The Dress Serial Murders, Part 9

The watch didn't have to run long. Around three or four in the afternoon, a taxi pulled up sharp at the plaza's entrance and a man got out carrying a heavy bag—something weighty inside, by the look of it.

"Want a hand with the suitcase from the trunk?"

"No need. I've got it."

The man moved faster than expected; before the driver could say another word, the suitcase was out of the trunk.

Watching the man walk off, the driver felt something was off.

Dressed head to toe like that—in this heat? And the suitcase—he wasn't saying nobody should haul one around, but when he'd helped load it into the trunk at the pickup, the moment his hand came free there had been something sticky on it.

He'd asked what it was. The man had answered, cold as a coffin nail: "My kid spilled tomato juice on it or something. If it's too dirty, I..." Before he could finish, a tissue landed flat on the driver's hand—faster than he could react.

The driver hadn't felt he could press it.

He'd said it was nothing, but he wiped his hand anyway.

The stains on the tissue were not the color of any fruit or vegetable juice. They looked, truthfully, like blood that had soaked through.

He steadied himself as best he could, sat in his taxi watching the man enter a coffee shop—few customers inside—turning over whether he should tell the police.

He thought it over every which way, and in the end simply parked at the curb and waited for whatever fare came next.

Yes. That was exactly what he decided. None of his business.

...

Meanwhile Xiao Wang and Wang Ying were still inside the coffee shop. The men staked out around the plaza had long since radioed in: a man built very much like Li Tan had gotten out of a vehicle carrying a suitcase.

Wang Ying had already put on a face mask.

If Li Tan recognized him, the whole operation would be blown.

"Copy. We see him," Xiao Wang said, keeping his voice low.

With that he pretended to nurse his milk tea, watching the man take the seat farthest in—right beside their own corner table—the suitcase stowed in the innermost spot, hidden like some unspeakable secret.

Wang Ying tried to make out the man's face and got nowhere—only the carried bag set down on the table.

The bag was white overall, but it looked as if a hundred hands had handled it; the creases were dense, and at the seams of some folds sat specks of a conspicuous color.

To a policeman's eye those specks carried a particular electric charge; Wang Ying could not look away at once. Only when a waitress started toward the man did he drag his gaze back.

Wang Ying pretended to sip his coffee. "Xiao Wang, I can't see his face. But I'm sure it's Li Tan. The last case was in winter—thick overcoat, scarf up over his jaw and mouth. There's a mole at the corner of his eye. He's probably square-faced under there; with the scarf on, it reads strange."

Xiao Wang couldn't turn around; he could only reconstruct what he'd glimpsed on his way in. But yes—a mole at the corner of the eye, and the man's whole frame curved slightly forward.

"What's this on the floor?" a waitress said a short way behind them.

Another came over. "No idea. Some customer, probably."

Only then did Wang Ying turn his head. The color on the floor looked like ketchup. The waitresses, bless them, registered none of it and scrubbed at once.

Get caught slacking and it came out of your wages. Wages beat everything.

When they finished, Wang Ying looked up. The waitress had taken the man's order, and the man's eyes were following the staff as they cleaned.

There was something like appreciation in them. Not a trace of fear.

Wang Ying's brow creased. "We stay put. We watch."

His mind went back to that winter, all the manpower the case had burned, and how differently this man killed. Everything they'd uncovered said the same thing: his mother had been behind all of it.

No target. No pattern. Nothing to anchor on.

The mother—the hand behind him—was still inside. Another month or two, most likely, before she saw daylight.

"That man is a genuine deviant." Xiao Wang could read something of it in Wang Ying's eyes. He drained his coffee in one go and couldn't help grimacing. "God, that's bitter."

He did not care for unsweetened coffee.

He was only drinking it because one sweep of the room said everything on offer was pure black or brown-black.

"Fine, next one's on me." Wang Ying rolled his eyes at him. "And here I thought a man in our line was used to black coffee—all the late nights we pull."

"Since when does working nights mean you have to drink it black?"

He picked up the fork beside his cake plate and set about his slice with great care.

He was supposed to be watching a suspect. But a free chance at decent cake wasn't nothing.

At that moment, the man stood up.

Unhurried, at exactly his own pace, he walked toward the two waitresses.

They saw him coming and assumed he needed something.

Before either could speak, he was sweeping one of them up and down with a smiling gaze.

She had a fine figure—and fine figures were exactly what Li Tan went for. After this string of tells, there was no further doubt: it was him.

The waitress felt it at once and backed away, though she kept her customer-service smile. "Sir, would you like to order anything else?"

The man smiled. "No. There's something I'd like to say to you."

She retreated several more steps.

Xiao Wang moved in fast, seizing the man's arm, pinning him without ceremony—and stripping off that hateful face covering while he was at it.

The man was no lamb, either.

He began to bellow. "Aren't women just put there for us to look at!"

At that, Xiao Wang swore—something—and yanked the mask clean off.

A handsomely sculpted, "international" face appeared. Xiao Wang frowned. It was him. No mistake.

Li Tan had one of those professorial faces—standard square jaw, the kind that could walk onto any university campus in a suit and pass without a glance.

But—what was wrong with a man like this?

Li Tan, rattled, bunched the falling mask in his fist. He had been mortally insulted in public and did not intend to let Xiao Wang go unpunished.

Nervously, he pulled the small knife from inside his jacket, wrapped it in the mask, and drove toward Xiao Wang.

Wang Ying had already marked the knife. As Li Tan lunged, he kicked—no courtesy about it—full into him.

The customers around them had no idea what was happening.

"What the—"

"Are they fighting?"

"That masked creep was harassing the waitress!"

"And those two—"

Wang Ying kicked the fallen knife out of reach first. "Long time no see."

Li Tan was gasping; he likely never heard it. His first move wasn't for the knife at all—it was for the suitcase.

"Don't move!" Wang Ying's voice cut through the din.

Xiao Wang was on him instantly, locking his arms, pinning him to the floor, unable to move a finger.

The perimeter team, hearing something erupt inside the shop—their radios, somehow, already open—dropped everything at once and came running.

Just then the shop's owner emerged from the back, having heard the commotion and come straight out, gloves still on her hands. "What on earth is going on here?"

A waitress poured out the whole of it.

The owner could see how far things had escalated.

She reached for the phone to call the police—and the instant before it connected, Xiao Wang looked back at her and produced his police credential from his bag.

"No need to call. Police. This is official business!"