by Ian Bull
We ride the elevator down. “It’s cool if you don’t want to go fishing now,” Walter says.
“No, I want to go. It’ll help me think.”
We exit the elevator. Walter unlocks the glass front doors and I step outside. “I’ll pick you up in front of the Fairmont at six,” Walter says, and locks the door behind me.
I pull my jacket tight around me. The fog is wet tonight, with a strong smell of sea salt mixing with diesel fuel and cooking oil rising out of the steam grates of Chinatown. All I have to do is turn the corner and walk up two steep blocks on Clay Street, and I’ll be back at my hotel. I can climb into bed, but I’ll just toss and turn.
I need a new plan. Maybe I’ll hijack the fishing boat and cross the Pacific myself, but I need Sudafed to keep me from getting seasick. There’s a corner grocery still open on the next block of Stockton. I dart across the street—just as a blue Camry coming the other way runs the same red light. It stops in front of the Hong Chow Benevolence Association Building. Four men exit the car. One looks like he’s carrying a crowbar flush to his leg, and they disappear behind the building’s cement columns. The driver stays behind the wheel with the engine running.
They want the donation box. If I put in a hundred bucks, and fifty more people came that day and put in twenty each, that box holds over a thousand dollars. Maybe two thousand, if he didn’t go to the bank yesterday. It’s an easy target. They crowbar the door open, then the staircase, grab the box, and they’re out in two minutes…unless they stay and wreck the place, or whack Uncle Han or Walter in the head.
I look for a tool, but there’s not even a rock in the street. Chinatown is crowded, but the shopkeepers sweep and hose down the streets like clockwork. Then I spot something half a block down. Yellow reflective tape and orange cones surround a hole in the ground—roadwork.
My heart beats faster as I run. I have no plan except to pray that something comes to me. I get to the hole and find three small pieces of broken asphalt, which I jam in my jacket pockets, then grab an orange cone. I stay close to the buildings as I run back and creep up into the driver’s blind spot and put the cone to my mouth.
“Police! Move your car now!” I shout. It sounds like a bullhorn.
The driver twists his head, but he can’t see me. He’s a white kid in a black hoodie and a Giants cap. I take a slice of asphalt out of my pocket and throw it hard, and it punches a hole in his back window. The kid hits the gas and heads down Stockton toward Union Square.
The glass doors are open and hanging loose from their hinges. I slip inside. The staircase door is closed, but they pried the metal plate covering the lock. The building either has no alarm system or it’s broken, which the thieves must know. I pull the door open and slip inside the stairwell, then slip the rubber cone into the jam so the heavy door doesn’t shut. I run up the stairs, past the second and third floors, and stop outside the fourth-floor door. There are loud voices. Uncle Han and Walter are putting up a fight. All I have to do is yank this door open, but then anything could happen.
What can I use? All I have are rocks. Thrusting my hands in my jacket pockets I feel paper and pull it out. It’s the wrapping paper that held the candle and incense sticks from the temple offering. There’s a square of Chinese calligraphy in the middle, done in gold paint. I hope it says “good luck,” because I need it. I wrap it around an oval-shaped piece of asphalt. It’s just a rock covered in gold paper, but with enough chaos, it may work.
I open the door and step into the narrow hallway to the temple and surprise four young men running down the parquet floor toward me. They freeze, their skin and eyes whitish-green in the weird florescent light. Two are Asian, two are Caucasian. All wear black hoodies, black jeans, and Giants caps. The Asian kid in front, heavyset with acne, holds the wooden offering box under his arm. A tall white kid behind him steps forward and holds up the crowbar. Behind him is another white kid as big as a pro lineman, and last is a small Asian kid with long black hair in a ponytail under his cap.
I flash my gold rock like it’s a badge. “Police! Get on the floor, all of you!”
“There’s four of us and one of you!” the kid with the crowbar laughs. He’s scared, though.
“Fuck this shit! Push past him!” the big white kid shouts.
“Your blue Toyota is gone,” I say.
The three in front glance back at the kid with the ponytail. “You’re not a cop. A cop would have waited for his backup.”
“You’re about to get hurt bad,” the crowbar kid says.
“Except I’m going to hurt one of you just as bad before I go down,” I look at each of them. I then point at the kid with the ponytail. “And I pick you, because you’re the leader.”
The ponytail kid pokes crowbar boy, who winds up like a ballplayer. I move against the wall. When he swings, I step back and feel it graze my nose before it explodes into the wall. The metal recoils off the drywall in an explosion of white dust, and he bounces, too. In the micro-second that he’s off balance, I move in close, wrap my left arm around his right and bend it back until his elbow breaks, then knee him in the groin. He drops the crowbar and crumples to the floor.
The football player moves to grab the bar, but I get my foot on it and slide it behind me. The acne kid is so scared he’s dancing on his toes, so I just grab the donation box from him.
“Run away.”
The three boys push past each other to get to the door first, leaving their buddy with the broken elbow and ruptured testicles crouching on the floor.
“You got some friends, leaving you behind like that.”
He glares at me, but finds the strength to get through the door. The kids leap down the stairs, their crashes echoing up the metal staircase.
I walk down the hall with the donation box and ease through the beaded curtain into the temple, afraid that I’ll find Walter and Uncle Han facedown with crowbar dents in their heads. Guan Gong stands on his dais, glaring at me, lit up by my one candle offering.
“Over here, hombre.” Walter and Uncle Han are on the floor, back to back. “They zip-tied our wrists together.”
“There’s a desk behind you. There’s scissors in the drawer,” Uncle Han says.
I find the desk and twist the lamp on. I put down the donation box and dig through the drawer and find the scissors. Walter and Han lean to the side. I push the tip of the scissors between the plastic on their wrists and snip hard. Their hands spring free.
“Uncle Han, I’m sorry I got sick at your daughter’s Red Egg party,” I say.
“That was a long time ago. I know you’re a good friend to Walter.”
I bow to Guan Gong one more time, then reach into the bamboo holder and pull out another thin bamboo strip and hand it to Uncle Han. “May I try again? What does this one say?” Uncle Han peers at it, then looks at me. “It says you are worthy. We will help you.”
Walter smiles. “But we’re still going fishing first, right?”
Chapter 19
* * *
Julia Travers
Day 7: Friday Morning
North Hollywood
Paul opens the passenger door of his BMW for me.
“You carry the coffee, I’ll carry the muffins,” I say, and hand him the cardboard carrier with four large Peet’s coffees as I get out. I check my hair and smooth my white shirt before grabbing Steven’s computer satchel and the paper bag of baked goodies. Paul shuts his door and chirps his car locked.
“Trishelle picked my clothes for my mugshot. It’s my white-collar criminal look.”
“You look great. It’ll be the best celebrity mugshot in history.”
“But you’re going to keep it out of the papers, right?”
“We will do everything we can to keep it on the DL, starting with muffins and coffee.”
“Were David and Saul upset that I nixed doing this at the agency?”
“The Oscars are Sunday. The office is cranking with too much to do.”
The Oscars. I complet
ely forgot about them. “Will you still be able to do the research on the reality TV producers I asked you about?”
“I’m going to six Oscar parties this weekend. I’ll work the crowds and find something.”
“Good,” I say. As we pass a glass sculpture in front of the building, Paul stops me.
“If I’m going to be your lawyer today instead of Saul, I need you to listen,” he says.
“I’m listening.”
“Stick to the facts about Le Clerq. No personal feelings that would reveal your ‘intent.’”
There’s that word—intent. My fate rests on what I was thinking in that microsecond before I popped him. And Paul wants me to hold my emotion—and temper—in check.
Paul holds the door for me and I walk inside. The North Hollywood Police Station is empty at eight in the morning. The entrance is a semicircle of wood paneling and glass brick that looks more like a college library than a police station. We walk up to the kiosk. The officer is short with dark hair in a bun, and a nametag that says “Sanchez.” Her eyes widen as she recognizes me, but then narrow just as fast as she slips back into cop mode.
Paul speaks for us. “This is Julia Travers and I’m her lawyer. We’re here to meet Detective Mendoza for questioning, and then for fingerprinting and booking.”
“They’re in the meeting room already,” she says, then eyes the coffee and the muffin bag.
“I have to check what you brought.” She steps down from behind her kiosk and peers into the paper sack. We’re the same height, but her hips are wider—or maybe her thick black leather belt with a walkie-talkie, pistol, mace, ammo, and handcuffs hanging off just make her look wider.
“I like your earrings,” I say, nodding at the lapis studs in each ear.
“Thanks,” she says, then pops a plastic lid off a paper cup of coffee and looks inside.
“Take a coffee and a muffin. We brought extra,” I say.
“Bad for my hips,” Sanchez says. She juts her hip out and slaps it.
“Your hips look great. But isn’t that belt heavy?” I ask.
“You get used to it.” She smiles at me.
“Will you do my fingerprinting and booking?” I ask, hoping I made a friend.
“I’ll hook you up,” she says and winks at me.
Across the lobby, a door opens and Detective Mendoza sticks his head out. “I thought I heard voices. Come this way.” He gestures us inside.
We sit at a large rectangular desk. As Mendoza sips his coffee, I see a Hello Kitty sticker on his right sleeve. A daughter must have put it there. Detective Taylor’s face is blank, and he’s wearing the same gray suit from Sunday. If he’s bland on purpose, it works; I can’t read him.
“Shall we start?” Mendoza asks. He places his cellphone on the table and activates the voice recording app. Paul slides his own phone on the table with the record light flashing.
“I’m Detective Yancy Mendoza of the Los Angeles Police, here with Special Agent Tom Taylor from the FBI. We are at the North Hollywood Police Station to ask Julia Travers questions in our investigation of her alleged assault on photographer Simon Le Clerq last Saturday. Also present is her lawyer—”
“Paul Telles,” Paul adds.
Mendoza sighs and keeps going. “You have the right to remain silent, and anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to have legal counsel present, which you are exercising. Do you understand these rights before we proceed?”
“I do,” I say.
“So, tell me what happened on the second of March, Saturday night.
“Just to be clear, you already interviewed me Sunday morning, and I told you everything about Simon Le Clerq and how I kicked him. Is it possible for you to use that statement?”
An impatient Detective Mendoza passes his cardboard coffee cup back and forth between his palms. “Le Clerq filed a four-page statement describing how you attacked him on Saturday night. We have statements from witnesses, all Santa Monica police officers and firefighters, corroborating his story, and he’s submitted medical records of his injuries. Now he’s asking us to arrest you and file charges. Therefore, we have to interview you again.”
Paul holds up his finger, asking to interrupt, and Mendoza nods. “But Julia, you also get to say everything you know about this guy, from the first day you ever encountered him. That can be part of the record, too.”
My words start to flow. I describe everything that ever happened between Le Clerq and me—the who, what, when, and where—without emotion. I describe how I’ve been out in public only three times since January, and each time, Le Clerq pursued Steven and me. He would call me names and harass us. I saw him in the distance on Saturday night at the Beverly Hilton, and then I describe again what happened in Santa Monica Canyon.
“That’s it,” I say. Detective Mendoza turns off his recording app, and Paul turns his off.
Mendoza pulls out a blueberry muffin from the bag and tears off the crusty baked top. “I’m assuming you’ll meet with Le Clerq and his lawyer sometime next week, which means all this might go away,” he says before popping a piece in his mouth.
“That’s what we’re hoping,” Paul offers.
“I have some questions now,” Special Agent Taylor says. He puts his cellphone in the middle of the table and hits the red button on the recorder app. “If you don’t mind.”
Agent Taylor stares at me. His face is still blank, but from the long pause, I realize Major Glenn Ward was right. The FBI portion of the morning suddenly feels much more serious. By the way Paul shifts, he must feel the same way. Detective Mendoza, meanwhile, flashes a tiny half smirk between bites of his muffin.
“Carl Webb suspected that Steven Quintana was the target of Saturday’s shooting and not Rikki Lassen, which we’re now pursuing. He said that Quintana was investigating names on a flash drive from when you were in the Bahamas, and that he may have angered enough people that they tried to kill him.”
“I now believe that’s true, too.”
“So he’s uncovered some kind of conspiracy?”
“Not anything new. They’re the same people who invested in the Bahamian snuff film in which I almost died. He gave the FBI the names from that flash drive eighteen months ago, when we were first rescued. But we heard nothing from the FBI.”
I stare back at Taylor with the same blank look. If I’m bugging him, he’s not letting on.
“Do you know where Steven Quintana is right now?” Taylor asks.
“San Francisco. He has friends there who will help him continue his search.”
“Do you know what he’s looking for?”
“He told me that they’re now doing an Internet TV show where men fight to the death.”
“Are you helping him with his search?”
“No. In fact, I’ve done everything I can to stop him…including taking this from him,” I say, then pull out Steven’s laptop and push it across the table toward Agent Taylor. His eyes widen for the first time. “Take it. Find Steven and bring him home before he gets killed again.”
“I need a search warrant first,” Agent Taylor says, just like I knew he would.
I put the laptop back into its pouch. “He wants to go to Hong Kong,” I say. “He said they’re casting for contestants.”
Mendoza and Taylor look at each other and raise their eyebrows.
“Can you flag his passport so you get alerted if he leaves the country?” I ask.
“We can monitor flights leaving LAX and SFO and alert customs in both countries. It’s a longshot, but maybe we’ll get lucky,” Taylor says.
The clock ticks on the wall, and Paul taps his foot under the table. Taylor finally hits stop on the recording app and puts his phone away.
“That’s all you can do? Hope to get lucky?” I ask.
“Looking at that computer will help the most. I’ll get the warrant and pick it up today,” Taylor says. He and Mendoza stand up. Neither of them say what we all know comes next.
<
br /> “Can Officer Sanchez book me?” I ask.
Mendoza shrugs. “If you want,” he answers, and Mendoza and Taylor leave faster than if it’s the end of math class. They don’t care about my mugshot, or Le Clerq, nor are they interested in helping me save Steven’s life. They just want to find who killed Rikki, and Steven’s computer is the best lead. That’s fine. They’ll proceed with their plans, and I’ll proceed with mine.
Officer Sanchez sticks her head in. “Ready to get your fingers dirty?” she asks.
“There’s two muffins left, one for each of us,” I say, and hold up the bag.
Chapter 20
* * *
Robert Snow
Day 8: Saturday Night
Hong Kong
We took off in Boss Man’s Gulfstream IV from Maui Friday afternoon, crossed the International Date Line, and now it is Saturday night as we’re approaching Chep Lak Kok, Hong Kong’s airport in the South China Sea. I wish I could enjoy the luxury jet more, but the stitches in my right arm hurt and Boss Man is spending too much time flirting with Tina.
I swivel in my chair, sip ginger ale, and watch them play Gin at the mahogany table in the main cabin. Tina wears her khakis and white shirt, ready for work. Boss Man seems to be on perpetual vacation in his designer jeans and silk shirts. They play cards in a blur, their voices just mumbles under classical music and the drone of the jet.
I run my hand along my bandaged right forearm and feel the tender wound underneath. Thursday night didn’t go the way I’d planned. The yacht staff found a surgeon at Kaanapali and brought her aboard to sew up my arm, and then sent us back to shore. We didn’t walk on the beach, but Tina did make love to me. No Peter Heyman video, no spanking, just plain vanilla pity sex, but I’ll take what I can get.
“You’re making me a millionaire,” she whispered in my ear as she rode on top of me.
It made me forget Boss Man’s weird cockblocking moves on the yacht and reminded me that in less than two weeks, I’ll be a multimillionaire…if I deliver the show on time, with an American contestant. That creates a sting worse than the shark bite.
