by R. J. Jagger
She didn’t start.
He punched the windshield.
His fist didn’t go through but the glass shattered into a spider web.
His knuckles bled.
He didn’t care.
111
Day 6—September 26
Saturday Afternoon
SONG WAS AT HER DESK all morning and through lunch, frantically working on the Condor case. Today was the deadline. She needed to be done by five at the latest.
Mid-afternoon, someone turned the knob. When the door didn’t open, they pounded on it.
“Song! Are you in there? Let me in!”
The voice was Nuwa’s.
She sounded panicked.
Song opened the door to find the woman in tears.
“They have Shaden!” she said.
“Who?”
“I don’t know,” she said “They called me and told me they have her. I didn’t believe them but they let me talk to her. She sounded terrible. She was scared to death. They told me to stay calm. They’re going to call me later and tell me what to do to get her back.”
“We need to go to the police,” Song said.
Nuwa grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.
“No!”
“But—”
“They warned me not to do that,” she said. “They said if I did, Shaden was dead. Then you and me would be next. They meant it. They said to just stay calm. They’re going to tell me what to do. As long as I do it, they’re going to let Shaden go. Everything will be fine.”
“What are they going to tell you to do?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I don’t have a goddamn clue. All I know is that whatever it is, I’m going to do it.”
112
Day 6—September 26
Saturday Afternoon
TEFFINGER GOT BACK into San Francisco to find the city smothered under a low bank of windy clouds. He parked Bertha on a side street three blocks from Condor’s house and headed over on foot. His walk was brisk. His eyes were intense. His thoughts were dark.
Condor’s garage was empty and the interior door was locked.
Teffinger headed around the side to the back.
That door was locked.
So were the windows.
He muscled up to the deck off the man’s bedroom. The sliding door was locked. Screw it, enough was enough. He kicked it. It cracked but didn’t break. He kicked it again, and again, and again.
Then he was inside.
He searched, non-destructively at first, then more aggressively as his frustration increased. After an exhaustive hour he still had nothing.
No SJK souvenirs.
No evidence of Chase.
No evidence of Troy Trent.
No evidence of London Fogg.
No nothing.
The SJK files he found before in the credenza were now missing.
He made a sandwich and waited.
Condor didn’t show up.
Not for an hour.
TEFFINGER CALLED NEVA and said, “I need a BOLO out for Condor’s car.”
“On what charge?”
“Hit and run,” he said.
“What?”
“He hit Bertha while I was driving, then he took off.”
Silence.
Neva knew he was lying.
“Teffinger, don’t take yourself down,” she said. “It’s not worth it.”
“Just get the BOLO out, please and thank you.”
HE GOT A BEER from Condor’s fridge and drank it by the front window as he watched the street.
An hour went by.
Then another.
Then another.
Teffinger’s watch said 5:07.
Then the man came home.
Teffinger was sitting on the granite countertop when Condor walked into the kitchen.
Condor saw him, froze, then said, “This is actually a good thing. Let me make a quick phone call, then we’ll talk.” He pulled out a phone, dialed and said, “Song, it’s me. How are you coming on my project?” A beat. “Good, listen, I know this is short notice but can you jump in a cab and come over to my place right now? Bring the whole file. Teffinger's here waiting to meet with us and he doesn’t have much time.”
The man hung up, pulled two Bud Lights from the fridge, handed one to Teffinger and looked around.
“You made quite a mess,” he said.
Teffinger popped the tab and drank the whole can in one long swallow. Then he crushed it in his hand and tossed it into the sink.
“Where’s Chase?”
“Who?”
“I’m about two heartbeats away from beating you to death with my fists,” Teffinger said.
“I’m not SJK,” Condor said. “I know you think I am but you’re wrong.”
“Bullshit.”
Condor reached into a cabinet, pulled out a pot, filled it with water, set it on a burner and fired up a flame under it. “Do you like spaghetti?” he said.
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER a timid Asian woman with glasses rang the doorbell. Condor introduced her as Song Lee, a lawyer. Then he said, “Since you’ve been so obsessed with thinking I’m Condor, to the point of breaking into my house at least twice not to mention sticking a GPS transmitter under my car, I thought it would be wise to show you you’re wrong. What I’ve done is go back through the SJK newspaper clippings to get the exact dates and details of all the killings. I have solid alibi’s for four of them. In fact, for three of them, I was actually out of town.”
“You’re not fooling anyone,” Teffinger said.
“I knew you’d react like that,” Condor said. “What I’ve done is given all my information to this pretty little lady right here and asked her to verify that it’s all true.”
Teffinger looked at Song.
She nodded and said, “What he’s saying is the truth. I’ve verified his whereabouts. I’ve checked credit card receipts, airline tickets, and personally talked to a large number of people like hotel receptionists, taxi drivers and the like.” She opened a briefcase and pulled a thick stack of folders out. “All the information is right here. We can go over it line by line.”
113
Day 6—September 26
Saturday Night
TWILIGHT CHANGED TO NIGHT and the last rays of light squeezed out of the San Francisco sky. The wind and clouds morphed into a mean storm that dropped black rain with a heavy hand.
Whoever had Shaden still hadn’t called.
Song and Nuwa sat on a couch in the dark, hardly talking, while the weather beat on the windows.
Then Nuwa’s phone rang.
She listened, walked to the window and looked out, then said, “Yes, I see it.” She kept the phone to her ear for ten more seconds.
Then she headed for the door and said, “I have to go.”
Song fell into step.
“Not without me.”
“We already talked about it.”
“That doesn’t mean we resolved it,” Song said. “I’m coming and that’s that.”
Nuwa gave her an evil look and then said, “Your funeral.”
They headed outside without umbrellas and got into a white van at the end of the alley.
No one was inside.
The keys were in the ignition just like the caller said they’d be. Nuwa cranked over the engine and took off as if she knew where she was headed.
“Where are we going?” Song asked.
Nuwa powered the wipers from medium up to full speed and said, “I’m going to tell you a few things. You’re going to hate me and I deserve it, so don’t feel guilty about it when it happens.”
Song wrinkled her brow in confusion.
“I WAS A HIGH-PRICED ESCORT in Hong Kong,” Nuwa said. “One day a man I knew by the name of Park Ching approached me about a job. He wanted me to arrange an accidental meeting with a man named Jack Poon, who’s one of the wealthiest men in Asia, in case you’ve never heard of him.”
No.
S
ong hadn't.
“Poon had recently purchased a cache of Egyptian treasure on the black market, worth a lot of money,” Nuwa said. “My job was to cozy up to him and figure out a way to steal it. If I could do that, I’d get a 10 percent cut. It took a full month and a lot of planning, but I eventually pulled it off. I was supposed to give it to Ching and he was supposed to have it smuggled into San Francisco where it would be delivered.”
“To who?”
“To the people who hired Ching.”
“And who’s that?”
“I don’t know, he wouldn't tell me,” Nuwa said. “I didn’t want to part with it before being paid, so I told Ching I needed to accompany it to San Francisco. He had no problem with that. By the time we got here, I felt like 10 percent wasn’t enough. Poon knew I was the one who took it and I began to fully realize just how far and long he’d hunt me. We came into San Francisco by boat. The shipment was offloaded into a black van. Neither the boat guys nor the van driver had any idea what the cargo was. I talked the driver into pulling into one of those all night convenience stores and going inside to get me a cup of coffee. He left the engine running and I took off. The next morning I rented a self-serve storage unit, the kind that you drive up to. I unloaded half the boxes into there and left the other half in the van which I parked in a Metro parking lot.”
“Wow,” Song said.
Yeah.
Right.
Wow.
“I called Ching and told him I’d changed my mind and that my cut was now 50 percent. I told him where to find the van with the other half inside.” A pause, then, “That’s when I got scared. I was in a noodle shop the next morning wondering what to do, when you and I met. You were nice. I felt comfortable with you. I pictured myself staying at your place, off the radar screen, just for a day or two until I could get my bearings. On the spur of the moment I made up a story about being on the run from an abusive relationship. You believed me and took me in.”
“All that was a lie?”
Nuwa nodded.
“It was. By the way, the guy in the blue bandana whose been following you, he’s someone I hired to look after you, just in case someone figured out where I was.” She turned the defroster on. “The call I just got relates to the treasure. Somehow someone tracked me to you and Shaden. That’s why they took Shaden, to force me to give them the treasure. That’s the ultimatum. That’s where we’re headed right now, to the storage unit.”
“You’re actually going to give it to them?”
“Yes.”
The wipers swished back and forth.
“We’re almost there,” Nuwa said. “What I’m supposed to do is load the van, park it in behind a bar called Tipsy’s down on Mission Street, lock it and walk away.”
“Then what?”
“Then they’ll free Shaden after they verify that everything’s there.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“Do I have a choice?” She looked in the rearview mirror and said, “See that car with the bluish tint to the headlights? It’s been behind us for a while.”
114
Day 6—September 26
Saturday Night
THE LIGHTS IN SONG’S APARTMENT were off but the woman was home, her and someone else. Every once in a while they pulled the window covering to the side and peeked out. What the hell was going on? Jonk didn’t know. All he knew is that his body was getting beaten to death from a storm that showed no signs of giving up. He called Tag, who was sitting in the car at the end of the alley, and said, “I’m almost ready to give up.”
“Fine, come on back.”
“Two more minutes,” he said. “I’ll give it two more minutes.”
One minute later the women emerged from the building, got into a white van at the other end of the alley and took off. Jonk ran back to Tag and bounded in the passenger door.
Go.
Go.
Go.
They got caught at a light as the van disappeared down Jackson. It could have been fatal but the next few lights were more forgiving. They got to within two cars then maintained position.
“Where are they going?” Tag asked.
“That’s what we’re going to find out.”
A block passed.
Then another.
Tag said, “Look in your mirror and check out the car behind us.”
Jonk checked.
His pulse pounded.
“It’s Amaury,” he said.
“That’s what I thought,” she said. “How’d he find us?”
“He didn’t. He found Song.”
“What are you saying, that he was staking her out, just like us?”
“That’s my guess.”
“God, nothing’s easy.”
THE VAN PULLED THEM over to I-101 and headed south. A heartbeat after they passed Cesar Chavez Street, Amaury sped up until he got alongside. His passenger window powered down. He looked directly at them and raised a gun.
Tag jerked the wheel and rammed him just as flames shot out of the barrel.
115
Day 6—September 26
Saturday Night
THE PROOF SONG GAVE regarding Condor’s alibis for four of the SJK murders was definitive and indisputable. All this time, Teffinger had been wrong. Not only that, he’d been so blinded by his myopic vision that he let himself stray from the principles that had shaped him. He’d illegally broken and entered into an innocent man’s home, several times. He’d dropped out when everyone needed him. He’d forced the chief to fire him.
Worst of all, he had used up all his time.
He went to the boat, sat in the cabin and drank Anchor Steams in a slow but constant chain.
Hours passed.
Evening came.
Then evening went and night came.
A storm moved in.
It pounded the boat and tried to pull it from the slip but each time dock lines snagged it and bounced it back into position.
His watch said 9:13.
SJK had probably already struck by now.
Teffinger still had no clue where Chase was but her remarks about getting set up as bait for SJK keep reverberating in his skull.
Shit.
It was over.
Everything was over.
Catching SJK was over.
His job was over.
His reputation was over.
SUDDENLY SOMEONE POUNDED on the hatch. He set the beer down and opened up, more tipsy than he realized. A woman was there, someone he didn’t know and had never seen before, in her late twenties, wearing jeans, a T and tennis shoes. Her clothes and hair were drenched. She stayed where she was and made no motion to come in.
“You’re Nick Teffinger, the detective in charge of the SJK hunt. We have to go!”
She looked panicked.
“Where?”
She grabbed his hand and pulled him out.
“Now!” she said. “I’ll explain on the way.”
“How do you know where I live?”
“Just hurry!”
They ran down the dock and hopped in her car. She had the engine cranked over and her foot on the accelerator before Teffinger even got his door closed.
“If we’re too late it’s my fault!” she said.
“Too late for what?”
“Too late to stop SJK.”
The wipers swung at full speed.
“My name’s Rayla White,” she said. “I’m a law clerk at Rapport, Wolfe & Lake in the criminal division. I work in Dirk Rekker’s department and have access to the files. I stumbled onto something that tells who the SJK killer is.”
“Who?”
“There are two of them actually,” she said. “One’s Kyle Greyson and the other one is Troy Trent.”
“Two?”
“Yes.”
“Kyle Greyson killed the first victim, Paris Zephyr,” she said. “During the trial, he hired a man named Troy Trent to commit a similar murder to make the jury believe that the kill
er was still on the loose. Trent killed Jamie van de Haven.”
Teffinger shook his head.
No.
No.
No.
“That can’t be right,” he said. “The jury never even got information about Jamie van de Haven. Her body wasn’t even found until the next week.”
“Her body would have been found before the end of the trial except everything was cut short when it turned out that the detective, Frank Finger, planted evidence. In the end that’s why Greyson got acquitted, but he didn’t know that was coming. It was just something really lucky that came around after he had already hired Trent.”
Teffinger pushed hair out of his face.
It could be true.
“After that they basically took turns, although the order got jumbled sometimes. It’s all in Rekker’s files.”
“Why are you waiting until now to tell somebody?”
“I didn’t find out about it until recently,” she said. “It all falls under attorney-client confidentiality. I knew Rekker would never breach that confidentiality so I arranged a meeting off-site at a bar with one of the other top lawyers in the firm, a man named Nathan Rock, and told him what I’d found. The next thing I knew, he was dead. I don’t know if he had a confrontation with Rekker and then Rekker killed him, or what.”
“Look out!” Teffinger said.
She slammed on the brakes seconds before smashing into the back end of a pickup.
“I started to follow both Greyson and Trent around,” she said. “Greyson’s been making trips to a dock area.”
Teffinger pictured Chase there.
“Go!” he said.
“I am!”
116
Day 6—September 26
Saturday Night
WITH THE TREASURE IN THE BACK, Nuwa parked the van behind Tipsy’s as directed, locked the door and disappeared on foot into the storm. Song hid in the back with the boxes. Two minutes later a key entered the door lock. A man got in, started the engine and took off.
No one was in the passenger seat.
He was alone.
The radio came on, got punched to a heavy metal station and then the volume cranked up.
