Inspector O 02 - Hidden Moon (5 page)

“I don’t want lunch. Inspector O.” I flashed my ID toward the peephole. “On a case. Open up.”

“How do I know you are legitimate? You aren’t even wearing a pin.”

This was no time for a discussion of political symbolism. “It fell off. Open the door. You know who I am, I just told you.”

The door opened. The man in the blue coat peered around the edge. Now that I got a good look at his face, he looked familiar. “Sorry, Inspector, I’m not trying to be difficult. My orders are not to let anyone in until we finish the autopsy. Believe me, it’s not my idea, I’m not looking for trouble. I don’t even want this job. I studied bridge engineering in college. Someday maybe I’ll show you my designs, very well received in their day. Cables, vaulted whatnots soaring above river gorges. Meanwhile, can you do me a favor? Go away.”

At least I knew that the body was still there. “Who gave you the order for the autopsy?” At that moment, my cell phone rang. No one had any reason to call me, and no one but Min was supposed to know my number. It was very loud. I’d wrapped it in a glove, but that did no good. Worse than the volume was the tune. Birds stopped singing, stunned, when they heard it. As soon as it rang, I knew I could never get to it in time to turn it off. I probably couldn’t find the switch, or the button, or whatever it took to kill the thing. The longer the tune played, the wider the little man’s eyes became. He stifled a laugh. He fluttered his hands delicately and put them to his brow. He stifled another laugh, this second one only barely. Still the phone wouldn’t quit; if anything, it got louder. From now on, the damned thing
stayed in the car, under a blanket. Maybe I could even lose it; possibly it could slip from my hand into the river. No one in the Ministry knew how to change the ringer, or so they claimed. “Crazy, you’re the only one with that problem, O,” they said. “Must be preprogrammed or something. Try and find an instruction manual.”

Finally the phone fell silent. The little man coughed and looked away. I knew it was probably hopeless to try to regain a sense of control, but I was aggravated enough to make the effort. “The order for the autopsy, who gave it to you?”

The little man opened the door a crack wider. “I don’t know, it’s not signed, but it has a big party chop on it, and a number, in red ink. We get them maybe once a year. The courier quakes in his boots when he hands one of these over. The doctor reads them, shakes her head, then locks them in a little safe under her desk. I don’t know what they say exactly, I only get a quick glimpse. But I know what they mean. Do the body, then get rid of it, forget you saw it, tidy up. Does it look like poison? No, can’t be! Must have been natural causes. That look of agony on the stiff’s face was just a result of muscular resonance, happens all the time, check the box that says, ‘No further investigation necessary.’ Have a cup of tea, clear your mind, look to the future.” It was more than he meant to say, and he looked nervous when he had said it.

“What is muscular resonance? I’ve never heard of it.”

“It’s a made-up term.” This was said in a surprisingly matter-of-fact tone, as if morgues get to make up vocabulary as a law of nature. “Someone here invented it a while ago to satisfy the paperwork, and we’ve never had a question. By now, there must be a thick folder somewhere up top, marked ‘Muscular Resonance.’ ”

“What about the stiff in there that got hit by a bus?”

He paled. “No such animal, Inspector. Now, go away, would you?”

“You said you were doing an autopsy. How many bodies do you have in there?”

“We don’t deal in numbers, we deal in quality. Whatever we have, we have. I wouldn’t know about buses.”

Clearly, they still had the body of the bank robber in there. So
why wouldn’t they show it to Min? And why didn’t they want to let me in? If this wasn’t category three, I didn’t know what was.

Curiosity is fine, but sometimes it impairs judgment. If they didn’t want anyone to see the body, it was because they didn’t want anyone to see the body, or to ask any questions about it, or even inquire about articles of clothing. Normally, I would have figured it was the morgue’s business and walked away. But not this time. This time I said, “You have any silk stockings lying around?” The little man responded with a blank look. I had been curious; now I was mad. It wasn’t an innocent blank look, not one tinged with puzzlement or edging toward incomprehension. It was defiantly blank, and I didn’t plan to spend the afternoon on the doorstep of the morgue held at bay by such a look. Then I remembered the face. “You may not know me, but I know you. Your aunt lives in my building, on the ground floor. She needed medicine last year. I got some for her.”

I could tell this registered. It was true, I did recognize him, and I did get some aspirin for his aunt. She had repaid me with a promise to be a matchmaker. She knew some girls in the countryside who would be good for me, she said. Hard workers. Simple needs. Knew how to boil water.

The door shut in my face, but there was no click of the lock. I decided to wait. A minute later it opened a crack; a hand stuck out, with a stocking dangling on the end of it. “You didn’t get this from me.”

“Only one?”

“That’s right.” The stocking was torn and had a considerable amount of blood on it. Still visible along the top and up one side were small designs. At first they were hard to read, but when I examined them more closely, I saw they were monograms, Western letters, CB.

“You’d look pretty silly with this over your face, wouldn’t you?” I held up the stocking.

He opened the door wider and peered around the corner. “No, because I wouldn’t put that thing over my face.”

“What do you think the CB means? I’ve never seen stockings like that.”

“You’re the inspector, not me.”

“There’s a place in my sector, Club Blue.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“No, I’ll bet you wouldn’t. You always have spare stockings lying around? Or only when they come in with corpses that were never here?”

He began to look like he was thinking of closing the door.

“You must have autopsy equipment in there, right?”

“Of course.”

“Little scalpels, tiny picks.”

“Something like that.”

“You can do fine work, delicate work?”

He shook his head. “Forget it, Inspector, I can’t dissect a cell phone.”

I patted my pocket. “Don’t jump to conclusions, it’s bad for your ankles. Just one thing more.”

He waited.

“You wouldn’t have any other suspicious deaths that you’ve been keeping to yourselves, would you?”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning I’ll be seeing you around.”

Two flights down, the door opened into a dark room. It wasn’t locked, or at least not very. This lock was cheaper than the one on the morgue, so it gave way after a little twist and a nudge. I stepped inside; the entryway was dark, and so was the hall, but at the end there was a faint light and the sound of music. I walked toward the music, feeling my way along the walls. A flashlight would have been good; mine was in the back of my desk drawer, with only one battery. There were none in the Ministry storeroom, and the supply clerk said none would show up until next year. He always said this with some satisfaction, as if informing us what we couldn’t have was part of his job description.

The room at the end of the hall turned out to be a drinking club, with high stools along the bar, and on the back wall a long mirror and rows of classy bottles of champagne and whiskey and expensive-looking glasses. Against the other walls were tables, some of them surrounded by velvet curtains, the rest just empty. I sat on a stool and looked down the bar. The music got a little louder, by degrees. Not like anything they played in the karaoke bars for the foreigners; it sounded deeper, maybe African. This was a bad idea, following up. It broke all of my rules about staying out of swamps. But the stocking with the monograms made me curious. I pretty much kept away from these clubs. Some inspectors liked to keep close track of the ones in their sectors. They said it was important to follow the activity; it was also a good way to get free drinks. I was more inclined to noodle restaurants, but the girls in the noodle restaurants didn’t wear monogrammed stockings, I had to admit.

“We’re not open, but what’s that to you?” From somewhere behind the bar, a voice emerged.

“The door wasn’t exactly locked. I figured it meant you were serving.”

“This is a night place, friend. We don’t serve drinks until the sun goes down. You got business here, breaking in?”

I finally located the bartender in the dark, a short man with no neck wearing a black shirt. He had a broom, but he wasn’t sweeping.

“What’s that music?” I always start with an easy question.

“It’s from the Caribbean somewhere. Any creep would recognize it. You didn’t come to listen to records, that’s for sure, and you have no cause to break into an honest establishment.” He had a funny, high voice.

“We’ll see about honest. Where’s your license? It’s supposed to be on the wall where I can see it.” I looked around for the pictures that should have been there, two of them, father and son looking down. “You also are missing some fine portraits.”

“Careful, Inspector, don’t get carried away.” Another voice from behind me, a polished voice, probably coming from a tailored cotton
suit, or a herringbone sports coat and trousers with a sharp crease. I turned around slowly. None of the tables had been occupied when I came in. Now the one closest to the end had a man sitting with his back to me. He was facing a mirror that was attached to a door, maybe an office behind it. From the reflection, I knew he was smiling—his teeth were shining—but I couldn’t see his coat.

“The license must have been lost in the mail, Inspector. I arranged for it myself, went over to Changkwang the other day to make sure. They said the piece of paper was on the way. But you know, they always say that.”

The central party offices are on Changkwang Street. Heavyweight; not everyone can get past the guards. This man could do it, if anyone could. He had something unusual, a golden aura of self-confidence that surrounded him. It went beyond his trying to impress me, talking as if he went to Changkwang Street just to blow his nose. That part was just an act, I felt sure. Humble he wasn’t, but there was something judicious about him, as if he knew how far to play out his leash, a little at a time. “The mail doesn’t concern me,” I said. “My concern is making sure people follow the law, keep our city a nice place to live and a good place for foreigners to visit, so they make friends with the locals and spend money.”

“Well, what do you know, that’s exactly my concern, too, Inspector. You are an inspector, aren’t you? I hope they wouldn’t send someone of lesser rank to shake me down.” He gave a low chuckle, the way people who find themselves amusing sometimes do, though I had the feeling even that was part of his act. “Foreigners come in here to get away from politics, you understand?” He looked around the walls as if to indicate all was in order. “What’s important is not what we show but what’s in our hearts, am I right? It makes the foreigners feel more comfortable if there aren’t too many symbols around, staring them in the face. Foreigners don’t like politics. They like the music, they like the drinks and the atmosphere, they like the company. They love the company. They really love the company.
And so they spend money. I make a profit, I pay my fees, I look after my friends, and they look after me. No fuss, no muss. You understand, Inspector, no fuss, no muss. We really are closed; I must ask you to leave.”

“I’d like to, but I can’t.”

The bartender started sliding toward the far end of the bar. I reached over, grabbed his wrist, and gave it a twist, hard, so he yelped in pain and dropped the broom. “Stand still, friend. I don’t like people slipping away while I’m talking.”

The man at the table got up and turned around. For a couple of seconds the crazy thought went through my mind that he might have a gun, but he only pulled a wallet from his jacket. The jacket fit him like a glove, made his shoulders look big and his chest full. The jacket was a brown herringbone; his trousers were a darker brown, the crease was so sharp he probably used it to open his mail. “Here, Inspector.” He was holding several big bills, euros. “This is for you. Just a token of my appreciation for your coming down here to see if everything was alright. You’re right, we do need a new lock. I’ll see to it. Come back tonight. The drinks will be on me, and the company will be, too.” He looked at my shirt and grinned. “Like I said, it’s what’s in our hearts that counts.”

“Kind of you”—I nodded at the bills in his hand—“but not today. You could do me a favor, though.” I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the silk stocking. “Would this belong to your club? It has monograms on it, CB, even one along the top edge, very sexy; not where anyone would normally look.”

“Not normally, Inspector. But it happens. People sometimes look in funny places.” He took the stocking and held it gently in the air.

“Yours?” I asked.

“I’m partial to socks, but who knows what the girls wear, or where they leave their clothing once they walk out of here in the dark of the morning. This is torn pretty bad.” He looked at the blood and then at me, a careful look, very measured, as if he were considering how
much of his leash he had left. “CB, that could be us, Club Blue.” He smiled at me and handed back the stocking. “I don’t want to have to make a phone call, Inspector. Please leave.”