It was a break room like any other around the world, but smokier than most. All the cops smoking, and there was joss burning in the corner, on the shrine to Guan Yu.
The cops shouted ironic greetings to Officer Bei when he came in. "Did you tell that mouse-man to stop squeaking?" one asked. They all knew what he had been doing: Mrs. Lien had been beating her husband again, and the coward had come whining to them for help. Well, there was nothing they could do for him, was there? Not unless he stood up for himself and put that woman in her place!
Bei sat and took out a cigarette; the others all quieted as they saw how his hands shook, how the flame jittered before he managed to light up and draw the smoke deep into his lungs. He exhaled and spoke with the same breath, his words a cloud.
"I went to the house where the complaint had been filed. Mrs. Lien was there, very distraught. Mr. Lien was here, packing."
The police snorted and elbowed each other. Packing? Running away?
"Mr. Lien said that he had received a sign from God that there was nothing to hold in his marriage. That any love that had been there was gone, never to be grasped again. He was going to leave and start divorce proceedings. I asked Mr. Lien what the sign was, and he told me that Mrs. Lien had no hands."
The cops blinked, and one finally asked, "And?"
Bei took another long drag on his cigarette. "She had no hands. There were no wounds, no blood, no bruising. She just had" he held his own arms out, hands bowed down sharply at the wrists, "stumps. Smooth skin. As though she had never had hands."
"Mr. Lien told me that he was going away. That Mrs. Lien should go to a hospital, or back to her parents. That his attorney would contact her. And she said...she said..."
Bei coughed smoke. "She said, 'But if I leave here and you are gone, how will I open the door to get back in?' And she held out her arms, like this..."
Bei held out his arms, and they could not help it: they all laughed. Laughed despite the fear creeping in their hearts. They laughed like boys around a fire, trying to scare the monsters away.