The Stone Monkey

tongue. “Now, you know, Coe, that word’s kinda like marbles in a blender to me. Doesn’t sound respectful. Doesn’t sound nice. Specially the way you say it.”
    “Well, as you folks from the bureau’ve made clear all along, this isn’t really an INS case. Keep him if you want. But I’m not taking any heat for it.”
    “You make good decision,” Sonny Li said to Rhyme. “I help lots, Loaban.” Li walked over to the table and picked up the gun he’d been carrying.
    “Nup, nup, nup,” Dellray said. “Get your hands offa that.”
    “Hey, I a cop. Like you.”
    “No, you ain’t a cop like me or any-single-solitary soul else here. No guns.”
    “Okay, okay. Keep gun for now, Heise.”
    “What’s that?” Dellray snapped. “Heise?”
    “Means black. Hey, hey, don’t get offense. Nothing bad, nothing bad.”
    “Well, can it.”
    “Sure, I can it. Sure.”
    “Welcome on board, Sonny,” Rhyme said. Then glanced at the clock. It was just noon. Six hours had passed since the Ghost began his relentless pursuit of the immigrants. He could be closing in on the poor families even now. “Okay, let’s start on the evidence.”
    “Sure, sure,” Li said, suddenly distracted. “But I need cigarette first. Come on, Loaban. You let me?”
    “All right,” Rhyme snapped. “But outside. And for Christ’s sake, somebody go with him.”

Chapter Fourteen
    Wu Qichen wiped the sweat off his wife’s forehead.
    Shivering, burning with fever, soaking with sweat, she lay on a mattress in the bedroom of their tiny apartment.
    The basement rooms were down an alley off Canal Street in the heart of Chinatown. They’d been provided by the broker that Jimmy Mah had sent them to—a robber, Wu had thought angrily. The rent was ridiculous, as was the fee the slimy man had demanded. The apartment stank, the place was virtually unfurnished and roaches roamed the floor boldly—even now, in the diffuse noon light bleeding in through the greasy windows.
    He studied his wife with concern. The raging headache Yong-Ping had suffered on board the Dragon, the lethargy, the chills and sweats, which he’d believed were seasickness, had persisted even after they’d landed. She was afflicted with something else.
    His wife opened her fever-glazed eyes. “If I die . . . ” she whispered.
    “You won’t die,” her husband said.
    But Wu wasn’t sure that he believed his own words. He remembered Dr. John Sung in the hold of the Dragon and wished he’d asked the man’s opinion on his wife’s condition; the doctor had treated several of the immigrants forvarious maladies but Wu had been afraid that he’d charge him money to examine Yong-Ping.
    “Sleep,” Wu said sternly. “You need rest. You’ll be fine if you rest. Why won’t you do that?”
    “If I die you must find a woman. Someone to take care of the children.”
    “You won’t die.”
    “Where is my son?” Yong-Ping asked.
    “Lang is in the living room.”
    He glanced through the doorway and saw the boy on the couch and teenage Chin-Mei hanging laundry on a line strung through the room. After they’d arrived the family had taken turns showering then dressing in the clean clothes that Wu had bought at a discount store on Canal Street. After some food—which Yong-Ping had not taken a single bite of—Chin-Mei had directed her brother to the TV set and washed their saltwater-encrusted clothing in the kitchen sink. This is what she was now hanging up to dry.
    Wu’s wife looked around the room, squinting, as if trying to remember where she was. She gave up and rested her head on the pillow. “Where . . . where are we?”
    “We’re in Chinatown, in Manhattan of New York.”
    “But . . . ” She frowned as his words belatedly registered in her feverish brain. “The Ghost, husband. We can’t stay here. It’s not safe. Sam Chang said we should not stay.”
    “Ah, the Ghost . . . ” He gestured dismissively. “He has gone back to China.”
    “No,” Yong-Ping said, “I don’t think so. I’m scared for our children. We have to leave. We have to get as far away from here as we can.”
    Wu pointed out: “No snakehead would risk being captured or shot just to find a few immigrants who’d escaped. Are you foolish enough to think that?”
    “Please, husband. Sam Chang said—”
    “Forget Chang. He’s a coward.” He snapped, “We’re staying.” His anger at her disobedience was tempered by the sight of the poor woman and the pain she