A Death in China (24 page)

The first cop on the scene was a patrolman named Sanderson, who borrowed a spool of kite string from one of the neighborhood kids and cordoned off the gravesite using four other tombstones as corner posts. The total effect, Sanderson noted with self-satisfaction, was to convey the impression of an actual crime scene. All that was missing was the chalk silhouette.

Tom Stratton arrived by cab at 7:15 a.m., a haggard presence among the rabid, coffee-hopped reporters. Because he was carrying a fresh spray of flowers, Stratton was immediately marked as a grief-stricken relative and besieged with questions. Who would want to steal Mr. Bertecelli’s body? Had a ransom note been received? Did Mr. Bertecelli practice satanism? How was the widow holding up?

Stratton deflected his interrogators and was relieved when a plump brunette woman identified herself as Violet Bertecelli and began to tell her sad story to the mothlike newsmen. The moment also offered a breather for Officer Sanderson, so Stratton walked up and asked what had happened.

“Some assholes ripped off a corpse here, which is grand theft, presuming the item taken has a value in excess of one hundred dollars. We’re looking for two or three perpetrators, at least one of them armed with a pistol.” Sanderson shrugged. “Who knows what to think? You want my opinion? Kids. Maybe it’s some kind of sick fraternity ritual. Else it could be ‘Ricans. They’re all into that witchcraft shit. Voodoo, eatin’ chicken heads. Could be that. Hey you! Get out of the fuckin’ hole!” Sanderson waved his nightstick at a photographer. “Get out of the goddamn grave. What are ya, some kinda sick hump?”

“Somebody said there was an ambulance here,” Stratton remarked.

“Yeah, that’s the odd thing.” Sanderson took out his notebook and read from the top page. “Victim’s name was Charles Robinson, aged seventeen. Long juvenile record for b-and-e, shoplifting, boosting bicycles. Nothing like this.”

“Was he hurt badly?”

“Naw, you know them people. You got to shoot ‘em in the asshole to do any real damage.” The cop laughed. “You a relative of Mr. Bertecelli or what?”

“No, I brought some flowers for my grandmother’s grave. It’s up the hill a ways. I was just curious, that’s all.”

“Well, the little shit was shot in the arm. He’ll live. I’m pretty sure he was involved in the whole thing. He’s not talkin’, naturally. Says he was walkin’ by the graveyard on his way to church when some crazy Chinaman shot him.” Sanderson shook his head admiringly. “You got to give these douche bags credit for imagination. Fuckin’ weird, even for Queens.”

The retinue clinging to Violet Bertecelli suddenly moved with her to the edge of the damaged grave. She stared at the broken casket and began to wail, accompanied by the sibilance of a dozen motordrive Nikons.

They drove south. Broom was careful to stay at fifty-five, and even so he could not keep his eyes off the rearview mirror. He was ragged and nervous. A shooting had been the last thing he had expected. The Chinaman had balls, that was for sure—how the hell had he gotten that gun?

As always, Wang Bin rode in silence. In contrast to Broom, the deputy minister was placid, almost serene. He seemed to pay particular attention to other cars. The brighter and newer they were, the more he stared. One time, when a black Porsche flew past them, Broom thought he noticed Wang Bin smiling.

He’s like a little kid, the art dealer thought. A little kid with a chrome-plated .38.

“I am hungry,” Wang Bin said.

Broom found a Burger King. He used the drive-in lane, braking as they pulled abreast of a plastic menu board.

“What do you want?” he asked the deputy minister.

Wang Bin squinted at the colorful menu sign for a long time. A young girl’s voice cracked on a speaker box and said, “Good morning, can I help you?”

Wang Bin sat back, startled.

“Tell her what you want,” Broom commanded.

“Tell who?”

“The girl! Tell her what you want to eat!”

“I see no one.” Wang Bin looked above and beneath the sign. “Who is speaking?”

“Welcome to Burger King, can I help you?”

“It’s a bloody microphone, Pop!” Broom leaned out the window and shouted: “Two Whoppers, two fries and two coffees!”

After Broom paid for the food, he parked the car in the shade of a maple tree. He tore open his hamburger carton, took two bites and said, “It’s a good thing I’m your partner. Otherwise you’d fucking starve in this country.”

Wang Bin meticulously unwrapped his hamburger. He lifted the bun and examined the meat. He was overpowered briefly by the hot smell.

“Go on, eat,” Broom said. “We’ve got a long ride.”

Wang Bin forced himself to take a bite, and chased it down hastily with black coffee. “I would have preferred to wash myself before—”

“Sorry if I offended your Oriental hygiene, Pop. After all this is over, I’ll take you to Hong Fat’s for real won ton soup.”

Wang Bin said, “I would like an accounting of the moneys.”

“Finish your lunch. We’ll talk about it later.”

Wang Bin sipped at the coffee, but found himself longing for tea. Broom was impudent, and shamefully greedy; this the deputy minister had known from the first day. Now, in the final stages, it came down to trust. Wang Bin studied his oily partner as Broom gnawed on a french fry. In a cold rush it struck him how foolish he had been. Broom was his chauffer, his travel guide, his interpreter, his caretaker; Wang Bin needed him. There was no doubt.

Yet Broom did not need him. Not anymore. The soldiers had arrived. The buyers were in place.

Coldly, Wang Bin began to see himself as excess baggage.

“What of the money?” he asked again.

“We’ve been through this.”

“Once more, please.”

“All the accounts are in the name Henry Lee. That’s both of us. We’re both Mr. Lee. Both signatures are good at all the banks. As of today we got money in Texas and Florida. Lots.”

“You said the spearman is for a Washington museum.”

“The curator of an important museum. An expert,” Broom muttered. “He would only agree to three hundred thousand, C.O.D. No money down.”

That extinguished Wang Bin’s faint hope that Harold Broom might be an honorable man. Broom was a liar. Wang Bin knew there had been a substantial down payment on the Chinese spear carrier. He had found the deposit slip in Broom’s wallet, three hundred thousand dollars at the Riggs National Bank in Washington. The date on the deposit matched the date Broom had met the curator.

Wang Bin sighed. If only David had been cooperative, there would have been no need for an alliance with Harold Broom. If only David had agreed.

Now he was dead, and Broom was on his way to being a millionaire.

“Three hundred thousand for the spear carrier is an insult,” Wang Bin declared.

“I agree, Pop. But the buyer has me over a real barrel. He heard about the other soldiers—don’t ask me how—and accused me of cheating him. See, I’d promised him an exclusive. I had to. Anyway, when he heard about the other two soldiers he almost threw me out of the museum. I had to do some fast talking to jack him back up to three hundred, believe me.”

“Find another buyer.”

“It’s too late.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re hot now,” Broom said urgently. “The papers will have fun with our noisy escapade last night at St. Francis’. And if that little spade you plugged decides to talk, we could be in trouble.” Broom jerked his thumb toward the trunk of the car. “I’m going to unload Charlie Chan on a train to Texas this afternoon. After that, just one more. Then we split the money and disappear, the sooner the better. By the way, where did you get that gun?”

“I purchased it last night, while you were sleeping off the liquor.”

“Where?”

“In a place where people speak in my language.”

Broom grinned, a yellow half-moon. “Chinatown! You old son of a bitch.”

Wang Bin turned away.

“Eat your french fries, Pop. I’ve got a couple important calls to make, then we’ll be on our way. Can’t keep the customers waiting.”

Broom sauntered down the street to a corner telephone booth. Wang Bin collected the lunch debris and placed it in a trash can outside the Burger King. He stretched his legs and breathed deeply of the summer day. He felt the butt of the pistol dig into his midriff, and he adjusted the gun a fraction in his waistband. From the highway overpass came the now familiar din of speeding traffic. Wang Bin thought how pleasant it would be to find a place untouched by the big road and all its relentless noise. A city of bicycles had certain advantages.

Harold Broom returned to the car with a pinched look on his face. He refolded the spiral notepad in which he had scribbled the vital phone numbers and slipped it into his pocket.

“I’ve got bad news, Pop,” he grumbled. “Real bad news.”

For nine hours Tom Stratton kept his place in the amphitheater. In throngs the tourists came and went, cameras dangling, children bounding up and down the marble steps. Twice an hour one audience replaced another, yet Stratton held his place, watching the lean young men in their dark blue uniforms. He glanced now and then down the gentle hill where Kevin Mitchell was supposed to be buried.

Eighteen times Stratton watched the guards change at the Tomb of the Unknowns. The cameras clicked most often when the guards faced each other and presented arms. There were three or four different Marines, working in shifts. Despite the heat and humidity, each man looked crisp and fresh as he strode to the marble crypt. For Stratton, the drill was his clock. From the amphitheater he had a clear view of grave 445-H, third row, fourth from the end, a small white cross in a sea of crosses, geometrically perfect.

Perfect, Stratton mused. Perfect was always the way the military wanted its men, but in war that was impossible. In death it was easy; dead soldiers can march precisely as desired.

Stratton thought of Bobby Ho, and wondered morbidly what had become of his friend’s body after the massacre at Man-ling. Had the Chinese buried it? Burned it? Displayed it as a trophy? Perhaps they had fed Bobby’s flesh to the starving dogs and cats of the village.

Arlington was for heroes.

Bobby ought to have a place here, Stratton thought. If not his body, at least his name. Wouldn’t take much space, and God knows he was more of a hero than most of the men planted in the sea of crosses that rolled toward the Potomac.

The last tram of the day sounded its horn, and the tourists thundered from the amphitheater. Stratton rose from his spot, as if to follow, but instead took a different path downhill, and melted into the trees to wait for nightfall. He sat down at the base of an old oak and took out a pair of small Nikon field glasses. From his new vantage, Stratton could read the name on the cross:

Lt. Kevin P. Mitchell, USAF B.11-22-29 D. 6-22-83

A fighter pilot, World War II and Korea. Medal of Honor. After the wars Mitchell had joined Boeing as a test pilot and later became a captain with Pan Am. He’d died on a vacation to China—a heart attack, the U.S. Embassy had reported, while riding a bus to the Qin tombs at Xian. Death by duck.

Baltimore was where the family had wanted the coffin sent—a family plot, Stratton had learned, where one of Mitchell’s brothers was buried.

Arlington had been an afterthought, Mrs. Mitchell’s idea. A real honor, the family agreed. The Medal of Honor ought to count for something.

But Baltimore was where the embassy had sent the coffin, and Baltimore was where Broom and Wang Bin would go first, Stratton reasoned. He would wait for them at Arlington—days, weeks, whatever it took. How they could dream of ever trying it here …

Someone was walking among the graves.

Stratton panned with the binoculars along the crosses until he froze on the figure of a woman, dressed in black. Dusk was cheating him of the finer details. She was tall and wore a veil. Chestnut hair spilled down her back. She walked slowly, elegantly, stopping every few steps to study the names on the crosses.

She was young, Stratton decided, younger than the soldiers who lay buried in Section H. Too young to be a widow.

The woman in black stopped walking when she came to grave 445. She stopped to read the inscription. Then she reached out and touched the cross with her right hand. It began as a light and sentimental gesture, and from a distance would seem nothing more than a sad moment. But through the field glasses Stratton could see that the woman was not merely touching Kevin Mitchell’s cross, but testing it, pushing on it with discernible force. Then she stood up straight and with a quickened pace made her way out of the rows of graves to a footpath. There was something familiar …

Stratton followed at a distance. He was careful to stay in the grass so his steps would not echo. Arlington was nearly empty now. The trams had stopped running and the tourists had gone back to the city. The woman in black walked alone, no longer in the gait of a mourner. Her heels clicked sharply on the pavement, and the sound dominoed along the tombstones.

“Hey there!” Stratton called.

Self-consciously she slowed, then turned as Stratton ran up. She looked at him and smiled. “So there you are!”

“Linda!” Stratton said.

“How’d I do?”

“I like the dress. Black becomes you. What are you doing here?”

It was a pointless question. She knew. He knew.

She kicked out of her high heels and said, “These things are killing me. Come on, walk me to the car.”

“I can’t.”

She took his arm. “Come on, Tom, they won’t come at night. They’ll never find it at night.”

“You’re wrong, Linda. How did you know—”

“The same way you did. I had to play catch-up, that’s all. I should’ve listened to you before, Tom, and I’m sorry. I didn’t see what was happening—but even if I had, I’m not sure it would have made a difference.”

“Nobody would have believed it, least of all your boss.”

“Wang Bin was my case. The last couple of days I’ve had a lot of time to think about how I could have caught on sooner.” She did not tell Stratton about the foreigners’ morgue in Peking. She was afraid he had already figured it out.

“Are you here alone?” he asked.

“For now,” she said.

“Me, too. And I’m staying.”

He started back up the hill and she followed. “Tom!” she called. “I’m ruining my goddamn stockings. Slow down. Listen to me, they aren’t coming tonight. They think the coffin is in Baltimore—”

“They’ve beaten me twice already. This is my last chance.”

“Tom, be serious. I’ll have some people here tomorrow. When the bad guys show up at the gate, we’ll arrest them.”

“What makes you so sure they’ll use the gate?”

“Once they realize where the coffin is buried, they’ll give up on it. They’ll never try to dig this one up. Christ, it’s Arlington, Tom. They can’t possibly get away with it.”

“This way,” Stratton said, leaving the asphalt path and winding through a stand of tall trees. “I’ve got a good view from up here.”

Linda Greer sat next to him under the oak, tugging the black dress down to cover her knees. She had hoped he would notice, but he didn’t. He offered her a thermos of coffee.

“This is like summer camp,” she teased. “Are you really going to stay here all night?”

“Why not?”

Linda edged closer until her cheek touched his shoulder.

“Might as well make the best of it,” she whispered. “It’s a soft night, isn’t it?”

Stratton nodded but did not look at her.

“Tom, relax—it’s like I’m snuggling up to one of those damn gravestones.”

“I’m sorry.”

Stratton trained his eyes on Kevin Mitchell’s plot. A lemon moon, nearly full, was rising behind the capital across the river. The silent cemetery became a sprawling theater of shadows; the crosses turned into tiny soldiers with arms extended, whole battalions frozen on the hillsides in calisthenic precision.

“I stopped at the Kennedy grave this morning,” Stratton said.

“Which one?”

“Both of them. That’s where all the tourists go. I’d never seen them before, only pictures.”

Linda said, “I took my little sister a couple of years ago. She cried.”

“Last year some guy fell into the flame and died,” Stratton said. “He got drunk and pitched face down into the Eternal Flame. They found him the next day, burned to death. When I saw the story in the paper, I had to wonder about that guy. What was he thinking about that night? Why did he come here, of all places? I could just see him standing there in front of the President’s grave, after all the goddamn tourists were gone. I could see him crying. Sloppy drunk tears. Staring at the flame and crying like a baby. Then it made sense: If you want to be sad, this is the place. Look out there, Linda. Look at them all. So many you can’t even count them. I think this must be the saddest place of all. I think the guy knew exactly what he was doing.”

Linda kissed him gently on the neck. Nothing. Stratton was loaded like a spring. She wondered sadly if their night in Peking had left any tender echo. It would make her job so much easier if it had.