The Man with the Baltic Stare

by James Church

  “Our manual said ‘when the subject attempts to raise a new topic, it’s a sign of stress.’ Relax, Inspector; no one is going to bite you. And neither of us is a subject, as far as I know. Please, if you wish, assume our man is still in Macau. In fact, assume anything you want. Assumptions are fine. They are like bouquets of flowers, nice to have around. Or should I compare them to the bottled water in your hotel room? Compliments of the house.”

  There was no such thing in my hotel room. No bottle, no space for a bottle. “I assume you have a full file, something other than that folder that is on your desk.” It was actually on the floor, the papers fluttering whenever the fan swept over them. Pointing that out seemed unnecessary.

  “Of course I have a file. We exist on files. They are like vitamins, like oxygen, like red blood cells. Your department has another approach perhaps? Something more modern? If there is a way to the truth without files, I’d like to know what it is.”

  “We swim in paper, same as you.” I surveyed the office. No computer. That was comforting. It meant not having to deal with references to nodes and links and regressions.

  “You share your files with anyone who walks in the door, of course.” He walked his fingers up to the edge of the desk and then let them jump off.

  “Yes, that is our approach exactly. Files to the people.” I smiled to demonstrate I was not going to be a burden on his day. “I assume you eat lunch?”

  The man immediately stood up and buttoned his jacket. He had the figure of a bullfighter. “I do, as often as I can, though the limits of custom and of government regulation dictate I enjoy lunch only once a day. It is my favorite meal. Dinner has considerable freight attached to it. Breakfast is an evolutionary afterthought. But lunch! Just as the day is reaching full potential-the sun scorching, the air heavy, the restaurant cool, the dark glass along the front turning the outside into a dance of vivid color while the leaves of the ficus trees flutter in a breeze God grants only to them. And on the table, a glass of wine, a plate of chicken and rice, a freshly baked roll dozing on its own little blue plate. What could be wrong with life at such a moment?” He shook his head. “Do you favor ficus trees, Inspector?”

  “I’d have to think about it.” Actually, I found them despicable trees, twisted around themselves as if they were afraid of the sky. “Why do you ask?”

  “There are so many of them in Macau. They are like people.”

  “Interesting thought.”

  “Look at them closely when you have some time. They grow apart and then together again.”

  “My grandfather thought chestnut trees were like people-old people and foreigners. He considered them cranky.”

  “Interesting thought.”

  “Let me buy you lunch, then.”

  He bowed, a little stiffly. “My name is Luís da Silva Mouzinho de Albuquerque.” He paused and observed me through slightly narrowed eyes. “I notice you do not laugh. The name means nothing to you?”

  “It’s long, but I can’t say it tickles me.”

  “Good. Some people smile when they hear it. Luís da Silva Mouzinho de Albuquerque existed long ago. He was a man of many facets, and had one of those tangled lives that great people in those days lived. He was no relation to me, none that I know of, but it amused my father, who was Macanese, to name me after this man. My mother, a Chinese woman of strong opinions, was not so amused. Worse, there was never room in the space provided for ‘name’ on all the applications necessary for one’s journey through life. Believe me, it was not always a pleasure. It is also, I realize, not as easy to remember as ‘O.’ Please call me Luís.” He extended his hand. “I appreciate your invitation. It is very kind of you, but I fear I can’t accept. It would be against all regulations, in force and contemplated-part of our anti-corruption drive, our fourth in as many years. I cannot go into a casino unless in pursuit of a suspect, I cannot be in the presence of any gaming authority unless there are three other people present, no two of whom can know each other, and I cannot accept a meal if it means sitting down.”

  We shook hands warmly. “You have to remain on your feet when you eat?”

  “Yes, if someone else buys the meal. Standing is less corrupting, apparently. I can nibble tiny sandwiches by the plateful. I can heap on lobster, eat caviar with a shovel. But only if I stand.”

  “Perhaps, Luís, there is a restaurant where we can stand at the bar?”

  He bowed, with more grace than the first time. “I have heard of such a place. In fact,” he said as he straightened his tie, “I have heard it is nearby.”

  “How did you know my name, incidentally?”

  “This is Macau, Inspector.”

  5

  The bartender was a woman with a neck as thick as her head. All the more surprising that she had a voice as sweet as the spring breeze across a field of wildflowers. She and Luís exchanged a few words in what I took to be Portuguese. It sounded like Russian, but it was too wet around the edges.

  “If you heard her on the radio,” Luís said in English to me, “you’d fall in love, as I already have.” He kissed her hand. “This is Lulu,” he said. “She can do no wrong.”

  Lulu blushed, which must have put a strain on her heart. “And what would Senhor Police Captain like to start off with?” she asked. The room was suddenly a meadow in the glories of May. Exactly as Luís had said, the ficus trees rustled in a breeze; the colors of the day flowed through the darkened glass of the long front window.

  “A leg, my dear Lulu. Surrender it to me or I shall go mad.” Luís’ voice was low and dreamy.

  Next to this woman, Luís appeared frail; the thought of her leg worried me. “I thought you had to remain standing,” I said.

  Lulu turned to me. “And you? What can I offer?” She leaned her arms on the bar top and began to remove my clothing with limpid eyes. “You prefer white meat, perhaps?”

  I coughed politely. What a voice! It could make a man weak in the knees. “I’ll have what Luís has,” I rasped.

  “Good, then it’s settled.” Luís looked around the bar. “I’ll have a drumstick, and so will the Inspector. We’ll hunt for the rest of the chicken another time, eh? Some wine, Lulu.” He clapped me on the back. “See what I mean about lunch?”

  6

  “This is completely against regulations, Inspector, taking you to the crime scene.” We were walking through the hotel lobby, a gargantuan, stomach-churning place not conceived for loitering or watching the passing parade. Whenever a parade did pass, it was into the open maw of the casino, where attendants in blazing orange coats kept the money moving in one direction. Most of the state security people positioned around the edges of the cavernous space were easy enough to spot. They might as well have been wearing signs. This wasn’t the result of sloppiness or inattention. It was deliberate, designed to breed confidence in anyone looking to avoid the MSS. The principle at work was simple and well proven-confidence bred contempt, and contempt bred the tiny mistake that led, without exception or mercy, to a quick trial and then a bullet in the back of the head. Some of this effort was aimed at Chinese officials gambling with money they weren’t supposed to have; some of it was a normal screen. You know there are insects, so you put up a net. Some of them you get before they come in the window; the rest you squash when the opportunity arises.

  In truth, it didn’t much matter how many security officers were standing around. Every employee and every hotel worked for them in one way or another, sooner or later. A few of those employees also worked for the triads. A few more fattened their paychecks by working for a foreign “friend” who didn’t ask for much and then only once in a while but always had an extra envelope waiting for them. The old man at the Nam Lo’s front desk probably worked part-time for all three. By now, each of his employers knew an unusual guest had checked in. Even if he had waited to tell them, the bored immigration official would have already raised a flag that all three would have noticed.

  “The elevator is around the corner.”
Luís was several steps ahead of me. “Don’t gawk, Inspector, or it will make you dizzy. Nothing in this lobby fits with anything, so everything seems to be whirling around and repelled by everything else. The place is an abomination, I agree.”

  The elevator took us smoothly to the thirty-fourth floor. As we stepped out, Luís took a key card from his pocket. “Room Thirty-four Twenty-seven, to the left. This is the executive preserve, but I don’t know if there are any executives awake yet. In any case, we’ll tread softly.”

  Treading proved to be no problem. The hallway carpet was thick and the walls were completely soundproofed. Every room would be an isolated world in the middle of nowhere. Luís paused at a door and read the number. “Don’t touch anything; don’t take notes; just look. Regulations.”

  “You have a lot of regulations, it seems.”

  “We do. That happens in warm climates, have you noticed?”

  “But you don’t follow them all.”

  Luís shrugged and opened the door. “I do what I can.”

  7

  As soon as we stepped inside, I realized that the middle of nowhere was exactly what had been on the mind of the interior decorator. Room 3427 was a place where nothing led to nothing, shapes blurred, and colors blended, with the exception, perhaps, of one particularly noxious square chair, bloodred leather that looked about to leap screaming from the window. The living room was considerably longer than it was wide, which was perfect for an executive used to working in a tunnel. The bedroom was not much better, and because of the odd shape of the building it was a tunnel sliced by a large angled column necessary to bear the weight of the twenty floors above that hung out from the building in a series of steps. The effect was to remind anyone trying to sleep that their life was dependent on this column and that the construction company that put it up had no doubt scrimped on materials in order to pay off the building inspector who at this very moment was in the casino downstairs, one small step ahead of the MSS. Outside the bedroom window the view was obstructed by steel framing with no obvious purpose. It couldn’t possibly be structural, I thought. If it was, I wanted to get to a lower floor right away. The column in the bedroom came up about a meter from the window, creating an isolated alcove so useless that not even the crazed decorator had been tempted to use it. An absurdly wide window ledge added the final touch, separating the room from any sense of connection with the rest of the planet and underlining the impression that the hotel might actually not even be part of the known universe.

  Because the room was on the corner of the building, the bedroom had windows along two walls. Looking out from the window opposite the bed, I spotted bamboo. Even here, in such a humid place, I thought, it doesn’t grow to thirty-four stories. “What is that?” I pointed.

  Luís swam across the carpet. “It’s what they call a sky garden, balconies that take advantage of all of the crisscrossing structural beams. This floor doesn’t have any. I don’t know if the architect had them in the original plans, or if they were an afterthought designed to squeeze out extra money from the guests. It is hard to tell.”

  “It looks to me that whoever might be lounging in the chaise down on that porch could probably see someone at this window.”

  “I suppose so. We haven’t checked.”

  Haven’t checked? What had they been doing for the last few weeks? “If one can see, presumably one can also hear, no?”

  “Probably not. The glass is very thick. And the rooms, as you can tell, are completely soundproofed. The walls have baffling on them covered in what looks like leather. It’s like living in a cow’s stomach. Personally, I wouldn’t pay the money.”

  “How much?”

  “About eight thousand Macau dollars, maybe a thousand in real money, or ten of your super notes if you prefer.”

  “Where’s the bathroom?”

  “Can’t you wait until we get downstairs?”

  “I only want to look, Luís.”

  “Ah, well.” He pointed. “It’s tucked away nicely.”

  The carpet stopped and a marble floor announced the entrance to a small hall that bent around a corner to the bathroom-Jacuzzi, dry sauna, and separate toilet with its own television, which worked. Opposite the bathtub was a long window, again looking down on a porch attached to the floor below.

  “A reckless bather could put on a nice show,” I said. As I moved to the window, I tripped on a ledge at floor level-no doubt the Ur beam holding the whole place up.

  “Not what your thousand-dollar toes want to find at three in the morning.” Luís was searching along the side of the window. “There’s a shade here somewhere, but it goes up and down electronically and the switch is the devil to locate. Most people probably don’t bother with it.”

  “Let’s go back to the living room.” I limped into the tunnel and pointed out the window. A city the size of Macau is not spectacular much above the twentieth floor. The contours of the hills are lost, and the quaintness of the colonial buildings is impossible to distinguish without binoculars. Who wants to pay a thousand a night to look at the view through binoculars? “What is that? That tall wall with all the windows, at the top of what looks like a long stairway, what is it?”

  “Those are the ruins of St. Paul’s. You were practically there when you came to my office. You want to go see them?”

  “A lot of stair-climbing to see ruins on a hot afternoon,” I said.

  “It is well to look up to God, Inspector.”

  “Perhaps,” I said, “but I don’t need a heart attack in the process.” I pointed a little to the right. “And those ruins, next to Paul’s?”

  “The hilltop fort. The Portuguese built it in the early sixteen hundreds. It’s a nice climb up the hill. The view from there is much better than from here, or it would be if this hotel were blown up. You probably can’t make it out, but the Portuguese consulate is down in front of the fort, at the bottom of the hill. Interesting building, very colonial. Extremely yellow.”

  “Is there a room safe?”

  “No, I think the Consul General keeps his valuables at home.”

  “I mean in this room.”

  “Of course.” We walked over to the dressing area, more dark wood, subdued lighting, muted colors. It was exactly the place to mourn the loss of a year’s worth of bribes in a single game of baccarat. “The safe is in the top drawer of the dresser. Would you like to put something in for safekeeping?”

  “No, thank you.” I bounced up and down on my toes. “A suitcase full of body parts wouldn’t have rolled very well on this carpet,” I said.

  “It was an expensive suitcase.” Luís opened the drawer and touched some buttons on the safe. “I think they design them for all contingencies. Besides, the floor from the bathroom is marble and, as I told you, the body was butchered in the bathroom. Rolling from the bath to the front door would have been no problem.”

  “And the hallway carpet?”

  “The rich are like you and me, Inspector, only smarter, more devious. They don’t let carpeting stand in their way.”

  “Anything else I need to see, before you tell me what you left out in your first rendition of what was in that folder?”

  “You have seen all. Shall we return to the living room to sit? You take the couch. I’ll take the desk chair.”

  “And the red leather one?”

  “I prefer to let it rest in peace.”

  8

  “So, you intend to stay with this case. You have a dogged nature; that much is clear from the way you looked at Lulu.”

  It was hard not to look at Lulu. She occupied most of the field of vision. “I don’t like the smell of things.” I also didn’t like the couch. The cushions were made of concrete.

  Luís sighed. “All right, I have a few more things to tell you.”

  “You mean you have another version to unload?”

  “Not entirely. Simply adding a layer of detail may prove to you that there is no need for you to remain in Macau. It really is a click-clack
case.”

  “Click-clack.”

  “Open and shut. File and forget. Up the chimney and out to sea.” He pondered his next move. “We know what happened. We know who did it. The people who viewed the tapes see no crack for the daylight of doubt to enter. All we lack is a confession. Or rather, all we lack is a signature. The confession we have already written.”

  “Really? We tend to wait awhile to write it out.”

  “The murderer checked into the hotel at six thirty P.M. the ninth of October, a Sunday, under the name of Raoul Penza, having passed through Immigration ninety minutes earlier. He had arrived on the four P.M. ferry from Hong Kong, with a super-class ticket purchased at the ferry terminal earlier in the morning, around ten A.M. On the ferry, he refused the food tray with a gracious nod and dozed.”

  “Don’t drown me in extraneous details, Luís. It takes ten minutes to get from the ferry terminal to here, but it took him an hour and a half. Surely, he didn’t have to wait in line that long at Immigration. Perhaps it was even arranged so that he didn’t have to wait in line at all.” I paused; Luís filled the space with nothing but a blank stare. “He stopped somewhere?”

  “That is our feeling as well.”

  “Meaning you have no idea where.”

  “Not yet. I can tell you it was not at one of the large casinos.”

  “The boys in the orange coats are sure of that?”

  “They are.”

  “What about a small casino?”

  “There are establishments, and then there are establishments. In any case, to resume, Senhor Penza was definitely downstairs in the lobby at six thirty P.M. He gave his home address as Residencia Julia Calle Six, Number Twenty-four, at Fourteenth Street, Isabelita, Santo Domingo.”

  “He wasn’t preregistered?”

  “No, he did not have a reservation. May I continue?”