by James Church
Tuya sat up and began breathing strangely. She gulped for air for a few seconds, then lay back against the pillows. “I need a cigarette,” she said. “I tried to quit before I took this assignment.”
“You smoke?”
“Pressure,” she said. “If I don’t smoke, I get headaches. You don’t have to act so surprised.”
“You? I thought your … you know…”
“Say it, go on.”
“No, it’s just that, I thought with your talent…”
“You don’t think I’m normal? My ‘talent,’ as you put it, takes me out of the realm of normal?”
“Of course I think you’re normal. I think you’re better than normal. I just meant I thought because of the way you take care of yourself…”
“How would you know how I take care of myself?” She was sitting up now, pulling the sheet around her body in a good imitation of an unassailable fortress.
“You’re in such good … shape. I mean … Never mind. If you need to smoke, by all means, go ahead and smoke a cigarette.”
“I smoke two packs a day.”
“Then I’ll buy a lighter and a couple of ashtrays and we’ll live happily ever after.”
“You have matches? I’ll smoke here.”
“It’s a nonsmoking room.”
“Pardon me, Mr. Cop. You can arrest me after I have a cigarette, OK?”
“I don’t have any matches.”
“Shit,” she said, and covered her head with a pillow. A moment later, she sat up again. “This isn’t what I expected. It’s my fault. We’re supposed to be working. Let’s work. That will make things easier.”
“All right,” I said. “You’re my source. So tell me something.”
She smiled and put her leg behind her head. I was ready to break a thousand regulations at that moment, but before I could move, she laughed and put her other leg behind her head. “You want to know about Mike, right?”
That stopped me in my tracks. “That was the idea, yes. You know something?”
“He’s moved from noodles to dumplings. He says noodle shops are too much trouble, low return, not upscale enough. He calls the shop owners squirrels. He complains they hide the profits and he can’t afford the muscle it takes to squeeze it out of them. So he’s taken up dumplings, maybe hooked up with some big Japanese dumpling king.”
“Japanese dumplings?” I sat down on the other side of the bed from her. That made me nervous, so I moved to the only chair in the room. “I don’t like Mike doing business up here, and I’m going to throw him out, as far away as possible. When he shows up, there is suddenly too much money sloshing around. He brings nothing but trouble, and I don’t need more trouble. I have enough to do watching the border.”
“Well, that’s not my concern,” she said. “You’re the one in charge of security, not me.”
“True, but you’re working for me.”
“Yes and no.”
“I forgot, yes and no. What is it right now? Yes?”
“Ask me another question about Mike, why don’t you.”
“Why dumplings?”
“That’s exactly what we wanted to know.”
“We? Who is we?” One thing I’d learned from Uncle O—pay attention to pronouns.
“You think Mongolians just sit around and do nothing all day long but watch sheep?”
“No, I do not think you sit around. I was just wondering.”
“Tell me about those funny deaths, the ones in the restaurants. I assume you consider them germane.”
“What if I told you it was a state secret?”
“But you wouldn’t do that.” She rocked back and forth. “Would you?”
“No.” I took a deep breath. “We have to operate as one, no barriers.”
“I suppose so.” She unhooked her legs and brought them slowly off her shoulders. “Despite what you think, Mike is not key to this. He may not even know what is really going on, but I have a feeling he knows something that will put us closer to where we need to be.”
I didn’t say anything.
“You disagree?” she asked.
“No, I don’t disagree.” I put thoughts of where we needed to be out of my mind.
“Mike,” she said, “we’re talking about Mike.”
“OK, what might he know? Like what?”
“Like why all those people died on the same night.”
“Did he have anything to do with that? There’s nothing he’s ever done that suggests he is a mad dog.”
“Not directly, he wasn’t involved in the murders. At least, they weren’t his idea.”
“Indirectly, then.”
“I figure he was given an urgent contract to fulfill and he was under a lot of pressure. Don’t ask me who gave him the contract. I’m still trying to find that out.”
“Mike doesn’t do well with contracts, we already know that. Besides, who would give him one? He doesn’t like working with the Russian mafia, so that’s out. And he had a bad experience with the triads, a lot of bad blood. Not much left, except the Japanese mafia.”
“Maybe your uncle knows something.”
“Wait a minute. Are you the one who told him that Mike was in town?”
“No, I haven’t seen your uncle since you two were in Ulan Bator. He must have talked to someone else who knew about Mike. If you can find whoever that is, maybe they’ll be able to tell you who paid Mike to…” She paused, puzzled. “To kill seven diners? Makes no sense.”
“Could be exactly that. If it makes no sense, maybe it’s not supposed to.”
“Random?” She shook her head. “That’s hard to believe.”
“Do you know anything about an explosion?”
“Where?”
“On the outskirts of town. The chief of police thinks it was a bomb, and that it killed an unknown number of people. Last I talked to him, he was going to gather up body parts and see if they could figure out how many. That was a while ago. Funny, I haven’t heard.”
“You think this has something to do with Mike? Bombs aren’t his style.”
“How would you know his style? Have you met him?”
She was silent, serious, and serene.
“Maybe Mike didn’t have any hand in that bomb.” I decided the Mongolians had a file on Mike that I needed to see. “It’s still a good bet that he is connected to the other bodies that turned up all at once on that Thursday night.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Don’t get too sure too fast. We have a saying in Mongolia about certainty.”
“I collect sayings, but let’s wait on that.”
“It’s about a man and a woman on a lonely winter’s night, moonless, with the wind blowing so hard the ger is trembling.”
“What about the sheep?”
“Frozen stiff.”
“You realize I think you are beautiful.”
“Don’t forget, buster, I work for you.”
“You said yes and no. Which is it right now?”
She slid under the covers. “No,” she said softly. “Amoroso.”
2
The power came on again a little past midnight. Phone service was right behind. The hotel phone rang first; after that my mobile buzzed.
“Do something, will you?” Tuya reached for a bottle of water the hotel had put on the end table. “What time is it?”
“It’s almost twelve fifteen. Which should I answer first?”
“You’re a major, you decide.”
I put my mobile phone under the pillow and picked up the hotel phone. “This had better be important,” I said. “Who is this?”
“Major Bing? I am assistant manager Wu. You may remember that I helped you locate a swindler about a year ago.”
“If I stick my foot out around here I trip a swindler, especially in this hotel. Never mind that. What do you want?”
“We were told that Beijing wants to speak with you immediately.” The assistant manager was nearly breathless, though whether with excitement or fear I couldn
’t tell over the phone.
“Who told you that?”
“I’m afraid I don’t know who it was. But they said it was urgent and that we should wake you. I hesitated, but then it did seem urgent. So I called.”
“How do you know it wasn’t a crank call? No one even knows I’m here.”
“Well”—Wu’s tone changed—“it looks like someone does, doesn’t it? They asked for you specifically. At first we told them there was no such guest registered, but things got nasty and names were named.”
“So, who specifically did this unknown urgent voice say I am supposed to call?”
“They said you’d know.”
“I don’t know, Wu. I don’t know. Beijing is a big city. You realize that it is a big city?”
“I’ve heard it said, yes.”
“Good. If you get any more of those calls, hang up. And don’t bother me again. Am I clear?”
“I’ll have to talk with my manager. We could lose our license if we get someone in Beijing mad at us.”
“You think it will be easier if Beijing, a place far away, is angry, or if someone very close—very, very close—is mad at you?” I slammed the phone down. “You can’t do that with mobile phones,” I said to Tuya.
“Your pillow has been buzzing the whole time you’ve been on the other line. Can’t you find a better ringtone for your mobile? A lullaby or something? Wind chimes? Answer it, will you?”
“The phone is not buzzing. See? It’s dead.” I held it up for her benefit. “Whoever it was gave up.”
“Don’t be difficult. Look to see who called and call them back. Maybe it was your uncle.”
I thought about it. “My uncle is in Europe. Why would he call me? Anyway, the number didn’t register.”
“Message?”
I looked. “Yes, there is.” I listened to the message. It was scratchy, and there were clicks and whistles in the background. “You’ll never guess who it’s from,” I said when I put the phone down.
“Mike.”
“How the hell did you know?”
“It’s obvious. He called the hotel, they wouldn’t connect him, so he found your mobile number and called. Any crook can buy it. What’s the message?”
“You wouldn’t care to guess that, too?”
“He’s telling you to back off, that there are bigger things going on than you could possibly know.”
“Are you on his payroll?”
“No, I’m on your payroll, remember? I just know something about this character, that’s all. He’s feeling the heat from someone bigger and meaner than he is, and he’s scared. Otherwise, why would he call you?”
“You tell me and we’ll both know.”
“Don’t be sore. You’re still my idol.” She batted her eyes and smiled. “See?”
3
I arrived at the office later than usual to find a stack of phone messages, most of them from the chief of police. He wanted a meeting at ten thirty that morning near the fish place where we’d had dinner. It had to be at ten thirty, not earlier and not later. And it had to be there, in the alley. All morning it had been raining hard, and I wasn’t in the mood to stand around in the rain waiting for anyone. I tried calling back, but there was no answer. When I called the duty number at police headquarters, an answering machine said to leave a message, everyone was on assignment. That got me curious, so I went out to see if our duty officer knew what was happening.
“No, sir. Quiet as the moon reflected on Tianchi.”
“Cut the sappy images.” I rapped on his desk. “No one is answering at police headquarters. Find out what’s going on. Or are they just having a party?”
“Right away. I’ll get back to you.”
“I have to go out. Call my mobile if you get something useful. If the chief of police calls, transfer it to me right away. Clear?”
“Yes, sir. Do you want your security detail? They’re around the corner.”
“No, once in a while it’s good to go out by myself. It spooks the opposition. They can’t figure out if I’m really alone, or if they can’t see who is behind me.”
4
It was almost ten thirty when I got to Fuzhou Alley. The rain had finally stopped, but it was still misting. A group of rats huddled under the shelter of a pile of broken bricks. The biggest one came out to look me over, but he went back under the bricks when the rain started up again. I waited ten minutes and was about to leave when the chief turned the corner. He took a couple of halting steps toward me, but as soon as he shook his head, I knew our meeting was off. There was a dress shop partway down the alley, a jewelry store that sold fake jade, and a furniture repair place that my uncle visited once in a while. The rest of the buildings were vacant. A few years ago the block had been set for a big redevelopment project planned by a South Korean with a lot of money, but the deal had stalled, and so the place was left to decay. The rats didn’t mind.
The back door of the jewelry store was open, so I ducked in. The owner, a pinched old man named Liao with a history of helping whoever paid him, made a face. He wasn’t happy to see me. He never was.
“It’s jade,” he said. “It may not look like jade, but it is. We get it directly from Burma. It’s all completely legal. You want to see my import permits? They’re stamped front and back.”
“I don’t care about your phony permits. I don’t care if you are selling green bricks as jade. Since when do I worry about that stuff?”
“Look, Major, things aren’t good these days. Business is off. First, all those people were murdered in the restaurants. Even a foreigner! Who murders foreigners? Nobody goes out after dark anymore, worried they might not make it home again. Then someone, never mind who, came around wanting payoffs to make sure our shops don’t burn down. I’m just a merchant trying to make money for my family. I can’t work if my shop burns down, can I?”
I laughed in his face. “You are a crook, a pedophile, and a security risk. I’m going out your front door, and if anyone asks, you didn’t see me come through here. The next time I run across your name in any reports, they better be favorable. Otherwise, if I were you, I’d make sure I was in Burma, or as far away from me as you can get.”
“I guess you don’t want to hear about the mayor, then.” For a jeweler, Liao had long nails. He tapped them on his workbench. “Just as well.”
“Make it quick, Liao. Don’t waste my time. What about the mayor?”
“He and Mike have been talking.”
It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. “How would you know?”
“Same as you. I have to keep my finger on what is going on.” He waved the longest fingernail at me. “Lots of people come in this shop.”
“I bet they do.”
“Sometimes your uncle comes in.” Liao gave me an ugly look.
“Never mind my uncle. What about Mike?”
“Upstairs.” Liao pointed his nose at the ceiling. “A meeting. There were several people. The mayor and three others went up. Mike was already there. Listen, I don’t own the building. People think I do, but I don’t. So I don’t control the room upstairs. People use it, they don’t ask me.”
“Names.”
“I don’t know, they didn’t come in and hand me name cards.”
“But you knew who they were. You saw them.”
“Maybe.”
“Liao, I don’t pay for information, and you know it. The last time you tried this, you had a couple of bad nights in the hills with my people. Who was in that meeting upstairs? Was one of them from Xinjiang?”
The old man stopped tapping his nails. “What if he was?”
“Next time someone from Xinjiang is in town, you tell me. No exceptions.”
“You already saw him? Why are you asking me if you already know who it was?”
“We had a quick conversation, that’s all. He might not want to shake hands for a while.”
“OK, one of them was a Uighur, so what? I don’t like them. They’re shifty eyed. But like
I said, I don’t own the building. The other two, I’m not sure. One of them might have been Russian, you know, one of those mixtures where you can’t always tell by their looks. Kind of a wolf, if you know what I mean.”
“The last one? Don’t hold out on me, Liao. Don’t even think about it.”
“The last one? Well, he was real tall.”
“Shoes?”
I could see he was thinking of a smart remark, maybe something like “Yeah, he was wearing shoes, what do you think? People go barefoot these days?” But halfway through he changed his mind because he knew I wasn’t in the mood for playing games.
“I asked you a question,” I said.
He settled on the simple answer, “Brown.”
“Scuffed?”
“Yeah.” He grinned.
I grabbed Liao’s hand. “You need this. A jeweler needs his hands, even one who works with fake jade. Tell your friends, if you have any, that I’m not backing off. You want me to repeat that?”
“Major, don’t twist it, OK? I heard you.”
“And?”
“I’ll put out the word.”
“And?” I twisted his hand, just to the edge.
“I’ll keep my eyes open!”
“Yes, you will. I think that’s what you’ll do, Liao.”
5
This is how it always happens in these cases. Dead ends everywhere, then suddenly a window flies open, and if you climb through it, you come up with a few facts that you didn’t have before.
New fact one: My deputy had already met with the mayor, probably even before he showed up at the office. New fact two: My new deputy had also met with Mike. I was willing to bet this was the “appointment” he was so anxious to get to when I stopped him in the hall. It might not be a bad idea to transfer him out right away, but for that I needed a reason. Citing a crooked jeweler as my source wouldn’t get me very far. What I had to do right now was find out the reason for the big meeting. That was where new fact three might be useful—a Russian who looked like a wolf.