Hanging the Devil, page 18
“How hard?”
“He’ll never have children,” said Sally, “but he’s still breathing.”
Cape watched as the gray sedan that had been following Gerry’s Uber rolled past both buildings, then made a slow U-turn and pulled against the curb a block south. Gerry didn’t seem to notice; he was looking at his phone. Cape caught a glimpse of the driver before a break in the clouds threw glare against the windshield.
“That’s Vinnie.”
“I wanted to get Gerry first,” said Sally.
“You got here first, so congratulations,” said Cape, “but if the police bring him in, all the better.”
“Hang back?” asked Sally.
“Definitely,” said Cape. “Vinnie was talking into the radio. Company is coming.”
“They’ll never hold Freddie,” said Sally. “He’ll deny he was here to meet anyone.”
“Yep.” Cape suspected Vinnie would wait for backup, and patrol cars wouldn’t approach until Gerry went inside. He turned to take another look south and cursed under his breath.
“What is it?” Sally heard the roar of an engine.
The red Camaro was racing toward the factory.
Gerry glanced up from his phone but looked unconcerned, as if a strange car on a deserted street had nothing to do with him. He was probably so inured to working under Freddie’s protection that the only thing he feared was getting on the wrong side of his boss.
The smoked windows on the Camaro made it impossible to see the driver, but Cape had a sinking feeling he knew who owned the car.
39
“Valenko bought this car, so you’d better not mess it up, Ely.”
Ely ignored his brother and started rolling down the window. He didn’t want glass to blow back and blind him when he fired at the guy on the sidewalk.
Pasha did have a point. When they told Maksim Valenko—the pakhan of the brotherhood, the boss of bosses—that they didn’t own a car, he stared at them in disbelief. Ely and Pasha tried to explain that nobody their age owned a car in San Francisco. No place to park, and if you did have a car and managed to park on the street, your windows got smashed. Besides, who needs a car when you can hail a ride with your phone?
When Valenko asked how they planned on running down a rival gang member with an Uber, the two brothers stopped talking. The pakhan solved the problem by loaning them a car that belonged to one of his men. It was a fast, loud American vehicle that Valenko had bought the man as a gift, after a troublesome witness in a racketeering case vanished before the trial.
So the car had sentimental value to two men capable of making both Ely and his brother disappear. Pasha was the better driver and the only one with a license. That put Ely in the back seat as the shooter.
Their instructions were clear. Make trouble for Freddie Wang in a fashion impossible to ignore, and in a manner that demanded reprisal. Start a skirmish. Do not injure Freddie, but any of his men were fair game. No collateral damage or innocent bystanders.
Valenko didn’t want to start a war, but he did intend to make a point.
And if Ely or Pasha saw either of the idiots who were in the helicopter with Valenko’s murdered nephew, then by all means, scorch the earth.
“Ten seconds.”
Pasha shifted the wheel to aim the car down the center of the street, rapidly closing the distance to the guy with the neon running shoes. This was definitely the tall guy from the museum. Valenko called in a favor to hack into the museum’s security system and watch the tapes. One of the benefits of being in the Russian mafiya was their ties to the FSB, the foreign intelligence service that specializes in recreational hacking of social media platforms and disruption of energy grids across the United States. Compared to the mischief they made on a regular basis, finding a back door into a museum’s firewall was a cakewalk.
Ely lifted the bazooka from his lap and tried to remember exactly how it worked.
The Miniman was a disposable, single-shot, anti-tank weapon designed by the Swedish military. This one was a Pansarskott m/68 which fired a 74-millimeter H.E.A.T. projectile, the acronym meaning high-explosive anti-tank. In other words, a missile capable of penetrating armor with the assuredness of a blowtorch melting ice on a summer day.
Ely wondered what it might do to the guy in the orange shoes.
It was bad enough this guy didn’t lift a hand to save Valenko’s nephew from being cremated alive. This guy deserved to suffer for buying those fucking shoes. Even from a distance the neon orange and lime green were burning Ely’s corneas.
And that’s how, one step at a time, taste and elegance walk out of the world, thought Ely.
“Ely, are you ready?” Pasha called from the front seat. “Ely!”
Ely ceased his ruminations on the soles of men.
“Da, brat, drive the car.”
“I am driving, and we’re right on top of him.”
“Then slow down, so I don’t miss.” Ely lifted the meter-long tube to his shoulder.
“Did you notice that other car?”
“The gray one parked on the curb, what about it?”
“It’s a boring sedan,” said Pasha. “Might be politsiya.”
“If it’s police,” said Ely, “then speed up as soon I fire.”
“How about we keep rolling and try another time?”
“You want to tell Valenko we were scared off by a boring car?” asked Ely. “Can you even see a driver?”
“Not from this angle.”
“Our windows are tinted,” said Ely, “so he can’t see us.”
“He could identify the car.”
Ely snorted. “A blind man could identify this car, it’s a red Camaro.”
“We could say it was stolen.”
“Da, my mogli.”
“Then make it quick,” said Pasha. “And don’t miss.”
The Miniman was surprisingly light. Once the device was positioned correctly on the shoulder, a plastic sight swung into place. Ely found the factory, then shifted the angle until he found his target at the corner of the building. He zeroed in on the shoes.
Ely curled his index finger around the trigger, leaned against the inside of the door, and extended the muzzle through the open window. “Gotovy.”
The car screeched to a stop in the middle of the street. Ely glanced over his shoulder and realized the gray sedan was directly behind him. A man sat behind the wheel holding a radio in one hand while reaching under his jacket with the other.
Definitely police.
“We should drive away.” Pasha had also seen the policeman. “Now.” He swiveled in his seat but kept his foot on the brake. He slapped his hand against the steering wheel. “Now, Ely.”
The dude in the orange shoes looked up from his phone.
“Get closer,” said Ely, “so he can see the weapon. At least we can scare this mudak before we run like rabbits.”
Pasha took his foot off the brake and stepped on the accelerator.
He meant to simply roll past the factory slowly, so their quarry could look down the long barrel of death and know it was only a matter of time. If they got picked up, they could claim it was a prank and be out of jail by morning. Valenko had more friends on the police force than the mayor. But Pasha wasn’t used to driving and was acutely aware that every second they waited was another moment for the policeman to see their faces, though currently their backs were to him. How hard could it be to track a red Camaro carrying two men and a bazooka? Instead of tapping the accelerator, Pasha pounced.
The car didn’t roll, it leapt forward. Ely, unbuckled, lurched backward from the door, involuntarily clenching his fingers to grab hold of something. The only thing in his hands was an anti-tank gun.
His index finger pulled the trigger before his brain could tell it to stop.
The rocket fired with an incendiary blast that ruptured the space-time continuum. Everything moved in slow motion, beginning with Ely’s realization that he should have read the instruction manual more carefully. He forgot that a rocket launcher emitted a blast from the back of the tube as well as the front.
Newton’s law fucked him, hard.
The right-side window exploded, shooting glass shrapnel at the cop’s sedan. Chunks of safety glass bounced between the cars like popcorn as kinetic energy ran its course. Some pieces ricocheted around the interior of their car and pelted Pasha in the face. The Camaro swerved wildly as he tried to keep them on the road.
Ely dropped the spent tube onto the floor. His ears were ringing and his brother was cursing in a tinny voice from far, far away. As they zoomed past the factory, both turned in their seats to check for carnage.
There was a crater in the sidewalk where Gerry Gao had been standing. The building was unscathed. A thin ribbon of smoke curled from the base of the crater like a question mark.
The orange sneakers were nowhere to be seen.
40
Cape saw the orange sneaker hurtling toward his face and rolled out of the way.
The shoe hit the roof like a meteor, bounced, flipped, and tumbled onto its side with the sole facing Grace and the toe pointed at Sally. Cape had a view of the top, so he knew there was still a foot inside.
He kept that information to himself as he scanned the heavens for another fallen sole.
“That’s an ugly shoe,” said Grace.
Sally made eye contact with Cape. “No wonder someone threw it away.”
Cape crawled over to the shoe and grabbed it by the toe. By the toes. He could feel the severed foot through the neon mesh. He threw it backhand over the side of the building.
Cape smiled at Grace by way of explanation. “It was hurting my eyes.” He turned to Sally. “We need to leave…before we can’t.”
Sally nodded and motioned for Grace to follow. They crawled with their heads down until they reached the door to the stairs. Cape crabbed sideways to the back of the building and risked a downward look.
“Freddie’s car is pulling away.”
“He’s a slippery eel,” said Sally. “They’ll never get their hands on him.”
“I like crispy eel,” said Grace. “We used to eat it all the time in Hong Kong.”
“We can have some tonight,” said Sally. “I know a place.”
Sirens filled the air as they opened the door to the stairs and made their way to the ground floor. The abandoned factory retained its original floor plan. The front room had been used for assembly and retrofitting of plumbing supplies, pipe cutting, and repairs. A smaller room in back was divided into an office and an area for packaging and shipping. Cape and Grace waited near the back door while Sally slid through the shadows of the front room. By the time she returned, the sirens had reached peak intensity.
“The police are assembling outside the factory next door and stretching yellow tape around the crater in the sidewalk. Beau’s partner Vinnie is barking orders right and left. Two patrol cars are blocking the road on either side.”
Cape nodded. “They don’t know what, or who, they’ll find inside Freddie’s building.”
“They won’t find Gerry,” said Sally.
Grace sparked at the name. “Where did the bad guy go?”
“Everywhere,” said Cape.
Grace frowned.
Sally shot Cape a look. “He flew…don’t worry, we won’t be seeing him again.” She put her hand on Grace’s shoulder. “We’re going back the way we came, between the buildings, cutting across the next block and the one after that, until we’re closer to the center of town.” She turned to Cape. “Where did you park?”
Cape pointed in the direction Sally had described. “Four blocks.”
“Shouldn’t we talk to the police?” asked Grace.
“I will,” said Cape. “Later.”
“That’s his job,” said Sally, tilting her head toward Cape.
“What’s our job?” asked Grace.
“Being sneaky,” said Sally. “Think you can handle that?”
Grace nodded, and the three of them stepped outside.
41
Stepping inside another world is how Mogwai would describe the feeling of putting on the hood and mask. The black robes enveloped the body down to the ankles. The tinted lenses turned the world red and made reality feel disconnected and emotionally distant.
Maybe that was the idea.
Sometimes a feeling of detachment was useful, other times being inside the costume was claustrophobic. The microphone sewn into the neck to create the Darth Vader effect was held in place by a Velcro strap, and after an hour it would start to chafe and make swallowing difficult. The robes weren’t so bad, a synthetic weave that regulated temperature and wicked away perspiration.
As a Party-approved specter of intimidation, Mogwai couldn’t be seen to sweat.
The lenses were polarized and chemically treated to enhance light and reduce glare, so Mogwai could actually see better under low-light conditions, but peripheral vision was almost nonexistent.
The real discomfort, that sensation of an alternate world, was the hood. It was hot and stuffy, so maybe that other world was Hell. The name Mogwai often translated as devil, but the meaning was not the same as in the West. It was best translated as demon, a kind of devilish character who tormented humans.
Some believed devils tempted human beings away from grace, so they could be dragged to the underworld. Here again, the cultural differences struck Mogwai as another example of why East and West rarely understood each other. Like the ancient Greeks, the Chinese once believed the underworld was simply a destination mortals shared after they died, whether they were good or bad. There were different levels to Hell, though not as Dante described. Taoists believed the entrance to the underworld was above ground, in Fengdu, still known as the Ghost City. Ancient Buddhists claimed there were 134 worlds of Hell, practically an Epcot Center for the dead.
Mogwai believed devils existed to keep people on the right path.
The modern world was decadent, designed to drag people down. Mogwai’s job was to scare them back up. Popular culture was fueled by fantasies of self-fulfillment that ignored the lessons of history. From Roman caesars to Russian czars and Chinese emperors, great leaders built empires not by expanding their borders but by tightening their grip on their own country. Any tin-pot tyrant could invade another country, but the rare civilization that endured for centuries conquered the hearts and minds of its people.
Civilization was the perfect harmony between pride and fear. National pride was nothing more than our primal instinct for safety in numbers, and the greater the pride, the more an undercurrent of fear became necessary to keep it going.
The fear of being ostracized or isolated from the group. The fear of losing it all.
Mogwai knew how to strike the perfect balance between pride and fear. The key was to keep everyone off balance, a pendulum swing between the two. Some Party members believed people had to be ruled for the state to survive, but Mogwai wasn’t one of them. Recruited as a child and trained by the state, Mogwai discovered a deeper truth. People wanted to be ruled.
Deep in their subconscious, people craved a return to childhood, a simpler time when choices were made for them. What to wear, what to buy, and most importantly, what to believe. A long look in the mirror revealed that undeniable truth inside all of us.
It was a blemish on the human condition as plain as the nose on your face.
This isn’t about you. History is never about you. Neither is the future in which we’ll all live. The only question is whether or not you will be a part of it.
Mogwai had given that speech a hundred times and never doubted a word. The evidence was irrefutable, and time was running out. The United States had squandered its influence abroad. Europe, once the epicenter of civilization, was nothing more than a doormat for the great powers to wipe their feet. The countries that defined the twentieth century had lost any sense of their own identities. There was nothing holding them together, which is why they were falling into chaos.
Mogwai existed to keep chaos at bay. A necessary evil for the greater good.
Mogwai was created by the fertile imaginations of the ruling class. Party records didn’t credit the official who first came up with the idea, but there had been twelve Mogwais before now. Currently three different Mogwais were deployed across China.
One Mogwai was in Chengdu, one was in Hong Kong, and the third was here in Dafen.
Despite the Bohemian atmosphere, Mogwai liked Dafen. The village had a growing sense of pride because residents knew they were putting China on the world stage. Every painting was a performance, a political statement about which country had the highest standards, the lowest costs, the best talent. Every resident was working toward a common goal.
That might not be how Dafen saw itself today, but fear was a lens that helped people see things as they really were. Mogwai saw this city as a great portrait, and every resident as a living brushstroke in a much bigger picture.
And the picture Mogwai saw was China.
For decades paintings and sculptures were dismissed as decadent relics of China’s imperial days. But as the middle class grew, so did the rate of civil disobedience. Everything that was built stood on a shaky foundation of coercion, not loyalty. Then one day someone on the Central Committee said something that shocked everyone out of their stupor.
People will never be loyal to a party, but they cannot deny their past.
The Party must become synonymous with China. People may swear allegiance to the government, but they take pride in their history, their art, their culture. Control culture and you control everything.
Culture was the enemy of chaos, and all you needed to create culture was a can of paint.
Mogwai thought about the extraordinary young painter, Yan, who clearly didn’t recognize his own talent. Bringing the professor here to teach Yan classic techniques was one of Mogwai’s better ideas. Making that happen hadn’t been easy, but Wen was wasted in a labor camp. His vast knowledge belonged to everyone and needed to be shared.
One more day and the first phase of their project would be complete.
