The Last Six Million Seconds

by John Burdett

  Aston’s mouth opened. “The FBI burgled their dentists?”

  Aston reddened as he saw the long look exchanged between Chan and Delaney. Riley played with a government ballpoint.

  “That’s not a very diplomatic question to ask, Richard.” Chan seemed almost amused. Not so Delaney.

  Riley looked from Chan to Delaney. “Damn right.”

  “Sorry,” Aston said.

  Delaney nodded.

  “We won’t tell anyone,” Chan said. He patted Aston on the back. “He’s a good cop, smart. It’s just that he hasn’t mastered the diplomatic side of the business yet. Not like John here.”

  Riley beamed.

  Chan gave Aston a big smile. “Are there any other questions you have for Captain Delaney, Richard?”

  Aston struggled. “No, no.” He waved a hand. “I suppose I’m missing something as usual, huh?”

  Chan gave Delaney a wide grin. “We’ll have the dental records sent down to forensic in a minute. It should only take half an hour to get a preliminary view.” Chan looked at Riley. “I have a confession, John. Every time I try to get forensic to do something on the double, they look at me as if I haven’t got enough stripes to crack the whip. I wonder, someone with your authority…”

  Riley stood up as if under orders. “Sure thing. If I have to, I’ll kick ass.”

  When Riley had left the room, Chan said to Delaney, “Look, it’s getting late. How about you leave us the dental records, go back to your hotel to freshen up, meet us for a drink later? Such a long way you’ve come, Dick and I would like to show you a good time. Right, Dick?”

  Delaney produced a big American smile. “Well, that’s good of you, Charlie, real good. To tell the truth, I was wondering what I was going to do while I was wide-awake with jet lag in the wee hours of the morning.”

  40

  Wanchai’s fame grew out of the Vietnam War. Only a couple of hours’ flight from Saigon, Hong Kong was a convenient place for short R & R stops, and Wanchai was where the flesh was sold. That was before Hong Kong turned into a sophisticated financial center. Nowadays the sex was mostly in the neon: Hot Cats Topless Bar; Purple Pussycat; Sailor’s Comfort; Popeye’s; the Mabini Bar; Wild Cats. Punters who were serious about taking one of the girls back to a room could still do so, but for that price marriage might have been cheaper. Most of the profit was made on the drinks, fifty to a hundred times more than the price in a normal bar. The premium was for the privilege of watching Asian girls in swimming costumes gyrate around chromium poles that sprouted out of the platform behind the bar.

  Chan let Aston lead the way down Lockhart Road; he and Delaney followed.

  “Guess you know the area real well, hey, Dick?” Delaney called to Aston’s back. He’d changed into white trousers, sneakers, a yellow short-sleeve shirt. Chan liked the way the New York cop took in the street in a snapshot, filed it away. A real pro. Chan supposed that for Delaney Wanchai held no temptations. It was mostly a light show. A forest of illuminated signs grew like incandescent mushrooms out of the walls, reaching out to the money that passed underneath.

  “You can buy anything in Wanchai,” Aston said over his shoulder, “any time of the day or night. Sauna, noodles, steak and chips, television set, Walkman, ticket to San Francisco-anything.”

  “I bet. Fascinating place.”

  “I suppose New York’s just the same?”

  Delaney looked around to give the question justice. “Oh, this is kind of easier on the mind. Very civilized actually. All I see is a lot of people letting their hair down, having a good time without losing respect for each other. Haven’t noticed a single homicide in the ten minutes we’ve been walking.”

  Chan laughed. He felt comfortable with Delaney now that he understood him better. As expected, the dental records had confirmed that Jekyll and Hyde were Yu and Mao. He felt the case easing toward a conclusion. It made him feel almost light-headed. Homicide could be like that. You solved the mystery, and for no good reason in the world you felt as if you’d brought the dead back to life.

  “Try Popeye’s?” Aston said.

  “Why not?” Delaney said. “Okay with you, Charlie?”

  They crossed the road to the short concrete wall in the center. Aston hurdled over without touching the top, grinned. Chan hitched one leg over, then the other. He was surprised to see Delaney having trouble. He offered his arm as the American paused halfway across the wall.

  “You okay?”

  Delaney nodded. “Just don’t seem to be able to take it the way I used to.”

  “Climbing walls?”

  “Life.”

  He grimaced as he lifted a leg over the wall. His face was gray when they reached Popeye’s. Over a beer he took out a small box of pills, swallowed one.

  “Don’t know what it is-first started noticing it couple of months ago. Diet doesn’t seem to make any difference. Tried giving up drink, but that didn’t help. Just age, I guess. Sorry to be a pooper. Maybe I should have stayed in my hotel after all.”

  They sat at the bar roughly on a level with the pubic bones of the dancers, who were humping invisible lovers with knees bent, legs open wide, fists punching the air in time to an old number from Fine Young Cannibals. Chan envied their energy. Most of the girls were Filipinas or Thais; one or two were Chinese; three came from Vietnam. Every few weeks vice busted the bars, deported the girls who had come on tourist visas and overstayed. Generally vice did a good job in Wanchai, striking a balance between permissible entertainment and serious threats to the health of the community. Ever since AIDS people took a more sober view of Wanchai and the bars.

  “You buy me one drink?”

  The Chinese woman in her late forties in a miniskirt, tank top, high heels had drifted in behind them. Chan had seen her waiting on the street by the door. Rouge made apples of her cheeks; her lips were buried under red cupid bows.

  “Well, I don’t know, Mother.” Delaney looked at Chan. “Do we buy the lady a drink or not?”

  Chan spoke rapidly to her in Cantonese, brushed her off with twenty dollars from his wallet.

  “Let’s sit at a booth,” Chan said.

  They found a spare booth between an American serviceman who had a girl on either side and an Englishman who was speaking earnestly to a Vietnamese girl.

  “You’ll like England,” Chan heard him say, “except for the rain.”

  “Wain? What is wain?”

  “Water-from the sky.”

  “Oh, England wain a lot?”

  “Yes. And it’s cold.”

  “I got you. I don’t care.”

  “I’m going to save you,” the Englishman said.

  Aston sat on the outside of the booth with his face to the bar.

  Delaney smiled at Chan. “We gonna get any sense out of the inspector tonight, d’you think?”

  Chan shrugged. It was hard to tell where the magnetism began. The dusky girls behind the bar had trouble keeping their eyes off the blond young cop with deep blue eyes, and he wasn’t trying too hard to put them off. His head moved up and down with their cleavage as they bounced to U2.

  After the second beer Aston walked to the end of the bar to use the toilet. Chan leaned forward, twitched. “May I ask a very personal question, Frank?”

  Delaney’s eyes flicked over him. It took only microseconds for the street alertness to return to the captain’s face. He sipped his beer.

  “Sure, Charlie. What’s on your mind?”

  “I hope you don’t think this is disrespectful after all you’ve done for us today, but one thought keeps crossing my mind.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Is your real name Mario Coletti?”

  Aston returned from the toilet.

  “How is it down there? Safe to take a leak?” Delaney asked Aston.

  “Crowded. And there’s a transaction going on between a punter and the mama-san in one of the men’s cubicles. But yes, it’s safe.”

  Delaney nodded. Even as he rose to his feet, the s
train showed. He waited a second for dignity to return, then strode down the aisle toward the toilet. Chan saw a couple of pairs of slim naked arms reach out to him from the booths as he passed.

  “Is he okay?” Aston said.

  “I think he has a medical problem, Dick. You know, on reflection this wasn’t such a good idea on my part. We could give him an out after this beer, maybe?”

  Disappointed, Aston nodded. “I’ll say I have to go-on duty?”

  “That would do it. I’ll say the same.”

  “It won’t be very convincing since you’re the one who invited him out.”

  Chan frowned at his own stupidity. “No, true. You go first; then I’ll think of something.”

  ***

  Delaney and Chan watched Aston leave with backward glances to the dancers.

  “I think he’ll be back here in twenty minutes,” Chan said. “Maybe we should find another bar.”

  Delaney got up and took out his wallet.

  “No.” Chan pushed Delaney’s hand away. “It’ll be roughly a hundred percent cheaper if I do it.”

  “Hundred percent?”

  “They know me; at least the mama-san does.”

  He walked to the back, talked to a Chinese woman in her fifties for a few minutes, rejoined Delaney on the street.

  “I used to work vice. In fact I think I’ve worked everything. Homicide, though, that’s different. Some tasks in life just have your name stamped on them all the way through. You ever find that, Frank?”

  In a smooth movement the American passed an arm down Chan’s back. “You’re not wired, are you?” No.

  “You’re sure?”

  “In this heat? I don’t even wear underpants.”

  The American sighed. “You win, Charlie. You can call me Mario.”

  “Maybe we need somewhere really noisy.”

  “I think so too,” Coletti said.

  In the New Makati a live Filipino band was billed to take the stage. More than a girlie bar, this was a genuine pickup joint. Filipina maids with one night a week to spend finding a second financial source, maybe even a husband, crowded near the bandstand in groups of tens, chattering and laughing, their black eyes flickering over everyone who entered. Young Western men stood at the bar, grinning like sailors who have come across shoals of fish. Couples who might have just met or been married for decades stood drinking, talking, fighting. There didn’t seem to be anyone in the bar with the time or interest to eavesdrop. Chan ordered two pints of lager, took them to a small platform attached to a pillar where Coletti was standing.

  “That was pretty good, Charlie. I was gonna tell you sooner or later, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  Coletti gave the first convincing laugh of his visit. “You’re a real crack-up, Charlie. Okay, so I wasn’t going to tell you.”

  “No?”

  “How did you guess? Moira describe me down to the last detail? That’s not like her.”

  “No, nothing like that.”

  “That famous Chinese intuition-Charlie Chan strikes again? You’re an ace, you could just smell the deception, right?”

  “It comes from my karate days. You develop a martial art to a fine degree, purify your mind, and your skill spreads into every area of life. Would you believe my master could castrate a fly and leave its wings still intact?”

  Delaney reassessed Chan, who held his gaze.

  “Wings still intact? That would have been something to see.”

  Chan lit a cigarette without offering one to Delaney. “Actually I checked with immigration. You used your own passport. No one called Delaney entered Hong Kong in the last twenty-four hours. Someone called Coletti did, though.”

  Chan sipped his beer. Coletti scanned the room.

  “You know, Charlie, you might just be the smartest cop on the block. In the NYPD we all stopped thinking a long time ago-something to do with Western decadence. People just stop asking the important questions. Anything more exalted than money and flesh is a conversation killer.”

  Four young Filipino men with long black hair, denims cut off at the thigh, T-shirts with sunsets bursting from their solar plexuses walked onto the low stage, picked up guitars and started in to “I Just Called to Say I Love You.”

  The crowd of Filipinas near the stage began to sway and twist with the music.

  “Hey, that’s a perfect imitation.” Coletti looked genuinely impressed. “And they didn’t spend twenty minutes tuning their guitars.”

  “What’s more important than money and flesh?” Chan said. “God? drugs? Family?”

  Coletti popped another pill into his mouth, swallowed it with a long slug of beer.

  “It’s cancer, Charlie. Of the colon. Moira doesn’t know, and I’d be obliged to you if you didn’t tell her. I’ll tell her in my own way someday soon. She didn’t give anything away when she came back, by the way, but there was a cute Irish look in her eye. I was pleased for her, honest. She’s had a tough ride. Since she met me, actually. She had to come and see me, of course. Clare was my daughter too.”

  “No cure? Chemotherapy?”

  The American shrugged. “Sure, they can delay it, cut out bits of you, expose you to radiation till your hair falls out and you look like you’re dying of AIDS. Some people overcome it with sheer will, so they say. But I’m Italian. I have a sense that God’s telling me my time is up. Know what I mean?”

  Half the young men at the bar began moving crabwise in the direction of the swaying dancers. Giggles and smiles burst out as the first contacts were made. Girls who had been dancing with girls were now half dancing with boys. Coletti was watching them.

  “I don’t want my youth back, Charlie. I’d only abuse it all over again. My problem was overabundance: I was spoiled. And I always wanted more. Now I’m just trying to set the record straight. Italians like to die in peace; it’s important in our culture.”

  Chan watched the dancers too. He hadn’t thought about it before, but it was in this bar that he’d first met Sandra. Not so long ago, just a few years really, he’d been like any one of those young men, who, now that he studied them, were not really so young. She’d called him with her eyes from the moment he’d walked in, although he’d gone straight to the bar and drunk for an hour before walking up to where she was waiting. Chemistry, she’d called it.

  “I agree, I don’t want my youth back either. I don’t want to be that dumb again. What record are you trying to set straight?”

  Despite what he’d said, Coletti was enjoying exchanging glances with a blonde standing at the bar whom Chan hadn’t noticed before. She was thirty-five going on forty. At that age it was hard for a woman to come to a bar like this and melt into the wallpaper. Coletti took his eyes away, smiled sheepishly.

  “After Moira left, I ran wild. You develop a certain skill. I guess that’s what vice is in a way, an ego skill you don’t want to give up. I bet I won’t get looks like that after the chemotherapy.” He sipped his beer. “Clare, that’s the record I’d like to set straight.”

  “You’re not here officially at all?”

  “No. You could have me busted for impersonating Frank Delaney. He’s a pal of mine actually; he’d probably cover for me. But somehow I don’t think you will.”

  “Why impersonate anyone?”

  “To make it look official. Embarrassment. Because you know too much about me. You did sleep with Moira, right? So she talked to you. These days Moira talks a lot.” When Chan didn’t reply, Coletti said, “See what I mean? In our business we don’t like to admit we’re human. I’m here because I’m a pathetic dumb father who failed his wife and kid and has got cancer and can’t think of anything positive to do except help with the investigation. After all these years what I really want is to be a good cop. Fuck.” He looked Chan full in the face. He was using his soft eyes, those deep brown woman’s eyes Chan had first noticed. “If we knew that one day our values would change, that we would finally grow up, we’d be more careful how we lived our lives.
”

  Chan watched the other man’s eyes look away across the floor. The blond woman was listening to a balding young man with ginger hair who made intense thrusting gestures with his hands. Her eyes returned to Coletti every so often, but the frequency was diminishing. Coletti flung a hand in her direction.

  “The number of times I’ve gotten myself trapped by moments like that. You wake up two years and a lot of heartache later wondering why you didn’t have the sense to go to bed early that night. If I’d stuck with Moira, I wouldn’t have wasted my life. She told you I was with the mob, didn’t she?”

  It was Chan’s turn to look around the room. A small group of Filipinas was holding together chattering in Tagalog, but most of the fifty or so girls who had been standing near the bandstand were with Western men now. At the bar some more Western women had appeared. They looked around hungrily, in a hurry, perhaps, to pass on to the next stage of the evening.

  Chan always found it interesting how few Chinese men came to places like this. The ones who did usually drank alone, staring intensely into their beer. Like him. That night in bed Sandra had said she was attracted by his fierce independence, the obvious strength expressed by proud solitude. She hadn’t noticed the racial wall he’d had to climb or the crippling shyness that took two pints of lager to dissolve. Even on his best nights he’d been capable of no more than one overture to a Western woman. If rebuffed, he’d go home to his flat to watch kung fu videos, like a good Chinese. The truth was, Western women were terrifying. Terrifying in their promiscuity, their fearlessness. Most of all in their bodies that were the foundation of a planet-wide advertising industry. All over the world it seemed that nothing was sold, nothing was bought without a nudge from a pair of Caucasian mammary glands to help the transaction along. What was a poor Eurasian boy to do? From puberty his hormones had been focused on the tits of the West.

  “I’m not too clear,” Chan said. It was a direct translation of the most overused phrase in Chinese. All over the People’s Republic from Tibet to Shanghai his people were avoiding issues with those magic words. He added: “She said something about it.”