‘Mine were all a hundred and seven degrees Fahrenheit or higher.’
‘Mine, too.’
‘They’d also eaten, and all of my bladders were pretty much empty, so it would seem they had been allowed out at some point to relieve themselves.’
‘Which means that the air vent was open when they set out…’
‘…and closed, either accidentally or on purpose, when they stopped somewhere en route.’
‘And they died either of suffocation or hyperthermia.’
‘Or a combination of the two.’
A thoughtful silence hung between them, then, for a moment, and Margaret noticed a trace of blood in the water in Steve’s sink. She looked at him, immediately concerned. ‘Where’s the blood coming from?’ And she saw for the first time how pale he looked. His smile was almost convincing.
‘Ah, it’s nothing.’
‘You cut yourself?’
He took a long time to compose his reply. Finally he said, ‘Usually I leave the organs piled at one end of the table before I section them. When I went back after coming through to talk to you about the injection sites, they had slid down the cutting board, and when I went to lift them I felt this little jag in my finger. I had left my knife lying on the cutting board and the organs had slipped over the top of it. My left hand is well protected. I wear chain mail under the glove in case of a slip. But on my cutting hand, my right, I usually only wear the latex. That’s the hand I lifted the organs with. The tip of my knife made a tiny puncture about halfway down the middle finger.’ He held his open right hand out for her to see, and she saw a tiny fleck of blood oozing from an almost imperceptible nick. ‘At the time I didn’t think I had cut the skin.’ He grimaced. ‘Guess I was wrong.’
‘Jesus, Steve,’ Margaret said. They both knew that this smallest of accidents would have made him vulnerable to contracting any viral or bacterial infection carried in the blood of the victim. ‘What have you done about it?’
He shrugged. ‘What could I do? I’ve taken a lot of samples from the guy and asked the AFIP people at Walter Reed to do a complete blood screen. I’ve drawn some of my own, for a baseline, and I guess I’ll be checking it every six weeks for the next year for HIV and hep B and C.’
Margaret felt sick. She looked at him with the heartfelt concern of someone who is only ever a split second’s carelessness from exactly the same predicament. ‘You said you thought you hadn’t cut the skin.’
He grinned ruefully. ‘Hey, you’re talking to paranoid Steve, here. I never take chances.’
But Margaret didn’t smile. ‘What about whatever it was these people were injected with?’
‘I’ve asked the lab to do several specific panel tests to cover as wide a spectrum as possible. Between PCR and the virus panel we should find out what it was pretty fast.’ He smiled bravely. ‘If it was West Nile, then with luck I get free immunity.’ He dried his hands and stretched a flesh-coloured Band-aid over the cut. He looked up at Margaret. ‘I was going to ask you out to dinner tonight. You know how the line goes: I know this great little place…Only, I don’t. At least, not in Houston.’
All thoughts of Li now banished, Margaret said, ‘You know, funny you should say that. ’Cos I know this great little place…’
VII
Li gazed from the rear passenger window in wonder as Consul-General Xi’s driver took them west on Bellaire, under Sam Houston Parkway, and into the heart of Houston’s Chinatown. Li did not know what he had expected, but it was not this. In Washington, Chinatown consisted of a couple of blocks of old tenements, with a few restaurants and Chinese foodstores. Here, one modern plaza followed another, set back off the boulevard. Walkways under green-tiled roofs over shops which advertised their wares and services in Chinese and English. Peggy’s Skin Care. China Fast Food. Asian Pacific Travel. Sweet Country Café. A brick apartment block with a neon Kung Fu sign next to a notice announcing the E-W Cultural Exchange Association. A billboard advertising ‘Immigration Passport Photos and Greencard Citizenship’, next to an acupuncture centre.
‘You see? Wherever we go, we create little China.’ Consul-General Xi grinned at him, and Li saw that his bad teeth had been patched up to give him an American smile. There were, he had noticed, dental practices everywhere in Chinatown. Perhaps it was what you did when you got a little money, fixed up your teeth so that you felt a little more like an American citizen. Bad teeth were endemic in China.
There were also, he had observed, a proliferation of psychics. Perhaps they offered the hope of future citizenship. And a large number of vasectomy reversal clinics appeared to be trying to make up for decades of the one-child policy, a chance to procreate without punishment — or fear of your children starving.
But Li did not see China in any of it. He saw America plastered with Chinese characters, like graffiti.
‘In terms of area, Houston has the third largest Chinatown in the United States,’ the Consul-General said, stubbing out his cigarette. He opened a window to let out some of the smoke, then closed it again to preserve the air-conditioning. ‘On the surface, perhaps, it looks like a quiet city suburb. But beneath the surface, there is a lot of crime. Gambling, prostitution, protection rackets. For the most part, the local police stay out. So crime flourishes. And, of course, the Americans estimate that the illegal smuggling of Chinese generates revenues of more than three billion dollars a year.’
They passed a large shopping area off to their right, called Diho Square. The parking lot was nearly full, and Li could see only Chinese faces. An old man wearing a white cotton jacket and pants, with open sandals and a white Stetson, turned his ramshackle bicycle on to the road. ‘So who runs the criminal syndicates?’ Li asked.
‘Most of the major businesses, legitimate and otherwise, are run by organisations known here as tongs. The tongs employ street gangs as enforcers to guard the massage parlours and gambling dens. The gangs finance themselves by collecting protection money from small traders with shops and restaurants. It is a very rigid structure, with a very clear hierarchy, all the way from the ma zhai, the little horses, or ordinary gang members, through their leaders, the big brothers, or dai lo, to the shuk foo, the uncles who are their liaison with the tongs.’
‘Who is the ah kung, Consul-General Xi? Do you know?’
The consul-general looked at him, surprised, and a little annoyed. ‘I am wasting my time telling you all this, Li, since obviously you are already well informed.’
Li inclined his head slightly. ‘It is always useful to gather intelligence based on local knowledge, Consul-General.’
The consul-general raised an eyebrow. ‘They were right when they said that you were like your uncle.’
Li glanced at him. ‘You knew him?’
‘Only by reputation.’
Li sighed inwardly. Even here in America he was still haunted by the ghost of his uncle. Since his first day at the University of Public Security in Beijing, he had had to bear the burden of his uncle’s reputation as one of the finest police officers ever to grace the Beijing municipal force. He had either had to live up to or live down that reputation. Never judged on his own merits, always against the yardstick of his Uncle Yifu — a man he had loved dearly. ‘I am not really like him at all,’ Li said. ‘But I try to honour his memory by following his teachings.’
He remembered the dreadful vision of the old man lying murdered in the bloody bath, skewered by his own ceremonial sword. It was as vivid now as it had been then, and the pain of it never diminished.