99 Ways to Die

by Ed Lin

  “Why don’t you just kill me?”

  We all turned to Wei-yin. He had his head down.

  “I would love to oblige you,” said Tong-tong. “But I can’t. My conscience won’t allow me to kill one of my own.” He breathed heavily into the mic. “I think you felt it, too. When you were supposed to shoot me, you shot Associate Vice President Peng Wan-chang instead.”

  Wei-yin nodded slightly without lifting his head.

  Tong-tong continued, his voice strained. “Why didn’t you write to me? Or call me? Of course I would have helped you and your family. I could have even brought you all here to Taiwan.”

  Wei-yin sat up with his neck deferentially bent. “Your father didn’t help my father.” Lee’s voice was heavy with resignation. “Your father never answered any of my father’s letters. Why would you be any different?”

  Tong-tong stamped his right foot twice. “I would’ve been! I am not my father! I’ve always wondered what happened to the family that got separated.”

  “Sure you did.”

  “He never told me he got those letters. Maybe they never reached him.”

  Lee reached over to scratch his knees, causing his handcuffs to clink. “We got one letter back from his secretary telling us that your father didn’t know us and to never write again.” Lee’s face was somber as he pointed his free hand at Tong-tong. “Your father denied knowing his older brother.”

  “How is your father doing now?”

  With some incredulity, Wei-yin said, “He’s dead.”

  “Oh yeah, the report said so. Well, my father’s dead, too.” Tong-tong said it again, to himself: “My father’s dead.”

  I looked at Peggy. I don’t know what I expected to see. Dismay? Mild amusement? She had also reverted to school behavior and was doodling, detached but still aware.

  Frankie had his eyes on Wei-yin. Maybe he was recalling what it was like being a prisoner. Dwayne was pinching himself to stay awake.

  Nancy was staring at me. I wished she were close enough for me to give her shoulder a reassuring touch. All I could do was nod and she returned the gesture.

  I wished we didn’t have to spend so much time in strained situations like this. I wished we were zoned out on the couch watching big, mushy American shows on Netflix.

  That was not our lot. She knew that.

  A sobbing sound came over the speakers. Nancy and I broke away from our shared reverie to see Tong-tong, who was, remarkably, hunched over embracing his former captor.

  “I’m going to take care of you,” he said through tears. “This is what family does for each other.”

  “Dad,” said Peggy as she continued to draw, “are we seriously going to put him up in one of our apartments? The guy who put you in a dog cage.”

  Tong-tong sniffed hard. “Oh, no,” he said. “Actually, we can’t even have him in this country, at this point. No, he has to go back to Thailand. We’ll provide for him, though. Give him money to start a company.”

  Peggy gave a resigned sigh. “He killed someone, though.”

  “Well, I’ve already provided for Mr. Peng’s family. They have no cause to complain.”

  Wei-yin turned in his chair. Maybe my thinking was impaired but the black eye made him look like a stuffed toy. “Do I really have to go back to Thailand?” the toy asked.

  Tong-tong slapped his shoulder, hard enough to prove he was straight. “Oh, yes,” said Tong-tong as he signaled his bodyguards sitting in the front row of the audience. “You’re leaving tonight and never coming back.”

  Tong-tong’s two guys got up and stood at the front of the stage. Three air force officers, including the one who had read the letter, approached and all five of them conferred together.

  Frankie stood up, stretched and headed for the left exit of the auditorium.

  “Hey, Frankie,” called Tong-tong. “Who said you could go?”

  Frankie’s arms hung loosely at his sides in a casually menacing manner. “Who said I couldn’t?” Without waiting for Tong-tong to answer, he called to us, “This way.” Nancy, Dwayne and I followed.

  As I was about to pass Peggy, who was still doodling, a thought crossed my mind.

  “Hey, Peggy, have you thought about that chip that the Chinese want?”

  She was shading stitches on the face of Frankenstein’s monster. “A little.”

  “Maybe you want to reconsider getting Ah-tien a new trial?”

  “Fuck that guy. He didn’t help us in our time of need.”

  I paused and looked around. Wei-yin looked resigned to whatever fate had in store. Peggy, too.

  Nancy was waiting for me in the doorway. Dwayne stood behind her, frowning and making vaguely threatening gestures at me. It was time to go.

  On my way out, I realized that the other guard, Chen, was nowhere to be seen. I wondered what they did with him.

  I had the hardest time sleeping. For some reason, all my senses were heightened. Maybe we had been exposed to radiation as we walked by a secret weapons lab at the air force headquarters. Maybe my mind was a battleground as my subconscious tried to work out a way to help Nancy’s former sugar daddy while my id was torching the drawing board.

  Or maybe my life was in danger without me being fully conscious of it.

  I was able to hear every slightest sound. Nancy’s breathing was deep and its slow cycle became universal in stature in the dark. There was no beginning or end, there was only in and out. Only a few hours ago, we were in danger and now here we were, safe in bed.

  Man, I had to piss. I slipped out to go to the bathroom. After, I went to the kitchen to drink some tap water that tasted salty and perfumed.

  I sat in the dark of the living room, which wasn’t actually dark at all. The cable box, the television and DVD player all watched me with angry, unblinking red eyes.

  There was a soft knocking sound at the door. I wasn’t that surprised to hear it and maybe I had been expecting it, considering that I was up.

  I moved through the apartment and glanced through the peephole. I was satisfied with what I saw and undid the locks.

  “Hello, Ju-lan,” I whispered as I opened the door.

  “Hello, Jing-nan,” she whispered back. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  “I was awake, anyway, but Nancy is still sleeping.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t disturb her. I just wanted to talk with you.” She entered cautiously and I closed the door behind her. She walked stiffly to keep quiet, which I appreciated on Nancy’s behalf.

  “Can I get you a glass of water? I’d offer you ice cubes in it, but I think it would make too much noise.”

  For some reason, she chose to ignore my question. “There’s nobody else here, is there, Jing-nan?”

  I rubbed my hands. “Just me, you and Nancy. If you want to say something you want to keep private, you’re not going to have a problem here.”

  Her face twitched as if she were about to sneeze. Ju-lan opened her pocketbook, I assumed to grab a handkerchief.

  Instead, she came up with a gun.

  “Whoa,” I whispered. “What’s this for?”

  The fingernails of her grip gleamed. “Stay quiet and come with me.”

  “Tell me what this is about.”

  “Shut up, or I’ll make Nancy come with us. You want that?”

  “No, I don’t. Can I at least put on slippers?”

  “Just be quick.”

  I glanced at the double rack of footwear by the door. Could I possibly leave a clue of what happened to me?

  Ju-lan read my mind. “Jing-nan!” she hissed. “Hurry!”

  I walked into a pair of rip-off Crocs. I hoped they managed to hold up, wherever I was headed.

  “What did I ever do to you, Ju-lan?” I whined. “I know you’ve been screwed over by men many times, but not by me! I even let
you speak at my open mic.”

  “I have nothing against you, Jing-nan, and I have even less against Nancy. This is just business.”

  She made me leave first and closed the apartment door behind us.

  A car was waiting by the curb. The rear passenger door opened and a large man wearing shades stepped out. He gestured for me to get in. I ducked and sat in the middle seat, next to a man wearing a fedora pulled over his face. The large man heaved himself back into the car. He leaned over and crushed my right side as he shut the door.

  “Pardon me for that,” he rasped as he eased his body away from me. “Little tight back here.”

  “Maybe you should let me out,” I said. “I’ll take the bus instead.”

  He laughed through his nostrils.

  Ju-lan climbed into the front passenger seat and lifted something to her face. I smelled coffee. She sucked her teeth and said, “I think it’s time for lights out on this one.”

  I turned my head to try to avoid the blow and the last thing I remembered was my body jerking back in my seat.

  Chapter 15

  I became aware of a great field of flowers basking in the sun, gently swaying in the wind, left to right, front and back.

  A dim salty taste.

  Ugh, snot collecting in my throat. I tried to move it away with my tongue and accidentally swallowed.

  “I think he’s coming out of it,” said a voice to my right. I realized that my eyes were closed and that now was probably not a good time to open them. I went as limp as I could. “Never mind, false alarm,” said the man.

  “You clocked him good,” said Ju-lan. Her voice was prickly. “When I said ‘lights out,’ I meant for you to tie the blindfold around his head.”

  “Blindfold? Naw, that doesn’t do the job. He could count the turns and figure out where he was going.”

  “Even so, put the blindfold on him now.”

  “All right, all right,” said the man. Under his breath he added, “Fuckin’ bitch.” He twisted and exhaled heavily with effort. He’d recently been eating spicy rice crackers. The man wound fabric around my head, sometimes pulling a hair or two. I managed to not cry out. He tied it tight enough for me to feel it in my eyeballs. Is it possible for the head to go numb?

  The car turned to the left and I allowed myself to slump on the man’s shoulder. Thanks for not putting on my seatbelt, guys.

  Ju-lan wasn’t done with chewing the man out. “Do you understand that he’s no good to us if he looks injured?”

  The man stretched his legs, propped me back into my seat and held up my chin. “There’s not a mark on him. Well, not much anyway.”

  “That doesn’t matter. Do what I tell you to do. Understand, Li-min?”

  The man tapped the door handle. “Fine. I will obey you.”

  We slowed into a turn. I heard a siren nearby and a loud scraping sound. It must be a parking garage door opening. We eased our way forward and the car tilted down.

  Shit, where were they taking me? I slumped against the man to my left. He felt oddly bony and seemed to know where exactly to place his elbow to force my body to fold in half. I eased myself away from him as naturally as I could pretend.

  I don’t know how many levels we went down. At certain points I could hear our car engine amplified due to proximity to a wall. Other times loud echoes clanked back from the other side of a space that must be as big as the warehouse Tong-tong had been held in.

  At a certain point, the car slowed to a stop and I heard something big slither by. Was that a dinosaur? We eased forward and the dinosaur retraced its steps behind us.

  We stopped again. I heard Ju-lan swing her door open and step out. “Has Jing-nan rejoined us?” she asked Li-min.

  “Lemme see,” he said and pinched me inside my right thigh, right next to my balls. I hadn’t been expecting it so I couldn’t stop my legs from jolting. I might have cried out a little bit, too. Li-min laughed through his nose again. “He’s up.”

  “Let’s get him out. We don’t have any time to waste.”

  “Should I get the equipment out, too?”

  “Of course. Let’s set it up and get something on the Internet soon.” Li-min creaked his door open, put his feet on the ground and grabbed my arm. “You think you can walk on your own, kid? I’m going to have my hands full.”

  I took my first full breath of air in ages. “Can I take off this thing so I can see?”

  “Sure. Take a good look around you.”

  I fingered the knot tied behind my left ear and pulled one of the loops until I felt it loosen. Soon I managed to untwirl the entire thing from my head. I blinked in the clinical light of fluorescent bulbs and rubbed a sore spot under my right cheek.

  “Sorry about that, but I had to,” said Li-min as he stepped out from the car. The shades had been pocketed, revealing a flabby, boyish face marked with a faintly apologetic smile that heidaoren have perfected. I’m a criminal, the smile says, but that doesn’t mean I’m not a fun guy.

  Li-min backed up, allowing me to ease my way out of the car. I stood and tried to stretch. Gravity feels strong when you’re recovering from being knocked out.

  “Excuse me, Jing-nan,” said Li-min. “I gotta get that stuff in the back.” I stepped out of the way and he leaned in and reached for the other man in the back seat. Only it wasn’t a man. It was a tripod and some other equipment covered with a tarp. Li-min stuck the fedora on his head.

  He saw me staring at him. I was still shocked it wasn’t a man I had been sitting next to the entire ride. Li-min dipped the brim of his hat at me and winked.

  “A gentleman never wears a hat in a car,” he said, kicking the door shut behind him. Both of his arms were full.

  I nodded and looked around. If I had seen an open door, I would’ve bolted. We seemed to be in an unfinished private parking spot connected to a garage. Apart from that sliding concrete barrier, there were no doors or windows. Linear fluorescent light bulbs dashed across the encrusted spray-cement ceiling, which was about ten feet high. Electrical wires spilled out of the fixtures like flower filaments.

  The entire space smelled moldy. I could see puddles of groundwater here and there. It was difficult keeping water out of underground developments because it required using a good sealant and following building codes. Both were pricey, too pricey, especially if the building was going to be knocked down again in a few years and rebuilt as something else.

  I looked carefully along the lines where the walls met the ceiling. I heard Li-min laugh out of his nostrils again.

  “What are you looking at? Are you going to dig your way out through there? Look, Jing-nan, you’re gonna be here a while. You might as well settle in and make the best of it.”

  Ju-lan approached. “Well, if they’re smart, he actually won’t be here long at all.” She slipped out her phone and tapped away. “Li-min, let’s get him set up.” She gave him a hard stare and just to make sure there was no misunderstanding, she added, “Let’s cuff him to the wall and get that equipment set up. I’ll be back in a few hours.” She gestured to a wall through which passed a pipe wide enough to accommodate bowling balls.

  Li-min nodded. “Right. Got it.”

  “Let’s get him cuffed before I leave.”

  Li-min put everything down and rubbed his palms against each other. He opened a small sack and pulled out a pair of handcuffs and a chain leash with links thick enough to hold back a crocodile.

  “Let’s go, Jing-nan.”

  “Don’t forget,” said Ju-lan. “I still have my gun.”

  “I’m more scared of this guy,” I said. It was true.

  The driver, a slight and stooped man with a face worn featureless by regret, padlocked one end of the chain to a lag-eye bolt in the wall. He drew out the other end of the chain and handed it to Li-min, who looped one cuff through the last link and locked it. He sho
ok the open cuff at me, the metallic claw swinging.

  “Jing-nan, I need one of your wrists. You choose which one.”

  “He’s right-handed,” snapped Ju-lan. “Lock up his right hand.”

  Li-min gave her a withering look. “Why would you want the stronger arm to be in the cuffs? It’s easier for him to break it!” He had caught her off-guard.

  “Then . . . put the left hand in there.”

  “Why would you want to do that and leave the stronger hand free to pick the lock?”

  Ju-lan chuckled in disgust. “All right, I see what you’re doing. Just cuff him and be done with it, already.”

  Li-min turned to me. I lifted my left wrist to him as quickly as I could. He snapped the cuff around it and tightened it.

  “Good choice,” he said. “Are you really right-handed?”

  “In reality,” I said, “I was born left-handed. But my grandfather forced me to use my right hand and punished me when I used my left.”

  Now it was Li-min’s turn to chuckle. “Don’t you hate all our stupid superstitions?”

  “Hey, no one hates them more than me. I don’t even like praying.”

  Ju-lan threw her shoulders back and regarded me. “Honestly, a few prayers right now wouldn’t hurt, Jing-nan.”

  The driver read her body language and scrambled away to the car like a bug avoiding a slipper-swat. He had it started in seconds.

  Ju-lan opened the passenger door. Her final warning was for Li-min, not me. “Like I said, have everything set up and ready to go by the time I get back. You shouldn’t have a problem. The salesman said a high-school kid could figure out the camera.”

  The concrete wall began to slide open. It reminded me of those old Japanese monster movies with bad special effects. Small pieces fell off as it moved. Was the wall made cheaply? Or maybe the track it was running on was laid down by an underpaid and undocumented worker.

  It wasn’t pretty, but it worked. In any case, it wasn’t built to meet public approval.

  The car curved out and waited until the wall shut before driving off. Li-min bunched up the tarp in his arms and laid it down at my feet.