Striker peered through a break in the hedge and spotted the man they were after.
Chinese Tony was a white guy — he’d gotten the nickname from being the only white kid to hang with the Gum Wah Boyz way back in the late nineties. He was a scrawny little puke — always had been, but he’d grown even thinner since Striker had last seen him.
Using his own product, Striker knew. Common mistake.
Chinese Tony’s cheeks were sucked in, and his eyes were deep round hollows. New scars marked his face, the largest one trailing from his left eye and disappearing under his chin. His dark brown hair was shorter than before, cut jagged and bowl-like, real greasy. He wore the usual dirtbag attire — holey blue jeans and a black hoodie — and he came scrambling across the backyard patio like a cockroach running from the light. He crossed the yard, hopped the fence -
— and Striker nailed him in the chest with a hard elbow.
Chinese Tony went reeling backwards. He hit the gate, his legs gave out, and he collapsed. When he looked back up again, his eyes were cloudy.
‘What the fuck?’ he started.
‘Why you running from the police, Tony?’
‘Who the… Detective Striker?’
‘I’m touched you remembered.’ Striker grabbed the man’s arm and was surprised at the bone thinness. He flipped Tony over so that he was prone on the grass, then handcuffed him. When the cuffs were double-locked behind his back and Felicia came walking around the building into the common area, Striker hoisted him back up to his feet.
‘Why were you running from the police?’ he repeated.
‘I got no warrants.’
‘That’s not what I asked.’
‘I ain’t breachin’ nothing. Seen my PO just yesterday. So fuck you. You got nothing, man. Nothing.’
Striker grabbed him by the front of his hoodie, pulled him close, spoke quietly. ‘Listen up and listen hard, you little maggot. I got three dead bodies in a vehicle down on East Pender, and witnesses are pointing you out as the driver. I’d say that’s something.’
‘I was home.’
‘Did I even say when this happened?’
Chinese Tony licked his lips, said nothing.
‘Also, we got a couple prints off the steering wheel,’ Felicia added. ‘Good ones, too. Or else we wouldn’t be here wasting our time.’
‘I was sleeping, see? Ali K was here, too. He’ll tell you that.’
Striker looked at Felicia, and she smiled. The only person who could possibly be Chinese Tony’s alibi would also be the same person who had been the passenger in the stolen van.
Striker grinned. ‘Ali’s prints are in the vehicle, too, Einstein. Got any other stories you want to throw out there?’
Chinese Tony’s mouth dropped open, but no words came out.
Striker made a point of laughing. ‘Your story’s got more holes than a box of Cheerios.’ He tightened his grip on Tony’s hoodie, pulled him even closer. Whispered, ‘I don’t give two shits about the motor vehicle breach, got it? What I care about are the dead bodies.’
‘I already told you, I wasn’t even in no van.’
‘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.