Hanging the Devil, page 13
“And pick up the bar tab,” said Cape.
“Not a chance.”
“Worth a shot,” said Cape.
“See you at police headquarters first thing.”
“Umm…no,” said Cape. “My office.”
“Fine,” Beau shrugged. “See you at eight.”
Maria rubbed her temples. “Can we say nine?”
“Deal,” said Beau.
28
“I’ll make you a deal,” said Doctor Loh. “Cooperate, and I won’t cut your head off.”
“Sounds like a generous offer.” Bohai scratched his belly and looked around the room. “What did you have in mind?”
His surroundings made Bohai think of his bookstore in Hong Kong, which had a section dedicated to Western cinema and several titles on early Gothic horror. Doctor Loh’s laboratory resembled a movie set from the 1931 film Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff. Blinking lights, test tubes, surgical equipment, examination tables. The door was steel, with a circular lock like a submarine. Sporadic flashes of light emanated from a tunnel branching off the main chamber. The walls were unfinished stone.
Doctor Loh was standing by one of the examination tables wearing a white lab coat.
He was bald, save for a few strands of black hair jutting out like cat’s whiskers on either side of his skull. Brown eyes were watery but bright behind wire-rimmed spectacles, set wide on a broad face with a long nose and small mouth. His teeth were uneven, sharp enough to strip insulation from wire or flesh from bone.
He smiled at Bohai like a carnival barker in a Ray Bradbury novel.
“I designed this laboratory myself.”
“I can tell.” Bohai never thought of Gothic horror stories as inspiration for interior design; then again, Orwell wrote cautionary tales, not instruction manuals, yet Bohai was trading pleasantries with a government-funded mad scientist. He rubbed his chin and continued to survey the lab as he stalled for time. “We haven’t been properly introduced.”
“You know who I am,” said Loh with a wave of his hand. “And you’re—”
“—a prisoner?”
“We do not use that term.” Loh pursed his lips. “You are a worker at this facility.”
“Not an essential worker?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well,” said Bohai, “the guard pulled me off the production line to bring me here. So what I was doing must not be very important.”
“All the work we do here is important.”
“Important to whom?” asked Bohai. “To the party, the country, or the—”
“—people,” said Loh.
“Ah, I was going to ask if it was important to the Western companies whose products we make,” said Bohai. “I forgot about ‘the people.’”
Doctor Loh’s left eye twitched. Nothing like a game of double-speak to unsettle a bureaucrat. Bohai took that as a good sign.
Every minute you keep him talking is another minute he doesn’t cut you open.
Bohai had been surprised when the guard sent him in alone, but now it made sense. Doctor Loh clearly didn’t consider inmates a threat. Most were so emotionally cowed or physically depleted that they put up no resistance. The outcome was inevitable whether they fought, pleaded, or accepted their fate.
“What is it you want to know?” asked Bohai.
“Your friend, Wen, left the camp.”
Bohai nodded. “I will miss him.”
“You admit you were friends.”
Bohai shrugged. “We were friendly.”
“Do you know why he was here?”
Bohai shook his head.
“He participated in a march, a protest against the government.”
“Was it a peaceful protest?”
“It was unlawful assembly.”
“We all did something before we came here,” said Bohai.
“Just so,” said Loh. “You ran a bookstore.”
“Yes,” said Bohai. “I like to read.”
“Some books are dangerous,” said Loh.
Sociopaths with scalpels are dangerous.
“Do I look dangerous?” asked Bohai.
“No.” Loh studied Bohai from head to toe. “You are too subversive to release and too educated to work the fences. Your insouciant answers suggest you’re inclined to tell the truth. And I happen to need a new lab assistant.”
“What happened to the old lab assistant?” asked Bohai. “Was there an accident?”
“Of course there was an accident,” said Doctor Loh. “What do you think the word ‘experiment’ means?”
“Something might go wrong?”
“Precisely.” Loh waved an arm to encompass his underground lair. “What I do here is important, yet the guards are too stupid and clumsy, and the workers too ignorant or fearful.” Loh smiled. “So that leaves you. The last man standing.”
“Are you offering me a job?”
“I’m giving you responsibility.”
Bohai scratched the stubble under his chin. “Do I have a choice?”
“Remember the option of having your head cut off?”
“When do I start?” asked Bohai.
29
Cape awoke with a start to the sound of someone snoring.
The buzz-saw breathing stopped as soon as he jolted awake, but Cape couldn’t see the culprit because someone had glued his eyelids shut. He suspected it was the same scoundrel who’d pasted his tongue to the roof of his mouth.
With a Herculean effort, Cape pried his eyelids apart.
Grace sat at his feet, on the end of the couch, smiling.
“Would you like some tea?”
She held a steaming mug between her small hands.
Cape scooted backward on the couch until his back was against the armrest. That seemed to stop the spinning. He looked at Grace, then past her at Sally, who was walking on her hands like an acrobat at the far end of the room.
Sally wagged a foot in his direction by way of hello.
That’s when Cape remembered that he’d asked Beau to drop him off at his office instead of his apartment. He must have called Sally on the way. His inebriated instincts reasoned it would be better to crash on the couch than crawl out of bed and drive to his office with a hangover. Now all he had to do was focus.
Cape got his tongue detached and asked, “What time is it?”
“Seven-thirty,” said Grace. “Sally says you have just enough time to make yourself presentable.”
Cape accepted the tea with a grateful nod. He had drunk Sally’s tinctures before but this seemed particularly potent. His eyes started to water as soon as the steam drifted across his face. He peered at the bilious brew with a questioning look on his face.
“Do I want to know what’s in this?”
“Something that smells bad,” said Grace.
“It tastes worse than it smells.” Sally moved closer on her hands, then snapped both legs forward and landed on her feet at the base of the couch. “But you’ll be as sober as a sermon after you drink it.”
“Swell….more like swill.” Cape considered holding the mug for a while to let the warmth run up his arms, but the smell was overpowering. Grace watched him with unabashed fascination. Maybe she’d never seen anyone hungover before, but her stare felt like a dare.
Cape downed the drink in one scalding gulp.
His esophagus caught fire. Eyes and nose started to run a race that neither would win. His ears popped. Grace started giggling. Cape gasped and wheezed for a short eternity. Then his head cleared like a guilty conscience after confession.
Cape pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his nose. “Thanks, I guess.”
“You snore,” said Grace. “Very, very loudly.” Her lips contorted as she tried to suppress a laugh. “You woke yourself up!”
“I was just pretending to snore,” said Cape, “so anyone who snuck into my office would think I was asleep.”
“You were asleep.”
“See?” said Cape. “I even had you fooled.”
Grace made a humph sound as Cape stood and crossed to the cabinet behind his desk. One of the best things about this building was the shower in the first-floor bathroom, a relic of a dot-com era renovation. Thirty minutes later Cape no longer smelled like a distillery.
When he returned to his office, Maria was sitting on the couch talking to Grace.
The coffee cup in Maria’s hand was big enough to irrigate Death Valley, but she looked much better than Cape felt. Sally leaned against the bookcase. Cape noticed she stayed within Grace’s line of sight.
“Good morning,” said Maria.
“Buenos días,” said Cape. “Get any sleep?”
Maria held up her free hand in a so-so gesture. “Grace was telling me about last night’s adventure.”
Cape turned one of his client chairs around and sat a few feet away from the couch. He wanted Grace to see all three of them without feeling crowded. As she told her story, it became clear to Cape that he needn’t worry. Grace was not easily intimidated.
When her narrative arrived in the alley where her assailant got his balls kicked into outer space, Cape glanced at Sally. The corner of her mouth twitched, but the suppressed smile was visible in her eyes. When Grace finished talking, she tugged at a wrinkle on her pant leg and gave Maria a wan smile.
“You were brave,” said Maria.
Grace caught Sally’s eye. “I was impulsive.”
“You are both,” said Sally, “in equal parts.”
“I’m seventy percent impulsive,” said Cape. “Maybe seventy-five.”
Sally turned to Cape. “What’s the play?”
“You’re not here,” said Cape. “But you’re nearby.” He turned to Maria. “Beau talks to Grace about the museum, not last night.”
Grace said something in Cantonese to Sally. Sally responded quickly and shook her head, then turned to Cape. “She doesn’t want to go to police headquarters.”
“That’s why we’re meeting here,” said Cape. “She won’t have to.”
Maria gave him a look. “Won’t the inspector have to take her in, for protection?”
“That would be standard procedure,” said Cape. “I don’t think he will.”
“Why not?”
Cape winked at Grace. “Just a hunch.”
Beau arrived half an hour later with a laptop under his arm.
Cape met him at the door to the office and shook his hand. Maria was standing near the couch. The two client chairs had been arranged in front of the windows at the far end of the room. Grace was sitting in one of them, but she stood when Beau entered.
Sally was gone.
Beau handed the laptop to Cape. “This leaves with me. ” He tapped a finger against the computer. “I watched it once, with Vinnie. He’s using a screenshot to ID the second burglar, the taller guy. See if you recognize him—pretty sure he works for Freddie, too.”
“Got it.”
Beau reached into his jacket pocket and fished out a pair of headphones. “And wear these.” He glanced in Grace’s direction. “It gets noisy.”
Cape walked Beau over to Grace and made the introductions.
Beau shook Grace’s hand, which disappeared inside his grip. She craned her neck to look him in the eye, until he sat down and made it easier. Grace remained standing for a moment to study his face. Beau could look as impassive as an oak tree, his eyes as sharp as flint, but now his face was open and friendly, eyes reassuring. A born poker player and career cop.
“Are all policeman as big as you?” Grace asked as she sat down.
Cape cut in. “Inspector Jones is unusually large, because he has such a big heart.”
Beau smiled. “I hear you saw a ghost.”
Grace nodded.
“So did I.”
Beau started to talk in a low voice. Better to whisper when telling ghost stories. Cape left them sitting knee-to-knee, silhouetted against the windows.
He stepped over to the couch and sat next to Maria, on her left. She already had the laptop open. She scooted closer to hand him one of the earphones, stretching the cord to insert the other in her own left ear. When he was ready, she pressed the space bar.
The image was split-screen, taken from multiple security cameras simultaneously. Playback started from the moment Grace stood transfixed on the skywalk, seconds before the helicopter crashed into the building. When the rotor blades snapped and flew across the gallery, Maria grabbed Cape’s hand in hers, squeezing until his knuckles popped and the headless body of Grace’s uncle fell out of frame.
As Maria released his hand, Cape flicked his eyes at Grace, but her attention was still on Beau. She did not see their shocked expressions so didn’t relive her uncle’s death vicariously. The scene unfolded on the laptop, two men following a chalky will-o’-the-wisp around the museum. In the frozen memory of the tape, Grace hid as tendrils of fog wrapped around a golden Buddha and lifted it from its pedestal.
Grace lunged as the ghost inside the fog moved closer. The chase ensued.
After Grace’s flight from the museum, the end of the recording was anticlimactic. The thieves checked the burning helicopter, returned to the gallery, then made an orderly exit from the main entrance and climbed into a waiting car.
“They didn’t even bother to use a side entrance,” said Maria.
“And they weren’t in a hurry,” said Cape. “They knew the response time—”
“—or they had a backup plan for a hasty retreat.”
“No plates on the car.”
Cape nodded. “One more time?”
Maria ran the video a second time. Cape tried to ignore all the boxes on the screen except the upper left, the one with the best view of the gallery. He noticed Maria’s eyes were locked on the bottom right.
They ran the tape four times.
Cape felt Maria’s body tense at key intervals, her posture different after the fourth viewing. They looked at each other. The glint in her eyes reflected the excitement he felt. The corners of her mouth turned upward. Clearly he didn’t have as good a poker face as Beau.
Cape wondered if they had spotted the same thing.
He didn’t have any answers, but there was one question that Cape was dying to ask.
“What’s in the helicopter?”
He said it loud enough for Beau to hear. Grace stopped talking, and Beau’s head swiveled around. If he was annoyed at the interruption, it didn’t show. Cape figured Grace had told Beau all she could, and now he was having her go over certain details.
Beau said something softly to Grace, stood, and crossed to the couch. Cape made eye contact with Grace. She gave a small wave, then turned and glanced out the open window at the street below. Cape turned his attention to Beau and scooted along the couch until he pressed against the left armrest. She patted the worn leather and tilted the laptop in his direction. Maria slid over to make room on her right for Beau.
She tapped the screen with a manicured nail. “This is when they return to the helicopter.”
Beau nodded.
“Why go back?” asked Cape.
“Make sure the pilot is dead.”
“He was on fire,” said Cape, “and stopped screaming.”
“Definitely dead,” said Maria.
“They wanted to make sure the helicopter was still burning,” said Cape.
“Maybe.” Beau rubbed the stubble on his cheek. “And the pilot wasn’t the only witness, was he?” He tilted his head toward Grace to underscore his point, then said, “What the hell?”
Two empty chairs sat by the open window. A breeze was the only thing moving across the room. Grace had vanished.
Beau whipped his head around. No chance that she had snuck by him. The office door was closed, the room too narrow for her to have passed the couch unnoticed. He gave Cape a leaden stare.
“Goddammit, she’s a material witness.”
“Who?” asked Cape.
“I don’t see anyone,” added Maria.
Beau looked at Maria. “You’re as bad as he is.”
“She’s much better,” said Cape.
“Or much worse,” said Beau. “But the kid—”
“—is only eleven.”
“Exactly,” said Beau, “that’s why—”
“—she’s safe,” said Cape. “Child services can’t protect her as well as Sally can.” He paused and held Beau’s gaze. “We both know that.”
Beau made a low sound in his throat that may have signaled grudging assent. “Okay, Houdini, you made a girl disappear…any other tricks up your sleeve?”
“Just wait.” Cape held up his hands and wiggled his fingers with a flourish. “You won’t believe what happens next.”
30
Doctor Loh wiggled his fingers. They looked crooked and arthritic.
“You’re good with your hands?” he asked.
“Surely your monkeys told you,” said Bohai.
Loh’s narrow lips curled upward. “Would you like to meet one of them?”
Bohai forced a smile. “I’d love to.”
The doctor stepped from in front of the examination table to reveal that it was occupied. A macaque was strapped to the frame, a metal collar around its neck bolted to the table. The monkey’s yellow eyes were wide, its teeth bared. Bohai couldn’t tell if it was angry or afraid.
“Come closer,” said Doctor Loh.
Bohai shuffled nearer the table. The monkey was the size of a small child, and Bohai couldn’t help but feel sympathy for the creature. Like their human counterparts, there wasn’t much choice for them once they left this room.
He took another step, and his blood froze.
On the floor beyond the far side of the table sat a basket with handles on each side. It was almost a meter high, the kind you might use as a laundry hamper. From where Bohai had been standing, the basket appeared to be filled with balls, or maybe grapefruit, since there was a pinkish-yellow tinge to the round objects. Now he could see clearly what they were.
The basket was filled with the severed heads of macaques.
Bohai guessed there must be at least twenty, maybe more. Bearded chins, pink faces, tiny noses, and dead eyes. The doctor spread his hands apologetically.
