The second perimeter Read online

  The water felt wonderful, Emma thought, absolutely wonderful. And it helped to further revive her. She washed herself thoroughly, taking her time. She was in no hurry, and she was so tired her arms could barely move. She saw a bottle of shampoo on the window ledge. As she reached for the shampoo, she felt the razor— a small, pink disposable razor. She poured the shampoo from the bottle and massaged it into her scalp, then rinsed her hair. Then she picked up the razor.

  She planned to stay in the shower as long as possible, until Loc started screaming at her again. The longer she stayed, the better she’d be able to defend herself— and delay what was going to happen next. She knew what Loc planned to do to her and she didn’t think she could stop him.

  Loc banged on the glass shower door. “You clean now. You get out now.”

  Emma continued to let the water run over her body.

  “I said you stop now!” Loc yelled. “You stop or I beat you.”

  Emma reached out slowly with her left hand and turned the faucets, shutting off the flow of water. The pink razor was in her right hand. She turned to exit the shower, paused— then screamed as she fell through the glass shower door. She felt her left forearm being ripped open by jagged glass and there was a burning sensation on her right thigh.

  Bao heard the scream in the kitchen and came running out. “What happened?” he said to his cousin.

  “Stupid woman,” Loc said. “Stupid, stupid woman.”

  Bao could see the naked woman lying on the floor of the bathroom, on broken glass.

  Loc grabbed a towel and threw it at Emma. “Get up,” he said.

  Emma didn’t move. “I need sleep,” she said. And she did; she could have easily slept on a bed of broken glass.

  “Shit,” Loc said in Chinese. He reached down, to pull Emma to her feet, and saw the handle of the razor in her right hand. He cuffed the back of Emma’s head and said, “Stupid woman” again. He jerked the razor out her hand and flung it into the shower stall, then pulled hard on Emma’s left arm to bring her to her feet. She screamed again when he yanked on her arm. Loc wondered if she’d dislocated her shoulder during the fall. Stupid woman.

  53

  As DeMarco slammed the shotgun butt through the sliding glass door, he heard the woman scream again. He kicked one large piece of glass out of the way— a piece that was standing straight up, like a stalagmite jutting up from the floor of a cave, sharp enough to slice off his balls— and entered the house. He moved forward, pointing the shotgun at the kitchen door. He was going to kill the first person he saw, blow his head off with double-aught shot.

  The first person he saw was a short Chinese woman in her fifties. She was standing there, apparently frozen in place, her hands up to her mouth. When she saw DeMarco coming toward her, the shotgun aimed at her face, she screamed a third time, spun on her heels, and ran.

  “Aw, shit,” DeMarco said. “Wait,” he yelled at the woman.

  The woman had reached the front door of the house by then. “Wait,” DeMarco yelled again as he ran after her— holding his shotgun.

  The woman was pulling desperately on the doorknob, trying to open the front door, but unable to do so in her panicked condition.

  “It’s okay,” DeMarco said, lowering his voice. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  The woman was now talking rapidly in high-pitched Chinese, probably praying, as she tried to open the door.

  DeMarco reached the front door and put his hand on the woman’s shoulder. This caused her to collapse to the floor, at DeMarco’s feet. She put her hands over her head to protect herself and began to sob— huge, air-sucking sobs.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” DeMarco said again. He hoped she could understand English. While he said this his eyes were searching the house, waiting for the woman’s husband to appear. He hoped her husband didn’t have a weapon.

  “I’m sorry,” DeMarco said to the bawling woman. “I’ve made a mistake.”

  Neil had been wrong; the landlord’s wife had been wrong. The crying woman at his feet was four inches shorter than Li Mei and about as pretty as a waffle iron. He had broken into the wrong fucking house.

  “Who are you,” the Chinese woman yelled in accented English. Seeing the look on DeMarco’s face— the look of a guilty idiot as opposed to that of a sex-crazed serial killer— the woman’s fear changed to anger. She leaped to her feet and began screaming at DeMarco in Chinese, reminding him immediately of Morton’s little interrogator, the one with hit-man eyes. DeMarco didn’t understand Chinese but he could imagine what the woman was saying. He hoped he had enough cash to pay for the door he’d just destroyed.

  “Why did you scream?” he asked the woman.

  She said something in Chinese, something that sounded like a curse, then said, “Because I saw you at door holding gun, you stupid white man.”

  “You saw me?” DeMarco said.

  The woman pointed at a mirror. DeMarco realized that if he moved about three feet to his left, he would be able to see the patio— and the now shattered sliding glass door.

  Then she started yelling at him again in Chinese.

  DeMarco was beginning to appreciate that Chinese was an excellent language for a woman to use to berate a man.

  54

  With a towel wrapped around Emma’s bleeding forearm, Loc pushed her out of the bathroom and in the direction of the bedroom where she’d been kept captive the last week. As he pushed her, he admired her backside. Yes, she was in very good shape for her age.

  He’d have to stop the bleeding though. He didn’t want to get blood all over himself while he fucked her. He told Bao in Chinese to see if he could find some Band-Aids in the bathroom. He pushed the naked woman again. She moved slowly. He was becoming very aroused.

  Emma heard the big man curse and in her peripheral vision she saw him walk toward the bathroom, pausing as he looked at the shattered glass on the floor.

  When they reached the bedroom, Loc said, “Let me see cut.”

  Emma turned around slowly.

  Nice tits, Loc thought. Little but nice. His girlfriend was younger than this woman but his girlfriend’s body was nowhere near as firm.

  “Let me see cut,” he said. “Move towel. Let me see cut.”

  Emma looked confused.

  “Move towel!” Loc screamed. Couldn’t this woman understand anything?

  Emma nodded, then she whipped the towel off her arm, temporarily blinding Loc, and drove a shard of glass from the shower door deep into his throat. She cut her hand as she stabbed him, but she cut Loc worse. Much worse.

  Loc let out a strangled cry and reached for his throat. Emma grabbed the front of his shirt, kicked his legs out from under him, and pulled him to the floor on top of her. Loc tried to free himself from her grip but Emma slammed the side of her hand into his throat, cutting her palm but driving the glass deeper into his throat. Blood was shooting out of his throat now, covering Emma.

  Bao walked into the bedroom, carrying a box of Band-Aids in his hand. He saw Loc lying on the woman, the woman’s legs spread wide for him, blood all over the ground. He could hear his cousin making wet, grunting sounds. So disgusting, he thought. His pig of a cousin couldn’t even wait until he’d bandaged the woman’s arm. He couldn’t watch this. He wasn’t going to watch. As he reached out to shut the bedroom door, he saw the barrel of a gun. Loc’s gun. The gun was between his cousin’s left arm and his rib cage. It was pointed at Bao’s face.

  Bao didn’t hear the shot that killed him.

  55

  DeMarco’s cell phone vibrated. It was probably Neil calling again. He pulled the phone off the clip on his belt and said hello, but he couldn’t hear what the caller was saying. He’d given the Chinese woman three hundred dollars to pay for the sliding glass door. He figured that should be more than enough, plus it was all the cash he had on him. But she still wasn’t happy. She had followed him out of her house and was now yelling at him to tell her his name. She probably wanted to sue him for trauma
tic stress disorder.

  “Hello,” he said again into his cell phone, pressing it harder against his ear.

  “It’s me,” a voice said. He could hardly hear the caller. He checked the signal on his phone. He was getting a good signal. He pressed a button to increase the volume.

  “I can’t hear you,” he yelled. “Who is this?”

  “It’s Emma. Help me.”

  “Jesus Christ! Where are you?”

  Emma mumbled something but he missed it. The Chinese woman had been saying, “What your name? What your name?”

  DeMarco put his hand over the phone, spun around, and said to the woman, “Shut the fuck up!” The woman backed away holding her hands in front of her. DeMarco hadn’t meant to, but when he turned to face the woman, he had pointed the shotgun right at her. The Chinese woman ran toward her house, screaming her head off.

  “Emma, where are you?”

  “Don’t know,” Emma said. “Gas station. Store.”

  She was mumbling and her voice was slurred. DeMarco wondered, at first, how she knew he was in Canada, then realized she probably didn’t. She sounded so out of it; she had probably just called the first number she remembered.

  “Emma is anyone near you?” DeMarco said.

  “Yeah. Guy.”

  “Put him on the phone.”

  The phone went silent. She’d hung up— or somebody had made her hang up.

  “Goddamnit,” DeMarco said. “Goddamnit.” He pressed buttons on his cell phone to redial the last number that had called him. He hoped the number wasn’t blocked. A man answered the phone.

  “Hello.”

  “Is there a woman there? A woman who just used your phone?”

  “Yeah. Some crazy, drugged-up bitch.”

  “Now you listen to me. That woman—”

  “Listen to you? Who the fuck do you think you are? This crazy bitch—”

  “Five hundred bucks.”

  That got the guy to stop talking.

  “What?” The guy said.

  “Five hundred bucks. I’ll give you five hundred bucks if you help that woman. I want you to hide her somewhere. Put her in the restroom, a storeroom, someplace where people can’t see her.”

  “Be glad to do that. The bitch is naked, she’s only wearing a blanket, and she’s covered with blood. I was gonna call the cops.”

  “Don’t call anybody. You get her out of sight, and I’ll get there as fast as I can and pick her up.”

  “Man, I don’t know.”

  “Where are you?” DeMarco asked.

  “A Shell station on the King George Highway.”

  “What city?”

  “Surrey.”

  “I’m in Delta,” DeMarco said. “How long will it take me to get to your place? I’m not from around here.”

  “About…Aw, shit. It looks like she’s passed out.”

  “She’s hurt. Now how long will it take me to get there?”

  “About fifteen minutes or so.”

  “Shit. Give me directions.”

  The guy did. Fortunately they weren’t complicated.

  “One last thing,” DeMarco said. “If that woman’s there I’ll give you five hundred bucks. If she isn’t there, I’m gonna beat the livin’ shit out of you.”

  The guy’s reaction surprised DeMarco: he laughed. Then he said, “I kinda doubt that, muthafucker, but you’re welcome to try.” He laughed again and hung up.

  56

  DeMarco parked in front of the Shell station and ran inside. The man behind the counter was black and the size of an industrial refrigerator. He had to be six five and weigh in at three hundred pounds.

  “Is the woman still here?” DeMarco said.

  The black guy smiled. “Ah, it’s the dude who’s gonna beat the shit out of me.”

  “Forget that,” DeMarco said. “Is the woman here?”

  “Yeah. She’s in the can, lying on the floor. Completely fucked up.”

  “Where?” DeMarco said.

  “I’ll show you,” the black man said, a smile on his face, still amused by DeMarco’s threat.

  The black guy unlocked the door to the bathroom and let DeMarco in. Emma was lying on the floor, a blanket covering her. Her arms and shoulders and throat were smeared with blood. DeMarco could see a cut on one of her forearms and two cuts on her right hand. Maybe that was the source of the blood, but there was an awful lot of blood. He knelt down next to her and felt her pulse. He could feel one, but he didn’t know if the pulse was strong or weak. She seemed to be sleeping. Ignoring the black guy standing behind him, he pulled the blanket off her and looked quickly to see if there were any other injuries. There was a long scratch on her right thigh but it wasn’t bleeding. He didn’t see any other cuts but then he noticed the needle marks on the inside of her arms. She had the punctured arms of a heroin addict.

  He pulled her to her feet, then picked her up in his arms. The store manager held the door open for him and helped DeMarco put her in the backseat of the car. When he saw the shotgun lying on the backseat, he said to DeMarco, “Whoa! What’s that for?”

  DeMarco turned to face the man. “About the five hundred. I don’t have it on me but I’m good for it. I just need to get her to a doctor.”

  The black guy looked down at the shotgun again. Then he took a closer look at DeMarco’s face. “Forget the five hundred,” he said. “I used to be a junkie, back in the day. There were times when I wished I’d had somebody to come pick me up.”

  “No,” DeMarco said. “I’ll get you the money. And this woman isn’t a junkie. She’s been…Something bad’s happened to her. But I’ll get you the money.”

  “Sure, bro. I’ll believe it when I see it.”

  DeMarco looked at Emma again. She looked the same. He wondered if she was in a coma. He needed to get her to a hospital. He was about to ask the black guy where the nearest one was, when his cell phone rang.

  “DeMarco,” he said into the phone.

  “It’s Bill Smith,” the caller said. “You called me.”

  “Smith, you piece of shit, where in the hell have you been?”

  “Busy,” Smith said. “I was—”

  “I’ve got Emma,” DeMarco said.

  “What!”

  “She needs a doctor. Tell me where to take her.”

  “Does she need emergency treatment?”

  “Yes, goddamnit!”

  “Okay, okay. Calm down. Where are you?”

  DeMarco told him.

  “Hang on,” Smith said and DeMarco could hear him talking to someone.

  “Okay,” Smith said. “You take her to Surrey Memorial. It’s right on the King George Highway, where it intersects 96th Avenue, less than five minutes from where you are. We’ll call ahead so they won’t give you a bunch of shit about insurance forms, or whatever they do up here. I’ll meet you there.”

  “I’VE SENT BLOOD samples to the lab to do a tox screen. Her respiration and pulse are slightly abnormal, but not unduly so. She’s not in a coma. She’s sleeping.”

  The doctor was a slim guy in his thirties and DeMarco thought he looked a little like a young Kevin Costner. He wore running shoes, jeans, a white shirt, and a loud tie covered with Disney characters. DeMarco had noticed that doctors often felt the need to wear silly ties.

  “Can we wake her up?” Smith said.

  “If it’s an emergency, you can try. It won’t hurt her,” the doctor said. “But she didn’t wake up the entire time we were examining her, including when we drew her blood. The best thing to do is let her sleep.”

  “We need to talk to her,” Smith said. “It’s important.”

  The doctor led Smith, DeMarco, and a uniformed Canadian cop to Emma’s room. Smith went over to the bed and gently shook her arm. “Emma,” he said. “Emma, wake up.”

  She didn’t.

  Smith shook her harder.

  “Don’t,” Emma muttered.

  “Emma, we have to talk to you,” Smith said.

  “Sleep,” Emm
a said.

  “I know, Emma, but we need to talk to you. Emma, wake up! Emma, where are the people who took you?”

  “Dead,” Emma said.

  “Is Li Mei dead?”

  “Gone,” Emma said.