Page 46 of Go Now
‘What did you think, Ms Blackstone?’Kate said, softly. ‘Tell us.’
‘They’re – they remind me of my brother.The sculptures he used to make.The style, I mean, not the… I’m sorry.It just shocked me, that’s all.’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Chen had a cousin who was a deputy manager at Chop Lee, New York’s most famous Cantonese restaurant, and he’d kindly arranged a table for the three of them at short notice. Amid the choreographed mayhem of the busy room, they took their seats round a circular table, and swore a solemn vow not to discuss work.A waiter came over with three Tsing Tao beers and cracked them open.After checking with her colleagues, Chen handed the menus back and told the waiter to bring whatever was good today.He went away.
And they immediately started talking about work.
‘Bad news about our delivery-drivers,’ Kate began. ‘You remember, the upstairs neighbor LaForge picked out two possibles from the line-up?’
They nodded, Marcus doing so in mid-swallow.
‘The first one is putting himself through college. And he was at that college all day Friday from 7.00 am to 7 pm. Several witnesses.’
‘What’s he studying?’Marcus asked.
‘Criminology.’
‘Everyone’s an expert, huh?And the other one?’
‘Had a crash riding his wheels home on Thursday night.They can rent mopeds from the company, but he had been driving his own.Whilst that was in the garage being mended, he leased a company one, for which purpose he had to go to the company’s technical base in Poughkeepsie.He’s got a rail ticket for the outward journey, documentation for the lease, the mechanics in ‘kipsie remember him. So that’s a whole angle shut down.’
‘Let’s call it one less thing to worry about,’ Marcus said.They drank to that.On the other side of the room, a group started singing ‘Happy Birthday’.Meanwhile, the waiter brought over a rack of pork-ribs, red as candy.It felt odd to be talking murders in this setting.
‘On the subject of mugshots,’ said Chen, ‘What are we going to do about the sculptures?’
‘Ursula Blackstone’s response was… interesting,’ Kate said. ‘Unexpected, anyway. But I don’t know how much to read into it. She seemed to recognize them, and then changed her mind.’
‘The question is: did she think they were her brother’s handiwork and then realise she was mistaken?’Marcus pondered.‘Or did she clam up because she realised theyareher brother’s work?’
‘And if they are, does that automatically make him the killer?’Kate added.
‘I’m still wondering if the killer and the statue-maker are one person, or a team,’ Marcus said.‘Maybe an unwitting team.’
Stacks of giant prawns arrived, lightly fried in oil and garlic. The waiter gave them a lightning-fast demo of how they were to be eaten: wrapped in a lettuce leaf, dipped in a bowl of sweet chili sauce, swallowed in one go.They didn’t hold back.
‘Would there be a way of telling whether the crime scene sculptures are Ray’s work?’Marcus asked, through a mouthful.
‘The Bureau’s Art and Antiques unit might be able to tell,’ Kate said. ‘They’ve got as much kit as a city hospital.X-rays, isotope analysis, MRI scans, spectography… But all these tests take time.We’ll need Winters to light a fire under them.It would help if the Blackstone family had an example or two of Ray’s work, because then they could do a direct comparison with the statues left at the crime scenes.I’ll get onto that.’
‘It would help if we could establish for sure whether Ray Blackstone is alive or dead,’ said Marcus. ‘We need to get a computer-generated version of what he’d look like today, and circulate it nationally, internationally via Interpol. Also liaise with the Mexican Feds.See what’s become of the Baja cult, or commune, or whatever it is.I’ve got a contact based in La Paz who owes me a favour, I’ll talk to him.’
Razor clams came next, covered in a rich black bean sauce, and scallops, wrapped in just a whisp of spring onion and ginger.Kate wondered how many dishes were still to come.
‘What’s everybody’s gut view?’Chen asked.
‘Ask my gut when it’s stopped expanding,’ Marcus quipped.‘Seriously, I think it’s very easy to be reminded of things or people when they matter to you.I see one of the guys I was in Afghanistan with, once a month or so, at least. I mean, I don’t.I know he’s dead.But because he matters to me, I...’
He shrugged and busied himself with his food.Marcus very rarely talked about his time with the SEALS.When he did, it was always like this: a stray fragment, followed by silence.
A whole sea bass then appeared on a china platter; the waiter expertly whipping it off the bone with nothing more than a pair of chopsticks.It made Kate, who could barely get a chunk of food into her mouth with the traditional Chinese implements, feel somewhat sheepish.
‘I struggle to imagine Ray Blackstone being alive all this time and not troubling his family,’ Kate said.‘His own sister said that.’
'I disagree there,' Chen said. 'People can change drastically. Like one of my uncles?He was like that: always getting in trouble, broke all the time, in and out of relationships, and the courthouse.One day, he just met the right girl, and everything kind of settled into place for him.What if that's Ray?'
‘So then… what?He’s got his act together, but he’s become a serial killer?’Marcus asked.
