand dollars at the Riggs National Bank in Washington.

  The date on the deposit matched the date Broom had met the curator.

  Wang Bin sighed. If only David had been cooperative, there would have been no need for an alliance with Harold Broom. If only David had agreed.

  Now he was dead, and Broom was on his way to being a millionaire.

  “Three hundred thousand for the spear-carrier is an insult,” Wang Bin declared.

  “I agree, Pop. But the buyer has me over a real barrel. He heard about the other soldiers—don’t ask me how—and accused me of cheating him. See, I’d promised him an exclusive. I had to. Anyway, when he heard about the other two soldiers he almost threw me out of the museum. I had to do some fast talking to jack him back up to three hundred, believe me.”

  “Find another buyer.”

  “It’s too late.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re hot now,” Broom said urgently. “The papers will have fun with our noisy escapade last night at St. Francis. And if that little spade you plugged decides to talk, we could be in trouble.” Broom jerked his thumb toward the trunk of the car. “I’m going to unload Charlie Chan on a train to Texas this afternoon. After that, just one more. Then we split the money and disappear, the sooner the better. By the way, where did you get that gun?”

  “I purchased it last night, while you were sleeping off the liquor.”

  “Where?”

  “In a place where people speak in my language.”

  Broom grinned, a yellow half-moon. “Chinatown! You old son of a bitch.”

  Wang Bin turned away.

  “Eat your french fries, Pop. I’ve got a couple important calls to make, then we’ll be on our way. Can’t keep the customers waiting.”