Boxing the Octopus, page 10
“You’re paying me, ask whatever you like.”
“I’m sorry I got defensive about Hank,” said Vera, “but some of your questions sound like you’re trying to find out why Hank is guilty, not prove that he’s innocent.”
“Well, if I can’t prove something, the opposite must be true.”
Relief washed over her, and Vera lunged forward and hugged him. Cape was too surprised to do anything but catch his breath. Her hair carried the smell of summer rain, a day’s optimism only slightly dampened.
She stood quickly, smoothed her skirt, and crossed to the door. As she gripped the doorknob, she turned and smiled. “For a moment I was worried you had no idea what you were doing.”
“Yeah,” said Cape. “I get that a lot.”
28
“You must get a lot of kiska.”
Whenever Sergey thought out loud, Eva considered him a prime example of why ingesting too much Ritalin at a young age turned out badly later in life.
“As a security guard,” insisted Sergey. “You must get laid all the time.”
Eva ignored him and rummaged through her jacket pockets. Anastasia paced around the warehouse but kept glancing at her brother like a concerned mother checking her son’s pupils for dilation.
Sergey sensed his flawless logic was getting lost on his sisters, but he was unwilling to cede his point. “Nastya, you weren’t there, but this lesbiyanka bartender, she practically swooned when we showed her the guard’s picture.”
Anastasia looked to Eva for clarity but her kid sister only shrugged, unwrapped a wild cherry Jolly Rancher, and popped it into her mouth.
“She doesn’t sound like a girl who prefers girls,” said Anastasia. “I think maybe she just prefers a man in uniform to a bomzh like you.”
“Maybe she was a zero girl, a novice,” said Sergey defensively. “But you see my point, yes? It must be the uniform.”
“We could buy you a uniform,” said Eva over the click-clack of hard candy against her teeth. “Over at the costume shop.”
“Novice lesbian,” scoffed Anastasia. “Have you ever met an actual lesbian, Sergey?”
“How would I know?”
“Idiot,” said Eva. “Maybe I’m a lesbian.”
Sergey shook his head. “You talk about dicks too much.”
“Maybe it’s a cover.” Eva sucked loudly on her candy.
Anastasia took a step closer. “I’m a lesbian,” she said, “and you’re an imbecile.”
Sergey caught the look in his older sister’s eyes and realized she wasn’t pulling his leg. He felt momentarily contrite, but since the emotion was new to him, it didn’t take hold.
“No kidding?” he said. “I just thought you were acting responsible.”
Eva bit her candy in half. “Straight girls aren’t responsible?”
“Not the ones who spend time with Sergey,” said Anastasia. “Clearly.”
“Good point,” said Eva with a smirk.
“How come you never told me?”
Eva smacked him on the arm. “How come you never knew?”
“Because it’s none of your business,” said Anastasia. “And I want my private life to stay private.”
“But this is San Francisco.” Sergey’s brow furrowed. “And besides, lesbians are—”
“—don’t say it.” Eva cut him off, turning to Anastasia. “You see what I have to put up with?”
“Our uncle is a narrow-minded, conservative old man,” said Anastasia. “A relic from mat’ Rossiya, who has difficulty enough allowing a woman to run his business. But he knows that you, Sergey, are not…” She paused, softening her tone. “…ready. Would you agree?”
Sergey opened his mouth and closed it immediately, then nodded. For the first time, Eva considered the possibility that her brother wasn’t entirely stupid.
“So I need you to stop acting the fool,” continued Anastasia. “And keep your mouth shut. A chatterbox is a gift to his enemies.”
“Now you sound like our uncle,” said Eva.
Anastasia ignored her and stayed focused on Sergey. “Do you think you can do that, mladshiy brat?”
Sergey was so used to being called names by his sisters that being called “little brother” almost brought him to tears. “Of course, Nastya. But why are we having this conversation?”
“One day soon, I will have to take over for uncle, and you will have to take over from me.” Anastasia let that sink in for a moment. “And things are about to get messy on the pier.” She strode across the warehouse and took a nesting doll from its shipping box, cradling it like a child. “Each one of these, even with the little dolls nested inside, can hold half-a-kilogram of any powdered substance, from baby powder to cocaine.”
“We know this,” said Eva, unwrapping another candy. “So why all the trouble now?”
“Because some things are worth more than cocaine.” Anastasia placed the doll back in the box. “And when the economics of a situation change, it changes the balance of things.”
“If there’s more money for everybody,” said Eva, “why is somebody acting like a khuligan?”
“Too much money is like too much sugar.” Anastasia looked pointedly at Eva, who was unwrapping a third candy even before she’d finished the second. “Everyone gets a rush, then they get greedy for more.”
“You sound like a communist,” said Sergey.
“We are definitely not communists,” replied Anastasia, “but we are Russian, and we know trouble never comes alone.”
Eva lost patience and bit into the hard candy with a crack that echoed around the warehouse like a starting pistol. “So what do you want us to do?”
“I want you to cause trouble.”
“We can do that,” said Sergey confidently.
“How?” asked Eva skeptically.
Anastasia smiled warmly at them both.
“I want you to send somebody a message.”
29
Cape got the message but wasn’t sure he understood it.
Sally asked to meet in Chinatown, which wasn’t surprising since she lived there, but her message said to rendezvous at the Willie Woo Woo Playground.
Cape had been to Sally’s home and dojo countless times, so meeting in a playground in the middle of the night was a bit unusual, even for Sally.
Cape crossed Waverly Place, passing by the First Baptist Chinese Church, an imposing structure with extruded stone accents pockmarking its brick exterior at irregular intervals. A medieval fortress with a skin condition.
The playground was locked, but Cape kept walking to Hang Ah Street and hopped over a low wall. To his right was a tennis court, on his left basketball, and straight ahead was a jungle gym constructed over a bed of sand. There was a big slide and a smaller one, a rope bridge, and a climbing tower covered by low trees.
There were no lights in the playground, and the nearest streetlight was half a block away. It was too late for families and too early for the local gangs. Cape had the place to himself.
He walked over to the jungle gym and took a seat at the base of the big slide, his shoes in the sand and his eyes on the gate.
Cape’s glance drifted toward the basketball court. The playground was named for Willie Wong, a champion basketball player for the University of San Francisco in the late forties. Whenever he scored, the crowd would cheer “Woo Woo!” The nickname stuck the rest of his life. Cape remembered hearing the story when Willie was inducted into the USF Hall of Fame in 2007.
Being in the Hall of Fame was impressive, but having a playground named after you was totally badass.
A car sped by on Waverly, its tires a hoarse whisper that barely reached him. Despite a gentle breeze, the branches overhead didn’t rustle, their leaves still green. The only thing Cape could hear was his heart.
“Thanks for coming.”
Cape couldn’t hear his heart anymore because it had stopped. As soon as his pulse returned, he said, “You could’ve knocked.”
The shadows at the base of the tower shifted, melted across the rope bridge without making it sway, and flowed down the small slide.
Sally emerged from a pool of darkness that made the night look pale.
“There isn’t any door.”
Cape took a breath. “Bang on the monkey bars, wear squeaky shoes, try developing a cough.”
Sally’s mouthed twitched, a mere frisson of a smile.
“Why are we here?” asked Cape.
“And not my place?”
“Yeah.” Cape tried to read her implacable expression but gave up as she sat cross-legged on the sand.
“I might have a shadow.”
“You practically are a shadow,” said Cape. “Who could follow you?”
“Someone like me.”
Cape started to say there is no one like you, but he knew that wasn’t entirely true. Sally was certainly one of a kind, but her training was specialized, not exclusive. The school where she spent her childhood was full of girls who had been orphaned, abandoned, or sold outright by their families to the Triads.
One child too many and not a boy.
Some of the girls became escorts, the rest became weapons.
Cape had met one of Sally’s instructors from Hong Kong, and the man’s face still appeared in nightmares as unexpectedly as Sally appeared tonight. Cape never wanted to meet anyone from that school ever again.
“You’re sure?” asked Cape.
“No.” Sally frowned. “Yes.”
Cape stayed quiet.
“I left a long time ago,” said Sally, “but some things are imprinted on your memory. She could be as she appears, on the surface, and honestly there is no indication that she’s not.”
“But…”
“The surface is too perfect,” said Sally. “Too placid, not a single ripple or wave.”
“Nice metaphor.”
“She moves like water,” said Sally simply.
Cape understood what she meant, even if he didn’t understand how it was done. He felt clumsy just looking at Sally.
“If she didn’t train at the same school as I did,” said Sally, “she trained somewhere else.”
“There’s more than one?”
“Think of the Triads as a franchise operation,” replied Sally. “Global reach, all the way from Hong Kong to the Tong gangs in San Francisco, New York, London, Toronto, Sydney.”
“Like McDonald’s, only with knives and throwing stars in the Happy Meals?”
Sally nodded. “Any city with a big Asian community.”
“Why is she here?”
“That’s why we’re here,” said Sally, her right arm encompassing the playground. “I don’t want us to be seen together until I know why she’s here.”
Cape started to say something, but she held up a hand.
“I want to control what she sees,” said Sally. “She is here to protect something, protect someone, steal something, or kill someone.”
“I vote for the first two.”
“We may not have a choice,” said Sally. “She’s seen me, and I’m known in Chinatown.”
“Didn’t I say that if you wanted to play vigilante and run across rooftops, you should invest in a bat costume?”
“You watch too many movies.”
“That’s like saying you eat too many vegetables,” said Cape. “Secret identities are important.”
“Then why don’t you have one?”
“I do,” said Cape. “By day, I’m masquerading as a private detective.”
“And by night?”
“I’m usually asleep.”
“Your secret is safe with me.”
A few blocks away a car alarm wailed and died. Sally sat motionless as Cape considered the implications of what she had told him. Another car passed by like a wave at low tide. When the silence returned Cape said, “I learned how to make synthetic marijuana.”
“New hobby?” asked Sally. “Or relevant to our situation?”
“You tell me.” Cape described his donut discovery and subsequent visit to the lab. Sally was so still, even the playground forgot she was there.
Cape finished his narrative by saying, “Guess where the final product is manufactured.”
“China.” Sally replied without hesitation.
“It occurred to me that you might know someone with Chinese connections.”
“I do,” said Sally. “I see her every time I look in the mirror.”
30
The Doctor held the mirror steady until his patient caught sight of her reflection and realized the entire surface of her skin was black and blue.
“Okay, Marge,” said the Doctor in a soothing voice, “say calamari.” He tilted the mirror to catch the yellow gleam of the overhead lights, which triggered a rush of blood beneath the surface of her skin. Before the mirror had stopped moving, Marge was looking more sickly than bruised, her flesh mottled green and gray.
“See that?” said the Doctor. “Instantaneous pigment realignment, and not monochromatic either.” He gazed in admiration at Marge, who was a fine specimen of octopus rubescens, a fresh catch flown to the island that morning. Around twenty centimeters in length, she wasn’t very intimidating, but the Doctor knew her eight arms were strong enough to break a glass jar if there was something inside that she wanted. “You know how much neurochemistry that takes?”
“Chromatophores.”
“What?” The Doctor turned toward the medical assistant on his left, a petite Chinese woman with a slight British accent, short black hair, and absolutely no sense of humor. She had flown in from Hong Kong only yesterday, after being vetted by his sponsors.
Her name was Joy, which the Doctor found ironic because he’d never seen her smile. He sensed that had something to do with her feelings toward him, but he wasn’t introspective enough to give a shit.
“Chromatophores,” she repeated. “Specialized skin cells that can expand or contract to change the pattern of reflected light to mimic any surface, predator, or environment.”
“Yeah, but before the chromato-whatever-you-call-em transform—”
“Chromatophores,” said Joy in a lightly accented monotone.
“You said that already.”
“I thought you were having trouble saying it.”
“Are you always this literal?”
“I thought it was my role to—”
“—that was a rhetorical question.” The Doctor held out his hands. “May I finish?”
Joy nodded, her eyes neutral but her mouth a straight line of disapproval.
“Before Marge or any octopus can change color,” said the Doctor, “she has to recognize a pattern, identify it as potential threat or prey, then send a signal across her nervous system to replicate the colors down to the most minute detail. That means her eyes are better than ours, and her brains—she has nine, by the way—are faster than ours.” He drummed his fingers on the curved surface of the tube that held Marge captive. “Because her underlying blood chemistry is more efficient.” The Doctor gazed lovingly at Marge. “She’ll never get Alzheimer’s or dementia of any kind.”
Marge appeared disinterested in her own state of mind, drifting aimlessly inside a tall glass column jutting upwards from the counter. There were ten such containers, each with its own colorful tenant. Second in the row was a female red octopus, followed by a male California Two-Spot, named for iridescent blue rings that looked like the eyes of a much bigger creature. A fish caught unawares would be hypnotized by that false stare just long enough for the tentacles to capture their prey.
The Doctor passed an octopus of almost every conceivable hue as he strode along the counter. Some were smaller than a child’s hand, others big enough to reach the top shelf in a mermaid’s library.
At the end of the counter, a pair of genome sequencers hummed. Each had a small door through which trays of test tubes could be inserted. As the blood, urine, or saliva was processed, a scrolling sheet of graph paper would emerge alongside a matching digital display, the peaks and valleys revealing the seismic shifts in DNA that define every living organism.
“On the left we have a DNA run from Marge,” said the Doctor, “and on the right, we have the corresponding sequence from the, um, pilot.” He congratulated himself for not saying dead pilot. Though he had hated every minute of it, the Doctor had to admit sensitivity training at his last job really paid off.
He turned to Joy and jabbed a finger at the two readouts. “Your job is to find the gaps. Not the big ones, those will only tell us which one’s an octopus and which is homo sapiens. Look for the tiny gaps and circle them. All of them.”
Joy looked perplexed. “That’s it?”
“That’s only the beginning.” Behind the sequencers a soundproof window was set into the wall, providing a clear view of the adjoining laboratory. A handful of technicians moved between stations, carrying racks of test tubes and digital clipboards. The Doctor pressed his right index finger against the window. “In the lab, do you see the guy in the lab coat—”
“—they’re all wearing lab—”
“Will you let me finish?” asked the Doctor. “The guy in the lab coat with bright red hair?”
“You could have just said the technician with red hair,” said Joy. “After all—”
“Holy shit.”
“I see him,” said Joy sullenly.
“That’s Archie,” said the Doctor. “Show him the gaps, and he’ll know what to do.”
“May I ask what we’re trying to do?”
“Close the gaps.”
Joy looked intrigued but perplexed.
The Doctor loved an audience, even an audience he didn’t love. “We can’t change someone’s DNA, clearly, but we can rewire their body chemistry so it appears as if we have.” He pointed toward a far corner of the lab at a wooden shipping crate labelled with Cyrillic letters. “We’ve had some promising results using phenazepam, but the effects vary across different blood types, for reasons we don’t understand yet, and deviate wildly depending on which of our friends…” He gave a quick wave toward octopus row. “Depending on which species is the donor.”
