Dirty Laundry

by Rhys Ford

  “Dick.”

  “Asshole,” Bobby countered. “You guys good, then? Kissed up and made it all better?”

  “No, not… better.” I cocked my head to look at him. “Different. We’re in a different place now. He’s struggling still, but at least now he knows I’m there with him. It feels… stronger. More solid. My insides don’t have tentacles in them anymore.”

  “Just don’t get hurt, kid. Jae’s too pretty for me to kick his teeth in. I’d feel bad.” Bobby’s rough, handsome face softened, and he smiled crookedly at me. “But could you hurry it up, Princess? We’ve got a woman to interrogate.”

  “We’re not interrogating her,” I reminded Bobby. “I just want to ask Madame Sun a few questions and give her my condolences about Vivian. I tried calling her, but it goes straight to a messaging service. They told me she’ll be in but isn’t seeing anyone. She’s probably taking it pretty hard.”

  Koreatown was becoming my second home. If my cases kept circling back to the Wilshire area, I was going to have to give a zip code discount. During the day, the area was a bit more businesslike, stashing away its glitter. Approaching early evening, the district was beginning to loosen up with small crowds of people walking to bars and restaurants.

  We’d just passed by a twenty-four-hour dumpling soup place when Bobby hit me up for some information.

  “Why am I coming with you, again? Other than you probably can’t drive because your dick’s been peeled off and it hurts to pee.”

  “I wanted to see if you could ask anyone who works around Sun’s place if they’d seen anything funky,” I explained. “Kill two birds with one stone. I need to see if she knew about Eun Joon’s pregnancy or if Gyong-Si is connected to May Choi somehow but mostly to extend my condolences about Vivian. She’s probably not in the mood to talk much, if she’s there at all.”

  “If she’s not, then you owe me some lunch.” Bobby steered around a lumbering MTS bus.

  “If she is, I’ll still buy you lunch.”

  “Nothing Asian. I want something with meat in it.”

  “Dude, Korean food is practically all meat. They even put meat in the damned pancakes.” My stomach rumbled at the thought of a steaming kimchijeon. “You have to ask for stuff without meat.”

  Bobby stretched his mouth out to a satisfied half smile. “Excellent. Then Korean’s fine.”

  “I should have gotten some flowers.” Fuck, it was the one rule Jae hammered into my head. Actually, it was pretty much a universal rule. Someone dies, you bring flowers. Or a casserole. When Rick died, I had enough frostbitten casseroles in my freezer to make pucks for an entire hockey league. “Do you give the boss flowers? Or do you ask for the family’s information?”

  “I’d go with the family,” Bobby suggested. “Good way to find out if Vivian was seeing anyone too. She might have been dating someone connected to this. For all we know, she’s hooked up with someone who’s using Sun’s clients for easy marks.”

  It was a good plan. A very good plan. Except for one little hiccup. By the time we got to Madame Sun’s salon, the cops had beaten us there, and someone from the coroner’s office was wheeling a dead body out of the building on a squeaky gurney.

  Chapter 12

  “OKAY, Princess,” Bobby sneered playfully as he parked. “Looks like you killed another one.”

  “Fuck you,” I muttered, getting out of his truck.

  Unlike Gyong-Si’s crayon-bright spa bungalow, Madame Sun saw her clients in a professional building off of Irolo and Wilshire. It was one of those tall blue glass buildings that made people nervous during an earthquake, casting a long enough shadow onto the street that the cheap fast-food restaurants living under its skirt never saw the light of day. The smell of garbage and fried potatoes greeted us when we hit the sidewalk, and I’d gone about four steps before one of Los Angeles’s finest stopped me.

  She was a pert-bodied woman, a California blond with a tan and her hair pulled back in a ponytail under the uncomfortable hat some asshole bean counter thought would look sharp with the equally uncomfortable ill-fitting uniform. I could literally smell the new coming off of her, a blood-in-the-water scent most veteran cops sneered at, forgetting a time when they’d not worn the creases out of their street blues.

  As I expected, Bobby’s sneer grew wider, especially when she squared off her shoulders and approached us, her hand on the butt of her weapon.

  “You remember being that young?” he asked, jerking his chin at her.

  “Remember? Fuck, I still am.” I met his smirk with one of my own. “You’re the old man. Not me.”

  “Sir… I’m going to have to ask you—” She’d got that much out of her mouth when a familiar face broke away from the pack of cops milling around the building’s entrance and hailed Bobby.

  “Dawson!”

  The last time I’d seen Detective Dell O’Byrne, she’d busted my chops about one of Grace Kim’s victims. A tanned, lean woman with strong Latino features and dark, sharp eyes, she was a cop’s cop: no-nonsense and blunt. A cop either pulled their own weight or got out of her way. She was the kind of woman one expected to be wearing a bat cowl or wielding a golden lasso. If she were a man, Bobby would have been in love. As it was, she made me seriously consider switching teams.

  If only she didn’t dislike me so much.

  Her long legs crossed the sea of concrete separating us. “Stand aside, Martin. He’s one of ours.”

  “Yes, sir,” the blonde mumbled, stepping back.

  “You can shoot the other one, though.” O’Byrne gave me the eye, a smile tugging at her mouth. “Dawson, don’t I have enough trash around my crime scene, you gotta drag in some more?”

  “Princess, you remember Dell, don’t you?” Bobby gave the detective a quick, manly hug, the tight shoulder to shoulder pat he’d give any of his fellow cops. “Good to see you, kid.”

  “Yeah, we know each other.” She looked down her nose, assessing me for misdeeds. “I almost arrested him for murder once.”

  “Didn’t do it.” I grinned, holding up my hands.

  Bobby glanced around, taking in the swarm of blues. “Aren’t you a bit out of your district, O’Byrne?”

  “Nope, got transferred in last night.” The detective shrugged and jerked her thumb toward the building. “Jenkins dropped dead at his desk yesterday, and the brass decided to expedite my request to transfer up. It’s closer to home, so I won’t have to fight the 405 every day.”

  “Jenkins’s dead?” Bobby whistled under his breath. “Shit, that’s a shock. He was so close to retirement too.”

  “How is it a shock?” I stared at Bobby like he was insane. From what I’d remembered of the man, Jenkins’s hands were yellow from smoking, and he didn’t eat anything that wasn’t deep-fried or covered in mayonnaise. “The man was a walrus. He rolled his chair into the bathroom and peed into the urinal from it, then wheeled back.”

  “Respect for the fallen, McGinnis. Even the walruses,” O’Byrne chastised me but gave me a wink to soften the blow. “I caught a 217 here. The intended vic’s son was in the bathroom when his mother was attacked. He grabbed one of those brass urns people put on their lobby tables and beat the shit out of the guy’s head. Couple of bashes and our assault and burglary suspect becomes a 419. EMTs pronounced him DOA as soon as they hit the floor. Coroner just got here.”

  “Shit, that’s rough. Is the mother okay?” Bobby glanced at the gurney being loaded up into the death-mobile. “I can see that guy’s not.”

  “She’s a bit shaken up.” Tapping lightly at my arm with her notebook, Dell asked, “My question is, what are you two doing here? Can’t be for the fabulous cuisine, unless there’s something about that Burger King I don’t know about.”

  “Nah, Princess here’s got a client in the building.” He grunted when I nudged him in the ribs with my elbow.

  “Let me guess. Your client’s Park Hyuna Sun?” Dell blew out her cheeks when I nodded. “Why did I know that?”

  “
Because the universe hates you?” I suggested, and she very unprofessionally flipped me off. “Are you guys done with her? I’d like to see her. Her assistant was murdered yesterday.”

  “Yeah.” Dell consulted her notes. “Vivian Na. Drive-by through a street-facing window in a café. Wong caught that one.”

  “So did I.” I made a face back at her when she grimaced dramatically. “I was meeting her to talk about Madame Sun’s case. Next thing I know, she’s bled out and there’s other vics on the ground. I’d like to see her if I could. I was the last one to see her assistant alive. I’d like her to know it was quick.”

  “Let me see what I can do.” O’Byrne became all cop, curtly nodding. “Follow me. We’ve got her and the son in a conference room on the third floor. Let me clear it with her, and maybe you can talk to her.”

  We cooled our heels for only a few minutes. In that time, Bobby got a proposition from a tranny dressed in a low-neckline aqua sequin dress, and I’d been given a plastic daisy and a mini rubber duck by an old woman waiting for the bus. The tranny had a five o’clock shadow thick enough to grate cheese on, and his dress was so short, his dirty mud-gray BVDs flashed every time he took a step.

  All in all, I scored with the daisy and the duck.

  “McGinnis!” Dell poked her head out of the building’s side entrance. “Come on. You’ve got five minutes!”

  I hurried. For all I knew, she had an Amazonian spear she could chuck from where she was standing and pin me down into the cement. I wouldn’t put it past her.

  Bobby stayed behind to talk shop. Any plan for him to wander the halls and hit up the other businesses for information was blown. O’Byrne had a uniform lead me to a glass-enclosed conference room on the second floor. It was one of those rent-to-impress places a building had for its tenants to use.

  From the looks of the faded carpet, there wasn’t much impressing to be had.

  At some point in its life, the place had been a spotless, gleaming edifice of glass, polish, and swank. Now, it sagged, a tired old woman whose breasts brushed the tops of her knees. Still, someone had tried to keep her spirits up, layering a spackle of thick, bright white paint to hide her wrinkles, but her age was carved too deep into her skin.

  The conference room held three occupants, a grim-faced uniform cop, the middle-aged Korean man I’d seen waiting for Madame Sun, and the grand dame herself. From the grief pouring from every inch of skin on her face, I suddenly wished I’d bought out a flower shop, if only to give her a little joy.

  Joy was going to be a long time coming to the droop-shouldered old woman I saw curled up in a conference chair at the far end of the room.

  Madame Sun had aged at least twenty years since I’d last seen her. Her skin was a pasty gray, caved in with deep lines around her eyes and mouth. Crinkled cracks formed in her thick makeup, the edges flaking off onto the dark table, and her clothes were slightly askew, as if she’d been tugging at her sleeves or hem. Sun’s helmet hair sat unevenly on her head, the right side a bit higher than the left, and she sat nearly still except for the frenetic play of her fingers twisting her rings and bracelets.

  Her son didn’t seem to be in much better shape.

  He stood when I approached, automatically reaching for my hand when I held it out for a shake. His fingers were cold against my palm, and they shook slightly when he came in for the grip. His eyes were as red as his mother’s, his long lashes spiked with drying salt.

  I’m sorry seemed like such a small thing to say, a single spit of water being dropped into a portal to hell. I said it anyway, and he thinned his lips, forcing his emotions back down his throat.

  “Thank you for coming, Mr. McGinnis,” he murmured. “I’m James Bahn.”

  “Madame Sun’s son,” I acknowledged. “You picked her up at my office.”

  “Yes.” His nod was curt, his eyes drifting over to his mother’s crumpled form. “The detective said you wanted to speak to us… and my mother… Vivian.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.” I’d hated hearing that at the small memorial service we’d had for Rick after I got out of the hospital. Even two months after the shooting, his death gutted me. Loss was the stupidest fucking word to describe the emptiness inside of me, and here I was, parroting out an ingrained clichéd phrase like I was whoring for a cracker. Clearing my throat, I tried for a more personal touch. “Did you know Vivian long?”

  “Long?” James’s expression churned together his grief with immense confusion. “I’ve known her all her life. She was my… sister.”

  JAMES and the uniform left me alone with Madame Sun. The older woman murmured a need for tea and privacy, and her son immediately jumped to action. Before taking the cop with him, James put his fingers over his mother’s and kissed her temple, reassuring her that he would take care of her. From the slight cuts on his hands from the urn he’d smashed over the intruder’s head, I’d say he had a good start.

  Sliding out one of the leather conference room chairs, I sat down next to Madame Sun, angling my seat to face her. The cushion squeaked as I lowered myself into it, nearly rocking back before it adjusted to take my weight. Amid the creaks and squalling, I searched for someplace to start. There were so many things going through my mind, I couldn’t find the one thread leading to the core of the Gordian knot James had tossed into my lap.

  I didn’t have to search for long. Madame Sun not only found the end but began knitting me a mental sweater to wear with the tangled threads of her past few weeks. First, she had to ask the one question that bubbled up every time someone died unexpectedly. I know. It was the first one I’d asked when I found out Rick truly was gone.

  “Did she suffer?” If anything, Sun’s hands were colder than her son’s, and they clutched mine with a frenzied strength. “You were the last one to see her. Did she know? Was it….”

  “She never knew,” I murmured, patting her shaking hands. “It was very sudden. I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I should have come to you that morning. I’m sorry.”

  “No, no. It is okay.” Her hair bobbed when she shook her head, throwing the carefully sculpted curls further out of place. “You didn’t know. No one… really knew. She was… always troubled about being my daughter. Even now, her dying has left behind problems. I loved her, but… my daughter was hard to like. Nothing was good enough. She always needed the best. I gave her a job because she needed to work, but… she never liked doing it. She wanted to do other things.”

  “I wanted to ask you a few questions.” I tested the waters. Now that I knew Vivian Na was Madame Sun’s daughter, her death was even more intimately connected to the other murders in my head. If Wong didn’t see it, then he wasn’t as smart as I thought he was. “If you don’t mind.”

  “No, please, ask,” Sun sniffed, wiping at the tears cutting deeper through her makeup. “The police… they don’t have any idea who killed her. And today… that man… he looked like someone who would know Vivian’s boyfriend. She had many, and none of them were good. This last one… Park Hong Chul… he is the worst of them. I thought maybe that man upstairs belonged to Hong Chul’s gang. They are… beom joe ja… criminals.”

  “He’s Korean, then? The man who attacked you?” I scribbled Park Hong Chul in my notes, drawing a line from his name to Vivian’s.

  “Yes, but I don’t know him. Vivian might have. I wonder if he was the one who—” She swallowed, her throat wobbling. “If he was the one who shot her, then I am glad Jin-Woo… James… killed him. I am sorry my son has blood on his hands, but… he is a good son. That man would have killed me… like he probably killed my daughter. It is too much of a coincidence, yes?”

  It was. There were too many bodies piling up with matching bullet wounds. Theoretically. Wong hadn’t come back with any news about ballistics or eyewitnesses claiming a one-armed man fled the scene, but it seemed like it wasn’t only my gut saying things were connected.

  “Yeah, it’s too much of a coincidence, Madame Sun.” Probing further, I asked, �
�Do you know who Vivian was going to meet up with the night she died?”

  “Maybe James? Sometimes she would have dinner with her girlfriends and James would go along.”

  “Could she have been going to go see her boyfriend?”

  “No, she broke it off with Hong Chul. Do you think he might have killed her because she left him?”

  From what I remembered of Vivian Na, she’d been dressed to kill, not be killed. A woman didn’t dress up like that to have a cup of coffee with a detective. She was definitely out on the prowl. Either to catch herself another guy or perhaps to coax the one she’d tossed aside to come to heel. Or I could have been totally off-base and that was what she always wore to a family dinner.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted slowly. “Was Hong Chul violent to her?”

  “He is a criminal,” she spat, rage edging away her sorrow for a brief moment. “She would never talk about him to me. Everything was… it’s none of your business and you don’t need to know, but there were times when I would see bruises on her arm. She would say she hurt herself, but I know he had something to do with it.”

  “I have to ask you, Madame Sun. Why didn’t you tell me Vivian was your daughter?” I needed to get her to focus without trampling all over her grief.

  “She… wasn’t my husband’s.” As shame went, Sun’s went deep. She crumbled in on herself, nearly folding in half. Her voice cracked under the weight of her pain, and I reached over to place my arm across her shoulders.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “No, no,” she sniffled. “She was… a mistake. I made a mistake, but she paid for it.”

  “I’m sure you did your best.” I hated to admit it, but crying women could pretty much write a check and cash in my soul. Sun’s tears stung me.

  “I did nothing,” she insisted. “My husband… James’s father left me, and I couldn’t raise two children. My sister took Vivian as her own. Vivian found out I was her mother five years ago. That was when she came here. I asked her to give me a chance to be her mother. She wanted to be here but not with me. I was just… convenient, but I tried. I would give anything to have her back with me. Even if she hated me, she was still my daughter.”