David Rotenberg - The Lake Ching murders

She wrapped his fingers around the shaft of the call button.

Don’t let go of my hand, he wanted to say. But all he did was look up at her.

She was a nurse, a different one. He didn’t recall being brought to the hospital this time. He’d lost track of the days. All he knew was that he was being put into some kind of time suspension again, that a vain battle against his passing was being fought. But despite these efforts, he was dying and he knew it. And his only hope for life was the plan that he’d set in motion in far-off Lake Ching. A plan that, because he was given so little time at the lake itself, needed a very talented investigator to complete.

Fong got out of the Jeep, more than a little startled where Chen had driven him. They were several kilometres into the countryside. The lake was well to their east. The road was crowded as they approached what looked like an animal theme park.

“The head of the Triad is going to meet me at a zoo?” he demanded.

“The leader, the Shan Chu, won’t be there.”

“I know that, Chen. Who is it, the Hung Kwan?”

“No. The White Paper Fan and the Incense Master.”

The Incense Master (Heung Chu) was in charge of ritual indoctrination and the White Paper Fan (Pak Tsz Sin) was the financial officer of the Triad. They were third and sixth respectively in the hierarchy of Triad command. Not bad, Fong thought.

“I asked them for higher up, but . . .”

“But we take what we can get when it comes to local Triads, huh, Chen?”

“At least they didn’t send the Grass Sandal.”

The Grass Sandal (Cho Hai) was the Triad’s mouthpiece. Fong had found in the past that the hardest thing about dealing with a Triad Cho Hai was stopping himself from knocking out the man’s teeth. Dental work was not Fong’s favourite topic, so he dropped the thought. “How deeply set is this Triad, Chen?”

“Deep. They were early in leaving the Kuomintang and aligning themselves with the People’s Liberation Army.”

“They could smell the winds that long ago?” Fong thought. He reminded himself to keep his cool with these men. He needed information, not more enemies. A man needed allies to survive in China.

Chen showed his ID, and he and Fong walked past a large line of Chinese men and women waiting to pay and enter the grounds. Naturally, many grumbled at Fong and Chen’s obvious queue-jumping, but few made noises loud enough to attract attention. Clearly, Chen and Fong were police officers – most Chinese citizens knew better than to make trouble for themselves with the local authorities.

The grounds were crowded but well laid out. No small cages here. Open pens, large grass-covered knolls surrounded by moats to keep the animals from the spectators. A welcome relief from the claustrophobic horror of old-style zoos.

Fong put his hands in his pockets and drank it all in. So many people. So much chatter. Families. Then he noticed that something was missing.

“How far are we from Xian?”

“A forty-five-minute drive, maybe less.”

Fong turned a full circle then asked, “Where are the tourists? There’s not a single white face in the entire crowd.”

Chen hung his head a little and said, more to his chest than to Fong, “This isn’t really a zoo, sir. It’s not on any tourist map. I doubt that they’d allow tourists in.”

That surprised Fong. He looked anew at his surroundings. At the edge of some of the containment areas, Chinese men and women held fishing rods with food at the end of the line. He watched as animals approached and grabbed the dangling treats. Apples for apes and monkeys. Chunks of meat for tigers and lions. Slabs of fish for bears.

Well, that was new to Fong. “What? They pay extra for the right to feed the animals or something?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I still don’t get it, Chen. What could the Triads want with a place like this?”

“Well, sir, it’s not so much the animals here, but rather the ones over there that are the Triad’s business concern.”

Chen was pointing to a large windowless building set back behind the containment areas. As they walked toward it, the crowds thickened and a kind of expectancy filled the air. It reminded Fong of the feeling he had at the one hanging he’d been forced to witness. He and his team had tracked down a pedophile who had fled Shanghai to a small town north of the Pudong. The man had made the mistake of trying to kidnap a young Australian boy from his parents. As a crime against foreigners, it had fallen into Fong’s jurisdiction. The man was clumsy. A fool. He left a wide, easy path to follow. Fong had made the arrest himself. The man was hiding beneath his mother’s bed. Fong had no doubt that the man was a danger to children. He also had no doubt that the man had the mental capacity of a ten year old and should have been put in an institution, not jail. Fong was forced to testify. At the trial, it quickly came out that the man had also sodomized several local children. The crowd outside the court was apoplectic with anger. The judge brought down his verdict without bothering to take a recess.

The hanging took place that afternoon. As the arresting officer, he’d been forced to walk the man to the scaffold. The man cried and peed his pants. He grabbed onto Fong’s arm and begged to be allowed to go home. He promised to be good. That he knew he was a bad boy. That he was sorry. That he was frightened of all the people around him and he didn’t know what was happening to him. When they put the noose around his neck, the crowd cheered. The man smiled as if he were being feted. Then a gunshot rang out. Everyone ducked. The boy slumped, held up by the noose around his neck.

The boy’s mother stepped forward and surrendered her firearm. How had she managed to get a gun?

No one spoke. She walked away. Fong often wondered what had happened to her. Surely the only crime she had committed was saving the State the need to hang her son. But she had shot her son. She had shot her son – he would never forget her face.

Well, the expectancy in the crowd around this big building was the same as it had been at the hanging that day. Chen led Fong to the entrance and past the ticket taker. Fong was surprised by the price of admission to the building. It was twenty times greater than the cost of getting into the park itself.

Once inside, Fong followed Chen up a wide set of steep concrete steps. They climbed up and up and up and then followed a widening concrete tunnel to the bright light beyond.

Before them was a completely round space with seating on the second and third levels. The hard benches on the second level were completely packed. Fong guessed that there had to be more than a thousand people, almost all men. The comfortable upholstered chairs on the third level were two-thirds full. On the ground, there was an open concrete circle with a large drain in the centre. Around the outside of the concrete floor were barred cages.

Fong looked to Chen, who shrugged a particularly enigmatic shrug. “It’s very popular, sir.”

Fong was prevented from asking, “What’s very popular?” by a cheer that erupted from the stands. A goat had been released from one of the cages. It let out an angry grunt as it raced into the centre of the ring. Even from a distance, Fong could see its nostrils flaring and hear its little sharp hooves clatter across the hard concrete.

Then another cage opened on the far side.

A full-maned lion strode out slowly and scented the air. The goat turned to see the danger. The crowd, as one, rose to its feet. At first, the lion seemed uninterested and pawed his way slowly around the perimeter. Then it turned and raced at the goat. The smaller animal dodged the attack and wheeled to face the second assault, but was too slow. A wide, taloned paw caught it along the flank. A slash of blood sailed six feet into the air and splattered to the concrete. For one horrific moment, the goat seemed to stare directly into Fong’s eyes, then fell and the lion was on it.