Frank Schätzing - Limit

‘What’s this about?’

What’s it about? thought Grand Cherokee. Simple enough, you varnished monkey. I’ll take the money and run off to Jericho, and give him a choice. Either he tops your offer and gets the exclusive story, or he turns me down, and you get it. But not until I’ve spoken to Jericho. And if Jericho coughs up twenty times as much, then we’ll try you for thirty times.

‘Yes or no?’ he asked.

The corners of Xin’s mouth lifted, almost imperceptibly. ‘Which movie have you got this from, Wang?’

‘I don’t need to watch any movies. You’re after Yoyo, I couldn’t care less why. I find it much more interesting that the cops want something from her as well. Conclusion: you’re obviously not a cop. Meaning that you can’t do anything to me. You have to take what you can get, and’ – he bowed, and bared his teeth – ‘when you can get it.’

Xin looked around, his smile frozen. Then he glanced at the control panel.

‘Do you know what I hate?’ he asked.

‘Me?’ said Grand Cherokee, laughing.

‘You’re vermin, Wang, hatred is too good for you. No, I hate spots. Those greasy fingers of yours have left nasty smears all over the display.’

‘So?’

‘Clean them up.’

‘Do what?’

‘Clean up those greasy smears.’

‘Listen here, you designer-suited piece of shit, what exactly do you think—’

Something odd happened then, something Grand Cherokee had never experienced before. It was quick as lightning, and when it was over, he was lying on the floor in front of the control panel, and his nose felt as though a grenade had exploded in it. Flashes of colour sparked in front of his eyes.

‘Your face wouldn’t do very well to keep things clean,’ said Xin, then reached down and pulled Grand Cherokee to his feet like a puppet. ‘Oh, you look dreadful. What happened to your nose? Shall we talk?’

Grand Cherokee staggered and put a hand on the console to steady himself. He felt his face with the other hand. His forehead appliqué fell into the palm of his hand. He looked at Xin, nonplussed.

Then he swung at him, enraged.

Xin languidly poked him in the sternum.

It was as though somebody had unhooked all systems in the lower half of Grand Cherokee’s body. He fell to one knee while a gout of pain shot through his chest. His mouth opened, and he made choking sounds. Xin squatted down and supported him with his right arm before he could collapse.

‘It’ll pass soon,’ he said. ‘I know, for a while you think you’ll never be able to talk again. Wrong though. Generally speaking, people actually find it easier to talk after they’ve had that done to them. What did you want to say?’

Grand Cherokee gasped. His lips formed a word.

‘Yoyo?’ Xin nodded. ‘A good start. Try your best, Wang, and above all’ – he took him under the arms and heaved him up – ‘get to your feet.’

‘Yoyo is—’ panted Grand Cherokee.

‘Where?’

‘In Hangzhou.’

‘Hangzhou?’ Xin raised his eyebrows. ‘Mercy me. Do you actually know something? Where in Hangzhou?’

‘In – a hotel.’

‘Name?’

‘No idea.’ Grand Cherokee sucked in greedy lungfuls of air. Xin was right. The pain passed, but he didn’t feel in the least bit better for it. ‘Something with flowers.’

‘Don’t make things so complicated,’ Xin said mildly. ‘Something with flowers is about as specific as somewhere in China.’

‘Might have been something with trees, even,’ Grand Cherokee yelped. ‘My informant said flowers.’

‘In Hangzhou?’

‘On the West Lake.’

‘Where on the West Lake? On the city side?’

‘Yes, yes!’

‘On the western shore then?’

‘That’s it.’

‘Aha! Maybe near the Su dam?’

‘The – I think so.’ Grand Cherokee felt a glimmer of hope. ‘Probably Yes, that’s what he said.’

‘But the city is on the eastern shore.’

‘P-perhaps I didn’t quite hear.’ The glimmer died away.

‘But near the Su dam? Or the Bai dam?

Bai dam? Su dam? It was becoming ever more complicated. Where were these dams anyway? Grand Cherokee hadn’t thought about it all that much. Who the hell expected all these questions?

‘I don’t know,’ he said feebly.

‘I thought your informant—’

‘I just don’t know!’

Xin looked at him reproachfully. Then he jabbed his fingers into Grand Cherokee’s kidney region.

The effect was indescribable. Grand Cherokee opened and closed his mouth rapidly like a fish snatched from the water, while his eyes opened wide. Xin held him in an iron grip to stop him from collapsing again. For all that the surveillance cameras could see, they were standing side by side like old friends.

‘So?’

‘I don’t know,’ Grand Cherokee whimpered, while part of him detachedly observed that pain was orange. ‘Really, I don’t.’

‘What do you know, if anything?’

Grand Cherokee lifted his eyes, trembling. There was no mistaking what he could read in Xin’s eyes about what would happen to him if he lied one more time.

‘Nothing,’ he whispered.

Xin laughed contemptuously, shook his head and let go of him.

‘Do you want the money back?’ Grand Cherokee mumbled, and bent double with the memory of the pain that had shaken his body.

Xin pursed his lips. He looked out at the city shimmering below. ‘I keep remembering something you said,’ he remarked.

Grand Cherokee gaped at him and waited. The part of him that had floated off detached, pointed out that in fifteen minutes the first visitors would be let in, that it would probably be full because the weather was so exceptionally fine.

‘You said that Yoyo is pretty much in demand. I believe those were the words you used, am I right?’

Still fifteen minutes.

‘You can make up for lost ground, Wang. Tell the truth this time. Who else was asking about her?’

‘A detective,’ muttered Grand Cherokee.

‘Very interesting. When was this?’

‘Last night. I showed him Yoyo’s room. He asked the same questions as you.’

‘And you gave the same answers. That you’d find something out, but that it would cost a little.’

Grand Cherokee nodded, downcast. If Xin went to Owen Jericho with this information, then he could kiss goodbye to that money. Hurrying to carry out the next order before it was given, he took out Jericho’s card and handed it to Xin, who took it with both hands, looked at it curiously and put it away.

‘Anything else?’

Of course. He could have told Xin about the motorbike gang. The one trail that might actually lead to Yoyo. But he wouldn’t do this fucker any such favour.

‘Fuck you,’ he said instead.

‘Meaning no.’

Xin looked thoughtful. He stepped out of the open door to the control room, to the area between the turnstile and the platform. He paid no further attention to Grand Cherokee, as though he no longer existed. Which would probably be the best thing right now. Just stop existing until the bastard had left this floor. Not give a peep, become about as big as a mouse, less than a fingerprint on a computer display. All this was as clear as anything ever had been, to the detached part of Grand Cherokee Wang, and he spoke a well-meaning word of warning which the other Wang, the Wang blinded by hatred, ignored. Instead he shuffled after Xin and thought about how he could recover his dignity, the dignity of the man who guarded the dragon, which right now was in a fairly shabby state. You vicious arsehole? Xin probably knew that he was vicious, and arsehole was too small a word. Grand Cherokee reckoned that insults probably slid straight off Xin anyway.

How could he get at the fucker?