A Death in China - Carl Hiaasen [52]
They arrived without pleasantries, an hour before dusk, three men, lean, unremarkable, impassive at first. They wore no uniforms, which surprised Stratton. One of them, who carried a rifle with a bayonet, motioned Stratton out of the cell.
He was led to a small courtyard whose boundaries were marked by tangled hedges. Red bougainvillea plants radiantly climbed the walls of the otherwise drab buildings that formed the complex. The place reminded Stratton of a monastery.
The men stopped in the middle of the courtyard. Stratton faced them. He was naked from the waist down, and filthy. His mustache was flecked with clay, and it smelled.
“Could I have a pair of trousers?” Stratton asked.
His escorts glanced at each other. They spoke no English. The one with the rifle suddenly raised it to his shoulder and aimed at Stratton’s dangling genitals.
“Pah! Pah!” he barked, pretending to pull the trigger. “Pah! Pah! Pah!”
His comrades sniggered. The rifleman lowered the gun and his face grew stoic once again.
Stratton lifted his arms from his sides. “You missed,” he said, pointing. “See?”
Self-consciously, the escorts averted their eyes. From across the plaza came the sound of many voices. Stratton realized that the workers at the compound had been summoned to witness a public humiliation—his own.
As the Chinese filed through the courtyard, they bunched into a confused knot at the side of the half-naked American, standing at attention in the day’s final shadows. A few jeered. Others laughed and pointed. Then, some of the women became upset and began to leave. The men also soon wearied of the spectacle.
Stratton was too exhausted to be embarrassed, but the three guards wore satisfied smiles.
After the workers had gone, the men took Stratton outside the compound to an alley. One of them twisted the handle on a water faucet, and a stream of cold water shot out. The man with the bayonet pointed at the swelling puddle.
Stratton obligingly stripped out of his shirt and removed the bandage from his thigh. He squatted beneath the faucet and closed his eyes. The frigid water was invigorating, but his injured leg stiffened in protest. While his feet and his buttocks rested in the murky puddle, Stratton was careful to keep the wound clean. He pressed his scalp to the mouth of the faucet, and let the hard water rinse the grime from his hair.
“Gou!” commanded one of the watchers. Enough.
Stratton stood up and smoothed his hair back. Then he slipped into his shirt.
One of the escorts held out the rag that had served as his bandage.
“But it’s too dirty,” Stratton objected.
The man with the gun stared back blankly. Stratton wrapped the fetid gauze around his upper leg and tied it with a small knot.
With a sharp shove to the small of his back, Stratton was directed to his cell. One of the jailers followed him inside just long enough to ladle two scoops of rice into the food dish, and to replace a rusty tin can full of water on the earthen floor.
The door closed heavily, and night swallowed Stratton’s room with a humid gulp. Outside, in the tropical orchards, birds whistled. The hills were dotted sparsely with yellow lights from distant communes.
Stratton waved the flies off the bowl of rice, and put a cold lumpy handful in his mouth.
He decided that the march to the water faucet had been a good sign. Certainly the bath had not been meant for his benefit, so it could mean only one thing. Soon he would have a visitor.
Probably an important visitor.
Chapter 12
JIM MCCARTHY PARKED in a dark corner of the crowded lot at the Peking Hotel. His station wagon was fire-engine red—the journalist’s mobile protest against the drab sameness of Peking. Every now and then, when China weighed too heavily, McCarthy would roll down the windows, plug in a Willie