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

diplomatic rounds.
    After nearly a year in Peking, she still did not understand why the Chinese had to do it in the dead of night. Was it distaste? Or left-over superstition that had survived the arrival of the Communist era? She had asked, at first, but all of her questions had been answered with a shrug. This is how it has always been done. After a while, she, too, had learned to shrug. By embassy tradition, it was a job reserved to the junior member of the consular corps. If that happened to be a woman, who also happened to be an intelligence officer, too bad. In another month, a new junior vice-consul would report for duty and Linda Greer would drive no more by night in Peking.
    There were no preliminaries. The Chinese had no more liking for this chore than she.
    “I am Miss Greer of the American Embassy. Where is Mr. Li?”
    “Mr. Li is ill tonight. My name is Mr. Hu.”
    Linda nodded. Hu’s on first, a pockmarked man with a cowlick. She was glad she had worn a skirt. Her panties were damp with the aftermath of love; no, of good old-fashioned, hard-and-fast sex. For a wild moment Linda imagined driving to Stratton’s hotel, rushing to his room on some pretext and … no, that would never do. That ruggedly aloof professor with the scarred body and great stamina was not for keeping; strictly a half-night stand. Still, it was better to think of him than to contemplate her late-night diplomatic duty.
    “I believe there are two,” she said primly, waving a pair of manila folders.
    Mr. Hu nodded. It was not unusual. The average was about twelve a year, but they tended to cluster in the peak tourist months. Twelve ducks.
    The inner room was chilly, smelling of things Linda Greer never thought about. The welder, too, was new to Linda. She thought of asking Mr. Hu if the entire crew had been changed, but didn’t bother.
    “Friedman, Molly R., Fort Lauderdale, Florida,” she read from the file.
    Mr. Hu gestured. The lid was open. Linda looked, nodded.
    “Wang, David T., Pittsville, Ohio.” Her own voice seemed strained.
    “We have already begun on that one.”
    “I am required to see it first.”
    “You were late.”
    “That is procedure.”
    “It is very hot.”
    A Chinese standoff. Linda could insist. They would shout and argue and, finally, with ill grace, they would probably snap the welds and open the lid. Linda had a sudden vision of herself, screaming like a harridan in Mandarin in the foreigners’ morgue in Peking at the deadest hour before dawn. She shivered and surrendered.
    “Very well,” she said.
    Mr. Hu nodded. The welder, a stocky, middle-aged woman, twirled a knob and ignited her torch.
    Then, as procedure dictated, Linda watched in the eerie, smoking blue light of cascading sparks as the welder worked methodically, up one side and down the other. When she had finished, Linda checked to make sure that the labels were correct—that was really the most important part of her night’s work. Neither coffin would be opened again, but it would never do to dispatch heart attack victim Wang—Stratton’s friend—to Florida, or obese Mrs. Friedman, victim of complications of a broken hip on the Great Wall, to Ohio.
    Linda Greer walked with cowlicked Mr. Hu to a small office. There, with a pen and a seal, she testified, in parallel English and Chinese documents that Linda May Greer, consular officer of the United States of America, had witnessed the sealing of two caskets and certified their contents. She drove home in the breaking dawn, trying to think of sex, but the images would not come and the effort left her feeling dry and brittle.
     
    The setting was exactly as Linda Greer had predicted.
    “It’s a ritual, Tom. All official meetings in all parts of China are staged exactly the same way,” she had said. “Maybe it’s something they borrowed from the Russians early on—or from the emperors—but it is literally a case of ‘See one, you’ve seen them all.’ “
    Wang Bin had sent a car to