The Stone Monkey (48 page)

—
The Game of Wei-Chi

He stared out the window at the gray dusk, premature because of the lingering storm. His head drooped forward, heavy, heavy, immobile. This wasn't from damaged fibers of nerve but from sorrow. Rhyme was thinking of Sonny Li.

When he'd run the forensic unit he'd had the chance to hire dozens, probably hundreds of employees and to finagle—or bully—onto his staff men and women from other assignments because he knew they were damn good cops. He couldn't tell exactly what appealed to him about these people. Oh, sure, they had the textbook qualifications: persistence, intelligence, patience, stamina, keen powers of observation, empathy.

Yet there was another quality. Something that Rhyme, for all his rational self, couldn't define, though he recognized it immediately. There was no better way to say it than the desire—even the joy—of pursuing a prey at all costs. Whatever else Sonny Li's failings—his cigarettes at crime scenes, his reliance on omens and the woo-woo factor, he had this essential aspect. The lone cop had traveled literally to the ends of the earth to collar his suspect. Rhyme would've traded a hundred eager rookies and a hundred cynical veterans for one cop like Sonny Li: a small man who wanted nothing more than to offer to the citizens on his beat some retribution for the harms done to them, some justice, some comfort in the aftermath of evil. And for his reward Li was content to enjoy a good hunt, a challenge and, perhaps, just a little respect from those he cared about.

He glanced at the book he'd inscribed to La.

To my friend
...

"Okay, Mel," he said evenly. "Let's put this one together. What've we got?"

Mel Cooper was hunched over the plastic bags the patrolman had raced here from the crime scene in Chinatown. "Footprints."

"We sure it was the Ghost?" Rhyme asked.

"Yep," Cooper confirmed. "They're identical." Looking at the electrostatic prints that Sachs had taken.

Rhyme agreed they were the same.

"Now the slugs." He was examining the two bullets, one flattened, one intact, both bloody. "Check the lands and grooves."

This referred to the angular marks left in the soft lead bullet by the rifling in the barrel of the gun—the spiral grooves that spin the slug to make it go faster and more accurately. By examining the number of grooves and the degree of the twist, a ballistics expert can often determine the type of gun the shooter used.

Cooper, wearing latex gloves, measured the undamaged slug and the marks cut in the side from the rifling. "It's a forty-five ACP. Octagonal profile on the lands and grooves, right-hand twist. I'm guessing one complete twist every fifteen, sixteen inches. I'll look that up and—"

"Don't bother," Rhyme said shortly. "It's a Glock." The unsexy but dependable Austrian pistols were increasingly popular throughout the world, among criminals and police alike. "What's the wear on the barrel?"

"Sharp profile."

"So it's new. Probably the G36." He was surprised. This compact but extremely powerful handgun was expensive and wasn't widely available yet. In the United States you found it mostly among federal agents.

Useful, useful? he wondered.

Not yet. All it told them was the type of gun, not where the weapon or the ammunition had been purchased. Still, it was evidence and it belonged on the board.

"Thom ... Thorn!" Rhyme shouted. "We need you!"

The aide appeared immediately. "There're other things I need—"

"No," Rhyme said. "There
aren't
other things. Write."

The aide must have sensed Rhyme's despondency over the death of Sonny Li and said nothing in response to the sharp command. He picked up the marker and walked to the whiteboard.

Cooper then opened Li's clothes over a large sheet of clean, blank newsprint. He dusted the items of clothing with a brush and examined the trace that had fallen onto the paper. "Dirt, flecks of paint, the yellow paper particles that probably were from the bag and the dried plant material—spices or herbs—that Amelia mentioned," Cooper said.

"She's checking out the plant stuff right now. Just bag them and put them aside for the time being." Rhyme, who over the years had grown immune to the horror of crime scenes, nonetheless felt a pang as he looked at the dark blood on Li's clothing. The same clothing he'd worn in this very room not long ago.

Zaijian,
Sonny. Goodbye.

"Fingernail scrapings," Cooper announced, examining the label on another plastic bag. He mounted the trace on a slide in the compound microscope.

"Project it, Mel," Rhyme said and turned to the computer screen. A moment later a clear image appeared on the large flat screen. What do we have here, Sonny? You fought with the Ghost, you grabbed him. Was there anything on his clothes or shoes that was transferred to you?

And if so, will it send us to his front door?

"Tobacco," the criminalist said, laughing sadly, thinking of the cop's addiction to cigarettes. "What else do we see? What are those minerals there? What do you think, Mel? Silicates?"

"Looks like it. Let's run some through the GC/MS."

The gas chromatograph/mass spectrometer would determine exactly what the substance was. Soon the results came back—magnesium and silicate.

"That's talc, right?"

"Yep."

The criminalist knew that talcum powder was commonly used by some people as a deodorant, by workers who wore tight-fitting rubber gloves for protection and by those who engaged in certain sexual practices using latex clothing. "Go online and find out everything you can about talc and magnesium silicate."

"Will do."

As Cooper was typing madly, Rhyme's phone rang. Thorn answered it and put the call on the speaker.

"Hello?" he asked.

"Mr.... Rhymes please."

"Rhyme is the name, yes. Who's this?"

"Dr. Arthur Winslow at Huntington Medical Center."

"Yes, Doctor?"

"There's a patient here, a Chinese man. His name is Sen. He was medevaced to us after the Coast Guard rescued him from a sunken ship off the North Shore."

Not
exactly
the Coast Guard, Rhyme thought. But he said, "Go ahead."

"We were told to contact you with any news about him."

"That's right."

"Well, I think there's something you ought to know."

"And what would that be?" Rhyme asked slowly, though his meaning was really: Get to the point.

He sipped the bitter coffee even though he hated it.

Seventeen-year-old William Chang sat in the back of the Starbucks not far from the family's apartment in Brooklyn. He wanted Po-nee tea—made the way his mother prepared it, brewed in an old iron pot—but he kept drinking the coffee as if he were addicted to the muddy, sour drink. Because that is what the pompadoured
ba-tu
across from him was now sipping; for William to drink tea would seem like a weakness.

Wearing the same black leather jacket he'd been in yesterday, the kid—who'd identified himself only as Chen—finished his conversation on a tiny Nokia phone and clipped the unit back onto his belt. He made a point of checking the time on his gold Rolex.

"What happened to the gun we sold you yesterday?" he asked in English.

"My father found it."

"Asshole." He leaned forward ominously. "You didn't tell him where you got it?"

"No."

"If you told anyone about us we'll kill you."

William Chang, hardened by his life as a dissident's son, knew not to give an inch with people like this. "I didn't fucking tell anybody anything. But I need another gun."

"He'll find that one too."

"No, he won't. I'll keep it with me. He won't frisk me."

Chen eyed a long-haired Chinese girl nearby. When he saw she was reading what seemed to be a college textbook he lost interest. He looked William up and down and then asked, "Hey, you want a DVD player? A Toshiba. It's sweet. Two hundred. A flat-screen TV? Eight hundred."

"I want a gun. That's all I want."

"And why don't you get some better clothes. You look like shit."

"I'll get clothes later."

"Hugo Boss, Armani. I can get you whatever you want. ..." Sipping the coffee, he studied William closely. "Or you can come with us some night. We're going to a warehouse in Queens next week. They're getting a shipment in. Can you drive?"

"Yeah, I can drive." William looked out the front window. He saw no sign of his father.

The
ba-tu
asked, "You got balls, don't you?"

"I guess."

"Your triad hijack anything in Fujian?"

William didn't exactly have a triad, just some friends who would occasionally steal cars and shoplift liquor and cigarettes from time to time.

"Hell, we hit dozens of places."

"What was
your
job?"

"Lookout, getaway."

Chen thought for a moment then asked, "Okay, we're inside a warehouse and you're on guard, you know. You see a security guard coming toward us. What would you do? Would you kill him?"

"What is this, a fucking test?"

"Just answer. You have the balls to kill him?'

"Sure. But I wouldn't."

"Why not?"

William sneered. "Because only an idiot would get executed over some clothes."

"Who said clothes?"

"You did," William replied. "Armani, Boss."

"Well, there's a guard. Answer me. What the fuck would you do?"

"I'd come up behind him, take his gun away and I'd keep him on his belly till you had all the clothes in the getaway wheels. Then I'd piss on him."

Chen frowned. "Piss on him? Why?"

"Because the first thing he'd do was go change his clothes—before he called the police. So the cops wouldn't think he'd peed his pants. That'd give us time to get away. And he never got hurt so the cops couldn't get us for assault."

This is what William had heard that some gang by the waterfront near Fuzhou had done once.

Chen wouldn't allow himself to be impressed. But he said, "You'll come to Queens with us. I'll meet you here tomorrow night. I'll bring some people."

"I'll see. I have to get back now. My father'll notice I'm gone." He took a wad of dollars from his pocket, flashed it at the
ba-tu.
"What do you have?"

"I sold you the only good one I had," Chen said. "That chrome baby."

"It was a piece of shit. I want a real gun."

"You
do
have balls. But you got a mouth too. You better watch it. All I've got is a Colt .38. Take it or leave it."

"Loaded?"

Chen fiddled with the gun inside the bag.

"Three rounds."

"That's all?" William asked.

"Like I said—take it or leave it."

"How much?"

"Five hundred."

William laughed harshly. "Three or I walk."

Chen hesitated then nodded. "Only 'cause I like you."

Both young men glanced around the Starbucks. The bag was exchanged for the money.

Without a word William rose. Chen said, "Tomorrow. Eight. Here."

"I'll try."

Chen laughed. "'Piss on him.'" He turned back to his coffee.

Outside, William started quickly down the sidewalk away from Starbucks.

The figure stepped out of the alley, moving quickly toward him.

William stopped, startled. Sam Chang walked up to his son.

The boy started walking again, fast, head down.

"Well?" Chang asked, falling into place beside the boy.

"I got it, Baba."

"Give it to me," his father said.

He passed his father the bag, which disappeared into the man's pocket. "You didn't tell him your name?"

"No."

"You didn't mention the Ghost or the
Dragon?"

"I'm not stupid," William snapped. "He doesn't have any idea who we are."

They walked in silence for a few minutes.

"Did he charge you all the money?"

William hesitated and began to say something. Then he dug into his pocket and handed his father back the remaining hundred dollars of the cash his father had given him for the gun.

As they approached the house Chang said to his son, "I'm going to put it in the front closet. We'll use it only if the Ghost tries to get inside. Never take it with you anywhere. Understand?"

"We should each get one and carry it."

"Do you understand?" Chang repeated firmly.

"Yes."

Chang touched his son's arm. "Thank you, son. It was a brave thing to do."

You
do
have balls.
...

"Yeye would be proud of you," his father added.

William nearly said, Yeye would still be alive if it weren't for you. But he remained silent. They arrived at their front door. Chang and William looked around. No one had followed them from the coffee shop. They pushed quickly inside.

As Chang hid the gun on the top shelf of the closet—where only he and William could reach it—the boy dropped onto the couch next to his brother and the baby girl. He picked up a magazine and thumbed through it.

But he paid little attention to the articles. He was thinking about what Chen had asked him. Should he meet with the other members of the triad tomorrow night?

He didn't think he would. But he wasn't sure. It was never a bad idea, he'd learned, to keep your options open.

John Sung had changed clothes. He was wearing a turtleneck sweater—which seemed odd in the heat, though it made him look pretty stylish—and new workout pants. He was flushed and he seemed distracted, out of breath.

"Are you all right?" Amelia Sachs asked.

"Yoga," he explained. "I was doing my exercises. Tea?"

"I can't stay long." Eddie Deng had gone back to the Fifth Precinct but Alan Coe was waiting for her downstairs in the crime scene bus.

He held up a bag. "Here's what I wanted to give you. The fertility herbs I told you about last night."

She took the bag absently. "Thank you, John."

"What's wrong?" he asked, scanning her troubled face. He motioned her inside and they sat on the couch.