Dirty Secret (30 page)

“McGinnis? I’m Brandon Yeu.” He shook my hand when I offered it. He must have read the slight confusion on my face. “I looked you up. There’s a picture of you on your website.”

“Hi. Please, just call me Cole.” I’d forgotten about the site. Mike’d put it up for me when he had his security firm’s redone. For all I knew, he could have plastered on pictures of me when I was three, riding the furry pony I’d gotten for Christmas butt naked except for a cowboy hat and a gun belt.

“I have to admit, I was kind of surprised to hear from you,” he said as an older woman set glasses of barley tea in front of us.

I ordered
bulgogi
, hoping it was the one without bones, and Yeu ordered something with a lot of
D
s and
K
s in it. It sounded like the rice cylinder bobbles and ramen dish Jae liked, but I’d have to wait to see if I was right.

Opening the portfolio I’d brought with me, I extracted the check David had the bank cut for me a few hours ago. Passing the envelope over to Yeu, I said, “The Parks would like to extend their apologies about this. Shin-Cho and David would have come, but there’s been a few tragic events in the family. They send their regrets.”

Events seemed to be too small of a word for Helena’s death, Shin-Cho’s injuries, and the terror that seemed to follow the Park brothers, but it was the best I could come up with. Yeu didn’t need to be burdened with details, and from the relief on his face, I guessed he was glad to keep our meeting short and concise. Formal family apologies seemed to run for hours and did nothing but make people uncomfortable.

He opened the envelope and took the check out, staring at it for a few seconds. Tapping it against the table, Yeu grinned up at me sheepishly. “To be honest, I wanted to tear it up into little pieces and fling it back in their faces.”

I shrugged and said, “They were kids when this all happened. They’re just trying to make things right.”

“I know. It was a moment of pride and outrage that lasted as long as my husband reminding me our son’s going to be in college soon.” He put the check back into the envelope and grinned at me. His front tooth had a chip in it, an endearing flaw in his smile. “He’s still a freshman, but I might as well worry about it now.”

“Is your husband Korean? ’Cause I’ve got to admit, it seems like most of the Korean guys I meet are gay.” I took a sip of the cold barley tea. “Could just be who I’m hanging out with. My boyfriend’s Korean.”

“Probably because it’s easier to be gay and Korean here than in Korea,” Yeu replied. “There, you don’t even say the word, or they look at you funny. But no, my husband’s Chinese. Same problem, though. His family’s kicked him out of the registry. My father was the same way until my son was born, and my brothers’ wives only had girls. Now I’m the favorite.”

He did what all parents do, producing a photo from his phone with seeming ease. A cute pre-teen boy with Yeu’s nose and smile stared out at me from the screen, his arm around a fierce looking Korean patriarch whose eyes shone with pride.

“Dean’s a smart kid. I want the best for him.” Yeu put his phone away. “My father’s offered to pay for his college, but… it’s important for me to get him through it.”

“Yeah, I know how that is.”

“Doesn’t stop my father from trying to buy him a car, but I’ve stalled him at least until Dean’s got a license.” He chuckled. The meal arrived, and we thanked the woman, tucking into our food. A few seconds later, she came back with a small cast iron pot of steamed egg froth, urging me to eat more, then patting me on the back as she left.

Yeu laughed. “Guess you’ve been here before.”

“Yeah, Jae likes it here,” I replied. “
He
gets spoiled rotten. Probably because he’s prettier than I am.”

We ate in silence for a bit. The bulgolgi was perfect, and I’d been right about the D-K dish. Yeu picked out pieces of noodle with his chopsticks, and ate without slurping the red sauce across the table. Lacking that skill, I kept fighting with my rice until I gave up and reached for the spoon.

“I’m not really sure what I can tell you about that night.” Yeu finally broached the topic I’d come for. “Yes, I did see him, but I was pissed off at him so I didn’t stop to talk. When the cops came through the door, I’d just arrived.”

“Dae-Hoon was upstairs with someone else. That person went out the back, but she didn’t see Dae-Hoon leave that way. Were you in the front?”

“Yeah, I wasn’t fighting them. They put cuffs on me and had me sit against the wall outside. They were bringing one of those trucks to take us to the station,” Yeu recalled. “The cops were pulling people down the stairs. Dae-Hoon was one of them, but so were a lot of other men.”

“Do you remember anything about the person he was with? Anything?”

“Just a cop. He was wearing a uniform, I think.” Yeu looked away, frowning as he tried to dredge up memories of that night. “He was white… and big, but that was pretty much every cop there. Dae-Hoon wasn’t put at the wall like the rest of us. The cop took him outside and put him in a black sedan. It could have been an unmarked car. I don’t know. I didn’t really think about it. I had other things on my mind at the time.”

“Anything else?” My notes were lean. I needed to find the cop that escorted Dae-Hoon out of the building. He was the next step in the chain to Dae-Hoon’s disappearance.

“Not that I can think of. The cop put Dae-Hoon in the car and drove off.” Yeu shrugged. “I was put into one of those paddy trucks. Went down to the station, got arrested, and left the next morning to tell my father I was gay. I’d spent the night in jail because of it. I guess I was just tired of getting pushed around. That’s the last time I saw Dae-Hoon.”

We lingered a bit over the food, mostly talking about football, and disparaging Los Angeles’ inability to get a team, much less keep one. I refused a third helping of the steamed egg but ate the rest of the fishcake. Yeu polished off the rest of the panchan and declared it was time for him to head home.

With Jae on an engagement party shoot until ten, I’d have the house to myself, not something I actually wanted. Crossing the street, I climbed the stairs to the third level of the parking structure where I’d left the Rover. Dialing up Bobby to see if he wanted to watch a game, I’d just exited the stairwell when the lights went out.

The structure’s walls were high, barely letting in the watery outside light. The cold storm front doused nearly all of the sunlight, hanging a dark gray veil over the area. Lightning crackled across the sky to the west, a brief scatter of forks followed by an earthshaking rumble. Another boom followed, this one close enough to make me miss hearing Bobby’s machine pick up on the other end. I blinked, trying to get my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, when another flash went off right over me, filling my eyes with a painful white-blue wash.

“Son of a bitch,” I swore into the phone as Bobby’s voice mail wound down. My eyes were watering, and the blinking only seemed to make it worse. The Rover was a large gray mass at the other end, and I crossed over toward it, avoiding the lakes pooling up from the rain as it came in from the sides. “Yeah, ignore that, Bobby. Sorry, lights are off down in Ktown. Hey, if you want to catch a game tonight, let me—”

The first shot went wide, hitting the car parked a few spaces from where I was standing. Startled, I twisted to get down, flinging myself to the concrete, and my phone skittered out of my hand, landing somewhere in the dark recesses between a car and the containment wall. I saw a bit of a flash coming from the right, but other than that, I could barely see in front of me. I ducked down and tried to look for some cover. The level hadn’t had many cars on it when I’d parked, and there seemed to be even less from what I could make out from the fuzzy blurs swimming in front of me.

I ran, slamming my hip into the shot-up car. My foot splashed through a stream pouring out of the front of the compact, the oddly metallic smell of radiator fluid hitting me in the face. Wiping the damp off my lashes, I let my eyes adjust to the dim light while I huddled at the rear of the backed-in tiny car. I couldn’t see my phone, but there was little chance of it surviving hitting the concrete. They seemed to break with only a sharp look and a scolding. I didn’t think smacking into congealed rock would do it any good.

“Bad place to be, McGinnis,” I muttered. “And why the hell don’t you carry a fucking gun?”

It was a moot point. Said gun was safely snoozing in a lock box at the top of my armoire, probably dreaming of electric pigeons. I poked my head out a bit, jerking back when another bullet whizzed past my head and slammed into the high concrete barrier behind me.

Of course I’d parked the Rover at the far end of the level, but even if I reached it, it was still only made of steel and glass. I was fond of the new Rover. I’d just gotten the seat to where I wanted it, and the mirrors were adjusted perfectly for me to see out the back window and sides. I’d be damned if I was going to turn it over for target practice. If anything happened to it, my insurance company would insist my next car be a tank.

I decided to try reason.

Shouting over the edge of the car, I kept an eye out for any movement. “Look, I’m guessing you’re the asshole that’s been trying to kill me lately. Want to tell me why?”

Having only been targeted for death twice in my life, I had a fifty-fifty chance of whoever was shooting at me giving me a reason. Jae’s cousin had been more than happy to bare her soul, while Ben went to his self-inflicted grave with all of his grudges against Rick and I buried with him.

“Where’s Shin-Cho?” The voice echoing through the structure was male, and definitely Korean. His English was a marbled blend of vowels and slurring hisses. Choi was dead, and I tried the only other person I could imagine would be wondering where Shin-Cho was.

“Li Mun-Hee?”

That
earned me another bullet.

It blew out a couple of the windows, going through the driver’s side and out the rear glass. A pebbled rain poured down on me, and I used the sound to cover my scuttling over to a Honda a few spaces away. A second later, another round popped off, and a chunk of concrete flew off the wall, smacking the ground between the cars. Hovering at the front of the car, I was thankful the owner’d pulled in and left me with a lot of room to maneuver.

“Look, Mun-Hee,” I shouted again, fighting a roll of thunder passing over. “You might be pissed off at Shin-Cho, but everyone else is innocent in this!”

“Why would I be mad at Shin-Cho? I love him. He’s mine.”

I heard a scuttling sound and peered under the car. Li was closer to the side of the structure facing the street where the walls were lower. I could see his boots as he walked around by the stairwell. Even if I made it to the ramp, he was between me and the exit. I only had the top level as a choice, and that would leave me fully exposed.

“You shot him,” I reminded Li. “At the bar. Remember?”

“I shot that man! The one talking to him!” Li’s frustration was growing, and he paused in midstep. I was guessing he was checking behind every vehicle when he hurried over and stopped in the shadows behind a lowered sports car. “I wasn’t trying to hit Shin-Cho.”

“And Helena? What the hell did she do?” I had no idea how many bullets he had, or how many he shot. Those cool scenes where the good guy counts off the rounds then jumps the bad guy were full of shit. I had no idea if he had a full magazine or was using a Colt Revolver, and there was no way in hell I was going to risk my head to find out.

“I was aiming for Kwon,” Li yelled back. “That….” I didn’t know the word he used. It didn’t matter. It was pretty obvious Kwon hadn’t been one of Li’s favorite people. “He’s the one who took Shin-Cho. Waiting for Shin-Cho to come to America, so he could have him again. He needed to die.”

I could argue that very few people actually
needed
to die, but I didn’t think Mun-Hee was willing to listen to any arguments I might make on the subject. He proved that by shooting out another window, startling a bird that apparently had taken refuge from the rain under it.

“Great, now he’s shooting at anything that moves,” I grumbled, and checked to see where his boots were. If I’d been smart, I’d have brought my gun and shot under the cars to hit his feet. But then if I’d been smart, I’d also have taken a high-powered flashlight so I could see better.

Mun-Hee hadn’t moved, probably listening for the sound of my voice before he pounced. A flash of lightning hit, and I yelled at him, hoping to keep him talking and distracted. “What about Choi? What is it? One big conspiracy to keep Shin-Cho from being with you?”

I’d timed it pretty well. The thunder masked any sound I made scrambling across the floor, and at the same time, Mun-Hee emptied a couple of rounds into the car I’d been hiding behind. Alarms started going off, blaring and chirping in a hideous symphony when another wave of thunder and lightning, closer and louder than the others, hit. The noise was deafening, and I chanced looking to see where Mun-Hee’d gone.

I’d blinked, and like some damned stone angel, he was now only a few feet away, standing still and cautious as he looked around for his prey.

The weapon he had in his hand was a dark, wicked thing. I hadn’t seen the type of gun it was, but that really wasn’t going to help me. Even though he seemed like a shitty shot, he could still get lucky. I didn’t need to know the type of gun being used to kill me. Dead was dead. There wasn’t going to be a test later.

“Choi was trying to stop me,” Mun-Hee muttered loudly. He was only a car length away from me, and he shuffled around the floor, unsure if I’d made it across to the other side or was still bunny-hopping down the row. “He followed me here. He didn’t think I saw him, but I did. He wanted Shin-Cho too. I could see it.”

“Shin-Cho’s not that hot,” I mumbled.

Li was obviously off his nut. For all I knew, Choi’d been the man-whore of Seoul with the ladies, and Shin-Cho’s stalker was right about his seductive ways, but I doubted it. I shifted as I crouched, and bit my lip when my elbow struck the wheel of the car I’d made it to. A creeping numbness hit my nerves, and I clenched my mouth shut, ignoring the sensation of my funny bone’s complaints.