Hanging the Devil, page 11
Valenko flexed his fingers. “We have an understanding with the Chinese on Grant Avenue and the Italians in North Beach. The yakuza in their enclave on Hemlock Street. The Chechens and Vietnamese, the Irish, even the Ukrainians.” Valenko paused and looked around the table, making eye contact with each of his men. “We have…arrangements. Sometimes we import a product and one of our counterparts distributes that product while another provides protection. Depending on the product or service, we change roles and take different percentages. Most importantly, we pool resources to buy influence.”
“Police and politicians on the payroll.”
“So many politicians,” said Valenko. “Politicians you can buy in bulk.”
“Like toilet paper at Costco.” Cape spread his hands. “I get it. You don’t need me, and I might not need you. Just so we’re clear, you’re not my only line of investigation. You could have killed me before I sat down.”
“Yet here you are.”
“You have people on your payroll,” said Cape. “I have friends.”
“Friends.”
“Cops you haven’t bought. Headaches you don’t need.” Cape tilted his head toward Maria. “My famished friend has connections of her own. And the woman who turned your guard’s hand into a fist-kabob tends to hold a grudge.”
“Khorosho skazano.” Valenko tossed the bloody napkin on the table. “We understand each other.”
“I get the impression you didn’t know the heist was happening.”
“My nephew is…” Valenko paused, conscious of using the present tense, but he continued. “…impulsive. The men you seek must have approached him directly.”
“Why not go through you?”
“I don’t deal in stolen artwork.”
“Even as collateral?” Maria called out. The fingers of her right hand tapped the table near the gun. Her plate was empty.
“You’ve done your homework.” Valenko shook his head. “It’s true, art can be better than cash on the black market, if you can sell it. I find the appraisals too contentious.”
“The other men were Chinese,” said Cape, “They took something from the museum.”
“They took my nephew.”
“Without asking.”
“Da, that is what I don’t understand,” said Valenko. “You say the thieves were Chinese. There is a man who runs Chinatown—”
“—Freddie Wang.”
Valenko cocked an eyebrow. “It seems my name isn’t the only one you know.”
“I’ve crossed paths with Freddie before,” said Cape, “inadvertently.”
“If something gets stolen in this city, Freddie knows about it before it happens.”
“He knew you’d find out eventually,” said Cape. “Why not tell you he needed a pilot?”
“This is what concerns me.”
No one spoke for a full minute.
Valenko took a new glass and filled it with vodka. Cape watched the pour, clear liquid riding up the sides, turning the glass into a lens that distorted everything.
Cape realized he was looking through the wrong end of the telescope.
“Maybe Freddie isn’t the one who needed the pilot.”
“Who then?”
“Why risk keeping you in the dark?” asked Cape. “Unless it wasn’t Freddie’s operation.”
Valenko rubbed his hands together. “Someone told Freddie to keep this quiet.”
“Someone else is telling Freddie what to do,” said Cape, “in his city.”
“Someone…” Valenko paused to consider the implications. “…from someplace else.”
“Freddie wouldn’t like that very much.”
“Neither would I.”
“He might even sabotage the operation by hiring a pilot with a dangerous uncle.”
“He might.” Valenko gave a half grin that was somehow warmer than his full smile. “Detective, you are much more clever than—”
“—yeah.” Cape held up a hand. “I get that a lot.”
“What do you propose?”
“That you take the bait,” said Cape. “Stick your nose into Freddie’s business, make waves, and flush these men into the open.”
“And what will you be doing?” asked Valenko. “While I make waves?”
“Trying to surf.”
23
The sea cucumber surfed along the surface of the water.
Grace studied the ungainly creature as it started to drift and ride the tiny waves emanating from the aerator in the fish tank. It wasn’t much of a surfer. Grace pressed closer to the tank but still couldn’t tell how it moved, where its eyes were, or why anyone would ever want to eat it.
Grace was hiding in the storeroom behind the seafood market, directly across the street from Sally’s loft. Rushi had been sitting in her usual spot when Grace collapsed on the sidewalk at her feet. The old woman took one look at the girl with scuffed knees and bleeding hands before taking Grace by the hand and leading her to the back room of the market.
Rushi never asked what happened, she merely sat Grace in front of the reserve tanks and told her to study the animals. After a few minutes of silent sobs, it worked. The naiant wandering of the sea creatures was hypnotic. Her breathing returned to normal, her pulse slowed, and Grace didn’t even notice when Rushi left her alone.
Rushi was back on her folding chair when Sally arrived.
“Hello, Āyí.” Sally caught the expression on the old woman’s face as she gave her customary greeting. “What’s good tonight?”
“I have a fresh catch in back,” said Rushi. “Been saving it for you.”
Sally nodded and headed to the back room. Rushi remained at her perch and watched the entrance to Sally’s building.
Grace was studying an octopus as it meandered along the bottom of a tank. Its mottled texture shifted from brown to black to bloodred as it passed rocks and underwater ferns.
“An octopus is good at hiding,” said Sally. “You clearly are not.”
Grace started at Sally’s voice but kept staring at the octopus as it squeezed into a crevice and vanished. That was a trick she’d have to learn.
Sally saw the blood splashed across Grace’s cheek and noticed the absence of a cut or scratch. Someone else’s blood. Sally took the young girl’s left hand in both of hers and ran a thumb across the scraped knuckles and broken nails.
“Looks like we both had a big night.”
Grace looked at Sally with eyes that had aged a lifetime since morning. Sally returned the gaze and held it long enough to find the little girl inside. She was still there, hiding behind that guarded look. Sally sensed a cataract of tears waiting to erupt and marveled at the girl’s ability to hold it in check. Grace might be experiencing mild shock, or an adrenaline crash, but Sally guessed that stubbornness was the only thing keeping despair at bay.
Before Grace could stop her, Sally grabbed the backpack from the floor.
Sally’s eyes narrowed in reproach as she zipped it open. “Is this gun yours?”
Grace shook her head.
“Your uncle’s?”
Another shake.
“Did you handle it?”
“Only when I threw it in the backpack.”
Sally gave the backpack a little shake to shift the contents. Without touching the gun, she grabbed the rooster and handed it to Grace.
“Birth animal?”
A contrite nod. “My uncle gave it to me.”
Sally removed the photograph, fingers at the corner, and studied it. Neither of them spoke. Sally knew the baby was Grace without asking.
Sentimentality had been hammered out of Sally by instructors who told her that life began the day she entered the Triads. And yet Sally crossed an ocean to leave that school behind, and the only photographs she possessed were of her parents, taken during the first five years of her life. Those faded photographs gave Sally’s faint memories of childhood a structure.
Sally remembered her parents’ voices and often spoke to them in dreams, but thanks to those snapshots, she never forgot what they looked like. Sally zipped the backpack and looped it over her own shoulder. She handed the photograph to Grace.
“Am I in trouble?” Grace held the photograph in one hand and the rooster in the other.
“Bad men are after you, the police are looking for you, and there’s a stolen gun in your backpack,” said Sally. “Yes, I’d say you’re in trouble.” She tapped the photograph gently with a finger. “But you don’t need any more trouble from me.”
“I should have waited.”
“Yes,” said Sally. “That’s another lesson for today.”
“I remembered the first lesson,” said Grace. “I got away.”
“Then you won,” said Sally. “Now, little rooster, let’s go home.”
24
“I’m not going home,” said Wen. “I’m going to Dafen.”
Bohai scratched the stubble on his chin. “The art village?”
Wen nodded. They were lying down in the barracks, lights out, but their beds were close enough to whisper. Most of the other workers were asleep.
“That’s what the camp supervisor told me,” said Wen. “The head guard was there, too, the one who brought me to the office.”
Bohai nodded. “Biaggio, the ruffian who stutters.”
“That’s the one,” said Wen. “The supervisor did all the talking. I’m being transferred.”
The high windows pulsed rhythmically as rotating searchlights on the nearest fence penetrated the wired glass. Bohai’s features were clearly visible in the intermittent strobe. He looked bemused.
“What did you say?”
“I asked if I could return to Hong Kong,” replied Wen.
“And what did they say?”
“Biaggio smirked until the supervisor shot him a look,” said Wen. “Apparently my patriotic reeducation isn’t complete. Supposedly I’ll have better working conditions.”
“Maybe you’ll get your own bathroom.”
“Somehow I doubt it.”
“Security might be minimal,” said Bohai. “There are no labor camps in that region, it’s too densely populated.”
Wen watched the ghostly light wash the ceiling. “Why move me?”
Bohai rubbed his temples. “You taught art history?”
Wen nodded.
“You’re going to an art factory,” said Bohai. “It’s the only explanation.”
“But I’m not an artist,” said Wen. “I can tell you who painted something, and when, or which sculpture came from which dynasty, but I can’t paint or sculpt anything. Even my calligraphy is sloppy.”
“The art factories make reproductions,” said Bohai. “You’ll be some kind of production line supervisor, or something like that. Dafen is big business, one of the special economic zones. You don’t think communism pays for itself, do you?”
“No wonder they locked you up,” said Wen.
“You should have heard the customers at my bookstore.”
“I’m sorry I never visited your store when I was in Hong Kong.”
“I think you would have liked it,” said Bohai.
Wen gave a wistful look. “My wife would have told me to not buy anything.”
“Oh?”
“I meant that as a compliment.” Wen smiled. “She worked for the government.”
“The professor and the patriot,” said Bohai. “That’s a television show I would watch.”
Wen laughed. “Not as dramatic as you might think.” He glanced at Bohai. “I’m worried about leaving here… I know that sounds crazy.”
Bohai gave a wan smile. “I’ve enjoyed your company, too.”
“If they’re not going to release me…” Wen’s voice trailed off.
“You’d rather not be alone.” Bohai nodded. “You won’t be alone, Wen. You’ll meet other…” He almost said prisoners but added, “…workers. Just be careful what you say. You never know who’s within hearing distance.”
As if on cue, the man on the cot behind Bohai moaned and rolled over in his sleep.
“Xié xie.” Wen extended his right hand to reach across the gap between their beds. Bohai took the hand in both of his and gave it a squeeze. “I would have broken without your spirit.”
“I hope you see your daughter again someday,” said Bohai.
Wen inhaled deeply. “I thought you told me to forget her.”
“I’m a liar,” said Bohai. “I survive each day by lying to myself.”
Neither spoke as they contemplated their divergent futures. The heavy breathing of exhausted workers filled the room, punctuated by an occasional whimper or nightmare twitch. Three bunks away, a heavyset man with apnea snuffled and rumbled as he turned on his side.
The ambient noise protected Wen and Bohai from being overheard, but it also kept them from noticing a macaque sitting on the ledge of the nearest window.
The monkey had been sent to spy on them.
Doctor Loh trained all the macaques to register human facial expressions, starting with primary emotions like joy, sadness, worry, and fear. By matching prisoners’ photographs to an illustrated chart of mouths, eyes, and eyebrows, the doctor used a system of food rewards in a matching game. Monkeys matched facial expressions to photographs to report on which prisoners were acting suspicious.
The monkey in the window was named Junjie, which meant handsome. He should have been named Randy, because like all male macaques, he became uncontrollably aroused when a female macaque was nearby. Several were roaming outside the perimeter fence, and their scent carried. Junjie’s olfactory sense, like his sex drive, was exceptional.
Doctor Loh chose macaques for their brains without considering their loins.
Macaques were among the most lustful primates on earth. Clear the air of female pheromones, and a male macaque could solve puzzles baffling to humans, but one whiff of the opposite sex and the same monkey masturbates like a teenage boy after a cheerleading contest. The average monkey would succumb to his urges four times an hour, eight hours a day.
Junjie was an above average monkey.
He was smart enough to realize his own facial expressions would be studied by the doctor when he returned to the lab, so when the matching game began, Junjie simply widened or narrowed his eyes as he scanned the prisoners’ faces. He would furrow his brow and shake his head randomly. The doctor would feel satisfied that the inmates were not plotting a revolt, and Junjie would get his food.
Then he could resume jerking off.
Beyond hearing of the preoccupied primate, Wen’s voice undercut the surrounding snores. “What about you?”
“What about me?” asked Bohai.
“The night classes are rote memorization of party doctrine. You know the speeches by heart, I’ve heard you recite them.” Wen knew it was pointless to speculate but worried over his friend’s fate. “When will they be satisfied that you’ve reformed?”
“There are always more phones to build,” said Bohai, “and my fingers are nimble. Remember, you just went for a walk in Victoria Park, but I knowingly deceived party officials.” He smiled broadly. “You’re a naïve protestor, but me? I’m a subversive.”
“You sold used paperbacks.”
“There is nothing more subversive than a book, my friend.” Bohai’s eyes flashed in the dim light. “But don’t worry about me, I don’t intend to stay here forever.”
“You have a plan?”
“I have something better.” Bohai sat up long enough to survey the surrounding cots. Then he rolled onto his side, right arm behind his back, hand moving as if he was scratching his buttocks. Before Wen could ask what he was doing, Bohai brought his hand to the front and held something low against the mattress. “I have pliers.”
“How—”
“—don’t ask,” said Bohai. “Sometimes the guards are distracted when we work the fence. Remember the day of the movie?”
Wen considered the ramifications. “You said the fence isn’t always electrified.”
Bohai gestured at the milky light spilled across the ceiling. “When the searchlights break their pattern, you know the generator is down.” He rummaged beneath the rough blanket and replaced the pliers in the crevice from whence they came.
Wen realized why Bohai had always walked slowly. He carried pliers between his cheeks.
“Be careful,” said Wen. “Time it wrong and you could die.”
“We all die,” said Bohai, “But I won’t let them kill me slowly.”
Wen nodded. “I hope we see each other again.”
“In this life or the next. Now get some sleep, Professor. Tomorrow, you go to make art.”
“And you,” said Wen. “Go make trouble.”
25
“How much trouble?”
“How much trouble will Valenko make?” asked Cape. “Or how much trouble are you in, as an Interpol agent?”
“I hadn’t thought about that second question,” said Maria. “Let’s order another drink before my answer ruins the mood.” She caught the eye of a passing waiter whose grass skirt swished as he approached their table. His bare chest was covered by a lei of plastic flowers.
They sat in an underground bar at Maria’s hotel, the Fairmont on Nob Hill. The hotel was a white-columned marvel built over a century ago, where diplomats and celebrities came to meet, and Tony Bennett once came to sing.
The Fairmont was incongruously also home to the Tonga Room & Hurricane Bar, a tiki bar renowned for decor that was gaudy, loud, and ludicrous. Waiters and waitresses wore grass skirts, drinks came in carved coconut cups, and the band performed on a floating island in the middle of a converted swimming pool. Claps of thunder and flashes of lightning were thrown across the room by camouflaged speakers and strobes. The tiki bar was a wormhole to a kitsch dimension, hidden in the basement of an otherwise stuffy hotel.
Maria loved it. When their coconuts arrived, she removed the pink umbrella and took a sip of her drink, holding the cup with both hands.
“This place is so perfectly American.”
“You have a cultural theory to explain…” Cape gestured at the island band as they played Bing Crosby’s “Mele Kalikimaka” with electronic gusto. “…all this?”
