Bourne met Tigger on the grounds of Hospital Ángeles Pedregal. The exhausted sun had retired prematurely, shouldered aside by a drizzle that darkened the sidewalks and roadbed. Thunder rolled in the distance, harbinger of a hard rain soon to come.
Bourne handed him a thick envelope, which Tigger opened. Running his callused thumb across the tops of the bills, he grinned, showing brown teeth like tombstones. “American dollars.”
“Put it away,” Bourne said.
Pocketing the bribe, Tigger gestured for Bourne to follow him. They went through the ER, where everyone was too frantic to notice them or to care where they went. In a storeroom, Tigger picked out a doctor’s coat and Bourne put it on.
“You have the ID?”
Tigger nodded. “She’s never seen you before?”
“Never,” Bourne said, “but Carlos has. Install yourself in the lobby. Text me the moment you see him coming.”
“Bueno.” Tigger clipped a hospital ID tag to the pocket of Bourne’s coat. As far as the hospital personnel were concerned Bourne was now Dr. Francisco Javier.
“You’re good to go,” Tigger said, then recited a room number. “Estefan won’t be any problem,” he added with an even wider grin. “He’s terrified of doctors.”
Bourne took the elevator up to the second floor, strode to the nurses’ station, and asked for Maricruz’s chart. The duty nurse gave him only the most cursory of glances before plucking out the requested chart and handing it over.
As he went down the corridor toward Maricruz’s room, he scanned the pages. Anunciata’s contact had been right: Whatever else had happened, Maricruz had been really and truly battered.
He looked up to find Estefan sipping a cup of vending-machine coffee and making faces into his mobile as he texted someone. He noticed Bourne coming and, checking that the ID photo matched the face he saw in front of him, gave a shudder as he stepped aside to let Bourne into the room.
Maricruz seemed dazed, her eyes glazed when Bourne stepped in. She blinked several times, then frowned when she saw him.
“Another fucking doctor? I’ve never seen you before.”
“I peeked in several times while you were unconscious,” Bourne said, closing her chart with a snap. “I assisted in the procedure to secure the tendons to your shoulder.”
“Is that medical terminology?”
Bourne laughed as he had observed doctors laughing. “I prefer using everyday language with my patients.”
“How refreshing. Doctors are always trying to prove their superiority, possibly because they’re aware of how little they really know.” She tilted her head. “What does my chart say?”
“Since I don’t know much, my opinion probably won’t mean anything to you.”
“Very funny. Go on.”
“You’re mending well,” he said in a more serious tone. “In fact, you’re healing quite a bit faster than normal. We’re very pleased with your progress.”
“When can I get the hell out of here?”
“Okay if I sit down?” He pulled a chair over and sat down.
“You might as well please yourself,” Maricruz said. “There’s no one else here to please.”
“Well, I always hope I can please my patients.” Bourne crossed one leg over the other and, elbows on the chart in his lap, leaned toward her. “Maricruz—may I?”
“You already have.” But there was a slight lift to the corner of her mouth, and her tone had lost its steely edge.
“Maricruz, can you tell me what happened to you?”
She seemed taken aback by the question. “How is that relevant?”
He shrugged. “I like to get to know my patients.”
“My, you really are a different kind of doctor.”
“Will you indulge me?”
Her frown deepened. “I’m not the subject of some kind of psychological experiment or something, am I?”
He laughed again. “Not at all.”
“I fell off a bike.”
“And got run over by a car?”
“I beg your pardon.”
“The nature of your bruising is inconsistent with a fall off a bike.”
“After my bike hit a pothole I tumbled down an embankment.”
Bourne decided to study her chart in more detail. “I notice there’s a police report attached here. A witness claims someone threw you out of a vehicle and sped away.” He looked up. “Friends of yours?”
Her eyes grew large before she turned away.
“I see here there was no follow-up to the initial police report.”
“The entire matter is being handled by Carlos Danda Carlos,” she said shortly.
Bourne closed her chart. “Ah, I see. Friends in high places.”
She smiled thinly. “Something like that.”
“Tell me, how do you find Señor Carlos Danda Carlos?”
Now she laughed, a soft, musical sound like bells echoing through a mountain pass.
“Define find.”
“It’s only that I’ve heard so many stories about him. I don’t know what to believe. For instance, is he a good man, do you think?”
There was that frown again. “Are you really a doctor?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m beginning to think Carlos sent you in here to interrogate me.”
Bourne, knowing he had to redirect her, stood up. “A thousand pardons, señora. I didn’t mean to give you the impression—”
“Do you work for him?”
“I’ve met him once, briefly,” Bourne said truthfully. “That’s all.”
She studied him a moment more. “Sit down, Doctor.”
He hesitated just the right amount of time before resuming his seat, but this time he sat on the edge, his back stiff, his shoulders slightly hunched.
“Oh, relax. I won’t bite.”
“You certainly won’t bite me if you call me Javvy—all my friends do.”
Maricruz arched an eyebrow. “Now we’re friends? I thought I was your patient.”
“I misspoke before. You were my patient when you were in the OR. Dr. Fernandez is your attending physician.”
“But you came to see me anyway.”
“I told you. I feel a connection with all my patients.”
“That must be exhausting.”
“Better than treating them like slabs of meat. That kind of assembly line deadens the heart as well as the soul.”
For the first time since he entered, she seemed to regard him with different eyes, as if a curtain had parted, revealing something that had always been there but had remained hidden from her.
At that moment the nurse bustled in carrying a tray of food, which she placed on the bedside rolling table. Swiveling it over the bed, she smiled her vaguely wicked smile and stalked out.
Bourne stood up. “I’ll leave you to it then.”
Maricruz looked at Bourne over the tray. “My food is provided by Carlos’s chef. It’s invariably delicious, but there’s always more than I can eat.”
“Are you asking me to join you for lunch?”
“Don’t get any ideas.”
“I have rounds.” Bourne lifted the metal cover off the steaming-hot main course, inhaled the delicious aromas. “But on the other hand, maybe I can spare a couple of minutes.”
What we’re contemplating is insane, you know that,” Ouyang said.
“I suppose that depends on your definition of insane.” Kai stared out the window for a moment, but he seemed utterly disinterested in the passing cityscape. “My definition is cutting the Politburo Standing Committee from nine members to seven.” He regarded Ouyang severely. “I take it the Patriarch neglected to inform you.”
Ouyang felt a certain tension inform his frame. “You know this for a fact?”
“I do.” Kai sighed. “The old guard may be stepping down next week, but they’re determined to have their influence carry on. By dictating that the Standing Committee members be reduced they ensure the younger, more progressive candidates will not get enough votes.”
“And so great decisions will fall by the wayside.”
“The committee will remain more to their liking.”
Ouyang shook his head. “You’re quite right, Kai. This is the true meaning of insanity.”
“Jidan, my friend, I’ve had enough depressing talk for one day. I propose we head for a small club I own where we can dive into a swimming pool of naked Japanese girls. What do you say?”
“You go if you want, Kai. I’m married.”
“Married,” Kai scoffed. “Your wife is thousands of miles away.”
“What difference does that make?”
“I would think every difference,” Kai said with a salacious wink.
“I love my wife.”
“I don’t get how you could live with a Western woman, let alone love her. I mean, the ones I’ve been with are plagued with an offensive body odor.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Kai sat back, sighing. “The trouble with you, Ouyang, is you have a stick up your ass. You’ve got to learn how to relax, let your hair down, forget who you are for a couple of hours.”
“I can’t forget,” Ouyang said. “I’m not made that way.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means that every moment Maricruz is away from me is agony.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “You have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”
Kai shrugged. “I find women the most disposable of commodities. Now and again my penis becomes inordinately interested in them, and then I follow its lead. But when the act is over, I forget all about them. Why wouldn’t I? There’s nothing of interest in an act that’s part mechanical, part chemical.”
“Nothing interesting about the other participant?”
“The women are the least memorable part of it,” Kai said. “One body blends into the next, and as for their faces, frankly, I can’t recall a single one.”
Ouyang laughed. “You know, Kai, I think a sojourn to your club would do you a world of good. Who knows, maybe this time you’ll find someone memorable.”
“I doubt it.” Kai put his head back and closed his eyes. “Spending too much time with you has sapped me of my desire for fun.”
“Outstanding!” Ouyang, piqued despite himself, gestured at the driver. “The car will drop us both at the office and we can get back to work plotting Cho’s imminent demise.”
As they rode along, invulnerable to any interference, either human or atmospheric, Kai took out a small folding pocketknife and gently inserted the point of the blade beneath one nail.
“Kai, what are you doing?”
“Excising the last of General Hwang Liqun.”
Looking closer, Ouyang could see thin crescents of dried blood that had become lodged beneath Kai’s well-manicured nails.
“See that you put that into the ashtray on the door,” Ouyang said. “I don’t want it soiling the carpet.”
“You bet.” Kai started on the second nail.
“What did you do to him?” Ouyang asked idly.
“You don’t want to know.” Kai flipped a thin dark red crescent into the open ashtray. “I didn’t want to make it look like an execution, so it got rather…messy.”
He looked over at Ouyang, smiling. “You know, the product of a—how shall I characterize it?—a disordered mind.”
And Ouyang thought, with an unpleasant start: Is it my imagination or is that smile more than a bit mad?
Another shaving of blood, curling like a living thing about to be born, was transferred from the tip of Kai’s knife to Ouyang’s ashtray.