Bamboo and blood

2

"Miss Ban, I am Inspector O from the Ministry of Public Security. I would like to talk to you."

She stood in the doorway to her office, giving no sign that she was prepared to step aside. "You'll have to make an appointment through normal channels, Inspector. You shouldn't even be on this floor."

"Pardon me?" I couldn't remember why I imagined her as lithe. I should have trusted my instincts. Her footsteps sounded like someone solid, and now I saw why. She was tall, solid as a rock. Not fat, not heavy, just very solid. I knew elite guards who didn't have her build. Maybe that's why she had this job shuffling phony files. She looked like she ate small men. "I'm not here to vacation. I'm on assignment, and I need to talk to you. I don't make 'appointments' when I question people. You can consider yourself lucky you weren't ordered to appear at my office."

"I'll do that. Consider myself lucky. If that's all, I'm especially busy right now. Come back some other time, maybe in a month or two, when it's warmer. I look forward to spring, don't you, Inspector?" She smiled with her mouth, only it wasn't anything that warmed the heart. It was a serious warning, and I could tell she was a serious woman. She parted her hair in the middle, not a little to one side, but right down the center line so it looked like it was done with a machine. Maybe it was. Maybe they made such machines and she had been issued one in order to make it clear she wasn't fooling around, she was serious, and if you didn't think so, just look at that part in her long black hair. As soon as I left, she would phone in a complaint, and the guard at the front door of the building would be given orders to keep me out. He wouldn't try very hard, but I didn't need the extra hassle.

"On second thought, Miss Ban, let's just say I'm drawn to you. Let's just say I'm lonely, and you're lonely, and it's warm in here. Can I come in and share the warmth? Is that a problem?"

"Nothing personal, Inspector," she said and shut the door. I thought she might open it again, but she didn't. It was uncomfortable standing in the corridor, too similar to the meat lockers I had to visit during one investigation of a butcher who dealt in counterfeit loin. I normally don't wear my hat inside of buildings, but this corridor was testing the limits. I tried the handle, but it was locked. I thought of kicking the door in, but the amount of explaining and hours of meetings that would result from a complaint about destroying part of the Foreign Ministry building were more than I wanted to endure, much less Pak's looks of disbelief each time he glanced in my office over the next few months. Besides, she didn't look like a woman who was impressed by a man who kicked in doors.

I knocked once. "I'll be back, darling." I figured the last word would rocket the others along the corridor up from their desks, ears against their doors. There was a short, throaty laugh from inside, the sort of laugh a woman of Miss Ban's frame supports easily. When I got back to the liaison man's office, he was gone. So was the heater.

"He's out. Visitors from afar," a man said as he walked past me and into the next room. After a moment, he reappeared. "That one"-he pointed at the liaison man's door-"has a heater." He looked in the room. "He must have taken it, but he has one. It sucks electricity all day long."

"You trying to tell me something?"

"He's not supposed to have it, is he?"

"What makes you think I'm interested?"

"Nothing." The man's face was gaunt. "Nobody is interested in anything anymore. So, good, we'll all freeze to death, everyone but him, if we don't starve first." He looked at me closely, his eyes ablaze with something, not fear exactly. I couldn't tell whether he wanted to take back the words, or be assured that I had heard him.

"You have a family?"

He nodded.

"Then don't talk crazy," I said. "When some people get too cold, they become crazed; the words that come from their mouths become crazy. Remember that."

He put his hand to his forehead, a gesture of despair, and waited. "What next?"

I knew right then, he would not live out the winter. At this point it was a matter of will with a lot of people. His was gone, which saddened me for some reason. I didn't know him, but I didn't want him to give up. "Those with heaters will sit in front of them and curse every time the power goes out. Those of us without heaters won't notice the difference," I said. He didn't reply, but he didn't walk away, so I figured he wanted the company. "You know Miss Ban, upstairs?"

"Only her tread. I don't go up there," he said absently.

"You have your own office?" I pointed at his door.

"No, this one is for a team, but everyone else…"

"They've left."

He shrugged.

"But you stayed."

"They say it's an arduous march; all I do is sit in the dark. I won't get a medal for that."

"I don't suppose you've ever been to Pakistan? Served there? Made a trip?" Might as well start with the biggest shot in the dark and work backward.

"No. What's it to you?"

"Where have you been, then? I'm interested in leading a tour group."

"You ask a lot of questions." At least he could still fight back; maybe it would be enough motivation to stay alive, if he decided to fight.

"A question machine, that's me. I keep asking until I get an answer. Could be the switch is stuck or a connection is loose." Once again he didn't respond, but there was something new, an alertness that had been drained from him only a moment ago. "Where did you serve?" I decided to see how far the conversation would go.

"Middle East. Craziness. Libya. The man's a nut, as far as I can tell."

"You put that in a reporting cable, I suppose. Such forthrightness is much appreciated in this building, I hear."

"Reporting wasn't my job." He smiled, finally, for the first time. "Forthrightness wasn't my area of expertise. My job was making sure the ambassador stayed out of trouble."

"So, did he stay out of trouble?"

"He defected." The words seemed to stick in his throat, and it looked for a moment like I might lose him for good. I nodded for him to go on, and for some reason that seemed to blow up the dam. He didn't need any more encouragement. "The whole embassy was scared to death when the ambassador disappeared. People were angry with me; they said I should have been more alert, more aware, like I was supposed to know what he was thinking every moment, like I was supposed to be able to read his mind." His face took on some color, and so did his voice. "A security team came out in a hurry; they told us to pretend nothing had happened and to go about our business, but no one could think straight. I was convinced they'd shoot me, take me out to the garden in the back and shoot me, but after a lot of questions they said it wasn't my fault. Damned right it wasn't my fault. I'll never know what got into the man."

"That was in Libya?"

He looked at me strangely. "No." He didn't volunteer where, and I wasn't going to ask, not unless I needed to.

"You think they'll send you overseas for another assignment?"

"I don't think they even know I come to the office every day. I read the cables and put them in a file. This file, that file. Like I said, no one cares." The energy was gone again. It made me uneasy to look at him, wondering how long he would last.