The Stone Monkey (Lincoln Rhyme 4)

William looked down and pulled the U.S. money from the plastic divider between the front seats.

The officer seemed to flinch. He ducked, moving his arm toward the van.

Then he stared at the bill William was offering him.

What was wrong? Had he offered too much? Too little? Did he expect a bribe?

The man in the booth blinked. He took the bill with an unsteady hand, leaning forward to do so, and glanced at the side of the van, on which were the words:

The Home Store

As the guard counted out change he looked into the back of the van itself. All that the man could see--Chang prayed--were the dozens of saplings and bushes that Chang, William and Wu had dug up in a park on the way here from the beach and packed into the van to make it look like they were delivering plants for a local store. The rest of the families were lying on the floor, hidden beneath the foliage.

The officer gave him the change for the toll. "Good place. The Home Store. I shop there all the time."

"Thank you," William replied.

"Bad day for making deliveries, huh?" he asked Chang, nodding up at the stormy skies.

"Thank you," Chang said.

William eased the van forward. He accelerated and a moment later they plunged into a tunnel.

"Okay, we're safe, we're past the guards," Chang announced and the rest of the passengers sat up, brushing leaves and dirt off their clothing.

Well, his idea had worked.

As they'd sped down the highway from the beach Chang realized that the police here might do what the Chinese PLA and security bureau officers did frequently to search for wanted dissidents--set up roadblocks.

So they'd stopped at a huge shopping center, in the middle of which was The Home Store. It was open twenty-four hours and--with few employees so early in the morning--Chang, Wu and William had no trouble slipping in through the loading dock. From the stockroom they stole some cans of paint, brushes and tools, then slipped outside again. But not before Chang had snuck to the doorway that led to the store itself and looked at the astonishing place. He saw acres of aisles. It was breath-taking--Chang had never seen so many tools and supplies and appliances. Kitchens ready-made, a thousand light fixtures, outdoor furniture and grills, doors, windows, carpets. Whole rows devoted to nuts and bolts and nails. Chang's first reaction was to bring Mei-Mei and his father inside, just to show them the place. Well, there would be time for that later.

Chang told William, "I'm taking these things now because we need to--for our survival. But as soon as I get some one-color I'm going to pay them back. I'll send them the money."

"You're crazy," the boy replied. "They have more than they'll need. They expect things to be stolen. It's built into the price."

"We will pay them back!" Chang snapped. This time the boy didn't even bother to respond. Chang found a colorful newspaper in a large pile on the loading dock. Struggling with the English, he realized that this was a sales flyer and that it had the addresses of a number of Home Stores on it. When he got his first pay envelope or converted some yuan he would send them the money.

They'd returned to the van and found a truck parked nearby. William swapped the number plates and then they drove toward the city until they found a deserted factory. They parked in the loading dock, out of the rain, and Chang and Wu painted over the letters spelling the name of the church. After the white paint dried, Chang, a lifelong calligrapher, expertly drew the words "The Home Store" on the side in a typeface similar to that in the flyer he'd taken.

Yes, the trick had worked and, unstopped by security officers and the guard at the tollbooth, they now sailed out of the tunnel into the streets of Manhattan. William had studied the map carefully as they had waited in line at the toll and knew generally where they should go to get to Chinatown. The one-way streets caused a bit of confusion but soon he oriented himself and found the highway he sought.

Through dense rush-hour traffic, further slowed by the intermittent rain and patches of fog, they drove along a river whose shade perfectly matched the ocean they had just survived.

The gray land, Chang reflected. Not highways of gold and a city of diamonds, as the unfortunate Captain Sen had promised.

As Chang looked around at the streets and buildings he wondered what now awaited them.

In theory he still owed the Ghost a great deal of money. The going rate for smuggling someone from China to the United States was about U.S.$50,000. Since Chang was a dissident and desperate to leave he expected that the Ghost's agent in Fuzhou would charge him a premium. Yet he'd been surprised to find that the Ghost's fee was only $80,000 for his entire family, his father included. Chang had raided his meager savings and had borrowed the rest from friends and relatives to make up the ten percent down payment.

In his contract with the Ghost, Chang had agreed that he, Mei-Mei and William--and Chang's youngest son when he was old enough--would give money to the Ghost's debt collectors monthly until the remainder of the fee was paid off. Many immigrants worked directly for the snakehead who'd smuggled them into the country--the men generally in Chinatown restaurants, the women in garment factories--and lived in safehouses provided by them for a stiff fee. But Chang didn't trust snakeheads, especially the Ghost. There were too many rumors of immigrants being beaten and raped and kept prisoner in rat-infested safehouses. So he had made his own arrangements for a job for him and William and had located an apartment in New York through the brother of a friend back in China.

Sam Chang had always intended to pay his obligation. But now, with the sinking of the Fuzhou Dragon and the Ghost's attempts to murder them, the contract was void and they were out from under the crushing debt--if, of course, they could stay alive long enough for the Ghost and his bangshous to be captured or killed by the police or to flee back to China, and this meant going to ground as soon as possible.

William drove expertly through the traffic. (Where had he learned that? The family didn't even own a car.) Sam Chang looked back at the others in the van. They were disheveled and stank of seawater. Wu's wife, Yong-Ping, was in a bad way. Her eyes were closed and she shivered, sweat covering her face. Her arm was shattered from their collision with the rocks and the wound was still bleeding through an impromptu bandage. Wu's pretty teenage daughter, Chin-Mei, seemed unhurt but was clearly frightened. Her brother, Lang, was the same age as Chang's youngest son, and the two boys, with nearly identical bowl-shaped haircuts, sat close to each other, staring out the window and whispering.

Elderly Chang Jiechi sat motionless in the back of the van with his legs crossed and arms at his sides, thin white hair slicked back, saying nothing but observing all through eyes half covered by drooping lids. The old man's skin seemed more jaundiced than when they'd left Fuzhou over two weeks ago but perhaps that was just Chang's imagination. In any case, he'd decided that the first thing he'd do after they were settled in their apartment was get the man to a doctor.

The van slowed to a stop because of the traffic. William pressed the horn impatiently.