A Death in China - Carl Hiaasen [20]
“So why bother?”
“A spur-of-the-moment thing. Nothing we set up. We thought the fact you deliberately came to China might mean you were bored, but we were willing to let it go at that. No contact. But suddenly you have natural access—much better than any of us could ever get—to a major player in the Chinese drama. So we thought we’d try—although we had a hunch you’d say no.”
“And all this while I was supposed to think I was here in this romantic setting because of your vast powers of sympathy. Or was it my dashing figure and rugged good looks?”
She had the grace to smile.
“Stratton, Thomas Henry. D.O.B. et cetera, et cetera. Married the former Carol Webster, pediatrician. Rancorous divorce after nine years and one child, Jason, age six. …”
“He’s nearly eight.”
“Okay, Mr. Rugged Looks.” Linda Greer took his hand with both of her own. “Will you do it, Tom?”
“What’s in it for you, Linda? Little gold star on that pretty forehead? Big desk at Langley maybe. One case is all it takes, right? I know how it works.”
“Do you really?” She was hurt. Stratton instantly regretted the nasty jabs.
“How do you think I got this job, Tom? I got it because I’m good, and I’ve got some guts. And I’ve risked my ass once or twice, literally. I’m no war hero, and maybe I don’t have your scars, Tom, but I’ve got a few little nightmares of my own. No ribbons, no plaques on the wall, just some pretty rotten dreams. And, yes, I want out of Peking. I want to work in a place where the twentieth century has arrived, where I can leave the city without a dog tag or a babysitter, where I can have a life, like a normal woman. So the answer is yes, I want this case. I want him. Wang Bin.”
“Linda, I’m sorry …” But nothing gave way. No tears, no rage. Just a trace of color in her cheeks—and again the question.
“Tom, will you do it? Please.”
“No,” Stratton said. “I’ve already got my ribbons, remember?” A bloody stage, a pitchfork, a scream. He remembered.
“Nothing I can say or do to change your mind?”
“No.”
“Shit.”
They did not speak of it again. Leaving the restaurant, Linda Greer once again became an earnest tour guide. She drove competently on parking lights, dipping here and there into seemingly unpeopled alleys. Stratton had lost all sense of direction by the time Linda wheeled through a gate set in a twelve-foot brick wall. She nodded to two armed soldiers posted there, as though to trusted doormen.
“The diplomatic compound,” she announced. “This is where I live.”
Stratton waited.
She killed the motor and half-turned in the driver’s seat. Her arm crawled up Stratton’s shoulder and around his neck.
They kissed.
“That would be delightful, but the answer is still no.”
“Mata Hari goes off duty after dessert,” she murmured. “Besides, Peking is a lonely post, and you aren’t bad-looking—in an almost middle-aged, professorial kind of way. You think you’re the only one who needs some company?”
Stratton didn’t believe a word of it, but he went.
Chapter 6
SHE DROVE ALONE THROUGH the night. The great city slept. Waxen pools of light marked a twenty-four-hour dumpling restaurant that was a nocturnal refuge of the young men and women who drove the number-one buses: a mindless twenty-mile route, back and forth endlessly, along Changan, and nary a turn. Her groin ached deliciously. Her mouth felt bruised. Maybe she had fibbed about going off duty, but she’d told the truth about one thing: she had needed the company. Peking was not exactly swarming with available American men. She yearned to be back in bed, but the digital clock on the dashboard read 3:15. Linda Greer was late.
She had roused Stratton with a lie, saying her reputation would be ruined if the night guards’ report showed that a visitor to Miss Greer’s apartment had not left. He had gone willingly enough—a goodbye kiss and a hug.
Her route led through the northern quarter of the city, and she knew it by heart. She turned right at a corner marked by a dusty bicycle shop and flashed her lights before a gray metal gate set firmly into the usual Peking-anonymous concrete wall. The