Mountain Blizzard

by Cassie Miles

  Without hesitation, she shouted in Chinese to the young woman running the shop, and then she strode toward the back. When Liane Zhou made up her mind, she took action. It was an admirable trait...and a little bit scary.

  Emily had fallen into line, walking behind him, and he wondered if Liane had noticed her. Behind the hanging curtain that separated the front from the back of the shop, Liane rested her hand on the newel post at the foot of a poorly lit staircase and looked directly at Emily. “Good evening, Terry Greene.”

  “Good evening to you,” Emily said. “That’s not my real name, you know.”

  “You are Emily Peterson. You were married to this man.”

  “I’m sorry I lied to you,” Emily said as she pulled the cranberry knit cap off her head. “I thought an investigative reporter needed to go undercover and use an alias. I was wrong.”

  “How so?”

  “There’s never a valid reason to lie.”

  Liane Zhou turned her attention toward him. Her gaze went slowly from head to toe. “You,” she said. “You are very...big.”

  Unsure that was a compliment, he said, “Thank you.”

  Liane took them to the second floor and unlocked the door to her private sitting room. Compared with the musty clutter in the rest of the building, her rooms were comfortable, warm and spotlessly clean.

  When Liane clapped her hands, a heavily made-up woman who was skinny enough to be a fashion model appeared in an archway. Liane gave the order in Chinese, and the wannabe model scurried off.

  Liane said, “We will have tea and discuss my revenge.”

  They sat opposite each other. Liane perched on a rattan throne while the two of them crowded onto a love seat. On the slatted coffee table between them were two magazines and a purple orchid.

  Sean said, “You knew Roger Patrone for a long time.”

  “We arrived in Chinatown at the same time. Roger’s parents sold him to Doris Liu.”

  Sean had never heard this version of the story. He knew the parents were out of the picture, but he didn’t know why. They sold him? Sean mentally underlined abandonment issues in their profile analysis of Patrone.

  “He was a boy with special talent,” Sean said, taking care not to phrase conversation in questions. He wanted Liane to see him as an equal.

  “He was smart.” Her voice resonated on a wistful note. “But not always wise.”

  “A typical male,” Emily muttered. “Why did Doris want him so much that she’d pay for him?”

  “His English was very good. Written and spoken. And he picked up Chinese quickly, many dialects. He took care of her correspondence.”

  “It’s a little odd,” Emily said, “to trust a nine-year-old with that kind of sensitive work.”

  “Doris preferred using a child. She wanted him to depend on her for his food and shelter. She owned him, and he had no choice but to obey.”

  “How much?” Emily asked. “I’m curious.”

  “A thousand dollars. Doris didn’t pay. Her boyfriend bought Patrone as a gift. How could that ugly old hag have a man?” She scowled. “Must be witchcraft, wugu magic.”

  The wannabe model brought their tea on a dark blue tray with a mosaic design in gold and silver. She gave a slight bow and left the apartment.

  Though they appeared to be alone, Sean didn’t trust Liane. Until he felt safer with her, he’d keep the conversation in the past, going over information that wasn’t secret and held no current threat. “You didn’t live with Doris Liu.”

  “Only when I chose to,” she said. “My parents would never sell me. They were brave and good. In China, we were poor. Life was difficult. But they would not abandon me. They were killed by snakeheads who stole me and my brother.”

  “I’m sorry,” Emily said.

  “As am I.”

  Sean wished he could warn Emily not to blurt the truth. If she confirmed that she’d seen Frankie kill Patrone, there would be little reason for Liane to talk with them.

  He sipped his tea and complimented her on the taste and the scent. “You mentioned your brother, Mikey Zhou.”

  “Do you know him?”

  Why would he? Again Sean struggled to remain impassive. “I’m aware of him, but we’ve never met.”

  “Agent Levine said you were a good friend. Yet he has not introduced you.”

  Shocked and amazed, Sean swallowed his tea in a gulp. Levine had told them he had a snitch, and he’d identified that snitch as Morelli. Mikey Zhou, too? Sean’s estimation of Special Agent Levine rose significantly. No wonder the guy had been slugging back vodka at breakfast. Levine was playing a dangerous game.

  While he sat silently, too surprised to speak, Emily filled the empty air space.

  “Greg Levine is an old friend,” she said. “He came to our wedding, and we went our separate ways. You know how it is. And then Sean moved back to Colorado after the divorce.”

  “You made a mistake,” Liane said. “You should never have let Sean go.”

  “Right,” Emily said. “Because he’s so...big.”

  Liane inclined her head and leaned forward. “Is it true?”

  Emily looked confused. “Is what?”

  “Did you witness the murder?”

  Sean jumped back into the conversation with both feet. “Your brother is a snakehead. But you said the snakeheads killed your parents and abducted both of you.”

  “The last wish of my father was for Mikey to protect me. He did what he had to do.” She exhaled a weary breath. “I was twelve, and my brother was eight. When the snakeheads took us, I knew my fate. As a virgin, I would fetch a good price for my first time. They would make me a sex worker.”

  Emily reached across the table and took her hand. “How did Mikey stop them?”

  “He sacrificed himself. A handsome child, he could have been adopted. He might have worked as a servant. But he refused. Instead he disfigured himself. He made a long scar across his face. He was damaged goods.”

  “Did they hurt him?” Emily asked.

  “He was beaten but not defeated. He did their bidding with the understanding that I would come to no harm. Mikey labored until he collapsed. He took on every challenge. Ultimately, the snakeheads came to respect him.”

  “And what happened to you?”

  “The expected,” she said darkly. “My flower was sold for many thousands but not enough to set me and my brother free. I wore pretty things and worked as a party girl until I was treated badly, ruined. Luckily, I had a head for numbers and learned to help Doris and others in Chinatown with accounts and contracts.”

  “You and Patrone worked together,” Sean said.

  “Patrone, my dearest friend, translated and negotiated deals with smugglers, local gangs, Wynter Corp and snakeheads. He helped me save until I could open Laughing Duck.”

  While he was learning to profile, Sean had heard a lot of traumatic life stories. Few were as twisted as the childhood of Liane and Mikey...and Patrone, for that matter. No wonder Mikey Zhou had become a snakehead. And Patrone had been murdered. No doubt, Liane had secrets and crimes of her own.

  “I have told my story,” she said. “Now Emily must tell me. Who killed my dearest friend?”

  Emily glanced at Sean. When he gave her the nod, she cleared her throat and said, “I saw Frankie Wynter and two others drag Patrone into an office on the yacht. Frankie shot him. They threw his body overboard.”

  Liane bolted to her feet. Her slender fingers clenched into fists at her side, and she spewed an impressive stream of Cantonese curses that Sean recognized from his undercover days.

  “I promise,” he said as he stood. “We’ll bring Frankie Wynter to justice.”

  “Your justice is not punishment enough. He must die.”

  Sean was going to pretend that he
never heard her threaten Frankie’s life. The world would be a better place without the little jerk, but it wasn’t his decision. And he wouldn’t encourage Liane to take the law into her own hands.

  “You’re right, Liane.” Emily also stood. “It’s not fair, and it’s not enough pain. But we want to get the person who is truly responsible.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Frankie pulled the trigger, but he isn’t very clever and certainly not much of a leader. He was probably following orders from someone higher up.”

  “True.” Liane spat the word. “Morelli?”

  “Or James Wynter himself.”

  “Wait!” Sean said. “We’ve got to investigate. We need proof that it’s Morelli or Wynter or somebody else.”

  He glanced from one woman to the other. They couldn’t have been more different. Emily had had a charmed childhood and grew up to be a poet and journalist who loved the truth. Liane had suffered; she had to fight to survive. And yet each woman burned with a similar flame. Both were outraged by the murder of Roger Patrone.

  “One week,” Liane said. “Then I will take my revenge against Frankie Wynter.”

  Sean couldn’t let that happen. He feared that Liane’s attack against Wynter would end in gang warfare with the snakeheads.

  “We need more information,” he said. “What do you know about the human cargo that’s gone missing from Wynter’s shipments?”

  “I help these people,” she said simply. “So does Mikey. If you want to speak to him, he is at the club where Patrone worked.”

  “How do you help them?” Sean asked.

  She pivoted and stalked down a narrow hallway. Carefully, she opened the door. Light from the hall spilled across the bed where three beautiful children were sound asleep.

  Liane tucked the covers snugly around them and kissed each forehead.

  Chapter Twenty

  On the sidewalk outside the strip club where Patrone had run an illegal poker game in the back room, Emily stared at the vertical banner that read, “Girls, Nude, Girls.” The evening fog had rolled in, and the neon outlines of shapely women seemed to undulate beside the banner. A barker called out a rapid chatter about how beautiful and how naked these “girls” would be.

  “Not exactly subtle,” she said as she nudged Sean. “At least it’s honest.”

  “That depends on your definition of beauty. And I’d guess that some of these ladies left girlhood behind many years ago.”

  “How did you get to be an expert?”

  “When I was undercover, I spent a lot of time in dives like this, the places where dreams come to die.” He gave her arm a squeeze. “You always wanted to know what I did on my assignments. You pushed, but I couldn’t say a damn word. The information I uncovered was FBI classified. And I felt filthy after spending a day at one of these places.”

  She knew his undercover work had been stressful. One of the reasons she’d pushed was so he could unburden himself. “If you’d explained to me, I would have understood. It had to be hard spending your day with addicts, strippers, pimps and criminals.”

  “They weren’t the worst,” he said. “I was. I lied to them. I knew better and didn’t try to help.”

  “I never thought of your work that way.”

  “But you understand.” He gazed down at her, and the glow from the pink neon reflected in his eyes. “You told Liane that you were wrong to lie when you were investigating.”

  “Maybe we’re not so different.” Why was she having this relationship epiphany on a sidewalk outside a strip club? “Let’s get in there, talk to Mikey and go on our way.”

  He nodded. “There’s not much more we can learn. I’ll report to the FBI, sit back and let them do their duty.”

  She watched the patrons, who shuffled through the door with their heads down, looking neither to the right nor to the left. With her dopey cranberry hat pulled over her ears, she fit right in with this slightly weird, mostly anonymous herd...except for her gender. The few women on this street looked like hookers.

  Inside the strip club, she pulled her arms close to her sides and jammed her hands into her pockets. The dim lighting masked the filth. The only other time she’d been here was in daylight, and she’d been appalled by the grime and grit that had accumulated in layers, creating a harsh, dull patina. Years of cigarette smoke and spilled liquor created a stench that mingled with a disgusting human odor. The music for the nude—except for G-string and pasties—girls on the runway blared through tinny speakers. Emily didn’t want to think about the germs clinging to the four brass stripper poles.

  Long ago, this district, the Tenderloin, had been home to speakeasies, burlesque houses and music clubs. Unlike most of the rest of the city, the Tenderloin had resisted gentrification and remained foul and sleazy.

  Fear poked around the edges of her consciousness. Nothing good could happen in a place like this. She moved her stun gun from a clip on her belt to her front pocket so it would be more accessible. And she stuck to Sean like a nervous barnacle as she tried to think of something less squalid than her immediate surroundings.

  Liane’s life story had touched her. The woman had gone through so much tragedy, from witnessing the murder of her parents to the loss of her “dearest friend.” Though she hadn’t admitted that Patrone was her lover, it was obvious that she cared deeply about him. And he must have felt the same way about her. He had stolen the three children for her.

  After Liane kissed the children, she explained. Patrone had been part of the crew unloading the shipping container. He’d arrived before anyone else because he was supposed to conclude negotiation with the snakeheads. When Patrone saw the kids, his heart had gone out to them. He’d unloaded them from the container and moved them to the trunk of his car. The poor little five-year-olds had been starving and dehydrated, barely able to move. Patrone had taken them to Liane.

  This wasn’t the first time she’d rescued stolen children and their mothers, protecting them from a life of servitude to women like Doris Liu. Liane fed them and nursed them. The plight of these kids wakened instincts she never thought she had. Though she was unable to bear children, she felt deep maternal stirrings.

  Emily hoped that these three children would be Liane’s happy ending. According to Emily’s calculations, the children arrived shortly before Patrone was murdered. Only six weeks, but Liane loved them as though she’d raised them from birth.

  Emily was content to let the story end there. She tugged Sean’s sleeve and whispered, “We should go.”

  “After we check out the poker game,” he said. “If Mikey isn’t there, we’re gone.”

  “Did Liane call him?”

  “She said he’d know we were coming.”

  Behind a beaded curtain and a closed door, they were escorted into the poker game by the bartender, whom Sean had bribed with a couple of one-hundred-dollar bills. Emily didn’t know Chinese, but she could tell from the bartender’s tone as he introduced them that she and Sean were being described as rich and stupid, exactly the people you’d want to play poker with.

  There were four tables: three for stud poker and one for Texas Hold’em. Emily narrowed her eyes to peer through the thick miasma of cigar and cigarette smoke. Almost every chair at the tables was filled. Most of the patrons were Asian, and there was only one other woman.

  Sean guided her to a table and sat her down. He spoke to the others in Chinese, and they laughed. He whispered in her ear, “I said you were my little sister. They should be nice to you, but not too nice because you like to win.”

  “Are you leaving me here alone?”

  “I’ll be close. Don’t eat or drink anything.”

  “Don’t worry.”

  When she felt him move away from her, it took an effort for her to stay in the chair and not chase after him. The dealer l
ooked at her and said something in Chinese. She nodded. Since she knew how the game was played, she could follow the moves of the other players without getting into trouble.

  The player sitting directly to her right was an older man with thinning hair and boozy blue eyes. He spoke English and directed one condescending remark after another to her. If she hadn’t been so scared, she would have told him off.

  Her plan was to be as anonymous as possible. Then she was dealt a beautiful hand: a full house with kings high. Her self-preservation instinct told her to fold the hand and not attract attention to herself. But she really did like to win. She bid carefully, taking advantage of how the others at the table paid her very little regard.

  While she was raking in her winnings, she looked around for Sean and spotted him by the far wall, talking to an Asian man with a shaved head. He gave her a little wave, and she felt reassured. He was keeping an eye on her.

  She quickly folded the next two hands and then tried a bluff that succeeded. Really? Was she really holding her own with these guys? The condescending man on her right gave his seat to another, and she turned to nod. His thick black hair grew in a long Mohawk and hung down his back in a braid. His arms and what she could see of his chest were covered in tattoos. The scar that slashed across his face told her this was Mikey Zhou.

  He leaned closer to her. His left hand grazed her right side, and she felt the blade he was holding. “Fold this hand and come with me.”

  “Yes,” she said under her breath. Frantic, she scanned the room. Where had Sean disappeared to? How could he leave her here unprotected?

  Though terrified, she managed to keep focus on the game. Lost it but played okay. She rose from the table, picked up her chips and allowed Mikey to escort her toward a dark door at the back of the room. His grip on her arm was tight.

  He whispered, “Don’t be scared.”

  Though she wanted to snap a response, her throat was swollen shut by fear. She could barely breathe. The fact that she was moving surprised her because her entire body was numb. She was only aware of one thing: the stun gun in her pocket. Somehow she got her fingers wrapped around it. She got the gun out of her pocket without Mikey noticing.