'Yes.'
She ducked her head, then lifted it. 'I wanted to ask you if you had any family-who might make this easier.'
'He outlived his only sister. My mother died years ago. He asked that no friends come. One guy might show up, but that's it.'
'I see.' The nurse seemed hesitant to conclude the conversation. 'So, it's on you.'
'Yes.'
'If I may, Mr. Grant…,' she began, edging a touch closer to him. 'I want to say that it is hard to be with a person who is dying and I am just wondering what your sources of emotional support will be in this difficult time.'
'Thank you. I'll be fine.'
But Wendy persisted, her eyes troubled, even unprofessionally moist. She smoothed her hands along her nurse's dress. 'Have you been
… please pardon me for asking, have you ever been with someone who is dying, Mr. Grant?'
He looked at the young nurse but was unable to answer. Instead a wind of memory passed through him. Mountains. Villages. Fields. Dust. Collapsed cities. Babies crying. Smoke. Years of memory. All the years he had been away.
'Mr. Grant?'
He found her eyes and then he found a bit of his voice. 'Yes, miss, yes I have seen human beings die. I have seen my share, anyway.'
A minute later Ray eased into the garden with a bundle under his shirt and opened the shed lock. With a glance back at the house, he slipped inside. He hefted the bags of peat moss. His father's guns were right where he'd left them, along with the boxes of ammunition. He lifted the Glock, always surprised by how heavy it was. Swung it around, dry fired. His father had taught him how to shoot, taken him to the NYPD firing range in Queens. But he'd never liked guns. Nor the men who worshipped them, fetishized their power. He put the Glock back, added the guns he'd taken from the Chinese guys, ammo removed, then reset the bags on top. He thought of the two Mexican girls. Who would do that, what kind of sick person would kill that way? And Jin Li had been in that car? If the killer or killers knew that now, then she was still in danger. What if they had been after her in particular? This hadn't occurred to him before. A wave of protective fury went through him. I will find her, he thought. I'm going to find Jin Li and then I'm going to find the man who wanted to kill her.
7
The Russian was coming back for her, climbing the stairs with a slow, ominous tread, and he pushed open the door that led to the room full of boxes. He carried a paper bag with him. Jin Li had moved her small bundle of things to another part of the second floor, far from the window, in case he came looking. And now she was glad she'd done that. She watched him through a crack in the wall of boxes. He was in his fifties with slicked-back hair and the strange tattoos on his hands. She didn't like the tattoos; they looked like bugs. He hoisted his pants and looked about.
'Yes, I know you are in here, Chinese girl,' he called. 'I know you are hiding. I know you understand English, all these things I say.'
The Russian went directly to the spot where she'd been before, inspecting the boxes carefully. He stopped, bent over, and picked up something. 'You left something, Chinese girl,' he called. He seemed to be holding something between his fingers, but she could not see what it was from across the room. 'I have it right here,' he called tauntingly. 'You left long very nice black hair.'
Instinctively she touched her head, as if to feel the hair's absence.
'I like this hair,' called the Russian. 'It is beautiful thing. But not as beautiful as you.'
These words sent a ripple of dread through Jin Li's stomach.
'You see, I remember you, Chinese girl. I remember when you looked at this building. Maybe something like four months ago. You were wearing fancy clothes and shoes. Big businesswoman clothes. You never give back key. I know that. For most people, okay. But I notice this thing. Of course I do! I notice it because never has pretty Chinese lady come to look at building. Now I know you are here and I know those men are look for you. They told me the place where they stay.'
He sat on one of the boxes and lit a cigarette. 'I think you need to talk to me. Those men will pay me to tell them you are here. They told me one thousand dollars if I tell them you are here. But they look like bad men to me. And you are pretty girl.' He smoked contemplatively, holding the butt up as he spoke, as if he were speaking to the cigarette itself. 'Why do they want to find you? There seems to be so much pressures with this Chinese man with the funny tape on his nose, you know? Why are they look for you? I ask myself this interesting question. So I think maybe you want to talk to me a little bit. Talk to lonely Russian man. Russian and Chinese people, it is good thing. I am kind Russian man, you will see.' He opened his bag. 'There is juice and bagels and apples in here,' he said, setting down the bag. 'This is good for energy. Help you think a lot. I want you to think about being friendly to lonely Russian man. If you are friendly to me just only one time, then I will tell Chinese man you are gone, you not here. This is good deal for you, I think. I think maybe you liked me a little bit before and so you will think yes, maybe this is good deal. Just one time. There is good mattress downstairs, I put blanket. I am going to come back in a little while, maybe one hour. This time I will lock the door downstairs. You cannot get out now.'
She listened to the Russian leave the room, his heavy footsteps making the warped old boards creak. Did she dare to come out? Maybe he was waiting behind the door! How did he know she was hungry? Then she crept over and inspected the bag.
Apples, in a bag. Smelled good. Delicious. And yet the worst thing, too, the saddest thing…
She had come such a long way, so far that she no longer remembered every step of the path, dared not think of the distances. Born in the arid plain, on her parents' farm. They did not have running water, only a town pump. Her father had grown up on the farm, never liking it. And he wasn't much of a farmer, either. The hogs got strange diseases that made their noses drip. Her grandfather was allowed to have three apple trees behind the barn. These he fertilized with chicken droppings he gathered from the road with a shovel. Her father had borrowed money from the town council and then had struck off for Shanghai and sold mealworms in the bird market for three years before sending for her mother. Then, a year later, after her mother had prospered selling mealworms and her father had built a little business hauling bamboo scaffolding from one building site to another, they sent for her and Chen. Her grandmother had wept and taken to her bed, saying she had been abandoned by everyone and it was time for her to join her ancestors. Her grandfather, whom she loved more than anyone, ever, more than anyone in the past and anyone she would ever love in the future (except for her children, of course-oh, how she hoped she'd have children someday), had taken Jin Li and Chen in the wagon down to the train station with a little sack full of his own apples, rice balls, and dried pork. He explained that they would be taking a very long train trip. Almost three days. He gave Chen some money-a handful of old bills-and told him that he would have to buy them water and sweets during the trip. Then her grandfather asked her brother to check to see if the train was coming, and when he ran excitedly to look, her grandfather showed her the new bills in his hand. Take off your shoe and sock, quick, he said, and he slipped the bills into her sock and pulled it back on. Do not let older brother know you have this money, he instructed gravely, or he will take it and lose it. I gave him the old bills for water and sweets. Give this new money to mother. If brother loses all his money and you need money, take only one bill out of your sock and tell him you found it. Do you understand? her grandfather asked, the skin folded over his old eyes. Yes, she said, eager to please him, anxious he know that she would do anything he asked of her. This is all the money that I have saved in my life. It is for you and for older brother and for kind mother. She nodded eagerly but did not want to leave him now. She felt suddenly scared. She saw what was happening. You are my little bird and you will fly far, he said, making a little cough. I will never see you again but you will always be my little bird. Then the train came and they rode hard-class on a bench seat for fifty-six hours. It was crowded and the people smelled. The train stopped and you had to go squat in the weeds. Her brother spent all the old bills on sweets and gum and water, but she did not pull out any of the new bills her grandfather had given her. Years later, when she had been a merit student at Harbin Institute of Technology, she had come to understand that each bite of the apples in the bag was the last she'd had of her
