“Sun Wukong has a whole series of adventures on earth. Sometimes he causes trouble. Sometimes, he performs good deeds. I can’t remember all the stories, but I know there was a lot of magical fighting and river monsters and talking animals. Just your typical fairy tales.”
“Fairy tales don’t spring to life,” said Jane. “They don’t shed real hair on real victims.”
“I’m just telling you what the legends say about him. He’s a complex creature, sometimes helpful, sometimes destructive. But when faced with a choice between good and evil, the Monkey King almost always chooses to do the right thing.”
Jane stared at the photo on Erin’s computer screen. At a face that, only a moment ago, had so chilled her. “So he’s not evil at all,” she said.
“No,” said Tam. “Despite his flaws, despite the chaos he sometimes causes, the Monkey King stands on the side of justice.”
TWENTY
The savory scent of roasting chicken and rosemary drifted from Angela Rizzoli’s kitchen, and in the dining room silver and chinaware clattered as retired detective Vince Korsak set the table. Outside in the yard, Jane’s daughter, Regina, was laughing and squealing as Gabriel pushed her on a swing set. But Jane was oblivious to it all as she sat reading on her mother’s sofa, half a dozen borrowed library books spread out before her on the coffee table. Books about Asian primates and gray langurs. And books about Sun Wukong, the Monkey King. She discovered that Sun Wukong’s adventures showed up not only in books, but also in movies and Chinese operas, dances, and even a children’s television show.
In a collection of Chinese folktales, Jane found an introduction to the legend. Though the stories were written sometime during the 1500s by a Chinese author named Wu Cheng’en, the tales themselves were ancient and were said to date back to an era of ghosts and magic, a time when gods and monsters battled in both heaven and earth.
And one of the rocks of that earth, a rock that from the time of creation knew the sweet breath of the wind, the glow of moonlight, the favor of the divine, popped out a stone egg. That egg became a stone monkey. It could run and jump and climb, a monkey with eyes that flashed shafts of light so brilliant that even the Jade Emperor in heaven was startled.
The stone monkey, with neither father nor mother, soon became king of all monkeys. They lived in perfect harmony, until one day the Monkey King came to understand that Death awaited them all. So he set out to learn the secret of immortality, a journey that took him to heaven and temptation, to mischief and imprisonment. While marching to his own execution, to be burned in a crucible with alchemic flames, the Monkey King sprang free, and his fight to survive turned heaven upside down until the gods were forced to seal him inside the Mountain of the Five Elements.
There he waits in stony darkness through the centuries, until the day when he is needed. A day when evil is in the world, and the Monkey King must emerge once again to wage battle.
Jane turned the page and confronted an image of Sun Wukong, clutching a long fighting staff. Though it was just an illustration, that glimpse of the Monkey King made the hair on her arms stand straight up. She stared at sharp teeth jutting in a black mouth, at a crown of silver hair, and could not look away.
She remembered an afternoon at the zoo when she’d been six years old, and her father had held her up to see the spider monkeys. They took one look at her and the cage erupted in terrifying chaos, the monkeys shrieking and vaulting among the branches, as if they had just glimpsed the face of Satan himself. A zoo employee came running and ordered everyone, Back away, back away! I don’t know what’s scaring them! But as Jane’s father carried her from that cage of screaming monkeys, Jane knew that she was the one who’d set them off. She was the one they were terrified of. What did they see but a six-year-old girl with dark curls? she wondered. Or was there something else that they’d recognized even then? Something about who and what she’d one day become?
“So how’s it going with the monkey books?”
Korsak’s voice made her glance up with a start. He was dressed in his Sunday best—at least, the best that he was capable of pulling together for dinner at Angela Rizzoli’s. At least there were no ketchup stains on his white golf shirt and khaki Dockers. After a heart attack a few years earlier, he’d lost thirty pounds on a heart-healthy diet, but his weight was starting to creep back up again, and despite a newly punched hole in his belt it was straining against an ever-expanding belly.
“It’s for a case,” said Jane. She closed the book she’d been reading, relieved to blot out the image of Sun Wukong.
“Yeah, I heard all about it. Got yourself another weird one. Started off with that dead lady on the roof, didn’t it? Makes me wish I was back in the saddle.”
Jane looked at his belly and thought: God help any horse that you climb on.
Korsak flopped down in the armchair—the same armchair that her father used to sit in. It was weird to see him lounging in Frank Rizzoli’s old perch, but her dad had forfeited all rights to that chair the day he walked out on Angela and moved in with the Bimbo. That’s what they all called her now, though they knew her name well enough. Sandie Huffington, Sandie-with-an-e. Jane knew all about the Bimbo, including how many traffic tickets she’d racked up in the past ten years. Three. Because of the Bimbo, Vince Korsak was sitting in this armchair, fat and happy on Angela’s cooking.
Jane didn’t want to think about all the other ways that Angela made him happy.
“Chinatown,” Korsak grunted. “Strange place. Good food.”
He would, of course, mention food. “What do you remember about the Red Phoenix shooting?” she asked. “You must’ve heard the gossip back then.”
“That one was a wicked shocker. Why would a guy with a cute little girl shoot four people and blow out his own brains? Never made sense to me.” He shook his head. “Such a sweet kid, too. Real daddy’s girl.”
That surprised her. “You knew the cook’s family?”
“Not really, but I used to eat there a lot. Those Chinese, they don’t know how to take a day off, so the place was always open, all hours of the night. You could get off a late shift and still have dinner. I was there once at ten on a Sunday night, and that little girl brought out my fortune cookies. It’s like child labor. But she looked like she was happy to be hanging out with Daddy.”
“You sure it was the cook’s daughter? She would’ve been pretty young.”
“She looked pretty young. Maybe five? Cute as a button.” He gave a sad sigh. “Can’t believe a father would do that, leave a wife and kid behind. Not to mention all the other families he screwed up. A few weeks later, daughter of one of the victims got kidnapped.”
“Charlotte Dion.”
“Was that her name? I just remember it was like a Greek tragedy. Bad luck piled on top of bad luck.”
“You know the really weird part?” said Jane. “Two years earlier, the daughter of one of the other victims was snatched as well. The waiter’s kid. She disappeared on her way home from school.”
“No shit? I didn’t know that.” Korsak thought about this for a moment. “That’s freaky. Really makes you wonder if it’s more than just a coincidence.”
“One of the last things Detective Ingersoll said to me on the phone was something about girls. What happened to those girls. Those were his words.”
“Those two girls? Or other girls?”
“I don’t know.”
He shook his head. “All these years later, and here we are still thinking about them. Weird to realize they’re probably nothing but skeletons now.” He paused. “But that’s not what I want to be thinking about tonight. Let’s pour some wine.”
“I thought you were a beer man.”
“Your ma’s converted me. Wine’s better for the old ticker anyway, you know.” He heaved himself out of the armchair. “Time to talk about happy things, okay?”
Not about dead people, thought Jane. Not about mass shootings and kidnapped girls. But when Gabriel came into the house ho
lding Regina by her tiny hand, Jane couldn’t help thinking about Charlotte Dion and Laura Fang. She helped her mother carry platters to the table, a steady succession of ever-more-impressive dishes. Crisp roast potatoes. Green beans drizzled with olive oil. And finally two sumptuous roast chickens, fragrant with rosemary. But even as they sat down to eat, as she tied the bib around Regina and cut her meat into child-sized morsels, Jane was thinking about missing girls and devastated parents. How could a mother go on? She wondered if Iris Fang had ever considered ending her own misery. A leap off a rooftop, a handful of sleeping pills. How much easier than living with grief, day in and day out, pining for loved ones whom you’ll never see again.
“Something wrong with your meal, Janie?” said Angela.
Jane looked up at her mother, who had the uncanny knack of knowing exactly what had gone into the mouths of every guest seated at her dining table. “It’s great, Ma. You outdid yourself tonight.”
“Then why aren’t you eating?”
“I am.”
“You took one bite of chicken, then you started moving things around on your plate. I hope you’re not on a diet, because you don’t need to lose any weight, sweetie.”
“I’m not on a diet.”
“All these girls, they’re always on diets. Starving on salads, and for what?”
“Sure ain’t doing it for men,” mumbled Korsak around a mouthful of potatoes. “Guys like a little meat on a girl.” He winked at Angela. “Take your ma. Built like a woman’s supposed to be built.”
Jane couldn’t see what was happening under the table, but her mother suddenly bolted straight in her chair, laughing. “Vincent! Behave.”
Please behave. Because I can’t watch any more of this.
“You know,” said Korsak, slicing into his chicken. “This is a good time to bring up you know what.”
Never had three words sounded so ominous. Jane’s chin snapped up, and she looked at her mother. “What’s you know what?”
“It’s something we’ve been talking about for a while,” said Angela. “Vince and me.”
Jane glanced at her husband, but as usual Gabriel wore his FBI face, giving away nothing, even though he’d probably guessed where this conversation was going.
“Well, you know that Vince and I have been seeing each other for quite a while,” said Angela.
“Quite a while? It’s been only, what? A year and a half?”
“That’s plenty of time to get to know someone, Janie. To see that he has a good heart.” Angela beamed at Korsak, and they leaned in for a noisy, lip-smacking kiss.
“You dated Dad for three whole years,” Jane pointed out. “Look where that ended up.”
“I was fifteen when I met your father. He was only my second boyfriend.”
“You were fifteen and you’d already had a boyfriend?”
“The point is, I was just a kid, and I didn’t know what the world had to offer. I married too young, had kids too young. Only now do I know what I want.”
Jane looked at Korsak and thought: You cannot seriously be talking about him.
“That’s why we wanted you to come to dinner tonight, sweetie. You and Gabriel are going to be the first to know. I haven’t told Frankie or Mike yet because, well, you know how they are. Still attached to their dad and all, despite the fact he’s sleeping with the Bimbo.” Angela paused to take a calming breath. Just mentioning the Bimbo made her voice rise half an octave. “Your brothers, they just won’t understand. But you’re my daughter, so you know what we women have to put up with in this world. You know how unfair things are.”
“Ma, there’s no need to rush into anything.”
“Oh, we’re not going to rush. We’re going to have a nice long engagement and do it the old-fashioned way. Order real invitations from a printer. Rent a big reception hall and a caterer. And we can go shopping for dresses together, Janie! That’d be something, just you and me! I’m thinking peach or lavender, since I’m not—well, you know.”
Jane glanced at Korsak to see how he was reacting to this feminine checklist, but he just grinned like a happy sailor.
“This time, I’m going to go slow and enjoy every minute of my wedding,” said Angela. “And it’ll give your brothers a chance to adjust to it all.”
“What about Dad?”
“What about him?”
“How’s he going to adjust?”
“That’s his problem.” Angela’s gaze darkened. “He just better not try to rush up the aisle first. Ooh, I can see him doing that, you know. Marrying the Bimbo quick just to annoy me.” She looked at Korsak. “Maybe, on second thought, we should move up our date.”
“No! Ma, look, forget I even mentioned Dad.”
“I wish I could forget him, but he’s always gonna be there, like a splinter in my foot. Can’t get it out and can’t pretend it’s not there. Just constantly poking at me. I hope you never have to know what that’s like, Janie.” She paused and glanced at Gabriel. “Of course you won’t. You have such a good man here.”
A good man who’s still annoyed I’m a cop.
Gabriel wisely stayed out of the conversation and focused instead on coaxing tiny cubes of potato into Regina’s mouth.
“So now you’ve heard our big news,” said Korsak, and he lifted a glass of wine. “Here’s to family!”
“Come on, Jane! Gabriel!” urged Angela. “Let’s all toast!”
Stoically, Jane raised her glass and mumbled, “To family.”
“Just think,” said Korsak, laughing as he gave her a happy punch in the arm. “Now you can call me Dad.”
“It’s not as if you didn’t see this coming,” said Gabriel as he and Jane drove home with Regina asleep in the backseat. “They were two lonely people, and look how happy they are now. They’re perfectly matched.”
“Yeah. She cooks. He eats.”
“They could do a lot worse.”
“They’re both on the rebound. It’s too soon for them to get married.”
“Life is short, Jane. You should know that better than anyone. It can be gone in an instant. All it takes is an icy road, a drunk driver.”
Or a bullet in a dark alley. Yes, she did know, because she saw life cut short far too often. Saw how every death cast ripples among the living. She remembered the ravaged face of Joey Gilmore’s mother and the grief that clouded the eyes of Patrick Dion when he spoke of his daughter, Charlotte. Even nineteen years later, those ripples were still battering the survivors.
“I dread having to break this news to my brothers,” she said.
“You don’t think they’ll take it well?”
“Frankie’s going to throw a fit. He hates the idea of Mom and another man, you know …”
“Sleeping together?”
Jane winced. “I admit, that’s what gives me the heebie-jeebies. I like Korsak. He’s a decent man and he’ll treat her right. But geez, she’s my mother.”
Gabriel laughed. “And your mother still has sex. Accept it. Just call Frankie and get it over with.”
But when they got home, she put off the assignment and avoided the phone entirely. Instead she set a kettle on the stove and sat down at the kitchen table to look at her library books again. The illustration of the Monkey King glared back at her, paws brandishing his staff, an image so threatening that only reluctantly did she touch the book to flip to the next page.
Chapter Nine. The Story of Chen O.
The great city of Ch’ang-an had long been the capital of all China. At this time, Tai Tsing of the dynasty of Tang was on the throne. The whole land was at peace.
It was a disarmingly pleasant beginning to a tale about a virtuous and scholarly young man named Chen O. After marrying a great beauty, he was appointed governor of a distant region. Together with his pregnant bride and their servants, he journeyed through the lush and flowering countryside toward his new post. But when they reached a river crossing, the charming fable suddenly transformed to a blood-splattered story of massacre when armed ba
ndits attacked. This was not a sweet fable after all, but a tale of shrieks and terror, of butchered bodies thrown into the raging river. Only one person was not slaughtered that night: the pregnant wife, abducted for her beauty, imprisoned by the killers while she awaited the birth of her doomed child.
The scream of the teakettle wrenched Jane from the story. She looked up to see Gabriel shut off the flame and pour hot water into the teapot. She had not even heard him come into the kitchen.
“Fascinating reading?” he said.
“Jesus, this is a creepy book,” she said with a shudder. “I sure wouldn’t read these stories to my kid. Take this one, ‘The Story of Chen O.’ It’s about a massacre at a ferry crossing, and the only survivor is a pregnant woman who’s captured by the killers.”
He brought the teapot to the table and sat down across from her. All night he had been subdued, and she noticed the telltale crease between his eyebrows. A hint of a frown that she noticed only now, in the bright light of their kitchen.
“I know I can’t change your mind about this case,” he said. “I just want to register my concern again.”
She sighed. “Noted.”
“Jane, I can’t get it out of my head. The way you looked when you came home the other night. Shell-shocked. The blood all over your clothes. I haven’t seen you look so shaken up since …”
He didn’t say the name, but they both knew he was thinking of the monster who had brought them together. The man who had carved the scars on her hands, whose bloody footprints still tracked through her nightmares.
“You do remember what I do for a living?” she said.
He nodded. “And I knew there’d be days like this. I just didn’t realize how hard it would be to live with.”
“Do you ever regret it?” she asked softly.
“Marrying a cop?”
“Marrying me.”
“Well, now.” Rubbing his chin, he gave an exaggerated hmmmm. “Let me think about that.”
“Gabriel.”
He turned as the phone rang. “Why do you have to ask that question?” he said, crossing the kitchen to answer the phone. “I’m not regretting a thing. I’m just telling you I don’t like what’s happening and what you’re up against.”
The Rizzoli & Isles Series 11-Book Bundle Page 261
