Blood Passage (44 page)

The door opened, the flashbang was tossed, and they rolled inside.

Tommy Leung was already dead.

He lay in a spreading pool of blood with a bullet hole in his left leg near the knee and two others in his forehead. Across the room, draped across a long table holding computer equipment in various stages of disassembly, was one of Tommy’s security men. He’d been shot once in the chest and twice more in the left temple. Closer to the door, a third man lay curled in a fetal position, still bleeding out. One of the SWAT members rolled him over and they saw that he had been gutshot and then tapped twice in the head.

It was Hank’s shooter.

Goddamnit all to hell.

They heard Pearson directing other team elements in pursuit of the two remaining heat signatures, which had moved downstairs. In a matter of moments he’d lost them. Karen hurried down to the basement, knowing it was Peter Mah.

“
They fucked off on us, Detective Stainer.” The SWAT officer led her into an old boiler room and showed her a trap door in the cement floor. “It connects to the sewer line. Looks like two targets got in and out through here. We’re in pursuit but they obviously know where they’re going and we don’t.”

“
Goddamn Mah,” Karen said. “Son of a bitch.” She started for the trap door. The officer grabbed her arm.

“
Detective, there’s no point. Either my guys’ll get them or they won’t.”

She shook off his arm, adrenaline pumping.

“
Karen,” Hank’s voice whispered in her earpiece, “it’s over.”

“
It’s not fucking over!” she shouted. “Not by a long shot!”

She sat on the wooden bench in front of her locker, her elbows on her thighs and her cheeks cupped in her hands. She was crying and told herself it was just the release of tension, but she’d tried to stop and couldn’t so she just let it happen. She was perspiring under the protective vest and wanted to take it off so she could breathe properly, but she couldn’t move. She could only sit there, tears running down her cheeks.

On the other side of the row of lockers someone came in, opened a locker, banged around for a minute, shut the locker and went out. Karen unsnapped a buckle on the vest and let her hand drop back down between her knees.

She’d wanted very badly to kill the guy who’d shot Hank. She’d killed three people in the line of duty so far in her career. The first two had happened while she was a patrol officer and the third had been Tang Lei last Thursday. She did what she had to do and tried not to think about it very much, but she’d been so amped up to shoot Tommy Leung and his hired gun it had caught her off guard. She was supposed to serve and protect, not take people out. She was supposed to be better than the scum who pointed their weapons at her; she was supposed to represent a higher value system. But she’d smelled blood in that warehouse, she’d been extremely frustrated when it hadn’t happened and now she just felt angry. Angry because she’d been cheated of the payback she wanted for Hank. Angry because she knew she should feel guilty, but didn’t.

She stood up, took off her vest and stripped to her skivvies. There was a change of clothing in her locker, a clean t-shirt and jeans, and she put them on. Very deliberately she stuffed her sweaty clothing into a canvas bag.

When she was dressed she closed the locker. On the bench were her badge, ID and weapon. She picked up the gold shield and looked at it.

“
Wow.”

“
I say the same thing every morning when I put it on, Taylor. It’s pretty cool.”

She clipped the shield and her ID on her belt. Then she picked up the holstered gun and clipped it onto her other hip.

She walked out of the locker room into a busy hallway and looked around.

Who else needs their ass kicked?

Peter considered Lam’s question carefully before replying. “Will I run for
Shan Chu
?” he shrugged. “Perhaps.”

Lam shifted his bulk in his chair. The uncles had decided to allow the council to elect a new Dragon Head and it was time for Lam to step aside once more. For good this time, he hoped. “Chow will win.”

There was no doubt in Peter’s mind that the uncles had discussed among themselves the outcome of the election and that Lam was telling him up front how it would turn out. It was a courtesy Peter appreciated.

“
I understand, Uncle Sang. I thought I’d put my name forward anyway, to make my intentions known.”

“
Your intentions are well known.” Lam looked around Peter’s office. “Come downtown,” he said. “This Opium Wars nostalgia stuff doesn’t work.”

“
I think I will,” Peter said.

“
Good. This is a boy’s daydream. Not appropriate for a man who wishes to be a leader in the twenty-first century.” He rubbed his forehead. “Chow will make his own changes.”

“
I know.”

“
His own
Hung Kwan
will carry out the duties you’ve handled for me.”

“
I understand.”

“
He’ll bury you.”

“
He’ll try,” Peter said.

Lam wagged his hand. “Too much killing, too much violence. Chow has to understand his mandate is to heal, not inflict more wounds. Just the same, if you want to survive, you’ll need to make some major changes, build a new organization around yourself, get into a business that will increase your influence, change how you’re perceived. Can you do that?”

“
Of course,” Peter said.

Lam heaved himself up out of Peter’s chair and patted him on the shoulder. “Get better office furniture, too. My back aches for days after I come here.”

“
Yes, Uncle Sang.”

The old man stared down at him. “Then there’s the matter of the police. We’ll need Chow to mend things with them downtown.” He shook his head. “I don’t know how well he’s going to manage that. It was a major sticking point with some of us who felt he wouldn’t succeed as Dragon Head. We need the police to leave us alone, and Chow has a way of pissing people off.” Lam patted his shoulder once more and shuffled out the door.

Peter rose to accompany him downstairs, where his car waited.

“
Make changes,” Lam said. “Make them now.”

“
I will,” Peter promised.

It was Peter Mah who ultimately convinced Meredith to visit Taylor Chan, but it took two telephone calls. The first call was short and ended on a somewhat negative note. Peter made the mistake of presenting his idea with too much enthusiasm and failed to detect Meredith’s strong reluctance to see the boy until she’d said no for the third time and abruptly hung up. He gave it a couple of days and called again, this time to apologize for his insensitivity to her feelings on the matter and to acknowledge her wisdom in wishing not to revive the emotions that she had reconciled over the course of the four years since Martin had passed away.

Meredith, for her part, apologized for having hung up in his ear and for not considering the good intentions with which he’d proposed his idea in the first place. Once the formalities were out of the way Peter again suggested that it might be beneficial for her to see Taylor at least once while he was still at an age to speak about his past memories.

“
How on earth would it be beneficial for me?” she asked, still feeling somewhat vexed about the whole thing.

“
The rest of us have heard these things he’s saying about having been Martin,” Peter replied quietly. “It’s something you’ll always know happened, that the boy believed he was Martin in his previous life, and it will always bother you. If you see him, maybe hear him say these things, you can judge for yourself and put your mind to rest. If you choose not to believe, then your mind will be made up and you can forget about it. On the other hand, if you choose to believe, your feelings about Martin’s death will change and you may find some peace of mind.”

Meredith was silent for a long time. “I’ll think about it,” she said finally, and ended the call.

The visit was arranged for the first Sunday in June. It turned out to be a beautiful day, with a clear blue sky and a warm breeze blowing in off the river. Hank picked up Meredith in a taxi at her building and rode with her over to a school in Springhill that was a block from the Chan home. Michael and Grace often brought Taylor to the football field behind the school to play on the weekends, and Michael felt it might be a good place for Taylor to meet Meredith for the first time.

Hank told the taxi driver to wait for them at the edge of the field. They got out and walked toward the small grandstand where Grace Chan sat reading a book. Hank could see Michael and Taylor down by the far end zone, playing with a football. Taylor was learning how to punt the ball. Hank watched a kick travel about ten yards before it began to bounce, which he thought was pretty good for a three-and-a-half-year-old.

Grace stood up and gave Meredith a hug. Hank gave them a little distance, watching the boy play, and after they’d exchanged a few words Meredith began to walk across the field toward Michael and Taylor. At first she moved slowly, hesitantly. Then Hank saw her head come up and she began to walk more decisively, as though she’d put aside her dread and accepted the fact that she could deal with whatever the next few minutes would bring her.

Hank sat down next to Grace. “How’s Taylor doing?”

“
Taylor?” She lifted her eyebrows. “He’s fine. A typical terrible three, full of energy and mischief. One moment he’s doing something wacky, the next he’s as grouchy as a bear. He asked his father yesterday if Uncle Peter could come over for a visit because he wanted to tell Peter he was sorry he thought Peter was mad at him before.” Grace shook her head. “Michael was very patient. He explained that the rule was, Peter could only visit on Taylor’s birthday, so he’d have to wait until November.”

“
How’d that go?”

“
There was a tantrum. Then he got over it. Typical terrible three.”

Hank looked across the field at the next street over. A limousine had pulled up to the curb and Hank could see a man leaning casually against the back fender, arms folded, watching as Meredith reached Michael and Taylor and exchanged greetings with the boy’s father. Hank shaded his eyes for a better view, but didn’t need to bother. He knew it was Peter.

Michael spoke to Taylor for a moment then moved away as Meredith came close. He reached the goal posts in the end zone and leaned against the left one. It was one of those combination goal posts that doubled as a soccer goal, made of four-inch-square tubing. He positioned himself so that he faced the limousine down the street.

Peter did not move.

Hank watched Meredith bend down to say something to Taylor. After a moment she crouched down so that she could talk to him at his level. At first Taylor’s chin was on his chest, but before long his shyness seemed to disappear and he had no trouble looking into Meredith’s eyes. He shifted his weight back and forth a few times, relaxing, and at one point gestured with his arm as though pointing toward heaven. Meredith lowered her head for a moment, then raised it again. She embraced the boy, held him for a long moment, then let him go and stood up. Taylor skipped over to his father, who pushed away from the goal post and swept him up in his arms. The three of them began to walk back toward the grandstand, but after a few yards Taylor began to twist in his father’s grasp and Michael set him down. The football had been forgotten in the end zone, and Hank could see that Taylor wanted to continue playing with his father.

Michael said something to Meredith and Meredith waved goodbye to Taylor, who waved back and then pelted after the football, half-stumbling in his excitement.

Meredith nodded to Grace, then she and Hank got back in the taxi. He told the driver to take them back downtown.

“
Are you all right?”

She nodded, crying. She removed a tissue from her handbag and dabbed at her tears. They rode for several blocks in silence.

“
I need a drink,” she said finally, in a low voice. “I need to be around people.”

Hank glanced at his watch. “They’re serving brunch at the Brass Pump.”

“
That sounds wonderful,” she whispered.

They found two empty stools at the end of the bar and settled in. Meredith had regained her composure, and when Hank ordered steak and kidney pie with a draft of Guinness, she chose the weekend brunch special, which featured two fried eggs and a pan-fried mixture of red peppers, green onions, bacon and sausage with potato wedges. She ordered a Bass, drank it a little too quickly, and ordered another when their food arrived.

When the server had cleared away their dishes and brought them coffee, Meredith took a deep breath. “He said, ‘hello, mama.’ He said, ‘I wanted to see you again but I was scared to ask.’ I asked him why, and he said he thought his new mama might not like it. I said Grace was a great person and he said ‘I know, but I didn’t tell you I love you before I left. I should’ve said that.’ I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything.”

“
Well.” Hank really didn’t know to say, either. He saw that Meredith’s eyes were dry. She was staring straight ahead, lips drawn tight across her teeth.