A Death in China - Carl Hiaasen [110]
“These gentlemen were testing the back door of a liquor store down the street,” Broom was saying. “Good thing. I happened to see ’em before they got into real trouble. They said they’d be happy to help.”
“For how much?” the deputy minister inquired.
“Hundred bucks apiece,” Broom said.
Wang Bin said nothing. Broom shrugged. “Whaddya want at four in the morning, Pop? I didn’t have time to take out an ad in the goddamn Times. They look like good workers to me. Right, boys?”
Tyrone shrugged and Charles said, “What the hell is this deal?” He gestured at the open grave. “What’s the fuckin’ story? I ain’t messin’ with no stiffs.”
“Me neither,” Tyrone said.
“I’m not asking you to mess with a stiff, pal. I’m asking you to help us get the coffin out of the ground. A little manual labor, that’s all. We won’t kill you, take my word for it.”
“Don’t seem right,” Charles said, peering into the hole.
Broom said, “Fine! You don’t like it? Then beat it. Get the hell out of here!”
Wang Bin looked at him sharply.
“I didn’t know you guys were a couple of pussies,” Broom said. “Shit. For two hundred bucks I’ll go find a couple of men to help with this.”
As Broom waved his arms theatrically, Charles calmly seized him by the back of the neck and said, “Shut up, you greasy jive mo’fucker. Give us the bread and we’ll dig.”
The art broker huddled with Wang Bin as the two teenagers wrestled with the coffin. “You got to know how to talk to these people,” Broom explained.
“I don’t like them,” Wang Bin whispered.
“Of course you don’t.”
“I don’t trust them.”
“Relax, Pop.”
Broom hopped into the grave. Within minutes, he and the two teenagers had hoisted the coffin of John Bertecelli from the hole and laid it on the ground. Tyrone sat down on a headstone and said, “So who’s in it, Dracula?”
“I don’t want to know,” Charles said. “Let’s split.”
“No, man, I want the dudes to open it.”
“You can go now,” Broom said. “Thanks for the help, fellas.”
“Open it, man!”
“No.”
“Okay. I’ll open it.” Tyrone lifted the pick and windmilled it at the coffin. The lid skewed from the hinges. Tyrone kicked it off with one of his basketball shoes.
“Shit,” he said. “It’s a mummy!”
Swaddled in plastic, a Chinese spearman stared through wide eyes into the firmament.
Broom stepped forward and said, “That’s enough. You’ve seen it, now get the hell out of here.”
“What’s it worth?” Charles asked, leaning over the coffin, hands on his knees.
“Let’s haul it out of there,” Tyrone suggested. “You get that end—”
“No!” Wang Bin said.
The black teenagers looked up to see the old man pointing a chrome-plated pistol at them. They noticed that his arm was rigid. Charles chuckled and fumbled with the statue.
“Why you so uptight?” Tyrone said to Wang Bin. “This mummy must be somebody special to you, that right? Is this your old man?”
“Tell your friend to let go of the artifact,” Wang Bin instructed.
“He ain’t gonna break it.”
The crack of the pistol got the dog barking again. Charles wriggling on the damp ground, clawing at his right arm. Tyrone was speechless.
“Oh shit, Pop,” Broom said in a husky voice. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“I agree,” the deputy minister said. “Mr. Tyrone, would you please help Mr. Broom carry the artifact to the car? If you make trouble, I will shoot your friend again and again until he is dead.” By this time Charles was sobbing, and his New York Jets jersey was sticky with fresh blood. Tyrone gingerly lifted the Chinese spear carrier by the head while Broom—suddenly sober—carried the other end. The two unlikely pallbearers tenuously made their way up the hillside, weaving among the tombstones. Wang Bin held the pistol steadily on his captive and wondered sourly if this was going to be the only way to gain people’s obedience.
THE FIRST COP on the scene was a patrolman named Sanderson, who borrowed a spool of kite string from one of the neighborhood kids and cordoned off the gravesite using four other tombstones as corner posts. The total effect, Sanderson