Lunch At Last

"I'm sorry, Dana. The risk of landing on your head was very small." Pérez was limping awkwardly thru the snow back to the township, very close to Mrs. Chang's little house. Scully suspected that his limp was genuine, but was being emphasized to gain any sympathy he could from her.

"You're alive," she replied under her breathe. Pérez had not argued when she wrapped her padded snow coat around him, and she was still warm under her lightweight ski jacket, but the air was cold against her face. "Let's eat." She nodded to the open door in the middle of the row of little constructions.

"Mrs. Chang" he shouted to the little figure attending to the step. He seemed genuinely pleased.

"Victor?" she squinted. "Oh. And Miss Scully?" Mrs. Chang discarded the clear plastic bag that she had been carrying and ground some of the salt onto the single metal step with her booted foot.

Victor Pérez gave Mrs. Chang a hug. "How are you?" he asked her with some warmth.

"i am fine," she said curtly. "But you? This is the worst I have seen you."

"He fell out of the sky," snorted Scully. She was still mildly shocked.

"Come and eat," said Mrs. Chang. "You always turn up hungry. You are a bad boy, Victor."

Victor entered the house with his arm around Mrs. Chang's shoulders. He turned back to look at Scully. Her frown suggested she was less impressed by his dangerous lifestyle.

:::

Mrs. Chang bustled out of the kitchen. "I will find you clothes. But shower soon. You smell bad."

Victor laughed indulgently and watched her disappear off. Several steaming bowls of food sat on the table.

"Plain dumpling. Sweet dumpling. And a kind of pork thing," said Victor cheerfully.

"Do you feel at home here?" asked Scully. She was watching Pérez's face intently.

"I would never stay here permanently, Dana," he replied quietly. "But it's the only place I like to come back to. Even in the middle of winter." The cold blue light flickered over his face.

She stared back at him, still feeling angry. "I looked at those animal corpses, Victor. Were you really interested in them? Or was it just a ploy just to get me here?"

He finished the dumpling that he had been holding and wiped his lips with one of Mrs. Chang's freshly laundered napkins. "I wanted you here, Dana. I need someone to help me. The details are a bit complicated."

"I'm not stupid," she replied. "You could easily have explained what's going on."

He poured more green tea from the big porcelain pot. "Do you want some of this?" he asked casually.

She shook her head. The jasmine leaves smelt great, but she could only work on coffee at the moment. "No. Are you going to talk about anything other than food?"

Pérez sighed and took a small sip of the tea. "Great tea. Always great tea. I've been coming here for a lot of years. Mrs. Chang sort of adopted me straight away."

Scully rested her chin on her hand and resolved to say nothing.

Pérez laughed before continuing. "That's a great interrogation technique, Dana. Let the subject talk himself into trouble. Beats all those machines and chemicals at the FBI, no?"

She continued to scowl at him. He nodded sadly. "Okay. I confess 'copper'. You got me." His humor dwindled quickly.

"The diving team are just that. They're from all over the world. Been on big projects, little projects. Some of them I know personally. Some of them probably know me. The funding is all legitimate. It's a genuine exploration of the lake and - well - the fish and the temperature. Who cares?"

"But they're looking for something down there?" asked Scully. "Do they think something is down there?"

"No. Apart from the usual petty superstitions about bad luck. They don't think there's a dinosaur swimming around, or a giant goldfish." He snorted with a sad kind of contempt.

"Are they dangerous?" she asked.

"Not in the way you're thinking. Men like to protect their territory. It's not a military operation." He thought carefully. "But if you got in their way? They'd know what to do."

"Maybe I could get RCMP to look into this?"

"What would they find? It's exactly what it says it is. A team of divers testing a sub and taking readings, not surprisingly, under water."

"Then what do you want me to find out for you? You seem to know them well enough."

"It's not this team that are the real problem. There are other people. They got a little nervous and started trying to kill people who got in the way."

Dana stared at him. "Who did they try to kill?"

"Well, me for a start. And some surfer kid on a beach in Texas."

Scully rubbed her cheeks. "And where is this young person?"

"I left him in a squat in Beaumont. He'll be safe there. As long as he stays there. Which probably means he won't."

:::

Mrs. Chang appeared again with a small cane-woven laundry basket. It contained a set of men's clothes. "Here are clothes, Victor. Shower and change. You still smell."

Pérez laughed like a spoiled teenager and disappeared off to have a shower.

"He is a good boy," said Mrs. Chang to Scully. Although Scully thought the opposite she decided not to voice her opinion.

Scully finished her coffee and smiled. "What do you think is out there in the lake, Mrs. Chang? Is there a monster?"

Mrs. Chang had the look of a woman who had heard this question before. In fact, she had the look of a woman who had heard all sorts of questions before. She placed the laundry basket on the table. She made a point of thinking hard. "I think frogs and flies. And fish." That was her genuine answer. "What else?"

"But those dogs. And the other animals." She found herself feeling angry and a little sick. "They weren't killed by frogs and flies?"

Mrs. Chang took the basket and made to leave the room. "No. Man or machine. Always make things worse."