A Death in China by Carl Hiaasen, William D Montalbano Read Free Book Online Page A

writes books on its war heroes. In your case, they were happy to pass it along. Proud even. Langley, too.”
    “Step right up and read all about it. Hurry, hurry.”
    “Sometimes Steve prefers a little synopsis,” she said, ignoring the sarcasm. “It saves time if I’m familiar with the material. Don’t worry, I’ve got clearance on stuff like this.”
    “You know my name, what’s yours?” Stratton asked.
    “Linda,” she answered. “Linda Greer. I’m vice-consul.”
    Linda Greer. He looked at her for a moment and wondered. This hardly seemed the time, but … the only women he had talked with for days had been Alice and her gaggle, and little Miss Sun. Right now, he certainly could use some company.
    “Would you like to have dinner sometime?” he tried.
    “No, thank you, Mr. Stratton.”
    “A movie?”
    “The embassy movie doesn’t change for another two weeks, and I’ve already seen it four times. Besides, you’re leaving for the States on Monday morning.”
    Stratton sat back in the chair and tested the coffee again. Well, it was what he’d deserved. Linda disappeared. Powell walked in and crisply stationed himself at the desk.
    “I’ll be looking into the passport matter. I hope to have some sort of explanation by the time you leave.”
    “Monday morning,” Stratton said.
    “Linda told you. Well, good. Did she tell you the itinerary? It’s Hong Kong, San Francisco, Cleveland. The body stays on the plane in Hong Kong, but you’ll have a customs layover in California. We’re trying to get a diplomatic waiver from Washington on that now.”
    Stratton did not react outwardly. Powell shifted.
    “Do you have a suit and tie?” the consul asked.
    Puzzled, Stratton said: “I have a tie and a blazer. I suppose it’s good enough for Pan Am.”
    “And for the deputy minister as well,” Powell said. “He’d like to see you tomorrow morning. Nine o’clock. Any taxi at the hotel will take you. Here’s the address.”
    Powell walked Stratton to the door. Stratton got the impression that this was a vital part of his job, walking tourists to the door.
    “Linda says you were at Man-ling.”
    “Yes,” Stratton replied.
    Powell asked, “Was it as bad as they say?”
    “Worse,” Stratton said as he walked out. “I’m sure it’s all in the file.”

CHAPTER 5
    In the hotel courtyard, amid gleaming rows of Chinese-made automobiles that looked like boxy stegosaur-uses, off-duty waiters played uproarious catch with a red Frisbee. Stratton sat on the stone front steps, elbows on his knees, palms supporting his face, a brown study. He watched without seeing. David Wang was dead and he did not know how to mourn him. Wang had come late to Stratton’s life, and yet for a time Stratton had felt closer to him than he had ever felt to his own father. Stratton had the feeling, without really knowing, that he had been but one of a number of private reclamation projects Wang must have quietly undertaken over the years at St. Edward’s. In Stratton’s case, it had worked. Wang had molded a scarred young officer—no, that was a euphemism; a cynical young killer—into the shape of a civilized man who could honestly savor poetry and the whisper of breeze on a pine branch. Who could sleep deeply and rise remorseless, without scrabbling for a cigarette and a gun. Who could even, more than a decade later, return to China, feeling legitimate, almost comfortable, as a genuine if unheralded and rough-hewn college professor.
    But Wang had worked too well, had he not? Stratton had slipped away from him, further every year. Two disparate clouds that had met improbably, intermingled and then sailed away to different horizons. Had he been back home teaching, word of David Wang’s death might have provoked a few minutes of sharp but distanced regret, then hurried cancellation of classes and a trip to the funeral, complete, surely, with the trappings of a Catholicism that Wang knew and loved as much as the priests who