by Sean Black
“He’s my friend. We don’t have sex.”
“It’s none of my business if you do or don’t.”
“I like him. He’s kind, and . . .”
She stopped.
“And?”
“Nothing.”
“My job is to locate Emily and Charlie. That’s it. Everything else . . .” said Lock, taking in the room with a sweep of his hand “. . . is beyond the scope of my job. I don’t care who you’re sleeping with or who you’re not. I don’t care why you’re here or what the deal you have going here is.”
“So why are you asking me all these questions?”
“It’s my job. I don’t know what might be relevant and what isn’t until I ask them.”
“Go on, then. I’m tired. I need to sleep.”
“What has Li said to you about all of this?”
“He told me what happened.”
“And what did happen?”
She got up from where she was sitting and walked out of the room into the kitchen. Lock followed her.
She grabbed a glass and poured some wine. “You want some?”
Lock shook his head.
“You know what happened. You’re the investigator.”
“I’d just like to hear, in your words, what Li told you.”
Lock didn’t know if there was anything to uncover there. He did know that Li hadn’t been entirely straight with him. He also didn’t believe for a second that two attractive, ambitious young people, who worked for the same man, and both had reason to resent the power he had over them, might not share more than some late-night talks.
When he’d followed her into the kitchen, he’d seen that there were two wine glasses on the counter, both used, and only one with lipstick around the rim.
“Li told me that some gang was trying to steal Charlie’s car. Charlie came out to stop them and they took him and Emily. Li blames himself.”
“Why does he blame himself?” said Lock.
“He told me he should have stopped it happening.”
Now she had Lock’s complete attention. How could you stop something when it had arrived out of the clear blue sky? “Why does he think that?”
“How would I know?”
Lock stepped toward her. “Why does Li think he could have stopped it? Did he know something like this was going to happen?”
“I told you, I don’t know. He was upset.”
She was staring into her wine glass. Lock reached out his hand. He pinched her chin, lifting her head so she was looking at him. She was scared. She’d slipped up somehow and she knew it.
“What’s going on here?” said Lock. “How could Li have stopped this?”
“I swear to you I don’t know.” She began to cry. “You’re going to tell Chan, aren’t you?”
Lock kept his own counsel.“What would I tell him?”
“About Li and I.”
“That’s what you’re worried about?”
“Yes. He’d go crazy. He’d kick me out. There are lots of girls like me.”
“I don’t care who you sleep with, Miss Po. But I need you to tell me why Li thought he could have prevented this.”
“I swear to you I don’t know. I swear.”
Lock reached into his jacket. She flinched.
He took a business card from his wallet. “You should try to remember. When you do, call me.”
“You won’t say anything, will you?” she pleaded, following him back towards the front door.
The case with the hundred thousand dollars lay on the cream leather passenger seat of Lock’s Audi. He stared at it like it contained some kind of secret. He hadn’t left Arcadia. He’d been driving around a couple of the wealthier neighborhoods for the past hour. Driving helped him think things through.
He’d been pulled over twice by the local cops. He’d explained to them who he was. He’d fudged why he was there, telling them he’d been called in by some local families who were spooked by the recent turn of events.
The story had satisfied the cops.
The details of the kidnapping hadn’t been released or the names of the victims. But it was only a matter of time. It would cause more than a few ripples.
There were two schools of thought regarding how much information you placed in the public domain following a kidnapping. One said the less publicity the better: publicity tended to spook kidnappers and make things more dangerous for captives. The other said that publicity meant more people looking, and more chance of finding the victim.
Having dealt with several kidnaps over the years, Lock agreed with keeping things on the down-low. Most kidnappings were business transactions. Those that weren’t, abductions, tended to end badly, even in the cases where the victims came home.
Lock flipped open the attaché cash. He removed the money, bundle by bundle, and placed it on the seat. He reached into the glove box and pulled out his Gerber knife.
He drew the edge of the blade down the side of the interior lining of the case. Peeling back the lining, he put the Gerber down and retrieved a mini Maglite. He switched it on and shone the light into the gap between the lining and the case.
Light reflected off a silver-colored piece of metal the size of a large button that had been glued into place. Lock cut away the rest of the lining. He took a closer look at the silver tracking device. Not big enough to record, but large enough to relay the case’s location.
Li knew that where Lock went, the case would go too. He wasn’t a man likely to leave a hundred thousand dollars sitting around.
Lock left the silver button where it was. He flicked quickly through the cash bundles and placed the money back in the case. He snapped the case shut and laid it back on the passenger seat as a patrol car swept past him.
He dug out his cell phone and called Ty. “Gimme some good news, Tyrone.”
“I was hoping that’s why you were calling us.”
“Us?”
“Yeah. I’m out here with Carl. Some of these neighborhoods in East LA ain’t too friendly for a brother on his own.”
“I hear you.”
“So what about you? Anything?”
“I’ll tell you when I speak to you. I should be back in LA in about an hour. You know that diner on Colefax and Otsego? Let’s meet there.”
“Okay, dude, speak then.”
“Hey, Tyrone.”
“What?”
“Be safe.”
“You too.”
23
Princess had her turn to speak. She’d been rehearsing. She’d written down what she wanted to say. She had numbers. Pony and Joker would roll their eyes. Shotcaller would dig it. He loved numbers. From hanging with him, she knew he kept spreadsheets. He was doing a business course at community college. Profit and loss. Accounts. All that good stuff.
Pony and Joker wouldn’t have numbers. They were dummies. The only numbers they gave any attention to were the ones they played every week. That was stupid in her eyes. Only poor people played the numbers. Rich people took that money and invested it. They paid themselves.
“Princess,” said Shotcaller. “What do you think?”
She looked at the two kidnap victims sitting together on the couch. One of Charlie’s eyes was closed, and he sat slumped, his chin resting on his chest, too scared to look at anyone in case he caught another beating. He had paid for pulling that gun and not pulling the trigger. Princess could have told him it was gangster 101. You draw down on people like them, you’d better do it.
They had cleaned him up before Shotcaller, but he still looked bad. By contrast, Emily was looking good. Princess had made her take a shower and done her make-up for her. Put her in a little skirt, heels and a sparkly top. This was the visual element of her pitch.
“We got the cars. That was what we wanted,” said Princess. “The way I see it, these two here are a bonus.”
Pony and Joker both nodded in agreement.
“Question is, what we do with them now we have them,” Princess continued. “Sure, we could a
sk for a ransom, but what do we know about running that?”
Pony’s top lip curled. “We know plenty.”
“We know how to work it with our people. Get a family to send us a few thousand dollars so they can see little Paco again. But this is a whole other level. How we going to collect?”
“We’ll figure it out,” muttered Joker.
“What you telling me?” Shotcaller asked. “We kill them? Let them go?”
Princess figured she might as well get to her proposal. “Kill him and put her to work.”
At this Emily’s eyes lifted from the grubby carpet.
“She’s a virgin. That’s five large to someone right there. First pop. Someone will pay five, easy.”
“That’s high end,” said Shotcaller.
“We know people who know people,” said Princess. She had already anticipated the objection.
“So that’s five,” said Joker. “Then what?”
“We turn her out.” Princess took a breath, ready to drop some numbers. “Say ten tricks a night, fifty a trick. Five hundred. Seven nights. That’s fourteen a month.”
“And how many months before she’s all used up?” said Pony.
“A year is a hundred and forty Gs,” said Princess. “Tell me that’s not real money.”
“I like it,” said Shotcaller.
Princess felt the warm glow of his approval. She’d known he’d respond to figures.
He turned to the other two. “That’s what you call a business plan. Numbers. Revenue projection.”
They shot salty looks at her. She didn’t care. She had done her homework and made a case. It wasn’t her problem if she was smarter.
“But we ain’t doing it,” said Shotcaller.
Joker and Pony smirked.
Princess couldn’t believe it. “How come? Fourteen. A month. Every month.”
“You’re forgetting one thing, Princess,” said Shotcaller.
“What’s that?”
“This isn’t some regular chava. People are looking for her. Him too. People with money.”
Joker saw his chance. “People with money who’ll give us some to get them back. I say ten million. That’s what we ask.”
Princess laughed. She couldn’t help it. Like someone was going to hand over ten million dollars to these two clowns and let them ride off into the sunset.
Shotcaller cut her off with a glare. “It’s an idea. But Princess is right. This is the big league. We need to figure it all out first. How we going to ask? How can we collect without getting caught?”
“Five. They’d give you five,” said Emily.
They all looked at her. Even Charlie, with one dead eye.
“I could arrange it. Make the deal,” said Emily. “But that would be for both of us going home safe.”
“Shut the hell up,” said Princess. “Anyone say you could speak?”
She didn’t like where this was going.
She took the three short steps and raised her hand to slap Emily. Shotcaller caught it before she could swing.
“I need to think about all of this. Talk to some people,” said Shotcaller. “There’s money. No arguing with that. But this is tricky.”
“She just said she could speak for us,” said Pony. “Five million. Think, how many bitches like this we need to make those dollars?”
“Turn her out? Shit. Small time,” said Joker.
Princess could feel her proposal losing traction. “I’m talking about money in the bank,” she said.
Shotcaller let go of her arm with a warning. “Any marks on this bitch,” he said, with a nod to Emily, “you answer to me. Same goes for him. We keep the produce fresh. I’ll get back to you.”
24
It was a blues club with a house band. The sign on the door said it stayed open until two in the morning. He found a table in the darkest corner and ordered a drink from the waitress.
A Chinese tiger drinking whisky and listening to someone sing the blues. He drank it fast, hoping it would settle his nerves, and ordered another. He would have to slow down with this one or he would be drunk, and they would ask him to leave.
The last time he’d drunk alcohol had been at the end of a case that had ended as badly as one of his cases could end. With a dead child. After he’d broken the news to the parents, and watched their entire life implode, he’d bought a bottle of Scotch, drunk half of it on a park bench, gone home, taken a cold shower, and set out to find the men responsible.
That had been a case that started well. It was a hot trail, only a few days old. The kind of case he rarely got. His specialty was cold cases, in some cases so cold that he had to chip away ice to get to the evidence.
Families rarely thought to involve him when a child was taken. They went to the police. More often than not it was a terrible mistake.
So this case had been exciting. He’d gotten straight down to business: interviewing witnesses; speaking with the family; talking to his many contacts and informants.
In less than twenty-four hours, he had a good idea who had done it. Unfortunately, they’d heard he was after them. They panicked, killed the child and dumped her in the river.
It was the closest he had come to walking away from all of this. The gang had killed her because of their fear of the Red Tiger.
He had caught up with them, but too late. He had blamed himself and resolved to stick to the cold cases from now on. To work cases where the crime had been committed, passions had subsided, and he could go quietly about his business.
Now he was drinking again as, a few feet away, a white man tried to sound like a black man as he sang about his baby leaving him. The Red Tiger sipped his second drink, pushed it to the side of the table and reached for a cigarette, then remembered he would have to go outside to smoke it. He tapped the cigarette back into the pack.
On stage, the band finished their last song and people around him applauded. He joined in.
He needed a plan. But first he had to make sense of all of this. Why had the police not arrested him? Why had they been outside like that? If he’d been them he would have hidden, then pounced.
Earlier he had thought that perhaps he had the wrong address. He had checked it. He had even run a fresh search. No, it was correct.
Maybe they had only wanted to scare him off. To let him know that what he was doing was futile.
He took another sip of whisky. Yes, that could be it, he told himself. If they arrested him, and he went to court, all their secrets would slip out. Wasn’t it better just to scare him off?
If that was what they wanted they had made a fatal error. They must have known that he wouldn’t give up so easily.
He would have to be careful. If he didn’t leave, they would have to try something else, something more permanent.
Drinking was a bad idea. He needed to be sober. He pushed the glass away from him.
He would find a motel outside town. He would rest up. Get some sleep. Eat. Exercise. Clear his mind. Plan his next move.
At the bar, he waited to settle his tab, the dollar bills ready in his hand. The bartender was busy, speaking to an older couple. He happened to look up at the television above the bar.
He glanced at it, then away. Then back.
No, it couldn’t be.
For a moment he thought it must be some kind of elaborate practical joke, staged just for him.
On screen was the house with the patrol cars outside. Just as it had looked when he had driven past. The only difference was the television reporter standing outside. The dollar bills he had been holding slipped from his fingers onto the bar top.
A hand scooped them up. “Thanks, buddy,” said the bartender, seemingly appearing from nowhere. “Crazy, huh?” he added, with a nod towards the screen.
“Could you . . .?”
The Red Tiger mimed someone hitting the button on a remote control.
“Sure thing.”
The bartender walked down the bar, grabbed the remote for the television, and increa
sed the volume, then came back with change. The Red Tiger waved it off.
“Thanks, buddy, that’s very generous of you.”
He had handed the bartender a twenty and a fifty. Not that he cared.
The bartender slid the remote toward him. “Here you go. Knock yourself out. But I gotta close up in a few.”
He increased the volume a few more notches and hopped onto a bar stool. It must have looked suspicious, a lone man staring at the television with such intense focus, but he didn’t care.
The reporter was mid-way through her presentation.
“So far, local law enforcement are staying tight-lipped about the motive behind this apparent abduction. But they have confirmed that vehicles belonging to the two victims were taken, they believe at the same time as the two young people were taken at gunpoint.”
The bartender came back. “You know, you can rewind that,” he said, pointing at some buttons on the back of the remote. “Crazy what they can do now, huh?”
The Red Tiger hit the rewind button until he reached the start of the report.
“Tonight, news of a shocking robbery and double abduction in Arcadia’s upscale Upper Rancho neighborhood. Two young Chinese nationals taken from their multimillion-dollar home at gunpoint.”
By the time he had watched it twice through, only the bartender was left. “Buddy, I really have to close up.”
The Red Tiger slid off the stool onto uncertain legs. His mind hovered between disbelief and paranoia. He thought he had anticipated every possible outcome. But nothing had prepared him for something like this.
The bartender was staring at him. “You know those people or something?”
“Me?” he answered, a finger pointed to his chest. “No, I don’t know them.”
He drove, on auto-pilot, back to the house. He thought about what he had said to the bartender before he left. It was truth and it was a lie, all at the same time. He didn’t know them. Not really. That, after all, was why he had come all this way.
As he made the final turn, he had a moment of hesitation. What was he doing here? Especially so late at night. In his work, he was bold, but never reckless. This was way beyond reckless. Cruising past a crime scene. In a car. After drinking whisky. With an unlicensed firearm.
