A Death in China

by Carl Hiaasen

  By the time the aide returned to confirm the travel arrangements, Wang Bin had already decided.

  "We will take the first one and the fourth one," he said, pointing to the smallest of the four vases.

  "Yes, Comrade Deputy Minister. But the comrade director of the museum will be very upset. They are among the best pieces."

  "Tell him they are for permanent display in a place of honor in Peking."

  "Still, he will not like it."

  "Tell him it is for the good of the people. The Revolution demands it."

  "Very well, Comrade Deputy Minister. But he is a hard man. He will want a receipt."

  A hard man who thinks a receipt will protect him.

  "A receipt," said Wang Bin. "By all means. Have the director prepare a receipt and I will sign it."

  CHAPTER 13

  Harold Broom arrived ten minutes early at the gleaming white mansion in the River Oaks section of Houston. He leaned against his rented Lincoln for five minutes, admiring the tall pillars and polished marble steps. At the door he was met by a Mexican houseboy in a stiff high-collared waiter's jacket, who motioned him inside. He led the art dealer up a spiral oaken staircase to a second-floor office where the customer waited.

  "Well, hi there!" the Texan said. Even by Houston standards he was young for a millionaire. He wore a flannel shirt, pressed Levi's, lizardskin boots and the obligatory cowboy hat with a plume. When he shook Broom's hand, he gave a disconcerting little squeeze before he let go.

  Broom sat down and said, "This is a helluva homestead."

  The Texan grinned. "You like it?"

  "Oh yeah." Broom noticed three king-sized television screens mounted on one wall, each flashing a different program. The corners of the office were occupied by stand-up stereo speakers. The Texan kept a video display terminal on his desk to watch the Dow Jones; behind his chair, Broom noticed, stood an arcade-sized Pac Man machine.

  The Texan jerked a thumb at it. "Bored with it already," he said. "I've got an order in for an Astral Laser."

  "Swell," Broom said. It was sickening: all this money and no brains. "Could I have a drink?"

  "I don't see why not." The Texan poked an intercom button near the phone and shouted, "Paco! Two bourbons pronto."

  "It's Pablo," a teenaged voice replied with unmasked annoyance.

  The bourbon was excellent. Broom savored it, while the Texan sucked it down loudly. "Nectar," he said. "Pure nectar!"

  Broom reached into the suede valise on his lap and extracted a glossy black-and-white photograph. He glanced at it before handing it across the desk to his host.

  "There it is," Broom said with parental pride. "The real McCoy."

  The Texan was radiant. "Broom, you've outdone yourself, I swear to God. I know better than to ask how you did it."

  Broom took this as a compliment, and he forced a modest smile.

  "If it arrives in this condition, it will be… awesome." The Texan clicked his teeth, as if leering at a centerfold.

  Broom said, "The photograph was made moments before we packed it. I took the picture myself. That's the genuine item, and it's all yours. Guaranteed."

  Pablo poured more bourbon. Broom drank up, basking in luxury and triumph. He was elated to be out of China.

  "Harold," the Texan said, "I've gotta be sure. This is the only one?"

  "Absolutely," Broom lied. If the Texan only knew.

  "The price is-"

  "Two hundred and fifty thousand now. Another two fifty on delivery. And don't worry. I'll be delivering it myself."

  "You damn well better," the Texan growled, reaching for his checkbook. "For the kind of commission you're getting, Broom, you damn well ought to show up pulling a ricksha."

  The xiu xi is China's most revered institution. Indeed, a worker's right to rest is enshrined in China's constitution. Nowhere does it say that all China shall sleep between noon and 2 p.m., but that is how it seems. If the Russians ever come, it will be at 1 p.m., when only the rawest Chinese recruits will be awake to oppose them. In Peking, office workers sleep on their desks. In the countryside, peasants sleep in the fields. If airplane crews find themselves on the ground at noon, they will not fly again until after lunch and a xiu xi. The more senior a cadre, the better-appointed and more private the place of his xiu xi, and the longer he sleeps.

  The Disciplinary Commission had cited Wang Bin for 1 p.m. It was a calculated insult, and he knew it. At noon, Wang Bin lunched with senior aides in a private room of the staff restaurant at the Peking museum that was his headquarters.

  Conversation was furtive. One or two of the men who had been with him the longest mentioned things that had occurred in the Deputy Minister's absence in the south: The Qin exhibition had been dispatched to the United States on schedule. From Xinjiang in China's desert west, the museum was to receive the mummified corpses of two soldiers perfectly preserved in the dry air these six hundred years; they would require a special room with stringent humidity controls.

  Mostly, though, the aides avoided meeting Wang Bin's eyes. Their discomfort amused him. They knew. Deliberations of the Party are secrets closely held. But when the ax is about to fall, everybody knows. Peking becomes a village in those times. When the arrival of soup signaled the last course, Wang Bin pointedly looked around the table, studying his aides individually, making no secret of it. He was rewarded with the sight of six heads, bent uniformly, like acolytes, slurping their soup, seeing only the bowl. He wondered which of them had informed against him, and which would give testimony-if it came to that. The answer was obvious, and it saddened him: all of them. Poor China.

  Rising, Wang Bin raised a tiny crystal glass of tnao tai.

  "To long life and happiness," he proposed. "Ganbei."

  "Ganbei," the aides responded, and each drained the fiery liquor in one swallow.

  "Xiu xi," said Wang Bin. He found savage delight in the uncertainty that caused.

  One of the aides even looked at his watch. It was precisely one o'clock. So they even knew the time. Spineless sons of a turtle.

  Wang Bin slept deeply on a daybed next to his office for more than an hour. The train from the south had been crowded and slow, arriving in Peking just after dawn, and he had rested little. Again and again, he had replayed the climactic acts of the drama he had forged. It would work, as long as he could keep time on his side. He had not expected the Party's summons so soon. Another day or two might have made all the difference. Wang Bin sighed with finality and prepared to meet his inquisitors.

  Precisely at 3 p.m., Wang Bin presented himself at a side entrance of the Great Hall of the People. To those who knew it existed, it was the most dreaded doorway in Peking.

  "You are late," said a severe young receptionist without preamble.

  "I was detained on the people's business. Please tell the comrades that I have arrived."

  "You will wait," the young man instructed. "The comrade will show you where."

  He gestured to an orderly who led Wang Bin to a high-ceilinged reception room big enough for fifty people. It was empty, except for one straight-backed wooden chair in the precise center of a beige carpet. Wang Bin nearly laughed aloud. It was so transparent.

  "Bring tea," he snarled to the orderly.

  No tea came, nor any summons for nearly two hours. By the time Wang Bin was led into a red plush room usually reserved for Central Committee meetings, the two-wheeled afternoon rush hour gripped Peking.

  Once more, intimidation. Another crude chair facing a long, highly polished table where three men sat: two wizened Party cadres and a PLA general, to lend authority. The army, after all, belonged not to the nation but to the Party, by decree of the same constitution that had enshrined the xiu xi.

  Wang Bin knew all three men. The two Party ancients were willows, professional survivors who had devoted an empty lifetime to swaying back and forth with changing political winds. The general was something else again. Wang Bin had soldiered with him once, when they had both-like their caus
e-been young and strong.

  The three old men comprised the Disciplinary Commission. To their right sat a younger man in his forties. His black hair leapt impulsively from his skull. His eyes burned with the unmistakable fire of a zealot. The prosecutor. At a desk of their own sat two sexless women stenographers.

  "You may sit," said the elder of the two Party hacks. That made him the president of what was technically a commission of inquiry, but only by euphemism. It was as close to a trial as Wang Bin would see, if he was smart.

  Everybody in the room knew it. Everybody also knew that Wang Bin had already been found guilty of whatever it was they were about to charge him with. All that remained was the sentence.

  "I prefer to stand, Comrade," said Wang Bin.

  "You will sit," snapped the prosecutor.

  "Oh, let him stand if he wants to. What difference does it make?" The general sighed from a mouth half-hidden by a hand that supported his face.

  "Proceed," said the president.

  "This is an inquiry by the Disciplinary Commission of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China against Wang Bin, Party member since 1937, expelled in 1966 and rehabilitated blameless in 1976."

  The prosecutor read like an automaton in a high, singsong voice.

  "Based on information received, and from direct observation, the Party accuses Wang Bin of conduct inimical to the best interests of the Party and the state."

  Wang Bin tensed. How much did they know? Everything hinged on the innate stupidity of the bureaucracy. They would list the charges chronologically, with the most recent first, Wang Bin knew, to shake the confidence of the accused by showing how vigilant and up-to-date the watchers could be.

  "One. You are accused of meeting secretly, privately and without authorization with a foreigner for purposes inconsistent with the best interests of the Party: namely, Harold Broom, an American citizen; five counts.

  "Two. The same accusation applies to another American, one Thomas Stratton, with whom you met secretly in your office in Peking in violation of the Party code of correct conduct.

  "Three. You are accused of misuse of Party property, namely one Red Flag limousine, damaged severely while assigned to you.

  "Four. You are accused of the misuse of Party funds in paying for a decadent art exhibition attended by foreigners in state property, namely a museum, under your custody.

  "Five. You are accused of conspiring against the best interests of the state and the Party in personally securing an entry visa for an American citizen, namely David Wang, without authorization, and of abandoning your post to travel and to meet secretly with David Wang.

  "Six. You are accused of receiving unauthorized gifts from a foreigner, namely propaganda materials from the Embassy of France… "

  Wang Bin stared at a streak of grease on a chunky window behind the commission table. He tried to remain detached. He tried to keep from laughing. The "propaganda materials" had been a set of art books for the museum library.

  And how typical. The Party, in a frenzy of self-consuming self-righteousness, could not see fire, but invented smoke. What he was accused of was making his ministry fairly open, semi-efficient and less backward than most in the Chinese government. His true guilt was unmentioned, unknown, invisible to zealot cadres who found termites in healthy trees, but never noticed that the forest was burning. Wang Bin fought back a sneer. If you really knew my crimes, comrades, my friend the general would end this charade with a single shot-and I wouldn't blame him.

  It was amazing. The prosecutor seemed immune to breathing. He read without pause, increasing shrillness his only concession to an indictment of forty-seven different crimes over seven years.

  "Forty-seven. You are accused of meeting privately with a foreigner, namely Gerta Hofsted, in the dining room of the Peking Hotel and charging your ministry for the meal when in fact it was paid for by the foreigner."

  My, my, how thorough. A lunch seven years before with a West German anthropologist. She had never noticed when he pocketed the receipt, but obviously a waiter had.

  The prosecutor shut up as suddenly as he had begun. Wang Bin remembered a joke a Russian had told him back in the days when Russia and China were allies. About the factory worker who left every night carrying a heavy load of sand in a wheelbarrow. The KGB knew he was stealing something. They tasted the sand. They sifted it. They sent it away for analysis. The results were conclusive: plain old ordinary worthless sand. It took them months to realize the worker was stealing wheelbarrows. Marxist myopia.

  "One other matter has come to the attention of this commission," said the moribund cadre who sat next to the president. "It is not within the province of this investigation since the accused is not a Party member, but it does reflect on the failure of Comrade Wang Bin to inspire his own family to live according to Party principles." The cadre sucked, hollow-cheeked, at his tea.

  "The commission has evidence that Wang Kangmei, daughter of Comrade Wang Bin, left her unit without permission, that she traveled without permission to the city of Xian, and that there she engaged in sexual relations with a foreigner."

  "She was abducted," Wang Bin blurted, and instantly regretted it.

  "This commission is forwarding the relevant testimony to the Public Security Bureau for action," the cadre intoned without expression.

  That was the cue for the prosecutor. He jerked back to his feet.

  "In view of the seriousness of the charges, I call for a full trial and a sentence of life imprisonment at hard labor."

  It was a formality. Still, in the calculated silence that followed the prosecutor's demand, Wang Bin began to sweat.

  "The commission agrees with the prosecutor's request," said the president.

  Again, the old men allowed a cruel silence to build. Wang Bin braced for the sound of the door opening, the rush of air, the footsteps of the guards summoned by a buzzer beneath the table.

  "However," the president began.

  At last! Wang Bin felt a sudden release.

  "In view of Comrade Wang's long service to the Party, this commission will waive a trial in exchange for Comrade Wang's admission of guilt, a self-criticism, his removal from all state and Party posts and his reeducation through labor in…

  "-he consulted a printed list in front of him-"Jilin Province."

  It was a sentence of slow death. Manchuria. Backward and cold, so bitterly cold and primitive he would not survive two years there.

  "Jilin," said the second cadre.

  That left the general.

  "Hunan," said the general. "And as an office worker. He is an educated man."

  Hunan was backward, too, but warmer. To work there as a bookkeeper on a commune would be dull, but not dangerous, almost like retiring. Such were the fruits of a fifty-year friendship between men who had once fought together.

  The two hacks dithered for a while-Jilin was what their paper decreed-but the general proved implacable.

  "Hunan." The president surrendered. "You have twenty-four hours, Comrade, in which to inform the commmission whether you wish a trial or will accept the Party's mercy."

  Wang Bin squared his back and strode from the room.

  Twenty-four hours. He had counted on that. It was time enough.

  CHAPTER 14

  Stratton's makeshift chisel splintered after only an hour. A cone-shaped pile of concrete dust and a faint groove in the mortar were all he had to show for his furious scraping. There was no way out of the cell. Stratton snapped another leg off the wooden chair and rubbed one end back and forth across the rough wall until a sharp point was formed. Then he buried the stick in a corner. Another corner was used for defecation. A third corner he reserved for sleeping.

  He curled up, facing the wall, and shielded his eyes with one arm. That night, for the first time, the jailers had left the light bulb burning in the rafters; insects darted and danced around it. Stratton closed his eyes and thought of his parents. For thirty-one years his father had driven a UPS truck in
Hartford, while his mother had reared five children. Now the Strattons were retired, living in a small apartment in Boca Raton, Florida, entertaining grandchildren and feeding the ducks in a man-made lake behind the high rise. Tom Stratton had visited his parents only twice in their new home. He telephoned once a month from wherever he was. He had promised them postcards from Peking, but of course he had forgotten. They wouldn't be worried, not Dale and Ann Stratton. They knew their youngest son. The restless sort, his mother used to say. Pity the poor gal he marries, and pitied she had.

  The flat horn of a truck jolted Stratton into daylight. He unfolded, stretched his arms, and watched through the window as the first morning visitors arrived at the small museum. It had been more than a day now since his keepers had brought fresh rice or water. Stratton was famished. He considered pounding on the door on the remote chance that he had been forgotten, but rejected the idea.

  He knew he was a VIP. Whatever awaited him had been carefully planned by Wang Bin.

  The day passed slowly, and Stratton napped intermittently, using sleep as a substitute for food. Finally, late in the afternoon, he heard footsteps in the hall outside the cell. He sat up, and shrank into the shadow of the cleanest corner, his sleeping corner.

  Two men entered the cell. Stratton recognized one of them as a jailer, one of the men who had paraded him to his public bath.

  The other was a wan, slightly built Chinese who wore bottle-bottom eyeglasses.

  He squinted at Stratton until he became accustomed to the light.

  Each man carried a large tin bucket.

  "Stand," ordered the man with the eyeglasses.

  Stratton obeyed. The two men heaved the liquid contents of the buckets on the floor in a large puddle at Stratton's feet. The odor assaulted him and he tried hard not to gag.

  "Pig manure," said the same man, again in clear English. "Kneel."