Vulture Peak sj-5

by John Burdett

  “Too right,” Ben says.

  The three Americans look at Vikorn, who says nothing. The atmosphere has subtly changed. Something has triggered a new hostility from Linda and Ben toward Jack, who looks uneasy. We remain silent until Linda coughs. We all look at Linda.

  “Ah, I’m afraid I have to ask a question, Jack,” she says. “The preamble to the question is that from what I know of Correctional Services in Beijing, they don’t get involved in small stuff.”

  “Right,” Ben says.

  “I mean, these are smart, ambitious cadres turned masters of the universe. They don’t much care who runs Bangkok. These guys shoot for gold.”

  “Right,” Ben says.

  “I have no idea where you’re going with this, Linda,” Jack says, avoiding her stare.

  “Where I’m going with this, Jack,” Linda says with a crack in her voice, “is to point out that of the three of us, you are the one with strong, high-level ties with that ministry. ’Cause what I don’t want is a repeat of the Sierra Leone thing and those blood diamond allegations that came just a little too close for comfort.”

  “Right,” Ben says.

  Now I understand that the balance of power has mysteriously shifted. Jack is rubbing a hand on one of the arms of his chair.

  “I don’t need the money, Jack,” Linda says. “I didn’t lose fifty million when Lehman collapsed and another twenty million with Madoff.”

  “Me either,” Ben says.

  “I stayed in cash, then bought gold,” Linda says. “You do see where I’m going here, Jack? Me and Ben here, we’re not desperate for the dough.”

  “I hear you,” Jack says.

  “Getting a third-world cop elected as governor of a little city nobody worries much about is one thing. Promising to take him all the way to leader of a country on behalf of a certain Beijing ministry with seriously powerful rivals in other ministries-I don’t want to be on the Red Army’s hit list.”

  “Me either,” Ben says.

  “Or worse, the hit list of one of the PRC police consortia.”

  “I hear you,” Jack says.

  “Next thing you know, we have the Yips up our asses.”

  “They’re with Correctional Services,” Jack says. “They would be on our side in that scenario.”

  “They’ve also done work for the police and army,” Ben says.

  “Not to mention regional bosses,” Linda says.

  “Look,” Jack says, “I got the message. If I have instructions to take the Colonel higher, I’ll do it on my own, okay?”

  “Just so long as that’s clear to everybody,” Linda says.

  “I’ll second that,” Ben says.

  Silence. The eruption of aggression and distrust seems to have made them feel more at home. “So, who’s going to check out this Inspector Chan?” Jack says.

  Jack and Linda look at Ben.

  “Okay,” Ben says.

  “And we need something real on the Yips,” Jack says, recovering authority. “Ben and I tried to wake up our old contacts in the Company, but nothing doing. We need updating. I had no idea they’d gotten so big. Either the Company or the Bureau must know about them.”

  “Okay,” Linda says.

  The three of them stand on a common impulse and leave the room. Now it’s Vikorn and me alone together.

  Silence. “So, are you aiming to run the country? Is that what this is really all about?” He doesn’t answer. “Nobody really figures you for governor-it doesn’t make sense. You make more on heroin than you ever would peddling city construction contracts. Prime minister, though-I can see that might be a temptation. Is that the deal you have with Beijing?” He stares at me. “Which ministry is behind you?”

  I shrug and get up to leave. When I’m at the door, he says: “Would you prefer Zinna?”

  I stop short. “What?”

  “There’s been a last-minute addition to the candidate list. Check the lampposts tomorrow.” Vikorn pauses to look at me. “He even has counselors. Two Americans. A man and a woman. They’re said to have got people elected to high office in Africa somewhere. And, of course he’s very well in with the Ministry of Correctional Services in Beijing.”

  “Who are his advisers? Ex-CIA?”

  “Ex-World Bank.”

  I stare at him for a moment, shake my head, and turn the doorknob.

  “What’s your next move?” Vikorn says when I’m nearly out the door. He beckons me back in. I close it again.

  “Next move? With regard to what? How can any cop investigate a case of triple homicide when my own boss doesn’t give a damn because it isn’t going to affect his election chances because he’s given up on organ trafficking as a campaign theme? Anyway, we know who did it. If I arrest Manu, Zinna will go ballistic-is that what you want?”

  “It’s become important that you find out more,” the Colonel says, making eye contact for the first time since I got back from Phuket.

  “May I ask why?”

  “I have a feeling someone in China has become aware of you. If they call, follow up on the contact.”

  I shake my head, shrug, get up to leave. At the door he stops me with a cough. He taps his nose. “I wouldn’t let on to other detectives in other lands that you’ve found out who pulled the trigger-you know how lazy cops can get when they’re certain who done it. There are depths to this thing designed just for you.”

  “Ah, okay.”

  “In fact, how about we make it an order. You don’t tell anyone about the whore’s evidence.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I nod knowingly, leave, and close the door behind me. Then I count to ten, and on one of those impulses born of long intimacy with an alpha personality, I silently turn the handle and open it a crack. Yep, there he is, the master of the universe, standing at his window puffing on a Churchill cigar.

  24

  I’m at one of the cooked-food stalls in the street outside the station when my cell phone rings. When I check the window, I see it is a “private number,” meaning no one close to me: if it was Chanya or Vikorn, the phone would definitely let me know. I look at the screen for a moment and realize the phone is the only thing in my life that I have under control right now. It seems natural for me to exercise my sovereignty by pressing the “silent” button; now the caller is holding his/her cell to their ear thinking they’re making a noise in my life when actually they’re suffering from the great delusion of our times: that someone is listening. After a minute or so the caller gives up, and I restore the ring tone.

  Now the thing starts again. I stare at the screen: “private number.” I press “silent.” The caller gives up. I restore the ring tone. The caller calls again. On the fifth attempt, I start to weaken. Suppose it’s important? I check to see how long the caller is prepared to go on ringing into emptiness: three minutes this time. Maybe it is important? I decide to see if they’ll go to nine attempts, nine being a lucky number over here. Yep. To fulfill my conditions for accepting their call, I decide they must wait until they’re at two and a half minutes on the ninth call. Would you believe, they gave up after a minute and a half? Now I’m wondering who the hell it was and wishing they’d ring back.

  I’ve finished my somtam, paid, and I’m strolling down the street-when it rings again. I press the pickup button. Now a woman is speaking urgently into my left ear, but I don’t understand a word. I scratch my jaw, trying to identify the language. It must be a Chinese dialect because there are a lot of x — type vowels, which can sound seductively soft one moment, then make you wonder if the speaker has a cockroach stuck in her throat the next. Got it: Shanghainese. I speak very slowly in English: “I do not understand a word you are saying,” and hang up.

  The caller must have my number on autodial, because it starts ringing again faster than anyone could plug the numbers into a cell phone. I say, “Yes.”

  “Is that the Honorable Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep?”

  Now the v
oice is male, Chinese. The English seems almost perfect, despite the literal translation from formal Chinese. “Yes.”

  “Honorable Detective, I am Detective Sun Bin from Shanghai Yangpu District, Thirteenth Precinct.”

  My heart has inexplicably skipped a beat. “Yes?”

  “Detective, I am not at liberty to tell you how I obtained your private telephone number-”

  “Inspector Chan of the Hong Kong police gave it to you, didn’t he?”

  “Ah, I’m not too clear about that. Detective, I am calling to see if it would be possible for you and I to collaborate on a matter of mutual interest.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes. Detective, it has fallen to me to investigate a very sad and tragic case of triple homicide.”

  “Where?”

  “In Shanghai, Detective. I have become aware of the similar circumstances in which three people died in a case you are brilliantly investigating for the Honorable Royal Thai Police Force.”

  “How did you become aware of those circumstances?”

  “Ah, I’m not too clear, Honorable Detective. However, I can reveal that in the present case, which occurred in a luxury apartment building here, the victims were all shot in the back of the head and their solid organs were surgically removed with great skill.”

  He knows he’s got my attention and lets the silence hang for a moment.

  “What gender were your victims?” I ask.

  “Two males and one female.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Sure.”

  I take a deep breath. “Do I come to you, or do you come to me?”

  “In my humble opinion the honorable detective, who lives in a country which grants its citizens certain democratic rights, would find it considerably easier to obtain a visa for the PRC than your humble correspondent would find it to visit your honorable country.”

  “Where did you learn English?”

  “Books and TV.”

  “You are a genius.”

  “Forgive me, but I cannot accept such a compliment from a giant in the art of detection such as yourself.”

  “Did Chan tell you to talk like this when you spoke to me?”

  “Ah, I’m not too clear.”

  25

  “Welcome to the Kingdom of Hu,” Sun Bin says. He is short, slim, and wiry, with a thin face molded by mean streets.

  I already know that Hu is the local name for Shanghai because I forgot to bring anything to read for the flight from Bangkok, so I was stuck with the in-flight magazine. That’s about the limit of my knowledge, though. The airport is hypermodern, shiny and high tech, and so is the train into town. Then things start to slow down somewhat. I’ve never seen so many people crammed into the same space. They are everywhere, like a moving jungle where you have to negotiate your way around forests of Homo sapiens and avoid all bottlenecks. Sun Bin is a skilled guide, though, and demonstrates unusual talent for overtaking on bends and exploiting almost invisible openings in great walls of humans.

  At the morgue he shows me three cadavers that have been mutilated in exactly the same way as the three on Vulture Peak. He watches closely as I become fascinated by exactly how accurately the atrocities have been replicated, down to the absence of faces and eyes. We exchange glances. I nod. He nods back.

  Now we are in a cab on our way to some other part of Sun Bin’s precinct. Now we are entering a high-end apartment building with a lobby to beat the Ritz, uniformed security, marble everywhere. Sun Bin flaps his wallet at the receptionist, who sees his police badge and nods. On the thirty-third floor we exit the lift and stride down a corridor until we come to a yellow tape stretched between two traffic cones. Sun Bin takes out a key, and we enter the apartment.

  It is vast and must boast about six bedrooms. The floor-to-ceiling windows reveal a modern city like no other. In the distant days of aristocratic art, it was said that architecture is frozen music; I guess what I’m looking at is a pretty good three-dimensional representation of iTunes, with the great rap phallus of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower thrusting into the skyline, the Bolshoi-ish Exhibition Center, the orphic HSBC building, and the pop-songy Sassoon House in a riot of eclecticism. Sun Bin takes me into the master bedroom, where a tall figure in a floral tourist shirt and smart casual slacks is waiting, hands in pockets.

  “Dr. Livingstone, I presume,” Chan says.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” I counter.

  He jerks his chin at the king-size bed upon which three life-size paper cutouts have been placed, to represent where and how the bodies were found. Chan and Sun Bin give me a couple of minutes to take it all in, then raise their eyes and wrinkle their brows.

  “It’s a copycat triple homicide, with Asian attention to detail,” I advise.

  “Laid out in exactly the same way as the bodies in Phuket?” Chan says.

  “Exactly the same way.”

  “Same positions on the bed-I mean longitudinally, with heads pointing to the wall?”

  “The same.”

  “And the bodies at the morgue?”

  “In my opinion the injuries are identical to those suffered by the victims on Vulture Peak.”

  “In your honorable and expert opinion, would you say they were murdered by the same professional team?”

  “Certainly.”

  Chan and Sun Bin exchange glances and let a couple of beats pass. “Want to bet on it?”

  The two Chinese cops are looking at me with hardened expressions. Even Sun Bin, who has been the very avatar of Oriental hospitality, seems to have succumbed to a demon more powerful than himself.

  “Maybe not,” I say, mentally backing away from those two.

  “I’m offering six to one these killings were carried out by a totally different team. Put in a thousand dollars, you get six thousand back plus your original bet. If you’re so sure it’s the same team,” Sun Bin says.

  “He wants me to open an escrow account in Hong Kong, so punters feel safe betting with him,” Chan says. “He’s already got half his precinct signed up.”

  “Why would you be so sure it’s a different team that did it?”

  Chan says something to Sun Bin, which I think must be standard Putonghua, because it doesn’t sound like the Shanghainese dialect I’ve been hearing since I arrived. Sun Bin looks at me and smiles sheepishly. “I must humbly beg your pardon. The inspector here has reminded me that it is contrary to Confucian wisdom to take advantage of strangers. Naturally, we of the mainland need to take lessons from our Hong Kong brothers and sisters in such matters.”

  I have no idea if Sun Bin is serious or exercising a local form of sarcasm. Chan doesn’t seem to know either and Sun Bin is unusually inscrutable for a Chinese. “You mean there are reasons for thinking this is some kind of revenge conspiracy killing for the murders on Vulture Peak?” I ask.

  Now they are both staring at me. “In China, conspiracy theories are always well founded,” Sun Bin advises with a smile.

  I take a couple of steps back so that the two of them are silhouetted against the mad city on the other side of the window. I think I’m beginning to understand what are sometimes referred to as the “deeper” layers of the case.

  “Would it be consistent with the new Confucianism to tell this humble stranger exactly what you two honorable forensic geniuses think is going on here?”

  Both nod independently. “Come into the kitchen,” Sun Bin says.

  The kitchen is a fashion statement in stainless steel. It is also starkly empty except for a tablet laptop, manufactured by LG, on the stainless-steel island. The computer is plugged into a socket in the center of the island. The three of us pull up the stools that go with the island and watch Sun Bin jog the mouse and bring the machine to life. My eyes are swamped by a swarm of Chinese characters I cannot decipher. It’s amazing to me how quickly Sun Bin can manipulate the 47,035 characters of his alphabet; it seems superhuman. Now we are looking at a split screen with a graph on one side and what looks like an address bo
ok on the other.

  Chan and Sun Bin both stare at me as if I’m supposed to experience revelation.

  “Start with the address book,” I say. “If that’s what it is.”

  “It’s a list of suspects, except they are not people.”

  “So what do you have for suspects if not people?”

  “Government departments, especially the uniformed services, large private enterprises, and some groups that are consortia in all but name but have no legal status.”

  “But there seem to be thousands of them.”

  Sun Bin nods. “That is correct. There are thousands and thousands of them. With two billion of us, everything is multiplied. It’s logical, isn’t it? In a country like America, with only three hundred million, you have-say-half a dozen suspects at the beginning of an inquiry. So we generally start with a hundred times that number. The increase is exponential.”

  “He’s trying to impress you,” Chan says. “He knows who did it, don’t you, Sun Bin?”

  “I’m working with a short list of ten,” Sun Bin says.

  Chan sighs. “He does everything by the book. Including the gambling. He has no emotional intelligence at all. Do you, Sun Bin?”

  “None at all,” he confesses. “When I was at school, everything was about industrial logic. Now when I start hearing about ‘emotional intelligence’ from foreigners like you, it makes me feel stupid.”

  “See what we have to contend with?” Chan says. “I live in Hong Kong, China, but to him I’m a foreigner. Sun Bin thinks Shanghai is sooo special, don’t you, Sun Bin?”

  “Shanghai is the eye of the storm called modernism,” Sun Bin says.

  Chan groans. “I’ve said it a hundred times. The Yips didn’t do the Phuket job, and they didn’t do this one either. Just because I know that intuitively, and can’t prove it, doesn’t mean I’m not right.”

  “You have inherited from the British a tendency to overuse the word I. At the time of Chairman Mao, it would have been said that you suffer from bourgeois self-centeredness,” Sun Bin says.