The Wonder Test

by Michelle Richmond

  “And what was his name? The one who gave you the instructions?”

  “You want me to just say it?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “His people will kill me,” Rusty says matter-of-factly.

  “Maybe, but he’s not here at the moment, and Near Bear is very much here and very impatient.”

  George revs the saw again.

  “Kenny Pao. The boy is named Kenny Pao. Skinny street kid. Drives a Mitsubishi Evo. A ricer, as they say, or as they used to say before everyone got so sensitive.”

  “Where might I find Kenny?”

  Rusty tries to look bored, but I can see the fear on his face. Whether he’s afraid of George standing over him or afraid because he divulged the name of Kenny Pao is unclear. “Tenderloin, darling, in the heart of the Tenderloin. Where nothing good happens and the homeless shit in the street. A nice girl like you has no business in the Tenderloin.”

  “You let me worry about that. Where in the Tenderloin?”

  “Kenny works at a restaurant on Larkin Street.” Rusty frowns. “Come to think of it, maybe he owns it.”

  “Anyone else involved?”

  “Not in this neck of the woods. I like to keep things simple. Nobody with an entourage lasts long in this business. Kenny has other ideas, of course. Which is exactly why we’re in this big old mess.”

  “And why did Kenny want you to handle this ‘problem’?”

  “Darling, please. I don’t ask questions. It’s the ‘whats’ that pay the bills, not the ‘whys.’”

  “Which restaurant on Larkin?”

  I hear a vehicle to the north, approaching the gate, gears grinding. It sounds like a big truck or SUV. “Which restaurant?” I demand. There are voices in the distance, two men. George and I exchange glances.

  “Rusty,” I say. “Your friends are going to be here any minute. Unless you want this to be a group conversation, I need the name of the restaurant.”

  “A group conversation would be interesting.”

  “But bad for business,” George says, lowering the saw toward the water.

  “Near Bear has a point. Your average pony play fetishist won’t be so eager to enlist your services if they know you have a side gig kidnapping minors.”

  Rusty licks his lips. “So, let me get this straight. I name the restaurant, and we pick this conversation up at a later time.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Thrill-us interruptus! Just when it was getting good.”

  The voices grow nearer.

  George lowers the saw another inch. “You have three seconds.”

  “The restaurant is called Mangosteen. Vietnamese. Corner of Larkin and Eddy. Get the number thirty-two special.”

  George sets the power saw down beside the pool, but he doesn’t turn it off. It hums there, vibrating against the slate.

  “Until next time,” I say, as George and I slowly back away.

  “Alrighty,” Rusty says, more to the air and the trees around him than to me. “Draw the curtains. Next time, I think we’ll need new scenery.”

  61

  Humans communicate fear through smell. Why does this matter? Why doesn’t this matter?

  At a quarter to seven, George and I step inside Mangosteen and wait to be seated. The restaurant’s plate glass windows display the Larkin Street show in all its seedy glory. Across the street, several homeless people are selling random items. A gaunt woman with long gray dreadlocks is shouting: “All this shit got bed bugs!” To the south, down the hill toward the Federal Building, half a dozen addicts are shooting up, nodding out. A photographer with a big, fancy camera is snapping pictures. If we walked three minutes south, we’d be inside the headquarters of one of the wealthiest tech companies in the world. Welcome to San Francisco.

  We are shown to a table with the eastern view, the bed bug bazaar. I scan the restaurant, but no one matches Rusty’s description of Kenny Pao. When the server comes over, George orders the thirty-two, and I order the lamb special. As the server takes our menus, I ask, “Is there a guy named Kenny here?”

  “Not yet. Kenny is an asshole.”

  “Because he’s late?”

  “An asshole in every way.”

  Our food arrives. George digs into his green curry chicken. “Rusty wasn’t lying about the thirty-two.”

  We eat slowly. Then we order dessert so we can occupy the table longer. Another thirty-five minutes pass. The bill arrives. I add a generous tip to compensate for keeping the table so long. When the server comes by to refill our teapot, she whispers, “The asshole has arrived,” nodding toward the southern window. A Mitsubishi Evo is idling in the yellow zone. I thank her and put another twenty on the table.

  A giant kid, maybe the dishwasher, runs out of the kitchen and onto the street. He hands an envelope through the window of the Mitsubishi.

  “I don’t think he’s coming in,” George says.

  We’re quickly out the door and in George’s rental car. We sit for seven minutes, watching Kenny talk to the dishwasher. He shoves his finger into the big guy’s chest a couple of times, rolls up his window, and peels away from the curb, tires squealing.

  George cuts off a Lyft driver to pull into the street. Kenny is speeding, weaving through traffic, and George pulls a few maneuvers to keep up. “Think he made us?”

  “No, I think he’s just an asshole, like the waitress said.”

  We follow the Mitsubishi up Polk, right on Broadway, through the tunnel and into Chinatown. He makes two stops at hole-in-the-wall restaurants, and both times a kid comes running out to give him something. Then he heads west, through the tunnel and out toward the avenues. I roll the window down, smelling the ocean as we drive west, the Pacific visible in the moonlight.

  We follow him down Balboa, across the Great Highway, into a parking lot at the north end of Ocean Beach. He doesn’t seem to notice us. Kenny sits alone in his car, vaping, talking on his cell.

  “Time for a conversation?” I say.

  But then Kenny screeches out of the parking lot and back onto the Great Highway. We follow him south, onto Skyline, left at the Westlake subdivision. He pulls into the driveway of a split-level Doelger house near Westlake Joe’s, and we park across the street, several houses down. The place is dark, no one home. He walks up the steps and unlocks the door. The lights go on.

  Curtains open. From our parking spot, we can see Kenny pacing around the living room for a full minute, letting off steam. The place is cool in a retro way, not what I expected. The front is mostly windows.

  The thick fog makes the neighborhood quiet, save for the cars humming by on Skyline, the distant sound of the waves. “I could live here,” George says. “It’s peaceful.”

  We watch Kenny through the windows for a while. He pulls off his shirt, disappears into the back of the house and returns with a bowl of cereal. He sits down on the couch and turns on an enormous television. It’s amazing how unaware he is, totally on display in the light of the television.

  “Now or never,” I say. “Watch the front door?”

  “Yep. I’ll start the car if it looks like he’s getting up.”

  I get out of the car, walk down the street, and slip around the side of the house and check the gate to the backyard. Locked. A new electrical panel is attached to the side of the house, Square D, a profusion of new wiring snaking to the electrical pole. I duck down to pass through the flowerbed under the living room window. At the garage, I sniff under the door to confirm my suspicion.

  Back in the car, George asks, “What did you find?”

  “Grow site in the garage.”

  I wonder what George is thinking, whether we’re on the same page. This isn’t his case. It’s not his battle to fight. The protocol would be to pass the info on to the locals, maybe coordinate with them to talk to Kenny when he’s in lockup, play the
long game, squeeze him on the illegal grow operation until he gives up his boss. Of course, George also knows that real evidence disappears quickly, and a conversation in a sterile room with a bunch of attorneys is always less productive than a more intimate discussion, alone, inside a person’s house. Anyway, after what went down at Rusty’s, we’re certainly in the gray.

  George looks at me. “You care about this guy?”

  “No. I just want to move up the chain. Someone asked Kenny to take those kids. That’s who I want.”

  George is silent for several beats. “We’re a few steps off the reservation.”

  “Yes, but still close enough to walk it back.”

  We have no official case, nothing on paper, and our visit to Rusty was definitely not by the book. On the other side, Kyle did ask for help, and I wouldn’t have a hard time painting this as a preliminary task force thing. A confrontation with Kenny at his home might be a step too far, but tracking down a kidnapper without the proper paperwork is not the sort of activity that gets you fired. Maybe a few weeks on the bricks. Months, even. I’m fine with that, but I’d rather not cause George any trouble. His wife works for a nonprofit that pays next to nothing, and they have a kid in middle school.

  “Your call.”

  “Maybe we have a friendly talk with Kenny,” George says. “But you owe me.”

  “Make it two burritos, extra guac, and I’ll throw in a margarita.”

  George pops his door open, and I do the same. We move quietly across the street and onto the property. “I’ll take the door,” George whispers. I position myself at the bottom of the stairs, with a view through the window. George uses the rear end of his flashlight to knock on the door. Nothing. He rings the doorbell—still nothing. He hits the door again, feels the handle. Locked. Through the window, I see Kenny standing up.

  “He’s coming,” I whisper. “Sweatpants, no shirt, no pockets.”

  The door opens. “Yeah?” Kenny says, before fully registering George’s size. I move up the stairs. Kenny looks at me, back at George. “You got the wrong house, bro.”

  George rests his palm on the door frame. “I don’t think so.”

  “Good to meet you, Kenny Pao.”

  Kenny looks shocked to hear his name. He tries to shut the door, but George blocks it with his body. “You going to invite us in?”

  Kenny is still sizing him up. “No man, I don’t think so. Not tonight.”

  “Where are your manners?” George steps closer to Kenny, towering over him. “You should probably invite us in.”

  Kenny backs into the house. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Someone who wants to offer you an opportunity you can’t pass up,” I say.

  “Did Hector send you?”

  “Nope.”

  “Man, are you with the PD?”

  I sidle next to George. “Why don’t you invite us in before the neighbors get too curious?”

  Kenny tries again to close the door. “You know, I’ve got a lawyer—”

  “Good for you,” I say, as George wedges his foot between the door and the frame. “Now you’re going to invite us in. It’s not complicated. You say, ‘Would you two like to come in?’ And then we reply, ‘Yes.’ And you ask if we want something to drink, and we say, ‘No thanks, this won’t take long.’”

  “Would you like to come in?” Kenny asks miserably.

  “Nice of you to ask!” George says. We step through the door, close it behind us, and follow Kenny into the living room.

  I walk over to the window and draw the curtains. “Kenny, I’m going to need you to sit down.”

  I take the chair to Kenny’s left, George takes the couch. I can already tell Kenny is far out of his comfort zone. George uses his body well—getting into people’s space, throwing them off balance. He calls it being politely menacing. I don’t think he learned that one at Quantico. It’s not my sort of approach—with my size, it couldn’t be—but the contrast in our styles has always served us well.

  “I’m not sure what you guys want,” Kenny sputters. “But I’m not your guy. I’m just a small businessman.”

  “Oh,” George says. “So you wouldn’t mind me calling the DEA to take a look in your garage, right?”

  “Oh man, come on, it’s barely illegal. If I knew the right people to pay off at city hall, I’d be licensed.”

  George lifts his nose in the air, sniffing. He glances at me. “What do you think? Sixty-four plants, maybe seventy-two, close to maturity, what’s that worth?”

  “State or federal?”

  “Both, so Kenny understands what we’re talking about.”

  “Sentencing would depend on priors, I suppose.”

  “Kenny,” George says. “You got any priors? Felonies, misdemeanors, a couple of domestics maybe?”

  Kenny doesn’t respond.

  “We’ll take that as a yes.” George looks at me again. “What’s your guesstimate?”

  “Assuming the plants are mature, calculating at street value, he’s looking at forty-eight months federal, sixty state, give or take.”

  Kenny shakes his head, miserable. “Shit. What do you want, man? What’s this about?”

  “Who asked you to do the jobs with the kids?” I say.

  Kenny’s blood pressure goes up, redness rising in his face, under the big tribal tattoo on his neck. He stares straight ahead, not saying anything.

  “Kenny, you still with us?”

  His chest is rising and falling rapidly. He makes a sudden move, his body twisting toward George, his arm flailing toward the edge of the couch, his feet sliding on the floor, trying to stand and run. In a single motion, George twists his body, slamming his elbow into the side of Kenny’s head. Kenny falls back into the couch, his feet flying up, kicking the glass coffee table. He yelps in pain.

  From the other room, I hear a commotion. A pit bull appears from the kitchen, sliding across the floor, his feet fighting for traction on the slippery tile. Shit. I jump to my feet, my gun out, trained on the dog. I flash back to one of my first joint arrests and the NYPD officer who told me as we were about to storm the warehouse: “If there’s a dog, you’re the one who has to shoot it.” I had to do a double take. How did I get there? A liberal arts degree, ballet lessons until the age of ten. “Seriously,” the cop said, snapping me back to it. “NYPD can shoot people. Dogs are different. Too much paperwork.”

  Just as Kenny’s pit bull picks up traction and starts moving toward us, I yell, “Call him off or I’ll shoot!”

  Kenny screams something in Vietnamese. The dog skids to a stop and stares at us, growling. Kenny utters a few more words in a commanding voice, and the dog turns and walks back toward the kitchen.

  I look over, and Kenny’s chest, his white couch, the white carpet, are all covered in blood. George reaches for the towel on the table and tosses it to Kenny. He looks so small, trying to disguise his frail chest and spindly arms with the interwoven tattoos.

  “I was just getting a cigarette. Fuck! You cut me.”

  “Nice guard dog you got there,” George says. “Took him three minutes to realize there were strangers with guns in the house.”

  “She’s hard of hearing, and she’s not a guard dog,” Kenny says defensively, pressing the towel to his face. “See, that’s a misconception people have about pit bulls. They’re a nice breed. Good with children. Sassy loves my nieces.”

  George tries to keep a straight face, but he breaks into a grin.

  “What?” Kenny looks offended. “It’s a good name, man. It fits her. She is sassy.”

  “I need you to walk over there, real slow, and close the kitchen door,” I say. “I do not want to hurt Sassy. If I have to hurt Sassy, I will not forgive you.”

  He stands up slowly. He backs across the room to the door of the kitchen, peeks into the room, mumbles reassuring words to t
he dog, and shuts the door.

  “All the way,” I say. “I want to hear it click.”

  He pulls the door tighter, and the latch clicks into place.

  “Good job. See? We can work together.”

  Kenny returns to the sofa. I can hear Sassy panting behind the door. I lean forward. “Look at me, Kenny. Who asked you to take the kids?”

  “Please,” he says. He’s still holding the towel to the gash above his eye. “I tell you who hired me, and I am fucking dead. Dead, my body in the ocean, or in a hole behind some fucking house in the Sunset.” He looks at the towel, sopping with blood. “Can I get a clean one?”

  “In a minute. First answer the question.”

  “In Chinatown, in the Tenderloin, fuck, even in Daly City, these guys don’t fuck around.”

  “I get it. Answer me this, though: Why would anyone in your world want some random suburban kids kidnapped? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “I don’t know. People want a lot of fucking crazy shit. The boss said it was a favor for a friend. Just a fucking favor.”

  “Kenny,” I say. “Who asked your boss for the favor?”

  “I told you I don’t fucking know. Are you going to arrest me? I’ve got a lawyer.”

  “We can do that whole thing if you want,” George says. “But you won’t like how it turns out.”

  “Who asked your boss for the favor?” I repeat.

  “I only saw him once for a second. Some fucking guy off 280 down the Peninsula.”

  “Where off 280?”

  “In a parking area. I was picking up the cash. The guy was going to drop it off in the city, but then he said he was busy and could I come meet him. I asked him to Venmo it, but he said no, it had to be cash. I respect that, man. No digital record, it’s better. He even gave me a tip. Big one. I fucking deserved it. Pain in the motherfucking ass.”

  “Remember which exit you took?”

  “No, but it was by a fancy-ass golf course, and there was, like, this big lake.”

  “Black Mountain?”

  “Yeah, that rings a bell.”

  “What was the guy like?”