A Death in China - Carl Hiaasen [78]
“Why has he not reported?”
“I do not know, Comrade President.”
“Where is Wang Bin, Comrade Prosecutor?”
“I do not know.”
“It is your job to know.”
“It is the job of the Public Security Bureau. I have asked them.”
“What do they say, idiot? What do they say?”
“Comrade Wang Bin is missing. He has not been seen anywhere since last night. There is no trace of him. The Public Security Bureau—”
The president surged to his feet with the sudden furious energy of a man fifty years younger. He slammed his fist on the desk, scattering papers and upsetting his tea.
“Find him!” the president roared. “Find him and bring him to me, Comrade Prosecutor.
Do it now!”
The general belched.
Chapter 17
THEY WALKED BY THE RIVER, a nurse and her patient.
Stratton’s confidence was returning with his strength. He had slept for nearly twenty-four hours, a half-life in which he had grayly drifted around reality without ever reaching it: sober-miened women scrubbing him; a middle-aged man probing gently at his leg; wondrous soup, piping hot, that tasted of the earth and scissored through the pain. And the beautiful woman who sat by him, whispered reassurance. That, he would never forget.
When Stratton had at last surfaced, tears of relief belied Kang-mei’s fixed smile.
He had reached out for her clenched fist and gently pried open the fingers.
“I’m all right. Really I am,” he had comforted.
“I was afraid, Thom-as. So afraid.”
Later, watching him wolf down a mound of rice with scraps of chicken, she had seemed like a little girl again.
“You must listen, Thom-as. To my mother’s brothers I have said that you are a good man who is being pursued by evil men; nothing more. They are simple peasants, but good, and strong. They will not betray you. To the rest of the people in Bright Star my uncles are saying that you are a foreign expert from Peking who has come to show us new ways to grow better rice. I am your guide.”
“I don’t know anything about rice.” Except what paddy mud feels like, wet, consuming.
“That is not important. When the people of Bright Star learn that you are our rice expert, they will not speak of you to members of the other production teams, or to the cadres at Man-ling. You will be safe then, do you not see?”
“I must not stay here, Kangmei,” Stratton had insisted weakly. “I must try to help David.”
“Yes, Thom-as. My uncles have cousins who work on the railroad. They think it would be possible to get you to Guangzhou.”
Guangzhou in Chinese. In English, Canton, China’s sprawling southern metropolis across the border from Hong Kong. Canton was still China, but from all he had read of it, the city was also a curious East-West hybrid infinitely more relaxed than Peking. In a teeming and sophisticated city where foreigners were no novelty, he had a fighting chance.
“Guangzhou would be fine.”
He slept again, and when he awoke it was midafternoon. Kangmei laughed when he tried on clothes smelling of strong soap that had been neatly stacked alongside the bed. The trousers bottomed out four inches too soon. The shirt went across his shoulders, but only the bottom two buttons would fasten.
“These are the biggest we could find, Thom-as. But you will never be a peasant. Come, let the people see their new rice expert.”
Along the river there was a kind of promenade, a path of beaten earth flanked by shade trees. Stratton smiled at the peasants they met and tried to look knowledgeable.
“This is the end of Bright Star,” said Kangmei. “Over there is Evergreen.”
She gestured to the far side of the brown river, flanked on both sides by steep banks. The water flowed swiftly and looked deep.
“And beyond Evergreen is Man-ling, right?”
“Yes.” She led Stratton to a spot where the promenade had been widened to include a graceful copse of palms. He sat beside her.
“This looks to me like Bright Star’s lovers’ land,” Stratton remarked.
“I do not understand.”
When he had explained she smiled.
“It is true that many young people come here at night and that they do not always discuss politics.”