The Lake Ching Murders - A Mystery of Fire and Ice

by David Rotenberg

  A full-maned lion strode out slowly and scented the air. The goat turned to see the danger. The crowd, as one, rose to its feet. At first, the lion seemed uninterested and pawed his way slowly around the perimeter. Then it turned and raced at the goat. The smaller animal dodged the attack and wheeled to face the second assault, but was too slow. A wide, taloned paw caught it along the flank. A slash of blood sailed six feet into the air and splattered to the concrete. For one horrific moment, the goat seemed to stare directly into Fong’s eyes, then fell and the lion was on it.

  The crowd cheered. Money passed hands. “There must be some sort of betting associated with this,” Fong thought. A small tractor, its driver protected by thick metal meshing, came out into the arena and shooed the lion back into his cage. The goat’s carcass was tossed in after the animal. Then, as several men with hoses washed down the arena (hence the drain in the centre), twenty Chinese girls dressed like cheerleaders came out and did a cheap imitation of something that some would call dance and others would call lewd. Fong called it neither.

  Fong looked to Chen. “Let’s get this over with. Where are they?”

  Chen pointed to an enclosed luxury box overhanging the top of the stadium. They walked up a set of carpeted steps. At one point, Fong turned back to the stage. The girls were finishing with a flourish. He’d never seen cheerleaders before and had no idea why anyone would dress this way. Yet another foreign influence that he could well live without.

  At the door of the box Chen identified himself. Two large men frisked Chen and Fong. When one found Fong’s ankle bracelet, he looked up. Fong said, “Everyone who is anyone has one of these in Shanghai.”

  For a moment the man pondered that. Then he smiled and checked Fong’s crotch with much more force than was necessary. Fong did his best not to wince.

  Once they passed inspection, they were guided through the door. Fong and Chen stepped into the room. It was air conditioned and, for China, extremely antiseptic. Two men sat in cushy leather chairs facing the arena.

  A cheer went up from the crowd.

  Fong couldn’t resist taking a peek. A wild boar came racing out into the arena. Its deadly, cutting tusks were already smeared in blood. It kicked the concrete with its vicious hooves. The clacking sound snapped through the air of the arena.

  “Do you like the games, officer?”

  Fong swung back to face the speaker. He was a middle-aged man with smooth, handsome features and a cultured accent. This must be the financial officer, Fong thought. “Pak Tsz Sin,” Fong said with the slightest nod of his head.

  The man acknowledged the correct use of his title but said, “Not really all that hard to guess though, is it, Detective Zhong? After all, I’m too young to be the Incense Master, aren’t I?”

  Be cool, Fong reminded himself, but couldn’t resist saying, “You are that — too young, that is.”

  “But I am not,” said the second man who turned in his chair to face Fong. The man was Fong’s age and had deep pools for eyes and rage so clear that it sat on his skin like a sunburn. The man rose from the chair. He looked frail.

  A second roar from the crowd announced the arrival of another beast.

  “Go ahead, have a look, Detective Zhong. You want to. It’s only human to know who has entered the ring.”

  “Who?”

  “As you prefer — what. What has entered the ring.”

  Fong looked. The black panther was sleek and powerful. A full-grown male with bloodshot eyes and a shiny coat. He circled slowly, never taking his eyes off the deadly tusks of the wild boar. Fong forced his eyes back to the Incense Master.

  The man had moved from his chair and was now halfway across the room, eyeing Fong.

  “You want to talk about the boat.” It was a statement not a question.

  “I do,” Fong acknowledged.

  “Not our style, Detective Zhong.”

  Fong had always found it odd that gangsters thought they had style of any sort. Women, yes. Money, yes. Power, sometimes. But style, never.

  “You mean killing’s not your style?”

  The Incense Master smiled. “Killing is such a condemnatory term, don’t you find?”

  “I wouldn’t know about that.”

  “We are in business, Detective Zhong. We do what is good for business. Killing those foreigners on that boat was not good for business. We were already partway to an understanding with them. We’d offered the necessary protections for working in this part of the world.”

  “You mean you’d already settled on your extortion fees.”

  “More condemnatory terms, Detective. And no, we hadn’t settled on terms. We were close though to an agreement that benefited all. In fact, as a show of our good faith we offered to supply the entertainment for the party on the boat.”

  “What was the party for?”

  “A celebration, I believe.”

  “For what?”

  “That was the foreigner’s business — not ours.”

  “Yours was extortion.”

  The Incense Master smiled.

  “So, you supplied the girls for the party.”

  “Women,” he corrected Fong.

  “But none of your men were on that boat?”

  “Not a one.”

  “Explain this,” Fong said as he threw him three pictures of the Triad insignia on the outside of the boat.

  “Explain?”

  “Yes, I assume you know the meaning of the term.”

  “I do. My explanation is that anyone with a brush and paint could have marked the outside of that boat with our emblem.”

  “And this?” he threw him a photo of the Triad warning on the ceiling mirror of the dead American’s room.

  “That? That you’d need not only brush and paint but also a ladder. Do you have more pictures, Detective Zhong?”

  “No.”

  “What a relief. I was beginning to think you were going to publish a book. Everybody does these days, don’t they?”

  “I wouldn’t know. I do have this.” Fong held up the Triad medallion on its broken chainlink.

  The Incense Master laughed.

  “What?” Fong demanded.

  “Where have you been, Detective? Open the drawer over there.”

  The young financial officer opened the drawer for Fong. There were hundreds of medallions there. “They’re big sellers, Detective Zhong. The tourists love them. They are a fine source of income for our business, as well as unpaid advertising. Like putting Tommy Hilfiger on a shirt, wouldn’t you say?”

  Fong didn’t want to admit that he didn’t know who Tommy Hilfiger was, but was saved the embarrassment of asking when a huge cry went up from the arena.

  The panther had leapt at the wild boar, which had met the challenge by raising its cutting tusks. The sharp things had pierced through the underside of the panther’s chin sending howling cries from the injured cat. The boar then pushed hard off its tiny feet and pressed its advantage, trying to drive the tusks through to the panther’s brain. The move, however, exposed the boar’s underbelly. The cat raked the belly with its back claws. The boar roared and drove forward, its intestines falling as it moved. Blood shot from the panther as its head hit the concrete.

  Boar tusks and panther claws did the work for which they were designed. Both animals twitched in the final throes of their lives. Then amid the mess and stink and offal, they died — and the crowd cheered.

  Fong dragged his eyes from the event. Both Triad men were looking at him. Finally, the financial officer spoke. Indicating the arena, “That is what we do, Detective. We are here to make money, not scare it away. There was no money to be made in killing those foreigners. There was money to be made in ‘assisting’ the foreigners. Not in killing them.”

  “So you had nothing to do with it?” Fong said, feeling stupid.

  “Oh, we had something to do with it, officer.”

  “What?” Fong demanded.

  “As I said, we supplied the women.” With that,
he reached into his pocket and took out a fistful of gaudycoloured business cards.

  Chen took them.

  The Triad man stared at Fong but pointed at the cards in Chen’s hand. “Those women, Detective Zhong.”

  * * *

  The coroner held the bar room section of the model in his hand. The tiny body of the eldest Chinese man swung gently from the rafter, his face a red blotch.

  For an instant, the coroner felt the cut that severed the Achilles tendon then the yank that pulled the old man from his feet. No. They would have cut his face first. Then hauled him up into the air.

  Keeping him upright would mean he’d bleed to death more slowly. With those facial wounds, he’d bleed out quickly if he were inverted. But he wasn’t. It was meant to last.

  The coroner had seen much of his countrymen’s nastiness in his seventy-odd years. He had pulled apart the remains of more men than he cared to remember in an effort to find out how, if not why, anyone would inflict such damage on a fellow species member.

  Little surprised him. He accepted much. He understood the deep nature of anger that resided in the Chinese heart. He condoned certain acts of vengeance as just human — just part of the darkness of being.

  But the swinging man was an expression of something else. Perhaps not chi, but something other than anger. This was rage, a fury born of something very old, that is stored deep in the heart of humankind.

  He replaced the section of the model, took a white cloth from his pocket and swabbed his face. He was clammy with sweat. He began to refold the cloth, but stopped suddenly when he saw to his shock that it was encrusted with rust-red deposits.

  * * *

  Chen pulled the Jeep out of its parking space and made his way through the crowd at the animal park by honking at anyone who dared slow his progress. When he finally got to the gate, he turned to Fong, “Do you believe them, sir?”

  “Do you, Captain Chen?”

  “I’m afraid I do. They had more to gain by the foreigners being alive than dead.”

  “And they are about making money, aren’t they, Chen?”

  “At least they have been for quite some time, sir.”

  “I actually think the most telling thing is that they didn’t offer up some of their foot soldiers. Pin it on them. It would have been so easy, but they didn’t.”

  “Can you figure out why, sir?”

  Fong could, but the answer appalled him, so he kept it to himself.

  Chen waited for a response then realized that none was forthcoming. He wasn’t pleased but decided to change the topic. “What should I do with the women’s business cards, sir?”

  “Check them out.” Chen nodded. “You saw a brokendown bus with young women on your way to the lake that night, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Them?”

  “That would be my guess, sir.”

  “Mine too, but make sure. Match the cards to accounts at the bus company. Who knows, we might get lucky.”

  “Do you believe in luck, sir?”

  Fong didn’t bother answering that either.

  Lily stared at the model section of the small runway room. She glanced at the photos of the Japanese men on the chairs with the rags of intestine dangling between their legs staring up at her. She fought down her disgust both with the men and their demise. Then she felt for the girl who must have been on the runway — dancing to the music of the American rock band, Counting Crows.

  Lily imagined her.

  Up there.

  Alone.

  Lily often teased but never like that. Never like that.

  The phone in the Jeep rang. Fong grabbed it. He listened for a second then shouted, “What?” Then quickly, “When?” He listened for a moment then cut the man off. “When exactly? Never mind. Don’t let anyone near that cell. I want the whole place put off limits and I want all the men on duty prepared to be interviewed. Is that clear?”

  Fong turned to Chen, “One of the islanders died in his jail cell.”

  Chen spun the steering wheel and pressed down hard on the accelerator.

  The young warden who met them at the prison entrance was filled with excuses and apologies, clearly fearing that he’d be blamed for the death that had taken place on his watch.

  Fong ignored the man and demanded to be brought to the cell. The remaining two brothers were in the basement isolation lock-ups. All that was left in the original cell was the dead man. Fong recognized the nervous man he’d interrogated two days ago. For a moment, he couldn’t recall his name. Then he did. Hesheng, meaning: in this year of peace. He remembered that he’d made a joke about it — no one had found it particularly funny — not even those who watched the process.

  The dead man sat with his back against the bars, his head slumped unnaturally far forward. Fong pushed open the cell door and stepped in. Hesheng’s colour was already souring to that of a Caucasian. There were no overt indications of cause of death. There were no signs that a struggle had taken place. Just a man suddenly deep in sleep and not about to ever awaken again.

  Although he knew that Hesheng was dead, Fong said, “Get me a pocket mirror, Captain Chen, and call the coroner, I want an autopsy done on the body. I want to know how he died.” Fong felt, more than saw, the young officer leave. He wanted to be alone with the corpse.

  Fong knelt down and moved his hand beneath the man’s nose. No air movement. Dead men still don’t breathe. Fong examined Hesheng’s face. He seemed young. He seemed peaceful. Fong put his hand to the man’s neck and pushed gently. The head moved. No rigour, so it hadn’t been too long.

  Then he sensed a movement. He couldn’t tell where, but something was in motion. For a long moment he questioned his own perception, and then he saw it again. The man’s shirt moved. Slid.

  The mongoose leapt up his spine.

  Fong jumped back, knocking a metal pitcher from the low table in the centre of the cell. The pitcher and a metal cup clattered to the floor.

  The serpent emerged from the space between the top buttons of the dead man’s shirt. Its slender yellow head pivoted with a sensuous ease, its tongue flicked out and tasted the air. The eyes, flat omens of death, slowly panned toward Fong, and then the head followed.

  The mongoose turned and feigned indifference, although Fong sensed it ready to fight.

  Fong tried to move, but slipped on the liquid that had spilled from the pitcher. In the back of his mind he noted that the water was slightly oily.

  The mongoose flexed its knees and prepared to spring.

  The serpent slithered down the front of the dead man, its eyes boring holes in Fong.

  Fong rose slowly and moved away from the yellow presence. “Don’t ever trap an enemy or it will have to fight.” The Art of War phrase leapt into his mouth as he continued to back away.

  Then the snake was in motion. Fast.

  The mongoose pushed off Fong’s spine and was instantly airborne.

  Fong planted a foot and tried to leap away, but the oily liquid on the sole of his shoe made him slide and he crashed to the ground. For a second his head filled with blackness. When he snapped open his eyes, the lethal yellow head was within inches of his mouth.

  Fong felt the serpent’s breath on his cheek. How odd that death’s breath should be so soft. So inviting.

  Then the snake’s head disappeared beneath a heavy boot.

  Fong looked up.

  Chen stood there squashing the last of the life from the surprisingly small reptile.

  Fong sprung to his feet. He immediately sensed the mongoose was no longer with him. He glanced at Chen; the squat man seemed to have a lithe grace about him that wasn’t there before. Fong understood. The mongoose had saved his life and moved on. He put his hand on Chen’s shoulder. The man was shaking. “It’s dead. Leave it.”

  Chen wanted to protest, but Fong was already searching the wall of the cell and calling to him, “There’s got to be a hole.” Fong ran his hand along the base of the wall. “There.�
� He raced out of the cell yelling, “Collect a sample of that liquid on the floor.”

  Fong shouted at the two guards in the front to follow him as he ran around the side of the jail and counted cell windows until he got to Hesheng’s. He approached the wall while holding up his hand to stop the two cops from following him. “Cordon off this entire area. It’s a crime scene now. Tape it!” The guards looked at one another, not sure what the Shanghai cop was talking about.

  Fong looked back toward the road. Nothing much there. A tall-fenced landfill, a deserted industrial site. A good place to dig a tunnel and deliver a snaky message. For a moment he wondered if the message was for all three men. Then he rejected that. It was for Hesheng, and somehow it had found its mark.

  It was for Hesheng because the man was becoming frightened.

  Fong remembered the man’s fear. It hung like a cloud before him. Fong had seen it. And so had they — the politico and Chen and the thug and the warden. They’d all seen the fear, and he’d added to that fear. He cursed himself, his stupidity, his vanity, his involvement in another death. His wife’s — his friend Wang Jun’s — and now Hesheng’s.

  Fong hitched up his pant legs and got down on all fours. He ran his palm along the base of the wall. The hole had to be there somewhere. Something gave beneath his hand. He pulled away some litter. At first he couldn’t see it. Then he did. A single piece of dislodged mortar had fallen inward. He carefully removed the other pieces. The gap in the wall was almost square, cut by a sharp tool. He measured the square by spreading his fingers. The hole was wider than his outstretched fingers. He brought his hand, fingers spread, to his face. His fingers reached past his cheekbones.

  A sharp cutting tool wider than a face — for an instant an image of the hanging man on the boat came to him — the face, one bloody scream.

  He forced himself back to the present and cleared the area of debris. He looked into the passageway. It was grooved both top and bottom, about eight inches in diameter. As if it had been dug by a long corkscrew. Fong traced one of the grooves with his hand and imagined the yellow serpent rolling gently in the contours as it moved toward its prey.

  An extremely long, sharp-tipped, corkscrew-like instrument, with an eight-inch diameter. Like the widebladed hoe they postulated was used to remove the faces of the Taiwanese men on the boat, this was another implement Fong had never seen.