Snakehead

I

The Golden Mountain Club sat in a corner of Ximen Plaza, flanked on either side by rows of shops. Mona’s Skin Care, Mountain Optical, Old China Fast Food. A billboard tacked to the exterior advertised, in Chinese characters, John P. Wu, Dentist—Dentista. Immediately next door was a Vietnamese restaurant boasting dancing and karaoke. The entrance to the Golden Mountain Club itself sat back in the shade of a covered walkway. A couple of felony notices in English and Spanish were pasted to the smoked glass of the door. A sign read: SMOKING PERMITTED WITHIN. Which brought a smile to Li’s face. The idea of a non-smoking Chinese club was risible.

They had been watching the club from Hrycyk’s beat-up old Santana on the far side of the plaza for nearly three hours. It had opened shortly after midday, and a steady flow of customers had followed the first staff — a dozen or so young to middle-aged men wearing suits and ties beneath overcoats that were superfluous in the midday heat of a Texas fall, several girls with short skirts and painted faces, miscellaneous youths in jeans and sneakers. You could tell the staff from the customers. The staff all had dead eyes and a reluctant gait. The customers had an air of anticipation about them, a sense of optimism.

Reluctantly, Li had left Xiao Ling at the house in Georgetown, protected by two armed police officers. She had refused to accompany them to the morgue where Margaret had made a positive identification of one of Li’s attackers — the one who had made the slit-throat sign to her from the passenger seat of the white Chevy. He was the one Li had wrestled the gun from the previous night, blowing away one half of his face in the ensuing struggle.

Now he, Fuller and Hrycyk were going after the dai lo known as Badger. It was a straight line of connection from dai lo to shuk foo to ah kung. The problem, they knew, would be in persuading Badger to squeal. There were codes of honour and loyalty here that law enforcement officers had been unable to break in thousands of years.

It was nearly three when they saw the unmistakable white stripe through the dark hair of a young Chinese wearing a black leather jacket. He was walking across the plaza with the swagger of someone in possession of absolute self-confidence. His hands were pushed into the pockets of tight designer jeans, and he wore soft green suede shoes. His white tee-shirt was emblazoned with the logo of some American heavy metal band. The ubiquitous cigarette dangled from his lips. He swung open the door of the Golden Mountain Club and waltzed in like he owned the place.

Fuller was set to move there and then, but Hrycyk stopped him. The old immigration hand had been here many times before. ‘Give him time to settle,’ he said. ‘Time to have a beer or two. Time to relax. We’re not so likely to lose him that way. We go in now, he’s still buzzing. Physically, mentally alert. And let me tell you, Agent Fuller, I’ve had it with chasing people up alleys. I’m too old for that kinda shit.’

So they waited another half-hour. Li and Hrycyk smoked more of Hrycyk’s cigarettes. ‘First stop, you’re buying some of your own,’ Hrycyk kept saying.

Fuller, full of impatience and irritated by the constant smoking, kept the window wound down at his side. ‘Next time,’ he said, ‘we bring along a HEPA mask so I can breathe.’

Li, sitting in the back, kept his own counsel and said nothing. Even if they were successful in pulling in the dai lo, he had grave doubts about how much, if anything, they would learn from him.

Hrycyk turned to him, and out of the blue said, ‘You were kidding me, right? About this heap being built in China?’

Li shook his head solemnly. ‘Rear off-side window winder always breaks off on them.’

Hrycyk looked at the broken window winder on the rear off-side window and narrowed his eyes. ‘You already clocked that,’ he said.

Li shrugged. ‘Maybe. Maybe not.’

‘Shit,’ Hrycyk said. ‘I’m trading this wreck in first chance I get.’ He opened the driver’s door. ‘Time to go and get that little Oriental bastard!’

Inside the main door there was a small reception area with a desk and a gold 3D profile of the United States mounted on the wall behind it. It was gloomy here, subdued red lighting, smoked glass doors turning day outside into night. A flunky in a suit looked up, startled. ‘Hey,’ he said, ‘this is private club. Members only.’

Hrycyk pushed a warrant in his face. ‘Picked up my membership this morning,’ he said. ‘From a judge downtown.’ And he flipped open his wallet to show him his badge. ‘INS.’

Fuller waved his badge at him, too. And Li held up his maroon Public Security ID. ‘Beijing Municipal Police,’ he said. ‘CID, Section One.’ Which had a great deal more effect than either of the other two. The flunky paled. He reached forward under the desk, and Fuller grabbed his arm.

‘Uh-uh,’ he said. ‘No warnings. Where’s Badger?’

The flunky gulped. ‘In the bar.’

‘Show us.’

He pulled the little man out from behind the desk, and they followed him up dark, carpeted stairs and through a door into a large salon with tables set around an empty dance floor. There was a small stage at the far side, and a long bar set against the near wall. Subdued lighting around the perimeter of the salon revealed groups of two or three men, and the occasional girl, sitting drinking at tables. The light along the bar reflected in the faces of customers and girls perched on high bar stools, nursing drinks and smoking cigarettes. Badger and a couple of his ma zhai stood in a group at one end drinking beer by the neck. Some record from the singles charts was belting out across the sound system.

‘Turn that shit off,’ Fuller shouted at the flunky and pushed him toward the bar. The little man squeezed in past the barman and switched off the stereo. The sudden silence startled everyone in the salon, as much as if a gun had gone off. The hubbub of voices became instantly self-conscious and quickly died away. Eyes turned toward the three law enforcement officers. Hrycyk stepped up to Badger and pushed a gun in his face and flapped his badge at him. The dai lo grinned his passive defiance as Hrycyk frisked the pockets of his leather jacket and drew out his wallet, flipping it open to the ID window.

‘Ko-Lin Qian,’ Hrycyk said, reading off it. Then he grinned at the white stripe. ‘Aka Badger. Aka Fuckhead. I have a warrant for your arrest. Turn around, put your hands on the bar.’ The dai lo did as he was told, still the same defiant smirk on his face. Hrycyk kicked his feet apart and checked him for weapons. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘put your hands behind your back.’ And he slipped his gun back in its holster and snapped on a pair of handcuffs.

The dai lo turned around to face him. ‘So what you arrest me for?’ he said. ‘Breathing? I thought air was free in America.’ A couple of his ma zhai sniggered.

‘Free for Americans,’ Hrycyk said. ‘Not for illegal aliens.’

‘I’m no illegal alien,’ the dai lo said. ‘I got papers.’

‘Papers lie.’

‘Truth is,’ Li said suddenly, speaking in Mandarin, ‘no one gives a shit whether you’re an illegal alien or not.’ Badger’s smirk evaporated. There was an absolute hush in the room.

‘What the hell are you saying?’ Hrycyk demanded.

But Li ignored him and continued in Mandarin. ‘We want information, kid. We need the name of your shuk foo. And you’re going to give us it.’

Li saw apprehension in the dai lo’s eyes. Badger glanced quickly around the watching faces, then thrust out his jaw defiantly at Li. ‘You know I’m not going to do that.’

‘Sure you will,’ Li said quietly. ‘Because I’m a nice guy, and I’ll ask you nicely.’ He paused. ‘Once.’ And he sighed. ‘After that, who knows? Maybe I’m not such a nice guy any more. You read the papers, you know how we do business in the PRC.’ He grinned.

Hrycyk was glaring at him. ‘You gonna let us in on this private conversation or not?’

Li shook his head. ‘No.’ He took Badger by the arm and jerked him toward the door. ‘Let’s go.’

When they got to the car, they put Badger in the back and Li slipped in beside him. Hrycyk turned and glared back at Li. ‘What the hell was all that about in there?’

‘Yeah, come on, Li,’ Fuller said. ‘We haven’t been holding anything back from you.’

‘No, of course you haven’t.’ Li said. ‘Let us just say at this point you do not need to know.’ He paused. ‘Trust me.’

‘About as far as I could kick you,’ Hrycyk growled, and he started the motor.

Badger snorted. ‘Where’d you pick up this heap of shit?’ he said sarcastically, making a poor attempt at bravado. ‘The breaker’s yard?’

‘Shut the fuck up,’ Hrycyk snarled angrily, and they jerked away across the tarmac with a squeal of tyres.

They drove in silence then along Bellaire until they turned on to the freeway at Sharpstown, heading east on the 59 before turning north on to the 45. Badger sat sullenly next to Li, staring out of the window. As the skyline of downtown started growing on the horizon he asked in Mandarin, ‘Where are you taking me?’

‘INS lockdown,’ Li said.

The dai lo shook his head bleakly. ‘You know you’ve signed my death warrant.’

‘Have I?’ Li asked innocently.

‘You know they’re going to kill me. I’m not going to tell you what you want to know. But they’ll make sure of it. One way or another.’

‘So, if they’re going to kill you,’ Li said, ‘why not tell us? What difference does it make?’

Badger looked at him scornfully. ‘I’d rather die.’

‘So die,’ Li said, turning to the front again. ‘Who gives a shit?’

Dark clouds were gathering again in the northwest, with the promise of more thunderstorms. They flashed beneath a couple of flyovers, the skyscrapers and tower blocks of downtown now directly ahead of them, late afternoon sunshine slanting through the clouds to reflect off acres of glass.

‘Pull over,’ Li said suddenly.

‘What?’ Hrycyk flicked a backward glance at him. ‘What do you mean, pull over?’

‘I mean stop the car,’ Li said, almost shouting.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Hrycyk pulled across two lanes of traffic, to the accompaniment of a chorus of horns, and burned rubber to bring them to a halt on the hard shoulder.

‘Wait here,’ Li said, and he grabbed the dai lo by the collar and pulled him out on to a band of concrete littered with shredded tyre and fragments of glass. The barrier was scraped and scored, scarred by dozens of minor and several major accidents. He began walking him away from the car and glanced over the barrier to the slip road passing beneath them. It was a drop of about thirty feet. Beyond, he could see the distinctive building of the Texas Historical Museum, and in the distance the trees flanking Buffalo Bayou and the patch of green that was Sam Houston Park.

‘What are you doing?’ Badger was worried now.

‘Maybe I’m going to throw you over,’ Li said. ‘Or push you in front of the next truck.’

‘In the name of the sky,’ the dai lo screamed at him. ‘Are you mad?’

‘Maybe,’ Li said. They were having to shout above the roar of the traffic. He glanced back and saw the silhouettes of Hrycyk and Fuller leaning over the seats, watching them through the rear windshield. He turned back to the boy. ‘You want to die or you want to live?’

‘What do you think?’

‘I think maybe we stopped here to let you have a pee, because we didn’t want you soiling the car. And you got away before we could stop you. Jumping down on to that road and sprinting off toward the Bayou.’

Badger looked over the barrier. ‘I’d get killed jumping down there.’

‘So run until you get on to the ramp.’

The boy frowned at him. ‘Why would you do that? Why would you let me go?’

‘Guanxi.’

Badger looked at him as if he were insane. ‘Guanxi? What are you talking about? You don’t owe me anything?’

‘I will when you tell me the name of your shuk foo, then you’ll have guanxi in the bank with me, big time. I’ll let you go. You say you escaped. We don’t have you in custody, they don’t have to kill you. And they know you didn’t even have time to tell me anything, even if you had been so inclined. Which, of course, you weren’t.’

Badger stared at him hard for a very long time. A huge truck thundered past, throwing clouds of rubber dust and exhaust in their faces. Then, ‘Guan Gong,’ he said. ‘It’s his nickname. That’s all I know.’

Li said, ‘If you’re lying I’ll put it about that we cut a deal, and you’ll be a dead man anyway.’

‘Guan Gong,’ the dai lo said again, and met Li’s eye directly.

Li shouted, ‘Go!’ And the dai lo ran, still handcuffed, his white stripe catching the sunlight as he went, feet hammering on the hard concrete.

Hrycyk and Fuller were out of the car in a second, weapons drawn, running toward Li.

‘What the fuck’s going on!’ Hrycyk screamed.

‘He got away,’ Li said.

‘You let him go?’ It was Fuller this time, glaring at him, full of incomprehension.

Li shrugged. ‘He gave us what we wanted.’ And he started walking back toward the car.

Fuller and Hrycyk exchanged impotent glances, then Hrycyk looked along the hard shoulder to where the distant figure of the dai lo was heading down the slip road, almost out of sight. ‘Fuck it,’ he said, and headed back along the concrete to where Li was already waiting for them in the car.

II

The sunlit grey stone edifice of City Hall, a jumble of squares and rectangles carved into a black sky, looked out across what looked to Li like a large swimming pool. Lined with trees and picnic tables, the long turquoise blue rectangle of water stretched between the municipal building and Smith, where the curve of a blue glass tower reflected its neighbouring white skyscraper like a building toppling in an earthquake. Both dwarfed the City Hall.

Li and Hrycyk stood outside on the cobbled concourse, waiting for Fuller. Hrycyk was impatient and could barely stand still. ‘Gimme a cigarette,’ he said to Li. He had insisted they stop and that Li buy his own pack. Li handed him one and lit another himself. Hrycyk was shaking his head. ‘I still can’t believe you did that,’ he said.

‘What, gave you a cigarette?’

Hrycyk hissed his irritation. ‘Let the kid go.’

Li shrugged. ‘Seeing is believing.’

‘I mean, is he stupid, or what? As soon as his people find out we’re asking for Guan Gong, they’re going to know he told us.’

Li let the smoke creep from the corners of his mouth. ‘I guess he never stopped to think about that.’

Hrycyk gazed at him. ‘You know you’re a devious bastard, Li.’ He meant it as a compliment.

‘Thank you,’ Li said. ‘So are you.’ He paused. ‘Without the devious bit.’

Hrycyk laughed. ‘You know, there are times, Li, when I think I might even get to like you.’

Li took another pull on his cigarette. ‘Can’t say I think I’ll ever feel that way about you,’ he said.

Fuller hurried down the steps to join them. ‘Soong’s not there. His office said we’d find him at the Houston Food Bank.’

‘A food bank?’ Li asked.

‘It’s a kind of charity thing,’ Fuller said. ‘Companies donate food to it. You know, stuff past its sell-by, or in damaged tins or packaging. Or just plain donations. The Food Bank distributes it to the poor of the state. Soong’s bank donates manpower. All his employees put in one afternoon a week at the place. And so does he.’

The Houston Food Bank was in the Herstein Center warehouse between Jensen and Vintage on the Eastex Freeway, a bleak industrial landscape of empty lots and rundown commercial properties. A couple of cops at the gates of the parking lot had pulled over a pick-up and were checking the treads. The driver was young and black, the cops were white, and Li thought it didn’t take too much imagination to figure out why he’d been stopped. The parking lot was nearly full, and Hrycyk had to park a long way from the main entrance. As they crossed the lot, the first fat drops of rain began to fall. The sun had disappeared behind a brooding sky of battered-looking cloud. The air was full of electricity and the promise of storm.

Inside, they asked for Councilman Soong, and a young black man took them in back through the warehouse. They passed a line of Chinese volunteers packing foodstuffs into cardboard boxes on a conveyer belt. Through hanging straps of plastic, they entered an area of metal staging thirty feet high, piled on each level with plastic-wrapped boxes of food straight from the manufacturer. ‘Being law enforcement people,’ the young black man said, ‘you folks’ll probably be interested to know that we got prisoners down from Huntsville working here. Trustees working their way back into society. And a lot of the fresh food we get comes from the prison farms up there.’ He grinned. ‘So each time you put someone away, you’re sort of doing us a favour.’

‘I’ll bear that in mind the next time I’m making an arrest,’ Fuller said dryly.

Soong was driving a forklift truck between aisles at the far side of the warehouse, loading pallets onto staging. Motion detectors in the roof switched overhead lights off and on as he moved between rows. He was still wearing jeans and his red leather baseball jacket. Only now he had completed the outfit with an Astros baseball cap. He grinned and waved when he saw them coming. ‘Gimme minute,’ he shouted. And they watched as he skilfully manoeuvred the forklift to slide a pallet onto the top level. He lowered the forks to the floor, cut the motor and climbed down, pulling off his gloves and stretching out a hand to shake theirs. ‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Pleasure to see you. To what do I owe honour?’ But as usual he didn’t wait for an answer, waving his arm around the warehouse instead. ‘What you think of food bank? Good idea, yes? Good PR for Chinese help here. Good community relation.’ He grinned mischievously. ‘Besides, I always wanted to drive forklift.’

‘We thought you might be able to help us identify someone, Councilman,’ Fuller said.

‘Of course,’ Soong said. ‘Anything I can do to help.’ He looked at Li. ‘You been in fight, Mistah Li?’

‘A minor argument,’ Li said.

‘You not very good in argument, then.’

Hrycyk said, ‘You should see the other guys.’

Fuller said impatiently, ‘We’re looking for an uncle with one of the tongs. A shuk foo.’

‘You know his name?’

Hrycyk said, ‘If we knew that we wouldn’t be asking you. All we got’s a nickname. Guan Gong.’

Soong looked startled. ‘No!’ he said. ‘Guan Gong? But you already know him. He was at meeting the other day. His name Lao Chao. He owns biggest restaurant in old Chinatown, not far from Minute Maid Park. He sit at end of table near window.’

Li tried to picture him and had a hazy memory of a thickset man with glasses and bushy hair swept back from a flat, broad face: an impression of someone who looked not unlike Chinese President, Jiang Zemin

‘But Lao very respectable man,’ Soong said. ‘He no shuk foo.’

‘You know what Guan Gong means?’ Li asked.

‘Sure,’ Soong said.

Hrycyk turned to Li. ‘What does it mean? You never told us it meant anything.’

‘Guan Gong was a general in ancient China. A ferocious warrior. A hero of the Chinese underclass.’ Li looked at Soong. ‘An odd choice of nickname for a respectable citizen, don’t you think?’

‘Guan Gong symbolise values very precious to poor people,’ Soong said indignantly. ‘This is good name for upstanding member of community. Lao Chao, like many others at meeting, give generously to food bank and other charity.’ He looked at Fuller. ‘What you want him for?’

Fuller said, ‘We believe he knows the identity of the ah kung we are looking for.’

Soong gathered his brows in consternation. ‘There are many ah kung in Houston tong,’ he said.

‘Only one of them called Kat,’ Li said, watching Soong closely. He was certain he saw a brief flicker of light in the dark, secret pools of his eyes. And then nothing. Just an outward appearance of surprise. His eyebrows pushed up on his forehead.

‘Tangerine?’ And he laughed. ‘This is ve-ery strange name.’

‘You never heard of him, then?’ Hrycyk asked.

Soong pursed fat lips and shook his head. ‘Sorry. Kat associated with good luck at spring festival. I never heard of anyone with name like this. What he do?’

Fuller said, ‘We believe he’s been funding and organising the trade in illegal Chinese immigrants across the Mexican border. The head of the snake.’

‘And you think Guan Gong know who he is?’

‘We know he knows,’ Li said. ‘And we have a witness who can identify them both.’

The dark, secret pools darted in Li’s direction. ‘Who?’

‘A prostitute,’ Hrycyk said. ‘From the Golden Mountain Club. A gift from one to the other.’

Soong’s gaze never left Li. ‘Your sister,’ he realised.

‘That’s right,’ Li said. ‘Someone tried to kill her last night. To shut her up. But they were too late.’

Soong shook his head and snorted noisily. For a moment, Li thought he was going to spit on the floor. But he had been in America long enough to sublimate the instinct and swallowed instead. ‘I am sorry,’ he said, ‘that such things should happen in our community. You must find this snake and cut off its head.’

Hrycyk said, ‘So where’ll we find Guan Gong?’

‘At his restaurant.’ Soong checked his watch. ‘For sure. He always there in the afternoon.’

Li reached out and caught his wrist. ‘Nice ring,’ he said in Mandarin, turning Soong’s hand over so that a large gold ring on the middle finger was facing up. It was set with a shaped oval of engraved amber.

Soong drew his hand away. ‘It is my prize possession,’ he said. ‘A gift from my father. It once belonged to the Empress Dowager Cixi.’

‘Worth a lot of money, then,’ Li said.

‘Priceless,’ Soong responded. ‘I raised the money for my journey to the United States on the strength of it.’

‘You know,’ Li said, ‘that the smuggling of artifacts out of China is a capital offence.’

Soong smiled. ‘Then it is lucky for me that we are no longer in China.’

Li smiled back. ‘Lucky. Yes.’ He paused. ‘What’s engraved on it?’

Soong ran a thumb over the stone. ‘I’ve often wondered,’ he said. ‘Sadly time has all but worn it away.’

‘May I?’ Li held out his hand, and Soong reluctantly offered him his, so that he, too, could run a thumb over the engraving. Soong’s hand was hot and damp. The amber, under Li’s thumb, was cool, the engraver’s work worn away almost to nothing. Li felt Soong’s tension. He said, ‘It is not often one gets to touch history.’ He ran his thumb lightly over it again. ‘Feels like it might have been a Chinese character. It is a pity we’ll never know its meaning.’

Soong smiled and took his hand back. ‘Indeed.’

‘Are you people going to let us in on this conversation or not?’ Hrycyk said, irritation clear in his voice.

‘Just admiring Councilman Soong’s ring,’ Li said, smiling and holding the gaze of the Cantonese. And, then, as if snapping out of a trance, added, ‘We had better go and talk to Lao Chao.’

Hrycyk drove them west along Elgin, through the black ghetto area of east central Houston. Rotting wooden shacks with crudely patched roofs sat behind lushly overgrown and untended gardens. All manner of flora reached for the sky through cracks in the sidewalk. The road was pitted and potholed, and each junction was punctuated by groups of disenchanted black youths, hands sunk deep in empty pockets, haunted eyes watching traffic. Ancient rusting cars limped across intersections, holed exhausts rasping fumes into the sticky afternoon, rap music belting from open windows. Li gazed thoughtfully from the back of the Santana. He was shocked by the poverty. They might have been in Africa, a shanty town on the edge of some Third-World city, instead of the fourth-largest city of the richest country in the world. He lifted his eyes and saw the gleaming tower blocks of downtown Houston rising above the deprivation, almost taunting, a constant reminder to those who lived in the ghetto that the American Dream came true for some and not for others.

Lightning flashed in a brooding sky, and moments later the air shook with the sound of thunder. And the rain came, suddenly and with such force that it raised a mist off the surface of the road. Worn wipers scraped and smeared their way back and forth across Hrycyk’s windshield.

Li said, ‘I guess the FBI will have a fat file on Councilman Soong.’

Fuller glanced back at him. ‘What’s your interest in Soong?’ he asked noncommittally.

Li shrugged. ‘I’d be interested to see the extent of his business dealings.’

‘That’s a matter of public record,’ Fuller said.

‘Yes, but it’s what’s not on the public record that interests me,’ Li said. ‘You must have some kind of file on him.’

Fuller said, ‘I’ll check.’

Hrycyk laughed. ‘Of course the FBI have got a file on him. They’re just not going to show it to you, that’s all.’ He glanced at Fuller. ‘Hell, they probably wouldn’t even let me see it.’

Fuller said nothing.

They turned off Elgin onto Dowling and headed north under the interstate into the city’s old Chinatown area, block after block of low industrial units peppered with restaurants and the occasional Asian goods store. The Green Dragon Restaurant sat on the corner of Dallas and Polk, an ornately carved Chinese façade of intertwining dragons on an otherwise featureless brick square. Hrycyk bumped the Santana into an empty parking lot and they climbed the front steps to glass double doors flanked by hanging red lanterns. The lobby inside was in darkness except for lights from fish tanks lining one wall. Air bubbled and glooped through murky waters, and strange fish came nosing against the glass to get a look at the newcomers. The restaurant beyond was filled with empty tables set for evening meals. The rattle of pans and the sound of raised voices came from unseen kitchens somewhere in the back. A girl in a gold lamé qipao drifted out of the gloom and looked at them curiously. ‘We are not open yet,’ she said.

Hrycyk showed her his ID. ‘We’re here to see Mr. Lao Chao,’ he said.

‘One moment. I tell him.’ And she crossed to the reception counter and lifted a phone. She dialled and listened, and then hung up. ‘So sorry. He is speaking on telephone right now. You wait, okay?’

They stood around for a couple of minutes, Li and Hrycyk smoking, while the girl pretended to sort menus on the counter. ‘You wanna try again?’ Hrycyk growled at her eventually.

‘Sure.’ She lifted the phone and redialled and stood for a good half minute. She shrugged, pushing up painted eyebrows and wrinkling her forehead. ‘Now he no answer.’

A single, dull crack sounded from somewhere in the building. The unmistakable report of a gun.

‘Jesus!’ Hrycyk stabbed his cigarette into an ashtray. ‘Where’s his office?’

The girl looked frightened. ‘Upstairs.’

They ran up a double flight of carpeted stairs to a long corridor running over the restaurant. It was dark, and they couldn’t find a light switch. But faint yellow light seeped out from beneath a doorway halfway along its length. Fuller got there first, gun in hand, and threw the door open. Li was at his shoulder as the door swung in to reveal a large office with flock wallpaper and a red patterned carpet which made it impossible to tell if there was blood on it. There was plenty on the big mahogany desk though, pooling around the head of Guan Gong, where he lay slumped across it, a gun in his hand, a hole in his face, and the back of his head blown away where the bullet had made its exit.

III

Margaret had arrived back in Houston a little after one p.m., depression following her like the stormclouds gathering in the western sky. She had not eaten for nearly twenty-four hours but found that everywhere along Holcombe had already finished serving. Even after a year, she could not get used to the Texan habit of lunching before midday. Eventually she had found an all-day eatery in the Crowne Plaza and ordered a grilled chicken salad. It came piled high on the plate and the waitress said, ‘I asked the chef why they build them salads so big, and he says to me, “People eatin’ this late, they gotta be hungry”.’ It was 1:30 p.m., and Margaret marvelled at Texan sophistication.

She had eaten a little less than half the salad before going back to her office to face the mountain of paperwork piling up on her desk. Mail and telephone messages had accumulated in drifts, like snow, and she wished she could just plough them off to one side and let them melt away in the rain. As with her salad, she had no appetite for it, sitting gazing from the window unable to stop memories of Steve crowding her thoughts. And flickering images of Xinxin’s tears as she had left that morning, mother and daughter still unable to come to terms with their unhappy reunion. That, in turn, had forced her back to the paperwork only to find a letter from the lawyer representing her landlord in Huntsville. It was official notification of her eviction — as if it hadn’t already happened. She had thrown it on the pile, and opened an envelope with the official FEMA insignia on the bottom left corner. It was a list of all the contact telephone numbers of members of the task force, her own included, which had brought a bitter smile of irony to her face. Her home number was already out of date.

She had folded the list and slipped it into her purse, wondering what progress, if any, the task force had made. One of its number was dead. Li had only narrowly avoided being murdered by the assassins sent to silence his sister, and they were still no nearer, apparently, to identifying the ah kung. They had arrested hundreds of illegal immigrants all over the country and were already running out of holding facilities. There were thousands more out there, and probably thousands more still coming in, despite the clampdown on the border. And she knew that the task that faced Mendez in trying to identify the protein which triggered the virus was almost impossible. It had been only too clearly visible in the fatigue etched on his face the previous night. Margaret felt daunted and frustrated by her inability to make any significant contribution.

Finally, she had slipped into a light, waterproof coat, and taken a fold-up umbrella from the bottom drawer of her desk. As she swept past Lucy in the outer office she had said, ‘I’ll be gone for the rest of the day,’ and made her exit without giving Lucy a chance to respond.

Now, as she emerged from the car park into the rain on M. D. Anderson Boulevard, the thunder which had been threatening all afternoon cracked overhead, making her duck reflexively. The rain battered on the taut plastic of her tiny umbrella like peas on a drumskin. She splashed along the sidewalk under the dripping trees, past nurses and doctors in green and white surgical pyjamas hurrying between hospital buildings. Beyond the Women’s University, at the very heart of the Texas Medical Center, the distinctive red roof of the Baylor College of Medicine was only just visible through the downpour above tall windows like glass columns. The ink ran on notices pinned to a pergola. Cars for sale, accommodation to let. Paper turning to mush in the rain. Margaret scampered across East Cullen Street and turned left toward the right-angled white facades of the Michael Debakey Center, with its tiered rows of windows cut like slashes in the stone.

A lab assistant took Margaret up in the elevator and along endless corridors. She was young and bright, with sparkling eyes and conversation that bubbled out of her like water from a spring. Margaret barely heard her. Shown into a tiny cluttered office that overlooked more parking garages to the rear, Margaret sat miserably on the edge of a hard plastic seat clutching her dripping umbrella. Her sneakers and her jeans from the knees down were soaking. After several minutes the door opened and she looked up as Mendez came in, a stained white lab coat hanging open over his shirt, a rumpled tie trailing loose at the neck. His face lit up. ‘My dear, you’re drenched. Can I get you a coffee? Water?’

‘No, no.’ Margaret stood up, embarrassed. ‘I just called in to see if it would be okay for me to stay at the ranch tonight.’

Mendez’s smile was at its most beatific. ‘My dear, you don’t have to ask.’ He took her hands in his. ‘My home is yours, for as long as you like. You know that.’

She shrugged awkwardly. ‘It’s just…I don’t have a key, Felipe,’ she said.

Mendez laughed. ‘But you don’t need one. Just my entry code. I’ll write it down for you.’ He tore a sheet of paper from a pad, scribbled a four-digit number on it and handed it to her. ‘If you want to hang on for half an hour, I’m almost finished here. I could give you a lift.’

‘I’ve got my car,’ Margaret said. ‘Anyway, I’d like to get back and get showered and changed.’

‘Of course.’ He paused. ‘You can spare a minute, though? I have something to show you.’

She followed him into a laboratory at the end of the hall, and slipped on a lab coat. ‘You know why it was called the Spanish flu?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘I’ve no idea. It originated here in the United States, didn’t it?’

‘So we believe. But we were still fighting a war then, and news of the pandemic was suppressed in most of the countries involved in World War One. It was first most widely reported in the Spanish press. Hence the Spanish flu.’ He waved her toward a monitor on a bench near the back of the lab, and she watched as he slipped a cassette into the built-in VCR. ‘You’re familiar with viral cytopathic effect?’ he said.

‘Of course.’

The screen came to life in a seething mass of tiny organisms dividing, multiplying and ultimately destroying their host cells. Cell necrosis. She almost recoiled from the monitor. She knew without being told what she was looking at. ‘It’s what killed Steve,’ she said. ‘It’s the Spanish flu.’

‘One stage advanced,’ Mendez said. ‘Another mutation down the line. It used its time in Dr. Cardiff to morph itself. To the virus, the good doctor was no more than a living laboratory, a human rat with which to experiment. I would suspect that, if anything, this new version of itself could be even more virulent.’

Margaret was repulsed. ‘They recovered the virus at autopsy?’

‘From the lungs, I believe.’ Mendez looked at her sympathetically. ‘I’m sorry, Margaret. You…were fond of Dr. Cardiff.’ It was a statement, not a question.

She nodded mutely. In her head she had a clear, brutal and bloody image of Steve on the autopsy table.

‘But you do understand, such steps must be taken in order to fight this thing.’ She nodded again, and he said, ‘Anatoly Markin once told me about a Russian scientist called Ustinov who accidentally injected himself with Marburg while conducting experiments with guinea pigs. It was part of their biowarfare program. The poor man took three weeks to die, quite horribly. And when they recovered the virus from his organs they found that through the live incubator of a human being it had mutated into something altogether more stable and powerful. So they used the new strain as the basis of their further weapons research and called it “variant U”. Markin told me they thought Ustinov would have been amused by it.’ He shrugged, a tiny sad smile stretching his full lips, and nodded toward the monitor. ‘Perhaps we should call this “variant C”.’

Margaret looked at him coldly. ‘You know what, Felipe? Chances are Steve would probably have have been amused by that, too. He had a pretty bizarre sense of humour. Personally, I just think it’s sick.’ She took a moment to collect herself. ‘I’ll see you back at the house.’ And she swept out leaving Mendez to reflect on an error of judgment.

By the time she got to the ranch, the storm had passed. The air was hot and damp and hung in shifting strands of mist over the lake. The sky was torn along its western fringes, revealing ragged strips of blood-red sunset behind the cloud. The chestnut mares stood glistening in the meadow, nostrils raised to the sky, sniffing as if they could smell the coming night.

Clara barked and danced around Margaret as she made her way through the gun room and into the kitchen, but quickly returned to sulk in her basket when Margaret gave no indication that she was going to feed her. The dirty dishes piled on every available workspace were depressing, and Margaret wondered why Mendez didn’t simply have someone come in for a couple of hours each day to keep the place clean. The smell of stale cigar smoke and alcohol hung sour in the living room. She switched on the ceiling fan, kicked off her shoes and went upstairs to her room to find some clean underwear.

She stood for a long time under the shower, letting the hot water cascade over her upturned face and run in snaking rivulets between her breasts, pouring in a stream from the thatch of golden hair that covered her pubis. It felt so good she didn’t want it to stop. Fatigue swept through her, deliciously warm, irresistibly enticing. She soaped herself with a soft sponge, smearing the lather in luxurious bubbling sweeps across her skin and then allowing the water simply to wash it away. She worked the shampoo through her hair and then rinsed it until it squeaked between her fingers, letting the water wash the soap from her eyes before she opened them to see the fleeting movement of a shadow beyond the bathroom door. A tiny, startled exclamation escaped her lips and she instinctively crossed her arms over her breasts.

‘Who’s there?’ she called, but there was no response. The door was lying about six inches ajar, and she could see into her bedroom, clothes strewn across the bed where she had dropped them. She immediately turned off the shower, goosebumps standing up all over her body. Still there was no sound, and there was no further movement. She pushed open the door of the shower cubicle and grabbed a soft white towel from the rail, wrapping it around herself and stepping quickly out on to the mat. ‘Hello,’ she called again, and was answered by the same silence as before. Tentatively, she pulled the bathroom door open wide and saw that the bedroom was empty. Had she imagined it? And then she remembered that she was not alone in the house. Perhaps Clara had wandered in, curious about the strange perfumed smells. And she let out a deep breath for the first time in what felt like minutes.

Partly reassured, she rubbed herself quickly dry, slipped into her bra and panties and towelled her hair until it hung in curling clumps over her shoulders. She dragged a clean white tee-shirt over her head and pushed her legs into a pair of dark blue baggy cotton cargoes. A sense of security returned with the pulling on of clothes. She tugged a comb through her hair and padded barefoot down the stairs.

Mendez was sitting in the smoking porch puffing on a freshly lit cigar. CNN was playing on the big screen in the living room and on the small TV in the porch. Margaret glanced through the passage leading to the kitchen and saw Clara eating from her bowl. The reassurance that she had clung to briefly in her bedroom quickly evaporated, and was replaced by a sick feeling in her stomach. She slipped on her sneakers and opened the door into the porch. Mendez dragged his eyes from the screen and smiled. ‘There you are, my dear. Good shower?’

‘How long have you been here?’ Margaret asked.

He frowned. ‘I just got in.’ Clara pushed past Margaret’s legs in the doorway and dropped herself at her master’s feet.

‘And you haven’t been upstairs?’

‘No.’ His frown deepened. ‘Margaret, what’s wrong?’

She shook her head, not sure whether to feel foolish or suspicious. Was it possible that he had been in her room, watching her in the shower? Clara had been busy eating, so it wasn’t the dog she had seen. ‘Nothing,’ she said lamely. ‘I just thought I heard someone up there, that’s all.’

Mendez laid his cigar in the ashtray and stood up to cross the porch. He was strangely flushed, so that his white goatee appeared to stand out from his face. ‘My dear, all this is getting to you. You need to relax. Let me get you a drink.’

‘No, thanks.’

He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her face. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

Her stomach was churning now. There was the oddest look in his eyes. ‘I’m fine.’

His head was raised slightly, eyes half closed, as if he was breathing her in, the smell of her fresh and fragrant and warm. She tried to wriggle free of the hands on her shoulders, but they gripped her more tightly. And then suddenly she found herself pulled hard against him, and his face was pressed to hers. Wet lips, a clash of teeth, the smell of cigar smoke and the rasp of whiskers on her soft skin. She felt his erect penis pushing hard against her stomach, his tongue in her mouth. And for a moment thought she would be sick.

With a huge effort, she pulled herself free of him and stood back, gasping half in fear, half in anger. ‘Jesus, Felipe, what the hell are you doing!’

He looked at her with something like panic in his eyes. ‘Margaret, I’m sorry,’ he blurted, and took a step toward her.

She stepped quickly back. ‘Don’t come near me!’ She was breathing hard, fists clenched, trying to control an urge just to turn and run. She knew now that he had been in her bedroom watching her all that time.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said again. ‘Please don’t leave. It won’t happen again, I promise. You’ve no idea how lonely it gets here. How lonely I’ve been since Catherine…’ His voice trailed away and he looked miserable, turning his gaze to the floor, unable to meet her eyes. ‘I’ve always thought you were…’ He lifted his eyes to look at her. ‘…desirable. I used to envy Michael. It’s what I found hardest to forgive him. That he took you away. That when he broke with me I could no longer see you. I could hardly believe it when I saw you sitting at the conference table at Fort Detrick. It was as if fate had brought you back to me.’

Margaret stared at him in disbelief. ‘You’re sick, Felipe.’

He nodded. ‘Yes. Sick with regret, Margaret. Sick that I allowed some base sexual instinct to spoil things between us. I promise…’ His spaniel eyes pleaded with her. ‘…I promise it won’t ever happen again.’

‘No, it won’t,’ she said, and she turned and strode back into the living room, lifting her purse from the recliner. ‘I’ll come back and get my stuff in a day or two.’

‘Margaret…’ she heard him call after her as she went out through the kitchen. A sad, plaintive call of abject misery. She almost felt sorry for him.