Hanging the Devil, page 23
Mogwai’s hands jabbed at the canvas. “This painting—”
“—you must plan on stealing the original,” said Wen. “To bring back to China.”
Mogwai didn’t reply but a low, digital buzzing filled the space between them.
Wen tilted his head to match the angle of the hood, as if looking into the Devil’s eyes. His nostrils flared as if he was about to sneeze. Then he smiled sadly.
Mogwai took half a step backward but was too slow. Wen reached out and tore the hood from the Devil’s head.
Peng was surprised to find himself looking at a woman.
Wen was not at all surprised to be looking at his wife.
“I never liked that perfume,” he said. “The jasmine is overpowering.”
The woman who was Mogwai stood speechless, her changsan robe swishing as her hands dropped to her sides. Her face was a series of sharp curves, perfectly proportioned, flowing gracefully into full lips compressed in a line. Gossamer strands of gray were visible in thick black hair, which was tousled from the rapid removal of the hood.
“Hello, Chu Hua,” said Wen. “I thought you died, but I see you’ve been reborn.”
No one spoke. The artist, the prisoner, and the party official were inches apart but standing in three separate realities.
“This is awkward,” said Peng. “May I leave?”
“Yes,” said Wen.
“No,” said Mogwai, the unearthly voice coming from a mere mortal. Chu Hua raised a hand to her throat and pressed the button to deactivate the microphone. “This is too—”
“—too what?” Wen was trying to stay calm, but his voice had a gruff kick behind it. “Too important?” To his ears he was starting to sound like Mogwai. “Important to what, Chu?”
“All those walks in the museum,” said Chu, “and you never understood.” She jutted her chin at the painting. “This art you love so much, it belongs—”
“—we have a daughter.”
“You have a daughter,” said Chu. “I have a job.”
“To recruit me?” asked Wen. “Or seduce me?”
“This isn’t about you,” said Chu in a practiced tone. “History is never—”
“—save me the speeches,” said Wen. “You’re only talking to yourself…again.”
“You’re only thinking of yourself, as usual.” Chu gave a thin smile. “Say we’d never met…but one day I arrived at the university to ask about coming here voluntarily, to help the Party. What would you have said?”
“I would have said I already had a job.”
“Teaching history…when you could be making history.”
“It’s my choice.”
“No,” said Chu. “It’s not.”
“And there it is.” Wen shook his head. “You actually believe that, don’t you?”
Chu took a deep breath and spoke in a practiced tone. “This isn’t about you, Wen. Neither is the future in which we’ll all live. The only question is whether you’ll be a part—”
“—that day in Victoria Park,” said Wen. “I had a brighter future in mind.”
“I told you not to visit the park,” said Chu, “but you wouldn’t listen.”
“I thought you died,” said Chen, “and that it was my fault.”
Chu smiled. “Now that you’re a master forger, you must appreciate the power of deception.”
Peng cleared his throat and shuffled nervously behind them. “Um, I’m leaving now, don’t forget to lock up… Chu Hua, well, so nice to meet you…”
Wen started to reply but jerked sideways as his right hand brushed against his own leg. The hot air gun was still in his hand. When Mogwai first appeared in the hallway, Wen had clenched his fingers and inadvertently pulled the trigger.
Now the air gun was as hot as a soldering iron.
Wen looked at his wife but thought of his daughter. Chu was married to the state, and he was wed to his fate. He threw his arms around her and spoke urgently to Peng.
“Run.”
Peng didn’t have to be told twice. His eyes were sad, but his feet were not interested in long goodbyes. He gave a last look at his older colleague and was in the hall before Chu shook her arms free from Wen’s embrace.
Wen shoved the air gun into the packing straw. It ignited instantly.
Flame spread like a rumor. The straw singed the paper on the worktable and scorched the edges of the canvas, licking its way around the wooden frame of the shipping crate. The oils in the special paints Wen had mixed were ferociously flammable.
Before anyone could move, the surface of the painting erupted in a vision of hell.
The Devil dove in headfirst.
Chu Hua swung her arms across the top of the painting in an attempt to brush the surface oils off the base layers. The light-absorbent materials in her devil’s cloak were chosen for their obsidian gloom, not for safety, and she underestimated how hot the antique paints could burn. Flames wrapped around the gloves and climbed up her sleeves toward her face.
She stumbled backward and crashed into the window that overlooked the factory. Glass rained onto the factory floor, tiny mirrors reflecting the panicked faces looking up at the flames.
Wen lunged and grabbed the collar of Chu’s robe to tear it off before she burned, but the seams held fast. His knuckles brushed against her throat and activated the microphone. When she screamed, it was the Devil’s voice that tore through the factory.
The hood flew from Wen’s hand. Caught in the updraft from the inferno, it soared above the workers until it snagged on one of the overhead lights. It hung despondently, the discarded flag of a retreating army. Terrified workers whispered the Devil’s name.
The lenses on the hood reflected the flames, burning eyes looking down on everyone.
The Devil’s scream turned into a roar, echoed by the cries of everyone surging toward the exits. Peng made it to the factory floor and found Yan, who had run through the flames toward the stairs to save him. She grabbed his hand and they ran.
Black smoke billowed from the office window.
Wen pulled Chu away from the window ledge, but she panicked as she frantically tried to tear the burning gloves from her hands. She fell against Wen, and together they slammed into the table. Wen felt the shipping crate press against his spine and flames crawl up his back.
Wen managed to tear the zipper on the back of the cloak, and Chu Hua wriggled free of the robes. The discarded Devil lay at her feet, deflated and empty.
Wen looked through the office window to see if there was any path to the exit. All he saw was an incendiary archipelago running the length of the factory. Fallen embers ignited canvases, turned brushes into torches and turpentine into napalm. Oily smoke obscured his view, but not before Wen spotted his young friend, the prodigy, running with his girlfriend through the exit door. Running to a better life.
Wen looked at his wife and saw the flames reflected in her eyes. There was no escape for them. He wrapped his arms around the devil he knew, and after a moment’s hesitation, she returned the embrace. Tears spilled from a well of regret and ran down his cheeks as his skin began to blister and burn.
Then all his fears melted away.
48
Grace felt something melt deep inside her, as if her heart had sprung a leak.
She fell to the floor with a gasp. Sally was at her side in an instant, kneeling to prop Grace into a sitting position.
Grace stared at Sally without seeing. Her face was flushed.
Sally rested a hand on the side of the young girl’s face. Grace felt warm but not feverish, a rush of heat beneath the skin. The light in Grace’s eyes was as distant as a dying star.
Sally had seen that look before.
When Sally was five she was in a car accident with her parents. She awoke in a hospital, scared and alone, but no one would tell her what happened. Only her caretaker, Li Mei, told her the truth.
Her parents were dead.
Sally already knew. No one had told her, but she knew. A string had been cut somewhere deep inside, and her heart was untethered for the first time in her short life. It wouldn’t be the last, and it was a feeling she’d never forget.
She remembered how her face looked in the mirror, after Li Mei left her alone. That was how Grace looked now. Sally sat next to her on the floor. She held Grace’s hands until the light in her eyes came back from wherever it had gone. Sally knew Grace didn’t know what just happened, not yet. She just knew how it felt when it did.
They sat together in silence and waited for the earth to starting spinning again.
49
“You’re spinning your wheels.” Freddie Wang sucked his cigarette down to ash. “You needed four forgeries, now you only have three.”
The ghost’s eyes narrowed. “We go anyway.”
Freddie took another cigarette from the pack and used it to point at the desk phone. “Beijing says at least two weeks before you get that last forgery, maybe longer.” He leaned forward and lit the fresh cigarette with a desktop lighter shaped like a dragon. “Big fire at the art factory.”
“How big?” The red eyes smoldered like hot coals.
“Didn’t ask.” Freddie shrugged. “Maybe you go to New York after all.”
Freddie leaned back in his chair, his good eye sharp in the dim light. Two men stood behind his right shoulder, near the heavily curtained bay window. They shifted nervously as they followed the conversation. Their faces were obscured by the nicotine haze.
Victorian London didn’t have as much smog as this office, and the ghost wondered if Freddie was allergic to oxygen. Of all the criminals with whom the ghost had done business, Freddie was one of the few not completely unnerved by his phantasmal appearance. The ghost was starting to enjoy the company of his hoary host. Perhaps Freddie had cheated death so many times that he lived beyond fear.
Despite this mutual understanding, each encounter made the ghost trust the old man less. Their partnership was going to end soon. Clearly not soon enough for Freddie’s taste.
“I’m here to bring lost art back to China.” The ghost pressed his pale palms together. “One way or another is no difference to me.”
“Without the forgeries, the museum will know the art was stolen,” said Freddie.
“Once we have it in our hands, it won’t matter.” The ghost shrugged. “Did you know one of the pieces we took from the museum in Norway is currently on display in Shanghai airport?”
“Bù Kāiwánxiào.” Freddie’s milky eye narrowed. “Why didn’t Norway take it back?”
“What’s more important to a tiny country like that?” asked the ghost. “Good relations with China, or a piece of art that may or may not be the original sculpture that was stolen from their museum—a museum only visited by a small percentage of Norwegians.”
Freddie nodded in appreciation. “They’re too afraid to ask.”
“You see why I’m unconcerned,” said the ghost. “I’ll place the three forgeries in the museum, and they’ll believe they only lost one painting. Less of a scandal. They can write it off, make amends with the French museum that loaned it, maybe by sending the French something else in return. Not my problem.”
“That wasn’t the plan.”
“You’re speaking of someone else’s plan, not mine.” The ghost stretched his long arms and gestured at a statue sitting on the desk. It was a Buddha made of bronze with a piebald patina of gold. In an office cluttered with antiques, the sculpture was the only thing older than Freddie. “Besides, you already got your payment.”
Freddie extended a clawed hand and stroked the Buddha’s belly. “Good thing you snatched this from the museum before the cops arrived. Otherwise no more help from me, which means no help from anyone in Chinatown.”
The sleeves of the ghost’s robe slid down his forearms with a sibilant hiss as he pointed a bony finger at the two men at the back of the room. “Who are they?”
Freddie stubbed out his cigarette and waved the two men forward without turning around. They stood next to the desk, nervous eyes darting at the ghost whenever they thought he wasn’t looking. In the diffuse light from the desktop lamp, it was clear they were identical twins.
Midthirties, dark eyes and long faces, average height. Both wore jeans, black T-shirts, and thin leather jackets. The only discernible difference was their hairstyles. One man had combed his hair back with no visible part, the other’s head was shiny with gel, hair spiked in every direction.
Freddie made a careless gesture with his left hand. “This is Feng, and this is Fang—they will be helping you rob the museum.”
The ghost looked them over. “Which is which?”
“Feng is the smart one,” said Freddie.
“What about Fang?”
“Fang is his brother.”
“Wonderful.” The ghost ran his fingers through his long white hair to pull it away from his face and down his back. He looked at the two men. “Can you handle explosives?”
“No,” said the man on the left, precisely as his brother said, “yes.”
The ghost pointed at the man with the slick hair. “Fang.”
Fang nodded.
The ghost turned his attention to the twin with the teased tresses.
“Feng, you are going to be the distraction.”
“Pretty big distraction.” Freddie coughed up some phlegm, then spat into a garbage can at his feet. “You asked for enough explosives to blow up half the city.”
“Not your half, Freddie.” The ghost smiled. “Don’t worry.”
“I look worried?” Freddie started to cast a baleful stare but lost interest.
“No, Freddie, you looked annoyed.” The ghost brought his lower lip forward in a mock pout. His lips were the color of stale milk. “Rest assured, I’ll be leaving soon.”
“Not soon enough.” Freddie tugged at the hairs protruding from a massive mole on his cheek. “What about the girl?”
“The little witness.” The ghost sighed. “The one I asked you to find.”
“I found her, remember?” Freddie blew a cloud of smoke into the space between them. “And lost two men.”
The ghost shifted his crimson eyes to the twins. “Let’s hope you don’t lose two more.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise.” The ghost smiled and the room felt ten degrees colder. “I plan to take care of the girl myself. Your men don’t have to be involved.”
“We agreed,” said Freddie. “No loose ends that can be tied to me.”
The ghost plucked at a thread on the sleeve of his jacket. “Never.”
“The girl is invisible,” said Freddie. “Which means there’s only one place she can be.”
“How cryptic.” The ghost rubbed his hands together. “I do love a mystery.”
“You’re not going to love this.”
The ghost leaned back and listened as Freddie described how his network of informants had checked the SFPD database, child services, hospitals, even ICE, in case the girl was in the county illegally. Nothing. Then a rumor, barely a whisper. A Chinese girl matching the description was seen at a seafood market located across the street from a martial arts school.
Freddie knew who ran that school. So did everyone in Chinatown.
“Her name is Sally,” said Freddie, “but in the community she’s known as—”
“—Little Dragon.” The ghost’s eyes flashed with excitement. “The one who got away.”
“You know her?”
The ghost shook his head. “By reputation only. We went to the same school, different campuses, different years. All the students were orphans, all the instructors members of—”
“—Triads,” said Freddie.
“Exactly,” said the ghost. “She left; I was disavowed. There aren’t many graduates, and most of them are dead.”
“We have an arrangement—”
“—let me guess,” said the ghost. “You leave her alone, and she doesn’t kill you.”
Freddie spat into his garbage can. “Something like that.”
“So if I kill her—”
“—there’s no one between you and the girl,” said Freddie. “And I can die happy.”
The ghost steepled his fingers in front of his face, his eyes half-lidded as he contemplated the challenge. Tendrils of smoke seemed to freeze in midair until he exhaled loudly and opened his eyes.
“I’ll do it,” he said, “the night we steal the paintings.”
“When are you going in?”
“Tomorrow,” said the ghost. “Signs are good.”
“What signs?”
“It’s a full moon.”
Freddie cackled and coughed. “You’re starting to believe your own mythology. All that moonlight, you should worry about being seen.”
“Plenty of people have seen me,” said the ghost. “It’s just that no one can ever believe it.”
50
“I can’t believe this.”
Police Inspector Beauregard Jones looked more flummoxed than furious, but the bass notes in his voice carried an undercurrent of warning.
“Can’t believe what?” asked Cape.
“That we’re having this conversation.”
“I’m trying to be a responsible citizen,” said Cape.
“Responsible?” Beau held up a white paper cup with a delicately drawn blue bottle on the outside. “How much did you pay for this coffee?”
“Four bucks.”
“For all the coffees or just mine?”
“Yours was four bucks.” Cape raised his own cup. “So was mine.” He jerked a thumb at Maria. “Hers was six.”
“Extra foam,” said Maria.
Cape nodded. “Extra foam.”
Beau took a long sip and set his cup on the table. “This coffee is as black as I am. No milk, no foam, nothing fancy. Just coffee.”
“What’s your point?”
“Paying fourteen bucks for coffee is not something a responsible person would do.”
“Blame the neighborhood.”
They were sitting behind the Ferry Building at a round table that overlooked the bay. Maria sat to Cape’s right and Beau’s left. The chair to Cape’s left was empty. Their table seemed to be cut in half, sunlight on one side and the shadow of the clock tower draped over the other.
