The Red Lotus

by Chris Bohjalian

  God. A dress. That shit had bought a dress for some woman other than the ER doctor. He really had begun to detest Harper with the protectiveness of an outraged father.

  He’d been walking half an hour when his phone rang. It was Oscar Bolton returning his call. Bolton was one of the names that Alexis had given him, people with whom Austin worked or whom she viewed as his friends. She was clear that she knew none of them well—or at all.

  Ken recalled that Alexis had told him that Bolton had gone to Austin’s apartment the day before her, and so he’d been intentionally vague on the message he’d left on the guy’s office voice mail at the hospital. He’d said he was an investigator, but he’d implied in his message that he had been retained—perhaps by a philanthropist—and his assignment was to look into a possibly sketchy foundation. It was clear from Bolton’s tone, at once ingratiating and cautious, that he was curious who this Ken Sarafian was and whether his hospital had some sort of exposure that might be troublesome. “Is this about a group we work with?” Bolton asked.

  “No, I don’t think you need to worry,” Ken reassured him. “That’s not the focus of my investigation.”

  “We vet our donors and our sources carefully,” the hospital executive said. “Even the smaller family trusts. Most of them have been with us for years. Generations in some cases.”

  “I’m sure it’s a very esteemed group.”

  “And you might be better off talking to a hospital lawyer. I’m not a lawyer.”

  “Nothing like that. Nothing like any of that. I’m trying to find a person who may have known your friend who died in the bike accident, and whether he was in Vietnam because of a specific philanthropist. That’s what I meant in my message.”

  “Austin? God, devastating. What a nightmare,” Bolton said, and he sounded genuinely shaken and sad when he spoke.

  “You two were friends?”

  “Work friends, yes. We didn’t really socialize much after work. But he was a great guy and a hell of a colleague.”

  Ken stopped to gaze in the window of the Strand Bookstore. Taleen had bought him beautiful editions of Franz Werfel and Mario Puzo for his birthday there that summer. “So, tell me: Was he in Vietnam as part of a fund-raising venture or meeting?”

  “If he were, it would be news to me. It would be news to all of us. I mean, it was a bike trip with his new girlfriend. A bike trip. His dad and his uncle were both Vietnam veterans. His dad was wounded there. Shot.”

  Ken assumed he would say something like this. His question was really just the prologue to his real inquiry. “There was a guy in his life named Douglas. Maybe David. Began with a D. What was his last name? Do you know?”

  “No idea,” Bolton said quickly—too quickly, the detective thought. He almost snapped back his response.

  “No?”

  “No. I didn’t even know he had a friend named Douglas or David.”

  “They played darts,” Ken said.

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  “He was with Austin the night he was shot. He didn’t mention that name on the Monday morning when he came in to work?”

  “Nope.”

  “Didn’t say who he’d been with?”

  “He didn’t.”

  “Okay, then. It was a long shot,” Ken said.

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  Then they said good-bye and Ken continued his stroll south to Third Street. It really had been a long shot. Still, he felt he had learned something: he believed Oscar Bolton was lying and knew exactly who this Douglas person was.

  * * *

  . . .

  The townhouse was between Avenue C and Avenue D. He was sure he had found the right place. Five stories, brick, likely rooftop terrace. Remodeled. It was on the north side of the street, so there was no building blocking it from the south if you wanted sunlight for your tomatoes. There were no homeowners listed on the fifth floor, which meant that the three apartments on the fourth floor were duplexes. And the name on the buzzer for 4C? D. WEBBER.

  He looked at his watch. It was not quite two thirty, and the odds were slim that D. Webber was home on a weekday afternoon. Nevertheless, he pressed the small black button and waited. He was pleasantly surprised when a moment later he heard a crackle from the speaker and then a male voice asking, “Yes?”

  “Is this D. Webber?”

  “It is indeed.”

  “Ken Sarafian. I’m a private investigator. Can we chat for a couple of minutes?”

  “I’ll buzz you in,” the guy said, and a second later he heard the fizz of the door unlocking and he stepped inside. He wasn’t quite sure what to make of how quickly Webber had agreed to see him, but one thought occurred to him: Bolton had called Douglas Webber and told him that an investigator had phoned and was looking for him. Ken had a concealed carry permit for his Glock, and he was glad it was in his shoulder holster right now—beneath a blazer and under his peacoat. He didn’t flip off the safety, but he did unbutton his jacket. Now he was standing inside the small black-and-white tile lobby, a little dingy, a little black with New York soot, and staring at the elevator—which looked much newer than the lobby. A bit antiseptic, but modern and chrome. He guessed this building had been a walkup until it had been gentrified. He rang for the lift, pressed four, and found himself clenching and unclenching his fingers in the pockets of his coat. Even after all his years as a cop, even though it had been nearly half a century ago that he had been in Vietnam, at moments like these he still tensed in almost the same way he had as a kid in the jungle or when he’d been crouched inside one of those bunkers outside the base in the dark of the night.

  When he emerged on the fourth floor, Webber was standing there in his entryway, the door open behind him. He looked pretty much the way the bartender had described him: early forties, ash-blond hair that was well styled for a guy who was, apparently, just hanging around his apartment on a weekday, and tall. But he was even taller than Ken had expected. He was in black jeans and a white turtleneck and he was barefoot, but he still had easily four or five inches on Ken—and the detective knew that although he had shrunk a little bit with age, he was still five eleven.

  “Thanks for seeing me,” he said, and he extended his hand.

  “Happy to,” Webber said. His grasp was firm, but not excessively so. There was no alpha male craziness to the grip.

  “Ken Sarafian.”

  “Douglas Webber. Come on in. No point in standing out here in the hallway.”

  The duplex was bright and modern. The hardwood floors looked newly stained and polyurethaned, the wood the color of pumpkin pine. There were two deep blue and burgundy Oriental rugs, one of which had a pattern reminiscent of the carpet in his wife’s and his living room. The kitchen was against the west wall, and a dining room table and chairs were against the southern windows. There was an L-shaped leather couch and a TV so large it looked like it belonged in a Hollywood producer’s screening room. And there was a dartboard framed with a square cork pad.

  “The cork behind the board is for guests,” Webber said, and Ken realized that he must have been staring at it. “If my game ever gets to the point where I actually miss the board, I’ll hang it up. Do you play?”

  “I don’t.”

  In the far corner, there was a thin spiral staircase with wooden steps that matched the floor and a wrought-iron railing.

  “So, you’re a detective. That’s pretty cool. I’m not sure I’ve ever met a detective. What does that mean you do? Photograph philandering husbands and wives from your car?”

  “Sometimes. Not the work I’m most proud of.”

  “But it is, as they say, a living.”

  “Yup.”

  Webber motioned at the couch. “You want to sit down?”

  “Sure,” he agreed.

  “Can I take yo
ur coat?”

  Ken nodded and handed it to him, but he was careful not to reveal the gun hidden beneath his blazer. He assumed Webber knew he was carrying, but he saw no reason to advertise where the Glock was. Webber hung the coat on an ornate rack meant to look like an art nouveau lamppost—or that may in fact have been an art nouveau lamppost—and then the two of them sat on the L-shaped couch, Ken taking one length of the L and Webber the other.

  “So, what are you investigating?” Webber asked, and he sounded bemused.

  “Austin Harper’s death.”

  He looked surprised. “He’s dead? How? When?”

  “Bike accident in Vietnam. Hit-and-run.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “You hadn’t heard?”

  “No. I mean, I barely know—excuse me, knew—the guy. I met him one night at a bar, we played some darts, and then the dude got shot by some homeless crazy. I took him to the ER and gave him my digits, and I checked in with him two or three times in the days after that. But he was fine. We texted about getting together again to have a drink, but it never happened. Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “You said he died in a bike accident. Are you trying to find the driver?”

  Ken shrugged evasively, and so Webber continued, “I mean, isn’t that something the Vietnamese police would handle? And how in the world do you expect to find the driver in America?”

  “It’s more complicated than that.”

  “Got it. I won’t press,” Webber said, and he draped his long arm over the back of the couch. His eyes were almost twinkling. “But can I ask who has retained you? His parents, I’m guessing.”

  “Nope. Girlfriend.”

  “Interesting. Good for her.”

  “So, you met Austin at a bar.”

  “Yup. We met that crazy night.”

  “The night he was shot.”

  “That’s right.”

  Ken knew this was a lie. Or at least he thought it was. He believed that bartender. Amber. “The bartender who was there that night says you two came in together and were already pretty chummy.”

  “Well, he’s mistaken.”

  “She.”

  He didn’t seem fazed. “Well, she’s mistaken.”

  “Why didn’t you see him again?”

  “Life. He was a guy I met in a bar and we tossed some darts and then that whole madness of the junkie with the gun went down. It’s not like we really had all that much in common.”

  “Was he any good? At darts?”

  “Nope. He hadn’t played in years. Maybe ever. I can’t remember what he said. Maybe he tossed them a couple times as a kid. Everyone does that.”

  “I know I did.”

  “Right?” Webber asked rhetorically.

  “So why were you in that bar?”

  “It’s in the neighborhood. It has a dartboard.”

  “But you haven’t been back.”

  “Of course I have,” Webber said, and he raised an eyebrow incredulously. Again, Ken had more faith in Amber’s memory than in Webber’s contention.

  “So…”

  “Go ahead. Ask me anything.”

  “What do you do? For a living?”

  “Travel writer.”

  “Ah, that explains why you’re home in the middle of the day. You’re not on an assignment right now.”

  “Correct. I’m between gigs.”

  “Married? Significant other?”

  “Nope and nope. And no kids.”

  “Have you ever been to Vietnam?”

  “Are you suggesting that I ran over Austin Harper?”

  “It never crossed my mind that you might have,” Ken told him, and here he was being completely honest. It really hadn’t. Now? He still didn’t think so, but he couldn’t help but wonder, and he tried to see what was hovering behind Webber’s eyes.

  “I didn’t.”

  “And Vietnam?”

  “What about it?”

  “Ever been there?” the detective asked again. “As a travel writer? An assignment?”

  “I’ve been there a couple of times.”

  “Last week?”

  “Nope.”

  The atmosphere in the room was shifting; there was now a hint of a storm. So, Ken decided to allow himself a hint of a threat. “I mean, it wouldn’t be hard for me to find out if you were there.”

  “Which is why I wouldn’t lie,” Webber responded.

  “You must be really good at what you do.”

  “Why? These digs?”

  “Yeah. As my wife would say, pretty darn posh.”

  “Thank you. Just for the record, I have written about Vietnam.” He motioned at a wrought-iron magazine rack beside a bookcase. “Want to see my take on Barcelona in last month’s Traveler?”

  “They pay well?”

  “They do. But I’m also, as my mother used to say, a man of means.”

  Ken leaned toward Webber, his forearms on his knees. “Must be nice to come from that kind of money.”

  For a long moment, Webber said nothing. “So, is that it, Detective?” he asked finally.

  “I guess,” he said, taking the hint and standing. “Thank you.”

  “I hope I was helpful,” Webber told him, standing, too, and retrieving the jacket from the coatrack. The fellow clearly knew that he hadn’t been helpful at all.

  “Every little bit helps,” Ken said as he was putting his arms through the sleeves of the peacoat.

  “I couldn’t see it clearly, but I’m guessing based on the grip I just glimpsed—against your left rib cage—that’s a Glock seventeen you’re packing.”

  “It is.”

  “I prefer the twenty-six. Easier to conceal. Maybe not quite as accurate. But I’ve never had any problems in that regard.”

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” Ken said. The threat wasn’t especially subtle, and it certainly hadn’t scared him. But he had to applaud the deftness with which it had been delivered.

  FRIDAY

  25

  Alexis awoke and stared at the Breakfast at Tiffany’s poster on the wall above her dresser. At the black-and-white image of Audrey Hepburn in sunglasses, her hair in a bun, as she gazed into the window of the iconic jewelry store. Alexis had been dreaming of gloves. In the dream, she’d just bought a pair of pink leather ones that cost four hundred dollars at an elegant shop on Madison Avenue that sold nothing but gloves, and she wanted to return them now because she thought rats had been gnawing holes in the fingers—rather like moths.

  God, rats. Rats repulsed people. They repulsed her. But they kept appearing before her now—no, not rats themselves, thank God, but traces of them in Austin’s life going all the way back to the bite marks on his fingers the night they met—like road signs on the highway as she was driving in the dark. She presumed it was unreasonable to be more disgusted by a rat than by a mouse or a squirrel or by any of the myriad other rodents that filled the world, but the rat had a distinct place in the pantheon of the despised.

  Before bed last night she had called Viet Nam National University in Ho Chi Minh City and left a message with a woman who spoke English. She’d explained who she was and that she was looking for either of the two scientists who had studied the long-term effects of herbicides on rats and the animal’s evolution over the last half century. Now Alexis checked her phone to see if anyone had called her back and she had slept through the call or whether anyone had emailed her. No calls and no emails from the university.

  She had the day off today, but she was going by the hospital anyway. She had a ten thirty appointment with an epidemiologist from one of the university’s bio labs in the research wing of the hospital to talk about the animal. She’d scheduled the interview yesterday after seeing that poster of the drawing of the rat and the limerick.
The scientist, a woman named Sara Edens, was a doctoral candidate in one of the labs, a relatively junior researcher, but Alexis didn’t care. She worked with Dr. Ho-jin Myung, according to the hospital website, and was willing to see her. And so Alexis was thrilled. They were going to meet at the hospital cafeteria.

  After seeing the young researcher, Alexis thought she might go to the gym and work out, and so she threw some of Austin’s old energy gels into her gym bag before leaving her apartment. She packed a lemon and a chocolate-flavored goo. She wondered whether anyone in Vietnam had bothered to confirm whether the ones she had pulled off the street north of Da Nang had been Austin’s. She doubted the case was closed, but the authorities there—if they were doing anything at all—were searching for the driver who’d sent Austin careening over the guardrail, not whoever it was who had plunged something sharp and pointed into the back of his hand.

  * * *

  . . .

  Sara Edens was not much younger than she was, Alexis thought, when she saw her sipping a cup of coffee and eating one of the cafeteria’s doughy and tasteless bagels at a table near the windows facing First Avenue. There was an unopened blueberry yogurt before her as well. She had broad shoulders and a big chest, which relieved Alexis: it would be too cruel a coincidence if the dress Austin had had with him when he’d been killed had been meant for Sara. She had dark hair that was cut very short, and when she looked up from her phone on the long table, Alexis noted that her eyeglasses had a tortoiseshell pattern, but the colors were blue and yellow and green. She was wearing khaki pants and a pink button-down shirt: no lab coat, because, Alexis knew, the scientists couldn’t risk contaminating the public spaces. Alexis didn’t bother to get a cup of coffee; she went straight to the table and introduced herself, and for easily five minutes they made small talk about the hospital and how they had wound up doing what they did for a living. Finally, Alexis told her about Austin Harper and how he had died, and that rats suddenly seemed everywhere in her life.