The Stone Monkey

ordered, “Run the make through Motor Vehicles. New York, Jersey and Connecticut too. Can you break the search down to, let’s say, a hundred fifty miles outside of Manhattan?”
    “Yup.” Cooper logged online, heading for the secure DMV sites. “Remember when this took weeks?” he mused. With a faint hum Rhyme’s wheelchair drove up to the screen in front of the tech. Only a moment later he could see the screen fill with the names and addresses of all the registered owners of X5’s.
    “Shit,” Dellray muttered, walking close. “How many we got?”
    “More popular car than I’d hoped,” Cooper said. “Hundreds.”
    “What’re the names?” Sellitto asked. “Any Chinese?”
    Cooper scrolled through the list. “Sounds like two. Ling and Zhao.” He looked at Eddie Deng, who nodded his confirmation. “Yep, they’re Chinese.”
    Cooper continued, “But neither of them’re close to downtown. One’s in White Plains and the other’s in New Jersey, Paramus.”
    “Have New York and Jersey troopers check ’em out,” Dellray ordered.
    The tech continued to scroll through the list. “Here’s a possibility—there’re about forty X5’s registered to corporations and another fifty or so registered to leasing agents.”
    “Any of the corporations sound Chinese?” Rhymeasked, wishing he himself could pound on the keys and scroll quickly through the list.
    “Nope,” Cooper replied. “But they’re all pretty generic—holding companies. You know, it’d be a bear but we could contact all of them. And the leasing companies too. Find out who’s actually driving the cars.”
    “Too much of a long shot,” Rhyme said. “Waste of resources. It’ll take days. Have a couple of officers from downtown check the ones closest to Chinatown but—”
    “No, no, Loaban,” Sonny Li interrupted. “You got to find that car. Number one thing you do. Fast.”
    Rhyme lifted a querying eyebrow.
    The Chinese cop continued, “Find it now . Beemer, right? You call them Beemers. Put lots people on it. All your cops, I’m saying. Whole bunch.”
    “It’ll take too much time,” Rhyme muttered, irritated at the distraction. “We don’t have the manpower. We’d have to find somebody in the corporation who was in charge of buying cars and, if it was leased, talk to the dealer’s leasing agent, get the records and half of them wouldn’t do it without a court order. I want to concentrate on finding the Changs and the Wus.”
    “No, Loaban,” Li insisted. “The Ghost, he going to kill that driver. That what he doing now, looking for him.”
    “Nup, I’ma thinking you’re wrong,” Dellray said. “His pri -ority’s killing the wits from the boat.”
    “What you mean ‘wit’?”
    “Witnesses,” Sellitto explained.
    Sachs agreed. “My take is that, sure, he’s pissed about the driver leaving him and maybe he’ll go after him if he has time later. But not now.”
    “No, no,” Li said, shaking his head emphatically. “Important, I’m saying. Find man in Beemer.”
    “Why?” Sachs asked.
    “Very clear. Very obvious. Get that driver. He lead you to snakehead. Maybe use him as bait to find Ghost.”
    “And what, Sonny,” a testy Lincoln Rhyme muttered darkly, “is your basis for that conclusion. Where’re the data to support it?”
    “Lots data, I’m saying.”
    “What?”
    The small man shrugged. “When I on bus coming to city this morning I saw sign.”
    “A road sign?” Rhyme asked. “What do you mean?”
    “No, no, what you say it? I don’t know . . . . ” He spoke in Chinese to Eddie Deng.
    The young detective said, “He means an omen.”
    “An omen?” Rhyme barked, as if he were tasting spoiled fish.
    Li reached absently for his cigarettes then left them untouched when he saw Thom’s sharp glance. He continued, “I am coming into town on bus, I’m saying. I saw crow on road picking at food. Another crow tried steal it and first crow not just scare other away—he chase and try to peck eyes out. Not leave thief alone.” Li raised his palms. This was, apparently, his entire argument.
    “And?”
    “Not clear, Loaban? What I say?”
    “No, what you’re saying isn’t the least fucking bit clear.”
    “Okay, okay. I remember that crow now and I start thinking about Ghost and who he is and thinking about driver—man in fancy Beemer —and who he is. Well, he is enemy to Ghost. Like crow stealing food. The families—the Wus, the Changs—they not do anything bad to