Free Inspector O 02 - Hidden Moon by James Church

stood at the entrance looking into the dining room. His eyes swept over the tables, then he walked over to the body on the floor. “What’s with him?” He gave me a gloomy look.
    “Dead,” I replied. “You here to help or to ask moronic questions?”
    “Aw, leave him alone.” Little Li stepped beside me, frowning. “This one giving you trouble?” He pointed toward the short man still at the table, who was picking his teeth in a mean way. He had on a dirty red shirt with no collar, like a Russian waiter in a cheap restaurant. Li looked down at him. “Name.”
    The short man examined the toothpick, then put it back in his mouth. “You plan to stand around jib-jabbing all night? I got placesto be, people to meet.” He pointed at the body. “I think he had a heart attack or something. Damned shame, but what can you do?” He pushed back his chair and started to get up.
    “You’re not going anywhere,” I said. “Be friends with the chair, and the chair will be friends with you. Make a mental note to sit still while we get some answers. In other words, relax.”
    Little Li smiled. I could see him mouthing the phrase to himself, “Be friends with the chair.” Yang knelt by the body and started going through the pockets. He pulled a wallet from the jacket, a thick brown wallet filled with euro notes. “Hey, O.” He looked up at me. The man really did have awfully sad eyes. They made me think of cold, dark afternoons in November. Rainy afternoons, with the wind just starting to come down the street and nowhere to be but alone. “This guy was rich. Only I don’t think he’d been rich very long.”
    “I’m listening.” I pulled the toothpick from the mouth of the man in red. “Show a little respect, pal. Your friend there just keeled over, picking your teeth is not polite.” I broke the toothpick in two and handed the pieces back to him. Little Li laughed.
    “The bills are in perfect order, all facing the right direction, smaller ones in front, larger denominations in back.” Yang held up a wad of bills. “No one keeps money in a wallet in that sort of order. Maybe in a money clip, not a wallet.”
    The man in red craned his neck to look at the bills in Yang’s hand. His face flushed before he turned to Little Li. “How about you and me go out for some fresh air, Inspector? It’s unhealthy in here, bodies on the floor and all. Anyway, the bathroom is on the first floor, and I got the urge.”
    Li looked at me, then at Yang. “You okay?” he asked. Yang nodded.
    “Go on, and put in a call for a wagon to take this body out of here while you’re downstairs.” I turned to Yang. “Here, give me the wallet.”
    Yang looked at it intently; the sadness left his eyes for a moment but then returned. “All yours, O.”
    The man at the table nudged Li. “You’ll never see that money again. He’ll take it all for hisself.”
    Li put his big hand on the back of the man’s neck and lifted him out of his chair. “That was your money, was it, in your friend’s pocket?” The man gasped for breath until Li put him down and loosened his grip. “I still don’t know your name. Say, you’re breathing funny, you have asthma or something that interferes with your airways?” Li clapped his hand on the man’s shoulder, so he sagged slightly. “You want to walk by yourself, or you want me to carry you downstairs like a rabbit?”
    “Don’t strangle him here,” I said to Li. “Wait till you get him back to the office.”
    Yang scrambled to his feet. “You still need me?”
    “Stay until the body gets moved, will you? Maybe we can talk a little.” I nodded to Li, and he took the man by the arm. I could hear him going down the stairs, saying, “Careful, stairs are bad for people with asthma.”
    Yang pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and picked up the glass the man on the floor had held before he tumbled off his chair. He sniffed it. “We should take this in. Doesn’t smell like anything