Jeffery Deaver - The Stone Monkey

"But they use bentonite in a lot of places," Cooper pointed out.

"Sure, but the other trace materials Sachs found are from there too. That whole area is landfill and it's full of rusted metal and glass trace. And the ash? To clear the old piers down there the builders burned them."

"And it's only twenty minutes from Chinatown," Deng pointed out.

Thom wrote this on the evidence chart.

Still, it was a huge area and contained many high-density buildings: hotels, apartments and office buildings. They would need more information in order to narrow down exactly where the Ghost might be staying.

Sonny Li was pacing, walking in front of the board.

"Hey, Loaban, I got some ideas too."

"About what?" Rhyme grumbled. The man reeked of cigarette smoke. Rhyme had never smoked but he felt a huge burst of crip envy – that this man could partake in his vices all by himself, without having to track down a conspirator to help him.

Fucking surgery better do something, he thought.

"Hey, Loaban, you listening?"

"Go ahead, Sonny," Rhyme said, distracted.

"I was at crime scene too."

"Yeah," Sachs said, giving him an exasperated look. "Walking around, smoking."

"See," Rhyme explained, trying against his nature to be patient, "anything that comes into the crime scene after the perpetrator can contaminate it. That makes it harder to find the evidence that would lead to the suspect."

"Hey, Loaban, you think I don't know that? Sure, sure, you pick up dust and dirt and put in gas chromatograph and then spectrometer and use scanning electron microscope." The complicated English words fell awkwardly from his tongue. "Match against databases."

"You know about forensic equipment?" Rhyme asked, blinking in surprise.

"Know about it? Sure, we use that stuff. Hey, I study at Beijing Institute of Forensics. Got nice medal. Second in class. I know all that, I'm saying." He added testily, "We not back in Ming dynasty, Loaban. I got own computer – Windows XP. All kinds databases too. And cell phone and pager."

"Okay, Sonny, got the point. What'd you see at the scene?"

"Disharmony. That what I saw."

"Explain," Rhyme said.

"Harmony very important in China. Even crime has harmony. At that place back there, that warehouse, no harmony at all."

"What's a harmonious killing?" Coe asked wryly.

"The Ghost find man who betray him. He torture him, kill him and leave. But, hey, Hongse, remember? Place all destroyed. Posters of China torn up, statues of Buddha and dragons broken… Han Chinese not do that."

"That's the racial majority in China – the Han," Eddie Deng explained. "But the Ghost's Han, isn't he?"

"Sure, but he not do it. Office got messed up after Tang killed. I hear her say that."

Sachs confirmed this.

"Probably Ghost left and then those men work for him, they vandal the office. I'm thinking he hire ethnic minority for his ba-tu. "

"Muscle, thugs," Deng translated.

"Yeah, yeah, thugs. Hire them from minorities. Mongols, Manchus, Tibetans, Uighurs."

"That's crazy, Sonny," Rhyme said. "Harmony?"

"Crazy?" Li replied, shrugging broadly. "Sure, you right, Loaban. I crazy. Like when I say you find Jerry Tang first, I crazy. But, hey, you listen me then, we maybe found Tang when he alive, strap him down and use ox prod till he tell us where is Ghost." The entire team turned to him in shock. Li hesitated a moment then laughed. "Hey, Loaban, joke."

Though Rhyme wasn't completely sure he was kidding.

Li continued, pointing at the board, "You want evidence? Okay, here evidence. Shoeprints. Smaller than Ghost's. Han – Chinese – not big people. Like me. Not big like you. But people from west and north minorities, lot of them even smaller than us. There, you like that forensic stuff, Loaban? Thought you would. So go find some minorities. You get lead to Ghost, I'm saying."

Rhyme glanced at Sachs and he could tell she was thinking the same thing. What can it hurt? Rhyme asked Eddie Deng, "What about it? You know these minorities?"

"I don't have a clue," he replied. "Most of the people we deal with in the Fifth Precinct are Han – Fujianese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Taiwanese…"

Coe agreed, adding, "The minorities would keep to themselves."

Impatient now that there was a lead to be pursued, Rhyme snapped, "Well, who would know? I want to follow up on it. How?"

"Tongs," Li said. "Tongs know everything. Han, non-Han, everything."

"And what exactly is a tong?" Rhyme asked, having only a vague memory from some bad movie he'd watched when recovering from his accident.

Eddie Deng explained that tongs were societies of Chinese who had common interests: people who came from a particular area in China or who practiced the same trade or profession. They were shrouded in secrecy and, in the old days, met only in private – "tong" means "chamber." In the United States they arose for protection from whites and for self-governance; traditionally Chinese resolved disputes among themselves, and the head of one's tong had more power over his members than did the president of the United States.

Though they had a long tradition in crime and violence, he continued, in recent years tongs had cleaned themselves up. The word "tong" was out and they began calling themselves "public associations," "benevolent societies," or "merchant guilds." Many were still just as involved in gambling, massage parlors, extortion and money laundering as ever but they distanced themselves from violence. They hired young men with no connection to the tongs to act as enforcers.

"Outsourcing," Deng joked.

"Were you in one, Eddie?" Rhyme asked.

The detective polished his stylish glasses as he responded defensively, "For a while. It was a kid thing."

"Is there anybody at one we can talk to?" Sachs asked.

Deng thought for a moment. "I'd give Tony Cai a call. He helps us some – up to a point – and he's one of the best connected loabans in the area. Lot of guanxi. He runs the Eastern Chinese Public Association. They're on the Bowery."

"Call him," Rhyme ordered.

Coe shook his head. "Won't talk on the phone."

"Bugged?"

Deng said, "No, no, it's a cultural thing. For some matters you have to meet face-to-face. But there's a catch – Cai won't want to be seen around police, not with the Ghost involved."

A thought occurred to Rhyme. "Get a limo and bring him here."

"What?" Sellitto asked.

"The heads of tongs… they have egos, right?"

"You bet," Coe said.

"Tell him we need his help and that the mayor's sending a limo to pick him up."

While Sellitto called about the car Eddie Deng rang up Cai's community association. The conversation was in the clipped and singsongy cadence of rapidly spoken Chinese. Eddie put his hand over the mouthpiece. "Let me get this straight – I'm telling him this is at the mayor's request."

"No," Rhyme said. "Tell him it's the governor's office."

"We oughta be a little careful here, Linc," Sellitto said delicately.

"We'll be careful after we collar the Ghost."

Deng nodded, returned to the phone and they spoke some more. He hung up. "Okay. He'll do it."

Sonny Li was patting the pockets of his trousers absently, looking for cigarettes undoubtedly. He seemed uneasy.

"Hey, Loaban, I ask you something. Maybe you do me favor?"

"What?"

"I make phone call? Back to China. Cost some money I not have. But I pay you back."

"That's all right," Rhyme said.

"Who're you calling?" Coe asked bluntly.

"Private. My business."

"No. You don't have a private life around here, Li. Tell us, or no call."

The cop offered a cold glance at the INS agent and said, "Call is to my father."