Kwan’s door and scanned the room. When he saw no one but the woman on the bed inside the room, confidence filled him. He placed the jar and tape down on the nearest counter, then set the oxygen tank down on the floor, just inside the doorway.
He dragged the cop inside and removed the man’s pistol. He released the mag, racked the slide, and expelled the chambered bullet. Then he threw the Sig Sauer in the garbage can and dragged the cop into the washroom. When the door closed, he and Patricia Kwan were alone again.
It was time to get to work.
He grabbed the duct tape and jar and walked up to the bed. Patricia Kwan lay still under the blankets, locked between the raised chrome bed railings. It seemed so long ago that he had last seen her. How odd it felt.
And how wonderful.
Patricia’s face was whiter than before. The skin now sagged around her cheeks. Her chest rose and fell in slow intervals. Tubes ran from her wrists and forearms to three different machines. One of them reminded Red Mask of the electric current machines the guards had used to obtain confessions in Section 21. The thought manifested dark emotions, and he killed them immediately.
Emotion was weakness.
The bed was too high. Red Mask lowered it with the electronic control, then leaned over Patricia Kwan. She sensed the movement, and her face tightened. Red Mask smiled.
He could bring her back to consciousness.
First he put on two pairs of latex gloves, then tore off a strip of duct tape. He placed it across her mouth, then grabbed her wounded shoulder and gave it a vigorous squeeze.
Patricia jolted like she’d been electrocuted. Her eyes opened. They scanned the room, stopped on him, and widened. She jerked under the sheets, and one of the machines made a high-pitched, beeping sound.
‘Be still,’ Red Mask ordered. He pointed to the tape covering her lips. ‘I am removing tape. Understand — ’ he held up the jar of clear fluid ‘- this is nitric acid. Nothing more painful in world. You scream, I make you swallow.’
Patricia Kwan’s eyes filled with terror. Tears spilled down her cheeks.
‘Understand?’
She nodded slowly, and Red Mask peeled back the tape.
‘Please,’ her voice was weak, scratchy, ‘I’ll do anything. Anything you want. Don’t kill me.’
Red Mask placed the jar on the bedside table, directly within Patricia’s line of sight. ‘I not lie to you, Patricia Kwan. You will die. But you can go in pain or no pain — the choice is for you.’
Her response was a whisper: ‘Please — God — why? Why are you doing this?’
Red Mask just looked at her and tried to analyse the twinge of emotion he was experiencing. Something was stirring inside of him, somewhere deep, a tickling sensation. Like a name he could not recall.
‘You show great disrespect. That will not — cannot — be tolerated.’ He gave her an odd look. ‘Do you think no one would discover?’
Patricia Kwan’s eyes took on a distant look. ‘But I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m innocent!’
‘No one is innocent.’
Red Mask looked over at the clock. Already several minutes had passed. Soon the nurse would return. Seconds were valuable. He leaned forward, so that he was looking right down at her, and he suppressed the pain he felt, for there was no time for pain.
‘I ask you one more time, Patricia Kwan.’
‘Please, I-’
‘Where is daughter? Where is Riku Kwan?’
Seventy
When the phone rang, Courtney was in the shower. She heard the rings, almost didn’t bother with it, but then thought of Raine and wondered if she’d gone all the way with Que. With mango-scented soap dripping into her eyes, she slid the shower door to the side, hopped out, snagged a towel from the rack and scurried half-naked down the hall.
She snatched the phone up on the fifth ring — one before the machine picked up — and looked at the caller ID.
Quenton Wong.
She knew it was Raine and said, ‘Jesus, I’ve been calling and calling you, like, forever. Why don’t you pick up?’
‘Sorry, Court. My cell crapped out.’
‘I’ve been calling Que’s, too.’
‘Thing’s a piece of junk. He dropped it in the tub once and it’s constantly on the fritz. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.’
Raine stopped talking, and there was a moment of silence on the line. Finally, Courtney asked, ‘Well? Did you do it?’
‘He’s… he’s not here,’ Raine said.
‘Not there? Where are you?’
‘At Que’s friend’s pad. You remember, that one we met when we saw Avatar? The one with the bad skin?’
‘Oh yeah, Mr Creepy.’
Raine laughed at the name. ‘Yeah, well, Mr Creepy has his own place. Up here on Adanac.’
‘Is Que there?’
Raine made a sound somewhere between embarrassment and frustration. ‘No one is. And Que hasn’t come back all night. I dunno. Maybe he wasn’t really that… into it.’
Courtney felt the water trailing down her legs and feet, forming a small pool on the hardwood floor of the den. She didn’t care. ‘God, are you kidding me? He was, like, so all over you at the restaurant. Something must have happened.’
‘Like what?’ Raine asked.
It was something Courtney hadn’t really considered, and the thought bothered her because Que was either out with some other girl or he’d gotten into some kind of trouble and was probably in jail or something.
‘Maybe he got drunk again and was sent to the drunk tank.’
Raine’s tone turned defensive. ‘He only did that once.’
‘I’m just saying-’
‘I know, I know. Look, Court, what you doing? Wanna come down and see me? I could use the company. All I been doing is powering through Twilight. It’s good, but if I read any more, my eyes are gonna fall out. And besides, I sure as hell can’t go home right now.’
‘Why not?’
‘You kidding? After staying out all night at Que’s, I’m as good as grounded for the rest of the year. I got my Britney ticket, I got my dress. I ain’t going home again till after the Parade of Lost Souls and the concert.’ She paused, cleared her throat. ‘Hey, it’s almost two o’clock now. Parade starts in three hours — why don’t you head down now and we’ll start partying.’
Courtney thought of the two cops guarding her home. ‘About that..’ she began.
‘I talked to Mandy and she said Bobby was asking about you.’
‘Really?’
‘Said he was gonna be in the park before the show started, just having a few drinks and stuff, wanted us to come down.’
Courtney closed her eyes, cursed Dad. It was so unfair. He was so unfair. Mom would never have held her back like this. She thought about the two cops positioned out front and back of the house and wondered if there was some way she could give them the slip. Maybe out the side window, over the fence through the neighbour’s yard. Or even the other way through the park. There had to be a way.
