The Stone Monkey

spend in the afterworld.
    “Maybe I can draw some yuan,” William said.
    Chang was swept with emotion at his words but he didn’t embrace the boy, as he wanted desperately to do. He said simply, “Thank you, son.”
    The lean boy crouched down beside his brother and began to draw the bills.
    When the children had finished their drawings Chang led his family outside into the backyard of their new home and, as if this were Chang Jiechi’s actual funeral, he set two burning incense sticks in the ground to mark the spot where the body would have lain and then, setting afire the pictures the sons had drawn, they watched the smoke disappear into the gray sky and the ash melt into black curls.

Chapter Thirty-four
    “Somebody made another move on the Wus,” Sellitto said, glancing up at Rhyme from his cell phone.
    “What?” Sachs asked, astonished. “In our Murray Hill safehouse?”
    Rhyme wheeled around to face the detective, who said, “Dark-complected man, slight build, wearing gloves, was spotted on one of the security cameras in the alleyway. He was checking out one of the rear windows. Coincidence, you think?”
    Sonny Li laughed bitterly. “With Ghost, there not coincidences.”
    With a concurring nod, Rhyme asked, “What happened?”
    “Two of our people went after him but he got away.”
    The criminalist then asked, “How the hell did the Ghost find out where they were?”
    “Who’d know?” Sellitto asked.
    Sachs considered this. “After the shoot-out on Canal Street, one of his bangshou s could’ve followed me to the clinic then followed the Wus to the safehouse. Hard to do but possible.” She walked to the whiteboard and tapped an entry. “Or how ’bout this?”
    • Ghost is reported to have gov’t people on payroll.
    “A spy, you thinking?” Sellitto asked.
    She said, “Nobody at the bureau knew we sent them to Murray Hill. Dellray had left by the time I thought of it. That leaves somebody at the INS or NYPD.”
    “Well,” Sellitto said, “we damn well can’t keep the Wus there anymore. I’ll call the U.S. Marshals and have them taken to a witness protection facility upstate.” He looked at the team around him. “And that information doesn’t leave this room.” He placed the call and arranged to have the Wus transported in a bulletproof van.
    Rhyme was growing impatient. “Somebody check with the bureau. Where the hell is Dellray’s replacement? Eddie, make the call.”
    Deng got in touch with the bureau’s ASAC. It turned out that there’d been some delay with the magical “powwow” that was supposed to result in additional agents to work GHOSTKILL.
    “They said everything’ll be in place this afternoon.”
    “What’s ‘ everything’?” Rhyme asked caustically. “And what fucking place does it have to be in before we get the agents? Don’t they know there’s a killer out there?”
    “You want to call them back?”
    He snapped, “No. I want to look at the evidence.”
    Sachs’s search of the crime scene at the Ghost’s safehouse on Patrick Henry Street had mixed results. One discouraging fact was that the cell phone that had been instrumental in tracking down the Ghost had been abandoned in the high-rise. Had he still been using it, they might have been able to trace him. Moreover, the fact he’d left it meant that he’d probably figured out that this was how they’d found him and would now be far more careful when calling on mobiles.
    Unlike the shooter killed on Canal Street, the Uighur in the safehouse did have some identification on him, a driver’slicense and a card with the address of the Turkestan cultural center in Queens. But Bedding and Saul and a team of tactical agents were at the center now and the head of the organization had said only that he’d heard that some unidentified Chinese man had hired a few people in the neighborhood to move furniture. He didn’t know anything else. They would continue to lean on him, the twins assured, but their assessment was that he’d rather go to jail than dime out the Ghost.
    The name on the lease of the Ghost’s apartment didn’t help either: Harry Lee. His Social Security number and references were fake and the certified rental check came from a bank in the Caribbean. “Lee” was the equivalent of “Smith” in English, Deng reported.
    The body of the old man found dead from the morphine overdose, though, did reveal some clues. He’d carried in his wallet an ID card, very blurred from the