The Last Six Million Seconds Read Online Free PDF Page A

“True. They’re hard to like, but they have definite qualities. If the Third World had remained at the emotional age of thirteen the British Empire could have lasted a thousand years.”
    “You’ve been writing?”
    He nodded emphatically. “I’ve found a new publisher in San Francisco. Outrage doesn’t sell the way it did in the sixties, but he thinks the whole China thing is more marketable than it was.” He held up his hands. “I do what I can.”
    Chan smiled, despite a sense of doom. “If they try to deport you again, they won’t listen to a cop like me telling them you’re an honest citizen and you loved your mother. They’ll find a way. The British only take so much democracy; then things happen behind closed doors. They’re like that.”
    The old man harrumphed. “I would like them to deport me for publishing a book. Think of the publicity. Someone might actually buy it.”
    Chan nodded. “Well, no one can say you’re a quitter.”
    The old man frowned. “I told you why. You steal a man’s soul only once. Second time he fights to the death. I told you that.”
    “Yes. I remember.”
    “That’s what scared you?”
    “No.”
    “So what scared you? I like to know these things; it helps refine my marketing.”
    “The photographs, of course. Photographs scare more than words.”
    The old man looked at Chan. “I don’t really believe I scared you. I know every shade of fear, every nuance. I’m a world authority on fear, and you weren’t afraid. You were upset but not afraid.”
    Chan shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps I need to see them again. You still have them?”
    “Even more. I get photos like that almost every month now.” Chan remembered the old man’s curious way of sliding his eyes over him. It was like a radar scan that was over in less than a second. Chan knew it as a survival skill developed by long-term prisoners. “Something happen to you today?” The old man looked away as he said it.
    Chan shrugged. “Just a case I’m working on.”
    “So?”
    “There’s a China dimension; at least there might be.”
    “Ah! The dragon blew on you. Now you want to know more about the dragon?”
    “Maybe those pictures will focus what I’m feeling. I don’t know.”
    With difficulty the old man stood up. “You’re a good boy. A little slow but good. I’ll show you those pictures, and some new ones, on one condition. I have a potential recruit coming next week with his wife. I would like you to be here.”
    “Why?”
    “Don’t pretend to be dumb. On my own I’m an eccentric oldfart with poor Cantonese and an American accent. I’m also a world-class loser, according to the value structures of this city. With a chief inspector of police in the room, though, I could look almost respectable.”
    Chan looked the old man in the eye. “You’re ruthless.”
    “You mean I’m using you? Of course. Not for any hope of personal gain, though. You’ll come?”
    Chan remained silent.
    The old man smiled again. “You’re a real old-style Chinaman, even if you do have Irish genes. You bury gold under old rags. I bet I’m the only one in this whole town who knows you have the heart of a saint.”
    “You’re right, you need to refine your marketing. Me as saint isn’t even vaguely credible.”
    He followed the old man into a tiny bedroom adjacent to the bookshop. The old man pointed at black-and-white photographs strung on lines across the bed. Chan gave the old man a sharp glance.
    “You took them out of the box?”
    “I sleep with them,” the old man said gruffly. “Weird, huh?”
    Chan did not answer. In the picture in front of his nose he recognized the fallen features of someone condemned to death. A printed caption at the bottom of the photograph read: “Female prisoner being escorted by military policemen in an execution parade held in Baise Municipality of Guangxi Autonomous Region on August 29, 1990.” As his eye took in the other photographs on the string, he saw that each