|
|
|
I directed corporate communications at Fortune 500 companies in New York for more than 30 years and contributed numerous articles to business-communication journals. Recent fiction credits include awards for short stories in Wordtrip.com’s contests (Winter 2006 and May 2005) and as a finalist in Lunch Hour Stories’ contest (August 2006), while Wild Child Publishing has carried two short stories (Sept. 2006 and Nov. 2005). Articles and commentary have appeared in The Copperfield Review (Jan. 2005); Military History Online (Sept. 2006, Jan. 2005 and May 2004), Good Old Days magazine (Oct. 2004), and a guest feature in Whim’s Place (July 1, 2004).
Not My Wife by Walter Giersbach
I'm just a junior detective. I don't know much, but I know the area around Hollywood Road, the hilly Hong Kong street that runs down to Connaught Road. Strange things turn up in that half-kilometer area crammed with antiques stores, coffee shops and tourist dives..
Right now, I'm looking at this hwa-chiao, a Chinese-American tourist at the station house who's bitching at Inspector Chan. He claims he's an important visitor. He's shaking his finger and saying, "I report my wife has disappeared, then I came back to find an imposter in my hotel room, not even a good duplicate." Of course, from his mouth it comes out like "fucking imposter" and "goddamn duplicate." Most perps use bad language to show their sincerity. This guy is the slickest I've seen and I've seen a lot of them, from Guangzhou to Macao. His missing wife was Shanghainese and one of the richest broads around. Now he claims this woman at the hotel really isn't his wife.
Chan didn't like me calling the guy a perp. I told him it was the simplest thing in the world to come here on homeland vacation and knock off the old lady. Her disappearance puts the guy into the top five percent richest club in Southeast Asia. Inheriting a pile of money is a good motive. Simple as that.
Chan is insisting over the guy's objections that it is his wife, she had turned up on Hollywood Road and I—the good cop in spite of my bad attitude—brought her back. Chan tells the guy he must be suffering from delusions. Chan is a college-educated cop, one of the new breed in China. He's telling the American the problem may be something called Capgras Syndrome and he should see a shrink.
I light a cigarette and call over to Chan, "Crap gas?" and he gives me a dirty look, like what do I know. I'm just the junior-grade detective who brought in the dame.
No, Chan tells us like an encyclopedia, Capgras, after the French shrink who discovered it. It's when you think a close relative or spouse has been replaced by an imposter, an exact double.
The American shouts bullshit. Three times. He shouts, "I came back from dinner to find a counterfeit in my hotel...not even a good look-alike of the person I love. Why can't anyone see this isn't my wife? You must find my real wife, Inspector."
Time to get a coffee, I think, but I turn to the guy. "How come her fingerprints match?" I ask. "How come her clothes fit? How come, Mr. Chinese-American Wiseguy? It's your old lady and I found her."
He turns three shades of red and purple and his mouth looks like he sucked a lemon, trying to choke back some words. Maybe he wants Chan to give him back his passport, too.
"Couldn't be you're worried you won't inherit your old lady's money, is it?" I ask. "Yesterday, you say she's disappeared, and tomorrow maybe you tell the court your wife is at the bottom of the harbor." I gave him my big two-dollar smile that I reserve for police commissioners and college-graduate inspectors. "If that is not your wife, then maybe we should book you for murder."
He turns another shade of red, like a firecracker at New Year's. "Maybe it is my wife," he mutters and tries to get up. "I think maybe it really is my wife and I need to see a shrink." He walks out the door.
Chan gets really annoyed and pokes me in the chest. "You pissed off the richest person I've ever interviewed," he says. "You do not know how to treat people. You are just a country cop."
"I knew how to treat this one," I tell him. "I lied. Of course it is not his wife. She's probably been cut up for dumplings. That woman in his hotel room is Officer Lee, a policewoman I brought in from Wanchai. She's doing me a favor. It's just a few days till Officer Lee gets the guy to admit he killed his wife or until maybe he really goes nuts. Killers are nuts to begin with. But in any case, he won't get his hands on his wife's money.
"See, Inspector," I say, poking him in the chest. "There's educated people and there's smart people."
Then I walk out, but not before turning around and saying real loud, "Crap gas."
THE END Walter Giersbach © 2007 |
