Boxing the Octopus, page 6
“Aren’t you forgetting about Martin Luther King?”
“Was he left-handed?”
“I’ll have to check Wikipedia.” Cape glanced around the store. “I didn’t realize left-handers were so subject to discrimination.”
Harkness looked like he’d been slapped. “What about polo?”
“I assume you mean the sport,” said Cape. “And not the short-sleeved shirts.”
“Did you know it’s against the rules for polo players to compete left-handed?”
“Not exactly the back of the bus, is it?”
“You try riding a horse and swinging a mallet with your weak hand,” Harness replied. “Then come back and tell me which side you’re on.”
“Well, clearly you’re on the left side.”
“Damn right.”
“Well said.” Cape walked to the door and flipped the Closed sign to face the pier. Harkness eyed him warily.
“I could tell you weren’t just another customer,” said Harkness, a slow smile forming. “You must have gotten my letter.” He pushed some papers out of the way and set his elbows on the counter. “Are you from the state attorney’s office?”
Cape was glad he’d tucked in his shirt for a change. He summoned his most noncommittal voice and replied, “I am an investigator.”
“A special investigator?” Harkness leaned forward.
“I like to think so,” said Cape. “Let’s start at the beginning, why did you send the letter?”
Harkness waved his arm toward some shelves. “What do you see?”
Cape looked around the store. T-shirts, place mats, mouse pads, door mats, baseball caps, coffee mugs. Every imaginable form of tchotchke emblazoned with a pro-left-handed slogan. A poster featured images of Da Vinci, Marie Curie, Aristotle, Napoleon, Jimi Hendrix, and Bill Gates. Specialty items abounded, from left-handed golf clubs to guitars strung upside down, cooking implements, and left-handed scissors.
Harkness impatiently answered his own question. “You see stuff. Things. Physical inventory. Tangible items. Products with bar codes.” He moved around the counter, pointing an accusing finger out the window at the pier. “Now…what do you see out there?”
Directly across the pier was a restaurant with a surfing theme, a longboard mounted over the entrance and tiki torches illuminating outdoor seating. Cape ventured a guess.
“Food?”
“Exactly!” Harkness stomped behind the counter. “Disposables…intangibles. Food and service.”
“So?”
“A cash-fucking-business,” said Harkness. “Sure, they take credit cards, but almost half the patrons pay cash for their meals. And how much food do they really serve? How much produce goes bad or is never delivered?”
Cape shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Nobody knows!” Harkness paced around his store like a lion in a cage. “If you’re the IRS, how can you track that shit?” He stopped near the register and slapped his left hand on the counter. “You’d have to eat at every restaurant on the pier, every day for a year, then estimate the annual foot traffic and do the math. It’s the equivalent of auditing every pizza parlor in New York, just to nail the one that might be owned by the mob.”
“You think all the restaurants are underpaying on their taxes?”
Harkness practically lunged. “Wouldn’t you?”
Cape wanted to ask about the armored car but knew the best way to lead a conversation was to follow it. “This is all a bit vague.”
“You want specifics.”
“It usually helps.” Cape forced a smile. “In an investigation.”
“What if I’m afraid of reprisals?” Harkness glanced outside, as if his imaginary tormentors had their faces pressed against the window.
“Give me a hint.”
“Maybe you feel like a donut.”
I feel like an idiot, thought Cape. “Maybe you feel like not jerking me off.”
“There’s a place that sells donuts.” Harkness raised his eyebrows conspiratorially. “Dave’s Donuts—you passed it coming here.”
Cape waited for the rest.
He waited a beat longer but nothing came.
Harkness smiled hopefully. “Who doesn’t like donuts?”
Cape considered the question and had to admit he didn’t know anyone.
17
Cape didn’t know anyone who liked standing on line, but the donuts were worth the wait.
The line stretched through the crowd like a ravenous snake, extending all the way back to the main entrance. It took Cape twenty minutes to reach the front of the line. Dave’s Donuts was just a triangular hut in the middle of the pier with a walk-up window.
Inside, a conveyor belt moved jerkily beneath a giant funnel that spat dough into measured rings. The belt curved inward, sending the uncooked donuts into a vat of boiling oil, where they were rescued by another conveyor after frying, finally passing under a funnel filled with powdered sugar before being bagged. It was ingenious and simple, the kind of mechanical wizardry that first appeared in factories at the turn of the last century.
Cape guessed it would cost fifty cents worth of dough and sugar to make a dozen donuts, which they sold for five dollars. Not a bad margin, even after rent. He counted the number of people in line and did the math, then compared it to his own annual income and hoped the sugar high he would get from the donuts would counteract his sudden feeling of depression.
At the window he ordered a half dozen, paid in cash, and was handed a bag by a teenaged boy with more braces than teeth. Cape retreated to a nearby bench and studied the conga line closely. Most of the people waiting looked like tourists, often two or more chatting together, sometimes a lone parent standing patiently while kids and other relatives stopped by to say hi, then leaving to check out the stores nearby until the donuts were ready.
Cape popped one of the donuts into his mouth and almost swooned. The simple dough and sugar concoction was weaponized. A sudden image popped into his head of a snake in a tree, tempting Adam and Eve with a mini-donut. Cape deeply regretted not ordering a full dozen but looked at the line and stayed where he was.
Though he didn’t know what he was looking for, Cape didn’t try the direct approach. Harkness was an anomaly, a whistle-blower with an agenda. He might be onto something, but Cape couldn’t assume everyone on the pier was so candid or crazy.
He was on his fourth donut when he noticed someone in line who didn’t look like a tourist. The guy was in his early twenties, longish brown hair and a week’s worth of stubble covering a crap complexion. Long-sleeved flannel shirt over arms that darted nervously in and out of the pockets of his jeans. His eyes jumped around as if wasps were swarming around him. By the time Cape swallowed the fifth donut, the man in flannel was at the window.
Cape noticed three things simultaneously. Even from a distance, the wad of bills the man thrust quickly across the counter seemed fat, unless he was buying donuts for the entire pier. The kid at the window handed the money to someone standing behind him, in the shadows, then reached under the counter and grabbed a bag of donuts, which he handed to the flannel man. When Cape had bought his donuts, all the bags of six or twelve were arranged on top of the counter, so he wondered what was so special about the bags underneath.
The third thing was the most interesting. As the exchange occurred, Cape saw a man in uniform walk around the corner of the donut shack. At first he thought it was a uniformed cop strolling the pier, but the stocky man with the dark cap and sunglasses was private security, a Pier 39 logo emblazoned on the left pocket of his shirt. He had a wire in his ear and stun gun on his hip.
The guard had a disinterested look on his face as he watched the flannel man buy his donuts. He scanned the rest of the line and saw only tourists, then turned and walked around to the other side of the shack.
Flannel Man moved upstream toward the pier entrance and street beyond. Cape reluctantly abandoned his last donut and tossed the bag into a nearby trash bin. He’d consumed enough sugar for a lifetime, and he desperately wanted to know what was in that guy’s bag.
18
“I’m telling you, it’s in the bag.”
Anastasia looked at her idiot brother in disbelief. A stern glance at her younger sister couldn’t get Eva to look her in the eyes, so Anastasia knew Sergey was bullshitting her.
“It’s not in the bag, mudak,” snapped Anastasia. “Do you even know what that idiom means?”
“Idiom?”
“Idiot.” Anastasia gestured at the car, squeezed into the back of her uncle’s warehouse. Rows of metal shelves were stacked with boxes of nesting dolls. The inventory moved quickly so the warehouse was small, barely large enough for the three of them and the car. “From what Eva just said, it’s not in the bag, it’s in the fucking trunk.” Anastasia kicked the car’s fender angrily. “You brought me a dead body?”
“Nastya, calm yourself.” Sergey held up both hands, belatedly realizing that telling a furious person to stay calm was like reheating napalm in a microwave. “We had no choice.”
Eva shuffled her feet and took a sudden interest in the ceiling fixtures.
“That’s what I meant to say,” Sergey continued, “it’s under control. Nobody saw us, but he might have seen us, so we…” He paused and glanced at Eva, whose jawline made it clear he was on his own. “…that is, I…I took the initiative.”
Anastasia stared at him for a full minute. Sergey thought she might explode if her nostrils ever stopped flaring.
Then without warning, Anastasia burst out laughing.
The sound echoed around the warehouse like a pinball with a drinking problem. By the time Anastasia caught her breath, tears were running down her cheeks, but she was still smiling.
“Sergey, if all men think with their dicks, your хуй must be very small indeed.” Anastasia looked at Eva, who was suppressing a giggle. “Okay, you nincompoops, let’s open the trunk and see what kind of mess we’re in.”
Sergey almost defended his manhood but decided to hand Anastasia the keys while she was still smiling.
The man in the trunk wasn’t laughing. His body had rolled during the drive, so his head was higher than his feet, as if sitting up in the trunk. His mouth was open and he was staring right at them.
Anastasia stopped smiling.
“I know this man,” she said quietly.
Eva started. “Are you sure, sestra?”
“Just look.” Anastasia gestured at the slack face, the dead eyes more sad than angry. “He works on the pier.”
Sergey leaned in close. “He does look familiar, now that you mention it, but I didn’t recognize him.” He turned to look at Eva. “Did you?”
Eva shook her head.
“That’s because he’s not wearing his uniform,” said Anastasia.
Eva started nodding. “You’re right! He is one of the security men. I’ve seen him walking near the store.”
Sergey frowned. “This is really bad, Nastya.”
“No, it’s not.” Anastasia stared into the eyes of the dead man. “It might turn out to be really good.”
19
“I’m telling you, this is really bad.”
The pilot was nervous, but the Doctor knew better.
“Relax, I’ve been out here before.” The Doctor downed the rest of his cocktail and gestured at the windscreen with his glass, ice rattling in rhythm to his speech. He liked that, having a backbeat to everything he said. Made him feel like a rapper. An original gangster. Maybe I could call myself Doctor Ice—
“—are you fucking deaf?” The pilot quailed. “How many of those have you had?”
“These?” The ice stopped rattling as the Doctor’s brow furrowed. “Two…no, four…maybe three?”
“Bullshit.” The pilot’s knuckles were white on the yoke of the plane. “I told you an hour ago, we’re past the point of no return. Even if we wanted to fly back to mainland China, we’d never make it. I need to radio for help now.” He tried to get the Doctor to make eye contact. “Now, as in right fucking right now, before we crash into the ocean.”
“It’s a sea,” said the Doctor nonchalantly. “The South China Sea. You should know that, you’re a pilot.” He plucked an ice cube from his glass and started chewing. “You follow the coordinates I gave you?”
“Yes, but I told you—”
“—then don’t worry about it.”
The Doctor had hoped the pilot would be cooler, but when you promise a guy a hundred thousand dollars to file a bogus flight plan before flying to the middle of nowhere, you can’t be picky. This guy was sweaty, despite the air conditioning in the cockpit. His shirt was pitted out and his thinning hair was pasted to his forehead. The Doctor suspected there was too much gluten in the pilot’s diet but kept that little tidbit to himself.
“I checked the charts,” said the pilot. “There’s nothing out here except a bunch of crappy little islands and submerged reefs.” He turned on the Doctor, his eyes a jumpy pair of brown rabbits. “Nothing, and I mean, nothing you could land a plane on.”
The Doctor never had much of a bedside manner, so he just shrugged. “Then where did that come from?” He gestured to the left of the aircraft, where a small tactical fighter had appeared out of thin air and was now flying alongside them.
It looked like a Shenyang J-11, what NATO referred to as a Flanker, a rip-off of the old Soviet Sukhoi Su-27. The Doctor’s eyes weren’t as good as they used to be, so he couldn’t be sure. He once knew a lot about planes, but lately he just didn’t give a shit.
“The hell did he come from?” The pilot gawked at the fighter.
“Up ahead, I’ll wager.” The Doctor waved at the Flanker pilot before pointing at the water below.
Five hundred miles from the mainland, the sea was as blue as a baby’s eyes. Straight ahead was a cluster of islands so small they looked more like piles of sand that could wash away any minute.
“Spratlys,” said the Doctor. “And it looks like they’re making a new one.”
“A new…island?” The pilot followed his line of sight toward the stunted archipelago.
“Follow our new friend off your left wing,” said the Doctor. “He’s our escort.”
“You knew,” sputtered the pilot. “Why didn’t—?”
“Slipped my mind.” The Doctor held up his empty glass. “We’ll probably do a fly-over, then circle back and approach Cuarteron Reef or maybe Fiery Cross.” He pointed with the middle finger of his hand holding the glass. “That reef right…over…there.”
“You mean that island.”
“It was a reef only a year ago,” said the Doctor. “Submerged just below the surface, a coral shelf, home to cute little fish, an occasional ray, maybe a docile shark or two—all that Finding Nemo shit. Until the Chinese government decided to bring in barges, dredge up the ocean floor, and make themselves some new islands.” The Doctor shook his head in mock sadness. “Then it’s goodbye Nemo, fuck you Dory, and hello airstrip!”
“My God.”
“He’s got nothing to do it,” replied the Doctor. “The last good island He made was Hawaii.”
The fighter cut in front of the private jet and wobbled its wings, then banked into position for an approach. The pilot of the small plane couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The vestiges of a coral reef were still visible from the air. Subtle curves and trailing wisps of rock just below the breaking waves, the geometry too fractal to be anything man-made. But the reef itself was merely a ledge now, like an old tree stump used for a coffee table. Millions of tons of white sand mixed with gray concrete had been dumped, shaped, and cemented into straight lines and hard rectangles balanced on top of the reef.
Positioned at strategic points around the island, five barges were dredging sand from the ocean floor, impossibly long hoses spitting a sand-concrete mixture to reinforce the fragile coastline.
“It’s like a Bond movie,” said the Doctor. “Only it’s real.”
The Doctor took note of the new structures. A radar installation. A hanger. Even a solar array, that was definitely new. And just beyond the runway, a massive building that had intelligence agencies around the world puzzling over satellite imagery.
Conspiracy theories ran the gamut from weapons manufacturing, army barracks, a prison, even a lab where evil scientists concocted plans to take over the world.
How about all of the above? thought the Doctor.
The pilot was saying something, but the Doctor closed his eyes and turned the nervous chatter into background noise. He didn’t enjoy landings and had already spent too much time talking to this guy. The Doctor didn’t like him but didn’t dislike him either, and even ambivalence came at a cost.
It was always a bad idea to get attached to any of your patients. The same rule could apply to pilots, especially when you know something they don’t.
The Doctor would step onto the tarmac and soldiers would escort him to his lab. Then the pilot would disembark from the plane and they would shoot him in the head. Loose ends were always a bad idea, and there was too much at stake to be sentimental. Still, the Doctor felt a twinge in his gut as the wheels touched down, and he didn’t think it was motion sickness.
The feeling passed like a wave crashing against a reef, and as they taxied down the runway, the Doctor felt relieved to finally reach his destination.
20
When they finally reached their destination, Cape felt nauseous.
If he’d known that following Flannel Man meant riding a city bus, he might have taken the direct approach and accosted the guy at the donut shack. Maybe he could have bribed the security guard.
Feeling queasy was a common reaction to public transportation in San Francisco, but this particular driver repeatedly stomped on the brake pedal like a crazed exterminator trying to kill the last cockroach on earth. By the time they made the transfer and arrived at Golden Gate Park, half the passengers looked annoyed and the other half looked green.
