barge.
A red leather bag sat on a small wooden table by his dresser. It contained the protean secrets of Hu’s unusual life. He reached inside.
Delicately extracting another rubber prosthesis and any number of jars and tubes of foundation cream, greasepaint, and powder, Hu Xu began to make himself disappear. He liked to sing while he worked, something he had learned as a child in Arizona from the Seven Dwarfs in the movie Snow White. A song popped into his head and he gave voice to it, beautifully, as it happened. One of his many skills was an uncanny gift for pitch-perfect vocal impersonations. And so the soulful voice of Eric Clapton began to waft through the floating house.
She puts on her makeup
And brushes her long black hair…
Twenty minutes later, the wizened assassin had ceased to exist. In his place was a diminutive woman from the upper echelons of Shanghai society. Her name was Madame Li, and she had all the papers to prove it. Elderly and stooped, wearing a black raw silk dress with pearl buttons, Hu Xu leaned forward and studied himself carefully in the mirror. His cheeks were lightly rouged, his eyelashes long and thick with beautifully applied mascara. An artful application of lipstick fleshed out his lips, and his wig of hennaed black hair swept back into a tight chignon held in place by a tortoiseshell pin.
Off to Paris, dearies!
An old Louis Vuitton bag hung from his shoulder. Inside, a forged passport and fifty thousand Euros in cash. The old ship’s chronometer in the next room tolled. Eight bells. It was time to go. General Moon was expecting him at half past the hour. But first, he must bid fond adieu to the desolate creature waiting so patiently in the dark and fetid spaces beneath his feet.
He pulled open the concealed hatch in the barge’s galley and paused to savor the lovely stink that erupted into his nostrils. Below, a sewer of fear awaited him. His studio. He stepped carefully (he was wearing modest heels) onto the wooden ladder and began his descent. Halfway down, he heard a muffled cry of hope from poor Marge. Grandmother’s coming, Margie! He had expected this confusion on her part and it delighted him no end. Did Marge really believe this elegant septuagenarian was coming to the rescue? The answer was yes!
The bilges of Hu Xu’s floating residence, an aging two-story barge indistinguishable from thousands like it in Hong Kong’s crowded Victoria Harbor, were the death artist’s sanctuary and workplace. In the bowels of his barge he would complete his masterpieces in solitude, working through the night, his subjects lit only by guttering candles as he molded and reshaped their forms and limbs with his scalpels, bread knives, pruning clippers, and, noisy old thing, a vibrating bone saw.
It was dark down here, he saw. All but two of the large candles had expired. Still, it was lovely by candlelight. The walls were lined with large and small jars of formalin holding organs, bits of tissue, and carefully excised body parts. There was a central drain in the floor leading to a holding tank below. The tank emptied into a macerator, the same kind used on larger fishing boats to grind fish guts into thin gruel before the bloody soup was finally pumped overboard into the harbor.
In the center of his busy autopsy suite sat a brand new table. It was the very latest thing in morgue decor. It had two tiers. The top slab, where Margie was now, was simply a perforated metal sheet. The perforations allowed flowing water and bodily fluids to seep through to the lower tier. This level was also metal and served as a catch basin. A pump ensured a continuous flow of water over the lower tier, keeping it clean.
This one’s name was Marge Goodwin. Stupid-sounding name, he felt, even for an unattractive and overweight American. She was the wife of a corrupt corporate executive near the top echelons at the Bank of China. General Moon had demanded one million dollars for the dear wife’s safe return. The deadline had expired. No word from the disobedient banker. It was assumed he had gone to the police. Pointless, since the new chief, like many others in the new Hong Kong, was in Moon’s pocket.
Alas, Moon had decreed death for Marge Goodwin.
The general, through his aide, Major Tang, had forwarded this late-breaking information to his most prized assassin earlier in the evening. It arrived via an encoded message. It was usually a simple transposition code, based on the fact that it was the third day of the week and that the date was the fifteenth of the sixth month. It was also, as always, hand-delivered by an anonymous fisherman on an anonymous sampan.
There were thousands of such nondescript men and women living on sampans in the harbor, large numbers of them on the general’s secret payroll in one capacity or another. In a recent move to solidify his position in Hong Kong, Moon had decided to equip this army of coolies with automatic weapons and grenade launchers. Concealed, but, still, they were a formidable secret militia.
Decoding Moon’s unusually lengthy message in his small study, Hu had further learned that he was to have a new and most exciting assignment. In Paris, yet. Tres chic, n’est-ce pas? He was so thrilled, he noted the news in one of his black leather notebooks. He wrote much of this diary in haiku form, the poetry being one of the extremely few things Japonais that Hu had cause to admire.
Hu was expected at the Golden Dragon tonight at precisely nine o’clock. A quiet dinner with the general’s aide-de-camp, Major Tony Tang. Tang, whose westernized first name and chic appearance made him a glamorous society figure in Hong Kong, would provide his itinerary. Efficient preparations had already been made on his behalf by the general’s secretarial staff.
According to the general’s message, he was prebooked, first class, on the British Airways flight to Paris next morning. There was a deluxe suite waiting for him at the George V hotel. The loveliest flowers in that hotel, he thought. Brilliantly arranged. He’d have to find out who did them. Buy the boy a drink and then, who knew?
But he had to tidy up his nest before he left, of course. Hu Xu had been only too happy to learn he was to put the distasteful victim out of her misery. As was his habit, he just took his own sweet time doing it.
He’d been her host for just forty-eight deliriously happy hours. She was almost complete. A few finishing touches here and there tonight and, voila, pop her in the oven! My, but wasn’t she the noisy one? He had grown tired of all the fretful blather. He had ceased to be interested in the sound of her. Pausing on the bottom rung, and looking coyly over his shoulder at Marge, he finished his work tune with a dramatic tremolo flourish.
I say, my darling, you look wonderful to-ni-i-ght…
She screamed. Who wouldn’t? A seventy-year-old grandmother who sounded exactly like Eric Clapton? It was enough to drive anyone in their right mind stark raving mad.
First things first, he thought, stepping off the bottom rung and turning toward her. Yes, he was running a little late. But if there was one thing he’d learned at the University of Tempe medical center, it was that it pays to be methodical and organized. A place for everything, and everything in its place.
He plucked the oversize green hospital scrub suit and disposable plastic apron from the hook on the wall beside the table and put them both on. On his hands he snapped thin latex gloves. Over his lovely shoes, little paper booties. He stood for a moment and regarded the woman, shaking his head from side to side as she fussed. Oh, my, what a fuss it was. She’d seen the old woman’s eyes and known at once that it was not her savior who stood gazing longingly at her now. No. In her pale blue eyes, realization bloomed in the widened irises.
“Upsy-daisy, my dear,” he said, sliding a hand under Marge to lift her torso. With the other hand, he inserted a black rubber block under the middle of her upper back. This raised the throat and tilted the head back.
He whipped the delicate knife back and forth, scraping the edge against the whetstone.
Oh, yes, my dear. That tongue will have to come out, I’m afraid.
Shhhh, he said, and raised the scalpel.
Chapter Thirteen
Gloucestershire
SUTHERLAND SPED ALONG THE TAPLOW COMMON ROAD, slowed imperceptibly at the turning, and whipped through the main gates. After a moment’s study of the National Trust signs, they were motoring at a snail’s pace along the broad curving drive leading to Brixden House.
