Skinner's Box (Fang Mu (Eastern Crimes)) (14 page)

The expression on her face became even more ill at ease. A wave of red flushed through her cheeks for only a moment, leaving her cheeks just as pale as before.

"Hi, Uncle Fang," she bowed, her eyes never leaving the toes of her shoes.

"Finished with school for the day?" Fang Mu did his best to keep his tone of voice casual and relaxed.

"Yes."

"Why haven't you gone... gone home yet?"

"I'll go home it a little while."

"Oh." Fang Mu glanced to the KFC. "How 'bout I treat you to something to drink?"

"No, thank you; I have to get back and cook dinner."

"Come on." Fang Mu turned and pushed open the door to the KFC. "It just so happens I'm thirsty. It won't take long; I'll drive you back after."

Liao Yafan hesitated a moment, and then followed Fang Mu obediently into the KFC.

After they found a table, Liao Yafan sat with her head hung low and kept picking at her backpack with her fingers.

Fang Mu thought a moment and then said with a laugh, "Wait here; I'll be back in just a minute."

While he was ordering, Fang Mu glanced over his shoulder at Liao Yafan. She was looking around the KFC, her face a portrait of curiosity. A lump formed in the back of Fang Mu's throat as he pulled a 100-yuan note from his wallet.

He returned to the table with a tray piled high with food. Liao Yafan finally looked up in shock.

"Go ahead; dig in."

She just sat there unmoving, her face blushing a deep shade of red. When Fang Mu saw that she was not going to reach for the food, he unwrapped a mini chicken burger and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth. Then he opened a box of Cajun-style chicken wings and forced it into her hands.

The chicken burger tasted disgusting. Fang Mu never knew why so many people liked this sort of crap. After forcing himself to finish swallowing down the last of the burger, he began sipping at a cup of Nine Lives Juice.

Liao Yafan ate very slowly; she had just finished her first wing. A little girl sitting at the table next to them was in the process of devouring a chicken burger with a mouth whose corners were smeared with sauce. Her mother was dragging the end of a fry around in a thick puddle of ketchup, waiting for her child to finish. The little girl swallowed what was in her mouth and immediately opened wide for the next bite. The mother quickly stuffed the fry into her daughter's maw and giggled as the girl chewed.

Liao Yafan stole glances at the mother-daughter pair while gnawing bits of meat and cartilage from a chicken bone. When she reached for a second wing, she noticed that Fang Mu was watching her, so she quickly pulled her hand back.

"Eat, eat. Don't mind me," he said hastily.

"I'm full," she said softly, lowering her eyelashes.

"Eat some more." He pointed at the tray. "There's plenty to eat still."

"I'm full." She slowly wiped her fingers with a paper napkin.

"Okay, well..." He picked through the little mountain of food until he found a small strawberry sundae. "You have to eat this or else it'll melt."

Liao Yafan sat indecisively for a moment, but did not refuse. Finally she began to scoop bites of it into her mouth with the little plastic spoon.

Her head was lowered the entire time, so Fang Mu took the opportunity to get a good look at her. It had been more than half a month since her saw her last, and she seemed to have had another growth spurt. The sleeves of her athletics shirt were a bit too short, leaving a pair of long, skinny wrists exposed. The bluish veins were clearly visible on the backs of her hands. These hands were not pale and delicate like those of other girls her age; they were coarse with cracking calluses. He remembered the little knife and the big basin full of potatoes and emitted a shallow sigh.

The sun was beginning to sink lower in the sky, a fact which Liao Yafan noticed. Almost frantic, she scooped the last bite of the sundae into her mouth, wiped her lips clean with the napkin, and stood. "I need to get back."

Fang Mu looked at the enormous pile of uneaten food and smirked. "I don't think you need to cook when you get back; this should be enough."

He asked an employee for a plastic bag and used it to wrap up the leftover boxes of food. Then he took Liao Yafan outside to where he had parked the jeep.

While he was helping her fasten her seatbelt, she suddenly blurted out, "My mom used to take me to KFC a lot, too."

Fang Mu was stunned for a moment, not knowing what to say. It was a long time before he mumbled a response. "…Ahh."

It was rush hour, so the streets were packed with cars and buses. The whole way back Liao Yafan did not say a word; she just kept glancing at the digital clock on the dash board. Fang Mu knew she was worried about being late getting home, but the start-and-stop traffic prevented him from going any faster. It was the busiest time of day in the city; car horns vied with each other angrily in the stifling hot afternoon air. Liao Yafan sat rigidly in her seat, appearing uneasy as she stared out the window at the chaotic traffic around them. Her face was flushed, and the fingers of her right hand gripped the door handle so tightly that her knuckles were white.

After they had traversed the major boulevards and gotten onto the ring road that led to the suburbs, the traffic was not quite as heavy and they had a much better view around them. The quieter environment seemed to make Liao Yafan relax a bit. She loosened her grip on the door handle and leaned back against her seat.

Fang Mu noticed her face was still very pink, so he asked, "Are you hot?"

"No." But tiny pearls of sweat were visible on the bridge of the girl's nose.

He chuckled. "Let's open the windows. I feel a bit warm."

Liao Yafan sat up a bit straighter and looked the car door up and down, apparently unsure of which button to push. Fang Mu opened it for her, and a blast of air immediately filled the vehicle, causing Liao Yafan's hair to fly back around the headrest.

She did not attempt to tie her hair back; the wind took it and swirled it around, and the sensation seemed to please her. She half closed her eyes and rested her chin in her right palm, a trace of a smile on her lips as she quietly watched as the rooftops and greenbelts sailed past.

Several minutes later, the jeep pulled into the courtyard at Angel Hall. It startled a group of kids playing there, but they soon recovered and were surrounding the vehicle as Fang Mu parked. Liao Yafan leaped agilely from the jeep and waved at Teacher Zhou, who had just lifted his head up from where he was kneeling in the garden.

"Grandpa Zhou, I'm back."

"I was wondering when you'd get home, you rascal." He chuckled and nodded at Fang Mu. "So she was with you."

"I bumped into her," Fang Mu said, grinning a little.

A little boy climbed into the jeep, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed the air. Fang Mu saw him and quickly handed the plastic bag to Liao Yafan.

"Take this to the kitchen and give it to everyone when it's time for dinner," he told her.

"Okay." Liao Yafan nodded, took the bag, and lifted it to show Teacher Zhou. "Uncle Fang bought it for us."

"You're too kind." Teacher Zhou smiled and said, "Yafan, hurry over to the kitchen and help Auntie Zhao. She's in there running around like a chicken with her head cut off."

Liao Yafan made a compliant sound and carried the plastic bag toward the kitchen. A group of children surrounded her as she went, eyes round as saucers as they tried to get a glimpse of the contents of the bag.

Teacher Zhou dusted the dirt off his pants and beckoned Fang Mu over to sit with him on the edge of the flowerbed.

"Kentucky Fried Chicken?" He took Fang Mu's proffered cigarette. "You shouldn't buy junk like this; you'll make the kids greedy."

Fang Mu laughed a little. "It's just a special occasion, that's all."

"How did you bump into Yafan?"

"Oh, this afternoon I was at the City Hospital, and on the way back I happened to be driving along North Nanjing Street. That's where I saw Yafan."

"The hospital? Are you sick?"

"No, not at all. I was there interviewing a victim; the one that caused that big car wreck the other day."

"Oh, yeah?" Teacher Zhou was interested. "I hear it involved a convict who broke out of jail."

"That's right." Fang Mu sighed, and a gloom settled over his face.

Teacher Zhou studied him for a moment, and then asked, "What's wrong?"

Fang Mu thought a moment, and then told Teacher Zhou all about Luo Jiahai's case from start to finish. Teacher Zhou listened attentively, his brow creasing more and more tightly as he did. He didn’t interrupt once.

"So I'm in a bit of a mess, I suppose." Fang Mu thought Teacher Zhou looked worried about him. "I need to capture him as soon as possible before things get any worse."

Teacher Zhou lit a cigarette and smoked pensively for a long while. "That young woman you mentioned just now, what did you say her name was?"

"What girl?"

"That one who always felt like her body stank."

"Oh, Shen Xiang."

Teacher Zhou meditated in silence, a long ash slowly forming on the end of the cigarette pinched between the knuckles of his index and middle fingers.

Fang Mu thought he was acting a bit strange. "Teacher Zhou?"

"Huh?" Teacher Zhou returned from his reverie, tossed his cigarette butt, and grinned. "It's nothing. Let's go get something to eat."

The atmosphere during dinner was very animated. The children were thrilled over the KFC Fang Mu had brought; no sooner had it been brought to the table than they swept the platter completely clean. Perhaps because it was the first time that the dishes she had cooked were given a cold reception, Sister Zhao looked rather deflated; she even refused to eat the 'wicked' wing that Liao Yafan offered her. She was not the only one who was unhappy, however; Fang Mu noticed Teacher Zhou's brow remained furrowed during the entire meal from start to finish, as if something heavy was on his mind.

After they had finished eating and he was helping clear the table, Fang Mu whispered to Sister Zhao, "What's up with Teacher Zhou?"

She shook her head. "I don't know; he was fine earlier."

When it was time to leave, Fang Mu looked for Teacher Zhou to bid him farewell, but he was not in his room. Bewildered, Fang Mu walked back down the hallway, but noticed a light on in another room.

Teacher Zhou was in Sister Zhao's room, standing in front of the shrine, holding several freshly lit incense sticks. As he stood them upright in the incense burner, the smoke circled lazily toward the ceiling like a thin layer of gauze. From the other side, the eyes of a young boy stared at the white-haired old man from their picture frame in silence.

Deciding not to disturb Teacher Zhou, Fang Mu left as quietly as he could.

CHAPTER
11
Skinner's Box

T
hings went from bad to worse: A few days later, an internal notification at the police department was sent to all units. In addition to the damages already counted, the motorcycle cop's service pistol had been declared lost. Police on the scene had searched the entire area quite thoroughly and had interviewed hundreds of local residents, but there was still no trace of the police revolver with the serial number C00863726.

Regardless of what might have motivated the person that now had possession of the gun and its six bullets, the police could clearly rule-out good intentions.

It felt to Fang Mu like an enormous weight was bearing down on his shoulders. Every morning when he turned on his cell phone, there were a couple dozen messages requesting interviews with him, even though Bian Ping was fending off as many as he could for him. The caller might say that they wanted an interview, but Fang Mu well knew that most of them just wanted to hear him admit to his mistakes. Quite a few people around the office seemed to be getting a kick out of watching him suffer; although Fang Mu was younger than most of his colleagues, their bosses tended to treat him with a great deal of importance. While running back and forth between the Public Security Bureau and the precinct, he felt many a dirty look and heard the numerous low whispers behind his back.

Luo Jiahai, where the hell are you?

Immediately following the prison break, the police initiated lock-downs on all bus stations, train stations, and airports in the city. Judging by their progress, it looked entirely possible that Luo Jiahai had not yet left the city. Soon a wanted poster with his photograph on it was plastered on every street in town, from the largest boulevard to the smallest back alley. Leave was cancelled for the entire police force, and the number of patrol cars and foot cops on the streets was doubled. A person wearing prison garb had to eat and sleep some time, and no one could hide forever. It was only a matter of time until Luo Jiahai was captured.

But a week went by and they were still no closer to locating him. The police received many call-ins from citizens reporting suspicious behavior, but they all turned out to be cases of mistaken identity. Luo Jiahai seemed to have evaporated into thin air.

"Don't get too frustrated." Bian Ping massaged his face up and down with both hands, a face slack with fatigue in his office.

"Uh-huh." Fang Mu stared at the blue veins bunching up on the backs of Bian Ping's hands and his bloodshot eyes, and the shame he felt increased ten-fold.

"Put that labyrinth case on the back burner for a while. Let's put everything we've got into apprehending Luo Jiahai."

"Uh-huh," Fang Mu said again and stood up. It had been an uncomfortable meeting.

"Where are you going?"

"Going out...to look around."

"Have a seat." Bian Ping pointed at the sofa. "Finding people is not one of your strong points. How 'bout you leave that to the folks in the precinct whose job that is?"

Fang Mu remained standing.

"Do you have any idea why I asked you to transfer over here?" Bian Ping's tone had hardened.

"Yes." Fang Mu looked at the floor. "To assist in analyzing cases involving abnormal criminal psychologies."

"That goes without saying..."

"Not to mention," Fang Mu said, a grin cracking his rigid face, "to negotiate sudden and unexpected hostage situations."

Bian Ping chuckled. "You cheeky little bastard!"

His superior’s efforts at encouragement made Fang Mu feel significantly more relaxed. He pulled up a chair and sat in front of the table, sipping tea as he tried to gather his thoughts from the chaos of the past few days.

Luo Jiahai could only be one of two places: he could have left the city already, or he could still be there somewhere, in which case he was most likely being hidden by another person or persons. Fang Mu leaned toward the latter of the two possibilities.

"Walk me through your reasoning," Bian Ping said.

Fang Mu obliged him. "First off, I don't think it very plausible that Luo Jiahai would take the initiative to bust out of the detention center all by himself. I've been following this case from the start, and it seems to me that ever since Luo Jiahai was taken into custody, there's been a tug-of-war going on in his mind between two entirely different emotions. One is the love and regret he feels for Shen Xiang and his strong desire to follow her to the grave; the other is his fear of the death penalty and his will to survive." He shrugged. "I can say with confidence that while I was negotiating with Luo Jiahai in that apartment, he was still very determined to die. But before the trial, his will to live gained the upper hand; this was obvious from how actively cooperative he was with his lawyer. But those were two people's
lives
he took, after all, and there's no way he would be able to escape the death penalty based on 'circumstances deserving of merciful consideration.' And believe you me, Luo Jiahai was very aware of that. So he expects both to survive
and
to be reunited with Shen Xiang in the next life, and for him, those are both acceptable outcomes. No matter how things go down, either way would satisfy one of his most fundamental desires. That's why I don't think it very likely that he initiated the prison break."

Bian Ping frowned. "You mean Jiang Dexian might be in on it?"

"Correct. Otherwise this whole thing is just way too much of a coincidence – the guard just happened to leave his post, Luo Jiahai just happened to get his hands on a sharp object, Jiang Dexian's body just happened to be right in the way of the sniper's line of sight as they were walking out, a massive car accident just happened to occur right at the wrong place at the wrong time. Anyone with any common sense at all knows that the odds against this chain of events being pure coincidence are enormous."

"What about Jiang Dexian's motive?"

"I'm not sure." Fang Mu shook his head. "Getting yourself taken hostage by a client isn't exactly a feather in your cap, no matter what sort of attorney you are. I can't imagine why he would want to ruin his career. But I do think there's something very fishy going on with him."

Bian Ping fell silent for a long moment, contemplating Fang Mu’s theories. "I'll make a recommendation that the Municipal Bureau look into Jiang Dexian."

"The driver of that truck, too." Fang Mu recalled the driver, Huang Runhua, and the shocked look on his face as he sat shaking in his chair at the traffic police station. The Traffic Management Bureau had inspected the truck Huang Runhua had been driving and concluded that air bubbles blocking the brake fluid lines in the truck's brakes had caused them to fail. When Huang Runhua realized his brakes were out, he had to run through the red light in order to avoid hitting the car in front of him. He had immediately pulled down on the handbrake, but it was too late; momentum had sent the massive vehicle sliding right into the middle of the intersection. These details had led the Traffic Management Bureau to conclude that the crash had been accidental in nature and that it was up to the insurance companies to sort it out.

Despite the enormous city-wide net the entire police force was busy casting day and night to capture Luo Jiahai, news of an escaped death row convict was not enough to disrupt the normal day to day happenings of the metropolis.

Life went on; the endless stream of traffic still clogged the streets, and the appetites and lusts of men and women still had them scurrying back and forth like possessed rats, each trying to attain goals that appeared different to them but were inevitably the same. Not one of them seemed to doubt the neatness and tidiness of his or her life, as if their firm belief in the beauty and harmony of the city were unshakable. The death penalty, the prison break, the huge twelve-car pile-up—all of these were like events happening on another planet, as far as most people were concerned. They cared about nothing that was not eye-candy on the front page of the evening news.

Luo Jiahai let the corner of the window curtain he had just lifted fall back into place and sighed heavily.

He had not left his room once since the man in the baseball cap had taken him there. He was in a half-commercial, half-residential building close to downtown, and other than a phone or the internet, the room was equipped with everything a person might need. There were several simple changes of clothes in the closet and the freezer was packed full of frozen food. It really was a good place to hide out. The man in the baseball cap had told him he was not to leave the room under any circumstances; he was not even allowed to open the window curtains. The man had only visited him once over the past few days to bring groceries. After hiding in fear for several days, Luo Jiahai had gradually calmed down. And soon after the calm had come boredom.

Luo Jiahai had questions. Who was this Jiang Dexian fellow, anyway? Who was the man with the baseball cap? Where was this place? Why had they wanted to rescue him...?

Question after question tumbled through Luo Jiahai's mind as he tossed and turned, trying in vain to fall asleep. No matter how he thought about it, he could make neither head nor tail of his situation. He had a vague feeling that he was in the middle of a grand scheme of some sort; but as for who the conspirators were and why they would choose him as their target, he was drawing a complete blank.

All he knew for certain was that this plan of theirs had something to do with Shen Xiang.

That day, as soon as the guard had left, Jiang Dexian had opened up his briefcase, withdrawn two photographs from an unmarked envelope, and tossed them on the table in front of Luo Jiahai. Luo Jiahai had glanced at them haphazardly and was stunned by what he saw.

One of the photos was of Shen Xiang, brows gently knit together, carrying a large plastic bag across the street by herself. The other photo was of Luo Jiahai and Shen Xiang walking together on campus somewhere; she had her arm locked around his and was smiling up at him, and he was grinning as he listened to whatever it was she was saying.

Luo Jiahai stammered, "You...? How did you...?"

"Don't say a word. From now on, you do as I say!" Then a light seemed to shine from Jiang Dexian's eyes and the short, plump little man took on a more ferocious look, like a general determined to win his war at all costs. "Take this."

He had twisted open his fountain pen and handed it to Luo Jiahai.

"In a few seconds, you will hold this to my neck and walk out of this detention center holding me hostage. Put some pressure into it; don't worry if you make me bleed a bit,” he said curtly. “Remember, as soon as we go through the door, turn around so that I am always between you and the watchtower, and keep as much of your body behind mine as you can. Once we're in my car, everything will be fine. Do you understand what to do?"

Luo Jiahai had taken the fountain pen and stared blankly at it for a moment. "But…"

"No buts!" Jiang Dexian had hissed. The sound of returning footsteps was already echoing down the corridor outside the room. "All of this is for Shen Xiang. Do you understand?"

All of this is for Shen Xiang?

The more Luo Jiahai thought about it, the less sense it made. Recalling the details of the photos, he realized that the bag Shen Xiang had been carrying with her that day must have been that big bag full of soap and body wash she had, and the other photo must have been taken while they were dating. He remembered something Shen Xiang had once said:

"Every time I shower or go shopping, I always feel like someone is following me."

Who had been following her? Was it the same person who shot the photographs? What did Jiang Dexian have to do with this?

Turning the same questions over and over in one's brain did not make one more enlightened; it tended to have the opposite effect. Luo Jiahai felt numb. Zombie-like, he dragged himself through the same daily routine: Eat. Watch TV. Think. Fall asleep. Confined as he was, day after day, he felt like he was slowly corroding away. Occasionally he would lift up a corner of the curtain and look down on the crowded street below from his upper level room, watching the tide of people that flowed continuously from the crack of dawn to the early evening twilight and beyond, well after the streetlights and shop widows had been lit.