"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?"