Chapter Three: The Ambassador's Jailbreak
The New Scotland Yard opened its Tuesday interrogation hours to the worst possible combination of suspect, victim, bystander, and investigator.
Liang Xiaoxiao looked as if nothing better had ever happened to her, while L kept scratching one foot with another. One looked as if she had won the lottery, while the other as if he was dawdling in a horridly witless situation. Standing between the two, Watari looked complacent with the brewing catastrophe. How on earth the old man managed such a feat put the police officer, the fourth person in the room, in awe. How the room hadn't become a reenactment of WWII was rather incredible... or frightening.
'Probably both.' the officer decided without much forethought.
"Thanks for coming." Xiaoxiao smiled happily towards L, who acknowledged her with a rather stoic and questionable nod. Rather, it seemed more as if the detective was waiting for something else to happen. Watari stood aside, listening as the officer made a hasty attempt at explaining the situation:
"It happens that Ms. Liang has discovered these devices in her home after your departure, Decte—Mister Ryuuzaki."
"Since I have not received any guests in my apartment before, these must naturally belong to you. Well, they may also belong to the prior inhabitants, who were actually chased out due to unpaid rent—and therefore could not have possibly left something so valuable." Xiaoxiao twirled a small, sparkling cube in her hand, "I think this is actually one of the original sets of hidden recording devices, no? Marketed by Kuniss and Company in 1923. Market cost should be around a couple hundred grand US."
"Um…" The officer frowned, blinking rapidly to fill in the silence from L's unopened mouth.
He had been told by the department chief to look out for L, though he wasn't sure exactly how he was meant to do so if both the detective and the "culprit" (who was actually playing prosecutor at the moment) seemed either more intelligent or insane than he was. Not as if it made a difference. Either way, he couldn't understand what they were insinuating... or if they were insinuating at all.
After he had gotten the stray gaze of the Asian girl, he suddenly couldn't stop clearing his throat. There was something about the way the woman looked at people: somewhat intimidating, somewhat terrorizing, and mostly disorienting. It was as if she could see through pasts with just a casual glance.
'No wonder Detective L couldn't open his mouth.' The officer decided that nothing was better than flattery, "Excellent, Ms. Liang! You must be well educated."
In response, Xiao lifted an unimpressed eyebrow. And that was all.
"I admit to having left these devices in her apartment on purpose." L responded to no one in particular, though his gaze was digging firmly into Xiaoxiao's eyes, "However, Miss Xiaoxiao Liang, since you don't seem to be the lawful lessee of your apartment, it might present a problem if brought to court…"
L continued with a small smile. The victory was obvious, "Since you would first have to clear a lawsuit to explain the reason as to your residing unlawfully in another's residence, you may be in jail before we have a chance to settle this offense. But on that topic, have you informed the actual lessee of our misconduct yet, offender?"
Suddenly all the imaginary flowers booming off Xiaoxiao's face disappeared. She stared at L with an ill-meant vengeance, which had even the officer cringing in discomfort, "Why, thank you for the notice, offender."
"Yes, thank you for your notice, offender." The officer chirped along, trying to look natural in the tense atmosphere, before he recognized what slipped out of his—and more importantly, Xiao's—mouth, "Uh, I mean, uh, Mister Ryuu—"
"Since there seems to be no problem after all, we will be returning to our business. Ms. Liang, we look forward to seeing you tomorrow." L turned sharply to his left and began walking towards the corridor.
Xiao watched as the two exited, and then hurried after without another look at the officer, who was waving her paperwork in hesitation.
"Uh, Miss Liang, what would you like to do with your case—" The officer called after the three absent-mindedly, still recovering from the deathly atmosphere, "Would you like to drop it?"
"If you let Leila know of any of this, I will advertise your pornographic habits so widely that you'd want to chop off your own scrotum and wear a bra."
"He knew it was going to turn out like this from the beginning." Xiao crossed her arms, seething at her own feet as, meters away, L crawled into his limousine, "What was his point? Testing how terrified I am of Leila? It's not as if she would let him exploit her, anyway."
Xiaoxiao snarled as the car began backing out of the parking space and, surprisingly enough, headed towards her.
"It is not to my worry whether or not I receive permission for exploitation." L beamed without a hint of hesitation as he leaned out of the opened car window, "It would not qualify as exploitation otherwise, would it, Miss Liang?"
Xiaoxiao "You attempt to make a fool of me, L?"
"Because I have already gotten what I wanted, it is out of courtesy that I satisfy your curiosity to the best of my abilities." L retreated back into his seat and began scrolling the window upwards. Xiao didn't need to hear him to watch what came out of his lips next: "And I don't need permission to make a fool out of you."
"Aren't you a generous one?" Xiao yanked off her slipper and pitched it after L's windshield. Not much to her surprise, the car turned immediately, and just enough to avoid her shoe by a hair's width.
He really was toying with her.
Xiao cackled dryly as she hopped towards her shoe, sputtering obscenities before snapping up to take one last look at L's black Rolls Royce: "How dare he."
The entire trans-Atlantic London-New York flight had their attention stolen by a blob of dark-haired, horridly dressed, and homeless-looking Chinese amoeba two minutes into boarding. It just so happened that the woman also looked dangerously irritated as she kicked her carry-on luggage violently under the seat before her: "I can't differentiate plane-ticket sellers from sexually deprived robbers. Five grand for a solo! I barely had enough change to pay the taxi…"
It had only been seventy-eight hours since she decided to take the world's best detective on, and the Chinese hacker was already beginning to regret it-at least the running abroad part.
"It appears that you bought your ticket at the last possible moment."
Her regrets were only confirmed by her predator's unmistakably monotonous drawl. Xiao took her time looking up from her luggage. She didn't want to look as shocked as she actually was (though how the hell did L find out that she was on this flight when she purchased the tickets under a pseudonym and a traceless wireless connection really was beyond her).
"Oh, Ryuuzaki." Xiao grinned cheekily when her eyes met the ghostly, dull ones which were widened, as usual, to unnatural sizes, "I didn't expect you to miss me already."
'So much for disappearing without a trace,' Xiao decided, 'if he was tailing after me and flaunting it too.'
Then again, if he had managed to hunt her down just from a meeting in a cafe, expecting anything less would be insulting. The detective seemed to think the same and allowed her to witness the horridly disorienting and adorable smile which crawled up on his lips, "It's a coincidence, as usual." He mumbled, "Fortunately, I ordered my tickets two weeks ahead of time and only needed one thousand for each, round-trip."
Judging by the victorious smile, he was probably telling the truth-which meant he had planned her moves and exactly what was going to happen before he even met her...
"Creee~peeee." A voice sing-songed inside of her, to which Xiao responded, "Not heeeel~piinnng~" before deciding that talking to herself probably wasn't a healthy way deal with the world's best detective.
"Why, thank you for the snide comment." Xiao sighed, turning towards the window. Even if he was trying to catch her, Xiao decided, he could be slightly gentler in lecturing her about procrastination.
"Since we are going to be colleagues, there's no harm in helping one another improve, is there?" L pasted an unnatural—and so, so obviously—fake (more importantly, nauseatingly gay) looking smile over his cheeks. Immediately Xiao wanted to burst out laughing, but only restrained it into a humongous grin.
"Then I will have the second comment. Your smile, Ryuuzaki, looks as if you're gazing into the depths of a strawberry-and-whipped-cream-and-vanilla-ice-cream-with-chocolate-chips-and-melting-fudge-and-caramel-topping-filled vagina."
L's face flashed dark for a moment before he returned, expressionlessly, "Perhaps Xiao has considered being slightly less aggravating with her remarks."
"And perhaps Ryuuzaki must have considered lying less." Xiao bounced back, not even glancing at the man next to her.
She was still getting over the fact that he now considered himself close enough to her to actually mock the way she spoke, despite threatening her with Leila only hours earlier.
On the other hand, it proved him as a certainly formidable opponent. She had expected him to reveal his identity as a detective in the police station, but he had cleverly dodged it by hiding behind her weakness. A ting of respect bubbled within Xiao.
"And perhaps Xiao has considered—" L was interrupted by an eruption of tears and snot and childish absurdity next to him, "WAAAAH! MOMMIE, THERE IS A MONSTER NEXT TO ME!"
And the little ting of respect disappeared immediately.
"And perhaps Ryuuzaki must have considered looking slightly more alive." Xiao chuckled bitterly, flaunting her crooked grin in an attempt to catch him disappointed. In the background, the mother-child pair didn't appear to have any intention to shut up: "Sweetie, it's alright, don't cry, it's rude!"
L scoffed, slightly insulted, "And perhaps Xiao has considered judging a person less by their countenance, or at least herself, for surely it must be a blow to self-confidence."
"WAAAH! MONSTER! MONSTER!"
"And perhaps Ryuuzaki must have considered being a little less mean towards children."
"And perhaps Xiao has considered putting an end to demeaning assumptions. Only fools underestimate others."
"WAAH—oh."
Xiao couldn't help looking over to witness the sudden stop in the raging cries. The sobbing boy had an incredulous look on his face as L handed him a bag of marshmallows, whipped out from nowhere. Quickly the boy did not glance again in L's direction and wiped all tears away on the apologetic mother's t-shirt.
"And perhaps Ryuuzaki must have considered changing the way he is, instead of the way he is perceived, in order to stop threatening those who perceive him."
Watari watched from the aisle behind the two and contemplated why felt the younger man appeared to be, heaven forbid, enjoying the dialogue with America's Most Wanted?
"Where will you be staying, Miss Liang?" Watari arched an eyebrow as the three walked out of the airport. L had instructed him to buy her into keeping close by any means, but Xiaoxiao Liang didn't look even slightly fased, "In a hotel, of course."
"However, it seems as if you are broke." L remarked, still intent on verbally abusing the hacker.
"You aren't too dull, after all, Ryuuzaki." Xiaoxiao smirked, "But then again, neither am I."
Watari watched, with a bad feeling in his gut, as the girl left the trio to jog up to an old lady. Without hesitation she yanked the tattered bag off the aging woman.
The old lady didn't quite react (probably still surprised that a grinning young girl was so happily yanking her obviously penniless sac from her hands... and was in fact shouting for help). Meanwhile, Watari amused himself with the reason why Xiao was calling for help after having robbed a poor woman. Judging by L's flattened gaze, it was apparent that the detective had already seen through the act.
"Ah, security, security please!" Xiaoxiao cried, cupping a hand gingerly around her mouth as men in blue uniforms ran up, "May we assist you, miss?"
"Oh, yes, I was assaulting and robbing this old lady right there."
"Is this so, madam?" One of the young officers frowned, obviously baffled. Watari was sympathetic with the young man, though he was still not quite on track with just why Xiao had bothered with the act. Did she actually want to be arrested?
At the sight, the corners of L's lips were beginning to curl up (a rare sight); it was as if the detective was just as amused as his counterpart. Watari estimated L's thoughts behind his mischievous grin and decided genius wasn't the only thing the detective had in common with his prey.
"Is this so, sir?" Another guard turned towards L, but began looking alarmed as soon as his gaze came upon L's face, as if regretting his decision to approach the shorter man, "Did you see an assault and robbery, sir?"
From a meter away Xiaoxiao clasped her hands together and squeezed her eyes shut, mouthing "PLEASE" rather ostensibly.
Watari watched L nod from the corner of his eyes.
"We will need your phone number and an ID for further contact, sir." The officer mumbled, somewhat intimidated by L's simple movement.
Watari stepped in, "Ah, yes, here is my colleague's identification…"
A few moments later the security guards, still looking as baffled as before, decided to wrap the case up, "In which case, Miss, we are placing you under temporary arrest for robbery and assault of—"
"Mrs. Anna Labelle." The old woman croaked, still staring at the smiling young woman in disbelief as Xiao cheerful thrust her purse back into the old lady's hands.
"Mrs. Anna Labelle. The assailant, Miss—"
"Liang Xiaoxiao."
"Miss Liang Xiaoxiao, you have the right to remain silent and to obtain a lawyer. Anything you say may be used against you in a court of law…"
Watari inched closer to L, whispering as he watched the scene unclose, "Why?"
"Why?" Watari asked again as he accompanied a masked L into one of the Pentagon branches. The black-haired man nodded to in return to numerous salutes from passing figures while constructing a response: "It's a way to avoid us. If she's in jail, we cannot contact her as normal civilians. She's forcing us to give up our real identities and intentions. And, I suppose, going to jail is another method of obtaining free food and residence."
"Why did you affirm the robbery, then?"
"If I hadn't then she would have asked the officer to call upon another witness, who would push me into the position as an 'obstruction to law enforcement' with a truthful testimony. I would also be in jail, though in my current state, they would release me immediately. The release would be as obvious as my own admitting to be a detective."
Watari turned his attention to the oversized pink ball of over-stuffed fat before the two of them, "Good afternoon, General Kim."
"How is the case?" The old man bellowed. L looked almost bored by the display, "We have identified a possible suspect who is twelve-percent likely to be the criminal. But unfortunately, she's in jail."
"What?" Kim hollered, though L was completely unfazed as before, "But she will hack her way out, of course."
"So then you must have planned for this." A smile bloomed quickly over the sack of pink fat, though L was already beginning to be distracted by other thoughts: "No, but things do tend to turn for my advantage."
"That's a nice-lookin' cell-phone. Gimme here!"
"No—" Xiaoxiao groaned and slapped away a hand to resume tapping away on her mobile phone, "Aahhh, so close! Goddammit, this fuck-shit…"
"Whacha doin'?"
"I wanna see! I wanna see!"
"Give us it!"
Another hand, a little tanned in color, grabbled onto Xiao's phone. Suddenly Xiao froze, and the crowd behind her mumbled laughter, "Watcha actin' so serious fo', bitch? It's just a hone, anyway—"
"YOU WANNA DIE?" Xiao swung around, the phone in her hand looking more deadly than a bona fide chainsaw. It seemed as if all the Londoner Chinese inside of her exploded in one raw pulp of Asian-wrath.
Suddenly all the comrade inmates in the cell took a step backwards. Their widened eyes guaranteed silence.
Xiao took another step forwards, and the other women began scrambling—all because of the vicious, inhuman spark that had exploded in Xiao's face the second someone touched her cell-phone.
"If any of you dare to touch my baby again, I will rip out your uterus. If any of you dare to touch me again, I will chop off your ears and feed it to the guard dog, and then I'm going to stew the mother fucking guard dog and you can all enjoy dinner with me. If you think you're stronger then me, I will kill myself and come back as a ghost and drag you down a dark corridor and you'll be clinging so hard onto the walls that your nails will break off and scratch against the wall singing like chalk on the chalk-bard. And then I will kill you, and mutilate you so bad even the Devil would be afraid of your face and no one would want to have to do with your corpse and not a single soul will dare to even cremate you because you would become so ugly."
The Chinese madwoman breathed in slowly and morphed her face into a morbidly friendly smile, "Perfectly merry, aren't I? Let's get along."
"Ye—yea…"
"Say yes."
"YES."
"Now, then..." Xiao groaned, returning back to her programming as the women quivered in the other end of the cell, whispering about how psychotic the new girl was and exactly what kind of evil deed she committed to join them.
Her programming was interrupted by a call. For moments Xiao couldn't figure out why the device in her hand was ringing—until she realized the true purpose of a phone.
"Hello?" She mumbled. Ryuuzaki's caller ID had been on, and he was the last person she felt like talking to…
"Hello Xiao, this is Ryuuzaki."
'Yes, no shit. Why else do you suppose I sound so depressed?'
"Why, how are you, Ryuuzaki?" Xiao snarled unpleasantly.
"It happens to be you that we are more concerned about—
('I would believe you more easily if you told me a comet the size of Jupiter had just rammed a hole into earth an inch away from my jailhouse and now aliens were going to invade earth and I was offered by the President of the United States as a human sacrifice')
—you see, it was said in our contract that a day of missed work meant, after all, that you would pay me five thousand dollars to finish your share of the job."
"Wait, what—" Xiao's eyes widened. Damn it, she should've read the—
"Page thirty-two, line twelve, starting five words from the right."
"You pimp."
"Since you were so keen on staying in jail, I just thought I might drop you a reminder—
('Do you call this a fucking reminder, you bitch owl?')
—Watari and I have arranged for a hotel room for you, free of charge, as our welcome-gift for you. In fact, it is only five miles directly north of where you are staying."
'Only five miles? How about offer me your head on a platter instead?'
"Welcome gift?"
"Ah! Yes, of course, I forgot to remind Xiaoxiao that our company headquarters is actually right here. In fact, it is coincidentally only one floor below the room we have arranged for you—
('Coincidentally?')
—Also, Miss Leila Bell seems rather worried about you."
"You dickface, you told LEILA? DO YOU WANNA DIE?" Xiao clasped a hand over her mouth as the women in the jail cell began scampering back to the opposite corner of the cell. Damn it, that was supposed to be a thought.
"You have an admirable friendship with Miss Bell." L sounded more than amused and Xiao wasn't sure if she should be glad.
Her face turned from dark to darker. The women behind her wondered sullenly if they should call for security to protect them, in case their Chinese comrade went insane. Instead, Xiao ended the conversation quickly with—"Well, then I will not waste your generous present. See you tomorrow, Ryuuzaki."
There was a click.
All faces leaned forward with anticipation, waiting for her to explain her mysterious caller—until they were shot down by a hard stare, "And what might you be looking at, ladies?"
Everyone scattered with the glare from Xiao, though keeping an eye on the cell-phone in the woman's hands. Xiao returned to her phone, this time bull-dozing it with even more passion than before, as if she was really trying to weather away all the keys.
A moment later the girl grinned, clicking her phone shut and approaching them with a dangerous and suspiciously happy smile, "Alright! Well, I'm leaving now, friends! It was a nice time that we spent with one another."
She grabbed one girl by the arm and yanked the small thing towards her. Everyone watched breathlessly as the Chinese woman… hugged the girl.
'Jesus. Fucking. Christ.' Was the first mutual thought amongst all the brains in the cell, followed by, 'Is this a cue to call the cops?'
Xiao ended her friendly moment with, once again, the searing gaze and everyone relaxed, "If any of you report that I had a cell-phone on me, or that I was here with you at all, just remember what I would do as a ghost. Think about those broken nails and trails of cracked blood on the walls as I drag you down, deep in to the black, black corridors for eternal pain... Sweet dreams!"
With that, the Chinese girl sauntered towards the door.
"Wait, it won't open! The doors are, what's it called, er, dee-gii-tall-ised, or some'in, so your kung-fu kick ain't gonna work!" A black woman warned to get on the woman's good side, but stopped short when Xiao pushed the door open with two fingers.
"Ah, yes, I'm 'digitalized' as well." The last comment from Xiao fluttered in the air as she waltzed off into the corridors.
"Aren't there guards out there?" Someone remarked. Confused voices agreed.
"Out of my way!" A commanding shout echoed from down the corridor. The entire group rushed towards the door, trying to take a peek. A few meters down, a guard was talking with the Chinese girl hurriedly.
It sounded as if they were bickering, but whatever the case, the Chinese girl absolutely had the upper hand—or louder voice: "I'm the bloody Chinese peace ambassador, you idiot, sent straight from the secretary general himself. You, on the other hand…first you cage me in here with these lunatic prisoners with a joke of an excuse—assault, heaven forbid, and now you even try talking back to me? How dare you!"
The women in the cell blinked, staring at one another with arched eyebrows. Chinese ambassador, really? Well, they didn't feel too surprised—though she was a bit macho and horrifying for a peace ambassador…
"Officer Yeats, it has been confirmed from the computer registry that Liang Xiaoxiao is in fact the Chinese peace ambassador…"
The walkie-talkie's response left the entire hallway in silence. The prisoners stared at one another in confusion and amazement, assuming the position of an ambassador to be some top-dog thing, like the quarterback or something, in the government.
"Ah, I'm so sorry, Ambassador Liang!" The guard, whose face had looked stone-hard merely a second ago, quickly broke into a long string of nervous laughter, "I'm so sorry! Please overlook this!"
"Overlook? I will certainly report to the home country as well as the US government about your insolence in particular, Mister John Yeats, ID number A-twenty-five… oh, don't move, I have to read it to remember clearly when I tell your—"
"I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry!" The man dropped onto his knees, "Please, can you please, please, I beg of you, Ambassador, I have a wife and four children, can you please pretend as if you were never here? Please!"
"Sure, then, I was never here. Don't forget this, or else I will make your wife and four children sorry, John Yeats, even if I'm not the ambassador."
The women prisoners weren't sure if it was really a smile they saw on the Chinese comrade's face as she hurried away.
They were even less sure of their sanity when, four hours later, a voice from John Yeats' walkie-talkie exploded with—"All officers! A recent file of a woman of Asian decent, previously held in cell seven-two-four, has mysteriously disappeared from the computer databases! All officers beware, an escapee has hacked into our files! She is of Asian decent, in her early twenties or late teens, height of around five-feet four-inches, eye-color brown, hair-color black…"
"Whoa, that bitch was the shit." A woman commented, "So she wasn't an, what was it ag'en, ambass, or whatever, was she?"
"Who the hell are you talking about? I don't remember no Chinese woman here." Someone else snapped.
"Yeah, I dun'either… do you, Mister Yeats?"
A pause, and a hardened gaze. "No, course I don't… Now shut up."
L didn't look at all surprised to have his door flung open at three-thirty in the morning by a girl who seemed, at this point, more like a vengeful ghost than a computer hacker.
"Would you like some coffee?" He offered indifferently, holding up a cup to demonstrate that he didn't have any obscure double meaning. Xiao, however, did not seem at all pleased, "I passed by four hotels on my way here. Why is it that you couldn't arrange for one that was, oh, say, two blocks closer to-"
"Jail? Well, since you didn't exactly serve full-time, I thought perhaps I should do the government a small favor and dawn justice upon its criminals."
"You're calling me a criminal?"
"You assaulted and robbed."
Xiao snarled, having nothing else to say, and kicked the cover off his bed, "I'm sleeping here."
"Not in your room, which is only four meters away?"
"If I can't sleep well, then neither can you."
"You would be glad to find that I don't sleep." L smiled gleefully to his coffee cup, with his back turned towards the girl. Something cheered him up about being with her.