Authors: Henry Chang
Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Police Procedural, #ebook
“What the hell was that all about?” Alex asked incredulously.
“They were waiting for someone,” Jack answered, pocketing the
shuriken
, “and it sure wasn’t Buddha.”
The message he left with Nicoll sounded like a telegram: “Two
AM
, Got call from INTERPOL. Went to South King, got into a fight. Two men, Chinese. Something to do with a triad.” Pause. “Or a tong. There’s another person of interest, who may be a suspect. A woman. Keep in touch.”
Jack brought Alex back to his airport motel room, where she applied ice packs to the swollen welts that ran across his left shoulder. He could tell she was embarrassed by the economy room, comparing it to hers at the Westin.
She noticed old scars on his chest and arms, and remembered visiting him in the hospital after he’d been shot while investigating the murder of the food delivery boy.
Meanwhile the big man with the iron nunchakus had reminded Jack of Golo, the tall Hip Ching enforcer, and the vicious fight they’d had in Brooklyn’s Chinatown. They’d wounded each other then, but Jack had since left Golo very dead on a San Francisco rooftop. Now Jack was again chasing the same woman who, in his mind’s eye, was just a fleeting image disappearing behind a rooftop door as he sent two hollow-point bullets after her.
The triad information from INTERPOL made Jack think of the old men of the Hip Ching Benevolent Association back in New York; they’d played dumb about their murdered boss, offering up the Fukienese newcomers as bait.
Jack felt that the fight and flight on South King had the stink of the Hip Chings around it. It’d been their business from the start and they were finishing it now. The Paper Fan was connected to the Hip Chings somehow, and Jack heard the echo of the RHKP’s voice: Find the woman, you’ll find him.
It was almost 3
AM
when he and Alex delved back into the Seattle directories. They sought addresses for anything Hip Ching: cultural organizations, benevolent societies, trade associations, credit unions, fraternal and village societies, immigrant self-help services.
Outside the motel window the night sky had opened up to pounding sheets of rain.
Within an hour they’d narrowed it down to an address in Chinatown that housed three Hip Ching-affiliated organizations. Three, a magic Chinese number, Jack knew.
Alex was wide-eyed, wired.
The adrenaline and the espresso-and-liqueur mixture had juiced them up, and they went to the car for the drive back to Chinatown.
He’d had a fitful sleep on the bed of the convertible couch in the back office of the Benevolent Association. He was concerned about not leaving a trace of his stay in
Say nga
touh
, and his throbbing knee hadn’t responded to the hot towel wrap.
Tsai grimaced as he rubbed the pungent brown
deet da
jow
along the outside of his left knee, where the Chinese
chaai lo
cop had kicked him. The liniment bit at his nostrils. I should have gone for the face, Tsai thought, closing his eyes as he put more pressure into the rub. It would have had a greater impact. He’d played it safe, had chosen to go for the torso, the bigger target, instead of the head, aiming the
shuriken
into the cop’s gut.
Tsai measured his breathing, twisted his face away from the smell of the
deet da jow.
He imagined the big 49 fighter flailing with his metal nunchakus. A big lug, lacking in training. They’d let the cop off lightly. And women were bad luck, he cursed, rubbing anger into the pain around his knee.
They’d have to be more discreet about the temple now.
The call from the female Grass Sandal assuaged Tsai’s pain, although he still felt bad luck in the air. She’d been ambitious and had discovered another connection to the missing woman, Mona.
This discovery had come about precisely because she was a woman and undoubtedly would garner her some attention from the triad’s national ranks.
In the privacy of the front office, Tsai rested his leg on the coffee table, looked out over Elliott Bay, and listened to her report.
“She’s found a woman doctor,” the Grass Sandal said.
Tsai assumed she meant a female doctor.
“An ob-gyn,” she added for detail, “a woman’s doctor.”
The clarification was sharp; of course he hadn’t considered it.
A woman’s doctor
.
Acting on a hunch, the female 432 had guessed that a woman of Mona’s experience would seek out a gynecologist and, because she was Chinese, would probably prefer a female doctor. Checking the local listings for women’s medical services around the Chinatown area, she had narrowed the choices down to two female doctor: an Indian and a Vietnamese-Chinese.
The Indian doctor required medical insurance, but the Vietnamese occasionally accepted cash. From new patients, all that was required was a photo ID and a mailing address where she could send follow-up reports.
The female 432 had visited the Vietnamese doctor, had filled in the required information in the New Patient sign-in log, and had prepaid with cash. After the exam, she used the bathroom while the doctor prepared for her next patient. On the way out, she pilfered the log-in ledger, which contained the addresses of the year’s new patients. One in particular stood out.
A Chinese woman had paid cash, and had given an address on James Street.
Tsai commended the Grass Sandal’s smart work, and formally thanked her for her diligence and ingenuity. He made a note of the address and then hung up.
The address was not far from Chinatown.
Dew keuih
, Tsai muttered as he rubbed in the rest of the liniment, fuck her.
Considering how he would approach Mona, he scanned the shelves of the association office; they were filled with stacks of Chinese newspapers and magazines, assorted health-care and census forms.
The Benevolent Association had sponsored several Chinese-speaking census takers as part of a community outreach program. They’d registered several dozen American-born Chinese but knew that thousands of Chinese illegals would never respond.
But it was good public relations. Face.
He grabbed a clipboard from the desk and slipped an artist’s likeness of Mona under the clip. He covered it with a stack of census forms. After wiping clear his wire-frame glasses, he patted his aching knee and hoped the smell of the liniment would be less noticeable with his pants on.
He grimaced as he limped out of the office in the direction of James Street.
The Hip Ching address was on Jackson Street, not far from Hing Hay Park in the old section of Chinatown. The building was dark, a six-story hulk that featured a pagoda facade above two large lion dog statues guarding the front door.
Jack and Alex sat in the car, a block away, watching the pouring rain usher in the Seattle dawn. No one appeared, and when it got light enough, Jack drove the car around a ten-block radius, checking out the area. The streets were still deserted. But Jack soon came to an alleyway off Weller, where he found what he was hoping for. The dark sedan that had carried the two men he’d fought with was parked halfway on the sidewalk. He saw the California plates clearly. Jack parked opposite the mouth of the narrow alley where he had a good view of the intersection as well. He walked across and checked out the dent on the rear fender. No doubt. When he came back to the car Alex rested her head against his good shoulder and they waited.
Jack knew Mona was involved in the killing of Uncle Four in New York, and that the elderly Hip Ching leader was connected to Paper Fan and the triad. She’d taken something, something important enough for them to jump into the wind after her. This was what it was all about.
Instinctively, he felt the woman was close at hand.
Alex ran into Chinatown and bought
baos, lor bok go
, lo mein, and four cups of black Chinese coffee, bound to keep them hyper. More people appeared on the streets: Chinatown folks going about their morning routines, students heading for school, office workers going to day jobs.
Many men walked past the car but none of them looked like the men from the temple fight.
By the time they dumped the food cartons the rain had stopped.
Wearing the black coat over the black frock, the business pumps, and the drugstore eyeglasses, Mona was ready for the necessary transactions at the AAE Bank, the final actions before she’d
fey
, jump back into the wind.
The morning was camouflage gray but she noticed him the moment she stepped out of the house; a slightly built bespectacled Chinese man who looked a little too old to be a student, carrying a pen and a clipboard that had the Chinese characters for
CENSUS
marked across the back.
He saw her at the same moment, pausing to check something on the clipboard. He approached her as she started to walk away.
“Nay ho?”
he began politely in Cantonese, How are you?, readying his pen at the clipboard. “I’m conducting a residential survey for the census. May I ask you a few questions?”
“I’m sorry,” she replied quickly. “I’m only visiting. I’m not from here.”
“I see,” the man said easily, noticing a resident exiting an adjacent home. He gave her a lingering glance, nodding his thanks before heading toward the other house.
She noticed that he walked with a slight limp.
From a block away she looked back over her shoulder and saw the man engaged in a conversation with a Filipino. He checked his watch and didn’t seem to be looking in her direction.
Two blocks away she decided to take a different route, passing through the Won Chang Mall, just to be on the safe side.
Back on James Street, the man watched as Mona quickly disappeared around a corner, a thin smile twisting up his mouth. No need to follow for now, Tsai thought. Her height and hair could be misleading, he knew, recalling her features as compared to the likeness on his clipboard. The eyeglasses, also, were a distraction. He hadn’t been able to get a good look without staring at her. She’d appeared nervous and he hadn’t wanted to spook her. But what got his attention was the flash of the gold bracelet on her wrist, and the jade charm dangling off it; a round white tablet covered with faint veins of gray. She wears the
bot kwa
on her wrist, the Taoist etchings clear to see. Just the way the limo driver Johnny Wong had described from his jail cell.
Now that he was sure she was the one, he needed only to wait for the arrival of Paper Fan, knowing the leader would want to be in on the snatch. They planned to take her to a Hip Ching property on Harbor Island, where gang-rape for videotape awaited her, before being taken back to Hong Kong, where they would force her to whore-off what she had stolen.
It was mid-afternoon and Alex spotted them first, the two men from the temple fight. They came down the alleyway wearing dark rain jackets, the big man lumbering along, and the slight man walking with a hitch in his gait. I should have snapped his knee, Jack thought with regret.
The men slipped into the sedan and waited as windshield wipers cleared their view.
Jack knew he could bust them for assault but he would have to call in the SPD and he realized there was more at stake. He chose to let the bad kharma ride. After a few minutes, a gray minivan rolled up to the intersection and pulled in at the curb.
The sedan flashed its headlights twice.
Things stayed that way until the sedan pulled off the sidewalk and slowly came out of the alley. The minivan fell in behind.
Jack keyed the ignition, gave them a block’s distance before he started tailing them. They came to a busy avenue and mixed in with afternoon traffic, with Jack still several cars back. After a ten-minute drive, a short distance, they reached James Street. The sedan and minivan pulled over as Jack passed them and circled, figuring he’d double back and wind up watching them from behind.
The street was quiet when Jack pulled back into James Street.
It started to rain again as everyone waited.
Mona knew that a brisk walk would bring her to the water-front in twenty minutes. Even in the light rain, it would take her no more than twenty-five minutes. She’d abandon the tour bus plan and take the ferry, right now.
She’d chosen the running sneakers she’d always worn with her jogging outfit from the Spa Garden. Her legs and lungs had gotten stronger, she knew, and so had the shattered pieces of her soul. She zippered shut her shoulder bag, closed her eyes, and took a breath. Opening her eyes, she scanned the little apartment, making sure nothing telltale would be left behind. When the red door closed behind her, she double-bolted the lock.
She didn’t plan on coming back.
They were watching the street, or a house, Jack figured. But which one? He downed the last of his black coffee, hoping he wouldn’t have to wait too long for an answer.
Looping the adjustable strap of the black rubber bag over her head, Mona slid the bag against her hip and ribs and stepped out into the concrete-gray Seattle afternoon.
A little black umbrella sprang open in her hand as she went west on James Street.
“Look,” Alex said intently. A woman had exited one of the houses. She was dressed in black, and wore black jogging shoes. Jack caught a glimpse of her face before the umbrella came up, as she turned left and went up the street.
Jack sensed the other vehicles keying their engines and he did the same.
The woman kept her umbrella low over her head, and held it at an angle so that it was hard to see her face. Walking quickly, she headed west toward the waterfront.
The sedan waited, let her go a short distance before following her, with the minivan behind.
Jack fell in line, well back, but able to keep the others in view. Alex did her best to copy down license numbers.
Mona noticed there were only a few people out on the streets, mothers and nannies picking up schoolchildren, older kids with bookbags on their backs. An occasional deliveryman. None of them was Chinese. Or Asian.
She opened her mouth slightly and sucked in air between her teeth as she went.
Her heart pounded a beat inside her ears.
It was a slow-motion pursuit, as if the stalkers were biding their time, waiting for the right opportunity. He wondered who was in the minivan. Paper Fan? More goons? How many men would it take to kidnap a woman? He brushed back the edge of his jacket, felt the reassuring grip of the Colt.
The odd procession rolled along.
The woman occasionally glanced behind her, but the rain had chased people off the streets. After several blocks, Jack wondered if she could maintain the pace, but she seemed to have the legs for it, never letting up.
The buildings got taller when she approached Pioneer Square, a tourist destination even in the rain. Scattered groups of tourists in wet plastic ponchos were taking flash pictures.
She zigzagged through Pioneer Square as if she knew where she was going, heading toward the railroad tracks, the bus terminals, the piers along the waterfront.
The sedan barged through traffic to keep up as she forged ahead, dodging the clots of tourist umbrellas, veering left as she left the square. Just beyond where the avenues ended, a set of block-long industrial buildings provided a truck thoroughfare that cut diagonally toward the terminals.
She’d walked that stretch before, and only occasionally seen deliverymen in vans and trucks. A convenient shortcut. Seeing no one around, she seemed to relax her pace. The gray minivan struggled to stay behind the sedan.
Abruptly, she cut left behind a series of warehouses lining a deserted road that ran parallel to the railroad yards. The truck route was desolate under the Sunday rain. No people around, perfect. She quickened her pace again.
The sedan turned sharply into the shortcut, speeding up toward the warehouse road.
Jack lost sight of them momentarily but found himself getting too close to the gray minivan. He was forced to slow down in order not to expose himself and then had to go around traffic at a red light.
When he saw them again, the sedan had slowed near an access ramp to the piers, and the minivan suddenly cut in front of it, disappearing into the truck road. The angle at which the sedan had stopped effectively blocked off the turn toward the warehouses.
Jack pulled over, wondering if they’d spotted his tail. He got out of the car and crossed the street, where he could see down the long road. Alex followed cautiously, eyeing the sedan.
“Stay back!” Jack snapped at her, drawing his Colt revolver. She ducked behind a metal Dumpster as Jack spotted the minivan moving past the warehouses, a long block away.
Hearing the squeal of tires behind her, Mona turned and saw the minivan screeching to a stop partway down the road. Two men jumped out of it and started sprinting toward her.
She froze for a second before tossing the umbrella and breaking into a dash toward the bay.
Jack saw the two men chasing the woman. Neither he nor Alex noticed the big man who appeared from between parked cars. The man had seemingly come out of nowhere, knife in hand. He was already jumping at Jack, who’d looked back instinctively over his shoulder. Reflexively ducking away, Jack twisted and brought his gun hand up, pointed toward heaven, and pulled the trigger. He heard Alex’s scream mixed with the repeating thunder from the Colt, then two more explosions as the impact of the man’s body bowled him over, slamming them both to the concrete pavement.
Jack squeezed off two more shots, the noise muffled against the heavyweight’s body.
Almost there, Mona panted, just another block. The terminal loomed up ahead. She breathed in gasps but her legs were strong from the long jogs back to Chinatown.
Her lead lasted almost fifty yards.
The two men caught her and started pulling and pushing her toward the minivan, which had backed up onto the end pier. They pinned her arms and dragged her along, screaming and kicking. She tried digging in her heels but her sneakers skidded across the wet planking of the boardwalk. The abductors were carrying her toward the end of the pier. One of the men slapped her but she kept screaming.
Fuck! Jack felt blood oozing from his ear, adding to the shock wave washing over him, the man’s bulk now a dead weight on top of him. It took two
shaolin
breaths before he could shove the man off.
The concrete pavement had banged a gong into his head, but Jack recognized the man as the goon with the nunchakus from the temple. His knife had skidded to a stop near the Dumpster where Alex crouched.
They continued forcing Mona along.
A small boat was moored illegally at the end of the pier. An older man stepped out of the minivan, angry at her screaming, and at the sound of gunfire. He barked some slang Cantonese at the two men.
“
Mo lun yung!
Both of you are useless! Go back and stall them!” He grabbed Mona by the wrist as the men scampered back toward the street. She twisted and resisted but was unable to break his iron grip. She was ready to scream again when he dug a fist into her belly that drove the air out of her, dropping her to her knees. He held her contemptuously by her hair as she gasped for breath.
There were police lights coming along the waterfront now; it seemed like forever before she got up on one knee. She was surprised at how strong the old man was as he started dragging her by the hair toward the waiting boat.
Jack twisted up onto his elbows, catching his breath. Apparently, they’d made him, and the big goon had slipped out of the sedan and doubled back. Ahead of him now, a second man exited the sedan and was coming in Jack’s direction. The
shuriken
-throwing man. This time he had a gun in his hand.
“They’re getting away!” Alex screamed, pointing toward the end of the pier where a man was dragging the woman along by her hair. Her screams had died out.
Jack pointed the Colt at the man, but it was empty. Ripping out his speedloader clip from his jacket pocket, he popped the Colt’s cylinder clear of spent shells. He was on his knees now, trying to insert fresh rounds as the
shuriken
man closed in, taking aim and crouching.
The old man yelled something to the boatman and Mona heard the growl of an inboard motor revving up. Yanking her forward, the old man cursed and made ready to shove her onto the boat.
Her struggles had worked open the zipper of her shoulder bag. Suddenly, he pounded a heavy fist at her jaw, bloodying her mouth. She reeled backward and twisted down, reaching into the open bag. He continued choppunching her in the back of the head. She thought she heard the wail of sirens.
The old man paused, looking back up the pier where he had dispatched the two 49s. The police lights were getting closer. He cursed again and turned back to Mona, cocking his fist to hammer her again.
The
shuriken
man smiled, sensing the kill. Suddenly, Alex stepped out from behind the Dumpster and picked up the dead man’s knife.
“Hey!” she yelled.
Surprised to see her, he hesitated for a moment before aiming his gun her way. Alex reared back and flung the knife with all her might. The knife spun wildly through the air and the man ducked it easily, laughing, then cursing,
Dew!
He sneered and pointed the gun again, taking a step in her direction even as Jack felt the fresh bullets sliding into the Colt’s cylinder, and snapped it shut.
The man glanced at Jack, who was braced on one knee now, leveling his gun and cocking the hammer. The fire exploding from the Colt’s barrel froze the man until the first two .38 hollow points tore into his chest. The revolver roared rapidly again and the man dropped to his knees, glaring at Alex until the light left his eyes. He collapsed in a heap, the sneer gone from his face.
Jack ran over and kicked the gun out of his hand as the last gasp shuddered out of his body.
Alex ran toward the pier, and Jack ran after her, clipping his detective’s shield to his jacket.
The new round of gunshots had distracted the old man.
Mona brought her hand out of the shoulder bag with the Chinatown souvenir letter opener in her grasp.
The last thing the old man saw clearly as he turned was the flash of something metallic in her hand, a spike, he thought, as she plunged it into his eye. His snarl froze on his mouth. The sudden pain shocked him. Blood streamed down his face. He staggered forward, his brain shortcircuiting,
chi seen
, howling as he yanked the dagger from his eye.
There were police cruisers wheeling in, and a fierce commotion near the end of the pier. The two goons from the minivan waited by the access road, ready to block the way.
“Alex!” Jack yelled, knowing this time he had two shots left in the Colt. She froze as a tall white man in plainclothes suddenly ran up yelling, “Police! SPD!” then lowering the gun in his hand when he saw Jack’s badge.
“NYPD
!
” Jack yelled back as they sprinted together toward the pier, a barking, panting exchange running between them.
“Detective Yu, I presume!”
“Right! You’re Detective Nicoll?” Jack noted the man’s chiseled features, the trim mustache.
“From a red ball to a tong war, brother!” Nicoll said, grinning.
Alex trailed behind them as they ran.
His grip never loosened even through the extreme agony and her fierce screams that filled his ears. She felt a searing pain from her wrist, as if the red bangle were on fire, burning her. She mustered what strength she had left and violently ripped herself free from him. She hardly noticed that something had loosened through the air, that part of his sleeve had gone limp. She bolted in a near-panic toward the water, stopping dead, gasping, when she came to the tenfoot plunge at the edge of the pier.
The old man willed himself onward, stumbling into the grasp of the thug in the boat. The thug then leapt onto the pier, going for Mona. She was already backed up to the edge, breathless, trying to shake off her dizziness from the blows that had pounded her head.
Flashing lights rolled across the boardwalk entrance. People, and running uniforms, yelling things in English.
The thug took several steps in her direction.
Save me,
kwoon yum
, Goddess of Mercy! She took three deep breaths before stepping off the pier, letting herself fall.
At the access road, a squad of SPD uniforms had bagged the two Chinese from the minivan. There was no one in sight down the long length of the pier. When Jack and Alex got to the end, there was only the sound of waves and the distant churning of motor boats across the bay.
“Gone,” Alex said in disbelief. “All gone.”
“A woman went into the water,” Jack informed Nicoll. “And maybe a man, as well.” They stared into the dark water beneath the pier as Alex gave Jack a napkin to sop up the blood clogging his ear.
“Harbor Patrol will pick up anyone in the water,” Nicoll offered.
“Was a boat here?” Jack asked aloud.
“Coast Guard can check that out, too,” advised Nicoll.
The three of them scanned the surface of the bay, looking for a body, clothing,
something
. All they saw were a couple of dead birds and the usual debris, shards of driftwood, a plastic soda jug.
The Seattle cops were out in force now, cordoning off the place where Jack had left two men dead.
“Did she witness any of that?” Nicoll nodded toward Alex.
“Unfortunately,” Jack answered hesitantly.
“We’ll need a statement from her,” indicated Nicoll. He escorted Alex back along the pier toward the uniforms securing the scene.
Looking south down the waterways, Jack saw Harbor Island, and Duwamish beyond that. Northward lay an endless waterfront of piers, green parks, and commercial landings. Directly before him was the wide expanse of Elliott Bay, with freighters and ferries and assorted pleasure craft plying the frigid waters in every direction.
But no woman, and no man. No Paper Fan.
Jack checked the edges of the pier and saw a small dark stain on the wet planking. Upon closer inspection he saw it was dark red: a smear of blood. He stepped carefully, seeing several more tiny droplets that led to a pair of bollards.
Beside the bollards he saw what appeared to be a human hand attached to some kind of elastic strap. A man’s hand, he thought, smeared with blood. The fingers were clenched around something red. Jack could see a curved fragment of a red bangle caught in its grasp. Examining the broken piece, he wondered if the unusual color was the result of its being covered in blood. In the rain, it felt slick. The bangle had broken clean through but the blood-red color held fast when he rubbed it.
He took out his plastic camera and snapped a few shots of the hand and the broken bangle. The hand felt heavier than he thought a prosthetic hand should, and he wondered if there were metal joints within.
He put it back near the bollard before advising the crime scene techs to bag it.
When he got to the turnoff, he saw that one of the SPD uniforms had found the knife more than twenty yards from where Alex had flung it. It had bounced and skidded along the concrete until it stopped beside the driver’s door of a parked car. It was a
tantō
-style Japanese blade but with a serrated edge.