Authors: Stephen Knight
Chen Song swallowed loud enough for him to hear. “Uncle, you have my full loyalty and devotion. You know this. All I was thinking about was your safety. Nothing else.”
“Just keep driving,” Chen Gui said. “And think of what you have learned today. This is not a movie! Death is not heroic. It comes swiftly and without warning. There is no time for posturing or strutting.”
“No, uncle.”
Sentries opened the compound doors and they rolled inside. The black sedan followed them in. Chen Song climbed out and hurried to open Chen Gui’s door. Ignoring him, Chen Gui climbed out, flicked his half-smoked cigarette away and greeted his cousin, Yuan Lau, who had answered his call and brought his soldiers with him, older men, gray haired men, hardened men who had proved their loyalty to the family during the worst of times, before Lin Yubo brought peace and order to Shanghai.
Chen Gui took Yuan Lau inside and explained the situation. Chen Song followed them at a respectful distance and kept his silence. Yuan Lau accepted his instructions as if he had never left Chen Gui’s side all these years, and rejoined his men to pass on the orders. Chen Gui felt safer already.
In the study, Chen Song closed the door and said, “What can I do to regain your favor, uncle?”
“I’ll think of something,” Chen Gui told him. “Now leave me, I have a phone call to make.” He sighed. “A very expensive phone call.” Lin Yubo hadn’t offered to pay
Bái Hu
’s expenses and fee; he had only ordered Chen Gui to make whatever financial arrangements were necessary to send the
gweizi
to the United States.
He waved Chen Song outside. Chen Song opened the door, and stepped back in surprise as one of Yuan Lau’s men stepped into the study and moved to stand by the door, his hands clasped in front of him. He ignored Chen Song completely. Chen Song sucked in a deep breath and Chen Gui thought he was going to say something, but instead he simply left the room, closing the door behind him. The man by the door stared straight ahead, a human statue. Chen Gui approved.
He found the
Bái Hu
’s telephone number in his index and dialed. It was picked up on the fifth ring and the
gweizi
said something Chen Gui didn’t understand, a string of fast Japanese words.
Chen Gui lit another cigarette and shook out the match. “I hope I have not disturbed you,” he said.
“I thought we had an agreement,” the
Bái Hu
said, switching effortlessly to Mandarin. His tone oozed disapproval. “No direct calls.”
“How would you like to earn a half a million dollars?” Chen Gui said. “It would involve your traveling to the United States. To San Francisco. Call it a special job. What do you say?”
He thought he might have to bargain further and up the price, but the answer came sooner and much easier than he had expected.
CHAPTER 9
San Francisco, California
Mid-day traffic combined with an automobile/pedestrian accident at the intersections of Market and Gough kept Chee Wei from driving as fast as Ryker would have liked. To make matters worse, it appeared the entire city of San Francisco had decided to take its collective lunch hour at the same time, leaving the downtown area mired in near-gridlock. Even if they’d been in a marked cruiser with the lights and siren going, they wouldn’t have made better progress.
“Well, this sucks balls,” Chee Wei said.
“You have experience with that, I guess,” Ryker said.
Chee Wei fidgeted a bit in the driver’s seat. “Hey, I’m a Democrat, but I’m not that open-minded. What’s that address again?”
Ryker looked at his notebook. Suzy’s handwriting wasn’t exactly a portrait of neatness, but it was serviceable.
“Twenty-four twenty-three Quintara. On the corner of Quintara and Thirty-third Street.”
“Nice ‘hood,” Chee Wei said. “Very family-oriented.”
“I hope we’ll be able to confirm that soon.”
“You think Lin’s guys will beat us there?”
Ryker shrugged. “Only if they have the same address we do.”
“Hope they don’t.”
“Hope is a bad word, you should stop using it,” Ryker sighed. He twisted in his seat, looking for a gap in the traffic to exploit. There was nothing. A bottled water truck blocked most of his view.
Chee Wei drummed his fingertips on the Crown Vic’s black dashboard, then began fiddling with the GPS.
“We’ll have to cut through the side streets to get there any time before the sun goes down,” he remarked. “We might be able to make the turn onto Octavia, then cut across to Sunset that way.”
“Sounds like a plan, unless you’ve got a helicopter in your pants.” Ryker checked his watch as the Crown Vic trundled forward, then leaned back in his seat. He rested his elbow on the armrest and cupped his chin in his right hand, impatient with the holdup.
“What?” Chee Wei asked, reading his body language. “You mean to tell me you’re not used to San Francisco traffic, after all this time?”
“I’m trying to decide if I want to ask for a patrol unit to head over to the address.”
“So you
do
think Lin’s guys will get there ahead of us,” Chee Wei said.
“No idea.”
“It would really suck for us if they find this girl and plug her before we can talk with her,” Chee Wei continued. “Plus, she’s gotta be a hottie to the max, if that Lin Dan was porking her.”
Ryker smiled despite his irritation. “‘Porking her’? You realize that term went out probably before you were born, right? I don’t think I’ve heard it since 1982.”
“Makes sense, because I picked it up when I watched
The Neighbors
last night.”
Ryker rolled his eyes. “At least watch some of Belushi’s
good
movies, if that’s how you’re going to spend your time.
Animal House.
The Blues Brothers.
Even
Continental Divide.
But I guess watching
The Neighbors
beats surfing porn.”
“Cathy Moriarty’s hot,” Chee Wei informed him.
“Yeah, thirty years ago.”
“Hey, I got a woody watching her.”
“You probably get a woody watching Woody Harrelson,” Ryker said, “and frankly, that’s beginning to frighten me a bit. Maybe you
should
marry this girl in China, and soon. Even your parents must be worried, if they’re going to go through all this trouble to set up an arranged marriage.”
“My parents just want a grandson,” Chee Wei answered. He took his foot off the brake and allowed the Ford to glide forward for ten feet before coming to a halt again.
“Gosh, that’s worrisome. They really think extending the gene pool’s a good thing to do, huh?” Ryker fished out his cell phone and looked at the unit’s plastic screen absently.
“So you gonna make the call, or what?” Chee Wei asked. “Taraval’s got patrol responsibility
—
I worked over there before coming over to Metro.”
“Yeah thanks, I remember who patrols where in the city,” Ryker responded, a touch irritated at the push. He kept looking down at the phone. A homicide dick calling up a neighborhood station for patrol assistance wasn’t something that would be deemed unusual, but in this circumstance there was no clear threat.
Jesus. Look at me, suddenly worried about how things are going to look. What am I doing, running for public office or trying to solve a murder?
He shook his head at the thought, and he hit the speed dial for central dispatch. When the call went through, he identified himself and gave his badge number, then requested that a patrol unit sit on the southwest corner of Quintana and 33rd Street until their arrival. The dispatcher relayed the request to the Taraval patrol desk for actioning. A car would be outside the address within six minutes, and would remain until Ryker and Chee Wei arrived, or a more pressing matter demanded their attention. Ryker could live with that.
Chee Wei made a turn on a northbound street, still caught up with the flow of traffic; he hadn’t been the first to make the assumption that getting off Market Street was a good idea. The smaller side streets were almost as bad as Market was, but there wasn’t anything that could be done about it. Clogged traffic and poor parking were two of San Francisco’s more chronic diseases.
“So, you going to go after the widow or not?” Chee Wei asked. “If you’re not, maybe I’ll try. I’ll bet I actually
can
wear Lin Dan’s robe and slippers.”
“Chee Wei, you really need to get laid.”
“True, but you didn’t answer my question,” Chee Wei responded.
“And my silence should indicate my position on the matter,” Ryker said. “Of course I’m not going to do anything with the widow. She’s part of the Lin family, and if I did anything that pisses anyone off, the department will come down on me with both feet.”
“You’re such a girl,” Chee Wei taunted, grinning broadly.
“Maybe so, but I’m still not available, so keep it in your pants, hot shot,” Ryker warned with a humor he didn’t necessarily feel. He’d been having trouble keeping his mind focused on the task at hand, and the fact that thoughts of the newly-widowed Valerie Lin kept crowding out his professional sensibilities every thirty seconds weren’t making things any easier. Nor was Chee Wei’s admittedly good-natured banter. Even now, Ryker could see how her dark slacks had clung to her, accentuating the gentle sweeps of her hips and buttocks
—
Let’s not go through that again,
he thought, recalling his biological reaction to seeing her in the flesh. Revisiting her visage even through the distance of memory was no less likely to prevent such an organic response from reoccurring, and he certainly didn’t need to be popping a boner while riding shotgun with Chee Wei.
The traffic finally broke enough so that Chee Wei could accelerate onto Haight Street and start making up some time. It still took almost fifteen minutes to make it to the rotary at Dewey and Taraval Streets, and then another ten to make it into the central Sunset District proper. They arrived at the address Suzy had given them almost an hour before.
The S.F.P.D. patrol car was sitting in front of a fire hydrant, which in turn sat at the corner before a line of ubiquitous two-story tract homes. Off Taravel, the main street through the area, the neighborhood was very residential and to Ryker’s eye well maintained and neat. The single-family homes generally lacked true front lawns, where concrete driveways or patios were found more often than not. The first story of each home was usually comprised of a one-car garage and the occasional entry, while the second story was where residents lived. From some windows, families would be able to see the blue Pacific Ocean several blocks to the West, and Ryker had seen for himself just how striking the sunsets could be...which begat the district’s name. It was also an integrated neighborhood, with a large Asian population woven into the tapestry. A likely enough background for a young woman to try and lose herself while trying to figure out what to do next.
Chee Wei pulled abreast of the black-and-white Ford patrol car, and Ryker rolled down the window.
“Hey guys, Ryker from Metro,” he said, showing his badge. “Thanks for sitting out here for us, I appreciate it.”
The patrolman sitting in the front passenger seat shrugged. His hair was flecked with gray, and the sergeant’s stripes on his shoulder indicated he was the senior of the two officers.
“You took your sweet time about it,” the sergeant said. “You get sacked by that bang-up on Market?”
“We did, and I’m sorry it took us so long to get here,” Ryker apologized.
The patrol sergeant waved the apology away.
“We get paid the same whether we’re sitting or patrolling. Next time, just give us an address with a better view, all right?”