“What then?” There was alarm in Quai’s response.
“Another couple showed up in their place.”
“Impossible,” Quai blurted.
“Is it?” Jing brought his teacup to his lips.
Quai knew that was the end of the conversation. It was his job to discover the problem and fix it. He stood and bowed respectfully to his boss before exiting the room. His next course of action was to find the couple from the dragon race in a discreet way. Jing Woo and his crew were well protected within the borders of Chinatown, though on the outside, it was a different story. It was important they work from the shadows, especially when problems arose. That was how their kind thrived in their popular neighborhood.
Quai was an expert at his trade—intimidation. That’s why he was called the Black Mantis: his ability to strike an opponent from out of nowhere without any witnesses gave fear to those who knew him and a short life to those who didn’t. In addition to his savvy street smarts, Quai’s ruthless ability earned him the title of Jing’s most deadly assassin. His greatest asset was his height and weight. He stood no more than five-feet, five-inches and barely toppled the scale at one hundred thirty pounds; he was the most unassuming opponent a person would ever face.
54
Back at the Bureau’s office on Golden Gate Avenue, Reilly, Kang and I gathered around the laptop. I pulled up our fifth attraction and typed the word Zong Zi as my answer. The screen went dark, and a moving graphic of the word “Congratulations” appeared. Tiny fireworks shot out of the top of the letters. We all looked at each other, wondering if this were some sort of joke. The graphic design was reminiscent of what existed on the Internet back in the mid-nineties. Add to that the strangeness of celebrating another step forward to finding out how the next kill would be dictated, and it was all morbidly troubling.
After a few seconds of fanfare, the firework display disappeared and the paper scroll appeared, except that time, our task was revealed at the bottom.
ATTRACTION #5
Hundreds of dragons churn the waters. Find them and find your clue.
Answer: Zong Zi
Task: Order Chinese takeout.
Upload
“Another riddle?” Kang stood up straight and planted both of his hands on his hips. “This is stupid. What kind of killer goes through all this trouble to kill a person? They could walk out of their home and end the life of the first person they see if they want.”
“I’m with Detective Kang on this one, Abby. It’s not making a whole lot of sense.”
I understood how they could be frustrated. The department had spent major bucks on a surveillance operation only to walk away with a rice snack and another riddle. Even I felt doubt creep into my head, but I quickly gave it the boot as I recalled the crime scenes of our other victims. “Look, guys, I know it seems like this is getting us nowhere, but step back and look at the entire picture. Consider our other victims and how they have met their deaths. All of the crime scenes connect back to this game play.”
“Or maybe we wanted them to and made the connections work,” Kang suggested.
I turned to him. “You of all people should recognize that’s not true. The last objective was also indirect: ‘Leave someone’s heart in San Francisco.’ We just need to apply a little killer instinct to this one.”
“Say we do come to an agreeable answer as to what this means. What then?” Reilly asked.
“We stage the scene and submit the photos. It’s the only way to get to the person behind all of this.”
“Chinese takeout!” Kang threw his arms up in the air. “How much more nebulous can that be?”
Kang continued his rant but I had already tuned him out and focused back on the statement in front of me. Order Chinese takeout. Literal or not? Hmmm… I wonder if… that’s it! “Hey, listen up. This isn’t a riddle. We’re the ones turning it into a riddle when it shouldn’t be.”
“What do you mean?” Reilly’s eyebrows shot upward, widening his eyes.
“This is, and has always been, about killing. This is the time when the killer does what they do. They only need to link their kill to that phrase. There is no right or wrong way to do it. It’s about showmanship at this point. This is where the staging comes from. It’s now about how entertaining or clever can they make their kill.”
Kang’s head bounced around as he pondered.
“The simplest form of delivering is to kill a Chinese person. But do you get points for that? Is that enough to seal the deal? Is it too obvious? If so, how could a killer add some pizzazz to that?”
Reilly sat up. “Chop up the body and deliver it in a large takeout container.”
Kang and I both looked at Reilly at the same moment.
“What? I’m riffing here.”
“That’s exactly what we need to be doing—coming up with a bunch of ideas until we hit the one.”
“How do we know if we hit the one?”
“We’ll know.”
Everyone quickly got on the same page, and our killer brainstorm session progressed at a fast rate. Within twenty minutes, we had written down fifteen possible ideas for our kill. I really didn’t think the Carlsons spent much time thinking about their execution. I honestly believed they probably settled on the first or second doable idea they came up with. The Carlsons weren’t the type to agonize over their methods. They were all about the excitement of the thrill kill, not a ritual they needed to complete. Though, I began to understand why they were attracted to this game play and why they would go through the trouble rather than, as Kang put it, “walk outside and kill the first person they see.” The riddles and the creative execution multiplied the thrill for them.
55
Our idea, given the situation, was simple and didn’t require a bunch of resources—something we thought the Carlsons could easily pull off. We simplified Reilly’s idea of chopping up a body and placing it in a five-foot-tall replica of a Chinese takeout container by settling on a moped used to make deliveries. On the back of the bikes were large warming containers. Our idea was to park one of those delivery bikes in Portsmouth Square, a popular, one-block park between Kearny and Grant, and inside the delivery container would be the head of a Chinese person—fake, of course.
With our idea solidified, we focused on the logistics. It basically sounded easy, but where do you get a fake head that looks real? We hired a special effects artist in L.A.: Monte Jenkins. He had spent years at Stan Winston’s Studios and had been instrumental in creating the velociraptor in Jurassic Park, but now, he worked for himself.
Our SFX guy stressed that he needed at least two days to deliver the finished prop. “Hey, you’re lucky I have a head I can refurbish, or else you’d be looking at week, minimum,” he said over the speakerphone. He also insisted we fly him up to SF so he could apply the finishing touches with pig’s blood. “It’s a must for authenticity, and it needs to be applied at the time of the killing so the blood coagulates the way it should.”
I didn’t know what was more surprising: the level of detail that guy applied to his work or the fact that he knew so much about decomposition of a human body.
Taking a cue from the Carlsons, we decided to plant the bike in the park in the early morning. We’d snap some pictures, then let the situation unfolded as it normally would. Eventually, as the park filled with people, someone would discover the head, and SFPD would be called. FBI would of course show up as well, and we would run through the motions of processing the crime scene as if it were real.
We moved as fast as we could without overlooking minute details. We believed our success relied on pulling off a believable crime scene. If the person viewing the photos didn’t believe them, we ran the risk of losing our momentum or, worse, the mastermind of this game. One of those details was what restaurant name to use on the delivery container.
“Why does the restaurant need to be real?” I asked Kang.
“Well, what if this guy has knowledge of the restaurants in Chinato
wn? He would know it was fake.”
He had a point. But what restaurant would allow us to fake-kill one of their employees? The answer was the Dynasty Inn. The owner was Kang’s second cousin, who immediately volunteered his restaurant as the decoy.
“So your cousin has no qualms about doing this?”
“No, actually, he thinks it’ll generate business.” Kang pointed at his head and twirled his finger around in a circle. “His delivery guys use the mopeds with the hot food containers on them, so it’s perfect for our needs.”
Eventually, we settled on a story that someone had stolen the moped from the restaurant, and the head wasn’t from an employee of the restaurant. That bit of news disappointed Kang’s cousin. With the restaurant situation settled and our timing locked into place for Sunday morning, all we needed was our head.
56
With Operation Takeout only a few days away, I decided to remain at home and take it easy. The back and forth with the office had hampered my thigh’s recovery a bit. A few days of rest would do wonders. To keep myself busy, I continued to poke around through the Carlsons’ information. With all that we had learned in the last few days, I had been eager to see if there was more to be discovered.
The exact logic that had led the Carlsons from riddle to answer to task for each attraction interested me. Even with all we had learned, I could not pinpoint how the Carlsons had obtained the answers to the riddles. I could guess the logic behind the riddle, but that was it.
Even our search for the answer to the fifth riddle was a crapshoot; we’d had no idea what we were looking for or how we would obtain it. Maybe that’s the point. The riddle provided just enough information for someone to discover the answer but not enough information for others to know. Anybody trying to pinpoint how we got our answer based on the cryptic information in the game would never have deduced that we had to mention the name of the game to a Qu Yan character while taking a picture with him at the Dragon Boat Festival.
I slouched a few inches down in my chair and folded my arms across my chest. The more I tried to understand the workings of the game, the more I realized how much thought had actually been put into masking its real intentions.
As I flipped through the riddles, one thing stood out: we didn’t know the locations the Carlsons had visited in the past with the exception of the fortune cookie company. Even if someone did come to the conclusion that we had gone to the boat races, there would be nothing for them to attend. It was an event, not a location.
I picked up the phone and dialed Kang. “Meet me at the corner of Grant and Washington.”
“What’s going on in Chinatown?”
“Hopefully some good fortune we can use.”
57
Kang was busy snacking on a rice cake and used his eyebrows to acknowledge me. He motioned for me to take a bag out of his hand while he swallowed. Inside was another rice cake.
“Go ahead. I bought it for you,” he managed to say between bites.
I grabbed the bag, plucked the rice cake from it and took a bite. Perfectly sweet with the right amount of sticky—I nodded my approval as I chewed.
Kang’s head bounced up and down along with mine. “Good stuff, huh? I get them from the Dim Sum shop over on Jackson. They make the best cake in my opinion. So why are we here?”
“Follow me,” I said as I popped the remaining piece into my mouth. I led him west on Washington to Ross Alley.
“The Fortune Cookie Company is here,” Kang stated.
I brought Kang up to speed on my thoughts about how the Fortune Cookie Company was an actual location and the Dragon Boat Festival had been an event. I thought we might glean some information from it. He agreed but pointed out that we weren’t in character.
“We don’t want to be the Carlsons. If somebody at the factory gave them the answer they needed, that person would have knowledge of what they looked like.”
Kang’s face drooped.
“What?”
“If that’s true, then they already know what the Carlsons look like and might know that the couple at Treasure Island wasn’t them.”
“I realize that, but that’s the situation we’re in. Plus, we don’t know if the Carlsons were wearing their disguises when they came here. It’s too late for a do-over now. Let’s keep plowing ahead. Today we’re normal tourists checking out how fortune cookies are made.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re dressed in jeans and a hoodie. I’m in a suit.”
“No one twisted your arm this morning when you dressed.” I spun around and headed into the alley.
“We’ll pretend we don’t know each other,” he called out behind me.
“I can do that.”
The day was early, so there wasn’t much of a crowd—which was great since the cookie factory wasn’t that big. I maneuvered my way inside, leaving Kang outside to stretch his neck over the crowd for a look.
I pushed through, right up to the rope that marked the end of the public area, roughly an eight-foot by eight-foot space, and found myself standing next to a French couple. The wife stood poised in front of a girl making cookies while her husband took her picture. An older Chinese gentleman stood nearby and collected money from other eager tourists wanting pictures. I couldn’t help but overhear one woman whispering to her friend.
“That Chinese woman is making fortune cookies,” she said. “Just like that… folding a small square of dough. Ain’t that something?”
What? Baking? You never seen someone bake cookies? I rolled my eyes as I let out a breath. Once they had their pictures, I positioned myself closer to the man collecting the money. With the general public having limited access inside the factory and he the only person available to talk to, the Carlsons must have interacted with him.
“How’s business?” I asked.
He smiled and nodded.
I grabbed a bag of freshly baked fortune cookies from a nearby shelf. “How much?” I asked.
He held up his four fingers.
I knew the riddle for this location, Good fortune comes in many different shapes, but I wasn’t sure if blurting it out was the right thing, since it had already been solved. I opted for a variation of it first. “Do you make fortune cookies in different shapes?”
He smiled.
Well, that went nowhere. Let’s try direct. “Good fortune comes in many different shapes, I hear.”
Still, he stared at me with his smile and said nothing.
I finally mentioned the name of the game. Maybe it’s the same for every riddle. Same response. Since my tiny self took up valuable real estate and the old man wasn’t responding, I vacated my spot and threaded my way back to Kang.
“So what did I miss? Did you talk to the old guy?” Kang asked.
“I did.” I told him what I had said and that I hadn’t received an answer. “You think maybe we have it wrong, that the Carlsons never came here?”
“Nah.” He shook his head and shoved both hands into his pants pockets. “This has got to be the right place. The only other local fortune cookie manufacturer is in Los Angeles. I’m guessing something was set up here for the password retrieval, like a special fortune cookie or maybe even a person in costume like at the boat race. Once the password is retrieved, maybe that special whatever-it-is disappears.”
“Yeah, probably.” I tapped my foot against the pavement.
“Something’s bothering you,” Kang said.
“There’s something about that old man that’s not sitting right with me, but I can’t figure it out. Come on,” I said, turning on my heels, “let’s get out of here. We have an early call tomorrow.”
The old Chinese man called one of his workers to the front to collect money while he disappeared behind a door in the back of the factory. Inside the small office were two young men counting stacks of money. He spoke to them in Chinese, and they immediately stood up and exited the room. He then made a call on his mobile phone.
“I find couple again.”
“Wh
ere?”
“At shop. I have them followed.”
“Good.”
The old man hung up the phone and sat in a chair near a desk. He let out a long, slow breath as he dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief. He leaned back and let his body relax. He had redeemed himself and felt positive that he was in a better position with Quai Chan. At the dragon boat races, his job had been to deliver the password to the Carlsons. In fact, it had been his job to deliver all the passwords. When Jing Woo, the boss of Chinatown, told him to follow the strange couple that day, he had been unable to locate them. This did not sit well with Jing, and Quai made it very clear that he had three days to rectify the situation.
The old man lifted his shirt to reveal his torso wrapped tightly in bandages. His ribs were still tender, and the wound across his abdomen had begun to heal. He lowered his shirt and let out another long breath. Good fortune does come in many different shapes.
58
Kang, Monte and I arrived at Portsmouth Square in an unmarked van a little after three thirty on Sunday morning. We had our disguises on in case we were seen by a passerby or somehow by the mastermind. Monte was in the back making the final touches to the prosthetic head. “You almost done?” I asked.
“Yeah. Staging a crime scene—it’s so exciting.”
“You’re not staging anything.”
Monte stopped and looked up at me. “What? Why can’t I help?”
I shrugged and wondered why I needed to explain myself. “Because I said so.”
That night, a crescent moon coupled with heavy fog blessed us with the perfect cover to do what we needed. In the back of the van, we had the moped from Kang’s cousin’s restaurant, complete with decapitated head in place. Monte had added the bloody touches on the drive to the square. I must admit; the damn thing looked more lifelike than I had imagined it would.
[Anthology] Abby & Sei Thriller Starter Page 19
