Jeffery Deaver - The Stone Monkey

Coe muttered, "I know Chinese – Putonghua and Minnanhua. I understand hao. I'll be listening."

Rhyme nodded at Thom, who got an international operator on the line and placed the call to the town of Liu Guoyuan in Fujian. He handed the receiver to Li, who took it uncertainly. He glanced at the plastic hand piece for a moment then turned away from Rhyme and the others and slowly brought it to his ear.

Rhyme suddenly saw a different Sonny Li. One of the first words he heard was "Kangmei" – Sonny's formal name. The man was obsequious, slumped, nervous, nodding like a young student as he spoke. Finally he hung the phone up and stood looking down at the floor for a moment.

Sachs asked, "Something wrong?"

The Chinese cop was suddenly aware that someone had spoken to him. He shook his head in reply to the question and turned back to Rhyme. "Okay, Loaban, what we going do now?"

"We're going to look at some harmonious evidence," Rhyme responded.

Ahalf hour later the doorbell sounded and Thom vanished into the hall. He returned with a heavyset Chinese man in a gray, fully buttoned suit, white shirt and striped tie. His face revealed no surprise or shock at seeing Rhyme in the Storm Arrow chair or at the collection of forensic equipment in the quaint Victorian town house. The only bit of emotion was when he glanced at Sachs and saw her sipping tea, redolent of herbs the man seemed to recognize by smell.

"I am Mr. Cai."

Rhyme introduced himself. "You're comfortable with English?"

"Yes."

"We have a problem, Mr. Cai, and I hope you can help us."

"You work for governor?"

"That's right."

In a distant sort of way we do, Rhyme thought, raising an ironic eyebrow toward the still-uneasy Lon Sellitto.

As Cai sat down, Rhyme explained about the Fuzhou Dragon and the immigrants hiding in town. Another flash of emotion when the name the Ghost was mentioned but then the face went blank again. Rhyme nodded to Deng, who told him about the killers and their suspicion that the men were from a Chinese ethnic minority group.

Cai nodded, considering this. Beneath large, wire-rimmed bifocals, his eyes were quick. "The Ghost, we know about him. He does much harm to all of us here. I will help you… Ethnic minorities? In Chinatown there are none but I'll make some inquiries into other areas around the city. I have many connections."

"It's very important," Sachs said to him. "Those ten people, the witnesses… the Ghost is going to kill them if we don't find them first."

"Of course," Cai said sympathetically. "I'll do whatever I can. If your driver can take me back now I'll begin."

"Thank you," Sachs said. Sellitto and Rhyme nodded their gratitude too.

Cai rose and shook hands though unlike most visitors there was not even a vestigial gesture of his arm toward Rhyme but merely a nod, which told the criminalist that he was very much in control of himself and far more perceptive and intelligent than his distracted demeanor suggested.

He was glad this man would be helping them.

But as Cai walked toward the door Sonny Li said abruptly, "Ting!"

"He said 'Wait,'" Eddie Deng explained to Rhyme in a whisper.

Cai turned around, a frown on his face. Li strode up to him and, gesturing broadly, began speaking harshly. The tong leader leaned closer to Li and the two began an explosive conversation.

Rhyme thought they were going to come to blows.

"Hey!" Sellitto said to Li. "What the hell're you doing?"

Li ignored him and, red-faced, continued to pummel Cai with words. The tong leader finally grew quiet. His head finally dipped and his eyes scanned the floor.

Rhyme looked at Deng, who shrugged. "Too fast for me. I couldn't follow it."

As Li continued to speak, more calmly now, Cai began to nod and respond. Finally Li asked a question and the tong leader extended his hand and they shook.

Cai gave another brief nod to Rhyme, his face completely emotionless, and then left.

"What on earth was that?" Sachs asked.

"Why you just let him leave before?" Li said gruffly to Rhyme. "He not going to help you."

"Yes, he was."

"No, no, no. Not matter what he said. Dangerous for him help us. He has family, not want them hurt. He not getting nothing from you. Limo not fool him." He waved around the room. "He know governor not involved."

"But he said he'd help us," Sellitto said.

"Chinese not like say no," Li explained. "Easier for us to find excuse or just say yes and then forget it. Cai was going back to office and forget you, I'm saying. He say he help but he was really saying 'Mei-you.' You know what is mei-you? Means, I not help you; go away."

"What'd you say? What were you fighting about?"

"No, no, not fight. We negotiation. You know, business. Now he going to look for your minorities. He really do it."

"Why?" Rhyme asked.

"You pay him money."

"What?" Sellitto asked.

"Not so much. Only cost you ten thousand. Dollar, not yuan."

"No way," Alan Coe said.

"Jesus Christ," Sellitto said. "We haven't got that in the budget."

Rhyme and Sachs looked at each other and laughed.

Li scoffed, "You a big city, you rich. You got strong dollar, Wall Street, you run World Trade Organization. Hey, Cai want lot more at first."

"We can't pay -" Sellitto began.

"Come on, Lon," Rhyme said, "you've got your snitch fund. Anyway, technically this's a federal operation. The INS'll cough up half of it."

"I don't know about that," Coe said uneasily, running his hand over his red hair.

"It's okay – I'll sign the chit myself," Rhyme said and the agent blinked, not sure whether it was appropriate to laugh at this. "Call Peabody. And we'll get Dellray to contribute too." He glanced at Li. "What're the terms?"

"I did good bargain. He give us names first and then he get paid. Course, he wants pay in cash."

"Of course."

"Okay, I need a cigarette. I take break for while, Loaban? I need good cigarettes. You got fuck worst ones in this country. Not taste like nothing. Get some food too."

"Go ahead, Sonny. You earned it."

As the Chinese cop left the room Thom asked, "What do I put down on the chart?" Nodding at the evidence whiteboard. "About Cai and the tongs."

"I don't know," Sachs said. "I think I'd say 'Checking out the woo-woo evidence.'"

Lincoln Rhyme, however, opted for something somewhat more helpful. "How 'bout: 'Suspected accomplices from Chinese ethnic minority,'" he dictated. "'Presently pursuing whereabouts.'"

The Ghost, accompanied by the three Turks, was driving a stolen Chevrolet Blazer into Queens en route to the Changs' apartment.

As he drove through the streets, carefully as always so that he wouldn't get stopped, he reflected on Jerry Tang's death. He hadn't for a moment considered letting the man go unpunished for his betrayal. Nor had he considered delaying the retribution. Disloyalty to your superiors was the worst crime in Confucian philosophy. Tang had abandoned him on Long Island – a situation from which he'd escaped only because of the luck of finding that car with the engine running at the restaurant on the beach. So the man'd had to die and to die painfully. The Ghost thought of the Shang emperor Zhou Xin. Once, sensing disloyalty from one of his vassals, the emperor butchered the man's son and had him cooked and served to the unsuspecting traitor for dinner, after which he cheerfully revealed the primary ingredient of the main course. The Ghost thought such justice was perfectly reasonable, not to mention satisfying.

A block from the Changs' apartment he pulled the Blazer to the curb.

"Masks," he ordered.

Yusuf dug into a bag and handed out ski masks.