The Risk Agent

43

6:00 A.M.

CHONGMING ISLAND

Shen Deshi sat behind the wheel of his car across from Chongming Police Precinct 5, awaiting the shift change. He’d been parked there nearly nine hours, going over and over it in his head. This woman cadet had double-crossed him. She would return his money; Shen Deshi would divide it as agreed with his superintendent, and he would officially retire. There was still hope.

She emerged a few minutes later, unlocked and climbed onto a bicycle and rode off. Shen Deshi followed, giving her a good lead.

She lived in a rundown four-story building of a kind he was well familiar with. There would be five or six families in all, each occupying what was essentially one large room. He climbed out of the car and followed her. No one was better at foot surveillance. When she entered the third-floor flat, she did so blissfully unaware of him.

Shen Deshi did not want to give her time to get settled. He marched to the door and kicked it in with a single blow. The door bounced against the wall and came back at him, and Shen Deshi danced to the left, allowing it to try to close on its broken jamb.

He held a rock in his right hand.

She held a baby.

Sight of the child stopped him. The woman was so young; he’d pictured her sharing the apartment with four or five other women just like her. Instead, he faced a second policeman to his right, a man-a large man, his uniform shirt unbuttoned. An unhappy man. A man holding a switchblade.

“It’s him,” the cadet said. “The blow job.”

Shen marveled at his own stupidity. Allowing haste and emotion to dictate his actions. Since when? Since this bitch stole my future from the back seat, his brain answered.

“All I want is my money,” Shen said.

“What money?” the woman said in a compelling tone.

The husband said nothing. He took a step toward Shen, the knife casually at his side.

“You are certain?” the husband finally said.

“Do you doubt me?” the cadet answered. “You don’t forget such a thing.” She spat onto the floor. “I can still taste him.”

The determination in the husband’s eyes was troublesome. Shen nearly abandoned his quest for his money, but he would not allow himself to be intimidated by a pair of common country thieves.

“The money,” he said, “and I’m gone.” But he’d gravely miscalculated the husband, who came not at him, but moved to block the door. The exit.

The wife had put the toddler in a portable crib. She too now brandished a knife.

“We can negotiate!” Shen said, the rock feeling useless in his hand. It wasn’t that he couldn’t imagine defeating a man and a woman, both with knives. He might be cut and stabbed, but he could survive the outcome. It was the look in the husband’s eyes that stopped his blood from pumping.

“Not here,” the husband said calmly to his wife.

“I know the place. Remote. Abandoned. Just the place,” the cadet said.

In his mind’s eye Shen Deshi saw the bloodstained water running from the butcher-block table and coiling down the drain.

“Let’s be reasonable,” he said.