"Right."
"You've never visited Shanghai before, or any part of China?"
"No, closest I've ever been is India. Which is very different."
"They do not eat much meat."
"Not in a lot of the country. But in Goa, where I spent most of my time, it's pretty international, they eat everything."
"Yes, the cuisine there is fantastic. The Portuguese influence is wonderful."
"You've been?"
"Yes, I enjoyed my time there."
"Was that working for Lenox?"
"Yes," Loki answered.
The proprietor returned with a bamboo tray, the lid still secured. She placed it between us and then removed the top. A puff of steam rose, revealing six buns resting on a bed of lettuce. She smiled at Loki, who said something complimentary. I smiled and nodded.
"These look great," I said.
Loki passed me a pair of chopsticks from a plastic cup on his side of the table. "Pork and shrimp," he said.
"How long have you lived in Shanghai?" I asked, holding the chopsticks, watching Loki, waiting to see what he did before attempting to use the two sticks to the get the small fist-size bun to my mouth. I'd never been good with chopsticks.
"Off and on about 10 years," he answered, reaching forward and grabbing one of the buns, making it look easy. He dipped it into a bowl of sauce and then put the whole thing in his mouth.
I didn't know if it would fit in mine but was game to try. When Loki saw me staring at the chopsticks in my hand he reached forward and adjusted them, then nodded, smiling, as he continued to chew. Reaching forward I managed to get the sticks on either side of the bun but when it came to lifting if from the bed of lettuce things went sideways and the bun flipped upside down, landing back on the leaf.
"Try again," Loki said. "This time, don't squeeze so hard."
I placed a chopstick on either side, keeping the pressure gentle and got halfway to my mouth before it flopped onto my lap and then bounced onto the ground, right in front of Blue's nose. He sat up, his eyes on my face. I nodded and he gobbled it up in one bite. No need for chopsticks.
"If I use my fingers will I embarrass myself?" I asked.
Loki smiled. "More than you just did?"
"Yeah, okay," I grabbed one of the dumplings between my trusty thumb and fingers, dipped it in the sauce, and took a bite. The mix of pork, shrimp, and spices with the steamed dough and vinegary dipping sauce was heavenly.
"That is really good," I said.
"I'm glad you like it."
I finished off the bun and then wiped my hand on a thin paper napkin I pulled from a holder in the center of the table. "You seem very calm," I said.
"What do you mean?" Loki asked, reaching for another bun.
"You just saw a girl get murdered and yet you're sitting here eating steamed buns."
Loki was in the middle of chewing and finished before answering. "So are you."
"Yes," I leaned forward. "But I’m cold and heartless, calloused against death."
"What makes you think I’m not?"
"Are you?"
The proprietor returned with another bowl of steaming food and a bowl of white rice. Behind her the man in the apron followed with two more bowls, a soup and a noodle dish. "Thank you," I said, staring at the bounty.
Loki expressed my gratitude and his own. Blue touched his nose to my shin, hoping for more dumplings.
After they'd returned to the kitchen Loki served me a plateful of food. Roasted pork with vegetables, sesame noodles with ground tofu, and a small bowl of fish soup. I started with the soup, it was buttery at first and then a burning sensation rose up my throat. "Whoa, spicy," I said.
"Yes," Loki answered, slurping at his own soup. "The soup will cool it."
He was right, more of the buttery soup cooled the spice but then as soon as I was done sipping the heat began to rise again. "It's really good but how do you stop eating it?"
Loki smiled. "The chef would prefer you didn't."
I laughed. Lenox had chosen a good partner for me. Loki was not afraid or affected by death, and under all the professional seriousness he had a sense of humor.
Loki's phone rang and I listened to him speak in Mandarin while I continued to consume the soup. I was getting close to the bottom of my bowl and was wondering if I should try eating some rice or just go for a second bowl when he hung up. "We found neighbors who saw Merl enter the building."
"You did?" I put down my spoon. "Did they see him come out?"
"No, and they say they were in their store all day. They remember him because of the dogs."
"So, there is another way out."
"It would appear so."
"I mean, we know there is the fire escape, but why would Merl do that?"
"There must be someone watching the building."
I took a long sip of water feeling my mouth was on fire. "Do you think they are still watching?"
"I imagine it could be the same person who shot the girl."
"Anything on that?"
"Not yet."
"What about her address?"
"We should have it soon."
"Okay," I said, returning my attention to the meal.
Loki was as good as his word. He got a text soon after I'd managed to move onto the roast pork after calming the fire in my mouth with big bites of white rice. "It is not far from here," he said. "Her name was Bai."
I put down my chopsticks. "I'm ready to go." Loki nodded and called for the check.
Our black car slid through slow-moving traffic, bikes and rickshaws squeezing in around us. "Is the traffic always like this?" I asked.
"Not very late at night."
"Right," I said with a smile. A moment of silence passed between us. I thought about the girl on the roof. "It's normal to live with your parents as an adult?" I asked.
"Yes, until marriage, very common," Loki said. "There is a housing shortage in the city. And it is very expensive."
"So why don't you live with your parents?"
Loki shook his head. "My parents are no longer alive."
"Oh, I'm sorry," I said, feeling like an ass.
"Besides, I left China for a long time during my youth."
"Where did you go?"
"Australia."
"Really? How did you end up there?"
"My brother was an educated youth. Do you know what that is?"
"No."
"During the cultural revolution it was thought that people from the city, educated youths, age around sixteen, should go to the countryside to be reeducated by the peasants. That they should learn farming, hard work. At the time, triads were struggling. Most had existed for hundreds of years but Mao was cracking down. My brother learned about them in the village he was sent to. He joined the triad in order to flee. He wanted to go to America. He did not get the chance for over 15 years. By then, his mother had died, my father had remarried, and I was born. Despite our age difference my brother was very attached to me. He offered to take me with him and my parents felt that I’d have better opportunities abroad.”
"Wow. So you went to the States first?"
"No, our ship did not make the crossing of the South China Sea. My brother drowned."
"I'm sorry," I said, watching his profile.
Loki turned to me, his eyes dark and empty. "It taught me many things. The most important being how to survive. An Australian ship picked me up."
"Were there other survivors?"
"Two women. They both died on the Australian ship. They were sick already. I think they died for me. They gave me the best parts of the fish we caught."
"How long were you at sea?"
He shrugged. "I'm not sure. At least six weeks."
"How old were you?"
"Five."
"Amazing."
"Yes, the Australian captain adopted me. His wife could not bear children and was overjoyed to have me. They thought I was lucky. Which," he smiled, just a slight twitch of the lips, "of cours
e, I was. I've kept their name. Falk."
"What was your parents’ name?"
"I do not remember," he said, turning away from me.
"Are the Falks still alive?"
He shook his head. "They were older, already in their sixties when they adopted me." We pulled up in front of an apartment building. The dilapidated cement structure was about ten stories tall. I recognized the communist era architecture, ugly, utilitarian. Loki climbed out of the car, horns blew behind us as we blocked traffic. I followed him, Blue behind me. The car pulled away. "He will come back for us," Loki said as he led the way toward the entrance.
There were two doors. One pane of glass was cracked. It looked like a rock had hit it, the glass splitting from the central impact point in a snowflake of cracks. The other door's glass was gone, replaced by a piece of plywood. It looked soaked, as though it had been through numerous storms.
The lobby was bare, just a wall of mailboxes and a cement bench built into the wall. No one manned the folding table and chair by the front door. "This is government housing," Loki told me. "These apartments are handed down through generations."
"I don't understand. Sing owns a whole building. Why would his granddaughter be living here with her parents?"
"That is something we can ask them," he said, starting up the dark stairs.
"Wait, they are going to be there?"
"Her mother works nights so should be home."
I grabbed his arm, stopping him. "Then I think we need a plan."
"I will do the talking," he said.
"What are you going to say?"
"I'm going to tell her that her daughter was killed. That the authorities will come and tell her it was an accident but that is not true. That we are her only hope for justice so she should share with us everything we need to know."
"Oh, I guess that's pretty good. Do you think it will work?"
"Only one way to find out."
Blue and I followed Loki up to the sixth floor. By the time we reached the apartment door my heart was beating hard and not just from the climb. I did not want to see this mother's grief. I was cold but not that cold. The ice I'd built around my heart, around the feeling part of myself, could be cracked, just like the front door of this building. With a hard enough whack from the right stone I might remember my own losses.
#
When Loki knocked on the door it rattled on its hinges, sounding cheap and easy to break down. Blue sat by my side, pressing his weight against my leg, sensing my discomfort and doing his best to alleviate it. When there was no answer Loki knocked again, harder this time. "Maybe no one is home," I suggested.
"She is sleeping."
Blue's ears perked forward and I heard shuffling footsteps. A woman spoke, she sounded tired, her voice thick with sleep. Loki responded and a lock turned before the door opened just enough for her to peer through. The woman had bags under her eyes and gray running through her hair. Loki spoke quietly to the woman, his voice soft, almost a hum. He sounded trustworthy.
The woman looked over at me, her eyes narrowing. I gave her a weak smile. Loki looked at me and then returned his attention to the woman, apparently explaining who I was. I wondered how that was going. The woman's eyes wandered down to Blue and she opened the door a little in surprise.
Loki took a step forward and she retreated into the apartment, letting the door slip open as she did so. The apartment smelled like cooked food, like a home. The room we walked into had a mat on the floor with scrunched bedding, as if the woman had just risen from it. There was also a plastic table with three stools around it. A small kitchen occupied a corner behind the table. Windows, clean on the inside but dust ridden on the outside, let anemic yellow light into the small space.
There was another mat on the floor and I wondered if it was the girl’s. How could she be so involved with computers and live in this small apartment with her parents? Unless all her equipment was at her grandfather's house. The woman went into the kitchen, holding a robe tight around herself. Her feet were bare and looked as old and worn as the linoleum she walked upon.
"She will make us tea," Loki told me.
"What did you tell her?"
"That I had to talk to her. I promised her money."
"Okay, I have some cash on me."
"Don't worry, I have it." He took a wallet out of his pocket and placed some bills onto the table. The woman looked over from the stove at the money. Her eyes glowed for a moment before she returned her attention to the tea kettle. Loki spoke to her and the woman offered a one-word answer. He waited until she'd poured the tea and sat down at the table with us before he spoke again.
I looked down into my chipped tea cup. It was green tea, the smell familiar and soothing in this strange place. I was tense, waiting for Loki to break the news. The horrifying news that this woman's only child was dead. The apartment was making the girl more real, slipping under my skin. The memory of her spinning from the shot, the elegant arch of her neck, the way her hair swirled. Looking up at the two of them again I saw Loki pushing the money across the table and the woman taking it, disappearing it into the folds of her robe.
Loki reached out and took the woman's hand. She went to pull away but he was speaking again and her face was crumpling. She shook her head, refusing to believe the news. He squeezed her hand. Blue pushed in close to me, sensing the emotion in the room.
Tears ran down her face as she shook her head, at once knowing the truth and refusing to acknowledge it. I felt tears prick at my eyes and looked back down at the tea again. The leaves had tinted the water now, the subtle green of American money.
The woman stood up suddenly and yelled at Loki, pointing at the door. But he stayed seated, talking calmly. The woman collapsed back onto the stool and held her face in her hands, sobbing. A lump sat in my throat, the air thick with grief, almost suffocating. Loki's face remained impassive, compassionate but not overwhelmed. He continued speaking until the woman nodded her head and began to talk. Loki was quiet then, listening, his face gentle, understanding, the face of a therapist, of a grief counselor, of one who understood the pain of loss, and the hole it left, as well as what it took to survive it.
I sipped the tea and listened to the woman's words. They meant nothing to me but the tone in which she spoke them made it obvious she was speaking about someone she loved. Her voice sounded so different from the tired one that answered the door. She was talking about her daughter and as she spoke the tears continued to flow. I wanted to know what she was saying but there was no time for translation. It was clear to me then, quite suddenly, how out of depth I was here. With no language skills or cultural understanding I'd never be able to find Merl without Loki's help.
Then I heard Merl's name. Loki was asking about him. The woman looked over at me. She nodded her head and spoke, looking at Blue. She knew Merl, I was sure of it. Loki sipped at his tea while the woman spoke. She was calmer now, her tone changing again, slipping back to that tired voice, but it was not just fatigue bringing her down now.
Loki poured her more tea despite the fact that she'd only taken one sip. She reached forward and drank, licking her lips and began to cry again. Loki held her hand, his eyes sympathetic. He seemed to be making her promises. I hoped they were promises we could keep.
Returning to the Scene of the Crime
Back on the street over an hour later I breathed in the air thick with pollution. It was fresh compared to the stifling apartment. "You were amazing in there," I said.
"Thank you."
"How did you know how to do that? I mean, have you done police work?"
Loki looked down at me, his expression unreadable. "Grief is like any other emotion. We must listen and care. That is all it takes to communicate."
I nodded and looked away, somehow uncomfortable with his honesty, or perhaps with that particular truth.
"She knew Merl," I said after a moment.
"Yes, but only because her daughter mentioned him. Sing is her husband's f
ather. Father and son do not speak. But she knew that her daughter saw Sing. Her husband does not know."
"I didn't see any computer equipment in the apartment."
"No, they do not have any extra income. I think the girl must have been keeping it at Sing's."
"Or a friend’s."
The black car pulled up in front of us. "What makes you think that?" Loki asked as we walked toward the back door.
"From what I know of hackers they often learn from friends. I mean, she could be totally self-taught or learned from people online, but it's also possible that she has friends in town. Maybe kids she met online who she then became real world friends with, but that's where her equipment could be."
Loki opened the door for me and I climbed in followed by Blue who sat at my feet, making himself small and pretending to be a lap dog as he rested his head on my knee. Loki slipped in next to me and spoke to the driver, who pulled back into traffic.
"I asked about Bai's friends but her mother said she did not know. The girl was withdrawn. Hated living with her and her husband."
"I'd have hated living in a room that small with my parents when I was her age."
Loki did not respond.
"But why wouldn't she live with her grandfather?"
"He would never let her move in without her parents' permission. No matter how much they did not get along."
"But he would have a relationship with her?"
"He had her mother's permission and may have thought her father approved."
"Why weren't they speaking?"
"She wouldn't go into it."
"Weird."
"It is not that strange."
"I don't know, you let two people you've never seen into your apartment who tell you your daughter is dead and that it's no accident. You tell them about how your husband didn't speak to his father and that your daughter did but you won't say why the two men fought."
Loki nodded. "Perhaps there are some things too private to share, even for a good sum of money."
We rode in silence the rest of the way to Sing's building. Mitchel was in the living room of the top floor apartment. "Almost done," he said when we walked in, glancing up with a smile. "How did it go at the girl's place?” he asked, his voice turning serious.
Shadow Harvest (A Sydney Rye Mystery, #7) Page 7