The Stone Monkey

show the driver; his English was very bad. When he returned to the apartment he said to his daughter, “We’ll be back soon. Listen to me carefully. You are not to open the door for anyone. Do you understand that?”
    “Yes, Father.”
    “You and your brother will stay in the apartment. Do not go outside for any reason.”
    She nodded.
    “Lock the door and put that chain on it after we leave.”
    Wu opened the door, held his arm out for his wife to cling to and then stepped outside. He paused, heard the door latch and the rattle of the chain. Then they started down Canal Street, filled with so many people, so many opportunities, so much money—none of which meant much of anything to the small, frightened man at the moment.
    •   •   •
    “There!” the Ghost said urgently, as he turned the corner and eased the Blazer to the curb on Canal Street near Mulberry in Chinatown. “It’s the Wus.”
    Before he and the Turks could find their masks and climb out of the vehicle, though, Wu helped his wife into a taxi. He climbed in after her and the cab drove away. The yellow cab was soon lost in the busy traffic of rush-hour Canal Street.
    The Ghost eased back into traffic and parked in a space directly across from the apartment whose address, and front-door key, Mah’s real estate broker had given him a half hour ago—just before they’d shot him to death.
    “Where do you think they’ve gone?” one of the Turks asked the Ghost.
    “I don’t know. She looked sick, his wife. You saw how she was walking. Maybe to a doctor.”
    The Ghost surveyed the street. He measured distances and noted particularly the number of jewelry stores here at the intersection of Mulberry and Canal. It was a smaller version of the Midtown diamond district. This troubled the Ghost. It meant that there would be dozens of armed security guards on the street—if they killed theWus before the stores closed they might expect one of them to hear the gunshots and come running to the sound. Even after-hours, though, there would be risks: he could see the square boxes of dozens of security cameras covering the sidewalks. They were out of sight of the cameras here but to approach the Wus, they would be well within range of the lenses. They’d have to move fast and wear the ski masks.
    “I think here is how we should handle it,” the Ghost said in slow English. “Are you listening?”
    Each of the Turks turned his attention to him.
    •   •   •
    After her father and mother had left, Wu Chin-Mei made some tea for her brother and gave him a tea bun and rice. She reflected how badly her father had embarrassed her in front of a handsome young man in the grocery store by actually bargaining for the food they’d bought this morning when they’d arrived in Chinatown.
    Saving a few yuan on tea buns and noodles!
    She sat eight-year-old Lang down in front of the television with his food and then walked into the bedroom to change the sweat-stained sheets of their mother’s bed.
    Glancing at the mirror, she studied herself. She was pleased with what she saw: her long black hair, wide lips, deep eyes.
    Several people had remarked that she looked like Lucy Liu, the actress, and Chin-Mei could see that was true. Well, she would look more like her after she lost a few pounds—and fixed her nose, of course. And these ridiculous clothes! A pale green workout suit . . . how disgusting. Clothes were important to Wu Chin-Mei. She and her girlfriends would raptly study the broadcasts ofthe fashion shows from Beijing, Hong Kong and Singapore, the tall models swiveling their hips as they walked down the runway. Then the girls, thirteen and fourteen, would stage their own fashion shows, traipsing down a homemade runway then ducking behind screens to change.
    One time, before the party cracked down on her father for opening his loud mouth, the family had gone with him to Xiamen, south of Fuzhou. This was a delightful town, a tourist draw, catering to many Taiwanese and Western travelers. At a tobacco shop where her father had gone to buy cigarettes Chin-Mei had been stunned to see more than thirty fashion magazines in the racks. She’d remained in the store for a half hour while her father did some business nearby and their mother took Lang to a park. She worked her way through all of them. Most were from the West but many were published in Beijing or in other cities in the Free Zones along the coast and showed the latest creations of