Last Violent Call (Secret Shanghai, #3.5)(25)
“You can patch me up at home.” Juliette glanced back, her attention drifting to Mila at the end of the alley. “What do you think all this means?”
“I’m thinking that if the girls have been brainwashed into killing themselves, then it was probably the two scientists at the facility who are responsible.”
Their theory had started with Mr. Pyotr coming after her, but there was no chance that he didn’t know about this mechanism. If anything, he really was warning her.
They are coming.
“So who are the people coming after them?” Juliette mused aloud. “It’s almost as if we found their presence at the inn by accident.”
“No, not by accident,” Roma countered. “We were following anyone who made contact with Vladivostok. It’s only that we assumed this Mr. Pyotr would be the one nearby with ties there.”
“Because of the facility.” Juliette shivered slightly, her head tilting to watch the sun rise over the building, bringing proper morning at last. She usually pinned her hair back in the daytime, but there hadn’t been a chance this morning, and so the wisps blew along her shoulders, fluttering like petals with each soft wave of wind. “So it has to be the facility who are sending these men, or else there’s no reason they made that call at the inn. He called it a retrieval mission. The facility wants the girls back.”
Roma resisted the urge to lie down in the alley. He wanted to do exactly what Mila was doing and sink against the wall. That hundred-yuan invoice had probably been for the facility, as requested payment for these retrieval services. But each of the other girls had been failed retrievals because they had killed themselves first, and if Shanghai’s newspapers were to be believed, their method of death mimicked the madness five years ago, which had caused people to gouge their own throats out.
“I really don’t like the puzzle pieces that are being tossed around here,” he said. “The facility is after the girls and wants to snatch them back, fine. Casual everyday human trafficking. But throat-gouging as the built-in defense mechanism?”
That was very much not included in usual trafficking endeavors.
Juliette was quiet for a bit. “Roma,” she said when she turned her gaze away from the rooftops. “Don’t you find it a little peculiar that this defense mechanism is something we are so familiar with?”
“It’s not really the madness,” he replied, knowing in an instant what she was talking about. “No insects.”
“But if this precise act has been brainwashed into the girls, it could only have been done by someone who was inspired by it,” she said. “And there is one person involved who did witness the madness.”
That one person, of course, being Lourens Van Dijk.
Roma cursed under his breath. A bird landed in the alley, feathers ruffling as it silently hopped around the tied-up men.
“Do we need to find him?” he asked. “Is that where the root of this lies? I doubt the facility will stop coming after her only because these hired men have failed.”
“Lourens is impossible to find.” Juliette didn’t hesitate with the claim. “Rosalind has tried, believe me. Or believe Celia, I suppose.”
Though he and the old scientist had never been close, Roma had still seen him often while going in and out of the labs for gangster business. It was hard to believe the same Lourens who hated birds and liked jazz music could be that callous. That he might create an instruction like this.
“We will figure it out,” Roma decided. Maybe if he said it confidently enough, he could will it into existence. “In the meantime, take Mila home. I will call Ah Tou and ask him to deal with…” He gestured vaguely at the unconscious men in the alley.
“All right.” Juliette winced. “Celia is probably fretting up a storm.”
“On the contrary, she was sitting on the sofa taking up my knitting project when I went in to fetch Mila.” Roma touched her face in goodbye, then turned to go, calling back: “But you should hurry, because it’ll be embarrassing if she finishes that sweater for me.”
* * *
“Wéi?”
Roma started, his attention having wandered off while the phone rang. “Ah Tou. It’s me.”
“Lǎobǎn,” Ah Tou greeted in an instant. Roma could practically imagine the man straightening up on the other side, brushing his jacket clean. No matter how many times he and Juliette tried to tell Ah Tou to tone it down, that they weren’t gang bosses and didn’t need to be treated as such, Ah Tou insisted on addressing them in that manner. Though, to be fair, Juliette probably quite enjoyed being called dàsǎo.
“I’m going to need your help in Zhouzhuang,” Roma said. “Bring some people. Does Leilei still have those god-awful brass rings?”
“She won’t even take them off to shower.”
“Great. Bring her especially. I need some men roughed up.”
Ah Tou didn’t question the instruction in the slightest. “How bad?”
“Enough so that they’ll flee the area and never come back. No broken bones. I’ll allow a swollen kneecap or two.” Roma paused, considering. It wasn’t as if that would stop whoever had sent them, because there were probably plenty of outlaws needing work these days who could pick up the mantle after this group. Especially when there was substantial money on the line. “Maybe try to get a name out of them too. Ask who sent them. But I doubt you will get much.”