Sin and Tonic

by Rhys Ford

  “You are shaking, Sinjun.” Damien looped an arm around him, and Miki let himself be pulled in. “What’s going on in that busy head of yours? Are you and Kane okay? Are we okay?”

  There were tears in Miki’s eyes before there were words in his mouth. It was getting harder every day to keep himself from crying in front of other people, and he’d taken to avoiding anyone—everyone—during the day. He’d woken up feeling all right, a little bit more stable than he had over the past few weeks, but Damien’s prodding punctured his control and suddenly the rocks were back in his throat.

  This was Damien. One guy Miki could count on through thick and thin since the first day they’d met, but there he was, fighting the urge to get up and leave, to put as much distance between him and Damien as possible. Anything to stop him thinking about the heaviness in his chest and the numbness in the back of his brain.

  Damien deserved better than that. He deserved better than that. Once Damien returned, Miki promised himself he wouldn’t run away from life anymore, and he’d seen how burying himself in a nothingness was slowly killing him. Kane pulled him out of the shadows, out of that existence, but he hadn’t truly appreciated the life he’d begun to live until he had his brother back.

  So much changed when Damien walked through the Morgans’ kitchen door and back into Miki’s life. And then everything spiraled down before Miki could hold on to the happiness he’d found. He’d come off the tour hating being onstage, unable to feel the music in everyday things, and hating the touch of everyone on him. It took him a few weeks to shake off the maelstrom of darkness hanging over him, but now it was back, raging around in his head and sending him spinning.

  “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, D. I watched a woman I didn’t know die in front of me, and I felt nothing. Then Edie—Jesus fucking Christ, Damien—the fucker had to hit Edie before I felt anything. And then I got scared about everything. I couldn’t let Kane do his job, I didn’t want to let him go, and there were people screaming for help, but I didn’t want to let him go. I knew better. I know better.” He took a breath, wishing the cold in the air would freeze away the sharpness stabbing through him. “But I still am angry about everything. About you leaving me. About Kane leaving me. And I get so frightened inside about… I got scared yesterday because Donal told me to hold on for a little bit on the phone, and I knew in my gut he was just going to hang up on me—”

  “Donal would never turn his back on you. He’s your dad,” Damien insisted.

  He was wrapped into Damien a moment later. Neither one of them were large men, certainly not the size of the Morgan and Finnegan bloodline they’d both fallen in love with, but they weren’t short either. Still, Damien was strong after years of slinging heavy guitars and even heavier stage equipment around. Miki could have bitten him to hold his best friend off, but even as the thought occurred to him, Damien held him tight. It had been too long since they’d spent an afternoon leaning on each another, but the memories of long conversations about dreams and lyrics simmered in Damien’s hug.

  “I know he is. Like my brain knows it, but….” Miki paused, searching for a way to explain how he felt when he heard cheesy music in his ear and then the panic of never hearing Donal’s voice again. “I’m drowning, Damien. That’s what it feels like, and no matter what I do, no matter who I reach out for, it doesn’t ever go away. It got worse when Edie told me this Sandy woman knew my mom, because up until then, she wasn’t real. She wasn’t an actual fucking person before, but now, all of a sudden, she’s real and… she didn’t want me, so what makes me think no one else does?”

  “WELL, THIS looks like a shithole,” Kel muttered as the elevator doors fought to open. “How come the morgue looks all sleek and shiny and this place looks like its last life was a war bunker? Are we sure we are in the right place?”

  “I’m following where Casey told us to go.” Kane looked one more time at the directions he’d been given. “He said it was easier to go in this way than through the front, but… it’s a bit sketchy.”

  “Makes me kind of want to draw my gun just in case we get attacked by rats.” Kel shuffled, careful not to brush against the elevator’s dingy walls. “Swear to God, Morgan, you take us to some of the shittiest places.”

  His partner wasn’t wrong. The Asian Gang Task Force was located in a building that probably should’ve been marked as unsuitable, but beggars couldn’t be choosers in Chinatown. Although they were cops in every sense of the word, the task force was relegated to a rental space behind a fortune cookie factory, a movie trope even Kane had a hard time believing. Yet, there they were, two Homicide inspectors traveling down a rickety lift that smelled more of vanilla and flour than cop-house coffee.

  They’d been in the building before, a while back. Not the particular area they were going to, but a side entrance cut off from the larger floor plan. It was a warren of add-ons and corridors, difficult to navigate especially if you didn’t know where you were going. The building itself had seen some hard times, but now it was caught up in a gentrification wave that promised to send already high rents to astronomical levels, despite the fact that it had housed more than its fair share of criminal activity.

  Kane remembered walking through one of the off-alley doors to work that case. It had been nearly a year, and they’d been working a raid on a gambling den, which turned up a couple of dead bodies in a back room that looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the Great Earthquake. They’d come through hot on the heels of a SWAT team that included his older brother, Connor, and stumbled on a prostitution ring with little regard for its employees surviving more than a few months. It’d been an ugly case, one that had for some reason reminded him of Miki at the oddest times.

  So it was ironic to be headed back into what had been a pit of hell, carrying a bit of Miki’s problems on his back.

  The elevator let out into a hallway still bearing the marks of the raid. Boot prints on doors that were barely hanging on their hinges and a couple of bullet holes in the ceiling tiles. Kel pointed to them as they walked under the water-stained squares, chuckling.

  “That’s what you get when you take a rookie on a raid.” Kel stepped over a mound of garbage left near an overflowing trash bin. “See, this is why cops get a bad rep. You get assholes like Gang Task Force who don’t care about where they live. It’s like a sewer rat is their mascot and they’re fucking proud of it.”

  “Maybe it’s supposed to look like shit,” Kane suggested. “Could be they don’t want to announce a police presence.”

  “Just you being here announces a police presence. Have you looked at yourself in a mirror, Morgan?” Kel shot back. “You ooze cop. I’m surprised you don’t bleed blue. Pretty sure your first words were: ‘Stop! Police! Pass me the donut!’”

  “That goes to show how much you know.” Kane counted the doors, remembering the instructions the lieutenant had given him to find the task force’s main room. “There’s eight kids in my family. Asking someone to pass you a donut is like begging them to eat it for you. If you want something, you have to grab it. And if somebody got there first, you have to fight for it. Unless you’re Quinn.”

  “Why Quinn?” Kel frowned. “He’s like… number three. It’s usually the babies who don’t have to fight over scraps because Mom’s always going to step in.”

  “Because my baby brother, as passive and peaceful as he is, will fuck your shit up if you take something that’s his. And that includes a donut.” Kane cocked his head. “Actually, especially a donut.”

  The door they wanted was heavy and made of metal, a firebreak in the wall. At the far end of the hall was an open staircase leading out to another alley, sunlight pouring down through the access way. It was odd, considering Casey told him to come down the elevator, but their lieutenant could be quirky at times.

  “Here it is. Guy we are looking for is named Chang—” Kane swung open the door and all hell broke loose.

  The shift from graffitied hallway to a lunch room was
startling, but not as much of a surprise as the looks on the cops’ faces when Kane and Kel walked through a door marked emergency exit. Klaxons broke over them, and after a flurry of almost drawn weapons, Kane and Kel found themselves saddled with a baby-faced undercover cop named Thomas O’Brien who could have easily boarded a school bus without anyone blinking an eye. After their credentials checked out and a quick call to Casey, who thought the whole thing was hilarious, O’Brien promised to take them to the lead inspector in charge, hustling them out of a bullpen full of young officers and down yet another hall.

  “Casey’s got a sense of humor on him. Just told you, he used to work this detail. Not at this spot but on the crew. Keeps up with Chang, the senior guy on deck. Asshole knew we were taking over the space officially, but he sent you down that way anyway?” The detective barely looked old enough to buy candy by himself, but the badge hanging from a lanyard around his neck assured them he was a cop. O’Brien’s penny-red hair, blue eyes, and freckles were at odds with his tanned Asian features, but his easy Californian rolling tones marked him as a native and probably one of the many poi dog kids born to the city’s racial diversity. “Come on down this way. Chang said to give you anything you needed, but I’m going to be honest with you, we don’t got much.”

  “Jesus, you can’t trust them to lock the back door and this kid’s going to help us?” Kel muttered behind Kane’s back. “He looks like he was beaten up for his lunch money just last week.”

  “Week before last,” O’Brien threw over his shoulder. “And that door should’ve been locked. Or at least from that side. Mostly we run analysis here, and strategic ops. Most of the undercover work is run out of the main building, but they consider us overflow. We’re just petty crimes. Anything that jumps up the ladder goes to you guys, and you aren’t ones for sharing any of the glory.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it glory,” Kane said, shaking his head. “We’re all on the same team. Badges of the same color. Bleed the same red.”

  O’Brien gave him a funny look, then chuckled. “God, they weren’t kidding. You Morgans really are chipped off the old man, aren’t you. Does he make you call him Captain at home?”

  “I call him Da,” Kane replied, his shoulders straightening. “You can call him sir.”

  “Yeah, kid.” Kel smirked as he edged by O’Brien when the younger cop stopped in his tracks. “They really are chips off the old block. It’ll probably be a good idea for you to remember that when you meet one of them and make a joke about their father, because you never know who’s going to end up being your boss.”

  They found Chang sitting alone in a command center of sorts, tapping away at a computer with dual monitors while K-Pop played in the background. He was older and resembled a hound dog with his black hair combed away from his face and silver streaks at his temples. An attempt at a mustache sat below his thick nose, but it was sparse, and he stroked at it as he stared at the screen, his fingers working the mouse to scroll through a series of reports. The windowless rectangular room was nearly as cold as the morgue they’d visited, but the resemblance ended there.

  Where Horan’s domain was spotless and orderly, Chang’s was a pile of papers and odd debris Kane couldn’t figure out what to do with. One of the desks was piled high with what looked like wooden toys, but a malformed horse on wheels lay cracked open, its body empty but fitted with a plastic egg case. Most of the items looked like everyday things tourists would buy from kiosks and shops right off the sidewalks outside, but each was tagged, small precise letters written in black pen, referencing case numbers and street names.

  Chang caught sight of them coming in and stood, holding his hand out for Kane to shake. He came up to Kel’s shoulder but was broad, a fireplug of a man with powerful legs and beefy arms. His glance at O’Brien was on the edge of frustration, but that disappeared beneath a wide smile.

  “Casey pulled a prank on you, huh?” His grip was a vise, but quick, releasing Kane’s hand before he could do serious damage. “Actually, it was probably on me. A couple of my rookies duck out that door to go smoke in the alleyway. Probably think I don’t know, but I do. Damn fire code means I can’t lock that door down, but I sure as hell can make them scrub down that hallway outside. O’Brien, make sure that door is secured, and if anyone gives you shit, you come see me. Or better yet, you tell them to come see me.”

  After the young officer left, Chang pulled out a couple of chairs for them to sit, then wheeled his own. “You guys want coffee? All I got down here’s tea, but I can send somebody out for you.”

  “No, I think we’re good.” Kane shook his head, ignoring Kel’s murmuring protest. “You have a DB in the morgue that might be connected to the shooting I attended yesterday. Horan sent us down with a couple of photos of a tattoo on my vic. Our lieutenant figured it was just easier to come by than go through all of the bureaucracy and red tape just to get a report. Especially since Casey used to work this detail. Sorry about the back door.”

  “It’s okay. He and I used to be partners. I’m used to him being an asshole,” Chang said, holding out his hand. “Give me what you have, and I’ll see what I’ve got loaded up into Big Blue here. We just brought the system online about a year ago and are slowly adding in as much reference material as we can get. It’s spotty, but we’re making progress. I don’t know who they’ve got on the slab, but if you give me the case file, I can look it up to get a cross-check.”

  “What we’ve got is kind of old, almost thirty years ago. Medical examiner said the tattoo was homegrown or prison ink. All three match, for the most part. Definitely not solid or professional work, but the same symbol. As far as the meaning goes, could be Asiatic, or culturally influenced, but without a reference point, we couldn’t dig anything up. So we thought we’d start with you and see what your guys had.” Kel opened the case file, then dug through what was inside to extract photos Horan had printed out for them. He glanced at Kane, then pushed on. “The male vic was pulled from an attempted robbery your crew was brought in on. The second photo is from our vic, a middle-aged Thai female fatally shot at Yerba Buena early yesterday morning.”

  “And the third?” Chang held up a photo, different from the two they’d gotten from Horan, and Kane’s stomach twisted below his heart. “Where’s this one from?”

  “That is tattooed on my…” Kane never knew what to call Miki. Boyfriend seemed too childish but partner seemed too strange, especially since he already had a partner, a Hispanic smartass named Kel Sanchez. “My significant other, Miki St. John. They found him when he was about three, and that tattoo was already on his arm. A few months ago, he was attacked in Las Vegas by a man with the same marking. The attacker was struck by a car and killed, but his body never made it to the Nevada examiners’ office.

  “Someone jacked the van carrying him and took his body. Up until Vegas, Miki had never seen or heard of anyone having this symbol on them. At the time he was found, no one would admit to knowing what it stood for or if it was connected to anyone. Now dead people are dropping out of the trees with this on them.” Kane leaned forward in his chair to pull out the deceased woman’s photo, sliding it across the table toward Chang. “The woman’s name was Sandy Chaiprasit, and she was meeting with Miki’s manager when she was killed. So all of this is connected to something or someone, we just don’t know who or how.”

  If anything, Chang’s face sagged even further, and he rubbed at his forehead, studying the photos. Sighing, he finally said, “Yeah, they’re connected. That’s an old tattoo. We’re talking back in the eighties. We still see it on some of the older guys, the ones doing small runs. The marks belong to Danny Wong, the most evil son of a bitch that ran Chinatown before he was shut down by the DEA. About a month ago, they let him out on sympathy leave, said he was dying of cancer. Instead of checking into hospice, he went underground, and they haven’t got a clue on his whereabouts. Now we’ve got dead bodies popping up in the Bay and old ugly grudges rising up again. So one bit of advice: if yo
ur boyfriend has anything to do with this, get him someplace safe and keep him there until we can lock this asshole down.”

  Chapter Four

  Long roads, bad food, no sleep in sight

  Screaming our lungs out for one or a hundred

  Strutting on stage every night

  Do it for love

  Do it for money

  Do it for fame

  Just stay in the fight

  One more show to go, Sin

  And everything’ll be all right

  —Whore’s Prayer

  DANNY WONG’S dusted-off rap sheet read like a movie prop, a list of every crime known to man and a few extra thrown in just to cover any gaps. His known associates were a Who-used-to-be-Who in Chinatown’s criminal history. Some of the names Kane recognized from more recent cases, violent deaths visited upon old men who were in the right place at the wrong time for their enemies.

  “Homicides I know, and I’ve had some crossover with a couple of the Gang Task Forces, but not enough to be an expert on them,” Kane remarked, shuffling through the mounds of old files stacked in front of them. They’d caved to the offer of coffee, especially since the growing stack of paperwork promised to be a headache and a half to go through and Kane wanted a buzz to keep him going. One of the task force guys brought over a couple of mugs and a full carafe, wishing them luck then bum-rushing the door before he could be roped into helping. “I’ve heard the name Wong, but not as someone who’s got a grip on Chinatown today.”