I dropped the clipboard, took out my cellular, and dialed 911. After a one-sentence summary while I quick-marched toward the water, I clicked off the phone, picked up the kayak by its cockpit gunnel, and ran it at ramming speed toward the window into the playroom, doing a pretty good job of creating a man-sized hole and a nerve-curdling klaxon alarm. Yanking the kayak back out, I used it as a makeshift stepstool to get me through the opening. A shard of glass slashed a long but shallow cut into my left forearm. Once inside, I scooped up two billiard balls from the table and put them in the left pocket of my tennis shorts, as though I were going to serve them up.
Heavy footfalls began coming down the stairs, so I picked up a cue, too, gripped its tapered end like I was choking up in the batter's box, and backed against a wall next to the doorway.
A huge guy stormed through, moving directly to the broken window. I registered no weapon, tattoos on both burly arms, and a shaved head before I realized he hadn't bothered to put his pants on.
I figured this one for Coley.
Stepping forward, I swung the thick end of the cue at the back of his skull. Maybe sensing me, Coley turned quickly enough to catch the blow squarely on his nose. There was a crickling sound a mini-second before the thumping one, and a volcano of blood and snot erupted from the center of his face.
He bellowed in pain and anger, dropping to his knees, both hands coming up to cover, if not treat, the damage.
I shuffled sideways and drove the butt end of the cue as hard as I could into his left temple.
Coley crumpled, all fours on the floor now.
I turned and ran for the stairs. Taking them two at a time, I'd reached the top when I heard the shot.
The first one, anyway, followed by two more that helped me locate the source, both by sound and that acrid smell of burned gunpowder.
A naked man I took to be Breau Shackleford was still on his feet, but lurching from one side of the massive bedroom to another, trying desperately and futilely to use the wallpaper as a handle on his balance. As tall as Coley, the boss sported no obvious alterations.
Except for the two holes in his chest, burbling blood.
The woman in Kel Tiptree's photo sat curled into a ball at the bed's footboard, a handbag with spilled contents on the floor between her big toes. The panties were completely gone now, and a short-barreled revolver lay half on and half off the bag, as though Marcy Pickens had just dropped it there.
Shackleford now became aware of me, though one eye seemed to focus left and up, the other right and down, making me hyperlink somehow to the glances of the little geckos scanning for insects at our tennis club. Close up, I could see a pink froth around the edges of each bullet wound.
"The bitch ... help me ... nine-one—"
The raspy voice from our brief telephone conversations.
"Already on their way, Breau,” I said, keeping my distance, even with the slugs in him.
I needn't have bothered, as both his eyes rolled back, and Breau Shackleford toppled as if he didn't have a bone in his body.
I looked around quickly, saw a robe. Even if it was his, I thought Pickens might appreciate the gesture. But as I reached her and held it open, she waved me off.
"Thanks—” her voice surprisingly steady—"but I want the police to see the way these ... animals left me."
I glanced out a front window. Two cruisers approaching from different directions fishtailed to a stop on the street, effectively blocking both the little Caddy and the pickup truck in the drive. Bubble lights flashed epileptically, but I didn't hear any sirens.
I said, “The police are here. I'll go down and let them—"
"No, please!” Then more quietly, “Don't leave me with ... him."
I nodded.
Pickens closed her eyes. “I used to work in Lauderdale, at this bar of Breau's called Stompers. Then he said I didn't have to work anymore if I moved in with him. Seemed like a good deal at the time."
She sniffled and rubbed a wrist across her nose, the bruising on her arms vividly black-and-blue against fair skin.
Downstairs, the doorbell rang.
"I lasted almost two years. It was ... rough, but not as rough as...” Pickens flicked her hand toward the bed.
Banging with fists now, a male and a female voice yelled, “Police, open up!” In the distance, I could just make out an ambulance's siren.
Pickens sniffled again and coughed. “Last May, I watched for my chance to get away, pocketed a few thousand cash from Breau's hidey-hole in the den, and took off. I waitressed, tried to break into singing, and met—” Pickens jerked her head up. “Did Kel send you?"
No need for specifics, and no time for them either, as I heard both the front and back doors being kicked in, the ambulance siren much louder now. “Yes."
She nodded. “Larry must have advertised better than usual, on account of Breau seeing something about the band. And me. He and Coley ‘visited’ the club here—our gig for tonight—and twisted some arms for my cell number. Left me a voice-mail."
"We've got one white male, down and bloody in a room, first floor rear."
Pickens said, “When I called him back, Breau told me if I didn't come see him at his house here, with the money I'd stole, he'd be at the club tonight with Coley and take it back. ‘The hard way.’ Well, Kel is a fine man, but he has a temper, and even with Earl and Larry thrown in, Kel wouldn't have had a chance against them."
I remembered Tiptree telling me about his prison time over the bar fight, but from what I'd seen of Coley and Shackleford, I agreed with her.
"First floor is secure! I say again, the first floor is secure."
Pickens shook her head. “So I took what little cash I'd put away from the tour—along with Kel's gun in my handbag, for protection—and came here by cab last night. They opened the front door, I handed Breau the money, and Coley clamped down on my arms till the bones bent. He dragged me up here, Breau following behind, slapping the bills against the palm of his hand and singing a lyric Kel wrote, ‘The one thing you can't change is a cheatin’ heart.’”
Feet climbing the stairs now. I laid down the pool cue and turned toward the doorway, my hands up and empty.
"The dumb bastards just dropped my bag in this corner, and...” From behind me, Marcy Pickens finally began sobbing. “...And then ... they ... they began to do..."
At that moment I decided Larry Bornstein was right about country music being all about “breaking up,” if not “making up."
(c)2007 by Jeremiah Healy
[Back to Table of Contents]
CHINA BLUES by Edward D. Hoch
Edward D. Hoch's Stanton & Ives series takes its readers to some far-flung places as the couriers turned amateur detectives deliver not only mysterious packages but justice to a colorful array of villains. Mr. Hoch tells EQMM that he particularly likes writing the stories in this series, and certainly they're something of a departure for him in having more thriller-like elements that his other work.
Landing at Beijing Capital Airport in the dead of night was no great treat. For starters, it was lo-cated some eighteen miles northeast of the city and Ives and I were headed southwest, to a little village on the Yellow River. Since neither of us spoke Chinese, we had to rely on our guide, a bulky man named Chen Yi who met us with a hand-lettered sign reading Stanton & Ives.
"That's us!” Ives exclaimed as if we'd just stepped off the plane in Chicago.
Chen Yi held out a gnarled hand. “You are Mr. Walt Stanton, the courier?"
"Correct, and this is Juliet Ives, my associate. We're transporting a package addressed to Dr. Niles Brandon."
He nodded. “I will take you to him. My car is outside."
"Is it a long drive? We're a bit sleepy."
He seemed puzzled. “You did not sleep on the aircraft?"
"Not well,” Ives told him.
"Ah! It is perhaps a hundred miles to the Loess Plateau along the Yellow River. A two-hour drive. Maybe you can relax and doze in the backs
eat."
So we set off like that, with me in the front seat with Chen Yi while Ives curled up in the back with our priceless package. We hadn't been told the exact contents of the parcel, which was smaller than a shoebox, only that it contained urgent medical supplies needed by Dr. Niles Brandon in a remote Chinese village. Our client was a nondescript man who'd phoned our office and then come in for an appointment. He hinted there might be more work for us if this delivery went well.
Ives immediately decided he was some sort of government type.
"If it was a government job they'd send their own people,” I reasoned.
"Not if they wanted to be in the clear if something went wrong. They'd hire fools like us."
"You've been reading too many spy thrillers,” I told her.
Ives had kept the package in her carry-on bag without declaring it, and it went through the X-ray machine without incident. By this time, nearly four years after launching our Stanton & Ives courier service, we'd seen just about everything and traveled to every continent except Africa and Antarctica. China was something new to us, though, and as dawn broke after the first hour of our drive I looked out the window at the barren countryside and realized we were a long way from New York City.
"Are we there yet?” Ives called out like a child from the backseat. “Soon, soon,” our driver reassured her, but it was another hour before we reached our destination.
Gazing out at the increasingly desolate landscape of dusty soil, I asked, “What do these people do for amusement?"
"The farmers sometimes attend local strip shows and gambling dens, but the government cracks down on them. We are far from any city."
"What is this place called?” A gust of wind lifted a cloud of soil even as I watched.
"Loess Plateau,” Chen Yi replied, turning off the road onto a narrow trail suited more for wagons than cars. “This soil you see has been deposited by windstorms over the centuries."
Ives studied it with some distaste as our car slowed down. “How can anything grow here?"
"In ancient times it was a fertile area,” the driver assured us. “But the trees are gone now and overgrazing has made many farmers poor. The only thing that grows here are tyrants like Mao and Hsun."
"Mao?"
"During the 1930s he lived here in a yaodong, a home carved from the soil. Hsun is a local warlord who would follow in his footsteps."
"Are there any good restaurants around here?” Ives asked, staring at the bleak horizon.
"Not for many miles. If you were staying longer I might recommend a side trip to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia, where there is a large restaurant of concrete in the shape of a giant tortoise."
"Do they serve turtle soup?"
"I have never been there.” He brought the car to a halt and opened the door. “But here we are. I have delivered you and your parcel to Dr. Brandon as instructed."
"Thank you, Chen Yi,” I said, taking some currency from my pocket.
He waved it away. “It is paid for,” he said.
"How do we get back to the airport?” Ives wanted to know.
Chen Yi grinned, showing a gap where a tooth was missing. “I stay with you."
We made our way up a dusty path to what I supposed was a stone farmhouse, much sturdier than the other village buildings I could see, with a red tile roof topped by ornamental birds. The sun had somehow managed to burn through the haze and we could feel a promise of warmth in the air. Almost at once the door was thrown open and a young red-haired woman in jeans and a T-shirt greeted us with what could only be an Irish lilt. “Good morning to you! How was your journey?"
Surely this was not Dr. Niles Brandon. I offered my hand and introduced us. “It was long,” Ives told her, answering the question I'd ignored. “Is Dr. Brandon here?"
"Not at the moment,” the woman said, “but I'm his assistant, Clare Marvell. I can accept the package on his behalf.” She glanced at it, resting on the desk where Ives had placed it.
She was friendly enough, but there was something about the whole setup that troubled me. Our instructions had been to deliver the medication directly into Dr. Brandon's hands. “How soon will he be back?” I asked.
She hesitated. “That's difficult to say. It could be a matter of days."
I looked at Ives. “I have an international cell phone,” she told the redhead. “We'll have to call our client for instructions."
"Very well,” she said with a slight smile.
"Are we in the same time zone as Beijing?"
"The entire country is in the same time zone, thirteen hours ahead of New York."
Ives tried her cell phone without success, then went outside and tried again. I looked at Clare Marvell, who was still smiling. “No reception here?"
"Of course not, unless you have one of those fancy satellite phones. This is rural China, not New York or London, for God's sake!"
I went to the door. “Give it up, Ives. There's no reception here."
I remembered our driver, Chen Yi, still waiting on the road, and went out to speak with him. “You don't happen to have a two-way radio in your car, do you?"
"Radio? No, no radio."
I sighed, resigned to a longer stay. “Look, we're going to be here for several hours, perhaps even overnight. Can you stay that long?"
"Is place to sleep?"
"I'll arrange for something."
I went back inside to find Ives and the Irish woman engaged in an altercation. “You must give me the package,” she was telling Ives. “It belongs to us!"
"Just a minute!” I said, parting them before they came to blows. “Tell me where I can find Dr. Brandon."
Before she could answer, I heard a horn honk. Clare peered out the window and told us, “It's Yang Yuxing and his hearse. Now what does he want?"
It was indeed a hearse that had pulled up in front of the stone farmhouse. A tall, slender Chinese dressed in black slid out from behind the wheel of the old hearse and came to the door. Clare flung it open before he could knock. “What are you doing here?” she demanded.
He smiled thinly, his face a mask of respectful firmness. “I have come for the body. You must give me the body today."
* * * *
It was Clare Marvell who spoke first. “There's no body here. Be gone with you!"
"Dr. Niles promised a body. Today is the day."
"Well, he was wrong. There's no body."
"Where is the doctor?"
She shook her head and started edging him out with her hands. “I have visitors here. I can't talk to you now."
"Tell doctor I need the body today."
But she ignored the request, closing the door in his face. “What was he talking about?” Ives asked.
Clare shook her head. “It's one of the rural folk customs in this part of China, and not a very pleasant one, I might add. When a young man dies in an unmarried state, some families arrange an afterlife marriage. If they can locate a family who has recently lost an unmarried daughter they arrange to purchase the corpse for burial with their son as a married couple, so they might have a happy afterlife."
"You've got to be kidding!” Ives said, clearly showing her astonishment.
"No, no, it is all too true. As a traveling funeral director, Yang Yuxing does quite a trade in matching up grief-stricken families. It's illegal, of course, but he quietly arranges the deals between families and takes a cut of the payment."
"How much money are we talking about?” I asked.
"The going rate is ten thousand yuan or more, about twelve hundred dollars in American money. Only the wealthier farmers can afford it."
"But why would he come here?” Ives demanded. “Surely Dr. Brandon would have no part in such a macabre custom."
"Of course not. He might have seen your waiting car and imagined that some wealthy farmer had come here with a dying child."
Our journey seemed to be getting more bizarre by the moment. I glanced around at the sparse facilities. Other than an examining table off
in one corner, there was no evidence that this rustic farmhouse was a physician's office. “You have no hospital facilities here,” I pointed out. “Why would anyone bring a dying child to Dr. Brandon?"
"You should ask him,” she replied. “Now give me the parcel."
I shook my head. “I'll deliver it only into his hands. Those were my instructions."
"Do you know what's in it?"
"Special medication of some sort. That's all we need to know."
She seemed to abandon her efforts then. “Niles was called to treat a local warlord,” she said, brushing some stray red hairs from her eyes. “That was two days ago. He hasn't been back since. Usually I go with him, but this time he was alone."
"A warlord?” Ives asked. “This is the twenty-first century."
"China is a huge country,” Clare said. “Some rural areas still exist in the past. The government tries to pacify them the best it can, but with someone like Lord Hsun it's hardly worth the effort."
"Hsun.” Ives repeated the name. “Our driver mentioned him. He said Hsun and Mao had both lived in this area."
"About seventy years apart. Mao had greater goals in mind. Hsun seems content to exact protection money from the farmers."
"Is there no law to stop him?"
"Anyone who refuses to pay or goes to the local magistrate is likely to end up dead in his field with an arrow or two in him. The people pay up."
"And Dr. Brandon...?"
She shook her head, revealing all the uncertainty she'd kept hidden until now. “I don't know. I don't know if he's alive or dead."
"Why would this Hsun want to kill him?” I asked.
"I don't know. I only know he's been gone for two days, and I need the contents of that parcel."
Something in her words spurred Ives into action. “Tell us where this man Hsun is and we'll go find Dr. Brandon. Stanton and I have experience dealing with the criminal element."
"But not in China,” I quickly reminded her.
"They're all the same,” she insisted. “Where is this man Hsun?"
EQMM, August 2007 Page 17