Текст книги "Houston, 2030: With Proper Legwork"
Автор книги: Майк Мак-Кай
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After the school, I firmly decided not to die of starvation along with many thousands of losers in Mitch. Instead of complaining at charity soup kitchens, I volunteered to the Navy – and served in a war zone for over two years. With my beloved machine gun, I killed many enemies of our Freedom-and-Democracy. I have no idea how many, but many – for sure. If you are on a river monitor and dispense nine hundred and fifty Freedom-and-Democracy servings every minute, it's difficult to count all the recipients. Well, the recipients got a bit mad at me. One direct hit by a laser-guided missile, my left leg went into the river together with the sinking Piranha, and I was sent to my free Cruise. On a floating hospital! One day later, my remaining leg became a fish food too, and two weeks later the upper part of me found itself nicely planted in warm asphalt of the welcoming Galveston harbor. I have no hard feelings about the Latino enemies of our Freedom-and-Democracy. War is just business, nothing personal.
And I have two decorations: the Purple Heart from Venezuela and the Lifesaving Award for the hurricane five months ago. Yes, I can do something better than pulling a trigger. I saved lives, goddammit! Although, the hurricane hit everybody, so we had to do something anyway. Kim and Tan did way more than me, and rightfully got themselves Medals of Valor. OK, I admit, two years and three months out of the five-year volunteer contract plus the Purple Heart for being halved don't count for that much. Any clown can get herself shot in the aft and lose both legs. But my Lifesaving Award is one hundred percent honest achievement. Nothing in common with my History ‘C’.
I dial Kim again. ‘You have dialed the Harris County Police number…’ Wile E Coyote smiles from the screen, the little pink hearts rotate above his head. And what did you expect, Road Runner? By the way, why this stupid Road Runner left such a wonderful cargo trike? You could do perfectly well with your panic while some unnamed fellow from the Koreamerican-3 was puffing on pedals. And now – you must finish the ride on your own. I pull the gloves and throw my body on the skate, ready for my little Tour de France. Back during my middle school years, they kept showing this on TV. Presidential program Bicycle-2020: every American must get a bike. Bike propaganda, my ass! Before the Meltdown, there were idiots who raced bicycles over mountains, while other idiots paid good money to watch the racing idiots. And even the bikes were impractical, totally idiotic: with thin tires and no cargo platforms. It was like a TV soap opera, only about riding bikes. Unbelievable.
The good news, I am pretty close to home: one hundred yards on concrete, then four hundred – on the dirt road. If only concrete, even two miles on skate is no big deal. Unfortunately, nobody builds any new concrete roads now, and even fixing the old ones is not on a priority list. No probs, our tailless mermaid will have very strong arms.
***
Twenty minutes later, the tailless mermaid, in the yellow jersey of the Tour de France, well ahead of the peloton, blasts though the last stretch of the dirt road and passes the finish line in the Koreamerican Patch-1. The spectators yell and applaud. And I am not even out of breath. Getting better at this stupid sport, I guess.
In our Garret Road Slum, there are no streets, only ‘Roads’ and ‘Patches’. A ‘Patch’ initially meant ‘a plot of land’, but over years the meaning shifted. Now it's more like ‘village’ or ‘compound’, although our ‘Patch’ is not your typical city block. Explaining how the Amerasian Patch works to the hardened individualist Yankees from the North is not an easy task, but I will try anyway.
So, the Patch. If you squint real hard, you may imagine yourself in the middle of the Fifteenth Century Asian village. Endless vegetable beds are all over the place. Two girls push a water-lifting wheel. Farmers in conical hats return from the rice field. And all the rest is as expected: rickety huts on stilts, a tiny Buddhist shrine amongst these huts, chickens and pigs digging through the dirt, barefoot kids playing at the village common grounds. Got the picture? Now just unsquint a little, and you discover yourself in the XXI Century Asian village, with all the advancements: all the above, but the roofs are made of rusted metal, complete with TV antennas and solar panels. Bicycles are everywhere. Not those Tour de France contraptions on ridiculously thin tires, but our real work bikes with strong frames – you can happily load five hundred pounds, or even more, as much as you can push.
And if you are tired of squinting, the XXI Century Asian village turns into the standard XXI Century Houston slum. One wall still bears faded sign of the IHOP restaurant chain, plastic film glitters in the window frames, tarpaulins and old tires are used in shack construction instead of palm leaves and bamboo poles. Dressed in T-shirts and shorts instead of exotic sarongs, two girls at the water-lifting wheel have stereo earbuds and step over the wooden planks clearly following some pop-music beat. The village kids at the common grounds are not playing some antiquated Asian game. It's modern and sophisticated weekly match of softball, as they proudly define it, ‘with fast serve and full rules’. The boy at the home base has whacked the ball with high-tech aluminum bat. By the way, the yells and applause for the imaginary Tour de France leader are real – from one of the softball teams. After the mighty strike, the fifth-grader has passed the second base and now is flying towards the third, stomping dusty ground with his bare feet. Sometimes I wish I can play softball too.
“Home run!” the umpire declares. The boy makes a little winning dance. The opposing team exhales a defeat sound and throws the ball to the pitcher.
“Anyoung haseyo, Auntie Kate!” a skinny teenage girl delivers first a traditional Korean bow and then a traditional American smile, waving her home-made catching glove. A little break in the game: the kids smile, nod, and wave to me. So cute.
“Are you from the Beat, Auntie Kate?” the umpire-cum-scorekeeper inquires. Fourteen-year old, he is probably the oldest here and naturally in-charge of the entire show. “Do you need something from the market? We can send a runner. Right away.”
We are not relatives. The Slum Rules are such that every woman of about my age is called ‘auntie’ by all the kids in the Block, and I must call them ‘nephews’ and ‘nieces’. If I was two or three years younger, they would call me ‘big sister.’ And I must call ‘auntie’ every woman who is eight or ten years older than me.
I smile to the kids and wave my gloved hand. “Anyoung! Thanks, I am OK.”
I have always marveled how polite the Amerasian kids are in here. To be honest, when I first came to Houston I had strong preconceptions about Asian slums. But I quickly learned to appreciate this lifestyle and the Slum Rules too. It's easy to get used to good things. A city block in my native Michigan differs from the Amerasian ‘Patches’ in Houston slums not only by the absence of proper streets, the water-lifting wheel and the Buddhist shrine. In Detroit, an adult approaching a teenagers' game causes nothing but a wild-animal stare. And the wild stare is the best possible outcome. Let say, if it was me on my skate, the conversation might go along very different path. Oh, who do we have here? A freaking legless vet! Hey, cripple, can we borrow your skate? We will return it. Maybe. And show us inside your bag. And inside your pockets. Or you prefer a knife? Of course, I would never give them my skate. Want to see inside my bag? And what do we have in here? Click! Surprise! I have a nice blade of my own. Come close, shit. I see you don't need no balls no more… So the things might turn rather bloody – on both sides. The kids in Detroit never play softball. Knife throwing (for distance and accuracy) and setting abandoned buildings on fire (for extra warmth and awesomeness) are two least violent street sports up-North.
Leaving the softball players behind, I push my skate along the dirt path. The paths in our Patch-1 are wide, almost like roads. This place was built immediately after the Meltdown, at that time many believed that the crisis was temporary. The gas would become cheap again, and the cars would return. After the following fourteen years, the gasoline did not get any cheaper, so the rusted frames of partially disassembled cars became storage shacks or chicken pens.
O-ops! And who is that old lady, cunningly waiting under the communal kitchen shed? Naturally, this is my mother-in-law. Captain has the bridge! First Officer, punch the General Quarters, if you would! All to the battle stations. Comms, signal to the Space Fleet: detected by the opposing force at the traverse of Kitchen, engaging the opponent. Scotty, are you done with your Shield repairs? Get lasers and space torpedoes hot! For our USS Enterprise – surrender is not an option.
Don't get me wrong. I am not at war with my mother-in-law. But she is a walking ultimatum, with energy of a Category-5 hurricane and decisiveness of an attack submarine commanding officer. She hates me because I am not ethnic Korean. She loves me because our hut looks Korean, and because I keep it meticulously clean, exactly as a proper Korean wife is supposed to do. She pities me for my missing legs. She admires me for my medals and my job in Police. She complains that I never ask her to help. She praises me for not complaining and doing everything myself. All at the same time, and with Category-5 hurricane intensity. Most importantly, she wants to make sure that my husband and I consume enough calories and right amount of protein every day.
“Anyoung haseyo, Ma,” I say approaching the kitchen shed. Being spotted, I very well can take the initiative. Does she know that we have no water at home?
“You're early. I though, you three are dining out tonight. Tan's birthday?” a single range-setting shell is fired. The super-dreadnaught gracefully turns for a broadside, whilst at her battle bridge her Senior Gunnery Officer is calculating if we have eaten dinner.
“The plan did not work out, Ma. Tan and Kim were called to a crime scene.”
“Far?”
“In the Chinamerican Patches. I am afraid it will take a long while.”
“I decided to leave some food for you two, just in-case.” From the kitchen top, she lifts two glass containers with something appetizing. Ka-boom! A mighty broadside salvo from all main caliber guns, and right on-target! Of course, ‘just in case’ is nothing but thin excuse. She leaves us food every day, independent from our plans for the evening. OK, today I don't mind. I fail to be the perfect Korean wife in one aspect: I am not much of a cook, and if it comes to cooking Korean, I am practically hopeless.
“Oh, thanks, Ma,” I diligently make a surprised face, as if I believe in her ‘just in case’ statement. “Tonight it will come very handy. I'll take it.”
“I'll carry it for you.”
“No, Mom. I can take it myself. I am on wheels!” No way I let her carry the things for me, especially in front of the whole Patch. But more important, she should not see our empty water jerrycan!
“On wheels!” The in-law says grumpily, but passes me the containers, “do you need rice too?”
“Thanks, Ma. Rice – I'll manage.”
“Manage! Do you have water at home?” Lucky us, she did not look into our jerrycan today.
“Yesterday, we had it half-full,” I give a half-honest answer. Helm, full portside! Scotty, be so kind, set the radar counter-measures!”
“How are your legs today?” Great. The second salvo from the in-law dreadnaught comes short of target! My cruiser lacks the gun caliber, but she has advantage of maneuver and speed.
“Today – not too bad. No pain.” Scotty, now both engines – full speed ahead! Breaking the contact. Aye-aye, Capt'n, full ahead.
“Did you smoke?”
“Once.” Really – twice, but my in-law thinks that one To-Ma-Gochi a day is a medicine, while two or three is an acute drug addiction.
“I hope the pain goes away.”
“Right.”
She always asks this. A typical pre-Meltdown generation, she still doesn't believe there are conditions that cannot be cured in a couple of weeks with some wonder-drug. As far as I was told, fighting with phantom pain is pointless. But instead of a fight, you can make a peace accord: manage your condition with regular meditation and an occasional puff of Marijuana. So far, I am doing it quite well.
“If you need something, don't go yourself. Send the neighbor kids or ask them to call me, OK?”
“Sure, Ma.” Holding the food containers with one hand, I push the skate with the other targeting to our little shack.
Very well, Scotty. We made through it with minimum damage, no sweat. Yes, Capt'n: minimum damage. And having the ‘just-in-case’ package is not too bad. May I remind you, ma'am, that we've got only rice, Kimchi and soy souse at home? You're an unbelievable pessimist, Scotty. We also have half-a-jar of jam and even acorn coffee! Not to forget our main weapon: brownies in the top-secret hold. Attention all hands! Captain's orders! Changing to bikini top and shorts! Jerrycan on stand-by! Navigator, set course for the water well, if you would! And be so nice to avoid the enemy radars this time.
The standing plan is for Kim to fetch water on his bike tonight, but this is unlikely to happen. No probs, the Tour de France leader will pump her upper arms a bit more. The only issue, I must avoid detection. The last thing I want is the fifty-five-year old lady wrestling the empty jerrycan from her daughter-in-law. She did it on few occasions, to my total embarrassment. The idea that your mother-in-law has to fetch water for you somehow does not fit well with my self-esteem. Especially considering that she wakes up at four in the morning and walks no less than ten miles every day, in any weather, and with two baskets on her shoulder-pole. She runs her own fast-food business: XV Century style. In the morning, she prepares the meals and delivers them by lunch-time to the Landfill workers. After lunch, she walks to the market to buy supplies for the next day, and so on. Naturally, for the water run I can ask any of my so-called ‘nephews’ and ‘nieces’. But I will need more water tomorrow: scrubbing the shack floor, shipshape. OK, tomorrow I will whistle from the porch and abuse my executive auntie's powers. Today, the polite ‘nephews’ and ‘nieces’ may play their oh-so-important softball match…
***
Kim arrives home at something past eight. He bangs his bike against the pole and curses the cable lock in the darkness. The investigation hasn't gone too well, I conclude. So I must make my husband talk, or he will be upset all night long.
“The Homicide Unit gave you shit for the unnecessary call, did they?” I ask, crawling to the porch.
“Something along these lines,” he sits at the stairs tread kicking off his sandals. “Anything to eat? I am bloody hungry.”
“Kimchi and rice soup. With kimchi on the side. Fried kimchi rice with kimchi salad. Steam rice…”
“Stop being silly.”
“OK, just joking. Your Mom will not allow us to die of starvation. We have vegetable curry, pickled daikon and even a quarter of fried chicken. Kimchi and steam rice, naturally. Coffee and brownie with jam to polish off.”
“Sounds good. Have you eaten?”
“Waited for you, Mister Coyote. Water?”
I open the jerrycan and pour water on his hands. Kim washes his neck and face. With his hair spiking in all directions, now he positively resembles Wile E Coyote from the cartoon.
“Do you want to know who is in-charge of this investigation?” he asks. Great. We are talking.
“Who?”
“His Highness Deputy Investigator Woxman!”
“That buffoon? You are not joking?” Admittedly, Woxman is not exactly a buffoon. Two months ago he topped the written test, and by wide margin. Kim came the second. That's why Woxman is a Deputy Investigator now, and my husband is still just a Deputy. Although, Deputy Investigator Woxman is nothing more than a pompous jerk. He is an investigator as much as I am – a Korean cook.
“If I was joking, I wouldn't be pissed off,” Kim reaches for the chopsticks.
“Take it easy. The Homicide Unit had to come for nothing, so bloody what? Woxman must be thankful. He was delivered to the place by a horse, in full comfort, like a damn VIP. If not for the reported homicide, he would sweat all the way on his bike, correct?”
“What: correct?”
“The old Taiwanese man is alive, right? A stubbing is a serious violence, but no fatality. So we must call an investigator from the Station. Our Standard Operational Procedure, remember?”
“It's much worse than that.”
“Much worse? You are saying the old man is dead? Well, what are they freaking unhappy about? If somebody dies from a gut-driver – it's hardly a death of a natural cause. The Coroner is not required; must call the Homicide Unit, period. I did everything right!”
“Much worse than that, partner!”
“OK, tell me.”
“Aha! Our Sherlock-Holmes-on-wheels can't guess!”
“First, your Sherlock-Holmes-on-wheels can't do magic. To make a guess, I need information. Second, I believe the case is very darn simple. Victor Chen thinks his father is dead, but the old man is just knocked down. While Victor runs to the Beat, the old man comes to senses and goes to find a doctor. After that, we have a bunch of possibilities: he dies before reaching the medic, he reaches the medic, but dies anyway, or he is OK. Don't ask me what is more probable: it depends on the position and depth of the wound and other such medical stuff. But I can't see any other possibility.”
“Much worse than that! Admit, Holmes, you are totally stumped.”
“OK, I am stumped. But not totally, only from below. Stop teasing me.”
“Victor Chen insists there has been no dead body whatsoever. More or less – a hallucination.”
“What?” Good I am stumped from below, or I would break the roof of our shack with my head. “What do you mean: hallucination? What about the freaking gut-driver? What about the freaking rag? With all the freaking blood on it?”
“Keep munching, Road Runner. If you talk too much, I will eat all the daikon myself. The freaking gut-driver and the bloody rag – that's all the evidence we have.”
“What about the blood drops Tan noted on the floor? Also, – a hallucination?”
“Yep, ma'am. There were no drops.”
“About Victor Chen – he could be on drugs. But about Tan, so far, I presumed he's not using any.”
“In our Beat, only one person is using drugs so far. No finger-pointing.”
“Now you stop being silly. The Grass isn't ‘drugs’. It's a medicine. And I have a good reason.”
“OK, I am not silly. Of course, I am no expert, like some records clerks… No finger-pointing… But I am sure your To-Ma-Gochi can't create this type of hallucinations. To see a dead body, somebody must use some very serious stuff: synthetic drugs or magic mushrooms. If our client was using something like this just before coming to the Beat, we would see at least some symptoms. Besides, I am not aware of any magic mushrooms that can make the imaginary gut-driver real.”
“Your reference to the mushrooms gives me an idea.”
“Let me guess. Sherlock Holmes needs his pipe.”
“Yes, but a bit later. After we start on our coffee and brownies. Do you mind if I finish the curry? Your Mom is so good at cooking, I'm jealous. Meanwhile, dear Watson, tell me all from the beginning, with no omissions.”
“OK, Holmes. We arrived to China-Patch Five at 17:28. I checked the time on my phone, for the records. Opened the shack door, looked inside. Naturally, I didn't allow Victor to come in. In the shack, everything was in relative order, nothing unusual. No dead body either. Suddenly, Victor Chen said: ‘Sorry. It’s my mistake.’ Exactly these words.”
“OK. Next?”
“I said: ‘But you came yourself to report that your father is dead, is that right?’ And he said: ‘No. My father is not dead. My mistake. Sorry.’ At this point, the Homicide Unit arrived. Four of them: Woxman, ‘Python’ Tom from the CSI lab, and two brand-new trainees. Those two, I didn't see before. So Woxman said: ‘Very well, gents. Where is our patient?’ He was playing this super-duper-expert type, very important man. For that I said: ‘Our patient suddenly felt better, professor. He got up and walked away. Did not bother to wait for your consultation.’ I just couldn't hold it!”
“Nice!”
“Nice, but I'd better keep my mouth shut. Python, with his natural nerdy sense of humor, but limited social awareness, started laughing like mad. His Royal Highness Woxman, with no sense of humor whatsoever, went bananas. He was showing off in front of the bloody trainees, of course. Bang! And the circus started: Woxman shouts, the trainees in panic! He sends them to check the rest of the Patch-Five and look for possible witnesses. Then he jumps on Victor Chen: ‘Where is the freaking body?’ Chen repeats like a freaking robot: ‘My father is not dead. My mistake. Sorry.’ Woxman jumps on me: ‘Deputy Kim, have you taken a written statement at the Beat? No? Damn! Why not?’ Circus! I have no other word for it.”
“It was my advice to skip the statement and go straight to Chen's place. I screwed up.”
“No, you didn’t. Who would know the body was going to disappear? To make the things even worse, Tan arrived to the scene. He went to call you, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Woxman jumped on Tan: ‘Deputy Tan, why did you leave the crime scene unguarded?’ So Tan said: ‘Do you watch detective movies, sir? Once in a while, on TV? At the crime scenes, you know, there should be so-called traces of those crimes, right? Let say, a couple of dead bodies lying around, or a bag full of money, or, perhaps, a nuclear bomb with big red numbers rolling on display, something along these lines. If I saw a nuke, I would guard it! For all the remaining seconds, sir! But in this case, there was absolutely nothing. I made a little loop, asked some kids, if they saw anything out of the ordinary – still nothing. So I decided the Dispatch sent me an incorrect address. Went to double-check it, that's all.”
“Guarding the nuke! For all the remaining seconds, sir! You, boys, have a conspiracy against Woxman, do you? But technically Tan is completely right. If you are directed to the crime scene, but there is no crime, the first thing you assume is an error in the text message.”
“He's technically right, but it's still against the standard procedures. When they wrote those procedures, nobody thought that half of the area would have no cell phone coverage.”
“OK. What happened next?”
“Next, the trainees came back. Nothing. Woxman said: ‘Must be a mistake, then. Nothing to investigate, let's go back to the Station.’ But Tom meanwhile opened the evidence bag and sprayed the corner of the rag with Luminol. He pulled his jacket over his head and lit his magic flash-light. So he said: ‘Not so fast, Deputy Woxman. The blood seems to be real.’ Then Tan recalled some little blood spots at the floor. Tom pulled on his coverall and went into the shack. Came back and said: ‘No visible blood, but Luminol shows some traces.’ He believed there was blood, but somebody wiped it clean.”
“Very interesting,” I pour myself coffee and start rolling my To-Ma-Gochi. Who cares what my in-law thinks about three a day.
“Well, Python did the proper search. He is a good reptile, cold-blooded, not like Woxman. But he got out of the shack totally disappointed. Besides the wiped traces of blood on the floor, he said, – nothing certain. A lot of fingerprints, of course, but looks like all of them belong to the owners. He will double-check in his lab, along with the gut-driver and the rag. Do I get some coffee too?”
I pick blackened coffee pot, “Don't forget the brownie. What Woxman decided at the end?”
“Woxman scratched his head and said: ‘Fine. Lock the shack, Mister Victor Chen goes with us to the Station, tomorrow we will look for the body.’”
“I obviously have to ask this. Mister Chen Te-Sheng himself. The old man. Is he a real person, or a hallucination?”
“Real. The neighbors confirmed. And they saw him today at around lunch-time.”
“Have you called all the hospitals and private doctors within a reasonable radius?”
“Not yet. In the Block-Five cell phones don't work. But Tom is doing it tonight from home. Although, he hinted me it's no use.”
“Why?”
“If Victor Chen insisted that there was a dead body, it would be something like your original version. The old man was not really dead, came to his senses and went to see a medic. But now Victor Chen says there is no dead body. At all. As if he is sure that nobody could go to any doctor.”
“Apart from Victor and Te-Sheng, nobody else lives in the shack, right?”
“Right, as usual. How did you guess?”
“Did you see how many buttons Victor Chen had on his shorts?”
“What a wonderful sexual perversion – counting buttons on strangers' shorts! Have you indulged in this for long?”
“Not on purpose. It happens more or less by itself. About the buttons, Watson, he had exactly two. Out of three intended. One button is missing. The two remaining are attached by different threads: one is black, and the other one is white. There is also a patch, attached by a black thread. And if you recall the shorts, they are made from the desert camo kit trousers. The needlework is clearly man-like, but it wasn't done in the Army. How do I know the last thing?”
“In the Army, your sergeant will kick your ass for any white and black threads on a desert camo. Besides, as far as I know, in the war zone they even don't issue soldiers the white thread, unless you are deployed somewhere in Arctic and potentially have something white to fix. This is called logistics rationalization.”
“You are getting familiar with my method, my dear Watson! Judging by his age, Victor Chen got these pants from the Army. But even if he bought them at a flea market, it doesn't matter. It's important that the pants are quite old: about five or six years since their Army days. Buttons fall off, one after another, and Victor re-attached them as needed, and with whatever thread was at hand. This suggests there is no woman in the family: mother, wife, sister, niece – all excluded. And when you say ‘in relative order’ about the things in the shack, plus the massive amount of owners' fingerprints, everything becomes even more likely. Of course, I can be wrong. For instance, three men live in the shack, not two, or Victor Chen is a widower and lives with a three-year old daughter. I simply used the most probable version.”
“You're never wrong, Holmes. But you'd better deduce what happened to Mister Chen Te-Sheng. Is your pipe telling you anything at all?”
He is completely wrong about my pipe. The cigarette does help your thinking. I can share a know-how with you. If you blow the Grass smoke into the mug, the coffee doesn't taste like roasted acorns.
“The Chens. How long did they live here? What do the neighbors say about them?” I ask.
“They are not totally new to the area: have been living in the Patch-Five for just under two years. But the neighbors don't say anything specific. The Chens were extremely quiet and kept for themselves.”
“What did Chen-senior do for living?”
“He spent most of his time tending to his vegetable beds. Once in a while, he helped Victor fixing computers and other electronics.”
“That's what I needed! If you said Chen Te-Sheng was making synthetic drugs right in his shack, that would be a different story. But now I don't believe in the hallucination. For a working version, we may assume that the entire deal was just a stupid joke of Victor Chen. The gut-driver is real, but covered in pig's blood, as in some old Hollywood movies.”
“Yeah! Listen more to our Tan. Who is he: a former cinematographer? In the action movies they used only tomato sauce!”
“To hell with the movies. I'm about the missing body. There is no motive, whatsoever! Victor Chen is long past the age to make such pranks, especially with the Police. You're about the same age with Victor Chen. Would you go and show the Police a gut-driver with some tomato sauce? Or even with the pig blood?”
“I don't use magic mushrooms, as you may know.”
“Version number two. Victor's father had somehow disappeared, so Victor wants to present this disappearance as a murder. Next, he prepares a gut-driver, finds pig's blood, and plays the rest.”
“Much better, Holmes. Suppose Victor Chen wants us to find his missing father. To make the search a top-priority, he presents it to the Police as a possible murder case.”
“The game is not worth the candle. If we fail to find the old man, or if we find him dead, Victor is in on suspicion of murder. If we find the old man alive, Victor is still in – for making a prank with the Police. The tomato sauce will not do. And the pig's blood will not work. Besides the Luminol, there are lab methods. The CSIs can tell the pig's blood, no problems.”
“What if it was a human blood?”
“The rag was covered with it. Would you punch a person to drain so much blood for a stupid prank? Besides, if Victor Chen wanted to portray a nonexistent murder, why would he wipe the blood drops from the floor? By the way, this automatically suggests an accomplice. Tan saw the blood spots, and later they were wiped clean, while Victor was with you at all time. He was at your sight at all time, right?”
“Right. I can account for every second.”
“No, Watson. Version number two does not work. If Victor Chen wanted to find his runaway father, he would simply come to the Beat and declare a missing person. We're not in Los Angeles, thanks God! Texas Police works fine. We diligently search for the registered missing persons, and often find them. No pig's blood needed.”
“As always, you're right, Holmes. More versions? What is your pipe telling you?”
“My pipe is telling me the version number three. If we discard the silly prank and the deliberate deception, it looks like someone is indeed punctured with a quarter-inch screwdriver, right?”
“So?”
“Here you go. Suppose we sit here, at home, at four PM. Nice weather. Sunny. The kids are just back from the school. The women are cooking dinner. And even some men started arriving home from work. Imagined?”
