The Stone Monkey

grid with a number of perpendicular lines on it. He then took out two bags, one containing hundreds of tiny white pebbles, the other black ones.
    Suddenly Rhyme had a huge desire to play and he forced himself to pay careful attention to Sonny Li’s animated voice as he explained the rules and object of wei-chi.
    “Seems simple enough,” Rhyme said. Players alternated putting their stones on the board in an attempt to surround the opponent’s and eliminate them from play.
    “Wei-chi like all great games: rules simple but winning hard.” Li separated the stones into two piles. As he did he said, “Game go back many years. I am study best player of all time. Name was Fan Si-pin. Lived in 1700s—your dates. There nobody better than him ever live. He have matchafter match with Su Ting-an, who was almost as good. The games were usually draws but Fan had few points more so he was overall better player. Know why he better?”
    “Why?”
    “Su was defense player—but Fan . . . he play always offense. He charge forward always, was impulsive, crazy, I’m saying.”
    Rhyme felt the man’s enthusiasm. “Do you play much?”
    “I am in club at home. I play much, yes.” His voice faded for a moment and a wistfulness came over him. Rhyme wondered why. Then Li swept his oily hair back and said, “Okay, we play. You see how you like. Can last long time.”
    “I’m not tired,” Rhyme said.
    “Not either,” Li said. “Now, you never play before so I give advantage. Give you three piece extra. Seem like not much but big, big advantage in wei-chi.”
    “No,” Rhyme said. “I don’t want any advantages.”
    Li glanced at him and must have thought this had to do with his disability and added gravely, “Only give you advantage because you not play before. That only reason. Experience players do that always. Is customary.”
    Rhyme understood and appreciated Li’s reassurance. Still, he said adamantly, “No. You make the first move. Go ahead.” And watched Li’s eyes lower and focus on the wooden grid between them.

IV
    Cutting the Demon’s Tail

    Wednesday, the Hour of the Dragon, 7 A.M .,
    to the Hour of the Rooster, 6:30 P.M .
    In Wei-Chi the more equally matched two players are, the more interesting the game.
    — The Game of Wei-Chi

Chapter Thirty
    On the morning of the day he was to die, Sam Chang awoke to find his father in the back courtyard of their Brooklyn apartment going through the slow movements of tai-chi.
    He watched the elderly man for a few moments and a thought occurred to him: Chang Jiechi’s seventieth birthday was in three weeks. In China they’d been so poor and so persecuted the family had not been able to have the man’s sixtieth birthday celebration, traditionally a huge party that signified the move into old age, the time for veneration. But his family would do so for the seventieth.
    Sam Chang’s animate body would not make it to the party but his spirit perhaps would.
    He gazed at the old man, who moved like a leisurely dancer in the small backyard.
    Tai-chi was beneficial to the body and to the soul but it always saddened Chang to watch the exercise. It reminded him of a humid night in June years ago. Chang and a cluster of students and fellow teachers had been sitting together in Beijing, watching a group of people nearby engaged in the balletic movements. It was after midnight and they were all enjoying the pleasant weather and the exhilaration of being among like-minded friends in the center of what was becoming the greatest nation on earth, the new China, the enlightened China.
    Chang had turned to a young student next to him to point out a spry elderly woman lost under the spell of tai-chi, when the boy’s chest exploded and he dropped to the ground. The People’s Liberation Army soldiers had begun firing on the crowd in Tiananmen Square. The tanks came through a moment later, driving the people in front of them, crushing many beneath the treads (the famous televised image of the student stopping the tank with a flower was the rare exception that terrible night).
    Chang could never watch tai-chi without thinking of that moment, which solidified his stance as an outspoken dissident and changed his life—and that of his father and family—forever.
    He now looked down at his wife and, next to her, the little girl, who slept with her arm around the white stuffed cat Mei-Mei had sewn for her. He gazed at them for a moment. Then walking into the bathroom, he turned the