Free Hunt Among the Killers of Men by Gabriel Hunt Page A

beggar etiquette, the seated and squatting men kept their eyes down and their cups (or cupped hands) up as Gabriel and Qingzhao passed, carrying the canvas-wrapped statue of the bowman carefully between them.
    They emerged into one of Shanghai’s many Night Markets, a tightly packed maze of tents reminiscent of an American swap meet or flea market, interspersed with solo hustlers and other racketeers working outof the shells of now-useless automobiles. Gabriel saw several more people burning ceremonial cash at drumfires, and a man putting trained birds through their paces inside an entire corridor of bird-sellers.
    “It’s like Mardi Gras,” Gabriel said.
    “More dangerous,” said Qingzhao.
    “You’ve never drunk a Hurricane, I bet.”
    Qingzhao ignored the remark. Wit, charm or humor were not her coinage.
    Presently they emerged into a large open area completely engirded in stonemasonry, with drains in the floor. It could have been a covered outdoor patio or a deceptively big space between buildings with a canopy overhead. It reminded Gabriel a bit of an abandoned food court. There was a scatter of tables and chairs. At one, a wizened, skeletal man ceaselessly folded squares of paper into origami shapes and dropped them into an iron pot. Across from him, an equally ancient woman sat surrounded by disassembled cell phones, probing them with tiny jeweler’s tools. They were both clad in simple Maoist tunics and the woman smiled at Gabriel as they passed. Every other tooth was missing.
    Qingzhao spoke briefly to the old man in a dialect Gabriel could not place.
    “Who are we talking to here?” Gabriel asked.
    “Sentries.”
    “Sentries,” said Gabriel.
    Now the old man was grinning, too. Apparently he had scored all the woman’s missing teeth.
    Qingzhao whispered a monosyllable, and the next thing Gabriel knew, two guns were pointed right at his head.
    The old folks were still smiling at him.
    A big, booming, basso laugh rebounded from the rock walls.
    The entryway to the next chamber in the maze filled up with a large black man, six-six easy in flat slippers, with a calm Buddha face and vaguely Asian eyes below a close-cropped crewcut.
    “Your expression!” The big man thundered with mirth. “Priceless!” He took a moment to settle. “Forgive me.”
    The oldsters stowed their firepower and resumed their innocuous activities, the woman still smiling sweetly at Gabriel.
    “I know what you want, I’m sure of it!” The big man embraced Qingzhao. Even more surprisingly, Qingzhao allowed this.
    “And I know what you want,” she said before the breath could be squeezed out of her.
    The big man stuck out a hand the size of a catcher’s mitt toward Gabriel. “ Ni chi le ma ?” It was a common greeting for a stranger— have you eaten? —testifying to the centrality of food in most Asian culture. Gabriel shook the proffered hand in the Western fashion. A more traditional Chinese handshake would have consisted of the men interlocking their fingers and waving them up and down a few times; but today this was done mostly by the very elderly or the very etiquette-conscious.
    “Tuan, at your service,” boomed the big man, “and the service of our little snapdragon, here.”
    Like some grandiose, benevolent street pasha, Tuan escorted Qingzhao and Gabriel through the heart of his domain, which rose in tiers from the cobblestoned street into a labyrinth of subdivisions and alcovesoverpopulated with mercantile bustle. Over here, you could get your head massaged, cheap. Over there, your ears swabbed out. It was indoor-yet-outdoor; the grandest treehouse of all.
    Besides Beggar’s Arch, three other tunnels fed into the amphitheater. At one end was a traditional Chinese teahouse accessed by a zigzaggy footbridge over a turbid flow of water.
    “Four people are in charge of the Bund, now,” said Qingzhao as they trailed Tuan, their fragile burden held between them.
    “Like gang turf?” said Gabriel.
    “More akin