Skinner's Box (Fang Mu (Eastern Crimes))

by Lei Mi

  He mulled this over. "Are you broke?"

  Liao Yafan stood. "No, not broke."

  When the boy saw the gloomy expression that abruptly spread across her features, he put his can of cola down, pulled the stack of notes from his pocket, and slapped it into her hands. "Here."

  "What are you doing?" She shrieked and shoved the money back toward him as if he had just given her a handful of hot coals. "Here, take it back. Take it! Hurry!"

  "It's for you," the boy insisted, pressing the money into Liao Yafan's hands with all his might. The two of them wrestled it back and forth for a while until Liao Yafan clenched her jaw and growled, "If you don't quit it, I'm gonna get angry!"

  At this the boy gave up and crammed the cash haphazardly into his pocket, after which he returned to drinking his cola in silence.

  Liao Yafan exhaled in relief and bent to pick up the pull-tab he had discarded from the cola can. She put it around her finger and began to fiddle with it.

  "Look, it's like a ring. Pretty, isn't it?" When she held her finger out and squinted; the golden sunlight made it look like a dazzling golden ring.

  "It's not a ring."

  "I said it's like a ring; I didn't say it was a ring," she barked. "Of course I know it's not a real ring, dummy."

  The boy looked nervous. Hastily he said, "But it doesn't look like one."

  Liao Yafan felt a mixture of anger and amusement. She reached out and pinched his nose. "You have no idea how to make a girl happy, do you?"

  Just then Sister Zhao's voice rang out from across the courtyard. "Yafan…! Yafan…!"

  "Coming!" Liao Yafan shouted over her shoulder, and then turned back to the boy. "I have to go do work. You should head on home."

  The boy chugged down the last of the cola and shoved the can through the fence at Liao Yafan.

  Taking it, she waved it in the air between them and flashed a grin full of white teeth. "Thank you!"

  The boy's face flushed. "Welcome," he muttered.

  Teacher Zhou was nowhere to be seen during dinner. Without his typically jolly presence, the atmosphere in the dining hall was almost melancholy. The children all ate in silence, and as they finished they crept off one by one. Sister Zhao and Liao Yafan were the last ones to leave. After clearing the table, they each grabbed a basin full of laundry, walked out to the corner of the courtyard where the drain was, and began to scrub the laundry hard.

  To anyone that knew Angel Hall as Liao Yafan did, it seemed that everyone was acting weird lately. Sister Zhao seemed to be spending more and more time alone in her room where, nine times out of ten, she just sat or kneeled, talking to herself there. Sometimes Liao Yafan went entire days without catching a glimpse of Teacher Zhou. On the odd occasion when she did see him, he was either outside smoking in a solitary gloom or in Sister Zhao's room, staring at that boy’s portrait in a daze. The depressed state of the two adults had the children cowed; the younger children were quick to tears, the older ones bickered more than usual, and everyone was walking around on eggshells. In Angel Hall, laughter had become a rare thing indeed.

  By the time the clothing was all washed, Sister Zhao could barely stand up straight; she had been hard at work all day, bent at the waist. Liao Yafan volunteered to hang the laundry on the line herself.

  It was already dark outside, but a fingernail moon spilled its magic across the courtyard and etched its stones with silver. As the cold late autumn air moved through the damp clothes, they billowed gently and sent a pleasant detergent smell wafting out across the courtyard. Liao Yafan did her best to separate them as she pegged them to the line with fingers numb from the cold, soapy water.

  "Psst!"

  An indistinct sound caught Liao Yafan's attention, causing her to pause in the middle of hanging a bed sheet. She cocked her head and glanced toward the building. Seeing nothing, she shrugged and went back to smoothing out the creases in the bed sheet.

  "Psst!"

  This time Liao Yafan was sure she had heard something. She ducked her head under the sheet and looked in the direction of the fence. A tiny figure was there, crouched in the shadows on the other side, waving at her.

  Liao Yafan jogged over and squatted down next to the fence.

  "Why are you still out? It's late," she said. Despite the shadows that shrouded his face, she could tell it was the boy and he was excited. The feeling was somehow contagious, and before she knew it she, too, was smiling. "You should be at home getting ready for bed, little man."

  Not saying a word, the boy plunged his hand into his pants pocket. A moment later the hand came out with an object that he quickly shoved through the bars and stuffed into Liao Yafan's hands. Before she had a chance to ask what it was, he had jumped to his feet and disappeared down the shadowy footpath.

  Puzzled, Liao Yafan looked back down at the object in her hands. It was a tiny heart-shaped box covered in embroidered satin. Her heart fluttered as she opened its delicate lid. Fingers trembling a little, she reached in and withdrew a ring. Its soft platinum band and the single diamond set in the middle glittered elusively in the moonlight.

  The hairs discovered in the teddy bear by the examiners' meticulous efforts were telling. When they were run against the victim's DNA, the lab workers were surprised to find that they belonged to a different person.

  "What does it mean?" Bian Ping frowned as he slapped the DNA report onto the table.

  "It means someone else wore that bear before the vic's body was stuffed into it," Fang Mu said.

  "Couldn't they belong to somebody who works in the factory where the thing was made?"

  "Probably not." Fang Mu thought for a moment. "If the hairs had come from a factory employee, they would most likely have been mixed in with the stuffing material. The killers removed it all when they hollowed out the doll."

  Bian Ping did not seem overly excited by this. "Well, in any case, it's another thing we can look into.”

  Fang Mu understood Bian Ping's conservative attitude very well. That the giant teddy bear had been worn by a person other than the victim was only a possibility, after all, and not a certainty. He wanted to believe that someone else had worn it because that would fit with his hypothesis that the crime had been ritualistic in nature. The teddy bear was obviously something the group of murderers cared very much about; if the killing had indeed been the culmination of a ceremony of some sort, then this important tool of theirs would quite possible have been used by at least one other person some time during the course of the ritual.

  A person with type B blood.

  Lu Xu's condition had improved greatly and he was now once again deemed fit for duty. In view of his psychological state, however, the Bureau had decided to give him a desk job for the time being.

  He had recovered complete control over his motor skills, but he still refused to go to the shooting range. Deciding not to make any excessive demands on him, Yang Jincheng dropped that part of the regimen and initiated Stage III—a replay of the circumstances that had brought about Lu Xu's trauma.

  A large number of people would be taking part in this stage of the treatment. Besides Fang Mu's colleagues from the PSB's Criminal Psychology Research Institute, he was surprised to see Constable Duan from SWAT in the conference room.

  "Hello." Constable Duan stuck out his hand.

  Fang Mu shook it, feeling the firm grip from a palm full of calluses. "So they called you in, too, did they?" he said with mild surprise, remembering that Constable Duan had been a sniper. "I thought you were done with your field duties."

  "I am. I came with him." Duan pointed his chin at a capable-looking young man dressed in an Armed Police uniform. "Little Yu, the most capable driver on our team."

  Little Yu stood and stuck his hand out. "It's an honor, sir."

  Fang Mu shook his hand awkwardly, realizing that he himself had neglected to wear a uniform to the occasion. Not much of a 'sir,' he mused.

  The treatment was arranged to take place in a large training gymnasium. A video ca
mera was set up on a tripod in one corner so that the entire treatment process could be streamed live and viewed on a monitor in a separate viewing room.

  "Officer Lu has had a turn for the better, but he still has not completely recovered," Yang Jincheng said as he leafed through a folder thick with documents. "Ever since he started back on the job, we've been monitoring his behavior. One thing we've noticed is that he refuses to ride or drive in any sort of vehicle; rather, he goes to and from work on foot—and seems to have become the most careful follower of traffic regulations in the city."

  He cleared his throat. "Further observations have revealed that Officer Lu still feels an inordinate amount of fear at the sight of trucks and other large vehicles. He leaves home very early in the morning and returns from his precinct very late at night, a fact which leads me to believe that he is endeavoring to avoid peak rush hour traffic, perhaps because the din of noises generated during those times still have the effect of putting him through a significant amount of mental stress. In the workplace, he tends to keep to himself as much as he can, and I have been told that he has declined to answer at least three telephone calls from his parents."

  Bian Ping nodded. "He's still floundering around with a head chocked full of shame and guilt. It looks like he feels inadequate compared to all the other cops around him."

  "Correct." Yang Jincheng closed the folder and tossed it onto an empty chair next to him. "So he needs our help."

  The plan for the day was to complete a re-enactment of the car crash. To this end, the Public Security Bureau had made remarkably thorough arrangements. As Fang Mu entered the gymnasium, what he saw amazed him.

  All of the floor mats and punching bags and other training apparatus had been cleared out. An imitation motorcycle stood by itself out in the center of the great wooden floor, and across the wall it faced stretched an enormous projection screen. Upon closer inspection, the imitation motorcycle was actually a large-scale electronic interface unit; a virtual simulation would be projected onto the wall screen.

  Everyone involved in the treatment, including Lu Xu himself, took seats in the gym's side office that had been turned into a viewing room. After they all introduced themselves to each other and chatted for a while, Yang Jincheng decided that Lu Xu seemed relaxed enough, so he recommended that he be the one to choose which actor would play what role.

  Fang Mu knew this technique was called mirroring. It would allow Lu Xu to stand apart from the scene and watch himself, not unlike looking at himself in a mirror. Such a perspective could help him to view and recognize the accident without feeling overanxious.

  The roles were actually quite straightforward: a commander, a few emergency medical technicians, and Lu Xu himself. He assigned the role of commander to Constable Duan and the roles of the EMTs to four of Fang Mu's colleagues from the Criminal Psychology Research Institute. As for who should play himself, however, Lu Xu balked. Yang Jincheng suggested that Little Yu be the one to play that role.

  "All right, well, I guess I'll be the director then." Yang Jincheng told them all to take their places and then led Lu Xu, Bian Ping, and Fang Mu to the viewing room.

  "Why not make him observe the psychodrama directly from inside the gym?" Bian Ping whispered as the actors were putting on their costumes and getting into position.

  "That would put him through a lot of unnecessary psychological strain,” Yang Jincheng explained. “We need him to recall the entire progression of events from the perspective of a bystander, so it will be beneficial for him to be in a relatively stress-free environment."

  Yang Jincheng walked up to Fang Mu, who was in the middle of helping Little Yu change into a regular police uniform, and clapped him on the shoulder. "Your job is to stand next to Lu Xu; your being there will make him feel more relaxed."

  In other words: Next to Fang Mu, Lu Xu would not feel so inadequate.

  Fang Mu felt a bit miffed. On the one hand he did not want to accept the truth; on the other, he felt like a tool. But after mulling it over he decided to do as he was told without argument.

  The play began.

  In his new uniform, Little Yu actually resembled Lu Xu quite a bit, a fact which had amused the latter to no end. Throughout the performance, which was more like a video game in nature, Little Yu remained crouched atop the imitation motorcycle, leaning right or left to match the traffic conditions of the virtual street scene that was being projected onto the screen in front of him.

  As the expression on Lu Xu's face slowly changed from one of hilarity to one of focused concentration, Yang Jincheng continued to observe him. When he decided the motorcycle cop was totally immersed in the psychodrama being played out before him, Yang Jincheng changed the perspective on the monitor.

  Suddenly they were looking at a close-up view of the wall screen, and the extremely realistic graphics of the simulation brought every detail of the city streets to life. Little Yu, or Lu Xu under orders from the commander played by Constable Duan, wove back and forth to avoid pedestrians and cars as he sped along the streets, his movements synced to the simulation.

  The real Lu Xu was becoming more and more engrossed; his face had paled, his eyes were wide, and his nostrils flared as he took shorter and shorter breaths. As the perspective of the motorcycle rider's view leaned to the right or left, so did Lu Xu's shoulders.

  The perspective again switched to a view of the gym, with Little Yu perched on the motorcycle in front of the big wall screen. Lu Xu went rigid at first, but then gradually relaxed. Just then, a truck appeared on the screen and came plowing through the intersection from the right. The motorcycle's view swerved right, but it was too late; the back end of the truck loomed to fill the entire screen as the motorcycle smashed into it.

  "Ahh!" Little Yu screamed as he fell from the back of the bike.

  Lu Xu instinctively flinched back a step and hugged his head in pain.

  No one said a word. The view on the monitor again flicked to the virtual scene being projected onto the wall screen. Fang Mu half expected to see the words "Game Over" appear in the middle in bold letters, but the picture remained centered on the crowded intersection.

  "Officer Lu," Yang Jincheng said as he offered him a cup of water. "Are you okay?"

  Lu Xu held the cup in both hands, breathing raggedly for a minute. Finally he whispered, "I'm good."

  Yang Jincheng led him to a chair and sat next to him. "Officer Lu, the scene you just watched was identical to the view you must have had from your motorcycle during the accident, down to the last detail; the time of day, the speed at which you were riding, the timing of the appearance of the truck in the intersection—everything." He paused. "Little Yu is the most skilled motorcycle operator we have; if I recall correctly, he was recently awarded first prize in the Provincial Police Motor Vehicle Skills Competition. But even so, the conditions in the simulation were such that he was unable to avoid crashing into that truck."

  Lu Xu lifted his head and eyed Yang Jincheng sideways.

  "It's true." Yang Jincheng nodded emphatically. "The accident was not your fault. The same thing would have happened to anyone. And from where I sit, you did better than many would have; you were able to react fast enough to save your own life."

  "You're just trying to make me feel better," Lu Xu croaked, but much of the pain had left his face.

  "I knew you would say that," Yang Jincheng said with a chuckle. He leaned over to speak into the microphone. "Little Yu. Ready to go again?"

  The monitor flicked over to the gymnasium view again. Little Yu climbed back onto the motorcycle, and the simulation began.

  "Watch it again,” Yang Jincheng said to Lu Xu, “and you'll know it's not just me trying to console you; it's the truth."

  As if they had jumped back in time, the same scene unfolded once more on the monitor. This time, however, a greater proportion of the video was played from the first-person point of view of the wall screen simulation. Lu Xu's body did not sway along with the movements of the motorcycle
this time; he just stood there, his eyes never leaving the monitor. In the instant before the crash, he exhaled gently and gave a barely perceptible nod.

  Yang Jincheng changed the view to that of the gymnasium. "See? I wasn't tricking you."

  A rare smile lit up Lu Xu's face.

  Little Yu lay on the floor curled up in a ball. A police revolver had appeared next to his body, as if it had dropped to the ground when he fell from the motorcycle. The gun drew Lu Xu's attention; he leaned closer to the monitor and watched it, as if hoping to discover who had taken it.

  Four EMTs wearing white coats raced over and placed a stretcher on the floor next to Little Yu, who was still "unconscious." As they put him on it and lifted, one of his hands dangled from the side of the stretcher and wobbled forward and backward to the movements of the EMTs as they carried him. Just then someone appeared playing an unexpected role.

  It was an elderly man with graying hair and beard. He ran over to the side of the stretcher, reached a hand out to "Lu Xu," and starting shouting.

  "Little Xu! Little Xu! Just hang in there…” he cried. “Don't you die on me…!"

  Everyone's attention was on the old man. The real Lu Xu's voice cracked. "Dad?"

  Lu Xu's father helped the four EMTs carry "Lu Xu" out the gymnasium's side door, and the room was suddenly empty.

  Lu Xu was sobbing loudly. Yang Jincheng raised an eyebrow at Fang Mu. Understanding, Fang Mu put a hand on Lu Xu's shoulder and stood with him.

  Once Lu Xu had regained some of his composure, Yang Jincheng smiled and pointed at the monitor. "Have another look. Where's the gun?"

  Lu Xu, along with everyone else in the room, returned their attention to the monitor.

  The pistol was gone.

  Lu Xu turned and looked at Yang Jincheng. "Where is it?"

  "Who noticed?" Yang Jincheng shrugged, making a show of glancing from face to face. "No one saw what happened to your gun. The fact that you survived is all that matters to your parents and to the men and women of your precinct."

  Another voice was heard. "It's true, son. We'll always be proud of you as long as you live..."