Authors: John F. Nardizzi
Table of Contents
Chapter
1
As night slouched on, the flesh and drug trade
simmered at the intersection of Turk and Jones. Johnny Cho smoked a cigarette
on the fire escape of the Senator Hotel. Johnny could have afforded a better
room than the Senator; he was now earning huge sums of cash. Saving like only
an immigrant can save, scraping money from every hungry minute.
Two men watched him from the shadows of the alley.
They turned away and walked to Eddy Street, waiting for the call. One man
tapped his jacket. Ready for the wet work. The men turned left on Leavenworth
Street.
Johnny glanced at his watch: 10:33 PM. Across the
street, graffiti on a brick wall—‘Plastic people are cute.’ He didn’t
understand the reference. Bodies lurched on the sidewalk, glowing in the neon
lights of porn shops—crack whores, johns, dealers, junkies. Some didn’t move at
all, sprawled on greasy sidewalks.
His triad owned these sidewalks. They operated
three massage parlors in the city’s Tenderloin district: Crystal Massage, The
Golden Lotus, and Tokyo Spa. All were fronts for prostitution. The world’s
oldest profession had a centuries-old lineage in the city. If not exactly
accepted, the profession at least had carved out a certain measure of grungy
respect. The massage parlors operated openly, signs beckoning over restaurants,
ads in local papers. They generated substantial fees on their own, but as cash
businesses, their value as money makers paled in comparison to their main
function: laundering a steady torrent of drug money. And because of the triad’s
interest in developing new cash businesses, the massage parlors were earning
him a very respectable living.
Johnny had left Hong Kong with a group of refugees
when he was fourteen. They drifted for weeks across the Pacific on a chunk of
rotten wood someone had the balls to call a boat. Eight dead bodies later, he
made it to Los Angeles. Since then, he had come a long way from washing dishes
in grubby Chinatown restaurants. First, a runner for the numbers, a trusted
doorman. Then bigger assignments—jobs issued with a whisper, or on a dirty slip
of paper, coded, you never knew the whole deal. Follow the man to see which apartment
he enters at 10:30 PM. Get the address of the girl with the purple hat who
works at the bank.
Then came other tasks, things he didn’t talk
about.
The feuding bosses of the major triads had met
earlier that day, twenty-four men in total: bosses, favored lieutenants, and
bodyguards hiding behind sunglasses. They talked over a long lunch at a big
downtown hotel, ordering dim sum and cold beer, posturing and blowing cigarette
smoke at each other. Johnny found the negotiations tiresome. He wanted some time
away. A bit of a risk coming to the Senator Hotel with the girls—he usually
went to one of the triad houses. But he did not want to be disturbed tonight,
and he would have been recognized at the Lotus. He was not in the mood to
listen to complaints. So, the Senator Hotel had been pressed into service once
again. He’d dine alone too, if he could help it. Tomorrow promised another day
of endless meetings.
He watched the street action, reaching
absentmindedly for another cigarette. He was out. Where was the girl? She had
gone inside over five minutes ago—still no smokes.
He heard a click in the alley. He looked down and
saw a wooden door open into the passageway. The cement walkway gleamed, slick
from an earlier rain. Two men slid inside. They walked past trash barrels into
the shadows.
Johnny stared. One of the men looked up, and met
his eye. The man muttered something. Then the men crouched and sprang toward
the rear of the building.
Johnny shivered a bit, a spade dragging across
cold stones. One of the men reached the iron fire escape. Hunching low, he took
two steps at a time.
Johnny didn’t like this at all. Reached down and
felt a sickness in his gut—the snub .38 was in his jacket.
He sprang back from the edge of the railing and
moved toward the battered steel door. He yanked the door handle—it was locked.
He smashed his fist on the door, jammed his face near the small square window.
One of the girls looked up, startled. He saw the other girl, the blond, packing
her bag near the bathroom. For a second, his eyes met those of the blond, and
he drew in her frightened complicity. Fucking whore—she set him up! He watched
as she turned away, shouting something to the other girl.
Bracing against the rail, Johnny slammed his
shoulder against the door. Nothing—the steel door was immovable.
The sudden heightening of senses, the pungent
smell of cement and rain.
Footsteps clanged on the black iron of the fire
escape. Johnny turned toward the stairwell—climb to the roof, maybe crawl up
somehow. He took two steps, curling over the railing.
They were already in range.
He heard a popping sound from below, and his
ribcage shuddered. And again. He tried to breathe past the pain lancing his
chest. Chinese voices, and another voice, unidentifiable. Cold on his cheek,
and he knew he was down on the ironwork. Something like boiling soup poured on
his stomach. He felt some leathery thing brush his face, and then a whooshing
of wings peeling away across a vast black canyon.
Chapter
2
Ray Infantino strode along the red brick sidewalks
of Beacon Hill in Boston. Old elms shaded the stately row houses, set close to
the narrow streets and bordered with iron gates and granite steps. Small
gardens exploded with color—foxglove, bleeding heart, purple cone flowers
spilling over the brick. Across the street, a group of tourists fired madly
away with their cameras at a particularly well-preserved brick mansion. One of
those lush days in a fast and furious New England summer—it made the existence
of winter seem an impossibility.
For the upcoming meeting, Ray dressed in a navy
blue suit with a cobalt shirt and patterned gold tie. He avoided button-down
collars, a sign of epic repression.
He knew that he would be scrutinized by one of
Boston’s best criminal defense lawyers, Lucas Michaels. Lucas had invited him
to his home office, where he was working for the day. Lawyers like Lucas often
had ambivalent relationships with investigators. Investigators could be a
problem. They needed to be roped in all too often. Too many cowboys telling war
stories from back in the day when their cocks got stiff without help from a
little blue pill.
Ray rang at the door of a three-story Victorian
row house topped with a copper dome that had faded to a green patina. The
golden dome of the state house peeked over the hill a few blocks away. He
brushed back a wave of unruly black hair, and pulled the suit jacket over his
spare boxer's physique.
He rang again and heard a buzzing sound. The door
clicked open, and Ray stepped into a foyer painted a brilliant white. A thin
man in his sixties walked toward him.
“Lucas Michaels,” the man said, extending his
hand. “Thanks for coming over so soon, Ray.” Lucas wore a faded blue polo shirt
over tan slacks. His face was all sharp angles, topped by a crisply cut hedge
of white hair. He looked fit and rested.
Although lawyers were often guilty for lauding
each other with bloated reviews, Lucas’s reputation as one of the top defense
lawyers in the city was legitimate. His fame had not come easily. After working
on the West Coast as a young lawyer, he had returned home to Boston and worked
unheralded for many years as court–appointed counsel for indigent defendants.
In 1963, he undertook the defense of the Scollay Slasher in a murder trial with
national coverage. The defendant had murdered seven women in back alleys of the
decaying Scollay Square section of Boston. He was acquitted after Lucas’s
brutal cross-examination of two witnesses exposed major flaws in the police
investigation. He had never looked back, regularly defending the city’s most
hated and controversial figures. His reputation grew, one of thoroughness, a
solid, if unspectacular, intelligence, and a certain ruthlessness. He seemed to
enjoy eviscerating witnesses on the witness stand, even those he did not suspect
were lying; he enjoyed it just a bit more than even the bruising standards of
his profession allowed. “A feared elder statesman of the Boston defense bar,” a
mutual friend, Paul Artemis, had said of Lucas before arranging the meeting
with Ray. “A real prick.”
Ray knew that elder statesmen of the bar were
often late payers. He’d make certain to get a retainer.
Lucas led Ray through the living room filled with
dark, ornate furniture, and into an informal brick-walled study. Books of
literature and law lined the walls. A white oak bar filled one side of the
study. The two men sat down in overstuffed leather chairs. The smell of cigar
smoke filled the air.
“I’ve heard a lot about you over the years, “
Lucas said. “Paul Artemis at Boswell & Giles spoke well of you. Said you
were an uncommon talent.”
Ray nodded in recognition of Artemis’s name. “We
did some work together on a civil rights case against the White Aryan Nation.”
“Paul said you have a talent for finding and
handling witnesses. This might be the right case for that talent.”
Ray tried to think of which investigator Lucas had
worked with on past cases, but he drew a blank.
“Tell me more of your background,” Lucas said.
“How did you come to work in the PI field?”
“While in law school, I started working one summer
for the Southern Law Project as an investigator,” said Ray. “I developed a
strategy for placing undercover operatives in hate groups. Based on some of the
evidence we developed, the Law Center filed a civil RICO case and was able to seize
the Aryan Knights’ assets. Even the Aryan Knights name was turned over. They
can’t use the name anymore without infringing a trademark.”
Lucas nodded. “That must have infuriated them.
Sounds interesting. Those are some rough people.”
“Rough,” agreed Ray, fading out and thinking of
the Project. He forced himself to think of the meeting, letting his thoughts of
the Project diffuse in the air. Ignore it. “A few years later, I went out on my
own. I specialize in interviewing witnesses, handling the fact-finding on
complex cases,” he concluded.
“Well, I hope you can assist me,” Lucas said. “I
have a client with a personal issue involving a young member of the family.”
Lucas stood up, walked behind the bar, and bent down to open a small
refrigerator. “Can I get you something to drink?”
“Water is fine, thanks.” Lucas returned with two
miniature bottles of water, some fancy imported stuff with a label crowing
about gelid springs and eternal life. Ray sipped his water, and waited.
Lucas sat back in his chair. “The client is a
Chinese family who I have represented for many years in business matters. They
are based in Hong Kong. They asked me to assist in locating a missing family
member, a woman named Tania Kong. Her sister is the one who is leading this inquiry.”
“Tania is of Chinese-Thai descent. She was always
the black sheep of the family. She had a difficult childhood. Her natural
mother died when she was a young child. Her father remarried a few years later.
That unfortunate series of events brings us here.”
Lucas paused and sipped his water. “Growing up,
Tania was rebellious, depressed. She never got along with her stepmother.” He
shrugged and opened his hands. “The usual fairy tale. Tania was raised by her
father in Hong Kong. The family fell on rough times when he passed away after
being fatally injured in an auto accident. Tania was devastated by her father’s
death. As I said, her relationship with her stepmother was never warm. At age
eighteen, she left the family compound and was living on her own.”
Ray noticed that Lucas spoke in a formal, literary
manner that, while probably appealing in court, could be off-putting in casual
conversation. He was surprised by this habit, given Lucas dealt with criminal
dregs. He forced himself to focus.
“A few years ago, after moving to San Francisco,
she disappeared,” said Lucas. He shifted in his seat and made himself
comfortable. “The client is only now pursuing this. They tried to reach her
every now and then, but she seems to have just dropped off the face of the
earth.”
“Does the family know of any friends in
California?” asked Ray.
“None that we know. We have no address, no
telephone number. This is why I called you. There is very little to go on.
Nothing really.” He leaned forward. “Do you think you can assist in finding
her?”
“Absolutely. There are things that can be done,
local city records, courts, that type of thing. Interviews with people—“
Lucas interrupted, “That brings me to the next
point: the client is a prominent family in Hong Kong. Various businesses,
restaurants, nightclubs. Real estate on both U.S. coasts. They don’t want to be
on page one with a story about their wayward little girl. That is a major
concern. Avoid the paparazzi. They simply want to find her and make sure she is
all right.”
“I understand. Do you have a photo of Tania?”
“Not yet, but I will have the client provide one.
The photos will be a bit dated, obviously.”
“And you say the family does not have even a last
known address in the city?” asked Ray. “Maybe I can speak with the family just
to confirm that they have no information.”
“Certainly,” Lucas said. “The client has told me
they have no information about where she may have lived in San Francisco. She
never corresponded with them while she was there. Not by mail or telephone. She
was reclusive.”
“So there really is not much to go on.”
“Not much at all.”
Ray nodded, rubbed his chin. Find the missing
girl. Easy enough, usually.
“I know you cannot give guarantees,” continued
Lucas, “but approximately how long do you think before you can begin to see
some results?”
“I would give it at least a few weeks, but can’t
be certain at this point,” Ray replied. “I’ll run her name and date of birth
just to see if something obvious pops up in the databases. Although I doubt
that, based on what you said about a previous investigator not finding her. I
can be in San Francisco by Tuesday. This will probably require some lengthy
public records research there. I’ll need a retainer before I travel.”
“That will not be an issue. What are your fees?”
“$195.00 per hour. Plus expenses.”
“You charge more than most investigators,” said
Lucas.
“I get results. Usually anyway. This is a humbling
business. I stay in good hotels, nothing ridiculous though. Travel time is
billed; half this job is waiting for the golden moment.”
“I understand,” Lucas said, nodding. “I’ve taken
clients to court to show them why I had to sit in a hallway while a judge
conducts a motions hearing. But your fees will not be a problem. The client
wants your best efforts and they expect to pay for it.”
“I’ll send over an engagement letter,” said Ray.
“I think a $10,000 retainer should be fine to start.”
Ray handed Lucas a card. “I’ll wait to see the
photo before I make any plans. As I mentioned, any personal identifiers such as
a date of birth or even a green card number, that would be helpful too.”
“Yes, thanks for reminding me. I’ll check on both
points.”
Lucas sat down at an antique desk in a corner of
the room, where he jotted down some notes. Ray admired the oak wainscoting,
honey colored and smooth. Lucas finished writing and stood up. He reached out
his hand to Ray. “This client expects superior results. They always do. And
that is why I called you. This type of case is probably routine for you.”
Ray nodded. “It’s routine—until it’s not.” He
smiled. It was tempting, but he wasn’t about to promise anything. Lucas stared
at him for a moment, and then a tight smile crossed his face. “I look forward
to working with you,” he said. The men shook hands, and Ray walked toward the
door.
Ray walked down the granite stairs and headed
toward Beacon Street. He cut through the Public Gardens. Stands of willows
arched over the swan boats as college kids paddled languidly through the dark
green water. He strolled past expensive bistros and shops on Newbury Street,
and walked into the brassy dusk of the Capitol Grill steakhouse. The show was
on: the glasses sparkled, the bartender mixed drinks in a lunchtime fury, a
busty waitress let select customers look down her blouse a little bit. He sat
down in a window seat and ordered a rare steak with French fries.
The meal came and Ray dug into the steak. He would
have to thank Paul Artemis for referring him to Lucas. Personal recommendations
were the touchstone on which the private world of lawyers relied. It would be a
good case—defined as a riddle wrapped in a puzzle situated in an interesting
locale. And backed with a sufficient budget. And while he was in California, he
would personally undertake work on the Project, perform the necessary pruning.
It was long overdue. This would be his first trip to the city in five years.
Ray delved into the delicious rare slab of beef
and watched the antics of the lunch crowd. Then he paid the bill and headed
back to work.
* * *
Lucas watched as Ray headed down the street. He
had not expected a cowboy, and he was pleased. He had heard a story from a
colleague about this man. The trial lawyer had asked Infantino on the witness
stand what he did for a living; Infantino had replied that he looked into people’s
eyes to tell if they were lying. Laughs all around, and the jury loved it.
Lucas suspected Infantino was only partly joking. Lucas knew what his client
wanted: someone who had yet to rot in the suburbs, someone not easily denied.
This was the guy.
He called California from a disposable phone he
used for three months and then tossed. The line was picked up.
“Our investigator will be out there next week.”
“Who is he?
“Ray Infantino. Highly recommended for this sort
of matter. Once he finishes his work, make sure you finish yours.”