Authors: Joanne Pence
“Yes. Bosque was a part of El Grande’s inner circle. I had suspected as much, and even heard rumors that the two were related through El Grande’s marriage, but Tanaka refused to believe any of that. He thought Bosque was simply a good man who had gotten into trouble and was being squeezed in the same way as he was. Obviously, Bosque told El Grande what Tanaka planned, and that resulted in Tanaka being killed.”
Richie nodded. “I see. And now”—his eyes were hard as he looked at Hanemoto—“I know who killed Diego Bosque.”
Hanemoto’s nostrils flared. “I was glad to take his life. His betrayal killed my friend. Tanaka-san and I were like brothers. I had to avenge him. You understand.”
Richie understood completely.
From the doorway behind him, Richie heard a slightly accented voice, one he recognized well after being captured and questioned by the man. “That’s all I wanted to know.”
o0o
Rebecca hoped the night and the fog would keep her safe.
She saw a car turn onto Polk, and prayed the gunman wasn’t looking in her direction as the car drove by, knowing it would illuminate her just as it did the rest of the street.
As the car neared, she watched the stranger, ready to act if he spotted her. Instead, the car lights drove him back a little way into his hidey-hole. But as it neared him, she was now close enough to see the outline of a skinny body, and a scraggly mustache and long goatee.
She gasped. He was the same man as she’d seen in the room with El Grande when holding Richie prisoner.
o0o
Hanemoto reached for his pistol, but too late. All of El Grande’s attention had been focused on him, as if wanting to be sure the manager knew exactly what was going to happen to him, and who was going to do it. El Grande himself pointed his gun and fired, killing Hanemoto with one shot to the middle of his forehead.
o0o
Why aren’t they moving in?
o0o
“Richie, my friend,” El Grande said, his voice soft and sad. “I’m sorry. But even though you found out that Hanemoto killed Diego—and I appreciate being allowed to avenge my family’s honor—I’m going to have to kill you. It’s not personal, but I don’t like witnesses.”
“El Grande, you don’t have to do this,” Richie said, a hand outstretched as he backed towards the wall.
The click of a lighter was heard and then a rush as a fire began.
The sound was followed by four gunshots in rapid succession.
And then all went quiet.
o0o
“Police! Drop the gun,” Rebecca yelled, her Glock pointed at El Grande’s man. “Or this time, I
will
kill you.”
The man’s arm whipped in her direction. He fired at the same time as she pulled the trigger.
Rebecca stood still, stunned and horrified by all that had just happened.
El Grande’s man lay at on the sidewalk, dead. His bullet missed by an inch or less, but her shot had been true.
She dropped her gun and looked up. She didn’t know how long she had stood there, but now she saw that the SWAT team had knocked open the front doors of the restaurant. Smoke was billowing out of it, a lot of smoke. She had no idea why. No idea what had happened inside, except for the barrage of gunshots she’d heard.
She took a step towards it when Lt. Eastwood, who had decided to show up for the joint FBI-SFPD action, grabbed her wrist and clamped down hard. “Let the SWAT team take it,” he commanded. “Stay out of their way!”
She nodded, and Eastwood let her go, telling her the SWAT team had been ordered in as soon as El Grande started to talk, and the first gunshots were heard. They had hit the back door, the one off the alley, with a battering ram. The door sprang open, but as soon as the outside air hit the flames, they roared large and deadly, and the SWAT team had been forced to back up.
He explained that the go-ahead was then given to the few members at the front of the restaurant to breach the scene. A couple of them had seen the shoot-out she was involved in. They saw the gunman aim at them, and even before they reacted, they watched Rebecca stop him. They saw the exchange of fire before she managed to take him down. She’d had what Eastwood called “a good shoot.”
Rebecca shut her eyes, suddenly light-headed. It may have been a good shoot here, but she’d also heard the gunshots from inside the restaurant. They still resounded over and over in her head. Two shots, a brief pause, and then four more. No one could survive that.
She felt an arm around her shoulders, holding her, supporting her. “You okay, partner?” To her surprise, it was Sutter.
She couldn’t answer.
He bowed his head, and soon let her go.
She stepped a bit closer to the building’s front entrance, even as she dreaded what she would find. But the SWAT had established a perimeter and she wasn’t allowed past it. She could see that the front door had been opened, and thick smoke poured out of it, but no flames were visible.
The outline of a man appeared in the smoke-filled doorway. A SWAT member tried to help him, but he waved him off as he staggered away from the building.
Even with a handkerchief over his mouth, bent and stumbling, she recognized him. She knew she always would.
Rebecca moved towards him.
“Wait!” Lieutenant Eastwood said.
But she didn’t listen. She pushed pass the perimeter and ran to Richie, who was coughing so much he could barely walk. “I’ve got him,” she said to the SWAT officer still trying to help, then did a double-take. Even with a helmet on, she’d recognize those blue eyes anywhere—it was Shay. She gawked as he gave a quick nod and then rushed off in the opposite direction. Her arm circled Richie’s waist and he leaned against her for support.
She helped him to a spot where the air was clear. He had stopped coughing and was able to stand without support. His face and clothes were black with soot, and his eyes watered, but to her, he looked wonderful.
“Are you hurt?” she asked, brushing his hair back from his eyes, touching his face, his shoulders, his arms as if to convince herself he was still alive.
“I’ll be okay.”
“You scared me half to death, you know!”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“No, I guess not.” She put her arms around him.
He hesitated to hold her. “Everyone’s watching,” he whispered.
She caught his eyes. “Let them.” Then, in front of Lt. Eastwood, the other detectives, the FBI, God, and everyone else who might be near, she kissed him and hugged him as if she never wanted to let him go.
Richie was being questioned by Seymour in his van and she had not been invited to listen in. Seymour kept a strict dividing line between “his” FBI areas, and SFPD areas of responsibility. She didn’t care. She knew Richie would fill her in on the details.
She waited for him.
When he stepped out of the van he looked both emotionally and physically exhausted. He stared at her a moment without a hint of a smile, and then shook his head.
“I’m taking you home,” she said.
“I heard what happened,” he told her, his expression harsh and intense as he studied her. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Quite.”
“I mean, not just physically, but—”
“Yes. I can handle it. Really.”
He put his arms around her, and held her close, showing his support for her just as she had earlier for him. Her sister’s words, that if she’d been shot Richie would be there for her, came back to her, and her arms tightened around him.
Then he let her go, his eyes sad but also with admiration. He handed over the keys to his beloved Porsche without even making a quip about it.
“You’re actually going to let me drive?” she said.
“Just don’t strip the gears,” he murmured.
“Gears? What are those?” she teased.
He put his arm across her shoulders, she put hers across his back, and he let her lead him to the car.
He fell asleep as she drove and didn’t wake up until she shut off the engine inside his garage.
In the kitchen, he spoke drowsily, “I don’t know what you want to eat or drink at this ungodly hour, but help yourself. I’ve got to take a shower to get the stink of this night off me.”
“Maybe I should call a cab—”
“No.” His expression told her how much he was hurting and didn’t want to be alone. “Stay. I’ll just be a minute.”
She nodded.
She looked in the refrigerator. She didn’t want to eat, and she was pretty sure food was the last thing he wanted.
She found a bottle of cabernet sauvignon that had been opened, and poured them each a glass, then went into the living room. She switched on his gas fireplace to take the chill out of the air. Nights in San Francisco usually had a damp chill that cut right through you, and that night, she realized now that she actually had time to think about the weather, had been no different.
He soon came into the living room wearing black sweatpants and a blue sweatshirt. His hair was still damp, but the soot and smoky smell were gone. He sat beside her on the sofa and picked up the wine glass. “To a job completed,” he said. “
Salut’.
”
She lifted her glass.
“Salut’,”
she said in return as their glasses clinked.
He took a small sip and put the glass down. “It was horrible,” he admitted. “We started out so simply: the quest for free publicity, and then it mushroomed, on and on, finally ending in so much death.”
“No one could have predicted such a thing,” she whispered.
“And you were supposed to be safely in the van with Seymour!” Richie said. “What’s wrong with that jerk? If anything had happened to you—”
“It didn’t. And I’m glad I didn’t listen to him. If I hadn’t been there, a cop might have been killed by that skinny monster.”
He shook his head. “Okay. I won’t punch Seymour out next time I see him. Which I hope is never.”
“Good,” she said sincerely.
He took a deep breath. “I wonder if I’ll ever stop seeing that sight. The blood, and then the fire.” He visibly shuddered.
She gave his shoulder a small supportive rub, then dropped her hand. “Tell me what happened.”
He leaned forward, forearms resting on his thighs. “Well, despite what my law enforcement friends were all thinking,” he said with a quick glance at her, “I never believed Hanemoto had killed Shig, let alone butchered him. They’d been friends, close friends. Also, beheadings are becoming a big favorite of Mexican drug gangs as a way to strike terror in their enemies. El Grande’s little visit with me told me all I needed to know. And the fact that he was crazy enough to go after your sister … I knew he had to be eliminated.”
“Why didn’t you tell me any of this?”
“Because it was all feeling—I had no proof of anything, and you and Seymour seemed pretty convinced Hanemoto was the killer. In one way, you were right.” He ignored her grimace and sat upright as he continued. “After I left you and Seymour, yesterday, Shay and I went to Kyoto Dreams for dinner and to set up the meeting with Hanemoto. While I talked with Hanemoto, Shay excused himself, and studied the layout of the back of the restaurant. He unlocked one of the windows. Later, when the restaurant was closed and everyone left, around midnight, he snuck inside and waited.
“He knew nothing was supposed to happen until four a.m., but about two-thirty, he heard the front door open. It was El Grande and his men. He sent me a text letting me know both that he was in the restaurant, and that we were right—El Grande had shown up.”
“El Grande broke in?” Rebecca asked, surprised.
“I suspect they used Shig’s key. For all we know they may still … still have his body. Anyway, they checked out the place, and thought it was empty. Shay knows how to disappear, believe me.”
“I was wondering how they had gotten past the police,” Rebecca said. “And, now, it turns that they snuck inside ahead of all of us. But where was Shay hiding?”
For the first time since he left the restaurant, Richie smiled. “When El Grande entered the restaurant, Shay went into the women’s room. He pulled all the doors shut, and stood on a toilet seat so they couldn’t see his feet. There’s something about women’s rooms that makes men uneasy. Kind of creeps us out, in fact. We want to get out of them as quickly as possible. I suspect that’s why no one checked each stall.”
She shook her head at that bit of Too Much Information.
“Anyway, they went back into the storeroom next to Hanemoto’s office and waited for the rest of us to arrive. I suspect, the way the restaurant went up in flames so fast, they must have heavily doused it with gasoline while they were waiting. That was the one thing Shay and I hadn’t thought of—that El Grande would want to completely destroy the place.”
He took a deep breath, and then continued. “You probably heard a lot of what was said. El Grande needed to personally take revenge on Bosque’s killer because Bosque was family. And he did. Then, when he and his guy were concentrating on setting the fire and, I’m sorry to say, kill me, Shay was able to sneak up behind them and pick them off one by one. Grande’s bodyguard got off one shot, but it was wild.”
“When I heard those gunshots …”
“I know,” he said, his hand against her cheek. “I’m sorry. Shay put his gun in Hanemoto’s guard’s hand, making it look like the two groups killed each other. I told your pal, Seymour, that’s what happened, while I hid under a table—which was kind of true, come to think of it. Anyway, our biggest problem—before any of this even started—was how we would get Shay out of there without him being seen. We definitely didn’t want him to be questioned by the police. But once we heard the SWAT team would be at the scene, Shay got his hands on a uniform, and that problem was solved.”
She nodded. “It makes sense. Crazy, but it makes sense … except for one thing. Why did El Grande show up? How could he have known about the meeting?”
She watched a strange play of emotions on his face. “It seems someone called him with a tip—told him he’d hear a confession and have a chance to take revenge on Bosque’s killer.”
“But no one knew …” She stopped talking. No one but her, the FBI, Shay, and Richie. And Shay would never call in such a tip unless told to.
“So, you and Shay,” she swallowed hard as the full extent of his plan sunk in, “you two figured out how to get rid of El Grande, one of the most dangerous drug lords in the area.”
“Maybe so,” he admitted.
Who is this man?
“My God! Are you crazy?”
“Don’t think of it that way,” he said. “Think of it as avenging some friends and making sure that I—and you—are safe from El Grande and his goons. For sure, I would have been next on his list, and you, too, might have been in danger.”
She knew he was right. “The fire burned up most of the evidence of what actually happened, so I suspect the surviving gang members won’t come after you. And especially not after they hear Seymour’s story that all you did was to hide under the table while the two groups killed each other.” She couldn’t help but smile. “I’m sure he’ll love telling that to anyone who’ll listen.”
“God, but I hate that stuffed shirt,” Richie admitted.
“Still, you took a hell of a chance. It was crazy dangerous. So many things could have gone wrong.”
“But they didn’t. Not this time, at least.”
His last words were like a knife to the chest.
Not this time …
Worry, amazement, and misgivings mixed in a maddening cacophony, even as every iota of her being cheered at what he and Shay had managed to pull off. “Right now,” she said, “all I know is that I thank God you survived.”
He put his arms around her. “And all I know is I’ve never seen anything as beautiful as you waiting for me when I got out of that hell hole.”
His sweet words made her throat feel thick. As she looked into his eyes, she couldn’t help but think of how close she’d come to losing him that night. It was the sort of thing that focused one’s mind, that made a person realize what—and who—was truly important. He was far more important to her than she had allowed herself to admit. But she admitted it now to herself and—thinking of the public way she’d kissed him—to everyone who knew her, as a matter of fact.
“What am I going to do with you?” she whispered, scarcely able to speak so much emotion coursed through her.
He drew her closer and kissed her lightly. “I’ve got an idea.”
Her arms went around him as her heart filled with joy and desire. “I thought you were exhausted.”
He stretched out on the sofa, shifting so that she lay beside him. Then, to her surprise, he propped himself up and watched her face, her eyes, as he gently ran his hand along her cheek, her neck, her collarbone, down along her side to her hip. There, he stopped for only a moment as he leaned forward and whispered, “Not anymore.”
The End