by Rhys Ford
“Hey,” Miki replied, then winced at the odd informality he always seemed to toss out at Kane’s father. “Sorry. Um, how are you doing?”
It was always the small social things that tripped Miki up, and that evening, even with a full belly and a troubled mind, he scolded himself for forgetting the simple patterns he’d learned. Donal’s chuckle told him he didn’t mind, and then his soft burr assured Miki he was well.
“Did Kane talk to you about what he found out today?” Miki was never sure how much each Morgan knew about what was going on in his life.
Information jumped through the family like a firestorm in high winds, and sometimes he assumed one of them knew his deepest secrets when, in fact, confidences had been kept. For the most part, Miki knew Brigid would only be told bits and pieces in passing, leaving Miki to forge that unpredictable river on his own. Even if she did find out from Donal, she would wait, respectful of the boundaries he’d put up now that she understood how much he needed them.
Donal, however, was a different story. Family knowledge flowed to him as if he were a lodestone, gathering power and strengthening the bonds between the people he’d claimed. Miki was one of Donal’s chosen, protected and precious to a man he knew he didn’t deserve to be loved by. Accepting that love was difficult during the easiest of times, but now, as Miki tangled himself in questions and doubts, he needed to fling himself onto Donal’s mercy and wisdom, hoping to find a way out of the maze he’d stumbled into.
Explaining to Donal what happened only took a few minutes, and to Miki’s ears, it seemed so cut and dried, hardly anything to even be bothered about, but the turmoil inside him churned and tossed, picking away at his resolve to stay untouched by the ghostly presence of a woman he’d never met. Donal listened, only the sounds of a sip at a glass and the occasional indistinct mew of a nearby cat carrying across the phone as Miki spoke.
Coming to the end of his thoughts, Miki took a breath, then asked, “What do you think I should do?”
“Do ye be wanting an answer or can I be asking ye a question first?” Donal ventured.
“I’m open. If you want to ask me to grab you a cup of coffee, I’ll do it.” Miki rubbed at his face, then gently pushed Dude aside when the dog climbed up the bed to lick at his cheek. “I’ve talked to Kane and Damie about it, but mostly I don’t know how to feel. Like I think I’m so angry at her and I shouldn’t be because she doesn’t really matter to me. Then another part says I don’t know what happened then, so I can’t—sorry, what were you saying?”
“Do ye need me to tell ye that I love ye, Miki boy?” Donal rumbled, a granite mountain moving through Miki’s uncertainties. “Do ye need me there? Because if ye do, I’ll be there in a moment. I’ve always vowed to be there for my children, so if ye need me, I’m there.”
Miki refused to cry, but his eyes didn’t get the memo. Sniffling, he tried to keep the noise down, but between the dog wiggling against him and Donal’s heavy sigh, Miki knew he’d failed.
Screwing up his courage and swallowing the emotion drowning him, Miki said, “Just talking to you like this reminds me. It’s hard right now because I want to be mad at somebody and she—my mother—was easy because I didn’t have to think, but now I have to think, and I guess what I—”
“Ye just needed to know, to remember, who ye are.” Donal found the knot in the middle of Miki’s thoughts, tugging at it and loosening the hold it had on everything dark he’d tried to keep back. “Are ye still scared of losing yourself if ye go to therapy? Or are ye more scared of losing yourself to someone else’s past coming to hunt ye?”
“I think I asked myself that already, and I convinced myself that no matter what, I would still be me, but now I’m not so sure. I was doing okay until Kane said he could find my father, and fuck, I wanted to punch him and scream that I already had a dad because… you’re him.”
“Then maybe what ye need to hear from me is that no matter who comes into your life, I will not let them hurt ye, and I will always be there when ye call out for your da.” Donal swallowing echoed in Miki’s ear. “I’ll be telling ye something, Miki boy, and I want ye to hold on to this. Do ye understand me?”
“Okay,” Miki whispered. Cradling Dude against him, he pulled in on himself, unsure if he was ready for what Donal had to say. “What?”
“If Kane ever does find yer dad and he’s not man enough, not good enough for ye, then I promise ye this, son.” Donal’s sigh was loud enough to make Dude cock his head. “He will never come near ye. I would sooner skin him alive and salt his bones than have him say even a sharp word to ye. I’ve tried to be a good man all of my life and raise good men in return. I may not have raised ye, but I would welcome God’s condemnation and hellfire to keep ye safe and loved. So mark my words, Miki boy, ye should only know love from anyone claiming to be your da, including me. I would kill for ye, son. On all that is holy, I swear, I would kill for ye.”
Chapter Thirteen
Stars on the black
Stretching out into the abyss
How could you leave me, baby?
Didn’t you think you’d be missed?
A slash of metal on your arm
Stole my baby from my world
Spilled life on white tile
Death’s cloak came unfurled
Sing a song for the Devil
Sing a song for a God
Take my baby’s soul to Heaven
I’m sorry for its flaws
—Soul for the Taking
IT WAS ironic that so much of Miki’s life was spent in the Chinatown restaurants’ kitchens, because if there was one thing Kane knew about his lover, it was that Miki St. John could barely open a package of dried ramen noodles, much less cook them. So for him to be standing in the middle of a steam-filled back room where Miki probably once washed dishes for a living was a surreal experience.
From the stacks of cutely posed Asian women wearing barely anything pinned to the wall next to a rotary phone, to the huge industrial double sink, the restaurant didn’t appear to throw a lot of money at aesthetics anywhere before the swinging door leading to the dining room. The walls were covered in a pebbled plastic siding, the kind Kane only encountered at rest stops where the bathrooms were hosed off rather than mopped. They’d probably once been an ivory but over the years had been stained by a variety of vegetables, and age yellowed their surface until it was easy to see when a piece of paper taped in place had finally fallen off, leaving a pale shadow behind. The drywall by the phone was covered with numbers, some of them suspiciously close to gambling spreads, the occasional indelible ink scrawl fighting off a sea of smeared pencil markings.
The tiny back room was an offshoot of the main kitchen, a table set up in the corner for employees to take a break at, or, as was the case now, to chop up bok choy for the evening’s use. The greens had been relocated to bins half full of water, and a too skinny young boy struggled to carry them one by one into the kitchen. Kane offered to help, but the boy stiffened when he approached, scurrying away as quickly as he could, burdened down by at least thirty pounds of cabbage, plastic bin, and speckled water.
After the last of the bok choy had been removed, Kane waited for his witness to sit down and make himself comfortable. It didn’t take years of being an SFPD inspector to deduce that the man was nervous. His anxiety practically crawled off his skin, tightening his jaw and furrowing the wrinkles across his forehead until he resembled a bulldog with its face pressed against a pane of glass.
It was difficult to tell the witness’s age, mostly because the years hung on him hard, dragging down his face and shoulders. The Chinese man was skinny, nearly emaciated, but there was a wiry strength in his thin arms and pigeon chest. His nose was big, nostrils flaring when he glanced around the room as if he had never seen it before, and his hard brown gaze never settled on Kane. He was bald except for a thin ring of sparse hair stretched around the back of his skull, and his age-spotted pate glistened under the harsh fluorescent lights. The man
wore a pair of blue work trousers Kane had come to identify with most kitchen workers in Chinatown, and his once-white tank top was splattered with a whirlwind of stains. The jeans had a fraying hole in the right knee, and his fingernails kept returning to it, plucking at the white threads, ghosting little dust motes into the damp, hot air. He dabbed his pale tongue against his thin lips, and his eyes made one more pass over Kane’s face, then slid away, roaming about the room again.
Kane remained standing, his thumbs hooked into his front pockets, his hands lax at his waist. Normally he would’ve sat down next to his witness, hoping to establish some kind of empathy, but his gut told him that in this case, it would be a waste of time. The man was jittery, and the longer Kane stood there as silent as the one-eared ceramic cat sitting on a shelf near an old watercooler, the more jumpy his witness became. He was about to say something, a little push to begin the conversation.
There were times when being a Morgan had its benefits, and the size that came with it was certainly going to help Kane deal with the lies poised to roll off the man’s slippery tongue.
“I’ve got your pertinent information from Officer Walters, so I won’t go over that again with you. He has your name down as Paul Huang, and you’ve been working at this restaurant for about eight years. Is that correct?” Looming in front of the table, Kane pitched his voice down, nodding when the man grunted. “I can follow up with the rest of your personal details later. Let’s get to the point here. We know you found the body and that you IDed him. There is very little chance that you will be called up as a witness to trial, so anything that you say to me beyond what you saw today will be kept in confidence. But I have a feeling you can tell me a few things that I need to know. So let’s start with how do you know Rodney Chin?”
The man’s eyes began to play pinball under his lids, shooting about and nearly tilting over when Kane’s question sank into his brain. Shifting in his chair, he stammered, “I don’t know him. I—”
“You told the responding officer that it was Chin.” Kane stepped on the lie. “You were certain enough that the medical examiner had his records called up so they could verify the ID. Not make the ID, but verify it. So let’s start with the truth. How did you know Rodney Chin?”
He was careful not to lead Huang or make any mention of Wong. If Chin was well-known in the area, more present in underground activity than what the task force pinned on him, Kane wanted to hear it direct from Huang’s lips. Killing Chin to send a message to Miki didn’t make as much sense as delivering one to Wong. Either Chin overstepped boundaries by shooting up the farmers’ market on his own or his killing had been retribution for Wong ordering him to do so. Either way, Huang’s response would tell them which path of investigation they would take.
“I knew him from before.” The man clamped his lips tight, as if unwilling to let his words go without a fight. “I don’t do what I did back then. I have a job here. I do a good job. I work long hours, and I don’t have anything to do with people like Rodney Chin anymore.”
“Did you work for Danny Wong or someone else?” Kane prodded. “So far everything you’re saying tells me you knew Rodney, but not how. I need to know how.”
“I used to pick up packages for people.” Huang’s bony shoulders nudged up into his neck, his collarbone jumping about his chest. The loose skin on his arms flapped a bit and Kane spotted a gnarl of scar tissue under his exposed right pectoral. “I didn’t work for anyone. People would just call me, and I would grab what they needed me to pick up and take it to where they wanted it to go. I didn’t ask questions. I didn’t look in the packages. Rodney was one of the guys who would call me for a pickup. That’s how I know him.”
“How many years did you do that job?”
“About twenty,” Huang admitted slowly. “I used to help my uncle when I was about eight. I took over the deliveries after he died. Wong was the reason I got busted. His sister Susan called me to do a job, but when I went to do the delivery, the cops were there. They were looking for people to turn on Wong and I was right there.”
“What were you left holding?” Kane crossed his arms. “And don’t lie to me. All that’s going to do is piss me off after I check you out. Which means I’d have to come down here again to talk to you. I’m pretty sure your boss is okay with me talking to you once, but twice? I don’t think things will go well for you after that.”
“No lie. I’m telling you, I’m clean now.” Huang sighed heavily. “I was carrying two kilograms of heroin. Uncut. So the feds said if I talked to them, they’d make sure I didn’t go to jail for very long.”
“And did you talk to them?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “By the time they got around to me, they’d already nailed Wong and everybody else in his organization. My sentence got reduced by the judge, so I was out before anybody else. Chin never went in. Neither did Wong’s sister. Now her son’s in charge and Rodney’s dead. And I’m here, chopping up vegetables for less money a month than I would get in a day back then.”
“Who do you think killed Chin?” Kane asked. “Because my guess is even if you aren’t working the streets, you’re surrounded by enough of what’s going on that you know. Did Wong do it? Or is somebody trying to tell Wong to clean up his act? You know what happened down at the market, right?”
“Yeah, I know.” His chin bobbed as he rattled about on the chair. “That’s how things were done before. Really old-school. Back then, Rodney and his brother Mark would do runs like that. Didn’t care who they hurt or killed, just so long as the people they were trying to scare got scared. We used to see them come in together, but a couple of months ago, Rodney started coming in by himself. Just every once in a while, but he was mad. Someone told me Mark died and Rodney was pissed off about it. Then Wong got out, and all of those guys went back to doing what they did before. Or close to it. I can see some people not liking that.”
“Would those some people be Wong’s nephew? Adam Lee, right?”
“I’m not saying names.” Huang shook his head. “I don’t want to end up like Rodney. I am staying out of those kind of things. They want to kill each other, let them. But I can tell you that if Wong doesn’t watch what he and his boys are doing, Adam Lee is going to put him down. Things aren’t done like that anymore. Those days are over. And if Wong thinks he can just kill anybody he wants, he’s going to be the one ending up dead.”
“SO THAT’S all you could get out of the restaurant worker? That Adam Lee probably isn’t too happy with his uncle? I could have told you that.” Kel leaned against the sedan they’d gotten from the motor pool. It had been slow going back from the murder scene, and Kel had resentfully thrown it into Park as soon as they’d found an open spot at the station. “Maybe we should drive them around in this until somebody coughs up something useful?”
It was a khaki-colored monstrosity, one he’d grumbled about ever since they left the station, but Kane didn’t mind it as much as his partner did. Considering some of the vehicles they’d been given in the past, most notably ones reeking of dog poop or vomit, the off-green sedan was a step up. Everything worked, and for once, it smelled as pleasant as a freshly squeezed lemon.
So Kane felt obligated to defend the maligned car. “It’s not that bad.”
“One of the back tires is flat, K,” Kel pointed out. “I can see a piece of rusted metal sticking out of its side from here. I somehow don’t think we picked it up along the way. That looks like somebody actually stabbed the tire. I don’t know why you don’t believe me when I tell you the guys down there have it in for me.”
“Maybe because sometimes when I request a car, I get a shitty one too. It’s not just you.” Gathering up the rubber-banded folders Horan had given him, Kane chuckled at his partner’s impotent fury. “We all get shitty cars sometimes. It’s not just you.”
“They give you crappy cars because you’re my partner. Everybody knows that. If they gave you a good car every time you went down there, then it would be really o
bvious they were trying to piss me off. So if they give both of us the bottom of the barrel, it doesn’t look like they’re trying to burn me.”
Kane gave Kel a skeptical look. “I think you’re a little bit paranoid. And as conspiracy theories go, it’s kind of weak.”
“Look, I’m not saying that it’s on the scale of cow abductions, I’m just saying I pissed somebody off down there, and now, for the rest of my life, the motor pool is going to screw me over.” Kel shrugged, slamming the driver’s door closed. “They talk to each other, you know? It won’t even matter if I change departments or stations. Once you’re marked by the motor pool—any motor pool—you’re screwed for the rest of your career. So you might as well get used to being driven around in shitty cars until you promote your way out of a partnership with little old me.”
“Somehow, Sanchez, I can’t see myself going very far without you,” Kane drawled, heading toward the elevator.
“Are you kidding? You’re a fucking Morgan, K.” Kel caught up with him. “I’m pretty sure SFPD forged a pair of captain’s bars for you on the day you were born. That’s so inevitable, they are probably sitting in a vault next to death and taxes.”
“Keep that up and I’m going to ask them to partner me with someone who’s sane,” he scoffed. Tucking the folders under his arm, Kane stepped into elevator, holding the door open with his foot. “For right now, let’s just get upstairs and see if we can’t find out who killed Rodney Chin.”
The bullpen was buzzing with activity when Kane and Kel walked through its doors, and it took them about three seconds to realize why. In the middle of the warren of desks and filing cabinets, DEA agent Alex Brandt sat in Kane’s chair, rocking its seat back as he tapped the end of a pencil against one of the department’s landline phones. If the tailored blue suit wasn’t enough of a clue he was there on official business, the shiny badge on the lanyard around his neck sealed the deal. Glancing up as the partners approached, Brandt excused himself from a conversation he’d been having with one of the junior inspectors, a plump-faced young woman with a pleasant smile and a cunning mind.
