The Stone Monkey

and a chameleon attacked me.”
    Unfazed, Herman Sachs continued. “And the stewardess, or whatever you call them nowadays, said, ‘In case of emergency put your oxygen mask on and then assist anyone who needs help.’ That’s the rule.”
    “They say that,” she conceded, buffeted by the emotions she felt.
    The old cop, with stains of axle grease permanently seated in the lattice of his hands, continued. “That’s gotta be a patrolman’s philosophy on the street. You first, then the vic. And it’s gotta be your personal philosophy too. Whatever it takes, look out for yourself first. If you’re not whole, you’ll never be able to take care of anybody else.”
    Driving now through the faint rain, she heard her father’s voice fade and another replace it. The doctor from several weeks ago.
    “ Ah, Ms. Sachs. Here you are.”
    “Hello, Doctor.”
    “I’ve just been meeting with Lincoln Rhyme’s physician.”
    “Yes?”
    “I’ve got to talk to you about something.”
    “You’re looking like it’s bad news, Doctor.”
    “Why don’t we sit down over there in the corner?”
    “Here’s fine. Tell me. Let me have it straight.”
    Her whole world in turmoil, everything she’d planned for the future altered completely.
    What could she do about it?
    Well, she reflected, pulling to a stop at the curb, here’s one thing . . .
    Amelia Sachs sat for a long moment. This is crazy, she thought. But then, impulsively, she climbed out of the Camaro and, head down, walked quickly around the corner and into an apartment building. She climbed the stairs. And knocked on the door.
    When it opened she smiled at John Sung. He smiled back and nodded her inside.
    Whatever it takes, look out for yourself first. If you’re not whole, you’ll never be able to take care of anybody else . . . .
    Suddenly she felt a huge weight lifted off her shoulders.

Chapter Twenty-nine
    Midnight.
    But, despite the exhausting day, which had led him from a sinking ship to a Central Park West apartment half the globe away from his home, Sonny Li didn’t seem tired.
    He walked into Lincoln Rhyme’s bedroom, carrying a shopping bag. “When I down in Chinatown with Hongse, Loaban, I buy some things. Got present for you.”
    “Present?” Rhyme asked from his throne, the new Hill-Rom Flexicair bed, which—he’d been told—was exceedingly comfortable.
    Li took an object from the bag and began unwrapping a small wad of paper. “Look what I got here.” In his hands was a jade figurine of a man with a bow and arrow and looking fierce. Li looked around the room. “Which way north?”
    “That’s north.” Rhyme nodded.
    Li put the figurine on top of a table against the wall. Then returned to the bag and took out some sticks of incense.
    “You’re not going to burn that in here.”
    “Have to, Loaban. Not kill you.”
    Despite Li’s assertion that Chinese have a difficult time saying no, this was not a trait the cop apparently shared.
    He set the incense into a holder and lit it. He thenfound a Dixie cup in the bathroom and filled it with some liquor from a light green bottle, which had also appeared from the shopping bag.
    “What’re you doing, making a temple?”
    “Shrine, Loaban. Not a temple.” Li was amused by Rhyme’s failure to miss the obvious distinction.
    “Who is that? Buddha? Confucius?”
    “With a bow and arrow?” Li scoffed. “Loaban, you know so much about so little, and so little about so much.”
    Rhyme laughed, thinking that when he’d been married his wife had often said much the same, though at a higher volume and less articulately.
    Li continued. “This is Guan Di—god of war. We make sacrifice to him. He like sweet wine and that what I bought for him.”
    Rhyme wondered how Sellitto and Dellray, not to mention Sachs, would react when they saw the transformation of his room into a shrine to the god of war.
    Li bowed toward the icon and whispered some words in Chinese. He extracted a white bottle from the shopping bag and sat in the rattan chair by Rhyme’s bed. He filled a Dixie cup for himself and then fiddled with one of Rhyme’s tumblers, taking off the lid, filling it halfway up and then replacing the lid and fitting a straw inside.
    “And that?” Rhyme asked.
    “Good stuff, Loaban. Chu yeh ching chiew. We make sacrifice to us now. This stuff good. Like whisky.”
    No, it wasn’t like whisky at all, definitely not delicately peat-smoked eighteen-year-old scotch. But, although the