Jeffery Deaver - The Stone Monkey

"We have a different view here."

"Yeah, yeah," Li scoffed. "Doctors make you look younger. Give you hair. Give women bigger xiong, you know -" He pointed to his chest. "We not understand that. That not in harmony."

"You think I'm in harmony like this?" Rhyme asked with an exasperated laugh.

"Fate make you this way, Loaban. And make you this way for purpose. Maybe you best detective you can be because of what happen. Your life balanced now, I'm saying."

Rhyme had to laugh. "I can't walk, I can't pick up evidence… How the hell is that better?"

"Maybe your brain, it work better now, I'm saying. Maybe you have stronger will. Your jizhong, your focus, maybe is better."

"Sorry, Sonny, I don't buy it."

But, as he'd learned, once Sonny Li took a position on an issue, he didn't let go. "Let me explain you, Loaban. You remembering John Sung? Has that good-luck stone of Monkey King?"

"I remember."

"You are Monkey."

"I'm what?"

"You are like Monkey, I'm saying. Monkey do miracle things, magic, smart, tough – had temper too, I'm saying. Like you. But he ignore nature – look for ways to cheat gods and stay alive forever. He steal peaches of immortality, got names erased from Register of Living and Dead. That when he got in trouble. Got burned and beat up and buried under mountain. Finally Monkey give up wanting to live forever. Found some friends and they all make pilgrimage to holy land in the west. He was happy. In harmony, I'm saying."

"I want to walk again," Rhyme whispered adamantly, wondering why he was baring his soul to this strange little man. "That's not too much to ask."

"But maybe is too much ask," Li responded. "Listen, Loaban, look at me. I could wish to be tall and look like Chow Yun-Fat, have all girls chase me. Could wish to run big commune and have hundreds productivity awards so everybody respect me. Could wish to be Hong Kong banker. But not my nature. My nature is being fuck good cop. Maybe you start walking again, you lose some other else – something more important. Why you drink this crap?" He nodded at the scotch.

"It's my favorite baijiu."

"Yeah? How much it cost?"

"About seventy dollars a bottle."

Li made a sour face. Still he downed the glass and poured another. "Listen, Loaban, you know the Tao?"

"Me? That New Age crap? You're talking to the wrong person."

"Okay, I am telling you something. In China we got two big philosophs. Confucius and Lao-tzu. Confucius think what is best is for people to obey superiors, follow orders, kow tow to betters, keep quiet. But Lao-tzu, he say opposite. What is best is for each person follow the way of life on his own. Find harmony and nature. English name of Tao is Way of Life. He write something I try to say. It all about you, Loaban."

"About me?" Rhyme asked, reminding himself that his interest in the man's words must've had its source in the well of alcohol within him at the moment.

Li squinted as he translated, "In Tao, Lao-tzu say, 'There no need to leave house for better seeing. No need to peer from window. Instead, live in the center of your being. The way to do is to be.'"

"Does everybody in China have a goddamn saying for everything?" Rhyme snapped.

"We got lots sayings, true. You should have Thom write that down and put up on wall, next to altar to Guan Di."

The men fell silent for a minute. There is no need to leave house for better seeing. No need to peer from window…

Finally the conversation resumed and Li talked at length about life in China.

Rhyme asked, "And what's your house like?"

"Apartment. Whole place small, size this room."

"Where is it?"

"My town, Liu Guoyuan. Means 'six orchards,' but they all gone now, all cut down. Maybe fifty thousands people. Outside Fuzhou. Many people there. Over million, I'm saying."

"I don't know the area."

"In Fujian Province, southeast China. Taiwan is just off coast. Many mountains. Min River, big one, run through it. We independent place. Beijing worried about us lots. Fujian was home of first triad – organized gang, I'm saying. The San Lian Hui. Very powerful. Lots smuggling: salt, opium, silk. Lots sailors in Fujian. Merchants, importers. Not so many farmers. Communist Party is powerful in my town but that because the party secretary is private capitalist. Has Internet company like AOL. Real success. Ha, running dog lackey capitalist! His collective make good, good money. His stock not fall like NASDAQ."

"What kind of crime is there in Liu Guoyuan?" Rhyme asked.

Li nodded. "Lots bribes, protection money. In China, you cheat business and people, that okay. But cheat the party or the government, then you fuck die. Convict you, shoot in back of head. We got lots other crime too. Same stuff happen here. Murder and robbery and rape." Li sipped more liquor. "I find man killing women. Kill four of them, going to kill more. I got him." He laughed. "One drop blood. I find one drop on his bicycle tire, small as grain of sand. That what place him at scene. He confess. See, Loaban, not all woo-woo."

"I'm sure it isn't, Sonny."

"Kidnapping women big problem in China – have more men than women. For every hundred women, we got a hundred twenty men. People not want baby girls, I'm saying, only boys. But then where brides come from? So lots kidnappers take girls and women, sell them. Sad, families come to us and ask us find their wives or daughters been kidnap. Lot security officers don't bother – hard cases. Sometimes they take women thousands miles away. I find six last year. Record in our office. Good feeling to find kidnapper, arrest him."

Rhyme said, "That's what it's all about."

Li lifted his cup at this and then they drank in silence for a moment. Rhyme, thinking that he was feeling content. Most of the people who came to visit treated him like a freak. Oh, they meant no unkindness. But either they struggled to ignore his "condition," as most of them referred to it or they celebrated his disability, making jokes and comments about it to show how closely they connected with him. When in fact they didn't connect at all and as soon as they caught a glimpse of the catheter or the box of adult diapers in the corner of the bedroom they started counting down the minutes until they could escape. These people would never disagree with him, they'd never fight back. They never got below the appearance of a relationship.

But in Sonny Li's face Rhyme could see complete indifference to Rhyme's state. As if it were, well, indeed natural.

He realized then that nearly all the people he'd met over the past few years, with the exception of Amelia Sachs, had been merely acquaintances. He'd known the man for less than a day but Sonny Li already seemed more than that.

"You mentioned your father," Rhyme said. "When you called him before, it didn't sound like a good conversation. What's his story?"

"Ah, my father…" He drank more scotch, which was apparently growing on the cop the way Rhyme had gotten used to the baijiu. Globalization through liquor, Rhyme reflected wryly.

Li poured another shot.

"You might want to sip it," Rhyme suggested.

"Time to sip is after you dead," the cop said and emptied the pink Dixie cup emblazoned with flowers. "My father… He not like me much. I am, what is meaning… Not live up to what he wants."

"Disappointment?"

"Yes, I am disappointment."

"Why?"

"Ah, lots things. Give you our history in acorn."

"Nutshell."

"Dr. Sun Yat-sen in the 1920s, he unify China but civil war happened. Kuomintangs – the National Party – were under Chiang Kai-shek. But Gongchantang – the communists – they fight against them. Then Japan invade, bad time for everybody. After Japan lose, we have more civil war in China and finally Mao Zedong and communists win, drive the nationalists to Taiwan. My father, he fought with Mao. October 1949, he standing with Chairman Mao at the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing. Oh, Loa-ban, I hear that story a million times. How he stood there and bands was playing 'The March of the Volunteers.' Big fuck patriotic time.