Snake Agent: A Detective Inspector Chen Novel (7 page)

"Not yet."

"A young man like you? You can't be more than a few hundred years old, surely. . . I'm surprised. But perhaps you haven't met the right girl yet."

"I'm still thinking about it," Zhu Irzh said, trying not to wince. His mother had been particularly acerbic on the subject during his last visit to the parental home, but he wasn't going to marry Xu Yu Li and that was that, however influential her father was in the Ministry of Epidemics. There were plenty of other possibilities, but none seemed satisfactory somehow. Faces swam smiling through his mind. Ren Ji would drive him mad in no time, whereas Sha Xei, despite being marvelous in bed, didn't have a thought in either of her beautiful heads. His family expected him to marry for money; his friends expected him to play around as heartlessly as they, but Zhu Irzh harbored unsettling ideas about love. He sometimes awoke in a chilly sweat, wondering whether he was cursed with morals. Imperial Majesty alone knew where such principles had come from; few of demonkind seemed so afflicted. He might even have to take a cure, but he wasn't sure if his health insurance would cover it. . . Zhu Irzh gave a martyred sigh.

"Seneschal? I asked you a question." The First Lord of Banking was staring at him with a gaze the color of old blood.

"What? Forgive me, Lord. Just wanted to give a considered reply," Zhu Irzh said hastily, adding: "Your decision on the matter would be most wise." He wondered frantically what the question had been, but Tsin Tsi appeared pleased with his reply.

The First Lord of Banking leaned on the ornamental bridge that crossed the pond, and fed the carp, forming pellets of flesh between his claws and dropping them into the green water. The carp rose slowly upwards: the empty bags of their mouths opened and closed, engulfing the tidbits and rippling the waters of the pond. Zhu Irzh found it too warm, despite the cool breath of air which rose from the carp pond.

The First Lord said, "I'm sure you're wondering why I contacted your department today, and asked for you. You see, I've called you here on a matter of some delicacy."

"My Lord?"

"This case you've been investigating. The brothel."

"Oh, that."

"There is a small matter relating to it which requires—a certain degree of
style
, shall we say, an element of personal attention which I am reluctant to entrust to anyone less experienced."

"I'm flattered by your confidence in me, My Lord," Zhu Irzh said cautiously. "Might I be trusted to know what the matter entails?"

Tsin Tsi absently gnawed a long and ornamental fingernail, stopping himself with an effort. "I need you to find a young lady. One of the souls snatched from her rightful place on the voyage to Heaven. I have had word from her."

Zhu Irzh frowned. "A human soul had the temerity to contact
you
, Lord?"

"Indeed." The First Lord of Banking permitted himself a thin smile. "A very enterprising young lady, is Miss Pearl Tang."

Forgetting himself, Zhu Irzh stared at him.
"Pearl Tang
contacted you?"

"I can see that I will have to explain myself," the First Lord said, rather acidly. "You were brought into this case by your superiors, Zhu Irzh, purely on the basis of the brothel's unpaid taxes on a spot of ghost-trading. You thought, no doubt, that this was all that this case involved. However, this recent episode of commerce in the souls of the virtuous is not a simple matter of profit. There is more to it than meets the eye. You will recall that Pearl's father was a formidable financier. How do you think that came about?"

"You are the Lord of the Ministry of Wealth," Zhu Irzh said. "I would therefore imagine that you had something to do with it."

"Precisely. I set Tang up, Seneschal. I made him the man he is today. In return, he promised me certain services—never mind what those might be—and until recently, he performed to the most exacting standards. However, it is always tempting for those of us who enjoy the delights of power to overstretch personnel. In retrospect, I may have asked rather too much of Tang. I've noticed a decline in his services over the last year or so, and a corresponding decrease in his willingness to do as I ask. That suggests to me that Mr Tang has gone forth and found himself another patron, and his dabbling in the ghost-trade seems to be related to that, though I don't yet know how. When she found herself here, Pearl Tang's spirit contacted me, secretly and at considerable risk to herself. In her message, she wrote that the ghost-trading was part of a plot of her father's, against me"—here Zhu Irzh looked suitably shocked, and the First Lord continued—"and she also told me to 'beware the Ministry.' "

"Which Ministry?"

"Well, quite. Which indeed? Most of my esteemed colleagues have it in for me, Zhu Irzh, just as I have devoted so much of my life to making their own a misery. But whether it's the Ministry of War, or Flesh, or Earthquakes, or Epidemics who are aiming for my downfall with the unreliable Mr Tang's connivance, one can only speculate."

"And you would like me to retrieve Pearl Tang from Miu's brothel and interrogate her?"

"If she was still in the brothel," the First Lord said with some asperity, "I could delegate the matter to a lesser official. However, it seems she has gone missing."

"Missing?"

"Please stop echoing everything I say in that vacuous manner. Until last Darkday her services were engaged as an active participant of the brothel. Then, she apparently found a way to escape and ran away."

"I find it difficult to believe that a new and relatively innocent soul would be able to get very far in its flight through Hell," Zhu Irzh said reflectively.

"So do I. I think the owner of that particular establishment is either lying to me, and has secreted her away for his own nefarious purposes, or she has had help. Neither scenario is encouraging. I want you to find this tiresome little ghost, Zhu Irzh. Find her and bring her back."

Chen spent his walk back to the station thinking about the angles he might use to induce Tang to speak. He was, therefore, irate to discover that the industrialist had already been released on bail. Chen went straight to the captain's office to complain.

"Chen, I told you it might happen. I did what I could," Sung said. His heavy face looked gray and rumpled, the sign of a difficult afternoon. "I've had the governor on my back and lawyers coming through the windows. . . We'll get it to trial if we can, but don't count on it."

"So Tang can be responsible for the deaths of several young girls, including, it seems, his own daughter—not to mention his wife—and simply walk free?" Chen asked in disgust. "Oh, I suppose I should know better by now, but it still makes me furious."

Captain Sung gave a shrug of sympathy. "You know how the world works as well as I do. We're not young men, Detective Inspector."

"So I'd noticed," Chen said dryly. He already felt about a hundred and ten. He returned to his desk and began studying his notes for a minor case of fraudulent exorcism, and the revised proposal for the
feng shui
practitioners' licensing rules. Neither document managed to hold his attention. He rang Inari. There was no reply. The thought of Tang's freedom chafed at him like a yak-hair shirt. Checking through his pockets, Chen made sure that his rosary, scalpel, compass and other pieces of equipment were safe. He hunted through his desk drawers for two small octagonal mirrors and a tube of superglue, which he wrapped carefully in a tissue and placed in his pocket. Then, as he had done on the previous evening, he walked out into the humid city and caught the next tram to the Garden District.

Tang's private car was parked in front of the mansion, half-hidden in the shadows cast by the magnolia trees. Chen sidled along the street, making sure that he was well outside the security perimeter and that no one could see him from the mansion, then took one of the mirrors from his pocket. Murmuring a few words, he glued the mirror to the underside of the Mercedes' fender. He was taking a risk that the car might be monitored, but he was fairly sure that any security arrangements would be set to detect electronic equipment or explosives, not a cheap plastic mirror. Then he set off back down the street. He kept his hand on the second mirror in his pocket, but it remained cold.

Once he had reached the Opera House, however, the mirror flushed warm against the palm of his hand. Swiftly, Chen found a nearby teahouse, ordered a pot of dragon oolong tea, and sat down with the mirror in his lap.

Reflected in the surface of the mirror, as minute and precise as a digitized film, he could see the Mercedes pulling out from the curb. Tang himself was at the wheel, and as far as Chen could see, there was no one else in the car. He followed the image of the Mercedes as it turned north at the end of the street, heading into the suburbs. Circumscribed by the edges of the mirror, Chen caught glimpses of tower blocks and concrete ruins overgrown with creeper; perhaps bomb damage from the winter's terrorist attacks, perhaps simply areas of land where building had been planned but the money had run out. He glimpsed the flashy new facade of the temple of Woi Tsin: supposedly part of the urban regeneration project, and wondered what defenses the Mercedes enjoyed, that Tang risked driving through such poor and edgy ghettos. Leaving the zones behind, Tang drove up into richer country. Mansions appeared once more, flanked behind acres of ground, and Chen enjoyed the sight of the road to Shunan, stretching in a dizzying curve around the mountainside with the sweep of the sea beyond. The sun had fallen, and the sky was a pale, aquatic green. Chen took a sip of black tea and watched as Tang turned off the road. The Mercedes bumped down a dirt track, leaving the vista of the coast behind, and slowed to a halt in front of a shack. Tang got out and went inside. Chen finished his bowl of tea and poured another, then signaled to the waitress and ordered an egg bun. After the bun, he called for another pot of tea, which he drank slowly. Tang still had not emerged from the shack. Chen visited the gents, surreptitiously keeping an eye on the mirror as he did so and feeling more than a little self-conscious. On his return from the lavatory, he found that the café owner had switched on the seven o'clock news. Chen listened as he continued to stare fixedly into the mirror. A deal had been struck over the Texan secession. The Turkistan Alliance had come to an accord with the Chinese government over the Uighur border, and the Dagestani Liberation Front had agreed to a cease-fire. Peace appeared to be breaking out all over the place. For once, the news failed to depress Chen quite as much as usual.

The headlines were followed by a local report on the new
gherao
dormitory being built out in Jhu Ku. It seemed that the media's fascination with the bioweb and its effects had still not drawn to a close. Perhaps there was something about the bioweb nexi themselves that piqued interest: after all, most were women, and most were young. Chen recalled vaguely that bioweb technology had started in Malaysia, where girls signed up for a two-year stint as nexi in order to pay their own dowries. . . Momentarily distracted from the non-events in the mirror, Chen glanced up at the rows of motionless forms depicted on the television screen, each nexus floating serenely in her shallow bath of nutrient fluid, wrapped in the embrace of synaptic wiring as they silently and invisibly passed information to and fro. If he half-closed his eyes, he could imagine the girls lying at the edge of the sea, lapped by waves, cocooned in weed. The images were organic and disturbing. Chen had grown up in a world where technology was hard-edged: plastic and metal and steel, not soft and mortal flesh. The televised pictures of the
gherao
interfaces made him queasy; he began to regret the egg bun. He looked down at the mirror in his lap just in time to see Tang's reflection walking from the shack, holding something small and evidently fragile. Chen squinted into the mirror, trying to see. The thing looked like a jar. Tang placed it carefully in the back of the car, got in and drove off. Rising from his seat, and grateful that he didn't have to sit through yet another pot of tea, Chen headed swiftly back to the Garden District through the gathering dusk.

Seneschal Zhu Irzh knocked on the door of the demon lounge and waited. The towering clouds of Hell raced high above his head, shrouding the metal towers. Lightning snapped on the wind. Zhu Irzh shivered pleasurably. After a few moments, the door was opened by a young woman. She bestowed a long and appraising look upon Zhu Irzh, who gave her his most charming smile. The girl grinned back, revealing lacquered black teeth, each one ending in a delicate point. Her eyes were as dark and pellucid as oil and her skin was dusted with lotus powder. Beneath his silk coat, the tip of Zhu Irzh's tail twitched once, in appreciation.

"Can I help you?" the girl said in a little, breathy voice.

Zhu Irzh stared demurely down at his feet and murmured, "I was hoping for an evening's entertainment. I don't know if you might be able to provide something diverting?"

The girl's opaque gaze took in Zhu Irzh's expensive silk coat, his black brocade waistcoat and gilded teeth, as well as the ruby that dangled from one earlobe.

"This is a poor establishment, hardly worthy of your attention. Nevertheless. . ."

"I knew you would," Zhu Irzh said, and stepped smartly through the door.

Inside, he found himself in a hallway decorated with metal panels and thick with the musky scent of incense. The girl swayed closer, enchanting him with her perfume. Zhu Irzh smelled amber and blood. He murmured into her ear:

"You're very lovely, and if I didn't have very
particular
tastes, I'd ask you to be my companion, but. . ."

With a faint hiss, the girl withdrew. "What is it that you want, Lord?" she said, winter beneath her words.

"Something closer to life than you or I, alas. Something
fresh
."

"Something to share?" the girl said, drawing closer once more. Zhu Irzh laughed.

"Later, perhaps. There are certain desires I'd like to satisfy first."