‘Did I ever say it was a van?’
The words caught Chinese Tony off guard, and he stuttered, ‘I w-want my l-lawyer.’
Striker nodded, never letting his eyes deviate.
‘Those bodies might be linked to a lot of dead kids,’ he said. ‘Now I don’t know how you got involved in this, but I do know one thing — you were in that goddam van. So you can ’fess up now and tell me what your part is, or we can do it the hard way.’
‘I want my fuckin’ lawyer.’
Striker turned to Felicia and smiled. ‘Awesome. Plan B it is.’
Sixty
The table was wet when Red Mask awoke, and his body was slicked with sweat. The room was cold. So terribly cold. And there was that smell again.
He heard the sound of running water and saw the old man standing by the sink, his arthritic spine all twisted from the rear view. He was washing off steel tools.
The old man must have sensed something, for he turned around. Found Red Mask with his eyes. ‘You fell into unconsciousness.’
Red Mask tried to think back. There was no memory. ‘Is bullet removed?’
The old man shuffled over to the table and dropped the lump of mashed lead into Red Mask’s palm. ‘The bringer of so much sorrow. It is yours. Well earned.’
Red Mask looked at the source of his pain; it was so small.
‘I must go,’ he said.
The old man grimaced. ‘You can go nowhere. Your body is weak. Very weak.’
‘My spirit is strong.’
‘The spirit is housed by the body.’
Red Mask sat forward, and let out a cry. The pain was just as intense as before, but different. Less sharp, more diffuse. He swung his legs off the table and carefully stood. His legs trembled but did not give out.
‘I owe you much.’
The old man put a vial of pills into his hand. ‘You must take these. Every hour. To fight off the infection.’
Red Mask stuffed the vial into his pants pocket. Then the old man touched him.
‘Your body needs rest.’
‘I will rest when dead.’
‘That will not be long if you persist.’
Red Mask walked to the exit. Before leaving, he did something he hadn’t done in as long as he could remember — he cupped his hands together and bowed low to show his respect and gratitude to the man who had saved his life.
Or at the very least delayed his death.
Outside, the steep incline of concrete stairs took every bit of energy he had left to climb. Once at the top, he stepped out from under the awning and the rain hit him. Just a soft spatter of rain, but that was all it took. And within seconds, he was back there.
Back then…
Red Mask was small again. Weak. And alone.
A child.
Child 157, to be exact. It was his label now. He stood on his toes, terrified, but daring to peek through the iron bars of his window, into the pits of D Block below.
That was where the old man had been taken. It would be his final resting-place.
‘Who is your employer?’ the inquisitor with the blue sash demanded.
The old man before him trembled. He was seated on his knees, his chest and torso exposed, his rice-thin pants torn. Sweat and blood dripped down his sunburned brow and along the sides of his leathery wrinkled face. His long, uneven beard was patched with grey.
‘No one, there is no one,’ the old man said, and the desperation in his words was painful.
‘What is your former occupation?’ the blue-sashed man demanded.
The old man raised his branch-thin arms in the air, as if pleading for mercy. ‘I have told you many times-’
‘Put him in the tank!’ the inquisitor snapped.
The old man screamed and waved his arms, but when the guards came — and they always came, wearing that horrible, drab grey clothing — they took him easily, for he was too thin and too weak and too old to fight them off. They tied his arms behind his back, then dragged him across the room to the iron tub. It was filled with water, and the stink of it reached Child 157’s nose. It was the same water a hundred others had died in — including the old man’s wife just before midday.
‘I have done nothing!’ the old man cried out. ‘Nothing! I am inno-’
The guards forced his head beneath the water, cutting off his cries. Loud splashes filled the room. Frantic sounds, like a fish fighting for life. The old man’s legs kicked and his body bucked, and the water thrashed and spilled.
Child 157 watched from his window. He could not look away.
The room was hot and sweltering in the summer heat, but he felt cold now. Cold with fear. He watched for a long time as the guards continued the pattern — yanking the old man’s head from the tub, demanding answers from him, then slamming his face back into the water when they did not get the words they wanted. Every time they did it, more water splashed across the floor and wall, the odd splatters hitting Child 157 and wetting his skin.
The violence went on for a long, long time.
But eventually the old man’s body gave out. Or perhaps they held him under the water a second too long. The reason did not matter. When they pulled him from the tub, his neck fell forward limply and his face slammed hard on the lip of iron.
It was over.
Uncle was dead.
The inquisitor wrote something down in his book, then turned his eyes towards the iron-barred window of the cells. He found Child 157 and fixed him with a cold stare.
‘Bring in the next,’ he said.
Red Mask startled as he awoke from the memory. Cold water splashed his face, and it took him several seconds to realise it was not water from the drowning tub, but rain from above. Simple rain.
‘Uncle,’ he murmured.
It was a word he had not said in decades.
Confused by the recall, he turned and headed south. For Kingsway and Rupert. To meet the man who controlled his life every bit as much as the spirits controlled his destiny. His childhood mentor. His only grace. His last chance in this unforgiving world.
Sheung Fa.
Sixty-One
The Vancouver Jail was slower than usual. No arrestees were in the holding cell, and none were in the search bay. When Striker learned that Jail Sergeant Connors was away on sick leave, it was a stroke of good luck. Connors was newly made, and anal about the booking rules and procedures. For what Striker had planned, the procedures would be thrown out the window.
It was better for everyone not to have Connors around.
Striker told the wagon driver to leave Chinese Tony inside the back of the wagon, in the dark with the heat
