"From a shark," Rhyme added to Sonny Li.
The cop laughed. "Fish?"
"Exactly. Sharks are more compatible with humans than other animals are. Then," the criminalist continued, "I'll take drugs to help the spinal cord regenerate."
"Hey, Loaban," Li said, looking him over carefully, "this operation, it dangerous?"
Again, Rhyme heard Dr. Weaver's voice.
Of course there are risks. The drugs themselves aren't particularly dangerous. But there're risks associated with the treatment. Any C4 quad is going to have lung impairment. You're off a ventilator but with the anesthetic there's a chance of respiratory failure. Then the stress of the procedure could lead to autonomic dysreflexia and the resulting severe blood pressure elevation--I'm sure you're familiar with that--which in turn could lead to a stroke or a cerebral event. There's a risk of surgical trauma to the site of your initial injury--you don't have any cysts now and no shunts--but the operation and resulting fluid buildup could increase that pressure and cause additional damage.
"Yes, it's dangerous," Rhyme told him.
"Sound to me like 'yi luan tou shi.' "
"Which means?"
Li considered then said, "Words translate: 'throwing eggs against rocks.' Means doing something bound to fail, I'm saying. So why you do this operation?"
It seemed obvious to Rhyme. To move a step closer to independence. Perhaps to be able to close his hand around the tumbler, for instance, and lift it to his lips. To scratch his head. To become more normal--using the term that was very politically incorrect within the disabled community. To be closer to Amelia Sachs. To be a better father to the child that Sachs wanted so badly.
He said, "It's just something I have to do, Sonny." Then he nodded at the nearby bottle of Macallan scotch. "Let's try my baifu now."
Li barked a laugh. "Baijiu, Loaban. What you just say was 'Let's try my department store.' "
"Baijiu," Rhyme corrected himself.
Li filled the cup and the tumbler with the aged scotch.
Rhyme sipped from the straw. Ah, yes, much better.
Li tossed down a whole Dixie cup of scotch. He shook his head. "I'm saying, you should not do this operation."
"I've weighed the risks and--"
"No, no. Embrace who you are! Embrace your limitations."
"But why? When I don't have to?"
"I see all this science shit you have here in Meiguo. We not have science everywhere in China like you do. Oh, Beijing, Hong Kong, Guangdong, Fuzhou, sure, sure--we got mostly everything you got, a little behind, thank you, Chairman Mao, but we got computers, we got Internet, we got missiles--yeah, sometime they blow up but usually they go in space okay. But doctors, they not use so much science. They put us back in harmony. In China, doctors not gods."
"We have a different view here."
"Yeah, yeah," Li scoffed. "Doctors make you look younger. Give you hair. Give women bigger xiong, you know--" He pointed to his chest. "We not understand that. That not in harmony."
"You think I'm in harmony like this?" Rhyme asked with an exasperated laugh.
"Fate make you this way, Loaban. And make you this way for purpose. Maybe you best detective you can be because of what happen. Your life balanced now, I'm saying."
Rhyme had to laugh. "I can't walk, I can't pick up evidence . . . How the hell is that better?"
"Maybe your brain, it work better now, I'm saying. Maybe you have stronger will. Your jizhong, your focus, maybe is better."
"Sorry, Sonny, I don't buy it."
But, as he'd learned, once Sonny Li took a position on an issue, he didn't let go. "Let me explain you, Loaban. You remembering John Sung? Has that good-luck stone of Monkey King?"
"I remember."
"You are Monkey."
"I'm what?"
"You are like Monkey, I'm saying. Monkey do miracle things, magic, smart, tough--had temper too, I'm saying. Like you. But he ignore nature--look for ways to cheat gods and stay alive forever. He steal peaches of immortality, got names erased from Register of Living and Dead. That when he got in trouble. Got burned and beat up and buried under mountain. Finally Monkey give up wanting to live forever. Found some friends and they all make pilgrimage to holy land in the west. He was happy. In harmony, I'm saying."
"I want to walk again," Rhyme whispered adamantly, wondering why he was baring his soul to this strange little man. "That's not too much to ask."
"But maybe is too much ask," Li responded. "Listen, Loaban, look at me. I could wish to be tall and look like Chow Yun-Fat, have all girls chase me. Could wish to run big commune and have hundreds productivity awards so everybody respect me. Could wish to be Hong Kong banker. But not my nature. My nature is being fuck good cop. Maybe you start walking again, you lose some other else--something more important. Why you drink this crap?" He nodded at the scotch.
"It's my favorite baijiu."
"Yeah? How much it cost?"
"About seventy dollars a bottle."
Li made a sour face. Still he downed the glass and poured another. "Listen, Loaban, you know the Tao?"
"Me? That New Age crap? You're talking to the wrong person."
"Okay, I am telling you something. In China we got two big philosophs. Confucius and Lao-tzu. Confucius think what is best is for people to obey superiors, follow orders, kow tow to betters, keep quiet. But Lao-tzu, he say opposite. What is best is for each person follow the way of life on his own. Find harmony and nature. English name of Tao is Way of Life. He write something I try to say. It all about you, Loaban."
"About me?" Rhyme asked, reminding himself that his interest in the man's words must've had its source in the well of alcohol within him at the moment.
Li squinted as he translated, "In Tao, Lao-tzu say, 'There no need to leave house for better seeing. No need to peer from window. Instead, live in the center of your being. The way to do is to be.' "
"Does everybody in China have a goddamn saying for everything?" Rhyme snapped.
"We got lots sayings, true. You should have Thom write that down and put up on wall, next to altar to Guan Di."
The men fell silent for a minute. There is no need to leave house for better seeing. No need to peer from window . . . .
Finally the conversation resumed and Li talked at length about life in China.
Rhyme asked, "And what's your house like?"
"Apartment. Whole place small, size this room."
"Where is it?"
"My town, Liu Guoyuan. Means 'six orchards,' but they all gone now, all cut down. Maybe fifty thousands people. Outside Fuzhou. Many people there. Over million, I'm saying."
"I don't know the area."
"In Fujian Province, southeast China. Taiwan is just off coast. Many mountains. Min River, big one, run through it. We independent place. Beijing worried about us lots. Fujian was home of first triad--organized gang, I'm saying. The San Lian Hui. Very powerful. Lots smuggling: salt, opium, silk. Lots sailors in Fujian. Merchants, importers. Not so many farmers. Communist Party is powerful in my town but that because the party secretary is private capitalist. Has Internet company like AOL. Real success. Ha, running dog lackey capitalist! His collective make good, good money. His stock not fall like NASDAQ."
"What kind of crime is there in Liu Guoyuan?" Rhyme asked.
Li nodded. "Lots bribes, protection money. In China, you cheat business and people, that okay. But cheat the party or the government, then you fuck die. Convict you, shoot in back of head. We got lots other crime too. Same stuff happen here. Murder and robbery and rape." Li sipped more liquor. "I find man killing women. Kill four of them, going to kill more. I got him." He laughed. "One drop blood. I find one drop on his bicycle tire, small as grain of sand. That what place him at scene. He confess. See, Loaban, not all woo-woo."
"I'm sure it isn't, Sonny."
"Kidnapping women big problem in China--have more men than women. For every hundred women, we got a hundred twenty men. People not want baby girls, I'm saying, only
boys. But then where brides come from? So lots kidnappers take girls and women, sell them. Sad, families come to us and ask us find their wives or daughters been kidnap. Lot security officers don't bother--hard cases. Sometimes they take women thousands miles away. I find six last year. Record in our office. Good feeling to find kidnapper, arrest him."
Rhyme said, "That's what it's all about."
Li lifted his cup at this and then they drank in silence for a moment. Rhyme, thinking that he was feeling content. Most of the people who came to visit treated him like a freak. Oh, they meant no unkindness. But either they struggled to ignore his "condition," as most of them referred to it or they celebrated his disability, making jokes and comments about it to show how closely they connected with him. When in fact they didn't connect at all and as soon as they caught a glimpse of the catheter or the box of adult diapers in the corner of the bedroom they started counting down the minutes until they could escape. These people would never disagree with him, they'd never fight back. They never got below the appearance of a relationship.
But in Sonny Li's face Rhyme could see complete indifference to Rhyme's state. As if it were, well, indeed natural.
He realized then that nearly all the people he'd met over the past few years, with the exception of Amelia Sachs, had been merely acquaintances. He'd known the man for less than a day but Sonny Li already seemed more than that.
"You mentioned your father," Rhyme said. "When you called him before, it didn't sound like a good conversation. What's his story?"
"Ah, my father . . . " He drank more scotch, which was apparently growing on the cop the way Rhyme had gotten used to the baijiu. Globalization through liquor, Rhyme reflected wryly.
Li poured another shot.
"You might want to sip it," Rhyme suggested.
"Time to sip is after you dead," the cop said and emptied the pink Dixie cup emblazoned with flowers. "My father . . . He not like me much. I am, what is meaning . . . Not live up to what he wants."
"Disappointment?"
"Yes, I am disappointment."
"Why?"
"Ah, lots things. Give you our history in acorn."
"Nutshell."
"Dr. Sun Yat-sen in the 1920s, he unify China but civil war happened. Kuomintangs--the National Party--were under Chiang Kai-shek. But Gongchantang--the communists--they fight against them. Then Japan invade, bad time for everybody. After Japan lose, we have more civil war in China and finally Mao Zedong and communists win, drive the nationalists to Taiwan. My father, he fought with Mao. October 1949, he standing with Chairman Mao at the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing. Oh, Loaban, I hear that story a million times. How he stood there and bands was playing 'The March of the Volunteers.' Big fuck patriotic time.
"So my father, he got guanxi. Connections high up. He become big guy in Communist Party down in Fujian. Want me to be too. But I see what communists do in sixty-six--Historically Unprecedented Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution--destroy everything, hurt people, kill people. Government and party not doing right things."
"It wasn't natural," Rhyme said. "Wasn't in harmony."
"Exact right, Loaban." Li laughed. "My father want me to join party. Order me to. Threaten me. But I not care about party. Not care about collectives." He waved his arms. "Not care about great ideas. What I like is police work. I like catch criminals . . . . Always puzzles, always challenge, I'm saying. My sister, she big and high in the party. Our father proud of her even though she a woman. He say she not bring disgrace on him like me. Say that all the time." His face grew dark. "Other bad thing too is I not have a son--no children--when I married."
"You're divorced?" Rhyme asked.
"My wife, she die. Got sick and die. Some fever, bad thing. Only married few years but no children. My father say it my fault. We try, just not have child. Then she die." He rose and paced to the window, stared at the lights of the city. "My father, he lot strict. Hit me all time growing up. Never what I did was good enough for him. Good grades . . . I good student. Got medals in army. Marry nice, respectful girl, get job at security bureau, become detective, not just traffic, I'm saying. Come visit my father every week, give him money, pay respect at mother's grave. But never anything I do is enough. Your parents, Loaban?"
"Both dead."
"My mother, she not so strict as father but she never say much. He not let her . . . .Here, in Beautiful Country, you not so much, what you say, under gravity of your parents?"
Good way to put it, thought Rhyme. "Maybe not so much. Some people are."
"Respect for parents, that number one for us." He nodded toward Guan Di's statue. "Of all gods, most important are our ancestors."
"Maybe your father thinks more of you than he's letting on. A facade, you know. Because he thinks it's good for you."
"No, he just not like me. Nobody to carry on family name, I'm saying. That very bad thing."
"You'll meet somebody and have a family."
"A man like me?" Li scoffed. "No, no. I just cop, got no money. Most men my age in Fuzhou, they work business, got lots money. Money all over place. Remember, I tell you many more men than women? Why a woman pick poor old man when they can have rich young one?"
"You're my age," Rhyme said. "You're not old."
Li looked out the window again. "Maybe I stay here. I speak English good. I be security officer here. Work in Chinatown. Undercover."
He seemed serious. But then Sonny Li laughed and said what they were both thinking. "No, no, too late for that. Lots too late . . .No, we get the Ghost, I go home and keep being fuck good detective. Guan Di and I solve big crime and get my picture in paper in Fuzhou. Maybe chairman give me medal. Maybe my father watch news and see and he think I not be such bad son." He drained the cup of scotch. "Okay, I drunk enough now--you and me, we play game, Loaban."
"I don't play games."
"But what that game on your computer?" Li said quickly. "Chess. I saw it."
"I don't play very often," Rhyme qualified.
"Games improve you. I am show you how to play best game." He returned to the magic shopping bag.
"I can't play most games, Sonny. Can't exactly hold the cards, you know."
"Ah, card games?" Li said, sneering. "They games of chance. Only good for make money. See, those, you keep secrets by turning cards away from opponents. Best games are games where you keep secrets in head, I'm saying. Wei-chi? You ever hear it? Also called Go."
Rhyme believed he had. "Like checkers or something?"
Li laughed. "Checkers, no, no."
Rhyme surveyed the board that Li took from the shopping bag and set up on the table beside the bed. It was a grid with a number of perpendicular lines on it. He then took out two bags, one containing hundreds of tiny white pebbles, the other black ones.
Suddenly Rhyme had a huge desire to play and he forced himself to pay careful attention to Sonny Li's animated voice as he explained the rules and object of wei-chi.
"Seems simple enough," Rhyme said. Players alternated putting their stones on the board in an attempt to surround the opponent's and eliminate them from play.
"Wei-chi like all great games: rules simple but winning hard." Li separated the stones into two piles. As he did he said, "Game go back many years. I am study best player of all time. Name was Fan Si-pin. Lived in 1700s--your dates. There nobody better than him ever live. He have match after match with Su Ting-an, who was almost as good. The games were usually draws but Fan had few points more so he was overall better player. Know why he better?"
"Why?"
"Su was defense player--but Fan . . . he play always offense. He charge forward always, was impulsive, crazy, I'm saying."
Rhyme felt the man's enthusiasm. "Do you play much?"
"I am in club at home. I play much, yes." His voice faded for a moment and a wistfulness came over him. Rhyme wondered why. Then Li swept his oily hair back and said, "Okay, we play. You see how you like. Can last long time."
"I'm not tired," Rhyme said.
>
"Not either," Li said. "Now, you never play before so I give advantage. Give you three piece extra. Seem like not much but big, big advantage in wei-chi."
"No," Rhyme said. "I don't want any advantages."
Li glanced at him and must have thought this had to do with his disability and added gravely, "Only give you advantage because you not play before. That only reason. Experience players do that always. Is customary."
Rhyme understood and appreciated Li's reassurance. Still, he said adamantly, "No. You make the first move. Go ahead." And watched Li's eyes lower and focus on the wooden grid between them.
IV
Cutting the Demon's Tail
Wednesday, the Hour of the Dragon, 7 A.M.,
to the Hour of the Rooster, 6:30 P.M.
In Wei-Chi the more equally matched two players are, the more interesting the game.
--The Game of Wei-Chi
Chapter Thirty
On the morning of the day he was to die, Sam Chang awoke to find his father in the back courtyard of their Brooklyn apartment going through the slow movements of tai-chi.
He watched the elderly man for a few moments and a thought occurred to him: Chang Jiechi's seventieth birthday was in three weeks. In China they'd been so poor and so persecuted the family had not been able to have the man's sixtieth birthday celebration, traditionally a huge party that signified the move into old age, the time for veneration. But his family would do so for the seventieth.
Sam Chang's animate body would not make it to the party but his spirit perhaps would.
He gazed at the old man, who moved like a leisurely dancer in the small backyard.
Tai-chi was beneficial to the body and to the soul but it always saddened Chang to watch the exercise. It reminded him of a humid night in June years ago. Chang and a cluster of students and fellow teachers had been sitting together in Beijing, watching a group of people nearby engaged in the balletic movements. It was after midnight and they were all enjoying the pleasant weather and the exhilaration of being among like-minded friends in the center of what was becoming the greatest nation on earth, the new China, the enlightened China.
Chang had turned to a young student next to him to point out a spry elderly woman lost under the spell of tai-chi, when the boy's chest exploded and he dropped to the ground. The People's Liberation Army soldiers had begun firing on the crowd in Tiananmen Square. The tanks came through a moment later, driving the people in front of them, crushing many beneath the treads (the famous televised image of the student stopping the tank with a flower was the rare exception that terrible night).