The Red Tiger stared down at the man’s bloodied face. There were several deep cuts above his right eye. His cheekbone was shattered, and his scalp was crisscrossed with hundreds of small incisions. The man’s hands were secured behind the seat back. His legs were tied together at the ankles. His mouth wasn’t covered but that hardly mattered. Even if someone from the nearby village heard his screams, they wouldn’t come to investigate. Nor would they tell the authorities.
They were simple country folk, who avoided trouble at all costs. Not that avoiding trouble was the reason they would keep their own counsel. People in this area loved the Red Tiger. He was a bringer of justice. A righter of wrongs.
There was fear too. How could there not be? He had done terrible things. He had killed without mercy. But, mostly, love and admiration ensured their silence.
To the people of the village, and hundreds like it across the vast expanse of mainland China, the Red Tiger offered something that no policeman could. In their time of deepest need he offered hope.
“You know who I am?” said the Red Tiger.
The man began to cry. His head bobbed up and down.
“Then you must also know why I’m here.”
The furious nodding stopped. “I can’t.”
The Red Tiger reached down, opened the bag of salt and scooped out a palmful. “Where?” said the Red Tiger.
“They’ll kill me.”
“That happens either way. But I can make it go fast.”
The palmful of salt hovered over the man’s scalp. He swallowed hard. “They’ll kill my family too,” he said.
“And I won’t?”
“You never have. You don’t touch the innocent. Everyone knows that.”
The Red Tiger seemed caught off guard. The salt spilled through his parted fingers and landed harmlessly on the floor. Some caught on the shoulder of the man’s jacket.
“This is different.”
“How? How can it be different?” said the man in the chair. It was a genuine question. What faced him was grotesque and violent. He accepted that. In some ways, he deserved it. But it wasn’t any different from any other time.
Men, sometimes women, taken somewhere quiet. Tortured until they died or gave up their secrets. Then dumped, after night had fallen, by the side of the road. Sometimes a poster was left with them, a child’s face staring back at whoever found them.
Justice delivered. Swift, macabre, a warning to others.
The Red Tiger produced a piece of paper. He unfolded it and held it up for the man to examine.
It meant nothing to him. “I don’t remember anything about this one. There have been so many.”
“Look at the name.”
The man peered at the bottom of the poster. He read the name out loud. Before his mouth had stopped moving he knew what he had just been told. He swallowed again. It hurt his throat. He started to cry again. Not for himself. For those he loved.
“Your family,” said the Red Tiger. “A wife. Two sons. You’re a lucky man to have had two sons when you did.”
Until a few years ago the Communist Party had decreed that each family could have only one child. Unless, of course, there was special dispensation, or you had a good reason for another, such as adopting a relative’s child.
“My brother in the country. He died. His wife couldn’t cope,” said the man.
It was a lie so well rehearsed that he had finished repeating it before he realized how absurd it sounded in the present company. The Red Tiger must have heard it, with some slight variation, dozens, maybe hundreds of times.
“You recognize the name?”
The man nodded.
“You still think I wouldn’t kill your family?” asked the Red Tiger.
“No. I believe you. You would.”
The Red Tiger leaned down.
The man felt hot breath next to his ear. “Your wife is already dead, Xi. Your sons, they are alive, but gone. You’ll never see them again. If I have to, I can arrange that they die.”
Xi felt a deep ache of grief flood through him. His wife. It had all been for her. That was how it had begun many years ago when he had come home from the factory to find her staring at the wall. She’d seen the doctor. The news had been bad. Xi had done what he had to. Once he had started, and realized the demand, he had been sucked into the life. Now it was time to pay the price.
Xi Yow Chang blinked the blood from his eye. The Red Tiger’s face came into focus. Nothing special to look at. Nothing to suggest that this was someone dangerous.
The Red Tiger’s features softened. “Tell me what you know.”
Xi began to talk. He stumbled and strained over some details. It had been a long time ago. Almost two decades. His memory was hazy. But he confessed enough to satisfy the Red Tiger.
When he was done, the Red Tiger gave him a cigarette. When he was halfway through and had just drawn a fresh puff of smoke deep into his lungs, the Red Tiger walked behind him, and shot him twice in the back of the head.