James Church - The Man with the Baltic Stare

There wasn’t much left. One side of the building had been sheared away, and the roof was in danger of caving in at any moment. I spotted Kang in a crowd of people pushing against a police cordon that had been thrown up in front of the parking lot. No one had any training for this sort of thing, and all the cops looked nervous. The officer in charge was running up and down the line bellowing at his men to keep everyone back.

“I’ll get out here,” I said to the thin man.

“Oh, no. I’m not letting you out of my sight again.”

“I’ll be right there.” I pointed to the crowd. “There’s no way I’m going back up to my room, and I can’t go anywhere else until I have another place to stay, can I?”

“I’ll park. If when I get back you’re gone, I’m putting you on a shoot-on-sight list.”

“Since when is there such a thing?”

“Since right now. If you think I don’t have the authority to do it, try me.”

“You spit, I’ll raise my hand.”

I jumped out of the car and hurried over to Kang. “This is your doing. That’s why you told me to get another room.”

Kang seemed unperturbed. “No. We were going to cause some damage, scare the fish in that ugly rug, but not blow the whole damned place up. Half the staff was killed. Someone else did this. I wouldn’t put it past Kim to have set the bomb so he could blame us.”

“Kim might do something like that. I’ll tell you for sure who would-Zhao.”

Kang had given me directions to Zhao’s apartment house. “We want him as much as you do,” Kang said, “but you’ve got a funny look in your eyes. I’ll give you a ten-minute head start. If he’s in the open-which I doubt-do whatever you want. If he’s in his hole, don’t try anything heroic. Or stupid. And don’t forget, we’re right behind you.”

The explosion had pulled all of the official security off almost every building in town, including Zhao’s. The viper was asleep, curled up on a sunny chair in the lobby. That’s good, I thought. Bombs don’t impress snakes.

The woman at the front desk started to say something, but I pointed to the viper and put a finger to my lips. “Shhhh. He spits poison if he wakes up all at once,” I whispered. “I’m supposed to tell Mr. Zhao what that big noise was all about.”

She pointed upstairs.

The apartment wasn’t on the top floor; it was the top floor. There was no hallway. The elevator doors opened silently and directly into a library filled with books from floor to ceiling.

I meant to say, “Get up, you bastard,” but when I saw the library all that came out was, “You read?”

Zhao was in a chair-red leather. “Sometimes, when there’s nothing else.” He didn’t seem surprised to see me. “I don’t like books, though. You know why?”

It didn’t seem to me that this was the exchange I should have with Zhao just before shooting him between the eyes.

“I’ll tell you why.” Zhao turned off the small reading lamp beside him. That plunged the room into darkness. “A book is what? Lots of words, but only one word at a time. You read a word; then you read the next word.”

“You’ve got that part down pretty well.” I pulled the pistol out of my belt and eased myself back a few steps.

“Same with people talking-one word at a time. Only there you can watch their faces.” He looked at me closely. I don’t know how I knew he was looking at me, but it felt obvious. “You can see what their hands are doing, or their eyes. Eyes are a giveaway. Whenever one of my guys has screwed up bad and is trying to convince me not to drop him off a boat, there are a lot of words of regret, but it’s his eyes that tell me if he really means it. It’s so much better than any written confession. I always tell people, ‘Listen to their lips, but watch their eyes.’ ”

“One of those snappy four-character sayings, right?” ’

“You think I’m joking? Try listening to a symphony sometime. You can’t do anything like that with a book, not even close. The same goes for a painting. Sure, it gets done one brushstroke at a time, that’s how it’s painted, but I’m talking about the effect. You stand back, what do you see? Brushstrokes? No, you see a painting. You follow?”

“I got your point.”

“No, you didn’t. You think I’m spouting theory.” Zhao’s eyes followed me as I edged along the wall. “But this is reality we’re talking about. Books aren’t real; that’s what I’m telling you. Words are never real. If I say, ‘I shot you,’ what the fuck do you care? But if I put a bullet in your heart, that’s real. Am I right?”

“I suppose.” Standing still might help. Maybe he couldn’t really see me but tracked movement like a bat or a shark.

“You better suppose. A bullet in your heart-that’s an image. Words aren’t even that. Words are words. And books are what? Words. I’ll say it again. You can’t get faster, or slower, or louder, or softer. Here’s a word. Here’s another word. It’s like throwing fish to a seal.”

The elevator door must have opened. I couldn’t hear it, but there was something new-a change in air pressure, or maybe the faint whip of a viper’s tongue. I pressed myself so far against the wall that the paint squeaked.

“Breathe normally,” Zhao laughed. It wasn’t the sound of anything this side of hell. “Just relax and close your eyes.”

No, I wasn’t going to do that. Kim said I couldn’t stop the flow of history. Maybe not, but I could make sure Zhao wouldn’t be part of it.

“Inspector? It won’t be long now. Give Pang my regards when you see him.”

A light went on, a bright orange light that made the whole room look like the middle of a burning city. I turned my head and there, standing a meter away, was Zhao’s number three, the pupils of his orange eyes as big as saucers. He was holding a saw, not for wood but for cutting through bone. His mouth opened. I fired twice. Then there was a third shot, a fourth. The viper wasn’t moving, I had my finger off the trigger, but there was still one more shot, very loud considering it was a room full of books. If Zhao was trying to shoot me in the back, he was taking his sweet time about it.

The room became supremely still for a moment. I turned around, and there was Zhao. He was sitting back in his leather chair, only I wouldn’t say it was a fighting posture or even one to show how relaxed he was. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t seeing any words. He wasn’t seeing anything. Greta stood off to his right, a pistol at her side.

“That’s done,” she said. “You all right?”

“Me? I’m fine. Did Zhao even know you were there?”

“I doubt it. Did you?” She walked over to the elevator. “Let’s get out of here.” She tossed me a book of matches. “You want to burn down the building?”

The thought never crossed my mind. “No, I think we’ll call things even at this point. Are we leaving the bodies here like this?”

“Let Major Kim deal with it.”

When we got down to the lobby, the lady at the desk was skimming a magazine. She flipped the pages as we walked by. Out on the street, Greta looked up at the top floor. “That orange light is still on. I hope it fries his eyes out.” She turned to me. “You hungry? We can get some mandu now. I’ll call Kang from the restaurant.”

“One thing I don’t understand.” A plate of dumplings sat in front of me, barely touched. I had discovered that near-death experiences did not whet my appetite. Greta didn’t seem to have that problem. “I know why the young man wanted that room-so he could see the fort. And I know someone standing along the front of the fort could see his room. But for what?”