Telegraph Hill

by John F. Nardizzi

  Ray sat in the car, watching a hawk spiral above the highlands. A subtle symphony of morning sounds, bird cries, fluttering wings, rose from the meadows. Remarkable after being in the city where the buses roared, horns honked, voices chattered—all that modern buzz missing amid the green of Tomales Bay.

  Ray washed up as best he could with bottled water and some paper towels. Just after 9:00 AM, he heard the sound of a chugging motor. A car drove up the highway. Within moments a gray Honda roared by and slowed as it prepared to turn into the Ashtanga driveway. Inside the car, Ray saw long black hair framing a familiar, well-formed profile. He smiled.

  Moon disappeared up the driveway, her car swallowed by the fog.

  Ray paused. He heard another car coming. A black Mercedes raced along the road. Tinted windows, custom wheels of glittery platinum. The car slowed and prepared to turn left into the Ashtanga roadway.

  Through the front windshield, Ray could dimly see the interior of the car. It bristled with men, shoulders jammed tight together. The car shot up the hill. A warning went off in his reptilian brain—these men weren’t here for the morning yoga class.

  Ray started his car and tapped his fingers absently on his shoulder holster. The reassurance of the Beretta semiautomatic. He aimed the car across the highway and raced up the road to the center. The car shuddered as he took a sharp right halfway up the hill.

  He grabbed his phone and hit the direct connect to Hulme: “We got visitors. The girl in the Honda I know, the Mercedes looks like trouble.”

  Hulme came back, heavy static—“Hear you, Ray! I’m above the center now.”

  “Where?”

  “Straight ahead, just above the path. Before you turn right into the lot.”

  Up ahead, the Ashtanga Center lay shrouded in the early morning silence of the mountain. Everything looked damply green, except the two cars on the unpaved lot, which looked alien and unwelcome. The Mercedes had stopped at an odd angle. He saw Moon standing on the front landing. She stood with one hand on the door knob, looking back hesitatingly at some unheard command issuing from the Mercedes. She paused, fear drawing her face in; she started to back away. The Mercedes vomited several Asian men in dark clothes. Two men moved quickly to the porch. One gesticulated harshly and pulled out a pistol.

  The men looked over as Ray’s car advanced up the street. They reached for jacket pockets. One man wore a slightly mad grin.

  Ray felt his nerves spark with an adrenal rush, elemental colors emerging from grays, sounds shedding their mufflers. He drove towards the building, quickly preparing for a private little war in the hills.

  A commotion behind the men in the center—female voices rising, a minor panic in the new-age woods. For a moment, the men seem undecided.

  Ray never stopped the car. Racing the engine, he headed to the right of the center. He drove straight past the Mercedes and bounced over a raised garden bed, wheels churning through bok choy and cabbage. The tires sunk into the damp ground, spinning ineffectively before propelling him toward a flagstone patio behind the complex. He raced over the bumpy ground and thudded onto the stone. He drove for a hundred yards or so, feeling the wheels slip over the dewy stone. He screeched to a halt near the rear of the complex. Maybe one hundred-fifty yards from the men in front, he guessed. He had little time.

  He leaned out the window and shouted for Tania, glancing at five doors that he guessed opened into the courtyard where she had been yesterday. He had no idea which door opened to her room.

  One of the middle doors opened. Tania’s sleep-creased face peered out. The growing mayhem, angry voices barking at the front of the complex. Ray, his car weirdly out of place on the patio. She looked back into her room and then darted out, racing across the patio. She ran for the woods.

  Ray shouted at her again. She heard gunfire at the front, voices shouting. Some of the shots sounded like they were coming off the ridge.

  Tania hesitated. Ray was frantically waving her on, looking back to the front of the property. His eyes were big, intense. Then Tania angled back to Ray’s car, running hard. He opened the door. He started to back up even as she closed the door.

  Around the corner of the building, she saw two Asian men materialize, breathing hard, faces gaunt. Hands lifted dark-colored guns.

  Ray drove right at them in reverse, engine revving.

  “Look out!” she shouted.

  The car bobbed over the rough ground. Then a meaty thump—the car smashed its way over one of the men. Dirt sprayed wildly from the tires. The car cleared the pile of cracked bones. “Oh god, you hit him, you hit him!” she yelled. The heavy thwack of something heavy hitting metal echoed in her brain. Things not meant to touch at high speed. She felt a little sick.

  Another man ran toward them, pointing a gun. Ray slowed and turned the car around. He raised his Beretta and blasted three rounds at the man, who twisted away from the car and fumbled his weapon. Cracks reverberated off the rocky hillside. The man cried out, sagged and twisted to his knees and pressed his hands into his thigh. The burning smell of cordite suffused the cramped interior.

  Ray wasn’t sure how many men were out front. But nowhere else to go. He gunned the engine again. To his right, he saw the yoga center reeling by like a movie he had watched in another life.

  The demolished garden came into view. An Asian man stepped out quickly from the corner of the building, aiming his gun. As the car careened at him, his eyes swelled wide. He dove right, firing wildly into the damp soil. More shots and the right rear window cracked. A sour burning smell. “Keep your head down!” Ray yelled. Tania crunched herself almost flat on the seat.

  The car drove off the raised bed and thunked into the pavement near the front of the house. Two men raced after him and fired wildly. Ray spun the car left in the driveway. The centrifugal forces dispelled, and he was facing downhill. Then the air around him crackled and smoked. He jammed the car in gear.

  More gunfire. One Asian man stumbled, his upper torso jerking awkwardly like a shattered puppet—Hulme had picked him off from the hillside. Hulme continued to fire in staccato bursts, confusing the men below. They looked harried and frayed now, peering into the hills for shooters they had not expected. So many shots, there had to be more than one sniper. This fight was not for them. The knife across a throat; a close-range shot inside a dark nightclub—that was their game. Out here they were lost, firing blindly into the shadowy evergreens.

  Ray winged forward and jammed a hard left. The car dipped down the gully. He guessed that they were now out of the sight line of the building. Accelerated down the incline, braking hard as he approached the main road. He considered turning left and heading towards Bodega Bay, but he was not familiar with the way—better to be certain of where he was going. He turned right. The Mercedes was nowhere in sight.

  The Asian crew had lost the element of surprise. He thought about backtracking to make sure Hulme was safe, but he thought the gangbangers would break off now that Tania was gone. Hulme was just a deadly presence in the woods, they weren’t about to chase him. Tania was the target.

  Ray dripped with nervous energy. Tania twisted back to peer over her shoulder, watching the road behind them.

  “What happened? Who are these guys?” she said.

  “I think they followed Moon here.”

  “Moon! She’s here!’ Tania’s face was ashen. “We have to go back!”

  “No way! They don’t care about her—if they did why follow her all the way from San Francisco.”

  “She could be killed!”

  “If they wanted to kill her, she’d already be dead. They want you, not her.”

  Tania slumped to the seat, saying nothing as she buried her face in her hands.

  Ray drove eighty miles per hour; even though he saw no pursuit, he wanted to head for civilization, be near witnesses, near something. He felt exposed on the empty country roads. Ray dialed Hulme on his cell phone.

  “Art, are you OK?

  “I’m OK. You?”<
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  “OK. What’s happening there?” He watched the rearview mirror for signs of pursuit.

  “They’re gone,” said Hulme. “She was the target. Lots of cops here now. I’m talking to a detective now. They want to talk to you—”

  “OK, tell them I’ll call later. Emergency.” Ray hung up. His phone rang right away but he ignored it. He would deal with law enforcement later. Right now, this was a private matter.

  He got on 101 and drove straight to the city. After cruising for thirty minutes, he eased up: traffic was thickening and high speeds were no longer possible. The sun was beginning to slice the fog into wispy gray ribbons.

  He and Tania didn't exchange a word. Lucas would be pleased: he not only had located Tania, she was sitting in his car.

  Chapter 24

  The Golden Gate Bridge ended in a spread of toll booths. They drove through the tall pines and eucalyptus of the Presidio, past the Palace of Fine Arts, up Lombard to Van Ness. He turned up several narrow streets, winding circuitously up Russian Hill. At last he stopped on Filbert Street overlooking San Francisco Bay. To his left was the Golden Gate Bridge. To his right, Alcatraz Island jutted amid the green waters, forlornly beautiful as its sun-bleached prison walls crumbled in the salt air.

  Ray drove on. He replayed the sickening collision, the pointblank shots. He wondered if both men were dead. He knew he should feel something, but for now, those men were like mushrooms beneath his feet. His body was shunting off all emotion into his survival instinct. He turned and bore all his energy into Tania.

  “We need to talk details. Now. Talk about who you’re hiding from. If you want help, you need to tell me.”

  “Who are you?” she hissed.

  “I told you. Your family hired me through their attorney.” Tania sat staring at him.

  “Look, whoever that was back there, I’m obviously not with them. So that’s a start. Other people besides me were able to track you to Marin. Who are you hiding from?”

  Tania sat curled-up and looking small. After a pause, she looked up. “I'm not sure specifically who they were, their names. But I think they’re triad members.”

  “Which one?”

  “Black Fist.”

  “Why are they looking for you?”

  Tania cupped her hand to her mouth and paused. “I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see.”

  “So you’re a witness. To what exactly?”

  “The murder of a businessman. He was killed in a gang dispute a few weeks back.”

  Ray looked around. This section of Russian Hill was peaceful and secluded. He decided that they would stay put for now.

  “How did it happen?”

  “I was in the room with him,” said Tania. “Right before they came in and did it.” Ray watched her. She still looked dazed.

  “Did it involve your job?” he said quietly. She hesitated. “I saw the arrest in 1997.”

  “Yes.” She frowned a little. “A date was arranged. He took two of us to a hotel on Mason Street. He wanted two girls. A two-girl fantasy. After we were done, he went outside to smoke a cigarette on the balcony. The other girl, Cindy, went out there with him.”

  “What hotel?”

  “The Senator. Near Taylor.”

  “OK. Go on.”

  “Well, she took him out there and they had a cigarette. It was raining a little. I sat back on the bed, getting dressed. There was a breeze coming from the window. I remember Cindy laughing and smoking. Outside with the man.” Tania paused, rubbed her temples, and then resumed.

  “At one point, she came in, and then locked the door after her. I thought she was joking—I didn’t understand why she would do that, locking the door. I could see him behind the small window in the door, his silhouette. He was leaning over the balcony, looking down at something.”

  “Who was he, what was his name?”

  “Johnny Cho.” Tania brushed her hair back and looked down at her legs. “Cindy was trying to get her stuff together but she was nervous. There was a commotion on the fire escape. Johnny was trying to get in. He was shaking the door but he couldn’t open it. I didn’t really understand what was going on. There was a scuffle and then I heard gunshots. There were men on the balcony. They were trying to get in the room. I ran down the hallway. There was another man waiting. He had something covering his face, like a bandanna. He shot Cindy in the back as she ran. I heard her cry out and fall behind me. I kept running. It went crazy then. Everyone was in the hallway. All these people running around, half-dressed. The man shot at the ceiling, and yelled for everyone to get down, but it was total panic. The owner came running upstairs with a gun. We ran back and forth, everyone screaming and shouting. There was a lot of gunfire and a guy in the hallway was hit pretty bad. The other guys escaped. Cops were all over the place a few minutes later.”

  “So there was a police response.”

  “Yes. A lot of people were hurt that night. The story was all over the news. Vans and lights, reporters trying to get comments from people.”

  Ray glanced out the window. An old lady walked her dog on the sidewalk. “What did you do next?” Ray asked.

  “I left. No one had any record of me being in the room. The place was rented by the client. He probably signed me in with whatever name he felt like. A cop stopped me and took me to the station. And they were watching me. Saw me get in the car.” She sighed. “In our world, snitching is a death penalty. Even though I never said anything, they would never believe it. Eventually I got out and headed to Moon’s house.”

  “How did you know Moon?”

  Tania looked straight ahead. She rubbed the back of her left hand vigorously. “It’s complicated. Moon and I worked at a house run by the triad.”

  “A massage parlor?”

  “Yes.”

  “You worked with her at the parlor?”

  “Yes. They ran it, kept the place secure, handled the money.”

  “Where did they find the women who worked there?”

  “Everywhere.” Tania looked irritated at the question. “Finding girls is never a problem. The girls are there for lots of reasons. Families to feed back home. Debts. Other reasons. There is no one reason.”

  “Are some forced to work?”

  She shrugged. “Not really forced.” She looked out the window. Ray could see she did not want to answer too many questions about her former profession.

  “How did you get involved?” Ray asked.

  “I was—” She trailed off. “My father was a member of the triad. He married into another triad family. Our families were close.”

  “Who did he marry?” Ray asked.

  “Victoria Chang. When my father died, she turned me out. Then she sold everything he had.”

  Victoria Chang had been identified as the head of the Boston syndicate. “Chang was your mother?”

  “She’s not my real mother.” Tania looked down at her feet. “She married my father.”

  Seeing her distress, he stopped pushing in that direction. “Anyway, you were at Moon’s house. What happened then?”

  “I got to Moon’s, and we stayed up all night talking until I fell asleep. The next morning, I looked at the paper. There was an article about the killings. I saw the names of the victims at the hotel. One was the client, Johnny, who hired us. He turned out to be a local boss. But the other name was a Black Fist soldier, Lee Fong. They ran a photo—he was arrested before, I guess. I knew him. I had seen him before at one of the houses. People said he did protection work for the triad.”

  “Why would a Black Fist soldier shoot Cindy?” Ray asked.

  “The police said the killings were related to a turf war. But I knew that wasn’t the full story. We were witnesses to the shooting. But I saw Cindy lock Johnny Cho outside on the balcony. So she was part of the plan. And then she was killed. I was supposed to be next. Because who can trust two whores who witnessed a murder? Who really cares if we turn up dead?”

  She stopped talking and looked out the window.<
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  “And it made sense. I worked off most of my debt, and so I was not worth much to them anymore.”

  “What debt?”

  She said nothing.

  Ray checked outside again but no one was around. He rolled down a window. “Where did you go after you figured all this out?”

  “I stayed with Moon for a few hours. No one knew about us, I was pretty sure. I left late that night and hid out in a club. A few weeks passed and everything seemed like it had died down. Until yesterday.”

  Ray looked at her. Parts of her story bothered him. “Weren’t you worried about staying in the Bay Area? You’re only seventy miles from San Francisco?”

  “Of course I was worried. But this is my home. Where else could I go?” Her forehead lined with worry. “And I was worried about Moon,” she said. “Do you think they followed her to Marin?”

  “I think so. After she pulled into the Center, I saw a black Mercedes come up right behind her. I assume they followed her from the city. How they managed to lock in on her I’m not sure. Maybe they followed me to her the previous day. Although I doubt it.”

  They sat for a while.

  “What do we do?” she asked.

  “Let’s get indoors for a while. I need to speak to my client later today.”

  Tania brushed her hair out of her eyes. “Wait. That is something I need to ask you about. Can you tell me again how this lawyer is involved?”

  “He called me,” Ray said. “He was referred by a mutual friend. We’d run across each other before. He told me your family—specifically your sister—had retained him. She is worried about you.”

  “My sister? I haven’t spoken with her for two years. I was afraid they might find me through her. They used her before.”

  “How?”

  She looked down and said nothing.

  Ray sat back and thought about his first meeting with Lucas.

  “I kept your confidences—against my better judgment—for a short time. But remember, I owe a duty to report back to my client. At this point, I have to at least tell him I found you. But we won’t arrange a meeting until you decide how you want things to go. Plus, I need to research a few things.”