Bad Traffic

by Simon Lewis

  Joy led them round to the alley. She guessed that even if Ding Ming was innocent, he’d be in bother. Probably he was an illegal immigrant, in which case they’d – what did they do? Did they put you in prison, or fine you, or deport you? She coughed and scraped her feet on the tarmac, with the idea that the noise might alert Ding Ming. If he was quick he’d have time to run away.

  ‘This is stupid,’ said Joy, loudly. ‘You should be round at her house arresting her. She’s the one done wrong, she’s a vandal.’

  ‘He’s in there? In the shed?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Stand back. Back. Does he speak English?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The policeman knocked at the shed door.

  ‘This is the police. Come out of there, please, sir. Come out of there, sir. If you do not come out I will open the door. I’m opening the door.’

  Ding Ming hurtled out, head down, arms flailing, and crashed into the policeman. They went down together. He got up and rushed towards the alley.

  The policeman got him round the waist and the policewoman steamed in, and after a flurry of limbs they had him down in the dirt on his front, the policeman planting a knee in his back and wrenching his arm round and going, ‘Oi oi oi oi oi.’

  Both cops were puffing and had lost their hats. Even as they were cuffing him he squirmed and fought, and it was horrible to observe, like watching the spasms of a dying animal.

  ‘He hasn’t done anything wrong,’ said Joy. ‘He’s just scared shitless.’

  ‘And why would that be?’ The policeman was flushed. He was in control of the situation, and the satisfaction of victory was in his voice.

  ‘We’re taking him down the station. We’ll need statements from you and your father, but we can get them in the morning.’

  The girl cop was frisking Ding Ming. She said, ‘Found a gun.’

  ‘A firearm? He had a firearm? Is it loaded?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Joy could see they were struggling to contain their excitement. A real live gun! It was well out of the ordinary. This arrest was getting better and better – now it was a story, what kudos they’d get down the cop shop.

  ‘Make sure the safety’s on. Take the bullets out.’

  ‘I’m not sure how.’

  ‘Just put it away. Carefully.’

  She lowered it into her upturned hat.

  ‘Look at all this trouble,’ said Joy’s father, in English. ‘Look at it. Trouble and more trouble.’

  Ding Ming glanced at Joy as he was led away and the awkward feeling rose in her that perhaps he thought she had betrayed him. She waved at him, trying to convey her sympathy, and bit her lip the way he did. She hoped it would be okay for him. She had no idea why he would need a gun, it seemed completely out of character, but she was certain that if he did there was good reason. She felt that she had glimpsed the edge of a secret, and would now never know its full shape.

  ‘It’s a shame,’ said her father, in Cantonese.

  ‘Yes.’

  The cops took Ding Ming over the road to a squad car. They put him in the back and the man with the moustache got in with him and the woman climbed into the driver’s seat.

  Joy took her father’s hand.

  ‘Who’s that?’ he said, pointing.

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘I thought I see somebody. There.’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘Yes. I made mistake.’

  His hand was hot. She hadn’t held it like this since she was a kid. She supposed she should let go, but she didn’t. Her bottom lip was trembling.

  ‘Let’s go inside. I can’t watch.’

  (52

  Jian opened the back door of the police car, slid in and put Ding Ming in a headlock. He pressed a shard of glass against Ding Ming’s neck, behind the windpipe.

  The peasant sat still, wide eyes moving rapidly. The policeman on the back seat glared across the peasant’s exposed neck. He was annoyed, his moustache twitched. Jian moved his hand to show him the glass, show he knew what he was doing. A few pounds of pressure and the carotid artery would get severed. The policewoman in the driver’s seat turned off the engine.

  The policeman sighed with irritation. The girl adjusted the rear-view mirror so she could check out the back seat drama, and Jian glimpsed his own reflection. He looked like a wild man, a savage come out of the woods. When he was in his twenties, he’d helped to chase down two robbers – brothers, one retarded, the other evil. His unit had tracked them to a cave, where they had shot one – the idiot it turned out – who died complaining he was hungry. Now he looked like those brothers, and it wasn’t just the dirt. It was something sullen and furtive in the eyes. He said, ‘Jiao zheige nan de… Tell the man to take out a set of handcuffs.’

  With his head up and back, eyes bulging, Ding Ming croaked, ‘I don’t know what handcuffs is in English.’ He swallowed and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down beneath the fragile skin.

  Jian worked to keep his breathing shallow and level, it helped in keeping the pressure of the glass blade steady. It cut into his palm. The pain was welcome, it kept him alert.

  ‘You can manage it. Say, ‘those things you tie people up with’ or something.’

  The command was communicated in a croaking rasp, Ding Ming’s English now sounding more like frogs than birds.

  The policeman took cuffs out of a belt pouch, slowly.

  ‘Tell him to put one around his right wrist.’

  The policeman slipped it on.

  ‘And secure it. Properly. Now tell the girl to put the other cuff round her left wrist.’

  The policeman leaned forward and put his arm out, and she reached back and did as she was told. Neither looked too happy about it. No doubt they were thinking, the idiot doesn’t realise we can get these off in a few seconds. But that was fine for Jian, let them think him a fool.

  Now they were cuffed together, the policeman leaning forward, the policewoman leaning back, hands joined over the handbrake, an awkward position for both.

  ‘Tell them to take off their radios and drop them on the floor.’ Ding Ming croaked, and the two police unclipped the radios from high on their torsos and dropped them.

  ‘Tell them to kick them under the seats. Tell the girl that if I see her touching the radio on the dashboard, I’ll kill you.’ Ding Ming babbled some more, his voice a little higher.

  ‘Now tell them to take off their belts and drop them on the floor and kick them under the seat as well. Him first. Good. Now tell the man to put his left hand on the back of his head. Good.’

  The peasant licked dry lips. A bead of sweat ran down his neck, touched Jian’s thumb and dissipated.

  (53

  Jian had been lucky when the car went into the lake. He’d taken some knocks but nothing debilitating.

  Water gushed in through the broken side window. He grabbed the door handle and tensed against the force of the rushing tide and waited. Feeling the van revolve, he hoped he didn’t end up trying to open a door jammed against the bottom.

  When the interior was almost full of murky water he took a deep breath, ducked, pulled the handle and, with one foot braced against the steering wheel, forced the door open. He wriggled out and kicked for the surface.

  When he came up he took a quick breath and went straight back under – he didn’t know if his enemies were watching. He struck out for the far side of the lake and swam for ten minutes before reaching shallow water.

  He knew that he needed to get dry and warm before considering anything else. Having broken into a fishing cabin, he crouched in front of a fan heater for half an hour. It was a glorious experience – the comfort so unexpected, the hum and the heat lulling him into drowsiness. He still had the black address book but the ink on the vital page was so smeared it was illegible, and his life started to look without purpose. Then, realising where the peasant was bound to have gone, he cursed himself for wasting so much time.

  Ding Ming said, ‘Ni bu m
ingbai… You don’t understand: snakeheads had my mother, I had no choice—’

  ‘You don’t talk to me, only to them.’

  He didn’t want the peasant too frightened, so he added, ‘I don’t want to kill you. Do what I tell you and it’ll be fine.’

  He was keeping his expression and his tone neutral. If he showed fear, uncertainty or craziness, it would encourage the cops to act. He was wondering how he’d react if he was on the job in this situation. He’d do what the idiot with the weapon said. Citizen getting knifed in the back of a squad car would look very bad – black marks on your record and a big dry-cleaning bill. He’d co-operate, and let a stand-off drag on. Sooner or later, back-up would arrive. Then you’d be looking at a siege and cops always win a siege.

  He was concentrating hard. The pressure on blade had to be kept constant, the police and the peasant and the road had to be watched, he had to anticipate and calculate. He’d been involved in these sort of situations a couple of times, on the other end, and things had never finished happily for the hostage taker. But they’d always been cornered men in the grip of strong emotion. He reckoned if he played it well his chances were good, but it was no sure thing.

  He began talking in a low, level tone. ‘If you stay with them, they’ll deport you, at best. Stay with me and you’ve got a chance. You help me, like we agreed, then I’ll take you back to your boss and that’s what you want, isn’t it? It’s the only chance you’ve got. Tell her to open her door.’

  This was going to be the difficult bit. ‘Now tell them to leave the keys in the ignition and get out of the car.’

  Ding Ming relayed the instruction but nobody moved. Jian had expected that – he’d have done the same thing. Get the guy irate and talking, see how far you could push it. See how it played and maybe, after a few hours of threats and coaxing, rush him. Unless back-up turned up first.

  The guy began to turn in the seat, saying something in a reasonable tone.

  Jian took hold of Ding Ming’s left little finger and said, ‘Either I pretend to break this finger, and you scream really loud, or I really break it, and you scream really loud. Which is it to be?’

  ‘Pretend, pretend. I’ll scream.’

  ‘Scream and thrash about. But don’t move your head, I don’t want any accidents.’

  Jian bent the little finger back, and made sure the woman could see it in the rear view.

  ‘Tell them that if they don’t get out of the car now I’m going to break the finger.’

  The command was relayed, but still nothing happened.

  The peasant’s hand was warm and damp with sweat. It was clean and unblemished, the skin soft and supple. His own aged hand was grimy, with dirt ingrained in knuckles as gnarled as wood knots.

  ‘Ready? Really scream. One two three…’

  Jian pushed the peasant’s hand down so they couldn’t see what he was doing any more, then pinched the back of it hard.

  Ding Ming screamed and thrashed about, then sobbed and breathed in ragged gasps. Jian worried he was rather overdoing it. But it worked. The policewoman got out and pulled at the handcuffed hand of the man and he scrambled over the seat division into the front and half fell out of the car.

  ‘Tell them to walk forward twenty paces. Now tell them to lie down on their faces.’

  Jian clambered quickly into the front seat, put the car into first gear and stamped on the accelerator. He got the car into the road, kept his foot down, and changed up. He checked the rear view. The uniformed figures were getting to their feet, but diminishing fast.

  He reached across, dropped the blade onto the road and pulled the door closed. His palm throbbed where it had pressed against the glass, and he wiped blood off onto his trousers and shook it to take the sting out. Still, he supposed he could have come out of that worse.

  (54

  Ding Ming said, ‘I had to tell my boss, I had no choice. They tied up my mother and they were going to pull her teeth out. Please understand – they have my mother tied up.’

  Jian flipped switches on the dash and turned on heating and a fan before he found the siren. A two-note wail built and he saw the reflection of the flashing roof lights on the bonnet. The speedometer hit eighty on some unfamiliar scale.

  ‘Do you remember the address?’

  ‘You won’t get ten kilometres. They’ll hunt you down.’

  Jian hit third gear and moved into the centre of the road. The dotted lines coalesced into a strip.

  ‘Do you remember the address?’

  Jian showed him the black book. He’d dried it in front of the fan heater and now the vital page was crisp and warped. The ink had run and the words were a cloudy blur.

  ‘Look at this, it’ll jog your memory. You’re going to get me to that farm. Then I’ll take you back to your boss.’

  ‘They’ll catch you and shoot you.’

  ‘We’re going to get a map.’

  ‘When they catch us, tell them the truth. Tell them you forced me to help you.’

  ‘They saw me stick a blade to your throat – I think they know that already.’

  ‘Tell them.’

  ‘I’ll tell them I forced you. Will you read a map?’

  ‘Heaven, this is so awful.’

  ‘You’re better with me than them. Will you read a map?’

  ‘I’ll read a map. I remember the address. But you won’t get ten kilometres.’

  Jian glanced at the lad in the rear view. He was squirmed round, looking out of the back window, no doubt on the lookout for helicopters. This time those fears might be justified. His own force would put out everything they had if a squad car was stolen, though they might be slow to alert other forces, out of sheer embarrassment.

  The handcuffs gleamed. The lad wasn’t going to be able to read a map with his hands cuffed behind his back. He hoped the key was on the belt under the seat and not back at the station.

  It felt natural to be behind the wheel of a squad car with the siren wailing over his head. These roads, without potholes or meandering pedestrians or unlit donkey carts, just invited acceleration. Trees and houses flashed past. He could feel his palms prickling, as they always did when he drove fast.

  ‘When we get a map,’ said Ding Ming, ‘I’ll mark where you have to go and write the address down in English for you to show people, and then you can take me back to the mud.’

  ‘You’re coming all the way.’

  ‘But you said you’d take me back. When we were at the lake, you said, you said.’

  ‘I remember, just before you tried to get me killed. Maybe you’ll try and cheat me, and when I get a map you’ll just mark any old place. Could be you’ll call your boss again. So you’re coming with me all the way. I’m taking you back only after you get me there, not before.’

  Black and white stripes loomed, alerting Jian to a sharp bend. He stamped the brake and tugged down hard at the wheel and the tyres squealed in complaint. The bumper scraped the sign before he got the thing back on the straight. A bump in the back was the peasant falling against the door.

  ‘Lao tian a, lao tian a.’

  (55

  Jian bore rapidly down on a set of tail-lights. It was a boxy estate doing maybe seventy kilometres an hour, a man driving and no passengers – just what he was looking for. He overtook, swerved in front of it and slowed. As hoped, the driver pulled up. Jian stopped ahead of him and switched off the siren. His ears were ringing.

  The peasant sat up. ‘What are you going to do now?’ There was curiosity as well as fear in his voice.

  Jian tapped the wheel and looked the driver over in the wing mirror – a man waiting patiently for the police, unclipping his licence from behind the driver-side visor. He reached under the seat and pulled out the utility belt. It annoyed him that there wasn’t a gun attached to it. A gun made things simpler. The only weapons were a telescopic baton and a spray can. He’d read about these sprays. The Russians used them. They dispensed a gas that made the eyes and throat burn.

>   So he could just hit the guy with the spray and steal his car. And that would buy him, what, a couple more hours. No use. He had to make sure the guy didn’t report his car as missing. Maybe he could get the cuffs off the peasant and cuff the driver to a fencepost and leave him for the night.

  He said to the peasant, ‘Stay here.’

  He reversed until there were just a few metres between the cars. He tucked the baton into his belt and held the can in his hand, finger poised over the nozzle. He’d spray the guy in the face, shut him in the boot of the cop car, drive it into the corner of some field where it wouldn’t get found till morning, then come back – hauling the peasant – and take the estate.

  He reminded himself to check the guy for a mobile phone before slinging him in the boot, and, all the while, keeping an eye on the peasant. So, better idea – lock the guy in the boot of the cop car, shut the peasant in the boot of the blue car, then dump the cop car in a field. That would work.

  The driver was winding his window down. Jian got round there quickly, raised the spray to a puzzled face and saw a wide-eyed toddler in a child seat in the back.

  He faltered and lowered the can. The presence of a kid complicated things too much. The driver scrambled down by the handbrake, and Jian worried he was going for a weapon and after all would be forced to spray him, until the window started rising with a hum. The automatic window button was down there. He was jamming it with the fingers of both hands, as if that would make it go faster.

  The driver whacked the car into ‘drive’ and it pitched forward, straight into the back bumper of the police car, smashing a headlight. Broken glass tinkled and the man got his car into reverse and it shot back, tyres screeching. He stopped, turned and drove off.

  Jian considered his decision not to spray the man. It was a good decision – he did not want to endanger a life so innocent – but if he was to be honest it was not cold consideration that had stayed his hand but that kid’s soft face and the big curious eyes.