A Death in China - Carl Hiaasen [92]
Stratton waited for the denouement. Captain Black riffled methodically through escape scenarios. The dice roll, man. Nobody lives forever.
But at least make him work for it.
You bastard. Stratton stared at the rag boy. You chicken-shit son of a bitch. We let you go. I could have ended your pitiful knitting-needle existence with a nod, but instead I let you go. In return you killed my friends.
“It was the kid … Sorry, Tom …”
Stratton plumbed the Chinese, seeking the man behind the intelligent eyes. He found nothing. And then he made a decision. We both of us should have been dead these eleven years, son of a bitch. Call in the cards. It was a simple decision. It refreshed Stratton and gave him strength. The instant the rag boy raised his voice in accusation, Captain Black would kill him. One dead man kills another. Justice in Man-ling. To finish what had been neglected that night in the rain. I’m sorry, Bobby Ho.
Stratton was sizing the blow when he saw what he had not dared hope to see.
The Chinese eyes spoke plainly. I know you. I have you. You are mine.
And then, the final message:
A life for a life.
“Bushi,” the man spat in an unexpectedly deep voice.
He stalked from the room.
“Thom-as, he says it was not you,” Kangmei cried.
“Of course not.”
Babbling peasants erased the tension. Minutes later, Stratton and Kangmei were alone in the back of a jeep. Stratton had departed without pity for the old policeman, agape, blubbering alone in a corner of the room.
Rest in peace, Bobby Ho. You were right and I was wrong, all this time, all these years.
Chapter 20
“OPEN YOUR SUITCASE, PLEASE.”
“It’s locked.”
“Find the key and open it,” said the U.S. Customs Inspector Lance P. Dooley, Jr. He strained to be polite. His boss was working the next aisle.
“But the key is in the suitcase,” whined the young man in Dooley’s line. “I packed it by accident. I’m sorry, officer.” The man had just debarked from Pan American Airways Flight 7, Peking-to-Tokyo-to-San Francisco. He wore blue jeans and a Van Halen concert T-shirt, with Day-Glo lettering. His black hair was long and straight, tied in a ponytail. Dooley studied the face. Malaysian, he decided. The passport confirmed it.
“Sir, I want to take a look in your suitcase. Either you find a way to open it, or I will. We have special tools,” Dooley said. “Hardly put a scratch on it, you watch.”
“But it’s a brand-new Samsonite,” the young man objected.
“So it is.”
Behind the young man a haggard procession of travelers stretched and sighed and muttered their annoyance at the delay. Second in line was a stocky, handsome Chinese man in his sixties. His hair was neatly combed, and he wore gold-rimmed eyeglasses that gave his features an intent, scholarly cast. His clothes fit somewhat loosely: beige slacks slightly wrinkled from the long flight, a knit canary-colored sports shirt buttoned all the way to the neck, and a dark brown sweater with a monogram on the left breast.
The Chinese man carried only one piece of luggage, a cumbersome old suitcase exhibiting thirty years’ worth of scuffs and dents. The man did not hoist the suitcase to the conveyor belt, but kept it at his feet, one hand firmly on the grip, as if it were a Doberman on a leash. He seemed transfixed by the argument in front of him.
“You can’t just break into my suitcase,” the young Malaysian insisted.
“Sir,” Dooley said, “if you decline to have your luggage searched here, we will escort you to a private inspection room where we will not only search the suitcase, we’ll ask you to take off your clothes—and we’ll search some more. Which do you prefer?”
Dooley’s supervisor glanced disapprovingly at the long line at Dooley’s aisle. Dooley got the message and tried to step it up.
“The key, sir?”
The young man fidgeted. Dooley nodded to a couple of other customs agents, who had been